Good morning, everybody, and welcome to VINCI Energies' headquarters in Nanterre for this Capital Markets Day. My colleagues and I are delighted to put the spotlight today on an absolutely outstanding and very promising business line within VINCI Group, since it is at the heart of the energy and digital challenges, being the facilitator of these megatrends which are ramping up worldwide, and we will try to demonstrate it in today's presentation. Since the last VINCI Energies' Capital Markets Day, which took place in Brussels eight years ago in 2016, you can see the journey has been stellar. Revenue of VINCI Energies has been multiplied by two, to more than EUR 19 billion in 2023, and it will be obviously higher than in 2024, as we wrote in the guidance 2024 of VINCI. It makes a brilliant compound annual growth rate of 10% over the period.
Its EBITDA has been multiplied by almost three times to EUR 1.4 billion last year. Over the period, the return on capital employed has also improved and stands today at almost 20% versus 16.6% eight years ago. This financial KPI endorses VINCI Energies as one of the best in class of its markets worldwide, if not the best in class, and definitely the most resilient player. It never missed its financial targets. Arnaud Grison, VINCI Energies' CEO, and Nathalie Boisjoux, VINCI Energies' CFO, will come back later about that. Since 2016, we should also highlight the fact that the internationalization of VINCI Energies has been stellar too. International business accounted for 48% of total revenue in 2016. Now it's 58% in 2023, with an increasing weight of North America in particular. The U.S. and Canada represented 5% of our 2023 revenue versus zero in 2016.
In terms of expertise mix, you see quite a good balance between our four business lines: Infrastructure, Industry, Building Solutions, and ICT, which stands for Information and Communication Technology. We've had no major change since 2016, except an increase in Infrastructure and ICT, and a decrease of the share of Industry in the mix. As you know, and/or you will see today, VINCI has been a pioneer among its peers, focusing strategically and consistently on its energy activities for several decades. VINCI Energies is more and more key in the group's strategy and business model. You can see in the figures how big and important this business is for VINCI. Looking back in 2006, the first year of integration of the ASF and ESCOTA Motorway Networks, the contribution of VINCI Energies in VINCI's financial KPI increased.
VINCI Energies accounted for 6% of the total group EBITDA in 2006 versus 14% last year. VINCI Energies accounted for 8% of the group total free cash flow in 2006 versus 21% last year. Beyond the figures, we could wrap up this chapter telling that VINCI is stronger with VINCI Energies, but VINCI Energies is also stronger with VINCI. What does VINCI bring to VINCI Energies? It's not exhaustive, but three key items. First, VINCI's undeniable firepower and its willingness to keep on supporting and developing its energy business with the objective of keeping on creating value. Second, synergies with the other business lines of the group, such as VINCI Construction or VINCI Concessions, particularly on complex projects. And third, some human resources appealing initiatives, notably through the Employee Savings Plan and the incentive programs VINCI shares for its managers.
These initiatives, which were put in place by VINCI a long time ago, are a powerful tool to recruit and keep on board talented and motivated people, which is key as we are in a human-intensive business, and particularly at a time when talents are more and more becoming a scarce resource. What does VINCI Energies bring to VINCI? An ideal positioning to benefit massively from the megatrends of energy transition and digital transformation, being undoubtedly tailwinds for profitable growth. Second, many capital allocation opportunities, VINCI Energies being an acquisition machine, a consolidator of very fragmented markets. Then, resilient revenue, results, and cash flow generation while remaining an asset-light business. VINCI Energies is a top-class business capitalizing on the following strengths: a unique and efficient, very decentralized organization, and a strong culture shared by all its employees.
Thanks to this decentralization and this decentralized organization, VINCI Energies' business units are very reactive and can adapt rapidly to market changes and seize new business opportunities. Agile and talented teams. VINCI Energies is the only true global player, both in terms of geographic footprints and in terms of expertise. It benefits from low-risk activities, a certain pricing power, and best-in-class returns. It demonstrated over time its ability to print sustainable quality of earnings and strong free cash flow generation. In addition, that's an excess cash business debt-free. Finally, VINCI Energies can rely on a long-standing and relevant M&A strategy with a strict capital discipline and on structural tailwinds I already mentioned then, the megamarket trends. So, as a result of these elements, VINCI Energies is constantly delivering best-in-class returns.
In conclusion of this introduction, VINCI Energies is a top-class business but still overlooked and undervalued by the financial markets in our view. Now I leave the floor to Arnaud Grison, the CEO of VINCI Energies, and we'll be back for the conclusion and the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you, Christian. Hello, everyone. Hello to all of you who are connected. Xavier once told me that he had been asked during one such a meeting about his favorite business within VINCI, the one he would like to get away with, and he said if that was possible, his answer was VINCI Energies, and I thank him for appointing me as the CEO of VINCI Energies at this position. He sees it indeed as a concession-like business with almost no CapEx, less than 1.5% of our revenue, and no duration, and steady cash flow. I will indeed show you that we have a great track record of growth and a leadership position. We are still very well diversified, and that makes us resilient, and we have bright perspectives. I realize that we are not well known, so for us, it is indeed an exciting day.
Once again, welcome. We are honored by your presence, especially for all of you who have traveled through the snow, and your interest in VINCI Energies, a company we love and we enjoy talking about. My name is Arnaud Grison. Out of my 20 years at VINCI, I've been working for 12 years at VINCI Energies. I was in Brussels in 2016, and I've been appointed as Chairman and CEO six years ago. The second year was challenging through COVID, but I'm very proud about our teams. I think we've done well. My goal today is to show you what makes us special, what we do, but more important in our eyes, who we are and how we do things. I know that you are looking forward to discovering our ambition for 2030, but you need to better understand who we are and what drives us.
What is our algorithm? It is simple. It is called Quartz. We will start in section one with a reminder of our successful track record over the last 20 years. We are indeed a top player in our field with strong European roots and presence on all continents, including in North America, as Christian mentioned it. We are a multi-technical contractor, a people business based on local presence and highly technical teams, customer-centric with a wide spectrum of expertise. You should also understand the role of our four brands and our powerful segmentation approach. You will see our performance is solid, robust, and consistent with low volatility. In section two, I will tell you why it will last. Of course, because we are well positioned on dynamic market trends as an integrator of state-of-the-art technical solutions.
But the real asset is our strong culture and unique entrepreneurial model crafted by 50 years of experience, now universal, based on best practices, lessons learned, discipline, and control. You will hear about Quartz, our common framework. Why Quartz? Because it means solidity and transparency. You should better understand our organization, which may look like a military organization, but with a top supporting the field. We are decentralized, and we operate in networks. This is key. Our model is attractive not only for talents and organic growth, but also for external growth. We will show you our acquisition integration know-how and what drives our M&A value creation. In section three, using the same recipes used over the past 20 years, I will share with you our ambitions for 2030. First, qualitatively, what we want to do, where we want to grow.
We want to densify our presence and roll out our offers and expertise. Diversification remains our goal. It brings us resilience. We want to grow our teams and our organization. This is our underlying asset, our sous-jacent. And what it could mean in terms of performance: mid to high single-digit growth, at least 7.5% EBIT, and of course, with 100% cash conversion. And I will give you color, as they say in Quebec, around these figures. We want to preserve our model and culture. Our driver is to grow our teams and our organization, to grow our business. Growth is a result of our strategy. Using Quartz and segmentation, remaining selective and disciplined, a network of entrepreneurs, each operating with a strategy and reasonable prudency, demultiplying our management energy to grow organically and through acquisitions. That will lead to section four. How should we be valued?
We find the current benchmark quite surprising, leaving room for valuation uplift. I realize that there's a lot of information to process, so we will have a break. Don't worry. There will be Q&A at the end of the morning, and the VINCI Investor Relations team, led by Grégoire, will do follow-ups if needed. I know it is sometimes difficult to grasp the extent of our expertise and offers. I think that this video will help you understand a little bit better what we do before we dive deeper into our business lines, markets, and organization.
The challenges associated with energy and digital technology have swept across the planet. They concern every company and every community. The answers to resource scarcity and climate change will need to be local, specific, and grounded in collective intelligence. That is exactly what our 2,000 business units are doing. They are based around the world and active in a wide variety of situations. They pool their expertise to fast-track each customer's energy transition and digital transformation across energy infrastructure, industrial processes, Building Solutions, and information and communication technologies. For all kinds of infrastructure assets handling data or energy flows, we supply air, water, heating and cooling, and electricity. We connect and secure those assets. We lessen their impact on the environment and increase their energy efficiency throughout their life cycle, from construction to maintenance.
Decarbonizing the economy, for example, involves facilitating renewable energy self-consumption, building energy storage infrastructure, and maintaining and modernizing grids. It means enabling electric mobility by rolling out charging systems on a large scale. It involves designing solutions that drastically reduce energy consumption in buildings and upgrade city lighting with smart systems. It means decarbonizing industry by optimizing energy efficiency and performance in every individual process. And lastly, it involves measuring and comparing the impacts from every project or operation to build a more responsible economy. Supporting our customers' digital transformation involves leveraging data from end to end to advance the environmental transition from concept to completion, then during operation. We capture, store, process, secure, and protect data as thriftily as possible in buildings and production plants.
We are a network that has chosen to embrace the full array of available technologies because we are focused on delivering top-quality solutions that optimize processes and consumption of all types of resources. In everything we do, be it in enclosed environments or hard-to-reach places, in factories or wind farms, when carrying out emergency repairs or routine maintenance, our performance is the result of our team's expertise. We are an extensive network of decentralized, diversified business units connected to the main trends in our markets. That is how our brands play their full role as solution catalysts. And as we are active at the core of the transformation unfolding in the energy and digital spheres, we are fast-tracking the environmental transition on a human scale.
And with a human touch, you can see all these teams. They're our teams, and they're really doing a great job. So section one, a unique leadership with over 20 years of success. Next slide, please. Next. It's not a one-man show. The executive committee is in this room and is partially reflecting the diversity in VINCI Energies. I would like to make some quick comments. It has been 100% renewed since 2019 and since Brussels. We were six French executives at that time. Now we're 10 more international, and all done by internal succession. So it's a healthy governance with a lot of seniority within VINCI Energies, international and with more women on board. But beyond the team, our management committee is made of 100 executives supporting 500 operational directors and more than 2,000 business unit general managers with the expertise of strong support functions like finance, HR, legal.
So in a nutshell, we are now in six—we were now last year in 2023, because these are the 2023 figures—in 61 countries. As you can see, China, India, and Kazakhstan are in a lighter shade because we are there mainly to follow our customers, but it's a small footprint. I don't say we can—I don't say we are Chinese when we do only EUR 25 million in China or EUR 10 million in India, but still we're there. But we don't intend to grow our business in these countries. The rest, the 58, is our core geography. We have grown outside of France, as Christian has shown you, but we still have French roots. And with more than 100,000 employees today, actually, it was 102,000 as of the end of October. And we are at scale in quite a few geographies.
It's more than EUR 8 billion in France, more than EUR 3 billion in Germany, EUR 1 billion in North America, EUR 1 billion in the Nordics, almost EUR 1 billion in Switzerland, and almost EUR 1 billion in the Netherlands, and it will be EUR 1 billion very soon, and the rest of the world is EUR 1.6 billion.
It is still consistent, so we are addressing four business lines as a multi-technical contractor with a large spectrum of expertise: electrical, mechanical, control systems. It is really amazing, and I don't know all the things that we do. It's really, really surprising, but it's always technical. Our portfolio is well balanced, and since the mid-1990s, we have segmented our activities and have been using brands to identify for what business line we work, like Omexom for the energy infrastructure, Actemium for the industry, Building Solutions for the Building Solutions network, and Axians for the ICT, so our brand.
What is a brand at VINCI Energies? Well, first, it's a small organization of 20- 30 people, a very lean structure. We like light overheads, who supports the business. And by the way, they're just on the floor next door. Facilitating networking, connecting BUs, employees, experts, and clubs where we can share. Providing market studies and looking at trends and innovation. They have no operational or commercial role, short-term role. They look midterm and long-term. They're capitalizing on know-how, references, and services. There is probably someone somewhere in the network that has the expertise or reference, and the brand knows how to find him. The key is segmentation. We split and focus. What is segmentation? When you work for industry, you don't work for Building Solutions. When you work for infrastructure, you don't work for industry. When you do maintenance, you don't do installation.
When you work in Paris, you don't work in Lyon. When you do, so we focus, we focus, we focus on small things. This is key: segmentation. So we have specialists. We have specialists of installation, distribution line in southern France. We have specialists for substation in England. We have specialists for industrial electrical automation maybe in Baden-Württemberg. So we focus and we split. And this fosters collaboration because there's no internal competition, no internal competition. When you know who is doing what, then you can twin, you can collaborate. And this is key: no internal competition. So when we look at our peers, we find ourselves in a good position. We believe we are the most diversified multi-technical service provider in terms of size, expertise, and geographical footprint. U.S. players are U.S.-focused, like Quanta, EMCOR, MasTec, Comfort Systems. But we have the same expertise, but on a broader scale.
Compared to SPIE, we're twice as big and operate outside of Europe and in the Nordics. And compared to Equans, we are more diversified and more for business. It's probably an open door. We operate in a fragmented market with a lot of players. There are different types of players. Among the well-knowns, you have the multi-technical contractors like SPIE, Bravida, Comfort Systems, the O&M like ABB, Siemens, Schneider. You have the African and Asia competitors. In IT, you have a lot of players like Econocom, NextiraOne, Accenture sometimes, Capgemini, Orange Business. We do not face them everywhere, but we may face them somewhere on something. Okay? So there's no one global competitor, but there's a lot of competition. But more important is the bottom bar. There are many, many local players, family-owned and private equity-owned.
That means also a lot of opportunities for our M&A, either through spinoffs, through succession issues, or through exits, because private equity at some point wants to look for an exit. So when you put into perspective the last 20 years, it shows a great track record of growth with strategic moves like the acquisition of Cegelec, our internationalization in 2014, and our Axians acceleration. And it also shows resilience to global crises: the subprime in 2008, COVID-19, the energy crisis, and inflation. Look at turnover for COVID-19: flat compared to 2020, 2019. It was outstanding. So why are we so resilient? Just teasing. Our culture, our model, Quartz. And we tell our teams relentlessly that revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is reality. So their personal objective is in terms of profit margins, never on volume, always on profit margins, and always on cash.
The growth is a consequence, and it is strong, 8%-10% over the past, with an acceleration since 2021 post-COVID, probably because of the inflation and the energy crisis. As you can see, our growth is very profitable. We never go down, except I was the one in 2020 when we went from 6%- 5.7%. But I think compared to our peers, it was outstanding. So now I will leave the floor to Nathalie, our CFO, who will tell you more about our figures. Nathalie.
Hello everyone. My name is Nathalie Boisjoux. I've been working for the group for 25 years, and I've been appointed CFO of VINCI Energies 18 months ago. Let's now focus on the financial results of VINCI Energies over the last 10 years. In 10 years, VINCI Energies has doubled in size. Our industry business line has been multiplied by 1.5 times, Building Solutions by 1.8, infrastructure by 2.4, while ICT by almost 4. The ICT part has just increased from 10% of our revenue in 2013 to 19% in 2023, and now exceeds EUR 3 billion in revenue. Our growth has accelerated over the last five years, reaching 9%, partially fueled by inflation, but also driven by a strong momentum on our market of the energy transition and digital transformation.
From 2018 to 2023, our infrastructure, Building Solutions, and ICT activities have grown by around 10%-11% on average per year, and industry by 4%. With a revenue of EUR 19.3 billion in 2023 and more than EUR 20 billion in 2024 this year, we rank first in the world in terms of size and first in Europe in terms of growth rate over the last five years. As Arnaud told you, our story at VINCI Energies, this is 20 years of uninterrupted growth, but also 20 years of uninterrupted margin improvement. For us, growth is not an end in itself. We prioritize margin over volume, and what matters most to us is profitability and cash. In 10 years, our EBIT, our operating income from ordinary activities, has increased from 5.6% in revenue in 2013 to 7% in 2023.
This improvement has been continuous year after year, and it will continue this year in 2024 with a further increase in our operating margin. In terms of margin, we are the European leader. We are also a leader in terms of cash generation. Our improved profitability is reflected in our excellent results in terms of cash. Our free cash flow has been multiplied by 4 over the last 10 years, reaching EUR 1.4 billion in 2023. Our cash conversion ratio has averaged 145% over the last five years. Profitability and cash are at the heart of our culture, our way of working called Quartz. Keep in mind that we are a satellite business. CapEx represents less than 1.5% of our revenue. And keep in mind that we do a lot of acquisitions.
Generating this level of cash enables us to self-finance our acquisitions while paying dividends to VINCI for around 70% of our net income every year. Our active external growth policy is based on strict valuation discipline and a well-known ROCE, which proves successful when you consider our cash generation. Our acquisitions are accretive and contribute to the virtuous cycle of our cash.
Thank you, Nathalie. Preparing this day, we are trying to look a little bit wider at our competition. When we compare ourselves with our peers over the past five years, we find ourselves in quite a good position. Sorry. I think we're among the top first in terms of size and cash generation. Quanta may get bigger in 2024, but it's U.S., only U.S.-focused and infrastructure. We're number one in Europe in terms of growth or profit-making, and the U.S. market is indeed much more dynamic in terms of growth than in Europe. We're still number three worldwide in terms of EBIT percentage, and the best in class are Dycom and Comfort Systems, and they're U.S.-based. We are clearly among the top performers. In a nutshell, looking back, our performance is solid, robust, and consistent. There is low volatility at VINCI Energies.
Good growth, good margins, good cash, and good return on capital employed. As I have just shown you, we have demonstrated 20 years of success. And the good news is it will last. We do not anticipate major disruption ahead. And we've faced some challenges in the past, and we've gone through. So why? We will show you that we are indeed well-positioned on megatrends. We are seizing many market development opportunities. And as a multi-technical integrator, we are positioned on a great variety of segments and expertise, not just one flagship segment, many, many, many segments. And we have the ability to position ourselves on the new offers when they come. So let's have a satellite view. As an introduction, let me remind you that we are indeed well-positioned on the environmental transition, which is a combination of the energy and digital transformation. We're also positioned on technical solutions.
We do not have products. As integrator, we bring technology to our solutions for our customers, and we maintain them as design, build, and maintain. We are local, close to our customers, and at the heart of their challenges. We try to intimately understand their needs. This is one of the key benefits of our decentralized model that I will explain later. So from satellite, now let's have a helicopter view. How do these two transitions translate in terms of business? Is it just buzzwords? What does it mean? Well, it means electrification of users. It's increasing in transport and in industry. Decarbonization of the energy mix, more electricity, more renewable energy. Renovation of infrastructure and facilities, more efficient. Deployment of technologies in processes like automation and robotics, digitalization and AI, and an increasing IT footprint and IT criticity in our everyday life and our business.
And that means business for us. This is good news in all of our four business lines. So now let's have a drone view, not a microscope drone. Let's dive a little bit deeper. It means a lot of business opportunities. There are many, many data published, and I'm sure that you have access to a lot more. The accuracy may depend from one source to the other, but ballpark, the trend is there. It's about renovation, electrification, explosion of data, and the role of technology. I will not comment all, rest assured. But look, more data and AI tools means more data centers. More data centers means more electricity. More electricity means more grids. And by the way, grids, two-thirds need to be renewed because they're old, and two-thirds needs to be extended.
In some countries, in some continents, the whole population does still not have access to electricity. Then the existing facilities, it's not only grids, but also buildings and industry. I will spare you all the details, but just to tell you that it's really, really business opportunities. It's not buzzwords. This is what we do. I will now give the floor to my colleagues who wear a double hat, an operational one and one of a brand sponsor. Our sponsors, they will show you for each of our business lines, infrastructure, industry, Building Solutions and ICT, our expertise and offers, our great diversity, our positions, the market background, and how it translates into business opportunities. There are many, many opportunities for growth, and it is really, really exciting.
When you combine business line by business line, the diversity of our expertise and our verticals and market segments and our various positions in each country, from mature positions to younger positions, and the challenges that our customers face and how we can bring them solutions and services, it's amazing how bright our horizon looks like. When you add on top of that a combination of collaboration between the brands, for instance, Axians bringing digital expertise to other brands, it becomes really, really, really exciting. Now I will leave the floor to Julio, who will tell you more about infrastructure. Julio, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Arnaud. Good morning, everyone. I'm Julio de Almeida. I joined the group in 1990, 34 years ago, and I'm the Omexom sponsor for Omexom, the brand dedicated to energy infrastructure. Yes, Arnaud, it's amazing how bright our horizon looks, and it's particularly the case in infrastructure business. Indeed, with Omexom offers, we are at the heart of the solution to match the biggest challenge, the biggest global challenge we have, the clean energy transition. Omexom targets customers who produce, transform, and transport electricity, including local authorities and electrical transportation. Our group has been in the electricity business almost since it has been discovered and in infrastructure energy business since more than a century. We know this market very well, and we master both the traditional technologies and the new technologies, including digital control and cyber protection of the critical networks.
In the infrastructure business, we also address transport infrastructures for approximately EUR 0.8 billion, and we install equipment and power both for railways and for roads. We address energy infrastructures through our brand Omexom. You can see the main figures: EUR 5 billion, 22,000 professionals, and 500 business units autonomous with a nice geographical coverage of 37 countries. Over the last eight years, we had 8% of a growth rate. These EUR 5 billion activities, as Arnaud said, are segmented because we love marketing advanced energy, and we have five groups of offers, and this group of offers depends on the assets we cover. Power, you see EUR 0.5 billion, covers our activity for power plants where we can be in charge of electrical or mechanical packages.
It means for nuclear, for hydro plants, energy storage, and of course, wind or solar farms where Omexom provides everything from basic design to maintenance. Over the years, we have part of our business, which is a recurring business. For transmission, we are able to deliver the overhead lines, but also underground lines, and this is to transport electricity. We act in all our countries. For substation, we cover everything which is needed to switch and transform electricity. We have references all over the world, and both for transmission and substation segments, our customers are, for example, RTE in France or Red Eléctrica in Spain. Distribution, EUR 2.3 billion. This is the largest segment in Omexom brand. It represents our activities with distribution system operators across the world from the U.S. to Finland to New Zealand.
For example, our teams are involved in Normandy today because we had this snowstorm in Normandy. We have some teams helping Enedis to fix and to restore energy for 200,000 houses. Finally, territories. Territories offers, well known in France as Citeos, covers mainly outdoor lighting, electric mobility, and local energy grids for local authorities. As Arnaud said, our 500 autonomous BUs are segmented through those five business segments, and each BU may work alone in its local market or in collaboration with other BUs. When we gather BUs, we are able, for example, to address more complex or more larger projects. This is very interesting because we can be strong combining BUs or very agile acting standalone BU by BU. This clear segmentation is one of our assets, but we have something unique in Omexom on top of that, and I think it's really unique.
We have 21 technical, we call them institutes, Omexom Institutes. And this is very important because this allows us to train and to make a difference with the skill of our people. And we are able to onboard new talents, so this gives us a nice advantage and also to upskill the existing on a regular basis, the existing teams. To summarize our market position, keep in mind that our top five geographical markets are France, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, and USA. It's only 68% of its large, but it's only 68% of our turnover. And even if we have, for example, 34% in France or 16% in Germany, it's a small part of the market. So it's to say that we can grow Omexom in almost all our 37 countries, including in Africa, where people still need to be connected, as Arnaud said, to the grid.
Other interesting information for you on the pie chart, approximately a third of the installation part in blue is done through multi-year or maintenance contracts with the DSOs, for example. I just disappeared, but I will continue. And this means that with the maintenance, the 14% of maintenance, we have almost a third part of the total turnover of Omexom, which is recurring. So clean energy transition is reshaping the world in many countries. So it brings many, many challenges. We don't go through all the challenges. We just have on the left side of this slide five examples to illustrate the numerous challenges faced by our customers. For example, energy mix electrification will require to build wind, solar, and of course, new nuclear power plants.
Extension and retrofit of energy distribution network will require new routes for high-voltage lines and maybe thousands of new substations and probably even more substations to be upgraded. Renewable energy will require, for sure, electricity storage because it's not continuous and energy management system to be efficient. Mobility electrification has already popped up everywhere, but there's many, many things to do to increase and to densify the networks and the connection points and the charging stations, and of course, as the complexity of the network will increase, as the size will increase, the complexity will increase, so digitalization is required to manage the networks, and then cybersecurity will be a must, but Reinhard will explain how we are good in cybersecurity, so to make it short, each of our customer challenges is definitely an opportunity for Omexom. As Arnaud said, the future is promising.
The future is very exciting in our business. The Omexom network, with this unique set of offers, with its agile organization and with the unique capacity to onboard and train professionals through its institutes, is really ready to successfully navigate and grow in this fantastic landscape for the next decades. Thank you very much, and I lend the floor to Jos.
Yes. Bonjour. My name is Jos Boers. I'm Dutch, so I will keep it crisp, direct, and short as I'm used to do it, right? I joined the group in 2000, and in fact, I was acquired by VINCI Energies. They bought a company in the north of the Netherlands, and they saw some potential, and I was there too. The rest is history, more or less. Indeed, 25 years, fantastic group, of course, to work for.
I'm also responsible, in this case, for the northwest comprising Benelux, Nordics, and the U.K. Interesting region to do business, as you can understand. Besides this, I'm also the sponsor of Actemium, an Actemium brand. And in fact, it's also my background. I am an automation engineer, in fact. And I was there in the beginning of the erection of the brand and also participating in it. And it was just, I think, six or seven business units with EUR 40 million in business, which sounds a lot. But if you look at now, it's a humble beginning. And yeah, it's an amazing journey. These countries where it all started are still very present and form the solid base of Actemium. Now you will see in the next slide, for that matter. As you can see, it was quite a journey, as I just said, the last two decades.
We have now a truly global presence in over 40 countries. That will not end there, probably. Very interesting to see. Global presence means also local presence. I think that's very important for the Actemium brand in this case. The local Actemium brand of business units, they are weaponized, or maybe a better word, equipped with the best practices, technical tools, and know-how of the whole brand, giving them a local competitive edge. That's very important there. With a full lifecycle, design, build, maintain. Business units working together to get the job done. They can do it alone, but also work in a pack. As Julio already explained, also for the Omexom brand, of course. Expertise comprises electrical engineering, process control, mechanical, thermal, fluid, and often in combination as a process solution, because that's what we offer. We offer solutions and services around those solutions.
It must be maintained also, and that's a very interesting part of the Actemium business, I think. We will come to that. As shown in the movie, Actemium ensures electricity, clean air, heating, ventilation, installs robots for specific industrial processes, including monitoring processes through control systems, of course. These systems are connected to the ERP. We call that in the industry the manufacturing execution systems, very fancy word, for optimum data analysis. I think Reinhard will explain you a little bit more about that, but it touches, of course, those very important expertises like AI, data, and all things that are concerned with those kinds of expertises. It's very important. Business applications and so on. Actemium is present, as you can see, in all market segments that matter.
I will emphasize that word because food, feed, and beverage, life science, defense, and space exploration are, of course, the real thing, I would say, right? It's very important for humankind and the preservation of the planet. But each segment has its own challenges also. Think about the pharmaceutical industry, which is part of the life science segment, and the promise of ever better medical care. I think it's very important to be positioned in that world. But also food factories, right? I mean, we need food every day. And the tracing and tracking is very prominent in that part. So keep track of where it's all coming from and where it's going. And also, of course, the quality of that food is very important. And we're in the middle of that. So if you go to the next slide, please.
You have a lot of information again, also the pie chart and so on, and here you see also the countries that are still very prominent and where Actemium is really strong, and yeah, they are forming a solid base. The brand Actemium acts as a quality beacon for industrial clients seeking for solutions and services that will increase their productivity, improve efficacy, quality, secure time to market, save energy consumption, reach environmental goals, relieve global logistics pressures, and so on and so on, and other real-world challenges, making their challenges our opportunities. A collection of current and future technologies will be integrated in the necessary industrial solutions and services, like, as I just said, artificial intelligence, data analysis, special applications, robotics, all that, and it's very important to be in the middle of that, indeed.
And I have to stress that point because those AI hype kind of words, it's not an offer in itself. It's always part of a solution. You need a use case for that. So we don't do business in AI. We don't do business in data. They are just needed as a tool in our toolkit to really make the solution work, right? And then, of course, in such a way that it can be maintained afterwards. That's also very important. I mean, that's a trick in itself, I have to say. So yeah, the brand and its 500 business units are at the heart of our customers. And in the top of their mind, that's at least also in the mission statement, we want to be in the top of their mind. If they think industry, they think Actemium. That's the answer, of course. And then worldwide, right?
That's needed. Very important thing. I think that's pretty unique if you compare Actemium as a brand with their competitors. With a recurring business rate of 25%, the brand Actemium is representing a solid, robust, and long-lasting business. And it was alluded to already by Arnaud, of course, that this part, the maintenance part, the life cycle part, is so important for VINCI Energies. We stay at the client. We have dear old customers. They always come back to us. And it gives the full life cycle. But also a lot of recurring business. And that's very important. Actemium is at the heart of hard-nosed nice English word, hard-nosed real-world challenges. So independent of contemporary fluctuations. And that's why I think VINCI Energies as a whole is so strong because there are the crises of the world.
If it is a very deep crisis, we go to, of course, but the crises of the world are opportunities for us, more or less, right? Look at the environment. Look at the energy transition. Look at the data transformation. All the things that are now political crises, the disruption of global logistic situations are just opportunities for us. We thrive in that world. So yeah, I will conclude industry and Actemium are a steady and flourishing, profitable combination, I would say. I call the guys from Actemium often tech SEAL teams. And that's what we are. Okay? Thank you for listening to my little story.
Thanks, Jos. Hi everyone. I'm Eric Plumey, Managing Director of VINCI Energies Building Solutions in France and industry and Building Solutions network sponsor.
I've been working in VINCI Energies for the last 32 years now, so as long as you and don't think I'll beat you for quite a long time now. In the VINCI Energies Building Solutions Network, we have strong local brands such as Cegelec, ETAVIS in Switzerland, Emil Lundgren in Sweden, Bosman in the Netherlands, VINCI Facilities for maintenance, and many more. We choose not to give a global brand name as Building Solutions is more local business for local clients. Business units are all part of the VINCI Energies Building Solutions Network. Building Solutions is the main activity for VINCI Energies, having a steady, sustained growth in the last few years. The revenue in 2023 was EUR 5.4 billion. The network is made of 550 business units, 400 in projects, and 160 in maintenance, and 26,000 employees across more than 20 countries.
We are working on new constructions, renovations, and maintenance. We have a very strong technical expertise. As shown on the figures at the bottom, we are working in many sectors such as offices, industry, data centers, health, education, sports, each one with its own specificity. Such diversity is a key point for our future expansion. Our network is really becoming more and more international. In 2018, France represented 64% of our revenue. It now accounts for 58%. This is not due to a lack of growth and ambition in France, but due to excellent developments in many countries. For example, in fire protection, we are now the second player in Europe, a growth from EUR 200 million to EUR 600 million from 2013 to 2023. We are first in France as we were third in 2013.
As mentioned, we have a very strong technical expertise in electrical engineering, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, fire protection, and smart building. From design engineering to general contracting, constructions, and maintenance. Mastering all this expertise, VINCI Energies can deliver multi-technical projects and is a very strong partner for its main clients, providing solution to every step of their building's life, specifically if you focus on energy saving and long-term carbon footprint reduction. In fact, as you can see in several countries such as Germany, France, Belgium, Morocco, we are very large players, and as we always do in VINCI Energies, I'm sure we will become a strong player in other countries, specifically in countries such as Switzerland or Sweden, where we are already leaders in specific expertise.
There is definitely room for us to grow in these countries as well as in the other countries where we have a smaller regional footprint. So there is no doubt that VINCI Energies Building Solutions will have strong developments in the coming years. And as mentioned, with more geographic expansion, position, and more to come with environmental solution transition. Environmental transition is at the heart of our activity, increasing renewable energy and energy storage, reducing energy consumption, reducing the long-life carbon footprint, and adapting buildings to climate change. Our segmentation and business model are excellent answers to all the constant market changes and environmental transition as new rules, new regulations are set up on a daily basis. Regulation and asset green certification are indeed driving investments. The value of the building assets is more and more in the technical part rather than the civil structure.
Talking about innovation and digitalization, the building industry has long lagged behind in terms of innovation, but now things are changing and are changing quick. For example, for better energy efficiency, you need to digitalize electrical systems in order to control consumption, optimize performance, and identify incidents. In fact, we are more and more employing computing engineers, and we have specialized dedicated business units for technical building management. Our buildings are becoming smart buildings with more technologies embedded, AI, and automation, and last but not least, we notice that the concept of sovereignty is back at the forefront. Industrial sovereignty, meaning the reindustrialization of countries such as pharmaceutical production facilities, digital sovereignty with the construction of many data centers to preserve digital independence, national sovereignty with increasing of defense spending. These changes are real opportunities for our Building Solutions network.
Now we leave the floor to Reinhard to talk about Axians.
Hello everybody. My name is Reinhard Schlemmer. I'm responsible for the business of VINCI Energies east of France, so Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, my home country, and all the CEE countries. I'm a software engineer by education, so it's not by chance that I'm also responsible for animating the ICT network of our business units branded Axians. I have been with the group for 21 years now, so also a long-timer. Thank you. At the core of our organization are, and you heard it several times already, but it's, I think, important to stress it, well-segmented and focused business units, segmented per expertise and by vertical. With the sum of our business units, we cover the full stack, as you see on the left-hand side, upper side, the full stack of our expertise for ICT.
From the physical communication, from the network to the IT infrastructure, all the way to the application layer. We design, build, maintain, but we also support operation and we do operation of systems for our clients. In each of these six expert areas, as you see. In telecom infrastructure, we do the classical build and maintain and help to operate radio mobile networks, fixed networks, fiber optic networks, high bandwidth networks. We do the same on the enterprise networking level, so IP networking with classical switching routing, which is the basis for all of our digital things. Then we move up to compute, cloud, and data center. There we do the classical IT infrastructure for compute and storage. We do build data centers on-prem.
We have our sweet spot, the edge data centers and the hyperscale integration, and as well, you know, building cloud architectures and maintaining and supporting clients in that. In the area of business applications and data analytics, we provide the integration capability and customization of ERP systems like SAP or Microsoft Dynamics. We use process platforms like ServiceNow to digitalize processes. We use low-code platforms to do the same, but we also develop high-code applications tailored to the specific processes of our clients and to the needs, and also dedicated business units help our clients supporting management analytics and analytics of data. In the area of digital workspace, as you see here, we support our customers in management and provisioning of hardware and software for their employees to work with.
Last but not least, in cybersecurity, we have business units to consult, to analyze, to design, to implement, and maintain security solutions, but also run so-called security operation centers, either run by us for diverse clients or build up specific SOCs for clients and help them operate them, especially for larger clients who want to have it in their own hands. We support clients with ethical hackers and also red teams if and when, and it's more or less the case when they are attacked to help them to remedy the situation as quickly as possible. We did so successfully in a lot of cases. Just recently, we had a hospital, a large hospital in Frankfurt, a university hospital that was off communication, and we helped them to get back on track. Now they're operating with our support with a SOC service.
Each of our 350 business units is focused on one of these six expert areas, as you see on the slide, and is applying it to one or several verticals, which you see on the bottom left-hand side of the slide. So carriers, service providers, industry, and the percentages that just show the revenue share of our network in this specific vertical. One thing is worth to mention for me as a software engineer, a bit more than 10 years ago, you wouldn't have seen a number. It's still written in small letters here of software developers in our group. We just started with this. Now we have more than 2,000 software engineers in our ICT network. And you heard from my colleagues also in the other areas, we have engineers who are working on automation and software. Software eats it all.
So in all we do, we need software capabilities, and that is just underpinned with that growth in our engineering basis. And of course, a last comment on this slide before we ask the question later on, also a bit mentioned by our colleagues, AI, machine learning, advanced data analytics, and also robotic process automation is a standard in our solutions. So it's not just because two years ago OpenAI and the large language models have been becoming very prominent that this is now what everybody talks about it. We've done it several years ago already because we started very early on this, and now it's part of our solutions wherever needed and wherever applicable, we use it. We use it, we eat our own dog food, so we use it, of course, also for us.
So these 2,000 programmers, for example, they use Copilot as their assistant to program, to document, and to test applications. That's a standard way to program today. And of course, we use also these technologies to improve our own services. So when we talk about a security operations center, we use, of course, AI to have advanced threat detection and things like that. We use, of course, robotic process automation to speed up our procedures when there is an attack, what to do, because we have machines attacking machines nowadays, because hackers use AI to attack. So we have, of course, to use also the countermeasures, also using the most modern technology. Now, what's our strategy towards vendors, the large software vendors, hardware vendors you see over there?
On top of getting business leads eventually here and there from those vendors like Cisco, Microsoft, we are very much often driving the selection of the right product and combination of products that need to be integrated to solve a customer's problem. That is really our core because we are very close to the client. We are verticalized in our approach, so we understand and speak the language of the client. I'm not talking about just German or Austrian or Italian, but really speaking the specific speak. So we understand what the client talks about. We know their pain points and we know how to solve them and building a solution for them. So that allows us really to do tailor-made application.
In the software area, in application integration, we have also developed own pieces of IP on platforms like Microsoft Dynamics, but also on SAP, and also specific add-ons that are the glue or a good connection or addendum to the solutions to our clients. Sometimes for clients, we develop specific high-code applications that are tailored to their needs and their processes, which can't be solved by any of the platforms out there. We are doing also that. For example, in Poland, the health system, the national prescription for medications, that's a solution that's developed by our teams for the Ministry of Health. We are operating and supporting the operation of the system. 40 million Polish people are getting their prescriptions based on the system, which has been developed by our teams.
We invest a lot in, of course, training of our employees because we need to keep also the highest corporate certification with our main and important vendors. You just see a few of them. We should also maybe add the cybersecurity-specific vendors like Check Point, Palo Alto, Fortinet, you name them, but also a lot of specialized ones. So training is a huge focus of ours for the Axians business units. They spend about the double amount compared to the average of VINCI Energies in training and getting our people to the latest and keeping them on the latest state of the art. If we take a look at the European market forecast and look at the main growth trend areas from Gartner, as you see on the left-hand side of the slide, we are very well positioned on cloud and data center, on cybersecurity, as well as in business application.
So that's huge growth, almost double-digit. But then when you look at the bottom line and you've seen before that in telecom infrastructures, we have quite a large volume with EUR 1.5 billion. It seems that's an average growth rate for Europe. However, when you go in detail into country by country, you see that there are a lot of countries which are not yet fully on high bandwidth. There's still a lot of infrastructure to expand on telecom. And there are specific parts where we will see additional growth. Just think about the new generation, the future railway mobile communication system in Europe, which will cause our railway infrastructure to invest a lot. And we're there. We're positioned exactly for that type of business as well. We have strong references because we did the last generation in France as a large rollout.
So we have to know how to do that. And we can bring business units together, as mentioned before, to team up to meet the challenges that are in these countries when we have to modernize railway communication systems. And on top of that, our market share in most verticals is still very low, allowing for a lot more penetration, except for the carrier and service provider expertise I've shown before, with a euro market share of about 9%. You've seen the large number, an industry with about 6%. We have a market share in all other verticals of less than 1%. So the opportunities are unbelievable. And that is underpinned also by the graph on this side, where you see the coverage of the expertise areas by country. So we have lots of countries where we still can develop our expertise to a more balanced level.
Our strategy going forward is to encourage and support, of course, replication of this vertical know-how and solutions across countries, but always with the necessary local adoption. We are not a one-size-fits-all approach company trying to sell the one thing to everybody in every country the same way. That's not working if you're a systems integrator. Then on top of that, we are only present in 38 out of 61 countries of VINCI Energies. We have a couple of countries more where we have already a landing place. We have teams who understand the local culture, how to behave, how to do business in that country. We can also land there with our Axians business units eventually. As highlighted by Arnaud, our ICT footprint in the combination with other brand networks is really a unique positioning.
This comes on top of these good market dynamics just for the ICT business itself. Take cybersecurity as an example. I'll mention this example because we have just made a recent large acquisition with Fernao Networks in that segment. If we take our competence in cybersecurity with the other brand networks, so with the automation and process know-how we have in Actemium, we have in Omexom, we have in Building Solutions, we are uniquely positioned to solve the OT security issue that is huge out there. I think we're the only one who have this setup. So it's super exciting. Gives me goosebumps. With these goosebumps, I give the floor again to Arnaud. Thank you.
Thank you, Julio. Thank you, Reinhard. Thank you, Eric, Julio, and Jos.
It's always challenging just to try to summarize all what we do in a few slides and a few minutes. There's a lot more, as you can imagine. But thank you for bringing us this bright overview of all the possibilities that we have. Let's zoom out a little bit now and to show you how we address environmental and innovation topics. It is, of course, animated by our brands and our brand teams, and it's at the heart of their mission. What is the environmental transition? I think Eric referred to it. You can see it starts from electricity, CO2, water, and climate change risk. So first, it's about the energy footprint of buildings, facilities, and processes. It means renovation and electrification, okay, more efficiency. Then we move on to address the decarbonization of the life cycle.
It means extending the lifespan of the materials and equipment and reusing them. And we're starting to get there in some places. We also face the challenge in some countries or parts of the world of water, for example, in Morocco. Okay, it means business for infrastructure when they need to carry water from the south, desalinated water from the south to the north. Okay. It is also water for the buildings. And then we have to adapt our facilities to climate change sooner than expected. It means heat, it means floods, it means storms. We need to harden the grids. We need to protect the buildings against severe weather conditions. We have the expertise to help our customers because this means cable pulling, it means equipment, it means software solutions, it means technology. So this is what the environmental transition is about.
As an integrator, whatever our business lines, we are positioned at the heart of our customers' energy choices, infrastructure, and processes. As an integrator, we bring technologies in our solutions for our customers, and we maintain them, as we've already said it many, many times. We do not have products, but we bring innovative solutions with the best technologies available on the market. Some may not exist yet, okay? But thanks to our curiosity mindset, we will be there when they'll be on the market. Our teams are indeed curious and innovative. This is in our DNA. We support their appetite for innovation in our tools, in our offers. We focus on use case, as Jos said it. It's not innovation for innovation. It always starts with a use case. What is the problem? What can we do?
With all our customer portfolio, there are many, many problems. Of course, it's the support of the brands. With a network, they can replicate the innovation, show the use case, find the experts. There's always someone somewhere who knows it, who has done it, okay? But also with the VINCI program, the Leonard program, for example, that's where we developed Sprink AI, using AI to optimize our sprinkler design system or wave or direct current. I'm not allowed to disclose it, but on December 10th, VINCI will award its innovation trophy. Just stay tuned. I think you will see some of the fine VINCI Energies innovation. You see what we do. It has even caught the attention of the Harvard Business Review because surprisingly, I don't know how they came here, but they came to visit us.
Now there's a new business case at the Harvard Business School about VINCI Energies and innovation, how to do innovation without R&D teams. This is what we do. Supporting the environmental transition, we are well addressed. We are well positioned to address the global challenge of the environmental transition, especially in terms of CO2 reduction. 75% of the greenhouse gas emissions are coming from domains on which we are positioned. CO2 means energy, means electricity. Okay? Reduction means optimization. This is our core expertise and mindset. That's where we can help. We can bring solutions. We can support. Indeed, we are raising our team's awareness about the positive impact of our offers.
We have developed an internal tool called Eco2VE to assess the carbon footprint of our customers, of their project, and identify alternatives, things in terms of euro and CO2, and bring alternatives, reducing the CO2 footprint. It may be more expensive, but it reduces your CO2 footprint, and as a leader, we bring that to our customer, and in France, we also have grown positions, key people with key expertise called CarboLog, who are specialists who can talk about this because there's a lot of scientific notions, and you need specialists to understand how to do things, and this is, it's homegrown. It's amazing, so in a nutshell, as you've seen in the brand presentation, we are very, very well diversified by type of contract, expertise, and clients. We are on multi-segments, multi-segments, multi-opportunities of growth, multi-opportunities of replication. We have a wide portfolio of customers, more than 100,000.
The top 10 clients represent only 9% of our revenue with multiple contracts and customer decision makers for each client. Okay? So it's not just one client, one customer, many, many decision makers. 80% have been active for more than five years. That's what we call our dear old customers, which also means that 20% are new. And it's good. So we farm and we hunt. Add on top of that that our average order is EUR 70,000 and our average invoice is EUR 10,000. Remember your finance 101 class at business school? Don't put all your eggs in your same basket. And then you understand our resilience. It's the law of averages. We have more than 200,000 eggs each year in many different baskets, geography, business lines, and more. We look at them individually, whatever the size of the egg, we'll look at it.
We love slow business, small, recurring, low risk. 83% of our orders are below EUR 5 million. For us, EUR 5 million means large, and it means a special attention. And the threshold may be different with our competitors. Some it's 20, 50, I don't know, but I think we have a very low threshold about what we call large. So what is a large project? Of course, there's a size criteria, but we select them with a purpose and a strategy. It comes from a shared strategic plan, and we'll refer to it after the break. So we have a plan. We have dedicated teams who are disciplined in terms of risk and contract management. We make sure our BUs can perform part of the scope and that we have most of the expertise. So we don't go for EPC or general contracting.
We know the customer, and we want to have a long-term relationship with him. So that's how we select our large project. Typical duration is around three years from two to five, and the realization may vary from one year to the other. So revenue is not linear, okay? Revenue is not linear because the phase of the project is different. So we still apply Quartz to these projects with our prudent mindset, and you will think about it later when I talk to you about Quartz. For example, we don't take change orders until we have a real executed agreement of the customer. And we have a zero result approach on project until the last phase of the project. We are prudent. We are really, really prudent. So as you can see, I will tell large is getting bigger. Large is getting bigger.
We have booked 221 projects over EUR 5 million last year. The average size was EUR 16 million, mostly in infrastructure and Building Solutions, out of which 213 were between EUR 5 and EUR 50 million.
So the bulk is between EUR 5 and EUR 50 million for EUR 2.6 billion. And this is twice as much as in 2019, okay? 2019 was 107 projects for EUR 1.6 billion, so almost EUR 10 million. So yeah, large is getting bigger, okay? Why? Why is it getting bigger? Typically because our customers need our capacity, and they need our expertise, especially in overhead lines, substation, or multi-technical packages on buildings. They need one global player, and they want to commit resources for the future. An example in Benin. We had a EUR 300 million project delivered in three years. At that time, it was our biggest project ever to reinforce and extend the grid in Benin.
It was broken down into over 20 individual projects, and now we're having a permanent location over there. Because why did we do that? It's because we want to grow our business in Benin and Africa. Okay, so we want to train people, understand the country, train the local force, train management, and then to be able to roll out our offers in Omexom or Building Solutions, and it was delivered on time and on profit, believe me. This is a typical example of what a large project is: self-performing with a purpose, and this is getting bigger. As we have shown you, there's not one key segment, not one key country, not one key service offering. We are fully, fully diversified, ready to grasp many, many opportunities with a bundle of technical expertise. Energy transition and digital transformation means business for us.
To go further, if you want to nourish your vision about our activities and markets and our wide and emerging spectrum of expertise, I encourage you to surf on The Agility Effect. You can go on the internet, or you can subscribe to our LinkedIn letter, The Agility Effect newsletter, and join the community of 140,000 people who read it, I think, twice a month. You will see a lot more about all the opportunities about the environmental transition and the digital transformation. I think now it's time for a break. Thank you for your attention. 30-minute break, time to have some coffee, bio break, and stay tuned for the second part when we go deeper into who VINCI Energies is, after what, who, and how. Thank you. Welcome back. I hope that you've had a nice break. I hope that you haven't forgotten everything.
If there's just one thing, please remember that we are very well positioned and with many, many bright opportunities. But of course, we're not the only one. Of course, our peers are also positioned on the same market trends. We have a bigger footprint, maybe, and not maybe, we have a bigger footprint and a more diversified portfolio. So the what is well shared, but the who and the how make us really unique. This is our key differentiator. This is what I would like you to remember: the who and the how are sous-jacent, our underlying assets. We believe that we have a strong culture crafted by 50 years of experience and lessons shared and a unique entrepreneurial model based on decentralization and networking, and Quartz make us unique. So stay tuned if you want to know more about Quartz because you will know more about Quartz.
So our culture is based on values explained and shared. It's like a compass that guides our ways of working and behaviors. They're important. Decentralization means that the key element is the business unit. Our model is therefore scalable and explains our resilience. We are well disciplined, like you today, coming back after the break. We operate within a framework, and this is really unique. If we don't explain it, it may look like a sect, even within VINCI, okay? But once it's explicit, it turns out to be very, very powerful. And people, as you will see in the movies, are very, very happy. So it's not a sect. It's easy. We have interviewed my predecessors to keep their testimony alive and to remind us, how did we get there where we are today? Where do we come from?
This three-minute video is an abstract to introduce you to our culture. L'histoire de VINCI Energies, c'est avant tout une histoire vivante. En mettant la marque en place, ça a permis d'être lisible vis-à-vis du marché. Ça a donné un ton d'autonomie et de responsabilité. Quand on voit ça aujourd'hui, quel chemin parcouru ? VINCI Energies is a 300-year-long industrial saga written by entrepreneurs. It is the result of uninterrupted growth grounded in our essentials. Quand je suis rentré dans le groupe, le système de gestion qui ne s'appelait pas Quartz encore à l'époque était déjà un élément structurant du groupe. L'essentiel de VINCI Energies, c'est fait de règles et de principes de gestion. C'est fait d'une vision du management des entreprises de nos domaines d'activité, c'est-à-dire des entreprises agiles, à taille humaine, qui ont la capacité de travailler en réseau.
Our networked organization fosters responsibility, autonomy, and an entrepreneurial mindset. These are our cardinal values at VINCI Energies, the values we instill in everyone we hire and bring on board alongside trust and solidarity.
Je pense que c'est une belle vision de dire que dans ce groupe, chacun est entrepreneur de sa fonction, chacun est entrepreneur de son projet, chacun est entrepreneur de sa trajectoire individuelle. Et l'esprit d'entreprise, il est essentiel pour le développement, pour l'innovation, pour l'invention.
VINCI Energies brings its customers tailored multi-technical solutions from all its companies through its four brands.
L'organisation en marque permet aux gens de se comprendre et d'échanger. Et c'est aussi un aimant en matière de croissance externe. C'est vraiment la croissance externe qui a créé la dynamique.
Je me souviens que le patron de la Générale des Eaux, dont on était filiale, avait dit : « Mais 100 entreprises, vous allez continuer comme ça ? » Sous-entendu, ça ne va pas, quoi. Il y en a 2000 aujourd'hui.
VINCI Energies has continually expanded its expertise and global presence. It began moving into Northern and Eastern Europe in the 1990s and 2000s, started growing worldwide when it acquired Cegelec in 2010.
L'arrivée de Cegelec dans le groupe, qui est une croissance qui était importante, plus de EUR 3 billion de chiffre d'affaires, donc le chantier qui s'ouvrait à nous était immense. À chaque fois, ça a été des sauts quantiques, des big bangs qui permettent aujourd'hui d'avoir le VINCI Energies magnifique que nous connaissons.
The result is an organization made up of companies that are close to their customers, attentive to their expectations, and at the heart of their energy choices, infrastructures, and processes. Our companies are all committed to digital transformation and to the global challenge of environmental transition.
C'est notre capacité à nous renouveler, à nous régénérer, à transmettre ces valeurs, à transmettre les recettes qui ont fait notre succès, qui sont le succès de demain.
So this is our DNA, our core identity. It is what we present to our teams, and the combination of the three makes us unique. So first, proximity. It's both with our customers. I think we've explained it a lot this morning, but also with our teams. We like human size, okay? Proximity with our teams. The values, as mentioned, they guide our individual behaviors. It's more than words. There's an explanation, illustration.
It's a compass, and it's universal in France and outside of France, in Germany, in the U.S., in the U.K., in the Nordics. It really brings our people on board and what bonds them. qq third, how we do things. Of course, Quartz, so solid and transparent. It's about management principles. You will hear about full cost, about changing productive hours. You will hear about standard rates, and you will see that we are conservative. It's about decentralization on a human scale. We believe that the closer, the smarter. The closer to the field, the smarter, the better the decision. So we support the ones who are doing, and we support the one who needs help. It's about networks because we connect. Otherwise, it's just a galaxy. It's about shared principles on projects with prudency and transparency. It's about long-term, no one-off. We always think long-term. And the strategy, bottom-up.
So it's not my strategy. 2,000 business units, 2,000 strategies. Okay? It's bottom-up. Very important. Bottom-up. And there's one event every year, and now it's the season. It's the shared strategic plan season where the business unit gathers together. They think about their market, they think about their expertise, they think about their customers and what they see, what they want to be in three years from now, what they should do. And they have the better knowledge because they're close to their customers and to the market. So that's why we segment, because we have specialists and we empower specialists. So SSP is clear. Remember, earlier I mentioned SSP. Everything starts in the SSP while you plan for a three-year vision. We give people for the three-year vision. And then acquisitions. It's like a recruitment, and they're carried out by operational. We don't have an M&A team.
We have plenty of M&A teams. Okay? Acquisitions. So this model has not come from consultants. It comes from 50 years of experience and lessons learned. It has French roots, but it has proven universal, as Jos and I can testify. I met Guy Richard, one of the former CEOs of GTIE, and I think I almost had my final interview with him in 2019. He came to Montesson, and he told me that before 1972, he worked on electromechanical projects, and he was losing money and at some point faced bankruptcy. So he said, "Never again. Never, never, never again." So to earn money, how do you do that? You don't lose money. That's the basic thing. You don't lose money. So it means project by project. You make sure that you don't lose money on any project. And that's how you earn money.
It's about humility and generosity. This is an extract of his retirement speech that I found when he died in our archives in 1994. All of these words are still living proof and living examples today. We are a customer and people-centric organization. I know that you have to understand better our organization. It may look complex from the outside, but it's very straightforward and systematic. The core is the BU, in French, entreprise. To have an entrepreneurial mindset. Okay? It's a poor translation in English, but the core is entreprise. It's not an agency. It's entreprise to give our people an entrepreneurial mindset. Entreprise starts with segmentation and with autonomy. The BU general manager, he's in charge. He's the captain of a boat. He's seconded by RA, responsable d'affaires, also a French word.
We decided not to translate it because it means it's not a project manager. It's somebody who's responsible from beginning to end. He's fully committed. He knows his customers. He promises. He makes a quotation. He executes, and he delivers. So RAs. And then he's supported by his perimeter director and then the pole MD. So at VINCI Energies, you have BUs, 2,000 BUs, and then they do everything. They're autonomous. They can do everything. On top of that, you have a layer of directors, perimeter directors, small team, one director and a controller. And they're in charge of five or six BUs, supporting them, making them grow, connecting them. And then when you have six or seven perimeters, you have a pole MD, okay, with more finance, legal, HR. In a country, in an area specific, for example, we have a pole.
We had a pole in Belgium with the full scope of activities. Now it's getting too big, so we will have two poles, one with Building Solutions and the rest with infra, ICT, and industry. For example, in industry, you have in France and Germany, you have regional poles dedicated to industry because it's too big. In Portugal, a pole with all the trades. So what they do depends on their segmentation, but it's pole. So in everything, VINCI Energies is organized with poles. Okay? We had 38 poles in 2017. We have 53 in 2024, and we'll have 57 in 2025. So everything is organized the same way in pole, with pole MDs, directors, and BU general managers. So our organization is very, very consistent. That's why it's replicable. But then networking is key.
In a nutshell, it's like a fleet of vessels, you know, small boats, but without collision. I was at the start of the Vendée Globe, and you see all these boats, you say, well, you wonder how they will not collide. VINCI Energies, there's no collision because competition is forbidden and collaboration is key. Okay? And the BU GMs are the boat captains. So they operate. It's a network of entrepreneurs operating within a very well-defined framework with no anarchy. Very systematic, very process-oriented. So this is the heart of our organization. Once you understand the BUs, the organization, the values, everything, you understand VINCI Energies. So now I will leave the floor to Nathalie, who will tell you a little bit more about the framework.
Quartz. Our Quartz culture is the common framework that connects all our business units in our decentralized organization.
Quartz is our common language and our shared vocabulary. Quartz is taught in our training academies all around the world, and Quartz is part of the training path of a new hire at VINCI Energies. Marketing segmentation is part of Quartz. It's a strategic tool and the key success factor of our organization. Our organization is customer-centric. Every business unit regularly analyzes its positioning and aligns its offering with the changing needs and expectations of its clients to stay at the forefront of its sector and seize new opportunities for growth. Marketing segmentation ensures on one hand the clarity of the offerings to our clients and on the other hand, the specialization, competitiveness, and efficiency of our business units. It prevents us from internal competition, and it facilitates synergies and collaboration between our business units.
Marketing segmentation is regularly reviewed, most recently this year, to adapt it to the evolution of our businesses and our markets. Quartz consists of very simple but strict management rules. Projects are calculated at full cost. That means that all direct and indirect costs are charged on the projects. This enables the project manager, Responsable d'Affaires, to know exactly what the final project result is and when negotiating the precise point at which a project is making losses. The budget is at the heart of the business unit management. Each year, according to a formalized and standardized process, each of our 2,000 business units establishes its budget and presents its SSP, shared strategic project, which will be its objective and its framework throughout the year.
The Business Unit general manager has a clear and complete view on the result of his Business Unit, and he or she is responsible for it. He is incentivized on the result of his Business Unit. Bonuses, as well as profit-sharing schemes, are based on the Business Unit results in our organization. This system driven towards profitability is combined with the principle of transparency. Everyone at their level, project level, Business Unit level, must be transparent about gains, losses, and risks. Prudence is also part of VINCI Energies' DNA. Prudence is required for the calculation of results. Costs must not be underestimated, and risk must be taken into account as soon as they become known. All these Quartz principles are embedded in our ERP. We call it a Codex, Codex Quartz Inside.
Almost all our business units are using Codex and are counting, pricing their project in the same Quartz way. We quickly deploy our ERP Codex when we acquire a new company. This is not negotiable, and this is part of the integration process. It enables us to ensure systematic quantification of the new joiners. Our model based on full decentralization and on Quartz principles drives an agile, resilient, and scalable organization. We are agile because we are consisting of a network of 2,000 business units with an average size of EUR 10 million revenue, 50 employees, human scale across four business lines and 61 countries. We are resilient because our business is made of more than 200,000 projects per year, the average size being EUR 70,000, mainly flow business with recurring customers. We are scalable. Scalable because our organization is constantly on the move.
Every year, we are creating new business units coming from the external growth, of course, but also from our segmentation exercise driving to the rescaling of existing BU or to the creation of new internal startups.
Thank you, Nathalie. The key, you have an organization, you have processes, but the key is people. You can do nothing without people. And it has been also the case at VINCI Energies, as Guy Richard mentioned in his retirement speech. It has always been the case. We are a people-centric organization. We like human scales. So Nathalie mentioned human size. This is important. The BU general manager should know all his employees. And when it's getting too big, maybe we have a segmentation issue. And that's what we call rescale to make it human size. And by dividing, we create value, okay, because we are leveraging managerial entrepreneurial management, managerial energy.
We grow our teams. They embody our model and culture. We take from young grads to pole MDs. Okay? And by the way, Nathalie didn't mention it, but she's like a young grad at VINCI Energies. And we managed to grow our managers. We were 16,000 in 2019, and we were more than almost 20,000 in 2023. So we're able to grow our managers, giving them the values, giving them our model, giving them our Quartz. People stay with us. We value seniority and experience. Look at the top 100 executives. More than 20 years of seniority. The senior managers, more than 16 years of seniority. The resignation rate is low. And among our top almost 2,000 employees, less than 2%. Of course, our employee shareholder scheme is critical. 80% of our employees are shareholders of VINCI in France and 28% outside of France, and we are rolling that out.
And we're also, of course, more international. We have a focus on gender balance and young people, and it is based on conviction. Why we want to do that? What's the benefit? And we believe in a human organization, people-centric, that diversity is key and that it brings us, it makes us a better company. And we have to drive that culture, BU by BU. And we're working on it. We think long-term with internal succession plan. So we're homegrown leaders. So to train our teams and disseminate our culture, talent development is key. The VINCI Energies Academy was launched in the 1990s, and today it's a network of 56 learning centers in 21 countries. Academies are focused on culture and management development. It's like an internal business school for entrepreneurs. And we are also connecting our technical training centers, what we call institutes.
We have almost 800,000 customized trainings in 15 languages, so we can share the knowledge, we can share the best practices and adapt them so you don't start from scratch in a country. For example, I was in September in Quebec, and we launched the VINCI Energies Academy in Quebec and the Omexom Institute. We brought all that was in the network somewhere just to launch an institute. It's fast-tracking our learning process, okay, all the benefits from the network. We have a learning network governance. Our commitments also reflect our values. We care about people. Our teams are generous, and we support the local commitments, and we recognize their contribution to CSR initiatives. We have some major initiatives. The first one since 2017 with Initiatives- Cœur, who is running the Vendée Globe right now, supporting Sam Davies.
By the way, we'll give you this teddy bear that is representing every child that is saved. With this teddy bear, there's a three-year-old donation just to support, to raise funds for this charity. It's a beautiful charity. Please go and look, and we're happy to give you that. We also did some initiatives with UNICEF, with dedicated programs in Brazil, Benin, Timor-Leste. We foster, we foster all the many, many, many local initiatives around CSR because that brings purpose, that brings bonding to our business units. Of course, social dialogue at the local level is key. We have a long history and background and track record about social dialogue. In terms of safety, we strongly believe, and I strongly believe that all accidents can be prevented. We want to embed safety into our strong business culture. We can still make progress.
It's a transformation project, okay? We have common expectations for all our managers, and we have actions and initiatives at the BU level and site level. And of course, we're responding to environmental challenges. So in a nutshell, we're about people, we're about the planet, about profit, not revenue, profit and purpose. And it's at the BU level, each level, and this is powerful. And everybody has initiatives to grow around these four axes. So I hope that you now better understand who we are and how we do things. Our consistency is our strength. As you say in Belgium, "L'union fait la force." We all do the same things, okay? Our model and our culture is driving our business decision. This is our underlying asset. So you have to think not about what you usually have in mind.
Look at our model, our culture, and that's the way we address the market. Our DNA is at the core of our business model with decentralization and networking within a framework. Segmentation is key. It gives clarity, focus, and facilitates collaboration. And we believe that small is beautiful. Small streams make big rivers. Our sweet spot is full business, and we know how to selectively address larger projects. Our model, and that's the beauty of it, is scalable, replicable, universal, all countries, and it explains our resilience. So acquisition, it's also part of our DNA. And we have a great track record on that topic. Not only at acquiring companies, I would say this is easy, very easy, just make a check. More important is to integrate them. And that's what we call Quartification. What does Quartification mean?
It means transforming the organization and the culture to ensure consistency and bring them into our network. So as Nathalie said, first put the ERP, non-negotiable, usually takes one year. Because on top of the ERP, what is really important, it's not only the ERP, it's the organization, put BUs, put BUs in place. Okay, you have the company, you see it as a big company, but we see it as how many BUs will have in that company, how we can decentralize this company. So what are the BUs? What is the segmentation? So that's number two, level two of the Quartification. Level three is empowerment and networking. Make sure that the local people, the people closest to the field, they make the good decisions. So empower them. And we have job titles, so we know what it means.
Then networking, connecting them in the networks to bring all their value. This is Quartification. It's a key pillar for our growth strategy. Acquisition is quasi-organic growth. I know you love organic growth. It has allowed us to expand geographically, to densify locally, and to broaden our offers and expertise. We focus on long-term value creation with a disciplined acquisition integration process, Quartification, crafted by years of experience. You will see that we do almost 26 per year, so one every two weeks. There is plenty of room for recurring bolt-ons and a few opportunistic larger ones. Our model is attractive for people. It has supported our organic growth. Next slide. It is also a key element supporting our external growth.
We connect new companies in our network of entrepreneurs. We give them support and a framework. They like, they love our model. But before making any acquisition, we identify our own integration team. You don't self-integrate. Okay? You need an integration team. It's a combination of operational people that know the business and IT and finance people that will roll all the support functions and roll out the ERP. So it's like a recruiting process. And everything, again, starts in the SSP. What we are looking for, what's the purpose? We grow our organization, we grow our teams, we grow our offers. We're just not like shooting ducks, okay? We have a purpose. We want to grow. We do not spend capital like a private equity fund. Okay? We don't have pressure to spend money. We grow our business. And this is key.
We've made 288 acquisitions in 10 years, 216 in 10 years and 28 this year as of Wednesday. But it's not the end. I think that one has been done today. That's 289. We have a really successful track record of acquisitions. This is why we have grown so quickly outside of France. Okay? This is the explanation why we've grown so quickly outside of France. We, of course, have the financial support of VINCI. As you can see, the amount spent each year is different. Why? Because first, we don't need to spend capital. We need to find the right targets. It takes time to integrate. Okay? It takes time. It's not a one-year process. It takes time. When you have high, when you spend a lot of money in investing, then you need a lot of time to integrate it.
So that's why it fluctuates. And it is normal. It's not like organic growth. It's normal, okay, to have a different pace. Our strategy, what is our strategy? First, we started infrastructure outside of France. Why? Because usually you have fewer customers, stronger base. You acquire a team, you recruit a team who knows the country, so they know the culture. So you became Kiwi in New Zealand, you became American in the U.S., you became Canadian in Quebec, you become, where else did we go? You became Swedish in Sweden, Norwegian in Norway, Finnish in Finland. They're three different countries. But with a big enough acquisition and that kind of business, then you understand the culture of the country. And then you're able to implement our own culture, okay, so that we have ambassadors. So that's what we do with infrastructure.
You can see on the pie chart, the green bar. This is our growth. Second, also driver of our strategy was Axians. Since 2014 in IT, also sped up our investment in IT. The big moves were, of course, you remember about Imtech. By the way, Imtech was the benchmark in 2012, the big company. But in 2014, 2015, went bankrupt because of lack of consistencies. And that's what we want to avoid, okay? So that's why we're very, very much focused on consistency. So Imtech, Kontron, Fernao, big acquisitions to speed up the IT business. And then with diversification in all our business lines, including in France. The prerequisite is to have the bandwidth of a management team, okay? Because you cannot do both organically and external growth. So you choose where you want to put your bets.
You can see, so the dark shade is outside of France and the lighter shade is in France. So you can see that we do acquisitions in France, but the ballpark is outside of France. So Nathalie, what is the contribution to our acquisitions?
As Arnaud told you, VINCI Energies is an external growth machine, a powerful and well-oiled machine operating in a decentralized way. We buy a company every two weeks. Over the last 10 years, we have carried out 26 acquisitions on average per year with an average annual revenue of EUR 23 million. Over the last 10 years, from 2013 to 2023, our revenue has increased by EUR 10 billion, almost 8% growth per year. 57% of this increase has come from external growth. That means that our acquisitions represent a quasi-organic growth of 4% per year.
4% per year, that must be considered in your valuation methodology. Furthermore, our acquisitions are accretive. Our external growth dynamic has not deteriorated the overall profitability of our capital employed. On the contrary, our return on capital employed has improved over the period, reaching almost 20% in
2023. So what is our know-how? It's like projects, it's about selectivity. And then it's focused on integration. How do we proceed? First, as I told you, culture is paramount. That's a cultural assessment. We favor direct approach. We do some auctions when we have to, but they're limited. I think 90% of our acquisition is done apart from auctions. We want to meet the teams. I told you it was a recruitment. We want to make sure, do we want to work with these guys and do they want to work with us? Okay? So it's very clear.
And we told them the story about what we told you about Quartz, about the segmentation, about autonomy, about empowerment. And we like to be chosen for quality and culture. Like to be the safe home for companies. Valuation, of course, is depending on size, expertise, and geography. Multiples are much higher in the U.S., in North America, in the Nordics, or in IT. And we carefully assess them. And third, it's about the integration team. As I told you, it was the preliminary condition. Of course, smaller is easier to integrate than bigger, than larger. Same as project. There's less risk in making 10 acquisitions of 10 million than one acquisition of 100 million. Okay? So yes, we've done and we do bigger acquisitions, but we like the small ones, the small bolt-ons. Just to, it's a quicker integration to our network. What we need is time.
It takes time. So we carefully look at the bandwidth from our management. Give you an example. We made the acquisition of PrimeLine in 2018 in the U.S. And just like three months later, we were solicited for an acquisition in Quebec, also of an infrastructure company. And so we said, okay, it's real interesting. We would like to do it, but we're busy with PrimeLine and we don't have anyone to send there. So we say, sorry, can't do. It's hard to say no. Okay? It's hard to say no, but we're trained to say no. And then one year later, we said, by the way, what happened to this company? So we asked back. And the transaction was not completed. So in the end, we ended up acquiring them because at that time, we had the bandwidth. We had a manager who was able to send over there.
And by the way, he went there during COVID. But we wouldn't have bought the company without meeting the management team. So we met them just during COVID to make sure they wanted to be on board with us. So we don't have an M&A team. It is local. Okay? Depending on the size, it can be at the BU level, perimeter level, or pole level, division level. The know-how and the process is shared. Quartification creates value. Okay? It creates value. This is the overall value of VINCI Energies. I'll give you an example. In New Zealand, we acquired Electrix in 2015. We had five BUs at that time for almost NZD 200 million. Last year, 17 BUs. So we cut NZD 340 million. Okay? And profit has increased. So to roll out our model with decentralization, empowerment, full cost, and focus on profit brings value.
So how does it contribute to value creation? So first, it starts with valuation, of course. And we have a strict discipline about multiples, and it's usually well below our own multiple. And we're trying to assess the normalized EBIT, okay? But the value, you assess the value also long term, but it's when you have to make a valuation, when you make an acquisition, you have to see what the real results are. And then you have the Quartz effect. It's the full cost effect. Okay? It casts a different light on the project. Are they really profitable? Okay? When you put all the overheads on the hours on the project, is it really profitable? Okay? And of course, when you have a 20% gross profit margin, okay, when it goes down to 18%, okay, no danger.
When you have 2% net margin and you go to zero, you enter the danger zone, okay? And that's the benefit of Quartz, the full cost, okay? So it casts a different light on the project. And effectively, the diluted revenue is reduced because we focus on profit and margins are improved, okay? So there may be a slowdown in revenue at the beginning. But long term, with the network effect, we're connecting BUs with the brands, developing offers and references. So it brings organic growth. Midterm, it brings organic growth. And at the end, it's also a key driver to grow our teams and our organization. There's always something to be learned from external growth, and it brings us diversity, okay? We're not a self-centered company. We're open. And it brings us a lot of diversity. What are we looking for?
I will repeat that, and I say that to all the bankers that come to visit me. No transformation. We don't want a transformative deal. Okay? No transformation. We're about preservation. We're about preservation and transmission. So what we're looking for is additional expertise because we don't have all the expertise that they've shown you with the brands everywhere. So we can also speed up by doing it organically or look for companies that bring us this expertise. We also want to expand our geographical footprint. Of course, when you go to the U.S., it's a geographical footprint expansion. But when you're in Switzerland, from one canton to the other canton, it's also a geographical footprint expansion. And we do that too. Okay? And it brings us also additional resources like blue-collar workers where they're needed in Germany, white-collar workers for Axians IT and managers.
There are plenty, plenty of opportunities, and as I said, it starts from the SSP of the pole, of the BU, of the director. First, you have to get organized, get the integration team to assess what we want. We're also disciplined regarding deal prices. We're looking for fair prices, but we're disciplined. Acquiring, as I told you, is easy, and the real journey starts with integration, Quartification. I know that Christian doesn't like the word, but it's really powerful, and people who've gone through that, they know what Quartification means. A lot of transformation process. First, selectivity. We have go, no go, okay, criteria. We have valuation. We have tools so that we can analyze all the data the same way, and we share the tools and the approach and the shared criteria. It's like risk management, okay, like a project.
When you bid for a project, you have a risk management process. For an acquisition, it's the same thing, but with different criteria. And then integration is like an internal process. It's adapted to the local context and people. It's not one size fits all. Okay? You have to adapt to the people, to the business. And we just clearly define what we want to accomplish in three days, in three weeks, in three months, in three years. Okay? We have a roadmap. And this guide, making a success of our external growth, is just a gathering of all the lessons learned into our acquisition process. So it takes usually from one to five years, depending on the size. And in the end, we always succeed. It may take longer. We may take more energy, but in the end, we quartify. As I told you, consistency is key.
We don't want to be like Imtech. Okay, so no deviation. Quartz, quartz, quartz. With the people, we take time to convince people. They come on board and if not, maybe sometimes we hire people from the outside or we send people and transform the business, but this is really key and we share our best practices and recommendations to disseminate our know-how. So I would like you to watch this short video. We have interviewed some key executives of various companies that we have acquired in the recent years. And you will see, because I've talked a lot, but these are our living proofs of what safe home means.
"Lorsqu'il y a eu l'intégration dans les premiers mois, mon patron m'a informée que je devais assister à un séminaire.
Et pour moi, ça a été une source d'anxiété incroyable parce que j'étais seule, j'allais là-bas puis je me disais : « Bon, à quoi ça va ressembler ? » Finalement, quand je suis arrivée là-bas, j'ai rencontré des gens extraordinaires. Eine meiner größten Sorgen war, dass die Menschen mit der Veränderung an sich nicht umgehen können und sich daraus Befürchtungen entwickeln. I felt very welcome. And I think it's very important, the fact that we are open and the fact that we have so many people joining because external growth, it's so common. It's very good and it makes us feel part of the team very quickly and very easily.
One of the most fulfilling moments in an integration process is the moment that we put the company in Codex.
The first job of the integrating director is really to understand if the management team in front of us will operate, will absorb, will adopt our philosophy, our way of life, VINCI Energies' values, and our management philosophy, Quartz. Part of integration is opening up the network and being a further part of the team, speaking the same language, having the same values. And that was really important to our team to scale, to work together, to communicate much more efficiently.
I did many connections and I did many meetings and I met many colleagues. It was strong and powerful in our group.
Durch diese schnelle professionelle Integration und dieses Willkommenfühlen in der Organisation, wir keine Leute verloren haben. Es war schön zu sehen, wie viel Motivation, Freude, Lust auf Neues unsere Leute.
Les gens qui vont suivre ont beaucoup d'opportunités dans cette entreprise-là, puis c'est ce que je veux qu'ils sentent.
Quartz and integration means to me having a similar value, speaking a similar language, looking at projects and risks the same way, and being part of a growing family and a scalable foundation.
VINCI Energies a vraiment la capacité de nous mettre à disposition tous les services périphériques, que ce soit du juridique, de l'informatique, de la finance et autres, et j'en passe, la RH. Et donc ça nous a permis vraiment de se focaliser sur notre développement.
I can honestly say that they let us run the business in the country, which we know, under the common umbrella of values, systems, philosophy of doing business. Ça nous a apporté beaucoup pour identifier aussi nos leviers, les marges de progrès. On achète mieux. On était persuadés qu'on achetait très bien.
Donc on a vu vraiment la force du réseau au niveau achat. We saw at all different levels of the business, the value sharing, the best practices.
And I feel it really sets the tone for us to scale the business.
C'est incroyable tout ce qu'on voit, tout ce qu'on peut faire, puis tout ce que l'entreprise peut nous apporter. Les opportunités ne sont pas seulement au Québec, elles sont aussi à l'international. Alors c'est vraiment une croissance incroyable.
When we looked to a company three, four years after the integration started, and we checked that this company operating in our way of life with our management principles is more profitable than before. While we in Poland are already a very strong player in IT, joining the group and exchanging, sharing the knowledge is something which brings us more power, more safety and resilience, and more opportunities.
On espère multiplier par deux l'activité d'ici deux ans. Si on n'était pas rentré dans le groupe, c'était certain qu'on serait resté toujours numéro deux dans l'attribution des marchés et donc on n'aurait pas réussi à concrétiser.
So you see, there are real ambassadors of VINCI Energies. And this is the beauty of the model. It's really beautiful. It helps grow our organization in a consistent and structured way. And this is fulfilling. And by the way, you can see they have each their own personality. Okay? It doesn't mean that the value, Quartz, everything, we don't fabricate clones. We need you to be natural. So with the culture in Poland, the IT culture, US culture, Portuguese culture, French culture, and some of them are entrepreneurs. They started a business, their own business, 20 years ago. But we give them a different flavor.
Then once they understand it, they can still remain themselves, true, natural, and sincere. That's the testimony. That's a highlight. Okay. There are still plenty of opportunities to grow. We are in a fragmented market. We want to remain selective, okay, and disciplined to preserve our DNA. We want to take the time to quartify and integrate. That's the real success. See these people. Our managers are living proof that it works. It's the same mindset as of projects. As I told you, times 10, times less quickly than 100. We have added more than one billion EUR per year, both organically and through acquisition. It is a lot of work. Okay? Making the check, signing a contract, making wire transfer is easy. The real work is after. This is our know-how. Small streams make a big river. We're not mammoth hunters.
Neither for very large projects and neither for very, very large acquisitions, unless it makes sense. Our core strategy is to grow through recurring bolt-ons. And from time to time, we may make a larger one, depending on resources and expertise. So I hope, and I guess, and you will have time to ask questions, that you're convinced that we have a real M&A know-how, okay, based on culture and experience, with a real track record that explains our growth. External growth is treated as organic growth. It's the same mindset. There are still plenty of opportunities in these fragmented markets. And aside from a 15% market share in France, we are less than 12% outside of France. The real driver, the real driver is to grow our teams and our organization. That's what we look for. Okay?
To address these markets and to develop our offers and expertise, we want to grow our teams. Our key asset is our model, and consistency is our strength. So now looking ahead, make it simple. We want to use the same recipes that have proven to be successful because our model is scalable. There's no bottleneck, okay? No bottleneck. It will be a matter of densification to roll out our expertise in all our business lines in our current geographies. And remember the presentation of my colleagues, all the expertise, all the geographies. There are a lot of things that we can still do. Okay? So looking back, from 2003 to 2013, we were scaling up in our core European markets. Cegelec was indeed a strategic move, and we were able to consolidate our model and culture. It was not like we received the Bible and just applied it. Okay?
It's been based on experience. At some point, we said, okay, we need to make it explicit, and I think Cegelec was a key driver. From 2014 to 2023, with my predecessors, we have broadened our horizon. First, outside of Europe, in Asia-Pacific, U.S. and Canada, and in IT. Wider horizon, and now onwards, we try to bolster our leadership, remain in the same geographies. It's a big enough footprint, so no new countries, okay? We have enough to do, and it takes time to understand the culture of a country, but we have room to diversify and roll out our expertise and offers. Growth is not an objective per se. It comes from our strategy, and everything starts again in our SSPs, and since we have an entrepreneurial model, we end up growing, so by 2030, we will be, I think, two-thirds outside of France.
Of course, in France, we will continue to grow, mainly organically. In Germany, we will increase our market share, and in North America, we will get stronger. Next slide. What we really like to do is to replicate our European success in North America and replicate our model. We want to grow our business. To illustrate what densification means, I've chosen three countries at different stages. Of course, France, most mature. Even if we are quite strong with a 15% market share, we can still make some acquisitions in niches, in HVAC, in robotics, in IT. They have ideas. My colleagues have a lot of ideas, and we can deal with organic growth and develop new offers. So it's a good base for new innovative offers because we have the density. So look, 900 BUs, 40,000 employees.
In Germany, and we've been there for more than 50 years, quite balanced in all the business lines. In Germany, our number two country, we've been there for more than 25 years. We still have room to grow compared to France. And now we have a strong, solid, and experienced German team. So you can imagine, if they want to grow, they can grow. Okay? In ICT, in Building Solutions, industry, infrastructure, look, compared to France, there's room to a lot more. The driver is the team and the organization. And we have the good news we have a strong team. North America, it's a younger organization, around five years. But there are many, many, many opportunities in North America. But first, we want to grow our local teams, okay, to quartify so that we can grow champions. We will first address the needs for Omexom in distribution and substation.
We will continue to build up our Actemium network in automation and control system, and also starting to Axians. And by the way, we acquired a company last week in Axians, so telecom networks. Selectivity will be key. And the challenge in North America is the mindset and the culture. They are more and more private equity-oriented. But there are targets. There are companies that are willing to join our network. Of course, valuation is much higher, but we have to be disciplined. And we have to look for the right companies. There are. So we will find them. And now, besides France, Germany, and North America, now other countries, we want to get a bigger share in our European countries. We want to densify, expand our IT expertise and our various business lines. In Africa, not much for external growth.
We probably want to roll out our know-how from West Africa. And just to illustrate, in 2014, we were doing 124 million EUR in Morocco. And last year, we did 500 million EUR because of the needs for energy infrastructure and also buildings. They need to have access to electricity. They have a need for Building Solutions, offices, and hotels, quality, of course. And there, we can train the local teams, like what we're doing in Benin and Senegal. In Asia-Pacific, there's room for more Omexom, for Actemium, and for Axians. As a repetition, I would like to stress that our goal is to grow our teams and organization for diversification and resilience purposes. The smaller, the better. And the more dense and diversified, the better. Okay? So this is a driver. So our financial ambition by 2030, I know that's what you all came here for. Okay?
So where could that lead us to as a result of our strategy? I will give you some guidance on our growth. It is something that we're not used to do, okay? As I told you, we never set objectives on volumes. Never. So it's a guidance, okay? And selectivity is still a golden rule. And I will give you our objectives in terms of profit and cash. And we're used to setting such objectives. So first, growth. Of course, comparable growth. Is there a reason for something to stop when you look at the past 20 years? No. Our model is scalable. And with our entrepreneurial energy, it's dedicated as a whole to organic and external growth. A base case will be mid-single digit. And a more bullish case, high single digits. I mean, on average.
Of course, we are currently seeing a short-term slowdown in growth, but it will not impact our growth long-term. The level of activity can be impacted, among others, by inflation, of course, which is different country by country, by currency levels, and 30% of our revenues are not in euro. By the actual realization of our large projects, it can take longer, but they will be delivered, and if our 2024 level of activity is mid-digit, keep in mind that our 2023 growth was double-digit. So year by year, it will fluctuate, but long-term, it will keep on growing, okay, so that's for growth. Profits should keep on improving. It is a capacity market, and our customers need us. They have less in-house engineering. There should be a limit, though. Because what's the limit? Is sky the limit? No. We sell high-value services with fair compensation to our teams.
So there's a fine line between price and cost, opportunities and budgets. What is the market willing to pay? And what are the resources needed to deliver the projects? How much do you need to pay them? So there's always a fine line. And we're constantly challenging that limit. Okay? So there's always something, and we're trying to see the best. But we believe that we're sure that we'll be minimum 7.5% is within reach. Of course, with 100% cash conversion, because cash is king. That's for sure. We give priority to margin and cash generation over volume. As it was told, we incentivize our teams on profits and cash, never on volume. We are and will remain selective with this guidance. On top of this quantitative KPI, we include qualitative KPIs, such as safety, talent development, life in the network. Okay? So these are the guidance, three guidance.
But I will add a fourth ambition, which is more critical. It's about succession and team development. Our challenge is to keep on growing our teams and our organization to meet the demands, keeping our DNA and culture at all levels of our organization. We are looking for and preparing internal successions. This is the recipe of success. So we know that at each capital market day, everyone is claiming to be unique. Okay? I mean, you've attended a lot. Everyone's claiming to be unique. So with my colleagues, we spent a whole day in Ireland asking ourselves the questions, are we really unique and what makes us unique? And this is the summary. Fast-growing activities. The same goes for with our peers, of course. But still, it's nice to mention, and we are more diversified. So what is really unique is our culture and model.
We have the local decision power. Okay? Local decision power for everything, for projects, from HR, from M&A. We empower people, and that's key. We have an agile organization, which is scalable. We review it regularly, like Nathalie said. There's no bottleneck, and we are used to doing reorganization, segmentation, rescaling, and we unleash entrepreneurial energy. This is our real know-how, being agile, adapting our organization. We are attractive, and we have an in-house learning network. We grow entrepreneurs from RA to MDs. I think this is unique. I don't think, and I'm sure it is unique. Third, we have a global footprint. We are more diversified than our peers, bigger. We are present in the Nordics, in North America, in APAC, in Africa. We are multi-local. Segmentation is our key asset. It brings rationality, focus, and collaboration. We have a high diversity enhanced by external growth.
There's always something to learn by making acquisitions. And that's what we've proven to be doing. So to make it simple, it's about culture, people, and markets. By the way, this is the summary of the long discussions I've had last year with an investor who wanted to better understand VINCI Energies and its uniqueness. It is not complicated. Okay? You all believe from outside it's complicated. It's not complicated. It's pretty easy. Culture, people, and market. I hope that you now better understand the attractiveness of our group, what Quartz is and what Quartification means. A strong culture and unique decentralized model, our acquisition and integration know-how that we are well-positioned on dynamic market trends, well-diversified in terms of business lines, expertise, and geography.
When we look at our peers in Europe, in the U.S., even with a discount, or private equity, because we always compete with private equity, we believe that we have potential for valuation uplift. Okay? As private equity claims, when they come to us and try to offer us some targets, justifying a premium from their buy-and-build, they say it's a platform. And most often, it's not. Okay? We are a platform. We are a real platform with a track record of 20 years of acquisitions, recipes that we apply with discipline. So we know how to run the business. So we believe, as a platform, it's worth something. But rest assured, whatever the valuation, we want to keep on growing our organization and our teams. So now, Christian, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Arnaud. Thank you, Arnaud, and thank you to your dream team.
I think you understood that the outlook for VINCI Energies has probably never been so bright. Also for the VINCI Group, considering the growing share of energy-related activities in our business mix. With the powerful tailwinds that are the energy transition, the digital transformation, and the high potential for further M&A in all our core markets, which remain very fragmented and offer numerous opportunities of acquisition, we are confident, as Arnaud said, to print a mid- to single-digit revenue growth on average per year until 2030, along with an EBIT margin of at least 7.5% of revenue from here. Finally, a clear focus, obviously, on cash generation, with a cash conversion ratio of net profit to free cash flow of at least 100% on average over the period 24-30.
The enterprise value on EBITDA 2024 of VINCI Energies, average of the multiples retained by you, by the sell-side analysts covering VINCI, currently stands slightly below nine times. Such a multiple is clearly below other European names listed or recently acquired through M&A deals. For the listed stocks in Europe, the average multiple is around 10 times. Having a look at a panel of relevant M&A deals on the private market in Europe since 2018, the average multiple is rather around 11 times. To be straightforward, it shows clearly that VINCI Energies' European leadership and best-in-class performance are not fully valued with its current multiple of hardly nine times. I seize this opportunity to highlight that the M&A transactions mentioned on the slide as a basis of comparison are relevant because they are quite big, with enterprise values of the targets of at least EUR 400 million.
And as Arnaud told earlier, be sure that the average acquisition multiple for the bolt-on deals of VINCI Energies is much lower than this 11 times, since in most cases, VINCI Energies manages to negotiate direct deals with family owners. And finally, the value gap is much wider with the US players. Since the American peers of VINCI Energies are currently valued at around 15 times EBITDA 2024. So it means also that VINCI Energies' North American footprint is clearly undervalued. To go further and to think out of the box a little bit, the same observation can be done when comparing the current valuation of VINCI Energies with the multiples of other players active on similar market segments.
Arnaud mentioned a few names earlier this morning when describing the competitive landscape, of which, for instance, Siemens, ABB, Schneider Electric, which from time to time happen to be VINCI Energies' direct competitors in the infrastructure industry or Building Solutions business lines. They are valued between 14 times and 19 times EBITDA. Capgemini or Accenture can also be VINCI Energies' competitor in the ICT segment. You can see that their multiples, respectively 9 times and 16 times, are either in line or much higher than ours. When we analyze more in detail the valuation of VINCI Energies by you, by, say, sell-side analysts covering VINCI, we find out that the spread between your valuation multiples is quite unusual. The lowest multiple being hardly 7 times EBITDA, while the highest is a bit more than 10 times.
A spread of around 3 times EBITDA makes quite a big difference, bottom line. Almost EUR 6 billion, i.e., more than EUR 10 per share for a VINCI share. It calls for the following comments. While VINCI Energies' delivers over time predictable and robust earnings, sales side analyst model assumptions, gross margin and risk-reward may differ a lot between one and another. In addition, these multiples only partially capture, in our view, the structural growth ahead of VINCI Energies'. There is no premium in this valuation despite a clear leading position in France and in many European countries for VINCI Energies'. In addition, these multiples do not specifically value activities like ICT, whose multiples for pure players are much higher, as we just saw. No specific geographical areas which benefit from higher valuation in terms of multiples like U.S. and Canada.
We saw that the businesses in North America, similar to the ones of VINCI Energies', are valued up to 5 times and even up to 20 times. I'm thinking of Quanta and MasTec, 20 times. Finally, the additional revenue generation through bolt-on M&A, and we saw that it can generate around 4% every year of revenue growth, can be treated as a result as a quasi-organic growth. It's not taken into account in your evaluation, despite the potential creation of value. For the record, have in mind, but this has already been said, VINCI Energies acquires several dozens of companies every year with multiples which are far below its average valuation, since we are talking of small companies which are negotiated with family owners most of the time. There's a mechanical positive and a creative impact.
So how to look at VINCI Energies' to try to unlock this fair value? Which glasses to choose? Since VINCI Energies' businesses are low-risk, recurring, predictable, cash-generative, they could really be considered as a concession proxy business. But a concession business with no end, very limited CapEx, 1.5% of revenue, and last but not least, no regulation. As a result, a DCF approach to value VINCI Energies could make sense. The main assumption one could take are a WACC between, let's say, 7%-8%, which seems reasonable. A revenue growth, as Arnaud said it before, between mid to high single digit on average per year by 2030, along with an EBIT margin of at least 7.5% by 2030. In our evaluation, we took assumption at the low range of this guidance on revenue.
Considering the thriving and sustained market outlooks for VINCI Energies, we could retain a perpetual growth rate between 2%-3%. On top of that, this DCF methodology should obviously take into account the positive and value-accretive impact of regular bolt-on M&A. Based on that, you can appreciate the significant value creation that should result from a DCF modeling of VINCI Energies whose valuation could be pushed up to above EUR 20 billion in terms of enterprise value. Some analysts and investors could also go for a sum-of-the-parts methodology to value more properly, more accurately VINCI Energies. With such valuation methodology, one should take specifically into consideration and separately different things. VINCI Energies' leadership position in Europe, which makes it a premium choice for its potential clients.
The ICT business, which represents a growing share of the revenue, presently accounts for almost 20% of the total and which will benefit from strong tailwinds in all its core markets. Then the North American exposure of VINCI Energies, which offers a strong potential of long-term growth with a revenue of around EUR 1 billion presently, and especially in the U.S., which should benefit in the next years from the support of the new administration. And last but not least, the positive and value-accretive impact of M&A should not be forgotten. It encompasses the achievement at very reasonable prices of bolt-on acquisitions on a continuous basis and from time to time also from the achievement of more significant acquisitions. I think that now you better understand the long-term growth prospect and the financial metrics of VINCI Energies', which should contribute to boost the VINCI earning power in the coming years.
Hopefully that you have now enough tools to value more accurately VINCI Energies' potential and materially unlock its fair value, hopefully. We are now with Arnaud and his team ready to answer your question and start the Q&A session. Arnaud.
Oh, a lot of questions.
Then. Thank you for taking my question and thank you for the presentation. Sven Edelfelt, ODDO BHF. I would have three. Arnaud, you mentioned new transformative deals, but what about Cobra? Are there any synergies between you and them? And could you eventually merge at some point? Second question would be on the margin progression. It seems to me that inflation has been a factor of expansion in margin over the recent years. Can you elaborate on the dynamic between inflation, megatrend, and cost? And what I would like to better understand is the guidance of above 7.5%.
As Christian said, I mean, the future has never been so bright. So maybe the guidance looks a bit shy, I would say.
And the last would be to Christian. I mean, how the free cash flow generation is evolving so far. I think you mentioned at the end of September that free cash flow was in line with last year's level. I would be interested to know how is it like today?
For VINCI or
For VINCI.
For VINCI, yes.
Yes, it's for Christian.
Okay, I tried. So okay. So no answer from Christian because it's VINCI Energies'. Okay. Sven, thank you. We're not shy. We're prudent. Okay, so yeah, maybe it's prudent. But you never know in this business. There's a lot of IT like cybersecurity. You need the teams. It's a hot market, capacity market. So if you increase your price, you also increase your salaries.
So where is the fine line to be seen? Okay, it's labor-intensive. The margin progressions, inflation has no impact because we pass on inflation, because inflation is also for inflation of costs. Okay, equipment is more expensive. But we managed to pass that through to our customers because of our strict discipline and the way we look at, we make our estimation, the way we manage our project. On Cobra, I think it's often the elephant in the room in this question, but this question is indeed often asked. So short answer is no. Okay, no synergies, no merger. But I think I will elaborate a little bit more. A lot of you have attended the Capital Markets Day of Cobra last year, so you now have a full picture.
Cobra and VINCI Energies, of course, we're in the energy branch, but for reporting purposes at VINCI, we operate as independent companies. Okay, we very rarely compete. If and when it is the case, it was the case, there are obviously strict Chinese walls as required in particular by the antitrust laws. There are no synergies per se. We both bring value to VINCI, but in a different way. Of course, we're positioned on the same megatrends, but it's not the same business. Not the same risk profile. Not the same culture. Totally different. We do complement on expertise and geographies. It's like riding the same waves with different boats. Okay, José María has a motorboat and I have a sailboat. I don't think he can rent my boat and I cannot rent his boat. Okay, so we're on the ocean with different boats.
We're not delivering turnkey EPC projects in the energy sector. We do not have that general contracting expertise. Our geographical footprint is different. We are not originating and developing renewable energy assets. It's different. As Christian said last year, a merger will not create value. I might add, from my point of view, that it could even destroy value. Okay, when you have in your cellar a fine bottle of spirits, for you, it's spirits. Look a bit deeper. You have wine and whiskey, like nice bottled wine, nice whiskey. Does it make sense to put bottled wine in whiskey or whiskey in bottled wines? Does it bring value? No. Okay, and by the way, I like both. Don't misunderstand me. When Xavier informed me that VINCI was about to acquire Cobra, he told me that Cobra would not be quartified.
You know what Quartification means, okay? It means transformation, transforming an organization and a culture. Cobra does not need to be Quartified. They do not wish to be Quartified. And it will take a lot of resources to Quartify them given the size of such a transformation project. When we integrated Cegelec, we had an army, a French army of integrators. Okay, our current resources are dedicated to our own growth. There's plenty to do. So this is the long answer. But if you want to remember, the short answer is no.
Good morning, it's Victor from Bestinver. I have three questions. The first one is in order to have clarification. When you mentioned about the average growth on revenues until 2030, it's 4% that is coming from bolt-on acquisition. This is the first one.
The second one is on the growth that you are projecting on revenues and EBIT margins, how that is split in the different four business lines. So there is any line that is growing more faster than other or providing to you more margins. And finally, in terms of bolt-on acquisitions, it's something similar. In one of the four business lines, you identify more possibilities to invest. And regarding on this, some of your peers are thinking to invest high equity tickets on data centers. What is your strategy on that front?
Thank you. Okay. So everything is factored in. So I don't make a difference between external and internal and organic growth. As I told you, it's the same energy. So some years we'll have more external, some years more organic, but as a whole, it's a combination. Okay, so our guidance includes everything.
The four business lines, they're quite consistent. So there's not one better performer, not one with better perspective, and not one with better margins. So everything is consistent. So it's global. As for equity, this is not our beauty. Okay, we're not equity investors. We're technical integrators. So we will not put equity. PPP is for VINCI. PPP is not for VINCI Energies. We do small PPPs, small PPPs for street lighting, for some buildings with VINCI or in Germany for schools or in Belgium. But we don't have a big ticket of equity. This is not what we do. This is the VINCI core business. Yeah, hi. Thanks for the presentation. It's Elodie Rall from JP Morgan.
I have just two questions on acquisitions. First, about the competitive landscape and the multiples that you're seeing today versus yesterday and what you kind of are assuming in your projections by 2030 in terms of multiple pace. I know it's still fragmented, but you see more competitiveness at the moment.
The second is related to that, but more on U.S. ambition. Clearly, it's one of the big geographies you would like to grow further. How is it possible for you to really be competitive there in terms of acquisitions when you have large players already established there that can use their stocks that are higher multiple already? Really, how realistic do you think that is for you to grow in the U.S. and what kind of multiples and competitive advantage do you have there?
And maybe last one there on the journey on PrimeLine, you mentioned PrimeLine. Maybe you can tell us a bit more on that acquisition since you made it.
Thanks very much. Okay. Acquisition multiples, it has always been competitive, always. So nothing new. And a few years before, we thought that because of the debt crisis or everything or their high interest rates, I think multiples will go down. But there's a different rationality with private equity. So we don't see a decrease in multiples. But we don't go for these auctions. Our multiples are mostly for bolt-ons. And that's why we keep the same valuation. Okay, so the big deals, yes, they go crazy. Sometimes they go crazy. And sometimes it's not only the rationale. The rationale is not the price.
Some people want to make a big acquisition because they need to say they're willing to pay the price because they want to be transformed. We're not there. Okay, so we will remain. And there will be little inflation into our multiples because we believe that is what's the business worth. Okay, of course, the U.S. is more competitive. But I think the competition for us in the U.S. is private equity. And so we don't compete in the same markets. So whenever there's private equity, we will never be the favored player. And because of the American mentality, they like private equity. But not all players in America are private equity oriented. Okay, some want a safe home. And we've seen them at PrimeLine. They've gone the journey, growing their business, being sold to private equity once, twice, not building, optimizing.
And when they join us, they're very happy because then they grow. John S. Lander, by the way, who you saw, he started his business in 2003, one man. Okay, when he sold, he sold us his business, 800 people. So he's a real entrepreneur. Okay, and what he tells us and what his team tells us is what they like with our story is that we can grow the business. We can scale it because we have a long-term perspective, not short-term. So yes, there are American people who also think long-term. Okay, so there's room. We have room to acquire them. We have a place to acquire them. But we need to grow our integration team, John C. Lander and his team, or Peter Dirks and Actemium and his team. Okay, so we will find them.
Maybe it will not be big, big, big acquisition, but then we'll have the snowball effect. 20 million by 20 million by 20 million by 20 million, and then we'll grow. So not everybody wants to join Quanta. Not everybody wants to join a big U.S. company. Some do, and we're okay, we will not compete. And some don't. And what we have is we do it with a U.S. team. It's not a French team. It's not a Dutch team. It's a U.S. team. You have to be U.S. to acquire U.S. companies. And that's what we do. We are local companies. On PrimeLine, yes, it's a long journey. So integration, I think it's, I mentioned five years. It's around five or six years. Codex, we went to three waves of Codex. And the final go-live is January 1st. So they will be fully Quartzified.
Okay, and they've started to acquire companies. Now they're able to. We have to also, we learn also some lessons. We don't want to be union in the US. Okay, so we in the portfolio of PrimeLine, we had a union company operating in New York. So union is big volume, low margin, and high risk, high litigation risk. So, okay, we've learned our lessons. So like Comfort Systems, we don't want to be union. And all the bankers that come with nice targets, I asked them the question, is it union? And as soon as it's yes, sorry, not for us. So we've learned and we'll grow.
Thank you. This is Satish from Citigroup. I got two questions. So first is around the margin and the second is on M&A. So if you look at the margin progression, you went from 5.6%- 7%.
If I had to understand the building blocks for that, how much of it's actually related to you diversifying outside of France into North America? Or what does that bottom in terms of margin contribution? Because in the same period, you also shrunk your exposure to France, right? You went from 59% to 40%. And then also within that margin uplift, how much is actually coming from, say, M&A type activities, which gives you the scale or integration benefits? So organically, what does the margin evolution has been? What is the M&A top-up there? And then the second one is around M&A. And obviously, average deal size is about 23 million EUR. But why does it take three years for an integration? What types of activities that leads to three years, given you're also asset light? So it wouldn't should be faster to integrate in terms of timeline-wise.
And then on M&A itself, if you've seen, especially in the industrial segment, on ICT, we have seen soft industrial software. Siemens are quite big on that. What's your thought around that, like scaling up ICT, but with the industrial software? Thank you.
Thank you. So margin expansion. We cannot say what is coming from organic, what is coming for external growth. It's hard to say because we buy also companies that are low margin and we make acquisition of companies that are low margin with a fair price and then we increase the margin. So in the long run, it brings value. Okay, it's accretive. I would say, and if you remember the movie, Patrick Leblanc, the lesson is to earn money. The first thing is to stop losing money.
It's just by bringing our discipline and by stop losing money that we're able also to reduce the loss-making projects. And every year we have loss-making projects, okay, but we're trying to reduce them to gather the discipline. That's one thing for the margin improvement. Second thing is it's also become a capacity market, okay, because the trend is more and more a capacity market. They don't have the labor force. So we don't sell cost-plus. We're trying to find what's the value of our services. Okay, in some countries, they like cost-plus because they say it's risk-free. But we don't like risk-free like that. We like to bring value and to be able to sell our value. So that's also a part of better value, more demand, and more capacity. And so M&A is just merged into our business.
So it's difficult to see what is part of the M&A once it's organic. On ICT, just to tell you that we are not a software, we don't buy software. Okay, as Reinhard mentioned, we try to provide solutions with existing software. Or if we have a software, a small IP, it's a small IP linked to a process we know to add some capacity. Okay, so we're not going to buy like going like Siemens. We want to be on that market because we need to be, but with our specific know-how and niches and bringing solutions to our customers. Yes?
Yes, I think thank you very much for the presentation. It's Graham Hunt from Jefferies. I've just got three questions.
First one on cash conversion. It's been very high, about 145% in the past five years, and your guidance is to over 100%. Is it that we should expect a reduction back down to closer to 100 or just some color on where you expect cash conversion over the next couple of years? Second question on M&A. You mentioned that there could be the opportunity for slightly larger acquisitions within the energies business. What would those criteria be? What would push you over the line to do something a bit bigger? And then third question on US M&A. What are you seeing in terms of the pipeline right now? Where are we in the journey to get that snowball that you mentioned kind of really going and really sort of pick up scale in the US from here? Thanks.
So Nathalie, we'll give you the floor for the cash conversion. I will answer first the what are the criteria for larger. First, we need to have the integration team.
It's in the geography where we integrate it. It needs to bring something additional and an expertise. It's difficult because I don't have something particular in mind. We can do more in Building Solutions, for example, in Germany. Two years ago, we did Kontron ICT. It was a larger one, but actually we made it a small one because we integrated. It was not a big company. It was, I think, five or six or seven, 10 companies. We split them and integrated in different poles. We just spread the risk. Same as Fernao, maybe as a large acquisition, but we made an integration in Germany and integration with a pole in Switzerland. It's divide and conquer. Okay, that was why it was possible. Okay, the rest, it will depend on do we have the integration team?
Are we busy doing something else? Is it worth it? What's the benefit? So nothing specific in mind, but that's what we'll be looking for. The snowball effect in the US, you mentioned what is the we're just starting our acquisition for Omexom and for Actemium. We've been doing that like one or two per year since the past four years. Okay, so we're getting there. Cash conversion, Nathalie, the queen of cash. First, the cash conversion ratio, so above 100%, of course, is an average over the period. We have a strong focus on cash in our organization, in our Quartz principle. So we have a strong focus on cash collection, and we always try to negotiate the best favorable payment terms with our clients, getting large down payment on our large project, and we always try to remain cash positive on our projects.
That's a key of above 100% cash conversion ratio. Second, yes, we are very prudent in our accounting approach, and we take into account the risk as soon as they arise. Cash prediction is always difficult. It's not easier at VINCI Energies than at VINCI Energies. Sometimes you have the, you know, your end effect. In some years, when the money was costed, I mean, customers wanted to pay us, and we saw money coming, and we almost had an ask for it. Now it's getting more difficult, okay? We don't know the behavior of the customers. Yes?
Bonjour. Patrick Creuset, Goldman Sachs. Thanks very much for the presentation. I think you've set out very clearly, I think, the wonderful business you've built in VINCI Energies over the decades, the very strong growth prospects, and what makes you unique, your leadership position.
I think very few people in this room would disagree. So my question is, what's your assessment on why the market doesn't really understand or attribute the value that you see in the business, apart from the quality of sell-side analysts? And then the second question is, what, if anything, are you going to do about that valuation discount? That's the first question. Probably more for Christian, but happy for different opinions.
Christian, you want to answer?
Maybe. Difficulty to understand what we are doing exactly. It takes time to explain what we are doing. And there's a wide variety of businesses and geographies, and it has evolved quite significantly as we try to explain in the last 10 years, and it will continue in the next 10 years.
So the second point is continue to explain, continue to communicate, continue to spend time explaining, and with investors, analysts, etc. If your question is whether we intend to make a spin-off, the answer is no.
Second question then. There's been a lot of questions on the U.S. I feel like we've been talking about it for a while. I think your message has always been, we want to be in that market. Multiples are high. Is there more willingness? And meanwhile, the market has been growing quite strongly. So is there more willingness now to pay these high multiples and actually enter the market in size, also considering the current European and French backdrop?
We do pay our bolt-ons over there a little bit more expensive than in France. We know that. And in Europe.
So we do that because we know that's where we want to be. But what we're looking for is quality, quality of management. So yes, we'll be willing, but condition number one is to have an integration team, US integration team. And we're getting there with PrimeLine. Now we're quartifying our budget, our teams with Actemium. But now we have to grow our own American teams. It takes some time. And then we have to find the right target that is willing to be quartified. Okay? There will be some, but I believe that the big ones, they're not for us because they've been private equity and so that's not the story. It's more the family one. But if you look at, if you listen to Comfort Systems equity story, it's the same. At the beginning, small companies, non-union, family-owned, looking for a safe home.
So we can be the conference system for the infrastructure industry business. That will be our goal. It takes time, but our goal.
Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Éric Lemarié.
By the way, it's Marie who gives the mic, so.
Sorry about that. So Éric Lemarié, CIC Market Solutions. I got three questions, please. First, on the US, I would like to understand what's your view on the risks and opportunities related to a Trump administration and if you see maybe an opportunity there to expand further in the industry verticals on the back of the reshoring circular trends. It's my first question. I got a second question on France. Do you see the nuclear segments as an opportunity for VINCI Energies in the years to come going forward? And I got the last question on the risk profile of VINCI Energies.
You explained that some of the projects are bigger and bigger, larger and larger, not only certainly in the T&D verticals. Do you think that the risk profile of VINCI Energies is changing? And if it's changing, is it in the right direction?
Thank you. Okay, so I will answer two questions and then give the floor to Julio. So the Trump administration and the risk in the U.S., for us, first, we're not impacted by any tariffs because we do local business. Okay, so we have no risk regarding that. Then it's more about what is the business environment. I have to say that pre-election was more disruptive than post-election. And for the past 12 months, I mean, we saw all the utilities reduce their spending because they hate uncertainty.
After Thanksgiving last year, I think somebody somewhere just started to cut spending and then they all did the same. Say, oh, he's cut his spending and they all cut their spending. There was a big downturn of spending this year. But they need the spending on T&D because of AI, data centers, because of old network, because of the growth. The trend will be there. I think what the election gives us, regardless of Trump or Biden, is it gives us certainty and stability. The best news is that there's no contest about the election. Now we have perspectives. Okay, that's for the U.S. The risk profile for larger projects. It's not EPC. For us, we do it the same way. We cut it into small pieces, you know, like segmentation.
So it may be even more an opportunity because we put contingencies. We have a tight contract management. They need us, so we deliver quality. The only risk is the fluctuation of revenue because, you know, big projects, large projects, you cannot say one year by one year if you're doing 20%, 25%, or 30%. Maybe you have a delay on equipment delivery and then the revenue goes from one year to the other. So there may be more fluctuation. That's why I say long-term, there's no fluctuation. Okay, but on the profits and the cash, not at all. Julio, nuclear.
So today we are, so first we work on nuclear segments since decades in France. We are active in the existing park. Our turnover is approximately EUR 300 million in France.
And because we are historically on this market, we have prepared our teams to take advantage of the next generation of EPR2. We have been working in Flamanville since, I don't know, 15 years now because they have been late a bit. So we are prepared and we hope we will take our share in this new wave of investment in France. And when I told you capacity markets, EDF has a big challenge of having the supply chain, okay, having the fitters and having everyone. So they're just trying to figure out what is the right framework to make sure we're on board long-term and we can learn from one EPR to the other. So we'll be selective and try to see where we can bring the value. So it will be long-term and it will be a, we will play a role there.
Thank you.
Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. Maybe four, sorry. So firstly, just going back to the margins. So if you look at the graph in one of the slides, it's sort of been pretty steady and then the last three years has all of a sudden gone like this and now you're kind of telling us steady up, right? So what changed? So what was the sort of catalyst to all of a sudden breakout four years ago or something like that? Second question is on M&A. So you're, I guess you do a sort of post-mortem three years later, something like that. On average, how much do you think you've increased margins of all the sort of bolt-ons if you sort of do the post-mortems on your deals? I guess after a while, it doesn't make sense to look anymore, but at some point, at the beginning, I guess it does.
And maybe two detailed questions. One is sort of what is the working capital dynamics? Is it a negative balance, neutral, positive? What's the sort of ratios of potential sales or something like that that you can give us? And maybe sort of finally an accounting question. When you talk margins, do you take PPL monetization through or do you take that out? So when you sort of the intangibles that you acquire, do you book those and expense them or are they sort of below somewhere at the center and they're not in that margin number? Just for clarity's sake, thank you.
Okay, I will answer the first two questions and then give the floor to Nathalie. Margin, what is the catalyst? I think we got bigger and you know we are prudent.
At some point, there was too much prudence, so we just started to show because the risks were very well managed. We grew our team quickly, and when I think COVID gave us confidence because the way we navigated through COVID, it showed that we were able to tackle big issues, and that's why the margin started to expand and we started to move into a capacity market, so it's a combination of both. Having the right level of prudence, don't be too overprudent. It's always a balance, and then it will not go to the roof. You know, there's a limit. Of course, if it can be 7.6, we'll go there, but we'll have to do gradually, okay? M&A post-mortem, I think always, we always increase the margin and it's a contribution to our management improvements.
Sometimes we acquire companies that are already high, well-performing, and the trick is not to increase it, it's to keep it. Okay? And also we manage to keep it and then to increase their turnover. Okay? Keep the same margin and then increase the turnover. And that's what we also managed to do in some specific areas. I think your question regarding intangibles, I think we don't amortize any intangibles, but I will give the floor to Nathalie about the working capital dynamics. It's a technical question and I think it's out of my scope. Working capital dynamics. Once again, our organization is very cash-centric. We are very low capital intensive. So the working capital in our business unit is driven by this focus on cash. Always, always remaining cash-positive on our projects.
So when we are growing, when we are taking new projects, of course, the growth dynamic regarding working capital is favorable when we are growing. Yeah. And also when we do acquisitions, we put a focus on cash. So I think in the end, we increase their position. We improve their position. For the intangible, maybe I can add up something. So the policy is not specific in terms of intangible for acquisition. It's not specific to VINCI Energies. It's the same policy all over the VINCI Group. The difference between the price of acquisition and the accounting value, we have to reassess each asset and liability. And the part of the difference which is not allocated to asset or liability is treated as a goodwill and intangible, which is tested on a regular basis through impairm ent tests.
Thank you.
Hi, it's Marcin Wojtal from Bank of America. Two questions.
Firstly, how excited are you about your exposure to Germany, which is the second largest country? It looks like the industrial economy there is slowing, but on the other hand, there is large investment in electricity networks. So how does it balance? And second is on incentives. How do you incentivize your project managers or management of your subsidiaries to actually focus on cash flow and on EBIT margins? And can you just explain how do you promote accountability and transparency in an organization which is so large?
Okay, so I will answer that and then I'll give the floor to Reinhard. In a nutshell, yes, we're very excited about Germany, even in the industry. Yeah. How do we incentivize? First, it's because our system is consistent, so we assess everybody the same way. And this is what we teach.
When we talk Quartz, we say cash, cash, what is our result? And we may also have a trick because we force like financial costs on a project so that they know if the project is negative, then it decreases the results. Okay, and then we deduct it because it's artificial, but it makes sure that everybody's focused on being cash positive because if you're cash negative, then you have extra costs. Okay, so everyone is focused and that's part of that training. And part of training and examples and so from your peers, from your boss, from everyone, we're focused on cash. So Reinhard, Germany. Yeah, and me as an Austrian, I'm very excited about Germany because, you know, first we have the Energiewende. That's a project for the next 20 years.
Even if a new government may change a bit here or there how the Energiewende is going on, the need to invest and continue to build our infrastructure in Germany is immense because of all the things about, you know, data, AI, moving to electric cars, moving to heat pumps, some alternative to fossil fuel. So that's going to be keeping us busy for the next 20 years. We do not have a very large exposure with EUR 900 million to industry because industry is huge. So we have a market share of less than 2% in Germany, and even though Germany may deindustrialize a bit, there are lots of clients, and we feel it already now, who are investing in energy efficiency, in digitalization of their processes. Shortage of labor causes them to automate more processes.
That's exactly where we are with Actemium, where we can help with Axians as well. We're best positioned and we just need to be flexible and quick and have a clear strategy with our business units to adopt. We've seen it in the chemical industry in the eastern German part. There, the chemical industry has transformed already like 10-15 years ago, more advanced than maybe the chemical industry in the western part of Germany. We've been part of this transformation, doing good business there. You know, it's a no-brainer if you look at BASF in Ludwigshafen. In 2014, they started already to invest more outside Germany than in Germany. Base chemical produced in Germany, exported worldwide, is maybe not a long-term thing that is sustainable, but specialties again.
And then they have to change their production, change their processes, and that's where we come in and where we can help them. So I'm very excited, even though short-term it seems like the deindustrialization, but it is not really that big effect for us because we are very agile.
Thank you. I think we have questions from people watching out. So another question here.
Yeah, just two questions and thanks for the opportunity and thanks for the presentation.
Can you speak louder because we can?
Yes, two questions if I may to Boris Werner from Stifel and thanks for the presentation. When we look at your summary on the business, you have exposure to electricity by to the tune of 45%. If you had a magic wand, where would you want to see your knowledge base increase in the group by the end of 2030?
Do you think that electricity exposure is the right one to have? Obviously, energy and transition, and you don't feel worried about Trump and maybe Merz in Germany, but we shall see. Secondly, emerging markets is not really a focus for you at this point in time, but you know, given your business model, it should still be a market in a way. So it'd be interesting to hear what your thoughts on that are. Thank you.
Okay, so my wish and my want is difficult because you've seen these guys in the movie. I mean, we love everything. We love everything. So it's good. Everything is good business. So we will grow all our businesses. There's not one that will stop growing. I think if we do it professionally with our culture, it brings value. So no, there's no wish to do more here or there.
Everything will grow and can grow. On the emerging markets, yes. I don't know which one you're referring to. We're in Brazil. I don't know whether it's an emerging market or not, but we're doing some maintenance and we'll keep on doing there. We're in West Africa and we'll keep on growing with the needs of Africa. So we'll keep addressing the needs in our positions. We will not investigate new positions, but in our current positions, we can roll out all our offers. So we'll address them there. And in these markets, it's harder to do external growth. It's much harder. So we mostly do it organically with our base. If I may follow up, cybersecurity is quite small still, EUR 0.3 billion.
If I look at it, a lot of your competitors and other sort of companies active in this field are looking at this space very closely and would like to grow it. Is that also an ambition for you? I will leave the floor to Reinhard.
Just one thing on cybersecurity, it catches many, many expertise. We don't have products on cybersecurity. We sell services. Okay, so we're not competing with Thales or with these big cybersecurity providers, but Reinhard? Yeah, that's one of the reasons why we were acquiring Fernao Networks because it gave us a big boost in cybersecurity. You know, the EUR 0.3 billion is last year's revenue. So next year, you will see quite a big step up, and we are also growing organically as well, quite strong, where we have already security expertise. We're trying to expand it.
Now we're getting into a critical size where we can have the network also have this effect that we can grow together. For sure, we will look for additional smaller bolt-on targets that we can put there to work. We just, after Fernao, made a small acquisition in Austria with about EUR 8 million of revenue, but very focused and very specialized on certain topics in cybersecurity. The difficult thing is when you put cybersecurity, everything becomes hot and you change the multiple. Okay, so you want to label everything cybersecurity now. So the big acquisition in cybersecurity will be very, very expensive. So that's why we want to remain disciplined and do some bolt-ons.
Thank you. Other question? Yes.
Yes. Hi, Nick Lismore from Morgan Stanley. I think I have a few left.
Just on the cash flow again, just trying to understand if the cash inflows you've seen picking up since 2019 are just a consequence of top-line growth or you're basically underrepresenting the P&L. So you say you talk about prudence, but actually are you already at 8% or 9% EBIT margin, real EBIT margin, I mean cash EBIT margin? And you just, because of that prudence, you're over-provisioning. As you know, you've talked about zero margin on projects until the end, all that kind of process. Is this also an explanation why the cash conversion has been dramatically stepped up since 2019? That's the first one. Second one, just on M&A, outside of America, so North America, where do you feel you're punching way below your belt? Where can you dramatically grow scale from where you stand today? Is it Eastern Europe? Is it Australia, New Zealand?
There doesn't seem to be that many places where you can do a quantum leap, let's say. Or is it Italy maybe where you're starting to add up a few deals? And then I had a last one, I've forgotten, but I'll let you answer.
Okay, M&A, so we don't foresee any quantum leap. Okay, it will be the snowball effect and we're doing like EUR 50 million in Italy and next year we'll do EUR 200 million by adding from Axians to Building Solutions to industry. So that's a model. But by progressively adding expertise. And we will do that in all geographies. Of course, in Asia-Pacific, we will do it. We've grown in New Zealand without any acquisition. Now it's time we can make acquisitions. We have the teams. I mean, they've done a lot great job of growing organically, but we can diversify.
We will do that in Australia. We've done some growth in Singapore. We'll do that in the Nordics because now we have a bigger footprint. We did something in Norway, Sweden, Finland. So we can grow our business and of course in Europe, everywhere in all countries in Europe. But it will not be quantum leaps. It will be bolt-ons. The size will depend on the maturity of the country and our integration team, but we will keep on growing. As for cash and prudence, I will answer that and I'll leave the floor to also Nathalie if you can complement it. Yes, we have a zero results policy until some point and then we'll release, we will release obviously the projects. Our accounts are audited, so everything is approved.
But our mentality is that whenever something happens, we take the bad decision as it's 100% sure and we take the good decisions as gradually as when they occur. Okay, so that gives us a leverage to act more quickly and that also explains why we have more provisions because it takes time to make sure that the good news are actually delivered. And when you grow, then the good news take a little bit longer. So yes, it's our prudency approach and it's quite the business as we operate it and as we train our managers. Actually, I remember the last one. So what keeps you awake at night? I mean, you've given us a rosy picture of the end markets and so on. But you also have within the business, there's some parts which are struggling a little bit more.
Some businesses at the end of ramp-ups, fiber to the home in France, industry in Europe, the auto chemicals. Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere, but that's also the beauty of decentralization. You have people taking care of that. Okay, you have always, but you have problems everywhere. It's not an easy business. You have to look for it. So everywhere we have difficulties, we have problems on projects, but our model is make sure that we address them. Okay, so what keeps me awake at night is to make sure that there's no complacency. Okay, that is really applied, that we keep the discipline and that's everybody's quantified because as we grow, we want to make sure that everybody is within the organization, adopting our DNA, adopting our culture, adopting. And this is my job, make sure the culture is still alive. And long term, it's not about the business.
What keeps me awake at night is about the succession. Do we have the people to handle the growth and to handle the current positions?
Okay, as you've seen in the movies, all my predecessors were all the CEO of VINCI Energies have been selected within VINCI Energies. So we train our successors. So my job is to train the succession of this team and it's also their job. And this is what keeps us awake, having the right people with the right culture and the right attitude. Maybe last one on M&A big picture, you maybe historically you were the only one with P, kind of a similar strategy. Now it seems the copycats are everywhere. Engie Equans , the U.S. guys, Ventia in Australia. So you all have followed the same footprint and blueprint on M&A, organic growth, margin targets, pretty similar, cash conversion, I think. Or carbon copy.
Is it helping the whole industry or actually at the end of the day, you're just going to eat one another? No, I think that there's room for everyone. So it's good to have a healthy competition. But I think what they don't have is our integration capacity. Okay, we really know how to integrate and I'm not sure all our competitors integrated the same way. And actually, I know that some of our teams have been approached and poached because they're making big acquisitions and they're looking for people to integrate them. And they were looking for German-speaking people in our organization. And since life is good at VINCI Energies, they kept. So I think long run, we have the people, we have the know-how. So okay, deal by deal, there will be competition, but no problem. There are other deals.
What is really important is not making a deal is integrating it. And I think we are truly unique with this culture and this know-how. Maybe I just would add that we have to see that as a positive thing because it puts some spotlight on our business and it permits the market to better understand what are the good things in this business and what are the good prospects for the future. So I think we should take that as a positive thing rather than a negative one. And as I was asked, I don't remember who asked the question, but I mean the acquisition of Equans, I mean it was brilliant because suddenly everybody cared about our business. Everybody knew about the business. Before Equans, there was only SPIE and a few people knew.
But we were very happy that it was acquired by Bouygues because it shed light on the business. It brings discipline to our competitor. So it's good news. And you have more benchmarks. I mean, maybe last one, you've talked about some margins going up from 5%-6% range to 7%, 7+ . Why can't it go higher? I mean, fundamentally, why is there a limit? As you said, there's supply demand, there's demand, there's a shortage of technicians and stuff across Europe, across the U.S. You're changing the mix of your business as well. You keep on saying there is no change and you love all your children, but you've got a preference, we know it. Axians and Omexom, yeah. Okay. I have four boys, I love my four boys, don't worry. I've got three girls as well, but you know, he's pushed against the corner.
But there's also a mix, a gradual mix. Maybe your competitors talk more about this than you do. Some businesses are double digits, some are even high teens in the business. Do you feel there's medium term, maybe beyond 2030, but there is actually no real glass ceiling? Seven and a half is not the goal. There's why not eight, why not nine, why not ten? The Nordics were above eight for a long time, they're not anymore. The other thing is we never go down. We never go down. So we make sure we go there and we never go down. That's one thing. And I would say, I would just, I don't know. True answer is I don't know. Okay, we're looking for the limit and we go there step by step. So we go there, I don't know.
We have some signals also sometimes, you know, cybersecurity. It's a hotspot. But then if it's a hotspot, people keep poaching people. And so you need some loyalty. And if you pay them high salary, if you have a high price, I mean, if you want to keep your people, you need to pay a higher salary. And if you don't pay a higher salary, they go to the competition sometimes. So it's a balance. And I think when we talk about the nuclear industry in France with the EPR, I think one of the challenges to find. I'm not talking about engineers like fitters, making sure you have enough workforce willing to live in Cherbourg, Normandy or wherever, a huge workforce. So how can you make sure you have these people over there? And you don't.
It's a balance between what you will pay them or the customer will pay. So if you cannot grow your business if you don't have the people. So that's why you have to pay them a fair compensation. And the price increase you get, it's also for your team. And I don't know what the limit is. But we're always looking for it. And we have an active social dialogue to make sure it's well shared. And believe me, I mean, there was a strike yesterday, you know, in France, but we have limited strikes. But believe me, there are some demands and some asks and we have to be careful because we're a people business. I think we have questions. One question.
If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad.
We will take the first question from line Hari Sivakumar from Deutsche Bank. The line is open now, please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, it's Hari from Deutsche Bank. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe three from my side. I understand you do not differentiate between organic and inorganic growth in your guidance. But should we expect this to be in sync with what you've seen over the last decade? So maybe 60-40 M&A was organic, or should it be more, should it be less? Second, sticking on to the topic of revenue growth, looking at your guidance of from mid-single-digit to high-single-digit growth, but also with higher internationalization, so two-thirds of revenues from outside of France, is it fair to say you expect France to probably not grow much? Or would you see any declines there? Any thoughts there? Much appreciated.
And lastly, you talk about the U.S. multiples, or North American multiples being much higher. I mean, listed peers are 15 times EBITDA but down maybe your bolt-ons are probably a touch lower. But what do you get in return for the higher multiples? Surely we should expect maybe much stronger growth or maybe much better margins for the higher multiple. Any color there would be much appreciated.
Thanks. Okay, so organic and external growth, is there a share 60-40 or 40-60? Honestly, I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. It will depend on the opportunities and everything. So that's why we're combining it. On the multiples in the U.S., yes, they're higher.
And by the way, their EBITDA, I think I mentioned, I talked with somebody at the break, their EBITDA is, I would not say true EBITDA, but it's always restated with all the bad news that just happened once. For us, it's normal business to have bad news. So it's not also realistic EBITDA. But what we can, if we go there, so we still want to be reasonable compared to our business. What it brings, it brings growth. You're right, it brings growth because it's either we can grow this business or we can bring them with Actemium in our network and grow their business with our references that we have and the expertise that we have in Europe. The end game is to bring growth with a reasonable multiple at the beginning.
As for the inflation, I'm not sure I've understood the question correctly. The second one was on France. Given your target to have more revenues from international markets and given the mid-single digit, high single digit growth for the business overall, I was just thinking, does that imply France doesn't grow in the mid-term? Any thoughts there? No, no, France will grow. France will grow also, of course. And France is a stronger business, so we can leverage our positions. We can grow, there's plenty of things to do in industry, in infrastructure, in Building Solutions, so in ICT. So yeah, France will grow. But I didn't split the growth country by country, business line by business line. It's overall. As I told you, it's a guidance, it's not an objective. Other question?
Understood. Thanks.
Thank you. One more?
Thank you. Thank you.
We will take the next question from Miro Ali from RBC. The line is open now. Please go ahead.
Yes, thanks for taking my question. We heard you buy businesses at considerably less than 10 times EV EBITDA. Do you consider the market implied value of VINCI Energies as a cap in the multiples you pay in M&A? You highlighted the analysts value VINCI Energies at nine times EV EBITDA, but the share price currently is around 25% lower than sell-side VINCI price target. So perhaps the market's only valuing VINCI Energies at less than seven times EV EBITDA.
Thank you. Yeah, yeah, we have a discipline. When I say we're buying below our average multiple, I mean, we don't take our view on valuation to make our acquisition.
Your view on valuation for us is also a way we will limit ourselves because if you are viewed nine times EBITDA and private equity say, "Okay, you should buy this business for 10 times," usually it's 11 12 times because it's a premium business, it's a platform, it's good for you. Okay, the way it's on day one, we destroy three times EBITDA. So we don't want to do that. Okay, so yes, the way you value our business gives a limit on the valuation we're willing to pay for the premium businesses. So if you believe the rest of the world is worth that, maybe you can put a premium on a real nice platform. Other question? So I think it's the end for today. Thank you very much for your interest. I would like to thank first my team when preparing this topic.
Thank you, Grégoire and your team for helping us and the ones who have supported us. Thank you for the communication team and everyone who has made this event possible for you who have gone through snow, ice, strikes just to be there this morning, and for you who attended for more than four hours on live streaming.