Good day everyone, and a warm Welcome to our Capital Markets Day. Our full leadership team will unveil BEYOND, our new strategic plan, and they will answer your questions. Let me now hand over to Joe, who will assist you through the presentation. Joe?
Thanks, Aude, and welcome everyone. We will begin with a one-and-a-half-hour presentation. Following a five-minute break, management will host a Q&A session. Additionally, starting now, you may write a question using the button at the top right of your screen. To dive right into the strategy and set direction for our plan, I will turn the stage over to François.
Thank you, Joe. Good day, everyone, and Welcome to Air Liquide's 2026 Capital Markets Day. Thanks to all of you who are attending today. It is a real pleasure to be here with the management team of Air Liquide. This is an important moment. I know this CMD is something that you have been looking for. Many of you know us very well, so I am convinced that you will fully appreciate the state change we are introducing today. Four years ago, I was here with the team sharing our strategic plan ADVANCE. Since then, in a rapidly changing and challenging global environment, Air Liquide has demonstrated extraordinary resilience and agility, outperforming the ADVANCE objectives in terms of growth, profitability, and extra financial impact. We have not just navigated market shifts. We have used their momentum to transform the group.
Today, we stand as stronger, more profitable, and more agile, fully positioned to serve better our customers and accelerate our performance and maximize lasting shareholder value through 2030. Air Liquide is a proven earnings compounder. Over the past 30 years, and through every economic cycle, we have averaged over 7% annual operating income growth, and that growth has accelerated over the last four years. This long-term track record and the profound transformation initiated with ADVANCE give us the springboard for our next strategic phase. Reach a new frontier in lasting value creation under our strategic plan BEYOND. We have built and refined an exceptional business model. Since the Airgas acquisition, we have accelerated cash generation by over 10% per year while cutting our leverage in half, reducing net debt to EBITDA from 3.3x down to 1.5 x.
This disciplined financial stewardship now gives us financial balance sheet strengths and capital allocation firepower. On these strong foundations, we have established an outstanding platform for future profitable growth. Air Liquide occupies a truly unique competitive position. We pair an extensive global footprint with deep local market integration, ensuring close customer proximity and engagement. As a technology pioneer, we continue to lead innovation across our industry. Supported by an ongoing group transformation program and a renewed performance-driven culture, we are moving BEYOND. In this next phase, our focus is simple: maximizing lasting value creation. Long-term performance is in our DNA and will remain. Through BEYOND, we are taking our momentum further, pursuing sustained growth, accelerating profitability, and driving superior total shareholder return, all while fulfilling our commitment as a responsible corporate actor. In this volatile world with conflicted trends, it is essential to stay the course.
BEYOND is built to deliver, built to win. Success means first, profitable growth, delivering profitable growth measured by a compound annual EPS growth rate of 10%. Second, delivering lasting value measured by keeping the return on capital employed above 11% in 2030, even as we aggressively invest much more than before. Third, of course, making a positive impact by continuing our CO2 reduction trajectory. These three objectives are more than just targets. They are our North Star, driving every strategy, decision, and success through 2030 and beyond. They matter to us, and listening to you, I know they matter to many of you too. Let's go deeper. To start with our EPS objective, I will walk you through how we will accelerate bottom-line value creation. Under the BEYOND plan, we are combining three primary financial levers to drive consistent EPS growth.
First, sales growth, growing at 5% per year on average, which means outperforming industrial production by 2x - 3 x. Second, margin improvement. We have a clear line of sight to deliver 400 - 600 basis points of OIR margin expansion over the next five years. Third lever, capital allocation optimization. Deploying our strong cash generation into high return growth investments, accretive M&A, solid dividends, and for the first time, we also include another tool in our toolbox to deliver value, a significant share repurchase program. Again, setting an objective of double-digit growth EPS over the period is a clear step change. Keep in mind that we averaged 7% per year over the past 20 years.
This is our commitment and responsibility to leverage, in a flexible and determined way, the three levers of growth, margin improvement, and capital allocation to ensure we stretch ourself to cope with many opportunities and challenges, and at the end, we deliver lasting value. Let's break down each of these levers to grow EPS. How we will expand our business. We see three distinct growth engines, which François, Marcelo, and others will detail later. Let me give you an overview. First, with sharper strategic focus, we will extract greater value from our existing base. Serving millions of customers across all geographies through diverse product lines and distribution networks, we see significant room for further optimization. By leveraging big data and AI, advancing gas application, driving network densification, and deploying continuous innovation, we will maximize assets utilization, optimize our cost structure, and capture accretive pricing.
Next, we see substantial opportunities in key growth markets, several of which we will dive into shortly. In a few minutes, you will also see how our innovation leadership across core and high-growth markets will make a difference. Lastly, when available, we will seize large strategic acquisitions, building on major successes like DIG in Korea, a strong growing electronics market, while continuing our track record of accretive bolt-on acquisition. Adam, Émilie, and Ronnie later will explain how we execute this strategy in various geographies. As I mentioned, innovation is key to our differentiation and ongoing growth. Armelle will explain it later. What I would like you to remember is by pioneering first-of-its-kind innovations, we are expanding our addressable markets and continually reinforcing our long-term competitive moat.
We are confident that our continuous strategic investments in innovation will sharpen our commercial edge by meeting the needs of our customers and drive top-line momentum. This isn't just about revenue. Innovation is equally crucial in expanding our profitability and expanding our margins. At Air Liquide, performance is in our DNA, and BEYOND is about stepping up our margin expansion. This is our second core lever to drive EPS growth. Our global group transformation program, launched in 2024, is the primary engine behind this performance step change. Matthieu and David will go into more detail, but let me share already some concrete examples. First, organization efficiency. Against all odds, we have already reduced overall headcount by 6%, approximately 4,000 position. Also, shared services migration. In 18 months, 18 months alone, we have shifted 30% of group processes into Global Business Services center in optimized location. Also, resource efficiency.
We cut specific energy consumption by another 3% since 2024. Finally, AI deployment. Over one-third of critical group processes are already enhanced by AI. We are already in motion, and BEYOND will accelerate even further this momentum across four operation pillars until 2030. First, continuous streamlining of our organization structure everywhere in the world. Second, leveraging our global scale, for example, in procurement. Third, unburdening local teams so that they can focus on customer satisfaction and operational excellence. Lastly, deploying AI as an enterprise platform to maximize structural efficiency. With these pillars, we target to further improve the margin by 400 - 600 basis points for the period. This is quite ambitious. Our third lever to our EPS growth target of 10% is capital allocation. Our approach to maximize lasting value is clear, direct, and disciplined, backed by a renewed and optimized capital allocation policy.
Thanks to improved profitability over the past few years, Air Liquide has now the balance sheet strengths to aggressively fund high return growth while stepping up shareholder returns. Over the timeline of this plan, we will deploy more than EUR 40 billion of capital in industrial investments, of course, more than in the previous period, while maintaining our robust dividend payout ratio around 60%. At the same time, we remain fully agile in accelerating value-accretive bolt-on and strategic acquisition. The major evolution today is the launch of a new, flexible, and significant share repurchase program. Powered by our structural performance, this program enables us to compound long-term equity value while preserving our growth investments and our A credit rating. This is new and already ambitious, as we plan EUR 4 billion for share repurchase in the first two years of the plan, as Jérôme will detail later on.
What is important is that having this tool in our toolbox is an additional way for us to accelerate value delivery to our shareholders at a level that reflects the potential of Air Liquide. We will execute it in a pragmatic way, keeping in mind all the levers of lasting value creation, and we will execute it with determination as we are confident in the long-term value creation capability of the group. One key element that supports our confidence in the future is the exceptional Air Liquide teams. We will continue to empower our organization while embedding absolute accountability at every level. We have fully aligned our incentive structure with our BEYOND objectives, fostering a high-performance culture that is reflected directly in our delivered results. To our 65,000 dedicated employees around the world, we owe a huge thank you for their continuous commitment and passion to serve our customers.
Simply put, I believe that we have the finest, most talented team in the industry, and we are fully equipped and committed to deliver. To conclude this introduction, I hope you already appreciate the step change in our ambition and our confidence in delivering this strategic plan. There are a lot of materials built on very solid ground to support our BEYOND plan. The way we will drive our actions is through three interconnected pillars. First, we listen and care. We listen deeply to and care about all our stakeholders, our customers, shareholders, employees, and the communities in which we operate. This empathy and understanding is the starting point for everything we do and is truly a competitive edge. Second, we grow. Our top-line expansion is powered by multiple, highly diversified growth drivers and sustained by our innovations. Third, we perform, which gives us the means to grow.
Listening and adapting has transformed Air Liquide into an agile, high-performance organization. We will execute with precision, empower our teams, and hold ourselves strictly accountable to deliver sustainable, enhanced profitability. Now, the leadership team will take you through each pillar step by step. Jérôme will then follow with the financial outlook, and I will wrap up before we open for Q&A. Thank you very much for your attention. Let's go beyond.
Thank you, François. Framing our strategy around three interconnected pillars provides a clear roadmap. In just a moment, Adam will explore our first pillar, We Listen.
We always strive to listen to our key stakeholders, and this is even more important today as we navigate in an environment that is more and more challenging. We aim to be as close as possible to our customers and to listen and adapt to what they're telling us. We're a critical partner, and by listening to them, we can better anticipate their needs and their trajectories. We're well-positioned to leverage these engagements into game-changing opportunities, as we have the global scale and customer intimacy to do so. We're using AI to improve the overall customer journey. By embedding our solutions to evolving customer dynamics into our core strategy, Air Liquide consistently delivers high customer satisfaction metrics. It's not only customers. We listen to and care for all of our stakeholders. We listen to employees.
In listening to their collective voice, we hear what's important to them, a safe and respectful work environment, employee development and career opportunities, meaningful and engaging work, and a simplified organization. Empowering our people creates an agile, high-performance culture that drives engagement and productivity. We listen to our shareholders. Aligned with their priorities, we drive long-term value creation, illustrated by the historic total shareholder returns that François presented. We match their desires for increased returns with steady dividend growth and now a robust share repurchase program. We address concerns around climate risk exposures by committing to emissions reduction. We listen to society. We remain fully engaged in and offer full transparency to NGOs, suppliers, public bodies, as well as the local communities in which we operate.
By listening and caring, we are then able to adapt and position ourselves for the best opportunities to grow our business in a resilient and responsible manner. Speaking about responsible growth, Diana will say a few words on our environmental impact. Diana.
Thank you very much, Adam. Turning to environment, and before starting, yes, it still matters. Actually, now more than ever. We are convinced that performance, sustainability, and resilience are closely intertwined. In practical terms, we strive for tangible impact. Let me tell you where we put the focus. First, we stay firmly the course on decarbonization, maintaining our target to reduce CO2 Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 33% by 2035. How are we going to do that? Actually, through three levers. Low-carbon electricity sourcing, active asset management, including the industrial efficiency projects, and as well electrification. Last but not least, carbon capture and storage. We are convinced that these actions will also improve our resilience.
Let me recall that we have been able to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 5 million tons since 2020, and that we have been able to sign 5.6 terawatt-hours per year of low-carbon PPAs. This is just a start. Second, we are introducing a new objective aimed at reducing direct water withdrawals at our sites. As water becomes increasingly scarce, reducing water usage at our sites, it serves both a performance and as well as a resilience driver. Last, we are raising the bar on climate change adaptation. In the face of accelerating climate change, we aim to strengthen adaptation plans around the world, focusing specifically on high-priority industrial sites and supply chain assets. Over the past few years, Air Liquide has demonstrated its ability to combine financial and sustainability performance. In today's volatile world, environmental performance is no longer just a matter of conviction.
It's a core competitive asset. By decarbonizing our own footprint and providing decarbonization solutions to our customers, we enhance our competitiveness, reinforce our resilience, and we support lasting growth.
Thanks, Adam and Diana. Listening to stakeholders and acting responsibility has to be the first step of the process. Now, let's step into We Grow so we can see how active diverse sources of growth. Marcelo, François, over to you.
Thank you, Joe. As was pointed out, listening to our customers does more than inform our strategy and position us for future growth. Ultimately, it is what has driven our successful track record for 30 years.
That's right, Marcelo. It led us to develop and implement cutting-edge technologies in electronics starting in the early 1980s, and to expand into home healthcare in the mid 1990s.
Staying close on the ground to the regional developments had us execute transformative acquisitions like Airgas in the U.S. and DIG in South Korea.
Listening to customers and understanding macroeconomics also had us building a defensive, resilient business, clearly demonstrated during global disruptions like the financial crisis of 2008 or COVID-19. Beyond resilience, we see plenty of attractive growth opportunities in the coming years on which we will elaborate further.
Growing that solid operational foundation over the long term provides an excellent springboard for accelerated value creation and beyond.
Powerful megatrends continue to redefine our industry, creating structural multi-year demand drivers across the world. Reshoring and sovereignty are driving the localized rebuild of critical supply chains. Technology and innovation will be heavily utilized to translate these micro shifts into long-term customer solutions. Digitalization and infrastructure. The massive expansion of computing power demands unprecedented semiconductor manufacturing capacity and will generate significant growth in construction, electrical equipment, and metals. Aging population and urbanization create sustained defensive demand across healthcare.
These global trends translate directly into structural long-term growth vectors for Air Liquide throughout the BEYOND plan to 2030. In basic commodities, in the context of reshoring and reconfiguration, we will capture new growth through industries arbitrage of energy costs and supply. Our model adapts to the different speed and forms of energy transition projects by having a comprehensive set of solutions for hard-to-abate sectors. This will help to drive low single-digit growth in basic commodities. In manufacturing, we support production electrification, automation, and resources efficiency by developing or deploying systems and tools that optimize customer energy and resources footprint. This will sustain mid-single digit growth in manufacturing to 2030. In electronics, we build on our comprehensive leadership position with ultra-pure carrier gas on sites and innovative advanced materials, delivering the uncompromising reliability and low carbon footprint required by tier 1 semiconductor fabs.
This structural driver will support double-digit growth for Air Liquide in electronics. In healthcare, to meet surging healthcare demand while navigating public budget constraints, we leverage our integral home care models, digital monitoring platforms, and AI-powered solutions. This approach significantly lowers the overall cost to serve while improving patient outcomes, driving mid-single digit growth.
Thank you, Marcelo. You are absolutely right. Let's dig a little deeper. As we grow, we showcase our Air Liquide compounds growth through multiple diverse sources of growth, maximizing our base, capitalizing on fast-growing end markets, and executing targeted accretive acquisitions. This should lead to an overall sales growth of 5%, plus or minus 1, all powered by our global innovation. We tailor this strategy with precise differentiated execution across our geographic hubs. First, we will get more from our base. We are refocusing to unlock maximum value from our installed asset base by increasing the capacity loading of our existing infrastructure, by expanding customer density across key industrial basins, and accelerating bolt-on acquisitions, as well as restructuring others when required.
Simultaneously, we will elevate customer value through advanced gas applications, which optimizes their processes, and deploy dynamic tools that optimize price management. As always, we will be enforcing strict benchmarking to maintain top-tier industry-leading customer satisfaction.
Thanks, François. Let me start with a customer perspective.
With 2 million customers in 59 countries, Air Liquide detects industrial changes to identify opportunities, anticipate customers' needs, and support their growth, and that makes all the difference.
Hennig is a sheet metal manufacturing company. We make machine protection equipment. We've been doubling every year for the last seven years. As we grow, Airgas helps us find ways to take our costs down.
Airgas, a division of Air Liquide, provide Hennig with all their gas, from their welding gases and cutting gases to their welding supplies, equipment, technology, technical support, repair, safety products, and abrasives. We are pretty much a one-stop shop for Hennig.
They are taking care of all the welding supplies, which is a big undertaking for 500 welders. They are like a partner, somebody we can grow with and we can count on, and that we can come to for solutions, so we can be more competitive for our customers.
We have a variety of resources and professionals that come in and help manage their business and help them be more competitive in the markets that they serve in. That really differentiates us from any of the competitors that we do see across the country.
They are a solutions-driven company. When there is an emergency, they are just a phone call away.
The real measure of Air Liquide's scale is the value they create for their customers.
They're a critical part of what we do. They're able to look at our needs, look at what we're trying to achieve, understand what we're after, and tailor-make a solution for Hennig.
Overall, by building trusted relationships, Air Liquide's teams help their customers succeed while reinforcing their own competitive advantage.
We're able to focus on our manufacturing, getting their experts in to guide us through what equipment we need and what we need to be successful and think outside the box, and not thinking about this year, but thinking about 10 years. They're always one step ahead.
As you saw in the video, Air Liquide is a trusted long-term partner, an organization with whom our customers reliably grow. By pairing our technical experts with proprietary performance databases, we directly optimize customer welding productivity across our merchant business. Beyond these core applications, we see expanding merchant momentum across the entire vastly expanding data center value chain, supporting facility construction, power infrastructure, advanced cooling and safety systems, as well as secondary electronic supply networks. These are a few examples of how we intend to get more from the base.
Moving on to our next source of growth, key growth markets. We are excited to give you a better understanding of these underlying drivers of these attractive markets. Let us begin with a video on a key growth market for us, electronics, to showcase in particular our capabilities in advanced materials.
As massive demand for AI and cloud computing drives the semiconductor market, the need for smaller, more powerful chips is rising. These new chips require two things: higher volumes of ultra-pure gases and a brand-new generation of advanced materials. Air Liquide plays a critical role by supporting continued miniaturization and higher chip performance with the purity and reliability required for atomic-scale manufacturing. As the number one player across all major semiconductor hubs, Air Liquide is at the heart of the industry. This leadership is backed by more than 200 large-scale, ultra-pure carrier gas production units worldwide. Beyond these essential gases, Air Liquide stands apart through its unique expertise in advanced, high-value molecules for the most critical manufacturing steps.
They are specifically designed for and with our customers to not only help them achieve greater performance, but also lower greenhouse gas emissions in their production.
Air Liquide's expertise covers the full value chain, from molecule development and customer qualification to industrial production and inside fab delivery. Molybdenum is a prime example of this distinctive capability. By offering superior conductivity, this revolutionary material is replacing tungsten in next-generation memory and logic chips. Air Liquide anticipated this shift over a decade ago, ensuring to be ready when the customers needed it.
We were the very first to offer a complete solution. Our Subleem offer of ultra-high purity solid molecules, and first of its kind distribution systems.
The Subleem breakthrough technology is the first large-scale solution ever launched on the market to convert solid molecules into gas directly inside the customer's fab. Air Liquide deployed this solution in South Korea and is now expanding in the U.S. Once qualified, advanced materials become embedded in customer processes and technology roadmaps, supporting recurring demand and business visibility while strengthening Air Liquide's competitive position. By combining expertise and long-term partnerships with the semiconductor leaders, Air Liquide turns breakthroughs into billions of chips and captures a high-growth market opportunity.
As that video illustrates, this is a very exciting time. A unique growth opportunity with global chip volumes projected to compound as +8% annually through 2030. I will show you why we are so uniquely positioned at Air Liquide. Our expansion in electronics is driven by a powerful compounding effect. Growing chip volumes multiplied by rising gas intensity per chip from complex 3D architectures, advanced packaging, and additional manufacturing process steps. As Air Liquide is a mission-critical partner for the semiconductor industry, we regularly meet with the top management of every key strategic player across the globe. Just two weeks ago, in my exchanges with customers in the U.S. or last month in Asia, I could observe a key structural shift. The market is no longer the usual cyclic one we experienced in the previous decade, which was very reliant on consumer electronics.
Demand is now driven by data centers, in particular for hyperscalers, Google, Amazon, Microsoft of the likes, and they are taking all fab capacities for the next few years, hence, the acceleration of fab construction we observe. Moreover, demand for connected devices is currently undersupplied, and it is ready to take over. In that very exciting market context, it is important to remind that Air Liquide is the number one market leader in electronics, trusted by the world's top chip makers. But why are we the number one? First, we stand apart as the only industrial gas player offering a complete value chain portfolio with carrier gas, advanced materials, electronic specialty materials, equipment and installation, and services. Second, because we bring innovation.
As the only industrial gas player in advanced materials, we develop our own patented molecules thanks to our dedicated R&D, and we operate as an embedded developer directly alongside the top chip makers. In carrier gas, we have developed our own advanced technology over the years and scaled up our plants tenfold over a decade, and we are continuously improving their competitiveness. But third, we have the stronger customer intimacy. We have a completely centralized commercial organization covering each strategic customer with a dedicated team of global experts that can replicate what we do well in each geography to ensure the highest seamless service to each specific customer. I can assure you, our customers keep telling us they love it. You see, with deep customer intimacy, decades of unmatched reliability and breakthrough innovation, our competitive advantage continues to strengthen.
Now you might be interested in how this translates into growth. At the end of June, electronics represented 50% of the group's 12 months investment opportunities. To capitalize on this extraordinary mega trend, we are deploying significant high return strategic investments over the Beyond plan, supporting a highly de-risked double-digit sales growth through 2030. Here is the kicker. Over half of this growth is already secured by signed long-term take-or-pay contracts. In more details, what are the growth drivers? As I said, we are delivering a clear, highly visible compounding engine in electronics, scaling revenues from EUR 2.5 billion in 2025 to over EUR 4 billion by 2030, and with a contribution tail extending well beyond 2030. This is equating to a reliable double-digit annual growth exceeding 10% over the Beyond period. This momentum is powered by four strong vectors. First, our high-performing installed base.
Second, the rapid expansion of our high-margin advanced materials. Third, and you like it, a locked-in de-risked project backlog, and fourth, an aggressive pipeline conversion. Our backlog visibility today is nothing short of exceptional. It has surged by 80% over the last two years alone. As of June 2026, electronics represents 40% of the entire group's investment backlog. Moreover, it is diversified and spanning over 26 major capital projects. In the upcoming two years, we will start up plants in every single strategic electronics hub in the U.S., in Europe, as well as in Asia with China, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. You know this is really unique among all industrial gas players. This geographical footprint shows that we are super well positioned to capture the growth wherever it happens. Air Liquide really sits directly at the heart of this industry's expansion.
How are we going to deliver that? Our strategy leverages two growth engines, carrier gas and advanced materials. Together, they account for nearly 70% of our electronic sales today. First, carrier gases. You are familiar with them. They form our rock-solid foundation, generating stable, highly predictable cash flows backed by 15-20 year long-term contracts with full cost protection. With over 20 new facility startups scheduled through 2028, this represents long-term revenue visibility. Accelerating on top of that baseline is our high-margin advanced materials portfolio. Strong R&D portfolio. First to market advantage is the next generation chip solutions create growth opportunities. As an example, and as you saw in the video, our molybdenum precursors, which we were the first to introduce to the market, are projected to grow at over 30% annually, driving both top-line expansion and continuous margin accretion.
Today, our molecules play a direct role, and they are now so well embedded in semiconductors that they are present in each and every smartphone and tomorrow potentially in every data center. Now let us move to our second main growth market, the energy transition. François, the floor is yours.
Thanks, Armelle. At Air Liquide, our perspective is clear. Energy transition remains more than ever a priority, and it rests on three very solid arguments. First, climate change remains an undeniable reality and stakeholder demand for meaningful decarbonization has not diminished. In Europe, public policy and regulatory frameworks actively reinforce commitment to respond. Second, China views low carbon technology as a major long-term competitive advantage and is now investing heavily to secure it. Do not count out the U.S. We are seeing select opportunities developing there as well. We are firmly convinced that the energy transition is durable, longer-term mega trend. Third, the energy transition is key to risk management and security. Do not just take our words for it. Let us hear directly from our key customers on how they are navigating their own decarbonization journeys, and how Air Liquide is partnering with them to make it happen.
Decarbonizing industries is key to tackling climate change. Here, two global leaders explain how they rely on the expertise of Air Liquide.
More energy, less emissions. This is our motto. This energy transition will require participation of many stakeholders, from regulator to end customers, but also, of course, some very strong industrial players. Technology is at the heart of the journey.
As sustainability drives profitable growth, Holcim is expanding our sustainable offering. Decarbonizing concrete and cement requires innovations in formulation, energy, and advanced technologies such as carbon capture, utilization, and storage.
We are turning this vision into a reality through multiple decarbonization levels. From expanding renewable energy to developing some low carbon hydrogen. We are definitely paving the way across Europe with some key flagship projects like Grandpuits, La Mède for bio-hydrogen, or Normand’Hy. All these projects together with Air Liquide. So we have developed, along the last 10 years, quite a strategic cooperation.
Recently, Holcim launched the first industrial scale carbon capture test platform together with Air Liquide. CaptureLab allows us to test and validate both current and the next generation technologies, with ultimate goal of making net zero cement and concrete a reality at scale.
In the FID that we can take, the performance will be based on technologies, and trusted partners are very important.
Air Liquide is a leader in industrial carbon capture with decades of expertise in that field.
Air Liquide, of course, from this perspective, is capable of delivering complex projects safely, reliably, and at scale. This is why, where both companies need to ensure that the technology we are developing together will support the trilemma: affordability, availability, sustainability.
We work as one team. Our partnership helps reduce technical risks and accelerate execution.
We have decided to develop new projects with Air Liquide, in particular, in the Netherlands and Belgium, with two projects, Zeeland and ELYgator, for the production of some 45,000 tons of green hydrogen per year.
We are currently developing five major projects together, ranging from GO4ZERO in Belgium to OLYMPUS.
Really, it's a strong partnership, professionalism, engineering, and I would say the same vision of the economic challenge and the pace to achieve this energy transition.
This structural growth market is underpinned in some geographies by industrial sovereignty and supply chain reshoring. We possess the operational agility required to adapt to varying paces of the energy transition in each geography, and create leading positions in an emerging but long-term market. Our energy transition pipeline is moving from strategy to FIDs, to execution, to startups. Today, we have eight major projects under active construction, ranging from EUR 100 million -EUR 500 million in dedicated capital investment. Leveraging our proprietary, sometimes first of its kind technologies, we are capturing high-value opportunities. In total, energy transition projects represented EUR 2.2 billion of our backlog at the end of 2025. Looking forward, we expect EUR 2.5 billion of additional investment decisions in such projects between now and 2030.
These projects will be carefully selected and rigorously screened to ensure they meet the same double-digit return hurdles and disciplined IRR requirements we demand across all of our capital investment. They will also carry the added benefit of long-term contracts with take-or-pay clauses. These projects will begin to contribute over EUR 700 million to top line growth during the BEYOND timeframe, and further contribute in the next period. The energy transition is a key driver towards our top line growth to drive our EPS objectives by 2030, as well as to support our CO2 reduction engagements. Now let me hand over to Diana to speak about healthcare as the next key growth market. Diana, please.
Thank you, François. Our healthcare activity is a driver of robust growth and resilience for the group, as it is decoupled from industrial production. It will actually deliver a robust and resilient growth of +4% to +6% during the BEYOND period. Now let me tell you what drives our growth. Long-lasting demographic and societal tailwinds are unlocking healthcare demand around the world. Global life expectancy has increased by eight years since 1995. The WHO expects a global shortage of at least 10 million healthcare professionals in 2030. Under budget constraint, hospitals focus more and more on acute and critical care. As a consequence, healthcare payers are actively seeking value transformation to compress overall spending. In this context, we have a unique position across the entire patient pathway, from hospitals to patients' homes.
By directly integrating our primary production footprint with our specialized medical gas distribution network, we seamlessly serve, for example, oxygen to hospitals, all the way to patients with chronic long-term care at home. Why does it matter? We accompany the patient through every single step, from hospital admission, diagnosis, and prescription, to the personalized care at their home. In case of exacerbation of their disease, the patient returns to hospital for acute care, and afterwards comes back home again. We are there all along. I can tell you from my recent visits of patients in Brazil, they all prefer to be treated at home and value our services. Ensuring the continuum of care between medical gas at our hospitals and servicing patients at home. Why is it important? Not only it delivers enhanced patient outcomes, it also drives structural cost savings for overburdened healthcare systems worldwide.
Moving forward, starting with our medical gas activity, we will deliver growth by accelerating our Always There value offer at hospitals. Thanks to our products and services, physicians and nurses can focus on their patients, and they tell me this is this precious time saved for them. Growth will be driven as well by expanding beyond hospital customers. Let me show you some examples. We will serve emergency medical services, nursing homes in Europe, and as well the ambulatory surgery centers in the U.S. This will enlarge our portfolio of customers while unlocking enhanced operational synergies. By aligning our marketing and supply chain capabilities with Home Healthcare and Industrial Merchant, we maximize synergies and add value for the long term. In Home Healthcare, market dynamics are very compelling. Global healthcare spending is projected to surpass 10% of global GDP by 2030.
Already today, chronic diseases are the number one spending, driven in part by the stark reality that one-third of all adults now live with at least one chronic condition. At the same time, this structural shift from expensive acute care at hospitals to home-based care continues to gain momentum. All this accelerated by digital patient engagement in AI-powered augmented care. With these tailwinds, we create a highly resilient long-term growth and cash engine for Air Liquide. As the number one global leader in Home Healthcare, we serve today 2.3 million patients across 30 countries with over 10 million annual interactions. We are able to effectively manage high volumes to deliver this exceptional value to patients while actively reducing systemic healthcare costs. Importantly, Air Liquide stands as the industry leader in profitable value generation.
First, by combining a highly selective geographical footprint with continuous adaptive restructuring and very disciplined bolt-on M&A for density, we maximize operational leverage and help reduce healthcare spendings. Second, customer centricity as a core value. These relationships of trust with patients, caretakers, and prescribers build over years through human and digital support, giving them the peace of mind and the ability to focus on what matters most. Enhancing patient outcomes, we are delivering the right level of care at the best cost for healthcare payers. Last but not least, as a frontrunner in agentic AI, we unlock dual value for patients with an enhanced patient experience, and for prescribers and payers by accelerating operational efficiency and scalable growth. Through standardized global processes, data quality, and robust data governance, we scale AI solutions that transform the market while driving long-term profitability. It is a clear differentiator for us.
Let me share a video on how we scale superior value in customer relations before handing it over to Marcelo.
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At this scale, high performance is essential. By combining artificial intelligence with our team's expertise, we boost our efficiency and customer satisfaction. We handle these volumes with much faster response time, ensuring every patient receives an accurate answer and unmatched quality of care.
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Thank you very much, Diana. A compelling growth catalyst for Air Liquide is the rapidly expanding private space sector, particularly in the U.S. As technological scale drives down launch costs, launch frequency is accelerating, creating a near EUR 1.8 billion industrial gas market by 2030. Air Liquide has been supporting clients and building deep expertise across the entire space value chain for over 60 years. We currently supply every major space hub in North America. We are successfully leveraging our historical foundations with the likes of NASA and the European Space Agency to capture the high growth potential of private launch providers. While this high growth market today consists primarily of merchant bulk volumes and equipment sales, we foresee a potential transition toward long-term over defense supply contracts that secure return of capital invested. Even under conservative adoption curves, the growth runway in space remains very strong.
Air Liquide has entrenched client relationships and expertise to capture this high growth potential, making it a continued key growth market. Moving now to the next of our diverse source of growth acquisitions. François.
Thank you, Marcelo. We remain very active in portfolio management throughout the ADVANCE period, closing 67 bolt-on acquisitions and conducting a major asset takeover in South Africa. Concurrently, we optimized our operational footprint, completing 29 targeted divestitures to ensure our capital is concentrated in high-growth geographies and resilient, profitable businesses. Looking ahead into the BEYOND strategic plan, there remains a long runway, with 40% of the market still held by independent players. Meanwhile, the post-merger integration of DIG Airgas is progressing flawlessly and adding meaningful momentum to our growth profile. Our objectives are clear. We will execute bolt-on acquisitions to increase network density, expand into new geographies, and complete with strategic M&A to capture significant cost and growth synergies, all driving disciplined value creation for faster EPS growth. Moving now to the next of our diverse sources of growth, innovation. Over to you, Armelle.
Thank you, François. Now, let me explain you why innovation at Air Liquide is an operational engine. Our technology leadership sharpens our competitive position. It unlocks new high-margin markets, and it drives long-term shareholder value. End-to-end innovation, which means taking breakthrough directly from the lab to full industrial plant scale, is one of our primary growth engines, and it is also a core differentiator for driving market leadership. Through our PACE framework, we accelerate time to market. We optimize capital efficiency. We secure first-mover advantages across fast-growing global markets. Our end-to-end innovation strategy spans four strategic pillars that cover the complete technology life cycle. First, pioneering future markets. We anticipate tech disruptions early. We position Air Liquide for long-term growth. For example, in advanced materials like you saw in the electronics video, but also in deep tech and digital healthcare, as shown before. Second, accelerating industrialization of first-of-its-kind solutions.
We scale game-changing energy transition technologies, including Cryocap™ for carbon capture, large-scale PEM electrolyzers, ammonia cracking, and liquid hydrogen. Third, competing through the optimization of total cost of ownership or developing AI to support our operational excellence. Last but not least, enabling new gas applications for our base to optimize existing customers' networks. Like, for example, additive manufacturing, battery manufacturing, and advanced chip packaging and testing. Now, I would like to illustrate with few examples Air Liquide technological excellence is pioneering advanced materials that push the boundaries of the infinitely small. By engineering breakthrough precursors and ultra-pure materials, we enable chip makers to achieve unprecedented speed while reducing energy consumption, which is still a major challenge for this industry. As the semiconductor industry scales towards the most advanced nodes and high bandwidth memory, our own patented molecules are powering the world's most sophisticated AI chips.
Also, through AI, we accelerate time to market for advanced materials to predict molecules properties and identify candidates for lab testing. In fact, we are not just supplying the markets, we are developing the molecular foundation for the next generation of power efficient, ultra-fast AI computing. Another example I would like to share in a completely different market, in deep tech, we develop frontier technologies and we cross-pollinate them across our global footprint. Let's take our Turbo-Brayton cooling technology. It was originally proven on the International Space Station and scaled to over 300 units in LNG shipping, and now it is offering solutions for superconductivity cables and data centers. Finally, in industrial merchant, we innovate as well, and in very strong connection with our customers to develop technologies to boost gas sales in every market.
Let's take an example in additive manufacturing, a fast-growing market surging from EUR 200 million to over EUR 450 million by 2030. Our own patented flow mapping unit ensures perfect gas distribution during 3D printing. Why is it important? Because this innovation makes Air Liquide completely indispensable to the process and drives high-value gas sales worldwide. Air Liquide leverages its global scale and first-of-its-kind technologies to transition breakthrough discoveries from successful pilots into commercial market-opening solutions. We systematically de-risked and scaled assets across our core growth market. Electronics carrier gas units, we talked about them, but carbon capture and storage, electrolyzer, ammonia cracking for energy transition and space, of course. Looking ahead to 2030, we will drive innovation-led growth by leveraging our global integrated lab to plant organization with our 5,000 experts and 300 more partnerships. Of course, maintaining a disciplined spending of EUR 300 million per year.
Air Liquide remains the undisputed innovation and tech leader in our industry.
Thanks, Armelle. We clearly have multiple growth drivers across Air Liquide. Now let's see how that's balanced per geography. For that, Adam, Émilie, and Ronnie are joining us and will detail Americas, EAMEI, and Asia respectively. Let's start with Adam for the Americas.
I am very bullish on the Americas. Under the BEYOND strategic plan, we are targeting a top-line sales growth of 5%-6% per year. These are great numbers. As the market leader in the U.S. industrial gas sector, we will leverage our unrivaled platform to capture significant growth by capitalizing on strong domestic growth tailwinds. Driven by a doubling of the overall electronics gases market by 2030, the U.S. market growth is further supported by some key trends, including reshoring, data center proliferation, infrastructure, defense, and space. Crucially, structurally competitive domestic energy costs ensure long-term industrial activity and strong operating leverage. We are leveraging our position. In IM, we continue to densify our packaged gas business, maximize asset loading, manage the price cost curve, and accelerate bolt-on acquisitions. Healthcare is positioned to gain volumes both in and out of the hospitals, with price being supported by increased value offers.
Look at the momentum in electronics. We have secured major landmark wins across the United States, backed by hundreds of millions of USD in targeted investments across advanced memory, leading-edge logic, and high bandwidth memory advanced packaging. Future project development for electronics looks equally impressive. Major carrier gases startups and advanced materials business will push our electronics growth rate in the United States above 10%, which is significant. We signed contracts in large industries, and get this, we have already secured over 80% of large industries and electronic startup contributions for the BEYOND period in the U.S . Over to you, Émilie.
Thanks, Adam. Let us move on to EAMEI. We deliver growth while taking decisive actions to restructure and optimize our operational footprint. In Europe, as high energy cost weight on the competitiveness of the industry and our customers, we are proactively reshaping our asset base and right-sizing our operations to offset headwinds. Navigating this environment requires deep regional expertise, and our experienced leadership team is driving exceptional resilience and agility.
This agility allows us to capture high-value growth in Europe. We are leveraging our strategic asset base and our market leadership in the region and across energy transition, healthcare, and electronics markets, supported by a highly skilled workforce and innovation capabilities. Throughout the BEYOND Plan, we aim to deliver a resilient +2%-3% growth. Key growth drivers include the startup of five very large energy transition projects currently under construction, including the Normand’Hy Electrolyzer, which you have all heard about and which will start up in a few weeks. We are also pursuing selective new contracts in hydrogen, carbon capture, and cement, while capitalizing on sovereignty and reshoring trends. By accelerating asset loading and optimizing our footprint, supported by a steady growth in our healthcare business that represents 30% of total EAMEI sales, we are positioning Europe for long-term profitability.
Meanwhile, across Africa, the Middle East, and India, our growth trajectory is accelerating. Powered by major project startups, strategic asset takeovers, and an energized industrial merchant strategy centered on pricing discipline, asset loading, and bolt-on acquisitions, we are targeting above 10% sales growth. To conclude, if you remember one thing, by pairing selective and profitable high-value growth in Europe with significant expansion opportunities across Africa, the Middle East, and India, EAMEI stands as a solid engine of long-term value creation. Over to you, Ronnie.
Thanks, Émilie. Asia is a powerhouse, home to five of the top 20 industrial gas markets, which are mature, stable economies, but with incredibly dynamic high-growth economies because of the semiconductor expansion. We leverage the group because we'll have synergies in innovation, process standardization, and operational efficiencies. How will we build and drive our number one regional position in electronics? We're well on our way to committing upwards of EUR 3 billion of carrier gas investments over the BEYOND period. We're already expanding our high-margin advanced materials footprint. We've doubled our operational scale in South Korea following the DIG Airgas acquisition, and now we leverage. We're driving competitiveness in our products through modularized standardized solutions. Because of this, electronics will now be 40% of Asia-Pacific revenue in 2030, up from 29% in 2020.
In large industries, we're going to find high-value strategic asset takeovers, and we'll optimize our network loads, and we'll capture the high-value petchem wave in China, which is just beginning. In industrial merchant, we will have network density because of accretive bolt-ons. With our strong commercial and pricing discipline, we'll have sustained margin growth. Our top-line growth goes hand in hand with bottom-line performance. Relentless execution, we commit to strong margin expansion underpinning our 8%-9% top-line revenue growth across Asia.
We've established how listening to our needs of our stakeholders drives our growth. Now, let's focus on the next lever, how Air Liquide will step up margin improvement. To walk us through We Perform, I'll turn the floor over to Matthieu.
Performance is in Air Liquide's DNA. Today, my objective is to outline the concrete actions driving our margin expansion. We are committing to a +400 to 600 basis point margin target by 2030, and here is exactly how we will deliver it. First, we are not starting from scratch. In 2024, we launched a deep transformation program to significantly boost profitability, shifting from a decentralized model toward a more globalized, performance-driven culture. With BEYOND, we are stepping up, targeting, as I said, an additional 400 - 600 basis points over the next five years. Execution rests on four complementary pillars, active commercial management and operations, organizational streamlining, global structural efficiencies, and local efficiencies. Underpinning all four pillars, AI-powered operations are a key transversal accelerator. In short, this level of margin improvement is not an aspiration. It is a structurally backed target. Let's go through each of these pillars.
Let's start with the first one, the commercial and operation lever. It represents familiar ground for Air Liquide, and we are dramatically accelerating execution to maximize margin expansion. We are systematically optimizing our price cost spread, driving high-value volume and mix, and constantly rightsizing our portfolio. In fact, our active portfolio management, which as mentioned by François, comprised 67 targeted acquisitions and 29 strategic divestitures over our ADVANCE period, proves our discipline. We are continuously deepening footprint density in core basins while exiting non-core margin dilutive assets. Let's now go through the three remaining pillars. Let's start with our streamlined organization. First, we are mobilizing a streamlined, highly agile organization built for sustained performance. We are leveraging further a model that has already delivered strong results. Since late 2023, we have reduced headcount, excluding scope changes, by 4,000 or 6% of our workforce.
We've achieved this by reshaping our geographies and global business unit, flattening our structure, removing up to three management layers globally, and integrating operations, such as merging medical gases and industrial merchant in Europe, or shifting our Canadian activities directly into our U.S. operational setup. This enabled us to capture immediate high-value synergies. As we transition into BEYOND, we are maintaining this momentum. As an example, based on top-tier consulting benchmarks, we are rightsizing corporate functions to represent under 1% of total group headcount, refocusing our head office strictly on core strategy, company policies, and performance monitoring. A very simple model ensuring a strong operational discipline. Moving to our second pillar, global efficiencies representing 50% of the structural efficiencies under BEYOND. As we evolve from a decentralized model, we are now unlocking the full power of our global scale through disciplined governance, standardized end-to-end processes, and enterprise-wide tools convergence.
We are driving this strategy across three high-impact pillars. Industrial excellence. We have established a unified global industrial direction to roll out high-return operational initiatives worldwide, and David will detail them. Procurement scale. After expanding our global procurement organization with members no more reporting to local operations, we are now expanding centralized sourcing and leveraging our global volume in leading competitive regions to capture more structural cost reductions. In global business services, we are freeing up local operational teams from transactional tasks across finance, procurement, IT, and HR. Our GBS organization stands at over 1,700 associates in low-cost geographies, and we will double this capacity by 2030 while reducing headcount in high-cost countries. This is a major step in our operating model transformation. We already process over 3.5 million supplier invoices per year in this organization.
It is one of the many demonstration of the foundations we have built and that will propel us further. Supporting all three functions is our digital and IT team, and of course, our AI infrastructure built explicitly to deploy AI application at scale. David will detail our industrial operations fuel our BEYOND ambition. The unified global industrial organization that is built is a benchmark model that we are now replicating across additional functions. Through relentless internal and external benchmarking, simplified and standardized process execution, and an AI-boosted knowledge platform, we are instilling a high-velocity performance culture that accelerates excellence across our organization. David?
Thank you, Matthieu. A new unified single global industrial organization is key in delivering BEYOND's strategic ambition, a true engine for competitiveness. We are directly impacting our market competitiveness by rolling out worldwide standardized programs, enforcing rigorous process simplification and global standards. At the same time, we are targeting to increase our asset loading by 10%, optimizing CapEx spending for new facilities while maintaining a best-in-class reliability of supply. Underpinning all of this is a high-conviction, resilient, performance-driven culture. Day after day, we are laser-focused on our top 20 core managerial KPIs. This combined with a modernized knowledge management platform, as mentioned by Matthieu, to drive frontline efficiency and clear accountability. Together, these focuses give us execution clarity needed to drive operational excellence. Now, I'd like to illustrate through a video how some of our industrial initiatives are generating value.
Take a look at how we are truly optimizing our end-to-end operation with various tangible examples. Specifically, do listen to the comments directly from our end-to-end centers.
To turn this complex supply chain into a high-yielding edge, extracting maximum value, Air Liquide has deployed end-to-end digital and AI solutions from molecule production onto delivery. Air Liquide's 8 end-to-end centers worldwide transform its supply chain into a highly predictive and agile one. They are connected to production sites to optimize plant operations with an optimization tool to instantly align customer demand, production capacity, and distribution assets.
We oversee our production 24 hours a day, seven days a week, capitalizing on our supply chain flexibility and on AI. We are adjusting production in real time, minimizing energy usage while leveraging on energy market opportunities.
The payoff? Sustained reliability for customers and maximized energy efficiency. Air Liquide supply chain relies on Transport Optimizer, a digital and AI-driven suite that powers its bulk logistics worldwide.
By connecting production, consumption, and distribution assets in real time, we optimize trips while managing resource availability. In this way, we are reducing the kilometer traveled and the distribution cost.
The game changer is that we're optimizing the full supply chain efficiency, taking into account energy use and kilometers traveled at the same time.
Air Liquide applies the same AI efficiency to its packaged gas business, turning a massive logistical puzzle, managing over 20 million returnable cylinders with various gases into a high-efficiency workflow.
With our solution on the shop floor, an algorithm maps out the ideal placement of product baskets for the loading of delivery trucks. The system tells operators which cylinders move where in real time, minimizing manual handling and working distances.
Here again, AI also helps slash transport costs and kilometers driven. Air Liquide supply chain is moving fast towards full end-to-end integration, leveraging the power of AI, extracting maximum value from it, combining profitability, customer satisfaction, and growth ambition, plain and simple.
The video showed how we at Air Liquide execute today. I really like the intervention of Sarah and Elena. We have some great talents. Across our supply chain, we are moving fast from initially optimizing processes in isolation to a true, and this is important, end-to-end integrated model, radically changing how we operate. This approach delivers immediate tangible value and new pockets of optimization. Let's dive into how we are transforming primary production through cutting-edge automation. We are transitioning all our facilities into autonomous self-operating plants that run seamlessly without requiring continuous on-site presence, targeting over 95% of our sites worldwide by 2030. What does it mean? Our sites will be equipped to be unmanned by design. Across these facilities, we are embedding advanced AI predictive maintenance, anticipating equipment failures before they happen. We target cutting production incidents by more than three-fold by 2030.
On top of that, guided by our proprietary AI, our units run continuously at peak performance with an objective to react 50% faster by 2030 to capture new real-time opportunities in volatile energy market. This unprecedented level of automation delivers a structural step change in safety, reliability, and efficiency, strengthening our competitive advantage and strongly supporting, again, this is important, our margin improvement ambition. Let's turn now to regional end-to-end optimization, and this is one of my favorites. Orchestrated across eight end-to-end centers called control towers, this model breaks down silos to unlock large-scale synergies by dynamically linking the production capacity of fully autonomous self-operating plants, like I just mentioned, with customer demand across a pipeline, bulk logistics, and bulk customer storage.
In short, because it was complicated, powered by advanced AI, we optimize production and distribution at the same time, adjusting output in real time to capture ultra-competitive volatile energy pricing. This end-to-end optimization sharpens our market competitiveness, locks in permanent structural efficiencies, and strengthens customer acquisition. The solution is currently being deployed across our eight end-to-end regional centers. Now, let's look at what improvements we are driving in a packaged gas filling station, the end of our supply chain. First, we are deploying standardized production tools across all our main sites, 600 of them, targeting a +50% productivity increase by 2030. Just last week, I was in Eastern Europe with the local team, and they were already showing a +44% increase in their productivity numbers, and we are not even in 2027 yet.
Second, in logistics, our digital solutions are optimizing route management, driving a 20% increase in cylinders transported per kilometer, a direct benefit to the margin. Third, in site operation, we are using advanced planning and layout optimization to streamline cylinder movements within our storage facilities while targeting a 20% reduction of references across this activity. As shown in this video, harnessing data and AI is transforming our logistics and operation into streamlined workflows, unlocking structural is important, efficiency, and creating shared value with our customers. Now, Matthieu, back to you.
As you understand now, artificial intelligence at Air Liquide is driving real-time decision-making, unlocking unprecedented productivity, and compounding our competitive moat. AI is now fully embedded in our business. Every single member of our organization is equipped with Google Gemini, supported by an active community of 800 AI champions. We are using AI to transform our core business. Through five targeted transformation roadmaps, we are sharpening our focus on high transactional activities, cost, price management, and commercial efficiencies to drive real impact today. Make no mistake, we are only at the beginning of our AI journey. We sit on an extraordinary foundation of over 3.5 billion industrial data points and over 20 million of orders every year. While we standardize, map, and mine our processes, harnessing this massive proprietary global data stream will enable us to build responsible and high-impact innovations that secure a long-term competitive edge.
Our core business transformation is actively powered, as I said, by five focused AI roadmaps, deploying agentic AI directly into our daily operational workflows. We set ourselves very challenging objectives. In addition to the concrete illustration in industrial operations covered by David, we have many great examples to share. In engineering and technology, we target AI agents to cut our time to offer by 25%, delivering fast, high-precision proposals while accurately predicting permitting and regulatory constraints ahead of time. In sales support, our commercial AI agents power over 1 million annual customer visits. One of my favorite use case is definitely our AI helps optimizing dynamic pricing strategies, targeting the best prospects, and streamlining data input straight into our CRM systems. In customer care, automated speech-to-text streams live data into our ERPs.
AI agents seamlessly handle 230,000 monthly call across Home Medical France, the rest of Europe, and Airgas are next. When you globally handle 1 million calls per month, it is very powerful. Lastly, in patient care, AI optimizes complex back-office prescription workflows, creates hyper-personalized care plans, and predicts sleep apnea treatment drop-offs early. Full deployment is, of course, a priority. You understand that these five roadmaps are actively supporting our performance every single day, and it will further accelerate in the months and years to come. All the initiatives I've just covered are driven globally. Now, let's turn to local efficiencies and what they mean in practice. While global scale provides immense leverage, 50% of our structural efficiencies are unlocked directly at the local level. By automating routine tasks through standardized global processes and operational discipline, we free up our teams to focus on what matters most in the field.
Deep market knowledge, safety and operational excellence, and of course, first-class customer service. This local responsiveness secures world-class safety and reliability, our essential license to operate. To conclude on how we perform at Air Liquide, we are confident in our ability to deliver our target of 400 - 600 basis point in margin improvement by 2030. This ambition is backed by concrete operational actions, and everything you've seen today is already in motion, driven by robust transformation program, scalable AI, and disciplined local execution. I want to thank our teams around the world who are making this performance happen day in and day out.
Thank you, Matthieu, David. Having explored how we listen, we grow, and we perform, we arrive at a financial foundation of our strategic plan. To get more details, I'd like to welcome Jérôme. Jérôme, would you take us through the financial platform that serves as a springboard for Beyond?
Of course, Joe, and good day, everyone. Air Liquide's resilient business model has delivered a solid track record. Looking at our published results, Air Liquide has consistently expanded, delivering throughout its economical cycles. Having weathered the 2008 great financial crisis, the 2020 global pandemic, and repeated geopolitical energy shocks, we achieved a 30-year top line CAGR of +6%. As a strong earning compounder, we demonstrated robust operating leverage with EPS growth at +7% over the same period. Through our strong cash flow generation of +7% and the remarkable strength of our balance sheet, we maintain our commitment to shareholders' return, growing our dividends at an impressive +9% annual rate. At Air Liquide, consistently creating shareholder value is in our DNA. Indeed, over a multi-year horizon, Air Liquide share price has substantially outperformed the CAC 40 index, reflecting the resilient compounding nature of our business model.
Our commitment to dividend is on a clear display, with growth even accelerating to +38% cumulative over the last three years. Looking at total shareholder return, we have posted strong double-digit TSR across five, 10, and 20-year horizon, outpacing the broader market. With the BEYOND strategic plan, we are positioned to accelerate this momentum even further. Historically, we delivered steady gains in our operating margin. Over the past few years, however, we have significantly accelerated that trajectory, as clearly demonstrated by the graph on the left. The significant step change is margin improvement, has generated over 600 basis points of OIR margin gains over the past decade. This, of course, is excluding the energy impact. The three main drivers of margin improvement over ADVANCE were, first, pricing, specifically industrial merchant pricing, which grew by over 30% over the ADVANCE period.
Second, delivering efficiency to the sum of EUR 2 billion, showing the success of the initial phases of our group transformation program. Third, active portfolio management, with 67 additional accretive acquisitions and 29 divestitures. Together, those levers delivered a significantly more efficient and effective organization, reinforcing the strong foundation of our business model. Regarding foundation, first, Air Liquide boasts a diversified global footprint operating across 60 countries with 4 million customers and patients. Second, we execute with discipline, maintaining a double-digit minimum IRR threshold with strong contractual terms and conditions. Third, our resilient business model is valued, and now more than ever, by all stakeholders. Indeed, our diversified footprint services 90% of industrial segments globally, and more than 30% of our sales are under 15-year contracts.
Fourth, we remain agile, both locally and globally, thanks to our footprint and strengthened by our group transformation program, and now by leveraging artificial intelligence. Fifth, we invest approximately EUR 300 million annually in innovation, maintaining our position as a cutting-edge leader with several first-of-its-kind technological solutions. Since 2017, Air Liquide's cash flow expanded at nearly 11% per year, strengthening its balance sheet and providing capital allocation flexibility for strategic growth and acquisition, like Airgas in the U.S., and more recently, DIG Airgas in South Korea. Despite those transformative acquisitions, we successfully de-leveraged our net debt to EBITDA ratio from 3.3 x after the Airgas acquisition, down to a healthy 1.5 x. This is a strong foundation from where now we launch.
Thanks, Jérôme. From there, could you walk us through the actual objectives of BEYOND?
Of course.
Sure.
Launching off a strong foundation, as I said, BEYOND aims to maximize value creation. As highlighted by François, our three strategic objectives are, first, EPS at 10% on a compound annual growth rate. Two, value creation with ROCE target above 11% in 2030. And third, CO2 emissions reduction - 33% by 2035. To dive deeper, first, sales growth at 1.5 to twice industrial production. This back-end loaded growth has been covered throughout today's presentation. Second, margin improvement. We will deliver between +400 to +600 basis points over BEYOND, building on the acceleration of ADVANCE and which would represent a milestone of +1,000 basis points over 10 years from 2020 to 2030 timeframe. Third, capital allocation. We will continue with our disciplined project development, accretive M&A, and dividend payments, now combined with our new flexible share repurchase program.
Under BEYOND, top-line expansion, margin improvement, and capital allocation are complementary levers and not objective. By flexing between the three as market conditions dictate, we protect profitability, and we are very confident to deliver to our +10% EPS growth objective.
That is very exciting, Jérôme. Thank you. How would that break down on a per business line basis?
Well, let's start with industrial merchant. This is projected to deliver +4% to +6% sales growth, propelled by organic volume expansion from a specific focus on asset loading, sustained pricing management, and accretive bolt-on M&A. Then large industry. This will generate +1% to +3% growth. 40% of startup pump-up growth is already secured through new project starts. However, this will be partly offset by base erosion in some geographies. Moreover, as I will show on the following slide, we are undergoing a structural shift in our business model where absolute OIR expansion provides a far more accurate reflection of our true operation growth than the top line revenue alone. Electronics is set to deliver above +10% growth, over 50% of which is already secured mostly by new project coming online.
We will capitalize on number one position, robust project backlog, and unique position in advanced material. Finally, healthcare. This continues to serve as an exceptionally resilient and steady growth engine, targeting +4% - 6% growth through organic expansion and select bolt-on acquisition.
Jérôme, as you know, margin is a key focus of the markets today. Could you help investors understand why this alone does not fully capture the performance and may not actually be the best indicator?
Sure. This is important, Joe, but let me start first with our top priority, which is reinvesting in the business with strict capital discipline. Over the past decade, we have delivered a step change acceleration in industrial investment decision, scaling up to the range of EUR 4 billion annually. Looking ahead until 2030, we project a cumulative EUR 24 billion in industrial investment decision, heavily anchored by growth in the Americas and Asia. Alongside this growth CapEx, we will continuously reinforce our foundation by investing in asset renewals, efficiency programs, and world-class safety protocols. Crucially, every project must clear our strict minimal double-digit IRR hurdle rate to support our overarching above 11% ROCE objective. Furthermore, embedded in our investment decision process, our CO2 emission reduction objective. Finally, we aim to maintain a diversity of project, so as to not overexpose ourself to geopolitical or single project concentration risk.
Now, Joe, let me spend some time on explaining our financial model to address your question, which is again, very important. As you will see, absolute OIR growth will serve as a more accurate aggregate measure of a project's financial contribution, rather than top-line growth. Let's start by tracking a project's life cycle. On the left, in our portfolio of opportunities, where we apply a stringent project selection process based on returns to ensure every investment clears out strict minimal double-digit IRR hurdle rate. We deliberately select premier locations, leading counterparties, and high-quality assets underpinned by long-term take-or-pay contracts with anchor customers to de-risk our investment. Once a project clears our screening project, we reach a formal final investment decision. The project then enters our committed backlog, initiating the construction phase, which is illustrated on the slide.
CapEx timeline typically average two to three years for medium to large project, and three to five years for very large industrial facilities. In the example here, we present a theoretical EUR 200 million CapEx project. Following an evenly split spend over a four-year construction phase, OIR steadily ramps up over two to three years before reaching the steady run rate through to the end of this theoretical 15-year project. Why the shift to OIR from sales for a new project? There are a few drivers, and now we start to look at capital intensity. Starting on the left, capital intensity indeed varies significantly across our product. It can range from roughly 3 x for air gases to 1.5 x for hydrogen production.
Considering two project, one ASU, one SMR, with identical CapEx and IRR hurdle rates, the hydrogen project will generate higher sales, and thus will have a lower OIR to sales ratio. Similarly, subsidies meaningfully impact margin ratio. Indeed, our backlog consists of the total gross CapEx of a project. However, our project economics are calculated on net CapEx. The takeaways here is that overall capital intensity varies significantly based on factors like project type and subsidies. This leads to difficulty in sales modeling. Therefore, a higher variability of OIR on sales, and therefore, you know OIR will be more predictable to model. Additionally, the energy impact is different by geography and contract structure. While it's fairly standard that energy costs are passed through to customer, energy costs vary greatly across region.
Consider, for example, two identical hydrogen SMR project, same size, CapEx, and secured IRR in the U.S. and Europe. When natural gas in the U.S. was about EUR 9 per MWh , Europe was averaging a staggering EUR 80 per MWh . EUR 9 versus EUR 80. Thus, the total sale, including energy, is much higher in Europe than in the U.S. Thus, the calculated OIR to sales ratio in this theoretical example is 15% in Europe versus 35% in U.S. Same CapEx, same IRR. As you see, the impact on energy cost on ratio is also seen in contract structure of energy transition and electronics project. Those customer often secure their own energy, which is eliminating the need for industrial gas company to secure and pass through energy price. Again, an example, identical two project.
The project with energy pass-through reports much higher sale than the identical project without energy pass-through. All else equal, the OIR in absolute value would be the same, but the margin ratio OIR to sell is still much higher without energy pass-through. The main point, again, is that sales may not reflect a company's growth, and OIR to sales ratio may not fully reflect business performance. It's very important that the dynamics of OIR in absolute value is much more informative and is and will be reflective in our new EPS objective. As our business model has evolved, marked by increased variance in capital intensity, heightened energy price volatility, regional energy price disparities, and a higher proportion of contracts without energy pass-through in our backlog, top line sales and sales-derived KPIs are not the most representative indicators to our performance.
Today, absolute OIR growth stands out primary metric to track growth, strategy progress, and individual project contribution. While margin percentage remain an essential short-term guiding tool, our primary compass for the long term remains return on capital employed. The key message is that ROCE is our long-term compass.
No, it makes sense. It's very clear. Thank you. We announced a big change in our capital allocation policy with share buybacks. What are the key takeaways for investors?
Well, thank you, Joe, for this question. To start with, it is Air Liquide improved performance, which now is allowing for a new optimized capital allocation framework. First, our overarching priority remains to invest in the business. Second, we will accelerate selective value accretive acquisition, bolt-on, but also larger accretive strategic acquisition. Third, we will remain committing to growing our dividend, targeting a steady payout ratio of approximately 60%. Now fourth, powered by the strength of our balance sheet and an improved performance, we are enhancing shareholders' return even further by introducing share buybacks as a pillar of our capital allocation framework. We have established a robust but flexible to other opportunities share buyback program authorizing an initial EUR 4 billion in cumulative repurchases through 2028. Moving forward, share buyback becomes a component of our capital allocation policy and shareholders' returns framework.
Furthermore, maintaining a solid A credit rating remains an anchor of our capital allocation discipline. Through the execution of our BEYOND strategic plan, we are unlocking the potential to up to double our average annual shareholders' return compared to the ADVANCE period. This will be driven by a robust dividend policy with a payout of around 60%, and again, our new flexible share repurchase program. Finally, none of this would be possible without the dedication of the teams. Everyone at Air Liquide is fully committed to delivering our BEYOND objective, and we have explicitly aligned our incentive structure to guarantee accountability. For our top 350 senior leaders, including the executive committee, our annual bonus plan is directly tied, sorry, to core operational execution. Beyond annual incentives, our long-term plan extends to over 2,700 managers group wide, aligning leadership directly with three-year performance goal.
This structure clearly ties the success of our shareholders with the success of our leadership. Additionally, and specifically to the IM sales force, we continue to standardize global incentive system to aggressive best-in-class practices. Those incentives are accelerating the shift to an enhanced performance-driven culture at Air Liquide. We have the technology, the balance sheet firepower, and the discipline culture to deliver.
Thank you very much, Jérôme. Now I will turn it back to François for his closing remarks.
Thank you, Joe. I trust that by now you see how much of a step change what we have shared with you today represents. Beyond the figures and targets, our commitment to delivery is extremely strong. We have a clear trajectory, the right levers in place, and most important, the right mindset. That's why I have, we have confidence in our ability to create lasting value for all our stakeholders. I would like to conclude, to summarize for our existing and future shareholders why, more than ever, Air Liquide offers a premium investment case. You have seen that we are very well-positioned in many growth markets. You know we have strong business model that we continue to refine. You have seen our track record in improving our profitability. You appreciate our expanded commitment to deliver lasting value to you.
And finally, you should be as proud as we are to invest in a responsible company. Thank you for your attention. I know it has been a lot of information today. Let's take a short break. I am really looking forward with the rest of the team to answer your questions during the Q&A session.
Let's take a five-minute break. We'll meet up in the Q&A setup where the executive team will take the stage for the Q&A.
Welcome back. We will now start our Q&A session by taking first a few written questions from the platform. I will ask Joe, if you can read the first question, please.
I sure can. Before I start, quick reminder. To submit a written question, just hit the button at the top right of your screen. First question. Regarding the M&A strategy, it is clear that bolt-ons will be a focus in the coming years. Given the EUR 22 billion-EUR 25 billion guide in investments in the business and some balance sheet flexibility, can we expect a larger acquisition?
All right. Thank you very much. I will take this question. Yes, as we mentioned already, M&A is part of the strategy. It was in the previous plan, but we want to accelerate that bolt-on acquisition, industrial merchant and home healthcare mostly, but also potentially a strategic larger acquisition like the one we have done in Korea with DIG. Of course, to dance we have to be two, so it is not possible today to be more specific on that. What we see is there are some region of the world where there are potentially opportunities in the framework of the BEYOND plan. The good news is that we have the financial capabilities to seize those opportunities, so we will do that whenever there are opportunities that make sense for us.
The second written question. How should we normalize healthcare margins versus peers, given Air Liquide's greater home healthcare and service content? What would a truly like for like comparison look like?
Thank you very much, Joe. I will ask Diana, please.
Thank you. I was really hoping you would ask that question. To be clear, our home healthcare activities are well-aligned with the profitability of the group, and they are very much in line as well with the progression that we ambition for our group. Now, where we operate, and you remember, we are not for home healthcare in the U.S., we are even better prepared and better positioned than our competitors and our peers. And why is that? It is because of the value we generate for our customers and patients.
Thank you very much, Diana. I guess now we are ready to take some phone questions from people attending. Please go ahead.
Thank you. To ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now take the first question from the phone, coming from the line of Martin Roediger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for taking my two questions. The first is for Diana. Your healthcare business has been growing organically by 6.6% in the last five years. What was the split into volumes and pricing? What is the risk that pricing could become negative? Just a clarification, are you interested in a sizable acquisition target in the U.S. home care market, which is currently up for sale? My second question is to Jérôme. On the 1%-3% per annum growth in large industries until the year 2030, you mentioned erosion in some regions which offsets partly startup contributions. Can you talk about this erosion? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Martin. As a matter of fact, indeed, Diana is going to answer the first one. For the second one, I think, I will ask maybe the different head of the region to give you a feel for the LI growth because it's quite different from one region to another one. So, Diana, healthcare.
Yes. Thank you very much. Excellent question. So how do we compare the healthcare growth between the previous five years and the BEYOND plan? To be very clear, in the past, we had a very strong price dynamic, and especially because you ask about home healthcare again. In home healthcare, we have had a positive price pass-through in the past years. Looking forward, what we see is we have a very strong volume ambition embedded in our plan because we expect with the tensions on some healthcare systems that pricing will probably be at less dynamic as in the past years. Nevertheless, in addition to our organic volume growth, we have as well a very strong bolt-on M&A ambition embedded in the BEYOND plan. Of course, we continue to look for opportunities to grow, may it be externally, organically, and as well for sizable acquisitions.
Now, as I mentioned in my previous response, the U.S. home healthcare market for us is not one that we target. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Large industry, I think what would be the most useful and relevant is to start with the U.S. Adam, maybe a few words about Europe and then finish with APAC, on large industry because indeed it is quite different. Adam.
Yes, absolutely. Talking about the U.S., I think there are three key points from a large industry standpoint worth mentioning. The first one is around infrastructure, the second is around activity and volumes that we see and the third is around development. From an infrastructure standpoint, our infrastructure is best in class. When I look at it is an infrastructure that is expanding. It is the largest amongst our peers in terms of our Airgas infrastructure that we have, particularly on the Gulf Coast, and it is one that we are continually renewing and expanding. When we look at volumes, we see volumes for the chemical sector and volumes for refining, and those volumes have reached historic highs for us, particularly along our pipeline systems, but also in some standalone on-site assets that we have.
The third sector that I would talk about, or third piece, is really around development. We have had for the past couple of years very active development in large industries in the U.S., and we see that continuing. We did sign two projects that we announced at the beginning of the year, one in the chemical space with Oxea, the other in the steel space with Hyundai Steel, both of these contributing to low-carbon products, which is great for the future, but we also see ongoing developments coming. These will contribute towards the end of the period, in terms of growth for development.
Clearly, large industry is going to contribute to the 5%-6% at least growth for the period.
Absolutely. It will also contribute co-products, which will help the merchant sector as well, which is another very strong space for us.
Yeah. Thank you very much. Émilie, Europe.
Sure. Large industry in Europe. The industry in Europe is transforming, for sure. Some of the industry is moving to decarbonization, like the cement players, some steelmakers, as well as refining. You have seen some example in the presentation just earlier with some startups in electrolyzers coming soon. Other part of the industry, like the chemical industry, is restructuring. Suffering more and restructuring. We accompany our customers all the way. This is part of our listen and care, obviously. For us, it means also we restructure in some places to adapt our cost structure to the level of activity, and we optimize our network. In some cases, we even shut down some old inefficient assets where there is overcapacity.
Overall, I would say in Europe, the forecast is LI to remain about flat, with some new opportunities offsetting the headwinds and the base erosion, I would say.
Okay. Thank you very much. APAC, Ronnie.
Sure. We, for sure, also have a super diverse customer base and a little bit of both stories that you just heard there. In China, for example, with the five-year plan that they have in China to go upstream on petchem, we see more growth and more opportunities. But then we have some other basins where there is also some restructuring, maybe even some erosion. Overall, though, for Asia Pacific, large industries is an important contributor of that 8%-9% growth rate.
Thank you very much, Ronnie. Overall, we see that in large industry, there is this momentum by region, by sector. All in all, I think what we need to take out is that wherever there are opportunities to modernize the asset base or to capture new opportunities to support the transformation of industry, that is what we will continue to do and BEYOND.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Martin. Next question, please.
We will now take the next question from the line of John Campbell from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for the presentation that really goes into detail on your business. I wanted you to maybe kind of expand upon the margin improvements. Your outlined goals for 400-600 basis points of improvement over time. Could you perhaps outline and articulate the assumptions that are trying to drive those two scenarios? What is basically required, I guess, to reach the midpoint? Would you consider the midpoint the most likely of that kind of range? Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, John. Good talking to you. Maybe Matthieu, do you want to take this one, please?
Sure. Thank you, John, for the question. If we go back to the margin ambition. We set for ourself a very ambitious 400-600 basis point margin improvement, as you mentioned, that is going to drive our EPS up. As we mentioned during the presentation, we are accelerating. If you compare to ADVANCE, we were at 360 basis point over four years. Now clearly over the next five years, we want to speed up. What is important is that we are in motion. We have a structurally backed plan with a lot of example across all the pillar that we mentioned. I am going to remind them again on global structural efficiencies, local efficiencies, organizational streamlining, and last but not least, active commercial and operational management. These four pillars are interconnected. Today, I think it is fair to take the midpoint as an assumption.
That being said, if we can accelerate, if the market or the macro condition allows, we will certainly do it. If AI allows us to go even further, we will do it. Again, we do not want to give too much variation per year. Take that as an average with the midpoint as the basis of the scenario.
Thank you very much, Matthieu.
Thank you.
Next question, please.
Thank you. We will now take the next question from Alexander Sloane from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Oh, yeah. Hi. Thank you very much for the detailed presentation. Two from me also, please. The first one, just on the balance sheet. If you could help us maybe understand balance sheet assumptions through the period in a little bit more detail. Specifically, the EUR 4 billion buyback, how much of that do you expect to be funded from free cash flow versus maybe stepping up debt? More specifically.
Where would you expect net debt to EBITDA to peak over the course of the strategy period? The second one just on electronics. Interesting for the other three businesses, you have given a range, whereas electronics is framed as above 11% but without a defined upper limit. Could you help us understand what the upside case looks like here for electronics? What would need to happen for electronics growth to maybe materially exceed that 10% through 2030? Thank you.
Good afternoon, Alexander. I think the first question is a wonderful question for Jérôme and probably the next one for Armelle. Jérôme, please.
Of course. Thank you very much, Alexander.
Yeah.
Basically, you are right. It is a very big event on the fact that we have raised about EUR 4 billion share buyback until 2028. The question is how we will fund it. We will fund it from cash flow, but also mainly from leverage and debt. Also in order to. We have the balance sheet. We are at 1.5 times EBITDA to net debt as end of June. We will leverage from this, and that will be, I would say, the main catalyst. I will not give any precise number in terms of how do we want to raise, but our objective is what we say want to keep the A category range, both on a Standard & Poor's and Moody's. That is basically our main assumption so far. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Jérôme. Armelle, upside on the electronics, what it would take?
Yes. Thank you very much for the question. First of all, I would like to remind you that we are committed to outperform the market. I mentioned 8% market growth in volumes, which is a real indicator for our sales. We are committed to deliver more than 10% growth. Half of this growth is already solid and in our books. You remember we have two main levers, carrier gases and advanced materials. If we look at carrier gases, they represent around 50% of our investment opportunities for the next 12 months, and we have a far larger portfolio in front of us. But you know well the business model. When we sign a contract, we need three years, two to three years, depending on the geography, for the ramp-up and the sales to be effective in our numbers.
So clearly, what we are going to sign in 2027, 2028 is going to contribute above the BEYOND period. I would say the real lever above this 10% is advanced materials. It depends on faster adoption on our key molecules. Here we have a fantastic market advantage being the first one in that market. If I take an example, you've seen on the video and I've talked about it, molybdenum, for example, where we have already a solid manufacturing base in Japan, in Korea, and in the U.S. to seize the growth where it is. It comes hand to hands with our own patenting equipment, which is absolutely key to deliver the product at the fabs. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Armelle. This one is a very good example, I believe.
Yeah
Where the innovation is really helping us to develop the top line and to take a competitive advantage. I hope it's going to be soon a blockbuster for sure. I think maybe we have a written question, Joe, if I may?
Yeah, I could squeeze in a few.
Go ahead.
Sure. On green renewable hydrogen, could you provide an update of your projects and give us an overview of your future pipeline? More broadly, what is your view on green hydrogen strategy? What minimum level of regulatory support, carbon price, or customer premium is currently needed to make renewable hydrogen projects economically viable in Europe?
Since we are talking about Europe, Émilie, your turn.
Sure. Thank you. I am happy to hear this question. On green hydrogen, I will try to be short, but overall, on green and low-carbon hydrogen, we still see a good momentum in Europe. We have five major energy transition projects under construction that will deliver and contribute within BEYOND in low carbon and in renewable hydrogen electrolyzers. You mentioned some of them. Normand’Hy electrolyzer will start up soon, and it is fully loaded. ELYgator in the Netherlands will come after. It is fully loaded as well. We also have low-carbon hydrogen for biorefineries in La Mède or Grandpuits. So a very strong momentum. Overall, those projects are supported by existing regulations, so those projects are already viable. Keep in mind that the RFNBO has not been transposed in all European countries yet, so there are more opportunities to come.
Thank you very much, Émilie. Joe, I think we have a list of written question. Maybe we take another one?
Sure. Given the number of bolt-on acquisitions that the company has made and continues to make, how is the company managing integration risk associated with this? For example, the management of different corporate cultures and styles, different processes and teams, customer disruption during integration processes.
That is a great question. Maybe just to be concrete, two example from two parts of the world. Maybe Marcelo, you talk about Airgas because you have got quite a powerful integration and acquisition machine, and maybe, Ronnie, you want to say one word about maybe Korea, I think would be useful. Marcelo.
Thank you, François, and thank you for the excellent question. In the case of Airgas, if you remember, Airgas was created in 1982, and it started as an independent company and grew through acquisitions until the merge with the group 10 years ago. I would say it is embedded in our DNA to accept differences and, at the same time, to drive the company with the right culture of respect, of performance, of safety, which is always one of the key topics that we need to address every time we acquire a company. 95% of the companies we acquired so far are basically asset deals where we bring customers, we bring assets, and eventually a few of the associates that are working for those independent companies. I tell you, the track record of performance of Airgas has proven that the model works, and we continue to be very successful.
By the way, we want to accelerate those bolt-ons in the coming years of BEYOND, not only at Airgas, but also in other geographies in the world.
Yeah. Thank you very much. I trust that you have a complete and a well-structured playbook.
Absolutely
for the integration being the safety, the operation, the IT.
The ERP convergence and so on and so forth. Very strong playbook, François.
We think that very quickly, and that's why we insist on density, very quickly, those bolt-on acquisition, in the U.S., but also in other geographies, are quite accretive to our business.
Absolutely.
Another example of a larger side in a different environment, Ronnie.
I love this question. Just a few weeks ago, I was in Korea for our customer day, where the two businesses that we'd merged together met our new customers. Wonderful. The answer to the question is basically proactively. Of course, we have to look across process, legal entities, tools, our business engagement, everything. Really, the most important thing is the culture. It's in the question, so I really appreciate that. It shows that we understand what this is about. When it comes to the DIG integration, the two cultures of the L'Air Liquide business and the DIG business were a long way apart. What's happening now in Korea is the teams are creating their own culture for the future, and that's the key to these kind of integrations.
As well as all the process, and you have to be great at the process, but really the culture. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Ronnie. Maybe we move to the live questions from the phone. The next one, please.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Laurent Favre from BNP. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Two questions, please. The first one is on the target to increase loading by 10%, I guess, across the network. I was just wondering what exactly are you going to do differently? 10% sounds like a pretty big number for a company that has been well managed for a long time. That's the first question. The second one for Jérôme is around the backlog and I guess all your presentation on how we cannot rely on sales or margins. I fully understand that the most important point is OIR in absolute terms. So I was wondering, what can you tell us that could help us on, I guess, modeling of the EUR 6 billion backlog in terms of how it flows, if we cannot use a rule of thumb on sales and if we shouldn't be assuming a certain EBIT margin. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Laurent, and good afternoon. I will ask David to answer the first question, which will give some time for Jérôme to try to think about the answer for the second question, which is not an easy one as we discussed previously. Where is David? David, please.
Thank you. Thank you very much for the question. Of course, responsible for industrial operation asset loading is definitely an indicator which is close to my heart, but it's definitely also a leading indicator to return on capital employed. To your question on what is the current loading, of course, it's very difficult to answer at global level. We have very different supply chain, very different product. However, it is correct that in some assets, in some regions, we are below 70%, and those are specific areas where we want to boost the asset loading to above 80%. The way we will do it is really three ways. The first one is to ensure that the asset are actually delivering what they should be.
This is looking at availability, making sure that they are optimized, and that they deliver the product and output that we expect and that we need to sell. The second one is a bit more thorough, is where we have cross-functional team really looking at the basin situation and define the commercial policy. That means also realigning the incentives. It means also relooking at the commercial strategy and how do we densify and leverage the asset in its location. I would say the third one is also at looking at some of the assets probably would need to be retired as well. So it's also looking at the viability of some of these assets. Thank you.
Thank you very much, David. I think now Jérôme is up for the answer.
Thank you, Laurent, for this interesting question. You are right. The modelization of growth coming from the backlog is getting more and more difficult because you have different capital intensity. You have the weight of the energy, which can be very much different, for example, the U.S. and in Europe, and which can be multiplied even by 10. Going freely from backlog to sales is something that we stop and that is why we stopped to publicize in the last quarter. Having said that, how to do it, I would say the best way. Our performance is very much now to be modelized by absolute OIR. Because that is naturally flowing into the EPS growth, and that is why today we are moving into the EPS growth of +10%, -2%, +2%. That is basically what we have to do. And that is why
Sales lever cannot be an objective per se. That is why we have to concentrate more and more on the EBIT, and that is what we will going to do in the coming years. And that is very much what also one of the key message that I wanted to pass during this presentation, is that the absolute value in sales really today is not totally meaningful impact. That is the way we could think about.
Thank you very much, Jérôme. I do believe we have another question online. The next question, please.
We will now take our next question from the line of George Spector from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I had a follow-up that kind of combines a few of these together. It seemed like when you guys are talking about margin, the commentary around density also seems to include some commentary around M&A. I am curious if M&A was maybe less of a contributor than what you expected. Is that a risk to your margin targets, or are those margin targets more organic skewed? Thanks.
Well, I think let's talk about maybe M&A and how do we want to use M&A in term of density for IM. Marcelo, do you want to speak about that? Because that's a clear focus.
Yeah, thank you, François. In a few words. The bolt-ons, they have been key to the strategy of many of our geographies in terms of growth. Before we speak about the impact to the profitability, I think what matters is really the strategic impact of each of the targets that we are bringing into the company. I give you examples of several opportunities I have seen in the U.S., where companies, they are heavily dependent on hard goods with very limited penetration in important customers, and we decided not to pursue those acquisitions. Yeah, it's a key lever. I think we did relatively well as a group in many of those acquisitions in terms of number. The market is changing and is shifting, as you know very well.
In some areas, we see EBITDA multiples going super high, so we need to continue to be super careful and strategic on those acquisitions. The densification topic, M&A comes into play, but it's not the main, I'd say, lever that we pull in terms of densification. Densification means how we measure the market, our participation, concentration of customers, and how we play commercially and from a strategic point of view to bring the best in terms of value, not only to the company, but also to our customers in general. François.
I think what is very important to keep in mind is that given our footprint, we've got almost always the choice to grow organically or to do M&A. M&A is a way to accelerate. That has to be, of course, the right seller, but also the right price to do that. So in the U.S., in China, we have also a clear strategy like that. I don't believe this is a risk to our margin target because we've got other levers, clearly. If we can seize the opportunity when it makes sense in term of M&A, we'll do that. Maybe I will just use that question to ask Diana to talk about M&A and bolt-on M&A in home and care, because that's an important part of the strategy also.
Yes, absolutely. It's clearly as well an accelerator compared to our previous plan, where bolt-on acquisitions accounted for about EUR 90 million of sales, whereas what we have embedded in the BEYOND plan is EUR 280 million of bolt-on M&As. So it's clearly an accelerator. To be very clear as well, because you earlier asked the question of profitability, we are targeting accretive acquisitions. So the bolt-on M&A within the first two years should be at least at the level of our current profitability and even contributing for us to accelerate our profitability improvement.
Thank you very much. I think we have another question waiting. Please, the next question, and after that, we'll take another question from investor, which is a written question. Next question online, please.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Chetan Udeshi from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions, and thank you for these detailed presentations this afternoon. I had a few questions. I will start with the most important one. I am a bit curious, why have you shifted from focus on organic sales target to total? Because I remember last time when we had, and even in the previous plan, there was always an organic focus, and it seems this time it is missing. So perhaps you can detail why that is the case. Second, I think, Jérôme, you mentioned in your presentation that the sales growth will be back half loaded or backend loaded. If I just do some simple math, you are guiding to 5%, I would probably estimate about 30 basis points from the DIG gas in terms of average contribution over that period.
So we are left with 4.7%, which is not very different for what consensus has for the next two years. So are you saying that is probably a bit too high and you are expecting that to come in more latter half of this decade? And the third question I had was just going back to one of your slides where you had the hurdle rate for your large projects. I think it was in energy transition, and I saw a number of more than 10%. I am just curious because I somehow remember that it used to be a hurdle rate of more than 12% in the past for on-site projects. Has that been reduced or was my thinking wrong? That it was always more than 10%, not more than 12%? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Chetan. I will answer some of this question, and I will ask Jérôme to talk about the sales growth profile for sure. Just to comment on the organic sales versus the total sales, why are we doing that? We are doing that for a very simple reason, is that as part of the strategy, you see that there are opportunities to make some acquisition, bolt-on and more significant one. You understand with what we just mentioned, that this is really part of the strategy to improve the density, to reach a new market also. So at the end of the day, it just reflect the capital allocation, either to invest in our own facility or to make acquisition. And that contributes to the EPS.
So, giving the view of the total growth of the company, I think from an investor point of view, that's what you want to see, how we manage to grow the business. Again, we are very fortunate to be in a segment of the economy where there are opportunities for acquisition. Let's make sure that we register that. Regarding the profile on the growth, Jérôme, do you want to-
Yeah
answer that? I will finish with the hurdle rate.
Okay. Thank you, François. Thank you, Chetan. You're right. In fact, when you look at the profile of the sales during the period, the sales growth are a bit backloaded at the end of the period. For the main reason that we have the, I would say, the impact of the startup and ramp-up of the large energy transition project and electronic project. That explain a bit of that, even though I'm not talking about huge difference, but it's true that the sales profile is quite a little bit backloaded at the end of the period.
Regarding the hurdle rate, what you have to keep in mind is that we keep the same objective of having 12% return for the portfolio. What was mentioned was some specific first of their kind, I would say, project in the energy transition, for example, where we accept to have a lower return because sometime, we have to enter the market to demonstrate the technology. All in all, I think that's what is very important, we keep an extremely clear discipline on the capital allocation. You know very well, this is the key KPI to measure the value that we are creating with the return on capital employed. That's why we want to have a portfolio which is in the range of the 12%. So, no worries about some projects where we have made a strategic move.
I think that has helped us to take a clear leadership, especially in the energy transition, where, for example, in Europe, by far, we are the industry leader to offer a low-carbon solution to our customers. As mentioned by Émilie, we see a great potential. Our customers are telling us, and you have heard that on some of the videos, that we are really a leading partner for the energy transition, and I think that is really valuable now and for the future. I do believe that we have a written question from an investor. Joe, maybe, if you want to read, we have a couple of those. Go ahead.
Sure. A rather straightforward one to start. Are you planning to make more divestitures?
Jérôme?
Yeah. The answer is, you remember the question, the fact that during the ADVANCE period, we made some significant portfolio management about, 69 acquisition and the rest in divestiture. So about one order, I would say pure M&A items. The question is, we will continue to do that. Of course, portfolio management will always be on our agenda. It depends, as François said, there will be potentially some acquisition and divestiture, but clearly we continue to do so. And you like the name, and we like the name. There is no taboo in this world, and we will continue to look at the profitability versus accretive opportunities. This will be, of course, on full of our agenda. Although today, there is no specific announcement to make.
Thank you. No, I think that is very clear. That is part of the active portfolio management. We have done that, with no taboo, and we will continue to do that. Next question, Joe, please.
Sure. Industrial merchant is probably the cleanest productivity comparison. Where do you see the biggest remaining gap versus best-in-class peers? Pricing, logistics, density, revenue per employee, procurement, or overhead?
Let me think about how to answer this question. Maybe we take a specific example. I saw that Marcelo is already up. I think he wants to answer. Go ahead. Since we are talking about, I would say, a clear footprint, let's talk about the U.S. with Airgas.
Thank you, and thank you for the very good question. It gives me the opportunity to speak a little bit about industrial merchant, but specifically, François, to your question on Airgas in the U.S. and in Canada. I would say given our size today, the level of coverage we have in the market, both in our physical presence and our online capabilities. If you look to the level of density we have managed to build in the U.S. in the last decades, you saw in the presentation a demonstration of the level of expertise we have developed and the resources we have. How Airgas and the group, this very powerful combination in terms of innovation, digital AI capabilities, just to speak about a few, dynamic pricing as an example. If you take any of those KPIs, are we the best in all of them?
I'm not sure, but we are, in my view, at Airgas, a kind of a reference to the market. Back to the question in terms of M&A, and when we look to our peers, I think Airgas is ahead of the game. Are there opportunities in terms of improvement? Of course. I think, David, you mentioned about densification and asset loading. We discussed about densification and M&A. The dynamic pricing, AI-driven, I would say, applications is a reality, and we have to continue to leverage on that. We do have, both in Europe and also in China, not to say in Brazil, also a strong presence where good practices are happening. That's what the world business line with my other hat, in terms of responsibility, is doing.
When we discussed it in the past with the community about the commercial and industrial initiatives, that is there to continue to drive not only growth, but growth with the right level of profitability in general.
Thank you, Marcelo. What I take out from this question, which I do believe is a very interesting question. It's not an easy one. It's wherever we have a presence, and we have managed to build the density, the infrastructure. We are top of the industry, and very often a market leader, not only in terms of performance, but I would say also, and maybe you didn't mention that, in terms of customer satisfaction and loyalty. NPS in the U.S. is twice basically the industry, the second one in the industry. So on top of very good performance, when you manage to have a loyalty of customer, which I think is very important. But I think there are some region, and again, industrial merchants comes in lot of different, I would say, size and profile, where we don't have the critical mass.
Maybe, thinking about that, a good example would be to talk about how we address that. Ronnie, do you want to mention that?
Yes. When it comes to density, it's exactly the mindset that we brought to our acquisition program that we're running in the last few years in China. But the real answer is it's industrial merchant, you have to work on all of it. So what Marcelo said earlier about the discipline around density, that comes first, right? But you have to work on pricing, you have to work on your supply chain, procurement, overhead, revenue per employee. All of our acquisitions that we are doing in China come with incredible integration effort to make sure that we can pull all of those levers. So all of them, and density.
All right. Thank you very much. Let's go back to a live question. I think we have another question.
Our next question comes from the line of Jean-Luc Romain from CIC CIB. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. It relates to your improved competitiveness. Could you elaborate on the way you plan to reduce your CapEx by 15% on new plants? Does it mean that like EUR 1 billion of CapEx under the ADVANCE plan would translate into EUR 850 million, more or less, under the new plan for the same equipment or for the same aspiration unit?
Jean-Luc, good afternoon. I love your question, and I'm going to direct to Armelle, who is in charge of technology and got the engineering. Armelle, please.
Yes. Thank you. It gives me the opportunity to talk about my favorite topic, competitiveness of our plants. I remind you that we have a full integrated engineering, EPC engineering. We design, we manufacture, and we build our plants. We have a full program that we call Compete, which enable us to work on the continuous basis on our competitiveness. How do we do that? We screen the market, a lot of market intelligence to understand where is the level of competitiveness. Here it's absolutely key to operate in the Chinese market, where we compete with local players, and where you can win in the Chinese market, you are quite sure that you can win anywhere. That's where we look for our benchmarks. After, we work on all the different levels to decrease the TCO.
It's a full program, and we follow every deal to ensure it is managed on a continuous basis.
One, just a great example, beside China, where China, I think is really the place where it's a playground for competitiveness, is India. Last year, you managed to win a very competitive bid for-
Yeah
the largest plant in the world.
Yeah.
Do you want to say a few words about that? Because that was super competitive, and it demonstrated that on the pure equipment and CapEx, of course, CapEx and OpEx part, we are extremely competitive.
Yes. Thank you for mentioning that, François. Last year, it was a sales of equipment for a very large metal player in India. In fact, we won. It was a very competitive build, and this is the largest ever oxygen plant in the world.
Technology leadership and competitiveness.
Yeah.
Great illustration. Good job of the engineering team. Next question, please.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of John Roberts from Mizuho. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for a good update here and for taking my two questions. Energy transition was a EUR 700 million increment in sales to 2030. Is space expected to be of a similar magnitude, much smaller, or maybe you could just bracket that for us? My second question is a little more technical. You highlighted ammonia cracking in your press release. It has only been done at small scale previously, so does your new technology represent a step change in scale, and what is the timing there?
Thank you very much. The short answer for space is that it is much smaller today than the energy transition. Maybe since the action is taking place in North America, Marcelo, again, comment on space.
Yes, of course. Thank you. I was expecting this question to come. I think, first of all, just to align on the understanding on the way we see the market, and I think we all agree on that. In terms of expansion and dynamics, this market is going through a real revolution, and I still believe we are just scratching the surface of what may come. The second point I think to highlight is if you look to the breakdown of the market, and it is difficult to give you today any number of our ambition in this market because this is changing. We mentioned just in the presentation, we see this market in 2030 being in the range of EUR 21.8 billion in terms of size. We have three main markets that we can address with our technologies and products and services.
Being obviously the space transportation market, propellants represent probably 60% of this market. You still have important markets for us to continue to develop, which is manufacturing and testing, and also the satellite propulsion market. Just to conclude, Air Liquide, first of all, we are very present in this market, as we mentioned, for more than six decades, including the U.S. We are probably the only industrial gas player covering the entire value chain in terms of our technologies, from launch to satellite and advanced cryogenics, for instance. We have a presence, and it's not only a small presence, in the main hubs in the U.S. Physical presence through our air separation units and also footprint. Just to give a figure, I think it's important to mention, we speak a lot about Blue Origin and SpaceX and others.
We were the ones in 2022, Ahmed, the first ones to sell a SpaceX first ASU, and we believe, air separation plant, that this market in terms of propellants, it will primarily develop under a sale of equipment market, but this market may shift. The third point to make is that we keep the flexibility of our strategy, of our business and revenue models. We've been supplying bulk to those players. Now they're moving to their own self-production with a few over-the-fence opportunities. Air Liquide, as a group, we are going to grab, and I can tell you, and are going to bring the right level of participation in this market as soon as we also guarantee the right level of returns. That's my comment.
Thank you. You can tell Marcelo is full of passion for space market.
Yes.
All right. Thank you very much. You had a second question on ammonia cracking, which is also very interesting. That's one area where Air Liquide, again, is taking a lead in term of technology, but not just a lab scale, industrialization. The action is taking place in Europe. Not only in Europe, because we have a few other projects developing elsewhere. Maybe, Émilie, do you want to speak about this?
Sure. Absolutely. Thank you for the question, and thank you for your interest in ammonia cracking. We started in R&D, obviously, to develop this technology, and then moving on to pilots, and now we are at really an industrial pilot stage where it is based in Antwerp, and we produce hydrogen. It has been ongoing for one year already. We are now at this stage where we can develop offers for our customers who want green or low-carbon hydrogen based out of ammonia cracking. Basically, if you crack green ammonia, you will get green hydrogen. In our mind, this is one of the routes to produce green or low-carbon hydrogen. It is competitive, so it is very promising, and it is really one of the promising routes where, once again, we can really make the difference thanks to our innovation and techno capabilities.
But clearly, if I may just build on a little bit on that. Don't sit down because I am going to ask you a question. I think one of the things that we want to do, and you want to do, is to actually connect ammonia cracking to the hydrogen pipeline network that we have in Europe, which seems to give a real advantage. Can you elaborate a little bit on that and how you want to play that between the different ways to produce low-carbon hydrogen?
Yes, absolutely. There are several basins in Europe where we are the leader and where we supply hydrogen to our customers and through different production assets. You can have an SMR to produce gray hydrogen. You have electrolyzers, you have green ammonia crackers, and all of these assets are connected through a pipeline to produce hydrogen for our customers. You can adjust based on the power price, based on the needs, based on the PPA you have to supply your electrolyzer, for instance. This is really where Air Liquide will create most of the value, when we really are in a basin, and we optimize different assets to produce to different customers.
Thank you very much. We have still 10 minutes to take a question. I see that we have some written question. Joe, maybe?
Yeah, happy to. The next written question reads: Your growth targets for LI and IM imply an acceleration versus the run rate of the past two or three years. What are the key drivers of this acceleration?
All right. François, do you want to quickly answer this?
Yes.
Take a microphone.
Thank you for the question. Believe me, that's a question we asked ourselves because we would not have published a strategic plan without having an answer for us. So it's really a critical element. Industry is moving, world GDP is growing. The question is agility, looking at what's happening, where it happens. We combine here what we do with asset loading, what we do with redevelopment, what we do with the energy transition, because we believe that the people that are starting to transition are the ones that will be the players of the next decade. As we transform the assets, we can also transform the sources to have the competitiveness on the merchant market.
And when you combine the transformation of the assets, the marketing we are putting in place, together with the bolt-on acquisitions, we are absolutely convinced that we will capture more than our fair share of the growth. Can we tell you if it's going to be in the U.S., in Europe or in China? That we don't. But we manage the portfolio so that we can catch the opportunities wherever they appear. Thank you.
Thank you very much, François. And what we like very much is that more than 40% of our growth in large industry is already secure. It takes time to build the plan. So what we are going to sign is going to contribute for the end of the plan.
Yep.
And of course, for the next plan, because after BEYOND, of course
There will be another one.
there will be an after BEYOND. Next question, please, Joe.
Sure. In the next five years, how significantly will AI redefine internal collaboration?
That's a great question. Matthieu, you manage the AI initiative, so go ahead.
Thank you, François, and thank you for the questions. It's difficult to talk about strategy without talking about AI in 2026. So we are putting a lot of effort into our roadmap, of course. Internally, the first layer we are looking at is clearly how we can enhance our teams and how they can use better AI. So we've deployed basically Google Gemini to our 65,000 associates, so they can use it every day. 800 AI champions, 130,000 training sessions. So I think that layer is absolutely there. People are looking at it. They are using it every day, and we see this incremental efficiency and productivity coming from it. So that's a key one.
Then we are moving to what is going to change intrinsically the way we work at Air Liquide, and we've decided to be extremely focused and to concentrate ourselves on the program that are going to move the needle. We have a few roadmaps that I mentioned earlier during the presentation. We are extremely targeted, and basically, we are rolling that through our organization. It's fully embedded into our plan, but of course AI is changing every day, so we will probably or certainly accelerate in the months and years to come. My colleagues touched on a few topics already today. You understand that AI is absolutely everywhere. Actually, we have more than a third of our processes today that are already impacted by AI. I can give you 20 examples. We have only five minutes left, so I will only pick one.
The one that I probably prefer the most because you talked a lot about it, is around the Salesforce effectiveness. We are basically using AI to select the right prospect in line with density, densification. We know where we want to go, we know how to prepare ourself, and basically all of that is streamed directly into our CRM system. AI is for us every day something that we use. It's the same for our team, and it will only accelerate in the next few years.
This is something which is working today, or this is just an idea?
No, today it is working. Again, when you look at what we process every year, today we have more than 1 million calls a month where our teams are already using AI every day to enter data into the system. Our sales team are using it every day. Everything that we have mentioned today is live and again, it's already impacting a third of our processes.
Great. Thank you very much. We have a last question, at least the last question we will take on the platform, a written question.
What could disrupt your business overall?
Interesting question. Indeed, if we have four minutes to conclude on that. I think overall, probably what could disrupt our business, which could disrupt, I would say, the world economy is a major turndown due either from an economic crisis, from a geopolitical context. So that probably would be the biggest risk. The good news or the positive news, I would say, is that you see by now that there is a lot of things which are self-help improvement.
And you have heard our commitment. You understand also the flexibility that we have to play with the different levers. So I do believe that an event like that would have an effect on the global economy, on our customer, but probably much better than many others. Air Liquide will stay the course in this context. We have a last, at least we will take one more and one last question live. Please go ahead.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from the line of Sebastian Bray from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good afternoon, and thank you for the presentations and taking my questions. I have two, please. The first one is on the buyback. When is the most likely time for this to get going? I suspect it's the start of 2027, but just wanted to check. The second one is on the long term. If this company is going to be hitting 25%, 26% EBIT margins by the end of a strategic period, if it hits its goals, do you view that as the natural long-term level beyond that period, or is it too early to comment? Thank you.
Sebastian, I will ask Jérôme to answer the first question, and I will finish with your last long-term question.
Thank you, Sebastian. On buyback, our commitment is to go and to execute the program, and we'll want to execute by end of 2028, the latest. We'll see how we can execute it depending on the market condition. Also, we're looking at the best way to operate them. But basically, I cannot give you an exact, I would say, agenda so far, but clearly it's on top of our agenda to execute it, I would say, as soon as possible, and again, EUR 4 billion by end of 2028, the latest. That's clear.
Sebastian, thank you very much for outlining the ambitious margin improvement by 2030. This is not the end of the road. We have internally a high ambition for Air Liquide because we do believe that we have the potential to continue to create value. What you see here is, again, I do believe, an ambitious plan. You see also that there are a lot of ground ideas, initiatives behind that, both to improve the efficiency, but also to improve the top line and to grow. All in all, we feel very comfortable about the trajectory that we are outlining in BEYOND. By no mean, this is the end of our ambition for the plan and, I would say, after the plan. I think it's time to conclude. I would like to thank all of you for your attention.
I hope you enjoy the session as much as we did, and you share the excitement of the management team to look ahead with this new strategic plan. I would like to warmly thank the management team who is here, but also all the contributors to make this event as lively, instructive, extensive as possible. I do look forward to meeting some of you in the next few days during our road shows, being in Paris, in London, in New York or in Boston. I know that we will meet or talk with many of you also during the Q3 announcement at the end of the month. Today is just a start. I trust that you see already that with BEYOND, we are clearly raising the bar and that Air Liquide is entering with excitement and determination, a new chapter in lasting value creation.
Thank you very much again, and I wish all of you a good day. Thanks.