Half nine, and we have a lot to cover. We have great news for 2024 and the future. We are going to start. First and foremost, welcome, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. Welcome to Casino de Paris , that you should be familiar with. I would like to congratulate Jérôme Langlet , who is the manager of this venue. You will see in a minute through what I will say, and also through what Grégoire Castaing will say, 2024 was a very good year. I would like to pay tribute to the executive committee of the group. Usually, we have fewer people, especially at Casino de Paris, but we have a large stage. I ask them to come all on stage. Constance Benqué , Dag Rasmussen, Jean-Christophe Thiery, who will also be at the helm of the Louis Hachette Group.
Maxime Saada , Vice President of the Group, and I asked him to give us a presentation later on on the strong ties between the multimedia world, CANAL+ and our group. Pauline Hauwel , who you should know by now, who is going to take the floor later on to officially kick off this assembly. Grégoire Castaing , new Financial Deputy Director. I would like to thank the board members. We have Véronique Morali , Head of the Audit Committee, Virginie Banet, in charge of Remuneration, Compensation, and CSR Committee. We also have a few other people here in the room. I can't really see you because you're in the dark. I would like to thank you. I would also like to thank Laura Carrere , as well as the employee representatives, the two employee representatives who are always very present in the board meetings, but also outside of their board meetings. Where are you, Valérie? There you are.
Arnaud de Puyfontaine , also, where are you? I know you're going through a lot right now, but I know it's very courageous of him to be here with us. He attended the Vivendi board meeting yesterday also. We have Yannick Bolloré , who is here to represent our main shareholder. [Foreign language] and upon my request, because it's important to say it, he takes the floor across different activities of the Bolloré Group, we'll see it with [Avaz], but we'll see it with Maxime Saada , later on, on the multimedia here. This is also why the group came together. We also have President Sarkozy, who's here as an author as well today. We know that beyond 20,000 political copies sold, it's already a success. He has reached more than 100,000. He is a very successful author. He was a great conductor and has brought peace to this group, especially in a tough geopolitical and economic context. Thank you so much for being with us, for being by our side.
I would like to thank someone who isn't here, two new members who may join, hopefully, who will probably join the board. I'm speaking of Mrs. Valérie Hortefeux and Michèle Reiser . I hope that you will attend the next board meeting. Before I give the floor to Pauline, I would like also to thank everyone watching us on lagardere.fr online, on the website, because we have just as many people in the room as following us remotely. I'd like to thank Mr. Vincent Bolloré, following us remotely. He keeps protecting the Lagardère Group so it can continue to develop, to grow, and to empower itself in total freedom. I want Vincent to know that we will always be by his side every time he is attacked, especially by cowardly people. We will continue to defend freedom of expression. He will never be alone in this fight.
I'm h appy that this is said now, and I'll give the floor to Pauline, and then I will take the floor for a presentation with Maxime Saada . Pauline, over to you.
Thank you, Arnaud, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. We are kicking off this extraordinary Ordinary General Assembly. The CEO of Lagardère, Arnaud Lagardère, will be facilitating it. We will have two tellers with the Louis Hachette Group Company and the Vivendi SE Company, represented by François Canavaggio, sitting in the front row. I will be the Secretary of this General Assembly. I'll give you the attendance figures, but they're not definitive. I will share with you the definitive figures before the vote of the resolutions. At this stage, we have the ordinary part of the quorum.
We have 1,657 people who have partaken in the vote, 132,000 shares, and for the extraordinary part, 1,600 shareholders represented for 196 million votes. We have therefore reached the quorum of 20% in the ordinary assembly and 25% in the extraordinary assembly. All of the documents that have been sent to the attendees were sent in due time on April 11. The invitations were sent to the statutory auditors. The financial resolutions submitted to the General Assembly for vote information about sustainability as well were sent. The invitation brochure and universal registration document were sent. The assembly will have to take decisions based on the agenda. There are 37 resolutions on page 26 of the resolution. There are 23 points that are the prerogative of the Ordinary General Assembly and the results for the Extraordinary General Assembly for the ordinary.
Once we have resolution one and two approval of the 2024 yearly and consolidated accounts, number three, the dividends, number four, approval of the statutory auditors on regulated resolutions, approval of the 2025 remuneration, 11 and 12, Jean-Christophe Thiery and Arnaud Lagardère, 13 and 14, the nomination of Madame Valérie Hortefeux and 14 and 15, Mrs. Hortefeux and Mrs. Réiser to become independent board members. Valérie Bernis , Fatima Fikree , Yannick Bolloré , Nicolas Sarkozy , Arnaud de Puyfontaine , renewal of their term, 21 approval for the board to work on the shares of the company, then increase of the capital and 37 power of attorney. For the extraordinary resolutions, there are 14 of them, there are different authorizations to give to the board of directors with, for instance, the priority allocation of shares [Foreign language] , the limitation of real estate securities of EUR 85 million and EUR 1.5 billion.
Resolution 32, the authorization for the board to reduce the social capital through cancellations, and finally the resolution 3 is shares based on performance. [Foreign language] The last one is the modification of different statutory performance and strategy of the group. I have Mr. Grégoire Castaing will take the floor to talk about the 2024 performance. Then we'll have a performance on the sustainable performance by the head of CSR. We'll have a presentation on the governance of the different committees and the board of directors with Virginie Banet. We'll have a presentation and then a Q&A session for 30 minutes, and then we will vote on the 37 resolutions.
[Foreign language] Thank you, Pauline. [Foreign language]. We had to do this to be compliant. We have great news this year, because I told you that the 2024 performance has already been published. I am going to talk also about the 2025 strategy. I know that the first quarter of 2025 will be commented by Grégoire later on, but this is all very positive. About the performance of the group in 2024, I wanted to show you the breakdown of the revenue, both in terms of geography, but also, as you can see here, France accounts for less than 25%, a little over 20%. There are different reasons. First and foremost, the fact that we can't do much more for publishing, for instance, because there is a regulation that does not allow us to do more.
We are trying to find growth wherever it is, and it is mainly in Europe outside of France, and unfortunately, in the U.S. and in Canada. We are an English-speaking group, but more than 30% of our activities, if we add the U.K. to it. The breakdown has not changed much over the past few years, but it continues to be outside of France, really. The revenue is mainly thanks to travel retail, as you can see, for more than half of it. Publishing, 1/3 , you can see huge growth, up 14% revenue up. This is on a like-for-like basis. We removed the acquisitions that we have done over one year to the next. This is not taken into account. Here you have the 33,000 people that make up the group.
You can clearly see that in France, we own 17% of the headcount in line with the revenue, mainly outside of Europe. [Foreign language] On the American continent. Here you have the breakdown. We are a feminist group, or rather, we have a lot of women. Let's not be ambiguous. The women are not that composed of the group, but not only because they are women, but mainly because they are talented women, people who contribute positively to the development of the group. I really want them to know that. We also have a breakdown that we wanted to show you. Since 2019, so one year prior to COVID, one year prior to COVID, so you had publishing, and you see the growth that we've had year on year.
We've been saying for 20 years that publishing is over, that it's dead, but it continues to grow. That is good news, and it will continue to grow. I will talk about it in a minute, but you can clearly see that in times of crisis, publishing does quite well. This was the year after COVID. Here, we've reached a threshold. We are above EUR 300 million in operating results. This is outstanding. This is thanks to the size of our group, but also thanks to the team. As for travel retail, it is slightly different, because, of course, travel retail was hardly hit by COVID. There were locations that we were still paying for, but we did not have any clients there. Hence, the drastic drop of our revenue that you can see here.
We are catching up little by little, first because we've made a lot of efforts, but also because our traffic has recovered. The world of COVID after that would never be the same as the world before COVID, but it's actually better for us. As for the performance, you see, we've had a major gap, EUR 353 million rise up. The losses in rise up, that's quite a lot, even though that was offset by publishing somewhat. Dag and his team have done an incredible job. We see that we've reached profitability again. Here you see the margin, 5.3%, and an operating result that's unprecedented. You can see that when you're recovering, sometimes you get back up on your feet and you do better than before.
This is my favorite slide here that shows you that over a very long period, if you remove the tough years of COVID, 2020, 2021, the group has never stopped being profitable in terms of operating results. Now we have reached a threshold, we have reached a new level, record results reached in 2023, and I hope that we will beat this record again in 2025. Well done to the women and the men that make up this group. These are incredible results. This is an incredible performance. Now we are going to talk about the positioning and achievements that we want to reach for the coming years. First, there is an integration within the Louis Hachette Group, which is significant. Here you have the breakdown of the group as it is right now. Of course, if you have questions, we would be happy to answer them on this.
We have a majority shareholder, and that's great for us. That's fine. We're happy with it. The Louis Hachette Group owns 66.53% of the capital of this. Within the Louis Hachette Group, you have this breakdown with the Bolloré family, that owns 31%, and myself. In December, as soon as Jean-Christophe Thiery, as soon as the Louis Hachette Group was listed to Euronext Group, I decided that I wanted to transfer my shares from the Lagardère Group to the Louis Hachette Group. Not because I'm not interested in the Lagardère Group, but rather because the strategy of the group lies in the Louis Hachette Group, as you can see here. We believe that this is a more consistent set of activities. Not only do you have Louis Hachette, but you also have Prisma, you have Lagardère Publishing , Travel Retail, Press, and Multimedia. The roadmap hasn't changed.
It's the exact same one. Of course, we're going to continue to improve the operating performance. We are going to continue to manage, to continue to improve the management and the generation of cash. This is where the survival of the group lies. I said it already last year, but it's not so much in the DNA of the Lagardère Group, but more in the Bolloré Group. It's about survival, especially in such tough times. That is why Grégoire has done a lot of efforts in 2024 to leverage the group. Of course, we don't want to die here. We want to make sure that the group continues to grow.
Once we've stabilized or at least reached a debt level that is reasonable, which I think will be the case by the end of this fiscal year, 2025, we should go back to a more aggressive activity on acquisitions. However, we haven't wasted any time. We've already started making a few acquisitions here and there. If you look at what's been happening on the publishing and travel retail market, Dag, we realized that we didn't really miss any major opportunities. No regrets on the strategy. I will now take the different branches one by one, publishing very quickly. You already have these slides on the website if you want to take a look at them. Just like the rest of the group, really, 1/3 of the group is French, mainly English speaking, if you add the U.S. and the U.K., mainly English speaking.
Why? Of course, English is the main language in the world. Of course, we're more represented in English-speaking countries than in France, even though France is our foundation and an important country for us. We are a general literature group, very general literature in the U.K. and the U.S., not so much in France, because we're now very diversified in different fields, including illustrated books and school books, which is a historical part of our group, and leaflets. 7,600 employees and in the global ranking in European and French rankings, we're very well ranked. A lot of publishing houses now attempt to thank them. I talked about the best-selling group of President Sarkozy with Fayard, who's had a lot of successes in 2024 and that will continue in 2025, with Jordan Bardella or de Villiers, Clément Lévy, as always, the Rufin, Lemaitre , Musso, huge authors, best-selling authors.
That way a lot, especially for Musso. Every time he publishes something, he sells more than 500,000 copies, and he's the number one author in France. We have also other best-selling books in the U.K. and in the U.S., but I'll mention them in a minute. I've mentioned a few best-selling books, some have won prizes. We've won 200 literary prizes, 80 in France. It's not only about the Femina or the Goncourt or the Renaudot prizes, even though they're the most prestigious ones. There are a lot of other prizes, high schoolers' prizes. Every year, we win between 150 and 200 prizes, sometimes some years even more than 200. Literary prizes are not only about prestige, but it's also a purely commercial aspect because it boosts sales of these books and for the backlist of the same authors. We've done a lot.
We've diversified a lot of activity in these past few years, including with board games, as you can see here. It's still small right now, but it is a driving force for publishing. We've announced the acquisition of 999 Games in the Netherlands, which is a board game group that is going to give even more momentum. As for the strategy of the group, it hasn't changed much, even though the market is slightly shifting. First, we're very offensive, very aggressive, because this is a fixed-cost industry. Any acquisition has a marginal boost that is important for the rest of the other activities. We're always looking out for acquisitions. Now, we're careful, but as soon as there's a good opportunity to seize it, we do it.
In France, especially because we have a distribution activity, and I see that Philippe Lamotte is there in the room because he's in charge of it. That allows us to have marginal growth for the revenue, but for the performance, that is really significant. We also know that we need to create and innovate. I'm talking about coloring books here. I know that coloring books sound trying to, but just like leaflets, it's an important driver for growth. We also have audiobooks, so books that you can listen to. This is growing a lot in the U.S. because, as you know, there are people who travel a lot and who drive their car, who take trains. Instead of reading books, they listen to books. In France, it's also growing. There's a real momentum, and we're going to continue to invest massively in audiobooks.
We are also going to contribute to the development of AI, not in a creative way, because we believe that our authors have enough natural intelligence to sell tools, to sell books. We know that these are tools that can help in terms of marketing, presentation. We cannot neglect this, and we should not miss this AI train. Finally, I will give the floor to Maxime Saada , but we hear a lot about studies, and there are different studies that tell us that people do not read as much. That is not true for everyone. We see that young female teenagers read more and more books. Seniors have more time and read more. Generally speaking, general literature suffers. Donc il faut qu'on en trouve des moyens because we have fewer readers.
We need to find levers to continue to grow outside of publishing, per se. It will remain an important tool for growth. Like I said, we are going to continue to work on board games, and we are going to look on synergies as well and audiobooks. There is this multimedia ecosystem where, and I assume you've all subscribed to CANAL+, and you're probably going to my CANAL+ or other platforms such as Netflix. You will probably come across some of our authors, including English-speaking authors. Arnaud Lagardère is one of them because there are a lot of TV shows or films that are derived from their work.
I have asked Maxime Saada to work on this with the CANAL+ teams, and we will probably give you the result of this working group during the next general assembly because I believe that part of the future of the Hachette group lies also on these platforms. Maxime, over to you. Thank you for being here.
Thank you, Arnaud. Very concisely to explain why we believe that there is a real opportunity for the Lagardère Group. Would you mind sharing the slide, please? There you go. First and foremost, this is a multimedia production market that is growing significantly. Right now, you see the expenditures and investment in content for 2024. This is not an exhaustive slide. You have the main players: $36 billion that Disney invests every year in content, for $150 billion. Significant growth, as I said. You have the figure for Netflix.
It was $7 billion in 2016. In 2016, rather. Obviously, these investments are translated by an increase in volumes. Of course, there was a break with the strike in Hollywood in 2023, but you see that between 2019 and 2022, the number of original script shows in the U.S. has been multiplied by three. The market is exponentially growing. Of course, we are looking for stories and authors to use, knowing that every time a film is derived from a book, it is a huge hit. Oppenheimer, $1 billion revenue globally, Wonka with Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Hunger Games that continues with the latest $350 million.
You see that the share of films in the top 100 in the books and that, you can clearly see that the share of films derived from books in the U.S. and in France accounts for 50% of the cinema revenue. This confirms the role of Lagardère and Louis Hachette and the role that we should play in France. 30% of cinema tickets that are sold, 30% additional tickets sold for films that are derived from books. You can see how popular this is. If we look at the prizes, it is true for the César, but also Oscars. When you have a film that is derived from a book, they get more prizes, 21% for César. Across different categories, the documentaries, 8% of the documentaries in France come, derived from a book.
[Foreign language] 50%, 56%. 56%. Comics have been in the comics. 56% in a dozen of the César comics have been in the comics. This shows you that in terms of recompense, films that are derived from books are not only huge hits in theaters, but also win a lot of prizes. When you look at the impact of shows and films on book sales, because this is very buoyant for Hachette. Here again, you can see the slide now. It's a little complicated slide, but what you can see is that for one third of films derived from books, you almost double the sales of the original book. 10% of these adaptations, you have a huge volume increase. It's always really significant. The impact that it has sold is very significant.
We've got the books office, and we've also got series, and we also have the impact on sales. We are doing very well. Actually, this is the case for CANAL+, and I just wanted to share an illustration of what this looks like when things go well and when we have a good big screen adaptation of a book, which is something that Lagardère will be tapping into and continue to tap into over the course of the upcoming years.
Meet Paddington, the small bear from Darkest Peru, who made his first appearance in Michael Bond's children's book more than 60 years ago. Hello there. Selling over 35 million copies in over 40 languages. At least. With the release of Paddington the Movie and Paddington 2, the brand successfully continued to embrace Paddington's universal themes of generosity, kindness, and humor. Both films were adored by critics. Wonderful news. On its release, Paddington 2 was the best-reviewed film ever. Together, the films took the box office by storm, amassing a combined total of over $500 million, making Paddington the biggest non-studio family film franchise of all time. That was amazing. Take a seat. The franchise has become a global multi-platform sensation. Paddington even has celebrity admirers, and his afternoon tea with the queen became a global phenomenon. Paddington features on over 1,000 licensed products, with over 27 million soft toys flying off the shelves. Paddington is an evergreen global family franchise that attracts the biggest partners. He's appeared in the McDonald's Happy Meal and became the face of Marks and Spencer's award-winning Christmas campaign. The small bear is even a champion for children's rights with UNICEF, raising millions for charity. Oh, Paddington. If we're kind and polite, the world will be right.
The brand reached a whole new generation of fans with the two-time Emmy Award-winning Paddington TV show, released globally by Nick Jr. and now available on top streaming platforms and YouTube. Marmalade. Paddington also appears in numerous attractions and entered the Roblox universe with a brand new game. It's actually quite good fun. The best is yet to come with the release of the third film, Paddington in Peru. Would you like a little preview? The U.K. has a new number one film. Paddington. Paddington? Paddington. Welcome to Peru. It's a feel-good film and a must-see, five stars. [Foreign language]. Joyful and full of heart. Amazing. And look, the best family film of the year. Very observant of you. It's hilarious. I love Julia. A rare, perfect trilogy. Let's go and see it all. Paddington in Peru.
[Foreign language] That's what happens when things go well. [Foreign language] I'm sure that I dedicate this to Monsieur de Puyfontaine . Thank you for your words. When we think about intellectual property, how much intellectual property do we have at Hachette that could actually give rise to something like this? It's about finding those diamonds in the rough. I don't need to remind you that we have a plethora of authors. We are the third biggest publishing house in the world, which means that we are spoilt for choice when it comes to talented authors. I don't want to say that we're not doing anything. We have so many big screen adaptations of the books that are coming out of Hachette. I've got a couple of examples. We've got series, cinemas. The biggest hit of last year was Ensemble in France.
One of the biggest cinema successes in 2024 was Wicked, which obviously is an adaptation as well. We have had lots of work that has been done by our team. We have the new Asterix that will be coming out on Netflix, which will be such a hit, not only in France, but also in other regions of the world. Why? Because the animated series is something that has been pulled off. As you can imagine, we actively work with the CANAL+ producer teams as well as the Hachette teams on a whole number of different adaptations. I am not going to go through them one by one this morning because, unfortunately, time is of the essence. We have a dozen or so projects between the CANAL+ producer and also the Lagardère Group.
The main subjects that are causes of concern, obviously, are the upcoming live-action film for Asterix. This will be the biggest project of our year on both sides. As was mentioned earlier by Arnaud, this is something that should not just be limited to CANAL+ producers. We can think further. We spoke about Netflix or even Michael Connolly for the Bush series. This is one of the biggest hits on Amazon. CANAL+ is going to also be looking at that. As we mentioned as well, and CANAL+ has done this, we want to have links with the biggest global platforms so that we can make the most of the $150 billion that I mentioned earlier. Why are we thinking, Jean-Christophe, Arnaud, and I? Why do we believe that there is potential in this subject that I reminded you earlier?
We were able to triple our figures between 2013 and 2022 with the number of original series across the period. If we look at the revenue for France alone, generated by the group for adaptations, screen adaptations, we did not follow the same dynamic, which means that we kind of missed a trick. However, this also means that there is untapped potential, which is why, over the course of the upcoming months and weeks, we are going to double our efforts prior to sharing our next projects with you.
Thank you very much, Maxime. Thank you. Thank you. I thought it was very important for us to share this with you because it is a breath of fresh air. It is projects for the group, for Hachette. Jean-Christophe Thiery is with me, which is going to be one of the biggest challenges for the upcoming year.
As you know, things are not always easy because sometimes we've got agents in the way of the authors who say yes, but actually, the sum of ours is important, more important than the individual. We don't believe that that's the case, but we believe that we'll be able to convince them to come over to our side. Why? Because we are an international group. We have international standing that goes above and beyond the French borders, giving visibility and also power that our competitors simply don't have in France. It's not for nothing that we've been able to do things. Let's now move on to Travel Retail, which was created maybe 15 years ago. Just a quick anecdote. This was one of the positions that were one of the suggestions that were made by [Jean-Louis Hachette].
Dag, obviously, was still with us, but Dag was very positive with regards to the business line that was going to be developed. Sometimes we've got very uncanny synergies. Actually, in a previous life that I had when I was on EADS's board, I used to see a lot of airlines and a lot of airports coming through. We could really feel that there was a need, not only for airlines, but also airports, to completely change these hubs that were hubs for transport to lifestyle hubs. When a passenger comes through an airport, when sometimes you're waiting for a plane, sometimes you're there two hours before your flight, it's about offering them an experience. This is not only a need, but actually, financially speaking, it was something that made sense.
We saw that the state was starting to plug in money into these huge hubs. These hubs, once again, they're regional centers that are trying to attract a number of flights, either with direct flights or also transits. For example, if you're trying to get from Europe to Asia, Asia into Europe, it's that port of entry into the American continent, into the European continent. Here we realized that there was really something that we could tap into as well. Therefore, we went all guns blazing. Why? Because, to be honest with you, we had no competence in the matter at all. We started from scratch.
Thanks to Dag and his talent, because he was the one who was able to pioneer this role, we were able to become the second biggest player in the world, with the results to speak for themselves. You can see on the screen, travel retail is above all an international business. When you can see the spread of our revenue, I'm just going to, here we go, try and find my clicker. We can see that actually in France, France is not holding that big of a part because airports and train stations aren't being built every day. We've got two big partnerships in France with Aéroports de Paris, so the Paris airport, as well as SNCF, the national railway system. We obviously had to bid for these tenders. That's the rules of the game.
We were able to draw up good agreements with both players, even though we're not the majority shareholder and we don't have full control of operations. However, what we do have is management of the tier. If I were to continue now, we have had a couple of things outside of the Aéroports de Paris, especially here in the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. It's one of the biggest airports in the world, with billions that have been invested both by the region and the Dutch state. This means that it's an important aviation hub, which was maybe left to one side for a few years, but now they're coming back, which is going to be important for our development. This is essential for the strategy to develop our European market. We're very happy with the investments made in Italy.
We know that a lot of our shareholders weren't behind us, if you know what I mean. We were criticized for having spent too much money, but actually, this is our biggest contributor in Europe now. In addition, this is a country that is exploding, that is doing extremely well on the economic standpoint. Maybe we're talking about a stroke of luck, but I think that actually it's Dag and his very talented team that have been able to drive us through. We are seeing scores that are absolutely exceptional coming from Italy. We are continuing to develop, and this means that this is huge success for us. There is lots of innovation as well that we're seeing, so that the customer experience, as you mentioned in your interims, are also profitable for the customers. Let's continue. We're going to be continuing with an active network expansion policy.
Dag is the Mr. More. He always wants more. He's got that hungry appetite. But Dag, obviously, is very, very honest with us and with themselves. He would also say that actually in 2024, we were able to have the biggest amount in our history from a CapEx point of view. This is going to be even better this year, which means that we're going to have the mission to reduce debt all the while, ensuring that the developments continue to take place. We've been an explosion of investment in these airports, either for their renovations, either for building new. We're seeing huge projects in the Middle East, in Asia, big parts of the American airports that are quite old and decrepit are going to be renovated. We've got a wonderful card that we can play as well. Here, we can talk about AI.
AI is something that is important. We see this happen in all of the different presentations. I imagine that Dag has a lot of ideas. I find myself a little bit lost when it comes to talking about AI. Yannick comes in and talks to us about this. Airbus is a lot more on the ball than we are, but we have understood that AI is important. Obviously, we are using it, and we will use it. I know that sometimes it can be quite a taboo subject to talk about, but we are keeping our eye on it. We also have other activities that we would like to talk about. Other activities sound a little bit pejorative, but it is not at all. I would like to thank Benjamin Boulanger, who is with us. He is the one that manages Lagardère Paris Racing. What can we say?
We've got four different centers. We've got Lagardère News. We've got Lagardère Radio. Our shareholders accepted to split the two. Also, we've got Europe 1. That is something that is completely different now, so that Arcom doesn't have an issue with this. Thank God that we did this. Why? Because obviously, there are lots of different constraints that come with it. Development is well underway. The head of Europe 1, who reports to Constance, and is also here with us, can attest to this. We've got the four different roles of activities. We've got that they're relatively profitable. I will start with news. The Lagardère News is working for us thanks to the Elle licenses. We don't own the magazines anymore, but we do have royalties thanks to the sales of the magazines across the world.
Constance, you will have also been able to develop this thanks to your skill set. We've got different Elle products as well that are sold. It is extremely profitable, and it's carrying Lagardère News. This allows us to also finance the other press outlets. I will speak about this earlier. This branch is very profitable, but Lagardère Radio is suffering a little bit. We've seen that during the last waves that started from the beginning of the middle of last year, we saw an increase or an improvement. I think that this is thanks to the consistency that we're seeing across the currents amongst the different mainstream radio stations. We tended to be a little bit too vast, and now we've been able to really be all singing from the same song sheet. Our friends and cousins, if you will, from CNews are helping us a lot.
We ask them to help us. The relationship between what we're calling CNews to CNews started in 2011. This is when Pierre had the wonderful idea to create the Les Rendez-vous du dimanche . This was done in partnership with Italy. The partnership is something that has been very long-lasting over the course of the last decade, more than a decade, actually. Therefore, it went without saying that we wanted to continue this partnership with our CNews. I just want to also talk about us scared for your Europe 1. This was thanks to me. I started sending him texts in 2018 saying, "I really like what you're doing. I really like listening to you on CNews. Why don't you come over to us?" He's finally done. Sonia Mabrouk, obviously, has stayed at Europe 1, but she's got another packet of programs on CNews and Lagardère Radio.
We need this partnership. The partnership is helping us to keep afloat thanks to all of the different programs that I've mentioned. I can continue with live entertainment. We've got an exceptional year for 2024, a little bit like travel retail. After COVID, people needed to get out. They needed to get out of their houses. Live entertainment is something that was booming. Lagardère Paris Racing, which is this jewel in the crown in the Bois de Boulogne, and Benjamin Boulanger is looking after this. This is backbrushing shoulders with the elites, but also sporting practice available to all. It's working very well together. It is a contention that comes from the town hall of Paris. We are delighted to say that we are also contributing to the budget of the city of Paris because it is extremely profitable.
That's in a nutshell, everything that you can see here. We have had the launch of two new press titles, so JDD News and JDD Dimanche. This was after the sale of Paris Match. We have seen excellent sales. JDD Dimanche is doing very well. Despite the fact that we've got new competition coming in from the Tribune du Dimanche, we've still got the same issues that I imagine that you know about. Distribution can sometimes be a little bit difficult in regions. The news kiosks are not always open on a Sunday in some of the countryside points of sales, which is why we're thinking about a digital version. I spoke about Europe 1's recovery with sharp audience growth. I would like to say well done, Jérôme, for everything that you've been doing.
Lagardère Paris Racing, I think that we're going to have to maybe kick things up a notch now. We've got the ideas in place. We've got the know-how. We've got a brand that works. Therefore, I think that we could see where we can push the limits to. How can we go further than just the one venue in the Bois de Boulogne? Why not look at other regions in France and in partnership with other countries where we can open other Lagardère Paris Racing venues? This could be in the U.K., in the Middle East. We have a number of requests coming in. In conclusion, I would like to say, and we will see this this afternoon as well, with Jean-Christophe Thiery, we are looking at an exciting new page in our history thanks to our integration with the Louis Hachette Group.
I can only say this time and time again that the partnership, the marriage, if you will, the coupling with the Bois de Boulogne Group is wonderful for our teams, on a personal note as well, but especially for our teams. You can ask them yourselves. They will tell you as much. We are delighted and we are proud to be part of this group. I can talk on behalf of the 33 employees. We are proud. I said this to start. We are proud of our partnership with a group that is independent, that is linked to no lobbying, with the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, absolutely and wholly in place. This is completely different from other groups that find themselves maybe pigeonholed. We have the unwavering support. We are looking for this support. Why? Because we need it. It is essential to us.
This marriage, if you will, was not done for nothing. I would like to congratulate the 33,000 men and women working for the Lagardère Group. All of this is thanks to them. It's thanks to their talent. It's thanks to their hard work, thanks to their skills. Without them, because obviously our raw material is creativity and talent, without our employees, we will not be hitting these results. I am so proud to say that 2024 was an exceptional year, and maybe 2025 will be even better. My fingers are crossed. Thank you very much. We'll give the floor to Grégoire's remarks.
[Foreign language] Ladies and gentlemen, members, the board of directors, shareholders, I am pleased to present the excellent results achieved by your group in 2024 for the first time. Once again, we've got wonderful results for the year.
Let's begin with the group's key financial indicators for 2024. As you can see on the screen, our revenue reached a record level of nearly EUR 9 billion for the 2024 financial year, representing growth of 8.5% on a comparable basis to 2023. We were able to increase our recurring EBIT by EUR 73 million, which means an increase of 14%. Our net income group share also rose by 17% to EUR 178 million. The most significant progress that we've seen, and that was a priority for this year, is that the free cash flow with a generation of cash, cash generation, rather, that is record for 2024 of EUR 423 million, which means a significant process of EUR 62 million compared to 2023. If we now look at revenue growth in more detail, growth was represented in additional EUR 861 million compared with 2023, 8.5%.
If we look at comparable data, if we were to look from left to right, you could see that we have not been impacted by exchange rate this year. We also had the contribution of a couple of scope effects, especially with acquisitions that were made in 2023. We have Marché in Germany, Costa Coffee, Tastes on the Fly in the United States. The last element that I would like to talk about is organic growth. Organic growth was wonderful, generating more than EUR 700 million in additional revenue. I also want to underline that for organic growth, we've got all three branches that contributed to this. If we now look at the recurring EBIT, which is our indicator, as I mentioned, we are at EUR 413 million. We are looking at additional operating profit of EUR 33 million, generating 2024.
What is also important is to look at the contribution equally of our two main branches. We have got travel retail and publishing, which contributed almost equally to this standard performance, with wonderful performance coming from travel retail if we compare this to 2023. Let's now focus on the priority that I mentioned earlier, cash generation for the Lagardère Group for 2024. We can see that, as I mentioned, we have a record cash generation, which is EUR 518 million in total for 2024 for cash operations and investments. This record level was thanks to growth that I mentioned earlier, but also restricted spend for our other external growth operations, thus allowing us to improve a contribution. We have moved from down 74 to up 518 in 2024.
It is also important to underline, as you can see here, that going above and beyond just this performance, which is wonderful performance, all of the branches have contributed positively to this result for 2024, which was not the case in 2023. It was only publishing that was contributing positively. Cash generation. Cash generation has enabled us to rapidly reduce our debt. Obviously, you can find the EUR 508 million that I've just spoken about for free cash flow and acquisitions of new assets. You can see that we also had EUR 154 million dividends, so EUR 0.65 per dividend for Lagardère SA, and also dividends for our minority shareholders as well for EUR 62 million. For interest and financial charges, we're still quite high, EUR 176 million. This explains why we want to reduce debt so that we're able to lighten this.
Globally speaking, 2024 allowed us, as you can see, from EUR 2.43 million to EUR 1.85 million at the end of 2024. We've had great results this year. We've been able to significantly reduce our debt. Therefore, we've also been able to reduce our debt ratio, so debt EBITDA, which has moved, as you can see, from 3x to 2.4x. This is wonderful performance for our debt ratio. It's actually better than we had thought for at the beginning of the year. This reduction in debt was a priority and allowed us, as you can see, to have a very healthy financial position at the end of the year. On the asset side, you can see that we've got leasing rights related to our concessions and travel retail. This represents visibility of our activity for better security for the future.
We've also got the acquisitions, the contracts, and other fixed assets that have been confirmed for 2024. There have been no assets that have been impaired or depreciated over the course of the last year, which is also wonderful news. We've also got the non-current liabilities. We've got these liabilities also related to travel retail concessions. When we think about our financial debt, for the most part, this has been refinanced in spring, which is why it is now mostly in our balance sheet for equity. Equity has got a lot better, as you can see here on the screen, at EUR 72 million. You find the same amount here on this slide with a few explanations that go above and beyond the operational operating performances.
You have net financial expenses at 42% because of the increased interest rates and debt ratio in 2023, which is why it's so important for us to deleverage. It was important in 2024, and it still is for 2024, or 2025, rather. Interest rates on rental travel retail. These are mainly related to travel retail. Here you have the taxes paid in the U.S. and in Europe. If you deduce the minority interest, the net result is EUR 168 million, up 70% compared to last year. To conclude this presentation on the financial performance, I'd like to remind you of the fact that the resolution is an ordinary dividend of EUR 95 million for an amount of EUR 0.67 per share, up 3% compared to the previous. This amount will be [Foreign language] EUR 1.31 million.
If you approve this dividend, it will be paid on May 5th. The decision will be approved tomorrow on April 30th. Now, let's take a look at the stock exchange. Share price went from EUR 18,308 in January to 20% up 10% over the full year. On February 13th, we published our performance, and the stock price went up over the next two days. Because of the current macroeconomic context and the state of the different markets, it's gone down afterwards. If we look at the share price, if we include the dividends that were paid over the year, and again, the great economic performance I've just presented, you see that the increase is actually 14% over the year. I'd like to conclude this presentation by talking about the first quarter revenue that was published on last Friday, rather. Let's start with Lagardère Publishing.
As you can see on this slide, Lagardère Publishing maintains a high level of activity for the first quarter of 2025, up 8%, 4.8% on a like-for-like basis. Great momentum across our different geographies. This momentum is very strong in the U.K., where our best-selling books have sold really well on Exploring Rebecca Yarros, the third volume of the trilogy that is actually above and beyond our expectations for the first few weeks of the year. In the U.S., the first quarter was quite good, with Stern Publishing being integrated in the continuous sales of Elin Hilderbrand's book or Colleen Hoover's book. We continue to diversify, and we've announced last week an acquisition for 999 Games, a leader, as Arnaud has mentioned, in board games in the Netherlands and in Belgium.
This acquisition is in line with Skyjo, Crack List, and great successes for 2024, and it's going to be very much in line with that. Now, let's take a look at Travel Retail. As you can see, Lagardère Travel Retail has a robust revenue, its revenue up 5% and 3.9% on a like-for-like basis after a year 2024 that was a record year, as mentioned before. Despite a slowdown at the beginning of the year that we had already anticipated, especially for Northern Asia, we are currently restructuring our activities, as announced at the end of 2024. In Europe, we still have strong growth, particularly robust for the beginning of the year, especially in our parts such as Rome, Prague, Warsaw, and amongst others. The priority this year, as Arnaud has mentioned, is the opening up of Amsterdam. That should be operational in June.
It will be very important for activities. Finally, our activities over the first quarter, these other activities are up 4% every year, over the quarter, rather, on a like-for-like basis. This means that we're excluding the sale of Paris Match last year. This is mainly thanks to the Europe 1 audience that was really good, and that continues to grow in this beginning of year. We have the JDD News that is a real success and that is really contributing to our revenue for the beginning of the year. To summarize, for the first quarter, in total, we've generated almost EUR 2 billion in revenue over the first three months of the year. As you can see, sustained growth up almost up 5% in published performance and on a like-for-like basis. Our activities are growing for the first quarter, so this is great news.
I'll conclude with one slide to add to what Arnaud has said here. This is the global breakdown of our revenue by the end of March. The group has a portfolio of activities that is quite well balanced. You're very diversified in your geographies, as you can see. On top of the great performance that I've just mentioned, these are major assets for the future. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, thank you for your attention.
[Foreign language] Applauding not only the performance, but also Grégoire himself. You may be surprised not to see Sophie Stabile, who used to present the results last year. She's fighting as hard as she can against the terrible illness and last summer. I'd asked our dear reference shareholder to help and take over. Once again, it was Maxime. Maxime.
[Foreign language] Grégoire is now part of our teams. And he's exceptional. He's great. Technically speaking, on a human standpoint also, he's great. He understands everything, so he's taken over. It's also difficult for him to give this presentation. It's a first for him, so I'd like to thank him for that. Pauline, let's continue.
Céline Soubranne, Head of CSR, to join us on stage to talk about the strategy and actions rolled out in 2024.
[Foreign language] Thank you, Pauline. Hello, everyone. 2024, for CSR and sustainable development, there was a new European regulation, which you must have heard of, the CSRD regulation. We had to comply with it, and we've published our extra financial report based on this new standard. Of course, I'm not going to talk about regulation right now. I'd rather, in the coming minutes, talk about how the Lagardère teams are using and integrating these social and environmental challenges into our activities in order to develop opportunities for our different shareholders. The number one commitment is what we do as employers for our employees. We develop people. We ensure employability of our teams. We work on well-being at work. As Arnaud has mentioned, we have 60% women in the group. We're happy because this year, in executive positions, we have a very high level of female people. This year, we've really had also to take action on all forms of discrimination or inappropriate behavior.
We have, for instance, launched a training course on the prevention of moral or sexual harassment. 81% of our employees have attended this training. We also want to limit the environmental footprint of our products and services. We have a decarbonization. We want to decarbonize our activities. We won the Amsterdam Call for Tender, for instance. This is something that was scrutinized during the Call for Tender process won by Lagardère Travel Retail. It is also the case for our client distributors of Hachette Livre, Hachette Publishing, rather, and all the companies that buy advertisements. Clearly, Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 partial carbon emission strategies have borne fruit. We want to optimize our energy consumption in our buildings and business travel. This is all down 32%. We also now publish our whole Scope 3 since 2024.
We've completed our annual carbon reporting by publishing Scope 3 data. We want to reduce our Scope 2 carbon emissions by 30% by 2030. We work on circular economy where we want to avoid waste. We have this waste reduction program for Travel Retail, in particular with our food waste and plastic pollution. Lagardère Publishing has strong commitments by 2030 in publishing and distribution. We want to reduce by 50% our plastic use, especially single-use plastic. We want to also use plastic bottles. We know that this is unavoidable for airport safety reasons, but we want to reduce those made from virgin plastic. Hachette Livre has also strong commitments, and this was already mentioned by Arnaud. We see that in our society, we want to make sure that people continue to read, continue to consume books.
Lagardère Publishing has been working really hard to develop other alternatives, such as audiobooks, and make sure that new books are available for people with disabilities or who have learning issues. I’d like to also mention the free podcasts that Europe 1 is making available, including ones on history, literature, art. This is a great way also to make culture available to everyone. Of course, we have our foundations that support reading education through books. The Hachette Foundation, we have 17 new projects that were supported again this year financially in this regard. We also have a fourth commitment around ethical governance and sustainable governance. We have rolled out a large-scale training this year to prevent corruption. 81% of our employees have taken the dedicated training course.
We also have pursued high-risk activities for operating countries where the standards are not the same in Europe and in France. We are securing our value chain. We have great results because our rankings in the CDD and Sustainalytics, that are scoring agencies, have scored us really well. This is something that investors are scrutinizing. I'd like to thank the teams. It was a very dense year. Thank you so much to everyone. We've showcased once again that we have the capacity to create value for the group, for the company, and for societies with CSR.
Well done. This is a fight that you're fighting every day. I know that it becomes quite constraining for companies. The documents that you need to work on on a daily basis is huge. I'd like to go back to something that I hope you did not misinterpret.
Jean-Christophe, feel free to correct me. You too, Maxime. When I say that reading rates are down, the truth is that good books always find their readers. This is the one thing that you should understand. It probably means that there are too many books that are published. Too many books published. That's the first thing. Secondly, as soon as we see that amongst the youth, especially young girls, young female teenagers, reading is growing thanks to romantic books. We're one of the leaders. This is very positive. The second thing that is even more positive that Maxime has just reminded me of is the fact that, yes, reading amongst the elderly people, or from the age of 50 to 55, this is a segment that is growing. Because there are people who tend to live longer, this, again, is good news.
This is a readership that we have that is going to end up being a driver for growth. What I said is not negative on reading and readership. It is just that it has changed. This is a market that has changed drastically. We need to adapt. We are adapting to it in a great way. Maxime, himself, is doing it. With Jean-Christophe, we are doing everything that we can. Just remember that good books will find their readers, and a lot of readers. We see it every day, just like good products will always find good clients. This is a general rule that applies also to books. Apologies for this side note, but I thought it was important to mention it. Pauline, over to you again.
I will give the floor to Virginie Banet for the different committees in 2024. Thank you, Pauline.
Dear shareholders, I'd like to talk about the governance of the company. I'll go over this really quickly. The board, I don't know if we have a slide. The structure of the governance is that we haven't changed anything in 2024. We still have a board with two permanent committees, the audit committee that is headed by Véronique Morali, and the remuneration and CSR committee that I am heading. The board of directors includes 11 members, two of which are employee representatives. We have 55.5% independent and women members, higher than the legal threshold and higher than the AFEP-MEDEF threshold. I'd like to mention to represent the two different committees, CSR, remuneration, and nomination committee. There was a change in 2024 with Arnaud de Puyfontaine, who has joined the committee, which is now comprised of six members, including four independent members as defined by the AFEP-MEDEF code.
The committee met seven times in 2024 with a deduction rate of 100% during the two plenary meetings held with members of the audit committee. We examined and monitored the CSR and CSRD issues. Passons maintenant sur le That's now moved to the next slide on the audit committee in 2024. There were no changes made to this committee. 75% independence rate. It met five times with a 96.5% attendance rate. Now I'd like to talk about the changes in governance that are going to be submitted for approval. We have several resolutions here. First and foremost, we submit for your approval the appointment of Valérie Hortefeux and Michèle Reiser as independent directors for a four-year term. Their respective biographies are shown on the screen. You can also find them on page 40 and 41 of the notice of invitation.
These two appointments will replace Laura Carrere and myself, which will expire at the close of this annual general meeting. I would like also to submit resolutions 15 - 20, where we are asking to renew the following directors' terms of office or terms: Yannick Bolloré for four years, Mrs. Véronique Morali and Arnaud de Puyfontaine, and Nicolas Sarkozy for a three-year term, and Valérie Bernis and Fatima Fikree for a two-year term. The goal of these proposed renewals is staggered. It is staggered because we wanted it to be in line with good governance observed on the market. I'd like now to present the main work carried out by the board of directors in 2024. During 2024, the board met 12 times with different regular duties, including examining the annual and half-yearly financial statements, with Grégoire approving the budget, the setting of the compensation of corporate offices.
In addition to the traditional tasks of the board, we've also had to work on different strategic issues. First, the refinancing, as mentioned by Grégoire Castaing. The board has paid attention. Paid attention to the nearly EUR 2 billion refinancing operation finalized in 2024. We monitored the proposed partial demerger of Vivendi and the creation of the new Lagardère Louis Hachette Group and the sale of the Paris Match magazine to LVMH in October 2024. Finally, the implementation of the CSRD directive and the adoption of the transition plan for a company. In this regard, we wanted to be really pragmatic in order to concile the regulatory requirements and the inclusion of operational constraints that are extremely heavy. As Arnaud has mentioned, the board has also adopted the group's transition plan. As for the appointment, remuneration, and CSR committee, we start with governance.
The committee has reviewed the composition of the committee, the committee of the board. The committee has identified two ways to improve the board with new board members that would be added who have expertise on climate issues, cybersecurity. This is what the self-assessment has highlighted: the necessity to add people with expertise in cybersecurity, AI, and climate issues, as well as biodiversity. The committee has also examined the remuneration to be paid to corporate offices and determined the new remuneration policies. You will find documents on the universal registration document. As for the CSR, the committee has worked in particular and monitored the implementation of the CSRD directive. During 2024, the CSR department has addressed the committee, in particular, to present the monitoring of the CSR strategy of the group. Thank you very much. I'm giving the floor back.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, the audit committee that meets frequently, as you may have heard, meets in a peaceful environment. I'd like to thank Grégoire Castaing, the financial team, the audit teams, the risk management teams that are helping us in this rigorous work that we carry out with a lot of rigor because we have to pay attention to everything. We're really focused, and the teams always, always deliver and always answer the questions that we ask and always follow up on the points that we ask them to follow up on. Of course, we worked on recurring activities such as review of accounts, financial commitments. We look at the risk mapping because this is something that always changes and evolves depending on the activities.
Recently, we've assessed the tax policy in detail because this is a very diversified group, and we need to have a consistent vision. We also look at the operational efficiency plan, and the group really helps with Vivendi, and Vivendi's DNA includes operational efficiency. All the branches often give us presentations on the plans that aim at optimizing the organization, the structure, the costs in order to work on procurement logistics to make sure that we have a group that is as lean as possible. We also work on IT and information systems that are cyber attacks, data protection, especially given the diversity of the group that has a lot of autonomy, especially in publishing. We need to harmonize and comply with the commitments and pull some of our activities.
It is not always easy in a very international and autonomous group to ensure the efficiency of the information systems and IT systems in the context of multiple cyber risks. We met for the first time to follow up on the CSRD directive with a joint session with the CSR committee. I am not going to reinvent the wheel, but we first wanted to understand what this was about because it is great to show the CSR policy. If you look at it from the audit perspective and risk management perspective, you need to talk to the different auditors. That is when you start looking at dual materiality and what the European tax policy is and what it means for the group. We have tried to pool with the CSR team, and I would like to thank the CSR team.
They were really patient with us, and they were extremely patient, and they explained in a very kind way. I think that everyone understood that it was really important for everyone to comply with this new regulation. The first sustainability report was finalized in March this year. With the auditors, we also had fruitful discussions. Mazars is in charge of collection and certification of information with regards to sustainability. We challenged them a lot to make sure that, just like Virginie was saying, they respect the balance between the regulatory requirements and the fine line that we want to follow because the group wants to comply but not do more, especially at a time where everything is evolving. Auditors are scrutinizing everything that we're doing, and we wanted to work hand in hand. We did it hand in hand, and we found this balance.
Thank you, Virginie. Thank you, Véronique Morali. Yes, you can give her a round of applause. I wanted to actually address Virginie, so it makes sense that I called you. Virginie has told you with a lot of elegance that she is not a candidate for a new term. Laura Carrere is not either. I'd like to really thank you, Virginie. She's been with the Lagardère group for a few years now. I know that she's helped with the investors and the group strategy as a whole. She left, and then she came back. She's leaving again. I'm sure she'll be back at one point. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I'm sure she'll be back. I would like to thank you on behalf of everyone in the group for everything that you've done for the Lagardère group. As an employee, but also as part of the board. Thank you very much, Virginie.
As board member, Simon Beillevaire , for the Mazars firm. The content will be on screen, but you also have the brochure available.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I will be presenting the audit reports working with Deloitte and Mazars. These are reports that we've been able to draw out for the financial year 2024. They've been made available to you, and I will therefore just be giving you a summary of this. There are nine reports in total. We've got a report on the annual financial statements, a report on the consolidated financial statements, another on the regulated agreements, a report on the certification of sustainability information, and then we have five reports with regards to the extraordinary aspects of the general meeting. I will begin with our report on the annual accounts, which is the subject of the first resolution.
These accounts have been prepared in accordance with French accounting principles, and we considered the evaluation of equity securities to be a key point of the audit. Based on our audit, we certify the company's annual accounts without reservation or observation. With regards to the consolidated financial statements, our reports highlight two key points of the audit. The first concerns evaluation of goodwill given the significance of management's judgment and the uncertainties inherent in the assumptions that are used. The second relates to the estimation of returns taken into account in the recognition of revenue within the Lagardère Publishing division, given the significance of the estimated amounts of returns and the significance of the estimates used in the calculations. In conclusion of our works, we have issued an unqualified audit opinion on your group's financial statements as presented.
If we now move on to the fourth resolution, we have issued a report on regulated agreements during the past financial year. No new regulated agreements were authorized or entered into by your board of directors. The agreements that you approved in previous financial years and that have been continued into 2024 have been mentioned in the report. We have also issued a report on sustainability information contained in the management report. The report is a limited assurance report. We would like to draw your attention onto the paragraph 2 that specifies the context that is linked to the first application of CSRD. If we now talk about the extraordinary parts of your meeting, we have two reports concerning the emission of shares and various securities. Our global delegation or comprehensive delegation report is linked to the new law of the 13th of June 2024.
We don't have any reservations or absolutions to formulate at this point. The report on the authorization to allocate bonus shares, there were two of them, and this is for a period of 38 months. We don't have any reservations or comments. We have also issued a report on the proposed capital reduction. Once again, there are no observations. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, thank you very much for listening to me.
Let's move to the questions. I don't know if we've got any questions. We've got written questions as well, but they've already been written and answered on the website. Are there any questions in the room?
Yes. Mr. Chair, the different economic uncertainties, especially if we think about the customs laws that have been put into place by Trump and the criminal activity of Britain in Ukraine, we've got different contestation activities that have been taken with regards to the politicization of different media outlets and publishing houses. The social interest and the economic interest of a group such as Lagardère should only be economic and not look at activism or politics. Therefore, Mr. Chair, how are you going to ensure that you keep political neutrality as well as economic secularism within our group? Because this is going to be key if we want to keep the cohesion between our 33,000 employees, our authors, and also respect of each of the group shareholders. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your question. I was expecting this. When it comes to neutrality, political neutrality, this is something that has been assured. The only thing that is important to us is freedom of expression in all of our different business lines, not just for the radio, but also for our newspapers and for our recent press. Therefore, I am not going to spend too much time on this because for us, it is a daily reality that we have on a daily basis each day. You are saying that we have a shareholder that is a nd shareholders, that is all they are, shareholders. At the end, I just wanted to remind you that if we think about the book that was written by Mr. Bardella, this was part of the group's success, economic success. Therefore, the contract is also fulfilled. The only editorial line here is to be there for the French people.
That's not what we've changed, but maybe the French have changed. We can maybe ask them a question. This is what we're doing with a certain sense of pride. I'm not going to spend too much time on this now. I don't know if Constance or Jean-Christophe have anything to add. They're saying no. I think that's it from us now, but thank you very much for your questions. Oh, yes, sorry, there was a question on customs, the Senec customs, as you mentioned. I sent a question and answer, especially for the American market. We're not impacted that much, but Dago, I'll let you know why. Dago, where are you going? We can't hear you, and that's such a shame.
Can you hear me now?
No, still not. They're not in.
We are not actually impacted this year with the different customs laws because there are different. We've got different contracts that will guarantee prices. We're not really sure what the sustainability of the decisions that have been taken will be. We will look at the economic environment. We don't think that we are really concerned by this.
Next questions and next answers. Are there any other questions in the room? I know that there were quite a few of them, the written questions. Any questions in the room? Yes, go ahead.
I'm an individual shareholder. I have several questions, if I may. You are very present in travel retail. You've got an important shareholder, Swagash, that is not part of the board, come from LVMH. Are these issues that you think could be merged, or do you think that these two actors could work together? Is there a reason that Agash doesn't want to be part of the board? Is it because they don't want to have information for travel retail? I have another question on your own report, page 370, specifying the different progressions or the different evolutions for the shareholders of the group. I think that it's a shame that for Vivendi, you said that there are other shareholders because Vivendi, on the 31st of December, had a little bit more than 5%, and I think that it would be important for us to share that with us. They're actually above 5% now. Also, what is your situation, Mr. Arnaud Lagardère, because you, in 2024, went over different thresholds? I've understood that you have actually put in your own money and moved this from Lagardère to Hachette. Will there only be one listed company or will that be Hachette?
Why do you have two listed companies? I haven't really understood. I didn't understand the answer that was given yesterday. Why does Vivendi still have 5% of Lagardère's shares? The last point, this is resolution 18, I believe. You've got the renewal of a remuneration committee. This is page 250 now. It is indicated that for the members of the board, you need to have an absence of having been contempted for any public sanctions, fraud, financial issues. If we think about the remunerations committee, do you not think, do you think that it's a good idea to have this proposal being put forward? Is this one of the. Is this something that you've been looking at? Have you really looked into the matter? Thank you.
Thank you very much for your questions. You started off well. You did not start off very well, but I am still going to work. For, I do not know, Dag, maybe you can talk about the DFS activities that are slightly different to our own activities. If Mr. Bernard Arnault with Agache did not want to be represented within the board, it is not because he did not want to have special information or anything like that. This is not linked to DFS or an eventual interest in travel retail or not. Travel retail is not up for sale. We have spoken about this. There have been a lot of leaks and a lot of questions asked. We have got two different branches here. We are looking at economic cycles as well, for example, for COVID. There are no projects. We are not looking to dispose of travel retail. Obviously, let us never say never.
We don't know what tomorrow will have in store for us, but this is not on the agenda for the moment. [Foreign language]
We've got the group strategies that are completely different. We're focused on travel with 80% of our activities in the airport. DFS [Foreign language] downtown duty-free. We've got the downtown duty-free. [Foreign language] They've got different implantations in Paris. In China as well. We are mostly focused on different regions. I don't really see the interest in grouping the two together because the strategy is completely different.
In theory, strategically, do we think that there is an interest in having the two speaking to one another? That's already the case. Obviously. [Foreign language] Do we also think that there would be additional interest? I'm not sure. As you know, Mr. Bernard Arnault, he has different strategies that are very long-term strategies, and I'm not sure that he wants to dispose of parts of this. This is part of the part of our pipeline. Even if the business is wonderful, there can be difficulties, just as we have had difficulties, but it is still good. It's still good that it's part of our pipeline. Pauline, maybe you can take the floor and speak about Vivendi.
Yep, absolutely. On the 31st of December, it was just below 5%. These documents that have been formatted, we are following the European regulations, and we are disclosing individually that participations that are above the threshold are legal. This led to a publication of press release, and we spoke about participations in the different documents that were given to you. Why Vivendi still has this participation? It's linked to the disposal rights. Why? Because from a public tender that was launched in 2002, there was an additional branch looking at the different disposal rights for shareholders who wanted to get rid of their shares. This is something that Vivendi is also part of. They're not mobile assets that have been transferred to a shared group or anything like that. I think that that's it for Vivendi.
Yeah, Yannick, there's nothing to add? No, yes, that was very, very clear. If we look at the end, and I didn't like it as much as the beginning, you mentioned 100% of the acidity of. No, it's 150 or 200 if we think about Mr. Sarkozy. He's there for everything, and there is no counterindication as to why Mr. Sarkozy could not be part of the group. These can be different charges against him have been contested, and he is essential to the group. I've said this, and I'm not saying this because he's my friend. I'm saying this because he has always been there for the hard times, and there have been so many of them. We never know what tomorrow will be made of him, therefore, he's essential to the group, really essential to the group. I often think that we're in the same boat, and it's important for me to have him with us.
I think that it's the same thing for the other shareholders. You can obviously ask them the question if you want, but that's how I feel. The question that you are asking is something that hasn't been brought up at the board because it is not a relevant question. Are there any other questions? Yes. I'm forgetting everything, and that's important as well. No, but I felt that the future of the group was going through the Hachette group, and I thought that this was an opportunity, a very interesting opportunity for us, economically speaking or financially speaking. I think about Mr. Sarkozy once again. It says that the river is always loyal to its source when going to the sea, which means that we are now linked to the Bolloré group, even if they're not a majority shareholder and they don't behave as a majority shareholder.
We are linked. We can see this in our synergies, in our economic synergies through men and women as well. I am personally really happy with working with this team. It was completely changed things for me. At the same time, I wanted to be as close as possible to the sun. If I think about the. You've spoken about mergers. What could the future mergers be? It's really not dual for the [Foreign language] , if you were to ask me the questions, I'm 100% focused on the activities of the group. I'm not focused on this type of. Once again, Yannick, if you have anything to add, please feel free. Are there any other questions? We are actually on time, which is very rare for us.
Especially because I actually took a lot more time. No other questions? Because there were lots of written questions, and maybe we can go to the next part.
Yes, absolutely. Let's go on to the votes. For the definitive quorum, this is slightly changed since the beginning of the general meeting because we are looking at 83.3% for ordinary and 1,700 participating in the vote. We are looking at 83%. You can see the different details on the screen. For the extraordinary general meeting, we have once again 1,684 shareholders. I believe that we have a film just to explain how this is going to work. We can share this before going on to the voting.
[Foreign language]
Okay, [Foreign language] the first resolution is the approval of the financial statements. Voting is open. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Second. Resolution is the approval of the consolidated financial statements. Voting is open. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Third resolution, allocation of the company's earnings and dividend payments. Voting is open. Le vote est clos.
Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Fourth resolution, approval of the statutory auditor's special report on related party agreements. Voting open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.36%. Adopted 99.36%. Fifth resolution, approval of the information disclosed pursuant to article L22109 of the French commercial code concerning the remuneration of corporate officers. Voting open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Resolution adopted 99.99%. Sixth resolution, approval of the components for remuneration benefits paid during or allocated in respect to 2024 to Arnaud Lagardère. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Seventh resolution, approval of the components of remuneration benefits paid during or allocated in respect to 2024. Jean-Christophe Thiery. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Resolution adopted 99.97%.
Eighth resolution, approval of the components of remuneration benefits paid during or allocated in respect of 2024 to Pierre Leroy, Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Resolution adopted 99.97%. Ninth resolution, approval of the 2025 remuneration policy for the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Voting open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Adopted 99.71%. Tenth resolution, approval of the 2025 remuneration policy for the members of the Board of Directors. Voting is open. [ Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Resolution adopted 99.99%.
Eleventh resolution, ratification of the cooptation of Jean-Christophe Thiery as a director. Voting open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Resolution adopted 99.98%. Twelfth resolution, ratification of the cooptation of Arnaud Lagardère as a director. [Foreign language] Voting is closed.
Adopted 99.76%. Thirteenth resolution, the appointment of Valérie Hortefeux as a director for a four-year term. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. Adopted 99.99%. Welcome on board. Welcome on board, Valérie. Fourteenth resolution, the appointment of Michèle Reiser as a director for a four-year term. Voting is open. [Foreign language] . Voting is closed. Adopted 99.99%. Adopted. Welcome, Michèle. 99.99%. Fifteenth resolution, reappointment of Yannick Bolloré as a director for a four-year term. The vote is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. Adopted 99.76%. Adopted 99.73%. Okay, so people don't want him. Sixteenth resolution, reappointment of Véronique Morali as a director for a three-year term. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. Adopted 99.99%. Seventeenth resolution, reappointment of Arnaud de Puyfontaine as a director for a three-year term. Voting open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed.
Adopted 99.34%. Eighteenth resolution [Foreign language] . Term of Nicolas Sarkozy for a three-year term. Voting is open. For the reappointment of Nicolas Sarkozy as a director for a three-year term. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. Adopted 99.99%. Adopted 99.29%. Nineteenth resolution, reappointment of Valérie Bernis as a director for a two-year term. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. Adopted 99.99%. [Foreign language] , reappointment of Fatima Fikree as a director for a two-year term. Voting is open. [Foreign language] . Voting is closed. Adopted 99.98%. [Foreign language] Twenty-first resolution, authorization for the board of directors to trade in the company's shares for 18 months. Voting is open. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%.
[Foreign language] Twenty-second resolution. [Foreign language] Renewal of financial authorizations. EUR 5 billion. The vote is open. Voting is open. For 26-month authorization for the board of directors to issue debt securities giving immediate or future access to the share capital of the company, subsidiaries, and/or entity with a EUR 1.5 billion ceiling on the debt securities issued. Voting is closed. Adopted 99.97%. Twenty-third resolution. [Foreign language] .
Twenty-six months for the board of directors to issue with preemptive subscription right orders as the company and/or securities giving immediate or future access to the company's share capital and/or clearing immediate or future rights to the allocation of debt securities subject to ceilings of EUR 280 million of increases in share capital and EUR 1.5 billion for debt securities issued. Voting is open. Le vote est clos. Voting is closed. Adopted 99.98%. Twenty-fourth resolution. [Foreign language] 26-month authorization for the board of directors to issue by way of a public offer other than those referred to in section one of article L411-2 of the French and financial code without preemptive subscription rights with a priority right for at least five trading days.
Ordinary shares for the company and/or securities giving immediate or future access to the company's share capital and/or clearing immediate or future rights to the allocation of debt securities. Voting open. Voting is closed. Adopted 99.93%. [Foreign language] . Twenty-fifth resolution. [Foreign language] the board of directors to issue by way of public offer [Foreign language]. Without preemptive subscription rights and without a priority right. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Twenty-six months authorization for the board of directors to issue. By way of a private placement as referred to in section one of article L4112 of the French monetary and financial code without preemptive subscription rights. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Twenty-seventh resolution.
Authorization for the board of directors to issue additional securities in the event that an issue is oversubscribed subject to the applicable ceilings. Voting is open. Le vote est clos. Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. [Foreign language] . Twenty-eighth resolution. Twenty-six months authorization for the board of directors to issue without preemptive subscription rights ordinary shares of the company and/or securities giving immediate or future access to the company's share capital and/or clearing immediate or future rights to the allocation of debt securities consideration for securities standard as part of a public exchange offer or a contribution in kind. Voting is open. Le vote est clos. Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Twenty-ninth resolution. Overall ceilings of EUR 85.20 million and EUR 0.5 billion on the total amount of capital increases and issues of debt securities resulting from the authorizations and the preceding resolutions. Voting is open. Le vote est clos.
Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.94%. Voting is closed. Thirtieth resolution. [Foreign language] EUR 320 million. Twenty-six months authorization for the board of directors to increase the company's share capital by capitalizing reserves, profits and share premiums and issuing new shares and/or increasing the per value of existing shares. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Twenty-first resolution. Vingt-six months authorization for the board of directors to issue without preemptive subscription rights or shares of the company and/or securities giving access to the company's share capital to improve under corporate savings schemes provided that such issues do not represent more than 0.5% of the outstanding share capital in any given year. Voting is open. [Foreign language] . Voting is closed. [Foreign language] 99.98%. [Foreign language] . Thirtieth resolution.
[Foreign language] For your authorization to be given to the board of directors to use the share capital by canceling all or some of the shares purchased by the company under share buyback programs. Voting is open. [Foreign language] . Voting is closed. [Foreign language] Voting is open for 38 months [Foreign language] authorization for the board of directors to award free performance shares to employees and senior executives of the company and related companies or groups. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language]
Thirtieth authorization for the board of directors to award free shares to employees and senior executives of the company and/or and of related companies or groups. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] Thirtieth resolution. Modification of the articles of association and the board of directors to articles 12 and 17. [Foreign language] The articles of association in accordance with applicable regulations. Voting is open. [Foreign language] Voting is closed. [Foreign language] Update of the company's article of association. [Foreign language] . The vote is closed. [Foreign language] . The vote is closed. [Foreign language] 99.99%. Voting is closed.
Thank you for listening. This is the end of our assembly. It's 11:11 A.M.. We'll stop here. We will see you again next year. Thank you everyone for your trust. Thank you.