Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to welcome you to Pavillon Vendôme for our annual general meeting. As you have noticed, we've changed venues this year. Please be reassured, this is a one-time exception, and we will try to go back to Pavillon Gabriel next year. Once again, this year, to facilitate dialogue, please note that the meeting is being broadcast live on our website. Please be aware that you may be filmed during the broadcast. The broadcast is available in English for informational purposes only. Only the French version is authoritative. Shareholders unable to attend Pavillon Vendôme were given the opportunity to access an online platform to ask questions live and remotely during our Q&A session.
I would like to invite them to submit their questions now by logging into the LumiConnect platform using the access codes provided to them in advance.
I propose that we form the bureau of the meeting. As Chairman of the Board of Directors, I will serve as Chair, and I propose that we appoint as scrutineers the two shareholders present who hold the highest number of votes and who accepted these roles. They're seated in the first row. Mr. Christophe du Vignaux, representing the ESOP Supervisory Board, and Mr. Hubert Giraud. The bureau of the meeting appoints as Secretary of the Meeting Mr. Olivier Lepick. With the bureau thus constituted, I declare the meeting open. Also present on the podium are Aiman Ezzat, Chief Executive Officer, and Nive Bhagat, the Chief Financial Officer. In the front row are the members of your Board of Directors and certain members of the executive committee. I ask the Secretary of the Meeting to review the legal formalities required for the validity of the meeting.
Thank you, Paul.
I remind you that the general meeting was duly convened with a notice of meeting published in the BALO on March 23rd, 2026. The notice of meeting was published in the BALO and on a legal notices website on April 29th, 2026. All legal documents are available to participants. The meeting is called upon to deliberate on the agenda displayed behind me. The quorum at the time we opened this general meeting is comfortably met. It must be 20% for an ordinary general meeting and 25% for an extraordinary general meeting. The opening quorum is 79.27% of the shares and voting rights present, represented, or having voted by mail or online for an ordinary general meeting. That's 8,029 shareholders and 132,975,928 shares. For the extraordinary general meeting, the quorum is 79.28%, so that's 8,023 shareholders.
The quorum is met for the ordinary and the extraordinary meetings, and we can validly deliberate. The final quorum will be confirmed to you before voting begins because it might evolve slightly throughout this general meeting. A copy of the notice of meeting and the 2025 Universal Registration Document, including the management report, the Board's report on corporate governance, and the Board's report on the draft resolutions presented at this general meeting has been made available to you at the entrance and on your voting tablets. I'll give the floor back to Paul Hermelin, who is going to share with you the agenda of this general meeting.
Thank you, Olivier. We are going to follow the following agenda. I will say a few words as the Chairman of the Board.
Our CEO, Aiman Ezzat, will review 2025 and the work done under his supervision to improve the group's strategic positioning. Ms. Nive Bhagat will present the 2025 results. We will listen to James Robey, Dr. James Robey, who will present an update on the group's climate strategy because we're committed to reviewing this strategy every three years. Frédéric Oudéa will take the floor as a member of the Board and Chair of the Ethics & Governance Committee. He will share with you an update of the work done by the year and will present the candidates submitted for your approval. Patrick Pouyanné, the Chair of the Compensation Committee, will share with you how the resolutions on say on pay have been drafted. Finally, we will listen to the statutory auditors who will share with you a brief summary of their reports on the financial statements.
There will be our Q&A session, and we will finish with the vote on the 30 resolutions. I would like to say just a few words before giving the floor to our CEO for the core of this general meeting. Let me share with you a few points. The first point is maybe the most difficult one. What should a Board of Directors do when it's confronted with negative fluctuations of the share price? The first thing is that we are in a very volatile context because of harsh geopolitical conditions. The share price was challenged and shaken by the disruption created by AI. Some may think that it might be complicated for our sector, not just for Capgemini, but for the whole IT industry. Aiman will share his point of view with you and the beliefs that he shared with the Board.
Generally speaking, what did the Board do about it? The Board tried to understand the various points of view. We shared the analyses with the members of the Board. The Board was also involved trying to understand these phenomena. The directors were trained on AI matters. It was involved in financial communication. As you know, the Board sessions are now happening in alignment with financial communications made by our CEO, quarterly communications, and we spend time analyzing them, amending them, approving them. The Board was significantly involved in financial communications based on the warm relationship between the Board and the CEO.
The Board is watching this evolution with some kind of sadness. We're not very optimistic, but we fully trust our group, and we're comforted by what Aiman said about the industry and the impact of AI on our agenda and our clients' businesses.
I would like to say something about a complicated topic that matters a lot to me, something that happened about our subsidiary, Government Solutions. As you know, Aiman Ezzat proposed to the Board of Directors that we divest the Government Solutions entity. There was a media campaign in the press, very emotional, and it revolved around ethics. Ethics is one of the main values of the group. When Serge Kampf wrote the key values of the group, honesty was number one. At the time, I told Serge that we should replace honesty with integrity, which I thought was a bit broader. It was hard for me to convince him, and he was the founder. I decided to follow him, and honesty included integrity. For 14 years now, the group has been ranked as one of the most ethical companies in the world by an entity called Ethisphere.
In this context, the press revealed a contract signed by one of our entities owned at 100%, Capgemini Government Solutions. As soon as we learned this one, I thought that the Board needed to convene. I called the Chair of the Ethics & Governance Committee, Frédéric, and we decided that we needed to meet immediately. There are several nationalities in the Board, 40% of foreign directors, we met on the fifth day that followed this situation. The first meeting took place on a Saturday morning. It was not conclusive because the Board needed to understand the legal ins and outs of the situation. We met again on Sunday, which shows how involved we were. We learned that the subsidiary Government Solutions is doing its business under very special terms. There's a special framework for foreign influence.
From the U.S. point of view, France is a foreign influence, and it operates within a security framework imposed by federal authorities in the U.S., which means there's a separation of its operations from the group, and it forbids any influence of the parent company on its operations. Your Board wanted to know everything about the situation, including legal issues, to precisely assess the consequences of any action.
On this basis, we realized that the only opportunity for us, because we couldn't take action on this subsidiary, was to follow the proposal made by the CEO, which is divesting the entity. Based on a certain threshold, the CEO makes a proposal for divestments, and we agreed to do this divestment. There were certain accounting procedures to allow for the separation. They are being completed at the moment. It will be completed as soon as possible.
Recently, we took stock of the procedure because we want to move forward as quickly as possible. The Board also asked the CEO to proceed to a rigorous, comprehensive review of other comparable situations. The review did not identify any other similar situation. Last point of my presentation, I would like to go back to my mandate and the changes in the Board. The first time I attended the Board was 30 years ago. I was appointed as a director 26 years ago. I've been the Chair of the Board for 14 years. I'm reaching the end of my term, and in agreement with the other directors, it seemed desirable to prepare for future transitions for me to stay on, and if you confirm me. The other members of the Board suggested that I should remain Chair.
I am strongly committed to this Board and committed to supporting the CEO and the shareholders to make progress. I would like to say a few words to the people who are going to leave us. First, there's Megan Clarken. She was the CEO of Criteo, so she had great technical expertise, but she moved back to her home country, New Zealand, and she couldn't keep working with us. We need to replace her quickly, and we co-opted Lila Tretikov, and her appointment will be submitted for your vote. There are two other people who are leaving us, two pillars of the Board, and I would like to pay tribute to them. Xavier Musca, who joined us 12 years ago. I think I was the one who called him to ask him to join us. He has been the Chair of the audit committee.
He was a true pillar, really. Some people said recently that every time there was a debate or a discussion, they looked at Xavier's reaction because he was our compass, really. Xavier, we're going to miss you. Frédéric Oudéa has been involved in different positions since he left Société Générale. He's been the Chair of the Ethics & Governance Committee when Pierre Pringuet left us, and we worked hand-in-hand to manage the governance of the group. You're leaving us, Frédéric, and I regret it. As people used to say, "The king is dead. Long live the king." It means that we are going to welcome new people, and I hope that you will vote to approve the arrival of Véronique Weill, Luc Rémont, and the renewal of Maria Ferraro's term.
I hope that these members will be great replacements for those who left us, and they will do their very best to support your Board of Directors. Dear shareholders, I would like to thank you for your loyalty, and I think we need you to support the group.
Thank you, Paul. Before giving the floor to Aiman Ezzat for his comments, let us watch a short video summing up what the group did over the past year.
[Non-English content]
Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, directors, I'm very glad to be here with you today for our annual general meeting. This year, we're meeting at Pavillon Vendôme, just off an iconic square, which at one time was called Place des Conquêtes, the Square of Conquests. What better way to introduce our group achievements? This general meeting is an important moment in the life of our company. It's a time to report on and to account to you for our activities and results. It's also a time to take a step back, look beyond the figures and the curves, and give meaning to our trajectory. This moment is especially important because we are operating in a world that's more complex, more unpredictable, more demanding. Economic pressures persist. Geopolitical tensions are becoming entrenched. Technological disruptions are coming in at an unprecedented pace.
This instability can no longer be described as a blip. It's become structural. It's part of the landscape we operate in. Against this unstable and enduringly unstable backdrop, our performance over the past year takes on a special signification. I'd like to share with you the key lessons we've learned before outlining our outlook for 2026 and our strategy for creating sustainable value. To sum up 2025 in two words, I would say recovery and transformation. First and foremost, 2025 has been a year of recovery, with a return to growth from the second quarter onwards at constant exchange rates. This growth gradually strengthened over the following quarters, enabling us to exceed our growth targets. This return to growth was an essential prerequisite for a services company such as ours, and it was accompanied by rigorous execution. We've met our targets for operating margin and organic free cash flow.
For you, ladies and gentlemen, our shareholders, this translates into a dividend which is held firm at EUR 3.40. Our business has grown in different ways depending on geography and sector. Nevertheless, performance in all business segments improved over the course of the year. Sectors that slowed down in 2024 also returned to growth in 2025, with the exception of the industrial sector, although it too has begun to pick up again. Similarly, all of our geographies recorded a gradual improvement in performance, and this trend was driven in particular by the U.S. and the U.K. France experienced a more challenging trajectory due to economic conditions that remain strained in a number of industries. However, we are now approaching 2026 with cautious confidence, and we're anticipating a gradual return to growth in this market.
These results are an opportunity for me to thank the Board for its support, as well as all Capgemini employees and the management team. Thank them, thank you all for your commitment, agility, and responsiveness throughout the year. 2025 was not just a year of recovery. It was also a year of transformation, a transformation largely driven by the very strong rise of artificial intelligence, in particular agentic AI. Demand from our customers has been and continues to be driven by cloud data, AI, and digital business process services with a strong focus on efficiency and optimization. Let's take a look at France.
At a time when Orange, which we've been supporting for over 50 years, is in a situation where it needs to operate increasingly complex networks with more data, traffic, and security requirements, AI necessarily needs to become a tool like any other, not a lab experiment, but a driver of very large-scale reliability. This momentum is also reflected in a significant number of major transformation contracts, such as our strategic partnership with McDonald's, just renewed for five years. These are all signs of our clients' confidence in our ability to lead complex, large-scale transformation projects in support of growth and value creation. This momentum is also underpinned by the assertive strategic decisions taken during the year, notably our two major acquisitions, WNS and Cloud4C. With WNS, we have created a market leader in intelligence operations.
It is ideally positioned to meet the strong demand coming from our clients to transform their businesses and processes using agentic AI. Proof is the megadeal, worth several hundred million euros, signed a few months ago with a Fortune 500 company for the transformation and operation of many processes across multiple functions. With Cloud4C, we are strengthening our leadership in managed cloud services, meeting the growing need of large companies, the need to operate, secure, and automate complex, hybrid, and sovereign cloud environments at scale while ensuring performance, regulatory compliance, and operational control. Finally, transformation, because we are adapting our skills and talents at a much faster pace to respond to technological changes and the evolving demands of our clients. This is translated into a number of fit-for-growth initiatives currently being implemented in several countries. Now let's look ahead to 2026.
The year is already well underway, and we can already outline a number of insights that will benefit the group. First of all, the drop in our share price alluded to by Paul, and we're all aware of this drop. It's not a one-off or isolated trend. It's affecting, in the same way, all the major global players in our sector, as we've seen with Accenture, down 39% since the start of the year, compared with 32% for Capgemini and 35% for Infosys. This reflects the concerns of some investors regarding the long-term growth and sustainability of our industry. We do not share these concerns because what we see in practice is the strength and relevance of our business model.
Our business is growing, it's profitable, it's built for the long term, and we'll have the opportunity to discuss this further at our Investor Day on the 27th of May in London. Our results for the first quarter of 2026 confirm that the year has got off to a solid start in line with the last quarter of 2025, despite the macroeconomic and geopolitical context that we've already mentioned. The initial signs we have for the second quarter are encouraging, and if the trend continues, growth in 2026 should be strong. This outlook is based on a number of key drivers. Firstly, the rise of agentic AI, the growing focus on sovereignty issues, and developments in the defense sector. 2026 will be a critical milestone for agentic AI. The aim is to move from the experimentation stage to industrialization and achieving measurable economic results.
That scale-up is a far more complex operation than one might think. To achieve this, our clients must deploy AI across their entire organization and build on solid foundations, i.e., high-quality data, infrastructure, governance, cybersecurity, and of course, trust. The human factor is particularly crucial. No value can be created at scale if teams can't work with AI efficiently. This is a very deep transformation that is at play, and that's precisely where a company can make a difference. By harnessing a diverse range of expertise from strategy to operations, including architecture, particularly in data and AI, and engineering. By rounding off this expertise with in-depth industry and business process knowledge. Thanks to on-the-ground experience gained from tens of thousands of projects, also by drawing on a world-class ecosystem.
To take one example, we are one of the few partners selected to be partners by a company such as OpenAI and Google. We see this every day. Our model has never been more relevant in supporting our clients through the transformations they need to address. Our model positions Capgemini as the catalyst for the large-scale deployment of AI, a role that we will be examining further at our next Investor Day.
Sovereignty and defense are also key drivers of our growth in 2026. Our clients are expressing a growing demand for support in defining and implementing their sovereignty strategies. As the leading European industry player, we help them build solutions that enable them to reduce their strategic dependencies while ensuring their competitiveness through high-level partnerships with standard-setting players in the defense sector. The momentum we're seeing is being driven by two major trends.
On the one hand, the rapid rise in production in Europe, on the other, growing demand from European defense ministries for modern digital software solutions. We are responding to this by combining our digital expertise, our ability to scale up, and our cross-border delivery capabilities. Before concluding, I would like to reiterate a simple belief. Technology only makes sense if it is used to drive sustainable progress. Our performance does not boil down to mere financial indicators. It's also measured by the sustainable value we create for our customers, our employees, and society as a whole. That is what guides our ESG strategy, which focuses on achieving concrete results, 94% reduction in our Scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions compared to 2019, and women now making up over 40% of our workforce.
In a rapidly changing world, our value stems from our ability to turn vision into action, and that's the essence of our tagline, "Make it real." We have a robust model, committed teams, and a clear strategy, but above all, a proven ability to operate in complex environments. Transforming technological promises into concrete, useful, and responsible solutions and combining artificial intelligence with human intelligence, this is the aspiration that guides us. That's what will make us keep moving forward with high standards, responsibility, and unwavering confidence in Capgemini's future. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you very much, Aiman. As we just heard from Aiman, financial results are not a full translation of our performance, but those results are nevertheless very important. I will be asking Nive Bhagat to come and present 2025 results.
Nive has made great strides forward in French, but she will still be presenting in English, and so for the French people in the audience who require translation, headphones are at your disposal. Thank you.
Thank you, Olivier. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to present the 2025 results for the group, and I will now switch to English. Thank you for your understanding. Group performance in 2025 reflects a very strong operational execution across the group. With revenue growth exceeding expectations, and margin and cash generation objectives met. We delivered very solid revenues of EUR 22,465 million, up 1.7% on a reported basis and 3.4% at constant currency, placing us above the top end of the outlook we had upgraded in October 2025. Revenue growth rates gradually improved quarter after quarter and reached 10.6% at constant currency in Q4. This includes around 6.5 percentage points of scope impact, primarily from the WNS and Cloud4C acquisitions, which were both completed in Q4. This wasn't a single sector or a single region effect.
We saw broad-based improvement across all businesses, regions, and sectors. On profitability, we maintained our operating margin at 13.3%, stable year-on-year. Net profit group share amounted to EUR 1,601 million with basic EPS at EUR 9.46. Normalized EPS, which excludes other operating income and expense items, stood at EUR 12.95, up 5.8% year-on-year.
Finally, we delivered organic free cash flow of EUR 1,949 million, in line with the around EUR 1.9 billion target set at the beginning of the year. This is a strong testament to our cash generation discipline. The sequential improvement was clearly visible across our businesses. Growth rates gradually improved throughout the year, not only on a constant currency basis, but also excluding acquisitions. Strategy and transformation services, representing 8% of group total revenues, grew 2.4% at constant currency for the full year, with a clear acceleration in Q4 to 6%.
Application and technology services, our core business, 63% of group total revenues returned to growth in 2025 at +4.6% for the full year and +7.4% in Q4. Finally, total revenues in operations and engineering services, accounting for 29% of group total revenues, increased by 4.9% for the full year and 20.8% in Q4. Now, let me explain this, as the acquisition of WNS and Cloud4C had a visible impact on this business line in Q4. Digital business process services is clearly the fastest-growing business, with double-digit growth on a like-for-like basis, so across both Capgemini and WNS. In addition, cloud infrastructure services and engineering both returned to growth in Q4. Before reviewing regions, a brief word on revenue trends by sector at constant currency.
Financial services and telcos, media and technology were the most dynamic sectors in 2025, growing 9.2% and 7.7%, respectively, with gradual acceleration throughout the year. The manufacturing sector, while still under some pressure, also improved progressively and returned to growth in Q4, limiting its decline to -2.1% for the full year. All other sectors posted low to mid-single-digit revenue growth. Turning now to revenues by region at constant currency. Almost all regions improved throughout the year except France, which contracted in each quarter of the year. North America revenues grew 7.3% year-on-year. The U.K. and Ireland increased by 10.5%. France declined by 4.1% in an environment that remained challenging throughout the year, with a persisting weakness in the manufacturing sector. The rest of Europe showed resilience with a limited decline to 0.7%. Finally, revenues in Asia-Pacific and Latin America grew 13.8%.
The scope impact from WNS and Cloud4C was mainly visible in North America, U.K. and Ireland, and Asia-Pacific and Latin America, lifting Q4 growth in these regions to around 20% at constant currency. On profitability, North America operating margin expanded 40 basis points to 16.9%, while U.K. and Ireland held a strong 18%, 170 basis points below a record 2024, which still remains at a very healthy level. Operating margin in France was 10.9% compared to 10.2% last year. This improvement was driven by one-off items. Excluding these one-off items, there was no improvement in underlying margin. Asia-Pacific and Latin America was 12.6% plus 20 basis points, and the rest of Europe ended at 11.4%, down by 60 basis points. Now let me walk you through the operating margin bridge.
Gross margin was 27.1%, down 30 basis points year-on-year, reflecting a prolonged soft market in continental Europe, including France. I would nevertheless highlight that our gross margin has been significantly more resilient in this down cycle than in any other previous downturn. Against this backdrop, we maintained strict cost discipline and tightened our selling expenses by 20 bps and our G&A expenses by 10 basis points.
As a result, group operating margin remained stable at 13.3%. Holding the operating margin despite the challenges we have faced in continental Europe is a proof point that our operating model is resilient and shows the continued effectiveness of our cost management processes. Now moving from operating margin to the bottom line. Other operating income and expenses increased to EUR 784 million, mainly due to higher restructuring costs as well as acquisition and integration costs following the large transactions completed in 2025.
This brings operating profit to EUR 2,199 million or 9.8% of the revenues, down from 10.7% last year. Given those items, net financial expenses amounted to EUR 30 million in 2025 compared to a net income of EUR 13 million in 2024, reflecting higher interest costs. Our income tax expense decreased to EUR 534 million, benefiting from positive one-off items. After financial and tax expenses, minority interests, and equity affiliates, group net profit stood at EUR 1,601 million, down 4.2%. Active share capital management enabled us to reduce the average number of outstanding shares by 0.5%. Basic EPS is EUR 9.46, down 3.7%, while normalized EPS is EUR 12.95, which is up 5.8% year-on-year. Finally, a few words about the group's balance sheet and capital allocation. Shareholders' equity remained broadly stable at EUR 11,672 million at year-end.
We maintained a strong cash generation in 2025 with EUR 1,949 million of organic free cash flow, stable year-on-year. This year again, the conversion ratio of our net profit to organic free cash flow was clearly above 1 at 1.2. In terms of capital allocation, we deployed close to EUR 4.6 billion in 2025, approximately EUR 3.8 billion for the acquisition of WNS and Cloud4C, EUR 1.1 billion on shareholder returns, split between EUR 578 million of dividends and EUR 542 million of share buybacks.
The employee shareholding plan led to a EUR 299 million capital increase, leading to a net outflow of EUR 4.6 billion. As regards our financial debt, we redeemed EUR 800 million of bond debt at maturity in June and then successfully completed a EUR 4 billion bond issuance in September. Net debt closed at EUR 5.3 billion.
As anticipated, the net debt to EBITDA ratio stands at 1.6. This compares to 0.7 a year ago, and as a reminder, this was 2.8 post the Altran acquisition. In 2026, as we integrate WNS, we expect limited M&A activity and will accelerate our share buybacks in line with the EUR 2 billion program announced in July 2025. To conclude, our performance in 2025 demonstrates the strength of Capgemini's strategic positioning as a trusted business transformation partner for our clients and the continued success of the group's transformation to improve its resilience in a challenging demand environment. Finally, as regards our net profit allocation, net income of the group parent company, Capgemini SE, amounted to EUR 587 million in 2025 compared with EUR 834 million in 2024.
Despite the decrease in net income, the Board of Directors decided to maintain a stable dividend per share compared to the previous year and therefore to submit for approval to this annual general meeting a dividend of EUR 3.40 per share. This represents a total distribution of EUR 578 million based on the number of shares entitled to dividend as at December 31st, 2025. On that note, thank you very much for your attention.
[Non-English content]
Thank you, Nive. Financial results do not reflect everything. We are going to ask James Robey to present the group's climate strategy. The group has been very active on this topic. James, in English, please.
Thank you, Olivier. Good afternoon. I'm James Robey, Capgemini's Global Head of Environmental Sustainability, and I'm pleased to be here this afternoon to give you an update on our climate strategy and talk you through the progress we've made and how this is continuing to add value to our business. I'll also touch on what comes next, including the integration of WNS into our climate program. When we accelerated our climate ambition in 2020, committing to become a net- zero business, we did so knowing that it would not be easy. Since then, the operating environment has become more complex.
Geopolitical uncertainty, volatile energy markets, supply chain disruption, and now the rapid scale-up of digital and AI technologies. Against that backdrop, maintaining momentum on climate is both a test of resilience and a signal of our commitment. Our long-term ambition remains clear.
A 90% absolute reduction in Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions by 2040 from a baseline of 2019, with the final 10% neutralized through high-quality carbon removal. We've also set near-term targets for 2030. An 80% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions, 55% reduction in business travel and commuting per employee, and a 50% absolute reduction in purchased goods and services-related emissions. These commitments are complemented by a set of interim targets covering electricity, our fleet, and the investment in carbon credits, which go beyond our value chain. We need more than targets to ensure that we deliver our ambition. That's why our approach is framed through our clear 10-point sustainability plan, which structures everything we do, from energy and travel to procurement, digital sustainability, governance, and employee skills. It gives us discipline, transparency, and pace.
The transformation needed to achieve our plans does not happen without strong governance. Oversight of our climate strategy sits with our Net Zero Board, made up with key members of our executive committee, including our CEO. This ensures climate decisions are integrated with business strategy and not treated as a parallel activity. Indeed, last year, we carried out our third full climate change risk assessment, fully aligned with the CSRD, the findings fed directly into our climate transition planning process.
Operationally, our globally certified environmental management system now covers 98% of our global headcount across 39 countries. In 2026, we will focus on extending this coverage across the newly acquired WNS operations, ensuring consistency and control as we grow. How are we progressing? Well, in 2025, we reached a major milestone, 100% renewable electricity across our global operations, in line with our public RE100 commitment.
As a result, we have already exceeded our 2040 Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions reduction target, and overall, we're ahead of track in terms of reducing our emissions. This did not happen by chance. It was driven by a systematic focus on improvement. For Scope 1 and 2 emissions, this involved energy efficiency as well as renewables. We focused on our investment in areas of greatest impact, particularly in India, which accounts for more than half of our global energy consumption.
Particularly in India, our energy command center now continues to play a central role in translating real-time data into operational savings. Alongside this, we have invested significantly in on-site solar generation, the gold standard for renewable energy, particularly in India. On commuting and travel, we continue to decouple emissions from growth, prioritizing virtual collaboration and enabling low-carbon travel for teams.
For example, prioritizing rail over short-haul flights and accelerating the transition of our electric vehicles into our fleet. Our annual commuting survey engages over a quarter of our people and enables us to inform initiatives such as cycle to work schemes in France, mobility budgets in Germany, and our EV fleet rollout in India. These changes reduce emissions, lower costs, and improve employee experience. Supply chain emissions remain our largest challenge, accounting for over 40% of our footprint. In response, we've replaced our net zero supplier program with a stronger ESG pledge, requiring suppliers to disclose emissions, set SBTi-validated targets, and share credible transition plans. It's important at this point also to recognize AI, both in terms of the opportunity it presents, but also its environmental impacts.
As for its impacts, we are working closely with our strategic partners and our internal IT teams to quantify the impact of our internal use of AI in terms of carbon, in terms of energy, and in terms of water. Now, whilst there is still uncertainty, we are continuing to improve our understanding of these impacts, which currently look manageable within our overall net- zero trajectory. Furthermore, AI also provides significant sustainability opportunities. This year, we're expanding the AI capabilities within our energy command center in India to enhance real-time monitoring, fault detection, and diagnostics in our Indian campuses and in some of our key international sites. Returning to our net- zero program, while decarbonization remains our priority, we know that climate action does not stop with carbon.
Biodiversity and water, whilst not defined material in terms of the risks for the business today, are important, and we're activating biodiversity plans at key sites, along with water-saving initiatives in water-stressed regions. This is in addition to our continued focus on the circular economy and eliminating waste.
We are also very aware that our actions to decarbonize the business by 2040 do not eliminate the very real problem of CO2 in the atmosphere today. In 2020, we committed that from 2025 onwards, we would purchase and retire carbon credits aligned to our operational footprint, and from 2030 for our full value chain. Our portfolio is deliberately diversified, supporting both avoidance and removal solutions. Our membership of initiatives such as the LEAF Coalition, supporting countries to end deforestation, and the First Movers Coalition on permanent carbon removal are helping to scale up credible approaches.
At this point, I'd like to pause for a short video to sum up our approach and some of our progress to date.
Working collaboratively with others is indeed a critical part of our program. Externally, we work through partnerships and advocate for a green economy. We're a founding partner supporting UNICEF's ambition to equip over 100 million young people with green and digital skills through the Green Rising program. We participate in many industry coalitions, publishing reports, convening events that influence markets and policy. This ecosystem activity strengthens our brand, attracts talent, and reinforces trust with clients and investors alike. From the client perspective, our own commitment to sustainability and our continued progress is crucial to our credibility to deliver sustainability solutions.
Last year delivered over 8,700 projects with sustainability impacts for more than 1,000 clients, helping them to reduce cost, carbon, and manage risk, along with complying with regulation and building resilience. Climate strategy, when executed well, is not a cost center. It's a source of operational efficiency, differentiation, and long-term value. Looking ahead to what's next. Well, the integration of WNS is a critical part of the strategy to ensure that we remain on target with one global operating system. Of course, we remain focused on building on the work we're doing to fully understand and manage the carbon impacts of AI. Just over five years into our net- zero journey, our progress is real but not linear. One thing we've learned is we need to adapt and strengthen our delivery model.
The challenges ahead for all companies, including our own, are very real. We outlined those in our recently published five-year review. Please do feel free to download the review if you would like more information. As we look ahead, our commitment is unchanged. The next phase of our transformation is already underway. It will be much harder, but it will be even more impactful. Thank you for your continued support.
Thank you, James.
As you can see, the group's performance is not only financial, and the climate journey is quite remarkable. I would like to thank James and his team for implementing it so efficiently. You'll have the opportunity to ask questions on ESG aspects and on the climate strategy during the Q&A session. In the meantime, we'd like to ask Mr. Frédéric Oudéa to share his report on the group's governance. Thank you, Frédéric.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. It falls to me as Lead Director and Chair of the Ethics and Governance Committee to present a report Board of Directors' activities and my own activities during the 2025 financial year in accordance with the Board of Directors' rules of procedure. As Paul said, this will be my final presentation to the AGM. I have chosen, for personal reasons, not to seek the renewal of my term of office as director, which expires today. It's been an honor to serve Capgemini during my two terms of office, and I'd like to thank you, dear shareholders, as well as my colleagues on the Board of Directors for your trust.
Looking at the Board's activity in 2025, we reviewed a number of ongoing strategic initiatives in a very busy fiscal year 2025. We focused on the most strategic projects, in particular operations in the United States and our strategy regarding artificial intelligence, both generative and agentic. Your Board also reviewed and refined the performance indicators for the group's medium-term strategic directions. The Board also reviewed acquisition projects, the acquisition WNS already mentioned, and Cloud4C, as well as other external growth opportunities and ongoing integrations. Your Board reviewed governance and talent management issues. We spent a long time examining the succession process for executive corporate officers, including in emergency situations, and prepared for upcoming milestones. Today, the Board is proposing that you approve the reappointment of Mr. Paul Hermelin for a final term.
We consider that the reappointment of Mr. Hermelin as Chairman of the Board will thus ensure proper coordination of the forthcoming successions of the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer during the period 2026-2030. The Board of Directors also intends to appoint Mr. Patrick Pouyanné as lead director following the annual general meeting. As an experienced executive, Mr. Patrick Pouyanné is very well acquainted with our company. He has been serving as an Independent Member of the Board for nine years, and he took part in the previous succession process for the Chief Executive Officer. Today, he chairs the Compensation Committee and is a member of the Ethics & Governance Committee. Lastly, in 2025, your Board of Directors also reviewed the succession planning arrangements for senior management teams, as well as the measures implemented to attract, develop, and retain talent.
Your Board is an active and dedicated Board. You have some numbers up on the Board. 11 Board meetings with a very high rate of attendance, 95%. Three executive sessions, and the detail of the work of the Board committees in 2025 are set out in our Universal Registration Document. Coming now to the assessment of the Board of Directors in 2025.
This was an external assessment conducted with the assistance of an external consultant under my responsibility. Like for previous years, there were individual interviews conducted with each director. The objective being to assess the effective functioning of the Board, its appropriate composition, and the effective contribution of each director. A summary was presented to the Board at its 12th of February 2026 meeting. If we look at the conclusions of the assessment, it highlights continued progress made since 2022, which was the last external assessment.
Progress in both the functioning of the Board and its committees, and also the excellent quality of discussions and the opportunity for each director to take part in a debate. Directors noted, in particular, progress made regarding the Board's involvement in defining and monitoring strategic priorities, and notably the introduction of regularly updated indicators. Furthermore, the measures implemented regarding talent management were welcomed, as were the meetings with operational executives, which should continue going forward. The directors consider the composition of the Board to be balanced with regard to the group's challenges and the objectives set for 2020 to 2026, and highlighted the high level of expertise and commitment amongst directors. Lastly, the directors expressed a high level of satisfaction with the functioning and organization of the Board and its committees, and they particularly value the executive sessions.
There were three in 2025, and they were devoted notably to anticipating governance issues effectively. They also welcome the quality of strategic seminars and continuing professional development sessions. Priorities for 2026 are in line with this and, in particular, with the major issues that I mentioned, and they arise from the assessment of its strategy in two main areas.
Two main areas continued involvement of the Board in defining strategy and monitoring strategic priorities, the development of activities in the U.S.A., and AI and agentic AI activities. Secondly, monitoring the integration of WNS and Cloud4C to ensure that they are properly integrated. Second area, continuing work on succession plans to prepare for the succession of executive directors, including monitoring the development of members of the Executive Management Committee. As we did over the past two years, to continue planning for the replacement of directors over the period 2026-2030.
As for the functioning of the Board itself and its operations, we decided to introduce a tool that would help focus our agenda, so an annual Board of Directors agenda, so that we can ensure we give the proper focus to strategic issues and risk monitoring. As for the Board itself, it set itself four specific objectives regarding its composition for 2022-2026: diversity of profiles and skills, international diversity, staggered renewal of terms of office, and maintaining a moderate number of directors to ensure consistency and collegial decision-making. In 2025, the staggered renewal of terms of office was observed, in particular through the renewal of the terms of two directors, Mr. Patrick Pouyanné and Mr. Kurt Sievers, and the appointment of a new director, Mr. Jean-Marc Chéry.
The renewal of the terms of Kurt Sievers and Patrick Pouyanné, the appointment of Mr. Jean-Marc Chéry, and the co-opting of Ms. Lila Tretikov at the start of the year also helped to maintain the international composition of the Board and its profile diversity. We also decided to keep at a number of 15 members the size of the Board. This includes two directors representing employees and one representing employee shareholders. The Board is made up of 40% foreign nationals and 42% women. All of the members bring a wealth of complementary experience and expertise to your Board, which also comprises individuals who are both diverse and complementary in professional and cultural terms, whilst remaining true to the group's history and values, thereby enabling it to carry out its duties in a spirit of collegiality and openness of mind.
What are we proposing in terms of resolutions this year? First of all, as I mentioned, we propose the renewal of the term of office of two directors for a period of four years. We propose that you ratify the co-optation of a director for the remainder of their predecessor's term and the appointment of two directors for a period of four years. Firstly, Paul Hermelin, renewal of his term of office. That's resolution number 11.
He has been Chairman of the Board of Directors since the 20th of May 2020, and he brings to the Board his knowledge of the company, of course, but also his experience of business growth, transformation, and corporate digitalization, his expertise in innovation and technology, and an in-depth knowledge of the group, which, as he recalled, he's been involved in for many years, having led it for 18 years.
12th resolution, we propose the renewal of the term of Ms. Maria Ferraro, an independent director. She joined the Board of Directors of Capgemini on the 19th of May 2022, was appointed to the audit and risk committee on the same date. Maria Ferraro, throughout her career, acquired financial expertise and solid experience in the industrial technology and energy sectors within a global group at the heart of the development of smart industry.
She also brings to the Board her expertise in inclusion and diversity, as well as her knowledge of the European and Asian markets. In resolution number 13, we propose that you ratify the appointment of Ms. Lila Tretikov. She's an independent director, and she joined the Board of Directors on the 5th of January of this year, replacing Ms. Megan Clarken. As Paul indicated, she had to step down for personal reasons.
She's a French-American national, and she's a recognized expert in artificial intelligence and innovation-driven business transformation. She's currently a partner in charge for AI strategy at the international venture capital fund, New Enterprise Associates, Inc. She brings to the Board her technological skills and recognized expertise in AI and technology-driven business transformation. Lastly, we propose to replace the two outgoing directors, Xavier Musca and myself, to appoint Ms. Véronique Weill and Mr. Luc Rémont as members of the Board of Directors for a term of four years. These are resolutions 14 and 15. Ms. Weill and Mr. Rémont would be considered independent as per the criteria of the AFEP-MEDEF Code to which the company adheres. These proposals reflect the Board's aim to maintain a diversity of profiles and industry expertise while strengthening gender parity within the Board.
I would now like to invite Ms. Véronique Weill and Mr. Luc Rémont to introduce themselves briefly. Ms. Tretikov was unable to be present in the room today, so she will be conveying a recorded message. Over to you, Véronique.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good afternoon. I'm very pleased to be with you here this afternoon to say a few words about my professional career over the last 43 years. I started out at Arthur Andersen in 1983 as an auditor. I spent a couple of decades at JP Morgan in Paris, London, New York, where I held operational roles as Global Head of Operations for investment banking and a member of the executive committee, as well as Global Head of Operations and Technology for shared services.
I came back to France after 20 years to join AXA as Chief Operating Officer and member of the executive committee in charge of technology for operational centers in India, as well as responsible for global digital and data marketing. I joined Publicis as General Manager in charge of technology and mergers and acquisitions. In 2020, I decided to embark on a new chapter in my professional career in a non-executive capacity. I'm currently Chair of CNP, where I support the managing director and contribute to international development. I'm also Lead Director at Kering and a member of the Boards of Valeo, Rothschild, and the Gustave Roussy Foundation . I believe I can bring to the Board my operational and international experience gained over the years, as well as my experience of governance and human resources. This is something that acquired over my very long career.
If you decide to appoint me today as director, you will be choosing someone who is attuned to the various challenges faced by your company. Please be assured that you can always count on my dedication and energy within Capgemini. I'll be working to support Capgemini over the coming years and will endeavor to contribute to its success.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, thank you for your attention. Thank you very much, Véronique and Frédéric. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very glad to be here today, and I'd like to thank the Board of Directors for their trust in proposing my name to your annual general meeting. I'm an engineer, and I started in digital technology when I was little. I began my career 33 years ago in earth observation satellites at a time when data systems and image processing were reserved for very narrow-focus applications, specialist applications.
They were the only ones to have access to the necessary computing power. I had a varied career that took me to the French Ministry of the Economy and Finance, then corporate investment banking at an American bank, and then I spent a decade at Schneider Electric in international roles before heading up the EDF Group. I have a very deep experience of transformation of industries and organizations, and I've been able to see that you need to be very focused to carry this forward. My experience over the last 15 years was combined with new experience in AI. At the time when I headed up EDF, we were faced with the biggest industrial challenge it ever experienced. Stress corrosion cracking issues that affected nuclear plants. Without AI, we would have been incapable of dealing with the issue.
I would be very glad to join Capgemini, a company I've been monitoring, following for many, many years. This will contribute to my knowledge of the major infrastructure sectors, engineering, industrial automation. Paul Hermelin, I'm going to set the bar very high. We have to replace Frédéric Oudéa and Xavier Musca. This is a humbling candidacy. I will put all my efforts into meeting your expectations. Thank you very much. We have a video for Lila Tretikov.
Dear shareholders, my name is Lila Tretikov, and I'm honored to introduce myself to you today. I'm French and American, an engineer by training, and I have spent my career at the intersection of technology, business transformation, and human impact. I started my first company from the Human Genome Project, a lab in which I built a first genomic browser. From that moment on, I saw software not only as a tool for efficiency, but a method to accelerate how humanity understands the world, turn scientific discovery into economic value, and the sufficient scale changes markets and societies. That conviction has guided my career as an engineer, entrepreneur, CEO, investor, and technology executive across the United States and Europe.
I have led the Wikimedia Foundation, worked on industrial and energy transformation at ENGIE, served as Deputy CTO at Microsoft, and today, as Partner and Head of AI Strategy at NEA, I work with companies building at the frontier of intelligent systems. I'm excited to join Capgemini at the decisive moment. AI is not simply another wave of digital transformation. It is beginning to reconfigure entire value chains from minerals to bits, how products are designed, how factories operate, how energy is optimized, how supply chains are secured, how software is built, and how decisions are made. This creates a major strategic opportunity for Capgemini. Clients do not only need advice on AI, they need a trusted partner who can help them reshape their business to connect strategy and technology, engineering and data, operations and cybersecurity, and change management.
They need help moving from pilots to production, from productivity gains to new business models, and from fragmented experiments to enterprise-wide transformation. This is where Capgemini has distinctive strengths that can propel it to the very front of the AI wave. We are already seeing them today. Deep partner relationships, global delivery, industry expertise, engineering capabilities, and, of course, culture of execution.
My contribution will be to help the Board support the management in converting these strengths into durable advantages, especially as AI becomes embedded in every layer of enterprise value creation. I also believe sovereignty and agency will be central to the next chapter of technology. As AI, cloud, data, cyber systems become strategic infrastructure, clients must innovate quickly while preserving control, resilience, security. Capgemini's international reach, European roots, and local depth position it strongly to serve that need.
My commitment is to bring technical depth, international perspective, and a builder's mindset to the Board. I want to support Capgemini in scaling AI, strengthening client list, and converting technological challenge into durable value for shareholder, client, employees, and society. Thank you for your trust.
That closes the governance chapter. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much, Olivier, and the Secretary of the Ethics and Governance Committee, that's me. Thank you for your years of service. I learned a lot working by your side. I'd now like to ask Mr. Patrick Pouyanné to come up to the rostrum to present the resolutions concerning executive remuneration, i.e., say on pay. Over to you.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is my responsibility as the Chair of the Board's Compensation Committee to present to you the details of the Group's compensation policy for executive officers and its implementation. The compensation policy in place across the Group hasn't changed. It is established in accordance with legal provisions and the governance rules of the AFEP-MEDEF Code. It is designed to be transparent for shareholders, balanced, aligned with the company's performance and strategy, as well as its commitments regarding corporate, social, and environmental responsibility. It is described in detail in the 2025 Universal Registration Document. You're asked to vote on the compensation policy for directors and executive officers. Paul Hermelin, our Chairman of the Board, and Aiman Ezzat, CEO. Regarding the compensation policy for directors, two resolutions are submitted for your approval.
Resolution number five concerns the payment to directors of an amount of EUR 1,659,200 for the year 2025, below the maximum available budget of EUR 1.7 million. That's resolution number five. For 2026, in resolution number 10, we propose to increase the maximum budget, unchanged since 2022, to EUR 1.9 million. That's a 10% increase in line with the inflation over the period. This proposed adjustment applies solely to compensation linked to actual attendance at Board and committee meetings, with other compensation terms remaining unchanged. Compensation linked to actual attendance at Board and committee would move from EUR 500 to EUR 6,000. With regard to the compensation of the Chairman of the Board of Directors for 2025, since May 2022, it's been solely based on director compensation.
For 2025, it amounts to EUR 355,500, EUR 250,000 for serving as Chairman of the Board, EUR 30,000 for serving as Chairman of the strategy and CSR committee, and EUR 75,500 based on Paul's actual attendance at Board meetings and committee meetings. He attends all Board and committee meetings, so he is entitled to the maximum remuneration possible, and he deserves it. Regarding the 2026 compensation policy for the Chairman of the Board, it remains unchanged, and it's based solely on the compensation as a director, as mentioned before.
Resolution number seven, the compensation of your CEO, Aiman Ezzat, for the year 2025. It consists, just as previous years and as it was proposed when his term was renewed two years ago, of a fixed portion of EUR 1.3 million and a variable portion amounting to up to 180% of the fixed compensation. This variable portion is divided into three parts.
There are financial indicators amounting to 60% of the fixed compensation upon achievement of targets, which may reach up to 120% if targets are exceeded. Quantitative non-financial indicators amount to 20% of the fixed compensation upon achievement of targets, which may reach up to 30% if the targets are exceeded to the maximum extent, then qualitative personal objectives corresponding to the implementation of the company strategy, which may represent up to 30% of the fixed compensation. The application of these criteria for 2025 show a variable component of EUR 1,402,362, representing 107.9% of the fixed compensation, which is below the maximum possible of 180%. Mr. Ezzat also benefits from a long-term savings plan, which replaces the supplementary pension plan closed in 2015, of which Mr. Ezzat was not a beneficiary.
This long-term savings plan is payable over two years based on a target amount representing 40% of his annual fixed compensation. Based on the criteria, including the financial criteria, it was set as EUR 501,852 for the year 2025, representing a 38.6% of fixed compensation, with half payable in mid-2026 and the other half in mid-2027. Finally, in order to align the CEO's interests with the company's long-term performance, the CEO is granted performance-based shares. The performance is evaluated over a three-year period. The granted volume is aligned with the compensation policy that you adopted last year, and it's capped at the IFRS value, which is an amount equal to the CEO's cash compensation, covering the fixed and variable portions, as well as the long-term savings plan. The nature of the performance conditions for the shares granted in 2025 remains unchanged from previous years.
Relative share performance, free cash flow generation, and social-environmental responsibility. Two criteria, diversity and environment and climate-related objectives. Mr. Ezzat, in October 2025, received a performance-based share grant of 30,000 shares in accordance with the compensation policy. Those are the elements submitted for your vote under resolution number seven and in accordance with the compensation policy approved last year. I will now turn to the last item, the compensation policy for 2026. That's resolution number nine. It's quite simple because it remains unchanged, as the Board committed to it when your CEO was renewed for his new term of office. The Board announced that the compensation policy will remain unchanged for the new term. Fixed compensation stays at EUR 1,300,000. Variable compensation will apply based on the same criteria that I just mentioned, so up to a maximum of 180% of the fixed compensation.
Regarding the personal objectives, they have been updated by the Board in line with the Group's strategy. There's the strategy with key clients, the strategic plan based on geographies in the U.S.A., and, as Frédéric Oudéa said, monitoring recent acquisitions. That's a key point, as you know, with the acquisitions of WNS and Cloud4C. Finally, Mr. Ezzat will continue to benefit from a performance-based long-term savings plan under the same terms and the possibility of being awarded performance shares. For this new performance plan starting in 2026, there are now four criteria versus three before. We'll keep the relative share performance, the free cash flow generation, the social-environmental responsibility with a weight of 20%, and we decided to add revenue growth as a fourth criterion.
I would like to recall that the CEO is subject to a non-compete clause and continues to be eligible for severance pay in the event of an involuntary termination, subject to performance conditions, and he has also terminated his employment contract and waived his director's compensation. These are the main points supporting resolutions five through 10 submitted for your approval, which pertain to the compensation policy for corporate officers and its implementation. Personally, I would like to say a few words. I would like to congratulate Frédéric and Xavier. We joined the Board together, and I will miss you. I will try to take over from you for the three remaining years, and I will do my best to apply the same methods based on collective intelligence under Paul's kind supervision. Thank you.
Thank you, Patrick. Now I'd like to ask Anne-Laure Rousselou, on behalf of the joint statutory auditors, to present and summarize their reports, as well as the report of Forvis Mazars pertaining to the certification of sustainability-related information.
Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the Board of Statutory Auditors, the firms PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit and Forvis Mazars, I have the honor of reporting to you on our engagement for the 2025 fiscal year. I would like to summarize the terms of our various reports, which have been made available to you by the company and are included in the 2025 URD. I will begin with our report on the Group's consolidated financial statements, which were prepared in accordance with IFRS, as adopted by the European Union. We have certified the financial statements without qualification or comment.
We identified as key audit matters those items deemed to be the most significant and which therefore received particular attention during our work. For each of these key audit matters, we describe in our report the reasons that led us to identify them, the nature of the risk identified, and the audit response we provided. For 2025, these key audit matters concerned two areas. Revenue recognition based on percentage of completion for multi-year contracts, and the assessment of the recoverable amount of goodwill.
We remind you that the fundamental objective of our engagement is to obtain reasonable assurance regarding the fairness, regularity, and true and fair view of the financial statements, and to ensure that they are free from material misstatements. To this end, we conduct our work across all significant entities of the Capgemini Group, both in France and abroad.
Our approach is tailored to the group's activities, various business lines, and organizational structure. As for the review of the management report and other documents addressed to shareholders, it does not call for any specific comment. Regarding our report on the annual financial statements of Capgemini SE, which are prepared in accordance with French accounting principles, we considered the valuation of investments at Capgemini SE's subsidiaries to be a key audit matter. We have certified these financial statements without qualification, with a note regarding the first-time application of ANC regulations 2022-06, modernization of financial statements, and ANC 2024-07, distinction between liabilities and other equity, as of December 31st, 2025. With regard to our special report on regulated agreements, we were not notified of any new agreements entered into during the fiscal year ended December 31st, 2024.
Our report also states that none of the agreements entered into and authorized in prior fiscal years continued during fiscal year 2024. Finally, with regard to the extraordinary portion of your annual general meeting, we have issued five reports concerning draft resolutions submitted for your vote this afternoon, and relating to capital transactions. We have not made any observations regarding the terms and conditions proposed to you by the Board of Directors. Regarding the sustainability report, on behalf of Forvis Mazars, I have the honor of reporting to you on our review of the sustainability statement for fiscal year 2024. This report is structured in three parts and enables us to issue our limited assurance conclusions in response to the requirements of the CSRD.
We have not identified any material errors, omissions, or inconsistencies related to compliance with sustainability reporting standards in determining the disclosed information, the accuracy of the sustainability information, and compliance with the disclosure requirements set forth in Article 8 of Regulation, the taxonomy. In 2025, we considered the following items to have been the subject of particular attention. On the one hand, the information disclosed regarding climate change, mentioned in Section 4.2 E1, Climate Change of the sustainability report. On the other hand, the information disclosed regarding the group's workforce, 4.7 S1, company workforce, human capital. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much, Ms. Rousselou. I would now like to ask the representative of Grant Thornton, whose appointment as statutory auditors responsible for the statutory audit of the financial statements, replacing PricewaterhouseCoopers' Audit, submitted to this shareholders' meetings for approval, to please stand so that we can see you.
Thank you. Welcome to Capgemini. We are now waiting to the Q&A session, a session that you were all expecting. For information, the company received written questions prior to the AGM, as every year. As every year, the answers are available on our website. We will spend 25 minutes on this Q&A session. We will take questions from the floor and also through the secure platform available to shareholders online who may still submit their questions. I actually have received a large number of questions since the beginning of this AGM regarding different topics, AI, CGS. We may come back to this point. For shareholders present in the room, so that as many of you as possible can speak, we would like to ask you to respect the allocated time limit. That is one minute per question.
25 minutes is a short amount of time, and there are many questions. The ushers have microphones. Please raise your hand if you would like to ask a question. Let us get started with a question that was received online, and it is about the CGS issue, dear Chairman, because one of our shareholders is asking us the following question. Capgemini has been through an unprecedented crisis because of their services provided through one of its subsidiaries in the U.S.A. Mr. Ezzat, could you please be kind enough to explain to us how this kind of situation may have happened, and what are the type of measures that you can take for it not to happen again?
Thank you. Of course, that's an important question. Paul said a few words, but I can add to it. The contract was made with CGS, Capgemini Government Solutions, a U.S. entity which, as you know, has to meet foreign influence requirements under a Special Security Agreement, SSA, whereby its operations needed to be hermetically sealed from Capgemini SE's operations. This has been going on for many years, and we never had any kind of reporting, and it means that the parent company cannot be involved in CGS's operations. Capgemini felt that the usual legal requirements in the U.S. to allow a U.S. entity to undertake federal operations made it impossible for us to fully control what was going on in that entity. We could not make sure that it acted in accordance with our own values. Therefore, we decided to divest.
The process has been ongoing since the 1st of February. We are presently screening offers, screening bids, and we hope to complete that phase to make a decision as soon as possible. We also did a governance audit of all subsidiaries across the group. We identified no similar governance issues of the same type. We feel that we do have good control over operations undertaken by other entities.
We have questions in the room. There are microphones.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Board. Just to pick up on what you said about the divestment of the subsidiary in the U.S., does that mean that you are exiting that industry, that market, which I think was a good one until now? What will the impact be on 2026 accounts following the sale of the company? You said you wanted to sell as quickly as possible. Why?
You might make a bad sale. Debt has increased by 77%. What measures have been taken to ensure that Capgemini will stay on track in 2026 and 2027? What will be the impact of those acquisitions on your different numbers? Thank you.
I'll take the first question. I'll ask Nive to answer the second question. Firstly, as you know, CGS is a very small company, 0.4% of our global revenue, and it's a small share of our revenue in the U.S. The classified operations are an even smaller share of that. We're not against working with the U.S. federal government. However, we no longer have to meet the requirements, allowing us to work on classified projects, because that introduces a lot of constraints. Capgemini America can work for the U.S. government, but not under those same constraints.
We can still take on federal projects, but after the entity is sold, we will not be able to be involved in classified projects. As for the impact, well, we'll have to see the conditions under which it will be sold, the terms and conditions, at what price. We're not trying to sell it off as quickly as possible. We've simply begun a process, the same kind of process for any kind of sale or acquisition. We're not trying to expedite the process at all. We are trying to make the right kind of operation for the shareholders. We are really attentive to the terms and conditions. Do you want to talk about the debt? Oh, sorry. I'm going to have to translate for Nivi.
Yes, you did buy two corporations, and the debt of the company decreased by 77%. How will those two corporations that you just bought improve the revenue and the sales of the company in 2026, 2027, and so on? Thank you.
Well, thank you, sir. Thank you for the question. In terms of both the WNS and Cloud4C, especially if you look at WNS, it is actually growing for us at double-digit, as I think Aiman mentioned before. It's a very good business, and we're actually seeing a very good pipeline with a lot of opportunities. We believe that at the back of some of the synergies that we've announced to the market, both revenue synergies, which we'd announced saying EUR 100 million-EUR 140 million by the end of 2027 run rate, as well as the cost synergies. We believe that it is a good buy, and therefore, we will be able to, over a period of time, generate the revenue, generate the profit, and therefore, we will be able to repay our debt over a course of time.
We believe that this was a good opportunity to buy, especially at the back of what Aiman said about intelligent operations and AI. It's a very good segue that helps us to create a bigger and larger market.
If I may add something, the very first results that we see are really positive. We've been able to acquire EUR 100 million contract in intelligent operations, but we also see an opportunity to treble our business over the past nine months. We had excellent conditions. The conditions were met to buy this very good company, and there are great opportunities out there, a great pipeline. These are long-term contracts that are negotiated over several months. We see an increase in the opportunities before us. This consolidates our view that this was the right move. Thank you.
There are many questions on AI and on the share price. I will read these questions. They've come online. First question, AI.
The rise, deployment, and adoption of AI by your customers is this a risk and a threat for Capgemini, or do you think that this will make for sustainable business? Is this an asset or value destruction for the group? We see the valuation of many companies just melt away. Is this good for Capgemini? You have some competitors that have left the market, that have disappeared. What does Capgemini intend to do to ensure that it will remain relevant? Some banks have failed over AI. The share price of Capgemini has really dwindled over the past few months. Could Mr. Ezzat please explain the reasons and how you intend to recover, and how fast?
Okay. That was very fast, I didn't have enough time to jot everything down. I'll try and answer as best I can. Let's start from the beginning.
We really believe in AI as one of the biggest opportunities for the group over the past 60 years of its history. It's not just about adopting a new technology. It is about deeply transforming how businesses work. Every single process. How every single decision is made. Not just on the technology level. Of course, there's a big technology dimension. AI will really transform enterprises very deeply. Since we saw ChatGPT three years ago, more and more people are starting to understand these issues. We'll be presenting this at the next Investor Day in a week or two. Companies are starting to understand just how big the effort this transformation will require. Therefore, that's huge potential for the group. There's a lot of value to share. We understand today that the opportunities are out there. We see what needs to be done.
Massive opportunities, that's true. Transformation of our group, of our skills. That's true. We're also facing a huge market. There's a real appetite. Our clients are thirsty for AI, and they need support in order not to lose ground. It's a real performance issue. We really have to ensure that we are not wasting any time. Three years ago, we thought the models, you just plug them in, develop three agents, and then the machine would do the rest. No. Customers today see the scale of complexity of the transformation, the depth and breadth of what they need to do to prepare for introducing AI for it to work. We'll be looking at that next week. Yes, the changes are complex. There are uncertainties. Investors are wondering whether all the white-collars might be left without a job.
We believe the opposite because we really need a lot of work to prepare for this future. This will take a bit of time for everyone to get on Board and share our belief. I think that the next few months and quarters should be spent explaining and educating. We really believe in the future and the great potential out there for Capgemini.
Okay. We hope to get back to the EUR 200 mark very soon, thanks to all that. A question from the room. Microphone number one, please.
Sir Jean-Jacques, individual investor. 20 minutes for question? That's not very much.
No, we can extend that time, of course, if questions keep coming. It's 25 minutes that we've planned for.
You have a lot of deferred amounts, but EUR 37 per share, 35% of your market cap.
Will these carry forwards reduce over time, do you think? Also, questions on governance. There's a great resolution to appoint Mr. Rémont. I think that's great because he reneged on his benefits as honorary director at EDF. However, I have doubts about Mr. Pouyanné as future lead director. As I said last year at the AGM, I really don't understand his presence at the Board because when you go to Total's AGM, you can't enter with a telephone or a computer. I really don't think he's interested in IT or knows anything about IT. I think the Board of Directors should look at the invitation to Total's AGM. Unless I'm mistaken, that's not a question, it's a comment. No, I'm leading up to a question. Why do you propose him to be lead director?
He already has nine years service on the Board, so AFEP-MEDEF rules mean that he can only serve three more years. Right.
Maybe you could take the second question first. Why Patrick Pouyanné on the Board of Directors?
The governance committee has recorded the departure of Frédéric and Xavier. Siân Herbert-Jones has been, or r ather, can stay on the Board another two years because there's a maximum of 12. Patrick still has three years to go; we went for the horse with the most number of years, if you like. I think that Patrick is interested in technology, because sometimes I think that Total makes the most of what Patrick learns here and really applies technology in a very smart way. I'm not sure about his use of the telephone. He's always sending me text messages and emails; I know he knows how to use technology. As for the carry forwards, Nive or Aiman, would you like to answer that? Nive, the carry forwards?
Nivi.
How do you say?
Retained earnings. Nive. The amount of retained earnings.
Right.
Retained earnings.
The question is it?
The question is that why is it?
Why are the retained earnings so high? Are they meant to last?
Of course, our retained earnings is from a profit perspective. Because we have the retained earnings, we're able to use it, of course, to pay the dividend. Is that the question?
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Can you please ask your question again? Maybe it wasn't clear enough.
Resolution number three. Question in the microphone, please.
Well, why are our retained earnings important? It's important for the company to pay the dividend. Without retained earnings, we cannot pay dividends. Obviously, we're trying to maintain it, increase it as much as we can to make sure that the company is robust so that we can compensate our shareholders with dividends.
This is the case in many companies. It's about the future of the company. If there's a bad year, the company is robust enough and can pay its shareholders. Okay, about financial questions.
From a shareholder outside, why is there a degradation of the free cash flow between 2025 and 2026?
Answer. Thank you for the question. As far as the organic free cash flow is concerned, I think before I answer the question, I think it's important to reiterate that our conversion, our net income to free cash flow, our conversion is very good. It's above one. In fact, it's 1.2. That's very good from an industry perspective. Coming back to this particular year, we have had a couple of headwinds. One is because of currencies, of course, the currency fluctuations. The second, of course, has been because of certain items under what we call our other operating income and expenses. That, of course, has lowered that a little bit. Of course, had that not been the case, we would've been higher than where we are.
In that context, I think it's important again to reiterate that our focus for 2026 continues to be the conversion. That conversion of free cash flow to net income is something that we're very focused on, and we expect that that will be above one even this year.
Thank you.
Question in the room. Number two at the back.
Good afternoon. [Jean-Pierre Sekely], individual shareholder. I'm watching the share price evolve, but I feel quite comfortable with it. When the share price goes down, why isn't there any press release to reassure us? Thank you for your answer.
Well, I think that the company's duty is to give to the market all the information that we have. You've heard Aiman convey his trust about the deterioration of the share price. There are major AI players getting ready for IPOs, and they're saying that their products are so powerful that many jobs are going to become obsolete. This threat against our profession created a lot of panic. People said that our end value would be brought to zero because we would be terminated by AI. You've heard Aiman. We're convinced of the opposite. AI is a great adventure ahead of us. He didn't take too many risks because he said that the market would be convinced of it in the next quarters or years. It will take time for speculation around AI to calm down. AI needs facilitators, agents, and Capgemini is one of them.
Our job is to inform the market. Aiman talked about a meeting that will take place next week with analysts. We will communicate with the public at this occasion.
Next question in the room. Number three
Hello. Thank you for giving me the floor. I represent the Forum for Responsible Investment and the 14 investors who are members of the forum. Thank you for your answers regarding CGS and the connection with ICE. I'll try to be brief because you've already provided us with quite a few elements. I would like to have additional information regarding the audit that you talked about governance, and you said that the findings was that there were no similar situation. Could you commit to publishing the conclusions of the internal audit? More broadly speaking, are you going to improve your vigilance framework to align it with international standards given the changing nature of political risks and everything related to human rights? Thank you very much.
We've had several calls before this AGM, and you asked questions in writing, so we answered your questions in writing, and I think that Mr. Ezzat will provide you with clarification.
We consider that the system that is in place today enables us to review all aspects in terms of contracts, clients, risks. We conduct ethical reviews on clients. We have a system that we think is robust today, and it has no flaws. Once again, we were faced with a very specific situation. Because of the separation between operations, we had no visibility on what was happening in the subsidiary, but our system is great. It works very well, and we've never had any problem. As you just said, today, there are risk profiles, and there's a committee at group level that will review contracts and companies based on risks, geographies, sectors, businesses, potential governmental influence.
These risks will be reported to the group. They will be reviewed and assessed. There might be an ethical assessment of the client, an internal audit before we enter a contractual agreement. I consider that this is robust functioning. It's already in place, and we need to continue. We need to keep being vigilant. You can never be perfect, but as of today, we think that the system works very well. What happened was a very specific case that we addressed.
Thank you. If you allow me, because I'm in charge of risk management for the group. The track record of Capgemini is quite exceptional, actually. For 14 years, we've been ranked among the most ethical companies in the world.
As Mr. Ezzat said, the risk mitigation process is improved year after year, and we have demonstrated that our system is robust, even though we took this case very seriously. Other questions? Ms. Porcher, Sogeti. A company that's dear to my heart. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ms. Porcher Des Carpesse. I'm an individual shareholder. We would like to ask you to vote against resolution six and seven. Capgemini claims these values, but the only measure is a project that will lead to the destruction of many jobs just to support the share price. It's a testimony to the failure of the executive corporate officers, and it will create a significant social impact across Capgemini. How can you account for the relevance of these resolutions? How can you explain that the leaders have given up on the values?
Shareholders, don't forget that the share price of the group relies on a group of people. Behind the 2,409 jobs that will disappear, well, there are people, employees, and lives. Thank you for your answer. Thank you.
We share your opinion, what you said about people. We are a company providing services, and we know that the wealth of the company is based on its people. I think that we need more context regarding this layoff plan, which is a voluntary plan. We adapt to technological changes and market evolutions. It is necessary, and we adapt to clients' demand. Regarding companies of our sector, well, there are sectoral deficits impacting our clients, and in some sectors, there's a major slowdown. In the automotive sector, for example, it went through a very challenging period in Europe. Actually, it's still the case today.
Also, there are technological innovations that are accelerating, leading to changing customers' demand, creating challenges and opportunities. This plan is based on volunteers. The goal is to develop new skills that our clients need, and we want to offer our employee new career perspectives when necessary. Social support. The plan to update skills have been defined in the collective plan, and it was submitted to the representatives of trade unions. It was a collaborative process. We explained why we needed to do it. We are trying to find solutions regarding certain positions that don't exist anymore in certain areas. In the automotive sector, for example, these jobs will not come back. If we can find a potential evolution of our employees' jobs, that's great. Otherwise, we come up with a voluntary departure plan. I think it's responsible behavior.
Otherwise, these people will not have any future in the company or no clients to work with. It's a voluntary plan. It was based on a collaborative process, and it's also our responsibility to manage our employees' careers in an environment that changed a lot since they first joined the company. Thank you.
Another question in the room? I think you asked questions in writing, but you also have questions that you would like to ask now.
Thank you. Pierre Janot, Head of Actionnaires pour le climat, Shareholders for the Climate. The questions that I'm going to ask are not going to be a repetition of what I asked in writing. First of all, congratulations for your climate strategy, and that's something that I would like to insist on because all companies do not come up with such transition plans like you. That's great.
Regarding the ICE case, there was an industrial accident. We talked about business issues, I think that there's deterioration deriving from this case. You talked about Serge Kampf. I knew him very well. You talked about integrity; there are the six other values. The question is, based on the report of Mr. Oudéa, what was done at the ethics committee? Mr. Ezzat, you just said that you would have found the solution to guarantee that in the future, Capgemini would never face this type of situation that goes against integrity, morality, and human rights. The ICE case is a matter of human rights. There's the complicity of Capgemini. Four standards were violated, the standards in terms of sustainability report, vigilance plans, ethical rules, and human rights, values that you have promoted in your CSR charter. There are people called Mr. Pouyanné and Mr. Oudéa.
Mr. Pouyanné has been renewed. I'm asking you one question. If one of your employees were led to such industrial accident, which has an impact on the share price, what other choice would you have but dismiss them? Some people are patting themselves on the back for the job they did. It's a shame regarding the 10,000 people who have been led outside of the country. I would like you to shorten your question, sir. What about Capgemini? Is there a potential provision to give money to the people who were illegally expelled from the country?
You did not answer about making a provision. No, there is no provision for compensation. You're not planning on compensating victims. Another question is, will you engage the liability of directors who make EUR 120,000 per year just to be on the Ethics & Governance Committee?
You have a responsibility. I'm sorry. You have spoken way beyond your allotted one minute, so we will be answering your claims, which we feel are groundless. Very quickly, first of all, facts. You're not presenting facts as they are, and that no illegal activity ascribable to an entity of the group or a director, a corporate officer, has been identified, therefore we need not provision any sum in our accounts. We did admit that there was a governance issue because we had no control over those operations. That is exactly what we said. It's a governance issue. At this stage, or when we spoke, we felt that we could not fully ensure that that entity's activities respected our values, and indeed, they moved outside of their remit. The CGS issue is a subsidiary governance issue.
Yes, I'd like to answer about the committee members. I said that every year, the Ethics & Governance Committee is reported to on compliance with ethical principles. We get a full report on enforcement of ethical principles across the group. That report was incomplete because since that subsidiary falls outside of the scope of ethical reporting, that report could have been deemed to have a defect. It was lacking. That is because of the very structure of the company and the relationship between the subsidiary and the parent company. In order to remedy that, the CEO suggested that we divest the company and no longer take part indirectly in that kind of activity. Also, since that subsidiary was outside of the scope of the ethical review, Capgemini officers were not involved. When I was apprised of the event, I decided that we should meet immediately.
We met on the Saturday morning. Frédéric Oudéa, as Head of the Governance and Ethics Committee, gave us his summary of the situation and his analysis. We had a debate; all of the members of the committee, including Patrick Pouyanné, spoke up very strongly in favor of compliance with our ethics and values. The behavior of the four members of the group is irreproachable. We have been allowed to go a little bit over the allotted time for questions, but we have gone much over the allotted time. We're going to move on to the next section, i.e., voting on the resolutions. The vote will now be open.
You all have an individual voting tablet, which you received when you signed off. For each shareholder, you have the number of shares that you represent.
If you are reluctant technology users, here is a video that will explain how to use the tablet. You'll be able to vote on the 30 resolutions put to you after watching this short, informative video. In order to vote at this AGM, you have received a voting tablet. It is personal to you and is to be used only for this AGM. It serves no other purpose outside of the AGM. When a resolution is called, the voting window is displayed automatically on the tablet, even if it is in sleep mode. It is very simple to use. Press on the button that corresponds to your choice: for, abstain, or against. Press on OK to confirm before the voting is closed. Once your vote has been confirmed, you may not modify it. Please return your tablet when you exit the room. Indeed, don't take the tablet home.
The majority is only based on for and against votes. Abstentions are not votes against. I will not be reading the full text of the resolutions. I will only read the text. We are voting based on simple majority plus 50% for the ordinary meeting and a majority of two-thirds for the extraordinary resolution. The quorum has slightly changed since the beginning of the meeting. For the ordinary meeting, we've moved from 79.27% to 79.31%. Quorum for the extraordinary meeting has moved up from 79.28% to 79.32% of the shareholders. 8,302 shareholders and 8,308 shareholders, the last figure being for the ordinary meeting. I will read the summary of the resolutions. Resolution number one, approval of the 2025 company financial statements. Voting open. Voting closed. The resolution is carried 99.87%. Thank you. Resolution number two, approval of 2025 consolidated financial statements. Voting open.
Voting closed. The resolution is carried with 99.99% of the votes. There must be one shareholder who voted against. We'll give him the annual report. Resolution number three, appropriation of earnings and calculation of the dividend. Voting open. The voting. Voting closed. The resolution is carried with 99.95% of the votes. Resolution number four, regulated agreements. Special report of the statutory auditors. Voting open. Voting closed. The resolution is carried with 99.99% of vote. Thank you. Resolution number five, approval of the report on the compensation of corporate officers. Voting open. Voting closed. Resolution is carried, 97.63%. Resolution number six, approval of fixed variable exceptional components of compensation for Mr. Paul Hermelin, Chairman of the Board. Voting open. Voting closed. Mr. Paul Hermelin's compensation is approved, 95.90% of the votes.
Resolution number seven, approval of the compensation for 2025 of Mr. Aiman Ezzat, Chief Executive Officer. Voting open. Voting closed. Mr. Ezzat's compensation is approved with 95.28% of the votes. Number eight, approval of the compensation policy 2026 for the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Voting open. Voting closed. The resolution is carried with 95.90% of the vote. Resolution number nine, approval of the 2020 compensation policy applicable to the Chief Executive Officer. Voting open. Voting closed. The compensation for the Chief Executive Officer of 2026 is approved with 93.35% of the vote. Number 10, increase in the total compensation amount for directors and approval of the compensation policy applicable to directors in 2026. Voting open. Voting closed. This resolution is adopted with 97.03% of votes. Resolution number 11, renewal of the term of Mr. Paul Hermelin as director. Voting open. Voting closed.
Congratulations to Paul Hermelin, whose term is renewed with 93.97% of the vote. Resolution number 12, renewal of the term of office of Ms. Maria Ferraro as director. Voting open. Voting closed. Ms. Maria Ferraro is renewed for four years with 98.39% of the votes. Resolution number 13, ratification of the co-optation of Ms. Lila Tretikov as director. Voting closed. Ms. Lila Tretikov is confirmed as director, 98.31% of votes. Resolution number 14, appointment of Ms. Véronique Weill as director. Voting open. Voting closed. Congratulations, Ms. Weill. You are now director. You've been elected by 98.58% of our shareholders. Resolution number 15, appointment of Mr. Luc Rémont as director. Voting open.
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Voting on resolution 16 is closed. The term is renewed with 98.72% of votes. Congratulations to Forvis Mazars. Resolution number 17, appointment of Grant Thornton as statutory auditor in charge of certifying financial statements. Voting open. Voting closed. Grant Thornton is appointed with 99.92% of votes. Resolution number 18, renewal of the term of office of Forvis Mazars as statutory auditor responsible for certifying sustainability information. Voting open.
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Voting closed. The term of office is renewed with 98.70% of the votes. 19th resolution, authorization of a share buyback program. Voting open.
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Voting is closed. The share buyback program is adopted with 99.82% of the votes.
Resolution number 20. Authorization to cancel shares bought back by the company under the share buyback program. Voting open. Voting closed. The authorization is approved with 99.53% of the votes. Resolution number 21. Delegation to increase the share capital by a maximum par value amount of EUR 1.5 billion. Voting open.
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Voting closed. The resolution is carried with 98.41% of the votes. Resolution number 22. Delegation to issue shares and/or securities granting access to the company's share capital. Voting open.
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Voting is closed. The resolution is carried with 95.51% of the votes. Resolution number 23. Delegation to issue with cancellation of preemptive subscription rights, ordinary shares and/or securities granting access to the company's share capital by way of public offers other than those referred to in Article L.411-2-1 of the French Monetary and Financial Code. Please vote now. Voting is closed. The resolution is carried with 94.35% of the votes. Resolution 24, delegation to issue with cancellation of preemptive subscription rights, ordinary shares and/or securities granting access to the capital by way of public offers referred to in Article L.411-2-1 of the French Monetary and Financial Code. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The resolution is carried with 92.26% of the votes.
Resolution number 25, delegation to increase the number of securities to be issued in the event of a shared capital increase with retention or cancellation of preemptive subscription rights. Voting open. Voting closed. The resolution is adopted with 88.64% of the votes. Resolution 26, authorization to issue ordinary shares and/or securities granting access to the company's shared capital in consideration for contributions in kind to the company or equity securities or securities granting access to shared capital. Voting open. Voting closed.
Resolution is carried with 93.86% of the votes. Resolution 27, authorization to grant performance shares to employees and corporate officers of the company and its subsidiaries. Voting open. Voting closed. The authorization is approved with 94.68% of the votes. Resolution 28, delegation of authority to issue ordinary shares and/or securities to the company's shared capital to members of the Capgemini group employee savings plan. Voting open. Voting closed.
The delegation is approved with 98.73% of the votes. Resolution 29, delegation to issue ordinary shares and/or securities granting access to the shared capital for employees of certain non-French subsidiaries. Voting open. Voting is closed. The delegation is adopted with 98.73% of the votes. Resolution 30, powers to carry out formalities. Voting open. Voting closed.
The resolution is carried with 99.99% of the votes. We're reaching the end of the voting process. I would like to thank the shareholders for their trust. You can see that the adoption rates were quite high. Before we wrap up this meeting, before giving the floor to Paul Hermelin, we'd like, dear shareholders, to inform you that following a recent decree on the modernization of shareholder communication procedures, for future general meetings, Capgemini will send notices to registered shareholders electronically rather than by mail.
It's very important that the company have a valid email address for each shareholder. To this end, Uptevia will send you a letter at a later date. We suggest you read it very carefully in order to provide a valid email address. Please return your tablets and your translation headsets at the entrance of the room before going to the cocktail. I would like Paul Hermelin, our newly elected Chairman, to conclude the meeting.
Well, it is now my role to close this AGM. Thank you for your participation. Thank you for your votes. I would like to invite you to the cocktail reception. We hope to see you next year. Thank you very much.