Okay, I suggest that we start the presentation now. I think people will still join in the next few minutes from now. It's been already almost 20, so thank you for attending this presentation, this first half 2025 revenue presentation that we just released, and you may have received that press release. The half-year revenue established at EUR 322.5 million. It's a 1.1% growth reported, 2.8% like for like. Before that, we reviewed the performance through the division breakdown that you are familiar with. We wanted to introduce you to an alternative breakdown that we believe will help you better understand the dynamics of our various businesses. It's what is shown here on this slide. It's a breakdown split by activity, by our main activities, which are health insurance, business services, software for healthcare professionals, the data and marketing activity, and the cloud and support one.
I think it's interesting for us to show you this because you can see that the health insurance activity represents about 26% of the first half revenue. It had a 7% growth over the first half. In it, there are splits that you are familiar with. The software and services that you can find in the software and services division, which is in France mainly, experienced a growth of about 4%. The flow subdivision that you can see in the health insurance refers to the third-party payer activity. It's what you have also in the flow division. It experienced 8.8% growth during this first half, mainly due to the shift solution for fraud and long-term illness detection offering. Especially this first half, we signed a 14th client for this activity, proving the soundness of this offer.
The BPO for health insurance, where you have notably the Allianz contract, but also growth is per thanks to its overflow business that you know that we set up a few years ago and that works very well. The second activity, Cegedim Business Services , is the entity where we gathered the HR and digitalization solutions altogether. Cegedim Business Services is about 28% of first half revenue. In it, you have a part which is software and services, which is mainly HR with a 9% growth thanks to all client segments during this first half, large clients, but also smaller clients. This HR activity is also in BPO that you see down this Cegedim Business Services , in which you also have in this BPO for Cegedim Business Services , you have the compliance solutions for pharma companies that contributed a lot to this 6.4% growth in this BPO for business services.
In the middle, you can see the second part of the flow division. It is the business services. It's the digitalization of processes and exchanges of the materials data. It experienced a 7% growth. You know in there, there are two practices, the invoicing and procurement practice, which experienced a good growth in France and in the U.K. during the first half, especially thanks to regulation. You know the regulation in France will be in place in 2026. We can see a few sales for that. Also the healthcare practice, healthcare flow, which is in this flow subdivision for Cegedim Business Services . The others' activities, healthcare professionals, you see it's 20% of the first half revenue. That's where you have the software and services for doctors and allied professionals and also pharmacists in France and abroad.
The gap that you can see between the reported growth there and the like-for-like growth is due to the deconsolidation of In Practice Systems in December. I suggest we will elaborate more on this healthcare professional while we'll be presenting the software and services division. It will be the same for data and marketing that you are familiar with. It's exactly the same as its division and cloud and support. We will elaborate more on these three during the presentation. Only, as I said, the first half, sorry, revenue was EUR 322.5 million. Gross 2.8% like for like, 1.1% reported. Gross, as we have just seen, was mainly driven by HR and marketing, health insurance, and digitalization. You could see that in the previous slide. It's worth remembering that In Practice Systems was indeed removed from the scope of consolidation. So it's the impact on software and services.
It's been the consolidation over the full first half for Visiodent. We have two important ESG news that you may have seen in the press release. First, the SBTi, the Science Based Targets initiative, officially validated the group's greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. The second, which is also linked to that in some way, is that we have been able to transform our financing arrangement into a sustainability-linked loan. It will enable us to lower our interest rate by a few percentage points. The contingent for that is related to the decarbonization trajectory validated by the SBTi and also on the progress under their equality in senior management, which is in our roadmap for ESG matters. Here you have the bridge of the growth. As I said, growth is mainly like-for-like. The structural impact that you can see is due to the deconsolidation of In Practice Systems .
We have a slight positive effect on the currency, mainly due to the sterling pound. On the right side, you see the bridge through the various divisions. You can see the impact of In Practice Systems on software and services, especially on the reported growth. Now we will go through the division that you know, especially the first one, which is the software and services division, in which you have Cegedim Santé, the insurance and HR software, pharmacy software, and international activities software. Cegedim Santé reported a decline in revenue of 5.7% like-for-like over the first half. The integration of Visiodent partially compensated regarding reported growth. We had talked about it on the first quarter release that the main part of this decline in revenue is due to the renegotiation of a road data providing contract that impacted the growth at Cegedim Santé.
Worth noting that the Claude Bernard database and the Maiia software performed well during this first half. Legacy products experienced more difficulties during the first half of the revenues. In the other activities in France, I have talked already about how HR is still doing great on all the client segments. Usually, we had the large clients and we have been able to adapt the solutions to smaller clients and also the way to commercialize it. It's bearing fruits. Also, on the insurance software, we still experience good growth. The pharmacist in France has been more of a drag on growth during the first half. As you may have seen in the press release, it is the reason why the group has decided to restructure its pharmacy management software in France. It will result in a loss of around 100 positions at this pharmacist business in France.
The group believes that by rethinking its organization and recovering to align with market trends and client needs, we will be able to return to a level of performance that ensures a solid foundation for our employees and also to innovate for its clients. As for now, we are in the process of determining the financial impacts of this restructuring. We won't be able to elaborate too much regarding this, but still, it's an important news for you, I guess. On the international activities, you can see a big gap between reporting and like-for-like growth. Once again, now you may have said a few times now, you have the In Practice Systems deconsolidation that weighs on the reported growth. However, like-for-like is a decline in the first half.
As we had mentioned earlier, there have been a demanding corporation base for pharmacy software in the U.K. due to the Pharmacy First program that happened in H1 2024 last year. Also, on Activus that had a client that had run out of business by the end of 2024. However, on both businesses, we have some prospects for clients in the future in the months to come. Also, on the activities outside the U.K., it's been a positive, not quarter, but half year. We remain on track, especially in Spain due to the health centers that we have with AXA and also for the Ministry of Sports that we equip there, doing pretty good. That's what we got to say on the software and services division. Then we have the flow division that we had talked a bit about at the beginning of the presentation.
You can find here the e-business activity, which is part of Cegedim Business Services. It's where you have the digitalization of processes with its two main practices, the invoicing and purchasing, which perform well in France and also in the U.K. Still, the healthcare flow practice, which is a solution for hospitals and securing supplies for hospitals, is still on the good momentum. The second part is, as you know, the third-party payer with still a strong growth due to its, as I mentioned, its fraud and long-term illness detection offerings. That which is demonstrated in this sound growth is demonstrated by the signing of a 14th client by the end of the half year. Still, good prospects, 8.8% growth for third-party payers over the first half. Total growth for the flow division is 7.8% reported. A solid growth.
The data and marketing division that you know, we're going to elaborate a bit more about that. Data is still experiencing some growth, a bit less in the second quarter. Still, good growth, especially coming from France. Strong demand still. Sales abroad are a bit more complicated and not as good, at least. For the marketing activities, despite the very good 2024 exercise, still experienced 10.8% growth on the first half. Very, very solid. Let's remember that last year, during the third quarter, we had a special effect due to the Olympic Games that won't happen this year. The beginning of the year has performed very well. Still positive for the year to come. On the BPO division, I elaborated on the first slide.
You have the insurance BPO, where you have our large BPO contracts such as Allianz, but also a growth coming from the overflow business that really serves critical needs for our clients that we set up a few years ago and with a strong demand from our clients. The second part is the business services BPO, which is experiencing growth, and in particular, due to its compliance offering to pharmaceutical companies, well held by the regulation. All in this division had the growth over the first half of 8.1%. Last is the cloud and the support division. As we had mentioned during the first quarter, there's been on Q2 the non-renewal, sorry, of a significant contract, the second quarter, that had weights on the growth. However, our range of products is still, we are still very happy with our extended range of serving cloud-backed products and services.
This non-renewal has weighted on the growth at the cloud and support division. However, it's still a 0.3% growth over the first half for this division. We stick to our outlook, which are, you know, like-for-like growth in the range of 2%- 4%. On the first half, we are already at 2.8%. We are in the middle of the range. Still on the recurring operating income, still expecting an increase this year. This is the next meetings we'll have together. On September 25th, we'll have the first half results. The next morning, the next day, we'll have a meeting, the staff meeting. We will release our third quarter revenue on October 23rd after the market close, of course. This was the presentation. I suggest that we can switch now to Q&As if you have some. You know how we do.
Just raise your hand and I will give you the floor for your question. Thank you. Yes, Amadou . The floor is yours.
Thank you very much. One for me, considering capital allocation and management focus. One has seen a trend in your company where you maybe do not support weaker business lines. I want to know if this is part of your strategy. Maybe you can give some more color on that. In connection to this, if you are scaling down certain businesses, where do you put your resources to work then? For example, in CBS or other. Thanks.
Okay. On the capital allocation, I'm not sure I've heard everything, but I think you were saying that we support some weaker businesses. As you have seen in the presentation and what you say, we have this restructuring on the pharmaceuticals in France. It's worth remembering that most of our businesses are linked in the way we are doing things. We are generating data with the pharmacists also. We have cross-selling that can happen also with the marketing. The idea also in this capital allocation is to the businesses that may lose money, they may also generate some business for other activities. For the moment, we stick to these activities. Also on the scaling down, I guess there will be some people that will change from pharmaceutical in France to other activities for part of them.
We don't plan on, the resources will be allocated to other places, but just to get over this capital allocation general question, it's to say that really bear in mind that most of our businesses are linked together and generate one for another some business also.
Thank you.
Eric, the floor is yours.
Hello. Yes, I come back on this PSE. What is the reason of this strategic move? We know that I think it includes Smart Rx. Is that right?
Yes, it is. It is Smart Rx.
It's Smart Rx. It was losing money.
Yeah, one-third of the people will leave the company.
The loss at the operational level is it was in the last year. You can remember.
Yeah.
Give the number for 2024. What we have to assume for 2025 is still the opening of the operation without the exception loan.
If I understand well, the impact will be on the last quarter in terms of operational costs because the departure of the people are ongoing. They are going to leave the company probably before the end of September. I agree we will have a strong exceptional effect due to the fact that we have to finance this plan. We are computing today. We are just computing what will be exactly the cost per people who are going to leave the company.
That means 60 people are leaving the company?
No, 100.
You said that.
One-third of the total.
100% is a third of the total employees.
Of Smart Rx .
Smart Rx .
100 is a third.
Yes.
Of the total amount, are they leaving the company, the 100?
Yes, it is the plan.
Okay, I want to understand that on the result operational.
Yeah.
We still have an impact without exceptional cost, I mean.
Yeah.
Is it still at the same strength as before?
The main impact will come in 2026 because those people are today still in the company. They are going to leave during the second half.
Yeah.
The effect.
To put a provision on the second half?
Yeah, it will be exceptional. No, we are computing a provision, and we are going to compute it on the first half.
Okay. So.
Because it has been decided.
Yeah, it has been decided on the first half.
Okay.
Okay. The operational level of loss right now is on the first half. We can assume it was the same range as last year, or it's increasing?
No, it is increasing, but slightly. Part of it comes from the fact that we have had a lot of legal costs. Before the signing of this plan, we have also reduced staff by negotiating with some people. This will be equivalent, and we are on the same level as before.
Last year, the loss was how much on the Smart Rx?
I think, Damien, you have the exact figure, I think.
I don't know.
I think it was EUR 4 million.
On full year?
Full year.
Yeah.
Maybe a bit less, but around this.
For 100 people, it will cost.
The mean salary, let's say it's EUR 50,000.
And.
All included. It may bring a saving next year of EUR 5 million.
Okay. You are not frightened by the fact that you can lose more pharmacy by this way and lose your chain of information to get data. It's not a.
No, the plan does not impact the R&D team. The problem is that we have lost a lot of clients during the last two years. We have people in the field who are just dedicated to, how to say, provide maintenance to pharmacists. Since we have lost a lot of clients in all those regions, we had too many people. Those people are the ones who are concerned by the plan. We keep the R&D team. We keep the commercial team. We are going to launch a new version of the new product in October, November. We may recover, I would say, during next year. It will be very, how can I say, to get new market share, it will be very slow because, see, pharmacists are not changing their software very easily. We know it will be very, very slow.
That is the reason why we have decided to put the structure of the company at the level of the revenues so that we stop losing money on this business.
Just one point, after I will let other people, is on [Doctor House], are you still losing [Doctor House] or your new launch is doing well?
We are growing fast on the Maiia software for doctors, which is directly competing with the offer of Doctolib. We are also losing clients on our legacy software, a lot of them, because they are going retired. The balance is not that good. It's.
Still declining.
It's still a bit declining, yeah.
Okay. Thank you. I will come back if there is no question.
Okay.
Okay. Yes, Amira.
Yes.
Sorry, yours. Yes, yes, we hear you. We can hear you.
Thank you so much for the presentation. Just one quick question regarding the plan of reducing employees for the official segment. You said that the main impact will come in 2026 because those people are today still in the company. Can we expect some exceptional costs that would be increasing highly in 2026 related to that?
No, no. Everything will be computed in 2025. In fact, we are computing it now so that we can have these exceptional charges computed on the first half.
Okay. Still, including these exceptional charges, I mean, how could be the profitability after including these charges in H1?
You are of the profitability of this company?
Yes.
The group?
Of Cegedim.
We will show the figures at the end of September. It is not done today. We will have a positive effect on the operational EBIT.
Recurring operational.
Recurring operational EBIT due to the fact that we don't have any more losses coming from In Practice Systems in the U.K. This will have a very positive impact on the EBIT. We would have a big exceptional charge due to this plan.
Okay.
It's too early to give figures because.
We are in the middle of evaluating the impact, so we can't really tell how much it will impact. As Pierre mentioned, it will impact the H1 2025 results.
Only the H1.
Yeah.
I mean, H2, we cannot expect a negative impact.
H2, we should not have any exceptional costs due to this plan because we want to put all the costs into the accounts of the first semester.
Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you.
I have a written question about the very large share purchases since August 2024 and whether it will keep on during this year. It was mainly due to FCB. The family was opportunistic last year until the beginning of the year in purchasing shares. I've been also, we mentioned here, CROISSANCE 2030 [Foreign language] , which is a fund for top management to align their objectives with the share price. On the question whether these purchases will continue for the rest of the year, we can't really tell for the moment whether the family will keep on buying shares at which pace. They've been opportunistic lately. It was really an opportunistic buy on these levels. I don't know, Pierre, if you want to add something with that, that could happen.
It depends on the cash position of this holding. If the cash position becomes positive, probably the family will go on acquiring shares at the level of price where it is now. Today, there are no.
There's no buying programs for the moment.
No, for the moment, no.
Eric, you come back here, please.
I can?
Yes, you can. There's no other question for the moment.
Okay. If you see any questions, just tell me. Just to continue about the operating profits, you said that we have the loss of U.K. last year, which disappeared for a part because you told us that the size of the U.K. is now a little too small. You could have some restructuring in the U.K.
Yeah.
Is it?
It is done.
It could appear on the second format.
No, no, no. That's why we said last time that globally, the departure of In Practice Systems would improve the operating result by EUR 5 million. In fact, the losses of In Practice Systems were bigger than this figure. We have taken into account the fact that reducing the size of the business in the U.K. will generate some more charges because we have less revenue to pay for, would you say, accountings, HR people, and so on and so on. The EUR 5 million improvements, which is 2.5% per semester, in fact, has been computed taking account of the fact that we may lose some profitability in the U.K. for the rest of the company or the companies which are remaining there.
We can keep this figure of 1.5% coming from the U.K. Also, business seems to be quite good, in fact, when.
Yeah, yeah. I know what you are looking for. In fact, we will have an improvement of the EBIT, EBIT [Foreign language].
Recurring EBIT.
Bigger than 2.5% during the first semester. I'm sure of that.
Despite the situation of Smart Rx.
Yeah, because Smart Rx, it will generate mainly exceptional charges.
Okay. Next year, we will have 2.5% coming from Smart Rx.
Yes, it should be even bigger for the full year, 2026.
It's EUR 5 million.
It's not far from EUR 5 million, yeah.
You are doing quite well on marketing.
Yeah.
You stay very confident on this business because I feel that some competitors are coming on the pharmacy business as a continued business. I know that Ipsos is working on that. ICO, a lot of companies speak that of the pharmacy. That means that competition is increasing or not.
The fact is that we have a very strong position, having more than 3,000 screens in the biggest and nicest pharmacists. We are also the unique company making the business in two ways. It is electronic business through the screens, but we keep also the physical business where we have people going to the pharmacist and putting some nice pictures in their windows and so on and so on. This is really appreciated by the clients, the fact that we are able to cover up to 15,000 pharmacists in France with a mix of electronic and physical advertisements. Until now, we are not really worried. Of course, we still need to be very cautious.
One thing is to say that the result of the first half, which is very positive, will not be the result of the whole year because last year, during the Olympic Games, we made a lot of business. This year, we will not because during the vacations, the clients, they don't want to pay for advertisements in the pharmacists. Our plan today is to make +0 in 2025 compared to 2024, just due to the Olympic Games effect.
We have the BPO business for insurance, which is growing. I think that profitability could appear.
Yeah, yeah, yes.
In Allianz .
Yes, let's be cautious because we still have the Allianz contract, which is the biggest contract, which is still in the negative part.
Is it?
It should be at the end of this year.
End of 2025, yeah.
Yes. The overflow is, so what we call the overflow business is that the fact our teams are using the software of our clients. Normally, BPO, the business at the origin, and still the main business in BPO, is we are using our software, making the business for our clients. Some clients, they still have all businesses, but they need to have extra people to make the job. It grows, it grows fast, but this is not as profitable as the pure BPO business. I'm not sure that the profits of BPO will follow exactly the growth of the revenue of BPO. It will improve, but I'm not sure it will. Am I clear?
Okay.
Because part of the business, it's the part of the business which is growing faster, is less profitable than the rest.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Amadou, you wanted to ask another question, please go ahead.
Sorry. Two funny questions.
Yes.
One concerning capital allocation again. I was keen to know on how you think about debt repayment, if there is a schedule, or how you prioritize that against other acquisitions or internal investments. The second question would be on the growth of the marketing segment. Is there even more growth coming from France? I think you've got quite some market share there. I wonder if there is any upside still left. Maybe you can give an update on the international expansion of the marketing division.
Okay. Maybe I can answer. We have decided to launch this business in Spain. Spain is a very interesting country because it has a pharmacist organization, which is very comparable to the French one in the sense that there are a lot of private pharmacists. We have seen that some pharmacists had some screens, but it's their own screen and they are managing themselves, their communications. We have decided to start this business in Spain, starting with Barcelona. The company has been created. We have hired people, and we should begin to make business in January of next year. The first business, the first contracts are made with French companies, which has a goal of growing in Spain. It's our existing clients who will push us or who will help us in developing this business there. That's it for marketing. For debt, the debts we repay EUR 3 million per semester.
That's the plan. We have no problem to repay them. By improving the profits, and we are improving the profits, and we will improve the profits next year too, we will generate some cash. During the two last years, we were not, we were cash negative. Now we are, of course, the plan of Smart Rx will have a big impact on cash. Without this plan, we are definitively now cash positive. We have no plan of acquiring any company today. Today, there might be some opportunities, but today we have no plan and no company to buy.
No company to sell?
No company to sell.
You don't change your mind on this point?
No, no, no. The main data flow for the data business comes from French pharmacists. Even if we have a small market share now on the software for pharmacists, it helps us a lot on this business.
If you thought about HR business.
Yeah, it could have a big value, but it is growing and it is also having an improvement in terms of profits.
There is no relationship with other business now.
No, very few. Very few. It's really the part which is a bit apart, I would say.
You told about the value of EUR 200 million.
We have never made any valuation. We know that some companies in this area, they can be paid, say, two times the revenue because it's a very recurring revenue, you see. It could be between EUR 200 million and EUR 300 million, yeah. We have never made any plan on that, so I can't say. I can't say anything.
In fact, you have still a huge amount of debt. You are making cash, but the cash is used to close the business, losing money.
No, no. If we put apart the cost of the plan, the cash position grew. I agree with you. Part of the cash generated that used to finance the deficits of some other companies. At the end, we have a positive position now, which was not the case during the last two years.
If you sell a business like HR.
We will repay all debts.
No, but you also have a huge amount of possibility to concentrate on your main business, on your core business, which is all around the pharmacists and doctors.
This is not the policy.
Okay.
We have been listed for 30 years, and it was the same position 30 years ago.
Yes, it was not the same price because it's one success, a huge success.
Yeah. At that time, it was losing money. The HR business was losing money at the time. Now, it is one of the best profits of the group. As you know, the position of the family is to grow, to make internal growth mainly. We have decided to work on our deficits so that we don't have any more deficits in the future for all businesses. We will see a big improvement in terms of profits and a big reducing debts position.
Okay, thank you.
Is there any more question? I think we have discussed, thanks to Eric, mainly, and Amadou and Amira, lots of various topics, various issues. Is there any last question? I'm going to thank you for attending the presentation. Next one will be in September for the results of the first half. It will be on September 25th. Thank you for attending. We wish you a pleasant evening, and we'll talk to you. We'll have this webcast in September. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.
Thank you very much.
Thanks.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye.