Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our Alten results presentation for the fourth quarter of 2021. During this call, you will be on listen-only mode. However, you will be invited to ask questions at the end of the presentation. You can do this by pressing star one on your handset, and then you can record your question. I'd now like to give the floor to Bruno Benoliel, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, to kick off our conference this evening.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone. This conference is my first opportunity to wish you all a happy new year, 2022, hoping that we can move on from the COVID pandemic, and that we can get back to business and life as usual. The geopolitical and economic circumstances, rates, economic recovery are all factors that affect 2022 as it starts.
There's likely to be more randomness and unexpectedness than in the previous year. Speaking of the previous year, at the beginning of 2021, we wouldn't have bet on an improvement of the public health situation that would be as fast as we've seen, and we definitely wouldn't have bet on such a strong recovery. However, we have almost moved past pre-COVID levels, and excluding new acquisitions, Alten, at the end of 2021, is back to the business levels that it had at the end of 2019. That was not an easy thing to achieve. Business boomed in the third quarter, and that trend continued into the fourth quarter despite a base effect that was less positive, given the fact that business had started to recover after two strong negative quarters.
In automotive and civil aerospace engineering, business remains lower than pre-COVID periods, even though business did start off faster and earlier than we had expected in those two sectors. In all other sectors, as we'll be showing you later, we have gone beyond business levels from 2019. We are therefore at EUR 2.224 billion at the end of the year, up 24.9% versus December 2019. In France, business is up 13.7% and 32.9% internationally. Like for like, business is up strongly 12.9%, up 8.4% in France and 15.7% outside of France. Acquisitions contributed to half of overall growth this year and about 10% of revenue. International regions represent now 65% of overall turnover. The data from the fourth quarter especially are as follows.
Business is up 40.1%, 26.4% in France and 48.5% outside of France. Organic growth this quarter is at 22.3%, 17% in France and 23% abroad. Business has remained strong, 82.7% in the fourth quarter, after 82.9% in the third quarter, the previous one. In the second quarter, 92.8% and 91.5% for the entire year. The first quarter having borne the brunt of the public health crisis. In the second half, growth beyond average group wide, which, as you know, is 92%-92.3%, but is still slightly lower than that rate for the rest of the year. Headcount for the group. Headcount is up 8,500 people in 2021. 7,750 of them are engineers.
Therefore, we now have 42,300 people on our roster at the end of the year. As a reminder, we had 33,800 one year ago, and 38,500, 33,000 of which were engineers at the end of June 2021. Taking into account acquisitions at the end of 2021 that were announced during the previous press release, i.e., an Indian company with a small front office in the U.S. and a Chinese company with business in the U.S. as well. With the addition of those two companies, consolidated dated 1st of January on the P&L of the group, by including those two acquisitions on 1st of January 2022, we had 45,500 people, 40,000 of which were engineers.
Engineer headcount has continued to increase in the final quarter at a similar trend and rate as the previous quarters, about 1,400. Excluding acquisitions and divestments, our engineer headcount would be at some 33,000, with a sequential increase between the Decembers of 2021 and 2022 of some 4,500 people, almost 5,400, and also in France, and 4,500 or so abroad. Broken down by region, the business is as follows. In France, all sectors are up with the exception of the automotive industry, which is still down versus 2020, damaged by the car manufacturers. France is still 15% below pre-COVID business levels. Aerospace has ramped up in the last quarter, even if activity is still 13% lower.
Remember that we were at -45% in the aerospace industry in France one year ago. The driving sectors are still energy 16%, pharma 10%, rail and naval 10%, defense and security 7%, with a 10% growth or more on all of these sectors. Internationally, business is also growing strongly in most of our regions. Only Scandinavia and one other, where civil aerospace engineering and rail are still below their pre-crisis levels. In North America, in the U.S., accounting for 80% of the North America region, business is up 14% roughly, has achieved pre-COVID levels, including in the automotive industry, accounting for 20% of overall revenue in the region, despite the drop-off, less pronounced drop-off, but drop-off nonetheless of oil and gas, which happened this year.
In Canada, about 20% of the North America region growth is at 34%, thanks to the tertiary finance sector, which accounts for about half of local revenue, telecom 17% of local revenue, and life sciences 10% of local revenue. In Germany, the economic recovery has ramped up throughout the year, especially in the final quarter of the year at +32%, as you can see on the documents that were handed out. You've probably already downloaded them, and this is mainly due to aeronautics and automotive affected heavily by the crisis, but they reinvested heavily at the end of the year. Organic growth is therefore at 8% for the year, but still about 10% lower than the pre-COVID situation.
Aeronautics, 18% of revenue is down 35% still, whereas automotive industry, 46% of revenue is only 8% behind its pre-COVID level. The diversification sectors, tertiary finance, 10% of revenue now in Germany, industry 7% are up as well. In Spain, business is up 9%. The rhythm of the recovery accelerated in the second half, and we are now well beyond the pre-COVID level. All sectors are up in Spain, especially defense, security, energy, other industries, and aerospace. In Italy, growth is holding strong at 30%, even though business grew 12% during the crisis in 2021. All sectors are up, with the strongest progress being in automotive. 50% growth for the Italian accounts, which unfortunately is not the same as what we have in France.
20% of overall revenue comes from cars, 37% growth in Italy on defense and security, and 75% growth in other industries. For Asia Pacific, the rate of growth continued to accelerate to 31%. The zone that had growth in 2021, despite the crisis, 6.5%, is up around 40% versus its pre-crisis level. India, which represents 30% of our APAC region, China, 20% of the APAC region, are both up around 20%, driven by the automotive industry. Japan, 15% of the region, is also in 45% positive growth, thanks to strong penetration of the third tertiary sector in finance. Scandinavia, business is very slightly up, with the growth rhythm having paradoxically slowed down in the final quarter.
Finland, representing 22% of Scandinavia, is up 6% only, thanks to goods and industrial equipment, which accounts for three-quarters of the local activity. In Sweden, we're at only -0.5%, but recovery is visible in all sectors. They suffered from the HGV automotive industry, accounting for 40% of local revenue. As a reminder, that dropped off 23% in 2020 and so is still 22% below pre-COVID levels. In Benelux, our growth also ramped up 16% in the final quarter, with business up 10% over 2021. Belgium had growth of 7%, excluding the tertiary sector, which is slightly down. All of the important sectors are up, including pharmacy, which accounts for more than 41% of revenue locally in Belgium. It's up 20%.
In the Netherlands, business is strong, 12.5% total growth over the year, thanks to electronics and semiconductors, which are a solid third of the business in the Netherlands. In the U.K., activity is strongly up. As you can see, we're at 26%. We are 15% above the pre-crisis levels, and that happened in 2021. Recovery has been strong in the automotive industry, even if we are still slightly below our end of 2019 results, sorry. The aeronautics business is well above the pre-COVID levels. Switzerland was not heavily affected by the crisis and is now at 24% in Q4 and 12% over the year, thanks to pharmacy and tertiary and finance. Eastern Europe had solid growth, especially thanks to Poland, representing 60% of the region with 65% growth, thanks to auto and tertiary finance.
Romania grew 15%, thanks to growth in the same businesses as Eastern Europe. The recovery that we observed in the second quarter continued to ramp up in the third quarter and was confirmed further in the fourth quarter. All of our business lines have now overtaken pre-COVID, with the exception of HGV, automotive and civilian aerospace, although they're also exhibiting recovery. Let's look at automotive. If we break it down per sector. Automotive industry, 16.2% of overall revenue for ALTEN. A business that was bouncing back in the second quarter, confirmed in the third and fourth quarters of this year, of the past year rather. Up 8.3%, but still 12% below pre-COVID levels for the entire group. As I'm sure you've understood, the recovery has been uneven based, depending on the region.
If we look on a per-client basis, for the OEMs, there are ups and downs. Stellantis France, JLR, Daimler, and Renault are still down, whereas most of the OEMs in Germany, in China, and the U.S. are strongly up. Overall, OEMs accounting for 66% of the automotive industry are stable, with some good players offsetting the other ones. The original equipment manufacturers are up 30%. Aeronautics up 11.5%. The growth has mainly been from the naval side of things, with a strong boom with the Naval Group contract. 10% above pre-COVID levels there. Aerospace, 11.6% of overall revenue, is up 17%. Aerospace only accounts for 2.2% of revenue, but the recovery has been much stronger than expected, with growth above 20%.
Civilian aeronautical engineering, the recovery that we saw in the third quarter of last year was confirmed in the fourth quarter, happened earlier and stronger than we expected. Our growth in the civilian aeronautics sector was pushing into the 100% range at the end of the quarter, a recovery that is as strong as it was unexpected. Over the year, we've therefore got growth of 16%, which significantly offset the never-before-seen drop-off that we observed in 2020 with that -45%, you may remember. We're not yet back to pre-COVID levels, but we're not far, if you'll allow me saying it, because aerospace is now only 13% below its pre-COVID levels. Defense and security, 5% of overall revenue, grew 20% and have also overtaken pre-COVID levels.
Energy, 11% of revenue almost is up 9.1%, slightly above its pre-COVID levels at this point. Depending on the subset you look at, the situation can be different. Oil and gas, 4.8% of overall revenue, is slightly up. Slightly higher than 1%, although demand is increasing, prices are increasing, and there's been underinvestment in that sector for a number of years, which should lead to a strong bounce back if logic applies. Nuclear, 2.7% of revenue continues to grow 10%. As you know, we have a very strong trend behind us in that. Equipment for energy, 2.7% of revenue. A strong increase in the growth rate there now beyond 25%, especially thanks to investment made in equipment for renewables.
Life sciences, 9.5% with solid growth with 15% thanks to the pharmacy sector, whereas the medical equipment sector is growing, but more sluggishly. Other industries, OEMs, transformation, 6% of overall revenue. They are up 22% this year, now significantly higher than the end of 2019. Telecom, 5.6% of revenue, slightly up about 3%. Overall, a solid situation for telecom operator around 4% and a growth of 10% for the equipment manufacturers. Our business is almost back to where it was before COVID, but Telecom is maybe the only sector where recovery has been disappointing.
In the Electronics sector, we have semiconductors representing 16%, mainly due to strong activity in the semis. Finally, tertiary finance, which is approximately 25% of sales, and this is a business that's picking up in banking and insurance. We have now gone well beyond our pre-pandemic level, and all sectors have gone back to a level well above that of the pre-crisis. There's still a catch-up potential in the two remaining sectors, which are still below end 2019, which augurs well for potential growth in 2022, 2023 and the following years. Looking at acquisitions, we had announced at the last publication of results the six acquisitions in France and overseas in 2021. I won't dwell on it.
In 2022, we have acquired a company in Spain in IT services on the cloud business and digital transformation. This is a company which in 2021 should post revenues of EUR 12 million and profitability of approximately 8%. 2022 looks promising. 2021, quite unexpectedly, has turned out to be an excellent year with business picking up much more strongly than expected. The pandemic is, to a large extent, behind us as two or three countries are still below their 2019 levels, and the fourth quarter was very strong, much more than we expected. January has got off to a good start. Our organic growth is kicking off at 7% higher than usual.
This augurs for a strong growth year in 2022, unless of course, macroeconomic or geopolitical or health crisis conditions prove otherwise. I will now hand over to participants so that you may ask questions if you so wish. We will now re-open.
Ladies and gentlemen, If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your keyboard.
Good evening. I hope you can hear me clearly.
Yes.
Thank you for this year-end conference on results. Results better than expected. I have some questions on inflation. How does Alten traditionally fare in an inflationary environment? What is your capacity to raise your contract prices with clients? Also, how will you be able to recruit in the present environment given strong wage increases? I see that your goal for engineer headcount is 42,000 in 2022. Are you still as confident in that respect?
Well, we are not accustomed to working in an inflationary environment because for some years now, or even decades, France, Europe and the world have been operating in a low inflation environment. Now, we have to adapt to the situation, and we will see whether this is a lasting pickup in inflation or not. Come what may, there are certainly tensions in the labor market in France and elsewhere in those countries where we operate. The skills in the areas in our sectors are very much sought after. We could have achieved better results if we had been able to recruit.
At present, we are really very busy with calls for tendering, and in terms of recruitment, we have been doing well. We're recruiting approximately 1,450 engineers every quarter. This is one of the strongest results we have ever achieved. In the past, I think the strongest result was 2,000 in a quarter. We are still a very attractive company. We are still able to attract people to the company. Of course, this is being done against a backdrop of strong wage rises. Engineers are demanding higher salaries than what we had one or two years ago. This is important and pay scales are going to be going up by 2%-3%, which is still, in fact, reasonable. Relatively speaking, in terms of our own, our prices, well, we try to negotiate increases with all of our clients.
The situation is somewhat heterogeneous, depending on the sectors, depending on countries. Customer reactions vary. What we can say overall is that we should be able to pass on if most of the wage increases in the hope that the wage increases will not be excessive. For the time being, in fact, amongst our competitors, we're not really seeing a strong wage competition. You have three types of competitor. In actual fact, you have the customers who are the most difficult ones in terms of wage competition. They're quite happy to go ahead with a 5% pay scale increase. We're not able to do that. Our immediate competitors who have to take into account market conditions, but who do not go into a wage spiral for similar reasons to ourselves.
Fintech startups is the third category, and remunerations are still at a level which is 20%-30% above us. That's very difficult for us to go against that. But that does not represent the major part of our recruitment. In actual fact, we're still managing to deal with this through the kind of projects that we offer and career prospects. With clients, we're able to pass on increases in order to offset, to a large extent, wage increases. There's one sector of activity where it's rather more difficult. That's the automobile sector. France is a difficult market, mainly in the industrial sector and specifically in the auto sector. At present, I cannot say what will be the outcome of all this.
I think we'll have to look at this ex post probably at the end of the first half. To be sure, everybody is looking to keep margins at a satisfactory level in order to avoid any deterioration in the price margin ratio and no significant decrease compared to 2021. Well, I hope that answers your question, and that certainly is a reassuring answer.
Now, regarding the goal to achieve a headcount of 42,000 engineers, is this still relevant, would you say, given wage tensions?
Well, we're already above that as of 1st of January , looking at our recruitment and with the acquisitions that we expect and future recruitments, unless quite frankly, there's an economic, some kind of economic disaster, I think we will comfortably achieve our goal of 42,000. When you talk about organic growth, what you're talking about is external growth that you've already achieved. No. External growth is not included in this. No, it only includes organic growth, which will be mechanically achieved at constant scope.
Thank you very much.
Next question, Gilbert Dupont.
Good evening. Bruno, can you hear me?
Yes.
On organic growth, have you included the organic growth through price increases? That's my first question. The second one is on second half 2021 margins. Could you give us a brief update? In your last presentation, you were saying that it was very similar to H1, but we're hearing that the margin is very strong, that sales are very strong. Can you give us a bit more detail?
Right. Looking at organic growth, well, that's an excellent question. There's no price effect here. It's purely being achieved through volumes. I can't really say how prices will behave. Our approach is based on constant prices, unchanged prices. Constant prices and stable levels of business versus the second half levels, which may create a slight bias, but it will not be significant. Now, regarding our second half margins in 2021. Indeed, you have indicated it will be above that of the first half, and you said it would be, in all likelihood, well above the first half. We're looking here at double-digit margins for the year as a whole. Now, the level of activity is well above what was expected, and that's very important because this produces volumes of sales which immediately generate margin.
Next, we had budgeted for the second half some investment spending in order to cope with growth requirements. We didn't manage this because it's difficult to recruit engineers across the board in all the businesses. We have specific projects which have run over the planned deadline. The budget for the H2 has been optimized, so I can't really say anything about the impact on the margin. I wouldn't want to take this, the analysis of the margin too far, but it's clear that the H2 will be well above the H1.
Okay. One last point. I recall that in terms of external growth, you had quite a few items in the pipeline. Some of them have come to fruition. Do you think that in the H1 transactions will pick up?
Well, we've had 3,200 people, 88% of whom are engineers, were recruited in the fourth quarter. Those are two major acquisitions that we're talking there in the fourth quarter. Next, we've just closed another acquisition in Spain, 180 people, EUR 12 million in revenues. It's a smaller deal. In the pipeline, Well, I don't know whether all the transactions will be closed given all the H1 processes, but if all goes to plan, this is what should happen.
Thank you. Have a pleasant evening. That's all very clear.
Next, Bryan Garnier.
Yes. Good evening, Bruno. Sorry to ask these particular questions, but I have some connection problems at the beginning of the call. Could you go back on the utilization rate and the net hires, as of the 31st of December, including engineers, the figures for engineers?
Sure. The Q4 was 92.7% capacity utilization, which is 92.8% for the second half and 91.5% for the year as a whole. Headcount for the group plus 1,500. 7,500 engineers. Q4, specifically, net staff hiring 1,400 people. For the year as a whole, growth in engineer headcount came out, organic growth, that is, 4,993 and 2,750 through acquisition. You add the two, and that's 42,300 at the end of December 2021, of which 37,150 engineers, to which you should add the two acquisitions that were made at the end of the year, consolidated into the balance sheet at 31 December 2021 and the P&L from the 31st of January. Overall, that brings it to plus 3,200, with group headcount at 45,500 at the end of January and 40,000 engineers.
Okay. Thank you very much. You're talking about the utilization rate, which is at a historical high. Do you not think that perhaps at some point, depending on the level of hires, the utilization rates might, in actual fact, go down somewhat?
Well, I think we should almost be hoping for that because in actual fact, we have business levels in excess of 95%. Which clearly reflects difficulties in hiring staff and the goals are such that all geographical regions are increasing their level of business, which means. If we're at 93% or 96%, that's a very high level. We need to come back to something between 91%-92%. Now, we're not heading for that. It's looking at January. In January, we still have lower levels of business because some projects are late in getting started or orders are late in getting pushed through. Looking at January with record levels in January, we're perhaps looking above the standard levels. I hope that things will stabilize over the year.
Next question from CIC Securities.
Can everyone hear me? Can you hear me, Bruno?
Yes, I can.
Fantastic. First of all, well done on the results. A couple of questions. You mentioned Poland in your presentation. Can we talk about how many of the 40,000 engineers are from areas like that? Secondly, if we look at the aggregate levels, 70/30 research and development versus IT, as things are getting centered more towards digital technologies and IT, has that been rebalanced? That was my second question. My third question, with this kind of growth, can we expect any effects on working capital requirements?
Okay, that's a lot of questions. The engineers we have in Poland work for the local market. With the exception of 100 or so of them, these are not engineers working for Germany because that's often the case in a lot of companies. However, at the end of 2021, we had about 3,300 people working on nearshore bases between India, where we have 1,750- 2,000, depending on the month you look at. 250 in China. People mainly working for Japan, in fact, around 1,000 in Morocco and 400 in Romania. We acquired two companies, and they are likely to add, give or take an extra 2,000 to the headcount.
They will be added to the offshore headcount because they will be in China and in India. They will mostly be working for local markets, but may also be working remotely for American clients. So 5,300 as I make it? Yes. 5,500, roughly. Sorry, what was your next question?
My second question was the split between pure IT and Research and Development.
Recently we did some acquisitions in IT. The two latest acquisitions are 100% IT engineering firms, and it hasn't significantly shifted, shall we say, the business balance between IT and engineering. The third question was on WCR. We still have WCR under control, despite the issues in 2021. With acquisitions, it's organic growth that creates extra WCR. We may see some working capital requirement increases in 2022, but you'll see the cash figures on that for the end of February when we publish for the year. WCR is well under control. When you've got a DSO that is at about 90 days in the group, that means that, of course, any increase in revenue increases WCR.
Okay, thank you very much.
Next question from Kepler Cheuvreux.
Can you hear me? Good evening, Bruno. I have a number of questions. Could you come back to the attrition rate? Often there are a lot of people leaving the company near the end of your period. I know that you don't have a clear overview of hiring in 2022. If you look at just the coming two quarters, do you have an in-house target to continue to hire about 1,400-1,500 engineers organically every quarter? Or is that target being adjusted for the attrition rate? Are you still around 25% on that? And that's the first question.
We don't have any hard numbers for our hiring targets because it really depends on the project. We look at the contracts that we get, and then we always make sure that we have enough of a buffer of engineers so that we can handle growth. We have increased resources going into hiring engineers in 2020 that was drawn down, so that we can hire at least net 1,500 people per quarter, and that is net. It depends on changes in business. Currently, things are moving at a good clip with our portfolio of tenders that's full. We are looking at high hiring numbers.
How about people leaving? Any shifts there?
We're at 27% right now. Give or take.
On that note, you've said that there were 2%-3% increases in wages for 2022. As it stands, your engineers, are you able to lower the average age? Is it remaining stable? Are you shifting towards offshore engineers to save money on wages? How are you controlling those parameters?
The engineer population is getting younger. It had slightly aged with the drop of the churn rate. It shifted by about a year. I think we went above that 30-year old threshold. Now it's going back down because churn rate is going up again, and the new hires are younger. I don't know whether that answers your first question. Next, on wages and costs especially. The increase in the share of offshore staff is mainly due to requests from clients, especially French clients, that want to draw down their engineering research and development costs. So where possible, we shift projects to Morocco or India, and that is because costs are lower over there.
This then, of course, has an impact on average wages and has an impact on the average sale cost. Because unlike IT, engineering is not a business sector where offshoring will enable you to get better margins, because actually it's the clients that get a lot of the savings that come from the offshoring. On face value, having more offshore staff working on the projects, although it's not a significant increase, would reduce the average wage, but it also reduces concurrently the average sale price.
Now, I know this isn't a result call, but I would like to ask you a structural question. The landing in 2021 is likely to look good, but from a more structural perspective, and independently from the fact that you invested a little late in the recovery cycle, are there savings that could have been done during the lockdown that could have improved margins from H1, H2? Can we hope to see margins back to a sustainable 11%? Has anything structural changed?
As it stands, I wouldn't want to commit to an answer there, because I don't think anything fundamentally structural to the company has changed. What has changed is our sector mix and our region mix, and that's going to continue to shift going forward because automotive industry is bouncing back, and automotive industry has lower margins than elsewhere.
That's going to bring growth, but it's also going to have a negative impact on margins. Then you have the geographical effects that are in play as well. France is down as a proportion, and then you've got regions like Italy where profitability is quite high. You've got Benelux, which is up as well. All of that has a positive impact on the spread for revenue.
At the moment, we have been able to reduce some costs, but they're going to come back at some point. I wouldn't call our current situation a stabilized one. We're going to wait at least a year before we can bring an answer to the question you asked. My answer for the time being would be no, though. I don't see any way for us to sustainably increase our margins up to 11 points and to have that be stable, especially as there are issues with wages and prices that are still up in the air.
We're gonna have to see what happens in 2022 in that regard and beyond 2022, because there really is our concerns about inflation right now, and our clients are not particularly inclined, although some may be more than others, to accept any significant price increase. There are many factors of uncertainty, and therefore, it's very difficult to answer the question. We're perhaps heading for 2022 margin, which will be lower than that of 2021. We'll have a good year. That doesn't mean that we'll necessarily be at 12% margin. We'll be above 10%, that's for sure. Logically, 2022 should be a little bit lower. When I say above 10, I'm not talking...
I'm talking about EBIT. I'm not talking about sales.
Now, could you talk about the two to three acquisitions. Were there some surprises here, good or bad? Are there significant acquisitions ahead?
Well, one is with a headcount of over 500, and the others are the usual size.
Of the last, among the last ones, have you been pleasantly surprised, or were there some unpleasant surprises?
No disappointments, and I would even say that there were some pleasant surprises. In other words, there were some companies for which the margin picked up even faster than we expected.
Well, that's a very full answer. Thank you so much, Bruno.
Société Générale has the next question.
Hi, Bruno. I'll be brief. First question. Could you give us an update on expectations for France and overseas for 2022?
Well, yes and no. One day less in 2022. I can't remember 2021, but I can't remember which half. One day less. I think it's the same thing internationally? Yes, pretty much so.
Second question, to follow on from the attrition, staff attrition, you're talking about 27% compared to 2021. You were saying it was going up every quarter, but when you look at the number of departures you had between the 31st of December and 1st of January, the usual kind of resignations at that time of year, did you notice anything different compared to previous years? Is the level of resignations more or less the same or a bit lower or more or less as what you expected?
It was basically what we expected. The only year where we have less than usual was January 2021, for obvious reasons, even though we did have some. This year, we've gone back to the usual level of resignations.
Okay. My third question, on France, there is a strong pickup in Q4. Does this have an impact on the outlook for 2022 for France, or are there still areas of uncertainty? You're basically depending on countries which did well in 2021 and should do so in 2022? Or would you say that France now is really moving ahead and that we should have a strong pickup in 2022?
Well, France, like Germany, in fact, because the two move in tandem, and to a lesser extent, Sweden. Well, France got off to a slow start because we had to start off by managing the inter-contract periods, and this took us all the way through to April, May. In 2021, as a reminder, we had furloughing through the whole of the first quarter and part of the second, and this was mainly applicable to France and Germany. When we came back to a normal situation, in other words, resources consistent with the level of projects, then we were able to go back to recruiting, bearing in mind that in France, the auto sector, among the manufacturers, has not picked up. It's still quite weak. Auto sales in France, well, the projects that we have are bigger than usual, but are more offshore projects. There's a very clear policy here to,
All we have to do is read the press, read Les Echos to understand the goals of the French auto manufacturers. In this sector, we dealt with the inter-contract period, and the business picked up again strongly, in particular in the aeronautical sector. This accounted, in fact, for the pickup in hirings, because that's, in fact, the area where the recruitments were the strongest. For 2022, we had +17% organic growth in Q4, so the momentum is good. We no longer have this inter-contract problem to deal with, and France will go back to a standard level of growth consistent with that of the group as a whole in 2022, provided the auto sector picks up.
Don't you think that France, given the base effect and the slow start, that if you had -20 in 2020, you're well up in 2021, +8. Don't you think that the logic would have it that we can project 2021 into 2022, which means that France would post growth of more than 10%?
Well, France could do that because the strong pickup in France, the strong recovery is above 5%. Yes, France could do that. Again, it may even achieve this without the auto sector, because there are other sectors which are driving the recovery, but I think that there will be a pickup in oil and gas. We have a huge increase in calls for tender in nuclear energy, pharmaceuticals, aeronautics. There's a lot of demand.
We have a premium referencing with Airbus, which has just come through. Yes, France could achieve this. France could definitely achieve this, but the growth momentum in France will be all the stronger if the auto sector picks up in France with projects in the auto sector in France. Because let's not forget that we're still 30% below the auto sector growth in France compared to the sector as a whole. With Scandinavia, we're at levels which are still stuck at a little bit better than rock bottom, but not much better.
Okay, that's very. My last question on the two last acquisitions at the end of 2021, which will be considered consolidated from the first of January into the P&L.
The cash out will be booked to 2021 and will be consolidated under the balance sheet for 2021. We'll have the goodwill and the P&L.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Enjoy the evening.
Next question.
Can you hear me? Okay, excellent. First of all, congratulations for your results. I won't hold you for too long, but out of these acquisitions, you had some things for the first half. Are those acquisitions focused on a particular sector or region? You've already mentioned a couple of things. The second question. Can we extrapolate the projected acquisitions for the first half into the whole of 2022?
We've got six first acquisitions, which are all international acquisitions. They're in a diverse set of regions. Only two of them, in fact, are from the same place out of six. By that, I mean in the same country. We have some other statements of intent that are looking to be signed, but negotiations haven't begun yet.
If all runs smoothly, we think we could expect around 10 acquisitions for the year. If I'm honest, this isn't a target. Acquisitions come as they may. There are acquisitions that we didn't follow through despite having statements of intent. We were hovering the pen over the paper, so to speak, for some acquisitions, but we pulled out again for reasons related to last-minute negotiations or because the negotiations were disappointing in their content. It's an opportunistic process. It is clearly part of our strategy, even though organic growth remains a strong driver of our development at Alten. 10 is something that might happen, but is in no way certain.
Okay, thank you, Bruno.
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Okay, if you have no further questions, in that case, the only thing that remains to me is to wish you a pleasant evening. I'd like to remind you that we will be publishing Alten's books on the 22nd of February in the evening after closing. The analyst meeting, unfortunately, is going to be remote again, but it will be on the 23rd in the morning. I hope this is the final time we'll be holding the analyst meeting remotely, but we have to deal with the circumstances as they present themselves. I'll see you on Wednesday, 23rd of February. Have a good evening.
Thank you for being with us this evening. You can now hang up your telephones.