Bonjour.
Good morning to one and all. Thank you for joining us for this presentation of Bouygues' Interim Results, First Half of 2021-2022. I'll be presenting with Pascal Grangé, who will do the financial part of the presentation just after me. After that, we will take your questions with the five heads of our business segments and members of general management. Let's begin by giving you an update on the acquisition of Equans. On this slide, which is page four, we've mapped out the various milestones. First of all, the May 12th, 2022, we signed the sale purchase agreement insofar as we received the go-ahead from the employee representative bodies of both Equans and Engie.
The second milestone was on the July 19th, when we received the green light from the European Commission to authorize us to acquire Equans, subject to Bouygues complying with its commitment to divest Colas Rail Belgium within a maximum of nine months. The third milestone was when the CMA, the U.K's Competition and Markets Authority, handed down a decision on the July 19th, underlining that this transaction would potentially worsen competitive conditions concerning the current tender relating to catenary systems for the High Speed 2 railway line, HS2, as it's known, north of London. This morning we reached a further milestone with the CMA decision, authorizing us, or agreeing to test the remedies we have put forward.
Again, remedies aimed at correcting the anomalies they'd identified. They have a few weeks to answer, give us feedback after testing these remedies with the various stakeholders. On this slide, we've mentioned that the closing of the acquisition is still expected to be completed in the second half of 2022, bearing in mind that the final milestone is the U.K. Antitrust body, known as the CMA. The second acquisition, or proposed acquisition, is the proposed merger between TF1 and M6. On the July 22nd, we received the report issued by the Autorité de la concurrence's investigation teams. It should be pointed out that the final decision will be taken by the Collège of the Autorité de la concurrence and not the investigation teams.
The investigation teams will put forward proposals which the College will accept or reject, the College being a sovereign institution. The investigation teams raised a number of significant competition concerns, especially in relation to the advertising market. Clearly, if the remedies we have put forward to the investigation team were to be accepted, or were not to be accepted, the project would no longer be relevant. For the moment, we intend to not make any changes to the original plan and will inform the authority within the next three weeks, so around the August 15th, at which time we will comment item by item the points raised by the investigation teams. We will meet with the College of the authority's board next September five and six.
Moving on to page six, the main figures, main highlights of our interim results. The first half of 2022 was marked by the start of the war in Ukraine. We actually presented our annual results the very day the war started in Ukraine. The first half was also marked by continued healthcare restrictions in China, which, of course, had a considerable impact on global trade and the supply lines. There are also macroeconomic and geopolitical effects that are quite complex and difficult to anticipate. In this somewhat peculiar environment, with a much stronger inflationary trend than we've had in the last 30 years, we've nonetheless succeeded in publishing good results with EUR 18.5 million in sales. Our half-year sales are up 6%, mainly thanks to Colas sales.
On a like-for-like basis, that increase would have been at 3%. Our current operating profit was EUR 492 million, up EUR 21 million on the same period last year. Media and telecom both improved significantly and improved their operational profitability. However, profitability in the construction and service businesses have been impacted by Colas, but I'll come back to Colas a little bit later on. The current operating margin was stable during the period at 2.7%. Net profit attributable to the group was EUR 147 million. This year includes EUR 44 million in non-recurring expenses, essentially costs relating to the proposed acquisitions or the merger of TF1 and M6.
When we compare this with the previous year, the net profit for the first half of last year included a EUR 219 million contribution from Alstom, mainly due to the disposal of shares. Once they've been sold, they can't be sold a second time. Of course, a non-recurring income from the sale of data centers for a total of EUR 80 million. Again, once they've been disposed of once, they can't be sold again. That said, we are now confirming the outlook, the group's outlook for 2022. Page seven of the presentation, a few words about the funding of the Equans acquisition. On the May 17th, we received a very good welcome from investors with our EUR 6 billion euro syndicated loan, which are clear evidence of the quality of our signature.
Two tranches, a EUR 1 billion tranche, over a period of seven years at 2.25%. We took out pre-hedging instruments, as a result of which, the actual economic cost for the group was slightly below 0.95%. The second tranche is over a 15-year period with a coupon at 3.25%. Thanks to these pre-hedging instruments that we acquired, the economic cost for the group was slightly below 1.9%. These bond issues are the first step in refinancing of the syndicated, six billion euro syndicated loan that we subscribed in December 2021, with a view to the acquisition of Equans.
I should say in passing that Bouygues has an A3 rating with a stable outlook, that's Moody's, and Standard & Poor's have us at A- with a negative credit watch. These ratings have been unchanged since the November 10th, 2021. I now propose to have a look at the RSE initiatives that we have taken in our various business segments. We have continued to work for the climate and biodiversity. On this slide, we just have five examples of initiatives we've taken in each of our segments. Let's begin with Bouygues Construction on the left, which rolled out its BYSprong offering, which involves energy renovation. This is our R&D department of Bouygues Construction, which has come up with very innovative solutions, which converts energy-losing buildings into active energy buildings. While industrial working methods.
On the photograph, you'll see what we did at Longueau, near Amiens, north of Paris, where 12 houses from the 1960s were renovated. The second example is with Bouygues Immobilier. Bouygues Immobilier launched its more sustainable, more comfortable, and more modular housing called Coeur de Vie. Also its concept called Jardin pour la Vie. This is a concept which we apply on all Bouygues Immobilier projects being designed in 2022. The idea is to bring nature back into our cities. These gardens are systematically designed with environmentalists and with the landscape gardeners. In June, Colas dedicated a second biodiversity day to broader initiatives in favor of biodiversity. Since 2012, the group has set itself the target of doing something for biodiversity in each and every one of its gravel pits and quarries by 2030.
As for TF1, at the Deauville Green Awards, TF1 won eight prizes. This was thanks to a number of films and documentaries raising awareness about sustainable development. Another initiative is in Bouygues Telecom, where we have applied for SBTI approval for our climate targets at Bouygues Telecom. Let's now take a look at our review of operations, beginning with construction and services.
At end June 2022, the backlog for construction and services is EUR 35.1 billion, up 6% on the constant exchange rate. Not including main disposals and acquisitions, it's only up 1%. You can see on the orange bar that there's a consolidation at Colas. Order book there is up 25%, 14% on an equal scope and exchange rate basis, which means that there's good business. Well, the road business is thriving both in France and the U.S., but this business is also driven by Colas Rail, with significant contracts signed, such as the metro in Cairo, Egypt in Q1, then the extension of a renewal and modernization of the railway tracks in the U.K. for another five years.
The order book stands at EUR 20.5 billion for Bouygues Construction. Good visibility for the future. It's slightly down compared to June 30, 2021. That's because there's no major public works contract on this order book, the major tunnel or metro. We didn't sign anything in H1. Conversely, there's a hike in Bouygues Energies & Services order book. Order taking is buoyant there, up 7%, and that includes regular business below EUR 100 million . These contracts are doing well. When there are these contracts we are drawing, there's more competition, and the bid, the fact that we are drawing them means that we are very competitive. Now, on Bouygues Immobilier and property, residential property is doing well. Demand is high.
The office buildings there are sort of more or less active, but for residential, of course, the reservations are down 14% because we have fewer building permits. The stock is low, so that's why there's less demand. But also there's a lag in the sale in blocks of apartments. That will be done in H2 rather than H1. All in all, Bouygues Immobilier's order book is up 12% compared to... Sorry, it's down 12% compared to June 2021, but stable compared to December 2021. Let's look at the key figures for the construction and services business. That takes us to slide 13.
Revenue for construction was EUR 13.7 billion, up 7% including 3% in an equal scope and exchange rate basis, and that's mostly driven by Colas. Colas' revenue is up 17% with the 9% on an equal scope and exchange rate basis. It basically because of its international business but also because of the increase in the price of raw materials and energy. Bouygues Construction's revenue was stable, whereas Bouygues Immobilier was down 11%. That's because, as I said, there was less sales in residential and there's the lackluster aspect of the office building business. For H1 2021, there was a significant operation with Swayze, and that's of course not there this year. Current operating profit for the construction business was EUR 41 million.
You have to remember that H1 is not significant because for Colas in North America, that's a period where there's no business or we only have losses then. The current operating profit in H1 is not representative of the profit or the income for the year. Our current operating margin stands at 0.3%, down 0.3 percentage points for that period. If you zoom in on the various profit margins, Bouygues Construction current operating profit margin is 2.9% compared with 2.6% in H1 2021. The good performance of Bouygues Energies & Services is why we were able to grow there because that profit margin was 3.2% compared with 2.3% in H1 2021.
Building and public works was stable at 2.8%. Regarding Bouygues Immobilier, in spite of the lower sales, costs were kept under control, and that's why current operating profit was in line with that of last year, standing at 1.8%. Let's take a closer look at Colas' current operating profit because that stands at -EUR 160 million for H1. Now, there are explanations, well, regarding comparing to H1 2021. In H1 2021, we had businesses because of the weather, favorable weather in Canada, or early spring on, or less late spring, meant that business started early in 2021, which is well, a less favorable basis of comparison for 2022. There was a distortion effect of inflation.
Colas was not in a position to pass on the increased price of raw materials and energy to its customers. You have to remember that our costs include bitumen and gas. Gas is needed to heat up bitumen, and because the price of gas went up, that means our own costs went up, and we were not able to pass that on, or that is not all of it, to our customers. Revenue that was logged in as orders, some of that did not include the price hikes. Some of the price increases can be passed on, some partially, and some are index-linked, but the indexes do not always reflect the actual reality of prices.
Of course, when prices go up, this is diluted on profit margin because the cost indexing clauses enable us to revise the cost but not the profit margin. That mechanically goes down. For bitumen, especially, the bitumen business works on a ton basis, and if you have a fixed margin on the ton, when the price of the ton goes up, if the margin remains stable, that means the if the profit remains stable, the percentage goes down if the price goes up. In Q1, we generate losses, especially in North America.
On top of that, the exchange rate is punishing because if the dollar goes up and the profits and losses go up, well, then this compounds the phenomenon. Well, Gilles and Philippe give you the details of TF1, so I will go over that quickly. TF1 had a good operational performance in H1. Revenue was up 5%, reaching EUR 1.2 billion. There were two factors that involved the media and Newen Studios were involved in that growth. The advertising revenue was up 2%, but you may remember that we had in June 2021, the Euro Football Cup, which created more revenue, and so the basis of comparison is less favorable.
Newen and Newen Studios acquired studios in Spain and Germany, and that made a difference to its production. In H1, current operating profits stood at EUR 189 million, and that's because we kept the programming costs down. As a result, current operating profit margin was 15.9% higher than what it was in H1 2021. On page 16 now, you have the outlook for TF1. The macroeconomic environment, inflation, Ukraine has not made much of an impact on the financial performance on H1. However, for the second half, we'll have to remain cautious, and we will have to keep our costs under control there. Let's move on to page 18, and that is Bouygues Telecom's performance. Now, regarding the sales performance, that was the momentum kept going in H1.
We have as many as 15 million contract customers, not including machine to machine. That's an additional 193,000 new customers from H1 compared to H2 2021. FTTH has also gained new customers, 315,000 new customers in H1, and there were 143,000 in Q2. You have to see that the FTTH premises marketed was higher than expected. We expected 27 million marketed premises by end 2022, and at end June 2022, we actually reached that figure. In fact, we had 27.2 million premises marketed.
The addition of the 6.2 million new premises, 60% were in what are known as the RIP areas where there's less competition, and that's good for us. Now let's move on to page 19. We had a good sales performance, but we also had good unit income, average bill per unit. That is what we actually bill to our customers. That's doing well. As you can see on the slide, mobile ABPU was up EUR 0.2 over one year, reaching EUR 19.8, not including roaming. We're not able to recover on roaming because it's as it was in pre-pandemic times. In the fixed business, ABPU was up EUR 1 to EUR 28.7.
In parallel, the incoming messages revenue, that's voice messages and text messages, that was down. The rates are regulated, but there are two reasons for the downside. Well, the regulated price was down, and then there are increased users of OTT apps which do not generate any incoming revenue. But in any case, that makes no difference to the P&L because there may be revenue generated from incoming services, but then this is offset by outgoing expenses. Because when you receive a text message, you respond, and so it cancels out. Regarding the revenue of services, it was EUR 2.8 billion, up 3% over one year, less than expected.
The overall revenue was up 5% for the period, and that's mostly in the others line, and that's the handsets business. Because costs were well kept under control, EBITDA after leases was up 9%. Mechanically, EBITDA after leases was 29.4% compared to 27.6% in H1 2021. Over the same period, capital expenditure was up EUR 115 million, and that is in line with our investment, our CapEx strategy. Our annual objective was EUR 1.5 billion in capital expenditure. Disposals over the period were EUR 32 million, and that is in line with the data centers compared to EUR 80 million in H1 2021. Next slide. That's slide 20. Move on to, well, a status report on 5G.
Bouygues Telecom now has reached a new stage in that it signed a partnership, a strategic partnership with Ericsson in June, and that means that we will be able to address a new core network, the standalone network. That enables us to leverage the full benefits of 5G, because we can bring together all the improvements of 5G, including those in latency times that are reduced. We can extend private mobile networks to companies. That's a bit technical, but it means we can address issues of criticality, security, and performance using the benefits, the gains on latency.
Another aspect in the spring, we launched a 5G Open Road project for mobility players enabling to cars and vehicles to connect to each other, but to devices on the road. That makes traffic more fluid in dense areas. In urban areas, we'll be looking at pedestrian safety, reducing the carbon footprint of mobility, logistics of the last mile, and using autonomous shuttle vehicles to reduce, to control, to regulate demand. Move on to Bouygues Telecom's. Well, other than financial objectives, we want to look more specifically, instead of service revenue, we look at revenue billed to the customer. We restate this. We take out the incoming and outgoing text message revenue.
Now, the services revenue, you have to remember, whether incoming, outgoing. Well, incoming revenue is completely offset by outgoing charges. Whenever you receive an SMS and you respond, and so incoming cancels out outgoing. In any case, we find that we expect revenue billed to the customer to grow 5%, to increase by 5%. We've reached that objective, and so we're not renewing that objective since it's been reached. Now, because of its good half-year performance of EBITDA after leases, Bouygues Telecom has revised upwards its annual growth rate to 8% for EBITDA compared to 7%, and we confirmed CapEx to EUR 1.5 billion.
Now, Pascal will give you details about the accounts. Thank you.
Thank you, Olivier. Good morning or good afternoon to you all. Just a few additional explanations on the accounts as of June 30. Concerning the income statement on page 23, I'm not going to dwell on sales and current operating profit that have already been commented. Non-recurring items are EUR -144 million, as explained, or EUR -44 million, after a non-recurring income of EUR 80 million last year. As Olivier explained, the amount at the end of June 2022 mainly includes expenses relating to the Equans acquisition or the proposed merger between TF1 and M6. Bouygues Telecom had non-recurring income due to the data center disposals in this quarter, too. This half year, I should say, but to a much lesser extent than in the first half of 2021.
The net cost of debt or cost of net debt has been, broadly speaking, stable between the two half years. Working our way down the income statement, income tax was EUR 103 million, down from EUR 146 million in 2021. This calculation reveals an effective tax rate of 30% after 34% in 2021. This level of effective tax rate was because of losses abroad, which do not give rise to deferred taxes. The decrease of the share of net profits to joint ventures between the end of June 2021 and the end of June 2022 is due to the absence of any contribution from Alstom, which was EUR 219 million last year, just for the record. Overall, the net profit was 100 million of group share.
That's 147 after 408 at the June third last year. That's a decrease of EUR 261 million, entirely due to non-recurring income and losses and the absence of any contribution whatsoever from Alstom. Page 24, as you can see, the group's net debt at the end of June was EUR 3.705 billion, after EUR 2.8 billion at the end of June 2021. Now, the net debt ratio gearing is still very low at 29%, even though it's up slightly by comparison with the end of June 2021. The next pages, I'm going to talk to you about the change in net debt in the first half of the year, reminding you that the first half year is traditionally subject to the seasonality of our business.
Page 25, as I've said, our net debt totals EUR 3.7 billion at the end of June 2022, after net debt of EUR 941 million at the same time last year, which was a record level. That variation over a six-month period is explained as follows. Acquisitions for a total of EUR 172 million. This mainly includes the payment of EUR 130 million to Engie when we signed the share purchase agreement on the May 12th last. This amount will be deducted from the amount to be paid to Engie at the date of closing of the deal. This also includes the buyback of TF1 shares and of course, the disposal of Gamned! to TF1 or at TF1.
Buyback treasury shares for a total of EUR 104 million, I'm sorry. Dividend payout, Bouygues mainly, but also the dividends paid to minority shareholders in TF1 and Colas. Dividends for a total of EUR 775 million. Variation in the value of swaps on interest rates that we acquired and for the purchase of Equans totaled EUR 769 million, a + 79. Operations at a cost of EUR 2.48 billion, which I will explain in the next slide. At the end of June 2022, the just fair value of these pre-hedging swaps was EUR 765 million, after EUR 38 million at the end of December 2021, and EUR 429 million at the end of March 2022. Of course, this value fluctuates over time.
On the July 28th, it was EUR 626 million, for example. The fair value of the EUR 765 million in swaps includes EUR 245 million in contingent swaps, which have been engraved in marble since we issued our bonds on the seventeenth of May. Likewise, at this issue, at the time of this issue, a EUR 42 million cash component was received for the swaps, which were not contingent swaps. Let's now look at the details in the change of. This is page 26, change in net debt, breakdown of operations. Net cash flow, including the payment of leases, was over EUR 1 billion. Largely due to expenses paid for the Equans and TF1, M6 transactions. Net CapEx was EUR 1.064 billion, up EUR 264 million.
This is a reflection, mainly a reflection of the increase in investments made at Bouygues Telecom, in line with its Ambition 2026 plan. The change in operating working capital requirements and others was EUR -2.437 billion, after EUR -1.4 billion at the end of the first half 2021. This deterioration comes after two years of strong improvements in working capital requirements, as mentioned on numerous occasions over the last quarter. This change in WCR is quite logical, particularly in the first half, which was marked by Colas by an increase in the value of inventory, due to the increase in raw materials and trade receivables because of the substantial increase in sales during the quarter. That brings me to the end of my presentation of the financial statements.
Thank you for your attention, and Olivier, I give you back the floor.
Okay, let's wrap up this presentation with a review of the outlook for the group. You'll see here that this is based on information we have to date. It excludes any further deterioration in situation due to COVID-19, and does not include the acquisition of Equans or the merger between TF1 and M6. Once we factor all of these things out, in 2022, we expect a further increase in sales and current operating profit. In 2021, we received a SBTi certification regarding our decarbonization targets. Well, in 2022, we aim to receive SBTi approval for our other segments.
Given the macroeconomic changes and all the direct or indirect consequences this can have on our activities and results, we will be, as a result, very vigilant regarding any other changes. Now, before moving on to questions and answers, let me remind you that our next communication will be for our results for the first nine months of the year, which will take place on the seventeenth of November. This brings us to questions and answers, which we will take with all our senior managers.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, press asterisk one on your keyboards. First question is from Mathieu Robilliard from Barclays.
Thank you for that presentation. I have a question concerning construction. In the first half year, a lot of provisions were written back.
I was just wondering, is there anything you'd like to tell us about this writeback of provisions? Are we to expect anything in the second half year? Furthermore, concerning the margin at Colas, I see you're not giving us any guidance for 2022, but for the record, it was, I think you were targeting 4% in 2023. Given the results of the first half year, do you feel that despite that, the margin will be increased this year or will increase in 2022? I also have a question on telecom. Good EBITDA growth. ARPU is also up, but EBITDA is up even better. I'd like to understand this increase in EBITDA. Could this be due to maybe better synergies due to the acquisition made, or will there be a substantial
Was there a substantial contribution from other parts of the business? That would explain this improvement in EBITDA. I'm gonna ask Pascal to explain while Benoît is preparing the telecoms question. The first question concerned the provisions in the construction business. Well, as you know, traditionally, the provisions in construction have a number of explanations, with particularly with the first of all, the volume of provisions is high. Fluctuations, not so much so. There's no real phenomenon concerning how we provision for our construction activities in any of the three businesses, Colas, Bouygues Immobilier or Bouygues Construction. Nothing unusual there. The second question concerns the guidance we gave regarding Colas for 2023. This is the 4% guidance we gave you.
I'd like to stress the fact that there's nothing, no real lesson to be learned from the first half year, except for the fact that the increase in sales, which isn't due to the volume effect, but due to inflation, actually dilutes margins. As Olivier Roussat explained, when inflation is compensated because we have an index formula or whatever, obviously this boosts our sales but also our costs. We're not increasing sales to increase our or improve our margins. This is particularly notable in 2022. However, we haven't got the visibility we need to be able to tell you if this will have an impact on 2023, so it's too soon to say.
I should point out on this particular aspect, that if you look at purchases consumed by Colas, we've increased from an average of 46% of sales to 52%, which is clear evidence of the fact that there's a sharp increase in the cost of raw materials. Benoît, if you'd like to answer that second question concerning Bouygues Telecom's EBITDA improvement and the reasons behind it. Yes. Other revenue does not contribute significantly to our Bouygues Telecom's EBITDA. It's simply that we, our costs have been well contained. Costs have increased slower than sales. We've contained our costs very well. That's why our EBITDA has improved by over 8% at a time when sales only rose by 6%.
Next question. Nicolas Cote-Colisson from HSBC.
My first question concerns construction, the other concerns telecom.
Concerning construction, what about global demand for public works and infrastructure, more generally speaking? The underlying question is your positioning in more complex projects going to protect you against the margin and volume effects? As for public works contracts, what about the impact of the increase in costs, despite demand, and what to expect, what proportion do you expect for PPP projects? Regarding telecoms, could you tell us a little bit more about your ability to increase your prices for new clients? How do you explain the slowdown in ABPU in mobile phones, despite the fact that fixed ABPU is rising? Was this due to different timing in prices?
Let me just point out that prices have been increased in both cases, which is quite remarkable. Before talking about the increase, first part of your
The first answer to your question will be from Pascal, concerning market developments in construction.
Yes. Good afternoon. Regarding our markets, and particularly the public sector, public works and public contracts market, yes, there is strong demand for large infrastructure projects, particularly in two areas. First of all, transportation, particularly with large public transport infrastructure projects in a number of very large cities. The Greater Paris project of course, the Grand Paris as it's called, but also in the U.K. With HS2, the high speed line, or Australia in Sydney and Melbourne. Very, very large infrastructure projects where we're involved in construction, but also involved in tendering. The second area is energy-related projects, low carbon projects, nuclear projects of course. As you know, we're involved in the Hinkley Point project in the U.K.
There are also tenders ongoing in France and elsewhere, for which we are the civil engineering partners for EDF. This is the EPR nuclear power plants. We're also involved in Sizewell C alongside EDF and other partners. These low carbon projects in the nuclear sector are one thing, but there's also our wind power projects. We're involved in the offshore, the Fécamp offshore. We built our first base camp of the 60 wind farms we're building. We're also working on projects in Asia and to a lesser extent, in France and the U.K. The first type of business, low carbon energy projects and public transport. They're the two big areas. There are also projects emerging around maritime coastline infrastructure or sometimes land extensions into the sea. We're involved in other projects.
There's others in the pipeline. Yes, a lot of demand for these projects throughout the world. Second part of the question concerns the share of PPP, public-private partnerships. Relatively low proportion of PPP projects. There are a handful out there, but it's very small. I think we have three concessions in the tender stage at the moment, but there's nothing else springs to mind in the public-private partnerships. Benoît. Concerning telecoms. Concerning the increase in ABPU in telecoms. Well, in recent years, we propose what we call more for more. We offer additional services, additional data in mobile phones in exchange for a few euro cents. We will continue that more for more strategy.
It's targeted by cohort at different times of the year, as a result of which, the increase in ABPU isn't always linear from one quarter to another. It is regular over time if you look at the growth of our ABPU over the last year or two. It's constant growth, though sometimes it isn't always linear growth.
That's still the rationale, and we will continue to pursue that. In fixed lines, it's a little sharper. There is a seasonal effect. Sometimes we have price increase campaigns in the course of the year, but in fixed lines, we also have the benefits over the long term of the penetration of fiber. These are at a higher price than ADSL. When customers finish their promotional period, that's in year two, the ABPU increases more substantially in the fixed lines than in mobile. That will continue to be our strategy. In particular, when you look at fixed lines, the ABPU of our competitors gives us reason to believe that we have some leeway. Next question.
Merci.
The next question from Eric Ravary from CIC.
Hello, my name is Eric Ravary from CIC. I have three questions, one on Colas. In its press release, Colas announces an action plan to address the rise in the price of raw materials. Just what is it about? On Energies & Services, we can see their profit margin was up in H1.
Can you... Sorry, we... You'll have to repeat your question.
Okay, we'd like to know about that. Then Equans, question number three, because of the reservations expressed by the antitrust British authorities, can you give us details about the closing? You're talking about the closing in H1...
Sorry, we didn't get the beginning.
On Bouygues Energies & Services, can you give us details on the potential profit margin, having done well in H1?
All right. CMA, the market authorities, in July, they told us the British authority told us there was a competitive impact on the HS2 line if we merged. What we offered were remedies to address the weakened competition. Because of that, the British CMA will be publishing a press release this morning saying they have received our proposed remedies. They will test it out with the various stakeholders. This is a call for bids, so there are not that many stakeholders.
The response should come in before September 28th or November 28th, but that is the final stage because before we can conclude the Equans operation, we are confident that we will be able to complete that in H2. I think that's all we said about this on the slides. That was question about Equans. Frédéric Gardès has a question about, will address the question about Colas, and then Pascal will tell you more about Bouygues Energies & Services. Pascal.
Yes. Well, Can we pass on the increased cost to the customers? As things stand today, well, we only take contracts where there are clauses to revise prices. Unless there are exceptions decided at a higher level, we only take these revisable contracts.
Likewise for private customers because, of course, if there are no clauses to revise the prices, then we have to find other compensations. On the bitumen market, which is under pressure, our worldwide bitumen strategy which we started two years ago is providential because we will precisely be able to address part of the problem. In particular, we've been investing in two bitumen ships that will be delivered early next year. That means we will be able to seek bitumen further afield where we can buy it at more competitive prices. We need the logistics to do just that. Until such time as we get these ships, we have been leasing smaller ships, and that enables us to address this to some extent.
Thank you. Pascal Minault, regarding the better profitability of Bouygues Energies & Services, this is because the markets have kept up. We had good profitability in France, in the U.K., in Italy, and Canada. We are very selective looking at dynamic markets. We keep our operational costs under control, and pricing is right, and that's the formula for good profitability in H1. The head of Bouygues Energies & Services, Pierre-Yves Legat, has started a plan to address the profit margins. He has an overall plan, an action plan, which is also coming to fruition in terms of profit margins.
In fact, it's precisely because we've seen what we were able to do on that business, which is worth about EUR 4 billion, and we are able to increase the profit margins there. Now we're reaching about 5%. That means that on Equans, we're looking at EUR 12 billion. Well, hopefully, we should get the same or similar performance. That means that when we are in a position to include these Energies & Services within Bouygues, the whole overall rate should be close to 5%. What is the revenue of Energies & Services? About EUR 2 billion. Oh, you want an exact figure? I know EUR 1.9 billion. There you have it.
If you have another question, please press star one. We have Virginie Rousseau from Oddo.
Yes. Good morning. I have, in fact, three questions. I heard about Colas' performance. You have, of course, on the profit margin, you had to address the bitumen situation, and you are facing challenges. Some of the contracts were in fixed prices, and so there it was difficult to pass on the increased cost to the customers. Do you still have many such contracts in your order book? Will that have an effect on H2, or have you basically completed all these contracts? The second question is WCR. You have higher requirements in H1 to meet inflation issues. What about H2? Do you expect the same phenomenon where you have a deepening WCR requirements?
On the receivables accounts, do you expect some deterioration because of the higher rates? Finally, on CapEx, you said EUR 1.5 billion for Bouygues Telecom, but inflation is there. Will you maintain this CapEx objective, or will you revise downwards the project because the costs are going up?
All right. Regarding... Well, Frédéric will tell us about Colas.
Right. The first part of the question regarded the contracts at fixed prices. What's left in the pipeline? Well, not much. Basically, this was mostly in H1. The contracts that we signed, these were contracts that were signed last year. On average, the contracts are short cycles.
We have lots of core business, where the average duration of the contract is about three months. Now as things stand, that's pretty much been absorbed in H1, all these fixed price contracts. Now, if we got more increases, we would reconsider this. Because we're not taking on any new fixed price contracts, this issue should not arise in H2.
Thank you. Pascal Grangé on working capital requirement, WCR. Yes. Regarding WCR in the construction business, you should not pay too much attention to H1 because there are seasonal effects that will be redressed over the year. What we need to compare is compare with June 30 of last year, and compared to June 30, 2021, deterioration is about EUR 900 million.
Out of these EUR 900 million, there's about 60% to be found at Colas with two phenomena. First, their inventories are up because when raw materials go up or the value of inventory goes up, you have about EUR 300 million right there. Revenue was also up in Q2. Mechanically, in the WCR, you will find the receivables, knowing that our payment policy for our suppliers and supply chain is very demanding. We don't want to bear the cost of this, the financing of this operation. You have about EUR 200 million left on Bouygues Construction. Now, Bouygues Construction generates a surplus in working capital.
By and large, they reached a high point last year, so EUR 200 million compared to that is still well within normal fluctuations of the WCR. Then finally, Bouygues Telecom. Now, if you compare again with June 30, of last year, you will find that, of course, we paid for the licenses year on year. That was a. Well, there was a resource over time for a few year, but there were EUR 80 million paid out last year. If you want an outlook, even though there's an inflation of raw materials, and that may not continue at the same pace as we had in H1, I mean, it won't come down much. Well, the EUR 300 million will probably stay there in the WCR.
There will probably be an increase in business, that is revenue, might increase, but the increase will be less in H2, and that is why there is seasonality in WCR in the construction business. Then looking at the degradation of our payments because of the higher interest rates, we haven't found anything to let us lead us to believe there will be major movements there. Pretty much regarding payments, we're very much on track. One thing that explains variations WCR, when the COVID crisis came out, there was a surge in payments in the construction business. We were rather taken aback, but that continued to some extent. Now it may be that there was some. That phenomenon can sort of settle down over the months to come.
All right. Thank you, Pascal. Benoît, can you tell us about CapEx?
Yeah. Well, you had a question about the effects of inflation on CapEx. We announced a guidance of EUR 1.5 billion. You had two sources of costs, the network infrastructure and telecom equipment. There, the inflation hasn't made much difference because the price has been set. Our CapEx program on the network is on course as we announced in Ambition 2026, to ensure that the network can take on the new sites needed to dispatch the additional traffic caused by 5G. The other costs in CapEx are the set-top boxes for the internet. These we need to purchase before we lease them out.
The cost of these has come up, but because early on, at the onset of COVID, our suppliers wanted more time to pay for the goods, and so we allowed for that, up to EUR 40 million, and that's been already integrated in our outlook.
All right. Thank you. Next question. Nicolas Bordeaux from Morgan Stanley.
Hello, good morning. About the provisions, especially in Q2, there is volatility from one quarter to the next or one half year to the next, but in H1, in the construction business, Bouygues Construction and Colas, you still have significant provisions, and some provisions were reversed. I understood Pascal Grangé's explanation, but still, it would be good to know just what happened in Q2.
You have all three divisions in the construction business, where there were movements in provisions. On Colas, if you look at the margin, profit margin on Q2, it's mostly Canada. France is doing all right, but can you give us some color on, well, France and Europe? I suppose there you're in a position to boost the profit margin in the European side of the business, even though there's less business in North America. Regarding Equans finally, at the end of June, early July, we heard about the cleaning up of fiber optics contracts. Can you tell us where we stand at Equans? You're talking about this, well, cleanup on fiber. Well, there were fiber optics contracts that where Equans is...
That we haven't closed yet, and I wouldn't be in a position to answer. Even if I had the answer, that would be almost bad news. In that case, I mean, we do not have access to Equans' accounts. It's only Engie that has access to that information. Now, Frédéric can answer the first part of the question, and then Pascal will give us. No, Pascal Grangé. We said all divisions, first Frédéric.
I'm happy to tell you about the good news. A few words about North America. As you know, usually in H1, we suffer losses, and if the losses are denominated in a strong currency, the impact is stronger.
Conversely, when business picks up with a strong currency in H2, we will be able to offset that. Last year in Canada, there were exceptional income, especially because the year started early. Now the weather is more in line with standard years and so, this year is more like previous years. Regarding orders, the backlog now is on higher margins than the previous orders, so no, we're not concerned about that. Other than that, well, this has been a very volatile period indeed. The business was able to stand up to this. Indeed in France and in Europe, markets were still buoyant, good order intake. Of course, we've been conducting this transformation plan for the past three years.
Especially in operational excellence, especially in quarries and bitumen, we've been improving efficiency. Now, it's on this particular H1, this may not be as visible, but by and large, we can see the effects over time. In North America, it just turns out that the trading business on McAsphalt, and that business is in Canada, as I said in the presentation, there we have a fixed margin on the ton of bitumen purchase. Now, if the price of bitumen, if the price increases, well, that dilutes the current operating profit. That business that is doing well was impacted by the increase in the price of bitumen. Pascal, on the first question now, you. Well-
Yes. About these provisions, no, really there is no special phenomenon on provisions in the construction business. The situation is very much the same as last year in terms of reversals of provisions, and indeed new provisions. I can only confirm that there is nothing special, no new trends, nothing can be derived from that, from this year.
Thank you, Pascal.
Next question.
Nicolas Cote-Colisson from HSBC.
I have a brief question on telecoms and the 5G, the standalone solutions and the network backbone. When do you expect the standalone to be operational? And have you already got demand for private networks? Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
This standalone part is really the second part of the 5G. So the standalone is one thing, the backbone is another, but the radio part is already set up. We're really looking at, let's say, late 2023 for our offers. Three types of function, much less time lag.
Secondly, the ability to set up private or hybrid networks, let's call them local networks in a given plant or distribution platform or harbors, meaning that industrialists will have a local 5G network and be able to conserve their data locally and process them locally. The third category is what we call slicing, which is tantamount to virtual private networks for people who need specific time lags or other. Late 2023. As of now, we're already experimenting. It will be possible to have a completely specific private network in a pilot test. We have a number of pilots ongoing in industry regarding functions that would be rolled out more generally from, let's say, mid- to late 2023 and thereafter.
Thank you. Next question. Okay, questions in English. It's a long way away, English, isn't it? No. Okay, let's stick with French questions then. I can't hear anything. There's nothing coming through. Yes, gentleman from Morgan Stanley.
I have a question on telecoms. You talked about costs in 2022, which have contributed to a good performance of your EBITDA. I'd like to ask you a question about 2023. A number of operators are already commenting on the impact of inflation on their margins for 2023, so I'd be curious to know what particular cost items you're scrutinizing. Seems that you have a good hedge on energy costs, but I'd be interested in other cost items that are exposed to inflation, if you'd like to comment on that, please.
Well, as regards our expectations for 2023 and over and beyond the impact of inflation on our costs, operating expenses, the impact of inflation will be, I think, quite limited. To clarify that, in our OpEx, we have EUR 200 million on terminals.
So far, we can't foresee any increase in terminal costs. If we did have them, they would be passed on directly to our consumers. After that, we have a large volume of approximately EUR 1.3 billion in what we call regulated costs, into connections of fixed line costs that we rent to other operators, and these costs are regulated. The fixed unit costs and no impact as a result of inflation. We also have leases for about EUR 600 million, where there are index links, but these are indexed on fixed rates and not on inflation, so no problem there. Energy, you've already mentioned. We have our energy costs. But last year, we secured energy prices up until the end of 2024 with renewable sources, so we're secured until the end of 2024.
We're already working on securing over beyond 2024. Finally, we have wage costs and freelancers for approximately EUR 1.4 billion, about half in wages, half in freelance costs. Here we have to see what we can do in terms of wages. We have negotiations currently underway with our social partners. We'll see what the purchasing power law will bring out. Negotiations are underway, but the impact will be limited. With a wage bill of EUR 700 million, a 1% increase would be EUR 7 million. So the impact is actually quite limited. There you are. I've covered all our operating expenses. As for CapEx, well, network infrastructure, no impact. Boxes, we've already anticipated these costs in our budget.
Is this really in English?
It's Sam McHugh from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, guys. Thanks for the presentation. I have three questions as well. On Colas, you've been very clear about the input costs and not matching the revenue during this spike in inflation. Consensus has about 8.5% EBIT margin in the second half of this year versus the 7% from the second half last year. Now, do you think that's right, or should we expect a bit more contraction in the margin in 2H? On the telecom business, you grew build revenue 6%, EBIT down 9% in 1H. I think guidance only calls for 5% and 8% growth in the full year, implying a bit less in 2H. Are you just being conservative, or should we expect a bit of a slowdown for some reason?
Lastly, on the CapEx and the telco business, just interested in how much of your purchases are made in U.S. dollars and whether you forward hedge the currency of acquisition of network equipment from the vendors and how far you're hedged. Thank you very much.
Okay. We start with telecom. The last part of the question was telecom, about the way we hedge our investment in the US dollar, please, Benoît.
Yes. The part of our investment in dollars is very, very low, and it, and it's covered by this positive. There was also a question about margin in EBITDA in H2. We announced new guidance of more than 8% evolution year-over-year on EBITDA. Are we optimistic or pessimistic? I think we are realistic and there are always some new things coming. We have to pass the summer period for the roaming revenue to really see what will how will the roaming be. That's why we announce over 8% EBITDA at the moment.
Okay. For your first question, I ask, Frédéric to answer.
Yes. We're not giving any specific guidance for the end of the year, but what I can say is that we're confident that our operating profit at the end of 2022 will be higher than last year. Now, to which extent the increase in revenue will erode that in terms of percentage margin, that's hard to predict at the moment. There will probably be an impact of that kind. To which extent, it's, like I said, hard to say. It will mostly come from the bitumen, the impact of the increase in bitumen costs, because not everywhere, but especially in Canada, a large portion of our margin is fixed per ton.
If the price cost basis of that increases because the cost per ton of bitumen increases, the margin does not increase in the same range. There could be that impact.
Thank you. Next one. No question anymore? It was the last one? Okay. Donc merci beaucoup.
In that case, thank you all. I wish you all a pleasant day. Thank you for your attention, and wish you all a very pleasant holiday.