Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to welcome you, and thank you very much for coming to Paris today here at the headquarters of your company. During this session, we will comment on the performance and highlights of the financial year of 2024, including a presentation of our E3 performance model, the outlook for 2025, and the acquisitions that we have made successfully. A thematic presentation on the group's vertical integration and circular economy, followed by a description of Nexans' climate strategy, are also on the agenda. On the agenda is also the composition of the Board of Directors, with the renewal of the terms of office of Mark Grynberg as an independent director for the four-year term. The group has benefited from his experience for several years, particularly in international business management and ESG.
He is the director in charge of monitoring climate and environmental issues. We will also submit for your approval the renewal of the term of office of Francisco Pérez as Director, proposed by the main shareholder Invexans Limited for a term of four years as well. You will also have to choose the director representing employee shareholders between two excellent candidates, Gwenael Gilbert and Bruno Daguet. In addition, we are submitting for your approval a remuneration package that is fully aligned with your group's strategic objectives. 2024 is a record year, with results never achieved before, proof of the relevance of Nexans' vision and ambition, in line with the dividend policy implemented in 2021. In addition to the stock market performance, we propose to distribute a dividend of EUR 2.60 per share. We'll come back to this during the meeting.
Dear shareholders, at the entrance to this room, you've seen an exhibition illustrating E3, our unique model developed by Chris, combining social, environmental, and financial performance. It's a real philosophy and driving force behind everything we do. You also saw two major industrial plants, the Nexans sites at the La Triveneta Cavi, the group has just acquired, and Bohin, an incumbent site of Nexans in the Aisne district. Infracheck is a very innovative tool that uses augmented reality to instantly check cable connections using a smartphone. At last, a testimonial from one of our large customers, RTE. I hope that you liked this exhibition. I now declare open the Ordinary and extraOrdinary Shareholders' Meeting of Nexans. To make it easier to vote on the resolutions and display the results quickly, we're using an electronic voting system, which is fast and secure.
You received an electronic voting tablet at the entrance containing the notice of meeting brochure. I invite you to use it and return it, of course, at the end of the meeting. Please note that the URD can be downloaded from our website. You can consult it on request from the staff in the room. For environmental reasons, as you know, we no longer print it systematically. Finally, I would like to inform you that this is a public meeting. It will be filmed and recorded for live and recorded broadcast on the internet. Unless you object, your image may be saved and broadcast on the Nexans website. At my side are Anne Lebel, independent lead director; Christopher Guérin, CEO; Jean-Christophe Juillard, Executive Vice President and CFO; and Nino Cusimano, General Secretary and Group General Counsel.
I would also like to welcome the members of the Board of Directors and thank them for attending the meeting. Also in the room are the members of the executive committee, some of whom will be joining us on stage later for presentations. I'd like to welcome Juliette Ducou-Guillemot from Mazars, as well as Edouard Demarcq from PwC. Both of them are our Statutory Auditors. Okay, so let's set up the presiding office in my capacity as Chairman. The two members of the meeting present who have the greatest number of votes and accept the role of scrutineers. In view of the information of the attendance sheets, the two shareholders present representing the greatest number of votes are Invexans Limited and Bpif rance Participations. We asked these two shareholders at the start of the meeting if they would accept to act as scrutineers, and they did so.
I therefore propose the following as scrutineers: Invexans Limited, as a member of the general meeting, who has agreed to act in this capacity, represented by Hervé Pisani. Furthermore, Bpif rance participation, a member of the general meeting who has also agreed to act in this capacity, represented by Mélanie Zhou. I also propose to choose as the secretary Nino Cusimano, General Secretary and Group General Counsel. Therefore, the presiding office is validly constituted. I remind you that this meeting is being convened on first notice, the legally required quorum having been reached. 83.8% for the time being, it's already a record. Thank you.
The quorum is 20% of shares entitled to vote for decisions falling within the remit of the ordinary general meeting, Resolutions 1 to 14, 27, and A, and a quorum of 25% of shares entitled to vote for decisions falling within the remit of the extraordinary general meeting, resolution 15 to 26. Consequently, the presiding office of the combined general meeting notes that the combined general meeting, having more than the required quorum, may validly deliberate on the items on the agenda, whether it's for the OGM or the EGM. The meeting will take place as follows. First, we'll take care of legal formalities with Nino, then a short introductory video, and Chris will review the highlights of 2024. Jean-Christophe will continue with comments on the 2024 financial results and the first quarter of 2025.
This will be followed by thematic presentations on a focus on our power grid business with Elyette Roux, our product Mobiway POP with Christophe Demule, and a progress report on Nexans' climate change strategy and the follow-up of initiatives undertaken, which is an item on the agenda without a shareholder vote by Marc Grynberg. Finally, we will be giving you an update on governance, candidates for the Board of Directors, and remuneration with Anne Lebel, Independent Lead Director, Chair of the Appointments and Corporate Governance Committee, and the Remuneration Committee. Afterwards, we'll hear the Statutory Auditor's Report, then we'll take questions from the floor and from shareholders who are watching this session live on the internet. Finally, of course, you will vote on the proposed resolutions. The company has not received any request for the inclusion of additional resolutions or items on the agenda.
Furthermore, we have not received either any written questions from shareholders. I am going to give the floor to the Secretary of the Assembly, Nino.
Chairman, thank you. All the documents required for the general meeting have been made available to shareholders in accordance with the law. You will find the various reports of the Board of Directors in the Universal Registration Document 2024 and on the website of the company.
Thank you, Nino. I would like now to hand over to our Managing Director, Christopher Guérin.
Alors, bonjour.
Good morning to you all. I would like to make a small presentation. Last year, we were at the RATP, and we had Castex, our former Prime Minister, who talked for 15 minutes. Now, this year, I am going to take the floor. Before coming to the crux of the matter and the investor day, I would like to say a few words. Dear shareholders, members of the board, colleagues, in 2025, I would like to welcome you as if I was a traveler stopping for a while. I have been browsing now for seven years as we had headwinds with our teams, and we also had calm sea, and we had to cope with a health crisis. Altogether, we decided to follow our road with determination. That is to say, to follow the sustainable electrification. We wanted to come back to the basics, to convert complexity into transparency.
We simplified to amplify. We reduced what was excessive. We wanted to find sobriety and find strength in it. During those years, I, we, learned how to listen to the essential rhythm and pace of our plants with valuable know-how of our staff. A reason for our success. We have to come back to the basics in order to respect our industrial heritage while turning to the future. I would like to pay tribute to the staff. Thanks to them, since we have been building electrification for decades and decades, and electrification is unique at Nexans. We are deeply convinced. We believe in economy, environment, and commitment. We believe that economy goes beyond the aggregation of profits. It represents the indispensable seeds for future investments, the creation of jobs, and innovation of the future. Our environmental conscience is not just limited to regulations.
It's a sincere commitment to preserving our planet and to guaranteeing the future generations of having a proud world. Our social commitment is a collective commitment, showing solidarity. We want to share pride and happiness together. We are writing a quick chapter of our company, but this company has existed for over 140 years. In this general meeting, I would like to thank the Board of Directors very deeply because they are extremely reliable, and they are also at the source of this success as well, with faultless commitment. Ahead of us, we have a rich future, rich in terms of challenges, but also extraordinary opportunities. Let's keep on walking along that line. It's a promising future. We want to have a simple, sustainable commitment. Thank you very much for your presence.
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]
Accelerating a sustainable revolution. I would like to get my slides on the screen, please. As I said, we have a heritage of 140 years, and we are fully connected to the history of power. Let's go back to 1879, the pioneers of electricity with Westinghouse and other companies that needed cables to take power to households. The first revolution occurred between 1879 and 1910. The Champs-Élysées were electrified. We had the war. We were involved with the reconstruction and the electrification of Europe between 1950 and 1970. Emerging economies then had increasing demand for power between the 1970s and 2000. This slide shows, at a glance, that emerging countries and mature countries will have the exact same needs for power. In Europe, mature economies, South America, North America are going to have to replace fossil fuels by renewable fuels or energy.
The biggest challenge is to replace more than 80 million km of cables that were installed back in the 1950s and 1970s. Back then, their lifecycle was estimated at 30 years and we are well beyond 50 years now. It is a massive, massive challenge, but tremendous opportunities as well for us as a cable company. Let's take a look at the segments of our business. We have power transmission, the grid, and what we call connect. These are the buildings. As you can see, we are about to enter three decades of glorious development, demand on power transmission, interconnection with offshore wind farms, or interconnecting regions following the blackout between Spain and Portugal. France, very successfully within hours, was able to bring power back to the region. Those interconnections, the number of interconnections is growing. Annualized growth is about 10%. The global worldwide market is EUR 26 billion.
That's an estimate. Looking at grids, more than 80 million km of cables that are going to be replaced in the years to come. All around, all over Europe, North America and South America, growth is estimated at 7% every year. Elyette will develop this in a moment. Last but not least, power connect. These are the buildings. Of course, there is a lot of demand in urban areas. 2 billion inhabitants are going to be moving to urban areas between now and 2030. There is a growing demand for electrification. We need more power everywhere, all the time, and therefore more cables. Annualized growth estimated at 5% by 2028. These are the three segments. They're all connected. High voltage, mid voltage, and low consumption or power consumption, all growing sustainably. These are the main fundamentals of our business.
Looking forward, there is also an increasing need for electric vehicles. The 86% by 2050. Numbers are changing very rapidly, especially in the past days. It is not just EVs. It is also the network. There is going to be a need to charge those vehicles. 85% renewables by 2050. 80, I am sorry. AI is a much talked about subject. AI is going to consume massive amounts of power. Consumption there again is expected to increase by 85% for that market alone. Urbanization, as I said, nearly 2 billion people will be living in urban areas, which means that we are going to see more and more high rises and new buildings across large urban centers around the globe. When we draw up strategic plans, we naturally tend to look at the things that are positive. We have done an analysis of what we call mega risks.
They're not always completely negative, but I think we have to be aware of them. Starting with renewable energies. Renewable energies induce new complexities. Fossil fuels and the question of intermittence. The wind doesn't blow all the time. Sun doesn't shine all the time. This is an upcoming challenge for Europe. More intense climate events or climate-related events, which means that potential power outages or blackouts is going to be multiplied by 12. We're not used to being out of power. Recently, the blackout in Spain and Portugal, the first thing that's missing when you're out of power is access to water, access to oil, access to communications. This shows that power has become absolutely vital in our economies. As we saw in the earlier slides, there is a convergence between demand in mature economies and developing countries. This is putting a lot of pressure on raw materials.
Copper, aluminum are the two main ones we use in the power industry. Not everybody will be satisfied in terms of demand. This is why Nexans today is focusing a lot on recycling. EUR 100 million have been invested in the Lens, in our Lens facility to recycle 80 million tons of waste that contain copper between now and 2027. Elyette, again, we'll come back to this in a much more detailed way. We will see how cables are going to be gradually replaced. There is a strategic shift we have to operate. First of all, there is a risk. What if we do not have access to the supplies? What if there is a shortage? The number of suppliers, we are bigger and bigger. There are fewer and fewer suppliers, and they are getting bigger and bigger. Our customers do not just want basic cables.
They want pre-connected cables and intelligent accessories and digital solutions that come with them. This is really why we're developing our third strategic plan, which I'm developing. There will be massive technological mutations ahead of us. These mega trends, mega risks, change in market patterns are positioning us at Nexans in a very good position and will bring us long-term prosperity. When you're a listed company like Nexans, it's not the case here at General Assembly, but when we talk to our institutional investors on a quarterly basis, we tend to have a fairly short-term vision. What I would like to remind you of today is that the Board of Directors and management are trying to have a long-term vision. Long-term being 10 years, 10 years down the road.
During the Investor Days, which have punctuated the past seven years, we had a first chapter in 2019 during which we started to reinvent, rethink the business. Some investors were unhappy. Our results were down. There were some profit warnings in 2018 in spite of growth. We had a need to gain your trust, confidence of our customers and shareholders. We revisited the Nexans performance model back then, and it worked out very well. We had the COVID-19 crisis, which impacted everybody, all nations around the globe. In 2021, between 2021 and 2024, we decided to focus on electrification only and decided to dispose of some of our businesses. They were very good businesses. Some are still being disposed of. The telco industry or segments were sold off, and others are still in the process of being sold off.
We want to reallocate our resources and our research and development strengths with one single focus, which is electrification. Cables, high voltage, cables, mid tension, and cable and low voltage. This is what we have done between 2021 and 2024. We are now coming to the end of this second strategic plan. Jean-Christophe will come back to some of our achievements, the financial results, which I believe have been relatively good. With the Board of Directors, we have now started, and we are going to submit, we have approved a third strategic plan, which, as you will see, is very much in line with the previous one. We are going to engage in a new momentum of growth, sustainable electrification with an increased focus on technology. We want Nexans to be structurally stronger than the years before. Profitable growth, of course. Not growth just for the sake of growth.
We do want to grow, obviously, but we want to grow in markets that are interested primarily in low carbon markets or renewable energy markets. Markets that are regenerative, as in recycling, copper recycling being one of the big markets in the future. There are going to be new technologies as well. Every year, we have announced new technological developments and new market segments. All this is amplified by artificial intelligence, AI. We now have dedicated teams who are working on AI. This is not just promises. In the past seven years, we have worked relentlessly to be where we are today. We have been determined to prepare our future in the transmission market, the one that connects countries or wind farms. Our backlog is above EUR 7 billion. Visibility is long. End of 2028.
Even if there were to be a recession in the world, this particular segment is entirely focused on production and execution of this backlog. It is a very high-quality backlog. We invested nearly EUR 900 million in that segment alone. I will share some of the investments with you in a moment. As far as networks are concerned, we are going to capitalize on our existing know-how. Again, the business has been around for 140 years. We have been laying cables both in Europe and in the Americas for decades. You have seen some of our demos outside as you arrived here at our HQ. We are going to continue and innovate with additional new solutions, especially in the field of accessories. We will come back to that in a moment with Elyette. As far as Connect is concerned, Connect historically has always been a bit ignored by cable companies.
When you look at the reality of what is happening today, there is a fire that is sparked in a building every two minutes somewhere in the world. Cables are, in many instances, the cause of those fires. Cables for many years were made with plastic, and plastic actually propagates fire. In the past 15 years, we've been working actively on high-density polymers. They resist fire and will not propagate fire. We're now developing this across Europe and in Latin America as well. It is reinforcing our com[Foreign language]al awareness, brand awareness, and it is reinforcing the quality of our image, perceived image. We're very proud of this. Let's take a look now at the pillars of our strategy. We have worked very hard on those pillars. We consider we are in a very good position. We're now entering this third wave of electric hyper cycles in electricity.
It is a bit similar like what happened between the 1950s and 1970s. These are very buoyant, very fast-growing markets and very balanced as well. There are complex projects in high voltage. We continue to lay cables, submarine cables. These are very complex projects, costly and dangerous projects. We have that portfolio. On low voltage, we have short-cycle projects that are not very complex. We invested over EUR 1 billion in the past seven years to prepare for our growth and for this acceleration, this amplification. We announced a few months ago. We have this vertical integration as well with raw materials. Thanks to this, we can now bring low-carbon solutions to our customers to better meet their needs. Accessories, services as well. This is the only way for us to reinforce our structural footprint and distinguish ourselves from North American and European as well as Asian competitors.
Here are a few highlights of 2024. Things we're quite proud of. First of all, there is the extension of the Halden plant. You can see two towers. We used to have only one. This is for submarine cables. As you know, we have a big backlog. This Halden extension was officially opened about a few months ago with 100 customers present. There is the acquisition of La Triveneta Cavi between Verona and Venice. It's a beautiful location, industrial location, great company, more than EUR 800 million in sales. It is now under managed by Nexans. [Foreign language]
Connection to the Swedish island, Gotland. Very beautiful achievement. The wind farm East Anglia for the North Sea, for the North Sea and Baltic Sea. We, of course, have to provide security because you heard that some subsea cables were cut by Russian vessels.
The interconnections are vital for electric grids. We should not look at Europe through the physical borders, but through the subsea interconnections, energy and telecom. We are all interdependent. In 2024, we also focused on the supply chain, recycling and ergonomics, CableLoop. It is an innovative product launch in the defense environment. Many buildings had to be revamped. The cables are not all bought, so are not thrown away. We can recycle some cables. We are going to suffer from a shortage of metal in the next few years. We have to commit ourselves to recycling our waste for future growth. Mobiway POP, very proud at Nexans. I am not going to elaborate on it because Christophe Guérin will come back to it. And ULTRACKER. ULTRACKER allows us, through sensors, to geolocate our cables throughout the world. Increasing visibility and recognition.
I'm very surprised and very proud with the HR team, with Séverine, who joined us, the HR manager of the group. Because to join the Nexans vessel, we did not receive a lot of applications. The company was not doing well at all. The recognition was damaged. Our reserves were down. It is no longer the case. We receive a lot of applications, very nice profiles and talents. Of course, we have this capacity now to retain those talents at Nexans. Our results, of course, our strategic model, the electrification, sustainable electrification. This is quite attractive, but also the E3 model proving its worth. We launched a chair with HEC, the business school. We launched a business case for the students of HEC. Two years, two years of work.
Two professors spending a lot of time on our model for a school case, but with all educational tools for the professors who want to teach this use case. We were proud after having tested this case with 400 students. We were very proud to see that HEC had on its own platform in Harvard. Business school did it as well on its platform. We are very proud. Among, we also see a remarkable increase in the press release and press coverage. We have a greater influence not only in France, but on other territories like Morocco. A very nice event last year with the Moroccan government, which took place with over 500 people in Rabat. I am not going to talk about it. I am going to show you a video clip.
[Foreign language] You cannot talk about health without energy.
You cannot talk about smart agriculture without energy. You cannot talk about education without energy. [Foreign language] Nexans Climate Challenge, [Foreign language].
A very nice event, which will be followed by its equivalent in Canada, in Toronto, in the next few months. Electricity is the backbone of a nation and of an economy. There is no electricity without any cable. I'm going to give the floor to our CFO, Jean-Christophe Juillard.
Thank you, Christopher. Dear shareholders, good morning, good afternoon. The financial results of 2024, as you are going to see, those results are very good results. Before entering into the detail of 2024, I'm going to spend a minute to take stock of the equity story and the strategic journey we started in 2021 with very precise objectives for 2024.
I'm proud to say that the Nexans group, as you see here for the objective, financial objectives, Nexans reached or widely exceeded the financial objectives we presented to the financial markets in February 2021, be it for the adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, the cash flow, and of course, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. We had a target of - 21%, and we achieved - 29%. Each year, as you could see, we announced guidance for each year during those four years, and we raised the guidance during the year, each year, and then we systematically exceeded the targets. Let's look at the 2024 financial year. You see the main financial indicators. We reached a record level in 2024. Let me start with the EBITDA, the operating income in volume, EUR 804 million, plus 20% versus last year, or in terms of EBITDA margin, 11%.
It was at the top of the bracket to which we were committed in 2021, 74% of growth of the adjusted EBITDA versus 2021, the year of the starting year of the plan 2021-2024. In terms of cash flow and free cash flow, normalized one, you see that we reached a record, EUR 454 million. In 2023 and 2024, we had major investments, as mentioned by Christopher, especially for the high voltage, subsea, but a generation of free cash flow after those investments of EUR 313 million, the record. The return on capital employed, 21% in 2024. If we look at the ratio of pure electrification, our core business or future core business, pure player, 26%, five percentage points of difference versus the roadshow before. If we look at the growth, because we transformed the group and the group is profitable, growth becomes a major element of our future.
In 2024, you saw that we had an organic growth of 5.1% with a very strong fourth quarter, + 8.3%. Growth in the revenues, an organic growth, change in scopes with acquisitions, but organic growth by 5%, while the margin rate raises by over one point. Organic growth profitable. Electrification, as you can see, it was at the core of this growth, + 13%, double digit, and a growth of the margin in percentage, + 0.4 points. We had some drops or decreases in the non-electrification business, especially because of a slowdown in the robotics and in the automobile business. You know that the automotive building is difficult. For the other activities, we find metallurgy mainly. In our strategic plan, our objective was to reduce the external sales of metallurgy in order to focus on the internal needs of the group in terms of rods.
If we focus now on the electrification, pure electrification, you find this strong growth of EBITDA for our electrification activities, + 76% between 2021 and 204, EUR 595 million of EBITDA in 2024, adjusted, and it corresponds more or less to the EBITDA of the group in 2022. You see that the growth of the EBITDA on electrification has been very strong and contributed to the financial robustness of the group. If we compare the EBITDA margin of the group and the electrification, you have two percentage points more for the electrification. In terms of conversion of the EBITDA in generation of free cash flow, you see that the difference is rather significant, almost 18% or 19% of growth of conversion, additional conversion of our electrification activities versus the other activities of the group. Let me enter into the detail of our main businesses in electrification.
Let me start with transmission, the high voltage, that is. Chris also mentioned it, a very strong growth of our order intake, order book. We have a lot of visibility, therefore, and long-term projects till 2028. The revenues, the margin, and the cash flow to be generated on this activity will provide us visibility till 2028. We are full till 2028, in other words. You also see that the revenues experience a very strong growth, especially in 2024, thanks to the additional activities, the investments we made. Christopher said that our production lines doubled in Halden in Norway and a new vessel for the installation of cables. Hence, increase in growth and an organic growth by 50% between 2023 and 2024. The adjusted EBITDA increased by 72% between 2023 and 2024 because all the projects with low margins, step by step, are exiting the order book.
Now we focus on high added value like the framework agreement with Tennet or the interconnection contract. In power transmission, if we look at the backlog, we're saying that we had a visibility of 90%. What is interesting is our backlog is mainly subsea. It's a subsea backlog. Only 8% are non-subsea, corresponding to the connection of our subsea cables to the ground and the transformers on the ground. Why are we proud to have a subsea backlog? First, because the margins are much better, much higher than on-the-ground projects because of the complexity. The complexity, sorry, is less. The terms and conditions of our customers are simpler. Therefore, this activity is more creative. It's better to be in the subsea than on the ground, in other words. You see that our customers, 85% are TSO.
The share of the U.S. with the election of Donald Trump and his desire to stop all wind farm projects at sea in the U.S., we had a lot of ups and downs and a lot of impacts on our shareholders, a lot of questions by the shareholders on the potential impact on Nexans. By the end of 2024, the share of American projects in our only accounts for 4%, which is negligible. [Foreign language] . On the grid, organic growth 3%, sales up even more. We had some special business in Italy, which allowed us to grow the scope of this segment, adjusted EBITDA + 9%. A very positive momentum for this market segment in 2024, improved margins as well, primarily due to the increase of accessories in the grid division with much, much better margins, nearly double the margin of mid-voltage cables.
A favorable mix and a market with a lot of demand and a good mix. This is why the results have been so good in distribution for 2024. Moving on to Power Connect, low voltage, primarily building cables, organic growth 1%. Sales growth is mainly coming from the acquisition of La Triveneta Cavi in Italy, which, starting in June, allowed us to increase the sales of this segment of Connect and organic growth, which was relatively weak, but margins and adjusted EBITDA growth quite significant, EBITDA 24%. Once again, our transformation shift and innovations like Mobiway and CableLoop, these are just two examples, have allowed us to significantly increase our margins on this segment and sell connected products and so-called smart intelligent products. This has contributed to the growth of EBITDA for this segment as well.
Looking back at the overall balance sheet on December 31st, 2024, as you can see, it is a solid balance sheet. Once again, the leverage ratio is EUR 681 million. The increase between 2023 and 2024 is mainly coming from the acquisition of La Triveneta Cavi, the Italian company. As you can see, we've generated cash. We were able to complete strategic investments, especially in high voltage. There is also the dividend payout, which has been increased once again, which was the case already in the five past years. As a matter of fact, looking at the dividends and shareholder return TSR, as you can see, we can see that dividend per share has gone up nearly 120% between 2021 and 2024. We're offering a dividend of EUR 2.60 per share payable in 2025.
This gives us a ratio of 35%, a distribution or a dividend payout ratio of 35%, which is very much in line with our commitments. If we look back over the past four years, the TSR was 97%. If we look even further back, 2018, at the time of the first strategic plan, it is nearly 400% TSR with the stock price and progressive dividend payout. In closing, I would like to talk about the 2025 guidance. Adjusted EBITDA between EUR 770 million and EUR 850 million. This shows continuity. We expect to continue the company's performance. Free cash flow generation between EUR 225 million and EUR 325 million for 2025. Let's now move on to Q1 2025. It has been a good quarter, perceived positively by the financial community. Some of the highlights for Q1: organic growth 4.1%. In electrification, organic growth at +6.8%, very consistent with 2024.
It shows that the electrification margin is continuing to boost the company's performance. It's above the average performance of the company. Sales, total sales, EUR 1.8 billion. Standard sales, EUR 1.2 billion. The transmission backlog was at EUR 7.4 billion in 2024. We're now at EUR 8.1 billion with additional order intakes coming from RTE. The integration with La Triveneta Cavi has been successful, and it is continuing to deliver expected synergies. The objective was EUR 20 million per year. We're there. We're right on target and in line with our forecasts. We're therefore very pleased about this acquisition. I would also like to say that as far as asset rotation is concerned, you know that we have announced the signature of an agreement for the disposal of Lynxeo. Lynxeo will be exiting Nexans starting the beginning of Q2. Sorry, Q3 2025, S2, sorry, 2025, H2. Organic growth at 4.1%.
Distribution and Connect are in the vicinity of 2%. Q2 should be better than Q1. We expect in Q2 to see a strong contribution of organic growth and distribution. The other activities, mainly steel, it's stable or nearly flat. Non-electrification still suffering in 2025, a bit like in 2024. This is mainly robotics and automotive and including assets to be disposed of. So much for 2024 and Q1 2025. Elyette, over to you with a focus on grid.
[Foreign language] . Hello, everyone. It is my pleasure to tell you about the electric network business. Words are not necessary. Simply take a look at what happened in Spain. Pitch black. The thing is, that's exactly what happens with the network. You don't see the network. It's generally underground, except for the few low or mid-voltage cables in Brittany. Otherwise, you don't see cables.
Yet, they are absolutely essential because they allow you to access data, your health applications, your fridge, communications, and they are a common good. That is really what this is about. I am going to give the floor to one of our customers, Eiffage. They are one of our strategic customers. They work with us on renewables. [Foreign language]
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language] . Many thanks to Eiffage. They buy low carbon cables from us, and they promote it on the platform in which we are the only supplier of such cables. Allow me to come back to the grid. Spain was one event among many others. A similar event happened in London. What happened? It's a convergence of network-related challenges. Sometimes the network is obsolete in many European countries and American countries. The networks are old, 30, 40, 50 years of age, which means those networks have to be renewed, have to be renovated, and/or replaced.
We are using, we're seeing renewable power offshore or onshore. We have electric vehicles as well as industrial plants that connect to the network. Sometimes you end up with bottlenecks. There are energy transition bottlenecks. As we said earlier, we're going to have to install 80 million km of cables in the years to come. That's 2,000 times around the globe. Imagine how much steel, how much metal that represents. We're facing a shortage in aluminum and copper. We have a number of solutions, which we will be implementing to recover and recycle those products. There are shortages in other areas. Here you're able to see what RTE does, for example, and how sometimes installers use artificial intelligence to install in trenches. The problem is there is a shortage of installers.
There is a shortage in France, in Europe, and in emerging countries. Therefore, we have to find solutions. In a moment, I will focus on that subject in particular. For now, I would like to tell you that the challenges faced by the networks are a real opportunity for us because main operators in Europe are going to have to double their CapEx in the years to come. Whether it is in renewable projects as well as in data centers or gigafactories, they will double in the years to come. For us, for our cable business and accessory market, it means a 7% growth year -after -year between now and 2028. How do we drive this growth?
We work with companies like Eiffage, who was in the video, to go from standardized products to traditional networks, generation, production, consumption, to new, completely new solutions, tailor-made solutions that are end-to-end and that are unlike those that are offered by the competition. How do we do it? In the past years, we have amplified the products we sell and the skills we have in terms of products. We've invested in new capabilities, in new production plants in Bourg-en-Bresse, in Jumont, in the north of France. We've invested in accessory plants with a lot of production, which is now fully robotized, connectors that connect cables. We invest in training centers, certifying training centers. We are an industrial partner of Enedis, the Les Écoles des Réseaux, the Network School, to train people to become familiar with future networks.
As far as wind farms or solar farms are concerned, as you know, Eiffage buys cable, but they buy more than cables. They also buy end-to-end solutions. What are those solutions? They combine cables along with accessories as well as services and training. This allows some operators, those who operate those wind farms or solar farms, to ensure a much longer life cycle and up to 5-10 years longer life cycle. Keep in mind also that on the network, there are different products, different systems, some areas on the networks that are absolutely critical, especially when they fail. Those critical organs are called accessories. There are connectivity connectors or connection systems. Those accessories, in 80% of the problems, they're related to those accessories. It's not a problem of quality. In most cases, failures are due to poor installation.
In other words, it's a human mistake. It's systems or problems that are caused by human mistakes. Again, these are products we put in trenches to connect cables together. We have to invest more in skills, in talents to provide solutions that will help installers in the quality of their installations. As you saw earlier, you had a demo illustrating Infracheck, Infracheck in a trench. Infracheck in a trench is technology. It's based on years of experience between Nexans and its training centers and operators. We're now leveraging AI. AI has learned from those installations, the good ones and the bad ones. Today, with a phone, you can scan an installation, and your phone will tell you if you did a good job or a bad job. The trench operators have to go through 90 different steps to connect two cables together.
With this kind of technology and AI, we bring it down to 20, which substantially reduces the number of potential problems. Here is a video that illustrates the use of AI. [Foreign language] . You saw the example of the type of innovation we are launching in 20 countries for the second half year of this year with 20 different electric grids and consumed by two major customers, Enel in Italy and Enedis in France for the time being. To summarize, we combine the customer experience and improved one thanks to AI and the monitoring of the grids as well and the implementation of solutions enabling us to have sustainability on the grid, the grid issuing less CO2, releasing less CO2. That is why this year and last year we launched products reducing the carbon impact by up to 50% with the use of recycled aluminum.
To finish, you should have in mind that those digital applications allowed by AI enable everyone, especially our network operators, to have access to information at the right time, at the right place to make the right decisions. This implies sending the right technicians to the right place for the right effect on the network quicker. In the future, we can therefore prevent those faults because we're able to measure them to anticipate on the faults. In the case of Spain, it was my introduction, we would like to all anticipate this problem in order to avoid this type of events, especially in France. Thank you. I'm going to give the floor back to Christophe.
Thank you, Elyette,
ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon. I'm very proud to talk about Mobiway POP and the history and the story of Mobiway POP. We were faced with a challenge.
How can we innovate in a commodity market? Power Connect is regarded as a commodity market. Cable is a standard product. Everyone knows the type of products you are confronted with. This type of crowd, a very standard product, a classical one. How do we innovate on such a product? That is the question. The answer. The answer starts with the users. Who is using this product? The electrician. Our first approach, our first step in this approach was to say, what are the difficulties encountered by an electrician in using this type of product? How can we understand his challenges, his difficulties to implement adaptive solutions? Those last few years, in the past four years, we met over 20,000 electricians on the four continents, on the five continents. We met them with ethnologists. Why? Cable is standard. Okay, it is a standard product. No problem.
The customer user or experience is not the same. We wanted to innovate on this customer experience. It was an exploration mission. We were able to know the key challenges, the key difficulties of the electricians on a daily basis. Sorry, we cannot hear the speaker. Oh, yeah, okay. The first difficulty for an electrician is to unwind the cable and not just one, but three. That is what you have in your connectors, in the switches. It is complicated because you have a kind of pigtail, as it is called in the jargon, knots, in other words. It has an impact on the installation time systematically. They have to redo the work and to redress, rectify the wire so that it enters into the sheath. It is very time-consuming, therefore money-consuming. How can we solve this type of problem?
The first way of solving the problem is to say, well, we know the difficulty very well with the crown. When you have a drum, and at Nexans, we know about the cable drums, we delete this problem of pills' tail. So we said, let's move to a drum. This is a recharge, Mobiway POP. The advantage of this recharge is that you no longer have plastic. It's cardboard and paper. So we wanted to have this environmental approach in creating it. Once you have this small drum, what do you do? This turret, what do you do? It's not convenient to use to unwind rods. What is Mobiway POP? It's a system integrating a tool and recharges. This is the tool. I promise I have no other examples. Okay? This is the tool.
This is a simple tool for the user based on one tool helping or facilitating the unwinding and recharging systems. Of course, we have a patent. The electrician is completely changing his way of using wire or rods. It's a commodity product by excellence, if we ask them. What is the benefit? They save 36% of their time when pulling on the wire or the rod. In Colombia, the product is already there since 2023. The electricians in Colombia are paid based on the number of houses or buildings they have. If it takes them 10 hours to install the wire in the house, it will be 10 hours. With such a tool, they can save two hours a day. Two hours a day means two hours more to spend time with their family for them.
To us, of course, it is key. Beyond time, what have we been doing as well? We've been working with ergonomics, with ergonomists. Electricians, it's a difficult job. You always have uncomfortable posture or stances. When you work with ergonomists, you can reduce the difficult positions thanks to Mobiway POP. In working with ergonomists, we could delete 67% of the uncomfortable positions and stances. It has a direct impact on their life quality. With a solution which is sustainable on top of that, this is the Mobiway POP. It is deployed in France and, of course, in Colombia, as I said. Very surprised. What is the surprise? What we can observe in France is that we have a lot of feedback from social media. Electricians in the building industry, they are on social media, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and so on.
Like everyone, they make comments. They say, it's good, it's no good. We're happy, we're not happy. It's innovative, it's not really innovative. As I said, the story started with electricians. They shared their challenges with us. Do not listen to me. That's my proposition. Listen to the electricians, what they say about the solution and what are their own comments. [Foreign language] .
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[Foreign language] . So, that's the best example. They use it on a daily basis.
So, this solution was awarded a label in the industry in 2024 in France and being awarded abroad as well. What is our mission? It's simple. It's to put into place a new standard. Mobiway POP is a new standard of customer experience for electricians worldwide. Today, it's present in two countries. Our ambition is that by the end of the year, it's present in five countries. We want to roll out this innovation very quickly and in a more powerful way. Thank you.
Christophe. [Foreign language] Marc, Marc Grynberg. Marc Grynberg is next, managing climate and environmental questions. He's going to give us an update on the company's climate strategy.
[Foreign language] . Hello. Good afternoon. And thank you. Yes, I'm going to give you an update on the progress in our climate strategy.
Please allow me to come back to some of the projects that have kept us quite busy in 2024, starting with the implementation of new European reporting standards, non-financial standards. Our teams worked relentlessly in 2024 to develop reporting that is compliant with the new European directive. It gives a very comprehensive overview of what is at stake, as well as our performance: environmental, social, and governance. We have also continued to work and adapt our ambitions and climate roadmap to make them more coherent with the amplification of our strategy, as described by Chris a few moments ago. We looked at our circular economy strategy with several initiatives that are positioning Nexans to capture some of the products that are coming to the end of the life cycle to actually recycle them and re-inject them into our production systems.
We have also made a major investment, nearly EUR 100 million in the Lens facility to recycle copper, starting in 2027. This will allow us to considerably increase the percentage of recycled copper, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of our products. In 2024, we also developed a methodology we are using to systematically measure the potential impact of acquisitions. We are considering, as you know, with the amplification strategy, acquisitions will play a key role. We thought it was quite natural to prepare those acquisitions in line with our climate ambitions to integrate them as efficiently as possible in our future environmental roadmap. A few words on carbon emissions. Our objective is to reach carbon neutrality at the very latest in 2050. Between now and then, we have a number of milestones. Scope 1 and 2 - 46%, Scope 3 - 30% by 2030.
The Scope 1 emissions are the greenhouse emissions coming from our own industrial operations. Scope 2 emissions are the ones that are coming from generated by the power we buy. Scope 3 emissions are emissions that are generated upstream. For example, coming from the raw materials we consume, as well as the emissions that are on the downstream part of our business, generated in transportation or generated when our products are used or when their end-of-life cycle is managed. Where do we stand in 2024 with respect to our 2030 objectives? At the end of 2024, Scope 1 and 2 emissions were - 38%. This shows we're actually getting quite close to the target of 46%. Very encouraging numbers. To illustrate the progress we accomplished in 2024, I would like to give you a few examples. We launched new heat recovery technologies in our Canadian facilities.
We continued to deploy solar panels to supply some of our sites with green energy. It was the case last year in 2024 in Switzerland, for example. In some of our operations, we replaced fossil fuels by biofuels or by electric solutions. As far as the Scope 3 is concerned, at the end of 2024, we reached a reduction of 42% versus the year of reference. Year of reference was 2019. Part of that reduction was achieved thanks to increased use of multimodal transport. Also thanks to the launch of new technologies and new products that allow us to reduce energy losses when we use our cables. This is another example that shows that technological innovation is great in terms of growth, but it's also good for sustainable growth because it allows us to reduce our CO2 emissions. 2025 now.
The agenda for 2025 is, with no surprise, very much in line with the 2024 agenda. We are going to continue our hard work to further reduce our CO2 emissions. This year, we're going to focus a bit more on some activities, the ones that are maybe a bit more difficult to decarbonate, for example, with the vessels we use to lay subsea cables, as well as in the steel industry. We're also going to continue and reinforce our skills, especially at the Board of Directors level. We need to make sure our directors are trained. They must be well-informed about the topics and the priorities of the company. We have ongoing training on subjects such as climate change, the climate roadmap. For this year, we have a training session which will be dedicated to recycling, especially the recycling of steels or metals, rather.
We're going to continue and monitor regulatory changes very closely. We're awaiting announcements made by the commission. We're hoping for some simplifications in how we report. Reporting today has become quite difficult for our teams, and we are certainly hoping that there will be some simplification coming from the European authorities. Hopefully, that will make the next years and the future implementation of European directives a bit easier. Meanwhile, our intention is to continue and further implement our recycling strategy. As I said earlier, we will continue to monitor the impact of our acquisitions on our decarbonation roadmap. We do want to make sure that our decarbonation roadmap really captures all the growth, but also in a respectful way when it comes to CO2 emissions. This is my final slide. As always, I would like to show you the scores we have received from non-financial rating agencies.
They typically rate the non-financial performance of Nexans. They do this on a regular basis. I'm not going to go into each score, but I think that what I do want to say is that those scores are best in class. I think they simply reflect and confirm that Nexans is not only a pioneer, but also a leader in the industry, in the field of sustainable development. It makes us quite satisfied, and we're very proud to see that our leadership and performance are recognized not only by the Board of Directors, but also by independent external third-party organizations. In closing, I would like to make a side comment. We talked about blackouts earlier. I would like to share the experience of I was in Portugal the day of the blackout, and I can tell you that life without power for 12 hours is just impossible.
It was very frustrating, especially when you're in a country where 75% of the power supply is renewable. And all services, public and private, are highly digitized. There is an obvious need to modernize networks. This was a blatant example, a wonderful illustration of this. Thank you.
[Foreign language], Marc. Thank you, Marc. Over to Anne, as an independent member, who is the chairwoman of the remuneration committee, she's going to tell us about the governance.
Thank you, Jean, dear shareholders. It is my pleasure to present the resolutions on the governance of your company, as well as the remuneration. To start with, there we go. Your company's corporate governance complies in all respects with the AFEP code. Its most recent version, 2022, the composition of your Board of Directors is balanced and diversified.
This is our objective: to strengthen diversity and complementarity of skills, maintain diversity of ages, nationalities, and international experience, as well as a good gender balance. At the end of this assembly, pending your votes, we will have 54% women, 46% men. In 2025, the main changes we propose in the composition of the board are as follows. First of all, the end of Andrónico Luksic Craig's term of office at the close of this general meeting. And Andrónico did not wish to stand for re-election. I would like to thank Andrónico for his strong commitments, his continued hard work all these years. I think his work was an essential contribution to the development of Nexans.
The renewal of the mandates of Marc Grynberg and Francisco Pérez Mackenna, which we will submit to your vote, and the appointment of a new director representing employee shareholders to be chosen between two candidates, Gwenael Gilbert and Bruno Daguet. Selma Alami's term of office expires at the end of this meeting. Furthermore, Angéline Afanoukoé's term of office as director representing employees was renewed by the French Group Committee for four years, starting today. Pending your approval, the number of directors will be reduced from 14 to 13 at the end of this general meeting. This would increase the independence rate from 54.5% to 60%. The boards for committees that are presented here are very active and function very well under their respective chairmanships. This was highlighted in the latest evaluation of the board and its committees carried out at the beginning of the year in 2024.
We held 14 board meetings, 24 committee meetings, as well as two joint sessions of the Audit Committee, Accounts and Risk Committee, as well as the Strategic and Sustainable Committee dedicated to CSRD regulations and the implementation thereof. I also organized three executive sessions without the presence of CEO and the management. Those sessions were an opportunity to interact, talk about how to improve the board operations and support management on key issues. We also organized six meetings with independent directors on various themes related to board operations, governance development opportunities, as well as the annual assessment of the board and its committees. I also took part in a governance roadshow with the chairman and the climate administrator in preparation for this year's Annual General Meeting. Let's now turn to the directorships we're proposing. As we said, there are two renewals and there is one appointment.
We propose you reappoint Marc Grynberg to the board for a four-year term. Marc, as you know, is our climate director and is also an independent director. He brings to the board his experience as a manager and industrial company, and has tremendous expertise in financial and extra-financial fields. We would also like to renew the mandate at proposal of the shareholder Invexans Limited of Francisco Pérez Mackenna for another four-year term. Francisco is the CEO, and he is a major contributor to the work of the board and the four committees of which he is a member. [Foreign language] . We are also proposing the appointment of a new director representing employee shareholders for four-year terms to succeed Selma Alamo. Thank you for her contribution over the past four years.
Gwenaell Gilbert is the Vice President of the Grid Business and Connect in Brazil, Managing Director of Nexans Brazil. Bruno Daguet is Vice President of Industrial Operations and Engineering. After having considered these two candidates, the board recommends the appointment of Gwenaell Gilbert, based in particular on his international experience as a company director. The candidate elected today will join the board at the end of this meeting. As usual, we invite you to view short introductory videos of those two candidates.
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[Foreign language] . Thank you to both candidates for their presentations and introductions. I would like to turn to the resolutions concerning the remuneration policy for corporate officers, Resolutions 7, 8, and 9, concerning the remuneration exposed over 2024 of corporate officers. Resolutions 10, 11, 12 propose compensation policy is ex ante for the financial year 2025.
All remuneration components are presented in full in the 2024 URD. Let me start with resolution number 7, the director's remuneration for 2024. At the 2024 Annual General Meeting, you voted for a budget of EUR 820,000 to cover the cost of 24 committees and the dedicated task of the climate director and the independent lead director. Total remuneration paid to directors in 2024 amounted to EUR 779,560, i.e., 95% of the maximum envelope in 2024. Twenty-four committee meetings were held: four meetings of the audit accounts and risks, five meetings of the appointments and corporate governance committee, five meetings of the compensation committee, eight meetings of the strategy and sustainable development committee, and two joint meetings of the audit and the strategy committee to discuss the directive on corporate reporting and sustainability and its implementation within the group.
The 2024 remuneration of the Chairman of the Board is subject to a vote in resolution number 8. In accordance with your approval at the Annual General Meeting of 2024, the Chairman's remuneration amounted to EUR 320,000 for the same financial year. No other compensation or benefits of any kind were paid. The 2024 remuneration of the CEO is submitted to the vote of resolution number 9. Fixed remuneration, we remind you that the remuneration policy for the CEO is reviewed at multi-year intervals for a period of every three years. It was revised in 2024, and it was EUR 950,000 and remained unchanged since 2021. Short-term variable compensation now. The remuneration policy for the CEO sets a maximum variable remuneration of 150% of base salary.
Within this variable remuneration of short-term, collective targets accounting for 65% of variable compensation and individual qualitative targets for 35% for 2024, variable compensation amounted to EUR 1,280,000,000, i.e., 89.9% of its maximum of 134.8% of the target bonus, reflecting the very good performance of the company. The collective portion was based on four criteria: EBITDA, ROCE, net free cash flow, and net income. The collective share has reached its maximum, and it results from the calculation done based on the results observed. The individual share was based on three criteria or groups of criteria: one linked to strategy deployment, another one to operational efficiency, representing 30% of the individual share, and cultural and commitment and ESG strategy deployment, representing 40% of the individual share. The individual share was reached at 71% of its maximum, i.e., 106.5% of the target bonus.
You also have a long-term variable compensation with the allocation of shares, and the variable long-term compensation represents 150% maximum of the fixed compensation of the CEO. 20,000 shares were allocated to the CEO, therefore, for a total value of EUR 1,333,412, 145% of fixed remuneration performance shares. The acquisition is for four years. It's subject to the achievement of performance conditions based on three criteria: 40% on an economic criterion, based on EBITDA margin and free cash flow conversion rate, 40% on an external financial criterion consisting of measuring the relative performance of the TSR compared with a benchmark panel, and 20% on an ESG criterion that measures achievement of nine ESG objectives in the following areas: commitment, three indicators, environment, four indicators, and ecosystems, two indicators. The other compensation items or components are also presented here.
They include commitments such as termination, benefits, non-compensation clauses, pensions, and other benefits in kind. Let me turn to the 2025 remuneration policy. I will start for directors with directors and Chairman of the board put to the vote in Resolution 10 and 11. For the directors, no change. The remuneration policy of 2025 follows the same principles as in 2024, with a variable component linked to the directors' attendance at board meetings, predominantly variable components. Total remuneration of all directors is maintained at EUR 820,000 for fiscal year 2025. The Chairman of the Board, 2025, we remind you that the compensation policy is also reviewed at multi-year intervals. The remuneration of the chairmen of the board remains unchanged in 2025. A fixed remuneration of EUR 320,000, no other remuneration or benefits of any kind will be granted in respect of 2025.
The remuneration policy of the CEO is submitted for your approval at the general meeting. This remuneration policy will be submitted for your approval at the general meeting May 2024. It is based on the following three main principles: competitive remuneration aligned with market practices, as detailed in the URD, balanced compensation with an equal weighting of short-term and long-term variable compensation. It is in line with the strategy of the group, motivating the CEO to achieve Nexans' long-term ambitions. In accordance with the remuneration policy of the CEO, we submit for your approval the remuneration policy unchanged in 2025, with a fixed salary of EUR 950,000, variable remuneration corresponding to 100% of fixed remuneration up to a maximum of 150%.
There are collective objectives accounting for 65% of annual short-term variable compensation and individual objectives based on quantitative and qualitative targets accounting for 35% of the short-term variable compensation. There is a long-term variable remuneration, the value of which may not exceed 150% of fixed remuneration. As I explained previously, this long-term variable compensation takes the form of performance shares. The conditions: 40% on an economic criteria, measuring the level of adjusted EBITDA and the conversion rate into free cash flow; 40% on an external financial criterion, consisting in measuring the relative performance of the TSR compared with a reference panel at 30% and the Euro STOXX 600 Industrial for 70%; and 20% on an ESG criteria that measures the achievement of nine ESG objectives in the following areas, in line with the ESG roadmap for the years to come. [Foreign language] .
In addition to this, we have a strategic long-term plan. During the previous assembly in 2024, you voted on an exceptional package of 130,000 performance shares to be allocated to the company's executives to support the new strategic plan, which was communicated on November 13, 2024, called Sparking Electrification. 129,800 shares were allocated March 21 to 25 to almost 50 managers, including 26,000 shares which were allocated to the Chief Executive. This represents 20% of the total allocation. As I said, these are free performance shares coming at the end of a four-year period and that are subject to the achievement of specifically defined performance conditions based on five criteria in the strategic plan, which have to be met by December 31st, 2028.
70% of the indicator is on economic performance, ROCE, 20% at the end of December 31st, 2028, annual growth of 4%, adjusted EBITDA of EUR 1,150,000,000, and a cash conversion criterion of 45%. 30% of these indicators are based on relative performance of TSR compared to a reference panel and 30% and the Eurostock 600 industrial index of 70%. Other compensation components are also presented here. Some of them, once again, include termination benefits, non-competition clauses, pensions, and other benefits in kind. I'd like to turn now to Resolutions 22 and 23 on employee shareholding and capital increase reserved for employees in France and abroad for a maximum period of 24 months. As you know, employee shareholding is an essential incentive at Nexans. It's a way for us to involve employees in the company's long-term strategy and to share the creation of value as shareholders.
At the end of 2024, it represented 3.2% of the capital. Nexans has just launched a new employee shareholding program, and it's called ACT 2025. It's open to 98% of the company's electrification employees across 28 countries. The last two Resolutions are on free shares and performance shares for 2026. Resolution 2024 concerns the free allocation of performance shares to the chief executive and key executives. Resolution 25 concerns the allocation of free shares without performance conditions to high-potential employees, performance employees, as well as key experts. All free share plans have a vesting period of four years. As I said earlier, performance share plans are based on three performance conditions: financial performance condition, economic performance condition, and an ESG condition. The allocation of performance shares to the chief executive may not exceed 12% of the total package.
In 2025, the allocation of the CEO represented 5.8% of that total package. We are going to submit to your approval a maximum envelope of 330,000 shares, which represents 0.75% of the share capital. As far as free shares are concerned, free shares are allocated to employees and key experts at Nexans. Those plans are subject to one single condition, which is the presence, no performance condition, and we submit to your approval a maximum allocation of 50,000 shares, which represents 0.1% of the total share capital. I am now done with the presentation of the resolutions. Thank you very much for your attention.
[Foreign language]. Thank you, Anne. Over now to our Statutory Auditors who are going to present their report. Monsieur Juliette Ducou-Guillemot for Mazars.
[Foreign language] . Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, in the name of the Statutory Auditors comprised of PricewaterhouseCoopers and Mazars, we are going to present the reports we have issued for fiscal year closed December 31st, 2024. As usual, I'm going to give you a summary. The reports have been made available to you before this meeting. This year, we have generated 10 reports: four reports for the Ordinary Shareholders' Meeting and six reports for the Extraordinary Shareholders' Meeting. Let's start with the Ordinary Shareholders' Meetings. The first report is on the consolidated financial statements. They are certified with no reservations and no observations. This report presents the three key points of our audit. These are the three specific topics we worked on, and they are unchanged compared to last year.
They have to do with the accounting of contracts of goods and services, especially the estimates of results upon completion of long-term contracts, litigations, as well as the goodwill evaluation and tangibles and intangibles. We also verified the information that is in the management report. The second report is the report on the corporate financial statements. Here again, we certify them with no reservations and no observations. We are presenting the two key points of the audit for the holding. It's the assessment of participations, as well as litigations and competition investigations. We've looked at the information and verified the accuracy of information on remuneration and the benefits given to directors, as well as the other favors. Our third report is the special report on related party agreements. The objective is to communicate the characteristics and the modalities that justify the interest of these related party agreements.
One agreement was agreed this year between Bpif rance and one of Nexans' subsidiaries as part of the investment plan called France 2030, France 2030, on recycled copper. Our report also includes the agreements that you signed during previous years and that are still enforced today. The last report of the Ordinary Shareholders' Meeting, it's the report on the certification of sustainability information in accordance with new regulations mentioned by Marc earlier. This report comprises three separate sections, and each section has its own conclusions. The first one has to do with EFRS compliance and the process launched by the company to determine published information. We have paid specific attention to the identification of stakeholders, the identification of impacts of both risks and opportunities, as well as the evaluation of impact materiality and financial materiality. We confirm we did not find any significant anomalies.
The second chapter of the report has to do with compliance of information and sustainability that are included in these sustainability reports. We focused in particular on the information provided in application with the new environmental standards. In this report, there is one observation that drew our attention to the preparation. This observation we've seen with many, and it describes the main uncertainties and the inherent limits given the context because this is the first time we're applying this new regulation. Here again, we have not found any significant anomalies. The third and last chapter of this report is the obligations to publish information on taxonomy. We paid specific attention to information relative to the eligibility of activities, the key performance indicators, and supporting information. There again, we have not identified any mistakes or significant omissions. Let's now move on to the Extraordinary Shareholders' Meeting reports.
Once again, there is a total of six reports on Resolutions 15 to 25. You are going to be asked to vote on relative to capital reductions, authorizations to increase the share capital, authorizations for the employee shareholding plan, as well as the grant of performance shares and free shares. We have established those reports. You will give a delegation to the Board of Directors to actually carry out those operations. In summary, we have no observations when it comes to the modalities of those operations, and we will issue additional reports if necessary. Thank you for your attention.
[Foreign language]. Thank you very much. Let's now move on to our questions and answer sessions. We will answer the questions asked in the room and the ones that are asked online. Please, if you have any questions in this room, we would like to ask you to use a microphone.
Only shareholders are entitled to ask questions. We will only answer questions that are related to today's agenda. Please be kind enough to introduce yourself before asking questions. [Foreign language] Do we have any questions in the room, or do we have any questions online? [Foreign language]. Yes, sir. Please.
Hello. Olivier Carrefond. I'm a shareholder. I have a question about disposals of some of your industrial operations. I saw there was one. Are you satisfied with the prices you were able to get? When will the deals be closed? When will they be fully deconsolidated? Once you've closed those deals, what will be your plans in terms of acquisitions? Will you be using the money generated, the proceeds of those transactions for future acquisitions?
Thank you, sir, for your question. To answer your question, yes, we're satisfied with the multiple, which is above the current multiple. So that it's accretive for the company, which is good news. The deconsolidation of disposals with Lynxeo will, the deconsolidation should normally take place at the beginning of H2, let's say late June, early July. That's our current agenda. As far as using the proceeds of those disposals, the objective is to redeploy those proceeds in future electrification projects, our core business, especially in low voltage and mid-voltage. We've invested heavily already in high voltage. Right now, we're interested in acquisitions in this similar category as those we conducted last year in Italy with La Triveneta Cavi. Again, mid-voltage or low voltage. It could be in Europe or potentially in any other fast-growing geography. [Foreign language] . Have we answered your question? Yeah.
Any other questions here in the room? Yes, go ahead.
There are disposals of EUR 1.3 billion being negotiated. Any other disposal scheduled in 2025?
There are two groups of disposals in progress. The first one with Latour Capital Lynxeo, the disposal of Lynxeo. That's, I was just commenting on the scheduling and the process a minute ago. It's going to exit from Nexans during the second half year of 2025. The second disposal accounting for about the same size, that's the automotive harnesses. Here again, we are disposing it. It's not as well advanced. The visibility is not that big. It won't be before the end of 2025 and beginning of 2025. Both disposals account for EUR 1.3 billion. Has it clarified your? Okay, good. Yeah, another question from the room. Michel Guillemot, you made optimistic forecasts for the future.
I suppose that it is based on potential electricity consumption, but you know that those figures are more or less criticized because consumption of 600 or 700 TWh , but they are not probably achieved. If you base your projects on this outlook and it is not achieved, will it have an impact on your production and the development of your forecast? Thank you for your question because indeed, based on it all depends, the projections might not be the same. Our projections are based on the aging of the network, not based on the possible demand in electricity. The cables are aging, 30 years of maintenance of networks, so we cannot add another 10 years of additional life of those networks. You have a double effect. The more you have access to electricity, the more you will consume it. It's a rebound effect or impact.
We based our analysis based on the unavoidable replacement of the already existing cables. Gérard Poncet, good afternoon. I heard yesterday that Getlink was going to install a cable in the second tunnel. I understand that you are not that in favor of cables installed in tunnels as to the profitability. What is your stance? What is your positioning there in terms of recognition? The first was installed by your major competitor from Italy.
Thank you.
Thank you. We are interested. The cables installed within the Channel Tunnel generate a lot of profits for Getlink. The way it can be installed, it can be used as well by vessels because we are not far away from the sea. We will wait for the bid. We do not reject bids before they are launched. It is not our objective, and we are rather close to Getlink.
I think it's a good project. We'll take part in it in due time. You know, the problem is not to say a project is good or not. It all depends on our working load and on the time wanted by the customer. If we have availability, some available capacity, I think it's 70 km. Yes. If we have available capacity, yes, of course, we'll respond to this call for tender. We are very close to Eiffage and VINCI, yes. Thank you.
Yes, another question from the room.
Good afternoon. Jules Mormon, individual shareholder. My question. You see all those custom tariffs, the wars. The uncertainties, political uncertainties, have they an impact on the daily life of Nexans? Thank you. Thank you for your question. It is an essential question, and there is a broad scope here.
It's clear that the biggest impact of those political uncertainties on Nexans was the Russian-Ukrainian war because we have people working in Ukraine. I would like to pay tribute to the resilience of our teams and the Ukrainian people because we managers are trained to manage companies, but not companies at wartime. I am very much impressed by the resilience of the Ukrainian people in such a crisis. 85% of our population in Ukraine is made up of women. They decided to come and work every day since the very beginning of the war. We are still working. We are lucky, quote unquote, to be rather far away from the bombing locations so we can serve our customers. Without our teams in situ, it would not be possible. There is a very strong direct impact.
There has been a very strong impact for three years now. We hope that this war is going to end soon. On the custom tariffs, compared to other groups, the impact is rather low, rather limited. Why? Whether the cables are middle voltage or low voltage cables, we focus on the local. We produce in France for France. We produce in Italy for Italy. Same for the U.S. We have very limited flows of import-export within our business. The only direct impact we had in the States, further to the imposition of custom tariffs by the Trump administration, was the risk on the copper imports because the U.S. has a shortage in terms of copper production. The extraction capacity is 1.2 million, but their consumption is double or even multiplied by three for the time being. We produce copper.
I'm looking for the—we are producing—he was looking for the English word. Yes, we are producing road wire in Canada. We export them to the States, but Trump decided, because of Trump. We are not really directly impacted, but our customers indirectly are impacted. The direct impact we also have had, because the question is rather broad, is the stoppage of the wind farms in the U.S. Of course, we have plants dedicated to the interconnection of the wind farms in the U.S., especially for the New York States and the eastern coast of the U.S. We are going to focus on European projects while waiting for the future, hoping that the U.S. will take over some of those projects. It is a kind of permanent crisis, and we need to be agile. Thank you for your question.
First of all, I would like to thank you for your video clips. It gave a good image of the company and the new cables, the smart cables. I heard you talk about Europe, the U.S., Africa, but what about Asia? My second question would be, what is the weight of Nexans in Asia in terms of cables?
Very, very limited. We have a plant in China for the middle and low voltage cables, and we are very strong in Australia and New Zealand. For our future acquisitions, if I come back to the answer given by Jean-Christophe Juillard regarding the first question, we want to listen or to observe the European opportunities, but we want to strengthen our positioning where we are limited or weak. As you said, it's in Asia and the Pacific area. We are very active.
We are looking for acquisitions over there, and we would like to strengthen our North American footprint as well. I hope that another general meeting will be able to show you that we've been working there on those two areas. Okay, a question this time from the internet. All companies are facing a challenge in terms of recruitment. How do you attract new talents? How do you retain them? Nexans is lucky to take part in this third wave or cycle of the electric infrastructure. We are able to project demand over the next 20 years based on low carbon products and renewable energy. [Foreign language] . It is rather attractive for talents. Young talents or not so young talents. For those who were shareholders of Nexans in the past, we suffered a lot. There is a kind of new birth of the group.
Of course, the reputation is much better. Our footprint on the social media was multiplied by two. We are very much present. We are in the press. There is a press coverage as well, and more and more in a numerous number of countries, not only in France, of course, but in South America. Our business is extremely strong in Morocco as well and in France today. Further to many conferences we hold on the E3 model, economy, commitments, and engagement and environment, this model has become a source of attractiveness. The turnover or the churning rate is getting less and less, and our attractiveness rate is increasing more and more, and we're proud of that. You organized a masterclass in Morocco, and the best business schools in Morocco attended this masterclass to better know the E3 model.
Our development is mainly outside France, and this masterclass was very, very good. Yes, there was a conference of 250 people each year. We support, we have this sustainability chair with HEC, and we also intervene in various schools, business schools in Sciences Po in Switzerland and also in Spain. Another question from the internet on water. The scarcity of water resources, is it a constraint for the group? I'm going to ask for Vincent, our expert in water. Vincent will answer. When the question is difficult, I'll pass it over to someone. That's my principle.
Water is used quite a lot in our plants, of course. We use it to cool down our cables during the production. What we've been doing is that we organize closed circuits or loops.
The water will circulate in a loop, and therefore we save water because once it is put in the loop, we do not use further water apart from the natural evaporation. We invested a lot of money lately in Switzerland and in Norway for that. We are very much aware of the water scarcity, and we are committed to reducing this water consumption. Any other questions? In the room this time. For your customers renewing their electric grids, why do they decide to buy new cables, and do they have enough money to buy those new cables? Elyette is going to answer this question. Usually, the network operators come from the States, and they have to render a service to their citizens. In other words, they are forced to supply a level of energy or electricity to their citizens.
Therefore, their first priority is to be connected to the network, to the grid, and the second one is to modernize the grid. The way they finance this, the funds, this is simple with the energy tariffs we all pay. Thanks to those tariffs, they can do that, and the government funds this. It is very important to be able to improve the common good, let's say our electric grid, because otherwise there is no life any longer. [Foreign language] . Thank you, sir. Have we answered your question?
Very well.
Are there any other questions in the room, please? Very well. If not, I then close this session. I'd like to move on to the votes on resolutions. The number of shares present voted is 83.82%, which is an all-time high. I'm going to give the floor to Nino.
Nino is going to take us through the voting process.
Thank you, sir. A few words to present the electronic voting procedure. You've received an electronic voting tablet upon entering this room. After explaining the main terms of the resolutions on the screen, I will declare the vote open. You then have 15 seconds to choose on your tablet whether you vote for, against, or abstain. You then, this is really important, you then need to confirm by pressing OK. The result of the vote will be shown on the screen immediately after each vote for each resolution. If you have any trouble with your tablet, please ask a member of staff in the room. We're going to show you a quick video showing the electronic voting procedure. [Foreign language]
[Foreign language] After we open the vote, you will have 15 seconds. The vote is now open. [Foreign language] . The vote is now closed.
First resolution is now adopted. Resolution 2, the approval of the 2024 consolidated financial statements and the board's reports. Please vote. [Foreign language]. End of the vote. Second resolution is now adopted. Moving on to our third resolution today, the allocation of the 2024 income and the setting of the dividend. Please vote. [Foreign language]. end of the vote. This resolution is now adopted. Resolution 4, on the renewal of the term of office of Mr. Marc Grynberg [Foreign language]. end of the vote. This resolution is now adopted. Resolution 5, renewal of the term of office of Mr. Francisco Pérez Mackenna [Foreign language]. end of the vote. This resolution is now adopted. Resolution 6. So, appointment of the employee shareholders' representatives. Resolution 6, appointment of Gwenaell Gilbert as director representing employee shareholders. Please vote. [Foreign language]. end of the vote. On passe.
We're now moving on to Resolution A, the appointment of Mr. Bruno Daguet as director representing employee shareholders. Please vote. [Foreign language]. The elected candidate is Mr. Gwenaell Gilbert. Moving on now to Resolution 7, approval of the information relating to the compensation items paid during the fiscal year 2024. Please vote. [Foreign language]. This resolution is now adopted. Moving to Resolution 8, approval of the items of compensation paid during the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, to Jean Mouton, who is the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Please vote. [Foreign language]. Resolution 8 is now adopted. Moving to Resolution 9, the approval of the items of compensation paid during the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, to Christopher Guérin, Chief Executive Officer. Please vote. [Foreign language].
Resolution 9 is now adopted. Resolution 10, approval of the compensation policy of the members of the Board of Directors for fiscal year 2025 now. Please vote. [Foreign language]. The vote. Resolution 10 is now adopted. Resolution 11, approval of the Compensation Policy of the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Fiscal Year 2025. Please vote. [Foreign language]. The vote. Resolution 11 is now adopted. Resolution 12, approval of the compensation policy of the chief executive officer for fiscal year 2025. Please vote. [Foreign language]. The vote. Resolution 12, I'm sorry. Resolution 13, approval of a regulated agreement between a company's subsidiary and Bpif rance Participation. Please vote. The vote. Resolution 13 is now adopted.
Resolution 14, authorization to be granted to the Board of Directors for the purpose of carrying out transactions involving company shares. Please vote. [Foreign language]. The vote. Resolution 14 is now adopted. Resolution 15, authorization to be granted to the Board of Directors for the purpose of reducing the company's share capital by cancellation of its own shares. Please vote. [Foreign language]. The vote. Resolution 15 is now adopted. Resolution 16, delegation of authority to the Board of Directors for the purpose of deciding to increase the share capital with shareholders' preferential subscription rights. Maximum amount, EUR 14 million. Please vote. The vote. Resolution 16 is now adopted.
Resolution 17, delegation of authority to the Board of Directors for the purpose of deciding to increase the share capital via the capitalization of premiums, reserves, profits, or other amounts with a maximum amount of EUR 14 million. Please vote. [Foreign language]. The vote. Resolution 17 is now adopted. Resolution 18, delegation of authority to the Board of Directors for the purpose of deciding to issue without shareholders' preferential subscription rights, ordinary company shares, and other securities via public offering. Please vote. [Foreign language]. The vote. Resolution 18 is now adopted. Resolution 19, delegation of authority to the Board of Directors for the purpose of deciding to issue without shareholders' preferential subscription rights, ordinary company shares, and all other securities via public offering pursuant to articles L411 and L411. Please vote. [Foreign language]. The vote. The resolution is approved.
Resolution number 20, delegation of authority to the Board of Directors to increase the number of securities to be issued in the event of a share capital increase. Please vote. [Foreign language]. The 20th resolution is adopted. Resolution number 21, delegation to the Board of Directors to issue shares or other securities to be issued in consideration of contributions in kind. Please vote. The 21st is adopted. Number 22, delegation to the board to carry out a capital increase reserved for members of saving plans without the. Please vote. The 22nd resolution is adopted. Resolution number 23, delegation to the Board of Directors to carry out a share capital increase reserved for a category of employees of certain foreign group subsidiaries without shareholders' preferential subscription rights. Please vote. Number 23 adopted.
Number 24, authorization to the Board of Directors to grant performance shares to some employees of the group and the corporate officers of the group, maximum amount 330,000 shares, duration 12 months from January 1, 2026. Please vote. The vote. Resolution number 24 is adopted. 25, authorization to the Board of Directors for the purpose of granting free non-performance shares to employees, high flyers, 12 months from the 1st of January. Please vote. Maximum amount, 50,000 shares. The vote. The 25th resolution is adopted. Number 26, amendment of Article 13 of the company's bylaws to allow the Board of Directors to deliberate by written consultation. Please vote. The vote. The 26th resolution was approved. We submit to you a resolution relating to the ordinary general meeting. Resolution number 27 sees the powers to carry out for formalities. Please vote. The vote.
The 27th resolution was approved. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Nino. Thank you to you all. There being no further business, I declare the meeting adjourned. Thank you very much for taking part in this meeting, and I'm looking forward to seeing you next year.