Dear friends, good morning. It is 9:30 A.M. on the dot. I suggest we give it a few more moments. If an apologist has been since the protest outside of the head office, it seems that the situation has calmed down. I'd like to extend a very warm welcome on the occasion of today's combined general meeting. I'd like to ask [Foreign language] , represented by Stéphanie Collinet, here in the first row, as well as Orphima, represented by Alexandre Pujo, who you're familiar with, and sitting on my right, these are the shareholders holding the largest number of shares, and they will act as scrutineers. I'd like to ask our CFO to act as secretary of today's general combined meeting. We do have a quorum, as in previous years, for a notary general meeting.
The shares comprising the social capital after the 23 million of self-held shares—I will come back to that during this session for the quorum to be reached—we need to achieve 558 million, 443 million. I'm not listening. Is it better when I speak closer to the mic? Okay, that's great. Thank you very much for letting me know. Otherwise, it would have been a problem, so please do not hesitate to shout out. You do not hear me. Now, I've just given the rundown on the session secretary Orphima and Stéphanie Collinet for [Foreign language] , except to be the auto act scrutineers. And I was talking about one-fifth of the shares quorum has to be reached for holding the general combined or the ordinary general meeting, and one-fourth as part of the. A bit on or slightly under 700,000 shares, and so that will be one-fourth.
thousand thirty shareholders voted and gave delegation of authorities to the chairs, and the proportion coming in, so we have a quorum of.
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At this stage, the meeting can validly deliberate for the ordinary and extraordinary part of this general combined meeting. Documents, sanctuary documents have been filed. Mr. Horst has confirmed that there are all.
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Ouest-France of 30th of April 2025, as well as two letters and four nominative shareholders. The agenda of today's general combined meeting.
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Ordinary and extraordinary, as stated in your convocations to this meeting. We'll first focus on the margin report of the board, and with regards to governance and auditors' report, approval of title accounts of the groups for 2024.
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We'll proceed with the auditors' report and consolidation of financial statements and the proceeding with the approving said report of the board, and as well as the 2024 accounts, closed on the 31st of December 2024. We'll then move on to the.
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Regulated accounts approvals, as well as renewal of the director's terms of office, and renewal of the term of office of an auditor, accounts auditor, and placement accounts auditor. We'll then move on to the approval of the accounts of the company. We'll then require your approval of the, say, ex post, as well as simply ex ante accounts, and for extraordinary meeting, needing one-third of the votes to be approved, and the majority of the votes for the ordinary meeting. We'll have the approval of the board-approved accounts. We'll have delegation of authorities to the board with a view to increasing capital and giving access, and with preferential rights of subscription to shareholders.
We'll also request delegation of competence to the board to proceed with capital increase through issuance of ordinary shares, through benefit of bonus, and then delegation of power of authorities with a view to proceeding with capital increase, with a view to remunerating and securities, giving access to capital, and then delegation of competence for the board in order to issue capital. At this point of public. Public offering of extension initiated by the company. The next point will focus on delegation of authority with a view to capital increase through issuance of shares for the purpose of staff members, and then authorization given by the assembly with a view to issuing free shares for the benefit of the salaried employees of the company.
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To be interested, if there's no further comments on this, I suggest we start with the presentation of the group's results and activities, and with the usual slide deck.
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With regards to the results, as you can see on this slide, which will come as no surprise for most of you, as far as they've been presented and approved by the board on March 17, 2025, they've been published as well on the market. So the net income group share 2024 is at EUR 1,822 million, including significant changes in the scope. I will come back throughout this presentation, as well as the proposed dividend increase this year following an increase last year of EUR 0.01. We'll have EUR 0.01 increasing, taking this to a 14% increase against last year.
On the left of this, you have the changes in the scope and reclassification in accordance with IFRS 5, and we had the opportunity to mention this at the General Assembly, at the General Meeting, because Bolloré Logistics had already been sold, and this was indeed sold on February 29th in 2024. It had already been reclassified in 2023 as a business held for sale. As a result, it has canceled results in 2024 of Bolloré Logistics, as well as 2023. You will not see any reference to Bolloré Logistics in 2024, 2023, and you will not see the results from this division. You have the Vivendi's contribution on 2023 and 2024, which is impacted by IFRS 5, and this follows the spin-off and distribution transactions, and to get 100% on our P&L, no longer shows on this 2024.
On 2023, for comparison purposes, but since the 13th of December 2024, it is when the spin-off Vivendi group was completed. The accounting standard was to account for 100% of the Vivendi results in Bolloré's P&L. From now on, these companies will no longer have any notable control. This has been put, and we've applied the equity method, and you will see the impact very limited from the 30th of December to the 31st of December. So we've taken, we've rebuilt the results of Vivendi during that period to our operating results.
You can see, Canal+, Louis Hachette, Havas, Vivendi, but again, this is only for 14 days, and related to this and regularizations during the periods, and the accounts will be representatives for these companies as a result of the spin-offs regarding revenues for 2024, that is EUR 3,130 million, so down 4% at constant scope and exchange rate on adjusted operating income at EUR 1 million for the reasons I have just indicated, and which you will see in the operating and in the P&L. The net income is at EUR 1,840 million compared with EUR 566 million in 2023, and it will be significant pluses and minuses on this.
We'll have a positive result, which is the net capital gain on the sale of Bolloré Logistics for EUR 3.6 billion, and the capital loss of deconsolidation of companies resulting from the Vivendi spin-off in December of last year is EUR 1.9 billion. Hence, the significant net income, the net income group share, as I've stated, sits at EUR 1,822 million, and a net cash position as of December 31, 2024, stands at EUR 5,206 million. The proposed dividends, we are proposing to your vote an increase by 14% to take the corresponding dividend for 2024 to EUR 0.08 per Bolloré C share. Are you still? Can somebody up the volume, pump up the volume here? Because I'm just, my lips are touching the, yeah, the dividend. Oh, right. Okay, this is an expression of joy. Going up 14%, I'm looking forward to your questions and discussions.
The down payment of EUR 0.02 was paid out in December of last year and in September 2024. With regards to 2024, yes, the Bolloré Group and the sale of Bolloré Logistics to CMA CGM, and the completion of the sale of 100% of Bolloré Logistics to CMA CGM, with a sale price of EUR 4.8 billion. The consolidated net capital gain was EUR 3.6 billion after tax. With regards to the additional acquisition, we have not talked about this because we last met in May 2024 for the last combined general meeting on July 25 and 26, 2024. Bolloré Group acquired an additional 9.2 million Universal Music Group and V shares for EUR 197 million. As you will remember, the share price of UMG after the quarterly results had been down 25% on the stock price, and this allowed us to buy at about EUR 20.
You can work up the amount, totaling EUR 197 million. Now we have the sale of 5% of Socfin, as you remember. Socfin decided to delist in September 2024, and Bolloré Group committed to this to be successful to sell 5% of Socfin share capital and to the family capital holding, and with the tender offer price for EUR 32.5 per share, so we cashed in a bit more than EUR 22 million. Resulting from the selling off of 5% of this capital, the Bolloré Group now owns 34.75% of Socfin. Next, an acquisition of a stake in Rubis. As you remember, last year, when we met on the occasion of our combined general meeting, it had been announced a few months prior to that meeting that we would make a further investment in this company.
We went beyond the 5% of holding rights and capital share and share capital of this company. On the publication of accounts, we have been up to 5.96% for a market value of EUR 163 million. This has been recently published by Rubis. We acquired a few shares to go down to when the share went under EUR 24 to get a stake in excess of 6% of the capital. The Bolloré C share buyback program, we had already activated this program in 2024. It is still active at this stage in 2025. As published week after week on the market, and we have summarized here in this paragraph, to mark the fact that in 2024, 12 million Bolloré shares were acquired for EUR 69 million.
On March 17, 2025, the board of directors of your company decided to cancel these shares which had been buyback as part of the share buyback program. As we recalled a few moments ago, this share buyback program led to more share buybacks. The last sentence, we indicate that Bolloré C now holds 23.2 million Bolloré shares acquired for EUR 125.4 million, or 0.8% of the share capital on May 16, and this will be canceled. Next, we have the merger and absorption of the company Cornouaille, circulation July 2024. Following the merger, the investments in UMG and Vivendi, and this has been the foundation and the container firm where we've gradually made a transaction and are now held directly by Bolloré C, such as the Canal+ Group, Louis Hachette Group, and Havas shares since the Vivendi spin-off.
Second point on this is about the mergers of [Foreign language] Tramways [Foreign language] Gard into [Foreign language] and [Foreign language] Tramways [Foreign language] into Financière de Moncey in Q4 2024. This has been widely described and discussed since. One of the terms we've been pretty disappointed with, resulting from the work involving our teams, has been the PRO programs for company ex-Rivaux Primita or ex-Cambodge company Moncey and Artois. You will remember this has been widely talked about in the press on September 12, 2024. Bolloré SE announced its intention to implement three public buyout offers for shares of all three companies [Foreign language] , and these had been offered through our prices supervised approach on the 23rd of December 2024.
With a final offer from our part of EUR 110 per share for a 50% premium, EUR 133 for a Moncey share, or a 62% premium, as announced on the 12th of September, and a price of EUR 10,627 for a share in the [Foreign language] for a 95% premium. We had exchange provisions for [Foreign language] to be able to give UMG shares in return for shares in this company with a fixed priority as obtained on the 12th of December. As the UMG share price went slightly up, we worked out an average of the last share prices of this company with a fixed value of about EUR 23.4 per share. The BME consulting firm represented by Pierre Béal, the second independent expert, issued an approval opinion following the withdrawal and the compulsory withdrawal.
This note had been published on the 17th of April 2025 and declared a fair assessment of this offer. Unfortunately, the [Foreign language] announced on April 17 that it had decided a few days prior through a review committee to declare these offers as non-compliant and published slightly later on May 2, 2025, the relevant grounds for this decision. Once we received the grounds from AMF's decision, and Bolloré C issued a press release indicating that after 14 months of hard work and with between 5-6 months of Bolloré C teams involvement, we decided not to challenge these decisions. A very important point and a very important event that came along at the end of 2024. I will come back to the description of what happened from an accounting standpoint in this slide.
We have a summary of that what happened on December 9. Vivendi shareholders at a combined general meeting approved by over 97.5% of the vote cast a proposed partial spin-off. As we communicated to the market, Bolloré holds 34.4% of Canal+, of Louis Hachette, of Havas MT, and retains 29.3% of Vivendi. I have already described by way of an introduction the third bullet point on accounting, a very important point that happened recently on December 14. Following a, the Court of Appeal of Paris canceled the AMF decisions with regards to reassessing its involvement and relations with Vivendi. It has been deemed that Mr.
Vincent Bolloré, in the sense of the third paragraph in this article, through a ballback to AMF, with a view to reviewing yet again the conditions under LF 236-6 in the context of the spin-off already carried out by Vivendi, to then assess the consequences of the spin-off with regards to the interest of minority shareholders and to decide whether there are or were grounds for implementing a public buyout offer over the sales of Vivendi SE, Bolloré and Vivendi SE, each filed an appeal against this ruling with the French Supreme Court. At the time of our meeting today, AMF published the purpose of an appeal, but hasn't confirmed it in the form of a cassation appeal. As a reminder, with the market cap and the, well, to consider graph here, but we've got a share price of EUR 5.67 with a market cap of EUR 16.1 billion.
The share price of Bolloré down 5% versus an SBF at 1%, a performance of 463% versus 103% for the EBF 120. The structure of the group now, is it better? Can you hear me? Yeah, I'm getting further from the microphone. This will be the
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This is you, the Economic Organization chartered to December 2024.
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as you'll see, following a few share buybacks. We have a 70.5% stake, [Foreign language] , as Bolloré SE to 70.5%. We have then Bolloré SE owning Oil Logistics, Bolloré Energy. We'll come back to that. Africa up until December 2023 of this logistics division and transportation logistics will no longer appear as of next week's presentation.
The communications with our stakes in Universal and Vivendi, these are five separate lines now and reflecting the percentages which I've indicated in every one of these companies, Universal Music. I have not commented this. We have a share, a stake of 18.5%. And with regards to the industry, we have Films Blue Systems as well as our portfolio of shareholdings. And at Bolloré C, we have 0.4% of treasury stock at this stage, which has continued to, and this will get near 0.8%. This is meant to be and set to be canceled. Over to a review of results, which is quite a surprising presentation following the accounting methods. This only reflects part of the year, so this snapshot only reflects to what reflects accounting, accounting standards, a bit less in terms of the P&L.
For 2025, revenues in 2024 with Bolloré Energy and Industry, as well as the holding, as one net of this IFRS 5, and stands for EUR 3,130 million, so down 1%, EBITDA of EUR 48 million versus EUR 104 million last year, deposition and provisions and minus EUR 47 million with an adjusted operating income, also known as EBITDA, EUR 1 million versus EUR 61 million of last year. We have amortization resulting from PPN and other items not including in this EBITDA, a positive EBITDA EUR 9 million minus EUR 50 million against EUR 23 million with minus EUR 50 million and the EBIT EUR 11 million with operational equity methods with 290 equity accounting operating companies, EUR 295 million with exceptional pluses and minuses.
The financial income and resulting from investment items, EUR 145 million versus - EUR 18 million in 2023, the share of the net income of equity accounted known operating companies + 10%, EUR 30 million and taxes minus EUR 27 million versus minus EUR 31 million, so pretty similar against previous year. Income from discontinued or held for sale activities with the average of EUR 3.6 billion minus the spin-off of Vivendi and has to an income from discontinued or held for sale activities, EUR 1.681 billion versus EUR 577 million with a net income of EUR 1,840,000 versus EUR 566,000, net income group share, EUR 1,822,000 versus EUR 268,000, and minority interest. We do not have a capacity to reproduce here, to replicate formidable added values and of the past year.
Regarding these revenues, this and EUR 3.1 billion can be broken down into positive contributing activities and consolidated in the accounts, which is at Bolloré Energy, down 4% of revenues at 6% organic growth and EUR 2,676 million industry up on the published and organic, EUR 351 million. And others regarding agricultural assets holding with EUR 104 million versus EUR 61 million in revenues. This is the description of this new presentation format. Maybe this is clearer in this slide, which illustrates the new accounting standards, our presentation format. As I record, energy is pretty comparable against last year. There hasn't been any major change in scope, up 4%, so 45%, so on, despite a stock effect that was slightly. What that didn't hugely help. Communications, so EUR 207 million versus EUR 169 million in 2023, so up 23%.
Resulting from the increase in UMG, pretty comparable against last year, thanks to the robust results of this company and the management with the integrated net result, EUR 169 million in 2023, and to reach our EUR 224 million in 2024. Canal+, Louis Hachette, Havas, Vivendi, you see - 12,601, it is only for 15, it only accounts for 14, 15 days in terms of the net results of these companies integrated into the operating results. We do have major ambitions thanks to these now autonomous companies to get way higher results. We will take net income of group share results integrated in the operating results. Given the development, we will have positive results for Canal+, Louis Hachette, Havas, and Vivendi.
Industry down from minus EUR 114 million to EUR 179 million compared with 2023, mainly due to the non-recurring exceptional items stemming from the previous generation of batteries. Despite improved profitability of the packaging firms' business, in particular our traditional business lines in Brittany, as well as the said electricals, that continues to be steadfast.
As for others, we are going from EUR 38 million to -EUR 38 million due to the different sessions and the different.
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2024
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EUR 4.650 million
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EUR 2.7 billion.
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EUR 400 million.
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2025, en 2026, EUR 35.7 billion.
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EUR 13 billion.
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EUR 25.23 to 25 billion. 4.25, 4 billion.
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EUR 1.5 billion à EUR 1.13 billion,
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EUR 5.3 billion.
the end of the year, we also indicate that we have EUR 8 billion at the end of the year of availability and confirmed lines. The chart on the next page shows you the evolution over a slightly longer period of cash and debt. We remind you that we went from a debt situation of EUR 4.9 billion at the end of 2018, which even went up to EUR 9 billion in 2020, and a gradual deleveraging. For the past two years, cash has been positive. On the next page, we can see the proposed dividend, as Cyrille Bolloré said, it will be increased by 14% if you agree, by EUR 0.08, to be paid on the 12th of June 2025, and the total amount of dividend would include the amount already paid at the end of last year, EUR 227 million.
On the chart to the right-hand side, you can see trends in 2013 going from 3 - 6 to 7 and now to EUR 0.08 . P ortfolio of listed securities,
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2024, EUR 11.2 billion. As of the 6th of May, we're at EUR 11.5 billion. If you look at the 16th of May, we're just over EUR 12 billion. With all the lines you're familiar with, the overall communication sector, including Universal Music Group, Canal+, Louis Hachette, Havas, Vivendi, that will mainly contribute in 2025 to operational income. The others in Rubis and Socfin, primarily. Lastly, a few words about our ESG performance. Let me recall the different activities in recent years.
At the bottom of the page, you have the more recent items with the application of CSRD leading to the publication in April 2025 of our very first sustainability report, verified and certified by our statutory auditors, largely explaining the increase. The impressive size of our annual report that you have in your hands this year, and the different scores that we have obtained from most of the rating agencies, which are positive overall and improving. Thank you so much, Cédric. Maybe one last slide. It was published a few weeks ago on your company's revenue for the first quarter of 2025. Bolloré Energy up by 3% in reported growth, but almost flat organically, meaning EUR 675 million in revenue for the first quarter.
The industry is up slightly as well, to reach EUR 78 million and other holdings, reaching EUR 29 billion or consolidated revenue of EUR 782 million versus EUR 751 million in the first quarter o f 2024.
Thank you for your patience for the presentation of the financial statements, and I'll call on the statutory auditors to present their report and the veracity of everything that has been presented to you. Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, on behalf of the body of auditors, [ Foreign language] Nestés Finance, we'll now report on our mandate and present the report that we have drawn up for you for the combined general meeting today. The reports captured to your disposal by the company are in the universal registration document for 2024.
I suggest, as usual, at these meetings, I will summarize these reports, starting with the report on the consolidated financial statements and the annual financial statement. The main goal of our mandate is to obtain, according to the professional standards, reasonable assurance about the integrity and regularity of the accounts and to verify that they contain no significant anomalies. We kept general management informed on the 10th of March 2025, the audit committee of the group on the 12th of March, as well as your board on the 17th of March of the nature, the extent of our work, and we presented our findings.
Our report, which is on pages 283 and 304 of the universal registration document, contains our findings on, on the one hand, your group's financial statements prepared according to the IFRS referential in the E.U., the annual financial statements of your company prepared according to French accounting standards. Our report details, in particular, our assessment and the key points of the audit in accordance with the commercial code. For the consolidated financial statements, these are the assessments on the valuation of the capital loss on the consolidation following the disposal and spin-off of Vivendi Group, and also the valuation of equity method investments resulting from the same transaction in the Vivendi Group. For the annual financial statements, the key point of our audits concerns the assessment of the stakes and different receivables.
We have reviewed the underlying data and the calculations made by the company, their presentation in the appendices to the financial statements, and we can ensure that these estimates are reasonable. Based on this, we express an unreserved and unqualified opinion on the annual financial statements of your company and on the consolidated financial statements of your group. At the same time, we carry out specific verifications as per the law, and you have no observations to make on the sincerity and concordance between the annual financial statements and the consolidated financial statements and on the information contained in the management report and the report on corporate governance.
As regards the regulated agreements in which we're in the fourth resolution, we issued a special report on page 343 of the universal registration document, presenting the different terms of these agreements, as well as the grounds to justify the interest for the company of the contracts entered into, all of which we were informed during our work. We were not informed of any new agreement entered into during the fiscal year 2024. Agreements and commitments already approved by a general meeting continued during the past year. These are the two following agreements.
First of all, the service agreement in the financial and legal area with the definition of strategies and signed with Bolloré Participation SE, and also the lease agreement with [Foreign language] , bearing on the premises at 51 pForeign language], Paris, authorized by your board on the 13th of January 2021, and that came into effect on the 17th of February 2022. Lastly, your general meeting met today, is meeting today in the extraordinary form so that you can express your opinion on several transactions on your company's capital. In this respect, we have issued four reports. The first report is on the issue of ordinary shares and other marketable securities granting access to preferential subscription rights or in connection with a public exchange offer dealt with on the 20th and 23rd resolution.
Also, on the capital increase by issue of new shares to other securities granting access to share capital reserved for members of a company savings plan covered in the 24th resolution, a report on the authorization to grant free shares existing or to be issued covered in the 25th resolution, and a report on the share capital decrease covered in the 26th resolution. We confirm in these reports that we have no observations to make in particular on these transactions. This report is on pages 349 - 342 of the universal registration document. These different reports issued by our two firms were signed on the 30th of April 2025 on behalf of the body of statutory auditors. I thank you for your attention. Thank you so much, dear statutory auditors, for your work on our company.
Dear friends, after these presentations and summaries, I will now move on to a Q&A session followed by a vote on the resolutions once we have exhausted all the items to be discussed. I now give the floor to the shareholders and take your questions. I can see one in the middle. Yes. Hello, I'm an individual shareholder. What are your intentions for Rubis Group? Two other groups, to my knowledge, took out shares, reducing the powers of the family in question. Last year, you also said that you were questioned about the future of Bolloré, and you said that there were two technical concerns and it took you two years to reach a decision. We have reached halfway.
Thank you for your attendance, sir, first of all, as a shareholder, and I will try to answer as precisely as I can to your two questions about our intentions for the Rubis Group. Last year, I spoke of our intentions, which remain the same. To date, we are very happy with the investment we made in this company, which we know well for many years now. We purchased a bit more to hold today, 6% of capital. We bought them at a price that was below the today's share price. You can calculate it easily. The price was below EUR 23. You know that the share rose with speculations on changes in holding. It's at about EUR 30. I don't want you to disappoint you because it dropped last year after the general meeting.
What I know, and this has not changed our assessment of this investment decision, is that the group is still generating very good results in this traditional business, namely the sale of oil products, mainly in emerging countries, and I think there is still a bright future, namely in Africa and mainly as well in the Caribbean and other distribution means. They owned oil deposits, and the disposal of these deposits was done, enabling shareholders, including ourselves, to obtain exceptional dividends. As you know, where many other shareholders complain is about the investments in renewables. We took part through some of our teams in their capital market day, explaining the new business in renewable energy. All of this, I believe, is extremely intense in terms of investments, but with a profile that follows the investment plan.
It's a new model going from oil, after all, which is very profitable, to another business that calls for a lot of investments, of course, that calls for a transition period. Our team seemed to believe that this portfolio, if it's kept or disposed of at a certain value, certain shareholders tended to say, "It's worth nothing, it's not taking us anywhere." I believe that the price at which we bought it is not even totally on par with the oil distribution disposal of the oil deposits. We believe that the management has been tried and tested for many years now. Dividend has been rising from year -to -year. We bought it. The dividend today is in excess of EUR 2. At the price you bought it, the dividend is quite comfortable, even at today's price between 8%-10%.
While having about 5%, taxation is a bit softer if we stay over the longer term. So I continue to believe that Rubis is a good investment that we have made. I know the same thing as you. Some shareholders complain. We have seen new developments with the press release from the Rubis Group, speaking about the departure of the chairman of the supervisory board and the proposal to appoint to the board, Mr. Patrick Molis, as well as Anne Lauvergeon. I'm very much in favor of anything that is constructive between management and the shareholders. One thing I'd like to add, you say that that will reduce the family's power. I have no positive or negative comments on that.
You know that even though it's a partnership, even if some are not happy with the 28%, the founders and they manage a company and they made a significant development without consulting the shareholders, but we didn't hold any share of the capital during that transaction. When you look at these statutes, this partnership, regardless of, it can't take place without the approval of these people, and it's remarkable managers, and it can't lead to the end of this partnership. They received one of Saman, who had bought a part of the capital at a higher price of 5%. I believe that this group is well managed. There are questions about the electricity business, but it doesn't call into question our investment and the constructive agreement that can be reached with the different shareholders, including ourselves. Mr.
Molis is a very much respectable approach, and we knew him in oil distribution. He has always done good business, like Aubin and Rio, so we wish him a lot of success regardless of what they want to do in this company. At this stage, we are very much happy with this investment. With respect to electric batteries, you have a good memory. I said last year that we would take two years to find the technological performance for the new Gen 4 generation of batteries that is now being produced at the level of sample ones. As I said before, since last year, we have seen that the market has become more tense, as you may have noticed. There have been bankruptcies in Europe, in Northvolt. We have seen that in the papers. Things are tough. As I said, our goal is to find capital.
If we find what we need, technologically speaking, because we do not want to carry a total investment that will be extremely important, even though potentially we have the best technology, it does not make it easier to find capital. There is a lot of booming movements on the market. We know that the market for vehicles and the automotive industry has been seeing a decline in demand as compared to the past. We are still conducting research, and we have produced the first sample ones. It is still a research program. If you have wonderful data, each time you find a solution, there is a new question that opens up for your main confidant. We are still signing partnerships with different groups. We continue to believe, even though it is not easy, that a total absence of the Asians would be totally crazy on the market.
Whether they have a significant position, technologically speaking, and on cars in general, not only for batteries, but their production capacity with KPIs on quality that are so significant. We are continuing to look towards China while continuing with research, and we continue to have third parties assess the result of this research that confirms that next year, when we meet again at this general meeting, we will be winning our wager on this technology, or it will be a bit more difficult, and we will then have to draw the consequences. At this stage, I am still very much enthusiastic about the research carried out. At the same time as this research, we are declining applications.
Marie Bolloré, who was here, it is sad, but in car sharing, for example, they brought in a lot of money by selling charging networks and charging grids in Singapore and London in particular, where it continues not to sell more products, but to succeed in research on top of research and development, on looking for capital to develop this technology. Next year will clearly be a milestone. It should be between December and April because the teams, which we reviewed the situation last year, said that that will be at that point in time. We have the samples, but it will be more industrialized and easier for the OEMs to test it out. The OEMs with whom we have signed partnerships. Thank you very much. I tried to be as precise as possible to answer your questions and the questions yet to come.
A question over there, please. Claude Laroche. Claude Laroche. It's not a question, it's a tribute I'd like to pay. I'd like to pay tribute to Chantal Bolloré, who is presenting herself once again as a board member of the group. She is Vincent's sister and the Chairman's aunt, Cyrille and his brothers and sisters. Despite her age, she shows the strength and robustness of this group and more yet, its longevity. Honor to you, Madame Chantal Bolloré. Thank you. Dear Mr. Laroche, thank you for your comments. I never know if it's nice or not. It depends on the year, but they're always constructive. Thank you, it really helps us sincerely to make progress. Thank you for your tribute. I don't know if you can see her age. Of course, it's published, 81 years old, but she's still doing sports.
She'll hear at 7:30 to get ready in the event of any significant demonstrations. We have another aunt, Aunt Annie, who's 91, and Jacqueline, who's 98. Ninety-eight was a bit tougher, I must admit. What? They're not members of the board, of course. My aunt Annie, she's in great shape. She lives in Montreuil. She moves, she does her pilgrimage. Thank you, Chantal Bolloré, for her support, and I encourage you to vote for her renewal. Thank you so much, Mr. Laroche. Next question. One over there and then to my right. Yes. Good morning. Gentlemen, I can see that the Bollorés have a long and tough life. Let's hope it lasts. I hope so for you. Thank you for the very nice results that were very warm and friendly and Franck. It's not a correction, but a clarification about the Bolloré share price.
You said it increased by over 300%. That's the SBF 120 plus 40% over 15 years. I can see on page 11 of the reference report, over 10 years, we have a share price that increased by 9%, whereas the SBF increased by 49%. Just a clarification due to restructuring, of course. What's more important about the share price and the trends with the sale of products and services and having strong brands? It's all about ethics. You spoke about sustainable growth, the CTRS directive, the good conduct of business. I don't want to say nonsense, but the question is burning my lips. I've been a shareholder for 15 years now. Normally, I ask technical questions on Goodwill and the consolidated financial statements, regulated agreements, and so on.
For the past three or four years, around me, Bolloré Group, in the media, is viewed as something that is sending out a sort of discrimination. I'm talking about the television channel CNews. I don't know if you're linked to CNews directly or indirectly. On the television debates, we need to have people who can contradict things regardless of the tone, especially for an international group. I don't want to talk about racism. I'm a Catholic, and we have never been told that Catholics were about targeting people without incorrectly. I'd just like to know, it's a nice question. Are you aware of that? We've been seeing that for three or four years now. Is there anything that you'd like to correct? I know you're very direct and frank, and don't tell me that's a part of an editorial line that you don't control.
That's beyond your control. Thank you. Thank you for your question. I'll try to answer as frankly as what you said. I'm a Catholic. I'm baptized. You can say anything you want to. I say things directly, whether you are Catholic or whatever. I respect everyone. I'm not a racist, of course. To be honest and very frank, as we normally are, unfortunately, I don't watch television a lot because I'm very busy here. Another reason, I have three children over the past five years, and that doesn't give me a lot of time, unfortunately. That may come one day. You know what will happen in the future when children grow up. I don't know if you have more time or not. Today, I'm not the first audience. Not that I don't want to, but I've seen different faces because I heard a lot of what you're saying.
You can well imagine. Even when I was not chairman of the group, I already carried the name Bolloré. It was very clear. When I saw CNews with an editorial line that I would not describe as the opponents are describing as racist, as discriminatory, you hear lots of things left and right. Maybe they can make mistakes here and there. In actual fact, I have never been operational in all of the media divisions, Vivendi, and so on. I am not trying to hide. At the beginning, as you know, before the disposal of this African business in 2022 and the disposal of Bolloré Logistics in 2024, we do a lot of international business for ports, tenders in Africa, for large international groups. They are asking themselves the same question, saying that there is an image or there is an article on the internet.
As the leader of the group, when I was appointed, I went to see some, and I said, "Is this necessary? I don't watch CNews. I don't watch television. Sometimes I hear about it in the press, Le Monde, Les Nouveloppes, and some newspapers. I feel that it's not making business easier because you have to get rid of this label that personally, because I know our leaders, that's very far from the truth." I spoke about it with Marie, my sister, and I said, "We read this in the papers." As time went by, I saw that in Africa, there were opponents, people who wanted to steal concessions, not just on CNews. I realized that you have some people who have an ideological or political battle and then use any weapon they can find. I'm sorry to say, even defamation.
What I've noted as a group leader until now is that what's held against us is what I saw on the other side. When they say that you have the Bayon trial or when they tell you that your group corrupted, you need to say something. Yeah, I hear, "Did you see my father's National Assembly or the Senate? It was a good attorney, but he's losing all the time." So what I told my father, I don't know if he said it or not during the hearing, is that most of the trials that took place, the journalists were not found to be guilty, but he wanted to defend his integrity, and he was held to be on good faith. So it's defamation each time. I don't care if a journalist is condemned.
It's not in a world where you screen every company that wants to place a tender, asking for economic intelligence to screen a group. When you look at Bolloré, five or six years ago, it was scary. My father is being iconic. I'm not as funny as he is, but it's like I'm a kid who wants to shoot everyone in the room. No, it's all about having the right to answer. I don't want to get annoyed that newspapers I won't mention here that were trying to keep things quiet. I'm seeing exactly the opposite. We're experiencing the opposite of what they wrote. They have never allowed me to express my views. They have their editorials, an editorial that was open to me like to any other citizen, and said that they sent me an email on this trial.
I don't know all the things that are being said on the television set. It's hard for me to judge. What I experience every day is far different from what is described in the papers. The TV channel, like it or not, I don't watch it much. What I like is the number of people who watch it. It's not the TV channel that put people on the right wing. I don't want to talk about politics. You have all the different political sensitivities here and in our group. It's scary, though. People are saying that we are polarized between different extremes in society, a center, a left wing, a right wing that doesn't exist. I'm not a political expert, but the climate is tense. Indirectly or directly holding a channel that has become the number one news channel in France.
There must be a certain concern felt by the population. I live in a nice neighborhood. It's not like I can be aggressive downstairs. I travel a lot to France, and we hear things one way or the other. To answer your part about ethics in the group, and one of the reasons personally for me as a 40-year-old man who is very much attached to his group is the people in it. If we were racists, we wouldn't have groups or business in Africa. We want to get along with everyone. Last week, I pointed this out to everyone. What's very comfortable is that we have acquaintances from everywhere, some on the left wing, right wing, and we talk together without getting angry. We can build things together, going forward in the same direction. We love what we do. We have the skills.
We lend support to industrialists, to small entrepreneurs sometimes, going in the same direction towards something that I strongly and sincerely wish for the new year. I've been here for 18 years, but we have between 700-1,000 people in a polarized world where everyone wants to divide us. I'd like you to be benevolent. People have good reason to think what they think, be they left wing or right wing. I don't know what about the extremes. I can see a shift to the right wing, a TV channel that is polemical and a big debate around it. I'm trying not to be blind to it. I'm trying to understand. Everyone is playing their role. It's not very pleasant. At the time, what I thought could be a hindrance for our group is not in actual fact.
We see many testimonials of support every day in the street, in the buildings, around the world, internationally. I take your comment very seriously and sincerely. There are always several versions to a story. You can look at both sides of the story, and you should not be unhappy when you are on the wrong side of the coin. You just flip the coin over. I am trying to move forward with the group with people of great value who are benevolent. Not every day maybe, but we try to, as far as we can, and to move towards something respectable.
[Foreign language]
Regarding the share price. I am not forgetting your question. Plus 9% for the group and + 49% for the group. If my memory serves me right, in 2015, the share price had gone up for a variety of reasons.
You might say instead of going up and for a variety of reasons. Back then, the group had a big momentum because it was then that my father had become, in June 2014, he became the Chairperson of the Supervisory Board of Vivendi. It was a huge business with a number of assets, Activision amongst others. I was not at the helm of this. I think if my memory serves me right, it was the Muddy Waters study. It is a fund that usually denounces groups as aired or that sort of misrepresent their assets and that take short positions. Betting on the share price falling and they denounce all the wrongdoings in the company. This is kind of a vision that is biased compared to what things are like.
Realize today, Muddy Waters said an incredible value, an undervalued asset out of Bolloré, an incredible potential. Indeed, the share price took off. Basically, that's what happened. At this time, the whole group had outlooks seen from the outside of incredibly increasing performance for a variety of reasons, not poor economic performance. The share price went down again to come back to its initial momentum. Kind of a good family father managing its family business. This is kind of, and then you can take stats on over nine years, eight years, ten years. We indicated these 15-year periods to indicate the ups and downs of the share price. Then compared to securities, the U.S. doing better, Germany catching up. We don't feel this on a day-to-day basis or these movements.
Twelve years and twenty-five years of my forefathers, we had a share price that did not have good performance. Despite this issue with regards to sadness, we are entering into changing times. Our share price is falling pretty well. EUR 6 as we cashed in liquidities. We wanted to thank those who partook and tried to do likewise with the Rio family. We can talk about this, and I can tell you that we are giving it a good fight day in, day out with much energy and momentum to deliver the best possible performance. Thank you for your questions and comments. I see other hands raised. I cannot see those who want to ask questions, but I can see hands raised. Francis Lhuillier, individual shareholder, several questions.
It's a bit difficult for me to talk because there's a lag with the loudspeaker next to, or I'm sitting next to, so a difference of 75%, 75% of the profit, the group profit. So notwithstanding any exceptional items, could do a bit less to keep our money and invest more for the future. Could we not? Secondly, second question. I think I can understand that we're represented as Mr. Laroche. I'm very, very represented in the board of directors. I think elders have really made major contributions. I think youth is there, but not quite. As we had the largest music retailer in France die at the age of 31.
I don't know if branches of the group were producing this person where, where, for those who knew him or who he was, could we have in the future someone in his twenties from the Bolloré family that would enter into the order beyond the border? That would be a good thing. Thirdly, could you give us more comments? I have this feedback from the loudspeaker. It's awful. Can you share your comments on this double-digit growth? The agricultural division is really interesting, very promising. What makes this growth? Can you tell us more about this? What is your take on video games as we are shareholders of two undertakings in video gaming, Vivendi through GameLoft and Big Ben Nacon? You haven't indicated the targets set forth in the universal registration document. What are your ambitions in electrical vehicles and any sort of electrical operator projects?
I've noted your questions regarding the distribution time period of the dividends. Often, somewhat more in others, we need more money to invest into the company. That's dividend. I understand your take on this. I don't want to increase the dividend too much to then bring it down the following years. We try to be consistent there. I hear your concern. We need money to invest. I'm looking at my colleagues. If we wanted to invest all our money in our industrial projects, we might be a bit tight. We might need to consider bringing down the dividend, but we want to try to maintain it at that level or to up it. I hear your concern. We are, given the current cash situation, we have significant cash excess. To be pretty clear, we're doing pretty well.
As to your second question, thank you to our elders to take the time to support us. We've rejuvenated the board simply because it was asked of us by the governance bodies. We do the Bolloré and Audé companies. And we got members of the family. Marie is very young. She's not in her 20s, but she's young to now young. We got 37, 30-year-olds, Virginie Courtin and sort of Clusterman. And maybe, I don't know if we have anybody in our family in their 20s. Mike is too young. It wouldn't be a good idea to do that whenever they're survived. So we take your point. We have meetings on a regular basis to, and we can consider rejuvenating this board. There's no imperious or there's no urgency there. But we can have maybe there might be young skilled family members somewhere, but we'll see.
With regards to, yeah, supported by holding and with regards to the question on agriculture, we have and so finished a business with the capacity to sell and distribute and wine bottles. We do have capacity and stakes in Socfin, but we do not own them. They do the end-of-year report, and they tell us about any frost impacts, any impacts on inclement weather. There has been significant rainfall on the Médoc. We discovered, despite this very virtuous business, we discovered the hardship of winemaking and the vagaries of winemaking. We have also planted olive trees and developed olive trees in former and lounge dedicated to cotton. Before I joined in, and it was decided to, and I decided to continue to go down that path, notably in Europe and Italy. We export around the world.
Olives are exported around the world, and you can see the consumption trends, consuming more and more olives. We have started to export olive trees. Issues with difficult harvest and frost. We will not be far off the one million bottles between peach wine, olive trees, and for the American market, produced in America and for the American market. We are continuing to look around for other agricultural projects in Africa, notably. Maybe next year I can update you on that. We are on to two interesting projects, not huge, but this could be a nice complement to this agricultural business. If all of these come to fruition between now and the end of the year, we will keep you up to date. All of this is really interesting. With regards to video gaming, I am not a video game expert.
I was fortunate enough to be on the board of Vivendi. I followed GameLoft with this lady on that. This worked really well. The strategy was to shift from a mobile with an exclusivity to consoles. The mobile gaming market does not work the way it did a few years back. The latest game, the best seller, sells pretty well on console. They have some sort of projection pipeline, but we are not allowed to talk much about these and to make any disclosure. Big Ben is now the accessory provider of video games. The software editor, well, have been hit. Maybe people could have said, okay, we should have seen this before. We support them in their strategy. Alain Phal on board, their chair. He seemed to be perfectly quite remarkable.
The right managers are on board. Look at Ubisoft. The market is down during COVID. Everybody was stuck home, and we would spend money on gaming. Thankfully, people are back in the streets and try to do sort of physical purchases. This is about their ambition as far as I am aware of at this point in time. Now, about eight to ten years ago, I was in charge at Bolloré Energy to look at, we would send fuel, heavy fuel oil, not electricity, to networks, not individual consumers. Looked at the license. It seemed to be quite a complex business. We were ready to store electricity and to reinject it into the grid. I made a choice. We will see what happens. Doing less money for the group as to what had been allocated in this business line.
Becoming a grid manager requires a lot of money spending. We can't improve the products while investing in battery factories. We need to invest all of the group's money. I don't think this will make him happy in terms of portfolio management. Vincent Bolloré has always shown audacity. We became the first African network and first global networks, but that was 25-30 years ago. When we'd invest EUR 20 million in Africa, as I've told you, it was like people thought that half of the African population was going to die from AIDS. I was in public school. It always seemed completely normal thinking back in the day. We got it wrong. Over the past seven-eight years, people have said the opposite. We said EUR 2.5 billion, EUR 1.5 billion at this point in time.
As a reminder for you, shareholder in many companies, in 2050, 40% of the assets on the planet will be shared, will be owned by either the African continent or India. I said, no, the easy, indeed, given the current forecast. This was quite lengthy. There were many questions. It took some time to address these questions. Mr. Chandia, individual shareholder, hello. In excess of EUR 5.3 billion in cash flow. Do you think you'll be opting for exceptional distributions or allocations? What about the Cambodia and the AMF decision? Do you think you'll start an equivalent transaction on Italy? You got EUR 26 million. You realize EUR 235 million. Are you happy with the outcome? On industry, you're losing EUR 114 million. Are these related to batteries?
What is your intention to improve in the to make any improvements on industry division? Thank you to the shareholder for your questions. By and large, the numbers you've put in are created by divided by the current dividend. That's about 20 years' worth of dividend. We're hoping that we'll get a bit more than 20 years of dividends for exceptional distribution. We haven't considered this. We were thinking of reinvesting, but if we're out of ideas and we don't know what to do, and if the market is there, I'm not excluding at all to distribute an exceptional dividend if everybody can enjoy it and if that doesn't impede the group. We're talking about being a little bigger in the market and being always in the top five.
If the market compares to be, and if this is absolutely critical for the next steps. You were talking about Salinger. I'm just answering your questions on interest rates. This cash flow for the most part is invested in interest rates in the regions of two, well, two-two or two-four for corporate tax. And an exceptional distribution. To come back to that with Salinger. Salinger was a code name of the Cambodge Artois Monsieur project. Honestly, as described on the slide, I'm kind of lamented. One can lament because there's a lot of work dedicated to this. I taught some, but I didn't have the opportunity to address this in a general meeting. We sold at significant prices with a significant price tag. Our core business was logistics. We got in EUR 10 billion thanks to the BTL operations.
We repaid our branch of land and money back then. Then we have turned the page because Vivendi, it was 100%, but it was much smaller. Our stake in Vivendi was much smaller on 300 million shares. If you know, that was 10-12 EUR. All this has been sold off. We have got EUR 8 billion valuation. Some said, okay, we are very happy with the group, but we have blocks we cannot exit with that price tag. The share price seems to be okay, but I cannot exit without bringing down the share price. That is what we thought. Okay, this was widely commented here. We can go ahead without, and please, people. We said, okay, when. We launched Rio. People did not benefit that much with this cash that was amassed and could not sell their shares.
I was not checking this day in, day out. People had been patient. We worked with the experts on our side. We had much difficulties along the way. I thought, and I told analysts and significant shareholders who attended the analyst meeting, when we were asked to up the price in the year in December after the first upward movement in September, we were talking about 50%-80% premium versus share price right before the offering in September. We had firm followers. This had been the next steps to mergers and acquisitions in July. If you look at a premium on offer that's between 80%-120% when you compare this to what it was a year ago. I thought, okay, it's going to please people, but it's great.
We commit for a year to do nothing at the group and to try to close down an undertaking just to reinvest in Bolloré. If we close everything down, it's a bounty here, but hopefully we don't want to. This will help everybody to reposition whilst getting lots of cash. With fixed parity, UMG had been up to a higher level. When UMG with 27 got some, got 160% premium on that, following about 10-15 letters that were sent to AMF, a financial market authority. I just wish this hadn't happened. This is really sad. The reason why we had done this initially was to make people happy and to prevent any strategic steps. That's remarkable, as reflected in the previous questions. Demonstrated the sustainability, sustainable development. We would have to report with Bolloré.
The sustainability report has a cost, as a price of, we're talking millions of EUR because this involved corporate teams. Every division asked Marie for transport, but we need to account for everything. KPIs. We have to do this again in a listed company of a certain size. You'll get the sustainability report in the Cambodge, Artois, and Moncey companies. We own 99% of companies, although we have to draft three different reports. This duplicates our effort. It's not quite a good idea to start from scratch every step of the way. There's no bearing on the controls. Whether we own all shares or not, it doesn't make any change. It doesn't change my life. The capacity to invest, if we really thought that Bolloré is something that was going to happen, I think, those from Bolloré would pay.
We were talking about 720 equivalent and EUR 10. I'm going to pay. Whilst others do not have that money, you are not going to talk about 725, 525. We ended up with 560. I understood what I am getting at. What decided for us to not challenge our decision, I thought it would be unfair. We could have considered at the first time around. Not everybody agreed. Should we go back to that or let us see this through? The discussion went on to the fact that we were required to commit all of the Bolloré scope and their rival businesses, not have any distributions or significant dividend distributions for a period of five years. We were stuck for five years with six or seven cents. This wanted to Alexandre and is rightly so.
It would not go in the end what should be done, especially in certain times, global uncertain times, not even mentioning China. The strength of the group is about being agile to be on the board, to sell music, to sell this and that with everybody's agreement. If we commit to more significant distributions, this could not have been done through this operation. This led us to say that we would not challenge this decision. It would not have been reasonable. We lost sight of the actual valuation assessments. I thought that this would be time-consuming. We did not want to dedicate or to spend time on this. My approach is to this 85% of people who are happy with that. It is only about 10-20 people. Much of that, if everybody disagrees, I can just lament this situation. That is it.
The project is now over and out.
EUR 75 million in closing interest, which is always good for cash. Most of our impairments were passed this year. That's the negative portion on the industry. We could have, it would take six years. We could have brought the matter before the Supreme Court in appellate proceedings. We didn't. They said that they didn't want to launch an appeal. Our attorneys also said that the City of Paris, even though it deserved more, was never considered to be condemned for such an amount. It may have been less than what we could have collected. We were happy still. There was no appeal by them or by us to bring into an end the case that lasted for six-seven years, and it could have lasted for four-five years.
Given the atmosphere, the State Council, Supreme Court, and our image and so on, we did not want to fight more than that. In the group, for us, it is good news. We received the money ahead of time, the EUR 75 million. Now, your last question, the industry, it is more than that. We passed some lawsuits on contracts for the past-generation batteries that would not lead to much. We spoke about that earlier with our operational team in Brittany. We are very careful about spending cash to focus more on R&D and funding capital. We never give figures, but we try not to spend more than EUR 70 million. At the end of May, we are in line, and we plan to reduce it instead of increasing investments. Thank you so much for your questions. Any other questions? I can see one in the middle. Yes, good morning.
I'm an individual shareholder and
very happy.
Over the long term, it's a wonderful success. Three points. I would like to come back to batteries and the reasons why. Why is it that despite the obstination, inconsiderable efforts made, it is not working? Is it a matter of the amount invested, people, number of researchers, researchers who can't find the solution? I don't understand. Second point, about your losses in the agricultural business, increasing to EUR 38 million in 2023, EUR 71 million in 2024. What happened? Thirdly, coming back to video games. First, I congratulate you on selling Ubisoft at over EUR 60. Great. Now that the share price is at EUR 10, if you were logical, you liked it before. Why don't you like it as much today with such a low share price? For batteries, there are many different reasons, I believe, if you ask me for my opinion.
Which is what your question is about, I would imagine. It's not a matter of the budget. The group invests much more in the past. We're investing EUR 60 million in cash. I wasn't the Chairman at the time. In the past, we would spend EUR 60 million every year. We spent even more than what we earned. I spent a lot of time, as you can imagine, in the recent year with our people. We have good people. Our research is good. My father was a visionary. The battery market would be driven not because the battery is better than thermal batteries, but he was a visionary. He saw that at an early stage. What we did not realize was that the market would be as big as it has become. It has become a much bigger market than everything we could have imagined.
The world turned around, saying that we needed to have a business in France. China wanted to have jobs in China, France in France. Every government wanted to improve its economic performance and so on. It became an international issue for the business. I do not want to complain, but we did not get a lot of help. Some help on communication when they said we would be investing EUR 2 billion. They said, no, this is public money. Everyone we spoke about, we wondered if they really thought what they said. People in the regions were trying to roll out the project there. They have 10-15 years, and I pay tribute to their work. That is what helped us to build things together and to contemplate projects like this. Alongside Europe, China became the number one producer in the world, making a lot of money.
Take CATL, for example, number one in China or number two in China. For $1 billion, I believe they reported some weeks ago. They had the know-how. We wanted to come closer to Europeans and Chinese who worked in logistics in China for years with good experience. We have the European bodies that are not very much in favor of China, preventing us from drawing closer to partnerships with people who could help us with a mixture of people and technology. Most of the raw materials for producing this new generation of batteries, and very efficient, come from Asia. If we cut ourselves away from those people, it will be a problem. There is another issue on top of batteries in the industry.
The tariffs in the U.S., everyone is asking how much would that cost us as if we just increase our prices and we'll be losing millions on selling cockroaches or whatever. Asia is there, and they want to sell in Europe. What we're seeing without any anguish because we're less exposed, but I see that in some small businesses, the Asians are invading the European market since we don't have high tariffs, since they can't sell in America any longer. That is the case for wine. For automated gates, everywhere, everyone is saying A plus B equals C. The problem is that what is international is far more complex than that. That is why I reduced the budget, because I believe that the value is not in investing more. We'd have loved to have more people, but it's complicated to make food.
Projects in the east of France allowed us to find other talents, even those who are well advanced in our factories in the north of France. We are not enough real estate, not enough homes for families. I commend the government who always wants to help the businesses, but they want to do that in one year whereas it lasts for 10 or 15 years. They are not elected for 15 years, so it is hard for them. I am not a spin expert in politics, even though I have my own opinions that I will not express here. Unfortunately, that is why we have this for the strategy. To focus on R&D. We will see where we reach next year, if it is just wishful thinking or not. It is exciting. We have buses, TEMLER, RATP, but it is not a matter of selling buses to be the best.
You must focus on R&D and have partnerships with the possibility of having licenses, producing other licenses in different countries. In Brittany, we can do plastics, traditional activities, batteries at a large scale. It's difficult with the labs and everything. There are many different reasons. This is a bigger market that attracts more in terms of losses in the agricultural business. It's not in agriculture that we're losing that much. I don't have the table in front of me, but I remember the figures. Don't you worry. You include the holding company. In recent years, there's been a lot of restructuring. By selling Bolloré Agricole Logistics and Bolloré Logistics, we are far more costly than we sold companies. Over the summer, trademark licenses we no longer receive. I don't know if Sergey Kassen thinks it's a period. We should get ready.
There are non-recurrent items that came on board. It will not change everything. It will last for three or four financial years. At the price we sold it, I think it was quite good. It will only last for a year or two. Then we will not have all the non-recurrent items. Also guarantees and assets and liabilities. After selling Bolloré Logistics, we spoke about taxation. There are guarantees after all. We may be forced to pay amounts that will be quite acceptable given the price at which we sold. Maybe EUR 150 million or EUR 200 million at the end, but we will see. I am sure we did some great things. There are small amounts yet to come. What is missing for EUR 800 million structurally, and that decision must be taken. We have an issue with losses on leases.
hundred people in recent months left the Bolloré building, an Optima, the building we have behind the Abbas building. We have no immediate solution for replacement without putting anguish on our employees. We must leave the building by 2030 to be in compliance with the new thermal regulation for 2030, calling for three years of work, working on concrete at every floor. There will be more important issues there. I confirm that over the past two financial years, someone has seen over EUR 70 million in synergies that are non-recurrent. Given disposals made, it was a quick decision that had to be made, to be clear with you. On video games, I would love to be at the initiative of the capital gains on B-Soft, but I cannot. I like you. I commend those who were in charge of that divestment.
I would call it with Cédric de Bailliencourt. We spoke about B-Soft. Let me dampen your hopes right now. About EUR 10. The question was put to Vincent Bolloré at Laudé last year, saying that we made money, we won't come back, it wasn't good. It is not a short-term concern for us. Maybe we're wrong. I think, given what I said about the Court of Appeal, we'll be more on that than on B-Soft. I don't want to make a commitment. I prefer to remain open, but I thank you for your message. Thank you. [Foreign language] Minority shareholder . Congratulations for the group's treasury positioning, equivalent to Berkshire, Atwa, in the U.S. Maybe there'll be a crack on the bond market in the making. That is a great performance. Wonderful.
You spoke about Benoît Seurat-cornoy now. I would like to know what you think about your position on UMG. In the near future, are you thinking of any payout of that investment to your shareholders so as to reduce the discount for Bolloré SE Group? That was my question. You spoke about transactions on Cambodia-Nartwa, Arrivals. Thank you for your explanations on that. My question is the following. You said that 95% of shareholders were satisfied with the tenders and are waiting for the end of the marathon. Your friend Marathon loves marathons that are over 42 kilometers. I do not love to run, but I think that is long for the distance. On the other hand, you can set the arrival line.
If you stop these transactions entirely without any liquidity offer, it's as if you were not giving a chocolate medal to all the participants in the marathon that are waiting for the end of all the tenders to be able to opt for UMG and that were waiting until the last minute to be able to take over that branch. Have you thought of any such solution for liquidity for those who were satisfied who want to exit? Plus, the share price of Bolloré SE, luckily, is coming close to EUR 580, which is the limit set for the independent service provider automatically. That's great for all of us so that we can be relooted without any effort. Thank you for that.
Coming back to 580, isn't it interesting to think of this liquidity offer for rival shareholders, especially as you know very well that because these are nominative shares, but at the same time, you have those who hold high-quality paper, but good paper anyway, and that is gaining in value. Experts have recognized that, and you too. I would like to know if something could be contemplated on that. In addition, you said that some minority shareholders who wanted to sabotage were playing their card as long as you were listed. Some shareholders act to, if I understand correctly, and thank you for your explanations, for five-year commitment not to pay out any large coupons at group level. That was the authority. Amen. Okay, fine. I understand that under those circumstances, you can close the deal.
I would like to know, if you abandon the Salinger offer, are you also committed for one year after the letter from Mr. de Bailliencourt, or are you no longer having a commitment on anything at all the levels of the group? That was my last question. UMG and liquidity offers. Thanks once again, and congratulations for your performance in a complicated time. Last but not least, why keep so much money if you do not distribute it? I am not talking about the cash distribution, just UMG. Are you wary about the years to come or after because of the disposal of Vivendi SE? Thank you for your questions, your loyalty, and your comments. After the Bolloré-Cornouaille merger, should we distribute UMG? I cannot tell you right now. It will never happen.
If, you know, once you say something about the value, the company leaders will say they want to distribute or sell. I don't want to scare anyone, but I want to be free. Some shareholders would like us to reinvest, keep all the money to reinvest, and keep on doing a good job. It's your long-term money. Others say, give me cash. Others say securities are good for us for many reasons. That's why I didn't want to get into all the rivals. I'm turning to my specialists, but what I understand is that there are no commitments. We are totally free. We don't have 12 months or anything with any letter of confirmation. We're free to do as we wish. I know your situation. I received your email. When you expect to, we're waiting for UMG, thinking that it's higher.
I'm sorry, it's not my fault, but it's very frustrating. I would have been frustrated too. And Cédric de Bailliencourt knows the situation well. He worked in those companies for over 25 years. They were given to him by and by when they were worth not much. He could not say midway that the price is high and I can sell it. He did not give it. He subscribed to it, okay? Yeah, it does not matter. There is no ill intent on my part. Many of us were sorry that these arrivals, people we know, when you came to our general meetings, you could see that they have 20, 15, 20 people. It is human in size. It is complicated, though. We asked ourselves, should we do something or nothing? To be honest, that is why I did not follow up on it. We said we will not do anything. It is not our fault.
We're ready to do it. When you look at the security today, it was at EUR 60-EUR 70. It's still over 50, 70%, even though it's gaining less. Do you have a good volume for buyers? I'm not sure that that is the case. I won't make a commitment. Maybe someone will ask for more liquidity or something of that sort. Personally, as a company leader, of course, we don't want to offer the same price for a mandatory exit to avoid any issues. It's due to the squeeze-out. The offer must be equivalent to whatever one. It's always the same problem. After the 14 months of battle with the AMF and the Court of Appeal, I don't want to do that. Let's wait for a few weeks and months to see what happens. We can't do a public offer.
We'll rebuy on the market at a price that won't hurt people personally. I'm ready to push that before our board. We'll see what people think. We're a bit disappointed right now and annoyed. We hold no grudges over the long term. It's not impossible that our position may change. Right now, we'll just stay still, but we'll see if we can do something, but not at the price that we're ready to do it for a squeeze-out, especially if we have a commitment for 15 months. What bothers me the most in this transaction, we planned to finish it last year, is that we were stuck with our UMG shares. Look at the UMG shares, 26, 27, not bad. If it were the other way, at 15, we would have been stuck.
It was becoming dangerous with the lack of agility on top of the five-year commitment that was no longer sustainable for our group. My role was to say everything is okay, but I wasn't feeling well. We are looking in a way to see how we can position ourselves, even though it won't be an offer for everyone. I'm trying to cover all your questions. That was on rivals. Okay, commitments. I think I've answered all your questions. Thank you very much. Do you have any other questions? Yes, one over there in the center. Then we'll move on to a vote. There are several expressions of discontent. We'll accelerate. Individual shareholder. I'd like to congratulate you for the information you gave us about CNews and the public buyout offer. The race is this issue about racism against Bolloré Christians.
I'd like to come back to a transaction eight years ago on New World Disney, an EPR, OPR, with independent experts appointed. Some say that the experts were not competent given the value of the land. I contacted Madame Berjal and Anne Sophie. You know them, I'm sure. She didn't want to interfere because it was more American and too big for her, maybe. I'm sorry about that. To come back to the amusement park, Epic, the new Universal theme park will open up. Are you involved? I think we have a small royalty on music, that's all. I'm talking about the theme park in Florida. In terms of, so you have that in Florida and Georgia as well. Yeah, mainly in Georgia. Furthermore, for the 6th of June, there will be a change on the television channels in France.
What impact will it have on you with respect to your Canal+ channels? I really can't answer your last question. I don't know if someone knows that. The renumbering of TV channels, I don't know anything about that. It won't change much, I think. On my Canal developed by Canal+, you know that most of it is covered. Most people watch it on the internet. You can do what you wish. I'm sorry, but I'm totally ignorant. I've never heard, I heard about it in the media, but I haven't heard that there would be any impact. When there's bad news to come, it comes to my ears, but I haven't heard about that. Of course, lots of news come to me, not only good news, but I think it won't have an impact, to be quite honest. Une dernière question avant le vote?
One last question before we vote? Okay, we'll now vote. De Adrien, Secretary of the Meeting, could you please read out the resolutions so that we can vote? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[Foreign language]
The ordinary resolutions, the first resolution on approving the annual financial statements for 2024 with EUR 10,686,004,973.30 against abstentions. So the resolution is adopted. The second resolution on the approval of the consolidated financial statements for 2024, and the one against abstentions, the resolution is carried. The third resolution on the allocation of income for 2024, the required 2024, 70 dividends, at EUR 0.08 per share. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is carried.
[Foreign language]
as presented by yesterday's auditors, and the terms of execution of the prior regulated agreements. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is adopted.
[Foreign language]
The first of all, the resolution of Mr. Cyrille Bolloré's term of office for a period of one year. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is adopted.
Thank you. Congratulations.
Sixth resolution, renewal of the term of office of Mr. Yannick Bolloré for three years. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is adopted.
Congratulations.
Seventh resolution, renewal of the term of office of Mr. Cédric de Bailliencourt for two years. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is adopted. Eighth resolution, renewal of the term of office of Madame Chantal Bolloré for three years. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is also adopted.
Congratulations.
Ninth resolution, renewal of the term of office of Mr. Sébastien Bolloré for three years as well. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is adopted. Tenth resolution, renewal of the term of office of Madame Virginie Courtin for two years. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is adopted. Eleventh resolution, renewal of the term of office of Bolloré Participations SE for one year. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is adopted. Lastly, the twelfth resolution on renewals, to renew the term of office of Mr. François Thomazeau for three years. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is adopted.
The 13th resolution, on the recommendation of the Audit Committee for the renewal of the term of office of the statutory auditor, AEG Finance, for three financial years. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is adopted. Fourteenth resolution, on the recommendation of the Audit Committee as well, for the renewal of the term of office of an alternate statutory auditor, IGEC, for six financial years. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is adopted. The 15th resolution, authorizing the board to buy company shares for a total of 284 million shares, 9.96% of capital. The price would be at EUR 6.50 per share, and the authorization would be effective as of the 21st of June 2025 for a period of 18 months as of this meeting. Anyone against abstentions? The resolution is carried.
Moving to remunerations. Our conversations are voting.
Sixth resolution, approval of the information referred to in Article L22, L22109L of the French Commercial Code, as presented in Corporate Confluence Report, exposed to CNP. Anyone abstaining against this resolution is carried. Seventeenth resolution, approval of a fixed variable and exceptional components of total compensation and benefits of any kind paid during the previous fiscal year or granted during the same period to Cyrille Bolloré for his service as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the company exposed to CNP. Anybody against abstaining? This resolution is carried. Eighteenth resolution is about the approval of the compensation policy for directors established by the Board of Directors Exante. CNP. Anybody against abstaining? This resolution is carried. Nineteenth resolution, approval of the compensation policy for the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer established by the Board of Directors Exante. CNP. Anybody against abstaining? This resolution is carried. We'll go to extraordinary resolutions.
Twentieth resolution, delegation of the authority granted to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by issuing ordinary shares or any other securities conferring immediate or future access to the company's equities subject to shareholders' preferential subscription rights. Anybody against? Anybody abstaining? This resolution is carried. Twenty-first resolution, delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by issuing ordinary shares to be paid by capitalizing reserves, profits, or premiums, or by increasing the par value. Anybody against? Abstaining? This resolution is adopted. Is carried. Twenty-second resolution, delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors to carry out a capital increase limited to 20% of the share capital in order to pay for contributions of shares or securities conferring access to equity. Anybody against? Abstaining? This resolution is carried.
Twenty-third resolution, delegation of authority to be granted to the Board of Directors to issue shares and/or securities conferring immediate or future access to the company's equity in consideration for securities tendered in connection with a public exchange offer initiated by the company. Anybody against? Abstaining? This resolution is carried. Twenty-fourth resolution, delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by issuing shares restricted to employees disapplying preferential subscription rights. Anybody against? Abstaining? This resolution is adopted. Is carried. Twenty-fifth resolution, authorization granted by the General Meeting to the Board of Directors to grant existing or new shares in the company for no consideration to the officers and employees of the company and its affiliates. Anybody against? Abstaining? This resolution is carried.
Twenty-sixth resolution, authorization granted to the Board of Directors to reduce the share capital through the cancellation of shares previously repurchased as part of a share buyback program. Anybody against, abstaining? This resolution is carried. Finally, twenty-seventh resolution about powers for formalities. Anybody against, abstaining? This resolution is carried. Thank you very much, Adrien. Dear shareholders, I want to extend my thanks for your loyalty, your support, and for being with us day in, day out, and some send out supporting emails to the UNSC that we fall victims to in some. I would like to thank our teams, Bolloré, who work very hard all year round, and will continue to give our very best throughout the year to protect your interests and the values of our group. I look forward to seeing you again next year at the same time for this combined General Meeting.
Thank you very much.