Okay, so I suggest that we start this presentation, this first half 2024 earnings presentation. Let's deep dive into the slides we have prepared for you today. As you know, the first half revenue was EUR 319 million, up 6% reported, plus 4.6% like for like. The difference between both is largely because of the integration of Visiodent starting on March first during this semester. The EBITDA was up 6.9% during the first half at EUR 52.2 million, which is EUR 3.4 million more than last year. Very good performance that we'll go into details later on.
The recurring operating income is EUR 10.3 million, down EUR 0.4 million to 3.4%. As we'll see later on, this is mainly due to a larger R&D amortization than expected. The net debt goes to EUR 213.9 million, up 28.6%. This is mainly due to the integration of the acquisition, sorry, of Visiodent this year. And the headcount is up 300 people, and we'll see that in the first half. It's mainly due to employees in Morocco for the Allianz contract, but we'll detail later on. As I mentioned, the revenue is up 6%.
You can see that the external expenses are up 9.5%. The main reason for that is the Allianz contract for the BPO division that started last year on April first. So there's a one quarter more than we had last year. These external expenses are mainly due to subcontractors in Mauritius. The strategy of the group is to internalize this workforce, especially in Morocco, and it will be in the employee costs. So you can see that the employee cost is almost as the growth of revenue, a bit less, even though we started to have some recruitments in Morocco. So it's a good performance.
It also means that in the future, the external expenses should go a bit lower as we have internalized these employees, which are almost all recruited in Morocco. So the EBITDA is EUR 52.2 million, so in growth of EUR 3.4 million. Also, the EBITDA margin is up. It used to be last year 16.2%, and now it's 16.4%, and this is even though we had less R&D capitalized, as we'll see later on. In the D&A, you can see that it is growing by EUR 3.7 million, out of which EUR 3.1 million is due to R&D amortization, which is stronger than expected.
Resulting in a recurring operating income of EUR 10.3 million this first half 2024, compared to its 10.7 million, sorry, last year for the first half. This is mainly due, as I said before, to stronger R&D amortization. In the non-recurring operating income and expenses, it's an expense of EUR 2.6 million. This is mainly due to the costs of Cegedim going out of the UK doctors in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, and focusing on Scotland. This is the main reason for this NRCs. The operating income is EUR 7.7 million compared to 9.3 last year, down EUR 1.6 million.
Financial results is a bit better than last year is due to more dividend and more profits, financial profits, which overcome the rise in financial expenses. Total tax come back to a normal level. Last year we had a non-cash adjustment due to the revision, downward revision of the estimates of the tax assets. So all in we have a consolidated net profit or a net loss of EUR 0.1 million compared to EUR 9.2 million last year. As I mentioned before so the headcount went up 300 people. We have payroll cost which is on a good progression of 5.9% compared to 6% for the sales.
And the headcount is mainly due to some recruitments for the offshore operations in Morocco, which I mentioned before, to replace the subcontractors we had in the Allianz contract, internalize this workforce. You can see on the first semester that the green part, the offshore recruitments, is stronger than the onshore recruitments, translating this strategy, so the next slide is very important to us. As we can see, the capitalized R&D and depreciation amortization, especially on the R&D. As you can see, we have a bit less capitalized R&D during this first half. This is mainly due to the exit in U.K. doctors from England and Northern Ireland and Wales, as I mentioned before.
So we have a bit less of R&D there, so a bit less of capitalized R&D. And you can see in the central chart that our R&D amortization went up by EUR 3 million. So the impact on the recurring operating income of this EUR 0.6 million less of R&D capitalized, and this growth of EUR 3 million in D&A of R&D has an impact of EUR 3.6 million, meaning that the operating income, the recurring operating income, without that, would have been EUR 3.6 million better. So that explain the difference between the EBITDA growth and the slight downwards on the recurring operating income.
For the free cash flow, as you can see, our operating cash flow before cost of net financial debt and tax is a bit better than last year by EUR 2 million. The cost of financial debt was a bit better. Also, you can see we have some tax paid, so this is due to the ongoing litigation from which you are quite familiar now. And we had a disbursement in February of EUR 10.9 million. So the cash flow generated by from operating activities is slightly worse than last year. It was 27.5, it's 22.2 this year. Regarding the intangible assets, the acquisition, we are more stable. Regarding tangible assets, we have a growth of EUR 4 million.
This is mainly due to the same C-Media, the marketing subsidiary, which invested a lot in its digital strategy, especially on screens that we can put in pharmacies, in pharmacy operations. The impact of changes in consolidated scope is mainly due, of course, to the acquisition of Visiodent. All in, this is the net cash flow generated by investment of -EUR 76.6 million. So the main difference is the integration of Visiodent and this acquisition of tangible assets. As you can see, we had this bond issue, actually, is the revolving credit facility, from which we took EUR 55 million, mainly to finance the acquisition of Visiodent and a bit of debt, a bit of the tax litigation.
So it means that we have a net cash flow of 43.9 million EUR on this first half, and a change of cash of -10.5 million EUR. Resulting in a net debt of 213.9 million EUR. Sorry. So this is the financing. As you have probably seen during the summer, we had a new financing arrangement on July thirty-first. So on the left side is the former financing arrangement with the Euro PP, the shareholder loan, and the RCF.
As you can see, the use of RCF, 55 million euros, and the new financing start, that which started on July thirty-first, with the bank loan of EUR 180 million and the shareholder loan and not used of the, we have not used the RCF facility. The balance sheet, not much to mention about it. You can see that the balance sheet grew by EUR 60 million. You can see the integration of Visiodent in the goodwill, and that's basically it. Now, let's deep dive into the various divisions of the group. This table is a quick table just to show you all the reclassification that we made during the semester.
You are now aware of that, and the impact on sales and recurring operating income in 2023. Software & Services. As we saw in July, as we published, the revenue was up by 1%, €1.5 million. The recurring operating income is still negative, but growing good by €1.1 million, establishing a loss of €1.4 million. Cegedim Santé, first subdivision. Let me remind you that last year, Cegedim Santé had the Ségur de la Santé, and had earned €4.4 million on first half 2023. That impacts the comparison. Cegedim Santé had some more R&D amortization by €1 million.
So it make a bit difficult for this first semester, even though. However, sorry, it's quite stable in sales, going down only by 2.4%. And the recurring operating income being down by EUR 0.2 million. It's true that it was partially offset by the integration of Visiodent since March first. But still, the EBITDA at Cegedim Santé was quite satisfactory. On the other French activities, insurance and HR, performed very well during the first half, both in sales and in recurring operating income. It was a bit tougher for the pharmacists in France, especially as we had a comparison basis quite difficult compared to last year.
Indeed, last year, there was the Ségur de la Santé for the pharmacists in France, and a lot of them had some to renew their equipment, so we had good sales in equipment. And of course, this year, we are down on the equipment sold to the pharmacist. However, the subdivision has a growth of 2.7% in sales, and a growth of 3.5% in recurring operating income. Last, the international activities. So you can see the sales were almost flat. This is due to the strategy of the group of going out, sorry, for the doctors in U.K., from England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. I guess you gotta know right now.
We have some good recurring operating income. Actually, it's progressing by EUR 1.1 million, so it's still a loss, but of EUR 3.3 million. This is due to the good activities, good momentum in Spain and insurance in the UK. Overall, the division has a growth in sales of 1% and a growth in recurring operating income of EUR 1.1 million, which is 42%. The Flow division. The Flow division is performing very well. You know, we have two subdivisions there. We have the e-business division, which has two legs, if I may say. Both two practices, invoices, digitization, and health flows, which both had a very quite good first half.
For the invoice digitization, this is due to recovery in the French market. As you remember, the regulation in France was postponed by two years, so the previous months were a bit difficult, but now we can see a slight recovery, and also there's a regulation in Germany starting on January first that helps a lot. Third-party payments, we had a little growth of 3% on the first half. All in, the recurring operating income is up 12.8% for the division. It's mainly due to the third-party payment, as the Cegedim e-business had a high level of R&D depreciation, amortization during this first half, waiting on its recurring operating income. All in, it was a quite good first half for the Flow division. Oops! Sorry. Data & Marketing division.
So we had two very different momentums for our subdivision there. The data subdivision suffered a bit during the first half, especially in its international activities. So it's translated by a little downward in sales by 2.8%, and it weighed on the recurring operating income for the division. As you may know, the data division has a very strong fixed cost structure, so less sales translate especially on the recurring operating income. The Media on this side had a very good first half with a 20% growth, which is EUR 5.2 million, and had also a growth in the recurring operating income, even though, as we mentioned before, there have been some amortization of its due to its digital investment plan.
There are two different momentum for this division resulting in a recurring operating income of EUR 5.3 million. On the cloud and support subdivision, so you have the cloud, and then you have also the support. We have a growth of 14.5%, so it's EUR 2.3 million. And we had a recurring operating income down by EUR 1.3 million on the first half. This is mainly due to the cost associated with the launch of a new cloud offering in cybersecurity, and also the recruitment of new offshore teams, as we had mentioned before. So it waited a bit on the recurring operating income for the division. Also, the support for the company.
It has some costs which are not billed to the other subsidiaries. It could be also R&D and stuff like this. So you have these costs that weighted. Our outlook for the year to come is still the same. We haven't changed it. So we still believe in the growth in the range between 5% to 8%, like for like, and a growth in recurring operating income. This is the next meeting that we'll have tomorrow, a staff meeting in Paris, in French. The next presentation will be on October twenty-fourth for the revenue of the third quarter. I believe that we could now switch to the question. Please raise your hand up. I can see Gabriel. You can ask your question, please, Gabriel.
Yes. Good evening. Can you hear me?
Yes, very well.
Okay. Thanks, thanks for your presentation. I've got two questions. The first one, could you have some color on the sales momentum in H2, as the base effect becomes easier in Q4? And my second one is, can you have also some news on the wave two of Sécurité Sociale? Do you have any news for the deployment, for example?
Okay. I can speak about Ségur.
Yes.
Nothing will come this year. We will have, this year in twenty twenty-four, we will have no subsidies coming from Ségur de la Santé.
Okay.
It will start again in 2025 on the paramedical professional, so kinesitherapy and nurses.
Okay.
It is on discussion today. We don't know exactly what will be the amount we will receive per people. It's on discussion, and, of course, as you know, we have lived for an uncertain number of months without any minister, so discussions are a bit late. So nothing for this year, anyhow.
Okay. Okay, and for the wave two, nothing, too?
wave two. The para. Wave two on the doctors?
Yes, on doctors or pharmacists.
It will be. Yeah, it will be after the paramedicals, so it will be, it will be in 2026, or end of 2026 and after.
Okay, great.
For the H two, H two is always much better than H one, okay? It should be we will remain with the same growth rate than on H one, so roughly around five point five or six percent. The main positive impact is coming from the Allianz contract. Two events: First of all, we will reduce in a large effect the fact that we are having external charges with the companies we had to deal with when we started the contract. The companies are in Mauritius. This will be finished progressively and replaced by our team in Agadir, in Morocco. During H one, the team has been built, has been trained, and we only had costs, so we had double costs.
The second effect is that we have three groups of services to migrate to our softwares. The first group will be migrated end of September. Now, it's on the way to be done. The fact that our softwares, which has been chosen by the client because they are more effective and there are more automation. We will have an improvement in the ratio, number of people using the software compared to the job they had to do. So we should have an improvement by having less external costs and more profitability on this very big contract.
Okay, thanks.
You're welcome.
Yes, Hugo?
Yes, good evening. Can you hear me well? Yes.
Yes.
I may have three questions, and the first one would be on the carve-out or the exit and the refocus of your business in Scotland. Just wondering, what was the amount of restructuring fees in H1, and do you expect additional fees in H2? And the second one is a little bit a follow-up of what you just explained. It's regarding the ramp-up of the Allianz contract. What was the loss purely associated with this contract also in H1, if you can disclose it?
Mm-hmm.
What do you expect in terms of, you know, of trajectory for the rebate, for your rebate on this contract going forward? Last one is regarding your guidance. You still expect your rebates to improve this year. Just wondering whether the soft guidance of having an EBIT close to 2021 in absolute number is still valid, or should we expect an improvement from that, given the exit or the refocus in Scotland and the acceleration in for the Allianz contract? Thank you.
Exit of U.K. We have had non-recurring costs on the fact that we had a big plan in reducing staff. The cost of the reducing staff was roughly EUR 1.2 million, but this is non-recurring, so it does not appear at the level of the EBIT. In the thing in the U.K. is that we have to go on producing services to the doctors as long as they have not migrated to the software of our competitors. And it seems that the migration is slower than expected. Unfortunately, we have a plan to become profitable on the next three years, but it seems that for twenty twenty-four, we will not achieve exactly our plan, meaning that we are going to still have an extra loss on this business.
We have the same problem in Scotland. It's the reverse. In Scotland, we have been chosen to be the unique player. So the doctors using software of competitors, they have... They are pushed by the national health system, Scotland system. They are pushed to migrate to our system, and it seems to be slower than expected. So on a midterm project, we are still in our plan to become profitable on the next three years, but for the time being, we have some delay on this plan. Ramp up of Allianz. Roughly during the first semester, we had EUR 800,000 loss per quarter. And we think it will be divided by two beginning first of October. So we expect an improvement of EUR 400,000 or EUR 500,000 for the year. Guidance.
We know that in terms of EBITDA, EBITDA, as you can see, we are very comfortable to have an EBITDA better than the one we had in 2021. We are very comfortable with this target. It is not so sure on the EBIT. The reason for that is that the amortization of R&D is stronger than expected. Why? First of all, we have launched new products at a quicker, on a, on a plan which is quicker than expected. Second, during this period, we have decided to reduce the number of years of amortization. Usually, those products, the software, they were amortized on eight to 10 years.
Now, some of the bricks we are launching today, we feel that we should amortize. We have decided to amortize those bricks on a five-year period. The reason for that is that on the market, there is always new products coming on the market, so we have to renew more quickly. So it has a negative impact on the amortization, and it will have a negative impact on the EBIT. So I'm not quite sure that we will reach the EUR 41 million EBIT that we had in 2021.
We won't be. It will be less, but not far from that. It will be a big improvement compared to the one we had last year. We are on the way to recover, and once we will have solved our UK problem, we know that it will be on a very good trend. But I cannot say today that today that we feel very comfortable in the fact that we're gonna reach €41 million EBIT in 2024. Do I answer your question?
Yes, very clear. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay, so I think we had some question, written questions in the chat. The first one is, how high are the total cash losses expected to be in 2024 for SmartRx, Allianz, Maia, and Doctor in U.K.? And whether these units can break even in 2025. I don't know if we give colors, if we give some details on this, Pierre.
The thing is that we are not able to give any figure on Maiia, because now Maiia is a product which is mixed with all the other products for healthcare professional. Allianz, I have spoken of it. Doctor UK and SmartRx, cash losses, should be €12 million-€14 million. Um- Breakeven in 2021, unfortunately, no. Not for SmartRx and not for Doctor UK. Doctor UK, I'll explain why. SmartRx is. We are launching our new product. We have a target to migrate all our clients on the new product for the end of this year. Once this will be done, we expect it to grow next year, but we will still have losses. We can
Okay. And we can couple this question with the third one, which was on Cegedim Santé, whether Cegedim Santé has ended its investment phase, and if there are still some, and whether the high investment brought some the expected ROI, the return on investment .
Next year, Cegedim Santé will be break even globally for two reasons. First, first of all, Visiodent is a positive investment. It makes roughly EUR 2 million EBIT on EUR 10 million revenue. Second, we are improving the P&L by reducing costs. And third, there should be some figure subsidies on the paramedical people.
Okay.
We have no problem with the fact that we can say that this will be breakeven. And we had some
Uh
Yes. Oh, Sebastian, I let you answer because
Sebastian, you're comparing the debt between December and June. You say that it's going up. Let me remind you first that the first semester is the toughest one for us, so it means that we need to generate less. The second semester is usually better. That's why the debt is higher in June than in December. On your competition, I haven't seen all the thing. You're talking about also the debt from FCB, I guess. It's a junior debt compared to the others. In 2025, you can see Pierre. The maturity of the bank loan is up to 2031. The RCF five years.
The new debts We have three debts. Tranche A, B, and C. Tranche A is five years, B is six years, C is seven years. The FCB loan to Cegedim remains, has been mandatory, yeah. It will be seven years, plus two months. Same rate as the tranche, the C tranche, so exactly the same cost as the cost we have with the market, the debt coming from the market. Difference is that the interest has to be capitalized, meaning that Cegedim will not pay any interest, any interest to FCB during those seven years.
Of course, the level of interest will increase, but this is due to the fact that EBIT, Euribor is now much higher than seven years ago when we launched the old debts. And but the margin is roughly the same. The margin we have on top of Euribor is roughly the same as we had seven years ago, so it's roughly three point seventy-five, depending on the duration of the different tranches.
Mr. St. John, I think you raised your hand, please.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah. Good evening to all. Thank you very much for these explanations. We've mentioned the word seasonality a bit, both in terms of the profitability and in terms of the debt level. Can you just remind us the factors of seasonality on profits? I mean, roughly listening to what you're saying about the full year, we get the impression that, you know, second half would make profits about, at the current EBIT level, around two and a half times the first half, so maybe EUR 25 million versus EUR 10 million. Can you just explain to us the moving parts there, please?
Maybe I could show you a graph where we show the monthly revenues of last year, and you will say that. You will see, sorry, that all it's always much better in the second half.
Love to see that, and love to understand why.
You don't understand why?
I would also love to understand, you know, the main moving parts of why. So one of the reason is that some clients invest in the second semester to have a full year experience of the product that they use from the group. So it means that we have more sales during second half on various solutions. So it means that last year, for instance, yes, we had more. It was about, for the sales, it was 55% of the sales. 55%.
Okay. There's no differences between all the different divisions and activities? It's a general sort of software thing, booking in the second half rather than the first half.
Yeah, and also we have always good business on data, mainly because our clients, which are pharmaceutical companies, they are asking for data during the last two months of the year, preparing their marketing and their sales organization for the year after.
Okay, thank you. And just to understand, you know, the how, the build-up for the full year. So in the first half of the year, we see that, you know, there are a number of extraordinary items which whittled the €10 million EBIT down to 0 at the bottom line. Can you just remind us, in the second half of the year, if you do circa €25 million versus €10 million, what are the extraordinary items that we've got to take off that in the second half of the year?
Today, we don't have any. We don't see any events which should produce. Well, we always have some non-recurring costs, so this is a bit strange to say that, but we always have some French firing costs, always. So
Understood.
This is non-recurring costs, but in fact, it is recurring. So but it will not be very big. But there should not be any enormous event leading having such a negative impact than before on the NRC. There should not be.
Okay, understood. So if one were just going to have a rough idea of the bottom line-
Yeah. I'm sorry. Excuse me, I must add something. Due to the fact that we are quitting part of the UK, maybe we will have, maybe, I'm not sure, it depends on the calculation and competition. Maybe we will have some impairment tests on some remaining software we still have in the UK. And you see, it's always we have to make simulation on the next profits or on the next revenues, and those simulation has to explain the level of asset. And today, we don't see that there should be any problem, because if we had seen this kind of problem, we should have done the impairment test on the first half. But I can't say today that we are sure that we will not have any impairment. So it's a non-cash charge, but it can come in the NRC.
Okay, understood. So that means for the second half of the year, there's a non-cash impairment maybe will happen, but otherwise it's just the-
Nothing.
Well, you'll certainly have to pay financial charges and tax, but, but then you'll have a significantly positive-
Yeah.
bottom line.
Yeah.
That's great. Sorry, if I can just slip in two quick questions. One, I just wanted to make sure, or get an impression, currently in the UK, and this is linked to your impairment question, observation, does the UK business, excluding Scotland, have a positive value?
Yes. We have two main business in the UK. We have the pharmacist business, which is breakeven. So it's slightly positive, not big, but it is positive. And we have a very positive business, which is Activus. So software for insurance company in the healthcare coverage.
So that's another division.
It's another division, and those businesses are profitable, and they have some value.
Yeah. Okay, but. Sorry, I meant the business software for doctors. Does it have a positive value, or is it potentially a negative value, considering what you've said about having to ensure the service to your existing-
Oh, yeah
clients before they migrate?
Yeah, it has no value because, once we will have definitively quit the two countries, the three countries, sorry, Northern Ireland, Wales, and England, then we-- of course, we will keep a rather small business in Scotland, but it should be positive, so it may have some value, yeah. But this will be done in the next three years from now. It's a long process.
Okay, understood. Thank you very much. Just last little question. Just wanted to know how, in terms of the software business for doctors in France, how has the competitive environment evolved over the last year or so? And I'm thinking of Doctolib here.
Yeah.
A lot of private equity companies are now a bit under pressure to not only generate growth, but maybe at some stage, generate a profit. Are you seeing any impact?
Yes
of that, competitive environment?
Yeah, Doctolib is a new competitor. And we are launching on the first of January a smaller and a simpler software, which will compete directly the Doctolib offer, which is not so sophisticated than the one we are selling today. So it's a competitor. It's a tough market. We have a lot of competitors, and we have decided to launch what we call Maiia Gestion. So it will be a software connected with Maiia, and it has been developed. It's working today, in the sense, in the same target that the Doctolib, which is a very simple software, which can be launched very quickly, and which is more dedicated to doctors which are alone in their cabinet. See, it cannot be used when you have a group of doctors, and we know that we have a big competitor there.
But have you seen any inflection in the sort of competitive aggressiveness of Doctolib? Since their shareholders presumably are trying to get the company to make a profit rather than just to grow at any price. Are they
Unfor
Are they becoming less aggressive?
Unfortunately, we have not seen. We were thinking that they would be not so aggressive on the prices. Their price list on Maiia , so on the agenda, their price list is almost twice of our price. But what we see on the field is that when we are competing, they make huge reduction, huge.
Discount.
Discount, sorry.
Discount, yes.
So until now, it's as if they were not targeting the fact that it should become profitable someday. But that's the market today. So it's a tough competitor. They have lost hundreds of millions. They are still losing money. We feel that someday their shareholders will ask for some return, but today, I must say that we don't see it on the market. We don't see that on the market. Very clear. Thank you very much. You're welcome. There is a question about Visiodent.
The EBITDA Visiodent.
Yeah, on the, on the first semester, it made EUR 700,000.
On the operating income?
Yeah. Well, yeah, but they have a very small amortization. Yeah. EUR 700,000 on the four months later.
Okay. Hugo, you had one more question, or is it just your hand was still raised from your previous question, maybe? Okay.
It was me.
Okay, no problem. Are there any other questions? Well, I believe then we'll end this webcast. I hope we have answered your questions and that you were able to understand where we are now for the first half. So let me thank you for attending the presentation. See you tomorrow for those attending the first presentation in Paris. We will see you soon in October for the presentation of the third quarter sales. So thank you very much for attending the presentation, and have a good night and see you next. Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye-bye.