Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, welcome everyone. Delighted to see you here for this annual general meeting in Paris at the RATP headquarters. Today, we will comment on the performance and highlights of fiscal year 2023, including a presentation of our E3 performance model and the outlook for 2024, and acquisitions we have completed. We will also talk about the group's vertical integration and circular economy, followed by a description of Nexans' climate strategy. On the agenda, we'll be talking about the composition of the Board of Directors with the renewal of Jane Basson as an Independent Director for a four-year term. The group has benefited from her experience for many years, particularly in human resources and our transformation strategy. We'll also submit for your approval the appointment of Tamara de Gruyter as an Independent Director for a four-year term.
She was appointed by the board as a non-voting member on March 20th, and Tamara would bring to the Board of Directors her experience as a Senior Executive and Chair of multinational industrial company, as well as her expertise in new technology for industry. Also, we will submit for your approval a remuneration plan fully aligned with your group's strategic objectives for 2025. 2023 was a record year, with results reaching new heights, proof of the relevance of Nexans' vision and ambition. Aligned with the dividend policy implemented in 2021 and beyond the stock market performance, and the most recent figures, we propose a distribution of a dividend of EUR 2.30 per share, and we will return to this topic later in the meeting.
Before we begin, we'd like to welcome our host today, Mr. Jean Castex, Chairman and CEO of RATP, former French Prime Minister, and we thank him greatly for hosting us today.
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for choosing our headquarters for holding your annual general meeting. And I also want to thank you for inviting me to speak to you this afternoon. So I'm particularly happy to be here because I would like to take this opportunity to say that I'm happy to meet all of your Directors, and I'm particularly impressed by your efficiency.
So of course, Nexans is a commercial partner, trading partner of the RATP group of companies, and I have heard, we just heard from the chair that you had a record year at Nexans. It is also a record year for our work together, a record number of kilometers of cables laid.
So, 12.5 million kilometers of cable have been laid for us. Now, there are many challenges, of course, ahead for the RATP, and as you know, with the Olympics and the Paralympics coming up very shortly, these will be a great challenge for us. And it is, of course, our duty to open by the 26th of July for the opening ceremony. We need to open the extension of line 14 of the Paris Metro system, and so which will go up to Saint-Denis Pleyel in the north and then Orly Airport to the south. This all needs to be up and running, and so this will be a historic opening for us. So building such a metro line requires a lot of cable.
Now, I never would have imagined that it required that much cable for a subway line. But line 14, of course, is not the only line that we're extending, because even before we extend line 14, there is a line 11 that is going to nearly double in length. Okay, so that explains the exceptional orders for cable that RATP has made with Nexans. So when I took over in 2022, oh, well, I was presented at that time with some of the more pressing matters, and amongst those issues was the challenge of extending line 14. What are the obstacles? What could get in our way, though we have a deadline?
Well, and I was told, "Well, we could be short on cables." And I said, "Well, you better buy more cables, and the suppliers of those cables, well, they need to supply." So that was one of my very first contacts, and my new role as the head of the RATP was to be working with Nexans. So the problems were discussed, and it was not an easy thing to resolve. Okay, you know, I had to get used to, you know, issues around copper supply, of course, which is at the heart of your business, but not mine. And so I knew it was going to require a lot of work on the part of our supplier, and there was even additional contracts signed as soon as I took over at the RATP.
So I would really like to inform all of you shareholders how happy I am as a client, because the deadlines have been met, the deliveries have been made, and I like to go see things myself. That's just the way I am. I like to see things... how things are going. So you invited me to go to your plants, to see the work that you were doing, and I was so impressed. And I saw as well what French industry is capable of doing. So I saw your staff.
You know, I was there as a visitor, of course, and I thought, you know, it was a good idea that they too should be able to see, you know, what is becoming of all of that cable, to give them added motivation to meet those tight deadlines. So I greatly enjoyed that visit, discovering your work, and it was an opportunity to encourage you. So once again, I would like to say how satisfied I have been to work with you. You are a very reliable and high-performance company. And let me put it this way: let's imagine, hypothetically, all of the reasons that we could not meet the deadline for the opening of the Olympics.
Well, I, I know, you know, we don't like to talk about such possibilities, particularly if they're controversial, but what I can say is that, well, this very morning on line 14, you know, I was seeing what some of the other suppliers were doing, and they didn't seem to be quite as motivated as Nexans were, and so I was having to remind some of them of the deadlines and their contractual commitments. But let me reassure you all, everything is underway. We are doing the test runs of line 14, and so we are very confident in opening, okay? So we are continuing to the finishing works, and everything will be opening all the way to Orly Airport. And so, of course, there are still a few things to be finalized and, well, knock on wood, we'll be ready.
And so when the inauguration by the President of the French Republic comes, we of course expect to see you. I will be happy to remind the audience that this was a collective effort. Really, the idea by 2025 is, we should have a daily 1 million passengers on that line, and this will make people's lives so much easier, and you will have contributed to that. You played a huge role. So you can understand why I'm here then, to talk to you today.
So I don't want to be too long, but I would also like to tell you, you know, this business, you know, with your headquarters here in the Paris region, you know, I know that you are present in many areas, and you provide the cables for many public transport systems around France and elsewhere, some 15 countries. And you know, the RATP is present in many other cities as well, operating bus lines, for example. And we're always looking to improve and, in particular, looking to install more and more automated driverless lines. We are the number one company in the world for automating existing lines. And so this is good for us, and it's probably good for you as well.
Now, if you've seen the line four here in Paris, we transformed that line, because what we're seeing is that many countries around the world have projects in the future for automating some of their existing, metro lines. Of course, when you're building a new line, you can make that a driverless line from the beginning, but, many cities have, existing lines that they would like to convert to driverless lines. So in the Paris region, yes, I, I said, we placed record orders with Nexans. But if we look, further ahead, some 10 years or so, so, well, let's say 2035, the, Paris region will have opened its, new Greater Paris Express line, completely. It will be completely open by then.
All interconnected with the existing lines, which is already the biggest system, with the best connections, best coverage, and yet... and that this new project is going to double our lines. You know, in the early twentieth century, you know, there was already the beginnings of very historic lines, but we will transform it to a completely innovative public transport system. You know, we had, of course, the... in the Paris, the city proper, plus the suburban lines as well. Now they will all be wonderfully interconnected. Also, by 2035, there will be new lines, modernized line. We talked about line 14, line 4, but there will be a particular line which, you know, some of those lines have to be completely refurbished.
Some of them are still using rolling stock that is 50 years old, okay? So we're going to have to transform all of that. What does that mean? By 2035, the Paris region will have by far the biggest and widest coverage, and cleanest, of the public transport networks anywhere. Of course, we all have in mind sustainable development and mobility. Well, for us, for all of us as citizens, we have to be mindful of that. But the RATP, that is our particular mission, is to drive this sustainable development. You know, it... We were investing EUR 800 million just 15 years ago. In 2023, it was EUR 2 billion, and in the five years to come, we will widely exceed that EUR 2 billion a year. Now, that's a large budget, and we have to stick to costs and deadlines.
There are a lot of technical constraints, because the area is so dense, the urbanization is so dense, but it is a real motor for growth and clean mobility. And of course, we will be ordering more cable, I guarantee you. So I wish you all an excellent annual general meeting, and thank you for choosing to come here today.
Thank you so much for those wonderful words of welcome. So, dear shareholders, as you saw just outside the room, there is an exhibit illustrating the Nexans fire protection and fire-resistant cables for the restoration of the Notre-Dame Cathedral of Paris. And you can also get passes to the Palais de Chaillot exhibit. Very interesting exhibit.
Also at the exhibit, you can see that there were images of our two major French plants in Jumet and Autun, and also a presentation of the vertical integration in line with the group's strategy, with a strong focus on the scarcity of raw materials. A very important topic these days. So I hope you enjoyed that exhibit. I now declare open the annual and extraordinary shareholders' meeting of Nexans. To facilitate the voting on resolutions and to display them quickly, we are using a fast, secure electronic voting system. You were given at the entrance to the room an electronic voting tablet, which has the notice of meeting brochure, and so please do return it when you leave the room. Please note that the universal registration document can be downloaded from our website.
It is also available on request from our hostesses. As you know, for environmental reasons, we no longer print it systematically. Finally, I'd like to inform you that this is a public meeting. It is being filmed and recorded for live webcast and posting on our website, so unless you object, your image may appear in the broadcast and recordings. So with me today, we have Anne Lebel, Lead Independent Director, Chris Guérin, CEO, Jean-Christophe Juillard, Deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer, and Nino Cusimano, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. I'd also like to welcome the members of the Board of Directors. Also in the room are other members of the executive committee, some of whom will be joining us on stage later for presentations. I also welcome Edouard Demarcq of PricewaterhouseCoopers Auditing Firm, representing the group of statutory auditors today.
So in my capacity as Chairman of the Board of Directors, I now appoint the officers of the meeting. In accordance with the law, the scrutineers are two members of the general meeting, who have the greatest number of votes and who accept this role. Based on the information on the attendance sheet, the two shareholders present and representing the greatest number of votes are Invexans Limited and Bpifrance Participations. We have asked them at the start of the meeting if they agree to act as scrutineers, and they have accepted. I therefore propose the following as scrutineers: Invexans Limited, as a member of the general meeting, has agreed to act in this capacity, represented by Mr. Arnaud Mouton, and Bpifrance Participations, a member of the general meeting who has agreed to act in this capacity, represented by Mr. Luis Pereira.
I also propose the appointment of Mr. Nino Cusimano, Corporate Secretary and Group Counsel, as Secretary of the meeting, and the board is therefore validly constituted. I remind you that this meeting is convened on first notice. The legally required quorum has been reached at 84.2%... 84.32%. Thank you, all. The quorum is set at 20% of shares entitled to vote for decisions within the scope of the ordinary general meeting for resolutions 1 to 15, and 23 to 24, and a quorum of 25% of shares entitled to vote for decisions within the scope of the extraordinary general meeting, that is, resolutions 16 to 22.
The Bureau notes that the combined general meeting, with more than the required quorum present, may validly deliberate on the items on the agenda within the remit of the ordinary general meeting and the extraordinary general meeting. So, this is the lineup for today. First, we'll take care of the legal formalities. Then we will have Chris Guérin will review the highlights and main achievements of 2023. Jean-Christophe will continue the presentation with comments on the 2023 financial results and first quarter 2024 sales. We will then have presentations on following themes. First of all, integration of Reka and Centelsa. Julien Hueber will make that presentation.
Then we will have Vincent Dessale presenting vertical integration of the circular economy, and a progress report on Nexans' strategy in the face of climate change, and a follow-up on some of the initiatives and agenda item without a shareholder vote, and that will be presented by Marc Grynberg. Finally, we'll give you an update on governance, candidates for the Board of Directors, and remuneration presented by Anne Lebel, Lead Independent Director, Chair of the Appointments and Corporate Governance Committee, and Remuneration Committee. We will then hear the statutory auditors' reports. Then we'll take questions from the floor and from shareholders watching this session live on the internet, who can use the chat system on the webcast site. Finally, you will vote on the proposed resolutions.
The company has not received any requests for additional resolutions or items on the agenda, and we have received no written questions from the shareholders. So I give the floor to the Secretary of the meeting for the formalities.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman . All of the documents required for the annual general meeting have been made available to the shareholders in accordance with the law. You will find the various reports on the Board of Directors in the 2023 URD and on the company's website. I'll now hand over to CEO Chris Guérin.
Hello, everyone. So I will try to be brief. We were delighted to hear from the former Prime Minister, head of the RATP, who spoke in glowing terms of our relationship.
So we'll be talking about some of our strategic lines and some of the mega trends in electrification. Some of these are tied to climate change, and I'll be giving you some examples. And increasingly, we must deal with the scarcity of raw materials. This is the first time in world history that that mature economies and emerging economies have the same needs in terms of electrification, which puts a lot of pressure on natural resources, and I'll come back to that. So we have seen a move away from fossil fuels. And so we are increasingly moving toward renewables, but, you know, at maybe four or five years ago, there were questions around reaching some of the targets.
So be it Nexans or other companies, what we are seeing is, that, through 2027, you know, we have, full orders, through 2028, in fact, in backlog of orders, which is a good sign. It shows that the energy transition is underway, and, the, switch away from fossil fuels is also underway. So in, parallel, so this backlog, so it'll be about 6... over EUR 7 billion , on the order books, with... So we have a, you know, we've got, many interconnections to be installed as well. All of these are being developed. So the interconnections, it's like coverage.
It's a bit like a railroad network, so the idea is to be able to transport energy, power, and to lose as little energy as possible, and also to use green sources, these green sources of energy, you know, using thousands of kilometers of, you know, underwater lines. You know, you often think of pipelines, but we also have cable lines. So the challenges for many countries, particularly mature economies, is that many of those lines were laid in the 1950s, between the 1950s and 1970s. So many of the American and European systems were laid many years ago.
So Marianne Laigneau, the President of Enedis , sorry, has said pretty much the same thing, you know, for the electricity company, and it's all about, you know, the big challenge is renewing these electrical lines. You know, telecom lines have been upgraded to optical fiber, of course, but the electrical grids also need to be upgraded. You know, we've all seen the difficulties that occur, particularly when we have heat waves. When you are looking at an old system, there is overheating, you know, reaching 80 degrees in some of the underground installations, and they simply cannot hold up to that kind of heat. So high demand for electrification, and particularly for the day-to-day use, we're seeing 20% increase. We will be seeing 20% increase in electricity demand by 2030 for ordinary usage.
Okay, we're talking, for example, about electric vehicle charging stations, be it at people's homes or their workplaces. It takes hundreds of kilometers of cabling, and it has to be distinct from the building cabling. Then what about solar panels as well? And then, with urban development, you know, we know that urbanization is growing and homes are increasingly connected and increasingly electric. And so, you know, this transition into a new world, well, it means that the consumption continues to grow. So this might seem contradictory in some ways, but we have to keep up with it, and electrification is part of the greening of our energies. And we need to contribute to this with reliable electrical grids.
We said it, 2024 will be a key year. In 2021, we said that we were refocusing the group. It is work in progress. We're going towards electrification. I told you why by then. Now, we are entering the 30 glorious years of electric infrastructures in Europe and the U.S. The great investment period were in between 1890 and 1920. The second period was between 1950 and 70, and the third period of hypercircle started in 2020 and will continue till 2040, to renew the electrical, the electric grid and the switching from fossil energy to renewable energy. So a huge request for electrification. This can be explained by a great need in cables by production units, a need for cables regarding transmission.
We need to convey this energy once produced, and once in the cities, this is what we call the distribution network, or the buried cables, those you can't see, but meaning that we can have electricity on daily basis and the final cabling, commercial infrastructures, industrial infrastructures, or even residential buildings. As from 2021, we invested a lot. For production and transmission, we are inaugurating the extension of a capacity in Norway, significant extension, EUR 300 million additional in turnover. We started the first cable production in January last. That's the production of the cable for the Celtic project. The aim is to connect France to Ireland. The cable is of more than 700 km long under the sea. Since we increase our production capacity, we are also installing the cables, the submarine cables.
We have 2 such ships, and the objective is to adapt our production capacity to our installation capacity. As we invested on production, we also needed to have a third vessel, and our teams opened an internal game and decided to call it Electra. It is the third cable-laying vessel. There are only 6 such ships in the world, ships that can install cables weighing up to 9,000 tons. So it's not a small ship. It's not just a boat, okay? More than 90 people on board, and 25 being highly qualified to handle the robots installing the cables on the sea beds.
In December, I was with the Moroccan government, and, by then, we announced the construction of a medium-voltage plant in Morocco with Selma, our administrator, which is also the CEO of Morocco. High demand for electrical grid in Morocco. We've been working there for more than 50 years, and it's important for us to continue investing in this region. Thus, we'll be supplying the demand in cables for other regions. We continued investing in what we call the 4.0 industry, digitization of all our plants, automation of our plants. I don't know if you've been able to see this, but Christophe Terrisse, the manager of the Autun plant, made a presentation just before the start of this meeting. If you were not able to see it, he'll be here till 10 P.M. tonight, if need be.
Now, I will briefly go on to the the investment part. We divested in the telecom session. It's not because it was experiencing difficulties, but it was rather logical as we were refocusing or focusing on electrification. This focusing requires more capital. You've seen the investments. It requires a lot of resources in research and development, and we reallocate these onto electrification, and there was a need for managerial resources. We are also making acquisition. By the end of June, we would have closed the new acquisition in Italy for a turnover of EUR 800 million.
So we would have acquired roughly EUR 1.4 billion in turnover with several factories in Finland, very good plants in the northern part of Colombia, and the last one is a little bit difficult for the managerial teams because it is in between Venice and Rome, a very complicated geographical area in terms of access and not one of the most pleasant one. I'm kidding. Julien will tell you the situation of all our acquisitions. Before I give the floor to Jean-Christophe, I just want to say a few words about that, about our E3 model. I want to keep it very simple.
Our objective, and even if we are, a, a listed company, and even if the first indicator that Jean Mouton mentioned was the dividend, it's important to make sure that beyond the fair profit generation, it should not be made to the detriment of the environment and to the detriment of our, commitment and, social responsibility. In 2021, we decided, and I presented it to you, we decided to make sure that the way we operate our performance model be, balanced, economically speaking, environmentally speaking, and socially speaking. It is not just documents, it's not just indicators, as is the case for many companies.... Now, every year for two years now, we have been ranking all our units in the world regarding the fair balance among these three pillars. So some of our units are said E3 compatible. We congratulated them.
This is the case for a plant in Sweden, in Ghana. Not only do they have a very good financial performance, but they can also improve, and they notably improved and reduced their carbon footprint, and they manage their waste at 100%, and they also have notable results in terms of social commitments. Some are also E2 certified. They are well positioned on two criteria, not on the third one. Our objective is just to help them find the right balance for these three pillars. Some of our units are just E1, unfortunately, so we are putting quite some pressure on these, and we have very few units that are E0, and they report directly to me. A few words about our commitment. This is also our pride.
Of course, we can look at the performance of the company, looking at our stock price, if we use it as a barometer. When we come into office, Jean-Christophe, when you joined us, I told you that we were having some difficulties. I didn't tell you everything, otherwise you wouldn't have come. But the stock price was around EUR 22, so stock capitalization was EUR 800 million . I want to thank our reference shareholders because they were kind of a safeguard, really. The group was experiencing huge difficulties. We were losing a lot of our floating investors. They left us, and we had lost confidence from investors, but also from our employees. Most of our shareholders, with a stock price at EUR 110, are happy.
Nexans market capitalization is EUR 4.8 billion. We generated EUR 4 billion in stock capitalization in less than six years. But what is important is also the engagement rate of our or commitment rate of our employees. It was close to 60%, and now we reach 78%. That was in 2024, the objective being 80%. We're working with company sociologists, as we want to really understand the commitment problems, where we're having very low scores, because we want to make sure that all our employees do commit. Now, when we had to take up the challenge, make a parallel with what Mr. Jean Castex, former Prime Minister, said, we need to say is that in 4 months we had to produce the equivalent of a 2-year order.
He promised to come with Teddy Riner, but our operators didn't see him. They just saw Jean Castex, but they were also very pleased. All these symbols, this challenge for our people, these are really key elements to understand why they're working, what they're working for, and the involvement of our RATP. Come and see where your cables are being installed. This is creating a very high commitment level. The work we're doing with our customers and clients on a daily basis, we want to bring it to our production sites in order to create this commitment, this raison d'être, really, and this meaning that we all need. As for the rest of our strategy, well, most of our investors are telling us, "Congratulations for what you've done," but there's still a lot of work.
Now, what about the future years? Regarding markets, during the next Investor Day in 2024, that will take place on November 13 in London, we'll strengthen this issue of electrification and be talking about the growing needs of cables for electrification, but we'll also be talking about our economic, environmental, and social commitments for 2024 to 2028. So thank you very much. I'll come back later for questions, and I give the floor to Jean-Christophe Juillard. Sorry.
Thank you, Christopher. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I will now introduce the financial results for the 2023 fiscal year, and then I will be talking about the first quarter for 2024. 2023, as for the financial results, was an exceptional year.
All main financial indicators, you can see some here, three of them here on this slide, were record compared to the previous year. This has been the case since Nexans has been listed on the stock market in 2001. So the margin, operational results, EUR 665 million, so very good development compared to last year, which was just below EUR 600 million. It is practically supported. I'll come back to the details of our activities, but is supported by all the group's activities, thanks to this trend that Christopher was mentioning on the first slides. All our activities performed a lot in volumes, but also in terms of margin. The second indicator is the generation of free cash flow, EUR 454 million.
Normalized free cash flow, EUR 454 million. Again, a big increase from 2021, but a big increase compared to 2022. I'll come back to this in my later slides, but the activity that highly contributed to the increase in cash flow is the generation transmission activity, with a strong increase in the order book in 2023. The last indicator on screen, the last financial indicator that we are monitoring closely, is the return on capital employed. It is reaching record figures in 2023 at 20.7%, twice that level of 2020. And again, you can see that as for electrification, which is the core business of tomorrow's Nexans after our divestments, the ROCE is much over that of the group.
All these activities are really, really contributing to the overall performance of the company. Now, if we look at 2023, and if we look at the evolution of our turnover, Nexans, as you know, announced its strategy in 2021. We decided to look for value and not volume. And in 2023, this is what you can see with an organic growth that is slightly negative, -0.9% for the whole year compared to 2022. But with such a performance, we can see rather different types of evolutions. First of all, if you look on the right-hand side, the other activities, we have metallurgy, that is the transformation of copper from a cathode into rods that is being used for manufacturing the cables.
We are the only cable manufacturer that is still keeping its transformation, its copper transformation units. But we clearly announced in 2021 our willingness to reduce external sales of these rods, as we wanted to focus onto our own needs. So the -17% is not a market trend, but it is the strategy of the group. If you look at electrification activities, you can see a slight decrease between 2023 and 2024, -25%. 12.5%, sorry. It is due to the stabilization and normalization of the U.S. part in North America, and then we stopped some of the cables in generation and transmission. Outside electrification, there's been a huge growth due to that of harnesses for the automotive industry.
10.2% EBITDA margin, record figure for the group. First time we reach a two-digit figure, and it is fully in line and ahead of time to our objectives. Production and transmission, 13% of Nexans' turnover. An increasing backlog, EUR 6.1 million end of 2023 of order book. Two major projects being recorded in the order book in 2023, the first being Great Sea Interconnector , EUR 1.4 billion. An interconnection project for the southern part of Greece to Cyprus and then to Israel. So it is a kind of energy exchange motorway, and then TenneT in Germany, EUR 1.7 billion. That's for offshore wind energy. And these two contracts are significantly contributing to the growth of our backlog, and this should continue.
As Christopher said, we have a rather significant tender activity in 2024, so this order book should develop again. Financial performance for this activity, as I was telling you, a slight decrease in turnover due to the stoppage of these umbilical cable activities. So a decline in 2023. We had some topics regarding some legacy project that was due to the start of a new plant in North America, in Charleston, and inflation impacts on contract that was, that were not satisfactorily covered in 2022, and the margins were impacted. First half year, the margins were lower. It picked up in the second semester of 2023, and this should continue also in 2025, when the project having a lower margin, will be over. Now for the distribution activity.
We can see that 2023 was a very strong year. It is fully in line with the renewal, as Christopher said, renewal of all electrical networks in France, in Europe, and throughout the world. The companies are waking up, and they are understanding that if they do not renew their grids, the electrification will not be successful. That's 18% of the group sales, organic growth of 5%, that we noted in all regions of the world, essentially in Europe, but also in Asia and in the Middle East. Prices and volumes that pushed the margins also increased a lot, so EBITDA margin that gained 5%. Usage, all the low voltage cables for buildings. This is a key activity for the group, 26% of our sales.
As I was saying, for organic growth of Nexans, a slight decrease for this activity. It is due to standardization in North America. We are not operating everywhere in North America for low voltage cables, such as in Canada. After exceptional volumes in 2021 and 2022, there's been a standardization in volumes in 2023. The rest of activities, however, is still behaving correctly in the other region of the world. Our transformation program is still bearing fruit, more value, more services, more innovations, packaging, branding. Then you can see that the operational margin is increasing by 2 points, and EBITDA, the operational results in value, is growing by 4%. Industry and solutions, this is the part that Nexans has put at the core of its strategy, but that we decided to divest 27% of the group's sales.
In this activity, you have all the cables for the industry. Cables for very different types of activities. It can be for the ship industry, for rolling stocks, for robotics, for oil and gas industry, for aerospace. So different activities, and half of this activity is from cables for the automotive industry. So huge organic growth in North America, essentially, but also very good financial performance, plus 4% of the growth in operational results and 2 points for EBITDA. The other activities was the comment I was making at the beginning of my presentation, that was for our strategy to reduce our exposure and the sales and turnover of the metallurgy industry.
Now, the balance sheet of the group, a strong cash flow generation in 2023, EUR 511 million generation, generation of EUR 511 million of operational cash flow allocated for the strategic CapEx, roughly EUR 200 million for generation and transmission, essentially. We extended our Norwegian plant. We have two production lines, and we started manufacturing our third cable laying vessel, the Electra, that would be operational as from 2026. This cash flow generation allowed us to buy one activity in Finland, as I said, EUR 79 million, and we're able to pay a dividend of EUR 2.10. So cash flows did finance all these CapEx, and the net debt of the group remained stable, sorry, compared to 2022.
As for dividends, now, if we consider the dividend proposed at the general assembly, EUR 2.30, you can see that the growth in the dividends, as announced in our 2021 strategic plan, has been constantly evolving, +92%. And end of 2023, it is giving us a total yield of 270% for shareholders. Over the past five years, if we look at the stock price, we are around 320%. In my introduction, I was telling you that 2023 and 2024 be key years, because they are the final years for our strategic and financial commitments of 2021. On this slide, you can see the objectives that we set for ourselves in 2021, the main indicators, and the 2024 objectives for the same indicators.
On the right-hand side, you have the 2023 results, and the message being that we have already reached or come all of these financial commitments significantly a year ahead of time, because these objectives were for 2024. So a very good financial performance, as I was saying in the beginning of my presentation. If I now turn to the sales of the Q1 2024, I would say that the situation is very good. Organic growth of sales, 2.8% for all activities. And that's for just the first quarter. It has been supported and pushed by the generation transmission activity as we added production lines, and they started being operational as for the 1st of January, 2024.
So the sales of generation and transmissions is growing a lot, and it partially explain the growth of the group. This is the message of the electrification activity that developed a lot with additional activities, and it allowed electrification to increase by roughly 7%. We refinanced a bond loan that was reaching maturity end of March, and we refinanced it with a competitive rate, with an oversubscription by a factor of three. Earlier on, I talked about the submarine production for generation and transmission, with additional lines and record backlog in the first quarter. That is still improving, and that is at EUR 6.7 billion, and the acquisition of La Triveneta in Italy, that Christopher mentioned. Now, as for organic growth, 2.8% from quarter to quarter, 5.4% compared to quarters.
In our business, we cannot see any slowing down. Conversely, the activity is performing very, very well. And as for the -8.2%, this is our decision to focus on our main and core businesses. And to finish with this financial presentation, we confirmed the guidance that we announced in February 4, 2024. We were announcing a bracket of adjusted EBITDA between EUR 670 million and EUR 738 million, and a generation of cash flow being between EUR 200 million and EUR 300 million. And now, I give the floor to Julien.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, so I'm going to present some of the recent acquisitions since 2022. In 2021, when we announced our strategic plan, we knew that it would be important to convert some of our assets to focus on electrification. So in 2022, we acquired Centelsa, the leader in Colombia. In 2023, it was the Finnish leader, Reka Cables, and currently underway for 2024, although we are waiting for regulatory approvals within a few weeks, we expect to complete the acquisition of La Triveneta Cavi in Italy. And so we have put together a model for our acquisitions to achieve the best synergies to move forward.
And so we've been using the E3 Model of Nexans to balance our, not only the economic aspects, the business aspects, but also employee engagement and environment. So it's very important for us to adhere to this model every time we are looking to an acquisition. So let me present these. I will present these to you, but in particular, we really want to ensure that we properly integrate people coming from sometimes very different cultures. So first of all, Centelsa from 2022, the Colombian leader on, particularly on the usage market. And construction, building construction, particularly, there's a residential construction and commercial buildings as well, and also a leader in industrial buildings.
What's particularly notable here is that when we integrated their business, we saw a very high level of motivation for their staff, their three production units, and in particular, as concerns the innovation, they very quickly began using our MOBIWAY packaging, and they were the first in Nexans to start using MOBIWAY POP, which represents time savings and efficiency for our clients. So Centelsa, as you can see on the screen, so there are three units, EUR 330 million in sales, so really the leader in Colombia. They have 870 staff. And the results in just two years are higher than expected. We were looking forward to synergies at about, we are now at EUR 16 million, whereas we had forecast EUR 10 million.
So we're very happy with that acquisition. Now, next, in 2023, we acquired Reka in Finland, so the leader in electrification in that country, and we used the same model for integration, always with full respect for the people and their culture. Reka is the leader on two markets. First of all, on usage, as was Centelsa, but also a leader in distribution. They currently hold a prime position and a strong reputation, particularly for medium voltage cables of, and for renewables and land-based renewables. So three production units, 270 people, with sales of EUR 168 million. Here again, we were looking for synergies. We were initially expecting EUR 8 million, but in fact, we are landing at EUR 12 million.
So, a very high capacity for developing synergies, not only within Finland, but also the integration with the other Nexans teams. Sweden and Finland are working very closely together now. Our third acquisition, we're preparing for their integration. We do have to obtain the regulatory approvals to finalize the acquisition, but along the same E3 Model. There's the Shift Model. You know, we really have to be selective in how we develop, seeking out customers with the highest value. With so we, you know, we have our commitments that we want to respect, and we're very proud to be integrating them soon. They are very well placed on the Italian market, with very best-in-class installations. They have excellent logistics services with highly automated lines, offering very good service levels.
So this is why it was particularly interesting for us, and we look forward to welcoming our new Italian colleagues. They have currently EUR 800 million in sales, 700 people, 4 production sites. This is one of the biggest acquisitions we've ever made. And, you know, we expect to benefit from their leadership position in the flame retardant cables. They have an interesting position as well in cables for the solar energy solar power systems that we want to roll out across Europe. So for us, this could be an excellent synergy. So just in 3 years, we have acquired some 10 plants, EUR 1.02 billion, very oriented toward electrification. So thank you very much. And I now hand it over to Vincent Dessale.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, welcome. Today, you know, when you're reading the news, there's a lot of talk about copper. Of course, we talk about the price of copper, and also in recent months, we know that it's becoming increasingly scarce. And because Nexans uses a lot of copper, well, we wanted to explain to you our unique position in the copper ecosystem. Well, to simplify, we have no particular problem. It's the problems are around extraction. The mines are at the end of life, and it takes about 7 years to open up new lines. So it means that that is slow to open. However, as our colleagues have said, demand has exploded because of the energy transition. So the forecast by 2030, we expect to see a scarcity, a real shortage globally.
So of course, this represents a risk, but at the same time, for Nexans, it's an opportunity. In 2021, you probably remember we talked about our strategy to verticalize the metallurgy operations, and that we would keep this as a strategic pillar in our activities. So we have four production units. We have the ConCast installations at our foundries. And so they are making the cathodes. All of this goes into our cabling operations. So we have Lens, Montreal, Peru, and Santiago, Chile, and those plants are in important production and copper extraction sites. So we've got 660 tons capacity for production, and this... Sorry, 660,000 tons per year. That should meet our internal production needs. So this is hugely important to our strategy.
It's good to be self-sufficient, you might say, but we have to have access to the cathodes. What have we done then? We've been working for several years on securing our logistics alliance, and we've developed long-term contracts with some of the main mining companies. So KGHM in Poland, Codelco and BHP in Chile, and BHP in Australia. Not only do we have a self-sufficiency of productions, we have long-term contracts, and as you can see, they are spread around the world. We also wanted to secure our sourcing in that way, and so still along the E3 Model, we are working on particularly protecting the whole ecosystem around the copper economy as well. We've changed the Copper Mark label. This is an externally awarded certification that relates to respect for the environment.
We are the only cable-making company to have this certification. Our suppliers, and the mines where the copper is coming from, have also obtained this certification. So this really distinguishes us on the global market. So self-sufficiency, long-term contracts, these are the key takeaways. So we talk about copper, but then there's also aluminum. Now, we don't produce aluminum, but it is an important component in our cables, and we've adopted a similar, strategy with long-term contracts with the big, producers. So you have some names, Trimet, Hydro, RTA, Rio Tinto, and we're also working on the environmental side. Now, just last year, 72% of the aluminum consumed by Nexans was low carbon aluminum. And Jean-Christophe was saying earlier that, this is, you know, in, in...
It's the Jumet plant in France, is now producing 100% of its offer is low carbon. So there's a lot of work on recycling as well as... Once again, we don't produce this, but we do have cooperation agreements for recycling, particularly with Trimet, based in France, in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. And so we've developed with them, so work on aluminum scrap, with, based on, their production. And so the wires, the aluminum wires, is making reuse of scrap. And we're also, we also have an agreement with Alcoa to reduce the CO2 emissions in the production process for aluminum. So what this means, so this is part of our self-sufficiency in securing our supply chain, but we want to go further than that.
Our production units are also working on the recycling of copper, which is currently at about 5%, which is good, but it's not enough. You know, some months are better, but that's the average. For a few years, we've been working on the technical solutions and methods and processes and sourcing to set ourselves a goal of 30% recycled copper. So 30% of the copper reuse will be coming from recycled sources, and so we hope to be announcing very positive figures soon. The key message here, as we said earlier, because we know that there's a scarcity on the horizon, what today's waste has to be a growth driver for the future. We have to work on the circular economy.
You know, when we talk about 5%, that's really recycling, but when we get up to 30%, that's going to start looking more like a circular economy. And we've been doing this for some time now at Nexans, and our waste is recovered and recycled, particularly in France, with the Suez company. We, you know, we do the separations of the, you know, copper and aluminum from the plastics, and we can use it, but reuse it, but it's not enough. So in recent years, we've developed with some of our clients, for example, Sonepar and Rexel in France. We will go and pick up their cable scrap from their logistics platforms. So we will recover that, we will do the sorting, and in that way, we can recover more of the copper.
Another innovation with Sonepar, again, and Julien's teams are working on this. We are offering installers, when they come to buy products from Sonepar, they can bring back any of their waste cable. And once again, we will collect them, and we will do the sorting and have them recycled, so that we can use that copper again in our casting processes. So, you know, we have—it's like a copper mine under our feet if you look at everything that is available. So we always have to plan. Even when we're doing a new installation, we have to think about how we will be able to retrieve them in the future.
If we look at, you know, the telecoms systems, you know, they replaced with optical fiber, well, we need to also think of new ways of recovering and to contribute to a better ecosystem. So once again, we are self-sufficient in copper. We have secured our supply. We have a strong experience with recycling of copper, and we are going to move into a new, very important phase, which is a move toward the circular economy, not only internally, but with our clients and their clients as well. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Vincent and Julien and Jean-Christophe. So now we will hear from Marc Grynberg. So board member in charge of a climate strategy, and he will give us an update on that strategy.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, hello.
I'll be talking to you about some of the progress that we have made in implementing our climate strategy and our priorities for the year. So just a year ago, I presented the climate roadmap of Nexans, and of course, we have been hard at work to roll it out at our industrial sites, and I will be showing you some figures of our progress. So during the year, we continued training at all levels of our staff, including training for the board, with a special session around the climate challenges and regulatory affairs, which are increasingly complex. And so, we felt it was all the more important that the board be fully aware of all of those issues. We also worked very hard to prepare for the coming European standards in terms of non-financial reporting.
We have identified a rather large number of indicators on sustainable development. With a double materiality analysis, allowing us to determine the impact of our activities on the environment and on society in general. At the same time, we looked at the opportunities that these could represent for us, which could bring improvements financially as well. We also looked at the impact of our activities on biodiversity, and we will be conducting studies, and then there will be a mapping done of those activities, and then we will communicate on them. As concerns the performance, well, it was also a record year on the non-financial side.
So with a good reduction of our carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions, down by 37% in 2023, based on the reference year of 2019. As concerns the Scope 1 and 2, these are emissions from our own operations, but also, from the purchase of electricity, so a 36% reduction of our Scope 3 emissions, which are upstream and downstream. So this includes raw materials and transportation of our products. So there are four key factors behind these figures. First of all, the large investments made to modernize our industrial installations and to improve the energy efficiency of our equipment as well. We also significantly reduced the complexity of our activities, particularly in our portfolio of products and our client portfolio, which, brought...
So this was good for our economic performance, but also helped reduce our carbon footprint. We also significantly improved in 2023 the share of decarbonated electricity in our supply, either through supply contracts for electricity from renewable sources, or installing at some sites our own photovoltaic arrays, so that we can generate our own green electricity to supply our sites. And now, Vincent mentioned just a few minutes ago, we also increased the share of low carbon metals, which is important from a strategic point of view, but also to distinguish ourselves from the competition. And so it's also a significant advantage as well in terms of the carbon footprint. So we're getting very close to the targets we had set for ourselves.
So you might wonder, well, was our ambition presented last year, was it ambitious enough? Well, we are reviewing those goals this year. So in preparation for the Capital Markets Day in the fall, we should be prudent, though. We cannot expect a linear progression for two reasons. First of all, certain improvements are done in stages. It's not linear. So if there's a new contract for supply of low carbon electricity, well, you'll reach a certain stage, and you will remain at that stage for a certain time until a new contract is signed. So that's one reason why progress is not linear, and another reason we should be prudent in our announcements, is that we are experiencing strong growth, so organic and through external acquisitions.
There is the impact of those new production units that have to be included in our calculations. So what are some of the priorities for the year ahead? Well, we will continue with our roadmap for decarbonization. Of course, the CSRD regulatory requirements that we must also comply with, and this involves a lot of work to ensure that all of the data is collected to be able to provide that reporting as of early 2025, so based on 2024 results. So we will also be reviewing the roadmap, as I just said, in preparation of the Capital Markets Day. And we are also going to continue to review our circular economy strategy to see how increased rate of recycling can help reduce our carbon footprint.
Also, we are pursuing, we are conducting studies of our impact on biodiversity, and we are currently assessing the impact of our growth, as I said, both organic and through acquisitions. So we're conducting those assessments. So, just very quickly, here, you've got the results of some of the extra financial ratings agencies. I won't go into too much detail, but I can tell you that our scores are very good. So, really, we are top of class. Do note that our performance isn't, you know, just a matter of, you know, satisfaction for ourselves, but it is confirmed by external auditors, external experts, who review our strategy and how we implement that strategy.
We can say that these ratings agencies have validated all of our work. So in terms of reducing our carbon footprint, so this is a CDP, the Carbon Disclosure Project, EcoVadis, as concerns the sustainability of our supply chain. I will now hand back over to our chairman.
Thank you so much, Marc, and I would now like to invite Anne Lebel, Independent Lead Independent Director, Chair of the Appointments and Corporate Governance Committee, and Chair of the Remuneration Committee. She'll be talking to you about the Nexans governance, and she will present the candidates to the Board of Directors and the resolutions reviewed by the committees. Anne?
So dear shareholders, I will present you the works of the committees, and we will be asking you to approve a certain number of resolutions. Let's talk about governance first.
So we are fully compliant with the AFEP-MEDEF recommendations, and you can see the number of women, the number of Independent Directors, and the number of Independent Directors. So as you know, there's been a separation of the CEO and the Chair positions. And all investments of over EUR 50 million must be submitted for approval to the Board of Directors. We have the different stakeholders with a balanced representation, and we have the two board members representing the employees. I am the point of contact for the independent members, and I organize meetings with them, as well as sessions with the management, and all of this in collaboration with the Chair. And I propose points to be raised in the meetings.
In 2023, we held two executive sessions to particularly to raise certain points around the functioning of the board and the interactions between the management team and the board. We also had some meetings of the independent members concerning the functioning of the board. As concerns the composition, we have a good balance and diversity. We w- we wanted... We want to have a good complementarity of skills, of ages, and international experience, and a diverse representation of men and women, so with 54.5%, but this will depend on your vote later today.
In 2024, the main changes in the composition of the board are the following: the end of the term of Sylvie Jéhanno , who has said she does not wish to renew her term for personal reasons. We ask that you renew the term of Jane Basson, that we will also... We will present the application of Tamara de Gruyter, and we are also presenting Elisabetta Iaconoa ntonio, who has been designated by the European Works Council, and they will be presented to you. So you can see that there are four different committees that are very active with their different chairs, and the board has been quite satisfied with the functioning of the committees.
2023, there were 8 board meetings, 23 committee meetings, as well as a joint session on corporate sustainable reporting in relation to the new European CSRD.
Now, the terms of office for Directors that we submit to you. As said, it is a renewal and one appointment. Indeed, we propose you to renew Jane Basson's as Director for four years. She has been contributing a lot to the works of our board, and she brings her experience of a manager inside a top-ranking industrial company. We also propose the appointment of Tamara de Gruyter. She's from the Netherlands, working for a Finnish company, working in the marine industry and energy, marine energy markets. We have short video of Tamara. Can you introduce yourself?
Tamara de Gruyter. I'm a Shipbuilding Engineer by Education, and after my graduation, I joined a Dutch company making propellers that was acquired by a Finnish company, Wärtsilä, in 2002. Today, I'm a member of Wärtsilä's board of management and responsible for the company's divestment unit called Portfolio Business. Working in an international environment and having lived and worked in China and Singapore for seven years, I really consider myself a global citizen. It's great to learn from different cultures, and I really value diversity.
Why do you want to join the board of Nexans?
Our strategy is to decarbonize the marine and energy industry. So I really love Nexans' purpose, electrifying the future, as there are, of course, a lot of similarities. Nexans' journey and the change that was started five years ago, taking a pioneering role in the energy transition, is very exciting and will be good for society as well as for Nexans as a company. Taking part in that journey would be a privilege and will be very exciting.
What would you bring as a new Director?
I will bring knowledge related to the energy transition to Nexans, but from a slightly different angle, due to my role in Wärtsilä. Furthermore, I also bring experience from divestments, digitalization, and of course, my business experience leading a large P&L in an international company. Furthermore, being a Dutch person, we are quite known to be outspoken and also curious to learn. There will be a lot to learn for me in Nexans' business, and I'm really looking forward to deep dive into Nexans and support to make Nexans thrive.
T he representative bodies for staff also appointed a new Director to represent the employees. The chosen applicant is Elisabetta Iaconoa ntonio. She's an expert in general accounting on the Pioltello industrial site in Italy. She will follow Björn Erik Nyborg, that I want to thank for his contributions over the past four years. Elisabetta will join the board today at the end of this meeting. We are also having a video so that Elisabetta can introduce herself to you. Could you introduce yourself?
My name is Elisabetta Iaconoa ntonio. I have been working in Italy within Nexans finance department for 15 years. I am a General Accounting Specialist, and my key expertise includes financial and accounting reporting preparation. I have a lot of experience implementing tools and data model to improve our daily routine, and so to improve finance workflow. Beyond my professional role, I dedicate my time to Officine Buone, our volunteer organization that I founded 15 years ago. We partner with over 50 hospitals to implement social innovation projects that enhance humanization care for the patients.
Why do you want to join the Nexans Board of Directors?
Fostering open communication channel. This will ensure the board gains valuable insights from employee experience and foster a culture of different thinking within management. As a new Director, I am focused on promoting organizational inclusivity. This means ensuring all employees feel heard and valued. It's important to create opportunities for open dialogue, encouraging question, matters, topic, that might not typically be raised in the boardroom. I firmly believe that engaged employees are the cornerstone of a high-performing organization. My strength is my ability to foster a culture where different viewpoints are welcomed and listened. It helps to make better decisions for the company.
I will now talk about the resolutions relevant to remuneration. The 2023 compensation of the Chair and corporate officers, resolutions 9, 10, and 11. The following resolutions 12, 13, and 14 are for the remuneration of corporate officers for 2024. The detailed elements of compensation are presented in the Universal Registration Document. To start with resolution number 9, it is on the 2023 compensation of Directors. As you can see, the overall amount of compensation paid in 2023 amounted to EUR 767,894. It is within the envelope of EUR 820,000. It was sized for the 24 board meetings and for dedicated roles for the Independent Lead Director and the Climate Director. Now, resolution number 10. Can I have the next slide, please?
It is for the compensation of the Chairman of the Board, and it is submitted to your vote today. The compensation of the chairman, in accordance with our remuneration policy you approved during the previous general meeting, amounted to EUR 320,000. It is the whole compensation. There are no other compensation elements to be added. Resolution 11, it is for the compensation of the Chief Executive Officer for 2023. I want to remind you that the compensation policy for the CEO is reviewed every three years. It was reviewed in 2021 and thus remained unchanged in 2023. As you know, this compensation policy is planning for a variable remuneration, maximum of 150% of basic compensation, structured around collective objectives, 60%, and individual qualitative and quantitative objectives for the remaining 40%.
For 2023, the variable remuneration amounted to EUR 1,036,500, 92.1% of its maximum, or 132% of the target. It reflected the very good performance of the company. The collective share was based on three criteria: EBITDA, ROCE, and normalized free cash flow. This collective part was reached to its maximum. Individual part or share was based on four main objectives, each representing 25% of this individual share: strategy development, operational efficiency, culture and commitment, and the deployment of the OSG strategy. This share was reached at 80.3% of its maximum, sorry. The general or CEO has a long-term remuneration with the allocation of performance share, can reach 130% of the fixed remuneration.
13,600 shares were allocated to the CEO, total value of EUR 560,944. These shares are for four years, allocated for four years, and are based on reaching performance criteria, 3 of them. An economic criteria, 40%, measure the margin, EBITDA, and a conversion rate into non-normalized free cash flows. 40% on an external financial criterion, it is the measurement of the relative performance of Nexans TSR, compared to a reference panel, and 20% for an ESG criteria. Here, we measure the fulfillment of 12 ESG criteria: commitment for 4 indicators, environment, 5 indicators, and ecosystems, 3 indicators. All the other remuneration elements are presented here on the slide, and they all include commitments such as end-of-term indemnification, an unemployment insurance plan, and other benefit in kind.
The 2024 remuneration policy for Directors and a Chairman of the Board. Resolution 12, the policy for compensation Directors will continue following the principles set. A huge variable part linked to their attendance to board meetings and committee meetings. The only modification for 2024 that we're proposing is for remuneration allocated to the Chair of the Audit, Accounts, and Risk Committee. We want to increase this compensation to EUR 9,000 from EUR 7,000, while capping it to EUR 36,000. Total compensation for all Directors is kept at EUR 820,000 for 2024, so no change here. As for the Chairman of the Board, I want to remind you that the compensation policy is reviewed every three years, multi-annual interval. It was reviewed in 2022 for the last time.
It is remaining unchanged in 2024, so we propose a fixed remuneration of EUR 320,000 without any other, remuneration or any type of perk. 2024 compensation policy for the CEO, it is submitted to, the, voting of resolution number 14. The policy for the Chief Executive Officer remained unchanged as from 2021. The Board of Directors, on the recommendation of the Remuneration Committee, reassessed this remuneration for the next three fiscal years, and this is what we are submitting to your approval. This revision make us proposing a competitive, balanced, and consistent, remuneration, consistent with performance and group's strategy. As for competitiveness first, the remuneration committee used external surveys and analyzed a benchmark of 15 French industrial companies and international companies as well, because of their size, activity sectors, and type of activities.
By comparing the compensation of our CEO with this benchmark, we noted that it was inferior by 21%. So we wanted to make the fixed remuneration more competitive, and this is what you will see in a few minutes with the figures I'll be introducing. A more balanced compensation among the various components. The current compensation of the CEO was made up of a high variable part, with a more significant part dedicated to short-term variable compensation. Our proposal is to rebalance between short-term variable and long-term variable, while supporting the consistency of the compensation with the benchmark. We wanted to have a compensation that is consistent with the group's strategy.
Under Christopher Guérin's management, the group improved its performance, financial performance, with the transformation of its operational model and the refocusing of group's activities onto electrification. Today, the group can have a long-term visibility on its activities, with a record order book of more than EUR 6 billion end of 2023. For all these reasons, our proposal for remuneration is more competitive, more aligned with the reference panel, and more balanced in order to encourage Christopher Guérin continuing its long-term strategy, focusing onto electrification, as we want him to continue creating value for all the group's shareholders. So for the fixed compensation, our proposal is of EUR 950,000. Again, it is aligned with the medium line of the benchmark. This fixed compensation is representing 25% of total maximum remuneration. Previously, it was representing 31% of total compensation. As for the variable compensation.
Short-term and long-term will be respectively representing 37.75%, 37.5%, sorry. And the short-term variable compensation remain unchanged. For its targets, it's 100% of fixed remuneration, 150% of fixed remuneration compensation, and still made up of collective individual objectives, whose breakdown is slightly modified, with a more significant share allocated to collective objectives, financial objectives, thus, these representing now 65% instead of 60% previously, of the annual variable compensation. Individual objectives bearing on qualitative and quantitative objectives represent 35% of the annual variable compensation.
Finally, we propose to set the capping of long-term variable compensation to 100% and 150% maximum of the fixed compensation, instead of 130% previously, the objective being to rebalance the two components of this variable compensation. Long-term compensation is with the allocation of performance shares. Those indicators are 40% on economic performance, 40% on financial performance of the company, and 20% on the ESG performance of the company. The other compensation elements are also presented. For some, they include commitments such as termination indemnity, non-competition clause, retirement, and other benefits in kind. Now, shareholding plan, employee shareholding plan, Resolution 17 and 18, increase in capital reserved to employees in France and abroad.
As you know, employee shareholding is a key element in the commitment policy of the group. Regularly, we can associate our employees to the group's strategy, the long-term strategy of the group, and share the value creation as shareholders as well. In 2023, we had 17% of our employees who were shareholders of the group. They represented 3.6% of the share capital. Since 2002 , Nexans are supporting employee shareholding with 10 consecutive shareholding plans. As for the 2025 plan, the latest plan was launched in 2022, and in order to continue strengthening our employees' commitment, the next plan is to be organized for 2025, so that it is aligned with the presentation of the next strategic plan. Thus, we can mobilize and associate our employees on the company's value creation.
Thus, for Resolution 17 and 18, to authorize an envelope of 750,000 shares, i.e., 1.7% of the capital. Resolution 17 is an envelope of 600,000 shares for employees who are members of the shareholding plan, and Resolution 18 is for an envelope of 150,000 shares to offer similar conditions for the employees of some of our foreign subsidiaries. The last three resolutions are for the allocation of free shares and the allocation of performance shares. Resolution 19, that's for the allocation of performance shares for the CEO and the main managers of the group. This is our normal plan for performance shares. Resolution 20, that's for the allocation of free shares. No conditions in terms of performance for high potential employees and key experts in the company.
Resolution 21, that's for the exceptional allocation of performance shares linked to the new strategic plan for the CEO and the main offices of the group. All of these three plans are for... Are made for 4 years. The performance share plans are based on three conditions: financial conditions, economic, and ESG conditions, as I mentioned earlier on. The allocation of performance shares for CEO cannot be over 12% of the overall envelope. 2024, the allocation represented 4.5% of this envelope. We are submitting to your approval, with Resolution 19, a maximum envelope of 330,000 shares, or 0.75% of the share capital. As for free shares, Resolution 20, we submit to your approval a maximum allocation or a maximum envelope of 50,000 shares, or 0.1% of the share capital.
For Resolution 21, the exceptional allocation of performance shares, as we said for the previous presentation of the strategic plan, we will be presenting our new equity story in November 2024. In order to guarantee a high level of commitment of the main offices for the good development of the group's strategy, we are proposing the implementation of this exceptional plan to allocate performance shares, whose criteria will be directly linked to this new strategic plan. Thus, we submit to your approval a maximum allocation of 130,000 shares, or 0.3% of the share capital. That's for all the resolutions related to compensation elements. I'm over, and I thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much, Anne. Now, I ask the statutory auditors to present their reports. Mr. Edouard Demarcq from PwC will be representing the statutory auditors.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good afternoon. On behalf of Mazars and PwC Statutory Auditors, I report on our conclusions and on the reports we drafted for fiscal year closed 31st December 2023. I will sum up the reports. They were made available by the company, and they are in the universal registration documents or in the general assembly documents that were given to you. So very rapidly, I will talk about the reports. There are 9 reports, 3 for the ordinary meeting, and 6 for the extraordinary meeting. For the ordinary meeting, I'll start with the consolidated financial main statements.
We certified these accounts without any reserves or observations, and the key audit points that we integrated in the report, bearing on the main aspects of management, are on the accounting of goods and services contracts, and essentially for long-term contracts, the litigations and the various part regarding tangible and intangible fixed assets. We respected the electronic format of ESF format, the electronic presentation of the report, and we can confirm the presence of an extrafinancial declaration. Second report on the ordinary part is for the annual accounts, prepared according to the French accounting principles. We assessed the shares in subsidiaries and affiliates, the antitrust investigation and disputes. We have certified these accounts without any reserves and observations, and we made a specific verification bearing on the content of the management reports. No specific comments from us here.
We also made sure that all the information mentioned and supplied were true and essentially on the compensation and perks paid to the corporate offices and all the commitments for them. We also drafted a special report on regulated conventions, related conventions. The aim is to convey the main characteristics and reasons for such regulated conventions. No new conventions was, as mentioned to us. Two conventions were continued, essentially with the Invexans Group. Now, the extraordinary part of this meeting and the various elements presented earlier on, resolutions 16-21. You'll have to vote on capital operations on these elements presented by Anne Lebel. Reduction capital authorization requested for employee shareholding plan, the allocation of free and performance shares. We drafted our reports on the authorizations for the grant and the authorization to the board for such operations.
We have no comments to make on the terms and conditions of the proposed transactions and all the delegations being granted to the board. I'm over with the summary of our reports. I thank you for your attention.
[Foreign language] . Thank you very much. Now we can open a Q&A session. We'll answer the question from the room, and the questions were received on the Internet. In the room, please use the microphone if you want to ask a question. Only shareholders can ask a question, and we'll answer questions related to the agenda of this meeting only. Please introduce yourself before asking your question or questions. Thank you. We have two or three questions. What do you think about the development of the offshore wind energy market in Europe? Chris?
Well, it's rather a dynamic market, whether... Well, you have seen the various announcement made by Bruno Le Maire, our minister, with the Chairman of RTE, regarding the French commitment in terms of offshore wind energy. These are very significant. Nexans will contribute to these in the coming years, and same thing for the northern part of Europe, same thing in the U.K. The demand is still very high. The problem is not on demand, but on our capacity to meet the demand. We have told some of our customers, our competitors did the same thing. We said that our capacities are full now. Our Italian capacity has a saturated capacity up to 2030. In Denmark, it's 2032. As for us, it is 2027, but with future contracts to be announced in the coming months, so we will be full till 2028.
Despite the increase in capacity, and we are not the only player having increased our capacity, but demand is still higher. So the question is rather, why don't you continue to strongly increase your capacity? Well, this is a topic that we're working on with Pascal Radue and Jean-Christophe. We're working on capital allocation. For sure, we're facing strong demand, and the challenge here is to make sure that we will have the natural resources. We could have cable production capacities to meet the request for offshore wind energy or for a submarine or land transmission. But if we don't have access to copper, there won't be production. So we need to find the right balance between demand, cable supply, and access to natural resources. The equation, thus, is much more complex than before.
Now, for sure, if we were to come back five years in the past, Europe has made a lot of progress in terms of energy transition. The U.S. is now following, and China as well, moving very quickly. Thus, so it is very positive, and we strongly contribute to this, order book. 60% of our EUR 6 billion order book is supported by connection of offshore, wind energy farms.
Are there questions in the room? Otherwise, we'll continue with questions from the internet.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Simon Rodier, individual shareholder. I understood that you had a plant in Ghana. Yes. Any projects for, developments in Africa, to electrify Africa first and to industrialize Africa?
Second question, I don't know very well Nexans' activity in China, but what would be the economic and industrial consequences for Nexans if, in a near future, the Western world was or decided to impose sanctions on China as the one imposed on Russia as from 2014?
Thank you for your question. Our presence in Africa today, well, we are not planning for geographical extension. We just want to strengthen our presence, more capacity where we are already set up. In Morocco, maybe I can give you the floor, Selma, if you want to say more. If you could have the microphone on the first row. Morocco, Selma can tell you what we're doing in Morocco. We are also strongly present in Côte d'Ivoire. We are participating in the electrification of that country.
70% of population has access to electricity, 30% has not access to electricity, but I think it'll be the case in 2025, if my memory is correct. And we are very much present in Ghana, and we've been operating there since 1970. So we're strongly investing in these countries.
Thank you, Chris. Yes, we have been working in Africa for 77 years, and 21 years in Africa, been reinforced with the announcement of the new factory, as Chris said. That's for the medium voltage part with African experience. From Morocco, Senegal, we have a partnership with local utilities in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, and other countries in that sub-region. So we continue monitoring the evolution of electrification in this region.
We have a big partnership with utilities, and it is based on the Moroccan model as a lead co-leading countries for electrification, distribution, and transport. What you can add is that contrary to the main European plants, we're not just doing cables. Indeed, a real difference with Morocco is that we deliver transformers. So we have a full electrification solutions with cells, transformers, pre-manufactured cells. So that electrification is really meeting the African needs. It's not necessarily connected to the grid. Sometimes it is off-grid, and thus we need totally different solutions outside the cable part. One word about rural areas ?
There's a project in Benin, for example. Well, three countries, and for rural development, so with the turnkey solutions, so in, Ivory Coast, for example, and in Benin, 300 villages, and also in Senegal, 200 villages. So we are very present in Africa, and we also had a seminar, and to congratulate a lot of the newly trained electricians who obtained their certification with Nexans. So that's for Africa. But also, every year. We do hold a climate day, where we invite experts in electrification, and we've done this in Paris, and Stockholm, and New York, and we'll be going to Rabat, Morocco. So we were hoping to do it last year, but, there was the earthquake, but we will be going there this year. Your question about China.
So, you know, we do, we have a plant in Yanggu for office buildings and then also for the railway systems. Now, I'm not a specialist in geopolitics, so I don't know if there will be higher tensions between Europe and China. But what's important for Nexans is we try to produce locally for the local market. So what we produce in China is for the Chinese market, and what we produce in France is for the French market. And so there is no movement between the two countries, and so until now, we have not been affected by any geopolitical issues. What has impacted us, however, and does cause difficulties, is rather the war in Ukraine, with 2,000 employees working for Nexans. So that, in fact, you know, has definitely impact us.
So that was hard for our staff, not, not just an economic issue. Thank you for your question.
I have... So there's another question on the web. You often use the expression, urban mines. Could you explain that to us? So these urban mines, what are they exactly?
So urban mines, well, it's figurative. If you look in European countries, you know, a lot of cables were laid maybe 70 years ago for the electrification of our cities. And as Chris was saying earlier, these cables are now obsolete. Fortunately, they were of good quality at the time, but they do need to be replaced because the entire grids need to be upgraded. We need-- And we need to lay in additional cables as well. So what does that mean?
So under our feet, there are cables that are obsolete, and they've got copper in them, okay, and they've got aluminum in them. So it would be really stupid, for us not to go out and make new use of those cables to do, to do the recycling that we would be able to perform. So that's the idea of the urban mine. It's, what's under our feet. You know, if you look at the telecoms, you know, in France, it's mostly optical fiber, okay? But some of those old cables are still underground, and the big company in France, Orange, is going to be tackling this, problem and trying to retrieve those old cables. So that's what we mean by urban mines. Yes, it, it would be not only dumb, as you say, but it would be irresponsible not to retrieve those cables.
Any other questions from the room? Otherwise, we have a few more from the web. So, about acquisitions: Are you planning any new acquisitions in the coming months?
Yes, was the answer. So the aim is to continue our selective organic growth, but also to strengthen our positions on sub-parallel markets, such as in distribution or usage. So along the same lines as what we've done in Finland, Colombia, and Italy, and yes, in the coming months, you know, we are very active, and we have some targets. So why all of a sudden more active than before? Well, two or three years ago, when we would go knock on the doors of some competitors, well, they weren't really answering us, because the economy was in full swing, everything was going fine.
But now, some medium-sized businesses, between EUR 200 million and EUR 1 billion, many of them still family-owned and run, but who don't have the capacity, don't have the access to copper, and who are beginning to suffer from that difficulty. So this raises questions for their future growth. And so a bit like our, you know, grids, you know, we need to upgrade our own plant. Of course, it takes a lot of investments, and so sometimes some of those smaller businesses can't make that investment. Others have difficulties with succession. This was the case of the Italian company that we acquired. There was no obvious successor. And so now we are entering a very active times with potentials for acquisition around the world. We have a strong focus on Europe, where we are experts, of course.
We're looking at North America. Now, South America could become complicated. We're already very present there, so we're looking at Southeast Asia. But, you know, but, but then we also potentially in Africa, we could be looking for some vertical integration.
Thank you, Chris. Any questions from the room? So from the web, as concerns recruiting, all companies face recruiting challenges. How do you attract new talent, and how do you keep them? That's a question for Maria, so our Head of Human Resources.
Hello, everyone. That is an important question for us. So yes, we need to attract talent, but we have to hold on to that talent as well, and we know it's essential for our future. And so this is why that we have really put them at the heart of our human resources strategy.
So in recruiting, we are rolling out our new employer brand, and so we have a whole team working on these matters, and we are boosting our network of recruiters. We've organized events as well. We also want to encourage internal mobility, because I think this is a strong sign of our commitment to them to offer our current employees new opportunities. We know that people want to do more, and rather than letting them go to elsewhere, we need to make sure that our current staff know that there is still a lot for them to do within Nexans. So we've done a lot of different activities to build engagement. We have sociologists working with us. We have a lot of employee-focused activities, and you've seen our scores on employee engagement are rising.
Another thing I could mention, I mean, just a few years ago, when we were trying to hire people for a given position, you know, it took, you know, a lot of work explaining who we are, who Nexans are. But now, the posts that we're opening, we're receiving a lot of spontaneous applicants as well. So this means that we are much better recognized on the market, so barely. So we have low churn. We're at below 5%, which is also a good score compared to some other companies.
Thank you, Maria. All right, then, if there are no other questions, we'll close that session. So now we'll move on to the vote for resolutions. So we... So in the... If there are no further questions, discussion is closed. So we've got over 36,756,000 shares. So this is 32.4. This is 84.32%. And so we have Nino Cusimano, who will lead us through the voting.
So let me present the electronic voting procedure. You were given a device when you entered the room, so I will explain the main terms of the resolutions, and then I will declare the vote open. And then you will have 15 seconds to choose on your tablet to vote whether to vote either for, against, or abstain, and then you confirm your vote by pressing OK. The results of the votes will be displayed on the screen immediately after each resolution. So if you have any problem with your tablet, please ask the staff in the room to help you.
So now we're going to show you a short film that explains how to use the voting device.
So you have been given a tablet for voting, these are strictly personal and can only be used during this meeting. So when the voting is open, this will display on your tablet, even if it has gone into a closed mode. So press on the button corresponding to your choice. So for abstain or against, then you press OK to validate your choice before the voting closes. So once your vote has been validated, you can no longer change your vote. And then please return your voting devices when you leave the room. So we will first go through the first 15 resolutions.
First of all, we have the first resolution: approval of consolidated financial statements. You will have 15 seconds to vote once I open the voting. The vote is open. The voting is closed. The first resolution is adopted. Second resolution: approval of the company's financial statements 2023, and the management report. I open the voting. The voting is closed. The second resolution is adopted. Third resolution: allocation of income for the 2023 fiscal year and setting of the dividend. Voting is open, 12 seconds. Vote is closed. The third resolution is adopted. Fourth resolution: renewal of the term of office of Jane Basson. Voting is open. You have 12 seconds. The vote is closed. The fourth resolution is adopted. Congratulations, Ms. Basson. Fifth resolution: appointment of Tamara de Gruyter as Director. Voting is open. Vote is closed.
The fifth resolution is adopted. Congratulations, Tamara. Sixth resolution: renewal of the term of office of the company PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit as statutory auditor. Voting is open. The vote is closed. The sixth resolution is adopted. Seventh resolution: appointment of the company PwC as statutory auditor in charge of certification of sustainability information. Vote is open. The vote is closed. The seventh resolution is adopted. Eighth resolution: appointment of the company Mazars as statutory auditor in charge of certification of sustainability information. Voting is open. The vote is closed. The eighth resolution is adopted. Ninth resolution: approval of the information relating to the compensation items paid during the fiscal year or granted for the same fiscal year to corporate officers. Voting is open. Vote is closed. The ninth resolution is adopted.
Tenth resolution: approval of the items of compensation paid during the fiscal year 2023 to Jean Mouton, Chairman of the Board of Directors. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The tenth resolution is adopted. Eleventh resolution: approval of the items of compensation paid for 2023 to Christopher Guérin, CEO. Voting is open.... Voting is closed. The eleventh resolution is adopted. Twelfth resolution, approval of the compensation policy of the members of the Board of Directors for the fiscal year 2024. Voting is open. Vote is closed. The twelfth resolution is adopted. Thirteenth resolution, approval of the compensation policy of the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the fiscal year 2024. The voting is open. Voting is closed. The thirteenth resolution is adopted. Fourteenth resolution, approval of the compensation policy of the Chief Executive Officer for the fiscal year 2024.
Voting is open. Voting is closed. The fourteenth resolution is adopted. Fifteenth resolution, authorization to be granted to the Board of Directors to carry out transactions involving company shares. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The fifteenth resolution is adopted. We now propose the adoption of 7 resolutions, submitted to the extraordinary shareholders meeting. We'll start with the sixteenth resolution. Authorization to be granted to the board to reduce the company share capital by cancellation of its own shares. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The sixteenth resolution is adopted. Seventeenth resolution, delegation to the Board of Directors to issue a maximum of 600,000 shares reserved for employees. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The seventeenth resolution is adopted.
Eighteenth resolution, delegation of authority to the board to issue a maximum number of 150,000 shares reserved for financial institution in order to offer employees of foreign subsidiaries an employee shareholding scheme. The voting is open. Voting is closed. The eighteenth resolution is adopted. Nineteenth resolution, authorization for the board to grant performance shares to the CEO and certain group employees within the limit of 330,000 shares for a period of one year from January 1, 2025. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The nineteenth resolution is adopted. Twentieth resolution, authorization for the Board of Directors to allocate free shares to high-potential employees, up to a limit of 50,000 shares for a period of one year from January 1st, 2025. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The twentieth resolution is adopted.
21st resolution, authorization for the board to grant performance shares to the CEO and certain group employees, up to a limit of 130,000 shares for a period of one year. Voting is closed. The 21st resolution is adopted. 22nd resolution, amendment of Article 16 of the company's bylaws, removal of the obligation to appoint an alternate statutory auditor. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The 22nd resolution is adopted. Lastly, we submit two resolutions for the approval of the annual general meeting. 23rd resolution, acknowledgment of the end of the term of office of a deputy statutory auditor. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The 23rd resolution is adopted. 24th resolution, powers for formalities. Voting is open. Voting is closed. The 24th resolution is adopted. Thank you all. Over to you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Nino. There being no further business, I declare the meeting adjourned, and I thank you all for taking part in the meeting and look forward to seeing you next year.