Earnings Call: Q1 2021

Apr 22, 2021

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Evinranc Q1 2021 Revenue Conference Call. I will now hand over to Mr. Bertrand Limasi, Chairman and CEO. Sir, please go ahead. Good morning, everybody. I'm really happy to be with you today to comment on the Q1 2021 revenue of Edenhead. I propose that we move to Page 2 of the presentation. A few things to remember on this page. First of all, Edenhead had an encouraging start to the year despite new restrictions around the world. So first of all, we are back to growth across all business lines and all regions. Our operating revenue has increased by 3.6 percent like for like to reach €363,000,000 How come we have been able to generate that growth? First of all, once again, we demonstrated our agility. We demonstrated our capacity to leverage our digital platform in which we invested between €250,000,000 €300,000,000 every year. And finally, we have been able to win some new clients and some new partnerships. The second thing is, yes, Edenhead will generate sustainable and profitable growth in 2021 despite ongoing restrictions and some remaining uncertainties related to the exit timing of the health crisis. So based on this encouraging start of the year, based on a more favorable comparison basis in Q2, but also based on recently announced lockdowns and a better environment that is expected in H2. The combination of all those elements lead us to confirm strongly our like for like EBITDA growth in 2021 by a minimum growth of 6%. I propose that we move now to Page 4. So as previously said, we have been able to grow despite heightened hedge prices across the world. So if you look at the figures starting in Q3 2020, in fact, the growth has increased quarter after quarter, starting at 0.9% then 1.2% and to reach 3.6% in Q1 2021. As I said, the technology and the product innovation were, in fact, the sources of this growth in Q1 2021. The virtual content program has increased, our Beyond Fuel services has developed and the specific purpose programs that support economic and social stimulus have been very active in this Q1 of the year. On top of that, our agility in terms of go to market has been able to support the growth against the backdrop of heightened health crisis and macroeconomic headwinds. If we move to Page 5, in fact, the back to growth is across all business lines in Q1 2021. If we start with employee benefits, an organic growth of 0.2%, and we can say that we had a mixed situation with restaurants and shops that were closed in major countries. You can think of France, France being one of our top market. The second product line, fleet and mobility, that represent 25% of our total revenue has been able to grow by 5.3% like for like. As you can see, the performance in terms of growth of heat and mobility has increased quarter after quarter. One of the main contributor to that growth is the good performance of our Beyond Fuel services, services such as the maintenance, the toll, the telematics, but also the financial services that we are able to provide via our platform of fleet and mobility. The 3rd product line for Edenhead is what we call complementary solutions, representing 14% of our total revenue. And this product line has increased by 17.8% like for like. And in fact, what we see behind this performance is the positive impact of COVID related specific purpose programs, but also a gradual improvement in our corporate payment services in the U. S. So not only we have been able to be back to growth across all business lines in Q1 2021, but also across all regions. And I propose that we move Page 6. Europe, that represents 65% of our total revenue, posted a growth of 4.2 percent like for like. So we had a steady growth despite new stay at home measures in major countries. I'm sure you remember that at the beginning of the quarter, at the exception of France, the vast majority of the European countries went back to confinement. Think about the UK, think about Germany, but also Central Europe. But I'm sure you also know that the turn of France came, in fact, in March of this quarter for some confinement. So despite these new lockdown measures, we demonstrated a steady growth of 4.2%. Now if we move to Latin America, representing 27% of our total operating revenue. Latin America has increased by 3.4%. The first thing is you can see that quarter after quarter, the situation is improving. And in fact, this robust performance in fleet and mobility or in fact, this performance in Latin America is due to the obvious performance in fleet and mobility, mainly driven, for example, in Brazil by our Beyond Fuel programs, but we also see a gradual improvement in employee benefits. If I move to the rest of the world, representing 88% of our total revenue, you see a growth of 0.8%, which in fact demonstrates a continuous improvement across the region, including, in fact, some early signs of recovery in the U. S. So if we move to Page 7, as a reminder, Eden had intermediates 50,000,000 users and 2,000,000 merchants in 4 universities that are the IT, the MOVE, the CARE and the PAID. Those universities are essential needs, and we are managing a business volume that was like for like, in fact, close to €30,000,000,000 in 2020. We our platform of intermediation is a very specific one because we address our go to market in B2B2C. We are solving inefficiencies in the 4 essential needs universities. And as you know, we operate in 46 different countries through a specific purpose wallet That enables public and private regulation. So we are able to propose earmarked forms to specific merchant verticals. So what we have been doing by investing into that platform is, in fact, to allow us to quickly onboard new clients, but it allows us as well to fast design and deploy new solutions. And the quarter of 2020 is a very good example of that sorry, the Q1 of 2021. In fact, on top of this platform, that is a very positive asset, Page 8, our ambition is to serve well on the 4 trends that we saw accelerated by the crisis that brings us, in fact, some new opportunities. The first megatrend is we are living in a more connected, digital and contactless world. What does it mean for Edenhead? Edenhead, in fact, intends to keep on strengthening its digital leadership with continuous innovation. The 2nd megatrend is we are living in a more remote working world, and Eden Red is developing new and innovative solutions to answer the needs of this remote working world. But we also live in a world seeking for more responsible behavior. And as you know, Edenhead is a platform for good. The more you are using the product and services of Edenhead, the more you contribute to, in fact, a better world. And finally, we have a corporate world that is seeking for more efficient and secure payment, and Edenhead is one of the actor of the digitalization of the B2B payments. So yes, our ambition is to leverage our digital platform to serve faster and then our competitors on the mega trends I just shared with you. So if we move to Page 9, you see, in fact, what we are able to do in terms of rebounding, thanks to our unique digital platform. And here, you see our technology and product innovation in 4 different universes. So if I start with the heat, 6 weeks ago at the presentation of the yearly results of Eden Red, we explained to you the concept of the virtual content ecosystem that is immolated, thanks to the ticket restaurant. We shared with you some references, and we are happy to add to the list initially of Orange, Societe Generale or IBM, Roche or Bayer. We discussed with you about the fact that more and more our platform is connected with some partners and we are able to strengthen each other, thanks to this digital ecosystem that is put in place. We have been the first one to sign deals with Google and Deliveroo in 2018. And in fact, our network of meal and food delivery has been sharply increasing for the last few years, and we are now proud to have signed more than 100 partnerships with global and local players in 16 different countries. If you think about the 2nd universe, that is the move, we are able now to include micro mobility providers and said service bags in new mobility related employee benefits. But we are also able to launch carbon offset program for fuel carb, example in Mexico, where we already signed 1500 clients. If you think about the Care segment, in fact, due to the pandemic crisis, we have been able to rebound and leverage quickly, in fact, our earmarked forms platform. And we have been able in Q1 2021 to do 2 things. First of all, to launch some new programs. So for example, we have been able to manage in Romania digital meal subsidies for elderly people. And here, let me quote a few numbers. It's a program that we developed in a few weeks for elder people. The average age of the users of our solution is 83. Listen to me carefully, 83 years old. And the level of emulation we had during the 1st few days was 75%. And in fact, the Romanian state said, I have many elderly people due to the crisis that do not have access to a good level of food and quality of food. Is there anything you can do? We said, yes, but we want to do it digital. And they said no way. Those people are old people. They are traditional Romanian people. And we said trust your people and trust us. If you want to move fast and it's a question of hours and days, the only way to make it happen is digital and we are the worldwide champion of digital platform for earmark phones. And we will make sure that what we put in place is easy to understand, easy to emulate and easy to use. And in fact, the level of emulation for an average age of 83 years old was 75%. It's a great source of pride for Edenhead to demonstrate that if you use well the technology, there are many things you can do and you can do quickly. The second thing we did on top of new programs was to restart COVID related programs that were developed in 2020 and unfortunately that were useful in the 1st part of 2021. So for example, the Department for Education Program was restarted in the UK with a high level of satisfaction, but we also had to restart, in fact, some programs we developed in Brazil to support the poorest families. If you think about the last segment, the paid segment, in fact, we see some early signs of recovery in the U. S. And we are proud to announce that after the partnership of distribution, we signed with Sage in Q1 2021, we signed another collaboration with a major bank and with the Department of Commercial Cards of Citibank to accelerate, in fact, the our AP platform integration with a wide payment and services ecosystems. But we are also proud to see that our solutions are able to power innovative fintechs through their European expansion, and we have now more than 2,000,000 end users in Europe that are using fintech services that are emulated, thanks to our transaction and processing centers. So on every universe, we have been able to leverage our technological and product innovation to contribute to the growth of Eden Red in Q1 2021. Now if we move to Page 10, yes, our ambition is to continue to leverage our digital leadership and agility to further grow in all segments. Maybe three things to remember. We are positioned on markets that are, in fact, still vastly underpenetrated. So we can increase the market penetration, thanks to the digitalization of our services. The second thing is, yes, we sell digital products, but the more it goes, the more the way we sell is what we call a digital sales. So thanks to that, we are able to increase our productivity. In fact, we are able to propose easier, faster and more efficient client onboarding. So not only the digitalization help us to further penetrate underpenetrated market, but it also contributes when it's well managed to higher efficiencies, productivity, so profitability of our business. And the last thing I want to say is the SME segment opportunity remains significant. I was talking about underpenetrated market. It's even more true for the SMEs. And in fact, we have been able to adapt, but it's a constant effort adapt to new ways of selling even to the SME. And in fact, what we saw in Q1 2021 is the number of new SME contracts that is gradually returning to pre COVID level, which is one example of the fact that, yes, the growth potential of Eden Red is intact, and we are very, very impatient to leave the zone of health uncertainty to make sure that very soon, we will have access to this intact growth potential and to exploit it as fast as possible. It's now time to listen to Julien that will go into more financial details of our Q1 2021 performance. Thank you, Julien. We are all yours. [SPEAKER JEAN FRANCOIS VAN BOXMEER:] Thank you, Bertrand. Good morning, everyone. We move to Page 12 to review our Q1 2021 performance. The Q1 of 2021 demonstrates rebound in organic growth. Our total revenue came to €373,000,000 increasing by 3 0.7% like for like compared to last year and decreasing by 5.3% reported figures. This quarter has been impacted by unfavorable current effects. Our total revenue breakdown into 2 parts, operating revenue and other revenue. The operating revenue has increased by 3.6 percent like for like figures and the other revenue has increased by 6% like for like versus Q1 2020. I propose we move to an explanation of group operating revenue per geography, and then we will look at the other revenue. I move to Page 13. Well, in all regions, our activity has been impacted by the yield situation, but at different level. The situation has been different from a country to another. In Europe, Eden Red has delivered a steady growth despite a new wave of rate sections. Operating revenues grew by 4.2 percent in like for like and reported figures. This level of growth is comparable to the last quarter of 2020 despite the implementation of tighter restrictions in various countries. In France, new restrictions weighed on user spending, especially for meats. You know that restaurants are still closed and have been closed in October last year. However, the new consumption modes such as click and connect or mid delivery platforms are more and more used by our clients and allow us to provide traffic to restaurants. The group also delivered a solid commercial performance, both in fleet and mobility and employee benefits. In the rest of Europe, Eden Rest posted a robust growth fueled by employee benefits and fleet and mobility despite restrictions in many countries. I move to Page 14 to look at what happened in Latin America. In Latin America, Eden Red is back to organic growth, but the zone is still facing a challenging situation in terms of health situation. In like for like, our operating revenue grew by 3.4% with a positive trend in all the regions, confirming the recovery quarter after quarter. In Brazil, Eden Red is back to growth with a 5% like for like growth compared to last year, thanks to sales developments in a country where lockdowns are still in place. In employee benefit, we see a gradual recovery and the ramp up of transactions on meal delivery platforms. It is the same trend as in Europe, and we see that this new way of consumptions are global. Our B and C strategy confirms its success, thanks to total maintenance management services. In Hispanic, Latin America, we posted gradual recovery, especially in fleet and mobility solutions. The end situation still significantly impacts the revenues. And we move to Page 15 and to other revenue, previously financial revenues. Other revenue stands at €10,000,000 meaning a plus 6% compared to last year in like for like and minus 12.8% in reported figures. There are 3 components in the other revenue that explain this trend. 1st, the short term interest rates that are lower overall versus Q1 2020, then the float, which is higher compared to last year and then the significant negative currency effects that we can see, especially in Europe and Latin America. Bertrand? Okay. Okay, Julien. So maybe to conclude this presentation, I propose that we move to Page 17. So basically, what is the conclusion of all this presentation? First of all, yes, we had an encouraging start to the year. We are back to growth in all regions and all business lines. And in fact, what we demonstrated in Q1 is our ability to leverage, 1st of all, the agilities of the company, the commercial dynamism of the company and in fact, the digital platforms, where we are able to onboard very quickly new clients or develop very quickly new solutions. The other thing I think we demonstrated in fact Q1 is the fact that all investments we made in the past are paying back during those spaces. So the Beyond Fuel Services is something we started a few years ago, and it's painful, it's costly, it takes time because you have to build the different layers of revenue slowly but surely. But after years of investment, we see the return on investment with the high growth on an activity that to a certain extent is countercyclical. Why? Because when times are tough, you need to better manage your cost basis. And in fact, doing that on your fleet of vehicles allows you to make significant savings. The other thing as well is we invested some time, in fact, in our different partnerships. So when you think about the benefits in Brazil, the partnerships with Itau is doing better and better quarter after quarter. So of course, initially it takes time. But then when the machine is on, when the people are trained, when the motivation comes from the first successes, where you see, in fact, an increasing level of activities and client wins, thanks to this partnership. And it's what we will see also with CSI in the U. S. There is a need for digital B2B payments in the U. S. And with the help of external partners, we will fully exploit those needs in the future as soon as we are back to a new normal situation. That's why we have been pleased to share with you 6 weeks ago our distribution partnership with Sage, and we are very happy to share with you our collaboration with City Commercial Cars. So yes, an encouraging start to the year, but there is still a significant uncertainty regarding the health crisis. So you all have in mind recently announced lockdowns in major countries. So for example, France, but at beginning of the quarter, we had Italy, we had Germany, we had UK, in fact, in Europe. And you also know that the situation seems to be a little bit out of control in Brazil. So we are living in a world with very still challenging health situation. And we expect a better environment in H2 as soon as the vaccination campaigns pays off and economic activity is able to pick up. However, the exit timing of the health crisis remains uncertain in Edenrad's key geographies. So encouraging start to the year, significant uncertainty regarding the health crisis. But whatever the situation, we will continue to leverage our business excellence and our innovation. Remember that we are in vastly underpenetrated market. We benefit from accelerated favorable trends impacting the working world, a world that is more connected, more digital, a world that is more remote, a world that is looking for more responsible behavior, a world that is looking for more digital transactions. And on those trends, our willingness is to serve faster than anybody else by leveraging, in fact, our technological assets. So the combination of our business excellence, of the encouraging start to the year, mixed with the uncertainty regarding to the oil prices, allows us to, in fact, reiterate our objective of like for like EBITDA growth in 2021 by a minimum of +6 percent. Thank you for your attention, and Julien and myself are all yours to answer all the questions you may have. And here, I have a service to ask you, In fact, if you could restrict yourself to 2 questions maximum, it will allow probably everybody to ask their questions. Do that for your colleagues. Thank you. Thank you, We have one first question from Mr. Simon Leuchic from Stifel. So I will stick to 2. First of all, in terms of the backlog of fund retention, I think it represented €300,000,000 to €400,000,000 of volumes at the end of 2020. Could you give us an update on this number after Q1? And secondly, looking to Brazil and employee benefits specifically, what are you seeing in terms of commission? Do you see the pressure continuing at stage? Or it does now stabilize? Thank you. Okay. Hello, Simon. Thank you for your immediate discipline on the two questions. And on my part, I will try to answer more quickly and sharply. So your first question as to the backlog is, yes, you are right. The numbers are the ones we shared with the community at the end of 2020. What has happened in Q1 2021, the backlog did not decrease, in fact, because many restaurants were closed. So you can think of France, but some other countries, in fact, in Europe. So the backlog did not decrease in the Q1 of 2021. And in fact, the backlog has increased. So it means that we are pushing in front of us revenue that was not spent yet. But we are absolutely convinced that with the evolution of the vaccination campaign, this backlog of revenue or this backlog allocation will be spent and will generate some revenue for us in the remaining three quarters of the year. Your second question was about Brazil and the level of commission. I would say that, generally speaking, the economic situation of Brazil did not evolve for the last 6 weeks. It means that Brazil is still in a turmoil, and it means that there is intense competition between all the competitors. Having said that, our job is to escape from that by proposing innovative solutions and by being commercially smarter to be able to outsmart the market. And so what we saw, we have been very good, in fact, in Fleet and Mobility in Q1 and especially with our Beyond Fuel Services because we have a leading offer, a leading digitalized offer. So we are not a commodity, which is a very good thing in terms of pricing discipline. The second thing is our machine to generate sales for the SMEs is accelerating, thanks to the Itau partnership. And here, when you go on underpenetrated territories or underpenetrated segment, and you remember that was the goal of this Itau partnership, go after the SMEs and go deeper into the Brazilian continent. Thanks to the reach of the Itau network. It takes time to convince, to train, to incentivize Itau salespeople, but Itau is a fantastic bank. It's the 1st private bank in Brazil. It's a bank that is very dedicated to growth. What I shared with you in the past is the fact that we were not happy with the performance at the beginning of partnership. We have been very pleased by the fact that Itau was not happy as well. So we sat down, we talked between 2 other partners and say, okay, what do we change? Things have changed and we start seeing some good traction. So you hear a lot of positivity in my tone. So to make a long story short, the macroeconomic of Brazil did not change. We are long on Brazil, and we know that it can rebound very sharply. In between, our job is to maximize the cards we have in our hands. So fit and mobility, go, go, go on the Guillaume Fille and Benefits, let's make sure that all the seeds we planted in the past are carefully nurtured and to grow. And it's what we are seeing, for example, with the Itau partnership. Just a quick follow-up on the first question. Could you quantify the backlog at the end of Q1? Julien, Ivan, we said 2. So backlog is €100,000,000 on top of what we had at the end of last year. Thanks a lot. Thank you, sir. Next question is from Mr. Paul Sullivan from Barclays. Please go ahead. Firstly, I don't know if you could just clarify how much of the uplift in fleet mobility was related to directly to fuel and just the sensitivity overall to the fuel price and how that's evolved and changed? And then secondly, I don't know if you can give us a little bit more color on the employee benefits and the trend through March? And any comments so far in April, given the comp change and the comp move and your thoughts on the second quarter? Thank you. Hello, Paul. So let's start with your second question. So yes, in Q1, we have been able to grow on every product line and on every geography. And in fact, the growth is going to be much higher in Q2 based on the, let's say, the organic trend we have and the basis of comparison that will be very favorable in Q2. So it's going to be an explosive growth, in fact, in Q2, but part of it is going to be explained by the basis of comparison. Having said that, yes, when we look at the month of March, the month of March in employee benefits has been encouraging and encouraging especially in fact in terms of business volume. We did well in terms of new clients. We did well in terms of business volume. So it means that we see positively the rest of the year based on the Q1 and especially the March performance. As to April, and you will surely understand that there's nothing I can do to comment on that. Then your second question was, in fact, the fuel and the sensitivity. So first of all, as a group, 9% of our operating revenue is sensitive to fuel price, And it's a long battle. We want to make sure that, yes, fuel is good, but we are in the fleet and mobility business. So our job is to provide mobility solutions. So 9% sensitivity to fuel price. The fuel price evolution, in fact, as compared to last year in Q1 so if you compare Q1 2021 versus Q1 2020, in fact, for the vast majority of the countries, the fuel price, in fact, was close to the level of last year, at the exception of one country, which was Brazil. So in Brazil, we see a positive effect of fuel price in Q1 2021 versus Q1 2020. Then if you make the total computation of what I said, the contribution of fuel price to the growth of Eden Red, organic growth of Eden Red in Q1, which is a growth of 3.6%, The contribution is not significant. That's very clear. Thank you very much. Thank you, Paolo. Thank you, sir. Next question is from Mr. Raul Chopra from HSBC. Please go ahead. Hello. Yes, thank you so much. A couple of questions from my side. Firstly, in terms of your partnership with your food delivery programs, can you give us a scope in terms of what is the overall scope and opportunity in the wake of virtual canteen, basically in terms of penetration rates and sense of growth from those partnerships? Secondly, can you give us flavor in terms of commercial opportunity in the corporate payment space given the recent partnership with Sage and Citi, just in terms of what sort of growth should we expect from this corporate payment space? Thank you. Okay. Thank you for your questions. So if I start with the food delivery programs. Just to give you an idea, we monitor very carefully the number of transactions and the value of transactions we have via this kind of partnership, I. E, how many people are ordering food via the 100 partners we have today in terms of food delivery or food takeaway. And in fact, if I compare Q1 2021 with Q1 2020, we have a multiplying factor of 6 in value. So in fact, it's a booming growth. That is partly explained by the lockdown. So if you are locked down and if you are a remote worker, when you want to have access to food, in fact, the food delivery or the takeaway is probably the best solution for you. And we think it's going to continue like that because in fact, it's going to continue like that because it's now well, in fact, in the new usage of every user. So it's a huge opportunity. It's an opportunity that we have been grooming, in fact, for the last few years because, as I said, we were the first one to sign Uber Eats or Deliveroo in 2018. And in fact, if you look at our total network of partners, in fact, it's fair to say that we have the deepest and the largest network with more than 100 partners in 16 different countries. And we continue to work on that because every day you have new, let's say, food solutions that are appearing on the market. And so very, very we try to be very sharp on understanding them and see if we want them in the, let's say, in the distribution universe of Eden Rel. Another number that I can share with you is in France, when you look at the total number of people who have a digital Edenrad benefit solution, so I. E. A card, In fact, we have now more than 10% of the card users that are ordering via new delivery platforms. So it's a very solid trend in terms of number of users, in terms of growth versus the previous quarters. So it's a very good thing because this new environment, digital environment is a very large contributor to our concept of virtual content Because the more people are using that, the more the employers are ready to say, okay, remote working, people who love using digital solutions like that, it's from a cost point of view, it's a plus. The combination of the 3 help accelerating the transition from a physical content to a virtual content environment emulated by ticket restaurant solution. It's the perfect storm of usages that are booming, costs that is more effective for the employer and in fact easiness of the solution for the employees and the high level of satisfaction. Remember, we shared that in fact 6 weeks ago, you have much more people that are highly satisfied with a digital solution than with a physical consumer. Your second question was about the corporate payment space and the opportunity. Our ambition in corporate payment in the U. S. Is to grow by more than 20%. That's our challenge. And in fact, how can we fuel that growth and maximize the chances to meet this level? First of all, is obviously to work hard with our own sales force. But the American continent being what it is for a small company like us, we needed some help. That's why we decided to go for, in fact, distribution partnerships. And distribution partnership, one bucket is obviously the banking institutions. So we talked about Citibank, but very soon we'll be able to come with some of our partners because it's very good to leverage, in fact, a distribution partnership with banks like that because we have many clients who are very well, let's say, attached to their banking relations. So coming with a common solution for the management of accounts payable is a good thing. So what is the potential of those distribution partnership? In fact, it will translate into our ability to grow by more than 20%. And we see some very first encouraging signs of that. The American economy is restarting. Unfortunately, it restarts more in B2C than in B2B for now, probably strongly helped by the different economic programs with helicopter money. But we are absolutely convinced that it will translate into B2B very soon and we should benefit from that, thanks to our distribution partnerships and thanks to the innovation that we propose and the economic gains with our accounts payable solution. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next question is from Mr. Andre Julien from Deutsche Bank. Sir, go ahead. Two questions, if I may. The first one was rebound on your last explanation about helicopter money in the U. S. Wasn't it an opportunity for you to propose some solution to the U. S. Government? And don't you see a huge potential on that side in the U. S, but also in some other countries? First question. 2nd question is to come back on the penetration rate. You are mentioning the 25% and it is right that you've been mentioning regularly that you were on an underpenetrated market. But could you give us some more color about the way you try to you can try to improve this penetration segment by segment? And are you putting in place some specific solutions for that? Thank you. Okay. Hello, Andre. So as to the helicopter money in the U. S, when you want to influence, first of all, you need to invest and you need to invest in public affairs. So we made those investments a few months ago, and it's going to be a long battle because we really start from scratch and we start with a culture that is not a culture at all of earmarked funds. So it's going to take time. But in fact, with the newly elected team, we see more opportunities today than we saw in the past. The first that's the first thing. So it's a long battle with investments and we started that battle. The second thing is we had some first successes. So remember that we signed Spotify or CardLinks, our 2 first customers for meal benefits. We never had any meal benefits in the U. S. Because there is no law, but it's not because there is no tax exemption that you cannot develop some food benefits program. So we started we signed some first very good clients. And when I look at the pipeline and I have almost weekly a conversation with Ed, with our Head of Benefits in the U. S. We are confident in our ability to grow that business. But as I said, it's going to be a long battle. It's another seed that we are planted. It's a seed that we're going to take care. We will do it in an orderly manner, the Edenradway, inch by inch, step by step. But yes, the amount of the helicopter money and the newly elected administration reinforces our willingness to make a difference over there. The second question was as to the penetration rate. In fact, the way we look at the penetration rate, we look at it, in fact, per product line and per geographies, okay? So for example, if you think about fleet and mobility, the penetration is much lower in light fleet than in the heavy fleet. And so the question is what can we do country per country on that. And so we've developed specific offers for small fleet of vehicles that are different from the large fleet. So that's one way to look at it per product line and in fact per country. The second thing that we are doing is to go after some client segments such as the SME. We need to be sure that we have the proper army in place. The name of the game with the SME acquisition is the cost of acquisition because we try to look at the entire equation, which is how much do we need to invest to acquire a client, what is the economic attrition. And obviously, if you do your ratio per users, in fact, the cost of acquisition per user is higher in SMEs than in the medium market and the economic attrition is higher as well. So what does it mean in terms of business model? Well, it means that we are using more and more digitalized way to take care of the SME because we want to decrease the cost of customer care. So higher cost of acquisition, higher attrition, but low, let's say, customer care costs and different pricing because the volume are not the same. If you look at the combination of everything, then you are able to come with a very interesting business model. But it requires a lot of discipline in terms of segmentation, a lot of constant discipline. And in fact, you need to have brilliant basics if you want to be a wealthy on the SME segments. It's what we have been doing for the last few years. We have been helped by all the digital technologies and the simplicity of usage of our solution. The example of the elderly Romanian people is a good example. If you want to make sure that those people are using your products, you need to have very simple applications on your cell phone or with account. So on a if I try to synthesize everything that I said, yes, we are on underperforming market. Yes, thanks to the digitalization, we are able to go after some new client segments. The most representative one is the SMEs, but the implication is a very strong discipline of government. We are able to go after some new geographies. So in fact, thanks to our ability to sell digitally, we can talk to clients we are not able to talk before. Or thanks to new distribution partnerships, we're able to leverage the distribution of our products. Itau is another example. So Itau, Brazil SMEs, remote SMEs on the Brazilian continent. So it's how we are doing it, and we are still very excited because it's a question of penetration, but we also discover the mutation in the usage of, let's say, our traditional business. The move from physical accounting to virtual accounting is something we never thought that it could move so fast a few years ago. So the name of the game for us in front of us is go after the penetration and make sure that we are the best to anticipate the new usage and so the best to propose new solutions or evolution of our solution, thanks to our digital platform. Thank you, sir. Next question is from Mr. Ed Yong from Morgan Stanley. Sir, please go ahead. Good morning. I'll just ask one question and then perhaps you can reward us with a particularly insightful answer. It's really positive to I can't tell you a discount. It's really positive to hear you talk about Itau with it sounds like a lot of confidence. I think when you originally did that partnership, you would talk about how it might add, I think, 1 percentage point to operating revenue growth on a group level. I wonder now you've had time to obviously get to that partnership and improve it, as you said, over the last few years. I wonder if your view on what that can add to the group has changed. And I guess difficult to quantify given the circumstances, but how far along that journey in terms of ramp up and being at kind of full capacity, I guess, would you say that the partnership is currently? And how much room is there still to grow and improve in terms of what you can do? Yes. In terms of time quantification, it's not an easy question. We signed we had to wait for the cash in Brazil, which is the authority that is looking at the compliance of the deal in terms of anti competitive. So we had the green light. So it took us a while before we have been able to activate the partnership. Then we started the process of convincing jointly all the branches and then the training and then the COVID came. So the COVID lockdown in Brazil, so it stopped completely the initiative. And then the initiative restarted, in fact, 2 or 3 quarters ago, if I may say so. And so it's what is encouraging is the steady ramp up. To reach the full potential, I think you need to give us another 2 years. Understood. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Next question is from Madame Hester Wengrod from JPMorgan. Madame, please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Just two questions for me. You mentioned encouraging March within employee benefits, I think. Can you perhaps just give us more color across key countries? And just the second question will be on the can you give us an idea of the contribution to growth within complementary solutions of these earmarked funds program, those public programs, perhaps if you can guide us in terms of revenue contribution in 1Q, for instance? Okay. So maybe, Junion, you take the first one? Yes. So the first one about the month of March and the color of our business in key countries on employee benefits. Well, what we see in terms of sales is that we have a good traction in a lot of geographies. So it is true in Europe. So as we said in France, we see that we are able to conquer new clients, thanks to our digital solution. We have more and more remote working due to the confinements and the lockdowns that have been decided a few weeks ago. So we see that digital is key for the companies to provide their employees the good solution for their launch. And this trend, we see it also in Italy, for instance, where digital has improved a lot during the last 12 months. And we see that this trend is keeping on. And it's very important to know that, well, digital is a key in terms of commercial success. And as we also said during the presentation, it is the same case in Brazil. So this is for ticket restaurant solutions. What we also see is that due to the lockdown and due to the fact that people are working more and more remotely, companies are trying to find new solutions to get more loyalty from their employees. And in Italy, we see that with our welfare platform, we are able to provide them with the right solution. And we see that our performance in terms of sales with these new solutions that we've launched during the last 2 or 3 years in our company are having a great success. So in all geographies, thanks to digital, we see that we are able to add new clients, both on ticket restaurant solution, but also in employee engagement platforms such as welfare intent. Okay. Then your second question was about the public programs and their contribution. So if you remember Page 5, you saw in the Q1 of 2021 an increase of almost 18%. And in fact, a good chunk of that increase is explained by what we call COVID related programs. So we talked about Department for Education in the UK. We talked about food programs for poor people in Brazil, but I shared with you also this program in Romania. And in fact, we have a few other ones that are up and running in many other countries. So a good chunk of this 18% has been fueled by public programs that are COVID related. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, madam. We have one last question from division and the risk of bankruptcy of restaurants. What impact have you factored in your assumptions for the affiliated conditions going forward? And my second question is regarding the M and A in terms of pipeline. Are you seeing some opportunities coming in the short term? And how do you see 2021 in terms of M and A activity for Eden Red? Thank you. So maybe, Junior, you take the first one and I take care of the second one. Yes. So the first one, the risk of bank we see in the restaurant. Well, what we see, it depends on the country, but in some countries, we are able to compensate our fees before sending the money back to the restaurant. It means that we have no risk in terms of bankruptcy because you understand that because we are managing the flow, we are able to take the value of the transactions, to calculate our fees and to push to the restaurants the net amount between the revenue that they get from their users, from their clients and the Eden Redfield. So thanks to this kind of solution, we have a good management of our relationship with the restaurant, and we have no risk in terms of bankruptcy. And we all remember that we are in a pre charge of prepaid business in employee benefits for the vast majority. So before we pay, we are able to compensate. Yes. And we are in prepayment on the client side. So we have no risk or limited risk with a large account on this side of the business. So then your second question was about M and A. Our M and A strategy did not change. So we want to consolidate, consolidate in the employee benefits. We are the leaders. We are the digital leader. We want to continue to be the leader. So we will continue to consolidate. As to the fleet and mobility, there is still also some consolidation opportunities. So our strategy did not change there. We are a candidate for consolidation. And as to corporate payments, we know that the acquisition of CSI was the first step of consolidation movement in the U. S. So what I can say is our job is, first of all, to screen all the opportunities, which we are doing on a very regular basis. Our second job is to make sure that we have room in our balance sheet be able to act if opportunities come. And remember that we said, in fact, 6 weeks ago that our dry powder was between €1,000,000,000 and €1,500,000,000 And obviously, the better the performance of Eden Red is going to be, and Q1 is very encouraging, the more dry powder we will have to be able to act. So that's where we are. Same strategy, same high level of preparation and same willingness to play it well. And to play it well, it means, 1st of all, make sure that we acquire the right assets. And when I say assets, we look mainly at people, technologies and access to market, whether client segment or geographical market. The second thing we look at is our financial discipline. So we are very careful on that. And the first thing is the integration because the name of the game is into the quality of the integration we will do. And we all know that acquisition is a sport where the statistics are against you. 50% of the acquisition worldwide for all the businesses are destroying value. It seems that for the last few years, our traffic card is better than that. It's a lot of work. We have to challenge ourselves on every acquisition, change what needs to be changed to continue to have a track record in terms of success that is above 50%. Our job is value creation, whether inorganic or in acquisition. Thank you. Okay. I think there is no more questions. So first of all, thanks a lot for being with us. And I know it's a busy time for all of you. So thank you for your attention to Edenhead. Second thing is thank you for your discipline. I'm very impressed. I have a job for you if needed because we love business discipline and excellence at Edenhead. So thank you for having respected the idea of no more than 2 questions. Thank you for that. And thirdly, as I said, it's an encouraging start to the year. We still see some uncertainty regarding the health crisis. And so yes, we will continue to leverage our business excellence and innovation. So the combination of those three elements leads us to confirm the minimum 6% like for like EBITDA growth in 2021. Thank you, and have a good day. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call. Thank you all for your