Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I'd like to bid you a very warm welcome to this annual general meeting of Atos, which is being held exceptionally behind closed doors this year in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic and the measures enacted by the authorities.
We started off with a few technical hitches. We apologize for that. These things happen. As we cannot have everybody present with us at the head office, given the health context, we have Mr. Elie Girard, who is the CEO and a board member of the company, who shall chair the committee of this general meeting, because I cannot be present myself physically for health reasons with the government measures in Bezons. So Mr. Elie Girard will chair the committee of the meeting.
Special delegation has been granted to him by the Board of Directors. This general meeting is being held exceptionally without the physical presence of the shareholders and any other participant outside of the committee of the shareholders meeting because of the current health crisis, and we are constrained to implement the emergency measures enacted by the French executive order number twenty twenty-three two one of the twenty-fifth of March 2020, in order to preserve the health and well-being and safety of our shareholders,
.....employees, and our service providers, so I'd like to recall that a press release was published on the twenty-fifth of May last, mentioning the fact that this meeting will be held behind closed doors, informing you that it'll be webcast directly on our website, and we've, for technical reasons, organized some contributions by video, especially Mr. Nicolas Bazire's presentation.
Also, there'll be a replay of the recording available on our website in the chapter called Investors in the Shareholders Meeting section. Given the way in which people are participating here today, we have adjusted our arrangements accordingly, of course.
We've detailed out the measures taken by us in the convening notice that was published on the twenty-ninth of May 2020, in the Le Parisien newspaper and the Legal Gazette, the BALO here in France, as indicated in an addendum to the convening notice circulated to the registered shareholders and published on the website in the heading I previously mentioned. Having recalled the exceptional measures prevailing at our meeting here today, I'd now like to formally open the meeting. We have the committee of the meeting, comprising Mr.
..Elie Girard, as chairman of the meeting, delegated to this effect, as I intimated earlier, by the board for technical reasons. And also, we have with Mr. Elie Girard, present also the two scrutineers of this shareholders meeting, Ms. Sophie Picard, on behalf of the unit trust, of the employees of the company, and Mr. Gilles Arditi, who is the Investor Relations Manager and the Director of Internal Audit in the company, who many of you know well already.
And the secretariat of the meeting will, be done by Mr. Alexandre Menais, who is the Chief Legal Officer and General Secretary of the group, whom you know also. He's been attending these meetings with us for many years now. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank you for, being in attendance.
Traditionally, at a meeting such as this, the legal documents required for the holding of such a meeting are brought together, on the spot, physically, and made available at the desk. Unfortunately, you're not with us physically present here today, but in line with the legal requirements,
the documents that have to be communicated for the general meeting were made available to shareholders on the website of the company for the twenty-one required days prior to the meeting. We shall not read out all of these documents and reports that have been made available to you on a prior basis.
The documents made available comprise, in particular, all of the notices of meeting and invitations to the present meeting that featured in the required legal publications, a copy of the brochure sent out to the registered shareholders, that I have with me here, a copy of the letters, the convening letters sent to the statutory auditors, the list of shareholders, a copy of our articles of association, the attendance sheet for this meeting,
the report from the board of directors to the shareholders meeting that you've consulted on the website, the report from the board of directors on corporate governance, the reports of the statutory auditors, report on the consolidated accounts closed on the thirty-first of December 2019, report on the statutory accounts closed on the thirty-first of December 2019, special report on the related party agreements and other reports connected with the present general meeting.
Concerning the universal registration document for 2019, I'd like to recall that it is accessible on our website in the chapter heading called Investors. The agenda. This present general meeting shall have to make decisions on the agenda indicated in the notice of meeting published in the BALO Legal Gazette on the eleventh of May 2020, and in the convening notice published in this publication, too, and in the Le Parisien newspaper on the twenty-ninth of May 2020, pursuant to legal provisions.
Regarding the quorum, I'd like to recall that the quorum necessary to hold a shareholders' meeting is one quarter of shares with voting rights for the extraordinary resolutions and one-fifth for the ordinary resolutions. We see from the attendance sheet that shareholders who are represented or who have voted remotely on the first invitation to the meeting comprised seventy million, three hundred and ninety-three thousand and seventy-nine shares, that is 64.61% of the shares with voting rights.
As the meeting is being held behind closed doors, with no poll in this session, this quorum is therefore definitive. Hence, the meeting has the quorum required by law. We are therefore duly convened and may act validly as a combined general meeting. Having recalled these facts, ladies and gentlemen, I'd now like to officially open this general meeting along with Mr. Elie Girard.
Now, to hark back to the past year, 2019, it was indeed a very important year for Atos from a strategic point of view and also concerning its governance. Strategically speaking, the separation between Atos and Worldline was brought to fruition quite remarkably well, and led to an important reconfiguration of the scope of this group.
Elie will talk in a short while about these different points in detail, of course. In terms of governance, the resignation of Mr. Thierry Breton from his post as Chairman and CEO in the autumn of 2019 entailed a substantial reorganization of the governance of the group, with the separation of the duties of CEO, currently fulfilled by Mr. Elie Girard, and the duties of Chairman of the Board of Directors, which I have started to fulfill since November last, personally.
Now, I'd like to avail of the opportunity to also warmly thank, on behalf of the board and all everybody working in this group, to thank warmly Thierry Breton for his inestimable contribution to Atos. He's been at the service of the company over the last eleven years, and, we have all appreciated the work he put in. I'd like to, at this point, hand over to Elie Girard, who is our CEO, who will present the performance, the vision, and the strategy of the Atos group.
"Thank you," says Elie Girard. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, everybody, dear shareholders. Perhaps before we hark back to look at twenty-nineteen, we should talk a little bit about what's been happening in the last few months.
It's been a really particular period, I would say, and it would seem to be strange not to talk about the recent past. Firstly, I'd like to say that the initial reaction of the group as a whole, the management and our teams in human resources in the group, the initial reaction to this COVID crisis when it emerged at the end of February, the first priority set down by us was to take care of our people, our employees.
Obviously, in all of our sites in the group, we adopted all of the health and safety measures and guidelines handed down and abided by guidelines from the WHO, for example, and of course, we scrupulously also respected the other recommendations and instructions handed down by the government in the countries we're present in.
We had a multidisciplinary working group that was set up so as to make sure we managed this crisis properly in all the countries we're located in, and we very early on started to roll out very widely the principle of telecommuting, working from home, which reached a level of 96% around the group.
That's nearly everybody in the Atos group working therefore from home, with the exception of 4% of our people. I'd like to underscore that those people did not work from home. Some people had to remain on site, on customer sites, for example, so as to take care of operations and also respecting the health related requirements, and they had to continue fulfilling contracts in terms of security, of access to sites. It was necessary. But apart from that, nobody moved around anymore in the group.
So we did this quite naturally while supporting our clients during this crisis period. We had to take care of our own people and also of our clients, and implemented business continuity plans for each of our clients, shared as of the initial days of the crisis with our clients.
We also supported our clients so as to roll out home working possibilities for their own employees, and early on, late February, early March, we put together an offering for our clients, adapted to the situation, called Always Ready. Always Ready. Nobody expected this to happen, but we showed that we were always ready, and we found that our clients appreciated what we made possible for them over this period.
And I'd like to say to our shareholders here today that all of our group's teams in all the countries we operate in were very responsive indeed in this context. We also, of course, bolstered security because this COVID period and the huge increase in home working was something that led to a huge number of attacks in terms of cybersecurity.
Much more cybersecurity attacks, so we had to further secure our own activities and the activities of our clients. And I'd like to underline here, to the contribution of your group, to a very large number of initiatives taken by the public authorities and the health authorities and research institutes, so as to fight against this virus, identify the virus itself, and also work on the sequencing, and hopefully come up with a vaccine in the future.
So in this context, which is very particular, this COVID context, we should recall the structural characteristics of your group, and also the business profile. We've a very resilient profile in Atos. There are several angles of approach. Firstly, if we look at the sound business mix we have in this group. You see this here on the left.
This gives us our resilience. Two-thirds of the group's contracts are multi-annual contracts. When I say multi-annual, on average, it's five years. So that gives us visibility here in the group in situations of crisis, like we've just been going through. Three-quarters of our revenues in the group are made up of critical projects. That is, projects that are absolutely vital for our clients.
So less than one-quarter of our revenues happens to be exposed to, let's say, discretionary spending by our clients, which is very little compared to a lot of our peers in this industry. The second angle of approach to look at our resilience is to be seen through our client base.
About 90% of the group's clients are private clients, with annual revenues greater than EUR 1 billion, that is, in euro terms, of course, that is companies that are substantial in size, or else clients from the public sector. That means that we're not very exposed to SMEs, for example, or even companies with EUR 500 million worth of revenues, which are not very small companies, but we're not very exposed to those entities. So that is another reason why we feel we have a sound base in this group.
Now, in terms of the breakdown of our revenues per industry, that's another angle of approach that we have put on the screen here. In this context, we have a very balanced breakdown, given the different industries we service. And if you look at the detail here, you see that we are a bit more exposed than the market to the more resilient sectors.
That's the public sector and defense, 20% of our revenues generated there, whereas the market, I mean, our competitors, 16%, you see, on this slide. And conversely, if we look at sectors that are a bit more fragile, like financial services and insurance as an industry, is 19% of our revenues there, whereas the market as a whole achieves 26% of its revenues in that industry.
And, in this COVID period, another important point is that we only have 2% of our revenues exposed to travel and leisure activities. So how then did we react to this crisis from a business and financial perspective? Since the very start, our philosophy was to have any potential impacts of the crisis borne by all of the stakeholders of the group.
You can see this on this particular slide that I'll detail out on the next one. Firstly, we made sure that we would freeze expenditure that was not absolutely essential for the needs of our clients. We also renegotiated prices with a certain number of our suppliers. We tried to replace subcontractors by in-house staff, direct employees of the group, and we stopped travel. So that, of course, brought down our expenditure package.
Then, the next thing we did was the payroll, the people working for the group, and the public aid arrangements. We did a hiring freeze. We froze salaries and wages and mechanically variable compensation, given the impact of the crisis that's been brought down.
Also, we increased the number of days off, of vacation being taken, and we utilized the public aid arrangements, especially short-time working arrangements. On the client side, we, at the request of the clients often, embarked on talks so as to grant a certain amount of flexibility to those clients. This all happened in a very constructive relationship with clients by extending often-
... our relationship beyond the initial term of the contract, for example. And finally, the last point on this slide that's important for you, too, is that we decided in the board to not propose a dividend in respect of 2019 financial year, and the corporate management also reduced its own compensation, myself and a few of the people in the Executive Committee, and also the chairman of the Board of Directors.
And I think that it is a good time to go back on and talk about Atos' raison d'être. You voted on this last year, and we were the first company, or one of the first companies, to vote at the general meeting, to vote on our raison d'être. We knew that it was a good thing at the time.
We didn't know that the COVID-19 would arrive, but it so happened that this raison d'être was a very good thing during this COVID-19 crisis, and I think that we acted online with this raison d'être that you voted on. We made sure, beyond what all I said beforehand, we tried to work in the common interest of all our stakeholders. We helped the authorities to contain this pandemic, and we contributed to many initiatives, to research institutes, and we are sharing our skills will with them.
We contributed in terms of our calculation capacity. You know that our group is a leader in terms of high-performance calculators, and these calculators help accelerate not only the identification of the virus, its sequencing, but also research of the vaccine, which will help us annihilate this virus. So we helped in these super calculators, HPCs.
This raison d'être, we were one of the first companies that put it, included it in its statutes. That is, this raison d'être is a long-term project. It is for the common interest, and all our activities are part of this, and the chairman will go back on this in this general meeting.
I would like to underline two points. Atos, a year ago, with the formal adoption of this raison d'être, contributed to the digital transformation of the entire company, and the raison d'être of the company will be deployed over time. There'll be objectives in the short, medium, and long term, as what I said on the COVID-19. That was a very great proof of this, and that's not the only thing.
The methodology followed by the company, that is, in 2020, to coordinate and highlight the actions and initiatives existing in the company for its employees, together with the three pillars of this raison d'être that I'll be explaining in just a few moments. The second point, we need to identify in 2020 the indicators that will allow us to follow in time the loyalty of the company to its raison d'être.
Indicators, but not only, we'll be working on the use in real life, which will demonstrate, which will make this raison d'être live. And the third point is the implementation. We're working on this in 2020, on this raison d'être, through internal actions, sharing, communicating on this, and recently we promoted the raison d'être during the Innovation Week, which was an annual week organized for the first time, dedicated to Innovation for our employees.
It's, it's an internal event, and the employees could go deeper down in the experience of a digital company, where innovation is one of the engines, and it's a pride offered to each person to register a video, to show our clients what all we're doing, for example, during this COVID crisis. I was indicating the three pillars of our raison d'être. The first pillar, to guarantee the security, the confidence in the information space. What is our engagement?
Atos wants to facilitate the entrance in this digital space by facilitating use of this digital technology, by helping companies and states, whether it's a private life, transparency of the processes, algorithms, with the conviction that to build this, IT space, to go back to our terms of our raison d'être, this will help us build a digital world with an inclusive outlook, which is an essential word for our raison d'être.
The second pillar, contribute to environmental transition. Here, our engagement consists, our ambition is to improve the environmental ambition, transform the new technologies into a real environmental transition lever. Third pillar, promote scientific and technological excellence. Our engagement here consists in supporting scientific excellence and technological excellence and encourage the development of knowledge and research...
Now I'd like to move on to our performance in 2019, and the feedback on 2019, which is the core section of this general meeting. Talk to you about our performance and our results. Now, very quickly, the first point, the first salient point this year was the return of our Infrastructure and Data Management activity in North America. We had a positive growth in Q2, which was the engagement in H2, sorry, which was our engagement.
We've developed our partnership with Google Cloud in a very positive way. We've acquired Maven Wave, which helped us in this partnership. Now, the second salient fact is Business and Platform Solutions, which is an activity that has gone through more difficulties because there was a slowdown in a certain number of sectors, like the financial services in North America, the automotive sector in Germany.
The third element is to go back on Syntel, eighteen months after, or nearly two years after the acquisition of Syntel in the summer of twenty eighteen. And I'd like to indicate that our synergies are in line with the forecasts concerning profitability and cost optimization. The next element concerns Big Data and Cybersecurity, which is our third division, and it was right on time in terms of a certain number of very ambitious objectives in twenty nineteen, and it's finished the year with a very strong dynamism.
The commercial dynamism in twenty nineteen was also very good, with the book-to-bill at 106%, and at the end of the year, Q4, we reached 121%, which is a very good commercial end of the year.
The extra financial indicators, which have become very important for us, as important as our financial indicators, confirms the leadership position of Atos, whether it's in all the different ratings carried out or the indicators themselves, the KPIs themselves, in terms of, for example, CO2 emission. We confirm our first position in the world in the digital industry.
The chairman mentioned it in his introduction, the deconsolidation of Worldline, that was very important in 2019, with the distribution to the shareholders of shares, the equivalent of EUR 2.3 billion in May this year, and this was followed by the two sales of the remaining shares of Atos until February 2020. The main figures, 1.4% organic growth in 2019, a strong acceleration compared to 2018.
The operating margin, 10.3%, and free cash flow available at 0.6 billion EUR. I'd also like to mention the earnings per share, normalized, diluted, 7.74 EUR per share. As for the extra financial indicators, as I just mentioned, the first figure might be the most important one for decarbonization, the reduction of our carbon footprint at 20.97 tons of CO2 per million EUR of revenue.
That is the lowest level in the entire industry, under -24% since 2015. It's an excellent result, and this is a very original characteristic of your company, very original feature of your company. The second point, diversity in the group at 31%. 31% of women within Atos, plus three points, therefore, since 2015, and this is more or less the average of the industry worldwide.
On the next page, we have indicated our partnerships that we have created since a number of years, but there's been an acceleration in 2019. Dell Technologies has been our partner since a long time. We are having better relations year after year, and especially in 2019. But I'd like to mainly mention the three partners that are at the center of this page, Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure, who are the leaders of the public cloud in the world and with whom we have built partnerships.
The first is probably Google Cloud. These are extremely important partnerships, so as to enter into the next phase, the cloud deployment and the future of the cloud, what it is becoming. RingCentral, which is our last partner here, is a very important partner.
We did this at the end of twenty nineteen, and they are working in the field of unified communication, and they are passing into the cloud, the services and technologies that we were offering our clients until now in this area. One important point also concerns the progress, the attractiveness of our company vis-à-vis the external talents, so as to improve our hirings. We have integrated a large number of highly qualified new experts in SAP, cybersecurity, and Google Cloud.
And as for our internal skills, our employees who are already in the company, we've also worked and invested on their certification. And here, you can see on this slide, 51,000 additional digital certifications, and of course, we focused on SAP, Google Cloud, and cybersecurity. And the last point I'd like to mention here is the very high number of internal positions where we've recruited.
This is a priority for us in terms of career development and for our employees to offer the vacancies to our personnel in-house. Here you can see, this is a summary. You can see the huge amount of work carried out by the group teams in the field of CSR and sustainable development. On the left, you can see some, of course, there are more, some of the rankings of Atos in CSR, and once again, Atos is a leader in our industry, in this area, in the world, and on the right-hand side, this is something that's very important.
This concerns the offers we make to our clients to reduce their carbon footprint, so on the one side, you have our strategy to reduce our carbon footprint, Atos's carbon footprint, and to carry out actions, CSR actions.
And on the other side, you have the way we export this know-how to our entire customer base, with, at the end of 2019, the setting up of offers meant for that only. Now, after this overview of 2019, I'd like to say a few words on what we launched at the beginning of 2020, to give you an outlook of the company.
At the beginning of 2020, we launched a program called SPRING. Its aim is to verticalize, it's not a very nice word, to describe the reorganization of the company per sector of activity of our clients. Atos is organized according to six industries. The first is the manufacturing industry, the second are the financial services and insurance. The third sector is the public sector and defense. Then you have the telcos, media and technologies, resources and services.
That is mainly energy, transportation, logistics, and distribution, and the last sector, health. It is a very important transformation, and it has one single objective, that is to get closer to our clients, to improve our closeness with our clients. And of course, the objective behind all this is to develop and deploy our technologies for a greater number of clients.
Our geographical BUs were simplified. We have reduced it to five major regions, Central Europe, Northern Europe, North America, Southern Europe, and the Growing Markets, that is Africa, the Middle East, South America, and the Asia Pacific region. This transformation of the entire company, this group program, was carried out at three levels. First, we are verticalizing, we are transforming the offer portfolio of the company. The second element is that we are transforming what we call the go-to-market in English.
That is our customer approach, that we're also making more vertical and the organization as such, as I've just said. I have reconstituted a management team at the top of the group, and you can see it here, and this reflects this new organization. And in the last year, we've renewed roughly half of the management team, so as to properly carry out this very ambitious transformation.
And finally, I would like to underline two major strategic thrusts, which are highly differentiating for your group, that we will be developing in the coming years. The first is cybersecurity. This is a very strong point for the company. We will keep developing this activity, and we will make acquisitions in this activity. The second thrust is decarbonization. That is the reduction of our carbon footprint, our carbon footprint, and also that of our clients.
This is a real development, this is a real digital activity, and we absolutely wanted to be the first. We wanted to be at the vanguard of this activity that's going to really boom in the coming years. I'd like to end, Mr. Chairman, with our objectives for twenty twenty. We have finished half of the year.
These objectives were formulated after the arrival of the COVID crisis. We were one of the only companies to give objectives for the full year. This is based on our resilience, as I mentioned earlier on. Organic growth between -2% and -4%, so therefore, you can see a reduction of this growth, considering the context. Operating margin between 9% and 9.5% of the revenue.
Here again, a drop of the margin, which is quite contained, and an available free cash flow, which is quite high, between 500 and 600 million EUR. The main priorities to reach this, these objectives: First, we would like to focus on the request made after the COVID-19. The demands of the customers have been modified after the crisis. We've been working on this since several months.
We want to control our costs, and that's something we know how to do, properly manage our cash, the deployment of SPRING, as I've just told you, cybersecurity and decarbonization, which are our two differentiating verticals. We'll keep investing in these areas. We will accelerate, we will maintain our leadership. We will remain the pioneers in these areas, and at the center, we will pursue targeted acquisitions in all these domains, so as to speed things up.
We will give you all the details of all this in the two analyst days on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of June, next week. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this presentation, which was very complete, very exhaustive. I'd like to give the floor to Mr. Stelter, who's the financial manager of the group, and he will be presenting the twenty nineteen accounts in a more detailed way.
Commercial activity of the year. The 106% book-to-bill reflects the dynamic commercial momentum in a year with much less contracts coming for renewals. The commercial activity was particularly high during the second semester in North America, benefiting from all the actions implemented in the last eighteen months.
The commercial momentum was also solid in Germany and France and in Benelux and the Nordics. Book-to-bill was 98% in infrastructure and data management, fueled by large signatures, 111% in business and platform solutions, led by projects in digital and automation, and 130% in big data and cybersecurity, both in high-performance computing and cybersecurity. The full backlog at the end of 2019 amounted to EUR 21.9 billion and represented 1.9 years of revenue.
The qualified pipeline is strong at EUR 7.4 billion at the end of December 2019, slightly above the end of Q3 and EUR 500 million above last year. Now, we move to the financial performance of 2019 and the reconciliation between statutory and organic figures for full year revenue and operating margin.
Exchange rates positively contributed to revenue for EUR 154 million and to operating margin for EUR 19 million, mainly coming from the appreciation of the US dollar versus euro. Scope effects amounted to EUR 982 million for revenue and EUR 154 million for operating margin, mostly related to the deconsolidation of Worldline and the acquisition of Syntel. Next slide presents the external revenue and operating margin development for the group and by division.
The group achieved an organic growth of 1.4%, accelerating in H2, including a Q4 at 2.2% and operating margin of 10.3% after 9.8% the year before. I will comment the performance per division on the next three slides. Let's start in the next slide with infrastructure and data management. As expected, infrastructure and data management returned to positive growth in H2, led by North America, and achieved stability for the year at -0.6%.
Operating margin is 9.7% of revenue, an increase of 40 basis points versus last year, mainly driven by strong cost-saving actions, including the RACE program across geographies, as well as the adaptation of the group workforce in several countries, more particularly in Germany, which benefited from first effects of the adaptation plan launched in H1.
On the next slide, business and platform solutions revenue grew 0.9% at constant scope and exchange rates in 2019. The division grew 2.3% in first half of the year and declined -0.5% in second half due to increased headwinds in North America financial services and German automotive industry, as well as lower healthcare activities and discontinuation of low-margin contracts in first half of the year.
Operating margin was 11.7%. The improvement of 10 basis points was mainly led by North America and Benelux and the Nordics. Syntel activities and synergies contributed positively to the division margin improvement. Operating margin improvement achieved in the first semester slowed down in the second half due to the lower revenue. On the next slide, I'd like to cover big data and cybersecurity.
Revenue in big data and cybersecurity was up 18.3% organically, maintaining a strong performance all over the year and continuing the extension of the division's markets, both in terms of industry served and geographies. Main contributor was the ramp-up of large contracts in France, like Météo-France, in Germany, with HLRN and Forschungszentrum Jülich, in the U.K., with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, and in Benelux and the Nordics with CSC in Finland.
Operating margin was 14.2% of revenue, broadly stable compared to 2018. Profitability increased in high growth units such as France, Benelux, and the Nordics, and other business units. Solid profitability from operations allowed to invest in R&D development of offerings in both cybersecurity and big data solutions. Let's move to the performance by global business units.
North America was down -2.3% full year, but up in H2 with 2.7% in Q4. Infrastructure and data management achieved stability for full year with the ramp-up of new contracts. The turnaround plan of the North America management team is paying off. Germany, up 0.7%, thanks to a strong activity in big data.
Business and platform solutions also recorded a solid growth, led by digital projects and application management contracts. France grew 3.5%, mainly fueled by the strong performance in big data and cybersecurity, and more particularly in public and health. United Kingdom and Ireland posted a positive growth in H2, allowing for a stable full year, led by a strong performance in big data and cybersecurity.
Benelux and the Nordics recorded a growth of 3%, driven by good performance in big data and cybersecurity, and a strong recovery of business and platform solutions in H2, thanks to the ramp-up of contracts such as Philips and cloud business with an insurance company. Other business units continued a solid trend, above 5% in H2, to achieve 5.6% for the year.
On the next slide, the total headcount of the group was 108,000 at the end of December 2019, compared to 122,000 at the end of December 2018, including Worldline, which represented 11,000 people. Excluding scope effects, the decrease was -1.9% due to automation and robotization programs, both in IDM and B&PS.
Attrition was circa 15% in 2019, and the group hired 18,000 staff, the majority of them in offshore countries, mostly in India. Now, let me comment on the income statement of 2019. Starting with the operating income for 2019 at EUR 660 million, I would like to comment on the large items. Staff reorganization amounted to -EUR 100 million.
The increase in 2019 came mostly from the specific plan in Germany, launched at the beginning of the last year. Rationalization costs were EUR 34 million, resulting from the closure of office premises and data center consolidation, mainly in North America and France. Integration and acquisition costs amounted to EUR 41 million, the majority of them Syntel. EUR 157 million were recorded as PPA amortization. This was EUR 67 million in 2019, while we had only two months in 2018.
Equity-based compensation plans amounted to EUR 73 million in 2019. This amount was EUR 36 million recorded in 2018 due to lower performance and hence decrease of shares granted. In 2019, other items increased from EUR 40 million to EUR 125 million. Most of the increase came from two items: the sale of Worldline shares made in November 2019. From an accounting standpoint, the book value of the Worldline shares were valued at the time of distribution in May at EUR 54.70.
The sale of the shares, as well as the transfer to the U.K. pension fund, were done at EUR 53. Therefore, the group recorded an IFRS loss of EUR 53 million in its consolidated financial statements, net of costs of disposal. Secondly, the settlement of EUR 23 million with a large telco operator in Germany with no cash impact.
Net financial expense amounted to -EUR 208 million for the period, compared to -EUR 67 million for 2018. The increase mainly came from circa EUR 50 million from additional interest expenses to finance Syntel acquisition, -EUR 54 million related to the part of optional exchangeable bond, and -EUR 27 million of lease liability interest based on first application of IFRS 16.
The tax charge was -EUR 82 million, corresponding to an analyzed effective tax rate of 18.2%. Further to the deconsolidation of Worldline, the share of Worldline's net profit of EUR 47 million is accounted for under equity method, representing the contribution since May 1, 2019, 24% shares until October, 16% in November and December. As a result, the group reported a net income from continuing operations group share at EUR 414 million for 2019.
The net income from discontinued operation group share amounted to EUR 2.986 billion, and represents the contribution from Worldline net result from January 1, 2019 to April 30, 2019, and the net gain on distribution of Worldline shares, net of costs to distribute.
Moving to the next slide, normalized net income was EUR 834 million, slightly above 2018, which led to EUR 7.74 normalized earning per share. Let's move to the free cash flow on the next slide. Operating margin before depreciation, amortization was EUR 1.802 billion, representing 15.5% of revenue, compared to 11.4% of restated revenue in 2018.
Reorganization, rationalization and associated costs and integration reached −EUR 173 million, compared to −EUR 146 million in 2018, in line with the group objective to maintain these costs at 1% of the revenue of the year, plus the cost to implement the synergies with Syntel, as well as the transformation plan in Germany.
Capital expenditures amounted to EUR 324 million, representing 2.8% of revenue, compared to 3.5% in 2018, reflecting a change in the group CapEx intensity due to more cloud deployment, with more standardized CapEx and lower costs compared to classic infrastructures, as well as less renewals in 2019. The change in working capital requirement was −EUR 130 million. The DSO ratio reached 47 days, compared to 46 days at the end of December 2018, excluding Worldline.
The level of trade receivables sold with no recourse remained at the same level than end of 2018, as committed by the group. Cash out related to tax paid reached -EUR 99 million, up from the prior year, mainly due to Syntel scope. The cost of net debt increased to -EUR 64 million, compared to -EUR 30 million in 2018, mainly due to the financing structure in 2019, further to the acquisition of Syntel and before the sale of Worldline shares.
Finally, other changes amounted to -EUR 25 million, compared to -EUR 37 million in 2018. The 2019 number included a positive one-off effect of EUR 37 million related to the issuance of the OEB derivative instrument, net of fees.
The remaining amount increased year-on-year due to the pension and early retirement programs in France and in Germany, breakup fees related to supplier contracts, termination already disclosed in H1, global transformation programs, and foreign exchange impacts. As a result, free cash flow reached EUR 605 million, or EUR 642 million free cash flow reported under IFRS, including EUR 37 million related to the optional exchangeable bond.
Next slide shows the net debt development. We started 2019 with EUR 2.9 billion euro debt. It was reduced to EUR 1.7 billion at the end of the year, mainly led by the following items: First, free cash flow at EUR 600 million euro. The disposal of Worldline shares for EUR 700 million euros, net of tax. And third, EUR 75 million, representing the cost of acquisitions and the cost of deconsolidation.
Fourth, dividend paid in cash for EUR 58 million. The rest of the 180 million amount was taken in Atos shares. Five, share buyback for a 113 million regarding performance shares to be delivered to avoid dilution for shareholders. The next slide shows a simplified group balance sheet. The main movements are related to the distribution of Worldline and the sale of shares later in the year. I would like to point your attention to our strong financial position, which has been recently reinforced with the disposal of Worldline shares in February 2020.
Starting with a net debt of -EUR 1.7 billion as of December 2019, and taking into account the proceeds of circa EUR 1.4 billion after tax and fees relating to the disposal of the Worldline shares, reduced by the acquisition price of Maven Wave and the remaining Worldline shares underlying the EUR 500 million exchangeable bond, we are pro forma debt-free. In the next three slides, I would like to give you more details on the revised guidance for 2020, take into account the impacts of COVID-19.
First slide is on the updated revenue growth. The original pre-COVID guidance was circa 2% organic growth for 2020. The updated guidance is a bracket between -2% to -4%, explained by the following effects.
The main effects relate to discretionary projects, mainly on professional services, which normally are delivered on customer sites, and also take into account a potential slowdown on customer demand for projects not considered as mandatory. We have estimated this effect from March to the end of the year at circa EUR 450 million. Another effect is on utilization and volumes for circa EUR 200 million on our multi-year contracts.
We also estimated less product sales for circa EUR 100 million. On the other side, we have additional demand on Digital Workplace, enterprise communications, and obviously, security offerings. Finally, we have also identified additional demand of the public sector, such as high-performance computers. The next slide describes the actions taken to mitigate the effect of less revenue on the operating margin.
First, we launched a strong action plan to decrease third-party spend for all areas and geographies, for a total of circa EUR 170 million. This includes as well, the replacement of external spend with our own people. Second, we centralized hiring decisions in the context of hiring freeze. This is augmented by part-time work and furlough in several countries. Travel freeze is expected to save circa EUR 40 million this year.
We expect that the effect of salary freeze and also on reduced variable pay with circa EUR 90 million. All the actions launched will be mitigate the revenue decrease, partly by EUR 400 million, leading to an operating margin between 9% and 9.5%. Finally, on my last slide, we have updated the free cash flow guidance to take into account the operating margin decrease of EUR 150 million after tax.
We factor in our estimate, a negative impact from collections of receivables of circa EUR 50 million. This will be partly mitigated by several actions, like reducing CapEx by circa EUR 25 million, and other items by circa EUR 25 million. This leads to a free cash flow between EUR 500 million and EUR 600 million. Thank you.
So, I suggest we go on to the next item. I'd like to present the report of the board on corporate governance, established in application of Article L225-37 of the Code of Commerce. The Universal Registration Document 2019 includes all the elements of the report of the board and corporate governance, and reflects a correspondence table in section G.2.6, page 341 of the document. The report on corporate governance talks about the following information.
As for governance, the board takes into account the recommendations of the marketplace on the improvement of the governance of listed companies, and anticipates the best practices. More particularly, the report recalls the addition of the company to the principles of proper governance of the company, particularly the enterprise governance code, AFEP-MEDEF, as reviewed in January 2020.
The report described in the annual review, with respect to these rules by the company, to which the board proceeds, with the session specifically dedicated to these issues on the sixteenth of December, twenty nineteen. On this slide, you can see that the report shows that the implication, the involvement of the directors in the work of the board and these committees is very important.
The participation rate is highly satisfactory, more than 85% for the board meetings, and it reaches 100% rate for CSR. The report also tells about, the diversity policy implemented within the board. As for parity, the board is made up of more than 42% women. This percentage complies with the recommendations of the AFEP-MEDEF code, and the board is contemplating to appoint new lady directors.
As for the nationality, the proportion of directors who are non-French has reached 42%, also in line with the international dimension of the group. Employee representation, the board includes an employee director, Mrs. Jean Fleming, and an employee director, Mr. Farès Louis. I'd like to thank him for his contribution to our work. Next slide. I think that the skills and professional experience, the directors have a vast professional experience in various business sectors, and at very high levels.
The diversity of skills is shown with the variety of the profiles of the members of the board. They have different experience and training, especially in the field of engineering, in finance, and in management. The report also carries out a detailed analysis of the functioning and the work carried out in 2019 by the board and its three specialized committees.
After their preparatory work, they transmit their recommendations to the board. The board is assisted by three committees: the Nomination and Compensation Committee, the Audit Committee, and the CSR Committee, which is operating since a year and a half. After the resignation of Thierry Breton as the CEO, the governance structure of the company was modified in accordance with the succession plan, and the CEO functions and general manager functions were then separated.
I'd like to tell you that after the results of the vote at the general meeting in twenty nineteen, Atos could include its raison d'être in its statutes right from the thirteenth of April, twenty nineteen, and this by anticipating the Loi PACTE that was adopted on the twenty-second of May, twenty nineteen.
Atos was, I think, the first company of the CAC 40 to vote on a raison d'être in its statutes, and therefore showing its specific identity, its calling, and the deep essence of the company, thus strengthening its leadership with its stakeholders. The raison d'être is inspiring Atos' action with all its stakeholders, its employees, its clients, its shareholders, its industrial partners, and its widened ecosystem. It is bringing together all the different métiers of the company and its contribution to the general interest.
After this inclusion in the statutes, the board, together with the CSR committee, that has regularly formulated recommendations, could begin working on formalizing key indicators and highlighting the testimonies of employees that will embody the raison d'être through their experience and their activities within the company. This will allow us to follow and steer the long-term actions of each one of them.
To monitor its raison d'être, the company has a multifunctional organization coordinated by the Secretary General under the supervision of the General Manager, who reports to the board.
...As for the compensation of the managers, the Universal Registration Document for 2019, as completed in the report of the board on the resolutions, contains a part presenting both the compensation paid during the fiscal year 2019 to the managers and the compensation policy that is applied to them from 2020 onwards. That is the G point three part of the document. These elements will be exposed in full details in a few moments by Nicolas Bazire, who is the Chairman of the Nomination and Compensation Committee. I hope that the video will be synchronized.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good afternoon. As Chairman of the Appointments and Compensation Committee, it's up to me to present to you the compensation of the corporate officers of your company, so as to explain how in line with the current regulations, the compensation owing or granted with respect to twenty nineteen to the corporate officers, that this compensation was therefore in line with the policies on compensations for fiscal twenty twenty.
All of the details relating to the resolutions that are submitted to you for your approval have been made available to you in the Universal Registration Document for twenty nineteen, in section G3, and picked up also in part in the convening notice to this general meeting. Concerning the Chairman and CEO, Mr.
Thierry Breton, he resigned from his terms, and from his duties as Chairman of the Board and as, CEO also of your company, on the date of the thirty-first of October, 2019. The board therefore, decided on that date, on the conditions of his termination of duties in line with the compensation policy approved by this meeting on the thirteenth of April, 2019, taking account of the desire of Mr. Thierry Breton to forgo certain items of his compensation. Firstly, his variable compensation for 2019, but also all of his share-based payments granted in respect of fiscal, years 2017 and 2019.
Hence, the items of compensation owing or granted for twenty nineteen comprise exclusively the fixed compensation paid to him until the thirty-first of October, twenty nineteen, and the valuation of the benefit in kind for the first 10 months of the year, as approved by this meeting last year. Mr. Thierry Breton utilized his entitlements to go out on retirement pension as of first of November.
Last, he availed of the arrangements for a supplementary pension entitlements applicable to the members of the executive committee of the group, as approved by this meeting. The board noted that the conditions, performance conditions, were more than just achieved, more than achieved during the terms of Mr. Thierry Breton, but excluded twenty nineteen year in the determination of the complementary pension. Mr.
Thierry Breton also intimated to the board his wish to forgo the payment of this pension during all of the period of fulfillment of his duties in the European Commission. That is until the end of twenty twenty-four. Hence, the back payments unpaid during this period shall be definitively lost.
Concerning Mr. Bertrand Meunier, the separation of the functions of Chairman and CEO was not planned in the policy for compensation submitted to you last year, and at the proposal of my committee, the board of directors, while taking care of the best interest of the company, and in the light of the exceptional nature of the situation, allocated a fixed compensation to the non-executive Chairman of the board of directors. This exceptional compensation, EUR 43,833, taken from the package of director's compensation for the year. Mr.
Bertrand Meunier also received for 2019 compensation of EUR 54,500 in respect of his board membership. Also, the fact of being a member of the audit committee and the appointments and compensation committee. Given the changes in the governance of the group following the resignation of Mr. Thierry Breton, we should make a distinction between two periods for the remuneration for 2019, Mr. Elie Girard, as corporate officer.
The first period, going from the second of April to the thirty-first of October, during which he fulfilled the duties of Deputy CEO, and the period starting on the first of November, 2019, when Mr. Elie Girard was appointed CEO. For these two periods, the items of compensation and the benefits paid or granted to Mr.
Elie Girard result from the implementation of the principles of compensation approved by the general meeting on the thirtieth of April, 2019. The weighted performance for 2019 of the company, compared to the objectives that were demanding, were set by the board, stood at 99.4%.
The amount of the compensation that was variable, stemming from that after applying the elasticity curves that accelerate upwards and downwards the amounts to, come out at a figure of 78.4% of the amount of target variable compensation for the first half of 2019, and 99.3% of the amount of the target variable compensation for the second half of 2019. The result is therefore, variable compensation due to Mr.
Elie Girard in respect of his functions as Deputy CEO, calculated on a pro rata temporis basis of EUR 316,230. Also, Mr. Elie Girard availed in July 2019 of a grant of 15,900 stock options and a grant of 15,900 shares governed by performance conditions, IFRS valuation thereof being EUR 857,000.
All told, the compensation owing or granted to Mr. Elie Girard for the period from the second of April to the thirty-first of October 2019, as Deputy CEO, stood at EUR 1,524,717. Following the appointment of Mr. Elie Girard as CEO, the board of directors decided on the proposal from my committee that the conditions for compensation of Mr.
Elie Girard from the first of November, twenty nineteen onwards, would respect, obviously, the compensation policy in force. So for the period of, from the first of November to the thirty-first of December, twenty nineteen, Mr. Elie Girard didn't avail of any share-based payment.
His variable compensation results from the same rules of calculation as for his variable compensation in respect of his duties as Deputy CEO, reviewed previously.... showing us an amount of EUR 180,430 owing to him on a pro rata basis for the last two months of the year. Sections G3.2 and G3.3 of the Universal Registration Document for twenty nineteen show all of the details of the report on corporate governance of the company, and also present the information mentioned in the relevant regulations here in France.
This brings me on to expound upon the compensation policies now put to you here today for approval. Firstly, I'd like to recall that the compensation policies are made up of principles applicable as of fiscal 2020. These principles that govern the determination of the compensation of the corporate officers are drawn up within the context of the AFEP-MEDEF code that your company always refers to.
In respect of the review of these principles, I'd like to recall that within our company, the structure of the total compensation of the corporate officers is designed as per a pay-for-performance approach. We grant special importance to a substantial variable portion that's associated with annual and multi-annual time frames.
This approach enables the senior manager to have a transparent, competitive, and motivating framework to work within to achieve the group's ambitions, and enables your company to be committed only for a limited portion of the total compensation, if the performance of the company in the short or medium term were to be insufficient. Also, the total compensation of the corporate officers excludes any form of exceptional commitment, especially in the case of termination of duties.
The compensation policy, therefore, contributes to the implementation of a long-term strategy and this sustained growth of your company whilst respecting the best corporate interest. Firstly, the shareholders are called upon to give their opinion on the new compensation policy for our board members. The package is now maintained at the same level as what was approved at last year's AGM.
Concerning the compensation of Monsieur Bertrand Meunier, as chairman of the board of directors, the board, on the recommendation from my committee, proposes that his compensation should comprise, as of 2020, only annual fixed compensation of EUR 400,000, payable monthly.
On the basis of the principles mentioned a few minutes ago, taking account of the market practice and the fact that Monsieur Elie Girard now has to take care himself of setting up a complementary pension scheme for himself outside of the compulsory pension scheme. The board has therefore decided on the compensation of the CEO as follows: fixed compensation of EUR 950,000, target variable compensation for objectives achieved at 100%, representing 125% of the fixed compensation.
This conditional compensation shall be underpinned by the same financial performance criteria as the previous years, with, however, greater weight being granted to the objective for organic growth of our revenues, going up to 40% as opposed to 30% previously. The variable compensation comprises no minimum that would be guaranteed in the absence of performance, and it's capped at 130% of its target value in the event of overperformance.
The calculation will be remained based on the application of elasticity curves, which will accelerate upwards or downwards the amount that's owing in respect of each of the criteria on performance as a function of the rate of achievement of the objectives. Mr. Elie Girard shall avail also of multi-annual variable compensation, which will be share-based, that will be capped in IFRS value terms at 50% of the total compensation.
For 2020, the variable compensation that will be share-based would take the form of grant of shares subjected to the achievement of performance conditions to be achieved over a period of three years in the context of the 2020 grant plan, put to you to the vote today here in resolution number 32.
The criteria on performance govern the vesting of all or part of the shares granted, and these performance criteria will be in part linked with corporate, social, and environmental responsibility of the company, with the introduction this year of a performance condition that will be internally founded on the reduction of the carbon intensity of the group. The total compensation of the CEO is therefore structured 17% variable portion subjected to performance condition, and 22% a fixed portion. You will note that Mr.
Elie Girard became a board member of the company on sixteenth of December last, and he decided to forgo his compensation relating to that function. Also, in the current or the particular context, you should know that Mr. Elie Girard and Mr. Bertrand Meunier decided to forgo 30% of their compensation package for three months, March, April, and May 2020. Thank you for your attention. Merci.
Thank you, Mr. Bazire. Thank you, Nicolas Bazire, for your work as the Chairman of the Nomination and Compensation Committee, and for the presentations you make to the Board, which are always very brilliant and precise. I'd like to give the floor now to Virginie Palethorpe from Grant Thornton, who is going to... And she represents the Collège des commissaires aux comptes, and she will present the report, the auditor's report, statutory auditor's report.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I have the pleasure of reporting to you about the execution of our assignment for the fiscal year closed at the thirty-first of December 2019. As for the ordinary general meeting, we've issued four reports that are at your disposal within the timeframe given to us by law on the consolidated accounts, annual accounts-
... social, environmental, and corporate information figuring in the management report, related party agreements. So I'm not going to read them fully, but I'll just summarize the contents. As for our reports on the consolidated and the annual accounts, which are presented on pages 181 and 255 of the URD, we would like to recall the objective of our mission, that is to obtain a reasonable assurance that these accounts do not bear any material misstatements.
In order to do so, we prepare an annual audit plan adapted to the activities and the group organization, and covering the important operations or non-recurring ones, as well as all the significant views of the consolidation scope. We pay particular importance to the implementation of the accounting principles and the review of the important assessments retained by the management.
Our plan, as well as the conclusions of our work, were presented to the audit committee that we met several times, as well as to the board. In compliance with the law, our reports on the accounts show the key points of the audit.
Accounting processes related to the distribution in kind of the Worldline shares to Atos shareholders, taking account of the revenue on the long-term service contracts, assessing the goodwill, assessing the commitments with respect to pension schemes with defined benefits, identifying deferred tax assets with regard to tax losses carried forward. As for the statutory accounts of Atos SE, this is the assessment of the equity securities. In conclusion, we believe that our work are sufficient and appropriate.
We certify that accounts for fiscal twenty nineteen are fair and true, and give a faithful image of the operations carried out, as well as the financial situation and assets for the consolidated accounts established according to the IFRS, and the individual accounts prepared in compliance with the French reference.
Without questioning the consolidated accounts, and in compliance with the professional standards, we would like to draw your attention on the change of the accounting principles related to the implementation of the IFRS 16 standards on the leasing contracts on the first of January, twenty nineteen. Besides, our report, which give you information on the management report, these documents were given to the shareholders, and we have no observations to make.
Our assurance report, presented on page one hundred and fifty-one of the URD, and covering the CSR information, showed no material misstatements on the information provided.
As for our special report on the related party agreements, figuring on page two hundred and fifty-nine of the URD, it refers to the separation convention with the Worldline company, concluded on the sixth of May, after prior authorization of your board. This report recalls the related party agreements already approved by the general meeting during the previous years.
In the framework of the extraordinary general meeting, we have issued five reports based on the following resolutions. On the authorization proposal for delegation of authority. The twenty-third authorization given to the Board of Directors to reduce the share capital by canceling treasury shares. Resolutions twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors to issue such issued shares and/or securities.
The thirtieth, a delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital of the Company with the removal of the preferential subscription rights to the benefit of the members of the Company savings plan or employees and executive officers. Thirty-first, delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors to increase the Company's share capital by issuing shares reserved for certain categories of persons. And the thirty-second one, authorization given to the Board of Directors to grant free shares to the employees and executive officers of the Company and/or its affiliated companies.
We have no observations to make on these five reports. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I'd like to thank you for your attention. Thank you. I would like to thank the auditors for their work, and now I would like to go on to the Q&A session. I'd like to give the floor to Alexandre Menais.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the context of a meeting held behind closed doors, since it's a live presentation, we couldn't take all the questions of the shareholders who would connect themselves to this meeting. But we received written questions from some of the shareholders, although many questions found answers in the various presentations that we gave during this meeting. I'm going to give you some short answers to all these various questions.
The first question: What is the list of your activities that are not compatible with the Paris Agreement? What actions are being taken to disengage from these activities in twenty twenty? To its knowledge, Atos does not directly pursue activities that are not compatible with the Paris Agreement.
Atos quickly decarbonizes its own activities. Atos is also helping to decarbonize its customers' digital infrastructures and helping them reduce the climate footprint of their activities. For example, in the crucial field of energy, the digital solutions offered by Atos make it possible to optimize and reduce consumption or better integrate renewable energies.
Second question: How are your CapEx development plans aligned with a climate scenario compatible with the Paris Agreement? Since September twenty nineteen, Atos has officially supported the task force TCFD on climate-related financial disclosures, and considers the guidelines published in twenty nineteen by the European Commission on non-financial information and reporting of climate-related information.
Atos analyzed the potential impacts of climate change for the group, acute and chronic physical impacts and transition impacts, both in terms of risks and opportunities, and decided at the end of twenty nineteen, a new decarbonization plan. This transition and development plan, currently being deployed on all dimensions, data centers, mobility, energy, purchasing and supply chain, client projects, is aligned with the climate scenario compatible with the Paris Agreement, and is already having an impact on our investments and our commercial objectives.
In twenty twenty, in line with the action plan's launch, Atos became one of the first companies to join the Business Ambition for 1.5 Degrees Celsius, a new initiative from the SBTI Initiative and the UN Global Compact, aiming to limit global warming to one point five degrees Celsius. Third question: How do you analyze the impact of your activities on global and local ecosystems, for example, the biodiversity?
What are your five- what are your top five impacts on them, positive and negative? Atos addresses a wide range of environmental issues and intends to cover, in a comprehensive manner, all its potential impacts, risks, and opportunities related to its business model and main activities. Given Atos's core business, its most significant environmental impacts related to energy, travel, and digital services, solutions, and technologies. The impacts on biodiversity are not direct or significant.
However, Atos's action plans regarding emissions, energy consumption, and travel, dissemination of environmentally friendly practices, and ISO 14001 certification, have positive repercussions on all ecosystems. Finally, Atos's activity itself, which consists in deploying digital solutions to replace processes which often have a high level of energy consumption, enables a drastic reduction in the carbon footprint of its clients, and therefore has a positive impact on ecosystems and biodiversity.
Fourth question: The coronavirus crisis will strongly weaken the economic environment, in particular, the small medium businesses. In that context, is your group contemplating a modification of the terms and conditions of payment of service providers, and if so, in what way and on what geographical scope? Atos is paying a lot of attention to the situation created by the pandemic, and considers holistically its supplier ecosystem.
More than ever, Atos remains attentive to the constraints of its partners and provides appropriate responses to specific requests, considering that a general measure will necessarily have less impact than a targeted approach. During this period, Atos is committed to maintaining business continuity, and is thus contributing to the resilience of its suppliers and partners.
Fifth question: How is your company preparing its employees for the twenty-first century transitions that are changing your industry? The development of digital and key skills is at the heart of Atos's vision. Each year, our employees obtain approximately 60,000 digital certifications, with a focus on the most important technologies for the future, doubling annually at least the key certifications in cybersecurity and cloud, including Google Cloud and SAP HANA.
In June 2020, the group organized its first innovation week, during which numerous Atos employees shared with their colleagues the innovations on which they are working. This led to tens of thousands of interactions in a few days, contributing to the preparedness of all employees for the coming technological challenges.
In addition, through the We Are Atos program, we are continuing to create a working environment that is employee-friendly and technology-enhanced, while striving to have an inclusive and diverse employee and management base, with special focus on gender diversity and disability engagement.
Sixth question: Do you have a definition of living wage that is not limited to the local legal minimum wage? If so, what is it? How does your company guarantee its employees a decent wage, especially in its main countries of operation?
Atos is, of course, compliant with the local laws and with any branch or legal entity agreement on salary levels. However, Atos's objective in its compensation policy is to determine competitive salary levels in line with the local market and the industry for similar positions, skills, and level of responsibility, which means higher than the minimum legal salary. In that perspective, Atos annually conducts external benchmark surveys specialized on the high tech market, to ensure alignment with the high tech market median for each position and each country.
Question number seven: Do you take environmental and social criteria into account in the profit-sharing schemes offered to your employees in France? If so, how and in what proportion? A profit-sharing agreement has been in place since 2018 on the French scope. The performance indicator...
So of this profit-sharing agreement are based on financial KPIs, external revenue, and operating margin, but it also integrates a potential upside link to a HR KPI based on the ratio of internal promotions among all open positions in Atos. The addition of an environmental indicator is currently being considered.
Question number eight, within the framework of employee savings, what proportion of the funds benefit from a responsible label, CIES, Finans ol, Greenfin, SRI? Within the Atos employee savings plan, PEG, there is one fund, Arcancia Action Ethique et Solidaire seven twenty-one, managed by Amundi, which benefits from the responsible label, CIES.
This label is granted by four out of the five French representative unions, CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC, and CGT, and rewards the offers which benefit from the recognized expertise in terms of responsible investment, and which give a majority to the employee representatives in the supervisory boards of the fund. Between 90% and 95% of these funds are invested in shares of European companies, chosen based on socially responsible investment criteria.
The rest is invested in shares of French solidarity-based companies, enabling the financing of companies favoring employment and social insertion. Among the retirement employee savings, PERCO and PERCOL, for the Atos International France entity, two funds benefit from the SRI label, and one of them is also socially responsible.
Amundi Label Obligataire ESR benefits from an SRI fund management, and Amundi Label Équilibre Solidaire ESR benefits from an SRI fund management, and part of the fund investments is socially responsible securities. These two funds also benefit from the CIES label.
Question number nine. Is the allocation of taxes country by country debated by the board of directors, and or is in audit committee, will you disclose the results publicly? As part of its missions, which include the review of company and consolidated accounts, and the preparation of published accounting and financial information, the audit committee reviews tax matters, such as the monitoring of the group effective tax rate and the distribution of the tax liabilities by geographic areas. The audit committee reports to the board of directors on its work, enabling the board of directors to approve the company's financial statements.
The group's transfer pricing policy, in accordance with the OECD principles, allows adequate allocation of the group's tax base, and therefore of the taxes, country by country, according to where the value creation and the commercial activities take place.
The group complies with its reporting obligations by communicating each year to the French tax administration, in particular, as part of the country by country declaration, numerous financial and tax data, including the amount of tax paid in each of the countries in which it is established. Finally, the group confirms that it presents, in its annual Universal Registration Document, the geographical distribution of its tax and social contributions.
Tenth question: Are social cohesion issues resulting from wage gaps discussed at the board of directors meetings, and are they subject to a policy? The principles of Atos's compensation policy are its competitiveness compared to the market, the fairness, in particular with respect to non-discrimination matters, and equal compensation between male and female, and the compensation for annual and long-term individual and collective performance.
The local compensation policy is furthermore compliant with national regulations and applicable to collective agreements. As an Atos group policy, Atos endeavors to compensate all employees at the median of high-tech sectors market in each country, according to the functions, the position and liability level on basis of annual compensation service held in each country.
Compensation matters are subject to continuing discussions with social partners. Group management regularly reports to the board of directors and to the nomination and compensation committee on compensation, salary policy, as well as equity ratio. The Board of Directors determines the long-term equity-based incentive policy and the compensation policy for corporate officers.
Eleventh question: Are the policies to ensure equal treatment between men and women on such matters as compensation, career, and progression towards positions of responsibility and related targets debated at the Board of Directors? Atos is committed to increase the number of female employees with management position and has implemented programs and measures to this effect.
Women Who Succeed was launched in 2018. This initiative offers targeted conversations with members of the Group Management Committee and women senior managers in order to offer additional resources, establish contacts, and attend possible trainings dedicated to their development. A mentoring program was launched in 2020 to accelerate this process.
Finally, the group management took the commitment that executives, which constitute the enlarged group management circle, composed of approximately 500 people, would be representative of the group and industry population, around 30% of women versus 13% until now, before the end of the first half of 2020. These CSR policy subjects are debated by the board of directors with the support of the CSR committee.
... And the last question: Do you intend to publish the opinion of the social partners on your group's extra financial performance statement? Atos recognizes the importance of establishing an effective social dialogue to stimulate innovation and deliver projects that have a positive impact. In 2019, Atos thus created a dedicated CSR committee to complement the European Works Council, EWC, with nine employee representatives.
If the extra financial performance statement of the group is not the subject of a consultation of the EWC, this committee enriches the dialogue related to societal and environmental matters, and provides regular updates on the activities of the group. Two employees are also members of the board of directors, and a delegation from the EWC is closely associated with the work of the board of directors. Mr. Chairman, these are the answers to the questions that were put by our shareholders.
Thank you, Alexandre. I'd like to thank the shareholders of this group for showing their interest, and for asking all of these interesting questions in spite of the current context. So ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I think at this point, we should present the outcome of the poll, the resolutions put to the vote at this shareholders meeting.
Firstly, I'd like to inform you that Mr. Nicolas Bazire informed the board of directors that he did not wish to stand for re-election as a director, and the board has taken note of that and decided, hence, not to put to the vote this afternoon resolution number six, which is the one that concerns him. I'll give the floor now, once again, to our secretary, to Alexandre Menais.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the particular context we have currently with the health-related measures that constrained us to hold this meeting behind closed doors, we gave thought to development of means that would make it easy for shareholders to express their votes. So in the last few months, we've created an application available in a web version and a smartphone version, Android or Apple, enabling shareholders to vote digitally using a secured process. It's secured by blockchain technology.
This application was tested out. It's just a test run, quite successfully with our employee shareholders, direct employees that is, so that we could obtain their votes for this general meeting.
Now, the designing of this application is a balance between something that's got to be easy to use and secure, with the use of standards that are really high access security standards and highly secure data transmission standards with two-factor user authentication, encryption of the data, and also the use of the blockchain environment.
Now, our designers, who are specialized in the development of secured applications, secured by design, as we call it, in coordination with our blockchain experts, they were attentive to making sure that the user experience was positive in the context of people voting as a shareholder at a meeting, so the acceptance of conditions of use and the policy to protect personal data.
Also, an overview over past events and registration at the shareholders meeting, and the possibility of expressing oneself with just one click and editing one's choices, so as to modify these choices before submitting one's vote definitively. This slide shows you how the user experience went.
Atos offers a new digital channel, enabling shareholders to submit their votes quite securely at shareholder meetings, using an innovative approach that's quite consistent with our raison d'être, our purpose in Atos, consisting of helping to shape up the future of the digital space.
With the help of this pilot experiment, we're now already working with our partners so as to develop this application with a view to upcoming events being able to use the technology. At this point, I shall perhaps... The end of the little presentational film. I'll perhaps move on to tell you the outcome of the polls for each resolution.
These results will be published as of the end of this meeting on our website in the chapter devoted particularly to the shareholders' meeting. So the outcome of the voting process. Resolution number one, the approval of the company financial statements for the financial year ending December 31, 2019, stands approved. Resolution number two, approval of the consolidated financial statements for the financial year ending December 31, 2019, also approved.
Resolution number three, allocation of the net income for the financial year ending December 31, 2019, also approved. Fourth resolution, ratification of the appointment of a director, Mr. Elie Girard, approved. Fifth resolution, ratification of the appointment of a director, Mr. Cédric Neike, stands approved. Resolution six concerned the renewal of Mr. Nicolas Bazire as member of the board of directors.
At the request of the person concerned, the board acknowledged his request that this resolution will not be voted upon. Seventh resolution, renewal of Ms. Valérie Bernis as member of the board of directors, approved. Eighth resolution, renewal of Ms. Colette Neuville as member of the board of directors, approved. Renewal of Mr. Cédric Neike as member of the board of directors.
Resolution number nine, also approved. Tenth resolution, election of a director representing employee shareholders. Appointment of Ms. Jean Fleming, stands approved. Eleventh resolution, renewal of Grant Thornton's term of office as statutory auditors, also approved.
Twelfth resolution, acknowledgement of the termination of IGEC term of office as substitute statutory auditors, also approved. Thirteenth resolution, approval of the separation agreement between Worldline SA and Atos SA, in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article L. 225-38 of the French Commercial Code, stands approved also.
Fourteenth resolution, approval of the elements making up the total compensation and benefits of any kind paid during the financial year, ending December thirty-first, twenty-nineteen, or awarded for the same financial year to Mr. Thierry Breton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer until October thirty-first, twenty-nineteen.
T his motion is also carried. Fifteenth resolution, approval of the elements making up the total compensation and benefits of any kind paid during the financial year, ending December thirty-first, twenty-nineteen, are awarded for the same financial year to Mr. Bertrand Meunier, Chairman of the Board as of November first, twenty-nineteen.
Also carried, motion number fifteen. Number sixteen, approval of the elements making up the total compensation and benefits of any kind paid during the financial year, ending December thirty-first, twenty-nineteen, are awarded for the same financial year to Mr. Elie Girard, Deputy Chief Executive Officer from April second until October thirty-first, twenty-nineteen.
This sixteenth resolution is also approved. Number seventeen, approval of the elements making up the total compensation and benefits of any kind paid during the financial year, ending thirty-first of December, twenty-nineteen, are awarded for the same financial year to Mr. Elie Girard, Chief Executive Officer, as from first of November, twenty-nineteen. Seventeenth resolution, therefore, is also approved.
Eighteenth resolution, approval of the information relating to the compensation of the company officers referred to in article Article L. 225-37-3 of the French Commercial Code. Eighteenth resolution, also approved. Nineteenth resolution, approval of the compensation policy applicable to directors.
Nineteenth resolution stands approved. Twentieth resolution, approval of the compensation policy applicable to the chairman of the board of directors. Resolution twenty, also approved. Twenty-first resolution, approval of the compensation policy applicable to the chief executive officer. This stands approved.
Twenty-second resolution, authorization to be granted to the board of directors for the purpose of purchasing, conserving, or transferring shares in the company. This motion is also carried. Resolution number twenty-three, authorization granted to the board of directors to reduce the share capital by canceling treasury shares. Stands approved.
Resolution number twenty-four, delegation of authority to grant to the board of directors the possibility of deciding on the issue of shares and/or securities, giving access to share capital and/or securities, carrying a right to the allocation of debt securities while maintaining preferential subscription rights.
That's resolution number twenty-four, is approved. Resolution number twenty-five, delegation of authority to grant to the board of directors the possibility of deciding the issue of shares and/or securities, giving access to share capital and/or securities carrying a right to the allocation of debt securities through public offerings without preferential subscription rights. Twenty-fifth resolution, also approved.
Twenty-sixth resolution, delegation of authority to grant the possibility to the board of directors to decide the issue of shares and/or securities, giving access to share capital and/or securities, carrying a right to the allocation of debt securities through a private placement mentioned in Article L. 411-2 , number 1 of the French Monetary and Financial Code without preferential subscription rights. This motion is carried.
Number twenty-seven, delegation power to the board of directors to issue shares or securities, giving access to the share capital without preferential subscription rights as consideration for contributions in kind, consisting of equity securities or securities giving access to share capital. Resolution number twenty-seven is carried.
Number twenty-eight, delegation of authority to grant to the board of directors the possibility of increasing the number of securities to be issued in connection with a share capital increase, with or without preferential subscription rights. Twenty-eighth resolution is approved. Number twenty-nine, delegation of authority to grant to the board of directors the possibility of deciding on the increase of the share capital through the capitalization of premiums, reserves, profits or other items.
Resolution number twenty-nine is also approved. Number thirty, delegation of authority to grant to the board of directors the possibility of increasing the share capital of the company with removal of the preferential subscription rights to the benefit of members of a company savings plan, as employees and executive officers of the company and its affiliated companies. Resolution thirty, also approved.
Number thirty-one, delegation of authority to be granted to the board of directors to increase the company's share capital by issuing shares reserved for categories of persons with cancellation of preferential subscription rights in favor of such persons, in connection with the implementation of employee shareholding plans. That's resolution number thirty-one, also approved. Resolution number thirty-two, authorization given to the board of directors to grant free shares to the employees and or its affiliated companies.
Thirty-second resolution, and this resolution is also approved. Resolution number thirty-three, amendment of Article sixteen of the Articles of Association. Legal compliance regarding the second employee director. This motion is carried. Resolution number thirty-four is the amendment of Articles twenty and twenty-six of the Articles of Association to replace the use of the terms directors fees by compensation. This also stands approved.
Thirty-fifth resolution, amendment of Article eighteen of the Articles of Association. Written consultation of the board of directors. Resolution thirty-five is approved. Thirty-six, legal compliance with Article ten of the Articles of Association relating to declarations of threshold crossings as per company's article. This stands approved, and resolution number thirty-seven, concerning powers, also approved. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Menais. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, and the interpreter has no sound. Would you apologize?
Merci. Merci, Alexandre.
Thank you, Alexandre. There's a slight technical connection problem with the chairman, Mr. Bertrand Meunier, says Elie Girard. But therefore, we will now adjourn this meeting. Thank you for your attendance and, see you again soon. Have a nice day. Thank you.