Ladies and gentlemen, hello and welcome to the Bureau Veritas half-year 2025 result presentation. On today's call, we are with Hinda Gharbi, CEO, and François Chabas, CFO. Please note this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. I will now hand you over to your host, Hinda Gharbi, CEO, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thank you, Benoît. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone. Welcome to Bureau Veritas' f irst half 2025 results presentation, and thank you for participating. I'm joined today in Paris by François Chabas, our Group Chief Financial Officer. We have quite a bit to cover today. Let me start with half-year results. There are several key achievements I would like to highlight. Over the past six months, I'm pleased to report that Bureau Veritas has made substantial progress in executing our LEAP 2028 strategy, delivering a robust performance that demonstrates both our operational resilience and our focused execution of the strategy. We have delivered as we planned through a combination of specific cost action plans and an acceleration in performance programs in an environment where our customers continue to grapple with uncertainties. Finally, to further accelerate the strategy execution, we have announced changes to our executive committee leadership.
Before I move to discuss the numbers, I would like to thank all our colleagues around the world for their contributions to these results. Turning now to our financial highlights. We delivered the revenue of EUR 3.2 billion, up 6.7% organically, with a 6.2% increase in the second quarter. On a reported basis, our revenue grew 5.7%. Growth was driven by high volumes and targeted pricing programs throughout the semester. This is a testament to the resilience of our business as we continue to outpace underlying market trends across the board. The adjusted operating profit increased by 8.8% year-on-year to EUR 491.5 million, generating a margin of 15.4%. Up 44 basis points year-on-year and up 55 basis points at constant currency. This reflects our operational leverage from ongoing performance programs. Our adjusted earnings per share is up 2.4% to EUR 0.65 and up 6.4% at constant currency.
Combined with our dividend yield and the EUR 200 million share buyback program completed in Q2, we delivered double-digit returns as per our LEAP 2028 commitment. Our net financial leverage is kept at a level of 1.11, broadly stable compared to December 2024. Based on this robust half-year performance and taking into account a number of other factors, we confirm our 2025 outlook. Looking at the mix now. All geographies and activities delivered resilient growth. This growth was supported by solid market trends. We are in the middle of pivoting our portfolio, fully in line with LEAP 2028 portfolio priorities. What is important to highlight is that two of our businesses are growing double-digit on an organic basis, and three are growing at high single-digit or double-digit, taking into account the organic and the scope effects. This is true in consumer products, services, buildings, infrastructure, and certifications.
By geography, the Middle East and Africa posted once again a very strong organic growth at 20.8%, primarily fueled by critical energy projects in oil and gas and a buoyant activity in buildings and infrastructure. In Asia-Pacific, we delivered 7.6% organic growth with strong activity in South and Southeast Asia. Our performance in China remained steady with mid-single-digit growth. Australia's industry services segment notably accelerated in the second quarter. The Americas region recorded a 5.7% organic growth. This performance was supported by sustained momentum in data centers and the energy sector in North America and robust activity levels in Latin America. Finally, our European operations delivered an organic growth of 2.9% with high activity levels in the southern and eastern parts of the continent. We anticipate positive momentum for the coming quarters, supported by stabilizing inflationary conditions and emerging investment trends.
Let's now look at our mix and why our portfolio is well-positioned to navigate current macroeconomic changes. In fact, I want to come back on our mix with a different perspective, providing an understanding of the regulatory versus non-regulatory services. What we can see here is that we have a balanced approach that spans risk mitigation services and regulatory services. Nearly half of our portfolio comes from regulatory services. These are critical services in safety, health, and risk management mandated by law or regulation, with a significant part immune to hasty deregulation. This, therefore, provides us with a stable, predictable revenue foundation. A good example is Marine & Offshore operations that are regulatory by nature. The other half stems from risk mitigation services. These voluntary services are driven by enterprise risk programs and oftentimes industry standards. We're able to capture growth opportunities as organizations proactively invest in risk management.
For example, Certification services are largely voluntary. In addition, our portfolio further demonstrates resilience through a healthy mix of OpEx and systems, CaPex, and products. This is a diverse mix and is evolving as we build scale and leadership in our portfolio. These two approaches, or these two views of our portfolio, give you a complete view of our resilience mix. We are able to navigate today's market challenges while executing our strategy to reach our 2028 ambition. Let me move to an update to update you on LEAP 2028. On the execution front and looking at the portfolio pillar of our strategy, our active portfolio management is starting to bear fruit. Looking at the directional trends, our revenue growth by stream is moving exactly where we wanted it to go.
First, looking at our new strongholds, it is leading the pack with 13.4% revenue growth at constant currency, driven by both organic developments and contributions from M&A. We're building capabilities in the high-growth areas of renewables and cybersecurity. Second, our expanded leadership stream, covering Certification, Buildings and Infrastructure, and industry product certification, delivered solid performance with a 9.1% growth at constant currency with active M&A, specifically in BNI. The third one, our optimized value and impact stream, is growing at 8.1% organically and at 6% at constant currency, as we expected. These businesses in this particular stream are fundamental to our cash generation and baseline growth. Moving to the M&A front, so far this year, we have acquired six companies, adding annualized cumulative revenue of EUR 60 million. We have signed four of them in July.
Since the start of the plan, we have focused our efforts on growing our new strongholds, completing or signing 10 acquisitions for a combined annualized revenue of EUR 71 million. This is fully aligned with our strategy of pursuing bolt-ons in nascent high-growth markets. For our existing strongholds, where we are expanding our leadership, we're developing our BNI activity towards the most attractive geographical markets and highest-performing business segments. Since the start of the strategy, we have acquired three companies, adding EUR 147 million of annualized cumulative revenue. For our mature businesses within our optimized value and impact stream, we remained the most opportunistic and completed three acquisitions in metals and minerals and consumer products services and divested non-core operations in crude testing. Now, I would like to update you on the organizational aspects of LEAP 2028.
Our LEAP 2028 ambition of making a step change in growth and profitability rests on our capacity to execute our portfolio, our performance, and our people programs comprehensively and fast. Our active portfolio management, as I explained, is ongoing, and our organic growth programs are progressing in line with our expectations. Our performance programs are also progressing, and they require modernization of our digital operations system and of our delivery practices. We are at a junction today. We want to accelerate our performance and portfolio programs implementation so we can gain margin improvements faster, and that will allow us to invest earlier in our modernization programs. What is clear to us now is that this acceleration requires higher levels of connectedness and integration between different parts of the organization. This is critical to ensure agile decision-making and effective implementation.
We have reviewed our organizational operating model and understood that we needed to strengthen our geographical platforms to accelerate regional growth and to increase cross-selling. This will be possible by including product lines representation within the regions, bringing higher expertise to customers, developing local capabilities and talents, and capturing new growth opportunities. These changes are designed to remove barriers to execution, to maximize regional growth potential, and to industrialize company-wide innovation and expertise. We believe that through these changes, we will deliver differentiated value to our customers, our business, and our people. We are, therefore, evolving the structure of our executive committee. The current six operating geographical regions will be reorganized into four larger regions: the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East, Caspian, and Africa. The product lines will be managed by three senior executives who will lead industrials and commodities, urbanization and assurance, and consumer products services.
We're also distinguishing between support functions and business functions and will be dedicating one senior executive to performance and major business functions. Ultimately, this new organization operating model intends to facilitate three fundamental objectives. One is to leverage the scale of our company. Two, to strengthen the structure for execution, and three, to accelerate decision-making. I will hand over now to François for the financial review for our half-one results.
Thank you, Hinda. Thank you. For these few words. Good afternoon to everyone. Before we deep dive into the numbers, a few words on the key financial H1 achievements. The step change in growth and return that we committed to within the LEAP 2028 strategy continues in the first half, as you can see on the page. We've delivered robust organic growth throughout the year at 6.7% by the end of June.
Profitability-wise, we increased our adjusted operating margin by 55 basis points at constant currency, showing a good start to our performance programs. It enabled us to invest earlier into additional ones. As you remember, we have indicated directionally a consistent margin improvement of 20-30 basis points per year. On the bottom line, our adjusted earnings per share increased by 6.4% at constant currency. As you recall, our LEAP 2028 commitment in terms of returns is to deliver double-digit returns to our shareholders, defined as a combination of the EPS CAGR at constant currency plus dividend yield plus share buyback. Doing the numbers at the end of June, we're on the right track. As of now, with a 6.4% EPS growth at constant currency, a dividend yield of circa 3%, and the EUR 200 million share buyback program completed in Q2, which weighed for roughly 1.5% additional.
Lastly, when it comes to the net financial leverage, we maintain our financial flexibility and balance sheet strength with a net debt over EBITDA ratio at 1.11x , broadly stable compared to December 2024. Starting now with the revenue bridge. We delivered close to EUR 3.2 billion revenue in the half year, organic growth at 6.7%. Acquisition added 1.3% on a net cost basis. It reflects both the impact of the bolt-on acquisition Indari Miners, realized in the past year quarter, which accounted for 3.2% over the semester, being partially offset by the disposal of our food testing business and an on-call activity back in China in June last year. Forex impact represents a drag of minus 2.3%, mainly due to the strength of the euro versus most currencies in the second quarter.
This weakening of the US dollar and peg currencies observed in Q2 and the current exit rates and spot rates we could figure out may lead to a negative potential impact of 4% on the full year. I'm sure we get questions on those, waiting for more. Overall, we posted a total growth of 5.7% on a net reported basis. Having now a closer look at the revenue generation across our different businesses. A couple of highlights here. All of our businesses, all of them, delivered the broad-based organic growth across most activities, including the scope effect; three achieved actually double-digit growth, while two others recorded high single-digit performance, showcasing the benefits of our bolt-on M&A strategy. Three businesses are growing double-digit at constant currency: Marine & Offshore and Industry. Both deliver double-digit organic, driven by the continuous trends around decarbonization and global need for energy solutions.
Our Certification business achieved double-digit growth at constant currency, reaping the benefit of last year's acquisitions in the fast-growing sectors of sustainability as well as cybersecurity compliance. Moving to our other strong performers, Buildings and Infrastructure and Consumer both delivered high single-digit growth at constant currency, supported by scope extensions that Hinda indicated too, of respectively 5.8% and 3.8% respectively. Finally, our Agri-Food & Commodities Division posted solid mid-single-digit organic growth, though this was offset by the divestment of our food testing activities, a process that is now almost fully completed, could be totally completed by the end of August. I would say 90% of it is behind us now. On the margin bridge, organically, we improved our margin by a significant 104 basis points year-on-year.
This is driven first by the operating leverage, second, by the benefit from restructuring made in H2 last year, and cost-containment measures we took earlier this year. Note that the restructuring benefit would be somewhat annualized over H2, and part of our organic margin gain would be reinvested. Overall, we remain committed to margin improvement in H2, but at a slightly lower level. Scope had a negative impact of 49 basis points. This is attributed to the recent acquisition in cybersecurity and sustainability that requires some short-term investment to scale up as we want them to grow outside the domestic markets. That is a need as well about the chain of organization that has just been presented or reminded to you a few minutes ago. This negative scope is expected to ease from H2 onwards. At constant currency, we delivered 55 basis points of improvement year-on-year.
Lastly, Forex was a drag of 11 basis points to the margin due to the strength of the euro, as mentioned before. In summary, on a reported basis, we delivered a strong margin increase of 44 basis points, reaching 15.4% at the end of June. Having a rapid look at our divisional margin performance for the first year, first, Marine & Offshore maintained a healthy 23.6% adjusted operating margin, slight decline from last year's 24.5%, mainly due to financial change and a slight organic contraction that is purely seasonal. The Agri-Food & Commodities business delivered a strong margin expansion, 200 basis points, to reach 14.3%. It beats our historical trend by roughly 100 basis points. This improvement reflects the successful recovery of our metal and mineral and GSIT government services activities, along with positive scope contribution.
The Industry Division margin rose by 40 basis points to 13.1%, with organic growth of 55 basis points, driven by operating leverage. We are working on structural improvements of the way we deliver this business. In 2019, I think this is the third year we are improving year-on-year our margin level in this business line. Buildings and Infrastructure showed solid improvements, margin increasing 41 basis points to 12%. Constant currency represents a 45 basis point improvement, with scope and organic effect needing to be viewed together. Due to some high-pressure treatment of last year's partial divestment of BNI activity in China. The economical way to look at it is really to combine scope and organic. We had good developments, especially in the U.S. In the first semester, contributing to good operational leverage. Our certification business maintained an 18% adjusted operating margin, somewhat of a reduction compared to the prior year.
This is mainly attributable to investment in the recently acquired sustainability and cybersecurity companies, as I've mentioned. We are working on scaling them up from their domestic and initial markets. However, this time, on an organic basis, margin increased by 20 basis points, driven by our effective performance management program across the business units. Finally, consumer product services margin slightly improved above 21.4%, with organic improvement of 34 basis points from operational leverage gain. Turning now to the other financial performance indicators. On the bottom line, our net financial expense increased by roughly EUR 30 million- EUR 56 million due to lower financial income from reduced cash and cash equivalent and somewhat lower interest rates. On the tax front, our adjusted tax rate increased by 20 basis points versus year-to-year last year, landing at 29.2%.
This includes, in particular, for the species I'll call, the impact of the exceptional contribution on large companies' profit and trends. Overall, I'm pretty happy we maintain the ETR at that very controlled level. We still expect the full year to be in the range of 30%-31%, as mentioned. It leads ultimately to an increase of the EPS of 6.4% at constant currency. Coming now to cash generation. We have maintained a strong focus. As you can see on the chart on the right, our working capital requirement decreased by another 220 basis points to a low 6.8%, compared to 9% at the end of H1 2024 and even above in the prior years. We did note the continued discipline of the entire organization on cash metrics, which you are well used to.
On after-year 2025, operating cash flow was broadly stable at EUR 262 million, despite higher income tax paid, I mentioned, and higher movement in working capital than H1 last year. Let's remind us that we are coming from a historically low December, which was set at 4.5%. Net CapEx amounted to EUR 65 million, broadly stable at 2% of the revenue. Finally, interest paid are somewhat higher due to a lower level of excess cash placement. Overall, we delivered a free cash of EUR 168 million. Perhaps if you stay with me for a second, a couple of attention here. On the face of it, the free cash is down 11.5% year-on-year. However, the picture is somewhat blurred by one-off coming from our food testing activity divestments.
This one-off, as detailed on the side, consists of roughly EUR 22 million of cash outflow related to CapEx and tax, which are compensated on the line sale of subsidiaries, which is not in the cash flow. We received the money ultimately, which is good. Even though that's on the line below the free cash. That's why we have this bridge on the right where you assess properly the performance. We are talking about an organic change positive of EUR 6 million-EUR 7 million on the semester, knowing that we are coming from a historical high in 2024. Moving finally to last word on capital allocation, our capital allocation strategy remains disciplined and focused. In the first half, we paid EUR 37 million in closed deals. These are the two that Hinda initially mentioned.
The other four that have been mentioned to you as being tied in July are hopefully not here, but we are committed to an additional EUR 50 million for the remaining four. This, of course, excludes any further acquisition that may be completed after July 2025. Our CapEx remains carefully managed. We target 2.5% as a percentage of earnings this year, while our leverage remains within the one to two times range we committed to. Dividend policy unchanged, 65%. Finally, our EUR 200 million share buyback program completed by the end of June in Q2 illustrates the confidence in the resilient business model of the group. To conclude, these results demonstrate our ability to drive sustainable growth and end profitability and create hopefully long-term value for the shareholders. Let me now hand over to Hinda for the portfolio business highlights.
Thanks, Principal Smarts.
Let me start with our Marine & Offshore division, which is a top-performing business in the third half of 2025, with an organic growth of 12.7%, including 13.5% in the second quarter. If we look by subsegments of Marine & Offshore, new construction delivered a strong organic double-digit expansion led by high demand for equipment certification services and by the conversion of a solid backlog as the renewal of the world's aging fleet continues. The Asian market continues to be a significant growth engine, and we have seen also robust activity in Europe. Core and service activity, or our OpEx activity, delivered mid to high single-digit organic revenue growth with an acceleration in the second quarter from a combination of increased number of service ships and some price increases.
The M&O business delivered solid sales, supported by, again, the maritime sector commitment to lower its emissions, to renew its fleet, and to enhance energy efficiency. In the first half, we secured 7.9 million gross tons of new orders, bringing the order book to 31.9 million gross tons, up 22.7% versus last year. Extremely pleased with these results, and I want to thank our Marine & Offshore team. When it comes to innovation, we're particularly proud of the launch in Q2 of Augmented Survey 3D. This is an AI-powered solution to automatically detect and precisely locate anomalies during the remote inspections of maritime vessels and offshore structures. Moving now to the Agri-Food & Commodities activity. We delivered here a robust 5% organic growth, including 4.1% in quarter two. The oil and petrochemical segment achieved low single-digit growth as macro uncertainties and low oil prices impacted the business.
Growth remained strong in the Middle East with contractor impacts. It is important to say that recovery continued in the quarter between quarter one and quarter two. Metals and minerals delivered the double-digit organic growth. In North America, the upstream business benefited from strategic contract wins, some earlier than expected service initiations, and successful pricing strategies. On-site laboratory activities remained strong. Looking at agri-food, or agri in this case, we experienced a slow start to the year with a low single-digit organic contraction in the first half, mostly from underperforming activities in Brazil. In the food subsegment, as François has explained, we successfully completed the food testing activity divestment across the world, except in one country, in Latin America. Government services grew organically at a high single-digit rate with solid contractor impacts in the Middle East and North Africa, and expansion of contract scopes in Southeast Asia.
Now, for Industry, I am pleased to report that in this industry division, we continue to deliver very good organic growth, achieving 12.3% in the first half, with 10.4% growth in the second quarter. This performance was driven mostly by strong energy spending in response to, from one side, energy security plans and commitments and transition-related needs. Our oil and gas activities posted double-digit organic growth. CapEx activities continued to experience positive momentum, leveraging the favorable investment cycle in the Middle East and Asia. OpEx activity posted a more modest growth, tempered, I would say, by strategic contract termination. This reflects our ongoing commitment to progressively shift our portfolio towards more selective and profitable contracts. In power and utilities, we achieved strong double-digit growth as global electricity demand continues to grow. This was led by renewable energy services with buoyant wind and solar demand globally.
To augment our capabilities in nuclear beyond inspection, as we continue to develop our offering in this area, we signed in July the acquisition for Dornier Hinne burg. This is a specialized firm in technical advisory and radiation protection for nuclear facility decommissioning. Looking at industry product certification, we recorded high single-digit growth with strong activity in Asia. We continue to strengthen our market leadership in pressure equipment inspections and to expand to new services in some geographies. Let me share some achievements on the green objects. First of all, we are creating new revenue streams by providing methane emission detection solutions. We are also ramping up our capabilities in CapEx for CapEx projects, where we secured a 250 MW wind project to provide project management services in North Dakota in the United States. Additionally, we are diversifying our activities into OpEx services.
Recently, we won a contract for wind turbine inspection services in Mexico. Turning to Buildings and Infrastructure, we recorded a 2.6% organic revenue growth in the first half of 2025, with a 2.7% increase in Q2. It is important to take into account scope with the recent acquisitions, where the growth, including scope, at constant currency was 8.4%. If we look at it now by subsegments, our CapEx building segment delivered mid-single-digit organic growth. The U.S. platform contributed to the growth primarily through a strong double-digit growth for the data center commissioning services business. We also have seen robust activity in code compliance, thanks mainly to housing expansion, housing projects expansion in Florida. We also have seen the real estate transaction market picking up, where we have improved our growth there. All this is helped by stable interest rates.
In France, our construction activity outpaced market growth, leveraging public works and safety-related services. If we turn to the OpEx building services, we achieved low single-digit organic growth. France, where we have most of our activity, contributed to growth through an increased volume of services, favorable pricing programs, and sustained energy efficiency audits. OpEx activities in the U.S. centered on asset condition assessments on behalf of public clients, specifically in the Western States. In the Middle East region, new large OpEx projects in rail and airport sectors contributed to the growth. Lastly, Buildings and Infrastructure were solid at mid-single-digit organically. In Europe, growth was driven by Italy's government infrastructure spending. In North America, the activity was supported by several large programs covering new construction, rail upgrades, and bus terminal expansion, all in California.
Within the Asia-Pacific region, China remained slow with the absence of public spending, specifically in transport infrastructure, while the Australian activities continued to develop as the portfolio expands with a recent acquisition performed late last year of APP Group, an infrastructure leader. Looking now at transition services and our developments in that area, few contract wins to highlight in half one. We were selected to carry out energy efficiency and decarbonization services for 29 public facilities in the state of Colorado. We were also awarded a contract to perform lead compliance services for a Saudi company. For Certification, our division here delivered strong results, achieving 8.6% organic growth, which supersedes all other players in the market growth, including 6.6% growth in the second quarter. Strong demand for decarbonization services, supply chain resilience, and cybersecurity solutions was instrumental to this growth.
Our quality, health, safety, and environment and specialized scheme solution recorded high single-digit growth despite tougher comparable following last year's recertification cycle. Growth was sustained by solid demand for food safety certification and by the ramp-up of our large public outsourcing contracts for food safety inspections in France. The organic growth in sustainability-related solutions and cyber certification was in the low teens. More moderate growth was recorded on the sustainability front as customers are rearranging their programs to focus on ESG, supply chain audits, product lifecycle, and carbon and decarbonization programs. Cybersecurity certification services recorded strong growth driven by increased customers' awareness about cyber risks. In July this year, Bureau Veritas announced the launch of Bureau Veritas Cybersecurity, accelerating the integration of recently acquired companies into one single business organization and brand. This business is now well-positioned for accelerated growth and for a geographical expansion to new markets.
Other solutions in this portfolio generated mid-single-digit growth propelled by solid performance in training. Looking at new services in our transition services. And what we have won recently, we completed corporate social responsibility audits for 120 Tier 1 supplier sites in five countries for a major automotive player as part of its ESG standard supply chain compliance. We also delivered carbon content assurance and lifecycle assessment services for a large Middle East oil company. Finally, consumer product services division delivered a robust 4.5% organic growth in the first half of 2025, with a 5.3% increase in the second quarter. Taking into account the scope, growth was at 7.8%. Looking at the subsegments, soft line, hard line, and toys delivered mid-single-digit growth. This performance was attributable to three factors: early ordering effect of U.S.
companies anticipating tariffs from their sourcing regions, higher growth in Vietnam, in Southeast Asia, and South Asia as U.S. clients in particular shift from China and diversify their sourcing, and the ramp-up now with our latest acquisitions of Asian domestic markets. Supply chain and sustainability. Services grew high single digits. Social audits and green claim verification services were the main driver of the growth, especially in Europe and in Asia. Now, turning to technology, after a number of quarters contracting, the technology segment experienced a return to growth in the second quarter. Electrical appliances segment continued to grow solidly, driven by domestic markets in both China and Mexico, offsetting to a large extent the reduced demand for wireless products and new mobility equipment in China and Taiwan.
Looking now at the rest of the year for this division, activity levels are expected to moderate in the second half against a more challenging base of comparison. However, our diversification strategy that we have shared with you for the consumer product services continues to pay off. We anticipate to reconnect with faster growth over the medium to long term as major retailers and brands diversify their sourcing partners across multiple geographies. I'll move now to the outlook. Given our robust first-half performance, the solid backlog, and strong underlying market fundamentals, and in line with the LEAP 2028 financial ambitions, we confirm our full year 2025 outlook and expect to deliver mid to high single-digit organic revenue growth, improvement in adjusted operating margin at constant exchange rates, and strong cash flow with a cash conversion above 90%. In summary.
Bureau Veritas continues to deliver reliably on its commitment and in line with its strategy ambitions. The company produced a robust first half of the year while navigating an uncertain macro environment. The sustained execution of LEAP 2028 contributed significantly to this outcome. In many sectors, our customers are navigating short-term uncertainties while they prepare for a more resilient mid and long term. This dynamic requires higher customer intimacy, discipline in executing, sorry, business plans, and a focused leadership team. I'm confident in the capacity of our leaders to manage in this environment and to deliver on our commitments. As we accelerate LEAP 2028 execution, we'll step up the implementation of the new organization. This interconnected new organization will allow the company to respond quickly and effectively to customer demands and to reach the company ambitions faster.
Our executive leadership team is fully dedicated to driving this transformation and to achieving our strategic goals. We entered the second half of the year with confidence and with strong momentum, supported by a robust half-one results and by an effective strategy execution track record. Thank you for your attention. François and I are now ready to answer your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star one now on your telephone keypad. To redraw your question, it's star two. Also, ensure your line remains unmuted locally. You will be advised when to ask your question. The first question comes from the line of Annelies Vermeulen calling from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. I have two questions, please.
Just firstly, on the accelerating the execution of LEAP 2028, just so I understand it correctly, is there any change to the timeframe or the quantum of your LEAP 2028 targets as part of your plan to get there? Similarly, on the structural reorganization, could you comment on the timeframe of that? Are there any additional costs involved with the restructuring of the organization? Then just a quick one on consumer. You mentioned again pre-ordering from US clients ahead of tariffs. I think you spoke about that in Q1 as well. Could you comment on how that developed in Q2 versus Q1 and what your expectations are for the second half based on what you can see so far for consumer? Thank you.
Thank you, Annelies, for the questions. Look, I think this reorganization is a good question to explain how we thought about this.
We've been working on this since the inception of the strategy. We've been thinking about that for a while. We think that it's fundamental to our capacity to execute as we want our strategy. Of course, there are certain market trends we find extremely favorable that we want to make sure we are earlier in investing to capture these. That's really what we're trying to do. It's a matter of Making the organization work more effectively. It's a matter of making decisions faster. It's something that we timed to come at a stage where we have established a very good cadence in the execution of the strategy. No change of timeframe at this point. I think the quantums will have to look over time, but definitely, this is fundamental for us to continue to deliver at pace strategy commitments.
I'm going to let François, you want to comment on the restructuring link to this?
Yes. Good afternoon, Annelies. In a nutshell, as mentioned, the executive committee has been reshaped, and we are in a phase of further cascading down this reshapement within the broader organization. There will be some restructuring in H2 with a very clear view to have incrementals in margin as early as H1 next year. I think it is not a one-off or this type of thing. It's done structurally. That's why we started with XComm, with a view to be faster, more agile, and getting some time in line to structure. As mentioned, very short payback. We're not talking about long-term things here.
Yeah. Thank you, François. On the consumer side, the early ordering is similar between Q2 and Q1.
I think the bigger thing here for us for the consumer products business is a very robust performance in this half one with a nice performance in Q2. We are, as I explained a few times, in the midst of large diversification programs, both geographically on the services and on the sectors. As I mentioned earlier, this is a business that grew north of 7.5% in terms of between scope and organic. We are really pivoting this portfolio specifically on the technology side. As I mentioned, the technology side in Q2, it's the first quarter in a number of quarters where the technology grew positively. Quite happy, actually, with that. I expect that over time, we'll see consumer reconnect with more normative growth levels.
Okay. Thank you both.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Suhasini Baranazi, calling from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon.
Thank you for taking my question. Just two for me, please. There's been a large deal done in the space, ATS. Did you take a look at that deal, and can you maybe share your thoughts on criteria for doing larger transactions? The second one is on Marine, please. It's shown very nice growth in the first half, but margins are down organically despite this growth. Is there a pricing problem, or is this more due to mix? How should we think about margins in the second half? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Suhasini. Look. We are very actively scanning the market for targets as we execute our M&A strategy. We did look at ATS. We do look at, just for a reminder, our strategy is to look at bolt-ons, of course, but also to look at a bit larger deals between $100 million and $500 million.
That was at the middle of it. That was a process. We, of course, looked at it. Now, as a reminder as well, our strategy of M&A is all about pivoting the portfolio and preparing our company to be aligned with segments of growth in the market. ATS simply did not respond to this strategic objective. Just if you looked at it, of course, it is an inspection company. Now, as the leader in inspection in this sector, the activities in this company are not activities that we consider favorable to our portfolio. Based on that assessment, we decided that we were not going to pursue it. Now, the second question on Marine, I am not sure. You are absolutely right. Great, great growth in this business. The fundamentals of Marine remain extremely, I would say, positive over time on the growth side.
Your question is on the margins. I am going to let François specifically answer that.
Where's put it, Suhasini? In a nutshell, you may remember that Marine & Offshore is combining two very important aspects. First, it has been one of the fastest-growing segments of the company now for two years. You have seen the backlog, which is at record highs for doing another semester of very strong order intake. That is the credit number one. Strong push on the top lines. Credit number two, this is the first division which started with its performance program, even a bit ahead of the official announcement of the LEAP 2028 strategy. By delivering especially very focused pricing programs, we took this opportunity, knowing top line was still very strong and still is, to invest a bit more in H1. The whole thing will be completely captured by the end of the year.
No worry. Bit of a timing here, but I think it is a very strong division within a portfolio, and the margin will be helping to maintain.
Perhaps I will address, just to add to that, I will address in general. There is a lot of talk about the shipping sector in general around the macro of that shipping sector. I think the trends for Marine & Offshore are very, very positive because, as I mentioned multiple times, I think in the past, we have a very old fleet around the world. Beyond the emissions concern, there is a need to renew this fleet. Today, as I mentioned also more recently, the shipyards are fully, fully booked for a number of years, probably until 2028 at the earliest. Everyone needs to upgrade their fleet.
We have a very nice backlog, as you have seen, 31 million gross ton, thereabout, 22% increase year on year. Very well positioned with a good backlog, and we are simply executing it. We do not control the pace of how the shipyards work, but we definitely are investing, as François mentioned, to have capabilities to support new technologies in this sector, to support customers as they pursue energy efficiency, as they renew their fleet, as they really make technology choices. That is helping us. As I said, extremely pleased with the performance of this business. Thank you for the traditional color, actually, because if you do not mind, this strong growth, is that sustainable for the next six months, or do you think we should be worried about a slowdown happening in 2026? Look. Of course, we do not provide finance short-term like that.
I think what is important, though, to keep in mind is the backlog we have. The conversion of the backlog depends on the availability of slots in shipyards, whether they are ready to, if our orders will be executed or not. As that continues, we will continue to grow. We have seen, as I showed you before, we have very healthy growth on the new construction side. On the ship and service side, we are definitely moderating the growth simply because a lot of the growth in the past was also carried by catch-up from backlogs in terms of navigating or OpEx services. That has moderated somewhat. Overall, I think we expect to be, I would say, stable in performance for the short term.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Arthur Truslove, calling from Citi. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Thanks very much for taking my question. Two, if I may. The first one, in both Certification and Buildings and Infrastructure. You suggest that the scope knock margins down by in excess of 100 basis points. I guess my question there is, do you think that over time, the things that you have bought in these divisions can get close to those divisional margins once you have optimized the assets? If not, how close do you think that those currently under divisional margin performing assets can get? Second question, I think if I understood you correctly, you talked about how you have invested to grow the revenues of some of the recent bolt-ons that you have done and that that had also dampened margins. Firstly, within that, is that included in the sort of scope impact on margins as you see it?
Secondly, can you just give us an idea of how much you have invested in that way? Thank you.
All right. I am going to take the second question, and François will address the margin question. These companies we have bought, and we specifically singled out our sustainability and cybersecurity. These are organizations that have very specific skills that we consider are scalable across the enterprise. We will require investments in commercial services, but also in digital development that will help us grow. I am not. Going to share the exact value, but what's important to understand is these are small, have potential to grow, and will need support in the first few years. We expect over time that the growth around the world will allow us to basically absorb these investments and deliver value. We're actually quite pleased with these capabilities.
Just as a reminder, I talked about life cycle assessment before for products. That's one of the areas we're investing in: high demand from customers, digitally enabled solutions, cyber, high demand from customers, double-digit growth markets. Both are double-digit growth markets. The investments are fully, fully defined, important, and fully justifiable. François, you want to comment on—
yeah. Hi, Arthur. On the first part, I would say two different situations here, Certification and BNI, and I will take a bit of a broader step to get started. Scope - 41 to -49 basis points. We have a couple of elements here. Ultimately, that will reduce this negative gap we reduce by year-end for two particular points. First of all, the largest acquisition we've made last year, the APP Group, is, as you may know, based in Australia, which is a fantastic place, being located way down south.
By definition, January and February in Australia are always the low months. The seasonality of this hemisphere is totally upside down compared to the northern hemisphere. We expect, and that's exactly the aspect or business plans, that this activity will actually ramp up its margin from a pure business point of view at a higher level in H2 for the reason I have mentioned. That's one. Second, when we look at BNI, I think I've mentioned it in one of my remarks, but in the scope, there is an impact coming from the divestment of an activity in China last year in June. Due to an IFRS treatment, we have the scope that is a bit inflated and the organic that is a bit inflated as well.
Perhaps the more economical view to look at it for BNI is the combination of both, the 40 basis points, is actually the economic improvement. Now, if you are, let's say, passionate about IFRS, the investor team is at your disposal all months of August at any time. Laurent, sitting in front of me, is raising his hand. That's basically it. Lastly, when it comes to ramp-up and completing what Hinda mentioned, the performance of the activities we've acquired so far are very much in line with the business plan we've set up. To your first, very first point, usually when it comes to synergies and bringing the assets to the—I would say, at least the divisional level, we set ourselves usually a limit of 10-15 months. For those who are below the level, this will be covered within this period.
So we are not talking about assets which are likely. Waiting on the average margin of the division.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
And Laurent is waiting for your call around the 10th of August or anytime around that date.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much.
Welcome.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a second reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one at any time. The next question comes from the line of James Rowland Clark calling from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Afternoon. Two questions, please. My first is just on. Pricing. I think you flagged in the release twice. Pricing initiatives that have. Delivered a sort of improvement in the growth in marine and in service and also in metals and mining. More broadly across the group in the first half, could you help us with what price was worse in organic growth?
And then those pricing strategies that you alluded to, are they the latter work of catch-up on pricing in the last few years, or are they new initiatives that can be rolled out across the group? And then my second question is on certification. Where sustainability slowed down as customers, as you said, rearranged programs to focus on supply chain audits and so on. What are they moving away from? Are they moving away from reporting? And do you think you can capture this new activity that they're moving towards? Thank you.
All right. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Look, yeah, we did mention pricing a few times for. A few reasons. First of all, as we've said, in the last couple of years, I think we established a nice practice of. Reviewing pricing and being very, very vigilant to. Inflation in general.
And there are still some markets where inflation is something we can still work with. That's one, but that's always say it's a baseline and it doesn't apply everywhere. The other one is we launched within our performance programs. Specific programs around contract management. Management of out-of-orders, basically. Programs to stop any contract leakages, which basically improves your pricing. And that sounds basic, but it's very important because you need to make sure that your front line is actually very vigilant to the scope they're working with, that they are very disciplined and rigorous when it comes to out-of-scope. Tasks or things they get asked to do, that they apply the terms of the contract. And we've seen excellent, excellent impacts. For some of our businesses. Marine & O ffshore we mentioned. Certification now is looking at that. And it's really something that is starting to expand across the company.
So pricing, therefore.