Hello everyone, sorry for this little delay, little technical issue. So now we are back, and I think we will be able to start the presentation. Really sorry for this slight delay. We'll start in a few seconds just to let everyone to come back on the webinar, on the webcast. So Pierre could join us also, so everyone is here, and still sorry for the inconvenience. So now we're gonna start the presentation of this first half 2025 earnings. We would like to start with the highlights of the first half and also after the closing, all the news that happened. So as we had discussed, during the first half revenue presentation we had in July, we now have set up a workforce restructuring at the pharmacy business in France.
As we had announced, it will be a redundancy of around 100 jobs. After the closing, we received the approval of the collective agreement by the DRIEETS, which is the regional interdepartmental directorate for the economy, employment, labor, and solidarity. It means that we have a provision of EUR 6 million in first half, as you will see later on, and also EUR 1.4 million related to this restructuring plan. These are all the costs associated with it that you'll see in the non-recurring income. Second, we had the news from the administrator that the In Practice business asset had been sold to OneAdvanced, a UK-based IT service provider. It means that the administrator can start the liquidation of the subsidiary from now on. If there were to be any impact, this would happen in H1 2026.
Third news, as you know, and as promised, we transferred our shares from the Ceg edim Group to the Euronext Growth market on September 4th. And after that, you have also the fact that the SBTi validated our decarbonization targets, which is important to us. It's also a part of our condition to transform our credit facility into a sustainability-linked loan, known as SLL, to which the condition is mostly the compliance to the trajectory validated by the SBTi on Scope 1, 2, and 3, and also the increase in diversity in management bodies. This would could lead us to a margin reduction on our interest rates, as we had mentioned in the press release. Now, I would like to present, to introduce you to the figure of the first half.
You know the revenue established at EUR 322.5 million on first half, a 1.1% growth reported, 2.8% like for like. The gap between both is mainly the exit of In Practice Systems. The performance on the revenue would stem from HR, marketing, health insurance, and digitization businesses. Second is what we call the adjusted operating income, which happened to be at EUR 18.5 million, a growth of EUR 8.2 million. I think it is important to specify here that the new general accounting plan, which is the body that sets the accounting standards in France, limited the number of specific transactions in the non-recurring operating income and expenses line.
So, in order to be able to compare with our recurring operating income from last year and previous years, we created this adjusted operating income to make it comparable and to take all the exceptional items that you can see on the right side of the slide. So it means that this adjusted operating income is actually the recurring operating income we had, calculated like we had last year. So it's a strong growth of EUR 8.2 million, 78% growth, very good operating performance due mainly to strong cost management and also a bit due to the exit of In Practice Systems. Later on in the presentation, we'll deep dive into the details, but strong performance. And you can see on the exceptional items, the non-recurring items.
This is the total, like we used to, to compute it in 2024, for instance, and the years before. It's EUR 9 million compared to EUR 2.6 million last year. This EUR 9 million is mainly coming from the restructuring plan at the pharmacy business in France. As I mentioned earlier, we have a EUR 6 million provision plus EUR 1.4 million of other expenses related to it. It's EUR 7.4 out of this EUR 9 million. The rest is due to other reorganization inside the group. The number of employees, compared to last year, is a slight decrease of 2.4%. Now we have 6,605 people. The difference is mainly due to the exit of In Practice Systems. We have a slide on employees and payroll cost later on that I'll be happy to give you more detail and more insight on this.
The strong operating performance translates into the operating free cash flow. On the first half, it established to EUR 56.6 million, a growth of EUR 34.4 million compared to last year. We also have some more details in the free cash flow details. As such, the growth in operating cash flow, cash flow and free cash flow results also in a decrease of the net debt, which established itself at EUR 182 million, a decrease of 15% compared to last year, or EUR 32 million. Now we can have a bit more color on the P&L for the first half, so as I mentioned earlier, the revenue grew by 1.1%, reported.
You can see that the good operational performance I was mentioning before is coming much from the decrease in external expenses, which is due to the policy of the group to internalize skills rather than externalize to external providers, especially at our BPO operations in insurance. So you can see this improvement of EUR 5 million. Also, as we internalize, we've been able also to maintain our payroll cost quite stable. It's only an increase of 2.7%. We also see later that we have decreased our capitalized R&D. So it means that the total payroll cost for the company is stable, less than this growth of 2.7%. Still, everything here results in an Adjusted EBITDA of EUR 61.2 million, an increase of 17.2%, or EUR 9 million, which means this Adjusted EBITDA margin is 19% compared to last year, 16.4%.
You can see on the line just under these other items, items affecting the operating income. This is the difference with last year in the accounting, which result in the recurring EBITDA. And you can see that still, it's a growth of 14.2%. We have. I've lost something in French. Sorry. We have amortization cost just below, and you can see it's quite stable, a slight increase of 2.1%, resulting in a adjusted operating income of EUR 18.5 million compared to EUR 10.3 million last year. So this increase of EUR 8.2 million this year, which results in adjusted operating income, adjusted EBIT margin of 5.7% compared to 3.2% last year. So a strong growth in operating income. Below, you can see the non-recurring operating income and expenses, EUR 7.4 million, which are mainly the restructuring plan from the pharmacy business in France.
All in, the operating income is EUR 9.5 million, a growth of 22.4% compared to last year, which was at 7.7%. So it's a growth of EUR 1.8 million, euro, euros, sorry. Just below, you can see an increase in the financial result. This stems from the fact that the amount of debt has increased since last year, as we needed to finance the acquisition of Visiodent and also a slight increase in cost of debt, which results in a financial result lowering by EUR 3.3 million. On the total tax, you can see an improvement of EUR 1.9 million. This is due to the implementation of a French regime called IP Box regime. This regime allows us to reduce tax rate of 10% on profits attributable, sorry, to license income and derived from software developed in-house.
So it means that we have this 10% tax instead of 25% on software we developed. So this results in a lower total tax. Bottom line, the net income group share is EUR 1.2 million, compared to almost a bit more than EUR 0.6 million last year, so a net improvement on the profitability all in. I told you just before that we had less capitalized R&D on this first half. As part of it is due to the exit of In Practice Systems, so we went from EUR 28.1 million to EUR 25 million. So it is a negative impact on operating income of EUR 3.1 million. Also, the amortization of R&D grew by EUR 1.1 million on this first half.
This is due to the group's policy on accelerating the amortization of R&D and also to the harmonization of Visiodent to group policy, which increased a bit this amortization of R&D. All in, this means that we had an adverse impact of EUR 4.2 million on our operating income, adjusted operating income, meaning that without this, it would have been about EUR 22 million this year, this first half, compared to 18.5. This is important because to see how you can see this impact that even though we had less of this positive impact from R&D, we were able through cost management to improve our personnel performance. On the payroll costs, as I mentioned earlier, we were able to manage those costs to keep them quite stable. You can see that the headcount was lowered by 2.4%, so about 164 employees.
And especially on the onshore side, we were able to lower the number of headcounts. A big chunk of it comes from In Practice Systems. And you can see that we were able to increase the offshore employees. As I mentioned, this is the policy of the group to lower the external providers and to internalize those skills, especially in Morocco. As I mentioned also, the headcount is at June 30th, and the payroll is during the whole year. Also, as we have capitalized a bit less R&D, the total payroll cost is quite flat. Maybe to answer a question now, the effect of the restructuring plan on pharmacy business will be seen in 2026, and it's not here in these figures. Now, let's get to the free cash flow statement.
So you can see that the good operational efficiency translates into the cash flow generated by the operating activity. Last year, it was EUR 22.2 million. This year is EUR 56.6 million. On these lines, you can see that the tax paid last year. Please remind that on the EUR 11.6 million, there were almost EUR 11 million due to payments due to a litigation with tax authorities. And this year, we even benefit from previous overpayments, also due to this IP Box regime that I mentioned earlier. This means that we were able to generate from operating activity a strong growth in cash flow. You can see below that the intangible assets decrease from EUR 29.9 million to EUR 25.2 million. So it's a direct result from the lowering of R&D capitalization that I mentioned in previous slides.
Also, on tangible assets, you can see a decrease of almost EUR 3.5 million. This is due to a bit less investment in our infrastructure in this first half. And from last year, you can see the impact in consolidation scope. EUR 35.5 million was the acquisition of Visiodent. All in, even if we take out this acquisition of Visiodent, we improved the net cash flow generated by investment operation. We're able to lower it. And down this, you can see that on the cash flow generated by financing activities. You can see that on the others line. It's the expenses paid, the financial expenses paid, and also the first reimbursement of EUR 3 million on tranche A of our financing platform that we set up last year.
All in, the change in cash is a slight positive of EUR 0.6 million compared to a negative of EUR 10.5 million last year, which translates into a lower net debt compared to H1 2024, but also to full year 2024, and which is now EUR 182 million. This is the financial platform. As you can see on the bank loan, the decrease of EUR 3 million from EUR 180 million to EUR 177 million was due to this reimbursement of EUR 3 million that happened on January 31st, and that will happen every six months. Then we have here the balance sheet. Nothing special to mention about it. It's quite stable compared to last year. Now, maybe, now we're gonna introduce you to earnings by divisions and also business units.
Remember, we won't like, I will tell you a bit more about the business units, but it's a new presentation we'd like to introduce you to, which is more operational. But let's stick first to our division presentation that you are used to. So the first one is the software and services division. So you can see that there's an improvement in the adjusted operating income on this first half, coming from a loss of EUR 1.4 million last year to a gain of EUR 1.9 million this year. This is due mainly to the insurance and the HR businesses. But first, let's take a look at Cegedim Santé. On Cegedim Santé, it's very important to see that, even though it's a, you can see a decrease here, the EBITDA at Cegedim Santé is stable on this first half compared to last year.
Even though R&D capitalization was lower by EUR 1 million. Also, it means that operationally we were able to manage cost at Cegedim Santé, and the difference at the adjusted operating income is due to R&D amortization, which is now done quicker at the group. Also, as I mentioned a bit earlier, it is also due to the alignment to the group policy for Visiodent, which happened to be a slight burden there. Very important to notice that Cegedim Santé had a good operating performance at the EBITDA level. On the other activities in France, I just mentioned that HR business is still growing due to its client diversification and products, and insurance business also benefits from projects and the run from the 2024 projects at revenue level, but also at adjusted operating income.
And this offsets the French pharmacy performance, which was not very good due to, you know, the lower equipment sales, especially international activities. So, we have the effect of the exit of In Practice Systems on revenue, but also on the Adjusted Operating Income, which is a good positive here. Still, it has some impact on, you know, we discussed that on Cegedim, on the pharmacy business in the UK due to the decoupling of costs that they had together. So it's a slight burden for pharmacy business over there on the starting now. Also, remember that on the revenue side, the difference was off between reporting and like-for-like was due to In Practice Systems. And also, the insurance business in the UK, one of the clients had stopped its activity.
It's also a slight burden on the operating income for international activities. Still, the whole division has a positive adjusted operating income this year, reaching EUR 1.9 million compared to a loss of EUR 1.4 million last year, meaning an adjusted EBITDA margin of 1.3%. On the BPO division, so we have e-business and third-party payer. Remember the growth was 7.8% on the first half, stemming from both activities, e-business and third-party payers. You can see just a slight decrease on adjusted operating income. This mainly comes from the invoicing and purchasing segment to which we are able to get some more new clients, but we have some expenses in order to prepare for the entry into force of the reform of the dematerialization of invoices in France in 2026. Still, the adjusted EBITDA margin for the BPO division is 10.7% on the first half.
Data & Marketing still very good growth as we, we had mentioned in, in July, especially coming from the marketing segment with strong sales momentum with new and existing customers. This more than translates into the growth of adjusted operating income that established at EUR 9.2 million in 2025 compared to EUR 5.3 million last year. We still good profitability in data and a good chunk coming from the marketing due to cost control also and effective production tools on its fiscal sales. So it's an adjusted EBITDA margin Data & Marketing division of 14.6% compared to 8.9% last year. Maybe it's worth remembering that marketing last year had a very good H2 due to the Olympics. Just to be cautious on an H2 on marketing, we won't have the Olympics. Still, the H1 is very, very, very strong.
On the BPO business, so we had a growth of 8%, you know, on the insurance mainly due to the overflow of the offering and the business services, due to its attractive compliance offering. We have a slight decrease of EUR 0.4 million in EBIT on this first half. This is due to a transfer of a client from in HR from BPO to software solution. Last but not least, the Cloud & Support division. So, you know, we have all the support side on this one, but also we have all the sales from our cloud solutions here.
Even though the growth was a bit tepid on first half due to the end of a contract in Q2, the division has been able to come back to a breakeven on the adjusted operating income thanks to mainly from cost structure optimization and is able now to have a EUR 0.1 million adjusted operating income compared to a loss of EUR 1.3 million last year. This means that all the division, as you have mentioned, as you have seen, have reported a positive adjusted operating income on this first half.
We would like to just to introduce you, you know, by this new breakdown that we would like, we wish, we believe is more operational, more in line with the operations at Cegedim with these five business units: the Health and Provident Insurance Solutions, Cegedim Business Services, Data & Marketing, Healthcare Professionals are exactly the same as the divisions that I mentioned before. On Health & Provident Insurance, we you can see that we had an increase of 7% on revenue on first half, 8% at Cegedim Business Services, Healthcare Professionals, we had a decrease of 9%, 9.5% like-for-like that we had discussed in July. Maybe the interesting part is to see the adjusted operating income by business units on the first half.
You can see that at the Health & Provident Insurance, the adjusted EBIT grew faster than the sales. Data & Marketing that you saw before. and also, it decreased lower than at the healthcare and professionals. So you can see here the various margins, operating adjusted operating income margins for all these five business units. We believe that will be in the future. We still release with the divisions. But in the future, we think it's more in line, as I mentioned, with the operations in at Cegedim. So after quite a lot about the results, just to finish on the outlook for 2025.
We stick to our outlook, to the outlook we had given you in the previous webcast, like-for-like growth in a 2%-4% range and an increase in recurring operating income. As I mentioned a bit earlier, we are, of course, the operating performance has been very good in H1, and it will keep on in H2. Remember that H2 2024 had a very strong performance due to various factors, especially the marketing operation due to the Olympics. I think it's important to bear in mind. Next, tomorrow we have a physical meeting in Paris, and on October 23rd, we will release our Q3 revenue. Now we'll be happy to take your questions with Pierre. You know how it works.
Please raise your hand if you have a question, and we'll be happy to answer it.
Yes, Amadou. The floor is yours.
Thanks a lot for the presentation, and congrats on the exceptional results. Really great. So the first and maybe my most important one is you're on the way of cost-cutting and discipline. Can we expect that in the future from you?
We will have cost-cutting on the pharmacy business in France next year due to the plan we have put on now. Then for the other businesses, we have no plan today to reduce staff.
We think that the unique business unit, which Healthcare Professionals, will become profitable next year, first of all, due to the plan in place for the pharmacist, but also due to the fact that we now enter into the period where we will receive Ségur subsidies. Those are subsidies paid from the Healthcare Professionals to be equipped with new software functionalities we have developed. So we feel relatively positive Healthcare Professional part. the other businesses will go on growing, and of course, we will put pressure on those business units so that they manage correctly their costs. But we have no other plan of strong reductions except the pharmacist French business plan.
Thanks a lot. And maybe another one, regarding your loss of EMIS and maybe some losses of clients in the pharmacy business.
Will that have an effect on the data business going forward?
No, we won't have any impact in the sense that we are on the way to sign a contract with EMIS, which is the main competitor and the main leader of software for doctors in the UK. So, we don't foresee any negative impact of the fact that In Practice Systems is not anymore into the group. I would add something. The fact that we have stopped In Practice Systems comes from the fact that we have lost a lot of market share. So anyhow, to go on receive data, we would have been obliged to have a contract with EMIS. So this will not change anything.
Thank you. And maybe my last one, regarding the flow business. We've seen increased costs. And in your report, you've written that's because of the new regulation regarding electronic invoices. And in this segment, I would expect that you are maybe hiring or purchasing services. Will that continue in the future, or do you believe that your c osts right now are in line? And when we see revenue increase, then we would see a return on the margin side here.
Yeah, this is exactly what you say. We have costs, and we have a high level of cost due to some R&D costs. We are not capitalizing. Capitalized. We keep those costs into our P&L, although those are R&D costs. The problem with this business is that we are billing. The billing is dependent on the number of invoices that we are managing that go through our systems.
We have signed a lot of contracts with very big and nice companies, but we see that it is very slow to have more and more documents to manage. This is due to the fact that the regulation has been delayed, and now it is September 26th. We feel that during the first months of 2026, we will see a much more volume than we see now. We should have an increase into the revenue. The problem is that there might be a risk that once again regulation will be delayed maybe by 2027. This is unfortunately possible. On the midterm, we feel very comfortable with this business. Today, it is loss-making because the costs to start all those contracts are heavy compared to the fact that we are not managing a lot of documents.
Thanks a lot. Very helpful.
Thank you.
Are there other questions? I think we have a written question on cash EBITDA and free cash flow from Jonas.
What cash CapEx? So how should investors think about normalized cash EBITDA, meaning EBITDA minus CapEx going forward? And both for H2 and over. You can see the EBITDA was growing, and we believe CapEx was a bit lower in this first half. However, we still have some CapEx in the rest of the year and in 2026. We believe the CapEx will be stable and as a percentage of revenue, we were about 13% this year. It should be something around this also. We believe the cash EBITDA should increase as a result. What was the second point on the EUR 13 million CapEx in H1?
How much was maintenance versus growth, and what is the sustainable CapEx level as a percent of revenue? So as a percent of revenue, we were 13% last year. We'll be around the same this year. We hope in a couple of years from now to be able to lower this stock of CapEx. Do we provide a target on the cash EBITDA margin or free cash flow margin? I don't think so. Even though as we mentioned earlier we are committed to improving the free cash flow, but we haven't given a target for the moment. I don't know if you want to elaborate on this, Pierre.
Yeah, yeah. On the question two, we don't compute the maintenance versus growth CapEx. But most of CapEx is R&D cost, R&D capitalization, sorry.
We can say that this is for growth. We are investing a lot into two areas. We are buying screens to equip the pharmacists. This is for Cegedim, for the marketing part. Part of it is for Cegedim España because we are launching the business in Spain. This is for growth. The other part is that we are building a new data center in Malakoff, near Paris. In this new data center, we will transfer part of the existing data center. Maybe part of it could be half considered as maintenance, but the new data center, the purpose of it is to push the business of Cegedim.cloud.
So I would say that a very big part of those 38 million EUR is dedicated for growth, although we are not computing it very precisely. Okay. The sales price from In Practice Systems is very difficult to know because the administrator has to liquidate the company. But we may receive something between one or two million EUR. That's what we estimate, what will remain from the liquidation of the company. So it will be exceptional profits.
Yes.
I think Mark, you wanted to ask a question. The floor is yours.
Yes, yes. Thank you. Good evening. I wonder whether I could ask a couple of questions.
But firstly, could you just remind us how the reorganization Healthcare Professional business is going, how the product has, is evolving, when the new product became available or will become available, and how you're transferring the service on that product out to Morocco. And just helps give a bit more color in terms of how it's going to improve. And, and Mr. Marucchi already said it's going to push the company to profitability next year. But could we just get a bit more sort of feel for what's happening on the timing on it, etc.? Is it a very rapid change? That would be great. And secondly, I wonder whether you can tell us a little bit more about the vehicle that has been channeling management purchase of shares, how that's been going. And, and, and thirdly, I'd love to hear, Mr.
Marucchi's view on the switch to Euronext Growth. I can understand that it's a market with less constraints, but has got a lower reputation as well. I love to hear his view on that. Thanks.
So speaking about Healthcare Professionals business unit, we have two products fast growing, two new products fast growing. The one for nurses, Simply Vital, and the one for kiné, kiné therapist, Maiia Kiné. We have just launched the new product for doctors, Maiia Médecin. So we are losing globally, we are losing, still losing doctors. Why? Because a lot of our clients are equipped with old solutions, and a lot of our clients are going for retirement.
Since we have launched the new product, which is very competitive to the Doctolib product, say, but we have just launched it, we don't see today the number of clients growing, but we are very confident with that. Then we have the pharmacist product. This is a very new product. This is the unique product in France, which is fully dedicated to young people. You see, it's a very modern interface. And when we show it to clients, they are very fond of it. Problem is that until first of September, this product was not stabilized. So it was not really possible to push for sales. We are just starting now to invest into commercial actions to push these new products. Then we have Visiodent.
Visiodent has a product which is very well dedicated to groups, but it is not dedicated to individuals, dentists. So we are working on Maiia Dentiste so that we will be able, but next year, middle, mid next year, to launch a product more dedicated for private, dentists. So as you can see, half of the products are really well performing. Half of the other products are on the way to become performant, but we are still having a lot of clients working on our old solutions. That's the reason why we don't see this year a fast growing business on this part.
Thanks for that. Thanks for that. I wonder whether you can help us understand, so, the 100 staff that you're laying off, can you just remind us, you know, where they are and what, by when they'll have gone and how you're transferring over the service side to Morocco and how much that will save, etc.? Thank you.
No. We don't transfer to Morocco on this part. But Morocco is really dedicated for the insurance businesses and for the HR business. Yeah. But the people we had, in, I would say, we had too many people on the maintenance part, maintenance for computers. Since the pharmacists are acquiring less and less computers. One of the reasons is that two years ago, they made a lot of investments because they needed to receive the new software to be Ségur compliant.
So today, we see a really very strong decrease in the material in the hardware businesses. And then we have too many people managing the equipment of the pharmacists in 24 areas in France, having a small team of two, three people, and they had not a lot of things to do. So that's those are the people who are quitting the company. The next question was about the new market. So in fact, we took this decision more because it will save costs for us. It will save costs because it is less. It is more less. There are less constraints. For instance, for the accounts at the end of the first half, we do not need anymore to have them audited.
So there are some very interesting advantages in the fact that the regulation of this market is not so heavy than the one we had in Euronext. That's the unique reason. We will go on providing the same information as before. We will not reduce our publication, but we will have less costs linked to that. Have I answered, have I answered to your questions?
Yeah, no, that's very clear. Thank you very much. It's reassuring to hear you saying that, as some people think when you move to a junior market, it's a first step to exiting the market.
No, no, no, no. No, no exit. T he family, the Labrune family, buys some shares regularly, but it is really because everybody thinks, at least here at Cegedim, that the share price is so low that it's a good operation to buy some shares, but there is no project of quitting the market.
Thanks. So that leads to my third question, which was linked to the management, the vehicle that's buying shares that the management are shareholders of.
Yeah. Today, for the past four weeks, there have been no acquisitions because we were in the quiet period, but probably it will start again. This is not, I think that during the first, since the beginning of this year, I don't know, Damien, you have the amount of acquisition, the family has made?
On the full year basis, it was about 5 million EUR, coming from March last year. Especially on 2025, I don't have the figure, but it's something around 5 million EUR during the whole year.
So today, the family holding owns 54%? A bit more, 55%-56%, yeah. Okay. So there is no target, but it will never grow up to 60%. It's just a way for the family to invest.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Are there other questions? Yes, Amira. Yes, the floor is yours.
Yes. Hello. Thank you so much for the presentation. Actually, I have two quick questions. The first one is if I'm not mistaken, you said that you will continue cutting in the pharmacy segment with staff reduction in France.
Do you estimate the same one-offs in H2 as in H1 and maybe also in 2026? And for the second question, should the tax rate remain at 10% in the coming years also? So, thank you.
So the tax rate at 10%, it is only on the part of our businesses. This is only on the software and license businesses. So, it's reduction, you see, it's only on 5%-6% of our business, this reduction of the tax rate. It is not on the whole group.
And for the whole group, you have a tax rate of
20%-25%. 25%,
okay.
Yeah. Okay. On the pharmacist business, the plan has been fixed. It has been signed. So we know exactly who will quit the company. The departure will be during the second half of this year and the first half of next year.
This is it. So we have made a provision of EUR 6 million, but then we will not have any strong extra costs on this plan, and we will see progressively staff being decreased. When it will be done, let's say end of March next year, then the level of savings for 100 people with that level of salaries, wages, it will be something like EUR 4 million-EUR 5 million per year compared to the existing costs today. So we won't see a strong decrease of staff costs in the second half because people will leave more at the end of the second half, which is due to the regulation in those plans in France. There are some. I don't know how we say in English, but then we will see savings next year.
Very clear. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
So we have some questions written somewhere about the products at Maiia. I think you answered most of it. We had some questions on the concrete steps from the family to restore the confidence. So the family is aware that the confidence has been a bit deteriorated with the operational performance. And the group believes that by restoring operational performance and cash flow generation, we should be able to restore the investor confidence. And now for the moment, the management doesn't consider any divesting or spin-off of businesses or non-core assets, as we believe that it's also benefits the group as diversification due to diversification. And now the family is not considering an option, the option of taking Cegedim private for the moment, as it is really not an option.
There was a question also on how the influence of AI is currently assessed and, if it's a threat, due to new competitors. We are, of course, very interested in AI that we want to integrate in our products and also help in the coding of the software. We have a committee which is dedicated to AI in order to select the best ways to develop AI so as to really focus on interesting options for AI in our products. We have AI in Maiia Médecin that Pierre mentioned earlier that helps the doctor to summarize its interview with the patient, and we have more features to come also.
Of course, AI is a big topic in such an industry, but we are really taking it into account and gain from it in our products and also in the way we develop the products.
We have roughly 50 projects that we are following. When I say we are following, Jean-Claude Labrune, Laurent Labrune, and myself, we are following those projects. Some of the projects are really very innovative. Maybe they never will come to an end, but some of the projects are really more able to be integrated into our products. Part of the projects are more dedicated to the improvement of the efficiency of our BPO people to manage, for instance, the relationships with the patients, to answer questions to the patients. Also we have a project dedicated to improve the efficiency of developers.
This will have an impact on the type of developers we are going, we are hiring now. We have seen that AI is very efficient, but we need to have high-skilled people to use it. So there will be some transformation on the fact that I would say young developers with no experience, we will not need anymore a lot of those people, but we will need a few very high-skilled people to be able to use those techniques. So this is followed at the highest level in the company because we strongly believe in the fact that it will bring to us a very positive future.
Mark, maybe you had another question. I can see you have a hand raised.
Yeah, no, just a question on you know, better understanding the seasonality of your profitability.
I think history shows that you've always generated most of profits in the second half of the year. In the light of the improvement of profitability in the first half, at least at the adjusted EBIT level, can you help us understand how that works for the full year? Because your guidance is just sort of pointing to an improvement in profits for the full year. So, you've had a significant EBIT improvement in the first half and compensated by negative extraordinary items. But can you help us understand how we should understand now in September the guidance for improved profitability in the light of near doubling in EBIT profitability in the first half? Thanks.
So last year, we made 10 million EUR EBIT current,
current operating income, yeah.
In the first half, and we made almost 30 million EUR in the second half. Okay. So we may be at that kind of level this year, but we are a bit cautious because last year, July and August were extremely positive, mainly for the marketing business due to the Olympic Games, and we know that we will not have this year. So I would say that we would be very happy to be between, let's say 25 and 30 million EUR current EBIT in the second half, meaning that we could end the year between 45 and 50 million EUR current EBIT.
That's very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We had a written question. Remember something. I'm sorry. Remember the fact that we are not having what we had in the past.
We are not having a very positive impact of the difference between capitalization of R&D and amortization of R&D. Now we are almost equal. The amortization is not far from capitalization. So this has an impact. Somehow it has no impact on the cash. And you have seen that on the first half, we had a very, although we think it's not enough, we have a good improvement into cash generation. But the fact that we are not capitalizing as much as before and that we are amortizing more than before, well, it may have a negative impact on the current EBIT. Nevertheless, I think that between 45 and 50 is a good target.
We had a written question asking whether we have a net debt target and whether buybacks could be an option once profitability is restored.
We are, of course, dedicated to reducing the net debt by generating cash. This is really something the management is committed to. We haven't provided a target yet. Regarding buybacks, that could be an option. That could be an option in the future. I don't know if you want to elaborate, Pierre, on net debt or.
Well, today we are applying the plan with the banks. We are repaying EUR 6 million per year. We'll see if someday we think that we have too much extra cash, maybe we could negotiate with the banks to reduce the debts. But this is not the target today. The target is to generate cash and is to reduce the debt, the repayment. We have no plan.
Are there any other questions?
I think we have talked about lots of things, but still, if you would like so, please raise the hand. Well, I believe that we, there are no more questions now. So I think we're going to end this webcast. And thank you for attending it, and for your questions. And whether there would be some more questions in the future, please contact us, contact me especially so that I will be able to answer it. And thank you, Jonas. And so thank you, thank you, everyone. Thank you for attending. And the next webcast we'll have together will be on October 23rd for the Q3 revenue webcast. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye. Thank you.