Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, dear shareholders. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for taking up our invitation to this general assembly. 2018 was a very intense year. We have a lot of achievements for our group rate challenging and with some mixed results.
In a complicated environment, we rolled out Our new strategic plan transformed to grow, and we have made progress on several fronts with great determination. Our growth initiatives, The refocusing of our activities, the routing of our culture of responsibility, our optimization actions and our deep Transformation, especially in the area of digital, are starting to bear their fruit. We have also put to one side or behind us rather uncertainties related to litigations and the past. And we have also made progress in integrating CSR issues in our core activities. I would like to thank the commitment of all the teams that allowed us to make all of these steps In the right direction, we have completely changed the environment since mid-twenty 18 with a lot of tensions on the market at the end of the year.
A lot of indicators are preempting a Slowing down of growth in 2019 and especially in 2020 in these less favorable conditions for The whole European Banking sector as well as for us, we expect a sustainable slowing down of some market activities And low rates lingering on for longer than we had anticipated. On top of this, there are Regulatory changes, capital requirements that are higher and Political outlooks that are also quite complicated, uncertainty in the Eurozone and geopolitical tensions and a business environment outside of Europe That is less favorable. Johnny Lebaud, sorry, will be commenting on the 2018 results and those of the Q1 of 2019. Then Frederic Ullia will tell you about the environment and the strategy of the bank as it was calibrated at the beginning of the year. And then I'll be telling you about The activity of the Board of Directors and Jean Bernard Levy, Chairman of the Compensation Committee, will present the resolutions That has to do with compensation that you will have to vote on.
By my side, it's Frederic Global Banking and Investor Solutions and Philippe Heim, who is in charge of International Retail Banking, Financial and Insurance Services. Now as you know, Frederic, ODDIA's mandate will be submitted To your votes and if his mandate is renewed, as We hope it is. The Deputy General Directors and the Director General's mandates will also be renewed and will run until 2023. This ordinary General Assembly The quorum is of 50.43 percent Or in other words, 431,500,177 shares. In other words, a figure in excess of the necessary quorum for an ordinary general assembly.
So we can, Therefore, proceed and we'll give you the quorum once again just before we vote on the resolutions. Now let's move on to the Bureau of our General Assembly. We have 2 tellers, 2 shareholders who are among us, We have Olivier D'Errancard from the Foucou Bain Place des Soliers Societe Generale and Mr. Stephane Petitlle, Representing Mondi and Olivier D'Ronsard, who's the Chairman of the Supervisory Board. So please stand up, gentlemen.
Thank you very much. And as Secretary of the General Assembly, Received registered letters in keeping with rules and regulations. They are Mr. Michel Missaquien representing Ernst and Young, Mr. Jean Marc Cuiculaire, who will be representing, Cabin Le Cabinets Deloitte sorry, Deloitte and Associates and Mr.
Michelobie abroad, He has entrusted Madame Monin to represent him. And all the necessary documents are available for the members of the bureau and So you have up here on the screen all the documents that have been made available to you and who were also 2 better address your expectations, we have carried out a consultation. We covered 1200 shareholders. And in our presentations, we will strive to answer your questions. I would also like to thank the members of the Board of Directors for being with us today.
For any technical or Commercial question. We have organized a customer relationship best out in the entrance hall. As usual, our discussions will be broadcast live on the Internet, but no footage Of the audience or of individual members will be broadcast. And as usual, we will use Electronic vote voting for resolutions. And very much like last year, we've decided to thank you For your loyalty, we have a present that you will receive on your way out.
Now before I hand over the floor to Jonny Lobot. I would like to pay tribute to a man who Left us at the beginning of 2018, Marc Vienault, who was Director General from 1986, and he organized the privatization of and gave the bank an international reach. And he also drew up the first Corporate code that many French companies still refer to currently. Okay, now let's move on. I'm going to I'd like to hand over the floor to Joni Loboff for the financial results of 2018 and the Q1 of 2019.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I'm now going to talk you through the results of your company for 2018. In a very difficult environment for some of the activities, the group has relentlessly continued with its transformation And delivered solid results, thanks to a good commercial dynamic of its METI. I'll conclude this By going back to the 2019 Q1 results that show that We are very much in keeping with the dynamics of 2018. First of all, 2018 was marked by The closing of our litigations with American authorities and a payout of $2,700,000,000 That were covered by provisions that we had previously booked. Therefore, it had no impact on our books.
No other litigations are to be expected in years to come. But we remain very careful in this particular area, and we'll continue to work on managing risks By sharing best compliance practices and deploying our conduct and culture program. The underlying NBI of the group has increased by 0.6% in 2018 versus 17, which testifies to the good performance of our METEOR. The costs are up by 2% And we have because we've continued to invest in the transformation of retail banking in France, and We've also supported the development of retail banking abroad. Besides, we've also Continue in our cost control activities for Global Banking.
2018 was also marked by a cost of risk very low at 21 basis points. And the net results for the group is stable versus 17 at €4,500,000,000 and the net published result is significantly higher with a 37.7 percent increase. And finally, profitability of our equity is also on the up and up compared to 2017 and stands at 9.7% or 8.8% for the published results. Now let's talk about growth initiatives In France, they buried their fruits. Our online banking offer, Bostorama, has drawn in more clients, €1,700,000 at the end of 2018.
So we are still leaders of online banking in France. We're going to continue Our activities for high net worth clients and private banking, our outstanding loans for consumption in France increased by 8% to 2017 and our professional and corporate activities have developed very well over 2018. Like most of our European peers in Retail Banking in the Eurozone, the Low and sometimes even negative interest rates has continued to weigh down on our income. Our income has therefore gone down 1.8% compared to 2018 at standard €7,800,000,000 Management costs have also increased, which testifies to the investments made to Transformer, the group. Now let's move on to International Retail Banking and Financial Services.
For mid years and for different regions, in general, growth has been Quite strong throughout 2018. For International Retail Banking, our main strongholds, Western Europe, Republic, Romania, Russia and Africa, we're able to leverage dynamic macroeconomic environments. And in these environments, our outstanding elements are at plus 6% on the like plus 6%, sorry, on a like for like basis. For Financial Services, the commercial dynamic was also very strong with insurance, life insurance In spite of a difficult environment, in these circumstances, retail banking income And International Financial Services have gone up by 5.1percent6 0.6% on a like for like basis. The operational lever is also important with an increase of management costs by 4.7 percent on a like for like basis.
And finally, for the 3rd The group global banking dynamics were not So encouraging with incomes that have gone down by 3.6 percent, reaching €8,800,000,000 For financing and advising, we have delivered very good performance with a 7% increase In income and for our market activities, market conditions were very difficult and have weighed down on client demand and on our income. Management costs increased by 1.7% compared to 2017 because we've invested in growth for banking and transaction and financing activities and advising whilst remaining very disciplined on costs overall. In 2018, the environment was very different to what we had expected at the end of 2017. At the second during the second half twenty eighteen, we realized that the outlook for growth were not that favorable for next years, and we were able to have more clarity on the regulatory environment and on the new constraints. This is why we decided to modify our interest rate and set assumptions, sorry, in the euro zone.
For example, we reduced the weighted outstanding risks by €10,000,000,000 and we also implemented An additional reduction cost reduction plan of €500,000,000 And we are aiming for a profitability of equity between 9% and 10% by the end of Now I suggest that we take a look on the financial robustness of the group and value creation for shareholders. Now as you can see, the equity share of the group have increased in 2018 by more than 10% compared to 2014 And reached €61,000,000,000 at the end of 2018. We are fully in line with all the regulations with a Solvency ratio CET1 is at 11.2% at the end of 2018, a ratio that increased significantly compared to the Q1 when it stood at 11.7%. And with 22.9%, the TLAC is above the regulatory threshold for 2019 and for 2022. This is why We will be submitting to your vote the payout ratio and the dividend policy for 2019.
For 2018, we suggested you vote for a payment of the dividends in shares. Now quick words on the results of your group for Q1 2018. METI income, sorry, On the increase by 0.3 percent, thanks to international retail banking activities, financial services for companies And Funding and Advising for Global Banking and Investor Solutions. Retail Banking in France is resilient, And the market activity income, although they are lower than for Q1 2018, have bounced back compared The Q4 of 2018. As regards costs now, the different MITRE dynamics that I mentioned for 2018 And we'll continue for this quarter or rather continued for the previous quarter.
The commercial risk cost is Still quite low at 21 basis points. The net share results of The group is at €1,000,000,000 and profitability on tangible equity stands at 8.4%. Finally, our solvency ratio It has increased by 55 basis points and stands at 11.7%.
And
we are determined in reaching our target CET1 of 12% Thank you very
much, Dionne. I'll be turning the floor over to our statutory auditors. First of all, Mr. Misakiyan, please come up on stage. Good afternoon.
Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, I would first of all like to sum up our reports on the consolidated financial statements can find between pages 1554 of your brochure as well as the annual financial statements between 54 And 58, the goal is for us to have a reasonable assurance as regards to the financial statements and To assure that they are free from material misstatement, so we certify that the consolidated financial statements and annual financial statements that were put forth by your Board of Directors. Now We have drawn your attention to one of the annexes which shows the first application of IFRS 9 on financial instruments. We, for the past 2 years, have been pointing out the key points in our audit involving any significant risks Involve the provisions for disputes, the deferred tax assets in France and the United States, The assessment of complex financial instruments, IT risk for derivatives as well as structured issuances And the first applications at IFRS 9. As regards the management report, we do not Have any comments to make with regards to the consolidated financial statements? So we have the same comments as for the consolidated financial statements.
As regards to the 5th, in terms of the changes in the assessment of depreciation for a credit for a clientele. We do not have any The exception of a purely technical observation we have that are current in financial institutions as regards exclusion Of banks from the scope involving the payment periods. Thank you very much. I'd like to ask Ms. Muna to come on stage.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, I will now be presenting our special report on the Party related party agreements that you have on Page 58 of the brochure that was sent to you. We are communicating on the characteristics of the related party agreements and commitments that we carried out, that we discovered during our audit. We will not be speaking about their usefulness or looking for an existence of any other agreements or commitments. First of all, we analyzed related party agreements that were submitted to the approval of the shareholders meeting That was submitted to the prior approval of your Board of Directors for the financial year. They involve the non compete clauses, Involve severance benefits for Mr.
Philippe Heinrich Philippe Reim and Ms. Denis Lebeau. For these agreements and commitments that were authorized by your Board of Directors on May 3, 2018, which will be with effect from May 14, 2018. They wanted to have the same Benefits that were given to the Deputy Chief Executive Officer since 2017. We also looked at the following commitments and agreements involving the previous year and that were by the Board of Directors on February 6, 2019, with Mr.
Philippe Henrique, Philippe I'm Sylvain Carbagne, Indionie Leboe, Deputy Chief Executive Officers and Mr. Frederic Oudia, Chief Executive Officer. The non compete clauses authorized by your Board of Directors as of May 3, 2018 for Mr. Philippe, Henrique, Frederic Felipe, and Jonny Lebaud as well as for Mr. Frederic have been modified and authorized by the Board of Directors on February 6, 2018.
The changes that took place were aimed at integrating changes in the MEDAF code and also for the severance benefits for filiprime Fredericou Udellis Junie Lebo to make them more demanding. These commitments will be modified after the Board of Directors On May 21, which will be held after the shareholders' meeting with Mr. Philippe Henrique Philippe Reim, Cervantes Caban and Ms. Jonny Lebaud, the Deputy Chief Executive Officers. The additional Pension benefits as well as the defined benefit payments for the members of the Board of Directors And the Chief Deputy Executive Officers were modified by the Board of Directors on February 6, 20 18, you have the results detailed in your in our report.
The goal We'll have expenses for the company that will be reduced for the additional pension commitments. As a reminder, And as detailed in our report, when we look at the related party agreements commenced So already have been approved and that were applied over the previous financial years involves the non compete clauses, the Termination benefits for Mr. Sanchez Bisera and Mr. Vale after they have left the company and that the related party agreements and Commitments over the past financial years involving the termination benefits in our commit phase for Mr. Udi and Mr.
Kaibun And also for Mr. Caban as regards the pension benefits. Thank you very much. Thank you very
much.
And now we turn the floor over to Frederic Officer will be presenting the strategy of the group that was approved by the Board of Directors. Ladies and gentlemen, Hello. It is a pleasure for me to see you here once again this year. It is an opportunity for us to take stock and of course, to answer any questions you have about the group Where we are going, the share price and also the specific case involving retail back in France, how we can ensure the best service. And of course, this annual meeting is particularly important for me because as you just heard from Chairman, you'll be able to speak about the renewal of my term as Board member.
I would like to take stock of 2018, go beyond that. I'd like to begin with what Ginny had mentioned. We've been able to put financial uncertainty behind us. That was related to the 3 disputes That involved us with the American authorities in particular. Remember last year, we still had that question.
And I believe it is the first achievement of 2018. The first lesson we can learn, of course, It's FX responsibility, how demanding they are and how they should guide us in our banking activities throughout the world. And in world that is complex With regulations that are growing and as you know, these disputes come from the past, and it takes more time to address them rather than Credit risks that we took at the beginning of the crisis that is behind us now. These disputes took time. The processes are long.
And this was during a period in the past when at times, sometimes there was tension and perhaps a culture of looking at the short term That did not enable us to protect the bank. That is behind us now. When I say it is behind us, I've been quite humble and vigilant. As Yoni said, Risks persist. And as we've seen in the Baltic States and the Scandinavian banks recently, these risks are continuing to exist, but I believe that for many years, we have made a considerable effort in order to bolster our oversight, our oversight to bolstering our oversight also with the supervision of authorities, particularly the U.
S. But also France, So that we can ensure that we are in line with the best standards in our industry and as regards oversight, We also have our culture. In all of our businesses through a project I myself am steering, we are disseminating a shared culture, shared conduct. I wanted to start with that because I thought that this was fundamental in terms of the success of our bank in the future. But beyond these issues looking at how we can remedy the situation, I would like to turn to what Societe Generale is.
And I would like to give you an overview of who we are. Societe Generale, as a reminder, it's almost 150,000 People in the world in 67 countries serving over 31,000,000 clients. This is a diversified model That involves a variety of business areas. And on this slide, you can see the breakdown of our income. You can see the heart is in Europe.
In France, of course, nearly 70% of our earnings. We also can see that we have different geographic plans In Eastern, Central Europe, Russia and Africa, there are very few European banks that is well positioned as we are in these geographic areas. And we also have projections in the U. S. As well as in Asia involving our retail global banking activities.
Now the strength of this group, what makes it relevant is the fact that although our business lines are very different, Added value than banks would be in 1 single geographic area or 1 single business area. That is how we can make a difference In a very long term model that I think helps set Societe Generale apart. Now if we were to look at what we've done over the past ten years for each one of our business area. And here, I'd like to answer the question involving funds. Looking at Retail banks, you know that we have Societe Generale, Credit Uno and Boursorama.
We are adapting our banking activities. With the advent of new technologies, you can call them digital technology. That will take several years. And I think I can tell you that 20 8 has once again been a year of success. Now this is a considerable project in terms of its scope.
It involves all of the organizations. Right now, we are specializing our sales by category of customer. It involves all of our service distribution processes and all of our teams And all of our associates, I would like to pay tribute today once again to the tens of thousands of employees we have out in the field who are continuing to serve you and at the same time are part of these in-depth changes, Of course, looking at our plan to turn our activities around, but we can see that this is I'm carrying this out responsibly at Societe Generale. There's one priority, But that also involves our shareholders is our fundamental responsibility. We talk about corporate responsibility, And that involves providing guidance to all of our employees in these in-depth transformations.
And we are not the only one, the banking sector Not being the only one impacted by these in-depth changes and doing so ahead of time, not wanting to wait too long So that our employees will not end up at a dead end. And we are making sure that these are transformations that
We are
carrying out while investing resources, providing guidance, finding a solution for each and every one of our employees. So threefour of our employees at some point will be changing the activities and we are working with Our unions so that we can come up with an agreement on employment that was signed by all of our Partners. And of course, that is one fundamental area that we are working at. Now the second pillar that we have, and you saw that when we look at the geographic areas, It is that we have global banking global retail bankings. We have that in Russia and Also in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, it is a profitable driving force in our group today.
And honestly, in this room, I don't know if 5 years ago, would have thought that, that part of our bank Would be growing, would have profitable growth. The contribution of these businesses, we have just heard, involves Do you mean EUR 2,000,000,000 whereas before, it's been less than EUR 500,000,000 just showing you the results of a strategy that is long term, Showing that we are working in Investment Banking. We have investment drivers, and we are confident in terms of the prospect growth in this part
of the group.
And then we have the 3rd pillar that we have. We have Our Global Banking and Investor Solutions, I believe that we have fundamentally been able to change our A business model above and beyond what I've said about how we are modifying our oversight. We I've seen that sometimes we place emphasis on a transaction, one product and then another. Now we have a situation in which We are looking at our customers, strategic customers who have over the long term and working on a relationship in various geographic areas in different business areas. And so you will see these transformations are not over yet.
Of course, we'll continue to improve them to improve profitability, but we have begun this work. So above and beyond these key areas, there is another area I would like to underscore that is fundamental for the future. It is that we have never forgotten this with All of these different projects we're carrying out, we have always tried to keep our entrepreneurial spirit, our pioneering spirit, enabling us year on year to be able to set up business models that provide growth, new activities that deliver growth. And I'll give you three examples on this slide, And they're just a few examples. If we look at insurance, which is at the very heart of our model as a banker and insurer.
This is a model that is in synergy with all the retail banking activities in France, abroad as well as our Specialized services. You can see here, we've been able to ensure that this growth 13% between 2016 and 2018. Let's look at Bursarama now. The second example, Bursarama, we had Over 400,000 employees in 2012, and then we decided that we would have a long term growth strategy. What would become the new banking model?
Bruce Arame today is the uncontested leader in online banking in France, 1,800,000 customers today. So we will have 2,000,000 by the end of this year, and we have announced goal of over 3,000,000 customers in 2021. So BursoRama's model It involves a high level of quality of service, positioning. That means we're the least expensive online bank in France And that we have particularly high operational efficiencies with 1,800,000 being customers being serviced by A limited number of employees. So if we look here, our last example, ALD.
If we look at our vehicle fleets, We had in 2014, 1,000,000, now we have 1,700,000 cars being managed. And of course, we can see that this involves corporate fleets. Customers are fleets that provide business cars to the employees that we do day to day, but we can see it's also developing because We have new ways of using vehicles. We will have fewer owners of vehicles, more And once again, we will soon have driverless cars. And to a certain extent, ALD managing vehicles, the goal is to be 1 of the leaders in mobility in the future.
That is how year on year over the past few years, we've been able to ensure that its activities have been able to grow. So genuine drivers for growth and profitability above and beyond this ability to be able to create new activities, I would also like to speak about our capacity for innovation, which is fundamental for the future. This capacity for innovation, which is exemplified by the fact that we have been able to stand out in our business lines and we have been able, in particular, to spread The use of digital technologies. If you are a customer of Societe Generale, you have an application you can use that is continuing to have new features added to it more the best in the market. There are more of you carrying out simple transactions, wire transfers, for example, are doing So with a mobile app, this is an example from Retail Bank and the many others.
If we look at Investment Banking, for example, Platforms that we provide for simple transactions without any people needing to be involved, it's online. And we can also have high added value of banking services that we provide from our complex transactions, so continuing to provide advisory financing services. Above and beyond this, I'd like to assure you that we, of course, are in contact with the outside world in terms of these innovations, in With start ups, we are working with a plethora of start ups. We are working On helping to bolster the capital, we are purchasing some fiducio, the leader in what was called account aggregation. So on the same application, you could see all of your banking account balances.
We have just purchased a startup called Trezor, which provides services to these new brands that are developing. So you can see that thanks to these startups, we are also starting to create new activities. And we also have an entrepreneurial program where we are going to tell our employees that if you also have an idea, If you want to create a start up, we will give you the resources to do so. And this program Appears to be one of the largest ones in place of its kind in the world, and we've been able to select 30 startups that will continue, And we hope that they will be able to create new activities for all of our business lines. Of course, This transformation is not yet over.
We are aware of this, but we will continue to be picking up speed in areas such as artificial intelligence, So data management and of course, scale up the scaling up of these projects. So I wanted to reiterate my conviction that over the past few years, it has not always been easy. We have had difficulties to overcome. And in parallel, as I said, we are overcoming this, but we have always had a long term view trying to create a solid, robust banking model. We have quality banking services and able to continue to allow us to develop over the years to come.
So I'd like to conclude, of course, the creation of value, the question that you had about the share price. 1st of all, let's take a look at the net assets and the tangible assets Per share, look at the intrinsic value, looking at the amount of capital that we have, we've seen over the past 10 years, that it has continued to grow. And I think it's also very important point. We have been quite Prudent with your money, we have not asked our shareholders for money since 2009. And just as a comparison, if we look at other banks such as Deutsche Bank, UniCredit, they looked for funding of €27,000,000 euros 27,000,000 from their shareholders.
2nd, when we look at the overall return for shareholders, on this curve, it's Bloomberg that produced These figures, you can see that the overall return for Societe Generale in red and for all European banks in blue, U. S. Stocks. Over Past 10 years, we have performed better than the average of European banks. And particularly over the past 3 to 4 years, as you can see, we have created value 10% when the sector destroyed value.
And that also illustrates the difficulties we have in the European Banking sector as a
whole. But in spite of this, we mustn't forget that the beginning of the year was quite tough. Since the beginning of the year, the share price of Societe Generale has gone down. The market has doubts in light of the communication that came
out at
the beginning of the year. That is attributable to the capital situation and the restructuration of the investment and finance activities. First of all, let's go back to the European Banking Currently, it is a sector that is not very attractive for investors because Europe, from a political point of view, It's quite uncertain. You've all heard, of course, about Brexit. We'll know a bit more about this in a few months, but there's a lot of political uncertainty.
And secondly, and Lorenzo said it earlier, there was a big change at mid-twenty 18.
At the
end of 2017, everybody was very happy with growth and the dynamic. But mid-twenty 18, there was a big change, and Growth started to slow down and a low interest rate environment for a much longer period of time than And for Retail Banking, that's particularly bad. And then finally, we are currently building the European Banking Union and the European Markets, and neither of these projects are completed. They might never be completed. So right now, this is why this sector is not attracting a lot of investors.
It's a sector that we all operate in all And the message that we got across might have created some levels of doubt. But let's talk about the level of Capital, let's talk about the core Tier 1. We finished 2018 at a lower level than anticipated, and the markets wondered whether Societe Generale would be able to payout its dividend. In light of that situation, is Societe Generale going to be able to or will have to raise funds on the market? And from that point of view, we have the 1st quarter at 11.7%, so just 0.3% shy of our target of 12% is a first step in the right direction.
So we need to continue to testify to show that we can progress in that direction. That figure of 11.7% takes into account the dividend payment option. So we have a payout ratio of 50% of our net results. We have a floor to 220. And this year, the council will be submitted to your approval the option of a dividend payment For payment to that in shares rather, so that we can reach that 12% share as soon as possible.
And that's what investors want 1st and foremost, besides we're also working on our risk weighted assets and We've reduced the capital that is allocated to market activities. And we are going to continue to refocus The group at the end of 2018, we said that we wanted to dispose of assets and activities They did not have the critical mass to be competitive on the long run or for which the content synergy wise was not Sufficient and was not relevant enough because in the large banking groups, there are a lot of reporting IT requirements that you don't have if you're a smaller bank. So we drew up a list of these assets. We have Moved on quite quickly and swiftly on these disposals. And these assets are very good assets that got And then let's talk about investments.
We want to improve the Profitability of this activity. Now this issue is not only of importance to But why is it a particularly important issue at the moment? Well, simply Because the activity volume is lower in activity in Europe, sorry, than elsewhere. And on top of this, there's a new core regulation in Europe that is currently being implemented. So we had to Review our activity portfolio because some activities on the long run are not going to be profitable.
So we have refocused the group. We've got savings plans also a savings plan that have been rolled out. And the question is to look at whether we are going to lose income on that. I hear that there's some uncertainty, But of course, I believe that this plan is necessary. And the next quarters, we need to be able to show that it's fully With our vision and our ambition that is to serve our strategic clients in the long term In key geographical regions, we are going to drop the activities Where we can't become leaders, activities that are going to be very resource intensive, sorry, and we're going to reallocate these resources to other areas or activities in light of new regulations that will disappear quickly.
So we need to continue to work on these issues, but I am convinced that in the following quarters, We are going to come up with some positive answers on these two main questions from our investors. But over And beyond that, I'd like to talk about our strategy For the next years, bear in mind that the European Banking sector is being completely Changed by many new technologies, so the changing behaviors, changing habits and the possible Emerging also of new actors now in Europe, it might take more time, but there are some Chinese players You have asked for banking licenses in Hong Kong and new regulations are really bringing about true and deeper disruptions. And I think that the conditions for future performance is to juggle innovation and responsibility. That's really, I think, what will be at the core of our strategy for the next few years. As regards innovation, We need to continue with the transformation of AMETE.
I've mentioned a few earlier. It's going to take a lot of time. We can't do it over a Few quarters. 2020 will be a very important milestone for Retail Banking, for example. It will be our target here to have 80% of digitalized processes, But we need to go further than that, and we need to adapt to new technologies and to new client behaviors.
And that's true for all of METI. Digital transformation in Russia, in Czech Republic are very much Now second, the important issue when it comes to innovation is to build business models Then to CAM last, Boursorama will probably be the most profitable retail bank in France in the future. Our profitability and our targets are twice as high as any Traditional networks. ALD's growth is quite significant, and there are many more opportunities So we need to continue to build with these start ups. I talked about Africa very quickly.
But don't forget that a few quarters ago, we launched an electronic portfolio for people in Africa who don't hold bank accounts, And we already have 100 of 1000 customers on board. So on top of adapting existing MITI, I think that To be able to compete with GAAPAs in Europe is to really build on our Now of course, this innovation must be brought about with our clients' needs In mind and with responsibility in mind, responsibility, of course, covers digital technologies, Data privacy, you might have questions on that. And it also covers climate related issues. How are we going to fund
the
Energia transition? Over the last 10 years, has been a pioneer in this area. We've built up an expertise on how to fund new renewable Energies, there's a ranking that came out in 2018, and that places at the 2nd Place for the bank funds that funds the most renewable energy projects. 2nd in the world, 1st in France. Our target was to fund EUR 100,000,000,000 between 2016 2020 worth Of renewable energy projects, we're currently at 70 €1,000,000,000 So they are green bonds, for example, but also loans That we give out.
Our target was €15,000,000,000 of loans, and we are already at €21,000,000 So we are funding renewable energies. Secondly, as regards this portfolio of fossil energy, 6 NGOs published A report, it's got nothing to do with banking, but the 6 NGOs that Keep track of the energy transition published the report. And the 4 main French banks When you put them all together, still fall behind the largest U. S. Bank.
And on this ranking, Societe Generale is 23rd. We are slightly under BNPP and pretty much Supporting and helping our clients, we have discontinued some investments, for example, oil from Arctic for oil sands throughout the world. We're the 1st bank to commit to phase out Funding to carbon to coal related projects. We also committed to a 90% target for the share of coal and the production of electricity To reduce our coal borne portfolio. Now of course, some Stakeholders, and we might discuss it later, would like us to go even faster.
But I'd like to remind you When it comes to transition, we need to remain realistic. We need to support Our clients in this transition and also help the economies that need funding to develop themselves. Now When it comes to responsibility and innovation, we are committed to support our clients. We want We also are committed to equity, corporate social responsibility, And I will be very proud if we are able to reach these targets, find the right solutions. And I hope that we can keep a trust of supervisors in the long run.
And there's another issue that I should like to mention, one That makes us really unique, and that is the whole issue of Africa and of its sustainable The 20 to 30 years, that will be one of the largest issues in the world, There will be some 2,000,000,000 people in Africa in years to come. And due Protect political stability in Europe, we need to support Africa right now in developing itself sustainably. An inadequately area, Societe Generale has already played a very important role. A lot of banks have got a marginal or who had a marginal footprint in these countries in Africa are withdrawing from Africa, whereas we are investing more in Africa With our Grow in Africa initiative where we're going to allocate more resources, we're going to be funding infrastructure In highways, in metro networks and And electronic we're also, sorry, going to invest in an electronic portfolio so that people in Africa can make transactions easily. They pay their bills, for example.
And we will also be funding SMEs, which is a pivotal issue for Africa. So here we have a positioning That makes us really unique here at Societe Generale. Overall, when I Take a look at the future. And as I mentioned, I want us to harness and to make the most of everything that we've built in the different midyear and in the different regions where we operate. Very few Banks in Europe can make that kind of statement.
So we need to implement that strategy and bring on board New clients in mature markets and in new markets. Now I'd like to conclude On a more personal note, when it was confirmed that my mandate would be submitted to the offer for renewal, I wondered whether I would have enough energy and motivation to continue and transform the bank in the future. Of course, my answer to that question is, yes, for 3 main reasons. First of all, I've been working at Societe Generale for 24 years. And I can tell you that I am as proud to be a banker today as I was on day 1.
It's a fantastic job with Long term relations, trust based relations with our clients. It is also a business that has changed a lot Over the last few years, being a part of this transformation is extremely exciting. And being able to Thrive in spite of constraints is a fantastic challenge. Now I'd like to tell you how committed and confident I am That we are going to reach our target. And I, too, am a shareholder of Societe Generale, and my interests Therefore, perfectly in line with yours.
And finally, I would like to tell you that I harbor the values Of this bank that I have devoted the last 24 years of my life to, And I have great determination. I want to preserve the capital of the bank and continue To defend the values and the principles of the mix banks. And my priorities for the next mandate should you approve, A course of my renewal is to complete the transformation of the Metiers, including Retail Banking in Secondly, continue to make sure that Societe Generale is recognized as the number one Innovation Bank, I'm very proud that 2018 was a year marked because there's an award that is given out by Lesseco every year. And it's the iK40 award, we are the number 1 digital company after having come up in the top 3 or second and third in the last few years. And thirdly, I want to confirm and deliver the financial and strategic targets and to fuel this So when or if you decide to vote for the renewal of my mandate, to be sure that I will continue to deliver on these objectives, goals and that my interests are very much in line with yours.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much Frederic, Odier. Now ladies and gentlemen, Shareholders, we are now going to move on to corporate governance. In The registration document, you have the report on corporate governance, and you can read the Board activity reports, the committee's report and the Chairman's report. Now in keeping with our statutes And our in house regulation, we decided with Mr.
Oudia to respect the balance Of roles of the Board of Directors and the General Management, the Board of Directors devoted a lot of time in 2018 and at the beginning of 2019 To the tracking of the implementation of the strategic plan in a context that was less favorable than anticipated, It approved And we also worked on the remediation agreement. The Board of Directors has also committed to tracking social and environmental risks. The board also approved the performance declaration or the extra financial performance declaration. First, mapping of these risks In keeping with the lower back, the Board of Directors will continue With this line of thought by working on the strategy of the bank that met up with the representatives of the ECB so that they can carry out their supervisory supervising activities and the Board also set the objectives that trigger remuneration for the The Board of Directors rely on the hard work made by the committees, especially the Risk and Audit and Internal Controller Committee that did a great work. The Risk Committee is also in charge of supervising risks in the U.
S. And we've also reinforced the training of Board members in some complex areas such as accounting rules, for example. Now as regards to my personal role, I actively took part in discussions with regulators And met up with shareholders and international investors, especially in the buildup to this General Assembly. In 2018, the Board of Directors also managed the evolution in the organization of The general management that I mentioned last year, on 14th May 2018, Didier Vale stepped down Against the backdrop of the dispute with the U. S, the facts go back Frederic Odier suggested to the committee and the Board a reorganization of the general direction with 3 sorry, with 4 Deputy General Directors and I reminded you who they were earlier on.
After the appointment committee given its green light, the Board approved its proposal built around people with a strong banking Experience but from all the very different backgrounds and with complementary skills For me, a good opportunity to Frank Didier, Rovale and Bernardo Sanchez in Serra for the great The Board of Directors will be suggesting To Frederic Odea to renew his mandate for 'twenty or rather in 2019, Frederic Odea has got very strong he knows how to manage crises. He's got a good strategic vision and this is why we believe that the council should renew His mandate and the Deputy General Directors that were appointed a year ago will And she also takes an active part in the American Risk Committee Aspects has been very important and was fully committed throughout whole of this mandate. Gerard Misla, Administrator since 2015 and Chairman of the Appointments Committee And member of the elimination committee would be his 2nd mandate if he were to be renewed. He played an important role in Managing renewals and the new structure of the general direction in 2018. And he has an outstanding Experience when it comes to managing large international corporations.
These two proposals In so far as we have all the necessary skills brought together As you can see on the slide up on the screen. So the Board members There will be 14 members altogether, including 2 representatives of the employees and 11 independent
Now I'm
going to hand over the floor to Jean Bernard Levy, Chairman of the Remuneration Committee. He'll be talking about the compensation policy and the resolutions that you'll have to write on this special policy on page.
I'm going to be describing the compensation policies and practices for your group. In 2018, the compensation committee met 8 times in order to examine and give an opinion to the Board As regards the compensation policy for the group in particular, it ensured that the policy And compensation principles were in line with the regulations and the group objectives in terms of management of equity as well as risk It also prepared the decisions of the Board as regards the compensation of corporate officers and the regulated persons as well as the awarding of shares to certain employees. In accordance with the SAPA Law, the principles and policies that were viewed for 2019 And in particular, voted on the variable component of their compensation for 2018. Let's take a look at the policy for the group. As regards fixed to variable pay the practices, the Societe Generale are in line with our benchmarks In the framework of measures decided by the government at the end of 2018, the group in France awarded one exceptional bonus.
Several specific mechanisms have been put into place in order to build a load of employees. We have performance shares. Here, the amount allotted that are not for employees that are subject to the deferred variable pay is stable at €40,000,000 As is the case last year, part amount was awarded as bonus shares or performance shares. This is part of the authorization voted by The shareholders' meeting on 23rd May 20 The overall amount for 2018 stood at €117,000,000 which can be added and Supplement exceptional profit showing an amount of €1,000 maximum
for an
Employee. As a reminder, on 31 December 2018, employee shareholders accounted for 6.17% of the Share capital of 10.91 percent of the voting rights. As was the case each year, the compensation policy for regulated persons was reviewed by supervisors, the ECB and the ACPR and of course, by internal control teams that concluded that the risk of noncompliance was appropriately covered. Turning now to the ex ante compensation of the executive managers. The main changes that were approved last year involved changing the criteria for the quantitative share of the annual variable pay, in particular, with the introduction of criteria, 1st of all, based upon the profitability of equity, based upon ROTE for the group scope and RNE for its in order to better align the compensation policy with the strategic targets and the risk appetite within the group.
2nd, looking at changes in the performance conditions applicable to long Social environmental responsibility for the group. The new CSR criterion involves 20% of the amount awarded, Half is half linked to compliance with the group's commitments, and they are the financing and the energy transition of the half of group's positioning within Primary Extra Financial Ratings. As regards to part of the performance that remains based upon the total return for shareholders, No share will be awarded if this ratio is below the median value, whereas before it was when It was within the last quartile. So here, we have an additional requirement that has been set up. Now turning To the compensation for the Chief Executive Officer and the Deputy Executive Officers, some made up of fixed variable pay as Well, as a long term profit sharing, this policy involves a short- and long term horizons.
So we can see that there is Strong alignment with the interest of the shareholders. Fixed pay for the executive managers is stable maintained for 2019 at €1,300,000 for the CEO, €800,000 for the deputy CEOs. So the annual variable pay is based upon performance For the year and the contribution of the corporate officers in the success of the association. So it's assessed upon the basis of financial objectives, the criteria we reviewed versus the previous years I just indicated and qualitative objectives that are set in keeping with the Group's leadership model. The qualitative objectives that are common to all of the senior Executives are involving the following themes: a momentation of the group strategy and its businesses with specific focus on cost control and the management of rail resources.
2nd, operational efficiency and risk control, the bolstering of the ability to innovate. And last, achieving objectives in the area of social environmental responsibility, which involves in particular an objective For the positioning of Societe Generale in the extra financial ratings indices. The overall amount of that results has been a ceiling set at 135% of the annual fix paid for the CEO and 115% For the deputy CEOs. So it is subject to the same constraints as those of the regulated persons. In other words, it is Spread over 3 years and 2 thirds of which is paid in shares.
Plus, the payment or vesting is subject to achieving 2 future performance conditions. So one condition of volume level of equity and the second evolving of profitability. So we can see that the long term profit sharing goal is to associate the executive Manages the performance in the long term of the group and to align their interest with those of the shareholders on identical ceiling to that of the variable amount will be applied Its vesting will require a condition involving the share Performance of the group versus a panel of comparable European banks this year, we have another condition which was based upon the group CSR performance. The amounts will be deferred up to 7 years, and the final payment value also has a ceiling set. The total amount of the Annual variable pay and long term profit sharing has a ceiling set of 2x the fixed compensation.
As regards the Chairman of the Board, he receives €925,000 per year since May 23, 2018 for 2018. He received €195,000 which can be added the payment of his business accommodations in Paris. So looking at the severance conditions for the corporate officers, they have been adjusted. As a reminder, the deputy CEOs We received compensation for their non compete clause, so it is equal to the amount of their fixed compensation. This clause has been modified in order to Comply with the principle of nonpayment in the event of leaving 6 months from moving the liquidation of the pension or beyond the age of 65.
Also, we have a severance pay only if it is set up by the group, By the Board of Directors equal to 2 years of fixed pay, and it is to comply with the principle of nonpayment in the event Of leaving 6 months preceding liquidation of the pension or the possibility of leaving if they have a Full rate as defined by the French Social Security System or if the company or the CEO is in a situation of failure at the The cumulative amount is in line with the ceiling recommended by the AFEP, MDF, 2 years of annual Fixed and variable pay. The additional pension scheme applicable to the deputy CEOs also has been modified Following the revision of the management scheme starting on January 1, 2019, this change involves a reduction in the future vesting of rights in the framework of the defined benefit scheme And setting up the additional defined payment scheme as understood under Article 82, the vesting will be subject to a performance condition. Last, I'd like to underscore the Pralt UDI does not benefit from any additional pension from I'd like to move on to the ex post compensation that is for 2018.
When we look at the Compensation that was paid to the CEO, the payments of which are subject to the approval of the shareholders meeting are as follows fixed pay of €1,300,000 that has not changed since 31 July 2014. Annual variable pay that corresponds overall reaching a 71.3 percent of the objectives and stands at €1,251,151 Mr. Tric Oudia voluntarily has renounced part of this compensation following the agreements
So we
followed certain major disputes in 2018. Amount of this reduction, voluntary reduction of 50% is equal to EUR 1,063,478, which is a reduction of 19% versus 2017. The amount of long term profit sharing attributed in February 2019 for 2018, which for Frederic UDS stands at €636,936 Here again, after an adjustment downwards by the Board in order comply with the regulatory demand for a ceiling being set for the variable component versus fixed compensation asset out by the A European directive. So he has no attendance fees, no stock options and no additional pension. So just as a comparison, As you can see on the slide that we have here, if you look at the total compensation for Credit CODIER, it is below the average and median compensation paid to the Our senior executives of the CAC 40 companies in France as well as the venture setup of 11 European banks looking at How we determine long term profit sharing, this positioning in terms of compensation is online with the performance of Societe Generale as regards its peers and this, I'll respect you with the principal pay for performance.
The compensation paid In 2018, Mr. Coligoullier is defined as being the total of his fixed compensation, his annual variable compensation in 2018 is 41 times the gross average pay of an employee in Societe Generale France. So this ratio is down versus 2017. It had been 46 in 2017, 41 in 2018. Looking at the deputy CEOs, the variable component is structured as was the case with annual variable pay, €485,045,545 for SEK1.7 after the voluntary reduction of 7.5% Subsequent to the agreements passed in 2018 for certain disputes, so this brings the variable pay of Sevehan, carbon down by 28% versus 2017.
The annual variable pay for Philippe Emerich, Philippe Hernd and Jeanie Leboux As the deputy CEOs has been calculated on a prorated basis in light of the date when they took on their terms in 2018, they respectively, €23,105 for the Emirates, €437,380,380 for Philippe Hein, €390,030 For Dioni Leboe. The variable pay is also made up of long term profit sharing, which after the downward adjustment by the In order to comply with the regulatory requirement of setting the ceiling for the variable component with regards to the fixed compensation in line with European Direct €368,501 for Philippe and Mariches, €77,246 for Sevbran and Carbine, €360 for Philippe I'm at 278,970 for Junie Lebow. The long term profit sharing awarded to Mr. Amherich Ahn and Ms. Lebo, of course, was calculated on a prorated basis.
On this slide, you can See the compensation paid out to Didier Valle as Corporate Officer, which Term which ended on March 14, 2018, so the prorated amount of the annual gross pay that was paid to him in 2018 as Deputy CEO. On this slide, you can also see the payment that was paid to Bernardo Sanchez in For his term, which ended on 14 May 2018, Mr. Sanchez Incera was considered to be forced by the Board of Directors. So we can see we have a prorated amount of the gross annual compensation paid in 2018 as Deputy CEO. The Noncompete pay as well as the severance pay authorized by the Board of Directors at its meeting on 8 February 2017 approved by the shareholders meeting at its session of 23 May 2017.
Last, the compensation committee assured that it reviewed the conditions for paying the regulated persons or risk takers Within the framework of the CRD IV directive, these persons are identified either through qualitative criteria linked to their function and level responsibility, their ability to involve the bank in terms of risk exposure or quantitative criteria Linked to their level of total compensation from the previous financial year. For 2018, 827 risk takers were identified, of which 55% for the 56 exactly are residing outside of France. The overall amount of variable pay for the regulated persons, excluding corporate officers, It stands at €193,000,000 and the average amount stands at €239,000 is down by 8% versus 2017, the overall amount of total compensation For 2018, excluding corporate officers, is €430,600,000 the average amount, €544,000 which is down by I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that these amounts are different from those that are subject to you for a consultative vote within the framework of Resolution which involves the amounts that were paid in 2018 and does not reflect the performance for the year in light Of the large share of the deferred variable pay and stood at
€
451,000,000 Thank you. Thank you. We are now going to move on to the written questions. We received 2 written questions. The first one From Mr.
Toure, who is a victim of a mistake from our departments in handling his Inheritance and is worried about the life insurance contracts application event of his demise. The question or response from the Board of Directors on the site of the Chairs General Meeting, I'd like to reassure him, him as regards the bank's commitments to ensure that customer satisfaction As at the heart of its actions, a particular application of legislation as regards assets for customers following the ADAS. The second question, which was asked by IPAC initiative for a Citizens' Shareholding, the text of the question is as
Followed
on May 24 and on June 5, 2018, our company respectively concluded 2 agreements, 1 with the National Financial Prosecutor's Office, the other with the Department of Justice in the United States. In order to put an end to preliminary investigation on the Libyan dossier. This preliminary investigation was opened November 2016 on the On the motive of corruption of foreign public agents, it involved business Our company and the Libyan Investment Authority between 2,007 2010, an evolved company based in Panama as well as close to the Gaddafi family, could you give me information regarding this issue? The draft response from Societe Generale is as follows. Thank you very much for your interest for the transaction Closing the LIA dossier dossier that occurred last June.
The facts were described in the statement of facts Enclosed with the agreement to suspend the deferred prosecution agreement, this agreement As well as the statement of facts are available in Ministry of Justice In its press release dated for June 2018, as the bank stated, when it announced the agreements with U. S. Justice Department. These agreements have put an end to the investigation by the U. S.
Justice Department concerning The U. S. Legislation infringement as regards the corruption of foreign officers of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. These agreements closed off the investigation open for the same facts So by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office, the Association Airline accepted to pay approximately €500,000,000 $93,000,000 to the U. S.
Justice Department. This amount was totally covered by the provisions that recorded in the Council Bank allotted to this dispute. The bank has is fully committed to ensuring that Policies, procedures and internal controls enable any infringements of anti corruption legislation to be to be prevented and detected. The bank has nothing to add to the statements that were made when the agreements were announced. Now we are going to move to the debate.
As is the case each year, I will give the floor, first of all, to the Consultative Committee of Shareholders. Mr. Ludus Dailleurier will be speaking on its behalf. So I'd like to ask him to please ask the question. Sir, what makes you Confident in your ability to reach the targets that you have set for 2020.
Thank you. So the question is what makes us confident in our ability to Achieve the targets for 2020. For those who didn't hear, Pradeek, we set 2 targets, 1 in terms of profitability and 1 in terms of level of capital. Profitability, of course, helping to ramp up our capital. So the first part, In our retail bankings in France, we've been able to update our interest rate scenarios.
That was the important point. And of course, we are going to be continuing to work on transformation. So 18 months Into the process, we have good ideas regards the type of income, the cost of risk in an interest rate environment. Again, that is much Retail Banking. Here, for 4 months, we looked at a very fine level of detail at the profitability of our businesses.
And that is what enabled us to determine which businesses would be involved. We have a very Clear view of the loss in income and of course, any savings generated by the refocusing of the group. So here we're doing the same thing with an implementation That started that is being steered at a central level, very high level precision. I think That it is quite likely we'll be able to meet our objectives. And again, perhaps the most important part in terms of investors, capital.
So we've looked at the trajectory at the end of 2020 encompassing the various items, looking at the capital generated by our earnings, looking The type of steering that we have in terms of allocating capital to each one of the business areas, how we take into account disposals. And as a reminder, we have slightly more than half our disposals carried out under good conditions. Once again, we've been able to take into account The payment option dividends this year. And so we scheduled a cash payment for 201920 for the dividend according to the distribution rules and we've left some room for maneuver, meaning that there is at the end of 2020 being higher than 12, meaning For a given reason, if we had a deviation in an area we have some room for maneuver, enabling us to absorb That gap. So I think that we have the wherewithal we need in order to achieve our goals.
We will be doing so and we will be able to deliver to ensure that we'll be addressing the 2 issues that I brought up, which I believe are The questions involving our investors. Thank you. Now you have various Hostesses and stewards here who have microphones set up. They are holding up panels with numbers on them. We'll be taking 3 questions in a row.
I will start on my last So 4, 3 and 11, those will be the first questions. And the others, we'll be looking at afterward. So make sure you ask your questions directly so that we have time for everyone to be able to take the floor. So number 4. Tran, I'm a French shareholder.
Sir? The American authorities are currently investigating A potential situation in which Societe Generale would have manipulated interbank rates, With Mr. Didier Valet resigning That does not mean that Completely immaculate in this area. So what do you think about this? You've just showed us some information on Borsorama.
With Bursarama, you have a free payment card. You charge €45 to €50 in annual fees. So we have seen takeover bids have taken place in the past few years. Societe Generale share price is at minus 59 BNP at minus €130,000,000 And so we can see So what do you think about equity that the level is too low? Thank you.
Maxime Lemoine, I'm an individual shareholder. The international community in 2015 set the goal of containing the rise in degrees keeping it at 2 degrees Celsius And ensuring we not go over 1.5 degrees Celsius. The last IPCC report has highlighted that this gap is a question of survival, which by hundreds of millions of people being affected by rising sea levels, by Heat waves by water shortages and famine. Societe Generale is endeavoring to align with the Paris agreement that is It is a benchmark scenario that ignoring the objective of limiting this increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Even worse, It is only applying it to half of its financing activities.
And this type of commitment in no case can justify can be justified when your bank is playing a role in fossil fuels that others have set aside. We only have a few years to drastically change What will be happening? We need to be able to contain the greenhouse gases. And Societe Generale must endeavor to do so by the way. My question is The following: do you recognize this objective of 1.5 degrees Celsius?
And are you committing to aligning all of your business Thank you. Number 11. I have considerations as regards all of the shareholders. The share market capitalization of Societe has continued to deteriorate over the years. If we look at 2016, 2017, 34.8 The end of 2017, EUR 22,500,000,000.
It is true that the last financial year has been Impacted by various issues, Libya, the U. S. Department of Justice. Apparently, some have been resolved. But despite this, we can see that the share price has continued to decline over this 1st few months of 2019.
Here's my question. Does Societe Generale, in order to foster development of business and trade in France, Which had been its original name in 18/64. After 155 years of existence, can it survive on its own? Has the time come perhaps it to be combined with European or French Bank, it missed out on combining with PNP in Paris Basin 20 years ago, it missed out on combining with Credit Lyonnais some 12 years So what are you waiting for to take a step to be able to give confidence back to your shareholders and investors and then the share price would rise and reach the levels of 2015 2016. Thank you.
Shall we answer those three questions? Perhaps Philippe Emery Could you talk about Boursseur Rahman, the differentiated fees? Hi, Cuny Lee [SPEAKER UNIDENTIFIED COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE:] Bro, we could be responding to the question involving climate. I will be taking the question on LIBOR, and I will be touching Upon the consolidation challenges for LIBOR LIBOR, we signed an agreement With the American authorities as regards this issue at the beginning of the year, the beginning of 2018 And it has removed any financial uncertainties regards this dispute. And as we David, this is a period during which for 3 years we have remedies, a series of actions in conjunction with the U.
S. Authorities, if we're able to meet their expectations, the risks will definitively be removed as regards any legal So this is behind us, but I'd like to underscore the fact when we look at these disputes, when we take stock, you will see that Societe Generale, whether it's The number of legal disputes or the financial notes involved is not the bank that will have paid the most. Having said that, we have these 3 disputes that need to be settled, And we have put them behind us, thanks to the agreements that have been reached with the U. S. Authorities.
Now
I don't I
want to go back over the very many explanations that I gave regarding the share price. Take into account the dividend paid, but it's true that 2018, Generally speaking, it had been quite bad for the banking sector. We mentioned that all the banks lost between 30% and 35%. And It's particularly at the beginning of the year for the share price, as you underscored yourself. And I believe that we spoke about the response we'd be bringing to these questions and that it is not consolidation that will settle the issue of profitability, in my opinion, as regards to market activities level of capital.
Now more generally speaking, as regards consolidation issues, I would just like to indicate that the banking consolidation in Europe should be the logical outcome of a complete European banking union. The problem is that we have not been able to achieve a banking union. We don't know when that will occur. We need to look at the rules that will be applied. There's a great deal of uncertainty that still looms.
And ultimately, it's a European banking market that is heavily fragmented, whereas the idea was to create a banking market that The integrated going beyond borders, but we still have national rules that are hindering the circulation of capital liquidities. We still have Certainty as regards to the type of settlement mechanism we will have, how we can handle crisis if necessary. In sum, the framework that we set out over the next few quarters will not fundamentally be conducive to this type of market necessarily. I'd just like to stress Something that might seem simple on the surface, but there's nothing more complicated than merging a bank. And in my opinion, we have a priority that is creating much more value initially, which involves completing our trajectory over the next few quarters.
And we'll see, If necessary, if that type of scenario would be creating more value or not so that we could continue on this trajectory.
Now, Philippe, maybe on the fees for Retail Banking in France? Yes, thank you very much for your question. Thank you really because it allows me To talk about an important point of our model in France. In France, we operate On the market via 3 banks, 3 banks that have different personalities, different specificities and who reach out to different kinds of clients who have different expectations in terms of service quality And price. So it's very important for us to have these 3 different banks, these 3 different personalities.
So Boursorama, for instance, because you mentioned it in your question, it reaches out to private individuals Who are looking for the cheapest online banking solution, which is the case for Bauxite Armand has been the case for the last 11 years, A banking offer that works either on an app or over the Internet. For Societe Generale clients, it's important to bear in mind That half of Societe Generale's incomes come from corporations and loans to companies. And regarding the private individuals, at Societe Generale, your clients is people who want a digital experience, But also, if you want to be able to discuss with an advisor and with experts, And then there's also high net worth individuals that is an important area for us. And for Credit Dunort, here we are reaching out to clients who want a high quality of service. And Le Credit Dunort and its Regional banks are deeply embedded in their regions and cater to SMEs.
So it's important to have these different Fees, these different levels of service quality. Now on the question about climate, I would like to go back over our climate strategy that was presented earlier by Frederic Houdet. I would like to remind you that we have taken some significant commitment. And since 2016, in fact, When we had this 2 degree scenario from the International Energy Agency. So we have a very proactive climate strategy.
We're one of the very first players to make Strong commitments in the area of coal, as Frederic mentioned earlier. We were the first to Not to stop funding to coal power plants And to fund the renewable energies, and in fact, we are ahead of schedule. We've also made some important commitments when it comes to supporting and helping our clients in the energy Transition and in funding renewable energies, €100,000,000,000 is our target by 2020, and we're already at €70,000,000,000 As Frederic Oudin mentioned earlier, and we are also working on new scenarios. The whole Scenario issue is very complicated. There are several scenarios out there that have different consequences on different sectors.
So it's very important To align ourselves on one scenario and on one methodology, we are very proactive in this particular area, and we have Cardiff Chase's commitment and 4 other banks with which we are working to Come up with a new scenario that could go over and beyond the 2 degree scenario to align our portfolio To have a shared scenario to improve our transparency on our commitments. So we're going to continue to operate in the very same way In a responsible manner and in a proactive manner to support this energy transition that It sits at the heart of our owner strategy. Number 7, 6 and then 5. Good afternoon. I'm an individual shareholder and a client of Societe Generale for the last 60 years, So a longer period of time than Mr.
Odier's time at the bank. Throughout these 60 years, I've never noticed such a core service level of service for clients. The IT is always changing. You have PIN numbers that we have to write down because they're always changing. Do you think that there will be more people, more opportunities for one to one discussions with actual human beings at Societe Generale?
Thank you
very much, Bernard Delpeche, your individual shareholder. When you presented the strategic plan, Transform to grow, if I remember correctly. You told us that the growth objective For the net banking income was 3% per year. Now I understand that the world Has changed and things are more complicated than anticipated. You also told us that Management costs would go up 1.2% per year.
But if you look at current Figures, yes, slightly off target. So what is the target for 2020 in regards to your net banking income And regarding growth of management costs versus 2016. Thank you. And number 5, please. Good afternoon.
Victor Intouchot, individual shareholder. I heard that Societe Generale Was very involved in shale gas in the U. S. With exporting terminals that have been funded by Societe Generale. In spite of the fact that it's been banned in France since 2011 because of the consequences carry on health and on the environment.
And in the U. S, the tapping of Shell Gas could contribute very significantly Two Greenhouse Gas Emissions. BNP Paribas decided Withdraw from such investments, when are you going to do the same and stop funding this sector that is poisonous to the earth and all life. Severin And for the financial question, I'll probably take this one. Just to remind you quickly, we have reviewed down our income by EUR 1,000,000,000 In the EUR 500,000,000 segments, first of all, because of the drop of interest rates And the commitment that we took with the government against the backdrop of the yellow vest So movement to not increase our fees and to have lower fees for The more vulnerable of our clients and that cost us €70,000,000 And then there's our market activities where there's also The downward impact will be growing again in In 2020 compared to 2019, in all of EMEA, for Retail Banking, we will continue to have lower income Between 0% and 1%, we continue to Pay 0.4% when we deposit money at the European Central Bank.
We don't pass this on to the clients. International Banking and Financial Services is continuing to grow. You see the difference compared to Retail Banking in France. And 2% and will start going down next year. The costs for international retail banking are increasing but not as fast income and we've kept costs for investments at €6,800,000,000 for next Now, Philippe, quickly on quality of sales.
Well, first of all, thank you very much for your loyalty Because 60 years of relationship with the bank is a very long time, it's precisely the bank that we want to be for our clients. And this loyalty makes your unsatisfaction even more painful for me to hear about. Now I'll discuss it with you maybe on 1 to 1 if you agree to your particular circumstances. I'm going to skip over the New code that brings about more security in a complicated world. And the first thing that we must deliver on is security.
Now of course, we are Working here on other identification means that CRE might come instead of these code or these PIN numbers. Now for Credit Union and Societe Generale, the model is still based on women and men. Currently, we are undertaking huge efforts in terms of recruitments because our Financial advisers are a key part of what we do. We also train these financial advisers because we know that people such as yourself want to be able to discuss with Financial Advisors and Branch Managers. Our Branch Managers are really the backbone of our group.
And if they choose to become branch managers, it's because they want to become [SPEAKER CARLOS GOMES DA SILVA:] Well, thank you very much for your question on The climate strategy of Societe Generale. I'm not going to repeat what was said earlier, but what is difficult for us, not But for the bank for all banks and all citizens, how we are going to manage the transition between the current state of play and A world where there will be no greenhouse gas emissions. It's all about the trajectory that we follow. We talked about the 1.5 degrees The target or scenario, that's one scenario, but there's not one single scenario that comes out. But renewable energy will not be able to take a big share of energy production On the short term, in spite of the efforts that we have undertaken, the development of renewable energies is not significant enough to Substitute fossil energies.
So we believe that natural gas, including Shale gas is a transition energy that will allow us to phase out coal. And when you look at Greenhouse gas emissions in the U. S. Over the last 10 years, they have decreased. And Thanks in great part to share gas.
On this particular issue, we don't know how important I mean, I'm sorry, I'm not making any forecast of 2,050 such as you are. What is important is to Stick to the highest standards on the energy transition that we currently dispose off. And Societe Generale is very active in this particular area For the whole cycle from extraction to consumption, we abide by the most stringent Standards. Last part of our CSR strategy. So this trajectory that we are all building together is going to I gave way to a lot of discussion.
It's true. But don't forget that Shell Gas is responsible for The U. S. Phasing out. Number 10, please.
Good afternoon. My name is 16. I'm 22 years old. On the 15th March To tell you about how concerned we were with investment in fossil energy. And that day, you completely ignored These young people who came to you to discuss these issues, you've just shown us a nice slide with figures on the climate.
You've told us about your responsibility. And at the same time, you're telling us that we are the future. And when we tell you That the future that you are preparing for us is terrifying. You don't implement anything that
He
is convincing. So what are you going to tell young people? You are terrified by the future that you are preparing. Number 4, please. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders.
I'm an individual shareholder, Mr. Marmont. [SPEAKER UNIDENTIFIED COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE:] Mr. Chairman, you've told us that you've taken steps to reach your targets by setting aside Everything that is negative. But I am not convinced that this is the right We need visibility in the area of banking, and the current Model needs to be overhauled.
Given the fact that Your corporate and private clients are finding life very Can you tell us, in light of all of this, how you intend to Improve the financial situation of Societe Generale what are the levers that you are going Number 8, please. Can we let her speak? You've told us that this whole issue of Shell Gas is an energy transition and that we have to use it. We're here to tell you that it's a complete suicide, and I would like to go back to something that is very important. It's the Support of the LNG Rio Grande project.
NGOs have been flagging this up for the last couple of years, Telling you that it's a project that is detrimental to the environment and to human rights. And the Societe received a lot of data on this project. We have other banks Such as BNP Paribas, for example, who have already discontinued their advising activities to People who run this project. So my question is, what kind of impact? Are you ready to close a blind eye to?
And what's the price of human life and climate? Maybe we need a better explanation. Is that it for the round of questions? We've got 3 questions. Yes, I'd just like to go back to your previous question.
Now when it comes to shale gas and its tapping, it releases a lot of methane gas. And so we are working at how we can and we've made commitments in that area already, how we can Phase out funding to higher methane gas projects. So Rio Grande, I don't mind going back to this because you The evaluation and approval of this project, so there's an exporting Pipeline in Texas. It's a project that is underway and that has been validated by regional, state and federal to do an environment and social due diligence for all companies that will be funding this project. So all of this is underway.
And we have a social and environmental policy that has been made public and that we will be sticking to in that project. So all of this investigation is currently underway and we are awaiting the outcome. Just to add to what has been said, we do take into account the circumstances To not increase our fees throughout 2019 and to have a minimum fee for Banking is going to cost some €600,000,000 for banking, some €70,000,000 for Societe Generale. So yes, It is a loss, but we considered that it was a necessary effort to help people get out of this crisis. Societe Generale is also committed to funding more regional projects.
Loans to companies have increased by 6%. So we are really committed To fund regional projects, we are also adapting to the deep transformation needs of our societies. And yes, it's true. We need to reconcile this with profitability, with investments in digital. So it's difficult.
It's true to strike the right balance, and I think we've been able to do this with our trajectory. We have found €150,000,000 worth of training For the next 3 years, for our employees via network, it's an investment that weighs down on profitability, but that we believe will allow to adapt our networks and to bring new skills to new committees. So Our job is to strike the best balance between the different stakeholders, clients, shareholders, employees And stakeholders in society at large. Number 7, please. Marie Jean Paskett.
I'm the Founder of Minointerprenecom. It's a website and I'm also a shareholder I would like first of all to make a comment. Every time I come to this general assembly, I hear that there will be a takeover bid for the Societe Generale, but it's always amusing to me because I think it's impossible to buy up at Associete Generale because of all the past mistakes. I don't think that anyone would like to buy up this bank. And you also heard about too big to fail.
So it's not really In the year to merge banks as we saw in Germany. Right. Let's just go back to the disputes. Mr. Odea, you told us that you've taken stock of these disputes And that in terms of sanctions that have been paid and also in terms of the Amount of transactions or the level of transactions of these disputes, I imagine you take into account tax related disputes, That overall, you were underneath most of your competitors.
Can you tell us about the figures For that period of time, I remember that as from 2012, Mr. Badri was Financial Director, and he left shortly after in And he told us at the time that the provision that was booked, some 300,000,000 €400,000,000 did not correspond to any particular dispute. And then the registration Document came out and we realized that it was a big lie, Mr. Mittral. He knows it.
The Societe Generale had made commitments for some clients and was paying for their disputes. So each quarter for the last or each half year, there were new provisions that were booked, and we no longer know where we stand. So I'd like to know, overall, how much did all these Tax related or transaction related disputes make up. You can take the beginning of the early 2000s. I have a second question, sorry.
It's about Mr. Sanchez Incera, and it's still related to legal questions. His departure was considered as being forced. So was he laid off? Or was he forced to leave the company?
Of course, it changes everything from a 7th pay point So please, a bit more clarity on that. If you will It seems like you've organized things in such a way that this gentleman can leave with as much money as possible as it in fact the case. So what about also these deferred compensations for Mr. Didier Vale, because when you have your compensation package, you are paid in a deferred way. You have to reach target performances, but that is something that was not really clarified.
So how much money Did they actually take in deferred compensation and free share packages? Was your board generous or not? Thank you very much. Number 2 and number 5, please. Thank you very much for giving me the floor.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. ODDIA earlier mentioned The recent developments for both Surama, it's all very positive. I was one of the very first couple of hermetic with Mr. Moran, You'll resign Mr.
Cresigny. So it really stretches back a long time ago. When you talk about Boursorama's developments, I have here a letter That I would like to share with you, I would like to increase the number of clients. So I wrote a letter And there's also a document enclosed so that you can Increase the number of future clients Boursorama. And just to go back quickly to Boursorama, I since Mr.
Moran Left the team, it's very sad to see that the IT programmers of Boursorama And I have the feeling, in fact, that it is no longer entrusted to engineers Who crunch figures, it's just people who use screens And if you make anything complicated to read, why do we have black backdrops with colorful figures? And that's there's another point that's very important to me because I have At accounts with Societe Generale and when I looked at the fees that I had to pay down, They are really extremely high. You had GTS trading as a system a few years ago. It was very good, very clear, very effective. You could also single out a period of time.
But with the current software, It's nowhere near as good as what we had, and that's quite sad. Okay, right. We'll take your question. Thank you very much. No, no, I haven't finished.
We need to let other people take the floor. Now my question is for Deputy Director General. Could she tell me What her slide was about earlier. She was comparing Q1 2018 2017. I must admit, I did not understand It's quite mysterious.
Thank you very much.
Hello. Yves Tugayer, I'm an individual shareholder. I have For the large number of shares of Societe Generale, I have two questions I'd like to ask you. The first one Involves the appointment of the boards of members members of the board. I think that the board is too elitist.
It is made up of a sort of a club of those who had been in companies of the Cat Coforte in France. I see that out of the names, we have people Who also work elsewhere in companies like L'Oreal, ENGIE, Also another that's a member of the CAC40 company as well. I think that's too much. We can see that it's detrimental to the independence of discussions within the Board. And What I'd like or this is what I will do as I vote, I will be opposed to the renewal of 1 person Who is part of this elite, I will not mention here As I personally have nothing against you.
2nd, as regards the interest rate levels, We're a bit perplexed because currently, you tell us that you're being penalized by low interest rates And that as soon as we start talking about interest rates rising, the markets collapse, that's what happened At the end of 2018 and then we hear contradictory signs coming from the Fed Because Jerome Powell said yesterday that there was a risk involving corporate debt in the U. S. At the same time, we can see that there's a slowdown being confirmed. We're starting to say that the interest rates will Drop towards the end of the year. We don't know what to think.
I'd like to know what is a likely development And what would be best for Societe Generale in terms of interest rates, all of these effects being taken into account? So what you have on Page 44 for the registration documents and regarding Didi Verde on Page 46 for those who are looking, Bernardo, it was not a layoff. It was a resignation. We were not generous. We complied with the rules.
I think we were fair. So this is as regards to the first question that you asked. And perhaps in response to the last question, as regards the elitism of the Board of Directors, We consider
that
who should we have in the Board of Directors in the interest of the shareholders? We feel the first thing involves the skills that they be sufficiently evenly distributed. But
those We
still have the sufficient skills and finance and regulations and international expertise In terms of risk management, that is what we look at when we propose a member of the Board. And we also look at All of this confirms that when we look at diversity And also in terms of expertise and nationality, and that this is why this Board of Directors is one of very high quality. It's outside judgment being made.
And it's
one of the questions that I do ask investors. And the feedback I get is that we have a very well balanced Board of Directors. We're Very complementary. So I'm not going to answer the interest rate question we would like to have at Societe Generale Because unfortunately, the Central European Bank does not set interest rates based upon what we want Because they will be low Negative interest rates are very bad for us. We prefer positive interest rates, of course, and a regular slope with The long term rates higher than the short term rates, it's always a question.
So it holds true this holds true from the banks in the Eurozone. And that this can lead to a great deal of debt, very inexpensive debt that this can be more complicated to finance once the rates arise, which is why there can be concerns as regards American debt for certain structures that, Of course, it's one of the requirements we have to manage the risks. And that can be part of our recipe for success. As regards to your question, Out of all of the disputes for the group, the cost was €4,000,000,000 for the past 5 years. Look at the rankings that we have.
The bank that paid the most was €85,000,000,000 was American. And there are other examples in France where the amounts are around €10,000,000,000 total. So yes, we have paid for some disputes on the first to recruit it, but in terms of volume and number, not necessarily the most. Yes. What you pointed out is a mistake.
I will correct that, of course. The figures in the Columns are the right ones we're comparing 20192018. It's the titles that are mistaken and will Corrected. Before I turn the floor back, perhaps I could add that today, we do not have more regulatory disputes in here, knock on wood, And what we have already had, we can see sanctions involving exchange rates at the European Commission. We weren't there.
A new investigation on sovereign bonds were not there. And the whole issue of the culture we have is avoiding In the future, when we look at how we carry out BenQUE that we have to pay for disputes. So, Sidi, outside the fact that Benoit, the Head of Borussia Hammar. Well, yes, I'd like to thank you for your loyalty. You can see that You have many different meetings here.
So Benoit Cresonnet has become the Deputy CEO, and he's here, so it's an opportunity for you to talk to him if you want. So as regard to your question involving information systems, Borfessor Hama has retained its agility For the information systems and for the teams at Borussia Hammar that are very separate from that of Societe Generale, the teams are high performing as well. They're quite separate. We have some pooling. Now an example I'll take is a very telling one.
It is a Brossaramma tool that has been pulled and for Societe Generale as well as for Credit Union. So it is the account aggregator Engine. So it's developed by a fintech company that was bought by Barcelona. And the search engine that has been flushed out Since then, it's not just aggregating accounts, but also documents. It has been rolled out at Societe Generale and And the teams are, of course, are separate.
As regards the last point, and I'm sure that Benoit will be happy to discuss this with you, Rural Stohama, like the other banks, places great endpoints on the Customer experience, we're dealing with the Internet applications. We have customer focus group Panels looking at adjustments like the screen color. So apparently, the new charter might not correspond to what you prefer, but It's not just something that bankers make up on their own in a room. We do try to listen to the customer's voice, in particular, for all the tools that directly address the customer. And Benoit is here available to talk to you after the Shareholder shareholders meeting.
Let's try and conclude. We have 1, 10 and 11. Go ahead, sir. I'd like to repeat my question. Mr.
Levy, when he took the floor, Spoke about the exceptional 2018 bonus, but did not speak about the amount of the bonus, The number of employees involved for Societe Generale, for the Credit Unor and for Borussia Rama. Thank you. I also said 10% and 11%. So there are no other questions? So I've given the second to 10.
No other questions. So 11 also here. May I speak? Yes. I have two questions.
I would like to ask Mr. The first question. My name is Jacques I have been a client of Societe Generale for some 50 years. I have the following question. The branch I have my count at is it the only contact I have with Societe Generale.
I have a Problem with my inheritance, I've been trying to settle for the past 6 years,
but I was
curious whether the branch I, Matt, is the only contact I can have. 2nd, as I listen to you, Mr. Everything's just going swimmingly. I was surprised to read In Lumonde, an article on your shareholders' general meetings is fairly rare because the This newspaper generally doesn't present articles on shareholders' meetings that will be taking place the next day. And this article was David last night, I'm surprised to see now everything is going swimmingly and that there's a great deal of gloom and doom.
Perhaps we can take a last question, number 9. I have a question for Mr. Uddia. Last year, I asked you a question, sir, that was quite straightforward, Namely that you had a green line For statements, I'm not talking about the environment here, but it's a toll free number. So if I'm told that I'm in the red.
I know what that means. Now we've spoken about this in May. I wrote to you in July. And so I recall the letter sent in July September. I do not have a response yet.
Having said this, At my branch, there were 5 people. There are only 2 people left. As soon as I call Opening hours, they're already on the platform. There are only 2 of them that can't answer. So the call goes to be a platform.
Last, For the old customers who in 2008 recapitalized The shirt EUR 47.50 Try to remember that, sir. Try to remember that. Perhaps you can take another question, and then we'll have number 3, the last round. Hello, sir. I have an observation when you speak about disputes.
I think there's a dispute you do not mention that you're not counting, Which have been poorly managed, just like Societe Generale, which is the dispute involving Caribbean. After so many years, none of that left a lot of traces. Now, sir, When you spoke about variable pay, it has a ceiling set at 35% For those directors, they're €1,300,000 but for the CEO rather. But For the deputy CEO, the salary is lower, which makes sense. But why would they have this ceiling when they have the same criteria?
And then I received a pamphlet here, Societe Generale, I must put an end to its links to Israeli banks, [SPEAKER UNIDENTIFIED COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE:] So a key player in colonizing Palestinian banks, well, it comes from one of your unions. Could you perhaps speak about that? We'll answer that, then I'll take the last round of questions because we have voting Thank you very much. And perhaps for Henrique, Madam, I remember Your question, we will be providing a response regarding the bonuses. Just the wage policy in the group last year, there was an increase In share holding 1,000 rather profit sharing of 1,000 for each employee.
In addition to that, We decided to pay out a bonus of €250 So it was the deductible bonus That concerns 25,000 employees of Societe Generale. There's an article in Limon. There have been many articles that triggered a great deal of interest. You know that when you work in a bank that is being transformed so substantially, it's not easy. As I said, we have high requirements in terms of Transformations in terms of the remedies.
What we're trying to do once again is to ensure that everyone can be as reassured It is possible about their future. That's the challenge. And I think that we've been able to demonstrate to what extent we have been Responsible will come back over at Carvillers. That's definitively behind us. I remember it.
And as I said, I always retain what happened during financial crisis, that's what guides my actions. Of course, I misspoke if you had understood that everything was going swimmingly. No, there are improvements necessary, of course, for the share price to reflect the intrinsic value much better. I showed you tangible net asset. It has increased, And that needs to be reflected in the share price.
Philippe, perhaps? So a variety of questions. In our model, we would like to be able to offer you a variety of different Contact people at channels. We speak a lot about digital channels. And more so than ever, we, of course, have the branch.
The case you mentioned of a branch that went from 5 employees to 2, I think that might be linked to Temporary conditions, maybe people away on training or perhaps on maternity or sick leave because Down to 2, I don't have that in mind, maybe down to 4, down to 3, but 5 to 2 must be an exception. And then You have another channel, which has become important, which is appreciated by clients. So these are the phone platforms. And it is a way to be able to Respond to many of your questions or needs to subscribe new products or to make an appointment So with your representative at the bank, so we're trying to have this approach that involves multiple channels, Being able to propose to our customers within Societe Generale and Credit Uno the possibility of interacting with the bank When you want to, depending on the channel and for specific needs. So perhaps you have Various transactions you can carry out on the application, account to account transfers.
If it's more complicated, you can go through the platform by phone. And if you want to meet with your Bank representative, you can do so at the branch, and that works well. Perhaps sometimes we can have some issues, but generally, we offer choice of Interaction to the customer. As regards to questions on compensation, Mr. Levy presented the overview.
If you want more Details, you have the compensation policies report, which is available. It's been printed or you can find it as you leave the [SPEAKER UNIDENTIFIED COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE:] Varun, you should be able to
find the answers to your questions. So I'll
take one last question and then we can move on to a vote. 5, 2, 7 and 8, 5. This is regarding your platform, Logitel Net. For 50 years, since I have been trading on the stock market, I deal with this directly. And for the past 4 years, it's impossible for me to be able to place any orders A specific type of dividend.
So I'm curious because I have been Asking the question, and I have been told that they will check. And meanwhile, I have to go through the branch, And the fees are 3 times higher. All right. That's for the bonus dividends. Hello?
I would like to take the floor once again. Go ahead. Today, we had some 10 young people who came to a shareholders meeting with questions we thought were legitimate. They know that if we cannot limit climate warming to 1.5 degrees, Our planet will not be livable. These are questions That will shape our future.
You say in your slogan, the future is you. Yes, it's them. They came in. You gave them answers that were not satisfactory. That is why they went on stage in silence, just to show their message, the message they're to convey to you for months.
So I wanted to reiterate this and reiterate the fact they're not alone. For months, Thousands of young people are mobilizing throughout the world. The same voice in The climate, the future of those young people that will be called into question, it will be your financial system that you are defending so idly. So I also have a question. When are you going to realize This context among the climate that I think will end up bringing Societe Generale down to its knees, all of us down to our knees.
Thank you. 7, Stefaniele, I work in the Global Banking Sector I am speaking to you on behalf of the Association of Societe Generale Employees, Shareholders and Retired Employees, to let you know that during the PACT law, our association has been trying to move forward the Governance representation of the employee shareholders. This change was voted by lawmakers and is supposed to be applied in 2021, lean well. Let's come back to the share price. If we take a look at the fluctuations over 10 years, it is down as we heard from It has enabled us to withstand those shocks.
And if we look at the overall profitability of the share as of Last 31 December, it was roughly 1% per year over that period. We can see this very negative Environment, also factors involving our company. So you've called upon employees to invest in the group. There was a global plan, and I have two questions. First of all, the global plan, is that simply a need to raise capital?
Or are you considering coming back to a recurring A policy of recurring operations of this type. And in link with the first question, despite a decline the past few years, employees Today is to hold roughly 6% of the share capital of the group. Do you have an objective in terms of the percentage of employee shareholding? Last question, number 8. Philippe Schonner, individual shareholder.
Good evening. Mr. Uddia, you told us that Societe Generale was investing substantially in Africa, But unfortunately, it's one of the last European banks, if not the only one. So I'd like to commend you on that, and I regret this situation. I think what is even more dire is the fact that, as you mentioned before, Europe is not integrated, particularly in the political level.
Outside of France, Throughout Europe, we can see they have withdrawn completely from Africa. And if I see a risk there, it's not the same as that seen by Mr. Uzziea, meaning there will not be enough money in Africa. It's a country a continent that has substantial needs. And I think on the other side of Asia, there is a country that has a tremendous economic firepower that will be arriving Soon in Africa, I'd like to point out all these young people who come to demonstrate here that they were the Chinese will be there.
Perhaps they don't know what liberty and democracy are there, but there, There wouldn't be this type of demonstration. So I'd like to know if you could perhaps tell me what you think about this. Well, perhaps I could let Philippe and Marie say a bit about what we do in Africa and sir, I share your sentiment. It's true that we have China investing in Africa and elsewhere. And one of the issues is For Africa to retain for Europe to retain influence on that continent.
To respond to the question that was asked, yes, of course, It's not a financial issue. We were supposed to do it in 2017. At the time the disputes had been settled legally, we're not allowed to carry out that increase in capital. We did so, of course, in environment such that now that the dispute is behind us, we can do that afterwards. And so the Board would like to have a develop employee policy.
We don't set a target. We look at it regularly, but we do not have aim in terms of percentage of shareholding. Philippe, perhaps to speak a bit about Africa and L'OCCITEL perhaps, the other, Philippe. Thank you. Just briefly with regards Africa.
Thank you, Frederic. I think it's interesting to spend some time on the other part of the group. 30% of our equity being invested in emerging countries. As you know, if you look at Eastern Europe, Africa, we have invested in Africa. It's a long term commitment for almost a century.
We started operations in Morocco. We're in 19 countries now in Northern Africa, Western Africa, Central Africa. This very important commitment enables us to be able to experience high growth roughly 10%. But our ability to be able to capture this group to benefit from this African boom through the very swift demographic Development as well as the penetration of banking services, we are contributing positively to development in to the prosperity of Africa and to contribute to its stability. And Africa's stability is also the stability of Europe.
Just one figure. Between now and 2015, there will be 500,000,000 young Africans who will be coming into the labor market. We'll be looking for opportunities. And it is with this in mind that we, Societe Generale, have become involved. And it's not just a business plan.
As we heard earlier from Frederic, we'd like to grow with Africa to be able to ramp up our commitments in terms of infrastructure financing, Small and medium businesses and financial inclusion. And last, we are primarily in French speaking Africa for We have a partnership with Absa, which is a company that is part of Barclays enabling us to be able to offer services throughout French speaking, English speaking Africa In terms of the services offered to businesses.
Now regarding functionality It's true that the most sophisticated features are not available. The application is being incremented on a regular basis depending on our priorities. So I can't tell you exactly where it lies in the order of priority. But as you mentioned, there's always a possibility of turning to your branch. I'd like to go back quickly to the environment related question.
I hope that we can continue to have A rational, healthier debate about these questions. We don't claim to have answers to these Complicated questions, but believe me, we are strongly committed and we know how important this issue is. And we Remain open to discussion not only as a banker, but also as parents. Can I fully share what Frederic Hodier has just said? As Parents, these accusations that have been leveled at us today are accusations that we do not share.
At the Board of Directors, we've put a lot of thought into these issues. And It's really about transition and how quickly this transition can come about and that's what we're going to continue to focus on. But to say that we do not hear your requests and your demands is something I disagree with. Thank you very much for this discussion. Thank you for keeping your questions brief.
Now let's move on to the resolutions. I'm going to hand over the floor to Patrick Chuy, who is going to remind us Of each of these resolutions that you are asked to vote on. Ladies and gentlemen, the shareholders, the full text And wording of the resolution, this is in the registration documents. I'm not going to go over that. But do Use your tablets to vote.
And when you've made your choice, do validate the results will come up on the screen Resolution after resolution. Before we start the vote, the quorum is at 54 0.506 percent making up 400 € 405,669,000 Some 20,000 shareholders, some of which are present in the room. So we're going to start voting on the resolution. The first Resolution is here up on the screen. Approval of the consolidated accounts for 2018 financial year, the 2nd resolution approval of the annual accounts for the 2018 financial year.
The vote is open. Don't forget to validate your vote. The vote is closed. The resolution is adopted at 99.62%. 3rd resolution, allocation of the 2018 income Setting of the dividend, €2.20 per share.
It will be paid out on the 27th May On the 14th June rather, sorry, and it touches on 27th May. The vote is open. Don't forget to validate your vote. The vote is closed. Resolution is adopted at 98.95 percent.
4th resolution option for the payment of the dividend in new shares. The option will be triggered from the 27th May to 17th June, The discount of 10% and the and it's still at €27.31 The vote is closed. The resolution is adopted at 98.70 Resolution number 5, renewal of Mr. Frederic Oudia as Director Don't forget to validate. Mr.
Oudia's mandate is renewed with 96.20 percent 22%, sorry, 6th resolution, renewal of Ms. Kira Azzou as Director for a 4 year mandate. The vote is open. Don't forget to validate. The vote is closed.
97.6% of the votes. Renewal now of Mr. Girard Mistrallet as Director for a 4 year Mandate, the vote is open. Don't forget to validate your vote. And the vote is closed.
Now moving on to related party agreements and commitments previously approved. The vote is open. The vote is closed. And the resolution is adopted with 70.77 percent of votes. Related party agreement and commitment for the benefits of Mr.
The word is closed. The resolution is adopted with 68 point 13% of FERC, 10th resolution, related party agreement and commitments for the benefit of Mr. Sylvain Caban, The wait is closed. The resolution is adopted with 68.2 percent of votes. 11, resolution related party agreements and commitments for the benefit of Mr.
Philippe Emerich. The vote is open. Don't forget to validate Your
vote.
12, Resolution Related Party Agreements and Commitments for the benefit of Mr. Philipp Heim. The vote is open. Don't forget to validate your vote. And the vote is closed.
The resolution is adopted with 68.19 percent of votes. 13th resolution related party agreement And commitments for the benefit of Ms. Jonny Leboe. The vote is open. Don't forget to validate your vote.
With 68.90 percent of FERC's 14th resolution approval of the compensation policy for the Chairman of the Board of Directors That is closed. The resolution is adopted with 95.03 percent of votes. Approval of the compensation policy for the Chief Executive Officer and the Deputy Chief Executive Officers, the vote is open. Don't forget to validate. Ponents composing the total compensation of Mr.
Lorenzo Benis Maguire for the 2018 financial year. The vote is open. Don't forget to validate. The vote is now closed. The resolutions is Adopted with 94.91 percent of bids.
17, resolution approval of the components Composing the compensation of Mr. Frederic Oudier for 2018. The break's Don't forget to validate your vote. Resolution is adopted with 91.70 6% votes, 18th resolution approval of the compensation Paid or awarded to Mr. Philippe Emerich for 2018.
The vote is open. Resolution is adopted with 92.12 percent of votes. 'nineteen resolution approval of the components Composing the total compensation of Mr. Sylvain Caban for 2018. The vote is open.
The resolution is approved with 91.8 percent books. 20th resolution approval of the components composing the total compensation Page or awarding to Mr. Philippe Heim, financial year 2018. The vote is open. Don't forget to validate your votes.
The vote is closed. And the resolution is adopted with 92% of votes. Approval of the components composing the total compensation paid awarded to Ms. Junie Leboeuf for financial year 2018. The vote is open.
Don't forget to validate your vote. Approval of the components composing the total compensation paid awarded to Mr. Bernardo Sanchez in Serra, The vote is open. You'll be about validate. Don't forget to validate your vote.
The vote is closed. The resolution is approved with 70.13% of votes. 23rd resolution approval of the components composing the total compensation Paid or awarded to Mr. D. J.
Vale for 2018. The vote is open. Don't forget to validate.
And
the vote is closed. The resolution is adopted with 96.50 percent of its 24th resolution. Out of Rauzy opinion on the compensation paid in 2018 to the regulated persons, Mr. Levy mentioned it in detail earlier. The vote is open.
Don't forget to validate your vote. And the rate is closed. The resolution is adopted with 97.45 percent of its 25th resolution, Authorization granted to the Board of Directors to trade companies' ordinary shares up to a limit 5% of the share capital, of course, in keeping with the prudential Standards, the vote is open. The resolution is adopted with 98% The 20 6 last resolution powers 4 formalities. The vote is open.
Don't forget to validate your vote. The vote is closed. The resolution is adopted with 99.62 percent of both. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so very much. Your trust, the question didn't come up, but the next General Assembly will take place on the 19th May 2020.
Thank you very much, and have a pleasant evening, and don't forget