Welcome for the EssilorLuxottica General Assembly, thank you for being here. Before I start, I would like to pay tribute to Mr. Leonardo Del Vecchio, who actually built the group. We are celebrating today a record year, a record 2022 year, with fabulous perspectives for the coming years. Leonardo was not only the Chairman of EssilorLuxottica, the CEO, he was also a friend for many of us. He was a genius entrepreneur, an exceptional man, an exceptional leader on many counts. A true visionary CEO who left his imprint on the field of eye care, he created a fantastic industrial structure. Inspired by the leadership, the mind, and the human values of our CEO, we will continue to carry his vision for the future. I'd like to give the floor now to Mr.
Alexander Lunshof, who is the Secretary for the Assembly. He's going to go through the technical and legal formalities.
Merci, Monsieur le Président.
Thank you, Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen. Hello, everybody. I'd like to draw your attention to the public character of the General Assembly, and different journalists are present in the room. You're not allowed to tape or broadcast images of this meeting without prior permission of the society. The meeting will be webcast on the company's website from tomorrow as of 6:30 P.M. Paris time. Before proceeding with the introductions of all the speakers, I would like to proceed with the Bureau of the meeting composition. Mr. Francesco Milleri will chair the Bureau as Chairman of Directors. I call upon the two shareholders present here who have the greatest number of votes and who have agreed to perform these functions, and they will act as tellers. I'm referring to Mr. Secretary, so Mr. Romolo Bardin, representing the reference shareholder, Delfin, and Mrs.
Virginie Mercier Pitre, representing Valoptec Association. They will be scrutinizing the meeting. I thank them for agreeing to play this role, and I thank Mr. Francesco Milleri and the scrutineers for having appointed me as Secretary for this meeting. The Statutory Auditors of our company are here. In particular, I'm referring to Mr. Guillaume Devaux from Mazars who will present the reports on the resolution submitted for your approval. The provisional quorum is 82.09%. The general meeting, comprising more than 25% of the shares with voting rights, is duly constituted and therefore can deliberate validly on both the ordinary and extraordinary agendas. The final quorum will be announced to you before we vote on the resolutions.
The Bureau of the Meeting will have at their disposal the newspapers. They will make them available for you with the notice of meeting and the prior notice of the meeting provided for by law. Both have been published, as well as the document provided. All prior documents have been made available at the company's registered office and on the website in accordance with legal and statutory regulations. The shareholders had the opportunity to vote by Internet prior to the General Assembly on the dedicated secure website, which opened on April 28th and closed yesterday at 3:00 P.M. Paris time, in accordance with the regulations in force. The assembly will be organized in the form of a series of presentations, including those of Francesco Milleri, Chairman and CEO, and Paul du Saillant, Deputy CEO.
Followed by Stefano Grassi regarding the 2022 annual results, and Norbert Gorny and Federico Buffa. They will both give you an overview of EssilorLuxottica's footprint and R&D project. Chrystel Barranger will explain how the group is driving the market, while Elena Dimichino and Anurag Hans will present EssilorLuxottica's sustainable strategy and mission. I will give the floor to Andrea Zappia, Chairman of the Nominations and Remuneration Committee, and Guillaume Devaux, Statutory Auditor. This will be followed by a Q&A session, and then the vote on the draft resolutions. 14 resolutions. Ordinary resolutions. Resolutions one to three concern the approval of the company in consolidated financial statements and the allocation of said result. Resolution four concerns the ratification of the co-optation for Mr. Mario Notari as a director and board member to replace Mr.
Leonardo Del Vecchio, who sadly died on June 27, 2022. Resolution five is about the regulated agreements and the commitments submitted for your approval in accordance with the regulations. Resolutions six-nine concern the approval of the remuneration elements applied during the year 2022 or allocated to corporate officers in the respect of their office in 2022, say on pay or ex-post vote. The purpose of resolutions 10 to 12 is to approve the 2023 remuneration policy for corporate officers. Say on pay or ex-ante vote. Resolutions six- 12 were specifically examined and adopted on proposal from the Appointments and Remuneration Committee. Mr. Andrea Zappia will report to you on the report of this committee on the retribution elements. The purpose of resolution 13 is to renew the authorization which allows the company to buy back its own shares.
We also have 5 extraordinary resolutions. Resolution 14 is about the authorization to be given to the Board of Directors to reduce the share capital by canceling self-held treasury shares. The purpose of Resolution 15 is to renew the delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors for the purpose of increasing the share capital by incorporating all or part of the reserves: profits, share premiums, merger or contribution premiums. The purpose of Resolution 16 is to renew the delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors with the aim of issuing shares and securities involving a capital increase with preferential subscription of rights being held. Resolution 17 is new.
It concerns the delegation of authority to the Board of Directors to issue securities giving immediate or future access to the share capital through a public offering as referred to in the first amendment of Article L. 411-2 of the French Monetary and Financial Code without preferential subscription rights. The purpose of Resolution 18 is to renew the delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors with the aim of deciding to increase the share capital by issuing shares reserved for members of a company savings plan. It involves canceling preferential subscription rights. The last resolution, i.e., number 19 on an ordinary basis, concerns the power to carry out legal formalities for decisions taken by the general team. Now I'd like to give the floor to Francesco Milleri, CEO of EssilorLuxottica.
I take just a few minutes to comment the result of this last five years. First, I try to take you through the time that we passed. I feel like it was today when five years ago, Leonardo Del Vecchio and Hubert Sagnières signed the merge, anything's changed from that time, just five years ago. You can remember we went through a strange period. It was called equal power. Investors, shareholder were quite scared about this new governance, with no one leading really the company. I have to tell you that I thank so much that equal power period. It was the key part of our successful merge. It was the time that we really merged the culture. It was the time in which we had time to work together.
We talked a lot at the board level, we worked so hard in the field. When the three years of equal power expired, no one cared. The company went on again, keep going, reaching results, nothing really changed except that direction and the leadership it was set. Result, you can see what we have done, and we have done and reported these numbers not in an easy time. We had the pandemic. At the end of the pandemic, it started the world that is already affecting the world and also our company in a certain way. Despite that, in five years, we almost double the value of the company. I believe this is good for shareholders, but also this is very good for the group and for the employees. We are stronger than before. You remember that we merge not two weak companies.
We merge two leaders at the highest value. We succeed quite to double in five years the value. We also increase more than 50% the revenues. That is good because it's not just we increase our revenues, we increase the value of the entire industry. We are proud that optical industry is really growing because of us. We maintain profitability. I believe that a fair profit is a base for a good growth, and our profitability is growing, is giving the strength, not just to give back to our shareholder good dividend, as we have done, but also to gift and reward our people. We gave back to our people in the last five years, something close to EUR 3 billion on top of remuneration in share plan, bonus, and other rewards, welfare at the top.
That means to be, in my mind, in the mind of our chairman, Leonardo Del Vecchio, to be a fair company. That sometimes is most important than to be a growing company. We created a lot of new jobs. We are very proud of that. Jobs in France, jobs in Italy, all around the world. We are growing. We are also a young company with young people, also at the top management. Last not least, we have a huge employee shareholder base, and we are trying to increase. We want our employees that trust the company, leave their money in the company, and we take the responsibility to deliver the best also for them. Say that, I believe that numbers are self-explaining. Number we believe are good.
We are stronger than before, and we are keep going really in the with the same value, with the same heritage that Leonardo left to us. Thank you very much. I pass the stage to Paul du Saillant, my deputy CEO and good friend.
Thank you, Francesco.
Merci beaucoup, Francesco.
Thank you very much, Francesco. Dear shareholders, it's always a great pleasure for me to be with you and to share with you some of the highlights of what we go through and what's going on in your company. You've seen the change of scale, that's incredible, that Francesco talked about. The transformation of this group as a young company, EssilorLuxottica. What I'd like to do is spend a few minutes, give you a bit more detailed information about the strategy that's guiding our actions, the assets that we have in your company, a few words about the achievements that illustrate what we're trying to do, and it is very important in the group, and of course, the human scale as well.
First of all, we're guided by a very clear strategy. Which we can simply express the idea to develop the market on the basis on a integrated omni-channel marketing business model. Each word is carefully selected. It is perfectly in line with what Mr. Del Vecchio used to do, our late chairman, and by Essilor, and which is taking us forwards. It's going from this founding idea that is absolutely key, and that is directing the group's actions. If we take this strategy, it's important to know on what it relies, what are the assets of the company in use. There are, in fact, six different aspects in a combination of the assets that we've done. Firstly, we have a platform of innovation that is very comprehensive, which Norbert Gorny and Federico will talk about in more detail.
That adds to all the categories of our products and brands with an awful lot of innovation. I'll give you a few examples. Secondly, we have a portfolio of brands that is unrivaled in our sector: frames, sunglasses, retail, lenses, instruments, Internet brands. We have a portfolio of brands that take on thousands of years. I'll give you a figure that actually is a bit interesting. If you take all the brands together, there is 6,000 years of history that we have. The third factor to understand what's going on in EssilorLuxottica is what's going on in our markets and in our products and things is being done in an omni-channel method with our own brands, and Christian Liger will talk about this. 18,000 stores and internet platforms and the service of nearly 300,000 independent customers on this market.
The fourth angle is our geographic presence. After the integration of GrandVision, that is now including in mature markets, which is still developing as well in emerging ones. In a very balanced way, we are present in 150 countries in various channels to market a supply chain that is integrated. In terms, it's very resilient, as it has been shown in recent years. It's been very complex for our teams, but it's manufacturing. It distributes worldwide through over 600 sites, all of these products with our know-how. It's very dynamic. It's a major approach and know-how in our company. Finally, 100,000, 180,000, nearly 190,000 colleagues who have all the skills needed in this sector, including what Francesco mentioned. It's a young population.
Half of our colleagues are under the age of 35. 60% are women. 40% of our employees are shareholders. There is a strength in use of everything we're talking about that is very, very significant. A few examples of our achievements. Stefano will give you the figures later on. There are one or two angles I can offer you. Firstly, we set up with Francesco, a unified organization has been in place for now nearly 18 months and is really substantiating our operation as a single organization, as a single company. It was very complex, as Francesco mentioned, to say how we could go from two companies, very strong companies, very successful ones, and a third one, GrandVision, into a single approach. The other angle is everything going around the products.
We're in a phase where in the core of our own brands, Ray-Ban and others you've seen, the others were outlined, or our other licensed brands, Chanel, Prada, all these other things. We're in a very dynamic phase of new collections, new products that we are launching at a very regular pace. In terms of innovation, you'll hear about two later on that show that in fact, the group is very dynamic. There's new Varilux lenses. It's called Varilux XR. It happens every four or five years. It's going to be a game changer. In the core of the Ray-Ban thing that I won't actually do, I'll let the Chairman do this, which will really disrupt the market and show how modern this brand is and is continuing to invent.
In terms of the categories, something that we like to look at, we are a group that creates categories. What does that mean? Actually, it means, for example, a whole new platform to address child myopia, infant myopia. This is just like Essilor that looked at presbyopia or longsightedness. There, we're looking at myopia now, and in fact, we're creating a whole new category. I'm gonna use a thing. It's what we call smart eyewear or wearable stuff. In other words, spectacles or glasses that have electronics on board, such as the Ray-Ban Stories. That was the first product. There we're creating categories. Therefore, these are drivers that are moving us forwards.
In terms of partnerships and licenses, you've seen and what we've reported for 2022 that we renewed major licenses with Giorgio Armani, for example. Over a long term, 15 years in Ferrari as well, and new licenses as well, that we'll be implementing with Brunello Cucinelli and Swarovski, and partnerships or rather capsules, that have been recently announced with Roger Federer. A lot of activity. To support all this growth, there's an industrial investment that is significant. You've seen the figures. Stefano will remind you of these or outline them. We will finalize the construction of four major sites, two in Mexico, one in Thailand, and one south of Paris, where we will be launching at the start of next year, a laboratory of excellence with the latest technology.
You can see from all this activity, I can say that, in conclusion, we're in a major phase of investment in IT, in digital solutions, where the group is creating a platform that is integrated for services for many or multiple digital solutions, as lots of our markets are changing into digital, and we really want your group to be part of that. To conclude, two insights on sustainability that will be covered by Elena and Anurag, where the social aspects of EssilorLuxottica are built around five pillars of Eyes on the Planet, a program that is taking very concrete shape, and the whole human labor aspects where we are bringing out the new culture based on very deep roots of Essilor and Luxottica and GrandVision that will shape the way that we implement our values. The group's culture is implemented in the years to come.
Supported, as I said, by a human dimension that is important. That makes me very confident about what we're going to do with them. Some very fine values with some strong ambitions, implemented by leadership team with Francesco and myself of very high quality. We're very lucky there. We've got that front line, and behind that front line, we've got teams that are competent, aligned, agile, resilient, as have been shown in recent years, that work hard and lie at the core of the results, the high-quality results we're presenting to you today. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Francesco. Thank you, Paul. I'm now going to hand over to Stefano Grassi, who will talk in English and will present the annual results for the group in 2022.
I'm delighted to be with you in the group today, and I'd like to thank you for attending.
I'll switch to English. Really commend our 2022 results that for EssilorLuxottica have been outstanding. When we look at our financial highlights, there are really three areas that I would highlight: sales growth, profitability, and free cash flow generation. From a sales growth perspective, our top line during the course of 2022 grew 13.9% compared to the 2021 pro forma data to a total amount, record high of EUR 24.5 billion in revenue. From a profitability standpoint, our overall adjusted operating profit for the full year 2022 hit the 16.8% as a percentage of revenue, with an improvement of 0.7%, 70 basis points, compared to the pro forma 2021.
The third important KPI, as I mentioned, is free cash flow generation. For the full year 2022, EssilorLuxottica delivered EUR 2.3 billion in free cash flow generation. What I think it's even more remarkable is the way we generated that free cash flow. In 2022, we actually increasing exponentially, I would say, our overall investment. The total capital expenditure for the group in 2022 were EUR 1.6 billion on a full year basis. That represent 50% increase compared to the capital spending that we had in 2021. The areas in which we directed our investment were the one mentioned before by Francesco and Paul. Strengthening our supply chain and manufacturing infrastructure, developing to the next level our digital and IT application, and furthermore, continuing to renovate and enhance our retail footprint around the world.
With all those results, we're proposing today a dividend per share of EUR 3.23, which represents a 29% increase over the 2021 level. Later on in the presentation, we'll quickly touch on our results on 2023. We are now in May, clearly we're already five months into the year, and we just wanna give you a little update on how we started the year. You can see here the highlights. 9.7% was our growth during the course of the first quarter 2023 compared to Q1 2022. We had a very good start of the year so far.
Let me go now into 2022, starting our journey from a revenue point of view, beginning with our revenues across the different regions and then looking at a little bit closer our revenue between the two operating segments, Professional Solutions B2B and Direct to Consumer. Here are four different geographies, and what you see at the bottom of the slide is our overall revenue for full year 2022 and 2021 on a pro forma basis. The percentage that you see on the following two columns represents our growth at constant exchange rates, and on the right-hand side, our growth at current exchange rates. The 13.9% that you see on the bottom line is the number that I commented before.
If we look at our numbers, our results, constant currency, our overall growth for the full year 2022 was 7.5%. That 6.5% of difference that we have between constant and current exchange results are very much due to the currency fluctuation, in particular, the U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollar, that represents about 44% of our revenue base, revaluated approximately 12% against euro during the course of 2022. That revaluation naturally creates some tailwinds in our results as you move from constant to current exchange results. I will comment a little bit the four different regions looking at our results at constant currency. I would usually start with North America, which is the largest region, that posted a 4% at constant currency growth for the full year of 2022.
I want to remind you that in 2021, North America grew 13% compared to the pre-pandemic level of 2019. We're growing 4% on top of a very high growth that we achieved in 2021 in North America. From a Professional Solutions standpoint, both our two categories, frames and lenses, posted solid growth during the course of last year. On the lens side of the business, very pleased with the price mix that we see, especially on the branded lens portfolio. While when we look at our frame business, the growth was very much driven by our luxury portfolio. On the Direct to Consumer side, we had a very tough comparison base in 2021. Direct to Consumer grew at a double-digit pace.
In 2022, our comparable sales on optical retail banner was flat, and our sun and sport retail banner comps were in the low single digits. Let's now move to the second region, EMEA. Remarkable number. 11% in EMEA region. With all the uncertainties that we had and experienced, unfortunately, due to the conflict in Ukraine, which clearly created a lot of question around the consumer spending ability in the course of 2022, especially in Europe. Despite that, the team in EMEA delivered an outstanding result with our Professional Solutions on a high single digit territory, with our Direct to Consumer on the double digit territory. From a Professional Solutions standpoint, U.K., Spain, Turkey, they all delivered double-digit growth. The strength of our branded lens portfolio allow us to grow very much in that product category.
From a frame standpoint, sun was very much the key driver of our growth through the course of 2022. Very much driven by luxury and Raven. On the Direct to Consumer side, I would probably mention two things. First of all, it's the first year in which we consolidated the GrandVision banner into our results. The 4,500 retail footprint that we have in EMEA, thanks to GrandVision, perform at a high single digit comps. On the other side, our sunglass business in EMEA deliver a growth close to 80%, eight-zero, meaning that the sun part of the business is strongly coming back in EMEA, but also in other parts of the course of 2022. The third region is Asia Pacific.
Pacific deliver a 7% growth rate through the course of 2022, with Japan double digits, with India double digits, with Southeast Asia double digits. There was one country that actually decelerated during the course of 2022, and that is China. The reason is pretty evident. You all remember the severe restrictions that impacted, due to the COVID, Greater China during the course of 2022. In that challenging environment in China, we were able to grow the myopia solutions category that last year exceeded 10% of our revenue in China. A category that two years ago didn't even exist. The size of our Stellest lenses, the most important myopia management solution we have and launched and developed in China, has doubled during the course of 2022.
Overall, a pretty remarkable result, I would say, in China and overall in the region. The last region is Latin America. 13% top line growth becomes on top of the 10% that we did in 2021 versus 2019. Best performing region, most of our key countries in the area were on the double-digit pace, Mexico, Argentina, and most of the Hispanic Latin countries were in the double-digit pace. Very happy with the performance, helped by the GrandVision banner in the region that did a double-digit growth during the course of 2022. Now let's look at exactly the same net sales results, but with a different angle, dividing our performance between the two operating segments, Professional Solution and Direct to Consumer.
Professional Solutions delivered a constant currency, 6.3% on the mid-single-digit territory with a top line that was very strong in Latin America, a double-digit pace, and EMEA and Asia Pacific that deliver high single digits. We had a pretty much price mix driving the growth on the lens business. While on the frame side of Professional Solutions, the growth was more balanced between volume and price mix. If we look at our Direct to Consumer segment, growth close to 9% with some parts of the business that was very much fundamental and instrumental together with GrandVision to grow the growth in our Direct to Consumer segment. Now this is the picture for our top line. Let me switch over to profitability and let's take a closer look to our profit and loss for the full year 2022.
What you have in here is our picture for 2022 compared to the 2021 pro forma. When I say pro forma, these results include GrandVision for 12 months for the full year 2021. You know that we acquired GrandVision on July 1st, 2021. In order to make numbers comparable, we are putting 2021 on a pro forma basis. What you have as usual on the right-hand side is the growth of our revenue and profitability at constant and current exchange results. I won't spend any time on revenues, but it's important to highlight that in 2022, we had a story of margin improvement, margin accretion in gross profit, in operating profit, in net profit. If we look at our gross profit, our overall gross profit landed at 63.7% for the full year 2022.
That represents a 0.3%, 30 basis points improvement compared to the same period of 2021. The main driver of that margin appreciation is very much on the price mix. The one that we described on the top line, helping our growth. It's also helping our profitability. The continuous manufacturing efficiencies that operations have found throughout 2022 also helps our delivery on the gross margin side. From an OpEx standpoint, I would say diligent management and investment in our OpEx, expenditure structure. On one side, we announced our investment, for example, in the sales force. On the frame business, we invested to increase the number of sales reps in many different geographies to improve our capillarity, our coverage, our distribution of our brands throughout the world.
At the same time, we kept a pretty good diligent management of our general and administrative expense. As a matter of fact, you can see that our operating profit on an adjusted basis deliver 70 basis points appreciation compared to the 2021 level, from 16.1%- 16.8%. That represents a growth of 18.5% over the 2021 period on a pro forma basis. Below our adjusted operating profit, I would highlight a pretty tight management of our cost of debt, our financial expenses. We all know that we're living in an environment in which interest rates during the last 15, 16 months have been increasing quite exponentially. We've been capable to reduce the cost of debt.
We are protecting the company as 95% of our gross debt is fixed, so not exposed to interest rate fluctuation. Our overall cost of debt for the full year 2022 is less than 1% for the group. The overall tax rate is broadly aligned with what we've seen in 2021. Therefore, we are looking at a net profit growth at a double-digit pace. I mentioned before very quickly our Q1 start of the year. If we look at the results here, clearly we are happy with the 9.7% that we achieved. First of all, because all the geographies were trending on the positive territory. The most mature market, namely North America and EMEA, grew on the high single-digit territory.
The fast-growing market, the part where we wanna become even bigger over the longer term, are running on a double-digit pace. The second part, second important thing to highlight is that in Q1, we actually grew on top of the best quarter that we had in the Q1 2022. We had the toughest comparison base, and on top of that, we deliver a growth that is fairly close to 10%. With that, I conclude my speech and pass it over to Alexander. Thank you.
Thank you, Stefano. Now I'd like to hand over to Norbert Gorny, Co-Chief Operating Officer and Head of R&D lenses at EssilorLuxottica, and Federico Buffa, Head of Eyewear R&D, Product Style, and Licensing.
Bonjour tout le monde. We are delighted to have the opportunity to share a few insights into the work of R&D with you. I would like to begin with giving you an overview of our global activities. As an open network company and a leader in our field, growing our market has become a strategic imperative to us. We deploy many means to get us there, but innovation we consider as one of the most important levers to make the difference. Federico and myself, we have the pleasure to run a global network of highly skilled experts from all over the world. We cover North America, of course, our home countries, Italy and France, we're the biggest community of R&D experts, but we also stretch out to the most important markets in Asia.
EssilorLuxottica has become home to thousands of designers, engineers, and researchers supporting us every day in our effort to deliver desirable eyewear and highly advanced lens technologies. If we take all of our efforts as depicted here on this map combined, Federico and myself, we command more than 70% of the industry's investment in innovation, which is absolutely remarkable. I think we can state without exaggeration, the industry wouldn't be where it is today without us taking the responsibility and the investments as just pointed out. Please allow me now to take a deeper dive into the activities in the lens technology part. I would like to actually take three major thrusts of ours to point out where we are heading. We are firstly very engaged in establishing completely new lens categories, addressing new needs of consumers and customers.
Our second major thrust is to extend the existing product categories, for example, in the progressive lens area. Thirdly, we are highly engaged in simplifying the access to more advanced eyewear by reinventing the consumer and the dispensing journey with a digital global initiative. Let me point out firstly what it means to establish a new category. You have heard Stefano talking about our fast-growing business in the area of myopia control. This is root-caused on our activities that started more than 30 years ago, that we were pioneering myopia research. Now finally, after such a long period of time, we see ourselves as EssilorLuxottica, well-prepared with a broad portfolio of offerings, clinically tested and well-secured by intellectual property to launch a new category in a global activity that reaches out with our flagship design, Stellest, to more than 25 countries at this moment in time.
This is just the beginning of a journey because our pipeline is well-filled with new technologies in that area of application that will allow us to serve every child in need anywhere in the world. Extending an existing category and talking about progressive lenses cannot be done without mentioning that more than 60 years ago, Bernard Maitenaz was the person here in the Paris area that invented Varilux, the first industrial progressive lens ever. Since then, our teams have never stopped to develop and stretch this technology into a fast-changing environment of visual behavior and to improve generation after generation. It is with some pride that we announce today that as we speak, the generation number nine of Varilux will be introduced into the markets.
We're talking about Varilux XR Series, which despite of the fact it's the ninth generation of a product, it is a true breakthrough in terms of technology. We have dared to apply for the very first time, artificial intelligence in the development of a design that comes as the most customized lens ever in this field of application. There's two major innovations around that, which are predicated on millions of patient data that we analyzed and that made us learn about how to discover the natural visual behavior of a patient and how to translate this into a highly personalized project, which was called the Responsive Eyewear Project, and is that the XR motion technology. This is absolutely proprietary to our company, and as independently conducted consumer tests have proven, Varilux XR Series is the best overall progressive lens ever.
What's the use of having the best technology if access is limited only to experts? We have conducted a lot of studies how to improve accessibility to a highly advanced eyewear. We came to the conclusion it must be us, starting a global digital initiative to lower the thresholds in terms of accessibility, to lower the thresholds in terms of gathering patient data, and to process them correctly. Starting with advanced refraction technology all the way down to the dispensing protocols, including new products that we mostly, you know, in the last 12 months introduced, like Connect or Eclipse or Spark, which are mainly in the area of centration. With this and with our learning platform, Leonardo, we finally democratize the know-how that is needed to advance eyewear and to enable the industry to grow further successfully. Can we have the video on Varilux, please?
It's innovation that drives us in R&D every day, innovation that drives us as a company and thereby the industry, not just in the lens part, but also in the frame part.
Yes. Thank you very much, Norbert. Let's see now a little bit together where our frames and sun lenses R&D is addressing actually is the attention. Also, in this case, we are looking at three main direction. Starting from the first one, that is quite important for our medium long-term strategy for our company, is regrouping all the initiative that they are bringing wearable technology on board on our product. Frames and lenses, making them every day a little bit more smart. Different kind of use cases, the attend care. We have just seen from Norbert presentation how important is the number of hours that our kids will wear the Stellest myopia management lenses.
Having the possibility to track and trace that with frames is so important, like recovering some customer disease in this part of the sense, contributing with some superpower to their frames. The other use cases is still the social and entertainment. We are continuing our partnership with Meta. One year and a half ago, we launched the Ray-Ban Stories with the purpose of disintermediate the smartphone in between they and their joyful life, allowing our customer to image capturing, sharing, music listening, phone call answering, always with the free hands way of working. We are introducing new innovation, and in few months we will be ready to have the launch of the second release of this kind of product.
Having a look at other use cases like the sport performance or the professional performance, where naturally we are trying to sustain with technology also our customer that they want to track day on day the improvement on their sport or job. The second, moving in the second scenario, in the second bucket in the center of this slide, naturally, we are squeezing a little bit our researchers every day to bring us new sustainable product solution towards the circularity, trying to be coherent and launching product that are in line with our Eyes on the Planet corporate sustainability program that in a few minutes Elena will bring back on the stage again to share with you.
Also looking at the part of our brand portfolio that they are mainly looking and try to talk with the young generation, Gen Z and Gen Alpha. It's really mandatory to have a complete offer, a complete collection that they are fully 100% sustainable. Bio-based material, recycled material, manufacturing processes that they are fully sustainable, packaging included. The way in which we distribute those kind of products, reducing the impact. Here we are reporting the last example, one example of these brands, the Emporio Armani Sea Green Collection that we have just released it in this date. Also here in Paris, I've seen yesterday that the advertising campaign outside is really fading green, all the emotion, because this is really the core signal and the core communication connected with this collection.
Last but not least, the 26 R&D center that Norbert was showing you before in the map. They are every day struggling to find new material, new process and new technology to continue to innovate, renovate and maintain modern, also the more traditional part of our business. What we used to call the analogical frames, sun frames, prescription frames, and sun plano lenses. Today, I'm so proud to share on this stage with you the latest iconic Ray-Ban collection that has been enabled after one year of research of those center, due to the fact that we overcome one boundary that our eyewear designer has to work on every day. That is the fact that the actual and traditional sun lenses, they are always spheric, they are always convex.
Somehow they are limiting their capability in designing and imagining new silhouette, new shapes. Finally, our team has been capable to release a new mathematic, a new program, a new way of producing a pattern solution on which we are able to produce what we used to call the free-form lenses. Moving some lenses from a spherical shape to a convex shape with zero distortion, and moreover, to increase the acuity and the visibility of our sun lenses. This is the reason why we call HD high definition lenses. Moreover, to free up our designer to renovate some iconic shape like Aviator, Wayfarer, Boyfriend, or Caravan. Arriving at this point, thank you on my side and for now for your attention. We wish you enjoy the rest of the day, enjoy the video, and moreover to enjoy the Ray-Ban Reverse Collection.
Thank you for that presentation, Norbert. It's now my pleasure to hand over to Chrystel Barranger, President Wholesale EMEA and President of Transitions Optical, who will explain how EssilorLuxottica is driving the market.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm very happy to be with you today. I would like to explain in just a few minutes how EssilorLuxottica is driving the market globally. Our raison d'être is powerful. It's a powerful purpose, helping the world to see more and to be more. It addresses an essential need. We are lucky because we are driving a market that has a meaning that makes sense. Every action, daily action has an impact on the lives of millions of people. That's a source of inspiration for us. It motivates the 190,000 people working for EssilorLuxottica. Now, let's have a look at the market. The market represents EUR 100 billion globally. The market is driven by the need to improve vision and correct vision. 86% of the value is connected with prescription lenses.
It is an expert market. More than 50% of the value is created in collaboration with independent eyewear professionals, it's also a market where 90% of the value can be found in physical shops. 400,000 doors across the world. Lenses and glasses are visible, they have a huge impact in the life of those who wear them. They are made to measure based on prescription and different styles. Precision is absolutely essential for people to see well for this essential purchase, the client, the customer, will trust the eyewear professional, the eyewear professional will trust us to supply the products. Therefore, the market makes sense. It has huge potential and a huge potential for growth.
Across the world, we estimate that 50% of the needs for e-eyesight correction are being addressed, not in a uniform way, depending on the geographical area. Unfortunately, there are places where there is a huge delta. Aging of the population and the increase of mypia is reinforcing the needs. The need for sports and luxury, sun, eyewear is developing. Innovation through digitalization of the consumer's access to the products and the fact that we are reinventing the use of connected eyewear, which means that we can do much more than just see better. All this is a potential for growth, a huge, very strong potential for growth for the whole industry. EssilorLuxottica has a strong ambition for the future of vision, visual equity. As world leader, we are fully aware that we have a responsibility.
We're fully committed to help the market grow. Last year, the group reached EUR 24.5 billion and a 13% growth. Beyond those figures, we can see that we have a local position, a presence across the world. We have a mesh in with 300,000 people, experts working on the field. We have a multi-channel distribution pattern. We sell to professionals, we sell to our customers in our 18,000 shops, and we sell online. Professional solutions are at the very heart of our activity, more than 55% of our revenue. It also means more than 75% of our connection directly with the consumers. Nowadays, we are 360-degree vision experts. We can perform eye examination with our instrument, but also provide state-of-the-art solutions. Eco design is necessary for the fashion market.
We have used electronic technology and all of these competencies and skills represent. As well as our brand portfolio with the brands such as Ray-Ban, Oakley, Essilor, Transitions, and all the licensed brands, provide us with a limitless potential for differentiation, innovation, and we can reinvent ourselves on our products, but also our services to consumers, thanks to data, and for the services that we provide to our partners. We are strong because of our world network to distribute products. Producing and delivering 2 million prescription lenses per day, or creating 3,500 models of frames per year require a chain of excellence reinforced by our culture. We have a service-oriented culture, both for services provided to our customers and also to consumers, both in our shops and online.
Based on these basic elements, we made three choices: innovation and technology, two, for the future to create value for the whole industry, and introducing on the market last year, Ray-Ban Stories, the platform Leonardo, are very good examples. We have also made the choice of partnering up with many experts in the industry. Finally, we decided to be a responsible leader because we are fully committed, and Helena and I will explain these commitments to you. We have a double agenda as a group, this recently created group. We want to reach high performances, but we also want to change. I will give you the example of the EMEA area, which I have the honor of leading. I am in charge of Professional Solutions as of 2021. EMEA is a large area.
It's the first market for eyewear across the world. It's the second market for EssilorLuxottica, EUR 8 billion revenues in 2022. The growth was achieved in spite of a very challenging market, as Stefano said, both for Professional Solutions and also Direct to Consumer, with a good balance between lenses and frames, with a good growth of our top-of-the-range offer in both categories. Growth in this important area, which covers 52 countries, was possible in mature markets, such as France and Italy, but also we accelerated our growth in the less developed areas, such as Eastern European countries and Middle East and Turkey. Just a few words about France, one of our historical markets. It is the second market for the group after following the U.S.. We are deeply rooted in France.
More than 10,000 people working for EssilorLuxottica, 18 laboratories. It's also a key country for research and development, thanks to the technology CIP in Créteil or the new dedicated center dedicated to connected eyewear in Dijon. We invest in France. We have created an excellency laboratory in Wissous, which will drive the demand for eyewear made in France. We are partnering with all eyewear professionals, and we are very proud to be working with Mbappé's Oakley. EMEA is also providing very good performances. Last year, within one year, for Professional Solutions, we integrated lens and frame activities in many countries. We now have a single face. We have integrated showrooms, and our customer partnership programs are being united.
Direct to Consumer has also developed at the same pace in the area with integrated GrandVision, we are making progress with the GrandVision integration on daily basis. EssilorLuxottica is looking to the future, our growth levers are clear. We want to continue growing in the less advanced geographical areas, especially Asia, Middle East, Turkey, Latin America. We want to support and drive the growth on the market by increasing awareness for the need to correct visual acuity, especially for myopia management. We want to train our partner professionals, the Leonardo platform is doing a great job. In less than two years, 440,000 hours of training have been provided for eyewear professionals last year. Innovation, we've also discussed this extensively, new categories, but also more traditional products.
We are launching Varilux XR series and Ray-Ban Authentic. We are now organizing our omni-channel distribution, Professional Solutions Direct to Consumer. We are looking for across-the-board activities by developing the photochromic category, which is also encouraged by the collaboration. Finally, digitalization and integration. We are fully aware of the impact that technology is having on this market and the fact that it's going to open access to teleoptometry and the many different services that we can provide to our consumers and partners so that we can make better use of data and also predict the future of our purchasing level. In conclusion, we have a strong impact. Just to give you an order of magnitude, 1 billion, sorry, pieces delivered every year. It's also the humanDriven impact of 190,000 people are working for EssilorLuxottica.
We are in connection with 300,000 experts to provide better vision to mankind. It's a beautiful job, and we share our passion for this job. This is what I wanted to tell you today. I was very happy to be able to spend this time with you, and I wish you a very fruitful meeting. Thank you very much.
Merci, Chrystel.
Thank you, Christine, for this presentation. I'd like to give the floor to Elena Dimichino, Head of Corporate Social Responsibilities for EssilorLuxottica, and Anurag Hans, Head of Mission, OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation. They will be speaking English. Elena will talk about the sustainable development approach on the group level. Anurag Hans will talk about action conducted in 2022 to contribute to eliminating bad vision, uncorrected bad eyesight.
Good morning, everyone. Mesdames et Messieurs, bonjour. C'est un plaisir d'être avec vous pour vous parler, de notre programme de croissance durable. Comme vous l'avez peut-être vu lors des présentations précédentes de mes collègues, le développement durable fait partie de notre ambition, et c'est une responsabilité sur le long terme. Avec notre mission pour aider à améliorer la vision pour, de plus en plus de personnes, la durabilité fait partie de notre identité, de notre culture. C'est un parcours, c'est un voyage d'exécution, de prise de conscience, d'évolution dans les cinq piliers stratégiques : le carbone, la circularité, l'éthique, l'inclusion et la vision du monde. Avec Eyes on Carbon Neutrality for our scope one and two emissions by 2025 globally, starting in Europe, this year with Italy and France already carbon neutral.
You know, the key areas here are our continuous investment in renewable energy, self-produced or purchased. It's the constant focus on reducing the carbon footprint of our supply chain, starting with our logistic activities, of course. It's also the attention that we put in the design and construction of new buildings or the renovation of stores. Lastly, our recently signed commitment to the Science Based Targets initiative is another step forward in our sustainability program and marks the natural prosecution of our current climate roadmap. Eyes on circularity. You know, here, let me say that our vertically integrated and open business model is a lever for sustainable innovation, as you have just seen before, but is also an enabler of circularity. The product is naturally at the center.
Think starting, of course, from the careful research and selection of alternative renewable materials instead of fossil-based materials. Think about bio-based acetate, bio-based nylon, or also our ability to recycle nylon scraps in-house. You know, also the acquisition, for instance, of Fedon in 2022 has also added to our sustainable innovation in packaging. Lastly, another important stage in our circularity journey is made by our retail stores. Here we really try to engage the consumers in expanding the product life, for instance, benefiting from in-store repair services. We are a diverse community of 190,000 employees in over 150 countries.
You know, over in 2022, we continued to use the Leonardo learning platform to foster our inclusive culture by hosting several roundtables around very important topics during international days, like the International Day of Persons with Disabilities or more recently, the International Women's Day. Inclusion passes also through well-being and safety initiatives. Here, let me just mention all the life balance support and the prevention initiative that we have at all our premises. Lastly, the other important point that I would like to mention is the fact that all these efforts, of course, have made our company recognized in different rankings, such as the Financial Times Diversity Leaders list or the France's Equality Index in France.
Our responsibility towards vision and society sees also the convergence of our mission, advocacy for good vision on the road and our attention also to the cultural heritage protection. We have just renewed actually our strategic partnership with the United Nations to promote good vision on the road, starting with the rollout of a global awareness campaign across our business network. In 2022, just as a nice piece to say, we continued, of course, to keep our eyes on art. Here we continued with using actually digital broadcasting capabilities or the creation also of a textile exhibit with our important partners. We work all together to make the difference for our planet, for all of us, for our kids, and for future generations.
If you ask me whether our efforts are contributing to a specific cause, I will say our mission. Here I'm pleased to give you the mic, Anurag.
Thank you, Elena. Bonjour, ciao, hello, everyone. It is my pleasure to be with you here today to give you an update on our mission to help everyone everywhere see more and be more. As we all know, 2.7 billion people in the world, that's one in three, do not have access or awareness of good vision. At EssilorLuxottica, we are very aware of our responsibility to lead the fight against this public health issue. one year ago, at this meeting, I had the privilege of launching the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation. As a sign of our commitment to lead the fight against uncorrected poor vision, we consolidated all our philanthropic and advocacy actions under one umbrella. In 2022, with our partners, we helped equip more than 10.5 million people with a pair of glasses.
This translates to about 20 people equipped with a pair of glasses in underserved communities every minute. The OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation is the world's largest vision care foundation targeting uncorrected refractive errors by reach and by impact. Thanks to the work of our teams, employees, partners, and supporters, to date, the group has equipped more than 60 million people around the world in underserved communities with eyeglasses, most of them enjoying the gift of good vision for the first time in their lives. We have also created more than 23,000 optical points in communities where optical points did not exist 'til we decided to act. We still have so much more to do. Thanks to our efforts, we are now seeing more partners, governments, and multilateral organizations join us in the fight against uncorrected poor vision.
For example, in India and Kenya, we embarked on partnerships to deploy primary vision care providers that we had helped create to public and private health facilities to add to the existing suite of health services on offer. In Bangladesh, our innovative partnership with the MetLife Foundation, where two foundations with different development agendas, vision care and financial health, came together to create impact in rural communities, was showcased on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last September. We are truly advocating for vision care at the highest level. In Africa, through our network of vision centers, we have created permanent access to vision care for 100% of the populations of Rwanda, The Gambia, and Zambia, and we are committed to expanding to many more countries in the region.
Closer th home here in Paris, together with Oakley, we partnered with the French football icon, Kylian Mbappé, and his foundation to equip children from underprivileged communities with the gift of good vision. It also helped us raise global awareness about the impact that clear vision can have on the lives of kids. Around the world, our impact is felt in underprivileged communities in more than 110 countries. As a recognition for making a positive impact in the communities where it operates, the group, along with many other awards, was also awarded the sixth spot on the prestigious annual Fortune's Change the World ranking, which recognizes companies that have a substantial positive social impact as part of their core strategy.
Well, eliminating poor vision is an ambitious task, but something that the entire EssilorLuxottica community stands committed to. At the current scale, since the start of my presentation, we would have equipped more than 80 people with the gift of good vision. I look forward to continuing our efforts in line with our mission to help everyone everywhere see more and be more. Mercy, gracias, and thank you for your attention and support. Over to you, Alexander.
Merci, Helena. Merci, Anurag. Thank you, Helena. Thank you, Anurag. I would now like to hand over to Andrea Zappia, Chairman of the Nominations and Remuneration Committee, who will speak in English. I'll invite him to join us at the lectern to present the remuneration policy applicable to the executive offices of the group.
It's a real pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It's to be part of a presentation like this with these incredible and outstanding results across the board. I think we are all proud of it. We are all aware that not many companies in the world are able to deliver in this way for the broader community, the broader industry, the shareholders, and their colleagues and employees. I'm here today to introduce you to the resolution concerning compensation, but can't do that without paying a moment of tribute to the chairman, Leonardo Del Vecchio, an incredible man, entrepreneur that has shaped forever this company and the overall industry. Last year, as a board of director, we had to go through the unfortunate and very sad moment when he passed.
Clearly, we had as a key priority to ensure continuity and stability of the business. Therefore, the board of directors took the decision to appoint Francesco Milleri as new chairman, as you know, on top of his position as CEO, confirming Paul du Saillant as Deputy Executive CEO, and to also have a new addition to the board of directors, co-opting Mario Notari, which is subject to your resolution number four, which will be last to approve. The biography of Mario is displayed here. He's an outstanding colleague that is already adding a lot of value to the work of our board. As Mario is here, I'll kindly ask him to stand up so that you can all know him. Thank you, Mario, and really again, welcome.
As part of these changes, the board also decided to nominate a Lead Director, appointing Jean-Luc Biamonti in this role. Thank you, Jean-Luc, for taking on this responsibility. Moving now to Number 6 and then seven, eight and nine. Number six concern the approval of the report of the corporate officer's compensation for 2022. Resolution seven, eight and nine concern more specifically the compensation awarded, as you can see here, the late Chairman of the Board, to the CEO and to the Deputy CEO. For everyone awareness, the compensation structure is fully in line with what was approved at the last shareholders meeting last year. All compensation are displayed in the screen.
The one thing I would also notice that this Francesco Milleri, as he took the chairman role last year, didn't receive any incremental compensation for the period for 2022. It's also to note how the compensation remain highly skewed variable. 90% of the targets are financials. Given the outstanding performance both on the financial side as well as in the corporate social responsibility side, we have seen a variable paid of 162%. Now, I would like to also note how the company is in this following best practice and variable is variable. Over the years, we have seen zero bonds paid in 2019 going up to 23 in 2020 and then growing. The famous pay for performance that we hear a lot of is truly implemented in our company.
Let's now move to the resolution related to 2023 compensation. Before that, just to remind the core pillars of the way we structure this. First of all, pay for performance. 80% is linked to these conditions. They are absolutely quantitative, can be measured, and that's the job that the committee does with the support, particularly of the CFO, during its review. There is a strong focus in long-term value creation, and that's why the importance of long-term incentive, which represent 50% of the compensation package. The shareholding policy allowed also a broad numbers of employees that you see to own shareholder, making sure that there is a very strong alignment between all the colleagues and the shareholder themselves. The last point is the corporate social responsibility element. Over the years, it has been increasing.
It started at 5%, it was 10% last year, gonna grow to 20% in 2023. Even here, criteria are demanding and measurable, and we are going to focus more on over this. Moving to the compensation of the corporate office, which are touch resolution number 10, 11, and 12. I'm gonna start from 10 and 12. There is total continuity versus the past year. The members of the board of directors' total compensation has been stable since 2018. The only change this year is the introduction of additional compensation for the lead director. The same is for the Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Compensation will remain unchanged versus 2021, and you see represented here. As for resolution number 11, which is about the compensation of the Chairman and CEO, this was a different process.
As a committee, as a board, we looked at the new role we had, Francesco took on the responsibility. The first thing is we said, "Why should we review this?" The reality is that there are several reasons why it required a proper work and assessment. First of all, it's a new responsibility, and this is adding the job of a chairman of the company. Second is happening when the company has completed two integrations, has become a group which get together three big champions like Essilor, Luxottica, and now GrandVision. The third element was that the world is changing rapidly. I've seen how strong this technology impacting the job that we do, and it's gonna just be more.
We wanted to make sure that the strategy that has led us here to this great success could continue over time safely and reassure also our investors that this was the case. Continuity was extremely important in this. Then it was the how do we define a new compensation? We started from defining a group of peers, and as we looked at this, we realized that the compensation of our Chairman and CEO was below the median of this peer group. Clearly, the peer group is a peer group that represent a company like ours, which is global, operating multiple sector, from luxury goods to healthcare to retail, and does this across the world.
We reviewed this with the support of a third party with Stuart Watson that helped us through all the process, and we came up with a proposal which maintained the principles of the current one and therefore keep the compensation highly aligned with shareholder interest. You see in this slide the object of resolution number 11, which is the compensation of the chairman and CEO. I would like to say that with now at this level, finally, this is aligned between the median and the third quartile of the market, of the peers. As said before, it remain highly skewed towards the results. In my conversation with some of the investors, this was really highly appreciated. Before we conclude, quick look at the way we have set up the annual variable compensation.
You probably remember last year was five criteria. We reduced it to four. The other big change is that is committed a year ago, we raised the part around corporate social responsibility from 10%- 20%. In terms of the long-term incentive plan, again, here there is a lot of continuity in the principle and the concept. In order to achieve 100% of the vesting, the share price growth need to be at least 22.5% over the next three years. The threshold to access is 6.1%. The Nomination and Compensation Committee will keep on operating in order to keep on improving in the coming years, the structure of this compensation, stay in touch with our investors and with the market standards.
Having said this, I hope I've given you enough view to allow you to express your point of view on this resolution. I wish you a great rest of the day. Thank you.
Merci, Andrea. Thank you, Andrea. Finally, to close these presentations, I will ask the statutory auditors to join us, and more specifically, Mr. Guillaume Devaux to present the summary of their work.
Thank you, Mr. General Counsel. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, it is my honor to present to you on behalf of the statutory auditors, PwC and Mazars, the reports that we have drawn up for you for this combined general meeting held today. All of our reports have been made available to you by the company and are included in the universal registration document filed with the AMF.
Published on the EssilorLuxottica S.A. website. As per good practice or best practice, I would like to summarize the terms of our reports and certificates issued for the ordinary general meeting. Namely, our reports to the ordinary general meeting on the accounts, regulated agreements and highest compensation systems, our three special reports issued for the extraordinary general meeting. First of all, the reports on the accounts, the consolidated accounts of the group. I'd like to remind you that the fundamental objective of our work is to obtain reasonable assurance that the accounts are free of material misstatements, that they have been prepared in accordance with general applicable accounting standards, and that they give a true and fair view of the results of the operation's financial position and assets and liabilities of the group at the end of the financial year.
Our audit took account of the specificities and characteristics of your group. Our audit approach was shared with your finance department and presented to the Audit and Risk Committee of your group. The findings of our work were the subject of a detailed report that we presented to your Audit and Risk Committee on February 20, 2023. Your company's financial statements were approved by the board of directors on February 22, 2023. In sum, we issued an unqualified audit opinion on the annual financial statements and the consolidated financial statements for EssilorLuxottica S.A. for the year ending December 31, 2022. In our reports on the account, we stipulate the points that we consider to be the most important for the audit in general.
These are key points in fields that required particular attention from us from the result of their type, any risks of significant anomalies, financial amounts involved, or degree of judgment considered important to appreciate the assumptions and estimates that underlie them. As you can see on the screen, these key points are for the consolidated financial statements, the assessment of recoverable value of goodwill and intangible assets. Secondly, the valuation of litigation reserves, an uncertain tax position and contingent liabilities. With regard to the financial company statements, we assessed the investment as the key point in our audit. Our reports on the financial statements include, for each of these points, a description of the risks we've identified and the procedures we have implemented to address them.
Here you can now see a table covering the nature of all the regulations required by law. We don't have any observations. Let me move on to our report on related party agreements. No related party agreement has been reported to us to be submitted to your approval. We have only one agreement already approved from the previous year, and the execution went on during the previous fiscal year. There's a non-competition agreement between your company and Mr. Francesco Milleri. We also have a report on pro forma financial information, as well as the declaration concerning the compensation paid out. We have no observations. Regarding the extraordinary General Assembly, we have three reports regarding resolutions 14, 16, 17, and 18.
The reports, as by law regarding delegations and authorizations granted to the board for a capital operation, require no observations from us. We will establish an additional report if these authorizations were to be used by your board of directors. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you very much for the work that you have achieved. We move on to the Q&A session, which will last for 30 minutes. Please allow me to draw your attention to the fact that we have received a number of written questions before the meeting. The board of directors, before the meeting approved the answers of the replies provided to those written questions, they were published yesterday on the company's website. That we have more time for a discussion with the shareholders, we are not going to read out the replies supplied to the written questions. Therefore, please refer to the written replies which are published and disclosed on the company's website if you're interested. We can move on to the Q&A session in the room.
We could get questions from five of you before we answer the questions. So that more people can ask questions, every shareholder will be able to ask two questions. Please note that the questions being asked have to concern the general assembly's agenda. To make sure that a large number of our shareholders may be able to ask questions, please ask short questions.
When you ask a question, I would also like you to introduce yourselves. There are young ladies and gentlemen in the room carrying the microphone. If you'd like to ask a question, please ask for a microphone. Yes, I can see someone raising their hand. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for the figures. Congratulations for 2022. I have an observation. When I arrived this morning, I asked for a reference document, and I was told that I was able to scan 400 pages with my mobile phone and read the 400 pages on my mobile phone. This is well beyond my capacity, and I would like to know whether the CFO and the general manager and the CEO are capable of reading 400 pages on their mobile phones.
I had to insist for, like, 15 minutes. Finally, after 15 minutes, I was given the document. Once I reached room, everybody said, "My God, how did you obtain this document? No one else was able to obtain the document." I looked at the document, and I would like the statutory auditor to say that he certified the document and that it was written that the written documents must be made available for the shareholders who are in the general assembly. This is not what is happening. First of all, please, Mr. CEO, for the next general assembly, could you make sure that the reference document in a written paper form is available for the shareholders who request a copy of the document?
I would like the statutory auditors to make sure that the document is available for all the shareholders who request a copy. That was question number one. Question number two is about competition. You do not or barely refer to competition. Could someone please elaborate on the competition? I was fairly surprised that out of the nine people who took the floor this morning, few, a minority, maybe two or three, spoke French. Does this mean that you can't find in France somebody who will comply with your request to work for EssilorLuxottica? That was my second question. Another question, please.
Francesco Zardi, shareholder of Luxottica when it was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. I, too, would like to pay homage to our chairman, Leonardo Del Vecchio. For me, he has always been a myth, a person to follow. The 27th of June last year was a very sad day for everyone. Certainly his principles, his values, his vision will remain forever in the people who have known him. I'd like to ask three very short questions. I saw the increase of turnover, 13.9% between 2021, 2022. How much is due to volumes, and how much is due to the increase of sales prices? Second question, the EssilorLuxottica share price in the last two or three years has always been between 150 EUR and 185 EUR.
The psychological threshold of EUR 200 is a little difficult to reach. Have you ever thought of a share split, two to one, halving the value? Perhaps the floating capital could increase, and perhaps we can go above EUR 100 and the value of EUR 100 billion in stock market capitalization. Third question, how are the sales going for Ray-Ban Stories? I don't see that many around in these stores. Perhaps it's my problem. I bought them immediately, but then after a few months, we had problems in downloading videos and pictures. They replaced them, but even the new model still has the same problems. Perhaps I'm just unlucky personally. Last point, if this is the final venue you've chosen, because I took part in three general meetings in Paris, always in three different locations. I'm just curious about this.
Are you going to choose this for the rest of upcoming years? Congratulations for the exceptional results of this year, too. Thank you.
Third question.
First of all, Gilles Savant, shareholder. I would like to say congratulations for your results and congratulations for your strength of work. Unfortunately, when we heard Federico, we saw a map on the screen, even you are a big expanding company, we saw that you have no point of sale and no point of producing in Central America, in South America, except Brazil, and in Australia. Australia could be also a very big market for us. We don't know why you are not making any effort to settle in those parts of the world.
Okay. Fourth person. Je vois numéro quatre.
Number four. Question number four. Solica, individual shareholder. I'd like to go back to the first question. I too had trouble getting hold of a reference document. It's unbelievable that we actually have to fight to obtain a document which should normally be given to us. A question regarding connected eyewear. What changes did you introduce so as not to repeat the mistake of Google Glass and the Meta headsets, which apparently were a failure? Could we have a figure? Second question regarding competition with low-cost professionals. Do you consider this as a threat? The fact that the French health insurance reimburses 100% of frames, but low-cost frames, was that an issue with the purchasing of luxury frames? One more question. I'm an individual shareholder.
I did not obtain the reference document. I had to read the document on my mobile phone. I have a question regarding resolution number 13, if I'm not mistaken. Mr. Grassi, I'd like to ask my question in English.
Share buybacks. Could you tell me what purpose each year's share buybacks are used for? Especially could you give me a rough percentage of this use? For example, like the employee stock ownership plans account for 3% or something like this, and so on. Finally, what is the difference between the purpose of buybacks and the dividends for you?
Thank you for the questions. We're going to reply to the five first questions before we move on. Regarding the reference document, we hear you, and we hear your request. We will take it in consideration. In the past, we found that less and less people asked for the paper document, and that's the reason why we did not have many printed versions available. We do have a number of printed copies at the headquarters in here as well. We will take it in consideration for the next general assembly as was request. Competition.
Yeah, I try to give a short description of competition. We represent 25% of the market with thanks to the all the other players, more as partners than as competitors. You know that we operate on the wholesale channel, on the retail channel, and the e-com. We supply the independent optician or other store, and we supply directly the final customers through our B2C channels. That is why we took five years ago, four years ago, this approach, really not directly compete, more to help the market to grow, to deliver better product at a better price. In this way, we can grow, we help all the other partners to grow, and at the same time, we can really deliver the best product to our customer.
Say that the market is very high fragmented. There are more than 400,000 independent stores. That is really allow the market to be very competitive. Since there are no barrier to enter and to supply and no barrier for any independent optician to shift from one supplier to another, we really guarantee a full competition, at the same time, the capability to all to access to our research, our product, to our innovation. We don't reserve to our store the innovation and new product. We give our product and our innovation at the same time to all players in the market. At the same time, we supply many of the other players with raw material, with lenses, with plastic, with any things we can deliver.
We are also the best customers for many of the other players. That is what we define an open model approach, really looking to sustain the market first and the satisfaction of final customer. Thank you. Volume and price, I believe you can go.
Yes.
Bon. Alors, en ce qui concerne les profils de notre croissance de vente, lorsque nous regardons la croissance de vente de chiffre d'affaires en 2022, on devrait l'aborder en fait à devise constante, car les variations des cours de et les effets de taux de change sont à intégrer. Lorsqu'on regarde en fait la croissance à devise constante, on, je dirais.
Volume and mix. With frames, that balance is pretty evident. With lenses, it's probably more price mix driving the performance growth. I want to remind you that when we look at the price mix, it's not the price increase that drove our growth from a price mix perspective. Most of the mix is the ability to innovate, launch new collections that have an additional content of technology, as Federico and Norbert explained before, and that help us to drive pretty much our growth from a price mix standpoint.
I take quickly the EUR 100 split suggested. We take the advice. It could be done. At the same time, we believe that our value on the stock market that is close to EUR 82 billion is not so bad. We are quite proud of what we achieved. You are right, we have to aspire something better. We have this EUR 100 billion dream in our mind or EUR 200 share. We try our best to get there. Thank you. Ray-Ban Stories is next. Sorry? Yeah. Ask Federico Buffa to give some more colors on our wearable and Ray-Ban Stories.
I promise next time I'll speak in French.
A couple of questions. The assistance on the downloading of the video of Ray-Ban Stories, I can then shortly connect with our assistant to solve the issue. What about Ray-Ban Stories? like we said before, we are trying to open new category, okay. first of all, I answer to the two question. We try to learn from the lesson and from the past mistake done in the past, okay. You know that in the past, Luxottica was not yet EssilorLuxottica, cooperate with Google at the Google Glass. We are partnering today with Meta, which we know very well what they've done with their Oculus frame. It's a new category, so every time we are trying to learn from the lesson.
One of the lesson learned was that first of all our product from Ray-Ban Stories on will be, first of all, a good glasses on which we try to add step by step, if the technology would permit us, superpowers. We are not doing vice versa. We are not putting electronic pieces or part of a mobile phone on the faces. That was more or less some tentative that has been done at the time. Vice versa, we will first try to produce a good Wayfarer or a good only four grams more in term of weight. Build step by step, based on what the technology will offer us, we will include in those frames, those frames more power. On the other side, lesson learned from the past, new action. On the other side is a new category.
As a new category, there are also a lot of different law in the different countries. The distribution is not always easy when you start to distribute product that they are neither an electronic object nor an optical device or a medical device like all the optical frames. Sometimes you need to take time to work with each single country, understanding each single rules, and step by step define how to distribute. Anyhow, based on the actual distribution of Ray-Ban Stories, we are fully satisfied about the numbers that we are selling. We sold in the past year, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of this product, and we are receiving a lot of feedback and a lot of insight for the next generation.
As anticipated before, in few months, we will have the new generation of product that will also implement the improvement that we learn from this, one year and a half of experience on Ray-Ban Stories. Thank you.
I take the question of Central America presence of our retail. You are right. South America and Australia are one of the most relevant countries for the future of our group. At the same time, we are by far the biggest company in retail in any country in Central, South America and Australia. In Central and South America, we have more than 2,000 direct operated stores.
We are in each country, also in the country where sometimes is not easy to stay and to manage store because the local instability. Australia, for us, is a special place. We have 400 stores with a small population. We have huge lab, we have presence on also we really manage at the best also the e-com on Australia. I take really the suggestion and advice to focus on that area, but I assure you that we are doing very well. We are very strong in that area, and we are increasing our presence everywhere. Thank you. We have low cost.
Okay. I can take the low cost. I'll do it in French, so excuse me. The offering on the market on every region is an offering where we have every price point for it, be it for lenses, frames or sunglasses. It's a market that is structured with a very broad pyramid of products and retail outlets. There has always been, in every market, a presence of retailers with offerings of market entry points at lowest price points, and then middle of the range points, and then added value and quality price points. This is nothing new. There have always been retailers in France, but also in every other market offering very broad product mix. From that broad offering, the consumer can make his or her choice. It's a market where supply is very significant.
The consumer can choose quite freely. The market dynamics are very healthy. The position of your group in this is very complex. We have a broad offering in frames, in sunglasses, and of course in lenses worldwide. We adapt that offering to the demand from retail outlets. Your request was more about the French market. We have not been affected. We were supporting that offering or that supply. We have a basket, what we call the A basket, the B basket. Our offerings are very well positioned with regard to basket A and a wide range for basket B. The group offering in France in particular is perfectly well adapted to supporting that market structure.
Okay. I'll take the detailed question with respect to the buyback program. All our buyback program have been directed to serve the employees' performance plan. All of that. The purchase that we make in the course of 2022, approximately 3 million shares, do not serve all the amount of spending in terms of performance shares plan. This is a process that we will continue to carry forward. If you look at the universal registration document at page 292, you will notice that we have 6.8 million of outstanding share that will be awarded to the employees in the course of the following years.
The one that we own as of the end of 2022 amounts to EUR 2.4 million. Clearly, this is a program that will be carried forward. The purpose of the buyback is what I described you. Purpose of the dividends is obviously to provide a return to the shareholder, are quite distinct in that respect.
Are there any other questions? Number two. Petit Actionnaire.
Let me remember the past president, yes, which actually passed away last year, and also congratulate the current team. Everybody refers to the leader, Mr. Milleri, but I think it's the success of a company is the work of 190,000 people. My question, my first question is what is your dividend policy? Here we are talking about compensation of the board and also buyback program related to the workers, which I take into notice, which I note and but I do not I never heard about a dividend policy. If there is no dividend policy, what is preventing you from setting one?
The second question is, how do you see the future and the near future, we are seeing the current quarters, but where do you see the growth from 2024 since?
Given all this period of uncertainty, which is actually, for a company like this, is less uncertain because it has been a good performer during, an age of uncertainties, but where do you see the growth? In other words, what are you doing with all this cash flow that you're making this year in 2024? This is my question. Thank you.
There's a question from number one. Individual shareholder. I had a question about talents. What have you decided to do for talent? What are you gonna do to attract and retain high talented employees? What are you doing, in fact, for these innovations after the Ray-Ban Stories, and then also on the proportion of women? My last question is on digital, is on the level of proportion of women. We have a third question, I believe, at the end. Number three. Individual shareholder. I had two questions for you. The first concerned your CSR and environmental committee. We had a fine presentation, lovely slides by the CSR director, but it wasn't possible to see your commitments and the trajectories to be pursued by Essilor, in particular with regard to the five pillars from that presentation.
I'd like to know these aspects, given that part of the pay and compensation of the board members and executives will be made up of to the extent of 20% of these objectives. My second question concerns governance. We had no information concerning the governance conditions in terms of the number of board meetings. The number of meetings and the breakdown and the responsibilities of each board member. Thank you. Another person, perhaps number four. Jean-Claude Laurenté, individual shareholder. Yesterday's share ended at EUR 186.56. The record was EUR 191.79. The share been a very liquid, which has a lower shareholder, considered EUR 160 was a bit expensive for a young person who would like to start trading in on the stock market.
You're at EUR 180, EUR 190. I'd be quite happy to see the share split. Thank you. Final question. Number two. Madame Bélanger, individual shareholder. I'd like to know if there are other companies in your sector worldwide that have research centers in optical lenses and in frames as well. If that is the case, how significant are they in terms of quantities and the number of people working in them? Thank you for your response. We will try to answer those questions first before carrying on.
With respect to the dividend policy, we don't have a, per se, a dividend policy. As you know. Louder. Can you hear me? Okay? Yes. Can you hear me? You are too tall. Okay. I'm too tall. Our objective is to pursue a balanced policy between remuneration of the shareholders and investment in the company. If we look at our overall investment in the company, in the course of 2022, there were really two areas. Bolt-on M&A acquisition, and the other side is the investment in capital expenditures. We've been able to deliver an outstanding dividend increase, 20+%, and at the same time balance that with investment into the company. M&A, capital investment, and I would probably add the share buyback program.
I take the future growth. This is really a big question. Most part of our future growth in two or three years, I really, I cannot disclose today. This is in our R&D labs, or in our patents, and the new ideas that many teams are elaborating, right now. It's clear where we are going.
We are entering in digital services. We invested a lot in our platform, mainly on telemedicine, on Smart Shopper, on many other tools like Eye-Ruler. That is not very known to all of you, but Eye-Ruler is new way to measure the site and to really manufacture a new generation of lenses. Digital and digitalization, it will part of our growth. Services will be part of our growth. As we said in the past, we are looking at many other sector. Eye clinics and doctors are, of course, very close, and they are really a part of the decision process on our industry. We look at that new segment with very high interest.
We have new product, evolutioned product that we have that really, it can guarantee the growth that we want for the next maybe five-10 years. The question, very interesting, would be the extra growth when we start to accelerate, and that is really connected with the transformation of our industry. You know that the sneaker market is bigger than the optical market, and people spend more to change the shoes than protect eyes. Our battle is really to convince people really to care about their eyes much more, and this is something that will transform. Wearable will help adding many others features to the frame.
The frame will not just something that help us to see, it will become a part of our social life, exchange, talking with the machine learning, with the artificial intelligence, interact with people that are in different part of the planet. At that time, really, we will see a big, deep change of our industry. What we have in mind maybe is a dream that Meta has to replace the mobile through the new wearable, the face computing. That is really opening a totally different view for our company and for our industry, and we are investing a lot on that.
Thank you.
Yeah. to... Is,
Yeah. Please.
Okay. On the issue of talent, or talented employees, well, previously, we gave you some figures that are quite key. We told you that 50% of our workforce in EssilorLuxottica are under the age of 35. You could imagine if that's the case, we're in a phase where there's a lot of hiring all over the group to support the transformation of the company, but also to take on board with us some new talent, and in particular, in every issue to do with digitization, programming, and the development of new solutions. You heard Federico Buffa talk about Smart Eyewear. It's clear that in our R&D, in our production facilities, in our marketing, there are new skills everywhere coming into the group. The group is resolutely facing the future.
Behind the strategic vision that we explained, it is clear that we must ensure worldwide, not just in Europe and not just in Italy or France, to take young, talented employees with us. Now, on the question of women, the proportion of women. Now this is something where we are moving. We're far from perfect, but I would like to give you some information that shows that it's an issue that is moving forwards strongly in the group. It's 61% in the group is made up of women and 39% men. So globally, it's a woman's group. If I look at the first and second lines, Francesco and myself, the first top line of management, the second line, there's about 600 people. 41% of that population is made up of women. It's a very significant proportion.
It's where, in particular, the leaders, the women leaders that we wish to have, running this company, will be found. We have lots of work to do to make, to reveal, and we've got some Francesco and myself, we've got some very strong talent. These are items for measurement that we can give you, but I think it gives you one or two concrete data points. The final aspect, there is a significant transformation. Everything's been done in all our campuses. We've invested significantly in the last two years to create in the main business hubs
Decision-making hubs in Italy, Australia, New York, Brazil, Mexico. It's in progress in London. We're working on the French part. We're trying to create hubs that are very modern, open, that make it possible to adapt to new forms of working that have changed so radically in the last three years. That's a very important aspect to attract and create a working method that's new in this world that is partially with connections and what have you, changing. That's a little bit of an insight. Okay. We'll finish with the questions, and then we'll move on to the vote. Corporate social responsibility, environment. Elena, would you like to say a few words?
Regarding the sustainability program, Eyes on the Planet, as we said, this is really a constantly evolving program where basically each pillar is a commitment. At the same time, we are working with the different task forces across the entire organization globally in order to make the different roadmaps. The example that I gave you around Eyes on Carbon, this is exactly the pillar where we do have the quantitative objective of carbon neutrality. Of course, as we were saying, the Science Based Targets commitment is the natural prosecution. The MBO, in fact, so the CSR objective in the MBO is indeed linked to this important quantitative objective that we have.
That is the one that has been publicly made and is also certified, given the fact that overall the chapter 5 of the registration document, so the non-financial statement, is subject to the controls of the audit firm as well. This is to say that as we continue to progress on this program, and therefore we build not just the commitment but also the associated objective pillar by pillar, we will be able also to provide more and more, let's say, of course, transparency on quantitative assets as well. Final example, if I think about the Eyes on Inclusion pillar, where we said we are 190,000 employees globally, of course, there are many different activities that are being pushed, and some of these were already reminded when talking about talent.
Let me also add that, for instance, we've just, we created the global team dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the last quarter of 2022, and we are currently working them with my team in order to prepare the overall global strategy and roadmap around diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is really a journey, and it will be a pleasure to continue to update you on the progress.
Thank you. Last, Norbert, can you take the R&D center question?
With respect to our R&D competency, competencies combined, may I remind you of the global map that we showed earlier today with 26 sites of a variety of expertise in the field of frame and lens design and development. This is indeed one of the rationales of the merger that you have observed, because a combination of those skills does not exist in a second place anywhere in this world at this moment in time. You may have seen that there's some companies trying to follow this idea. You have seen what happened at De Rigo a few months ago. Given the magnitude and the global coverage of what we deliver at this moment in time, we consider a unique value proposition that we have started to exploit for the sake of the business and the customer.
To give you two examples, the fact that we have a very strong activity in the field of smart eyewear is predicated on those competencies, actually from day one of the merger. Number two, this is not just something that is limited to the development, or to the research or the design part of equipment. It goes all the way down to operations. As we speak, part of the investments, as they were mentioned by Stefano Grassi, flow into combined activities in supply chain and manufacturing that co-design elements for full equipment that also be co-produced in the same place. We believe it's a unique set of capabilities. It gives us a competitive advantage.
Merci, Norbert. Je vais.
Thank you, Norbert. I will answer myself the question regarding governance and the number of board of directors. These elements are published in the reference document, page 115. You will find all the relevant information, the number of meetings. May I remind you that the reference document has been online as of March the 17th, and you can read it online, because again, it's been disclosed on March the 17th. This closes the Q&A session, maybe we can now move.
To the votes. One last question, sorry. Thank you. Two short questions. I think they are important. Regarding your activities in Russia and Ukraine, what is going on there? How do you manage these activities? Will there be any consequences on the operating results and operating profit? A EUR 80 million fine from the authority of competition. What happened, really? Could you tell us more?
Okay. First, Ukraine. We have more than 1,000 people, colleague there. We support whatever it takes. We are building, right now, a bomb shelter for our main office. We are still supporting the partners. We have local partners that we share their retail stores. We are still investing. Really, not just supporting, but try to develop the country. We are behind the population, we are behind our people. We are trying to help as much as we can. Russia, you know, we have colleague also there. We really shutted down any business not directly connected to primary healthcare support. We have some activity, very small. Change lenses if it's broken, to repair, but only connected to eye care and not connected to any brands that we have any extra activity.
This is, we believe, the fair position that we took. As I said, supporting Ukraine, and now also maybe is less evident, but also supporting Turkey. After the earthquake, we are really investing a lot to recovery, helping, and we are projecting a mission to help people there. Thank you.
Finally, regarding the decision from the competition authorities in France that you just referred to. The French competition administration considered that between 2009 and 2014, the online resellers, what we call in English pure players, as opposed to players who sell both in shops and on the internet. We are disputing this decision and the position of the competition authority, and we're appealing their decision. We now move to the votes. We have reached the final quorum, 82.12%. We're not going to read out the resolutions because they were published on the discussed on the internet, on the website, and sent to the shareholders who requested them.
A slide summarizing the content of each resolution will be shown. You will be able to vote thanks to the electronic device that was handed out to you at the beginning of the General Assembly. The following video is going to explain how this device works. Please, if you have any problem, refer to the young gentlemen and young ladies who are present in the room to assist you on how to operate the system. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, the device that was handed out to you is personal. The number of voting rights that you hold or represent is already loaded into the device and shown on the screen. All you have to do is push the green and yellow and red keys. Green for, yellow abstention, red against.
Following the resolution being read to you, the vote will be made and you will see that the resolution is up for voting. You will see on the screen a rectangle that will show the countdown, how many seconds you have available to vote. Once the countdown is closed, you will read, "The voting is closed," and you will no longer be able to vote. The results will be displayed on the screen a few seconds after the vote is closed. Please switch off your mobile phones during the vote and don't forget to give back the devices when you leave the room. For legal and technical reasons, please do not leave the room during the voting session. Resolution number one, approval of the financial statements for the year ended December 31st, 2022. You can vote.
You can no longer vote. Vote is closed. Resolution adopted 99.53% of votes for the resolution. Second resolution, approval of the consolidated financial statements for the year ending 31st December, 2022. The vote is open. Vote is closed. Resolution adopted 99.52% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number three. Vote is open. Voting is closed. Resolution adopted 99.01% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number four, ratification of the co-optation regarding Mr. Mario Notari as director to replace Mr. Leonardo Del Vecchio, who sadly passed away on June 27, 2022. Vote is open. Voting is closed. Resolution is adopted 99.04% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number five, approval of the regulated agreements and commitments referred to in articles L. 225-38 of the French Commercial Code.
Voting is closed. Resolution adopted 99.34% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number 6, approval of the report on the remuneration and benefits of any kind paid in 2022, or granted in respect of the same financial year to the corporate officers. The vote is open. Vote is closed. Resolution adopted 96.27% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number seven, approval of the fixed variable and exceptional components of the total remuneration and benefits of any kind paid during the financial year 2022, or awarded in respect of the said year to the chairman of the board of directors for the period from January 1st to June 27th, 2022. The vote is open. Vote is over. Resolution is adopted 99.89% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number eight.
Approval of the fixed variable and exceptional components of the total remuneration and benefits of any kind paid during the financial year 2022, or awarded in respect of said financial year to Mr. Francesco Milleri, CEO until June 27, 2022, and then chairman and CEO. The vote is open. Voting is closed. Resolution is approved 90.29% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number nine, approval of fixed variable and exceptional components of the total remuneration and benefits of any kind paid during the financial year 2022, or awarded in respect of said financial year to Mr. Paul Du Saillant, Deputy Managing Director. COO. The vote is closed. Resolution is approved 89.95%. Number 10, approval of remuneration policy for the members of the board of director for year 2023. Vote is open. Vote is closed.
Resolution is approved 99.18% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number 11, approval of the remuneration policy for the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for the financial year 2023. Vote is open. The vote is closed. Resolution adopted 69.59% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number 12. Approval of the remuneration policy of the Deputy Managing Director, COO for the financial year 2023. Voting is closed. Resolution approved 88.11% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number 13. Authorization to be given to the Board of Directors to proceed with the repurchasing by the company of its own shares. Vote is open. Voting is over. Resolution adopted 98.84% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number 14. Authorization to be given to the Board to reduce the share capital by canceling treasury shares.
Voting is closed. Resolution adopted 99.62% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number 15. Delegation of authority granted to the board of directors to increase the share capital by capitalization of premiums, reserves, profits, and other rights. Vote is open. Voting is closed. Resolution is adopted 99.93% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number 16. Delegation of authority granted to the board of directors to issue shares and securities entailing an increase in capital with preferential subscription rights being held. Vote is open. Voting is closed. Resolution is adopted 99.85% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number 17.
Delegation of authority granted to the board of directors to issue securities giving immediate or future access to the share capital by public offering referred to in the comma number one of Article L. 411-2 of the French Monetary and Financial Code with the preferential subscription rights being canceled. The vote is open. Voting is closed. Resolution is adopted 96.59% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number 18. Delegation of authority granted to the board of directors to decide to increase the share capital by issuing shares reserved for the members of the company savings plan with the preferential subscription rights being canceled. The vote is open. Voting is closed. Resolution adopted 99.71% in favor of the resolution. Resolution number 19. Authorization to the board of directors to reduce the share capital by canceling treasury shares.
Vote is open. Voting is closed. Resolution is adopted 99.99%. This brings us to the end of the voting session.
For coming to our AGM. We wait for you next year. We hope to maintain the same place that we like so much. Thank you. Thanks a lot.