Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, it's a real pleasure for me to welcome you here to Edenred's AGM. We are once again at Comète Bourse in the centre of Paris. I have with me Patrick Bataillard, the Head of Finance for the group. He will be handling the transition until Mrs. Virginie Duperat-V erGne joins us early June, and Philippe Relland Bernard, the General Counsel for the group and the Secretary for our Board of Directors. Mr. Simonard-Baillieffe is also here to oversee the AGM itself. I'd also like to thank the members of the board who've joined us for this AGM, and you can see them all here, sitting here, making themselves available to you and to us. We also have Mrs. Marie Le Treut and Mr. Petit, our statutory auditors from Ernst & Young. To call the bureau, I'd like to invite Comgest to be scrutineers, represented by Mrs.
Petra Daroczi, with 1,375,635 shares and 1,174,094 voting rights. I'd also like to call on the company DNCA, represented by Mr. Arthur Morel, holding 1,934,418 shares and voting rights. Petra and Arthur, I'd like to thank you for accepting this responsibility to act as scrutineers. With the scrutineers' agreement, I would like to appoint Philippe Relland-Bernard as secretary of this annual general meeting.
Thank you, Bertrand. Ladies and gentlemen, we're now going to move on to the formalities required before opening the mixed general meeting. Invitations were sent on the 17th of February 2025. All requirements for the invitation have been fulfilled. Regarding the quorum, so that this AGM can validly deliberate, we need one-fifth of voting rights for the ordinary share and one-quarter of the voting rights for the extraordinary component.
The attendance sheet is currently being filled out, but at this point, I can tell you that we have 4,995 shareholders represented or having voted remotely, holding 205,440,275 shares, 85.89% of voting rights. Regarding the required documents, you can see on the desk all of the documents that are required to be made available by law, the notifications in the BALO from the 28th March 2025 and 18th April 2025, and also the actuaryjuridique.fr update for the 18th April 2025. The entire list will be made available in the minutes. All of the documents will be made available to the shareholders before this meeting and in line with legal requirements to facilitate voting and to allow for votes to be counted faster. We will be using an electronic voting system, as I'm sure you've used in the past.
We handed out voting tablets when you entered the room. Please keep them nearby and please hand them back to our staff as you leave.
Thank you very much for that, Philippe. I can now declare this AGM open. This will be a moment to talk amongst ourselves and to explain where the company is at this point. We will have two and a half hours together. That means that we should be able to wrap up this AGM around 12:30. I'm going to move up to the lectern. Dear shareholders, now, before we move into the rest of the AGM, and even if we don't normally speak on Edenred's market cap, I felt that it was important to share our analysis of our recent share price changes.
The drop-off in share price that we've been experiencing for the last year and a half is in large part explained by the outlook on regulations for restaurant tickets in our three major regions, Brazil, Germany, and France. This is, of course, very important because it affects millions of people in each of those three countries: more than 6 million people in France, 3 million in Italy—sorry, not Germany—and 24 million in Brazil. People want these restaurant vouchers, but it's difficult to reassure the market as they hear rumours about the process. What is the situation right now? In France, as it stands, as we are part of the government consultation process, we are confident in upcoming reforms that will, among other things, allow for full digitization of restaurant vouchers and also clarification of their usages in a way that will be beneficial for everyone.
I'd like to remind you that if the Parliament had not been dissolved in June last year, the reform would probably have already been implemented for a while. That is for the French situation. As to the Italian situation, uncertainty has been lifted in October. The rule that had been applied for civil servants will be extended in the second half of 2025 to the private sector in Italy. We are preparing for this by rebalancing what is paid by the employers and what is paid by the sellers. This will involve costs for Edenred, but at least we know what legal framework we are going to be operating in. As to Brazil, this is currently under negotiation. To illustrate the volatility that comes from this level of uncertainty due to the reform, our share price dropped 17% in a single trading day about a fortnight ago.
This was only based on some news reports that there may be disintermediation of the market, but actually, that's not going to happen. Once again, we are confident in the renovation of the PAT system in Brazil, which should shortly bear fruit, as the Brazilian Labour Minister stated last week. Therefore, we hope that these regulatory hurdles will be overcome shortly, and once the uncertainty is no longer there, our share price should trend back towards the consensus across the 19 analysts that cover Edenred. That is 50% higher than our current share price, which is a real source of hope for us. That's what I wanted to share with you by way of introduction, even though we do not normally comment on our share price. We felt that it was appropriate to give you some lines of understanding that may explain the price.
What have we set up for this AGM here at Edenred? This is being broadcast live in French and in English. We also have made the relevant documents available on edenred.com, including the universal registration document and the integrated report. In 2024, shareholder dialogue has been open and productive. We met with our institutional shareholders. We met more than 1,200 of them, i.e., a 20% increase versus 2023 levels. We had 10 conferences and 9 road shows. We also were particularly cautious to take care of our individual shareholders: two meetings in Strasbourg and Bordeaux. More than 300 individual shareholders were in attendance. We were also at the Investor Day conference in Paris, where hundreds of individual shareholders were able to visit our Edenred booth. You will also have received the shareholder correspondence in the form of two letters.
The quality and the quantity of the shareholder relations got us the Bronze Award, handed out by Le Revenu for excellent investor relations. We have a very international shareholder base. Institutional shareholders from Anglo-Saxon countries account for 70% of our shareholders at Edenred. France accounts refer to the 16%. As you know, our free float is quite high, 99.2%. Out of that 99.2% of free float, you have 4.8% individual shareholders. Finally, who are the major shareholders at Edenred? The first one is Capital World, holding around 10%, and Harris Associates, a North American fund with holdings around 7%, dated December 2024. I am going to suggest that we run down the Beyond Strategic Plan. We will give you an update on where we are at there. Constance will explain the evolutions of our business model. Flore will then come in and share our sustainable development policy.
Patrick will explain the figures and the financials for 2024. We will move on to the governance component of the presentation. The governance we have at Edenred, then the statutory auditors' reports, and then the very important Q&A session. This is where we talk with you before we move on to the presentation and the vote on the resolutions. Where is progress at for the 2025 Beyond Plan? Now, 2025 is the final year of our strategic plan. During the Capital Market Day in autumn 2025, we will be presenting our new strategic plan at Edenred. What have we been up to since 2022? First of all, the company has grown significantly, with overall revenue up from EUR 1.6 billion to EUR 2.9 billion. That is an annual average growth rate of 20%.
Not only has revenue increased, but we have also seen proportionate and more than proportionate increase in operating profit, EBITDA, going from EUR 0.7 billion to EUR 1.3 billion, nearly EUR 1.3 billion. That's an average growth rate of 24% over the last three financial years. 2022 saw 23% growth, 2023, 24%, and 2024 saw 19% growth. That means that if you look at our multi-year commitments as part of the strategic plan, saying that we would achieve 12% or higher growth, basically, and on average, we have achieved twice what we announced we were going to achieve as part of the strategic plan. That strategic plan not only generated growth, but also profitable and sustainable growth and also freed up cash flow. That means that cash generation between 2022 and 2024 across the three financial years in question was a little bit more than EUR 2.5 billion.
We used that cash to do a number of things. First of all, we increased our payout to shareholders. We paid out about EUR 800 million in dividends, but we also, from 2024 onwards, carried out EUR 300 million in share buybacks, on top of which we invested in the future of Edenred through M&A, especially with EUR 1.8 billion in acquisitions carried out over the 2022-2024 period. This serves to increase what we call our addressable market share, i.e., our ability to push into new markets and to prepare for future growth at Edenred. Beyond that, our profile over the last three years has significantly strengthened. Let's look at the assets for Edenred. The sellers, the users, and business volume. Let's talk about what's happened since 2016. The number of users has gone from EUR 43 million to EUR 60 million for Edenred services.
Our number of corporate users is now up to EUR 1 billion. Merchants is from EUR 1.4 million to more than EUR 2 million, and business volume has gone from EUR 20 billion to EUR 45 billion. We're now looking at a digital platform that serves more and more users, more and more customers, and more and more merchants, through which business volume has significantly increased. To give you an idea of the scale here, on the far right of the presentation, you can see the volumes of a well-known company called Uber Eats. Uber Eats has 90 million users. Edenred has 60 million users. However, we have more merchants than Uber Eats, and our business volume of EUR 45 billion is comparable to Uber Eats, which is at EUR 68 billion.
This is to give you an idea of scale and to give you an idea of what Edenred has become in a global ecosystem of platforms for corporate and individual users. We've also been able to diversify Edenred. As you can see in the product line benefits for employees, we used to be at 74%. We're only at 66% of our offering, which means that top-up offerings have gone from 24% to 34%. This is what we call Beyond Food. What is true for employees is also true for mobility. In 2021, Beyond Fuel accounted for 27% of revenue for the division. We're now at 32%. That implies further diversification of that business line. Our digital platform has been strengthened as well. Between 2022 and 2024, we invested in CapEx and OpEx, about EUR 1.4 billion in technology. That technology enabled us to do a number of things.
First of all, we have a digital platform which is now optimized. And by optimized, I mean that the cost of processing a transaction has gone down 22% between 2021 and 2024. The platform is also growing with an annual process volume of more than EUR 100 billion in 2024. That strengthened platform is also safer and more compliant, with an 80% drop in fraud between 2023 and 2024. The platform has enabled us to ramp up digitization of our services as well, with now 93% of overall revenue generated by digital solutions. That's what we've been up to over the last years. And we have a good example of a strengthened digital platform through the new offering in France that has also been rolled out in Bulgaria. You can expect to see this to be deployed in many other European countries. It's called Edenre+ .
I would like to show you a short video on this, which should help you understand what a digital platform is and how it can be strengthened. At Edenred, we know that everyone has their own expectations, and that makes sense. That's why we've created an innovative solution called Edenred+ . Edenred+ is a new generation digital platform that helps you manage your advantages on a single platform. Mobility, food, everything is going to be centralized on a single platform. Having everything in the same place is a time saver. Let us tell you more. We have a wider range of restaurants so that Monday lunch does not look like Friday lunch. We're more adaptable, with a digital card for people who prefer to pay on mobile and physical cards for people who like to have something in their wallet.
We have more offerings and more negotiations across France to support employees in their professional and personal lives, even when they're not at work. It is also more comfortable, more user-friendly, more intuitive, and also it is packed full of technology in a way that makes it the best payment experience on the market. It is easier to use because some people prefer to handle things themselves on their Edenred+ app, and others prefer to be supported by our advisors so they use our services to the full. We are here for all of those approaches. We can do everything. You can decide what you need, and you can adapt what you have and what you provide to all of your employees. That is everything you need. Also, Edenred+ also means being respectful of the environment and CSR commitments. That is just the cherry on top.
Edenred+ is our vision for the future. Edenred is your go-to partner for the well-being and engagement of your employees. Get ahead of the curve and commit with us. Prenons un coup d'avance. Being a step ahead, yes, let's. Maybe a quick presentation on the regulations applicable to meal vouchers. I have mentioned this already and what kind of an impact it has on the share price. Maybe we need to set the stage effectively. If you look at the actual operational sales and revenue of Edenred, regulated meal business is 43% of our revenue. That has dropped significantly over the last nine years, quite simply because we have looked at other business, what we call Beyond, and we have looked at payments also. The regulation is also remarkably positive and has had a positive impact on our business.
We need to remember that always and everywhere because it means that we can roll out the so-called Ticket Restaurant, these luncheon vouchers. For instance, we're talking about EUR 1,500 extra spending power for Romanian employees. It also means that there's additional business for the partner sales points for the restaurants who work with us. Talking about France, we're talking here about EUR 14 billion of additional revenue for restaurants and other stores because of this regulated market. Without the regulation, that amount would not go into the retail network. It's also profitable for the authorities when the state invests in the system, agrees to the corresponding tax breaks, and gets actually a net return. Making the system tax-free costs about EUR 1.5 billion, but it brings into government coffers EUR 2 billion because of VAT, because of corporate tax, because of the jobs created.
Thanks to these luncheon vouchers in France, some 76,000 jobs have been created. It is also profitable and worthwhile for employers because it means that they can increase the loyalty of their staff, retain their staff. In Mexico, for instance, 75% of employers consider that this luncheon voucher, in fact, helps increase the motivation of the workers. Regulation is not all bad. There are plus sides to it. It is beneficial for employees, for employers, for the authorities and government, and also for our partners. Now, if you compare the market today to what it was 10 years ago, the food and meal market has increased twofold over the last 10 years, as I was saying, which means that this system can spread and develop. For instance, the face value of the regulated business has increased in 10 countries in 2024 and another 8 countries for 2025.
Regulation also means that we can support digitalization. We have full digitalization in Belgium, in Bulgaria, and halfway there in France, and we hope to be able to finalize that soon enough. There are also points in time where regulation really changes the rules, and that's what happened in Italy. In Italy, they were saying that the employers weren't paying enough, and the merchants, the points of sale, were paying too much. They included regulation to force the employers to contribute more. This takes time. It takes time to roll out such regulation, and it takes time to see the actual impact. When you're talking about regulation, you have to look at it, take the long view of this. Admittedly, the surface waters of the ocean are choppy, but it's calm underneath, and it will keep Edenred buoyant in its business.
Given this, we expect overall revenue of EUR 5 billion or more by 2030. Remember that in this, we've seen a CAGR of 20% or so every year over the last four years. Let me now give the floor to our Head of Strategy, Marketing, and Transformation, who will tell you more about the model and describe to you what Edenred is all about: strong resilience in the revenue times an ability to increase our margins times a very real growth reservoir. Constance, over to you.
[Foreign language] Thank you, Bertrand. And good morning, everyone. Let me revisit 2024 and try and show you how broadening our model means that we can confirm our ambition of EUR 5 billion or more in revenue by 2030. We want to enrich and develop our model on three avenues. First of all, the revenue, which is recurring and enriched.
Secondly, a growth potential on acquisition and penetration of our consumer base. Thirdly, we're growing also our value proposition. All of this is, of course, underpinned by our acquisition policy. Look at our recurring, enriched, and diversified revenue model. We have three sources of revenue. First of all, implementation or client setup, personalizing the platform, issuing the cards, etc. There is the subscription, and that is a subscription per employee per month to access all our services on the platform. That's, for instance, the Reward Gateway model. Thirdly, of course, our historic source of revenue, the transactional revenue, which is both the business volume and the take-up rate. As you can see, we now have an enriched, diversified model, especially as concerns the subscription because of commitment, electrification of vehicles, etc. We have something that's increasingly recurring.
The subscription revenue has increased 16% over 2024 compared to 2023, faster than the 11% organic growth. About 25% of our revenue nowadays is non-transactional. This is also supported by two standard elements. First of all, client acquisition. The second growth lever is our ability to penetrate the customer base, and that contributed to 35% of the sales growth for 2024. If you look at our acquisitions first, we are already and still doing business in markets that are under-penetrated. For instance, in some countries where meal and food penetration is below 10%. In 2024, we are talking about more than 650,000 users in SMEs that have joined our customer portfolio.
We have, therefore, broader markets that can be addressed, and we can push acquisition, as Bertrand said, but with a Beyond strategy, the markets that we could tap into are three times what they were previously. In a B2B2C model, managing our acquisition costs is also important. It is still low. Our return on investment on SME business is somewhere around 10. Compare that to the acquisition cost. Second growth lever, that is the portfolio expansion. If you look at our net retention rate, that is 104%, meaning the value of the whole portfolio at year's end compared to the end of the previous year. What does 104% mean? At the end of 2024 compared to 2023, sorry, the value has gone up 4%. That is thanks to the growth in our market, the recurrence of our solutions.
Secondly, because of our ability to increase the face value of our solutions, namely the luncheon voucher. Thirdly, our ability to cross-sell our solutions more. On average, we have 1.5% of our solutions with each of our clients. Depending on the countries, we have anywhere between three and eight solutions available. There is significant potential, more than three times what we have today. Now, last thing, as concerns the portfolio expansion, we are a global actor in a number of countries, and we can support our clients in a number of geographies. Look, for instance, at Goodyear last year. We were working with them in two countries only, and we now have a partnership with them that covers eight countries in which they do business. Customer growth, revenue growth, sorry, also is reliant on indirect sales channels through B2B, for instance.
I'm sure you're familiar with Itaú in Brazil. We've discussed this before, but look here at what we do in Spain. We do that through Aon and Mercer, some HR consultants, and working with them meant that we acquired another 300 clients in 2024 through B2B, but also through our ability to address new markets, B2C, namely. In this respect, we established a partnership with Nubank in Brazil, the largest fintech in Latin America, and they're now offering mobility and toll payment capacities to their B2C clients. I've discussed growth, acquisition, penetration, but all of this is underpinned by the value proposition: own solutions, solutions that we acquired, and/or the distribution and retail of third-party solutions. In France, for employee benefits, of course, we have the usual Edenred ones, the Ticket Restaurant and cadeau services, but we're also looking at the digital CESU Ticket, also available on Edenred+ .
We've strengthened our business by acquiring Reward Gateway to work with Edenred Engagement, and that's where it's found in France nowadays. We indeed have a number of clients that are covered by the platform. We also have partner benefits, for instance, Better Way on mobility, E-key on legal, and Stairwage for advance wage payments to employees. We have concrete solutions. On mobility, we also have the Energy Card, the VAT reimbursement, tolls, etc. We have the electric vehicles offer on Spiri. I'll come back to that later. Other third-party operated solutions, for instance, TRAVIS for parking. Acquisitions are in line with our Beyond strategy and enable us to reinforce our leadership position and to strengthen our addressable markets.
There are a number of acquisitions that could support and shore up our position as leader, for instance, RB in Brazil on mobility or IP in Italy on B2B mobility. We are also looking at Reward Gateway, Go Integro to support employee benefits, and also Spiri for electrification of vehicles, as I said. What you need to understand is that all these acquisitions represent EUR 250 million additional euros of revenue, thanks to these acquisitions of 2023-2024. Of this, 85% of these revenues are not regulated, and more than 80% are related to Beyond solutions, so over and beyond food and fuel. Let me give you an example of three acquisitions we secured. First of all, RB in Brazil. This means that we can shore up our position as leader on the market and broaden our business above luncheon vouchers. Employee transport is a very attractive market in Brazil.
We already had some business there. It's a compulsory or statutory benefit. We have more than 130 million transport users, public transport users a year. That means that we can shore up our multi-advantage or multi-benefit platform in the country. Second example, Spiri. That helps us broaden our market for electric vehicle charging, and it means that Edenred is able to build a sustainable professional mobility solution. We have 18 countries in Europe covered by this solution, 250 partners or more within the network, and a number of major accounts have already gone along with it. We do three things. First of all, infrastructure and have partnerships to establish chargers on our customers' facilities. Then we manage the chargers. And when I say that, I mean availability and management of the actual charging.
We have so-called on-the-road services so that they can identify the right chargers and optimize the charging process. Let me also mention the third example, the IP cards, which enable us or will enable us to strengthen our position as leader on the B2B mobility market in Italy. IP is a leading business, EUR 30 million in sales in 2023, 50,000 B2B customers, 4,600 petrol stations covered in Italy. That means that we can have significant synergies with potential growth in sales thanks to cross-selling with fuel vouchers, the toll payment also, and the Spiri solution for electrification.
Before I give the floor to Flore, let me say that our ambition of EUR 5 billion in sales by 2030, we want to broaden our portfolio, increase the value, increase the customer base, and reinforce the penetration of the current clients, and we will do so through our partnership and acquisition strategy. Flore, over to you.
Good morning. Edenred's business model includes the CSR strategy. In 2017, we developed an ambitious program, Ideal, Ideal People, Planet, and Progress. Let me introduce this strategy briefly with a video. Ever since its establishment, Edenred has tried to improve the workplace for all, and we have been proactive on CSR to create lasting and sustainable value for all. That is what we call Ideal. Our Ideal strategy focuses on people, planet, and progress. People, improving the quality of life. We want to be a choice or a prime employer.
We support employees' growth and protect the diversity of all. We are committed to diversity. We have 38% women in executive positions in 2024. We've been committed to growing our talents. 93% of the Edenred people have gone on training last year. We have 3,600 people on the Ideal Day solidarity business, 3,456 days of volunteering. We have 2.2 million km covered to secure fund. Planet, preserving the environment. We commit to reducing our carbon footprint by giving access to healthier food, more sustainable products, and environmentally minded mobility. Progress, creating value responsibly, being a partner for our clients. 80% of our transactions are conducted over certified platforms. We aim for the satisfaction of our clients by, at the same time, keeping preserving our basics. Last year, we got the science-based targets certification, for instance.
[Foreign language] Our CSR strategy is based on three major pillars and eight key performance indicators that feed into the entirety of the organization every year. These indicators are regularly reviewed and updated for their ambitions and are always changing, as we've already seen when it comes to diversity and inclusion. First of all, we're improving when it comes to things related to women executives and also on meritocracy. When it comes to the environment, as we'll say, we have strong commitments and recognized performance. Edenred is also supporting its customers as they transition through their progress pillar. This approach is recognized by non-financial organizations, and the questionnaires that they send us are more and more demanding every year.
However, Edenred, in this more demanding environment for non-financial reporting, has continued to improve and has, in fact, increased its score by seven points on the S&P Global Score, which is the Standard and Poor's non-financial performance indicator. I'd like to come back to one key thing and one key performance for the past year. Indeed, in 2024, out of the takeaways and highlights, we have the received recognition and approval of our carbon targets by the Science Based Target Initiative. SBTi was born from the Paris Accords and aims to support highly demanding processes to reduce carbon consumption. Edenred has presented ambitious targets to reduce its carbon emissions, and those targets were approved. For scopes one and two, first of all, so our direct emissions, the group has committed by 2030 to reduce those emissions by 51%.
Also on scope three, which is the indirect emissions coming from all of our stakeholders and partners, we're committing to a 55% reduction per EUR 1 million added. That ambition is based on a demanding action plan that will be published every year in our Universal Registration Document. These ambitious targets enable Edenred to be one of the 6,000 companies that are the most committed to reducing their carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. After that update on non-financial performance, we also wanted to continue to share with you some performance indicators and outlook for the financials of the group, and that will be Patrick who will pick up from there.
Good morning, everyone. Indeed, 2024 can be seen as a significant growth year for Edenred with double-digit growth. To illustrate this, I would like to comment on some of the key financial indicators for 2024.
Our first takeaway is total revenue at EUR 2.9 billion, almost EUR 2.9 billion in revenue. That's organic growth of more than 12% over the year. Secondly, we have EBITDA at EUR 1.265 billion. That's a 19% organic increase versus the previous year and is well significantly higher than the 12% target that we've set for the year. EBITDA to FCF conversion rate is now at 70% in line with our stated targets for the year, and earnings per share is at EUR 2.07 per share. That is a 21% increase versus the previous year. Double-digit growth comes from the two major business lines within the group, so benefits to employees and mobility. If you look at overall growth of operational revenue, we're at + 11% to EUR 2.6 billion, but in the benefits, which account for 65% of overall business, organic growth was at 13%.
For mobility, which is 24% of the overall business, once again, organic growth is at more than 11% for the year. That contribution comes from all of our geographic regions. Europe accounts for 61% of the total, and last year contributed growth of 7.9% organic and 10% total, so that includes some acquisitions that Constance mentioned just a minute ago. Latin America is 29% of overall business volume and has shown strong growth at + 15%, about 10% published growth, seeing as we are also taking into account Forex, which was negative for us last year. The rest of the world accounts for 10% of the total business volume, and we have seen organic growth of nearly 20% across those countries last year. Let's focus now on overall revenue, EUR 2.9 billion, as I stated earlier. That is 12.4% growth organic, 12.2% growth reported.
That can be broken down between operating revenue, which is up about 11% over the last year, and other revenue sources, what you might call financial revenue, which is up 26% over the same period. Further improvements have been achieved in profitability with operating revenue, which is up one point over the previous year from 38% to 39.1%. Overall, EBITDA is also significantly up with an extra 1.3 points, a margin at 44.3% of overall revenue, EUR 1.65 billion, with organic growth at 19% over the year. The conversion rate for free cash flow, so EBITDA going to free cash flow, 70%, which is in line with what we stated. That means that free cash flow production over 2024 is at EUR 881 million. This comes from significant generation of our self-financing rate, which is up.
As Edenred has always done, we have been focusing on payment terms and cash collection from our stakeholders, which also generates cash. That leads to net debt, which is under control and a leverage ratio which is acceptable. Total net debt is EUR 1.806 billion at the end of 2024, a leverage ratio of 1.4x. The leverage ratio is the relationship between net debt and EBITDA. Strong cash flow generation has enabled us over 2024 to carry out a number of acquisitions for a total value of EUR 510 million. It has also enabled us to pay out shareholders in an enhanced way over the year, EUR 664 million paid out if you include dividends and share buybacks. It is also worth noting that on the increase in net debt over the year, EUR 706 million, a large part of that is due to Forex for EUR 224 million.
For allocation of capital, the dividend that we are recommending today is EUR 1.21 per share, a 10% increase versus the dividend paid out last year. That dividend amount, we believe, is a good balance. By balance, I mean that this payout ratio enables us to fund organic growth for the group, to continue to carry out targeted acquisitions, to continue to increase our shareholder return as part of our dividend growth policy, which is being applied in absolute terms every year, and also enables us to continue the program that we kicked off last year for share buybacks. Furthermore, it maintains the solid balance sheet, which is visible in large part through our strong investment grade rating from S&P. A focus on share price now.
If we try and look over share price over a longer period, which we believe is more appropriate when you have holdings in shares, basically here, I'd like to come back to changes over the last 10 years. Since October 2015, we can indeed see that the share price has been significantly affected over the more recent years, as you heard earlier. However, if you compare our growth versus the SBF 120 and the CAC 40, we still have a positive delta of 10 percentage points over the period. Finally, and it's worth mentioning what the 19 financial analysts who monitor our company think and what their consensus is. Fourteen of those analysts have a buy recommendation for Edenred shares. Four of them are neutral, and one sell-side analyst has a sell recommendation for Edenred.
The average target price is EUR 42, so a potential upside in the short term for the share price, because that's what analysts work on, is about +50% versus the current share price. I'd also like to focus on early 2025. Early 2025 can be seen as good. Certainly, the first part of the year is in line with expectations. If you look at overall revenue, we've seen a 6.7% increase, organic growth 5.7% reported. Especially noteworthy here, operating revenue growth is at 7.1%. It's also worth noting that there are some strong comparison effects with the last year. We had about 17% growth in the first quarter of 2024, and all of that was in an economic environment which is much less favorable than it was at the same time last year. We've also seen a ramp-up in growth of beyond food business.
On the left side of the chart here, you can see that in an overall way, food and meals have continued to grow, although there is a slowdown in that reported growth. To be very specific here, we're continuing to grow significantly, 8.2%. However, if you compare this to the full year 2024, given the macroeconomic environment, the growth is slower than what we saw last year. However, and this is an important takeaway, the illustration of our beyond food strategy is particularly positive. If you look at our operating revenue on the diversification businesses, so beyond fuel and beyond food, compared to our legacy business, we have seen a real ramp-up with organic growth in the first quarter of 2025, 16.9% for beyond fuel, compared to + 13.5% in the previous year. Same comment for the diversification strategy on beyond fuel.
The overall mobility and fuel market is continuing to grow. What you can see on the left side of the slide is that the growth in operating revenue for the fuel business is 7.7% higher, which is higher than the 7.5% organic growth that we had in 2024. Especially the beyond fuel side of the business is doing well, with significant growth at 15.1% in the first quarter of 2025, where we posted 10.5% in 2024. This is due to a range of initiatives implemented in the division. In particular, we have the recent example of the strengthening of our partnership that we have had for a long time with Daimler Trucks. We supplied toll-paying solutions and fuel-paying solutions to them, and that has recently been expanded to electric charging stations for electric HGVs, more than 300 charging stations in 28 countries.
Overall, we are going into 2025 with the confidence and the ability to confirm our targets for the entire year. It's important to note that we have seen a macroeconomic deterioration of the business environment. Things are less certain and less predictable than they have been in the past. However, EBITDA should grow at least 10% organically over the year 2025, and we're expecting the 70% cash conversion ratio for the full year. In 2025, Edenred will continue its growth thanks to a number of things, including the solidity of its business model and the recurring nature of a large part of our revenue. Our business mix is diversified, and we have presence in multiple regions. What we mean by multiple regions is that we have local assets operating local businesses in the countries where we operate.
That also means that given recent changes from the White House, we're never working across borders, which means that we are not affected by any increases in tariffs, and that's very important to remember given the current environment. We're also expecting to continue to ramp up our beyond strategy. Finally, we firmly believe, and we're working on this every day, that our range of solutions is relevant, and as Constance said, we can improve our performance when it comes to cross-selling for our existing customer base. Operational profitability is likely to continue to grow, and that is in large part due to controlling our operating costs and continuing to improve our performance for our products. That's continuous improvement that leads us to consistently review our portfolio of solutions in all the countries where we have operations. I'd like to thank you for your attention.
I'd now like to give the floor back to Bertrand, who's going to tell us about governance for Edenred.
Thank you very much, Patrick. We're moving on to the next part related to the governance of the group. The board of directors is made up of 12 members. 90% of the directors are independent. 50% of them are women. We have three committees under the board of directors that prepare decisions to be handed to the board. We have audit and risk. We have compensation, CSR, and nominations. We have engagement. To put a face to a name, we have all 12 members of the board of directors. 90% of them, as I said, are independent. Four of the members are being put up for renewal of their terms. We'll be asking you to renew Monica, Nathalie, Sylvia, and Philippe.
As regards skill sets, now I know that the writing is quite small on the screen, but you can see the range of skills that we deem to be important for governance of the group. Vertically, sorry, you can see all of the board members, and horizontally, you can see the skills, and we're trying to have a good spread across the necessary skills and skill sets required to be a good Edenred director. We're also going to be talking about nominations, including Thierry Delaporte as an independent director for three years. I would like to invite Thierry to come up to the stage to introduce himself so that we can get to know him.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Bertrand. I've been asked to introduce myself. Thierry Delaporte. I'm 55 years old. I've got four children. I started my career 33 years ago.
I spent 30 years in digital transformation, Capgemini for 25 years. I ended up number two in the group. I worked at Wipro, an Indian group, a world leader in digital transformation, 25 years abroad in Asia, in Europe, and in the U.S. I'm very proud and also very honored if you decide to vote favorably for my term to join this board of directors. It's a fantastic business adventure. Edenred has been a great success story over the last years. It's a fantastic company. I'm very happy to discover the energy that the company has, its values, and I intend to contribute to it insofar as I can through my experience of international business management and digitization. There you go. We are going to be asking you to vote on appointing Thierry in Resolution 8. We're also very happy to be putting forward the name of Kristell Rivaille.
She's based out of Milan, and when we confirmed to her that the board of directors had decided to put her name to the AGM, unfortunately, she had prior commitments. As I said, she's based out of Milan, and she works at Google handling Southern European emerging countries marketing. However, she has very kindly offered to introduce herself through a video. Let's listen to Kristell.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Kristell Rivaille, and I am honored to have my application considered to be a director at Edenred. It's a shame that I couldn't be with you physically, so I decided to send a brief video introduction. For nearly 30 years, I've been building up and piloting marketing strategies for world leaders: McKinsey, Procter & Gamble, PayPal. And for the last 14 years, I've been working with Google, where I'm the Vice President for France, Southern Europe, and emerging countries.
My passion throughout my career has always been to ramp up growth through innovation. Right now, my international experience, my strategic experience in marketing, especially digital marketing, payments, data, and more recently, AI, are all things that I want to make available to the growth strategy and profitable development strategy for Edenred. I'm very enthusiastic at the idea of being able to join Edenred's board of directors, and I hope to be able to contribute to the work of the team and to contribute to the success of this fantastic group. Thank you for your trust.
[Foreign language] Kristell. We can clap. [Foreign language] , Kristell, resolution. So Kristell will be covered under Resolution 9. As I said, we are also suggesting that we reappoint Nathalie and Sylvia and Monica and Philippe Vallée. These are covered by various resolutions. How are directors identified and selected at Edenred?
First of all, we look at the profile, the skill set that is required. Then we call in an outside consultant to suggest candidates and identify them. Then we conduct interviews and then suggest the names to the board. It is the appointments committee that does that. A decision is taken, and once that is done, you are called upon to agree or not to the appointment of the candidate that has been identified. It is a five-stage process that was particularly lively in 2024. I would like to thank the appointments committee for working so hard to identify great candidates. What were the topics discussed in 2024? Of course, they are the usual topics, but let me mention those that were maybe more specific. First of all, a share buyback with a view of cancellation.
The acquisition of RB in Brazil, Spiri in Denmark, and IP in Italy, as Constance has already mentioned. There was another busy topic, and that was CSRD compliance and the structuring of the new sustainability report. Then the appointment of the statutory auditors for the certification of the sustainability report. These are the specific topics discussed in 2024 over and beyond the usual recurring matters. We also want to have a constant dialogue between the board and the executive committee. We structure this dialogue every year. We have a so-called strategic seminar that lasts two days and is scheduled for October. At every meeting of the board, we discuss relevant and topical issues. We also want to make sure that the board knows the executive board and the other way around too. The executive committee makes any number of presentations.
Indeed, the satisfaction level is quite high when we look at the workings of the board. Succession planning is a broad regular topic for us. Every year, the Appointments Committee covers this. The Compensation, Appointments, and the CSR Committee reviews the succession plan of the 25 key executives. All these issues are taken very seriously and independently. We assess the operating and the workings of the board. What happens is there's a three-year process. In the first two years, you have a self-assessment, and on the third year, you have an outside consultancy firm that comes and leads this. This is done under the authority of Dominique D’Hinnin, Deputy Chairman of the Board and Lead Independent Director. This is done under the recommendations of the Afep-MEDEF Code. The results for 2024 were particularly satisfying. Again, and as usual, there is always scope for improvement.
Two topics were identified. First of all, increasing the international contribution to the board. Secondly, go on having feedback following acquisitions. I can tell you that we are determined to do so. The board is made up of three committees: the audit and risk committee, the remuneration, appointments, and CSR committee, and the engagements committees. They are chaired by Bernado, Dominique, and Jean-Urbain, respectively. As you can see, also in red is the names of the people. This is, of course, subject to your appointment or renewal of the board. Thierry would, for instance, join the compensation, appointments, and CSR committee, and Nathalie would join the engagements committee or commitments committee. Let me now give the floor to the chair of the audit and risk committee, Bernardo. Over to you.
[Foreign language] Dear shareholders, good morning.
I will review with you the audit and risk committee's work. You can see in the background the four people who sit on the committee. We met four times over the course of last year, and the attendance rate was 100% every time. The first purpose of the audit and risk committee is to make sure, together with the statutory auditors, that the accounting methods are relevant and sustained over time. We also have to check the quality of the information related to the business of the group and to make sure that it reflects adequately the performance and the strategic goals and the way they are achieved. Moreover, since 2024, the committee is also in charge of drafting the sustainability information.
Over the course of its meetings in 2024, the committee mentioned and prepared, amongst other things, the work and the decisions of the board relating to the topics you have up there on the screen. In 2024, for instance, two of our four meetings were dedicated to the review of the company and corporate and consolidated accounts, to the implementation of the underlying accounting principles, and also financial communication and sustainability information. Moreover, the audit and risk committee's task is also to assess the exposure of your group to various risks. This is an important task, of course, and relies on a mapping of the risks that are identified. This is updated regularly, depending on the assessments of the group, of the company, and of its business. Any new risks are taken on board if and when needed.
Every identified risk leads to the establishment of an action plan, and there's always a person or a team of people in charge of implementing it or monitoring the action plan or the remediation plan should there be a need for one. Over the course of this year, we also looked at improving the fight against money laundering and fighting against fraud. We did so by checking online transactions, for instance, or making sure that we had the right mechanisms to do so, and also by verifying transactions live and also by using AI, such as is done at PayTech. Lastly, the committee is also dedicated to the training of staff on compliance and fighting against fraud. For instance, risk committees are now up and running in each of the subsidiaries, and compulsory training is available by any newcomers. The completion rate of this training is somewhere around 93%.
Thank you very much. [Foreign language] Dominique. Dominique will now join us. He is the Head of the Compensation Appointments and CSR Committee.
Good morning. I will now give you a presentation of the work of the Compensation Appointments and CSR Committee. Our committee is made up of three directors, three independent directors, all of them. We met four times over 2024, and of course, we were all in attendance. The main task of the committee is to prepare the work and the decisions of the board as concerns developments and changes in the governing bodies, and namely, of course, the board. We also look at changes in the makeup of the Executive Committee. We prepare any changes relating to the compensation of company officers, long-term incentive plans for staff, stock options, performance shares, and assess the CSR performance of the group.
As you can well imagine, 2024 was particularly busy given the changes in regulation covering CSR with sustainable development regulation and all the indicators being connected to them. Under Flore, her team was particularly hard at work, and we'd like to thank them. Second topic, working on the appointment of new directors, and Bertrand mentioned that earlier. As concerns the compensation of the company officer, Bertrand Dumazy, not to name him, we rely on a number of guiding principles. First of all, continuity, meaning that we have stability around a number of items which have been stable over the last 10 years since 2015 in line with the strategy of the company. Secondly, we want compliance with the regulation and with the Afep-MEDEF code of practice. Then we also make sure that the compensation is comparable, hence the benchmarking with other similar-sized companies as ours.
Lastly, the compensation of the Chairman and CEO is significantly affected by long-term business, meaning that we expect the Chairman and CEO to develop and roll out a long-term strategy for the business and be in charge of it over the long term, and also make sure that his compensation depends on the performance of the company, meaning that the fixed payment is unchanged as concerns 2024, rather 2025 for the ex-ante vote, that you are called upon to look at the resolution for, so EUR 1,030,000, then 20% variable remuneration if the targets are reached or beyond if there is overperformance, and then a fairly significant long-term remuneration and compensation in line with the principles I mentioned. The long-term compensation, as you can see, can reach 60% of the fixed compensation, which is slightly above CAC 40 practice, but does fall in line with the priorities of the group.
As for ex-post compensation, the fixed compensation is the same as what is proposed for 2025. The variable compensation is a reflection of the financial and extra-financial performance of the company. 2024 was a record year for Edenred, and Bertrand Dumazy basically reached all or almost all of the goals and overperformed across the board or almost. The long-term compensation, similarly, gave us the possibility to suggest a compensation near enough the maximum compensation envisaged given the performance of the company for 2024. Under French legislation, we are called upon to compare compensation with the average compensation of employees. The proportions are pretty much the same as we had in 2023, even though there has been a slight change given the importance or significant role that plays long-term performance and compensation. Lastly, you will be called upon to vote on the so-called attendance fees of the board members.
Exposed the overall amount is EUR 883,000, so less than the overall budget that you had looked at for last year. For next year, the budget is slightly larger, not because we are paying each of the directors more, but we are factoring in a larger board membership with one additional board member given what is being suggested. Thank you for your kind attention.
[Foreign language] Thank you, Dominique. I think the time has come to call upon our statutory auditors. Please welcome Nicolas from Ernst & Young.
[Foreign language] Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, on behalf of the statutory auditors for Edenred, Ernst & Young, and Deloitte, I would like to report on the financials for 2024. Our work aimed to achieve reasonable assurance that the consolidated accounts and the corporate accounts had no significant anomalies within. Our two firms worked in France and abroad in all significant entities under the group.
Our audits and their international coordination were defined in a way to provide sufficient coverage to lead to an opinion. It is noteworthy that no significant changes in the IFRS standards for the French accounts for the annual reporting occurred for this year. Our work took into account the specifics of the group when it comes to business lines, regulatory framework, organizational risk, information systems, and also internal control systems. If the Chairman of the meeting agrees, I will not read in extenso the entirety of our report, but rather summarize the highlights. There are three main components. First of all, our report on the consolidated accounts on pages 170- 173 of the URD. We have an unqualified opinion on those consolidated accounts. Our report contains three key components for audit.
First of all, assessment of goodwill and intangible assets, debts related to traded securities, and also provisions for litigation and tax risk. Secondly, our report on the annual accounts is presented on pages 235- 237 of the URD. When it comes to the corporate accounts, we also have issued an unqualified opinion with one highlight related to the assessment of shares and debt. We also published a number of reports in part related to resolutions put to this AGM. We have a special report on regulated conventions on page 411 of the URD and the object of resolution 12. We were made aware of no specific issues and no pre-approved agreement from the AGM that will be continued in the past year. We also have a report for the extraordinary general meeting on page 412 of the URD. This will be on the allocation of shares to be issued.
This is the object of resolution 17. We had no observation on this issue. We also have been able to certify payments and remuneration with no further requirement to put things to the vote of the AGM. Finally, the AGM trusted us last year with a legal mission involving the certification of sustainability information and the publication thereof. Our report can be found on pages 137- 139 of the URD with no further provisions to be put to your vote. Based on the checks that we carried out, we saw no omissions or significant incoherencies in line with our mission. Understanding that this information was gathered as part of the first implementation of the CSRD regulation. Ladies and gentlemen, members of the board, I'd like to thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Nicolas. We can now move on to our Q&A session.
This is an important time where we can talk amongst ourselves. I'd like to ask Philippe to explain how we're going to carry out this Q&A session.
Thank you very much, Bertrand. As is usually the case, we have staff in the room with little flags. They can give you a number and a microphone when it's your turn, and we'll be answering the questions as we go. To the left, I'm told. Starboard. Can we get a microphone to the gentleman there? You have someone standing just in front of you. I also have a question. I'll give you the microphone afterwards, if that's okay. All right. A gentleman is rising to his feet in the audience.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, everyone. I have a question about the balance sheet.
When I saw the balance sheet, my hair stood up on its end, but I'm sure you can reassure me. We've got some very negative figures that have gotten worse in 2024, and capital has gone down as well. If you look at the cash flow, it's good, but it's also down 10% in 2024. If you look at the financial costs, I assume that cash flow should bring in some money, but financial costs are up 24%. My question is the following. What is the average cost of your loans? What is the average yield of your financial holdings? Why is your equity so far in the red? Thank you.
Thank you very much for those excellent questions. Don't worry, we have plenty of information that should get your hairs back to where they should be. Equity, cash flow, holdings.
Patrick, that's your field.
Good morning, sir. Now, on equity, I would invite you to look at our legacy information. Equity has always been very much in the red for Edenred ever since the spinoff that led to the new Edenred, which used to be a group under the Accor Group. This is related to the debt pushdown that was done on the balance sheet of the company at the time. If you look at this over the long term, 15 years, so since the spinoff, which was in 2010, equity is actually improving year on year. That was not the case between 2023 and 2024, as you rightly underlined, and there's a range of reasons behind that, in large part Forex and also the significant dividend that was paid out that year.
When it comes to free cash, I think that cash flows should be seen as going hand in hand with net debt. As I said in my presentation earlier, there are fluctuations that may occur at various times for operational reasons, for example. For example, there's a lot of business around the end of the year with gift vouchers and government programs in countries such as Mexico. In a nutshell, there was not a very big spike in cash at the end of 2024. However, that also means that we spent a lot less in the first part of 2025.
If you look overall at changes in net financial debt, because from a financial analysis perspective, that's what makes the most sense dynamically, I can confirm that that 1.4x leverage ratio, so that is net debt, gross net debt minus cash holdings over EBITDA, is perfectly reasonable for a group our size and given what we aspire to. I'm sorry, I forgot your last question.
Patrick, maybe I can answer that last question. Your final question was related to financial costs. If you look at debt at the end of 2024, the cost of debt is 3.5% with a maturity around 3.7 years. The cost of debt is up. That is because refinancing is being done at higher rates than what we had a couple of years ago when we had negative interbank rates.
The cost of financing is going up, but also yields on our working capital is going up. That is one of the fantastic things about Edenred's financial model. We can put our money to work, and we can also borrow money, and we have kind of natural hedging, meaning that when rates go up, both yields and costs go up, and when rates go down, they go down across the board. This means that we have a naturally hedged position, and also, as Patrick said, given the way we manage the company, we can be very conservative and very cautious about our leverage ratio. Leveraging did go up in 2024 because we paid out more to our shareholders and also because we undertook some acquisitions. We were impacted by some Forex on that ratio as well, but as Patrick said, it is very reasonable.
Don't forget that we are strong investment grade. We are A-rated. We are, in fact, the smallest company to have an A- S&P rating. S&P looks at us and says, "Edenred is A-. There are no smaller companies that are A-." Our leverage ratio has gone up, but it's justified. We increased our payout to shareholders in 2024, and we also saw more acquisitions. All of that is being managed in a very cautious way. I'd like to give the floor now to the next gentleman.
I have two questions. The first one is on market penetration rate for employee advantages from Edenred. Secondly, on the capital day on the 25th of April 25. In a recent interview, Chairman Dumazy, you stated that the penetration rate for advantages for employees was at less than 10% for Edenred in 80% of the markets in which the group operates.
What do you intend to do to improve that penetration rate? I would like to come back to Friday, the 25th of April. We lost 13% in share value, whereas the share price of our main competitor went down 8%. According to some analysts, a reform of lunch vouchers and food vouchers in general is being discussed and has been for years in Brazil. The endpoint, and I quote, would be to simply do without the issuers. Brazil accounts for 18% of operating revenue for Edenred. 9% is just for lunch vouchers and food vouchers. My question is, Brazil, as the largest market for this type of services, may reform significantly its employee food voucher program. If that were to occur, what would Edenred do? I would like to conclude by congratulating you, Chairman Dumazy, for the renewal of your term on Edenred's board. That was yesterday.
Also, the 10th anniversary of your chairmanship of Edenred. Thank you.
[Foreign language] Dear sir, thank you very much. Let's come back to your excellent questions one by one. First of all, indeed, on employee advantages, the penetration rate is still very low and also is very different depending on the region. Let me give you a couple of examples. First of all, SME penetration in France is around 10%. Italian penetration rate for SMEs is around 5%. Penetration for lunch vouchers in France is 28%, whereas in many other countries, we're at more than 50%. For restaurant vouchers, France is an excellent example of how sometimes it's the hairdresser who has the worst cut hair. We've got a lot of growth potential, and market penetration is part of that growth potential. This is business volume that's required.
We need to continue to invest in the business in sales, but in a segmented way, meaning that major groups have elite salespeople, and they have the highest penetration rate. If you look at SMEs and the middle of the market, we have a mix of telesales and salespeople. Telesales is something that I like a lot because it's almost industrial in its nature. There's an inflow of leads that we need to keep warm. It's kind of like at a restaurant. You need to keep the dishes warm. A hot lead, as it comes in, if it's addressed within 30 minutes, has twice the conversion rate than a cold lead. A hot meal is better than a warm or cold meal. This is something that we need to coordinate on across lead generation and conversion of those leads.
This means investing in methodology and also investing in the number of people who can actually do that for us. Thirdly, we need to be able to generate leads and to convert them without involving humans. That means integrating the leads with platforms in a way that makes people want to sign up to the program without having to talk to someone on the phone. That means investing. That means investing in people, and that means investing in technology so that we can strengthen our firepower when it comes to improving penetration of our solutions. On that very unfortunate day on the 25th of April, your numbers are correct, meaning that restaurant vouchers account for 9% of our revenue. And that's in Brazil. However, what is incorrect is the journalists who stated that a technology called PixPat that could circumvent the issuers. Mr.
Mourinho, the Labour Minister, two days later said, "No, no, no. PixPat is one technology, but it's not something that actually addresses the employee voucher system because it's not filtered. It's universal money, and it's not secure." We're talking about billions that belong to employers and employees that need to be secured. Also, I said not filtered. What I mean by that is there's another program in Brazil called Bolsa Família, and the government discovered, to their horror, that because that money isn't filtered, more than 20% of that money that's supposed to go to large families is actually being siphoned off to gaming and gambling activities. A reporting rumor on the potential use of a new technology. The question is, can you actually do employee foods with Pix technology? No. It needs to be filtered. It needs to be secured.
Your third question was, if the program disappears, what do we do? First of all, the program is not going to disappear. It has been around for 49 years, and it is what enables 24 million employees in Brazil to get decent food every day. The Labour Minister is telling us that, in fact, on the contrary, they want more employee food programs, and we are busy thinking about what we could offer for that 50-year anniversary of the program. That will be next year. That very same minister is telling us that if the system needs to last another 50 years, we need to take stock, and we need to look at the parameters. Parameters include who is paying what, what the share is between the seller and the employee.
Maybe there'll be rebalancing between the employers and the sellers because employers have access to discounts, and it might make sense that that discount disappears. That would mean that the prices would be a little bit lower for the sellers, for the merchants. Tweaks in the system, but this is all productive discussion that needs to be done calmly, as the Labour Minister said, in a way that will lay the groundwork for the next 50 years. By the way, the same discussion is ongoing in France. Level-headed discussions. We would have liked to see it happen faster, but the Parliament got dissolved. All of this aims to strengthen employee food programs for the next 20-30 years. Thank you very much for that question, Patrick.
[Foreign language] Can I contribute to an answer for your comparison to what Bloxy does?
As you know, they have far less of a free float than we do, so they can absorb technical shocks, if you will, maybe more effectively. For a group like ours, a number of funds short sell our shares. If you want to short sell the risk, you would tend to do it with our shares, Edenred, more than Bloxy. Hence the difference in what happened on the 25th of April.
Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Good morning, everyone. I wanted to discuss competition. It seems to me that the lunch and voucher market is very competitive, especially in France. Edenred sometimes gets very exciting media coverage. In 2024, for instance, we read in the media that Bloxy was on the hunt, on the prowl, trying to get Edenred. What do we know? What is happening?
I mean, how is Edenred positioned compared to other companies which might want to gobble up our assets? In April 2024, Edenred was discussed by the Paris Olympic Games Organizing Committee with negative coverage. What kind of a link was there? Lastly, I think you mentioned earlier EUR 14 billion sales in France for lunch and vouchers. I think that's what you said. Are we talking about the entire market size, or is it just Edenred's market share? Also, it's all very complex. You have brands, companies. Who owns what? Can you tell us more about that market?
Thank you, sir. Let me pick the last two questions maybe for which the questions are shorter, probably. Edenred did not sponsor the Olympic Games, but there were communications writing to our competitors, saying to our clients that they should get into Olympic form and Olympic shape.
Now, it so happens that in the run-up to the Olympics, you are not allowed to use the word Olympic if you're not under the Olympic Committee or the Olympic Games Organizing Committee. We therefore got a long letter telling us what we shouldn't be doing. I didn't know we couldn't do it. Whoever sent the communication didn't know it. We tried to argue that it was done in good faith, that we would desist immediately, and maybe a financial contribution might solve the problem. That's how it worked out. Anyway, if during the Olympic period, so to speak, you use the word Olympic, Olympian, or whatever, you get into trouble because it's a trademark almost. Secondly, the business, the market. If you look at the lunch and vouchers, all the issuers represent about EUR 14 billion.
That's EUR 9 billion in lunch and vouchers, and the rest is sort of additional expenses. For instance, if you have a EUR 10 voucher, you tend to spend EUR 15. So the actual lunch and vouchers account for EUR 9 billion or EUR 10 billion and another EUR 5 billion in additional expenses or additional spending. The competition, the state of the competition. We've known about competition since the very beginning. You may not know this, but there are more than 100 issuers of lunch and vouchers in Brazil, for instance. There are 15 in France. You might not know that. We're talking here about lunch and vouchers, which account for 44% of a business in mobility, all sorts of competitors also for commitment, same again.
From the very beginning, Edenred has been very much involved and aware of competition, very competition from one business to the next and from one country to the next, but still. In France, according to our computation of the numbers from the so-called CNTR, the National Commission for Lunch and Vouchers, the official figures, therefore, we understand that Edenred has something like 37% or 38% of the market. We're the leading operator. On that basis, and according to our calculation, apparently in 2024, we increased our market share by one percentage point. That's the dynamic situation we're in. We're the leaders, and we're still acquiring market share. Who are our competitors? There's a competitor that emerged from the merger of Bimpli and Swile. They merged, and this is now the second largest on the French market. There's Up, which is a cooperative.
There is Bloxy, which is in fact the spinoff of Sodexo as concerns employee benefits. There are all sorts of others. I mentioned there were 15, but these are the four leading issuers. All this to say that we've always experienced competitive, and I think the 12,000 members of staff are innate competitors. I mean, they love the competition. They love to be involved in a competition, and they want to win. Again, our competitive spirit is very lively. We are leaders on the French market, but not only on the French market, and 70% of our sales result from our position as leaders on the market in some countries on some specific markets. We are fighting to establish this. Look at mobility in Italy, for instance.
We really were not anything and did not represent anything then, and we added to it, added to it incrementally, grew to number six, and then we had an opportunity buying up a portfolio, and we are now number two. Rest assured, we are aiming for the top spot. It will take the time it takes, but we will not give up. I do not like to lose in the final, and nor does anyone in the team. We will focus on that. We will make it a leader in Italy. That is exactly what we are trying to do across the board in other markets too. I think that answers your question, sir. You tell me. The first question about Bloxy, it is not for me to comment on what our competitors or journalists say.
The fact is that when I read things about a business I am familiar with, it makes me even more scared when I read things about a business I do not know. The fact is that our industry is very technical and not always easy to understand. Comments off mic from the room. I do not think so is the answer to a question the interpreter did not hear. We are leaders on the market. Our market cap is much greater than what Bloxy is. I think our market cap is somewhere between EUR 6 billion and EUR 7 billion. Bloxy's is at EUR 2 billion, I think. The balance of power is such that there is still a lot of work to do, I would say. Yes, question two here. Sir?
Yes, I had a question. You have had difficulties with the competent authorities, but have you penetrated the civil servant market?
I mean, there's 5 million civil servants in France out of 20 million people in work, I think. I expect in Italy and in Brazil, there are many civil servants too. We have people here who need services, people who work overnight or whatever. Look at the size of the Works Council at EDF, the French Electricity Board. Do you have partnerships with public service or civil service? Would that be called into question by the authorities in France or Italy, for instance?
Let me try and answer this. The scope of lunch and vouchers is not the result of discussions, really. It's the authority that looks at the situation and will tweak the applicable parameters for whatever it might be, 10, 20, 30 years. What you're talking about, I expect, is the situation in Italy.
In 2018, there was a call for tender, as is the case every year, and one of the competitors took the case to the Commercial Tribunal, saying that our bid was not compliant, and they lost in the trial court, and then the appeals court found in their favor and asked us to hand back one of the bundles, one of the lots. In Italy, there is a rule that says that if you lose a case in the Commercial Courts, you may be taken to a criminal court. Your question is, will this hinder us in our business? The answer is no.
In 2018, CONCEP, the body that organized the call for tender, had a month to say whether they wanted to discontinue business, and they said that they wanted to go on working with us both for the 2018 contract and the 2019 contract, meaning that the state body felt that the Commercial Tribunal finding in our favor in the trial and then only marginally finding against us in the appeals meant that there was no reason for them to discontinue dealing with us. Are we interested in dealing with the public sector? The answer is yes. Is our market share as big in the public sector as it is in the private sector? The answer is no. Our market share there is slightly smaller than on the private market, or tends to be anyway.
The question we are asking ourselves is, how can we once again become leaders in the public sector? The answer is the profitability. It's true that on some public markets, the profitability is not quite what it should be, and there's so much business outside of the public sector, so we know where our priorities lie. To answer your question, is there business in the public sector? Yes. Could we do more there? Yes, provided the profitability is in line with our standards. Another question off mic. On works councils, you may not know this, but Edenred is the leader in the business of digital works councils, so to speak. When you look at the digital platform of the French Electricity Boards, of EDF's digital platform, basically, it's an Edenred platform, but just done up à la EDF.
When they get money paid into their account, it then gets divided or allocated according to the priorities of the works council, and the workers can then use that amount digitally or ask for it to be put onto a gift card, for instance, if necessary. All the management of flows is handled by Edenred. Can we just double-check with Elan maybe that I'm not speaking nonsense here, but I do seem to remember that the EDF works council is using our platform. If they don't, we'll have to get down to business soon because we are the leaders on that market in France. Also, I'm sure you know that there are no works councils for companies below 50 employees.
What we want to try and do is offer them a digital works council and suggest to business leaders that they put a bit of money through one of the Edenred platforms for their employees. Thank you. Next question.
Hello. Individual shareholders about refinancing. Last year, we saw that that had an impact on the results. EUR 54 million in financial expenses in 2022, EUR 100 and something million in 2023. Over 2024-2027, there will be a lot of refinancing. Will that have an impact on the company and what kind?
Patrick, you start.
Yes. Hello, sir. The average maturity of our financing is anywhere between five and seven years.
What you have noticed is basically replacing a convertible bond from 2018 or 2019, which was at -1.53%, and replace it by a standard bond issuer of EUR 500 million at three point something euro, which is an excellent rate in the current circumstances, but the world has completely changed. There is a rate issue, and the credit margin also takes into account; it has to be taken into account, but that has not changed that much. Mainly, the impact is the effect of the market rate, and we cannot do much about that. Second half of your question, will it change things a lot in the future? I do not think so, quite simply because we do not really have a debt wall. There are no specific deadlines in next year. There are a few more in the following years, 2027.
Rates are starting to go down, or the rates forwards are going down, or starting to go down. I would tend to say that when we come to refinancing, and we will refinance, even if you do not need financing at that time, I think that the rate difference will be much less than what it has been over the last two years.
First of all, we are working very hard on our market share. We have 30% market share in the private sector in France. We are there, but we could do better, and that is something that could be a growth driver for us. 470,000 beneficiaries, and I am waiting for more information on EDF. A gentleman there.
Sorry. No, I am messing up what our people have planned. Should I follow the numbers?
We have plenty of time for all of the questions.
Louis Duval, individual shareholder in Accor, and then Edenred. First of all, congratulations for the good management of the company. I do have a question, and I asked this question last time. It's related to Forex. Brazil is a country that has its ups and downs. It is bizarre to me that you still have EUR 200 million in Forex losses. Are you not hedging that? Last year, you told me, "No, you're not going to move anywhere because it's money that stays in the country, and because we're not getting it out, it doesn't cost us anything." It still appears in the accounts. Secondly, if you read the invitation and you look at profit after tax amortization and provisions, we are going from EUR 309 million to EUR 292 million? Yes, that is millions, not billions, I assume. Because the line going up is good, but the numbers are going down.
This is on page 23. Otherwise, well done for management.
Thank you very much for those questions. Patrick.
Yes. Thank you, sir, for those questions. Unfortunately, I wasn't there. I'm the predecessor of the former financial director. I don't know what Julien Tanguy told you last year, but there are some things that I can share. The countries that we're very exposed to Forex in are, in many cases, experiencing hyperinflation. Turkey and Argentina come to mind. All countries where interest rates are extremely high. Generally, high interest rates, such as in Brazil and Mexico, lead to devaluation of the currency. Hedging is very, very complex or very expensive, or both in these countries. Also, in those two major countries, so Brazil and Mexico, there are regulations that require leaving the money in the country if you want to have responsible financial management.
For a large part of our business, we have natural coverage between debt and loans. However, these are countries that are very profitable and in which we have lots of cash because our models are in part prepaid. Our exposure to cash is quite high. We have more cash than debt in these countries. That means that the natural hedging ends up being unbalanced in those countries. If the currency gets devalued, that, of course, shows up in red in our balance sheet. If you look at the long-term effect, let's not forget that there are countries where things have been going very well. Sometimes things go in our favor. Unfortunately, right now, things are significantly against us. Let me answer that next question. If you look, there's a difference between the corporate accounts and the consolidated accounts.
The consolidated accounts, which are kind of the final word, have a 19.3% increase in net profit group share, going from EUR 425 million to EUR 507 million. The numbers that you're mentioning are the holding company and not the consolidated accounts, and that can lead to some misunderstandings. The consolidated accounts do indeed show a near 20% increase in profit for the company.
Do we have any other questions? A gentleman there.
I'm also an individual shareholder. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. There is a good compensation for corporate officers in 2025. Given the financials and given that we do not yet know the value of the coupon, are we to expect similar results and payout for us? Could you also provide us with a reminder of your medium-term dividend policy? That's my question. Thank you.
Thank you, sir, for your question.
Let me start with the dividend policy, and then we'll move on to the rest. We are in a progressive dividend policy, as it's known. That means that for you, our loyal shareholders, we aim to have the absolute value of our dividend go up each year. In fact, you can see that we've gone from EUR 0.90 to EUR 1, then EUR 1.10, then EUR 1.21 this year. The aim is to continue to develop the company, but also to pay out our shareholders through a dividend policy that is a progressive dividend policy. That means increasing each year. As to what will be paid out in 2025 versus for 2024, that's a 10% increase going from EUR 1.10 to EUR 1.21. So when you say staff, do you mean everyone in the company is getting well paid? Okay.
No, I don't have the detail of that, but our employees is by far and away the largest spend item on our income statement. Of course, we want to keep our costs under control. That means to have EBITDA growth in 2025, because of course, we're talking here about 2025 and following years. We're looking for more than 10% growth in a target that we've restated recently, with growth in revenue that would be near 7%, to kind of speak in broad strokes. That means that our operating expenses need to remain under 4% increase. Our staff is, of course, the largest expense for us, and it can't grow by more than 4%. In fact, we're well below that for 2025.
To summarize, in 2025, the dividend payout, which will likely be approved today, is 10% higher than the previous year, and that will be significantly higher than the growth in wages paid. On the long term, however, and Bertrand, correct me if I'm wrong, we've got a capital market day organized for the 5th of November. That will be an opportunity for us to update you again on the dividend growth policy for coming years.
That's actually the 4th of November, so save the date. Edenred is adapting and remaining agile. Yes, on the employee committee for EDF, yes, they use Edenred services. However, not all entities within EDF use it. The head of the French region for us is saying that they're working hard to gain all of that extra market share. Maybe a final question? Two final questions, the gentleman there and then the gentleman there.
We need to move on to the resolutions and the vote.
I have two questions on CSR. You have an aggressive policy to fight against carbon emissions. However, you are looking for businesses related to fuel and mobility. These are highly carbon-intensive businesses, especially for Scope 3. Secondly, you have business abroad, and abroad, you do not have to deal with the same CSR requirements. How are you handling competition between Europe and the rest of the world? I was just reading an article that said—how can I put this?—that said that lowering carbon in Europe in 2025 is something that Europe can no longer afford. What do you have to say on that study?
Thank you for that question.
First of all, mobility does involve fuel vouchers, but also ethanol vouchers, and also electric charging stations, because with an Edenred card, you can recharge your car on more than 800,000 charging stations around France. As you just heard, we signed an agreement with Daimler that has an HGV program using electrical vehicles. We are making a network available across Europe. We are talking about 300 charging stations, I believe, across the country. Yes, we have carbon fuel vouchers, but we also have vouchers for all sorts of other fuels, and we are a driver for reducing carbon emissions through those alternative fuel sources.
By using Edenred solutions and fuel vouchers, you're actually contributing to an entire system that, first of all, helps you understand your carbon footprint and also helps you optimize your carbon footprint, meaning that your Edenred card will help raise awareness about your carbon emissions and will also suggest optimizations that will help you save fuel and therefore contribute to lowering your carbon emissions. Beyond awareness, we are also offering all of our customers, especially in Brazil, the option to offset their carbon emissions. We have solutions where, for example, you're a fleet operator. Thanks to Edenred solutions, you're able to optimize the journeys that the fleet is making, optimizing fuel uses. On top of that, you can also benefit from alternative solutions such as ethanol. You then get a carbon report, and by simply clicking, you can offset that carbon footprint by using carbon offset programs.
We are supporting the required change. Secondly, now you've stated that these demands and these requirements may not be the same everywhere. I think there are two things to take away there. First of all, our customers are asking us for ways to reduce their carbon emissions. Our first priority is to listen to our customers and to support them in what they need. Our worldwide customers have started managing hybrid fleets: ethanol, diesel, electric, and petrol in various volumes and percentages depending on the business, depending on the country. They need alternative solutions. It is not just a European shift; it is a worldwide shift. However, the highest intensity of that change is Europe compared to the rest of the world. Third question, you asked us how we would react to the statement that Europe can no longer afford to lower its carbon emissions.
I'm not sure about that. Do we need to reduce the carbon in our economy? We have to. Yes, carbon resources are finite. At the current rate of consumption, we're going to hit a wall. There will always be more oil to be found, but it's going to be harder and harder to drill for, and it's going to be more and more expensive to use. We need to reduce carbon consumption. We need to find the right speed, balancing what is socially acceptable and what is technologically feasible. Are we moving to less carbon worldwide? Yes. Are we going to see a drop in carbon intensity that is as quick as what we might have thought of a couple of years ago? No. The underlying trend isn't going anywhere.
Innovation and conquest and our business perspective at Edenred will go through electrification and lowering carbon, maybe less explosively, but it's coming in any case. There we go. I hope that helped shed light on your questions, and maybe we'll take a final one. Gentleman there.
Good afternoon. I'm interested in the share price. The share price was at EUR 32 not that long ago. Now we're at EUR 27.
I understand that you've said that the company is working well and that we have a good dividend that's going up regularly. Can you tell us why the share price has gone down all the way down to EUR 27, and do you think it's going to go back up?
I cannot predict what's going to happen, and I wouldn't want to try. The first part of my explanation tried to address some of your points.
Regulators function as part of a slower process than financial markets. Something going through Parliament in France or Brazil takes time, and that time is a lot longer than the financial markets want to deal with. That means uncertainty, and that means that they're shorting. If there's uncertainty, you can short sell, and you can just stack on short sales so long as people aren't sure of what's going on. The third thing is that our financial communication is sometimes done through newspapers. If you've got a newspaper saying that Pixbad is coming in, I can't immediately counter that narrative. I have to wait for the Brazilian Labor Minister to come out and say, "No, it has to be filtered and secured," as I explained. No, we cannot control ministerial agendas. The consultation is going on in France. We kind of know where it's going.
It's going to consolidate, and it's going to change the French market, but I can't speak on behalf of a minister. While consultation's going on, while dialogue is occurring, while things are converging and while communication is happening, all of that is so much slower than financial markets want to act on. Short, and that means short selling, and that means a 17% or 18% drop on the 25th of April based on a single rumor from a single technology. It took two days for the minister to come out and say that it had been misinterpreted. I believe in what the analysts think, and analysts believe that the intrinsic value of Edenred shares is EUR 42, and they believe that the catalyst behind getting back to that share price is going to be the lifting of the regulatory uncertainties. Thank you very much for that discussion.
There was a lot of very interesting questions, as is the case every year. Let's now move on to presenting the resolutions and voting on the resolutions, and then I'll have a few words to conclude. Please stay with us. We have a standing lunch for you.
Thank you, Bertrand. Before we move on to describing the resolutions being put to the vote, we do have some written questions that were sent in, especially the Forum for Responsible Investment. You can find our written answers on the company website. Let's now play the short film explaining how to use the tablets. That will be very important, so then I can move on to the resolutions and the vote. [Foreign language] . To vote on this AGM, we have made a tablet available in the room. This is yours and yours alone and should only be used for this meeting.
When voting is called, the resolution will automatically appear on the screen of your tablet, even if the tablet has its screen off. It's very easy to vote. Press the button that matches how you wish to vote: for, abstention, or against. Then you need to press OK to lock in your choice before voting is closed. Once you have locked in your vote, you can no longer change it. Please hand in your handset as you leave the room. Thank you, everyone. Now, the resolutions and the agenda of this meeting are on page 58 and 59 of the invitations. Before we move on to the votes, let's update you on the quorum, which is now the final quorum. I can now announce we have 4,663 shareholders who voted remotely: 205,474. Sorry, that's 205 million, representing 85.99% of the vote.
Moving on now to the first resolution: approval of the company's financial statements for the financial year ended 31st of December 2024. The voting is now open. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Resolution approved. To the consolidated statements, please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved. Third resolution: appropriation of profit for the financial year and setting of the dividend of EUR 1.21 per share. Please vote. [Foreign language]. Voting complete. Approved. Resolution for renewal of Mrs. Nathalie Balas as a director. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved. Five: reappointment of Mrs. Sylvia Coutinho as a director. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved. Six: reappointment of Mrs. Monica Mondardini as a director. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved. Seven: reappointment of Mr. Philippe Vallée as a director. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved.
Eight: the appointment of Mr. Thierry Delaporte as a director. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved. Nine: appointment of Mrs. Kristell Rivaille as a director. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved. Ten: approval of the compensation policy for the Chairman and CEO. Please vote. Voting complete. Approved. Eleven: approval of the compensation policy for the members of the board, excluding the Chairman and CEO. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved. Twelve: approval of the annual aggregate fixed amount allocated to directors as compensation for their duties. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved. Thirteen: approval of the report on corporate officers' compensation, so the ex post. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved. Resolution 14: approval of compensation for 2024 for Mr. Dumazy. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved.
Fifteen: authorization and approval of the related party agreements by the statutory auditors. Please vote. [Foreign language]. Voting complete. Approved. Sixteen: relates to the board being allowed to trade in the company's shares. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved. Which now brings us to the extraordinary general meeting. Seventeen: authorization to allocate free performance shares to the board. Please vote. Voting complete. Pass. Approved. Eighteen: amendments to Article 15 of the bylaws relating to the Board of Directors' deliberations. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved. Last but one: nineteen: amendment of the company's bylaws to align them with the applicable laws and regulation. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved. Final resolution 20: powers to carry out formalities. Please vote. [Foreign language] . Voting complete. Approved.
Thank you, Philippe.
Briefly, can I share a few, add a few things and thank you all shareholders for your loyalty and for this very interesting shareholder dialogue for today. Can I also thank each and every one of the 12,000 or more staff members, average age 37, 90 nationalities? They are tremendous in their work. They're very sharp, have great business skills, and are determined to help the group grow and thrive. Let us thank them for what they do day in, day out. Let me also thank each and every one of Edenred's partners, the statutory auditors who are here today, but also all the other partners who help us grow and thrive and go further on our growth trajectory. Let me also thank each and every one of the members of the board. They're very committed, involved. They are ready to act at the drop of a hat.
As we all know, I always have questions to ask, advice to request, and they are ready to help. Many thanks to all the members of the current board, but I am sure that it will be true of the next board with Thierry and Kristell too. Lastly, admittedly, the world is very uncertain. It is being fragmented, becoming more regional, becoming more national, nationalist maybe, a world in which social media is increasingly present, sometimes negatively so. Can I once again say how strong Edenred is? It can be resilient given our portfolio and our geographies, our solutions, our customer base made up of small, large, medium-sized businesses, and also all the resellers that are our clients and the 60 million users. We also have tremendous teams. I mentioned them earlier. They are always ready to innovate, and they are always ahead of their time.
At Edenred, we like to take the sea. We like transatlantic crossings. We know that the seas can sometimes be choppy, but we know that below the superficial agitation, you have the depths of the sea, the seas which will keep us afloat more so than anything else. What is this telling us? The population is growing older, meaning that there are fewer people in work, and they are the object of a great competition. As employers, we have to fight to retain our staff. Finding the right person at the right place is, as ever, something difficult. Employers are forever being asked by their employees to supply tailored products and benefits to their employees. All of that is what you see below the choppy surface of the ocean.
All of this is what we'll embark upon and do cross-selling on the basis of our historic business, lunch and vouchers. On mobility, of course, there is agitation and movement. We don't quite know how fast vehicles will become electrified, but we will switch to EVs, and mobility will go on growing across the world in the countries where we already do business. Despite the current situation, the deep trends are positive for us too. CSR, also a little, a few waves on the surface, but decarbonization is still underway. It might take a little more time, but it is and remains a great source of innovation for Edenred and an idea and a possibility to grow on developing for our clients.
Over and beyond the waves and the choppy waters, let us look into the deep and realize that we have a buoyant business with 70 million clients for our platform. Thank you very much, and I'll be pleased to meet you over nibbles and drink.