Good morning and afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wendel's 2021 Half-Year Trading Update Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question- and- answer session, at which time, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. André François-Poncet, Wendel's CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, this is André François-Poncet speaking. I'm here with David Darmon, the other member of the executive board and Deputy CEO. Jérôme Michiels is our group CFO and Executive Vice-President, as well as our investor relations team, Olivier Allot and Lucile Roch. Welcome to the call. We'll present our half-year trading update and take questions. First, we'll present the main items for the half, and then we'll get on with the dialogue. If you wish to ask questions, you can submit them directly through the web platform. You can use the telephone number you've been provided with as well. As a reminder Hello? I don't know if people hear us, but the line went dead, and we're waiting to hear that we actually have folks who are on the line. Apologies for this brief interruption. This is a nuisance for everyone.
You are connected now. Please go ahead.
Okay. Sorry for this brief interruption, which is telecoms related. Nobody here knows why. Apologies. I'm now on slide two, half-year trading update key figures. At the end of June, Wendel registered its highest NAV in the history of our company, an increase of roughly 19% since the beginning of the year and around 36% over the last 12 months. Our net asset value strongly benefited from improved performance and prospects of our unlisted companies, and also from increased stock market valuations of comparable companies. Bureau Veritas, our largest investment, also contributed to leading our NAV to a historical high. Consolidated sales are up 11.3% overall, with strong organic growth across the portfolio companies, with EBITDA growing as well across the board.
Wendel LTV remains at a low level, 9% at the end of June, and most portfolio companies have very low leverage levels, especially for the unlisted companies. As already mentioned in the past, in spite of the COVID crisis, our companies kept on generating cash and reduced their net debt when not realizing external acquisitions. Moving to slide three. During the first half, we deployed EUR 260 million of capital at Wendel, EUR 216.7 million through Tarkett Participation, EUR 80 million in the Wendel Lab. In addition to these investments, we also bought back EUR 25 million of our own shares in the first half. We increased our investment team with 5 new colleagues joining recently, including 3 investors, quote unquote, with PE experience or PE background, one operating partner and an expert in VC fund investment.
We signed the Principles for Responsible Investment and decided to align our financial policy with our ESG commitments by integrating ESG targets into our revolving credit facility. At portfolio level, Bureau Veritas posted a strong first half and revised upwards its outlook for the full-year 2021. At Stahl, Maarten Heijbroek started as the new CEO on July 1st. Beginning of June, Constantia announced the closure of the acquisition of Propak, a packaging producer located in Turkey and a leading player in the European packaging industry for snacks. IHS announced two acquisitions expanding its footprint in South America, and the successful flip-up of its bond debt, thus triggering two credit rating upgrades on its senior unsecured notes, meaning credit updates by two agencies. Turning to slide four, the performance of group companies taken individually. I will start, and David will take over from me.
On the first slide five, Bureau Veritas. Bureau Veritas published its first half 2021 figures yesterday. It posted revenue of EUR 2.4 billion, up 9.9% year-on-year and +14.3% organically, benefiting from improving end markets across most businesses and the return to a more normal operating environment compared to H1 2020. More than half of the business portfolio, including certification, consumer products, buildings, and infrastructure, strongly recovered up 23.2% organically on average. Certification was the best performing activity, up 38.6% in H1. Consumer products strongly returned to growth, up 23.4% in H1, fueled by Asia, the resumption of product launches, and helped by favorable comparables. Turning to sales in H1, they also being more strategic relative to 2019. They were up 4.1% on an organic basis, which is really what I look at, is how are we doing versus 2019. I'm sure you do, too.
Adjusted operating profit increased by 75.3% to EUR 378.2 million. The first half 2021 adjusted operating margin rose 583 basis points to 15.6%. Bureau Veritas continued to see a rising demand towards quality, safety, traceability, and environmental stewardship, which perfectly positions the company for a new step forward in its development. Through the BV Green Line of services and solutions dedicated to sustainability, Bureau Veritas is uniquely positioned to help its clients across multiple sectors implement, measure, and monitor their ESG commitments in a more transparent, credible, and data-driven way than purely self-declaration.
During the first half of 2021, Bureau Veritas resumed its targeted bolt-on M&A activities, completing four transactions in strategic areas representing around EUR 25 million in annualized revenues, with notably the acquisition of Secura BV, specialized in security testing, audit, and cybersecurity, as well as Bradley Construction Management, a provider of construction management services for the renewable energy sector. BV's financial position remains strong, with net financial debt to EBITDA ratio further reduced to 1.3 x from 2x last year, its lowest level since the IPO of Bureau Veritas in 2007. I now turn the mic to David.
Thank you, André. Hi, everyone. I'm now on slide 6. Before going into details of each private company performance, I would like to give you a quick and global overview of this first semester. Our private companies delivered outstanding results, highlighting the quality of their business model, management, and team. We are really proud of being the compelling shareholder of companies which have been able to weather the COVID storm with so much agility. All our private assets delivered in H1 2021 EBITDA performances above H1 2019, and for most of them reaching record high levels of profitability with record low leverage. Constantia, which has been strongly resilient during the crisis, improved its margin. Cromology is beating its best performances quarter after quarter. Stahl, which has been able to keep its margin above 20% during the pandemic, delivered in H1 2021 a record 26% EBITDA margin.
CPI, which was the hardest hit during the crisis due to the lockdown, already beats 2019 levels of EBITDA. We are thrilled to see all the efforts deployed to be rewarded with such results. On slide seven, regarding Constantia, you can see that H1 2021 sales totaled EUR 752.1 million, slightly up by 0.7% on an organic basis, driven by the first 3% organic growth in the consumer market, mainly due to a good performance in personal hygiene, coffee capsules, and beverage, which was partially offset by the minus 5.7% decline in sales in the pharma industry, since the activity was affected by lockdown-induced mild flu and cold season, and due to a very strong comparative period. The first 6 months of the 2021 period were also adversely impacted by minus 1.2% by unfavorable FX.
Constantia renewed its efforts towards improving its profitability, collecting a new cost reduction initiative program since the beginning of the year. Despite a negative total top-line growth, EBITDA was up +1.8%, representing a 30 basis points year-on-year margin increase to 13.1%. Significant increases across all raw material categories since the beginning of 2021 is likely to impact performance in the second half of 2021, as there is usually a temporary timeline between changes in raw material and adjusting prices to customers. At the end of June, net debt was at EUR 477.2 million. The increase is due to the Propak acquisition closed in June 2021. I'll come back on this on the next slide. The strong cash flow generation capacity combined with increased profitability resulted in leverage standing today at 2.2 LTM EBITDA. A new strategy called Vision 2025 has been prepared by Pim Vervaat, Constantia's new CEO.
This strategic roadmap refocuses priorities primarily towards boosting growth and profitability. It is predicated on both growth via acquisitions and internal improvement measures. It also emphasizes a focus on sustainable products and in particular the Ecolutions solutions of sustainable products. Let's talk now about the acquisition of Propak that I just mentioned on slide eight. On June 9, 2021, Constantia announced the closing of its Propak acquisition, a packaging producer located in Düzce in Turkey. The purchase price is based on an EV, enterprise value, of EUR 120 million, representing an EBITDA multiple of 6.4x 2020 actual EBITDA. Propak is a leading player in the European packaging industry for the snack market, operating out of one plant with approximately 360 employees and supplements Constantia Flexibles packaging solutions portfolio. This significant acquisition elevates Constantia Flexibles to one of the leading players in the European snack market.
This acquisition enhances Constantia Flexibles presence in the growing film packaging market segment. Propak has delivered a very strong historical financial performance. It is highly complementary to Constantia Flexibles existing site in Turkey, adding flexo printing capabilities and access to adjacent market segments. It significantly reinforces Constantia Flexibles position with the key customers in this market and furthermore increases potential for future business growth. I'm turning now on slide nine on Cromology now. During the first half of 2021, Cromology sales totaled EUR 370.7 million, up 27.7% compared with H1 2020, which was heavily impacted by the first lockdown measures instituted in Europe. Compared with 2019, Cromology sales were up by +6.3%. Since H1 2020 lockdown, same sales have bounced back significantly, driven by strong demand from the end consumer, which made organic growth turn positive in Q3 and Q4 2020.
This trend continued into the first half of 2021, with strong performances in all of Cromology's key geographies. Cromology's EBITDA was EUR 72.9 million in H1 2021, up 80.4%, reflecting the combined effect of a favorable base of comparison, a positive mix in terms of customers, products, and countries, and a favorable price trend, in addition to the cost-saving measures that have been implemented. EBITDA margin stood at 19.7%, much higher than in 2019, demonstrating the positive trajectory driven by Cromology's management despite tension in raw material prices. These tensions in raw material prices have not yet had a significant impact on margin. In addition, structural cost reductions continued, with savings achieved in various line items. As in 2020, the company reduced its already very low financial leverage by optimizing working capital and continuing to make use of factoring.
The company's net debt was EUR 110.3 million as of June 2021, and the financial leverage ratio, as defined in the bank documentation, is now near zero at 0.05 turn. Let's remind you that in May 2019, at the time of Cromology's debt renegotiation and Wendel's EUR 125 million equity injection, Cromology received significant concessions from its lender. Cromology is focusing its efforts on planning and managing operations amid a resurgence of this pandemic, as well as pursuing the transformation plan it has launched since 2019 and implementing sources of value creation. It is also monitoring its supply chain closely, notably in tight material supplies and increases in the price of raw materials. Given its sound financial structure and the successful reorganization of the company, Cromology is well-positioned to look for potential bolt-on acquisitions. I'm turning on slide 10 to talk about Stahl.
Stahl's sales totaled EUR 419.8 million in H1 2021, representing an increase of 32.5% over H1 2020 and 0.8% over H1 2019. Organic growth was 36%, and foreign exchange rate fluctuation had a negative impact by minus 3.9%. After a challenging 2020, Stahl continued its recovery that started in Q3 2020 but accelerated since the end of 2020 despite disruptions in supply markets. This was driven by a strong order book and broad-based volume growth across almost all regions and end markets, in part due to restocking effects observed across several industries. Growth was particularly strong in Asia-Pacific. In addition, Stahl automotive business continued its good rebound. The restocking effect could ease later in 2021, although timing is unclear. In 2020, thanks to the management focus on a resilient business model, Stahl took swift measures and quickly adjusted its fixed cost base to the market conditions.
Stahl was still able to largely maintain this low level of fixed costs in the first half of 2021. Therefore, EBITDA for the half year totaled EUR 109.3 million, translating into a record EBITDA margin of 26%. The full-year EBITDA margin is expected to adjust to more normative levels in H2 2021. Stahl's net debt was EUR 199 million, thus a EUR 46 million reduction year to date and almost halving over the last 12 months. Leverage was reported at 0.96 times EBITDA as of June 30th, 2021. On March 11th, 2021, Stahl announced the appointment of Maarten Heijbroek as the new CEO of Stahl. Maarten Heijbroek, who joined Stahl on July 1st. Stahl's sustainability efforts have been rewarded again in July with a gold rating from EcoVadis, placing it within the top 5% of companies assessed by EcoVadis.
In 2020, Stahl has been awarded a Silver award, so they are keeping and making good progress. Stahl's 2030 target is to maintain the EcoVadis gold rating through continual improvement. Earlier this year, Stahl has taken another important step in its sustainable development strategy after achieving certification for the highest level of ZDHC compliance for multiple performance coating products. The new level 3 certification demonstrates Stahl's commitment to rigorous product stewardship. I'm turning now to slide 11 to talk about CPI, Crisis Prevention Institute. CPI is the company which has been the most strongly impacted by the lockdowns last year in our group. Today's rebound demonstrates a strong underlying demand for this mission-based company and the resilience of its business model. CPI recorded H1 2021 revenue of $44 million, up 68.3% from H1 2020, and plus 8.3% versus the same period in 2019.
Since Q4 2020, CPI has reported an upward revenue trajectory quarter to quarter, with Q2 2021 revenue surpassing Q1 2020 figures by 38%. This continued improvement month to month and versus prior years is the result of several factors, including higher customer engagement since March as training activity has increased with lessening restrictions on travel and gathering, stabilizing overall certified instructor count, first half 2021 new certified instructor volumes, which nearly double 2020 levels and continued mixed shift towards digital solutions for both new and existing certified instructors. Learner material sales continue to hold a strong virtual presence with e-learning delivery representing 35% of total learner material volumes. Of this +68% half-year sales increase, +5.6% was related to a purchase accounting adjustment to deferred revenue, which had an impact of -$1.5 million in H1 2020.
This sales increase is also related to FX movement for +3.5% and for +59% for organic growth. CPI's activities will continue to benefit from the positive near-term recovery trend in the market amidst accelerating vaccinations and warming weather, especially in the U.S., which are lessening restrictions around travel and gathering and driving a more usual environment for customers, especially in hospitals and schools. CPI generated EBITDA of $20.5 million, representing an overall increase of +188% year-over-year. That's a pretty strong result. This result corresponds to a strong margin of 46.6% over the period compared to H1 2019, EBITDA is up +20%, and margin has also increased by over 475 basis points versus H1 2019. H1 EBITDA benefited primarily from the flow-through of higher sales to earnings as well as effective cost management.
It did benefit to a lesser extent from temporary timing differences related to marketing spend and delayed hires in sales and administrative roles. As of June 30th, 2021, net debt totaled $333.6 million or 7.86x EBITDA as defined in CPI's loan documentation. Liquidity has increased to $24.5 million, in line with the company's total liquidity level at the time of the 2019 transaction. I'm now turning to slide 12 to talk about IHS Towers. As you probably already know, in June, IHS Towers successfully flipped up its listed bond, effectively expanding the bond's receptive group to include the IHS holding group, thus [inaudible] from both S&P and Fitch on its senior unsecured notes. As a consequence, the company now reports on a quarterly basis its financial results on a full consolidated scope. It will publish its Q2 2021 results next month.
That's why we cannot yet update you on its first half results. You can find now a very granular financial information on the company's website. In Q1 2021, the company posted a strong result with sales up 14.5% organically and adjusted EBITDA up 15.5% and a group EBITDA margin over 69% at 69.4%. IHS Towers has also been very active in terms of external growth with two additional acquisitions in South America, enhancing its portfolio diversification. On April 12, 2021, IHS Towers announced the acquisition of Centennial Towers' Brazilian and Colombian tower operations, bringing an additional 602 towers in Brazil and 217 towers in Colombia. In May 2021, IHS Towers announced it has entered into an agreement with TIM to acquire a controlling interest in fiber operations, which will include select TIM fiber assets and provide fiber optic infrastructure services as an open fiber network service provider.
Let's move on to slide 13 and talk about the Wendel Lab. Our Wendel Lab initiative is growing and moving forward with the hiring of Chris Witherspoon to lead this activity on our behalf. In H1, we've been quite active with EUR 40 million newly committed to four different firms and EUR 80 million of capital called. The lab value in our NAV is today EUR 130 million, and it has grown significantly with a 60% growth in NAV since March 2021. Most of this growth is following the IPO of an indirect portfolio company in one of our fund called Tuya Inc. As you know, we expect the Wendel Lab to represent 5%-10% of our NAV by 2044 through fund and direct co-investment. Moving to slide 14 to talk about Tarkett now. On July 15, 2021, we closed the offer initiated by Tarkett Participations.
We now held directly 56,300,463 shares, representing 85.89% of the shares. Since July 20, 2021, and as of July 28th, 2021, Tarkett Participations increased its share in Tarkett's capital to 88.4%, including treasury shares. As a result, Wendel has invested a total of EUR 216.7 million for a total stake of 25.5% of Tarkett Participations capital. With the current level of holding as expected, Wendel will have two seats at Tarkett Participations board. Before giving the floor to Jérôme, one more thing about another great result we can be proud of. On slide 15, we can here see the evolution of our company's leverage throughout COVID, which is quite impressive, as you can see. Despite this COVID crisis, our companies have been able to reduce dramatically the leverage ratio through strong increase of their EBITDA, but also thanks to the cash generation profile. Cromology has virtually no more debt.
Stahl leverage is either one, and also achieve an impressive deleveraging. Regarding Constantia, the ratio increased because of the acquisition of Propak. CPI, which leverage was at 11.5 times only 6 months ago, did demonstrate the quality of its business model with a net debt to EBITDA ratio, which is today below 8x as of June 30th, 2021. Our companies delivered outstanding results and benefited from very solid financial structure and can now finance their future growth. Thanks for your time, and I now leave the floor to Jérôme.
Thank you, David. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Let me start by giving you a bit more color on our net asset value as of June 30. I am now on page 17, and I'm glad to report that with a level of EUR 189.1 per share, Wendel posts the highest net asset value in its history. I think it reflects the fact that our portfolio is of good quality, that our businesses have performed well over the past 12 months, bouncing back from the pandemic while improving their balance sheets, and that multiples, of course, have also increased compared to 15 months ago. Bear in mind that Wendel also distributed a EUR 2.9 dividend per share in the meantime, meaning that our net asset value would have been actually EUR 192 before the payment of this dividend.
Let's have a look at the main components of our net asset value on page 18. Listed equity investments represent a total of EUR 4.3 billion. Within this category, you will have noted that we added a line and included our investment in Tarkett Participation, which was representing EUR 99 million as of the end of June. We have invested further since then, as of July 28th, our total investment in Tarkett has reached EUR 217 million. The value of our unlisted assets and Wendel Lab investments is at EUR 4.8 billion at the end of June, significantly above the level of March. Our net debt at the end of June stood at EUR 832 million, taking into account the dividend paid a few days later after June 30.
However, it does not include the dividend received from Bureau Veritas on July 1st, which was roughly at EUR 58 million, and our additional investment in Tarkett of EUR 118 million since June 30. Overall, the net asset value of EUR 189.1 per share exhibits a roughly 40% discount when compared to the average 20-day share price as of this date. Given the good performance of the portfolio, the increase in our net asset value over the past 12 months, the decrease in our cash burn and in our level of indebtedness, this level still strikes us as being overly wide and unwarranted. On page 19 now. Sequentially, our net asset value has increased by EUR 30 per share year to date. Again, that is after having paid the dividend EUR 46.4 at the end of June.
Speakers, you are connected. Please go ahead.
On slide 20, showing the net debt and loan to value ratio. As we have seen with regards to the past 10 years, our LTV ratio stands at a low level, 9%. Adjusted for the additional investment made in Tarkett since the end of June and taking into account dividend received from Bureau Veritas, our LTV would stand at 9.5%. This is in line with our objective to retain a strong and flexible financing structure, which can withstand sudden brutal market shocks whilst retaining an investment-grade rating profile. Thank you very much. I now hand it over to André for the conclusion.
Okay. I get to apologize as well for the interruption, the second interruption that we've undergone. We think it's because everybody's reporting at the same moment, the same day. Probably overwhelmed the network. Apologies again for that. To conclude, we're very pleased with the performance of our companies in the first half of 2021, showing that collective intense efforts deployed are paying off. Sales have either continued to increase or have recovered from 2020 and generally exceed half one 2019. EBITDA grew across the board and some margin levels are at record highs, translating into additional cash flow generation and further strengthening of capital structures across our portfolio. This strong rebound comes with new challenges regarding the availability and price of raw materials, but our companies have thus far demonstrated an ability to adapt to volatile market conditions.
We are more than ever well-equipped to weather any extraordinary times. As previously announced, we have actively resumed our search for new investments in line with the new strategic roadmap, which was endorsed by our supervisory board in the final quarter of 2020. The first transaction took place in April with the announcement of an investment in Tarkett in partnership with the founding family, which illustrates our team's ability to identify investment opportunities which fit our long-term investor profile. We also made additional investments in the Wendel Lab, which was recently reinforced by the arrival of an experienced professional to run the sixth investment department dedicated to high growth companies.
While our dividend and NAV have grown from 2017, we observed that our share price remains significantly below levels prevailing at that time, with a very strong discount to underlying value. We have therefore continued to take advantage of this discount by opportunistically buying back some Wendel shares on the market, EUR 25 million in H1, and we intend to continue doing so in the second half of 2021, while focusing on diversifying and repositioning our portfolio towards higher growth. Thank you for your time. We'll now enter the Q&A phase, hoping that we can continue uninterrupted until the end of the allotted time. Thank you. I turn it back to the operator.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question over the phone, please press star and one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. If you would like to cancel that request, you can press the hash key. That's star and one to ask a question over the phone. You can also submit your questions via the web. Your first question is from the line of Patrick Jousseaume from Societe Generale. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay, perfect. Hello. Yes. First, on slide 19 and slide 18, on which there was some sound interruption, could you explain or re-explain how you dealt with the valuation of CPI, given the good performance of the first half? Have you reduced the provision that you have applied previously on CPI? Second, in unlisted assets, as far as I understand, you have a Wendel Lab, which is in it. Could you give us an idea of the value that you have retained for Wendel Lab? Third question. Stahl obviously made a very strong EBITDA margin in the first half. To what extent is this sustainable for the next half, especially with raw material price increases? Finally, regarding Constantia, could you share with us the revenue of Propak on a full-year basis, please?
Hello, Patrick. I am going to address your first two question. Then I will let maybe David cover the other two. We will jump in obviously for the figures. The first one on CPI. In the net asset value, what we do is that we use market multiples that multiply past years and current year's EBITDA. That is what we have done as of the end of June. We have used the 2020 EBITDA, which has been audited. We have used current year EBITDA, which is the landing for this year. What we do on the accounting side is slightly different. We actually have depreciated the value of our investment in our balance sheet by $87 million at the end of 2020. As per the accounting rules, you cannot reverse this depreciation charge, which is based on an impairment test.
To make it simpler, this is based on a DCF valuation. If ever there is a difference between the DCF valuation and the net book value of your asset in the accounts, you need to depreciate, which is what we have done. That's not the same for the net asset value, which is based on multiples. Currently, we have the benefit of the good performance of 2021, which results in a good level of EBITDA anticipated for this year. I guess we will have, obviously, to take into account 2022 EBITDA, that would be at the end of this year when we will get the budget from CPI, we will transition to 2021 and 2022.
Said differently, there's been some uplift in the NAV, but not a full uplift because we still have the full 2020 in the calculation. There is no provisioning. It's the strict application as we always do of our methodology.
Yes.
Wendel Lab?
On your second question, Wendel Lab, you remember we've committed $125 million. Actually, given the good performance that we've had, as we have said, we are close to that. Although we have only deployed EUR 70 million, EUR 70. The value of the EUR 70 million deployed is actually close to $125 million. Bear in mind that it's because we've had a very good performance of one portfolio company in one particular fund. Not to say that this is a one-off, but just bear in mind that a large part of that is actually accounted for by this good performance of one company. In terms of valuation, we are using the valuations provided by the funds in which we invest. We don't do anything, any retreatments. We just use the valuations that are given to us.
Just to provide further clarity, the Wendel Lab investments in funds, usually as most fund investments, follow a J-curve. You start by incurring fees and costs, and the increases in value only happens after one or several years. Usually you have this J-curve, so you don't expect that there will be a big uptick. The uptick comes back later as companies in the underlying portfolio do further financing rounds and get up marked or exit. This is what's happened here in part. That's how it works. On Stahl, do you would like to address it, David?
Yes. On Stahl, if you go back to slide 6, where we have showed the trend on margin for each of our private companies, you can see that Stahl now is trending at a 26% EBITDA margin. As you've mentioned, this is pretty exceptional. Long-term, we expect the company to get back to the low 20s, where it has been trending for years. We are benefiting from low raw material prices that we had in our books, but there is a lot of one-off here.
For several of our businesses, it's sort of a race between, as you can imagine, the uptick or the significant increase of raw materials on the one hand, and volumes, which entail reversing some of the savings that have been taken over the past. On the other hand, improved volumes. For instance, the auto industry is still held back in production because of the lack of semiconductors. If you read the publications from the auto sector, you get the sense that there's like to be further upside.
There are also some significant parts of the world where there's still lockdowns or activity is not fully recovered. We look at the balance of the two. We are always cautious because it's rather unpredictable where it ends up, and most of our companies have been either pushing through product price upticks, upgrades, or temporary surcharges and the like, sometimes more than once a year. We've got that with a few of our companies. So far so good, though.
Last, on your last question on Propak, the annual sales are around EUR 75 million.
Thank you. Can I ask a follow-up question on CPI and Wendel Lab, because I am a bit lost. Should I understand that the value that you retain for CPI is somewhere between the EUR 520 million that you paid and the EUR 550 million that you paid minus, I think, EUR 270 million that you mentioned before, or in previous presentation. For Wendel Lab, should I understand that the value retained is EUR 125 million?
On your second question, we are close to that. Yes, for the Wendel Lab. With regards to the value of CPI, in the net asset value, we are still below the investment value. Okay. In the accounts, the investment value, as you said, was EUR 520, and the depreciation was EUR 87. In the books, in the accounting, it's EUR 520 minus EUR 90. We are talking maybe EUR 430. That's accounting, and as you know, that's not really something that we look at. What we look at is the net asset value, and we have not yet recovered the value of CPI in the net asset value.
It's higher than it was at the last publication, and it's less than the price we paid.
Right. Okay. Thank you.
I think that was your question.
Right. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Alexandre Gérard from CIC. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon, gentlemen, and congratulations for that good set of numbers. A few questions on my side. The first one relates to Tarkett Participation. Can you give us the indebtedness of the holding company, and are there any liquidity options for you in the future to sell back your stake to the family or to dispose in some way of your 26% stake? That's my first question on Tarkett Participation.
Second question, Constantia Flexibles. You said that the Vision 2025 had been designed. Can we know more about the long-term margins that you target? It's been pretty stable in the past, around 12% or 13% EBITDA margin-wise. What level of margin do you target going forward? Maybe on the asset rotation side for the second half of the year, can we expect an acceleration of your asset rotation? Also, can you give us examples of deals apart from Tarkett Participation that you considered for the first half of 2020? Thank you.
Okay. A lot of questions which are obviously a bit tricky here. On Tarkett Participation, I turn it to Olivier to comment on. I don't know what we are able to disclose on the leverage at Tarkett Participation.
Not much as what is already public in the offer document.
Yeah. Company's listed. There's information in the offer document. It's published on the site. If you call Olivier, he can pass on to you the information that's on the site. There really nothing more to say. Options for liquidity, we don't have a put to the family, if that's the question. There obviously is any investment we do, there are some options for liquidity at some point or another, but not options in the sense of call options, put options. There are routes to achieve, ways to achieve liquidity over time after an initial lockup. On Constantia Flexibles, unfortunately, another difficult question for us to answer. We don't want to give the long-term margin target.
I will venture to say that the targets are higher, as you would expect that we would want higher than the current level of profitability. On the asset rotation in H2, we don't have that many, how to say, investment lines. We only have seven with Tarkett. If I start saying there's going to be high rotation, you might read more into it than I would like to say. On the buy side, we are looking actively at several situations with no indication, too early to tell, nothing imminent again. I think in December we said nothing imminent and then Tarkett surfaced in April. These things can happen quicker than one says. Really not much I'm prepared to disclose right now, except please rest assured that we're not sitting on our hands and that everybody's extremely busy at the firm.
Maybe we can illustrate with few recent opportunities we have reviewed to give you some kind of flavor of the sectors we're looking at. We did spend time on education and training on various opportunities in Europe and in the U.S. We spent time in healthcare services and animal health as well. We're currently spending a bit of time on a high-end manufacturing company as well. Diversified type of assets we're looking at, but growth is the key focus on all those opportunities.
Yeah. As we said at our shareholders meeting, we did turn in a number of firm and financed offers in the last few months.
Okay. Can I just maybe ask a last question regarding Constantia? You said that the revenues for the full-year were close to EUR 75 million. On the EBITDA margin side, can we have an idea also, please?
75 was a Propak annual sale. Sorry, maybe I misunderstood what you were asking for.
We're not going to give the detail. I'm sorry. We already gave more than we thought we were going to give, well done. We're not breaking down the profitability of either our divisions profit. We aren't giving that level of detail. Sorry.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Geoffroy Michalet from Oddo. Please go ahead.
Hello, gentlemen. Can you hear me?
Yes. Hello, Geoffroy.
Hello. Thank you. My question has to do with Tarkett. Since the takeover, you have increased your participation. It is now to a bit less than 90%. Could you remind us the rules that you need to follow before maybe trying to launch a new takeover or going above the 90% threshold on Tarkett? Thank you.
Yeah, there was a period of time during which we could not do a new offer or reopen. That's not on the table anyway, so it's kind of irrelevant. We can, if we wish to, buy more shares on the market at prices equal to or below the price that has been offered. We might do that opportunistically because after all, we were bidders recently. We're watching what's going on the rest of the world.
We may or may not do it. I might also add, as you know, we're not the sole decision maker here. It's also with the family. Like we said before, we were very happy to make this investment with the company. As you know, we have a minimum investment size around EUR 150 million. We are over that. We have the rights. We have the full rights that we wished we had. Now it's we say we don't really care.
The technical threshold in France today is 90%.
Yeah, exactly. That's the way it is. Some people forgot to tender, some people may not have wanted, probably did not want to tender, whatever, and we move on.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. If we have no more questions by phone.
There are no further questions.
Again, for anyone who Is there another question? Oh, the question is a written question. Okay.
Written question. From Mourad Lahmidi. The first one is, the impairment written in full-year 2020 on CPI prevails or will be taken back?
Jerome Michiels answered that one. Jérôme Michiels, our CFO. Accounting rules do not allow for a take back of the accounting impairment.
The second question is, how IHS is valued in your NAV at end of H1 2021?
The answer to that is the same methodology has been consistently applied, i.e., we've taken a basket of comparables, which as we said in the past, are a basket of emerging market comparables. We have taken into account two years, last year and this year. We have taken into account EBITDA. IHS is on EBITDA only given the state of development of the company. Then we've deducted the debt, applied our percentage, and that was the value. That's all I'm prepared to say. We cannot give the number.
Third question is 20% EBITDA margin at Cromology the new norm for the company?
It's a pretty good margin, I'd first like to say. Is it the new norm? Tell me how much people will be painting, I'll tell you what the likelihood of that being. The company continues to feel they have plenty to the sales side is dependent on markets, and we're very positively inclined to think that it will continue to be good markets out there. Obviously, we are in uncertain times in Europe, but I think it might be. There is pressure on raw materials like there is in other sectors of the economy. The company also looks at what it can do on the pricing side, and so that's ongoing.
In terms of costs, they're still focusing very much on costs, and management feels that there still is plenty to go for with Cromology, which we feel over time, since the new management team came in, there was just a lot of low-hanging fruit and other things to do. That's all. I'm not going to make any forecasts, but again, we feel there's plenty to be done inside the company, and we need to be helped by what is the situation outside in the product markets.
The last question is about Tarkett, which we already answered to it. Several Tarkett shareholders have now tendered their shares to the offer. Do you intend to leave Tarkett listed?
Well, like we said, we extended an offer. Our intention was to do a squeeze out. It will remain to be seen what happens next. For those who didn't tender, they're now our partners.
I have a question as well from Samar Agrawal from Citi. Congratulations on the strong set of results. I have three questions. One. first one around growth runway in H2. Is it fair to expect normalized growth rate from second half of 2021 following the strong rebound since past few quarters? The second question is around input prices and the impact on EBITDA margins. How much of any future raw material price increases can be passed on to customers? Short question, last one, on current market environment. Do you see a recovery in earnings and valuation multiples could accelerate timing of potential disposals?
Okay. Those questions, trying to take them. Number one, growth runway normalization. Look, we don't know. I wish I could say I include BV, Cromology, all the various companies. There's been a lot of stuff going on underlying. There's been some catch up in some areas where people have either under stocked or under, in the case of BV, have been under certified or needed to comply with some deadlines. In other places, it hasn't happened. There's still some hard-hit industries, whether it's commercial, anything travel, retail, consumer sales in certain areas, et cetera, traditional channels. It's really hard to stop and say, we've got a full now and we look at the month, it's a fully stabilized month.
Even in the case of a CPI providing its training, there's some moments it will slow down, they might be catching up. We have to be very prudent in terms of determining what is a normalized level. Input prices, how much can be passed on? I don't know. That's the same thing. There's a lot of increase in the cost of raw materials. Salaries in the U.S. are up. Salaries in Europe, not particularly. Sometimes in Europe, scarcity of manpower. That's for a big input, which is cost of labor. Then you've got the raw materials, they're up. Our companies are pushing through price increases everywhere they can, and their clients are doing it as well. As well, have to be very cautious on that. Do we feel that there will be more divestitures if valuation multiples continue to go high, et cetera?
We've now reached a balance where we want to add assets. That's the main work here is adding assets. We also know we want to keep our leverage contained, so we're looking also at disposals. If you think about what is driving the cart, what is the horse and what is the cart? I'd say the first, 2018, 2019, it was the disposals dragging the investments. I'd say at this point, it's more the investments dragging the disposals, if I may try to find a way to describe it. I don't, David, if you'd like to add. I see you agreeing and nodding.
No, I agree with all those. On the visibility on H2 on sales, it's very hard to project where we'll be on Q4. I think Q3, we can see the order books in some companies and where they stand in terms of booking for training for CPI and the order book for deliveries for Stahl. We have a decent visibility for the next two months, and we don't expect a change in the level of service for those companies. It's true that for end of the year, it's clear as mud. It's hard to know.
Yeah, the general tone is pretty confident. People are fired up, they're working hard, and they're reasonably positive. The trend in budgeting and sort of forecast landing has been rather on the uptick. It's been positive momentum. Having said that, when you look at a heat map of countries against the Delta strain, COVID, et cetera, you will see that as you look east, there is a very significant still pressure on COVID, including in Asia, including the question marks regarding Shanghai. It's a moment of uncertainty also in terms of the epidemic, although I really don't think we're going to have a shutdown experience like we had last year, which was horrible, but it's not completely gone away. We have a biased view, all of us who sit in some of the better countries in terms of vaccination, I'm afraid.
Anyway, we feel cautiously optimistic, happy with the first half. We have plenty of means to carry out our strategy. We will not do it all at once. We'll not do it all in one vintage, and we'll continue doing it very energetically. We're very happy with the people we've added. We've expanded our investment team further. The numbers we put, five people, it looks like not a lot, but for us, it's a 25% increase in our team, so we can process more opportunities. We feel that the fact that we're working out of just Paris and New York means that our team is continuing to gain experience, cohesiveness, drive experience. We're ready to go on holiday exhausted, but we'll come back with a lot of energy.
Thank you. Very last question. This one is in French. I will say it in French. Good afternoon. The consolidation on the paint market is accelerating and multiples are reaching new highs. Isn't that the best context to divest from Cromology after the recovery of EBITDA over the last few years?
Isn't this a good time to dispose of Cromology given valuations of recent transactions, the stepped up level of activity, and also the improvements in the company? Well, it's a good question. Certainly, something that we have to think about. We have not made any decision, but I can see why the question is being asked, and all I can say is, yeah, it's a good question. Whether we will or we will not is the answer everybody would like to have, and we'll be considering.
No more questions.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, everyone.
Have a good break, a good holiday. See you soon.
Thank you. That does conclude the conference for today. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.