Thank you for standing by. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Elior Group's full year 2022-2023 financial results conference call. Please note this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your participation at any time. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. The management discussion and the slide presentation, plus the analyst question and answer session, are being broadcasted live over the Internet. Today's call will start with an introduction from Daniel Darierbourg, Chairman and CEO. He will address you in French. Didier Compère, Chief Financial Officer, will summarize key points in English.
After this introduction, Didier Compère will then carry on with the presentation before answering your questions. Mr. Darierbourg, please go ahead.
Bonjour à tous. Bon, je m'excuse déjà, je ne parle pas anglais. J'espère qu'il y a dans la foule des personnes qui parlent français. Et bon, moi, je vais me présenter. Donc j'ai commencé ma vie à l'âge de seize ans en train de débarrasser les caves. Ce n'est pas du tout ce que les analystes peuvent entendre, mais j'aime le dire quand même. Et puis j'ai monté au fur et à mesure. J'ai monté une société, si vous voulez, qui s'appelle Derichebourg Recycling, qui fait environ €5 milliards de chiffre d'affaires, avec un EBITDA important, comme vous savez. On est côté BB+, je crois, pour Standard and Poor's. Et donc j'ai pris ce challenge de reprendre Elior le 18 avril de cette année pour redresser la société.
Donc, j'ai vu que cette société, si vous voulez, avait des grosses lacunes, c'est-à-dire qu'elle était, par rapport au board, par rapport au board, il y avait vraiment un écart entre la base et le board, et que les gens ne se comprenaient pas. C'est vrai qu'il y a eu aussi, si vous voulez, le Covid, et ça, je comprends qu'il y a eu un problème, mais cette société était, à mon avis, pas gérée. Donc je continue. Concrètement, donc, ce que j'ai fait, à partir du 18 avril, j'ai commencé à réorganiser cette société. La réorganisation a été faite en France, surtout parce que c'est la France qui perdait beaucoup d'argent, et l'Italie.
Donc, je me suis séparé de tout le management de la France et je me suis séparé aussi de tout le management de l'Italie, pour assouplir un peu, si vous voulez, les échelons entre le board et l'opérationnel. Et donc, les clients qui ne payaient pas et qui étaient en perte, je les ai arrêtés. Il y a encore trois clients qui sont importants. Bon, Itinéraire, le TGV italien, qui perdait environ 10 à 12 millions par an. Nous l'avons arrêté, arrêté la perte, c'est-à-dire qu'on a eu l'augmentation de 12 millions de l'État italien. Et nous avons aussi fait les prix, c'est-à-dire que toute l'armée italienne, nous l'avons provisionnée et on va arrêter ce marché-là. En ce qui concerne, je ne sais pas si vous connaissez aussi, je crois qu'un petit peu, mais après, je laisserai mon directeur financier.
Autour de la table, il y a mon directeur juridique, mon directeur financier et la personne qui s'occupe des investisseurs. Il resterait le pénitencier, que je suis en bonne voie de le faire pour l'année 2024. Donc, pour en venir aux comptes de cette année, enfin, l'année qui s'est écoulée, 2023, nous avons déjà fait environ, mais mon directeur financier vous le dira, €30 millions en année pleine d'économies. Je compte, pour une année 2024, monter à €56 millions environ. Mais bon, Didier vous dira exactement ce qu'il en est. Je compte remettre la société dans les deux, deux ans à trois ans, sur les bons rails et qu'on puisse commencer à prendre des dividendes. Je fais en parenthèse, ce qui est important, je ne veux pas de salaire.
Je ne prends pas mon salaire dans le groupe parce que, un, j'en ai pas besoin personnellement, donc c'est clair, net et précis, et je prendrai le salaire quand ça gagnera de l'argent et je remettrai des dividendes. Voilà, je voulais vous faire cette introduction. Je ne veux pas encore le faire à l'allée louche, parce que ça pourrait durer des années, des heures. Je vais vous passer mon directeur financier. Merci à tous.
Thank you, Daniel. I will summarize the key points. Daniel started with his personal history, when he started his career at sixteen years old, helping his father cleaning out basement. Then this was a progressive and fantastic ramp-up until this activity became Derichebourg Recycling, with a turnover which was around €5 billion, generating a material EBITDA. Derichebourg is also well rated with BB+ from Standard and Poor's. Then, on this basis, he wanted to take the challenge around Elior and became-
The main shareholder and the chairman and CEO on April 18th, with the first priority to turn around the activity. He identified quite a lot of opportunities that we are addressing one after the other. One of his methods was also that he noted quite a gap between the field and the overall management up to a board level, and he has worked on streamlining, better connecting the different levels of the organization. So then one of the actions, starting with your organization, was to renew the management in France and in Italy with the same spirit, to reduce on the level of organization and streamline the different levels.
A key focus has been on the three contracts that we discussed as well around our call in July with Itinéris, what was a significant difficulty regarding the ramp-up of a new contract, as well as the Ministry of Defense that should be terminated at the end of the contract in 2025. Then the third one is being still addressed, but that concerns the presence in France, but with a good hope to get it solved during this fiscal year.
And then one key outcome of all these actions is that you, as you know, this deal started with the assumption to generate a little bit more than €30 million of savings at the end of fiscal year 2026. We have generated already almost €30 million on annualized savings at the end of this fiscal year, which led us to increase the total expected savings up to €56 million at the end of 2026. So he's giving himself and the company two to three years to put it fully back on track. Again, a lot has been achieved over the first six months, still to come. And then one important message as well is that for the time being, he does not get any compensation.
He plans to do this when the company will earn a sufficient level of money that could unlock some dividends and some compensation for himself. Thank you, Daniel, for this intro. I propose to continue with our financial presentation, starting as usual on slide two. We have provided detailed financial information in our press release issued earlier today, which is available on Elior's website. I invite you to read the disclaimer on slide two, which is an integral part of our presentation. As you heard from Daniel, fiscal year 2022-2023 has been a key turning point for Elior. We became operationally profitable again.
We closed the DMS acquisition in April, together with the arrival of Daniel, our new chairman and CEO since then. This has led to a strong upward revision in target synergies and a clear commitment to delivering. I will make a short introduction before covering our full year results in detail. Then I will share with you a review of our business, including how we successfully address all levels of profitability. Finally, I will conclude with our outlook for fiscal 2023, 2024 and beyond, before answering your questions. We have delivered according to guidance, with a strong organic growth of 11.2% versus our latest objective of at least +10%, with an adjusted EBITDA margin up 220 basis points year-on-year, turning positive to reach 1.1%, compared with our latest target of around 1%.
We also recorded a normalized free cash flow of minus €20 million, a significant improvement from minus €124 million a year ago. As announced at the end of July, we extended the maturity of 89% of our bank debt, now maturing in July 2026, in line with our bond. We swiftly started integrating DMS, and our new chairman and CEO launched further restructuring. This led to €7 million of cost synergies being recorded in just six months, with an annualized amount standing at €27 million at the end of September 2023. Let's now review Elior's full year results in detail. Starting on slide seven, consolidated revenue amounted to €5.22 billion, compared to €4.45 billion a year ago.
This plus 17.3% year-on-year increase reflects, first, the strong organic growth of 11.2%, a plus 6% perimeter impact, that I will detail shortly, and a small currency impact. Regarding the scope, we have the exit of Fresh & Mint, a loss-making non-core business in the U.S., that reduced revenue by €188 million in fiscal '23, and the acquisition of DMS, that has been consolidated since April 18th, and that since then, increased revenue by €447 million. As a complement, we have provided pro forma figures in appendix of both our press release and this presentation. Pro forma revenue reached €5.8 billion, of which 72% in contract catering and 28% in multi-services. This reflects a more balanced group compared to a split that was around 90/10 before DMS.
All three drivers contributed to strong organic growth. Like-for-like growth was robust at +9.6%, including a volume growth of +5.1%, which was fueled by an Omicron recovery effect, and an average price increases of +4.5%. The commercial momentum remains strong in fiscal '23, with openings boosting revenue by 9.6%, following a +9.8% in fiscal '22. On the other hand, contract losses reduced revenue by 6.4%, reflecting a retention rate of 93.6%, excluding voluntary exits. Finally, voluntary exits of loss-making contracts reduced revenue further by 1.6%. Slide nine shows a major achievement in fiscal '23, with Elior Group being operationally profitable again.
Adjusted EBITDA increased by €107 million, from a loss of €48 million last year to a profit of €59 million this year. Similarly, the group's adjusted EBITDA margin was up 220 basis points, from -1.1% last year to +1.1% this year. Let's now move to the next slide to consider the various drivers of operating profitability improvement in detail. First, we recorded highly elevated inflation that reduced EBITDA by €264 million. Against this, several drivers, starting with price increases, amounted to €201 million, corresponding to a pass-through rate of 76%. This actually improved significantly from 69% in the first half to 85% in the second half, illustrating the trend towards a lower net inflation gap.
In addition, volume increases had a positive EBITDA impact of €51 million, leveraging our cost base. On top of that, net development contributed to an EBITDA uplift of €7 million, more than last year, despite the ramp-up issues on a smaller number of large contracts that we already mentioned. Voluntary exits of loss-making contracts contributed to an EBITDA increase of €2 million, as we thoroughly reviewed our portfolio of legacy contracts. In summary, prices, volumes, and net debt development almost entirely offset the inflation impact. On top of that, we continue to deploy the operating efficiency measures around procurement, logistics, productivity, and G&A. This translated into an EBITDA improvement of €50 million. The €50 million included €7 million of synergies already in this fiscal year 2023.
Finally, the exit of Fresh & Mint in the US had a positive EBITDA impact of €42 million, while other scope impacts, mostly DMS, added €21 million. Let's now look at the rest of the income statement, starting from EBITDA at €33 million. Non-recurring charges totaled €81 million, which is a significant reduction from €309 million last year. This year, they include goodwill impairment losses related to catering in France and Spain for €47 million, restructuring costs for €22 million, and the DMS acquisition cost for €10 million. Net financial charges amounted to €78 million versus €26 million last year, reflecting the increase in both average debt and financial cost. Last year, financial result benefited as well from a foreign exchange gain.
Income tax was a profit of €29 million versus a loss of €36 million a year ago. This included this year deferred tax asset for €40 million in France, coming from DMS. A full breakdown of income tax can be found in the appendix. All in all, net result group share was a loss of minus €93 million, much improved versus a loss of €427 million last year. On Slide 12, looking at the free cash flow. Starting with the adjusted EBITDA, that amounted to €212 million in fiscal '23. CapEx totaled €77 million, equivalent to 1.5% of revenue, which is slightly above the 1.4% from last year. IFRS 16 lease payments reached €77 million, broadly unchanged year-on-year, including DMS. Net change in working capital was negative €66 million.
It is important to note that this includes a temporary negative movement of €38 million related to factoring and securitization. This is just a calendar issue that will mechanically reverse in full during the first half of fiscal '24. Therefore, adding back this €28 million to the reported free cash flow of minus €58 million, gives a normalized free cash flow of minus €20 million, very close to breakeven. Non-recurring cash expenses of €40 million reflect mainly the exit of Prefer last year, the acquisition and integration of DMS this year, as well as restructuring in continental Europe, mostly France. Next slide shows a free cash flow improvement of €104 million year-on-year. It comes first and foremost from a €101 million improvement in adjusted EBITDA.
This makes us confident in our ability to continue to deleverage as we continue to improve profitability. I've already commented on CapEx and working capital movements, and tax paid benefited from a 50% reduction in the French CVA tax rate, starting January 1st, 2023. Moving to the net debt, the reversible working capital movement that I previously mentioned mechanically increased net debt at the end of September. Excluding this, normalized net debt reached €1.36 billion, versus €1.22 billion reported a year ago. DMS brought a net debt of €41 million, including on balance sheet factoring and IFRS 16 lease liabilities. The overall IFRS 16 debt reduced by €19 million during the year. On top of free cash flow already discussed, interest paid and financial fees amounted to €66 million.
Finally, net acquisitions of €21 million reflect the buyout of minority interest in Elior North America for around two-thirds. The rest mainly relates to the acquisition of Cater 2 You food services in the US. This slide shows deleveraging is already well underway. At the end of September 2023, our leverage ratio was 5.4 times, based on reported net debt of nearly €1.4 billion, and covenant EBITDA of €258 million. This was comfortably below our covenant test level of 6 times, and also shows further improvement from 7.1 times at the end of March 2023. Although we are confident in our ability to continue to improve profitability and free cash flow generation, we recently, for comfort, loosened our end March 2024 covenant.
The test level is now 5.25 times versus 4.5 previously. The test level at the end of September 2024 and beyond remains unchanged at 4.5 times. Available liquidity came to €313 million at the end of September 2023, versus €399 million a year ago. DMS brought in €47 million of available liquidity. When liquidity evolved along the same free cash flow, interest and net acquisition drivers as over net debt, just to confirm, the €38 million temporary working capital movement has no impact on liquidity. Liquidity benefited from €8 million of additional funding from securitization. The program, as it stands, was due to expire on October 2024.
During the summer, we extended the securitization program to October 2025 on the same basis. Now, I would like to move to the next section of this presentation with a business review. Starting on Slide 18 with a bit of context. This graph shows actual food cost inflation suffered by our catering activities. More precisely, it is the average year-on-year food inflation during the whole of fiscal '22, and then each of the four quarters of fiscal '23. Just to be clear, the endpoints to right are Q4 averages, not exit rates at the end of Q4. Clearly, the macro context is improving as food inflation is decelerating. It peaked in Q1 in the US and in Q2 in Europe, and you can see the rate of deceleration has increased in Q4 compared to Q3.
Our number one priority today is to continue to deleverage through relentless effort on all levels of profitability improvement for sound and sustainable free cash flow generation. Let's address these five levels in more detail. Starting on Slide 20 with price momentum. In fiscal 2023, we renegotiated during the year price increases of €173 million generated along the year, 24% more than the year before. More importantly, we have entered fiscal 2024, we've already secured price increases totaling €79 million. This represents a solid base to build upon as the year plays out. To the right, the other important figure is +6.3%. It represents the materialization of what we are expecting for the new school year price revision campaign in France. I believe this illustrates three important points: First, this revision will be valid for the next 12 months.
Second, it was calculating looking back twelve months and capturing the peak of inflation that we saw previously. Third, it was set when inflation deceleration was gathering pace. Moving to voluntary exits. In the past two years, we have recorded strong commercial momentum with development close to 10% in each of fiscal '22 and fiscal '23. In fiscal '22, net development contributed €108 million of revenues and €5 million of EBITDA. In other words, 3% of growth at a 4.6% margin. In fiscal '23, net development contributed €144 million of revenue and €4 million of EBITDA. That represent 3.2% of growth and 4.9% margin, a bit better than last year, despite the already mentioned ramp-up issues.
Towards the end of fiscal 2022, in reaction to the upsurge in inflation, we embarked on a rationalization of our portfolio of legacy contracts. Where we haven't been able to obtain a good enough price, we have chosen to exit the contract when possible. In fiscal 2023, that meant losing €70 million of revenues while adding €2 million of EBITDA. If you look at the overall picture, on a net-net basis, we added €74 million of revenue and €9 million of EBITDA, hence a very healthy 12.1% margin. We will continue to rationalize our legacy portfolio in fiscal 2024, as we continue to favor profitability over growth. Moving to next slide. In a relatively low margin industry like ours, it is essential to keep a tight control on cost.
This became too critical, pretty critical with first COVID, then the surge in inflation. This has always been a key area of focus for Elior, and even more so in recent months with our new management. In fiscal 2023, we delivered €50 million of overall cost savings, including €7 million of synergies, which is a strong achievement in just six months since the DMS deal closed and Danilo arrived. Excluding the synergies, we delivered €43 million of cost savings, about the same amount as last year. Delivering as much in year two as in year one is a strong achievement. On the far right of the slide, you can see the various areas of actions. You might recall that we covered this in detail during our first half result presentation.
The point I would like to make today is that our cost base optimization is broad-based, with procurement savings, operating efficiencies, and SG&A reduction. More importantly, efficiencies cover all our geographies. As you can see on the middle of the slide, savings were broadly equally split between France and international. Let's now move on the next slide to spend more time on synergies. Cost synergy opportunities have increased significantly since we first announced our intention to acquire DMS back in December of 2022. This reflects the arrival of our new chairman and CEO, as well as Boris Durisbourg, taking on leadership of all catering activities in France. The scope of opportunities now includes groups corporate function, both catering and multi-services in France, and multi-services in Spain and Portugal.
On the right side of the chart, you can see what has been already achieved in just six months, notably the implementation of a new operational organization in France. With €27 million of annualized cost synergies at the end of September 2023, we have in effect already surpassed our initial target of €18 million. Today, we are raising our cost synergies target to €44 million, taking our overall target to €56 million. In France, with the right organization and the right regional mapping now in place, we are going to start extracting development synergies, whose target remains unchanged at €12 million. Before introducing our outlook for fiscal 2024, let's now look at where we really exited fiscal 2023 in terms of adjusted EBITDA margin, considering what we can take for granted.
Starting from our reported margin of 1.1%, we can for sure first look at DMS on a pro forma basis, as if it has been consolidated over twelve months. This adds ten basis points of margin. Second, we can add the annualization of synergies at the end of September. This adds 30 BPs of margins. Finally, we can also adjust for contract ramp-up issues that have been formally resolved. This adds 40 BPs of margin. Therefore, in total, these three demands represent 80 BPs of margin and a normalized EBITDA margin of 1.9%, which represents a solid base for further uplift. This leads to the final section. Starting with the outlook on slide twenty-six, the activity is globally encouraging across catering and multi-services in all countries where we operate.
Volume growth will normalize in fiscal 2024, after benefiting from an Omicron catch-up effect last year. We have entered fiscal 2024 with a solid €79 million base of secure price increases to build upon. As I mentioned before, commercial development will continue to be accompanied by a rationalization of our legacy portfolio. Year-on-year, inflation remains high by historical standards, but there has been a marked deceleration in all our geographies in recent months, which is a relief. Beyond the macro context, all our levers of profitability improvement will continue to be firmly activated with a strong vigor introduced by our new leadership.
With all that said, we have set ourselves the following objectives for fiscal 2024: achieve organic revenue growth of between 4% and 5%, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of around 2.5%, so that we can close the year with a net debt EBITDA leverage ratio of around four times. In the midterm, we now aim for total annualized recurring synergies of €56 million by fiscal 2026. Also, we confirm our priority given to deleveraging, with a new target net debt EBITDA ratio below three times at the end of September 2026. Now, on Slide 27. This was previously shown in appendix, but we have decided to bring it up, with a chance to add some comments on the different moving parts of the free cash flow.
For fiscal 2024, at this stage, we currently anticipate a CapEx to range from 1.7% to 2%, a small step up from levels seen in the past two years, supporting our estate of central kitchen and to extract further efficiencies. On the commercial development front, we have proven our ability to deliver good growth without large CapEx spending. Net change in working capital ranging from plus €60 to plus €80 million. Bearing in mind, we have already told you €38 million will mechanically come back during H1. After two years of very strong volume growth, we expect more favorable working capital movements, supported by ongoing initiatives to further improve the invoicing and collection cycle. Non-recurring cash expenses of between €20 to €25 million, much less than in fiscal 2023, and supporting our new cost synergies target.
All-in cost of net financing at around 4.8%, including off balance sheet securitization and factoring. Now on slide 28 with some concluding remarks. I cannot emphasize enough how much of a turning point the arrival of Daniel has been for the group. He has a strong track record, turning around companies in the business services sector, dealing with both private and public sector clients in an industry where margins are pretty thin. Furthermore, Derichebourg S.A. owns 48.3% of Elior Group, and it is bound by both a lockup and a standstill. So our core shareholder here is here to stay with a large vested interest in the success of Elior. The acquisition of DMS has reinforced the strategic positioning of Elior.
We have now a more balanced business with a stronger and more diverse services activity, complementary client bases, and plenty of opportunities to cross-sell. In terms of cost, again, there is today a focus on cost optimization like never before at Elior. All in all, our latest results and outlook show that Elior's turnaround is firmly underway with a clear path to free cash flow generation and deleveraging. I'm now ready to answer your questions. Operator, could you please take the first one?
Yes, sir. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. We'll take now our first question from Julien Richat from Kepler. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. A few questions for me. In terms of organic growth for 2024, could you please give us your view on the price impact you expect in 2024 and the net new business contribution you expect also? Second question on France: is it possible to have a few details on profitability evolution in France in terms of margin and where you think you will be able to land in the medium term? And the last point, what amount of cost efficiency do you expect for 2024? Thank you.
Okay. So I'm not sure I will be able to provide all the detailed answer, but let me share maybe the main drivers on these three fronts. So first, regarding the grand organic growth, we will have the same drivers at play as in fiscal 2023. The volume recovery was more important in 2023 that we expect in 2024, although there will be some continuity. Second, we will have some benefits from the price increases. So as I explained, out of €173 million of renegotiation, we had in fiscal 2023, €79 million will actually apply to fiscal 2024.
They will benefit from the revenue growth in the new fiscal year. We expect the commercial development to keep its good momentum. When we look at the past, it was close to 10% in fiscal 2022, almost at the same level in 2023, so we see this as a positive trend. But in parallel, as we favor the profitability over growth, we will continue with our portfolio rationalization. Moving to France, we have been focusing in terms of cost synergies, especially on this geography during the first semester, meaning in fiscal 2023. We have now the cost structure in place, with a new combined organization for services and optimized organization as well for catering.
They are based on the same organizational streamline principle. Now they will generate the full year, the annualized synergy that we have mentioned at the end of September, and this will mostly benefit France, including, by the way, the headquarters. Then your last question was about cost efficiencies. So we will continue as well what has been initiated since 2022. I think that globally speaking, you should really look at those three elements, organic growth, margin development, cost opportunities implementation as a continuum. I mean, some started in 2022 with a good impact already in 2023. They still need to be completed in terms of deployment.
Yeah, I'm thinking about all what we have initiated around the flexibilization of the labor in some of our restaurants, but we are now addressing all activities to generate the similar optimization. We have complemented this kind of initiative as well, with a stronger focus on procurement, as well as some initiatives about the rationalization of our references, all this in order to get better prices from our suppliers. This is complemented with the optimization as well of our supply chain. We are reviewing the logistic flows. So all this will contribute to cost efficiencies next year on top of a simplification of the organization.
Sorry, just a quick follow-up on the price point, because you-- so we get the $79 million, but it's equivalent to 1.5% of your revenue in 2023, and peers are talking about 3% to 5% increase in prices in 2024. So does it mean that you are below what others have been able to negotiate? Or is it just because it takes into account only France education and this kind of stuff, and something is missing in the equation?
So actually, we are really looking at the different geographies. As you have seen in 2023, the inflation profile has been different. I mean, has started decelerating at a different pace in the different countries. So what we have factored in our guidance in terms of EBITDA margin for next year on growth is actually the combination of all these situations that are a bit different from one country to another one. So what we expect is a continuity in the deceleration of the inflation. It will not disappear.
And then what we wanted to illustrate with the plus 6%, plus 3% in education, was actually that there is a step when the contracts are due to renegotiation that you get actually the price, the price increase, but we could not get through renegotiation for these public contracts.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
We'll take now our next question from Jafar Mastari from BNP Paribas. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Hi. Good morning. I've got three, if that's okay?
Mm-hmm.
Firstly, in terms of the DMS net debt, there's a paragraph where you discussed that the consolidation of the DMS net debt was higher than initially anticipated.
Mm-hmm.
Bigger IFRS 16 leases, more factoring. Apologies if this sounds naive from the outside, but how material are these differences that you have to flag them? How did they materialize? And just to be crystal clear, should this have any bearing on effectively the valuation of DMS or the number of shares issued of the business?
Mm-hmm.
And then just on management changes in France, I think Mr. Dirk Gore said in his introduction, he let go of the vast majority of management positions in France. What's been the timeline for that? And my question here is: When did the disruption happen? Is it still happening, or are you now well beyond that point of making big changes in management positions? And just lastly, on the future, obviously a detailed budget for 2024 was the priority, but I think you previously mentioned we could perhaps expect an update on the medium-term strategy and perhaps a plan, a two-year plan, a three-year plan, at some point in 2024. Can we still expect that?
Starting with DMS net debt, actually, the changes came from two elements. The first one is that there was a part of a DMS factoring that could not be temporarily considered as without recourse at the end of September 2023, and this led us to restate the opening debt back mid-April. This debt, as I explained, will actually disappear in the first half of 2024, so just a temporary impact. The second one is related to IFRS 16. As part of our closing, we are reviewing actually all our IFRS 16 leases, which led to restate some of the leases, in particular, the one that were between or let's say, that were within the Dereg group I said previously.
So this is actually an increase in the debt, but at the same time, this translates into additional leases for earlier that are compensated by an increase in the EBITDA. Meaning that globally, this is not whole from a leverage ratio perspective. Then to your second question on the management, so these changes occurred around the summertime. Now, the context in France is that the new organization, which has been designed, is fully operational since the beginning of our new fiscal year. So we will enter fiscal year 2024 with a simplified structure, with closer link between the management and the operations. And now the regional directors are fully empowered to focus on the commercial development.
Regarding the midterm strategy, so this is something we'll kind of address one step after the other. And we will for sure come back to you in due time with a timeline for this item.
Thank you. Just to clarify on the DMS net debt, everything you're flagging today with regards to factoring for the group, should we assume this is almost entirely the DMS timing of factoring?
This is actually split between the DMS factoring and the securitization of Elior, a bit more from the factoring of DMS.
Okay, so everything reverts. Thank you.
Yes.
We'll take now our next question from Andre Euler from Deutsche Bank. You can go ahead now. Thank you.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. First one is on the guidance. Could you please give us a little bit more color on granularity on the plus 4% to 5% top line growth you've been giving for '24? Second one is on the CapEx level. You've been guiding for '24, 1.7% to 2% of the revenues. Could you give us some more color about the midterm level you could expect? And could you lastly remind us what are the next refinancing you will have to do, and what are your needs in terms of refinancing in general? Thank you.
Regarding the guidance, as I indicated, we will continue to benefit from price increases and commercial development that will fuel the organic growth. As far as the volume is concerned, we consider that the biggest impact was already obtained from last year since we exited the COVID recovery phase. Then, one important aspect to take into account is that we want to continue to rationalize our legacy portfolio for loss-making contracts. This will have a drag on the overall retention, but again, we give priority to profitability and free cash flow improvement over the level of revenue. Rationalizing the portfolio is a priority for 2024.
We expect this exercise to be mostly completed by the end of fiscal '24, so that's not a topic anymore in 2025. Then regarding the CapEx, we are expecting a slight increase in 2024 versus the last two years. When we look ahead or midterm, actually, we see that the DMS activities are more or less at the same level of CapEx as for our service activity that was within Elior before DMS acquisition. Which mean that they are lower, definitely than in contract catering, but we expect above 2% in the midterm.
On average, we should have a mix of the two, which is, I would say, probably around 2%, maybe slightly higher, but in that range. Then with the postponement of our bank debt at 89% to July 2026, now we have this milestone, July '26, when we need to refinance both our net debt and our bond. Of course, this is something that we'll prepare a bit in advance, and it's not unusual to get these operations organized roughly one year before the milestone... the maturity.
Okay, thank you.
You're welcome.
We'll take now our next question from Francois Guillaud from Strat Research. You can go ahead. Thank you.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. I just have a question. Can you elaborate about the reason behind your decision to negotiate further delays for the covenant test, and especially the 4.5 net leverage?
Actually, you should really look at this as a recovery path, I mean, as a clear trend to reduce our deleveraging. We started with 7.1 at the end of March 2023. We further reduced it to 5.4 at the end of September 2023. This is a clear priority, and we target a leverage ratio around four times EBITDA at the end of September 2024. We want to give us, since we are still in the process of generating the synergy, we need to give us a bit of comfort around March 2024.
So that's why we have loosened the ratio and the covenant at the midpoint between the 6 we had to respect at the end of September 2023, and the 4.5 that we have to respect at the end of September 2024. So at the comfort we obtain versus the 4.5 initially.
Okay, thanks.
We'll take now our next question from Leo Carrington, from City. You can go ahead now. Thank you.
Many thanks. If I could start just to follow up on the pricing for 2024, would it be correct to say that there's potential for further price rises in FY 2024, beyond what's already renegotiated, i.e., the $79 million? Or put a different way, in terms of the organic growth guidance, what do you think the landing point will be for price increases for FY 2024? And then, in terms of the synergies, it would be quite helpful if you could give some more color on where the incremental cost synergies were versus those that were first identified.
Lastly, in terms of the midterm, now you have the business back on track, do you see any obstacle to getting back to that 4% adjusted EBITDA range that Elior saw in 2018? Thank you.
Starting with your first question, actually, this is a continuous process. We have many price revision milestones around the beginning of the school year. This was the case in various geographies this year, benefiting fiscal year 2024. We have traditionally as well another milestone, which is more towards the end of the calendar year, meaning around December, January. This one will contribute as well to fiscal year 2024. We don't know yet to which extent they will impact 2024. I mean, as far as inflation is concerned, globally, there is still a bit of unknown.
That's what we have, we have factored in, in our guidance in terms of revenue growth for next year. But the two main phases, September, and then around end of December or January, and of course, you can have some contracts with an anniversary date at any point in the year, that could be a further opportunity for price negotiation. Moving to synergy. For sure, we have taken into account what has been already achieved, which was a bit higher in term of cost optimization around headquarter corporate functions. As well, the rationalization, the optimization was a bit stronger around operations in both services and contract catering.
We see as well some opportunities around real estate optimization. So that's all this that we have considered, again, based on what has been already achieved, which is higher than what was even contemplated for the next three years. That led us to increase the overall target from above thirty to fifty-six. I'm sorry, could you please repeat your last question? I'm not sure I got it in full.
Thanks, Didier. I was just referring to the midterm margins, you know, 2025, 2026, and any obstacle at this point to getting back to the 4% range that you had before the pandemic.
I would say it's a bit premature to say, but that's something we will work as part of a strategic plan that we are mentioning earlier on during this Q&A session. What is for sure is that our priority is definitively on deleveraging. So that's why we are focused on the further evolution of this ratio, down to below 3%. That is our target for end of fiscal year 2026.
Okay. Thank you.
We'll take now our next question from Pravin Gonheil from Barclays. You can go ahead now. Thank you.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. So firstly, on voluntary contract exits. So those have been creeping up in last few quarters and are now around 1.5%, 1.6%.
Mm-hmm.
By when can we expect this to be done? Like, so you said that by 2024, you expect this to be done with, but then what, what is your expectations for the impact on retention rate and organic growth this year from these exits related to 2023? And secondly, on the margins, so the new contract mobilization costs were a significant drag in 2023. You said that there is still one contract that is yet to be renegotiated.
Mm-hmm.
Does that 2.5% margin guidance assume any drag from that particular contract? And if the negotiations land in Elior's favor, can we expect some upside to that 2.5% margin guidance?
Regarding voluntary exits, you're right to say that it started to impact more significantly 2023, because, you know, this is also a journey. This initiative started with a surge in the inflation. Of course, the first step is always to go to the customer and renegotiate the prices whenever feasible. In some cases, it turned out that it was not possible, especially for the public contracts, and I think we have explained several times the context. That's why you had a kind of fuller impact of a decision that was taken more at the end of fiscal year 2022 into fiscal year 2023.
Again, it's still our priority to restore the profitability. So if there are complementary voluntary exits that we need to decide, we'll do so. That's true. As you say, it will impact a little bit the retention. But again, the priority is really free cash flow generation, net debt de-leveraging, and if it implies exiting some contracts, so be it. Then regarding the margin, so we tried to give a little bit of color in the normalization of our EBITDA margin at the end of September, around this 1.9%. One element is actually the naturalization of the cost we had in fiscal year 2023, following the resolution of the two main contracts.
This represents an incremental of 40 basis points. If you recall, in July, when we updated our guidance down to around 1%, meaning 50 basis points lower than the guidance from May, this was mainly driven by these three contracts. I would say the gap between the normalization of the ABTA margin at the end of September and our guidance for fiscal 2023 gives you the order of magnitude that we still need to address with the last contract. For sure, the efforts are still continuing in order to get it solved as quickly as possible.
As Daniel mentioned at the beginning of the call, there is a strong action on this one, and we do hope that it will be solved as soon as possible in this current fiscal year. Then, to your point on the margins, there is still a bit of unknown. What we say is, what we see is a good start in October, compared to our assumptions. So we are still hopeful around this guidance, but I would say it's too early in the year to speculate further.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much. That's really helpful. Thanks.
Thanks.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. We now take our next question from Simon Letzi from SECO. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Yes, good morning. Just one for me, please. In terms of cost inflation, what is your scenario, and what do you forecast in terms of average cost inflation for this year in the context of your 2.5% margin guidance, please? Thank you.
What we have seen is an inflation that started to decelerate a little bit earlier in the US at the end of Q1 in 2023. It was a little bit later, one quarter after, in the rest of Europe. We see a continuous deceleration in Q4 versus Q3. We do hope this trend to continue, but what we have factored, and it's really a country-by-country exercise, because the profile is actually different from one country to another one. But this reduction in inflation is what we have factored in our ABTA margin guidance.
Okay. Perhaps asking the question another way, what is the current inflation that you see on average as a group level, if you are not keen to share any forecast?
Maybe what I can tell you is that globally speaking, the inflation has been reduced by 2.5 percentage points in H2 versus H1, with, as far as food is concerned, a decrease on the same timeline by 7 percentage points.
Okay, thank you.
We'll take now our next question from Christian David Smith from CIC. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Yes, good morning to all, and thank you for taking my question. Just a quick follow-up question on the voluntary exit from contract in 2024. Can we assume in 2024, the same impact on organic growth as in 2023? I mean, minus 1.6%. Because the question is obviously that we would like also to have an organic growth guidance, excluding the impact of portfolio optimization, which is a bit difficult for us to monitor. Thank you.
I understand that we are not really looking at it with pieces. We are actually contemplating all the actions that we are taking in order to address this loss making contract, because this is what we are speaking about. So first, it's continuous effort on renegotiation, continuous effort on productivity improvement. So it will be at the end, the combination of the two that has been factored in this organic growth guidance between 4% and 5%. But I would say most importantly, associated to the 2.5% of EBITDA margin that can be the outcome of different actions.
Again, price increases, renegotiation, or voluntary exits as the ultimate decision to take.
Thank you.
We'll take now our next question from Sabrina Blank, from Societe Generale. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Yes. Good morning, Didier. I have a-
Hola. We don't hear you very well, Sabrina.
I...
I'm sorry, there is really a background noise and can hardly hear your voice.
Sorry, the IT. Can you hear me? Okay, I...
No, we're really struggling to hear you, Sabrina.
Okay, forget it. I will call Philip after.
Okay, thank you.
Sorry about it.
Okay, so we'll take our next question from Nora Sehol from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Hi, you may have answered this already. I joined a bit late, but on the margin guidance, there was an issue with the Trenitalia contract that had an impact on the margin previously. Is that issue resolved now, and that's already taken into account in the 2.5% guidance that you're providing?
Just to be sure, are you referring to the three contracts we mentioned in July?
Yes.
So this is already what we discussed. Two of them have been already solved, and we have
Yeah
We have factored the impact of the resolution in the normalized EBITDA margin at the end of September of 1.9%. So meaning contribution of 40 bps expected into fiscal 2024. There is-
Right.
Just one that is still a work in progress to kind of close the bridge.
Right. And if I recall, the main one was the Trenitalia contract. Is that among the two that was resolved?
Yes, yes, it was.
Yeah.
You might have missed that Daniel's introduction.
Yeah
Because he sadly is speaking French for you, but yes, he confirmed.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that.
You're welcome.
We currently have no more questions coming through. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one now. We have no further questions, so I will hand you back to Didier to conclude today's conference.
Okay, so I believe this concludes our call today. Our next financial release will be on the 16th of May 2024, with our half year results. Until then, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us. Thank you. Have all a good day. Goodbye.
Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.