Good morning, everyone. I'm Xavier Martiré, CEO of Elis. I'm here in Paris with our CFO, Louis Guyot. Thanks for attending this webcast on very short notice. I would first like to make a few preliminary comments. On Thursday, after market close, there were media reports that we had made an offer to acquire Vestis, a U.S. workwear supplier. The publication of these reports, which we confirmed on Friday, led our stock to fall sharply. In light of this strong share price reaction, as well as some market feedback that we received or read, I felt it was necessary for us to clarify a few things and to contextualize this news so that the market has a proper perception of the state of play.
First, Elis has a long-standing strategy of pursuing international expansion through the acquisition of market leaders, which then constitute a base to further consolidate the market. Our business was originally 100% French. Now, more than a century later, we are operating in 30 countries. An acquisition in the U.S. would be entirely consistent with the growth strategy we have pursued over many decades. This international expansion has provided the group with better geographical diversification and a broader service portfolio, and has contributed through the sharing of best practices, to providing Elis with industrial and commercial know-how that is second to none. Opening another new country, the U.S. or elsewhere, would be another step in that game plan. Second, the market should not overlook our proven track record integrating and efficiently optimizing the assets we acquire. Two quick examples, which I will return to shortly.
The development of our Latin American platform speaks for itself. We began with an initial acquisition in 2014 in Brazil, with sales of around EUR 90 million and an EBITDA margin slightly above 20%. Today, our platform encompasses four countries in which we are the market leader, with nearly EUR 500 million in sales and an expected 2024 EBITDA margin of close to 35%. I could also mention the turnaround of the U.K. operations we acquired from Berendsen in 2017, with EBITDA margin has improved to 30% as of last year, from 22% at the time. Now, turning to the most recent headlines, North America is a large and attractive market with structural growth drivers. Elis has been monitoring this market for quite some time, along with others, in which we are not yet present.
As we have always said, it would make obvious sense for Elis to be present in the world's biggest market in our industry, but we would only do this if the right opportunity arose at the right price. As we said on Friday, and I would like to reiterate it today, any investment in the U.S. would only be carried out if it were consistent with Elis' disciplined financial approach to external growth. That means, in particular, we would only look at transactions that allow us to retain our investment grade rating and that are accretive to EPS. Finally, let me stress that the contact initiated with Vestis is at a very preliminary stage. No due diligence process has been carried out so far, and we will not pursue this transaction if the financial criteria I just set out are not met. Moving on to the next slide.
Let me also remind you that Elis has never been in a stronger position than today, from a financial, commercial, and industrial standpoint. We have a diversified portfolio of high-quality businesses with leadership positions in the majority of our end markets. We have created value by significantly improving our performance and optimizing our portfolio, leading to robust top-line growth and best-in-class margins. Finally, our capital structure is right-sized, and this provides a solid foundation to embark on the next growth phase. The first half financial performance demonstrated Elis' strength. We continued to deliver strong numbers. Our commercial activity continued to be well-oriented, with many new contracts signed in all our geographies as a result of new outsourcing and growing need for hygiene, traceability of products, and sustainable services.
Pricing remains solid to offset the inflation of our cost base, and we have made good progress on client retention, which returned to where it was before the very unusual inflation year we faced in 2023. Finally, we continue to deliver significant productivity gains, thanks to enhanced efficiency in our plants and improved logistics. Therefore, also activity in hospitality was subdued across the board throughout July and August. The good first half performance and the visibility we have on the second half allowed us to upgrade our organic growth and EBITDA margin objectives for the full year when we presented our H1 results in July. Moving on to the next slide. As mentioned in the introduction, our long-standing strategy is to pursue international expansion by entering new countries through the acquisition of national leaders.
This, in turn, creates the base from which we continue growing by consolidating the market. Elis has been very successful with this approach over the past decade by entering numerous new markets in Europe, Latin America, and more recently, Asia. Elis has also proven its ability to execute and successfully integrate large and complex acquisitions, as demonstrated by the Berendsen deal in 2017, which allowed us to double in size and deliver robust synergies that improved our financial performance. Moving on to the next slide. Integrating and turning around the business and improving its performance is not new to us. We have done this successfully several times.
In the U.K., a new geography we entered through Berendsen, we managed to lift margins from 22% in 2017 to 30% in 2023, and in Brazil, we started at 21% in 2014, and we were at 33% in 2023. No need to say that we expect further improvement in 2024. To do so, we successfully implemented various relevant operational excellence measures. This includes our multi-service approach, improve productivity through targeted employee training, notably thanks to the Elis Sales Academy, optimize costs, as we saw with energy, and enhance quality of service. Bottom line, the workload was very high for us in both cases, so I am even more satisfied to see that the shape of these two businesses today is nowhere near what was when we acquired them.
All the KPIs, be they commercial, industrial, or social, have shown sharp improvement compared to their level at the time of the acquisition. We even managed to navigate through the COVID years pretty easily. Our great flexibility and the strong commitment from our employees allowed us to maintain the high quality of service during the pandemic. Moving on to the next slide. Let me stress again, as we said in our press release on Friday, that we have very strict and disciplined criteria for any acquisition, and we will not carry out a transaction that does not meet them. To meet these criteria, an acquisition would have to demonstrate our financial discipline in terms of the amount paid, be earnings accretive on an EPS basis from the first year post-acquisition, maintain our investment grade rating with leverage of circa two times in year two.
Based on this financial discipline, our board members and our reference shareholders, CPPIB, with circa 12% ownership, BWGI with a circa 10% ownership, and Bpifrance with a circa 5% ownership, are supportive of our interest in sizing opportunities in the U.S. market. Moving on to the next slide. The North American market is the world's biggest and presents significant growth opportunities for us. It is a nearly $50 billion market, much larger and dynamic than the European one. The projected 5% annual growth of the U.S. market is underpinned by structural drivers, which are unlikely to change in the long term, such as the reshoring of manufacturing in the U.S., the increased focus on hygiene standards, or the continued outsourcing trend of non-core business activities. Moving on to the next slide.
The U.S. market is structured around four sizable national players and numerous local or multi-regional ones. Given our objectives and in line with our international expansion strategy, a national player is interesting in order to have a critical size from day one. Among these four players, and without wanting to imply anything about the other three, Vestis has been clearly identified as one potential actionable opportunity, and as you now know, it is an opportunity we have been exploring. Vestis is an attractive platform with a comprehensive offering as one of these four companies that offer national coverage. Such an acquisition would provide us with a national platform from which to grow our market presence, consistent with our strategy of acquiring leaders in new markets. It would also offer an opportunity for us to leverage our know-how and expertise to step up performance. Moving on to the next slide.
We do believe that the U.S. is a very attractive market for Elis. In that context, we have been studying and monitoring the market for a number of years. We have also conducted extensive market research and spoken with numerous industry experts, as we always do before looking at investing in a new country. Furthermore, there are many similarities between the European and the U.S. market in the way business is conducted, which would allow us to quickly implement our best practices to optimize any business we may acquire. Until now, given the U.S. workwear market landscape, there have been limited opportunities for us to expand in North America. Therefore, we believe that Vestis provides a potential catalyst to accelerate our North American ambition. That said, we are still at a very early stage of exploring a potential transaction, so this potential acquisition is still very hypothetical.
So this concludes this presentation, and I thank you all for your attention, and we can now move on to the Q&A. Operator, back to you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. We will now take the first question. From the line of Sabrina Blanc from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Sabrina Blanc speaking from Bernstein. I have one question regarding Vestis. I understand that you have a strong know-how, and we have seen that with the Berendsen acquisition in the past. But I would like to understand what you are now today in the U.S., so you will have very limited synergies if it's nothing. But I would like to understand how you can improve the margin of this company. I know that you are at very early stage, but where do you see some opportunities of improvement?
Thank you for your question, Sabrina. As you said, we are at a very early stage, and I think that it is not today the purpose of the call to enter into the detail on what we have understood regarding the Vestis case. You know that leaks appeared starting in U.S., organized or not, I don't know, it's not the subject. But we are really at a too early stage to enter into the detail on how we can improve the result of Vestis. You can imagine that, of course, we have a good idea on what is happening internally and why the softness. We have also a good idea on what is the know-how of Elis that we could implement to improve the situation.
But I think that it is not at all the right moment to enter into this detail when I see where we are in the process of discussion, that is by far only the beginning of the discussion and with an acquisition that at this stage is still very hypothetical.
If we can have a question behind that. In this case, can you explain how do you understand the difference of margin of Vestis compared to, for example, these main competitors as Cintas? I don't want to explain the difference between U.S. GAAP and IFRS, but specifically in the U.S. market.
So I think it is more or less the same question, Sabrina. So it's, we have our view.
I'm trying to understand.
Yes, no, well, we have our views on what are the reason why this gap of efficiency, and we have our views on what are the strengths of Vestis that we could apply to improve the situation. But, as I said, we are at a too early stage to enter into any detail.
Thank you, Xavier.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. From the line of Annelies Vermeulen from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. So I wanted to ask, you know, thinking about your strategy, in terms of geographies with high market share correlating to higher margins, which you've always been very clear about. You know, Vestis is not number one market share, and as far as I can tell, doesn't have a credible path to get there. So do you worry that this would dilute the quality of your business? And how do you think about that in the framework of, you know, higher market share, and higher margins? And then secondly, as a related point, how do you balance this, with acquiring more in your existing geographies? I mean, clearly, given the size of this deal, it feels like it's gonna be one or the other for the next couple of years.
And given the significant opportunity within some of your existing countries to expand your market share, I'd like to know why you think this is a more attractive allocation of capital? Thank you.
So, we are not number one everywhere, so it's important to be among the leader, but we are not number one everywhere, and we are able to deliver a solid performance, even if we are not number one. If you take the example of Netherlands, we have a margin that is above the margin of the group, and we are not number one in Netherlands. Same story in Germany, you know, that we were only number three. We will improve the margin by more than 400 basis points this year in Germany, implementing all the new. And what is important is to be among the leader, to have a strong footprint and a kind of density. So I think that Vestis meets all these criteria.
You are talking about a lot of opportunities in Europe for us and so on. It's always bolt-on, if I may. So that means that we have always said that to make some bolt-ons and so on, it's not an issue with our balance sheet and with the cash flow that we deliver. And so that means that the impact on the leverage is very limited on our bolt-on strategy in our existing countries. It does not change more or less the leverage, and it does not put pressure on the balance sheet. So that means that if we have the opportunity to meet all our financial criteria to make a deal in U.S., it does not mean that we will stop the small bolt-on that we are doing in Europe, in our existing countries.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of David Cerdan from Kepler. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. I have a couple of questions. My first question is related to the deal. Do you think that you have the best position to do the deal? Do you expect some I would say a counter bid on Vestis? And second question, do you see some synergy, some cost savings you could do by acquiring Vestis? And the last one is regarding the U.S. market. Can you make maybe give some some details on how what what can explain the outperformance of the U.S. market versus the European market?
And do you see some best practices that you can implement as, I would say, a leader in this market? Thank you.
First part of your question, are we alone or not on the deal? You are never alone, so we will see what is the end of the story and. But of course, you can imagine some other bidder on the deal. But then I immediately come back to the general statement we made. We will keep the financial discipline of Elis for a deal, and start with the price we are ready to pay. We need absolutely to keep our investment grade rating and reaching the low leverage in year two of a potential deal. Secondly, it has to be attractive in EPS immediately, year one. That means that whatever is the level of competition, we don't care. We'll not make a crazy deal at a crazy price.
So second question regarding cost synergy, it's more or less we are back to the initial question of Sabrina. So at this stage, it's by far too early to enter into any detail and so on. But what we have understood of the situation, so we can make the reference of what happened in U.K . and what we did to change the situation, improve the quality of service, and immediately doing that, we have been able to improve the growth and the margin. So it can be more or less story close to that. U.S. market is your third question. It's definitely a wonderful market and the more dynamic market in the world.
I think that the size of the U.S. market is close to two times the size of the whole Europe, so it's not nothing. By the way, it would also allow us also to better mitigate the global risk, and you see that when you have some disturbance in Europe, it could be very interesting to have this exposure to U.S., and to have a better balance, even better balance portfolio of activity for this. The key driver of the business and the way to deliver the service is absolutely comparable in U.S. in comparison to Europe. So that means that what we would bring as a value is the same story than what we did everywhere when we enter a new country.
The incredible know-how of Elis in terms of management of the cost, very agile organization for the business, very good quality of service. We know that at the end, it's a way to have the better prices on the market and the better margin. It is all the typical know-how to improve the productivity, to manage efficiently energy cost, and so on. The classical set of list of topics that we put in place to optimize any company that we acquire. Nothing specific there.
Can you discuss about the risks in and around this kind of deal, such as integration, culture, et cetera? Have you already identified some risk?
So you have always such a kind of risk, and I can assure you that it was much more complex in 2017 with Berendsen deal because we had more than 10 or 12 countries to integrate. So much more complex to adapt the company to different culture, different countries, and so on. And so, it's clear that we did it with a huge success. Same story in LATAM. I can assure you that when you enter Brazil, Mexico, and so on, you need also to adapt to a new culture, a new way of doing business.
I think that it is the one of the key strengths of Elis to be smart enough and close enough to employees to adapt to the local culture, even if we roll out the key values of the company, that is always successful, whatever is the country. It's proximity with employee works every time, everywhere, because we have a business where the local relationship with employee and the customer is totality. It is in our DNA to have understood it, and we are always efficient in any acquisition, whatever is the market and the culture in the country. We, as I said, we have dealt in the past some situation much more complex in terms of cultural changes.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Ben Wild from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks, everyone. Good morning. Two questions from me. Firstly, just on the differences between the U.S. market and your existing markets, can you talk about the flat linen market versus the uniform or workwear market in the U.S., and how you see the potential attractions of either market? And given Vestis as the target here, do you see that platform as an opportunity to consolidate the U.S. flat linen market, where today there isn't really a national-scaled player as such? And then secondly, do you think that to enter the U.S. market, you have to enter using a national platform such as Vestis, or can you enter the market on a state-by-state or region-by-region level?
If you think that you need a national platform, can you just maybe explain why? Thank you.
So, flat linen and workwear. So it's clear that the situation is, very different. So in the uniform, the market is, quite consolidated. When you take the three, four big players, you will find, probably 60% or 2/3 of the market. It is the opposite for flat linen, totally fragmented. Even if we start to see some private equity doing the job of beginning of the consolidation, it's still limited, but we can see some players in healthcare, but also one player in hospitality that start to consolidate a little, but reaching at this stage, a size close to $500 million revenue, not more. So it is an ongoing consolidation on the flat linen market.
This could be a platform to still continue this story in flat linen, because they have also a part of the business that is dedicated to flat linen. So it's not only workwear. Second question on your side, what is the merit of a national exposure versus regional player? So due to the size of the country, it would not be impossible to imagine a start with a big regional player, and to increase progressively the landscape. But it's clear that we would prefer an option to start immediately with a national player. It give us a chance to answer to some national tender and so on. So it would be better to have immediately a better national landscape.
So it's not impossible to imagine something with a regional player, but it's more in line with our strategy to start, if possible, with a national player.
Thanks, Xavier. Just maybe as a quick follow-up. In terms of the national contract element of the market, given the studies that you've done, how significant a share of the overall market do you believe national contracts to be?
So I think that it looks like close to one in Europe. So nothing special in the breakdown between national and local contracts.
Okay. Thank you very much. Bye.
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Christoph Greulich from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Xavier. Thanks for taking my questions. Two from my side, please. The first one is on the timing. So the topic of a U.S. expansion, I mean, it has come up, I would say, quite frequently in the discussions with investors and analysts over the last 12-18 months, and it has always been labeled as really an opportunity rather for the long term. So I'm just wondering what has triggered the change from this long-term opportunity to now a priority very much in the near term? And then the second one will be just on the EBITDA of Vestis, if you could let me know what that would be under IFRS accounting?
Am I right to assume that the IFRS number is the relevant one when we think about the debt financing of a potential deal? Thank you.
Yes, so the timing, as always, the opportunity makes the timing. So that means that we have always said that, it's the best market in the world. It would make a lot of sense for us to be there. And what we always said is, we don't see a window. We don't see a window, we don't see a window. But, of course, immediately when we saw a window, we act. So that's why, it is the opportunity that make us in position to try something. As we said, Elis is stronger than ever, and, such kind of deal would have been impossible, 12 months ago or 18 months ago because, we didn't have the investment grade rating, we were not so strong, and, it's not the case anymore.
We are in the position where we can imagine this kind of deal, and we have the opportunity and a window is open, so that's why we are trying to do something, but as we said, don't misunderstand, it's really preliminary approach. We suffer from the leaks starting from U.S., so that's why we have to answer to all these question, it's totally normal. I don't know if at the end we will have a deal, and just we have the opportunity, and what was impossible six months or 12 months ago seems to be achievable now. For the second part of your question, perhaps it is Louis that will answer on IFRS.
Yeah. So historically, the main difference was that, linen was stated as an OpEx in the U.S. GAAP versus CapEx in IFRS. The second one, since IFRS 16, is that the lease are still in OpEx, in U.S. GAAP. At the end of the day, it means that you have a difference of roughly 14% in EBITDA margin between the U.S. GAAP and IFRS, so you add 14% to U.S. to have IFRS. In terms of EBIT, I would say the difference is absolutely marginal. It's depreciation versus CapEx, so globally it's not a big difference. EBIT, you can take as more or less as it is.
Just to clarify, is the IFRS EBITDA number that would be the relevant one when we think about the debt financing?
Absolutely.
Okay. No, that's, that's very clear. Thanks, Xavier and Louis.
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Christophe Chaput, from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Xavier and Louis. Just two or three questions for me. The first one is on the market in the U.S. So you stated that the growth is 5%-6%. Could you give us your view about the volume and the pricing dynamics? Is the pricing in the U.S. strong as well? The second one is about the way to finance, let's say, the possible acquisition.
So I fully understand that it's really early to speak about that, but any, let's say, magnitude or metrics, debt versus equity, which mean that, because of the strong EBITDA, let's say, into IFRS 16, would it be fair to assume that the part of the financing by debt should be, let's say, higher than that 70% can save the total price? And the last one, just for the record, do you need further authorization to issue equity or needed in a coming AGM? Thank you so much.
So, the growth in the market, what we have understood is that during the inflation period, all the big player has been able to push quite significantly on prices like in Europe, so no major differences regarding the price management in the U.S. market and in Europe. And when we see a potential market growth for the future, by 5%-6%, it's same breakdown. That's what we could expect in Europe. So for something, a one sales price or two sales volume, it's more or less what we can expect. You can imagine that at this stage, we cannot answer to your second question, what, b ecause it depend on the price and so on and so on.
So I think that we have been quite precise regarding the criteria that will be very important for us for this potential acquisition. So keeping the investment grade rating and reaching around two times two years after the acquisition for the leverage give you the magnitude of what is feasible or not for the debt. And EPS accretion year one give you also the sense of what we can imagine for the shares. And then I cannot comment further and give you more detail. Of course, it's part of the discussion regarding the price. So that's why, as I said, we are at a very preliminary stage on the discussion. We have even not started really to negotiate with Vestis.
I don't know if we will have a deal at the end due to the strong discipline we have in the price we are ready to pay. Perhaps a last technical question regarding authorization for capital increase.
Yeah, we have as you know, we have renewed the authorization in May, the last General Meeting. We have exactly the standard authorization like everybody, meaning with conservation of the rights for the shareholders, 50% of the capital, and without DPS, 10% maximum.
Just a follow-up, if I may, if the line is again open?
Yes. Yes, go ahead.
Yeah, sorry. You say that there is an opportunity right now. Is it, let's say, mainly related to the drop of the share price year to date, or is there other factor that make an opportunity right now, let's say?
You can imagine that it's easier to imagine something with a share price 30% or 40% below what it was a month ago.
Okay. But I mean, you can consider that the, I mean, Vestis is trying to increase, let's say, the margin and benefit from the know-how of another operator. That's my point. So on top of the price, which is definitely lower than the beginning of the year, is there other factor that create an actual opportunity for you, let's say, or for them?
We are in the middle of the discussion, so you can imagine clearly that I cannot make any additional comment.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question f rom the line of Mourad Lahmidi from BNPP Exane. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you and good morning. When you look at Vestis, I mean, the information is quite public. What's your opinion about the quality of these assets? It seems from our standpoint that it's underinvested, it's quite unionized, its commercial performance hasn't been very good over the past few years. So I mean, those are the weaknesses that we can see. Can you spot other features that we don't see, and given you're insider of this business?
So of course, it's part of, we are back more to the first question of Sabrina, where do we see the improvement that we can imagine on this company? So a lot of topics that you have highlighted are totally fair. Perhaps except lack of investment in the company. So we had also a lot of expert call and so on and so on, and it was not the first topic highlighted during all these calls.
So, the other topic, it's not totally stupid as a view of this company, and it is something that we have understood, and we have some good knowledge on what to do to improve the situation, as we did every time we had such kind of situation with the need of turn around in the potential new country, so it's not a new exercise for this, and at this stage, I cannot make more comments. It's very too early in the process.
If we have the opportunity to have a deal, then of course, we will organize a much longer presentation to go into all the detail of our understanding of the situation, the precise action plan, integration process, and where we consider that we will have a what you can call synergy or more operational improvement. But at this stage, is by far too early.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question f rom the line of Karin So from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks. So most of my questions are already asked, so just two left from my side. One is following up on the question on synergies, and I appreciate it's early stage. So I guess in general, are there any kind of purchasing synergies between businesses, even if there are no overlap in geographies? And then my second question is more related to the tax considerations if this deal was to happen, because I guess given Vestis was spun off, still under two years, could you talk about any of your awareness around the tax considerations for this deal? Thank you.
In terms of synergy, purchasing synergies, we have the classical and important amount of money paid for textile. It's clear that here we can imagine, we could imagine some synergies. It is what we saw, for instance, when we entered Mexico, even if they have some local supplier and so on. By the way, a lot of American players use some Mexican subsidiaries and Mexican suppliers for textile. Nevertheless, in Mexico, we had much better prices for flat linen or for articles in Asia. We made some huge and good savings in textile, so we could anticipate the same subject there. Textile, that is an important part of the cash expenses in our industry, as you know. Here, we would have some synergies.
We spend also a lot of money for industrial equipment, and then it's we have more or less the same supplier. You have the two big name that are operating also in U.S. and some U.S. suppliers that are also operating a bit in Europe. So at the end, for all the cost of equipment, we could imagine some good savings. The same for detergents. It is also what we had in LATAM. We had the opportunity to leverage our European platform of supplier of detergent to increase the total volume of the tender we launch. And so here, of course, we would have the same good story for this part of our cost. And second question, perhaps, Louis, you can answer on this tax subject.
Yes. As you are aware, Vestis is a spin-off of Aramark, which occurred like one year ago. And when they did the spin-off, there was a tax advantage for the shareholders of Aramark, who received just after one share shares of Aramark on shares of Vestis. The tax advantage comes with some constraints. One of the constraints is that if somebody, if a player have negotiated with Aramark before the spin-off, in a very, of course, a serious way, as takeover of Vestis, then he has two years of garden leave where he cannot come back. Nobody knows whether it apply for private equity or whether, but it doesn't apply to us, as we were not discussing with Aramark before.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Christian Devismes from CIC Market Solutions. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Good morning. My question has been asked, but, I will come back to one point. Some investors, U.S. investor, fear that part of Vestis' difficulties are structural and linked to the fact that the company is unionized and not, what is your opinion on this, on this point? Thank you.
So it's true that they have some union inside Vestis, not the case in Cintas or UniFirst. After that, you can take all the other regional family players in U.S., they all have unions inside. And we had the opportunity to have a lot of meeting and lot of discussion with this family business. They all say that it's manageable and you can live with. And what is even more important, I think, is to highlight the situation for at least in Europe or in LATAM. You know, we have all the union that you can imagine in Europe, IG Metall in Germany, CCOO or UGT in Spain. We have some strong union in the Nordics, in Sweden, strong union also in Netherlands.
It has never been an issue for us to manage the situation. It's a question of how fair you are with your employee and your quality of local management. And then everybody has the same target, to deliver a good quality of service for customer, a good quality of margin, if at the end you are smart enough to put in place a kind of interest for employees on the efficiency of the group. So it's not something that change the significantly the situation and that makes the business impossible to be efficient. So it's true that there are some union, but it's not the end of the world, no?
We have this situation in a lot of other countries, and I can assure you that in Europe it can be much tougher than in the U.S., the social relationship.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question f rom the line of David Cerdan from Kepler. Please go ahead.
Yeah, sorry, I didn't understand the answer to some question regarding the market share in the U.S. for the workwear for the uniform. I think that you say the top three are 60% market share. Can you confirm this number? And secondly, regarding your investment, so we know your criteria, but do you have in mind a maximum price you could put in this acquisition?
David is always very smart. So you really expect an answer, David, on your second question?
No, but there is a certain limit to.
Of course.
Your investment. So you, I didn't ask for the number, just, just to be sure.
Let's come back to the statement we made. We have a strong discipline in price we want to pay, whatever is the acquisition, and we are back to what we said. We want absolutely to keep the investment grade rating and to be circa two times leverage in two years after our deal. And year one, it has to be accretive in EPS, so it fix the limit on any negotiation. For the first question regarding the market share, two way to analyze the market. What is the existing outsource market in uniform? And then you will find 60% market share for the three leader. Of course, if you take all that is achievable, the market share will be much limited.
And then you can go to the communication of Cintas that always say that vast majority of their sales is done with no program. So they open the market, and they sign contract with people that outsource with them. So they stop to buy a stock of uniform and outsource with Cintas. So that's why, if you just take the existing outsource market, so companies that rent a uniform, then the three leaders are globally around 60% market share.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call over to Xavier Martiré for closing remarks.
So now, thank you, everybody, to have joined this meeting with a short notice, as we said. I hope that the storm will be less important and that everybody has understood that we will keep a huge discipline in any potential acquisition. Even if the U.S. market is a wonderful opportunity for this, we will not make some stupid things. And as I said, as a preliminary introduction, it is we communicate due to the fact that we have a deal started in U.S., but we are still a very preliminary stage. It's just the start of some discussion, so I don't know at all if we will have a deal or not. But as I said, if it is a deal, it will be a very good deal.
It is the reason why, by the way, we have the full support of our main shareholder that know perfectly all the situation. And so you can imagine that, if they are so motivated and supporting Elis in those discussions, they are not crazy. It is because they know that it will create the value for all the shareholders. So thank you for your interest, and I wish you a wonderful day.