Mesdames et messieurs.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I'd like to thank you for being here with us this year. I wish you, on behalf of the Board of Directors, welcome to this combined general assembly of shareholders. We are very pleased to welcome you, and it's a great pleasure to remind you of the raison d'être of Legrand. This year, we are celebrating the 160th anniversary of the company, which is in the greatest shape. It's a French global champion, proud of its history and of its origins, even though its roots are in the French territory. We have grown in 170 countries. We are present on a high-profile segment, and while remaining leaders in our historical business, we have positioned ourselves as a key player in digitization, particularly data centers. First by innovating innovation and via the acquisitions, with 200 such acquisitions worldwide since 1950.
Legrand has an excellent financial and non-financial performance, with an integrated strategy while respecting the interests of all the stakeholders, with a capital allocation strategy that is well balanced. In an uncertainty and ever-changing world, sticking to our values and consistency, the passion of the Legrand workers, the quality of the management team, and the unwavering support of the Board of Directors, which is well united, these are many assets for sustainability and high performance level. Legrand has many promising years ahead, and we're hoping to share those with you. I suggest we start with some information regarding this General Assembly. When you arrived, you were given a card as well as a digital tablet so as to vote on the resolutions. On the stage with me, you have Mr.
Benoît Coquart, the CEO; Franck Lemery, CFO of the group; as well, Emmanuelle Levine, who is the Legal Director of the group, and she's also the General Secretary of this general assembly. This is a public meeting which is also webcast in French and in English on our website, www.legrandgroup.com. We'll first have a look at the composition of the bureau, the scrutineers being the shareholders with the highest number of shares, and if I refer to the list given by the bank, Société Générale, these are Gilles Schneider and Olivier Bazille. Thank you to the two of them. With the support of these two people, I suggest we appoint Mrs. Emmanuelle Levine as General Secretary for this general assembly. Regarding the quorum, I will ask the secretary to remind us of the enforceable rules.
The quorum for a general assembly first call is 20% of the shares with voting rights, and for an extraordinary meeting, it's 25%. The provisional quorum is now at 81.18% of the shareholders with voting rights. Consequently, the quorum required by the French law is met, and we may start our session. Based on this, I officially declare open this combined general meeting. Emmanuel, can you confirm that all the documents have been made available to the shareholders? Indeed, the report of the board on the social and consolidated account, as well as the text of resolution, as well as all the documents as per the French law, have been made available to the shareholders under the required due times.
I also would like to remind you that we have with us the members of the Board of Directors who are sitting on the first row, as well as our statutory auditors, and we're also very pleased to have with us former Legrand directors who are still very loyal to the company. It is a combined general meeting with extraordinary and ordinary resolutions, which will be detailed later on by Emmanuelle at the end of my presentation. 11 to 13 are the ordinary resolutions, as well as resolution number 17. Extraordinary resolutions are resolutions 14 to 16. We haven't received any suggestions for new resolutions or items to be added to the agenda by the shareholders. We have planned for this meeting to end around 5:00 P.M. after the voting on resolution. As per the usual habit, I'll spare you the reading of all the reports.
You will find all the text of the reports which have been made available on the website of Legrand, as well as the head office of the company. You have the agenda for this afternoon displayed on screen. Benoît Coquart, the Chief Executive Officer, will present the details of the strategic model of Legrand. Franck Lemery will come to the financial performance, and Virginie Gatin, the Head of CSR, will present our achievements in non-financial results for 2024, as well as our 2025-2027 CSR roadmap. Michel Landel, Chair of the Lead Directors, will tell us more about the governance, the work which has been achieved in 2024, before presenting the President of the Remuneration Committee, as well as the social accounts for 2024-2025. Emmanuelle Levine, who's the Legal Director, will present the content of the resolutions.
Our statutory auditors will introduce their report, we will then move on to the Q&A sessions, and eventually we will come to the balance on resolutions. Now, I am giving the floor to Benoît Coquart, our Chief Operating Officer. Thank you, Antoine. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Good evening, even though it is a bit dark. It is not the evening. Dear shareholders, I am very pleased to meet you today. I will be presenting our business model. I know that many of you are quite familiar with this model. If you have any questions, of course, I will answer your questions. We have a unique range of products. We have 300,000 SKUs in our catalogs and 200,000 customized SKUs. That is 500,000 products covering the whole range of needs in a building, be it a tertiary data center or residential housing. You have a few examples here.
The traditional products, these are the control electrical installations, the cables in a building, as well as devices which may reduce energy consumption in a data center. We have a full-fledged range. I think it is the most complete on the market, with a balanced exposure across geographies: 40% Europe, 20% rest of the world, 40% North America. For the markets, many people see us as a residential market operator, our historical business. Of course, in your houses or apartments, you must have sockets of Legrand. It is still 35% of our revenue, but the non-residential, that is, offices, hospitals, universities, etc., account for 45%, and data centers in 2024 accounting for 20%, and it will probably be between 20-25% for 2025. We are uniquely positioned in this industry.
We are the only sizable pure player in this business with two profiles of competitors: SMEs, which would have a turnover of some EUR 100,000 with a single market and a single range of products. These are very dynamic because they have the best knowledge of their customers and the local market, but they do not necessarily have the size and the know-how to expand beyond their domestic markets. They are often the targets of acquisitions. You are dealing with very big companies, conglomerates with different ranges of products and services. Legrand is somewhere in the middle, uniquely positioned, a large size with EUR 9 billion sales revenues this year, so we are a global operator. On the other side, we have the agility, the specialization, the rapid development like SMEs. This is making Legrand unique, and it also explains for its success.
Now, the asset of Legrand is innovation to start with. Over this long period of time, we spent some 5% of our sales in R&D. It's a ratio above the industry standards every year. We may launch up to 10 product innovations. You have a few examples on the right-hand side. The Nexpand server racks for the white rooms of data centers were a very small footprint, allowing to gain space in the data centers and allowing for an easy cold and hot air circulation. That's very important for data centers. We have the new Cellion range.
I don't know whether some of you have had the opportunity or the fortune to refurbish your house, or if you have a forthcoming such project, I will encourage you to have a look at this range of products which has been designed and manufactured in France, with a very nice design, with a very interesting innovation for the electricians and for the dwellers of these houses. In addition, we have a whole range of solutions to mitigate climate change. Many solutions for that 23% will allow to reduce the energy consumption of buildings. We have the connected thermostats for your heating system so as your energy bill will go down. One degree of one Celsius degree is 8% less on your annual energy bill.
If you have such solutions allowing you to decrease your temperature by one or two degrees Celsius with such thermostats with centralized smart systems, you can make significant savings up to EUR 500 per year. That's conventional products for residential. For commercial buildings, it will rather be lighting according to the presence or not in the building, or depending on the natural light coming in the building. Here again, you can make significant savings up to the data centers with cooling systems, which will help to significantly reduce the PUE, that is, energy consumption of data centers, with cooling systems which are closer to the racks and with less energy waste. These are some innovative solutions helping to save energy, and they're quite successful. On top of that, we also communicate on the impact of our products on their life cycle.
This is very useful information for engineering studies in order to eco-design buildings which will consume less power with a higher efficiency. 75% of our sales are made with eco-responsible products, as we call them, with a full life cycle impact considered. Another asset are our customers. We have a long selling chain. We sell to wholesalers who in turn will sell to electricians, SMEs, or individual electricians based on the requirements of architects, for instance, and they will end up putting these devices in your working environment or at home or in the data centers. We want to meet our customers' objectives and satisfaction. Here we measure the satisfaction of our customers. These are non-friendly words, but that's the way it is measured. There are two main parameters: the CSAT, customer satisfaction of clients. We interview customers to try and see if they're happy or not.
We have an 80% rate, which is on the rise. The second is NPS, the Net Promoter Score, where we check the difference between those clients that are very satisfied or those who are very unsatisfied. Thirty is considered as a satisfactory percentage, and it has been on the rise since 2022. It is not, you know, a mundane activity. We have interviewed 400 customers in 170 countries. These customers will report their concerns and their requests, and country by country, we work with these customers and we try to improve the products. We have realized that we have done a lot of progress on technical support, training of our employees, etc. Another asset is our capacity to integrate more software in our activity. We have a connected range. That is for 15% of our sales, more than 40 connected families out of 100.
The percentage of what is dedicated to software was barely 5% in 2010, is now 22% and will be 25% in 2030. That is a high amount of our headcount dedicated to the software development. Now, pricing. Of course, customers might consider that it is expensive, but as shareholder, you might be very happy that we are regularly increasing our prices. In 2022-2023, even though there was a high inflation rate, we have tried not to push too much on the prices to remain competitive on the market. Our capacity to increase our price every year is an asset in the long run. It is a 2% average per year.
Not by increasing the prices every year, it's a know-how that we have in-house and in all the countries where we operate, while acting on all the other levers, because we have high quality, available, easy to maintain products that the face value of our product is acceptable to customers. As qualified here, it is a sustainable strategic asset. Acquisitions, mergers and acquisitions that, as the Chairman of the Board has reminded us, we have done quite a high number of acquisitions, 26 since 2020, with EUR 3 billion invested for all geographic areas, North America, Europe, the rest of the world. That is true for all the infrastructure essential products, but also new segments where we've heavily invested, many in data centers. 60% of the acquired sales are related to energy and digital transition.
Here again, it's because of this unique positioning as a specialist of an average size in its segment that we are attractive. The companies that are joining Legrand are not joining huge conglomerates with many different actives. We are identified as a pure player in the sector, which will help these companies to grow. Their success story is just extraordinary because they have grown since they've joined Legrand. Now, let's move on to the forthcoming trends. As you will certainly understand, there is the environmental urgency, everything that is related to data and societal changes. Now, for the first one, environmental changes, we may regret that this is not on the agenda anymore, as opposed to five years ago. Legrand, we still see it as something vital for our societies and for the company.
That is, the share of electricity in the global energy mix will go from 20% to 41%, mainly based on renewables. It is also the fact that there is this need to reduce the energy consumption of buildings if we want to reduce the global energy consumption of our societies. 30% of the energy consumption comes from the buildings. The second issue is the data everywhere with a booming growth, with the need to invest heavily in energy infrastructures to support this. If you've read the papers recently, you've seen that there have been some statements and when one operator would reduce some capacity, was postponing its investment, etc. As far as we're concerned, we think that the data centers is a business which will keep on growing massively in the forthcoming years.
In the short term, it will be supported by the backlog, by the orders, which is robust, which is securing our revenue for the forthcoming years, and the artificial intelligence, which will be present in all business sectors, and the cloud storage, everything that is interconnected, gaming, now you had a console now it's online, health, you have connected health, all this will translate in a booming of data and therefore of data centers. For those of you who are concerned, you may be reassured that this business will keep on growing. The growth in the population, the emergence of a certain number of middle-class countries, and the aging of the population, this will provide certain opportunities for Legrand because we have a full range of offers, assistance for autonomy and health products.
This has led the group to keep investing in essential infrastructure products, those you know of well. These are the signatures of Legrand, the switches and plugs. Since a few years, we have invested in all these solutions to support this transition. These are data centers. I talked about this, 20% of the group's total sales, the energy transition, and all that is related to digital lifestyles. I'll get back to this. The essential infrastructure products, this is in building and construction. We're not doing that well, but we hope that it will recover in the coming years. All these products, 47% of the digital transition, it's drawn by these major trends that will allow us to develop and develop our activities. As for our offers, sorry for these slides, they're quite barbarian.
You can find them on the internet site, and you can go in the details of all this if you're interested. Here you have a visual aid on the solutions for the data centers. We have white rooms, server rooms, those are the white rooms and the gray rooms. We are the major players for infrastructures for the white rooms. We have a full offering from the transformer, low voltage, high voltage, and the racks. Energy transition, we have three segments, the products that allow us to distribute, to protect electricity, the circuit breakers, the products that allow us to reduce the consumption of energy, and the products that allow us to adapt to the new uses related to electrification. Thirdly, the digital modes of living, that is, smart homes and automations for hotels. We have completed this offering with the connected health.
This is EUR 200 million of sales. Here you have products, the necklaces to help people if they have falls, etc., and connected software to manage the relations between the patient and the healthcare system. This is a new segment of activity. We will keep making acquisitions, and we hope that we will record some significant growth in those sectors. You have all the rest, and I insist we are very proud of these products, and we are investing in these segments, R&D, essential infrastructure, systems, devices, the components of the buildings, the boxes, the lighting, audio, video, etc., that represents more than half of our turnover.
I'm going to use this slide to say at the end of our meeting, we'll give you a tablet to vote, and when you give us the tablet, in exchange for this tablet, we'll give you a small gift, which is a DeepLit, which is a multi-plug system, multi-socket. You have USB-A, USB-C connections, and you will be able to charge your smartphone on this. You can put your smartphone on the top and connect it from the bottom. It's called a DeepLit. I hope you like it. It has come out straight from our design office. Now, why? Oh, it's not the DeepLit, but why? The strategy. We have ambitions for 2030, as you can see, which are very strong, but they're realistic. We have a plan to reach them, total sales between EUR 12 billion-EUR 15 billion.
Of course, we've organized ourselves to reach the EUR 15 billion rather than the EUR 12 billion. That's the group strategy. We want to keep being profitable, more profitable than the average in the industry, 20% of sales, free cash flow around EUR 10 billion. And half of this free cash flow will be used for acquisitions. Between 2025 and 2030, we will spend EUR 5 billion in acquisitions that will create more value, and we will have a good distribution of dividends, 50% of net income payout. Very proud of this data at Legrand. We have some former directors here in the room. We'd like to reassure them. Since the IPO of Legrand, the initial IPO in the 1970s, the dividend never went down. It was stable or it progressed. For the 55th year, we can boast a dividend that is stable or going up.
This year, it is stable or going up. Franck Lemery, the financial manager, will talk about this. These are the financial indicators. We are very dynamic for all that is non-financial. One third of the key management positions will be held by women. Virginie Gatin will say it is not just to be a responsible player. We will have a better performance than what we have today. Our objectives are ambitious to reduce our carbon footprint, scopes one, two, and three. You have the figures here. We want to keep working on the circular economy by phasing out the use of single-use plastic in our packaging of our products. By saving energy, we will allow our customers to reduce 70 million tons of CO2 emissions, which is a lot for the group. 80% of our sales will be responsible Legrand sales products.
Now I'm going to show you a quick video showing you some video innovations that have come out since your last general summary meeting. Thank you. Innovation, one of the two drivers of the group. Now I'd like to invite Franck Lemery, who's the Financial Manager of the group, and he's going to talk about the financial performance of the group.
Thank you, Angeles. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm delighted to be here to talk about the financial performance of the group. This performance will be described in three parts: what we've done in 2024, 2025, which is very promising, and the relations with the shareholders, therefore, between you and the company. Let's begin and let's look back in time. Let's look at 2024, and let's begin with our net sales. 2024 was a successful year. It was successful in terms of activities.
You're all aware of the market in which we operated in 2024. It was a complex building market, which was slowing down. In spite of that, the group recorded growth. If we combine organic growth with the growth through our acquisitions, plus 4%, and this was positive. Within this context, this was a major achievement. Now, if we look at organic growth, we can see two things. First, the geographical situation. Where does this 1% of organic growth come from? The building sector was going through a slump. It came through North and Central America. The macroeconomics was more favorable compared to other developed countries, and our data center offer is highly present there. It also comes from the rest of the world with a plus 1.3% growth.
Here, all the countries, all the major geographies in the rest of the world are recording growth, apart from China, which was slightly behind, and Europe for Legrand really withstood and recorded a drop of only 2%. Once again, the building sector was undergoing a slight slump. This is the geographical situation. Now, if we look at the different sectors, the verticals in the group, the entire growth of the group came from the data centers. The data centers account for 20% of our activity. The data centers grew by 15% last year in organic terms over the full year. Now, the second reason to be satisfied, the second success of Legrand last year after our growth in our net sales, this is profitability. You know the group well. You know that on an average, the group's profitability is around 20% in terms of the adjusted operating margin.
Look at two figures here. The one on the top, 21%, the one at the bottom, 20.5%. You have the last two full years of Legrand, 2023, 2024. These are the two years. Sorry, 2023 and 2024. These are two record years for the group, 21%, 20.5%, and two achievements from which we can learn two things. First, it fully validates the group's strategic model, the choices we've made in terms of market orientation, the orientation of our verticals, and it has also demonstrated the resilience of the group in a market that remained very complex in 2024. Therefore, growth, profitability, value creation in general. Let's look at the bottom of the net sales. Here, in terms of value, EUR 1.2 billion, 13.5% of the sales. This is a remarkable figure. These net sales were very well converted into generation of cash, and generating cash is very important.
1.3 million of free cash flow, nearly 15% of sales, and the conversion rate, cash generation above 100%. That is for 2024. Nice growth, nice profitability, nice value creation, and nice cash generation. Now, if we look back and if we look at this year over a longer period of time, in the past five years, let's look at the figures. First, we must remember the number of crises, the environment in which we operated in the last five years, between 2020 and 2024. There was the COVID, post-COVID, hyperinflation, the war between Russia and Ukraine, the supply chains. You remember they were totally disrupted and all kinds of other things. The list is very long. We are living in a world where there are so many crises, multiple crises, as described by analysts. What did the group do during these years?
First, we posted growth, plus 31% in terms of our sales. That is the first characteristic of the group. Secondly, profitability, 20.3% of operating margin on an average, and our net sales increased by 42%. Generation of cash. These are the three ingredients for our financial success: 15.3% of cash generation. What did we do with this cash? How did we allot this capital? We allotted it in a very smart way and in a very disciplined way. First, we paid out dividends to our shareholders, very attractive dividend, a permanent growth in our dividends. That is roughly 50% of the group's results that were paid out to our shareholders. Secondly, we invested for the future. We bought companies. Roughly half of the cash generation of the group over five years was dedicated to acquire new companies that will make up our future growth.
All this was done by maintaining a very robust balance sheet. Here, financially, we're talking about a net debt over EBITDA ratio. Last year, this ratio was at 1.5, and the cash available accounted for EUR 2 billion. Over five years, just as over one year, the financial metrics were very satisfactory, very sound in a very complex environment. Now, if we take some more hindsight, I suggest you look at the slide that we share each and every year with you. This is how we share the added value that Legrand creates within the various stakeholders. The definition of this added value is what our customers give us, the net sales minus what we pay to our suppliers.
This is a figure, and this figure is then allotted by Legrand, roughly 50% to our employees in terms of wages, bonuses, one fourth, actions to develop. We are preparing for the future. This is industrial investment, R&D, acquisitions, and another quarter for the other stakeholders. The other stakeholders, 14% goes to the shareholders. In this breakdown of our added value, there are two major features that make up the DNA of the group. First of all, it is very balanced, 50%, and two quarters over long periods, over 15 years, over 10 years, we have the same metrics. The second characteristic is a great coherence, stability of this breakdown, of this added value over a long period of time. Now, 2024, as I've just said, we shared this with a few figures. It was a very successful year in terms of our figures.
You have not only the figures. What I'd like to look at is the way in which we did this. In 2024, there was a lot of strategic execution. I'd like to share with you four very structuring initiatives that echo Benoît's presentation. First, the growth in our data centers. Last year, the data centers, in terms of organic growth, represented a growth of 15%. Over a longer period of time, it is nearly 20% growth. If we combine acquisition, organic growth, 13% organic growth. This is a very powerful vertical in terms of growth. This figure is validating our strategy and is showing that Legrand's positioning is that of a leader, of a champion in data centers. The second initiative or strategy, which illustrated our roadmap in 2024, is that we use 5% of our net sales to innovate.
Here you see multiple innovations, innovations in the growth segments. We talk about energy transition, digital transition, and innovations in essential infrastructure. This is one of the characteristics of the group. Even for our simple products, we are always capable of innovating to benefit our clients. That is the second major strategic innovation for 2024 after the execution of our strategic roadmap. The third major lever of our strategic roadmap, as Angeles said and Benoît, these are our acquisitions. This is an industrial activity. In 2024, you can see it was a vintage year in terms of figures. Nine acquisitions carried out in 2024, EUR 430 million of acquisitions in 2024. There is the quantity, but there is quality too. Quality, we can find it.
Acquisitions in data centers, of course, acquisitions in the digital lifestyles, and especially connected health, which is a very promising segment. You have acquisitions in a more traditional sector, essential infrastructures, acquisitions that we have realized in Australia and in New Zealand, and acquisitions. The strategic benefits are very good here because overnight, with these acquisitions, we nearly doubled our presence over this continent. Imagine the change in scales, the investment capacity, the quality of our relations with our distributors, the power and the striking force of Legrand after these acquisitions in these geographies.
The fourth lever for growth in 2024 is very traditional. We always mention that at our general assemblies. These are all the productivity initiatives. The best way to do that is to share this with a video. Voilà, des images qu'on aime beaucoup lorsqu'on aime la.
These are images that one likes when you are interested in industrial production. Now, let's turn to 2025. As we've said, it will be a promising year. Now, the Q1 figures here again are displaying two things. The figures are showing that we are on the rise, 11.3% trend increase comparing the two quarters. If we compare organic, if we take together organic growth and acquisitions, so 5.6% for organic growth, so it's quite robust. The second important financial indicator is our profitability. It has improved here again on the first quarter in 2025 compared with the first quarter of 2024 in terms of margin and net profit, plus 6% for the net profit. Here again, we find all the ingredients that are driving the success of our strategic roadmap. The data center market is buoyant.
In 2024, we said that the figures have grown in 15% of organic growth in the full year. For the last quarter of 2024, the growth was 30%. In the first quarter of 2025, it's even higher than 30%. Second, a strong aspect in our strategy, and we'll talk about it again and again, are the acquisitions. Since the beginning of the year, we have already announced two acquisitions, and over 12 rolling months, it's about 10 companies that have been acquired for a total sales revenue close to EUR 500 million worth of acquisitions. That is a very good starting point for 2025, a very promising starting point. 2025 should also be a very good year. These are the targets for the group in terms of sales. To start with, combining organic growth and acquisitions, it's always important to have both together, 6-10%.
You remember that it was 11% for the first quarter, an adjusted operating margin, which will be stable compared with 2024. Of course, this implies sticking to our CSR objectives. 100% achievement rate is our objective for our next roadmap. These are the figures for 2024 and the figures for 2025. Now, let's talk about the relation with you shareholders. Starting with the yield of the Legrand share, you have two sets of data here: CAC 40 versus the Legrand shares. Usually figures will end in December, but we have gone for up to April, but it's more than 450% in reality if we consider up to April. An annual return with reinvested dividends of 11%. It's even closer to 12% today as we're here. These are good figures and good news for the returns for our shareholders.
Now, if we consider the dividend, the proposed dividend per share is growing by 5%. This is in line with the capital allocation that is 50% of the net profit. If we take a bit of a hindsight over five years, as I said, the sales have grown by 31% over five years. The earnings per share have also increased, as well as the payout. Now, still talking about our relations with our shareholders, we pay great attention to the quality of our relation with our shareholders, which is not based on figures, but on other qualitative aspects, let's say. Good practices are shown here. I will remember from this list three of those. The quarterly comprehensive information, we are a one-and-a-few operator on the stock exchange in Paris, providing every quarter all the figures with the cash generation, the P&L, etc.
Second, many initiatives aimed at communicating with you. There is the letters to the shareholders. There is the website, invitations to visit our sites. Lastly, on the right-hand side, also the fact that in our roadmap and in our strategy for CSR, we are interviewing our stakeholders, our shareholders. We think it's important. That is for the financial part of this general meeting. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much, Franck Lemery. As you know, the financial and non-financial performance will go hand in hand at Legrand. Virginie Gatin, the Head of our Environmental and Societal Responsibility, will give you an update on all this. Good afternoon. Thank you, Angeles. I'll be talking about the CSR performance of the group. To start with, there is a key message to convey, which was already mentioned by Benoît.
Our CSR is really a driver for the overall performance of the group. It's important to mention this because it is a key element of the success of the group on a par with the financial performance. Now, it allows us, with our customers, to be more relevant. We've talked about customer satisfaction earlier. Focusing on customer satisfaction with right indicators and clear objectives and targets will drive us to be better, to improve, and to improve the satisfaction of our customers. We're helping these customers to achieve their objectives by providing them energy efficiency products because those customers are searching for this type of products, but also want more information about the products and more products that are based on eco-design. It makes us a more attractive employer. We see that our employees are more loyal to us, and they want to stay with us.
It's also helping us to be more attractive, to attract more talents in the company. We want to use also these CSR drivers to attract new talents and train them. It helps to unite the employees and to develop and foster a strong corporate culture. Finally, it helps us to be more efficient. We are still reducing in a significant fashion the cost of our energy consumption on our sites, but also we have health and safety policies that are aiming at reducing the number of accidents, industrial accidents. We constantly aim for improvement to be more efficient. All this helps the group to be more efficient in terms of CSR. Now, if we consider the non-financial aspect, it was the 2023-2024 roadmap. We have an achievement rate of 113%. We are very proud because our objectives were quite ambitious.
The four pillars for diversity and inclusion, we ended 2024 at 122% for the carbon footprint and climate, 136% for circular economy. We knew it would be the most difficult and the newest pillar in our roadmap for this period, 2022-2024. Our objectives were very ambitious. Our teams have been mobilized on this topic. We ended up the year at an 85% achievement rate. As a responsible business, we ended up at 108%. All in all, we're quite satisfactory with these results. Now, what does that mean for the group? A few examples. Starting with diversity and inclusion. We closed 2024 with a grad pay of 14 plus. That is an executive position for women, 30.5%. A very interesting degree is 94% of our employees are working now in entities that are GEIS diversity labeled. That is various types of diversities that are considered, including gender diversity.
We have had close to 4,300 new opportunities for providers for early in careers, you know, fixed-term contracts, non-fixed-term contracts, interns, etc. Carbon footprint, very interesting result. We have reduced by 53% our direct and indirect carbon emissions, scopes one and two over the three years. Our objective is to be at minus 30%. We are very pleased. Thank you to all the teams for the work they have done on that. 330 key suppliers have been committed in this undertaking so that they would reduce also their CO2 emissions by 2030 and therefore helping us to reduce our own emission for a circular economy. As I said, it is a new pillar. It is important because it is about collecting material, recycling material, eco-design, but it is also meeting some of our customers' expectations. At the end of 2024, there were 10% of recycled plastics and 44% of recycled metals.
Seventy-five percent of our sales were made with product sustainability profiles, including the PEPS, or Product Environmental Profile, providing our customers information as to the environmental footprint of the product they buy. Finally, as a responsible business, 96% of our employees were trained at least seven hours in 2024. Our objective, of course, is to improve this. When it comes to health and safety at work, we have decreased by 26% the TF2, that is the workplace accident rate with and without lost time over the three years of our roadmap. For our business ethics, we are at 98% achievement in 2025. Another very important thing, we have become shareholders in Circulaire, a French company specializing in circular economy expertise and consulting. Now, for 2022-2024, we have had good results.
If we consider the last five years, we realize that the reduction of the carbon emission in scope one and two was on the previous roadmaps as well, not only on the 2022-2024 roadmap. It is 61% five years cumulated, plus 30% of women holding managing positions in the group at the end of 2024. That is plus 30% over five years, 30.5% in total in 2024. For the TF2, the frequency rate to minus 32% over five years. We have also helped our customers to avoid some CO2 emissions thanks to our energy efficiency solutions. 20 million tons of CO2 were saved. On March 25 this year, we have launched our new roadmap, which was presented to the financial community with the same pillars.
Of course, the idea is to carry on with the initiatives that had been started, but we wanted to put the customer at the heart of our services. Now, we have a fifth pillar in our roadmap, which is entitled Serving Our Customers. In order to present this, let's have a look at this short video.
C'est pourquoi nous renforçons nos ambitions RSE pour faire face aux défis du monde qui nous entoure. Aujourd'hui, avec cette sixième feuille de route pleinement intégrée à notre stratégie de développement, nous mobilisons nos équipes, nos partenaires, nos fournisseurs et l'ensemble de notre écosystème dans cette dynamique vertueuse. Parce que notre moteur est avant tout l'humain, nous nous engageons pour la diversité et l'inclusion.
Avec la féminisation des postes de management, en favorisant toutes les formes de diversité, avec nos effectifs qui évoluent dans des entités labellisées diversité et inclusion, en proposant des nouvelles opportunités pour les jeunes générations et en valorisant nos fournisseurs qui partagent cette vision. Notre ambition est de lutter activement contre le changement climatique. Nos équipes se mobilisent chaque jour pour réduire nos émissions carbone. D'une part, en limitant nos émissions directes de gaz à effet de serre sur nos sites, et d'autre part, en diminuant les émissions indirectes et en accompagnant nos fournisseurs pour qu'ils s'engagent dans une démarche de décarbonation. La transition vers une économie plus circulaire est un enjeu majeur. Nous avons donc placé l'éco-conception au cœur de notre stratégie pour proposer des produits toujours plus durables et circulaires à nos clients.
Nous utilisons toujours plus de matières recyclées et nous nous engageons à éliminer progressivement tous les plastiques à usage unique de nos emballages. La satisfaction de nos clients est au cœur de nos préoccupations. Les écouter est donc essentiel pour répondre à leurs attentes, notamment grâce à nos enquêtes de satisfaction. Nous offrons des solutions à nos clients pour qu'ils réduisent la consommation énergétique de leurs bâtiments grâce à nos produits et services à haute efficacité énergétique et pour qu'ils puissent évaluer la performance environnementale de nos produits grâce aux profils environnementaux. En tant qu'acteurs responsables, nous mettons en œuvre les meilleures pratiques au quotidien pour nos collaborateurs et nos partenaires. Pour nous, il est essentiel de respecter les droits humains, agir de manière éthique, garantir la sécurité au travail et développer en continu les compétences de nos collaborateurs par la formation. C'est aussi ça la clé d'un avenir durable.
Partout où nous le pouvons, nous intensifions nos actions pour améliorer les vies. C'est notre responsabilité pour un avenir durable.
So this is the summary of our sixth CSR roadmap. I'm going to show you the objectives. As you could see in the video, we have indicators, we have targets, and this gives a real meaning to the actions of our employees to meet our customer expectations and stakeholders' expectations. 35% of the management positions will be held by women by 2027, 100% of our headcount working in a diversity-labeled organization, GEIS, diversity, etc. 4,000 positions offered to early in careers. Here we're talking about interns, apprentices, those who have fixed-term contracts. We're going to keep working with our suppliers. 100 new businesses will be developed and will be developed with suppliers committed to diversity and inclusion. We're going to pursue our efforts to mitigate climate change.
The objective is to reduce by 10% our scope one and two CO2 emissions by 2027 versus 2024. We'll keep working with our suppliers. The objective is to reduce by 30% the emissions in the operations of our suppliers by 2030. That is 70% of all the purchased goods emissions. So we're going to cover the emissions of our suppliers, and we're going to ask them to commit to themselves to reduce these emissions by 30%. As for our circular economy, eco-design is at the heart of our innovation. 50% of new and redesigned projects meeting Legrand's eco-design index criteria. We're going to pursue the group's eco-design. We're going to work on recycled material. More than one-third of the materials will be sustainable in our products by 2027, and we will keep reducing plastics packaging. We want to reduce this by 80%. Serve our customers.
This is a new pillar. It is important to recall that our customers are at the core of all our actions. We're going to have a reduction of 20 million tons of CO2 emissions on our roadmap. As Benoît said, we want to maintain our customer satisfaction at 80% and a net promoter score at 50. We want to cover 72% of our annual revenue with the product sustainability profile and be a responsible business. That is a new topic because regularly we carry out materiality surveys with our stakeholders, and you are part of them. Human rights is very important in our CSR. We have introduced this new objective for human rights and our suppliers. The objective is to reach 100% of our major suppliers who will be committed.
Committed means they will have signed the code of conduct of Legrand, and they have to be over 45 points in terms of eco-values. 100% will have to sign the suppliers' contract. We have an objective of 100% for training and the compliance of all our entities. We're going to introduce a new accident rate, the TF2. This is the accidents with time and without lost time. This includes people who are temporary workers. Temporary workers. The objective is to reduce this TF2T by 20% between 2024-2027. It is important to have this enlarged scope. We will keep training our employees. I do not know if you remember, but our objective is that 85% would be our aim, but now it is 90% will have to be trained for 10 hours by 2027.
We will keep working on the skills of all our employees. All this work, our CSR roadmaps pay off in terms of our rating. We have good recognition from our rating agencies. We have integrated list A for climate change. We are noted gold by Ecoverdis. We have the double A, MSI. All this work is recognized by all these external bodies, and we are very happy about that. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. It is time to talk about governance and compensation. I'll ask Michel Landel, who is our Lead Director, to speak about this. Thank you, Angeles.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, your company is deeply attached to maintain high demand in terms of governance. This is translated with a separate corporate governance structure.
Our board is following the best practices in compliance with the recommendations of the AFEP-MEDEF code, a strong involvement of all the members of the board. You see that the attendance rate is close to 97% and a whole set of very complementary expertise. Now, as for the composition of the board, I'd like to recall our objectives. We have five objectives: to maintain the number of directors between 10 and 12 members, our independence must be greater than 70%, we have to keep promoting parity, equality between men and women, keep acquiring relevant skills considering the group's strategy, and make our company more international and make our directors more international. You will have to decide about the appointment of a new director, Mrs. Stéphane Pallez. Thanks for her experience as a director. She will be very useful in the work of your board.
Unfortunately, she couldn't attend today, but she has prepared a very short video, and I suggest we listen to her.
Bonjour à toutes et à tous. Merci de me donner l'opportunité de me présenter brièvement à vous aujourd'hui, ne pouvant pas être présente parmi vous dès cette assemblée générale. Je suis donc aujourd'hui Présidente Directrice Générale de FDJ United, plus connue sous le nom de Française des Jeux, une entreprise que je dirige depuis dix ans. En dix ans, j'ai mené avec les équipes de FDJ une transformation profonde de l'entreprise, en particulier à travers deux opérations stratégiques : sa privatisation via une introduction en bourse très réussie en 2019, qui a permis à 500,000 investisseurs particuliers de devenir actionnaires de l'entreprise aux côtés des plus grands investisseurs institutionnels.
Et en 2024, l'acquisition de Kindred, un grand opérateur européen des jeux en ligne, via une OPA amicale sur la Bourse de Stockholm, qui a fait de nous un des leaders européens du secteur. Avant FDJ, j'ai accumulé, à travers un parcours mixte entre l'État et l'entreprise, une expérience riche et variée dans le domaine de la finance, des relations internationales et de l'entreprise. J'ai débuté ma vie professionnelle au service de l'État, au sein du ministère des Finances à la direction du Trésor, où j'ai acquis une forte expertise financière et internationale. J'ai à plusieurs reprises été en charge de questions industrielles, notamment à travers la gestion des participations de l'État, et mis en œuvre des opérations stratégiques et d'évolution du capital de nombreuses entreprises, comme la privatisation d'Air France ou l'évolution du capital d'Eramet.
La deuxième partie de ma carrière dans le monde de l'entreprise a débuté chez Orange en 2004 en tant que directrice financière déléguée, puis a conduit à ma première fonction de PDG de CCR, la Caisse centrale de réassurance. J'ai ainsi construit une expérience variée de stratégie d'entreprise et de leur gouvernance via ma présence continue au sein de nombreux conseils d'administration d'entreprises cotées, en tant qu'exécutif chez Orange ou que membre du conseil d'administration chez Engie, CNP Assurances ou Eurazeo, où j'ai exercé notamment les fonctions de présidente du comité d'audit et des risques. Je suis donc enthousiaste à la perspective, si vous le décidez, de rejoindre le conseil d'administration de Legrand, une entreprise impressionnante par sa résilience stratégique, la qualité de son management et de sa gouvernance, et de pouvoir lui apporter ma contribution dans la poursuite de son succès. Je vous remercie.
Today, you will have to decide about the renewal as director of Patrick Koller. If you approve, he will be a member of the Compensation and Governance Committee. You will have to pronounce on the renewal of the terms of office of Florent Menegaux, and if you approve it, he will be the member of the Audit Committee. Therefore, after this combined general meeting, and if you approve it, your board will be made up of 82% independent directors, which is greater than the 50% recommended by the AFEP-MEDEF code, 55% women, and seven different nationalities. Your board will have great diversity in terms of skills and complementary experience, and we will use all this experience for our work.
As for my role as Lead Director, this year, I worked with the Appointments Committee on the succession plan of the directors, worked on the assessment of the board, which was done in-house, and there is a good operation of your board, managed meetings of the non-executive directors, and dialogue with a certain number of investors from our group during a governance roadshow. On the next slide, you can see that the board's activity was quite intense and rich, with an attendance rate which was close to 100%. I'll let you discover on this last slide the composition of the committees after today's general meeting, so long as you approve the appointments and the renewal of all the directors presented here. That is it for me in terms of the governance.
Thank you, Michel.
Before talking about compensation, I would like to pay tribute to two directors who are going to leave today after having served at the board of Legrand for several years: Ned Giherly and Olivier Bazille. Ned came back to the Legrand board in 2018 after having served here for the first time between 2003 and 2011. He was a pillar at the board, and he was very astute in terms of all the acquisitions we carried out, and he has a great knowledge of North America. Olivier Bazille is a real institution for our company. He joined Legrand in 1973. He had a brilliant career. He became the Vice President and Joint Delegate Manager, and he keeps serving the group at the board, and he spent 52 years of his life at Legrand.
His attachment for the group, the deep knowledge of the different businesses, and his industrial and financial skills were very useful to us all these years. I'd like to have a round of applause for Ned and Olivier. Now, we're going to talk about the compensation of all our corporate officers. As for our policy, it is simple, transparent, and responsible, and it is built on a certain number of principles. The first, as for the Chair of the Board, the policy does not plan for any annual variable compensation or long-term compensation, nor any compensation as a director. As for the Chief Executive Officer, the structure of the compensation is aligned with the interests of the stakeholders and the company's objectives, notably in line with the midterm corporate strategy, and the performance conditions are very demanding.
As for the directors, the variable portion of the compensation is predominant. As for the Chair of the Board, as you can see, in 2024, her compensation was EUR 625,000, and for 2025, the board proposes to maintain this unchanged. As for the CEO in 2024, his total compensation was EUR 900,000. The variable compensation was reached at 117.7%, and the variable long-term compensation that can reach 200% of the fixed compensation was evaluated by an independent expert at EUR 1,800,000. For 2025, the total compensation, if you approve it, will remain the same as in 2024. However, as for the variable compensation, for the long-term variable compensation, we have changed the performance criteria to align them with the 2030 ambitions of the group, which were announced during the investor day in 2024.
Now, to summarize, you can observe here on this slide that in 2025, just as in 2024, the compensation structure of the CEO is based by 75% on the variable share, 50% for the long-term compensation and 25% for the annual variable compensation. The fixed annual compensation only accounts for 25% of the total compensation. Here on this slide, you can also see the CSR component, which is a major part of the compensation because it accounts for 17.5% of the target value for the total annual compensation. As for the compensation of the directors in 2025, the board suggests to maintain it unchanged at the level of 2024, which is a total of EUR 1,106,000. I have finished. Thank you for your attention. I'm going to give the floor back to the chairperson of the board. Thank you. Thank you.
It is time now to read the resolutions that will be submitted to your poll. I'm going to give the floor to Emmanuelle Levine.
Thank you, Angeles. The first three resolutions presented to the combined general meetings are related to the financial statements and the allotment of the income. We will have a payout of EUR 2.20 per share, which will be taken from the distributable income. In case of a favorable vote, the date of the payout of the dividend will be the 28th of May 2025, and the dividend will be paid out to the shareholders on the 2nd of June 2025. The fourth resolution concerns the ex post general vote on the information on the compensation of all the corporate officers in 2024 or allocated in the same fiscal year according to Articles L2210341 of the French Commercial Code.
The fifth and sixth resolutions, this is the ex post say on pay. This is for the compensation of the Chairperson of the Board and the CEO based on the 2024 fiscal year. The seventh and ninth resolutions, this is the say on pay ex ante. You are invited to pronounce yourselves on the compensation policy for 2025 applicable to the Chair of the Board, the CEO, and the directors. The 10th, 11th, and 12th resolutions, this is for the appointment of Stéphane Pallez as a director and the renewal of Patrick Koller and Florent Menegaux for a duration of three years. These terms of office would take end at the end of the general meeting in 2028 after closing the accounts at the 31st of December 2027.
The 10th resolution, this is to carry out all the formalities required according to the regulations after holding the general meeting. The 13th resolution, which is an ordinary resolution, this is to renew the board with a buyback of shares. This is the maximum price per share that will be EUR 150. The 14th resolution, which is an extraordinary resolution, this is to allow the board to proceed to reduce the share capital by canceling the treasury shares within the share buyback program. In case of a favorable vote of resolutions 13 and 14, the board will be able to proceed to buy back the shares of the company and reduce the share capital according to conditions in compliance with the marketplace conditions. The 15th resolution, this is to authorize the board to issue free shares within a limit of 1.5% of the share capital over 38 months.
The 16th resolution, this is to amend Article 9.5 of the company's Articles of Association to reflect legislative changes on the organization of the board of directors.
Thank you very much, Emmanuelle. Now, we're going to give the floor to our statutory auditors, and it is Camille Félixot who will speak on behalf of the statutory auditors.
Thank you, Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good afternoon. On behalf of the statutory auditors for Mazars and PwC that I represent, I have the pleasure to tell you about the execution of our mission for the fiscal year 2024. I suggest I not read exhaustively all our different reports on our work, but to summarize the major points and our conclusions.
Our work on our accounts, the objective according to the professional standards was to obtain a reasonable assurance that the accounts presented are true and fair by checking the absence of any material misstatements and make sure that all the texts and laws are complied with. We have coordinated audit reports everywhere in the world. Our approach and our diligence were adapted to the Legrand organization, to its specificities, and the risk identified based on quantitative and qualitative criteria. We realized this on the accounts and on the internal control processes, and we covered the current operations as well as the specific events of that particular fiscal year. All our work and our detailed conclusions were shared regularly with the management, with the audit committee, and the board.
Our report on the consolidated accounts highlights two key points of our audit, and the most important elements required specific attention from us considering the relative weight in the accounts as well as the high degree of evaluation and judgment required to determine the hypotheses needed to assess them. The first is on the recoverable value of the goodwill and the indefinite marks that account for EUR 8.3 billion, that is half of the consolidated balance sheet at the 31st of December 2024. The second is on the evaluation of the litigations and eventual liabilities. Legrand SA, the point of the audit is the utility of the participation securities in our balance sheet, EUR 6.2 billion.
For each of these key points on the consolidated accounts and annual accounts, we particularly appreciated the reasonable characteristic of the main judgments and assessments of the management underpinning their evaluation and their sensitivity to the structuring hypothesis retained, and the notes to the accounts gave appropriate information. Our work consisted in examining all the accounts as well as the quality of the financial information and checking the exactness of all the information given in the managerial report, especially those related to the corporate governance and the remuneration and compensation and benefits paid to the corporate officers. We have formed our opinion, and we can certify without any reservation the consolidated accounts and the annual accounts of Legrand. Legrand has prepared for the first time in 2024 the duration conditions, and this is the transposition in France of the CSRD resolution from the EU.
They are in our report. We have a limited guarantee on this on the compliance with the new ESRS standards and the taxonomy standards, the processes used by Legrand to determine the information published. Some elements were given particular attention from us. Based on the verifications we carried out, we issued a conclusion without any reservations and have not identified any errors, omissions, or any inconsistencies. We formulated an observation for the first year of application of the ESRS with all the information that has to be communicated in the coming years, forthcoming years. Finally, to summarize the other reports we have established in compliance with the laws and on which you will have to vote. The first is our special report on the related party agreements, and we will not submit them to your approval because their execution has been carried forward.
We have two reports for the extraordinary generalist meeting so that you can realize certain operations on the share capital of your company. These different reports do not call for any remarks or any particular observation from our part. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much, Mrs. Félixot, for these reports, and thank you for this six years of fruitful cooperation. She is going to leave since there is a required turnover with a new statutory auditor, so thank you on behalf of the Board of Directors. We are now going to proceed and give you the floor. We have received some written questions from two shareholders. Answer to these questions was published on the website of legrandgroup.com in the 2025 tab for the combined general meeting.
Shareholders had had the opportunity between May the 21st and Monday the 26th, 2025, 15:00 Paris time, to send out questions by email, and I will now suggest that we move on to questions here from the floor. As is our habit, I will invite you to be brief so that we can take as many questions as possible and wait for the steward or the hostess to give you the microphone. Also, please introduce yourself before asking your question. Sir, Jean-Luc Champotier from newspaper Investir. I do represent some shareholders. It's a very basic question. As to many companies, you have quite a high percentage of your sales in the United States. Is it local production? Is it exported? What about the tariffs policy from the U.S.? Thank you.
40% of our sales are in North America, the big bunch of which is in the United States. We have less than 50% of what is sold in the U.S. is imported. So they are pretty much dependent on import from Mexico and China. A bit is imported from Europe, Taiwan, Vietnam, but the main importing countries are Mexico and China. What we've said when we reported the figures for the Q1 2025, in the most plausible scenario, that is tariffs, which were said to be at 145% for those products coming from China, and we said it would probably be 50% for the rest of the world. The tariffs would range from 10-40%.
We said it would cost up to $200,000 for the group, but we said we would completely cover the impact of these tariffs on our products, so it would have and would not have any impact on the 2025 margin. As you have heard or read, we have better news since the tariffs for a short period of time for products and components from China will be taxed at up to 30% and 10% for other countries. Based on this assumption, the invoice for Legrand would be less than $250 million as opposed to what was said a few weeks ago. The same conclusions apply. We would compensate for all the tariffs. The last comment is, of course, it is a very fluid, uncertain situation. The strength of Legrand is that we are agile and we are used to adapt to the situation.
Now, if some tariffs were to be imposed on some products coming from various geographic areas, we would adapt ourselves. The three ways to adapt is to act on pricing, slightly increase the prices, or second is to be more flexible when it comes to our supply chains, that is, diversify the supply chain so that the products would come from countries where the tariffs will be lower, or make sure that our products are USMCA labeled, which would mean that tariffs would not apply. In summary, it's going to cost us less than $150 million. It's not going to have an impact on the group's margin in 2025. There is another question there. Number two first. Go ahead, sir. Number three. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I have three questions. The Legrand products are of a higher quality, but of a higher price.
Do you suffer from the competition of products coming from China that are cheaper and of a poorer quality? When it comes to renewables, you are also involved in the balancing of the grid, or maybe I misunderstood your presentation. What is the robustness of your system if we go from 20% to 70% renewables that are intermittent sources of energy? What about the balance of the grid? The third question about the financial statements. No significant anomalies were reported. What does that mean? You know, with RPF or the statutory auditors, $1 billion was not considered as a significant anomaly. I will answer the first two questions, and then I'll leave it up to our financial officer to answer your third question. Now, you will always find cheaper products on the internet.
If you type switch or socket, you will find 150 SKUs, and out of those, 130 would be cheaper than that of Legrand. But then why are the Legrand products more expensive than the cheaper stone coming from China? It is because it is a flawless quality. Do not forget that these electric products may also kill people, so we have strong production systems because we integrate technology, because they can be recycled, because they are readily available in the corner shop, because you have an electrician that can fix it. Now, we have various ranges that have products at EUR 2 up to EUR 50 for other products. Now, if you want to go for a cheap refurbishment of your house, we can go for the so-called Axis Legrand branded products, which do include all these features.
Now, to answer your questions, we've had many competitors, but we've been gaining market shares, rather than losing market shares recently. Our customers are ready to pay an extra price to have the quality, the easiness of fixtures, etc., etc. We're not involved in power generation, to answer your question. We're down on the low, the back end of the system. Now, regardless of the source of power, intermittent or not, it doesn't have any impact on us. We are involved in the transformers, not the high-voltage power generation. It's true that intermittent sources of power will require, will impose the need to have a proper energy management in buildings.
That is, having in the buildings solutions to have a more efficient energy consumption, and depending on the prices and the peak hours or not, you will have to keep preference to one source of energy or the other, find energy storage solutions, maybe returning back some energy back into the general grid from the buildings. That is a source of business for Legrand, where in the past we used to sell circuit breakers, etc., etc. Now we can be involved in other solutions to measure the energy consumption in each and every room, find an energy storage solution connected to your PV panels on the roof, have ways to program your energy consumption so that you will consume energy when the energy is at the cheapest price, etc., etc. All these are sources of business for Legrand.
We're not on the front end, that is, the power generation side. The absence of significant abnormalities. Now, statutory auditors would certify that our social and consolidated account reflects a sincere image of the financial situation of our company. An abnormality would be some information that would change your decision, your perception of the overall business performance of the company. There is a materiality threshold. An abnormality is when this threshold is exceeded. We're well below that, and otherwise the statutory auditors, the two statutory auditors, would not have certified and signed our accounts. I will let them answer if you want, as far as their professional standards are concerned. It's a few percent of the operating income, so it's not a billion, as the example you've mentioned. There are many, many inspections and controls.
It's a constant monitoring of their quality unit in each and every statutory auditor's firm, and the French authority of the stock markets, which is a governmental agency, will make sure that the abnormalities that are not corrected are well below the thresholds. Thank you, Franck. Any further questions? Yes, sir. I'm representing the Association for Assets and Individual Shareholders. I think that the environment is ever-changing and uncertain, and Legrand is performing pretty well. I'm hoping that this will carry on in the future. Now, I have three questions. The first one is the fact that you are shaping the future, but regarding data centers, is your R&D center indeed designing data centers so that they will evolve in a liquid environment? Total said that they had a liquid, a cooling fluid, which is better than what we have in the data centers nowadays.
My second question is the following. You have issued a EUR 500 million bond by 2035. Why not a green bond since your syndicated credit is based on achieving CSR objectives? Third question. You have reinforced your position by buying computer comm solutions in Australia for the data centers. Is that the sign of new acquisition in this region, Oceania? Thank you for this very specific question. I will suggest Benoît Coquart answer the first and the third, and Mr. Lemery will answer the second question on financial aspect. Thank you for asking this question on data center because it is really a trademark of Legrand. We have the strongest position as a percentage of sales overall. The big ones in the electricity sector are investing in the data sector and other leak. The coolants, there are several technologies available out there.
Our technology is based on what the rear door cooling, as we call it, when you have a rack with the servers, you put a door with the coolant, which will capture the calories and discharge them outside. We do not have immersion cooling systems. Our servers are such that they can be put in a specific cooling liquid. Now, we do have this technology. Now, the Legrand technology helps to cool up to 200 kilowatts per rack. Today, it's 15-20 degrees per rack, and in five years from now, it might be 1% of the racks which will have emissions above 200 kilowatts. If we do not cover all these, we can cool from 90% of the racks available on the market. Now, if there is an opportunity to move to other cooling solutions through organic growth or acquisitions, I don't know. We'll see.
Now, for the acquisition in Australia, it's not the beginning, it's rather the end because over one year we've bought three companies in Australia, APP, VAS, CRS, and one in New Zealand. As Franck Lemery said, this has helped to more than double our size in Oceania. CRS is a company specialized in so-called containment solutions. In a data center, you have the cooling systems, but there is a way also to organize the cold and hot air flows, and this helps to cool the data centers. These are products that are difficult to ship, but sending and shipping containment racks or cabinets from New Zealand, from the Netherlands to Australia would cost a lot.
There we have a local manufacturer, so it will help us to rely on cooling solutions, which is rather efficient and have contact with the data center leaders to whom we will be selling all the other Legrand solutions, racks, power distribution units, etc., etc. Thank you. There was another question for you, the question on the bond issuance. Why so much CSR achievements and commitments, and why not go for green bonds? You have noticed it. We have a syndicated credit, which is based on the CSR performance of the group, and I think we were the first company listed on the CAC 40 who did that. We also have two green issuances which were made.
Both are dependent on a certain number of CSR criteria, but this type of credits are no longer the fad on the market because investors are more trustful when it comes to CCRD directive and other compliance. You no longer have SLDs that are considered as a greenwashing on the market. That is why we do not use it anymore. Even though we have used it in the past, it does not deprive our CSR commitment from its strength and robustness. There is somebody in the back, I think. Oui, bonjour.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair. I have four questions. I will begin. I have heard the report presented by the statutory auditor on the rated party agreements, but I did not find in your agenda the resolution to be approved by the shareholders.
Although there are no new related party agreements or old ones, and the legal department talked about a quorum of 81%, could we know the chart of those who hold the capital, the investors, the reference shareholders, and the float? The third question, you mentioned in your presentation that you had a catalog of 300 references. For me, that's huge. [foreign language] (1:40:15) Sorry, 300,000 references. That's huge. You have a lot of stocks, and you have to mobilize a lot of liquidity. My fourth question, I've forgotten it, but I'll get back to it. Maybe I've forgotten my fourth question, but I'll tell you if it comes back to my mind.
Emmanuelle?
Yes, thank you. As for the related party agreements, we don't have any obligation to have a specific resolution for the approval of these agreements, as you underlined.
We have no agreement this year, rated party agreement this year, that we could have included in our resolutions. This is not our practice usually, but you have all the information in the reports that were submitted before the organization of this meeting. As for the breakdown of our capital, you are absolutely right. We have the figures of the definitive quorum that we will share with you in a few moments, slightly above what we said earlier. Our free float is 97%, and we have no reference shareholders. You have institutional shareholders from various regions of the world. No reference, no particular shareholder to mention. Your third question, you know, it was about the 300,000 products, which is very complex. It's very complex to manage in terms of stocks. We have stocks above our historical records, but it is around 13-14%.
These are stock levels that are well under control. Fundamentally, these 300,000 references, this is a huge strength for us. The advantages, the depth of our products exceed the drawbacks, and this allows us to cover all the global standards. You know that in our industry, the standards can differ from one country to another. We can deal with the different ranges from the access to the premium range. We can have products for simple residential installers and for large installers. We can thus cover the market, and we can do it better with all these references. When you are a low-cost competitor, it is easier to compete with products with the five SKUs or five references rather than 300,000.
For all those reasons, it's a great strength to have a low-cost model, although it does induce a certain amount of cost in terms of expenditure and capital employed.
I think you have remembered your fourth question.
Yes, I remember my fourth question now. You talked about your business model to grow through acquisitions. And when you make acquisitions, do you plan in the contract any. [foreign language] (1:43:51) Any earnouts. We can have acquisitions through steps, 50%, and then we take 80%, then 100%, and then we can have acquisitions where we take 100%. For those who are not familiar with this, earnouts is a plus cost that we pay afterwards based on the results. I pay 100 now, and you will get 30 later on if you have this growth in your revenue, in your sales.
This happens especially when there's a big difference between the expectations of the salesperson and what we are ready to pay. All the possibilities are doable, but Legrand, we prefer being the major owners. It's rare when Legrand only takes 20-30% of a business. We take 50%, and then we pay an additional price later on, either through earnouts or by increasing our capital. There's this gentleman on my left and then behind. My question is on resolution four. I feel that it is new this year. As for the remuneration, the compensation from the five, you talk about the chair, the CEO, the board, but I don't understand what you want us to approve in resolution number four.
Emmanuelle?
We're going to go through it.
This is a resolution that comes back each and every year, and we are forced to submit it to your approval. It is the ex post of all the compensations of all the corporate officers for each and every year. It is a bit complicated because compensation is very detailed today. You have the ex ante and the ex post, the policy of the previous year and the policy of the following year. This is for all the corporate officers, the president, the directors, the board, and we have a global presentation for all the company officers also.
Yes, the gentleman over here, number two.
Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Raguet, individual shareholder. I had two additional points of information on the United States.
The first, you talked about the 50% of the products sold to the U.S. are imported to the U.S., and a huge volume is sent to Mexico or New Mexico, imported 45-50%. The products that we sell in the United States come from Mexico or China and the rest of the world. Okay, I've understood, but I wanted to understand the proportion of Mexico on the whole. Out of the 45-50%, 20% is from Mexico, 15-20% China, and the remainder is a mix from everywhere. A large part from the EU, a little bit, a few percentage from the EU, a little percentage from Canada. The proportion from the EU is very low. I'll tell you why. That is the products we import or we sell to the U.S.
That is the access, the switches, the simple switches, the presence detectors, the basic ones, and they come from low-cost areas, Mexico and China. Very few products come from Europe. It is only the 20% coming from Mexico. It is for those that you expect to escape from the tariffs because of this U.S. convention. No, it is far more complicated because all the products coming from Mexico are not eligible to the SNC. There is a list of products. These are not. We have part imported from Mexico. They are exonerated, and the others will be submitted to the tariffs, 10%, 20%, or 40%. It is far more complex because you have the tariffs on the increase in aluminum and steel. Second question on the United States. In the first quarter, the total sales in North America increased exceptionally compared to the previous years, plus 18%, plus 16% on a like-for-like.
Isn't it simply an anticipation of the stocking from your importers, anticipating the setting up of the American tariffs? Aren't we observing in April and May a strong slowdown in this sales in the U.S.?
April and May, I can't really answer because this is information we will communicate when we talk about the sales of the Q2. There was no anticipation. The reason for this beautiful growth in the U.S. is because of the data centers. The data centers account for one-third of our exposure in North America and only 10% of our exposure in Europe and the rest of the world. The impact on our total sales in the U.S., it suffered a lot. In the data centers, it is much stronger than elsewhere. As far as we know, there was no anticipation of any purchasing.
Thank you, Benoît. Any more questions?
Yes, Madam? Or the gentleman over there, I can't see very well. Yes, I'm an individual shareholder. I would like to ask you a more down-to-earth question. You know that right now there are wars all around the world, and they might be resolved quickly. I'd like to know if you have got in touch, if you have met engineers on the spot to obtain some of the contracts that will be signed, because in the last conflicts, it's the U.S. and Germany that obtained the greatest number of contracts. In Ukraine and Gaza, we'll have to rebuild everything, have new sockets, have new plants. Are you ready?
You know the conflicts you're talking about are not totally resolved, and the war is still being waged, and the situation is still quite dark.
As for when things will be stabilized, we hope that they will be, we are not in infrastructures. When you read in the press that there is a battle between X and Y, the companies that will be first in the field, these are for large infrastructure projects, the production of energy, railways, etc. For us, there is no reason we will not benefit from that. We have certain market shares. Gaza, it is a small market. Ukraine, we have a small team, and they went through this situation without any losses. They are working in Ukraine. They are organizing shows, making sales. When we will rebuild, we will benefit according to our market share. These are small markets in any case. Unfortunately, this topic is not yet ready to be discussed. Number two.
Good afternoon. You made your presentation per geographical sector and per business sector.
The traditional sectors accounted for 53% of the total sales, and the activities and growth accounted for 47%. What will happen by 2030? Because you made a presentation on the objectives by 2030, what will be the proportion between these data centers, these new operations in healthcare, the digital compared to the traditional? What will Legrand look like in a few years from now? An idea about your major trends. I have the same question for the different geographies, which are the geographies that will be the most prosperous, that will provide more growth to Legrand. The last question. In your business model, you're presenting a large section, which is based on external growth, and there are a lot of companies that you will acquire that will have a lot of experience.
How will you have a group, in spite of all the cultural differences in all the different geographical zones, how will you have a certain Legrand homogeneity?
Thank you. As for the breakdown of our total sales per geography, we normally communicate on that because we have a scenario, but we do not know exactly what will be the pace of growth, and it will depend on the acquisitions. The 53-47 will probably reverse. Will it be 47-53 or something else? I do not know. At the bottom of the page, I can sign that the activities related to the digital energy transition will account for more, significantly more than the more traditional activities, although these traditional activities will post growth. The growth profile of the group, this is not neutral. We are aiming at 12 or 15.
We're aiming at the upper part of the bracket. Here, it will be 5, then next year it will be 10, and then it will be 15. You see that the pace of growth is quite sustained. The second question, the 40-40-20, I hope that we'll have more significant growth in the emerging countries. There are emerging countries everywhere in the rest of the world and in the European zone. We should have greater growth in Africa, in the Middle East, in India, rather than in Europe or the United States. The 40-41, the 20 might be slightly bigger, but the 40-41 is not too far from the geographical breakdown of our markets. The 30-35-30, we don't have those orders of magnitude. The 20 will not become 40 or 50%.
Therefore, we will be with the digital energy transition, and the essentials will have grown in the emerging countries, Africa, Middle East, Asia, India. Your last question, we use a term. We like the term of docking and not integration when we buy back companies. Like when two boats are close to each other and navigate alongside, we're very careful. The companies joining us should maintain their DNA and should have an interesting performance. In general, these are companies in good health, and we don't want to break this momentum. You're right, Legrand is not aiming at having a constellation of companies. How do we do this? Very quickly, the managerial processes are integrated. The teams use the HR platforms of the group. We have in these R&D development platforms all the companies acquired.
We have quite a lot of docking, and we preserve what is important for the client. That is the commercial teams, etc. We do not touch the front office, so the customer is not destabilized, but the synergies and the stronger integration will do it in the back office with the purchases, R&D, industry, finance, admin, etc. Altogether, this model is doing well because if you look in the past 10 years, all the companies that have joined us, our trajectories have accelerated. Therefore, with the M&A teams in the group, we have a great experience in this area to do deals and to dock companies without any loss.
I'll take one last question. Sylviona? Bien? Perfect. Let's proceed to the ballot. Now, I'd like to share the final figures with you of the quorum. 6,029 shareholders, 212,240 votes.
That's maybe 1% of the equity, meaning that the quorum, both for the extraordinary and the ordinary shareholders' meeting, is met for all the resolutions. Now, the resolutions will not be put to your votes. Thank you, Anne-Claire. We're going to vote on it's an electronic ballot. You will have a short video explaining how to use these little votes.
Pour voter les résolutions de l'Assemblée générale, une tablette vous a été remise. Elle est strictement personnelle et sert uniquement lors de cette assemblée. À l'annonce du vote d'une résolution, la fenêtre de vote s'affiche automatiquement sur votre tablette, même si celle-ci est en veille. Pour voter, rien de plus simple. Appuyez sur le bouton correspondant à votre choix: pour, abstention ou contre. Appuyez sur OK pour valider votre choix avant la clôture du vote. Une fois votre vote validé, vous ne pouvez plus le modifier.
Merci de bien vouloir restituer votre tablette en sortie de salle.
Right, we're now going to proceed and vote on the resolutions. I suggest not to read all the resolutions before each and every vote. Resolution number one: Approval of the company's financial statements for 2024. The vote is open. Closed. Resolution is passed. Resolution number two: Approval of the consolidated financial statements for 2024. The vote is open. Vote is closed. Resolution passed. Resolution number three: Allocation of results for 2024 and determination of the dividend. The vote is open. Closed. Resolution is approved. Resolution number four: Approval of the information referred to in Article L.221-09 of the French Commercial Code, in accordance with Article L.221-034 of the French Commercial Code. The vote is open. The vote is closed. Resolution is approved.
Resolution number five: Approval of compensation components and benefits of any kind paid during or granted in respect of 2024 to Anne-Claire Garcia-Poveda, Chair of the Board of Directors. The vote is open. Closed. Resolution is approved. Resolution number six: Approval of compensation components and benefits of any kind paid during or granted in respect of 2024 to Benoît Coquart, Chief Executive Officer. The vote is open. Closed. Resolution is approved. Resolution number seven: Approval of the compensation policy applicable to the Chair of the Board of Directors. The vote is open. Closed. Resolution is approved. Resolution number eight: Approval of the compensation policy applicable to the Chief Executive Officer. The vote is open. Closed. Resolution is approved. Resolution number nine: Approval of the compensation policy applicable to members of the Board of Directors. The vote is open. Closed. Resolution is approved.
Resolution number 10: Appointment of Stéphane Pallez as Director. The vote is open. Closed. Resolution is approved. Resolution number 11: Renewal of Patrick Koller’s terms of office as Director. The vote is open. Closed. Resolution is approved. Resolution number 12: Renewal of Florent Menegaux’s term of office as Director. The vote is open. The vote is closed. Resolution is approved. Resolution number 13: Authorization granted to the Board of Directors to allow the company to trade its own shares. The vote is open. Closed. La résolution est approved. Resolution is approved. Resolution number 14: Authorization granted to the Board of Directors to carry out a share capital decrease by consolidation of treasury shares. The vote is open. Closed. Resolution is approved.
Resolution number 15: To grant authority to the Board of Directors for the purpose of carrying out one or more free share awards to staff members and/or company officers of the company or related companies or some of them, with consolation of shareholders' preferential rights to subscribe to the shares to be issued in relation to the free share awards. The vote is open. Closed. Resolution is passed. Resolution number 16: Amendment of Article 9.5 of the Company's Articles of Association to reflect legislative changes on the organization of the Board of Directors. The vote is open. Closed. Resolution is approved. Finally, Resolution number 17: Powers to carry out legal formalities. The vote is open. Le vote est clos. The vote is closed. Resolution passed. Thank you very much. Now, this is leading us to the end of this shareholders' meeting.
Thank you for this very encouraging ballot result. The next General Assembly will be held on May 27, 2026. Do not forget to hand back your tablet when you leave so that you are given your presence as a sign of gratitude to all of you. I also would like to thank the Governance and Investor Relations Group at Legrand who have worked hard to welcome you here in this meeting, and see you next year. Thank you.