EGM 2015

Dec 18, 2015

Slides

Well, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I declare open the ordinary and extraordinary combined shareholders meeting of Alstom. Thank you, you and the shareholders who are attending this shareholders meeting, it is the 17th shareholders meeting have the privilege to conduct. And if everything goes well, it will be the last one. And we would like to welcome some guest analysts and journalists in this room. Sitting next to me, Henri Paulpar Lafarge, Executive Vice President Marie Jose Donsieur, CFO and Pierre Le Golf, Legal Manager. I would like to greet our directors here and the presence of some members of the COMEX. Some of them, because of professional reasons, couldn't make it, but the majority of them is present. Like the previous years, we are going to facilitate the role the vote of resolutions and have a quick display of results through an electronic voting process used for your shareholders meeting. You were given at the entrance an electronic voting box. Could you please keep them with you? And do not forget to give them back to the hostesses at the Exist. And I would like to draw your attention to the fact that if you leave the room before the vote, could you please give back this voting box to the hostess? In accordance with And I would like to call as scrutiny is Jean Francois Guimas, representing Bouygues, our major shareholder, holding 90,543,867 shares and Jean Charles Merriot representing DNCA holding 6,408,310 shares, both members of the shareholders meeting, accounting for the largest number of votes and having accepted this mission, and they are present here at the front. And in agreement with the scrutineers, I would like to I suggest to appoint Pierre Clouve as the secretary to our assembly. And the statutory auditors of our company, CIVIC for Mesa and Edouard Demarc representing PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit. They will step in later on. I'll hand over to Kiri Klugoff. Thank you, Chairman. The agenda of this meeting is on Page 3 of the notice of meeting completed by the addendum given to you at the entrance of this room and it's on the invitation sent to the shareholders or published according to law. The shareholders meeting will take place this way. Our Chairman will take stock of the situation of the company further to the completion of the transaction of the transfer of energy activities of Assam to GE. Then he will present the share buyback to the shareholders and we'll talk about governance and then the statutory auditors will make their presentations. Further to this presentation, we'll have discussions. You will have the possibility to draw up your questions in writing and using the pieces of paper put at your disposal in your pack. And once written down, could you please give them to the hostesses in the room? And you can also ask your questions orally during the Q and A session. In conclusion, we'll have the presentation and the vote of resolutions. Those resolutions are on the notice meeting on Page 20 21 and the addendum, the report of the Board of Directors on those resolutions is in the notice of meeting and the draft resolution number 4 of the company Bouygues is in the addendum of the to the notice of meeting and the special reports of statutory auditors on the reduction of share capitals and the authorization to give free shares are also at your disposal. You will also find in the addendum to the notice of meeting information related to Olivier Aborges at the appointment of whom is submitted to your vote today. In this pack here, you in front of me, you have the documents required by law and the list of it will be in the minutes of this shareholders meeting. All those documents were held at the disposal of the shareholders at the head office of the company in court in Stoulon. Would like to point out that the attendance list is being checked and that we will welcome the shareholders till 2:30. At the registration date of shares where you have voting growth, the share capital is made up of 310,594,909 shares at the nominal price of 7 euros each. According to the provisional attendance list, at present our represented shareholders or having voted remotely hold 163,671,000 485 shares with voting rights, I. E. 52.69 percent of shares with voting rights. The required forum for this shareholders meeting is 20% for the ordinary and 25% for the extraordinary meeting, which means that the quorum of 25% is therefore from now on reached and the assembly can validly deliberate. The report of the Board of Directors on the resolution submitted to the combined shareholders meeting is in the notice of meeting on Page 8 to 12. In order to have as much time as possible for discussions, I suggest we do not read out this report. Thank you, Mr. Legov. I observe that there is no objection. And therefore, I suggest that we move on to the general presentation. And therefore, I will go to the Right. So now I'll present an overview of Alstom's position after the transaction with General Electric and the different resolutions that will you'll have to vote on. As was announced, we closed the transaction with GE on the 2nd November last. Alstom is now refocused on rail transportation. I suggest that we should now present a brief film, 2 minutes, as an illustration of what your company does today in this domain. A meeting is important between people who already know one another or people who never met before, who are going to meet or to meet for the first time, speak together, kiss sometimes. A meeting means you can get one another better. You can share ideas, emotions, successes and even plans to go forward. Today, there is a company that goes forward while remaining as faithful to his history That started a century ago when they started making train engines and then broke the speed world speed record for trains, the history of partnerships, acquisitions. This history is that of Alstom, a company that is implanted in 60 countries. And history never stops. So Alstom is making an appointment to meet in the future because the need to go forward to meet others will get ever greater and will require more innovative and safer means of transportation, respectful of the environment, which is while transportation is now the only business of the Alstom staff to become a privileged partner of major companies and to reinvent the cities of the future to help people who every day ride on Alstom designed trains and tramways to go and work, to go on holidays, to meet one's family or somebody whom we have an appointment with. It's important data and Alstom is there to provide seamless fluid travel. So there it is. Indeed, since Alstom was with an H, was created about a century ago, the group has evolved some 40 years ago, the merger with the Chantier D'Atlantique and the creation of Alstom Atlantic. And then 30 years ago, Alstom merged with GT to become Alcatel Alstom. In 1998, Alstom became Alstom without the H and was floated on the Stock Exchange. Today, in 2015, Alstom is refocusing its business on rail transportation and acquires the signaling GE's signaling business. The rail transportation market is highly dynamic with a strong potential due to growing urbanization, a commitment to long term commitment to protecting the environment and to help towards social progress. The market size is greater than €100,000,000,000 And the market is quite different from what we could see in other businesses we used to own. This market is very broadly distributed worldwide with 50% in Europe. If we include CIS, the market is borne by the development of urban transport, which is with increasing ever increasing demand for system integration, which means greater value for advanced technology. It's an area in which trunk lines, that is interurban transportation, is also buoyant. It's also interesting to see here at the bottom of this slide that, of course, there are different growth rates in different regions of the world, but all world regions are developing, although at a different rate, but always positively. On this Dynel mix with a high potential market, Alstom has a full range of solutions in the field of trains, of course, but also services, signaling and systems together, that includes infrastructure. The group has top positions in a number of domains, number 2 worldwide in services, number 1 in integrated tramway system, number 2 in integrated metro systems, number 2 in signaling. And also Alstom is a pioneer of high and very high speed, you know, TGV in very high speed. And the best seller of the group in high speed is the Pandalino. The acquisition of GE's signaling business ups the reinforces the signaling business and ups to about 20% in the share of signaling in our overall pro form a sales. The GE business that we acquired as part of this operation at the beginning of November, on the 2nd November to be precise this year, employs 1200 staff and gives Alstom access to signaling for the freight market and strengthen its presence in North America. So this is very pleasant. All this is very pleasant for Alstom. I'm presenting the general situation, but it's interesting to see how it translates into the latest figures we published. If you look at what happened in the first half of this year, that is from the 1st April to the 30th April September, you see some of the generic information I've just stated with a high level of orders as we recorded €3,900,000,000 worth of orders in the first half. Compared to the equivalent half year the year before, it may look down. But at the time, you may remember that last year, we registered the greatest contract ever in the history of Alstom, the contract for €4,000,000,000 of trains and maintenance and related maintenance in South Africa. But this type of contract doesn't come every half year unfortunately. But it means that it still means that we our normal flow of orders is progressing quite nicely, all the more as it's been supported by small and medium sized contracts. We try to follow on the book to bill ratio. When it's greater than 1, it means that we register more orders than what we build for the customers. We create a backlog in a way. And you can see now that this book to bill ratio is 1.2 for the half year. And this means that 5 years, the backlog has been increased year after year for the last 5 years. This means that the order book the backlog has reached a record level at 25 €7,700,000,000 representing more than 4 years of sales. It's always interesting to try and look at what happened in recent months and the general comments this can call for. Is what it's interesting is that over this period, we registered commercial successes. Otherwise, we could not have registered these orders. But we did that in all the geographic areas. There was not one region in a better position than others. And you can see some of the examples of our commercial successes in the first half of this year, where we registered major successes in Eastern Europe with the Kazakh Locomotives, the locomotives in the Azerbaijan, the metro in Panama, in India, regional trains in France, in Algeria and signaling systems in Hong Kong, Canada and Sweden, in particular. This means that we, in terms of product and industrial base, we are able to grasp opportunities on all continents, both in developed economies where there are opportunities, but also in emerging markets. And since the results were published, we also finalized new major contracts such as for Pandolinos with the related maintenance in Italy. And more recently, 2, Mr. Poupees, announced 2 major contracts in India for more than 3.5 €1,000,000,000 That's for the commercial part. But of course, this has an impact on the operating income, which is up 8%, 4% with a comparable perimeter and ForEx rate, with very strong in Europe, in Italy, France, of course, and the U. K, Sweden. And also continued growth in emerging countries in Latin America with the metros and trains and the launch of this important contract in South Africa, which means that the operating income has progressed by 10% with an operating margin at 5.1%. Let's look at the financial impact of the transaction with GE, following a whole series of rumors, I'd like to reframe what all the information. There have been adjustments that we had to make, but we provided the This amount has to be This amount has to be adjusted by 3 items. First, the fact that as was announced on the Thursday, nothing changed here. The catch from the business sold to GE provided 1,900,000,000 in cash to be deducted from the 12 point €4,000,000,000 that we got. Then we had to make 2 steps of adjustments, once in December 2014, plus €400,000,000 and again in July 2015, minus 300,000,000 in order to table a solution that would meet European Commission. And we have the transaction cost for 0.3. Then and that but that's something else altogether. We decided to or accepted to reinvest into 2 areas: 1st, by acquiring the signaling business of GEF for 700,000,000 And also, we reinvested into joint ventures with GE in the field of nuclear power, grids and renewable energy for an amount of €2,400,000,000 You know that we have an option for a put option for these stakes to GA at a price that has been defined with a certain formula and a kind of bottom price that will means that we would get the price of the amount of our investment plus percentage. This gives us 1 net balance of 7 point €1,000,000,000 which means that we can provide cash to the shareholders while ensuring the financial strength of Alstom. Hence, the public share buyback offer. This public share buyback offer is on an amount of €3,200,000,000 I. E. 91,500,000 shares of Alstom, accounting for slightly less than 30% of the share capital of the company, 29.5% to be precise. And the share price bought back or repurchased, it would be €35 unit price €35 corresponding to a premium of 17 0.6% over the share price of the 3rd November 2015. Why am I talking of the 3rd November 2015? The Board of Directors proposing the convening of this shareholders meeting and it was on the 4th. And we so 17.6% over the share price of the 3rd November 2015 21.8 percent over the average share price of the previous months on the 4th November. The buyback modalities or conditions of shares you held because we only buyback a part of the 310,000,000 shares in circulation are defined by law. This is an egalitarian process related to the number of shares you hold and the number of shares you would like to contribute to this transaction and it is centralized by Euronext. This transaction is in compliance with very strict rules and the company does not intervene there. And Euronext makes sure that no shareholder can be hit by this mode of distribution. So we decided to choose this public share buyback offer because it seems to us the most suited to the size of the transaction and the one respecting the shareholder democracy the best because each shareholder may decide or not may decide to participate or not to participate into this transaction. We announced its intent to keep its shareholding post transaction at a level comparable to the current one around 29% of the share capital. And this offer is valid for all shares in France and abroad, provided that the legislation in force in the countries authorized that. What is the on the balance sheet for this transaction? We are going to look at the statements and the situation as per the 30th September 2015. First, we need to start with the net debt of the 31st March 2014. Why? Because the agreement we signed with GE secured the taking into account by GE development of the transferred activities since that date. In other words, GE had the ownership of the cash flow produced or in consumed here, consumed since the 1st April 20 14, right up to the completion of the transaction. So we are talking about we start with the net debt as per the 31st March 2014 because what happened in the electric activity was offset by the price paid by GE. We have EUR 7,100,000,000 net reinvested in the co ventures joint ventures and the signaling. We add 3.2 we add the impact 3,200,000,000 which is a negative impact. So we deduct the 3,200,000,000 which is the purchase price. And we have 2 components to take into account, the penalty paid to DOJ, and we decided we accepted to pay for it within the Franco transaction done with the American, and it was paid recently. And the cash flow free cash flow of continued operations, minus €200,000,000 And if you add up everything, pro form 2015, you end up with a company with a net debt level, which is equal to 0 and cash corresponding to in hand, corresponding to the gross debt not reimbursed. And it's up to the company to decide in the 2nd phase whether we use all this cash or part of this cash to reimburse by anticipation such and such debt, which would come to expiry. So to keep so you could use a part of this €6,000,000,000 of cash to pay back a part of the debt. So this company with deleverage is and after investment in joint ventures with GE and before taking into account the cash which could be generated by the exercise of the put options GE if those put options were exercised by decision of the Board of Directors in due time. In that case, it would generate €2,400,000,000 plus the index the corresponding indexing. So the timescale of this offer is as follows. The project was given to the AMF on the 9th November. We obtained the certification the authorization of AMM leading to the publication of the corresponding documents on the 8th December. We are holding this shareholders meeting. And if this public share buyback offer is approved, the offer should be open from next week onwards till 20th January, and the outcome will be published on the 26th January for a settlement delivery of the offer for the 28 on the 28th January, there would be a technical period to allow for the settlement via financial intermediaries. So I consider that this transaction and the Board of Directors, as you read it in the documents, share this conclusion. This transaction is in the interest of the company, is interest of the shareholders, and I count on your support after the approval with over 99% of the GE transaction to back this public share buyback offer. Let me say a few words on the governance and the Board of Directors. You've got photographs of some of our directors who are present here in the first row. You see there from the room from the back, but here, you see their faces. So 14 directors, 3 of them are the Head of Committees within the Board of Directors, Gerard Ozair for the Lead Director and Chairman of the Nomination and Appointment and Conversation Pascal Colombany for Ethics, Compliance and Sustainable Development and Alain Thompson for Audits, the Chair. They are Chair of Committees. Mrs. Cook and Landis announced that we're going to resign from the Board of Directors on the 31st December 2015. And in order to reduce the size of the Board, the Board does not intend to co opt immediately new directors further to those departures. And I had the opportunity already several times to announce that I would like to withdraw from the position as Chairman of the Board of Directors. And the Board of Directors examined the situation and confirmed the intent to keep both positions, Chairman and CEO, under the same person and decided to entrust According to the agreement protocol, According to the agreement protocol, strike on the 22nd June 2014 between the French state and Bouygues within the framework of the acquisition project by GE of the energy branch of Alstom. Bouygues committed themselves to voting in favor of the appointment to the Board of Directors. There are some the appointment of someone designated by the state agency, APE, during the shareholders meeting of Alstom and to decide upon the public of share buyback offer. The mandate of the director appointed this way would start end of January and would end on the 31st March, 2019, in line with the bylaws of the company. APE, this state agency, proposed the appointment as an Alstom Director of Olivier Borsch, Secretary General to PSA. The Board of Directors made the following decision. We abstain from pronouncing ourselves in favor against this draft resolution. So it has nothing to do, of course, with the name of a person for following reason. This draft resolution was submitted in according to an agreement between the BRIC and the state and the company was not associated to that. And some clauses are the subject of a dispute triggered by 1 of the shareholders. And this dispute is in progress and is in front of the courts. But this draft resolution, big is number 4, appointment of Olivier Bourge as Director, a resolution submitted by Bouygues and you'll have to vote on it. So to conclude, after the transaction, I consider that Alstom has reduced its debt and has a solid balance sheet. Alstom will operate on a healthy market with a robust growth factors. It's not an easy market, but Alstom will be present on all continents with a complete range of solutions and capacity of innovation such that we can play a leading role in the field of trains, services, system and signaling. And signaling, as I said earlier on, will be strengthened by the acquisition of GE Signaling. Once again, it completes from a geographic point of view. And as to the range of products, it strengthened our presence in important segments of the rail transport, and we have a record backlog giving us a good visibility. I'll stop here, and I hand over to our statutory auditors. Good afternoon. On behalf of Mazara and Plais Water Health Scoper, I'd like to report on the reports that we issued for the 1st and second rail solutions to be presented today. If you allow me, I'd like to summarize these two reports. The first one related to the first resolution that is to be presented as to the causes and conditions of the capital reduction. We performed the procedures as statutory auditors to ensure that the capital reduction would not would remain above the minimum threshold, the legal threshold, and would not damage the shareholders. We had no comment to make as to the causes and conditions of this first resolution. The second report concerns the second resolution that is the authorization to grant free existing or newly issued shares. The potential beneficiaries of such actions would be employees of Alstom and also the corporate officers. We did perform the necessary procedures to make sure that the conditions and would be in line with the legal provisions. And here again for this particular report, we have no particular comment to make. I was relatively brief, but so are our reports. Thank you for your attention. Thank you. Well, I suggest now that we should open the discussion, the debate. And before we start with the answers from the room and the answers to the written questions questions received in writing formally by the company. And we received 2 questions from Mr. Raymond Jean Jean on of December. And I'll hand over to our secretary, Mr. Logos, who's going to read the questions and answers made by the Board of Directors to these questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Question number 1. In the context of Alstom's sale of its Energy and Power business to GE, could you tell me whether all the litigations in progress were transferred to GE? If not, please let me have the list of these litigations. Answer from the Board. The agreement with GE provides for GE to take on the liabilities and risks. So the consequences of litigations in progress when the state took place will become incumbent to GE. And indemnity clauses protect action Alstom from any such litigation. And finally, we should recall that in line with the previous communications of the company, the agreement on the 22nd December, 2014 with the American Department of Justice has concluded that this agreement cannot be transferred to GE. Question number 2, please indicate the modalities for the sales contract for the Alstom's energy business to GE. The answer of the border is that the agreements with GE contains strict clauses as to the confidential nature of the contents of this agreement. It is therefore impossible or recommendable to reveal this. The company has to underscore that the relevant elements of these agreements to make them understandable were published in due time in the Board report to the General Assembly in 2014 as well as to press releases. Well, as an illustration on this last point, the table of contents of the contents we signed with G to close on the second of November, the table of content was 34 pages, which shows what the bulk of the document. So we'll now open the questions to the audience. And I'll try to cover a few items of the questions I got in writing. There are several questions regarding the date of the opera, OPRA. This question probably was put in writing before the detailed presentation was done. The offer will be will open on the 23 December next week and will remain open until the 20th January, longer than the regulatory minimum, so as to provide indications on the orders and sales at the end of the quarter, so that all the shareholders have the necessary information. So this offer will be open until the 20th January, 2016. The results will be known on the 26th with a delivery from OUTsund Euro NEXT on the 28th January. And then a very limited time for transfer to the shareholders via the financial intermediaries. There is also a question about timing before I give the floor to the audience because of the nasty rumors. So we have this comment. Last year, the shareholders meeting was in the 19th December today. This year, it's 18th. And this is aimed at going against the shareholders, which I can't see the relevance of this. But what our objective is to deal with this operation as fast as possible according to a logical and fast time frame. We signed on the agreements with GE on the 2nd November. On the 4th November, we had a Board meeting, which and as you know, we 45 days are needed before we can convene a shareholders meeting. So we took the minimum time required to call this meeting. And obviously, we don't want to hold this meeting between Christmas and the New Year. And I thank you all for being so many of you here. And we had no intention to go against other shareholders. Well, the question was there a matter of emergency, could we not wait for the end of the year and the publication of the results then? No, I think we did that in a reasonable time frame. I'll hand over to questions in the audience, Mr. Milidon, and then a question here and a question there. All right. Yes, I'm an individual shareholder. I'd like to come back to these three resolutions. But first, a comment. I regret your practice in the field of information to shareholders. In the lecture of the notice of meeting, you will recall that the sale of the Energy Business of GE was approved at the shareholders meeting on the 19th December with more than 99%. Well, the shareholders that were present or represented at that meeting in 'twelve to 'fourteen owed 199,000,000 shares with the voting rights against the share capital, which is composed of 309,000,000 shares, which means that 33% of the shares were not present. Now I'd like to return to the 3 resolutions. The first one, Mr. Chairman, before we return to this opera, I'd like to recall that most of the shareholders in this room have a certain cost price of their share that was much higher than €35 You justify this price of €35 by a premium over the share price on 3rd November and compared to the average 1 month before and 12 months before. But this is still very far from the cost price. And if I look at the 3,200,000,000 that you're going to allocate to this program of shares buyback, is totally nonproductive investment. We should rather conserve them in order to reinforce the transport business when the time comes. And I'll vote against this resolution. The second resolution, which answers to approve a free share allegation program to the seller, to the employees and corporate officers, Mr. Chairman, to motivate and speaking about the corporate officers, to motivate the corporate officers under your chairmanship that lasted for 12 years to sell our business, energy business to a competitor for a sum of €12,000,000,000 much lower than the actual value of this business, this is not a good solution. You should rather have perhaps tried to make to increase your shareholders' loyalty for those of shareholders that have owned shares for 10 decades and I'll vote against this resolution. Recently, we talked about a possible rapprochement between Alstom and Bourbatiens. The news was published in the newspaper following what the Minister of Economy said to the SENA. The least thing you could have done, you or your successor, would have been to share your intention and strategy about such a rapprochement before and to tell us whether finally we've been a prey or rather a predator. And I think it's would have been a good occasion to talk about this and you should have talked about the penalty that you had to pay in the U. S. And the amount of this penalty. And the 4th resolution, the proposal to approve the director, the appointment of director proposed by the state. The state that let go 2 thirds of the transport activity to its competitors, GE, the stage that had led La Varge to go to RC that has led Alcatel Lucent to go to Nokia. The state is not at all qualified to get into Alstom's capital. It's totally incompetent, whatever the government majority is in power. And I suppose you I'll stay I suppose you will as well, but for another reason. Mr. Bolidon, I think you have more statements than questions. I take good note of your statements. I said that the vote on the project with GE and the shareholders I'm sorry that I'm sorry that 35% of the shareholders didn't turn up, but I'm sorry, I cannot force them to attend. But I observed that those who were present supported these projects, 99.9% of them back to this project. And they are right because it's a good project for the shareholders and for France. You didn't back this project. This is your right and your responsibility. As to the price of €35 this price was not decided by myself and the Board of Directors on our own. At random, it was subject to detailed studies. And not only this price was analyzed by a multi criteria analysis by different financial institutions. But we also wanted to have a statement on fairness by a specialized company and this company confirmed that this share price was equitable, was fair. And if you believe that this share price is not fair, you have the possibility not only not to vote on this resolution, but also not to provide your shares to be bought back by others who have another opinion and about the opportunity or not to contribute to the conversation of the management by this type of component. Those shares are not free shares. Those are performance shares related to 2 performance criteria, demanding criteria set by the Board of Directors and in line with the recommendations of the governance committee and the AMF as well. As to Bombardier, I read, as you did some statements made there, and we had the opportunity to express our opinions. You have a selective vision of what was said because they are very precise statements expressing our opinion and we have no discussion in progress with Bombardier and this speculation. It has to do with speculations, and we do not want to comment on them. If in the future, Bombardier had an idea of cooperation, we would examine that, but it has not been the case. And Bombardier chose to establish a financial partnership. The in Quebec invested $1,500,000,000 to take to make an investment in their rail business. So we are not a prey. We are not a predator. We are a spectator. As to the lack of competence of the state, well, I take note of your statements and I'm not going to comment on them. And the penalty, well, I hope it's not a surprise to you because we had to pay this penalty of $772,000,000 We concluded an agreement with the American authorities, judicial authorities, and we paid that on it was on the 22nd December 2014, and we did communicate on it to a large extent. Mike, please. Rene Perneau, individual investor, Luxo. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm very much interested in the future and the development of the new Alstom, Alstom Transport. I believe that it would be good if it's possible for the company in the future, but we need for that an opportunity to do it. It could be good for the company to grow because in the world, for the time being, there is a plethora of companies as valid as Alstom. And if Alstom could become the leader, one of the top three players, it would be interesting. And therefore, I wonder about the Chinese market. I cannot remember in our last shareholders' meetings that we addressed the positioning of Alstom in China. Do you what about the sales relationship with China? Do you sell rail equipment to China? And China has a foothold on the continent on the African continent, especially for the rail infrastructure. And I wonder whether it would not be clever for a company such as Alstom Transport with global renowned for the quality of its offers, system and equipment. I do not know the exact recipe, but for instance, try and build a co joint venture with 1 of the Chinese competitor in order to sell to China and to have a greater easier access to the African markets. Thank you for your answers. Thank you. Thank you. What I suggest we do is that I hand over to Henri Poupart Lafarge, who is going to address that question, plus some questions we received from the audience and which are related to transport. You'll see that we have an answer here for China. Good afternoon. A few points on the transport market. We can start with the Chinese market. The Chinese market is rather specific. There is a stakeholder CRRC in China with a quasi monopoly under the Chinese market. We do not directly sell a rail equipment to China. What do we do in China? We sell components, mainly attraction chains and motors. We sell to CRC assembling trains. So this is a company assembling trains. On some ranges, which are new for China, like Tramway, we are the first to introduce Tramway in China. We had Tramway in Shanghai built within the framework of a joint venture in Shanghai. The traction would be done by us and the tramway itself by the joint venture. So this is it for the rail equipment. There is another segment apart from the equipment, which is signaling. And therefore, this is a transition with Africa. We have a joint venture on signaling with CRC, the champion of Chinese signaling, SCO, a very successful company, a leader in the Chinese market for urban signaling and starting to contribute to the intercity signaling. And you're right, the manufacturer of roll stock manufacturer, but the Chinese are active in Africa through the freight lines to dispatch ores to harbors. So we can work with them. And the joint venture you would like to have already exists, Cascaux. And thanks to this joint venture, we can have access to this. And thanks to the acquisition of General Electric Signaling, bringing us a technology of the freight signaling we didn't have, We can provide even more specific products dedicated to the freight markets, Africa, Australia and Central Asia. So our strategy in China is specific to China given the Chinese market, but we also have with regard to the external growth, you said there is a plethora of stakeholders throughout the world, which are who are competent. It is true. This being said, most of them are European. So any consolidation will be, 1st and foremost, European consolidations. You have the Japanese ones, the Chinese one, the Korean player. And in Europe, there are a dozen of stakeholders. So to establish a transition with other markets, there is one market of interest to a lot of you, which is the French market. And I have a question by Philippe Pillow, I know well, a sleeping shareholder and a dormant shareholder. The question is rather simple. And you saw that the French rail branch, FIF, which is a well manufacturer association or strategy council of this branch? Yes. Okay. So let me adjust my mic. Yes, after 17 times, you know how to speak into a mic. Don't worry. So the business in France, which is cyclical by definition, this business will reach lower level versus the current situation. But are there reasons for hope? Well, we have to fight for that. And as you know, we fight in different business segments. For the high speed trains, the TGV, a joint venture was signed on the future TGV. It's a very good news because TGV has to improve its energy efficiency. And it's a joint venture or in partnership with ADEM, it will be possible for us to develop a new generation TGV to replace the TJV is being manufactured between Belfort and La Rochelle. For the regional businesses, our business at Reichshofen, we are producing a train called Regeliz. And we had the first order of TET, that is to say, territory equilibrium train, 160 kilometers an hour. And as you know, the Minister of Transportation announced a budget of €1,500,000,000 to renew those famous TET trains. Those are the interregional lines like Korai, the Knight trains, the Korai trains which are going to be replaced. There are complex discussions and I'm not going to enter into details to know which are the trains, the better trains to replace the Coriant trains and when do we have to replace them. Decisions were supposed to be announced soon by the ministries. So when we'll have the pandalino between Paris and Brieves? Well, this is right at the core of our discussions. The Pandolino is a train manufactured by Alstom in Italy. It drives up to 2 50 kilometers an hour. But in France, the network cannot have this speed. It is limited to 200 kilometers. You have 170, 100 and 60 110, 160 or 200 or it's a TGV network. So contrary to the car, it's not the same here. So we do not have the right network for that compared to Italy. And with the SNCF, the state and with us, we are trying to see which would be the best roll stock for the TET and we hope that this discussion will be completed as soon as possible. This way will be if we are awarded those contract, we'll have some workload for our business in Halsofen. And a point in Valenciennes, the urban segment, As you know, there are major projects awarded a contract to replace the Parisian metro, giving a workload to Valencian. And we are delivering RERA, and there is a call for tender for new generation for the RERE. And allow me to announce because it's brand new, we've just signed today a suburban roll stock, two levels for Brussels called M7, and it would be manufactured in Valencian. It is extremely good news for Valencian plant. It's a double deck old stock. So we fight on the French market. We fight for all our French size, but on the export market as well. It is very true of the components, which are global by definition. And for the complete roll stock market as well. It is not as true, but however, we can have for like for Brussels or Carcass in La Rociennes or the Moroccan TGV or the regional trains in Algeria, we manufacture from France for export. And I would like to point out that our headcount, 30% to 40% of our headcount works for export. And we fight to make sure that we keep our industrial structure. And you see that during our discussions, sales continue and it's a very important, a very significant contract and it's very good news, very good news for our order book. Any questions? Yes, question over there. And then we'll take some written questions and we'll try and provide an answer. Yes. Good afternoon, Commander. I'm President of the Alstom Employees and President of the Shareholding Program, Employee Shareholding Program. My first question is about the appointment of Mr. Auger Des Borsch. Is this related to the actual implementation of the opera that is approved? Is the approval of the first resolution a preamble to the allotment of 3 shares and to the appointment of Mr. Borge? And also, can you tell us more about the litigation about the provision that was added by Bouygues? And whether this has an implication with Mr. Borge's appointment and also whether the remunerating the shareholders is a good idea, but perhaps ensuring the future of the company would have been better. So perhaps we should have been better. We should have better left these monies within the group instead of distributing it through the opera. The first speaker seemed to be moved by the fact that we could allot 2,000,000 of free shares to the employees. In terms of employee loyalty, just to say that shareholders in the last 4 years received about 1,000,000,000 in dividends. And employees were left aside from this. So loyalty of shareholders is one thing, of employees, it's something else. But what the employees are the ones who make Alstom what it is today. Okay. We're not going to launch into a discussion as to who is better treated than whom. It's shareholders are shareholders, employees are employees and that's all. Now you have raised technical questions, and I'll have to turn to our lawyers. My feeling is this, you see, once again, Mr. Borges' entry into the Board and I hope the capital as well, but to a lesser extent. It seems to me related to an agreement that was signed between Bouygues and the stage in the last spring as part of a put, I'll call, of the capital held by Bouygues to the state. And this is anticipated by a pre security and an agreement between Bouygues and the state after which Bouygues will support a resolution that will bring a director proposed by the state into the board and at the same time replace a Bouygues Director by another Estate Director to replace the Director that resigns out of the 2 directors representing Group WIG. This would come into effect after the transaction is carried out, the operation the opera is performed. To me, these two resolutions are totally independent. They're not conditional one to the other. And but I may be wrong. We'll see first whether the resolutions are accepted or The quite honestly, I think they are totally non related. And you also know that Mrs. Novila, who had told you had talked to you, had started a procedure disputing the dissociation between the economic rights and governance rights, saying that it's not logical that the state should have governance rights before the decision has been made or not made for it to exercise its option to buy shares. So there again, if we are not a party to this process, we've been consulted, we've indicated that we do not object to shareholders being represented to the board as long as their participation is at the right level. So, but the link with the Opera is that the problem arises at the general at the shareholders meeting that approved the operation. And the put option that Bouygues has is independent of whether the opera takes place or not. And I'm satisfied to see that the legal finance the legal office, the chief legal office of Alstom is nodding in approval. Now concerning the distribution, it's always too much or it's never enough. I say it right from the start that we're dealing with 3 104. And we have kept it to the lowest point, 35. And we accepted a concession of €300,000,000 to avoid Brussels being against and to enable GE to have a sufficient level that would kind of ensure that we get the agreement. And but as a result, we said, okay, well, 35 is what and it should be 32, 37 as we went to the low part. And now as a result of this agreement, the company is free of its debt. But volatility is still there. So we don't want to leverage because we don't want to run to hide a debt. But when the company can decide to exercise the put option, it has a guarantee of a minimum price. And this means that if such a decision is made, we'll recover €2,400,000,000 plus the corresponding escalation, which quite frankly gives us the means to really play around. And there are several questions here on free shares, whether this will be done after the capital share capital reduction. Yes, of course, this will take place sometime next year, whereas the share capital reduction will take place before. There's a question on the governments and diversity of the Board of Directors. We explained that it is a pity that 2 foreign ladies are leaving us and thus reducing diversity in gender and nationality of the Board. But we've taken note of this, and it is indeed better for the company to achieve a certain amount of diversity at the Board of Directors and make sure that sure that one male French director leaves the company. And another question? Yes? Microphone number 2. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. And before asking a question about strategy, I didn't know whom to ask, but now I know. I'd like to come back to the last shareholders meeting. I had not talked and spoken at the time, but your bonus was assessed to, what, €40,000,000,000 or I think it was €4,000,000 instead of €40,000,000 But I would have preferred that this would have been deserved by through an increase in the turnover rather than a decrease of by 2 third of the turnover. However, I'd like to congratulate you because you never get any congratulations to you. But this bonus you did deserve when you took up took over Alstom in 2003. At the time, the shareholders meeting, if you remember, lasted for 5 hours, out of which 3 hours spent in questions. And this means that this boss really takes shareholders seriously because last time we had shareholders who'd say to you, you don't give a damn about shareholders. I don't think this is true. And I'm sure I'm not the only one to think that. This is something that I wanted to tell you before you leave. Now to my issue about strategy, I didn't know whether to ask it to you or the future Chairman, but he is here next to you. So why not? It concerns the impossible development through external growth for Alstom. Alstom's perimeter is smaller. It's a small company that could be bought on the stock exchange or perhaps acquired for a merger. You have reduced the net debt. It's nil now. So it is possible to run a debt again and call on to the market to do so. But I'd like to know what, if this happened, would happen what will become of the investment into a joint company with into joint ventures with GE. I wanted to know whether such investment in joint venture will remain alive as Nestle L'Oreal and L'Oreal in Sanofi. I'd like to give a few figures. The 3 joint ventures, 2 of the 3 have an operating margin which is higher than the operating margin in Rail segment. For the gas turbine, it's 7%, whereas Rail last year showed an operating margin of 3%, 4% with an objective of 4%. So in case of an external growth operation, a major operation, whether you may not sacrifice this investment or this involvement into these joint venture that are more profitable than the rail business. Well, a debate has taken place, and you may remember that I was welcomed with a few comments, and shareholders made their opinion known. But you know that also the remuneration of the corporate officers are to be voted by the shareholders. And the shareholders that attended voted more than 80%. So some people bark, others vote. Well, thank you for your kind comments about the shareholders' meeting in 2003. And I'd like to link up with this because you see the company is now could be now bought from the stock exchange. And well, perhaps, yes, we have sold twothree of our turnover, but this was a weakness for Alstom. And this business is now stronger in its new perimeter. And the remaining third is much stronger following this operation and has the means to conduct an ambitious development policy. I'm proud that this operation has been concluded positively with your support and despite a few nasty comments that I received in these tough 18 months because the problem with this type of operation is the duration. For 18 months, customers were in legitimately in a situation that they had to wait or rather than order. Why order a turbine if you don't know what is the policy to be in the future? So clients did the same and so did employees. We used a large quantity of cash. It was very difficult to manage the teams. 12 18 months is not adapted to the speed of the economic world in which we're working. But again, joint ventures and external growth. Joint ventures, well, that was one of the conditions that had been set by the government in order to approve the operation. And there was a decree that would that authorized the government to veto the operation, to veto the operation. So we proposed this in an agreement that we put to GE, and they accepted it. And we accepted also because this was an operation that was under GE's operating operational control. So it's very difficult to say what we have government's rights, of course, but it's quite clear right from the its inception. If you look at the report that was submitted to you in December 2014, we're protected and we have the possibility of recovering our investments. We're entitled to participate in a capital gain, if any, without risking a capital loss because we have this guarantee. This guarantee applies only if we do exercise our possible core options. So the Board of Directors will have to decide whether they do exercise these rights. And amongst the elements that will be taken considered in the decision is, in particular, the uses that could be made of these monies to for external growth. Now external growth itself. You have to realize, as Mr. Popalaval said earlier, there will be opportunities. But we have to see whether 1 plus 1 is more than 2 because this is the criteria. If you look at projects like India, where you we sign a joint venture with Indian Railways, where we are going to invest and create a factory in a state in India. And for 10 years, will be producing for more than €3,500,000,000 of equipment. Do you think this is of a different nature than buying an Indian company? There is a gray area between make or buy. And there are cases when you say, look, in Russia, we said, okay, we're buying 25% in France, Marsh Holding. In South Africa, we said, didn't say we buy. We constructed a foundry. We invest, and we're developing something that will mainly belong to us in India. It's yet another different model. We have to adjust to the environment we're working in. And what is absolutely essential in this work is that there are opportunities everywhere in developed countries, our reference markets, in emerging countries where we are developing. And that we get and we have the means to succeed there. But we can't afford to be dogmatic between we buy or we make. It depends on each individual cases. There are contracts where we make on our own. There are cases where we make with the partners. The contracts with 1 in the South Africa, we make on our own. In the contract that in Belgium, we do with a major as a consortium with a major arbitrage that we can't reveal yet. So we have to adapt to the market conditions. And co joint ventures are joint ventures where we will decide whether we sell or not. It's in our hands. And if we sell, we have a guarantee that we're capital would be maintained, which is quite a good we have a control, and we have a guarantee that we're not going to lose by it in any way. Good afternoon, Marie Jean Pasquette. I'm a founder of the site minority.com. I have two questions, 1 on the resolution about Mr. Bouge's appointment. This resolution is an external resolution that was tabled by Bouygues. And normally, the Board of Directors has to say whether they are for or against. And the Board of Directors has not offered an opinion and that's the first time ever, which means that it has shut its responsibility if the courts of justice consider that the agreement between the state and Bouygues is correct, then Mr. Borsch will have to be appointed. Otherwise, it won't. He won't. So why did not the board express its opinion? Most of the time, people who assign a power of attorney to the Chairman expect the Chairman to vote like the Board of Directors. So I'd like Mr. Court to know what you're going to vote to this resolution and if your vote is blank, that will be a first. Now second question about free shares. You don't want to speak about that, but yet they are free shares that are paid by the shareholders in the form of dilution at a capital increase with a subscription right or a waiver of the shares to the employees. So they are free shares. Since the Macron law, we've have seen that €1,600,000,000 were authorized by the shareholders' meetings. And that's a great amount. There should be €4,000,000,000 to €5,000,000,000 by the end of June after all the shareholders' meeting. So for Alstom, it's about €140,000,000 6 for the Alstom's leaders. And the least, like the scorer who had resolution this, the least you could do is to give us a few details. I've read all the documents, and I couldn't find any detail. €100,000,000 are going to get out of the shareholders' pockets. I'd like to go where these shares will go to. You say 2% of the employees, it seems enormous for 2% of the employees. And before that, there was an allotment free shares that had been voted for 2,000,000 shares. The company then was divided by a factor of 3 or 4. And today, it's 5,000,000 shares, quite a jump. And you may have an explanation for this. And then you will say what performance criteria will be expected from the employees And while you grant these shares at Dassault Systemes, the criteria would be for the leaders to take over from the Udassault Group and become major shareholders. At SCOR, there was a huge turnover and they wanted to retain the staff and are very, very technical. So maybe you want to motivate the staff that Mr. Pouffain Jafar is the only way you can motivate your employees is to use a carrot, then you're dealing with donkeys, in which case it's better to replace your employees. But these donkeys are pulling the trains because they get €27,000,000,000 in orders. And as to your first question, the question is crystal clear. The Board of Director has not approved the resolution presented by Bouygues. Otherwise, the Board would have said so. The Board said it would be up to their shareholders to vote for or against this resolution And a vote by correspondence would be those that will not be in favor of this resolution, the votes that by proxy. Now as to Mr. Borsch's election, it's very simple, dear lady. Either there's 50.01 of the votes in favor of the revolution, in which case Mr. Borsch will be welcomed in as the Board or it will the figure will not be reached, in which case the resolution will not be passed. Madam, leave vote by answers and votes by correspondence by mail and votes to the President will not back up this the proxy will not recommend or back this proposal. I do not hear, but I agree. The Board said they will not take position. And you know very well that we count the number of votes in favor. So the board will not vote in favor. I will not vote in favor. 2nd point on the AGA. Of course, there are provisions and shareholders' meetings vote on this because the Macron law simplified the mode of attribution of a free share. So what the Shareholders Meeting do is that they cancel the form attributions, which we did, and that we vote on those free shares. And those free shares can be called performance shares the way we want, but those free shares are submitted to, and that's been the case up until now and in the future, submitted 2 performance conditions. And those performance conditions will be assessed over a minimum paid of 3 years. And after those 3 years, shares will be or will not be attributed. And you saw the 2%, I don't know whether it's a lot or not. The benchmark of Alstom was that and has been that for years years. So we said that we would apply the same grade to transport with the same order of magnitude. There is a provision according to which the performance shares are not submitted to terms and conditions. It's in the case of a general program. It's applicable to the whole staff. And a general program involves at least 50% of the headcount. And in such a case, it will be submitted to conditions of presence and not performance. So the top management of the company will not sign these programs. Good afternoon. Fabienne Reza, individual shareholder. I have a question. The market you could address. You were saying that the only easy markets are the markets of your competitors. No, the other markets. So my question is, are you going to benefit from your new financial situation to acquire those new markets? And my second question has to do with the catalyst. You mentioned your new range of products. Can you give us an idea about the growth of revenues for 2016? There is no easy market, of course. What Alstom succeeded in doing well has succeeded in doing well is to continue working on our existing markets while concurring new markets. 2 examples, South Africa, we had not a significant footprint, whereas now we have a contract of over 4,000,000,000. India, a large, rare country, our position was almost marginal, not because of a lack of competence, but because Indian Railways not only transported passengers, but trains and they did everything. They bread, the hens and the eggs were served on board the train. So they did everything, but they decided to focus on the passenger transport and they asked experts like us to focus on trains. And now we have 4,000,000,000 with the plants we built near Shanghai for urban transport. What we do is the first contract and the second and the third tramways and metros and locomotives. So you see, we have this growth. And of course, we need financial means for that, the necessary means, and we have them. As to the development of our revenues, we gave a guidance, a midterm guidance of about 5 percent growth rate per year. It's an organic growth. And for the 1st term, it's 4%. So it's that order of magnitude. It is more than the underlying trend of the market. So we believe that we can gain market shares on these growing markets. Cat and number 2. Yes, go ahead. Yes, number 4 question number 4. Good afternoon. Pierre DuVall Le Petit, the employee shareholder, Alstom Saint Trois. I have a question to Henri Poupar Lafarge. The Vision 2020, you shared this vision with us this year. And one pillar is agility and entrepreneurship. So I fully subscribe to this vision, But we have to realize that in our daily life, it remains difficult because our company is sized for large markets. There are processes and overnight, it's not that easy to diversify and to address smaller markets with a greater degree of responsiveness and innovations. So beyond the mindset, and I hope this mindset is going to percolate, could you please tell us concretely how we can move from this so called institutional Alstom to this more agile and entrepreneurial Alstom? Patrick? Thank you. Thank you for this question. I had not planned to detail the strategy, as in 2020 in front of you today, but indeed one of our pillars of our strategy regards the mindset and the culture of the company to make it more collaborative, more entrepreneurial and more diversified. 2 aspects here, 2 major aspects, commercial 1. And yesterday, I was in Russia, and I discussed with one colleague and he said to me that since the implementation of the new organization, what we call the new organization is a center in charge of products and processes and geographic organizations in charge of sales and execution. He felt a mindset and an energy, an additional one in the field to get contracts. And the latest commercial success stories linked to this organization and dynamism in this region. But what you're saying is true. It is easier to motivate sales organization. So when it's a large contract and but it's not necessarily the bread and butter of Astell. And we have to look for smaller contracts on a daily basis in the field of service and signaling. We have not solved this problem. We are working at it, and we have to be more we have to have a more capillary fabric. That is to say that sales force should be local. They should be able locally to make decisions to take small orders. We have the example of GE Signaling. GE Signaling joining us is extremely good at selling small products. And we're going to look, benchmark and see how they do and how we can empower those local sales force in order to do their own business and to sustain their secure their future. So this entrepreneurial spirit is has to be circulated everywhere. And I agree with you. If you are at Saint Troin 3 or 4 days ago, we had this I know view innovation program. You may have had the opportunity to look at the latest innovations. And one of the winners, you see that on the train one day, instead of having loud speakers on the trains, which by definition could be fragile and deteriorated. Someone in Valenciennes invented the way of making sure that the panels of train themselves vibrate and the announcement and the music can be circulated via the panels and not the loudspeakers. And I discussed with this person, the winner. And the winner said, well, he invented that during the weekend at home. So it's a very clever way. It will save us money. And so if you go to St. Trois, if you are at St. Trois, I hope that you've seen all these innovations. I hope that you can recognize that, yes, there's a spirit of innovation and mindset, an entrepreneurial mindset, and we have to promote this. Fine. Question? Yes, please go ahead. Mr. Lucia, an individual shareholder. Could you please remind us of the taxation conditions of this public share buyback offer, capital gains, capital losses? And another question. You said it's not topical, but to take over Bombardier would be quite something vis a vis Siemens. And the takeover by the Americans of fevellet. Is it a problem to you? And the final question is on the joint ventures. There's something I do not understand. The state has imposed upon you the fact that you have to set up joint ventures. And here, you seem to say that you may sell them. It all depends on you. What about the role of the state? Has it disappeared? Thank you. Regarding taxation, on the Opera transaction, Indeed, it's like selling a share with a share price and so on. And what happens, the document that you have, the registration document gives you the detailed certain elements and your financial intermediaries will explain this when you get the document. But it's of a similar nature as though you were selling on the market, on the stock exchange, the same type of taxation. Now regarding your second point about Bombardier and Futai. Well, the problem doesn't arise. We have enough headaches with what issues arise. There are with Bovaryllo number of recoveries that should be detailed, analyzed in detail. But as long as we have not looked into it, we can't say anything and we can't draw any conclusions. I don't know why this came about. It came because there was where speculations about Bombardier's strategy. It's not in my habits to speculate about the competitive strategy. If the cases arise, we'll see. But the aspect on the right of free competition is one aspect that we'll look into. Now joint venture. It's typically on at the state's request, we signed agreements with GE whereby we would reinvest part of the proceeds into a joint venture, limited part. GE is a majority shareholder in these joint venture, which is absolutely indispensable for these joint ventures' future because we had not got the critical size ourselves. So they are connected to GE's strike powers. But we have a right to get our investment back. And we could accept this because we had the possible liquidity. So the answer to your question is easy. We have rights and we have no duties, no obligation. The Board will decide whether when the windows for will open for the possibilities of setting in the coming years, whether it's in the company's interest to do or not to do, not to sell or not to sell. And if we decide then to do, then we'll sure, we'll do it at a guaranteed price. And if the board decides not to exercise this right, then it won't. Now the other question to Mr. Paul Parachen. Vottega operation, well, it's nothing too bad. Feble is one of our main partners. The passenger business of feebly will still headed by Stephane Rompour Rousseau. Sorry, The Wabtec Passenger Business that is Fabre plus the passenger part for Wabtec will be led by Stephane Grandjour Besson, which was the former number 1 at fevle and the former Alsern and will be based in Paris. We'll keep the same partnership as we did in the past with Fevle. It's nothing exclusive. It's we have other suppliers, of course, but we want to keep as close to Fevele in the future as we are today. So it's nothing bad. Well, we'll take another 2 or 3 questions, then we'll vote. No, we'll take a couple of customs. Okay. Short questions and short answers. Yes. One, sir. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to come back to this issue of delocating transferring the head office. I know that Saint Trois is being renovating. Nice buildings are being built in Saint Trois. But in terms of the environment, I don't know whether everybody will be happy with this transfer because we can hear on many occasions very unfavorable comments about the sector where in some areas, people are afraid. They are terrorized. So is it a good political choice? Is it a political choice? Why is it that we're being transferred over there? Very brief answer because it's not an essential question, if you allow me to say. We at Levalmois, the building at Levalois was transferred to GE. And all the teams working in France have been in building beautiful buildings at Saint Trois. I used to be at Peuillevanois. I'm now at Saint Trois. And quite well, it's a bit further from where I live, but never mind, it's very nice. It's and moving from this transfer is not going to be a major concern for the staff or their shareholders. We have 2,500 people working in Santo and they've been working there and surviving there very nicely for 20 years now. Okay. And you have the metro line number 13 that goes there. So don't worry. Don't worry. Okay. One more. Otherwise, I'd be told off. Good afternoon. I want to return to the Opera and the 29.40%. Does this apply to all shares? How many shares? This is how it works, sir. And your financial intermediaries will explain better. You have the right to put into the Opera as many shares as you wish. If you don't have any, that's easy. If you have some, you have to decide how many. And then you will be served depending on the total number of options of shares that you hold and you accept to keep holding during the operation. If you have 100 shares, but this doesn't answer your question. But this everybody understands this. How many shares? How many shares? How many shares? 91,500,000 shares out of 310. We'll take up 29.5 percent, that is 91,500,000 out of 310,000,000. The state has one option one share, sorry. Bouygues intends to bring over a number of shares that will enable them to remain at the same level as they are today. And I see that foreigners are excluded. No, nobody is excluded. Yes, it's reserved to France. The Spanish, the Italians, the Brits, do they have the right? The only ones who cannot bring their shares directly are those for whom national specific national laws apply. Let's be clear. In the U. S, any operation that involves American holders supposes that we have to go through a whole series of procedures that we have not deployed. But I don't think that this measure is discriminating against the Belgians, the Italians or anybody else. But this means that some people would be excluded. Well, I don't know exactly how the shares of our American shareholders are held. If they are registered in the U. S, they won't be able to bring their shares. And due to that, our Anglo Saxon shareholders hold their shares in London. No, sorry. If you need questions, you have these ladies over there available all evening to answer this type of question. Right. Number 3. And then one last one. Otherwise, I'll be I've survived these meetings 16 times. I hope I'll survive this one. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm a Jean de Cour individual shareholder. I'll come back to the present economic circumstances. I'd like to know what is your position for the short term and long term future. How do you see the competition of road transport? SNCF itself will start having cross links in France and other private companies that were doing well will be competitors in the future. Could you explain what is your position regarding this fact? Our main objective and our prime objective is to improve the appeal of rail transportation. We'll work on this slide, and they to see how we can improve our products and make them more efficient from the point of view of environment as well. Also energy efficiency, how we can optimize the system with better signaling solutions and so on. So to improve the appeal of rail transport. We are also careful and look to see that different modes of transport can be complementary. And if they are to be competitive, they have to be competing on the same footing. And we take care that competition should be as perfect as possible. In most cases, we should not try to set the modes of transport in a position. Sometimes road transport is more adequate in low density areas, railways are better suited to high density populations, such as cities. And all the different modes of transport participate in overall mobility. And we'll try to make the rail transport more attractive and that's it. For urban transport, it's exactly the same. We can't say that the metro is the enemy of cars or buses or whatever. It depends on the cities and the situations. We have to find the best multimodal system and the best balance between passenger cars, buses, petros and so on. Last question, no, that's it. Yes, sir. Yes. I have a question about technology transfers. You probably know about that because French nuclear power plants were technology that were stolen by Alstom from the Americans. And don't you think that your technology could be stolen from you in the medium term by the Chinese. The Chinese don't need a market, they have a market. You need a market. What the Chinese are missing is the technology. So the joint venture is the best way to steal technology. You did it with the Americans and the Chinese are no more stupid than we are. So in the short term, it could be beneficial. But in the medium or long term, yes, it's just a daylight robbery. Well, sir, we don't want to be too clear cut. I mean, I don't know exactly what you've said about nuclear power plants, but the reactors that were made by Alstom was American technology stolen by Alstom. Well, never mind. Let's come back to rail transport. In China, there were calls for tenders 10 years ago about for GGV's. And rightly or wrongly, it was decided that we were not very good on these tenders and on this tender call, and we decided not to tender. The Japanese did it. It's their own business, not ours. What do the Chinese do? They try indeed to negotiate access to a considerable market against access to technology. We're no stupider, no sillier than anybody else, and we look on a case for case basis where the company's interest lies in the long term. Sometimes, there are partnerships that are worth going into and others that are not, as was the case for the very high speed train in China because what we didn't want to go into this niche at the time. It's not a matter of stealing technology. Sometimes we are prepared to share and on what basis, what do we have in the pipeline to prepare for the next competitive advantage and see what the market could offer us as a matter of compensation. And very last question before we vote. Yes, my question to the future Chairman, Jean Pierre Karl Naeris in Bordeaux. I think that the indeed regional elections had signed an agreement with the Greens. And he signed a decree whereby he would no longer finance the 2 LGV lines from Bordeaux and Toulouse and Bordeaux DAX to Madrid and Spain. So what do you intend to do? I was not aware of this signing signature. I'll destroy a miss. A new TGV infrastructure does not produce for Alstom a huge additional business all of a sudden. That's why I do not pay attention to that on a day to day basis. It's a very long period. And you know that the opening of Paris Bordeaux will reduce the number of TGB and not increase the number of trains. Why? Because they already have Paribordo in 3 hours. In the future, it will be in 2 hours. Today, the line opens. Of course, the capacity of 1 TGV has been will be increased by 30%, just a single rolling stock. From time to time, I hear that we produce TGB lines to keep Alstom busy. I don't think so. So you have the infrastructure network. So the TGV network has to grow gradually and then the optimization of rolling stock. And this is another topic. It is a more general topic. So to answer your question concretely, we'll do nothing. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest we consider that the discussion is completed. And I suggest we move on to the vote on the resolutions. First, we are going to present the voting procedure. And Pierreik Legov, could you please introduce us to the electronic voting box procedure with a small film on the vote, and then we'll see the resolutions. Ladies and gentlemen, the voting box given to you is strictly personal. The number of votes you have or you represent is in the box and displayed on the screen. You will just have to use the green, yellow and red keys. The green key corresponds to a vote in favor. When it's yellow, it corresponds to an abstention. And when it's red, it corresponds to a vote against. After having read each resolution, the vote will proceed to the vote and we'll declare the poll is open. And at that moment, you will see on the screen a rectangle indicating the countdown, the number of seconds you have at your disposal to vote. And when the countdown is over, the poll will be closed as announced. And it will be no longer possible to vote. And the display of the results will be on the screen just a few seconds after the completion of the poll. Please make sure that you switch off your mobile phone during the vote and that you hand back those voting boxes at the exits. Thank you. Thank you. So I would like to ask our secretary to proceed to the vote. Thank you, Chairman. As indicated at the beginning of the shareholder meetings, the quorum required is 20% for the ordinary part and 25% for the extraordinary part. The final state of the attendance list shows that the present or represented shareholders or having voted remotely hold 52 point 76% of shares having the voting right. The quorum required is therefore achieved and exceeded. Resolutions will have to be adopted with the majority of votes of the shareholders present represented or voting remotely for the ordinary part and the majority of twothree for the extraordinary meeting. I suggest we present a summary of each resolution provided that no one asked for a full reading. The full tax resolutions are on Page 20 21 of the notice of meeting. There is no objection. Therefore, I will present the resolutions and I invite you to vote as soon as I have said the poll is open. First resolution, extraordinary part. This resolution is public share buyback. And for this first resolution, we ask you to authorize share capital reduction in a maximum nominal amount of 6 of formulating a public buyback offer, targeting all shareholders, carrying out the share capital reduction and Vote over, voting over. This resolution is carried over. Let's move on to the second resolution, extraordinary part. This resolution is as follows: authorization to the Board of Directors to make free allotments of existing or future shares of the company up to a limit of 5,000,000 shares of which a maximum amount of 200,000 shares to corporate officers of the company. Automatic waiver by the shareholders of their preferential subscription rights. The second resolution proposes you to authorize the Board of Directors to make free allotments and vote is open. Voting over. This second resolution is carried with 78.94%. Let's move on to the ordinary part of our shareholders' meeting. 3rd resolution, ratification of the transfer of the registered office. Ratification of the transfer of the registered office of Levalois to Saint Trois. Please vote. Voting over. 3rd resolution carried with 99.86%. Let's move on to the 4th resolution, ordinary part. The appointment of Olivier Borges as Director. In this 4th resolution, we ask you to express your opinion on the appointment of Olivier Borges as Director. This resolution was presented by the Bouygues Company. Please vote. Voting over. This 4th resolution carried with 66.22%. 5th and final resolution, ordinary part. The resolution, that's the first for the execution of formalities. In this 5th resolution and final resolution, we ask you to give the right powers to execute the legal formalities for this shareholders meeting. Voting, please vote. Voting over. This fits resolution and final resolution is carried with 99.88%. This was to complete the formalities. Thank you, our secretary and the hostesses at your disposal in the lobby to get back the voting boxes. And before winding up the meeting, I would like to thank you very much, you members of the meeting and shareholders for your attendance and for your trust. The agenda is now over, and I'm going to wind up the meeting.