Good morning. It's 10:00 A.M. sharp. Ladies and gentlemen and shareholders, dear friends, I'm delighted to welcome you once again after two years of general meetings that have been held remotely. I'm delighted to welcome you once again at the Palais des Congrès after these two years of health crisis restrictions. First of all, I'd like to thank you for being here, for being so loyal. I would also like to welcome those who are with us for the first time. Your board is sitting in the front row, as is to be expected, and I would also like to thank our board members for being here. I recall that this meeting is intended to be friendly, warm, courteous, which has always been the case in the past.
This annual meeting is for you, and we wanted to provide the most information possible and to be as pleasant as possible. I will draw your attention to the fact that this meeting is a public meeting due to the fact that it is being broadcast live and in video format on the L'Oréal website. After the various interventions, you will have an opportunity to speak, to ask questions on matters of interest to you, and the hostesses are in the room to gather your questions that you can ask on little cards. We've kept this because many people prefer asking questions written on cards rather than through the internet. The questions will be gathered before the beginning of the discussions.
The shareholders who are following us remotely can also ask their question through the general meeting broadcasting platform accessible via the website. Answers will be given to the questions during the general meeting on the basis of a selection representing the themes that will have drawn the attention of the shareholders within the allocated time. I recall that we will answer first of all questions posed by the shareholders who are present in the room. I would add that the list of shareholders present or represented will be finalized at 11:30 A.M. in order to establish the voting conditions at the end of the meeting and to keep you informed. As is customary, we're going to show a short film in order for each of you to settle down.
It's a very short film, and this is our L'Oréal business card film, as we call it, which sums up L'Oréal in two minutes. It presents the values, the key figures of our company, not only in financial terms, but in social, environmental, and corporate terms. Here we go. Voilà! Thank you very much. Thank you. Yes, it's a great film which sums up L'Oréal very well. Right, I will now go ahead and officially open our general meeting.
I will be chairing the meeting, and I declare that the shareholders have been convened to the general meeting per the decision of the board on the ninth of February 2022, consistent with legal requirements, with a convening notice published in the BALO, the official bulletin, and published on the website of L'Oréal with a simplified announcement in the publication of OBNI. Furthermore, all the registered shareholders of L'Oréal, as well as the statutory auditors, have been convened in writing. Many shareholders who so wish have been convened through the internet, asking for their admission card, printing it, or voting online prior to the general meeting. There are more and more of these shareholders, and I think this is a very good thing. I will now set up the Bureau.
The scrutineers are two shareholders, members of the meeting, who have both in their own right and as representatives, the greatest number of votes and accept this duty. The following persons will comprise the Bureau. The company called Téthys, represented by Mr. Jean-Victor Meyers as its scrutineer. Nestlé represented by Madame Béatrice Guillaume-Grabisch, the scrutineer. The chair and the scrutineers will form the Bureau of the meeting, appointing the secretary, who will be Madame Catherine Bellon. Mr. Nicolas Hieronimus, the CEO of L'Oréal, Mr. Christophe Babule, the finance director, will be with me. This is the first general meeting for Nicolas, because Nicolas has been with L'Oréal for many years, I think over 35 years now.
It's his first general meeting here because he's attended many general meetings on the other side of the table. Welcome, Nicolas. They're sitting with me here. Our statutory auditors are here with us in the front row, Madame Ferrier and Mr. Dupont-Noël, representing PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit and Deloitte & Associés. Maître Eric Meillet, the notary public, who is also attending. No shareholder has asked for a draft resolution or a point of order for the general meeting. I will therefore ask Madame Catherine Bellon to provide us the provisional situation regarding the quorum and some additional information on our general meeting.
Ladies and gentlemen, Chairman, before the beginning of this meeting, the registrations were now completed. The provisional attendance sheet noted the representation of 431,263,912 shares. 894 shareholders are present today at the meeting. Many thanks to them for being here. 102 are represented. 7,225 have given their proxy to the chairman, and 9,014 shareholders have voted by mail. The meeting, therefore, has the quorum required to vote on both ordinary and extraordinary matters. The agenda for the meeting was published in the notice of meeting on March 16, 2022, and in the notice of meeting of March 30, 2022. All the documents to be communicated to the shareholders were made available to them on March 30.
The company responded in accordance with the legal requirements to the request for documents that it received. The documents relating to the convening of this meeting are here on the desk to my left. Since these documents have been made available to you, we will not read them in full. Mr. President, the meeting is normally constituted and can therefore validly deliberate.
Catherine. Thank you very much, Catherine. I would like to say a few words about how the meeting will be held. Mr. Christophe Babule will present the business and financial report for the company, for the group in 2021. Mr. Nicolas Hieronimus, the CEO, will give his comments on the business in 2021 and will talk about his outlook for the years ahead. Like each year, we have sent to thousands of you a questionnaire in order to gather your opinion on the themes to be covered during this meeting. We've received many, many answers from you. Thank you very much. We have one that comes up a lot, which is green sciences, and this really is a revolution in research and innovation.
Madame Barbara Lavernos, who is the director in charge of research, innovation, technology, you know her well, she has often attended this meeting. She will present this item. Then I will share with you my own thoughts on the governance of the company and will report on the work of the board during the past year. Madame Sophie Bellon, Chairperson of the Human Resources and Remuneration Committee, reports on the remuneration of the executive officers through the resolutions which have been tabled for to put to the vote. Madame Catherine Bellon will present the draft resolutions, the statutory auditors will deliver their report, and then we will answer your questions in a general discussion, and then we will vote on the resolutions.
I will now ask, without further ado, Mr. Christophe Babule, who is the group finance director, to present the key items of the financial results of your group in 2021. Christophe, over to you.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The presentation of L'Oréal's financial results will include information on sales, profits, cash flow, the balance sheet and the dividend, as well as our social and environmental performance. Sales amounted to EUR 32.3 billion, up by 16.1% like-for-like, 16.9% at constant exchange rates and 15.3% reported. The impact of changes in the scope of consolidation was positive at just +0.8%.
This was mainly due to the acquisition of the Prada luxury beauty lines in January 2021 and the premium Japanese skincare brand Takami in February 2021, as well as acquisitions completed during the first half of 2020, namely the Mugler brand and Azzaro perfumes. The exchange rate impact was negative at -1.6%. Over two years compared to 2019, growth amounted to a strong +11.3% on a comparable basis, sequentially accelerating quarter after quarter. In 2021, L'Oréal grew twice as fast as the global beauty market and significantly increased its market shares. As you can see here, three currencies accounted for over 60% of sales. The U.S. dollar represented more than 23%, while the euro and Chinese yuan each accounted for almost 20%.
In 2021, there was sharp contrast in the performance of the main invoicing currencies compared with the euro, with the depreciation in the U.S. dollar, Japanese yen, Brazilian real, and Russian ruble partially offset by the appreciation in the Chinese yuan, pound sterling and Canadian dollar. Sales by division now. All divisions grew in 2021. The Professional Products Division grew by 24.8%, while the Consumer Products Division ended the year up 5.6%. L'Oréal Luxe grew by 20.9%. With EUR 12.3 billion in turnover, L'Oréal Luxe has become the group's largest division. Lastly, Active Cosmetics achieved record growth of 31.8% and has become the group's third-largest division.
Note the almost perfect balance in activity with two EUR 12 billion divisions and two really dynamic divisions also driving growth, each with sales of around EUR 4 billion. During the first half of 2021, the group, the L'Oréal Group, redefined its geographic zones. Business at the end of 2021 were therefore aligned with the new organization, breaking down as follows. Europe, Eastern and Western Europe combined was the group's leading zone, representing 31.5% of total sales. North Asia remained very dynamic at 30.5% of the total. North America accounted for almost a quarter of sales. SAPMENA-SSA, which includes South Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, accounted for 7.2% of sales, and Latin America represented 5.5%.
Growth rates varied by zone in 2021 as markets evolved according to the health situation on a country-by-country basis. All geographic zones achieved double-digit growth. Note the excellent performance, +22.2% in North America, making it the largest contributor to the group's growth in 2021, ahead of North Asia, which was still very dynamic at +17.6%. Coming to businesses. Skincare, our main category, saw continued growth of +17.7% in 2021, representing over 40% of our total sales. Makeup continued to suffer from the impacts of health restrictions, but nonetheless recovered well, +13.1%, and accounted for just over 20% of sales. Hair care was very dynamic at +16.7%, while hair coloring grew by 3.6% from a high base in 2020.
Fragrances, which were heavily impacted in 2020, saw a strong recovery of nearly 35%, driven by the growth in pillars like Libre by Yves Saint Laurent and Sì by Armani, along with successful launches such as Alien Goddess by Mugler. Now let's turn to operating profit. EBIT grew significantly by 50 basis points, reaching a new record of 19.1% of sales. There was a remarkable improvement in gross margin compared with 2020, up 80 basis points at 73.8% of sales. Now regarding operating costs, research and innovation expenses increased by 6.7% in absolute terms to over EUR 1 billion. Advertising and promotion expenses increased by 190 basis points to 32.8% of sales.
We allocated a significant share of the resources generated by the improvement in gross margin to marketing investments based on the local situation, market by market, so as to stimulate growth in our brands. Note that 73% of our major expenses are now digital. Selling, general, and administrative expenses decreased by 130 basis points as a proportion of sales, growing twice as slowly as sales. Operating profit by division. The profitability of the Professional Products division increased significantly by 250 basis points to 21.3% of sales, higher than before the pandemic. Profitability in the Consumer Products and Active Cosmetics division was down slightly by 20 basis points to 20.2% and 25.2% of sales respectively. Note that the Active Cosmetics division has the highest operating margin.
Finally, L'Oréal Luxe saw its profitability increase by 40 basis points to 22.8% of sales. Non-allocated expenses were 2.8% of total sales for an increase in total operating margin of 50 basis points to 19.1%. Let us now turn to the consolidated income statement. Operating profit increased by 18.3% compared with 2020 to EUR 6.16 billion. After taking into account net finance costs of around EUR 60 million and receipt of Sanofi dividends of EUR 378 million. Profit before tax, excluding non-recurring items, increased by 18.1% to EUR 6.5 billion. Net profit, excluding non-recurring items after non-controlling interest, increased by 20.5% to EUR 4.9 billion.
Net earnings per share were EUR 8.82, a marked increase of 20.9%. After taking into account negative non-recurring items of EUR 341 million. Net profit after non-controlling interest was EUR 4.6 billion, a very strong year-on-year increase of 29%. Cash position. Gross cash flow increased by 16% to EUR 6.64 billion. The working capital requirement decreased slightly by EUR 88 million. Investments are almost EUR 1.1 billion, represented 3.3% of sales. Net cash flow at EUR 5.65 billion increased by 3.1%. Share buybacks amounted to EUR 10 billion. In addition to a gradual buyback program of 3 million shares completed in May and June. The buybacks mainly relate to the strategic operation announced on the 7th of December.
After the payment of the dividend, buybacks of shares, and repayments of lease debt, residual cash flow was negative at -EUR 7.7 billion. The strategic operation announced on the seventh of December involved a buyback by your company of 4% of its own shares, 22.26 million shares in total held by Nestlé. The total price paid to Nestlé was EUR 8.9 billion based on a price of EUR 400 per share, at a discount to the closing price on the seventh of December and to the average price during the month preceding the transaction. The shares bought back were canceled on the tenth of February 2022. Nestlé's stake in L'Oréal's capital is now 20.1%. The transaction was accretive for all other shareholders.
The proportion of employee shareholders increased to 1.7%, the public share to 43.5%, and the Bettencourt Meyers family to 34.7%. This transaction will have an accretive impact of over 4% on earnings per share from 2022 onwards. The transaction was financed in a balanced manner through available cash and new debt. Accordingly, the group's net debt at the end of 2021 was EUR 3.6 billion. The gearing ratio was 15%, and leverage, which is net debt over EBITDA, was low at 0.5x. The group's investment activity, its capacity for its future development remains intact and the balance sheet is better optimized. Short-term ratings remain at the highest level likely to be given.
Moreover, the group received a long-term issuer credit rating of AA from Standard & Poor's and an Aa1 issuer rating from Moody's. Both excellent in relation to the refinancing of the transaction by bond issue in March 2022. The balance sheet remains very solid with shareholders' equity amounting to EUR 23.6 billion, almost 55% of the total. Our ongoing effort to consolidate our position continued in numerous areas of internal control and compliance in 2021. These included work on reviewing the vigilance plan and corruption prevention plan, updating the group's risk mapping, monitoring the group's policies regarding data privacy and protection, reviewing regulatory changes relating to sustainable finance goals of the Green Deal, and the draft revision of the CSR Directive. All of these items were of course reported to the audit committee.
In light of the company's performance and the strength of its balance sheet, the Board of Directors proposed a dividend of EUR 4.80 per share, up 20% to the annual general meeting. As you can see on the graph to the left, the L'Oréal share price increased by 34.2% in calendar year 2021, compared with a 28.9% increase for the Paris Stock Exchange CAC 40 index. Between the end of 2020 and the fourteenth of April, the L'Oréal share price increased by 16.3%, broadly in line with the CAC 40 performance. You can see that the right-hand graph shows total shareholder return, which is a comprehensive measure.
TSR at the end of 2021 was above 20% per year over three or five years and close to 20% over 10 years and consistently above that of the index. Now for a few comments on our performance at the start of 2022. Overshadowed by the invasion of Ukraine and the renewed sanitary constraints in some parts of China. Your group has got off to a very good start. At the end of March, sales exceeded EUR 9 billion, up sharply by 19% on a reported basis, and 13.5% on a like-for-like basis. L'Oréal continued to outperform the beauty market, which remained buoyant at around 8%.
Our three selective divisions, Professional Products, L'Oréal Luxe, and Active Cosmetics, recorded strong growth of 17%-18% like for like and more than 20% reported. The Consumer Products division remains dynamic, driven by the return of in-store sales in Europe, North America, and emerging markets. Growth is balanced geographically with strong like for like growth of 16.4% compared to a first quarter of 2021 still marked by numerous lockdowns. Your group is accelerating strongly in Europe with strong performance in a dynamic market, particularly in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain. North America continued its momentum at +12.6%. North Asia rose by 9.4%. In mainland China, despite the numerous local lockdowns, our sales increased by double digits. It's a much faster pace than that of the market.
Growth is accelerating in emerging countries with 15.6% in South Asia, Pacific, Middle East, and Africa, and more than 22% in Latin America. L'Oréal has demonstrated a clear commitment to social, societal, and environmental responsibility for many years. Last year, I've introduced L'Oréal for the Future, which is our second generation of corporate social responsibility commitments launched in mid-2020. The new program aims to transform our activities so that they respect planetary boundaries and associate our ecosystem with our transformation with a new series of ambitious tangible targets for 2030. You can see on the slide some of our achievements at the end of the first year of implementation of this strategy to fight against climate change, manage water sustainably, respect biodiversity, and protect natural resources.
To take one example for climate, the group has committed to achieving carbon neutrality at all its sites by 2025 by improving energy efficiency and using 100% renewable resources. At the end of 2021, 100 sites, 58% of the total, including 25 factories, had already achieved carbon neutrality. In 2021, your group was again rewarded for its social and environmental performance. In environmental terms, your company was awarded for the sixth consecutive year, AAA from CDP, an organization which rewards the actions of your group in favor of the climate, forests, and the preservation of water. Your company is also rewarded by Ethisphere for ethics, by Bloomberg for parity, and is ranked in the top by Refinitiv in terms of diversity.
In terms of attractiveness to students, your company now stands fifth globally, which demonstrates the strength of our employer brand. In addition, the United Nations awarded us for the seventh year running the Global Compact Lead distinction for our continued commitment to the ten principles of the United Nations Global Compact. Finally, your company obtains the best scores from many ESG rating companies such as FTSE4Good, Standard & Poor's, or MSCI. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you very much, Christophe. I will now call on Mr. Nicolas Hieronimus, CEO of L'Oréal, who will report on your company's business in 2021 and on the outlook for L'Oréal. As soon as the microphone has been cleaned, one can never be too cautious.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I am particularly honored that I get to address you having completed my first year as Chief Executive Officer of your group. This has been a particularly full and intense year, both because of a slew of unforeseeable externalities and because your company has stayed true to its history, its culture, and its values, and continue to adapt and deliver another year of financial and non-financial success. For starters, on behalf of the group's executive committee, allow me to express my support for our Ukrainian employees, many of whom had to flee after Russia invaded their country on February twenty-fourth. The group has made it a top priority to protect its employees and their families. We have helped exfiltrate and safely relocate over 350 people, employees and their families.
Your group has released EUR 5 million to nonprofits to support the Ukrainian people and has donated over 600,000 essential beauty products. In Russia, we have decided to take significant measures to demonstrate our strong condemnation of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces while remaining true to our values of solidarity and protection for all our employees, and therefore also thinking of our 2,500 Russian employees who cannot be held responsible for the crimes committed by their government. On March 8th, we announced a temporary shutdown of all our directly operated sales outlets in Russia, as well as the e-commerce sites of our brands, and that we were suspending our industrial investments as well as our media investments with state-owned television networks both in Russia and in Belarus.
In line with EU and U.S. sanctions, we have also suspended the sale of most of our brands, with the exception of essential everyday products. Needless to say, we continue to monitor the situation with the safety of our employees as our top priority. Today, I will look back at what 2021 has meant for the beauty market and for your group before focusing on what boosts my confidence in L'Oréal's success, both in 2022 and in the medium term. As you will see, L'Oréal has all the assets that it needs to succeed. In 2021, the beauty market bounced back, growing by 8% after an 8% decline in 2020. This return to 2019 levels confirms that human appetite for beauty is immense, universal, insatiable, and that beauty is essential for all.
Of course, the beauty market has been significantly transformed by the health crisis. Consumers want healthier and safer products. They want more transparency, more sustainability, but also more science in a market that is increasingly digital. In all those areas, L'Oréal is ahead of the competition. The year 2021 has been an exceptional year for the L'Oréal Group. Let me sum it up in three words. It's a historic, balanced, and responsible year. Historic, because under difficult circumstances, we have experienced our strongest growth in 33 years. Balanced, because your group has grown in every zone, every division, in every category. Responsible, because our healthy financial performance has enabled us to share our success with our employees and to invest in our social and environmental commitments. As Christophe Babule told you, our sales increased by 16.1%. That's twice the growth of the beauty market.
Compared to 2019, our growth reached 11.3%, a 12-point gap to the market, thanks to the incredible commitment and talent of our teams around the world. Many thanks to them. In 2021, we achieved a grand slam and outperformed the market in all divisions, geographies, and categories. I would like to illustrate some of the main achievements of our divisions and geographic entities. L'Oréal Luxe, as you have heard, became the group's leading division. It outperformed its market for the 11th year in a row. Lancôme crossed the EUR 4 billion mark, riding on the strong sales of La Vie est Belle, number 3 in the world, a nice turnaround in makeup, and an acceleration in skincare, particularly with Absolue, a brand that together with Helena Rubinstein, gives L'Oréal leadership in premium skincare, which is an ultra-dynamic segment in China.
2021 is also a very good year for our couture brands, YSL and its fragrance, Libre, Armani, of course, but Valentino has successfully taken its first steps into beauty with its refillable makeup, and Prada with Luna Rossa Ocean, the first L'Oréal creation for this brand. These various initiatives have enabled the division to consolidate its position as world leader in fragrances, a category whose strong growth in China and the US bodes well for the future. Finally, L'Oréal Luxe increases leadership in China and in Europe. Now, the Consumer Products Division, our number one division in terms of volume and consumer recruitment, accelerated quarter after quarter, driven by the turnaround in makeup, which it largely orchestrated, and by its breakthroughs in hair and skincare. CPD leveraged its global presence and its ability to tailor its offering to local aspirations.
The division gained market share globally, particularly in the top three emerging beauty markets, Brazil, India, and Mexico, through superior, locally adapted product innovation and accelerating e-commerce. The division saw its three biggest brands achieve major successes. L'Oréal Paris, more than ever, the world's leading beauty brand, crossed the EUR 6 billion mark in sales. Garnier was able to leverage its positioning in green beauty, and Maybelline quite simply had the biggest mascara launch in the world with Sky High. Let's add to those successes the rebound of NYX Professional Makeup and the success of Korean brand 3CE by Stylenanda. The Professional Products Division transformed its business model, becoming fully omni-channel while continuing to serve hair salon growth around the world. The division now delivers education to hair salons, with some of the orders being placed online, serving salons as well as many independent hairdressers.
The division also markets its products on the largest e-commerce beauty platforms with coupons for salon visits. Kérastase is more than ever the professional luxury brand and provides innovations such as Curl Manifesto, a range that champions inclusiveness. L'Oréal Professionnel and Redken are supported by two major technological innovations suitable for the most demanding hair types, Metal Detox and Acidic Bonding Concentrate. Hair color benefited from the reopening of salons and the unique superiority of formulas such as Shades EQ by Redken and iNOA by L'Oréal Professionnel. Finally, 2021 was an exceptional year for Active Cosmetics, our division in the dermacosmetic market. The division has doubled in size in four years, driven by health aspirations. Active Cosmetics is spearheading the group's leadership in dermatological beauty. The division's medical prescription strategy continues to bear fruit in a context where dermatologists are the ultimate authority on skincare.
La Roche-Posay, the world's leading dermacosmetics brand, has entered the top 7 skincare brands. Its growth accelerated in 2021, thanks in particular to the success of the anti-acne serum, Effaclar. Our recent acquisition, CeraVe, grew by 75%, which is exceptional, and became the number 3 brand in the dermacosmetic market. Let's now review the group's geographic performance. Our global market share reached 14.2%, 1 point higher than in 2020. We have gained market share in every zone. In 2021, North America became the group's leading contributor to growth, outperforming the market in all divisions, thanks to the strategic transformations carried out during the pandemic. North Asia is our second key growth driver with 18%. We strengthened our leadership with exceptional representation of our brands, as you can see.
Europe, the group's stronghold, successfully brought its already high market share to 20.1% with a very good performance in the U.K. and Germany. In Latin America, we achieved one of our best performances in years, with remarkable and promising levels of business in Brazil, Mexico, and Chile. Lastly, the South Asia, Pacific, Middle East, and North Africa zone, known as SAPMENA, and Sub-Saharan Africa, have performed well despite very difficult COVID-related circumstances. This new zone called SAPMENA was born after we completed the reorganization of our regions in 2021 based on consumer consistency criteria. Let's take a trip there. You can imagine how much potential this beautiful area represents for L'Oréal.
If we now look at our performance in 2021 by category, skincare is the leading contributor with a pace of growth well above the market, and now accounts for more than 40% of our sales. Fragrance has accelerated sharply, particularly in the U.S. and China. The past year has also enabled us to strengthen our leadership in makeup. Amid a rebound in this category, makeup has not yet returned to its pre-crisis level, but now that face coverings are no longer mandated, our innovation plan should give it a new lease of life this year. Finally, in haircare, we have made a real breakthrough with innovative and value-added offers, which are therefore profitable. In terms of distribution, 2021 saw a rebound in brick-and-mortar stores with an increase of 13%. The crisis has enabled your group to optimize its distribution network by closing the least productive outlets.
We are focusing on the best performing stores, where consumers receive personalized guidance and a unique experience. Travel retail is our sixth continent. It also experienced double-digit growth thanks to the rebound in global traffic, valuation, and North Asia, particularly Hainan Island in China, where Chinese consumers love to shop. In e-commerce, we continue to leverage our digital competitive edge. Online sales continue to grow at 26%, reaching 29% of our sales. Our digital lead also extends to our consumer engagement strategy. We now have hundreds of millions of followers on our brand pages and accounts. We have fast-tracked our efforts in terms of our digital services, which we have deployed for 33 brands. We have analyzed 7 million users through skin diagnostics and connected those services to our customer relationship management or CRM tools.
The year 2021 has seen a rebalancing of the group's business profile, which is now ideal. The return of the U.S. as a growth driver alongside China, a major European stronghold and two emerging growth drivers, two major divisions of equal size, L'Oréal Luxe and Consumer Products, and two fast-growing divisions. For the categories, skincare is the first accretive and growing category, not forgetting makeup, haircare, and fragrance, which has strong momentum. This balance allows us to tap all growth opportunities and not be dependent on a single zone. This balance is a tremendous asset in such a fast-moving world. Finally, 2021 has been an exceptional year in terms of profit. More than 2/3 of our growth came from higher valuation, boosted by category and division mix. Our high level of gross margin is up 80 basis points.
We maintained strict cost management discipline while carrying out several transformation projects to make our business more efficient, such as multi-country hubs. Our SG&A expenses dropped to a record low of 18.8% of revenues, and this allowed us to invest and support our brands, allowing them to outperform the market twofold. Meanwhile, we improved our operating margin by 50 basis points, reaching 19.1%. Ladies and gentlemen, 2021 has been a great year in terms of economic performance and a perfect example of L'Oréal's virtuous circle. Our Chairman, Jean-Paul Agon, had a lot to do with this, and I thank him for his guidance and his constant support. The results achieved in 2021 have enabled us to invest in the non-financial performance of your group, and that is why I speak of a shared and responsible performance which is true to L'Oréal's values.
In terms of sustainable development, L'Oréal continued to roll out its L'Oréal for the Future roadmap, which was launched in 2020. By 2025, all our sites will be carbon neutral. In 2021, all L'Oréal production and distribution sites in the U.S. achieved this goal four years ahead of schedule, just like sites in China. While there is still much to do, our efforts have already received recognition in the form of many awards. For the sixth year in a row, L'Oréal has received a triple A rating from the CDP. We are the only company among more than 13,000 to achieve this. L'Oréal also enjoys recognition for its performance on ethics, gender equality, and good governance. Today, 47% of our strategic positions are held by women, and we have improved diversity on our executive committee.
Finally, each of our brands has embraced a social or environmental cause, and I would like to present to you the commitment of L'Oréal Paris, our feminine and feminist brand, a commitment against street harassment. It's called Stand Up, and it's something we are particularly proud of.
Today, more than 80% of women have experienced sexual harassment in public spaces.
Street harassment.
This is sexual harassment.
We see it happening, but most of us don't react. That each of us can react safely, L'Oréal Paris and the Right To Be Foundation have created an educational program.
Stand Up Against Street Harassment by L'Oréal Paris, a simple and efficient training program. It's called the Five Ds method. Based on the Five Ds methodology, five reflex-like actions to help combat street harassment every day. Distract, Delegate, Document, Direct . Delay.
Stand Up has been launched in more than 33 countries.
From Paris to New York, from Dubai to New Delhi.
Stand Up with me.
Stand Up with me. 800,000 people have been trained around the world with an aim of 1.5 million trained by the end of 2022, because learning how to react when faced with street harassment.
Helps create a world where we can move forward freely.
Now it's your turn.
Join the movement.
Learn the five Ds at standup-international.com.
By working together, we can all be a part of the solution.
Thank you. Seeing the brand and the logo of L'Oréal on the tower in Burj Khalifa was a very special time for our company. Just as for sustainability, our excellent results simply encourage us to make further progress. In 2021, we launched our new L'Oréal For Youth program, as this generation has been hard hit by the pandemic. We offered more than 18,000 opportunities to young people under 30, 25% of them in France. Finally, in 2021, our corporate purpose, our raison d'être, creating beauty that moves the world forward, was given visibility through the group's world-first global campaign. These actions, this purpose, allow us to strengthen our greatest asset for future success, our culture, and the commitment of our teams.
In a post-COVID world, where many seem keen to change their lives or switch jobs, your group has continued to see strong commitment from its employees around the world, both in the office and at home. Before we move on to the future of your group, let me take one final look at L'Oréal's key achievements and successes in 2021. Roll video.
I hope you are as proud of your group as I am proud of the teams, who are your teams. It is thanks to them we have obtained extraordinary results. For 2022 and beyond, I am confident and ambitious despite geopolitical and inflationary uncertainties. As you were able to see when we announced our revenues for Q1 2022, your group is off to a strong start to the year with a reported increase of 90% compared to 2021.
We are very pleased with this, even if we know that 2022 calls for humility and moderation, given the combined uncertainties in terms of geopolitics, of course, the health situation, and the surge in raw material costs. The surge in COGS, in particular, will be a headwind this year. It will be partially offset by our operations teams through value analyses, material changes, and negotiation. In addition, in a market that is premiumizing, our divisions have systematically resorted to value-based launches, optimized the promo and format mix, and passed on a reasonable portion of cost increases to consumers. Meanwhile, we will improve the return on investment of our marketing expenses thanks to new tools based on artificial intelligence and data. However, remember that our model is based on revenue growth.
Beating a dynamic market will always be your group's priority, and the market will continue to grow, driven by global population growth, premiumization, and of course, the insatiable desire for beauty. Therefore, we believe that the beauty market will grow by 4%-5% in 2022 and over the next few years. Our market share potential remains enormous. Despite our leadership position, our global market share is only 14%, which leaves us a lot of room to grow. In fact, we have market share opportunities in many regions, and our future growth will be driven mostly by North Asia, the U.S., and emerging markets. In North Asia, our market share is only 12%.
It is true that the Chinese market is affected by new lockdowns, but L'Oréal grew by 13% in China as a whole in the first quarter, and our medium-term outlook is very positive. 370 million people will join the middle class by 2030, and many will be able and willing to buy beauty products. In the United States, where we have about 14% market share, we will leverage the dynamic U.S. economy, our strong investment in e-commerce, the rebound in makeup, of course, and also the strength of our brand portfolio. Finally, in emerging markets, we know we can count on the new urban generations. They were highly connected and even more interested in international brands than their parents. The rise of e-commerce is an unprecedented growth opportunity for us.
As for Europe, our 2021 performance and that of Q1 show that neither our 20% market share nor a difficult context is an obstacle to growth when it comes to our teams. All in all, therefore, we are confident in our ability to once again outperform the beauty market this year and, subject to changes in the uncertainties previously mentioned, to further grow our sales and profit this year. Looking beyond 2022, I am even more optimistic, even more ambitious. We are in an ideal position to enjoy years of sustainable and profitable growth. Our brand portfolio has never been stronger. The group had eight billionaire brands with double-digit growth in 2021. We have several candidates in the running to join this prestigious club in the near future, and we have a number of luxury gems such as Prada or Valentino.
We are further expanding our brand portfolio with acquisitions like the Japanese brand Takami and more recently, the California brand Youth to the People. Your group occupies the beauty market on all fronts. We will continue to maintain our competitive edge in digital, and our brands are already exploring the new frontiers of video games and metaverses. However, what truly guarantees that L'Oréal will be successful over the long term are two major transformations around beauty tech and sustainable development. Now, beauty tech means an all-out transformation of the company, but also its products. At the CES or Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which was held in early 2022, we won three official innovation awards for Colorsonic, YSL Rouge Sur Mesure, and L'Oréal Water Saver, which helps you mitigate water usage at hair salons by 60%.
Becoming the global leader in beauty tech requires entering a new era for research and innovation to invent the future of beauty. Our formulation tools powered by artificial intelligence, for example, can save us months of efforts when we transform our formulas. Your group can rely on the largest strategic partnerships around data with technology companies. I'm thinking of our agreements with Verily, Alphabet Group's Health Tech, among others, to help us advance precision skin health. Tech will enable us to fast-track the transformation of our research efforts into green sciences. Barbara Lavernos, Deputy Director General in charge of R&I and tech, will address this exciting topic in a few moments. As you can see, many transformations await us.
They are particularly exciting because I have the ambition, as does the entire executive committee, to shape your group into a future-proof company, a company that invents the future of beauty, a world leader with strong values, committed to sustainable development, and respectful of our planet's limitations. We also seek to ensure beauty fully plays its role in supporting humanity as a driver for inclusiveness, harmony, respect, diversity, and differences. To achieve this, our lethal weapon will be, as it always has been since L'Oréal's adventure began, the strength and passion of our teams. With them and with your support and that of the board, together we will create the beauty that moves the world forward. Thank you.
Well done, Nicolas, and thank you very much for such an excellent year, your first year as CEO. Now, I will welcome Madame Barbara Lavernos, who will join us in order for her to present us with green science. You all know Barbara Lavernos. She's been a member of the Executive Committee since 2014. She has an excellent knowledge of the L'Oréal universe. She was in charge of global travel retail, which she presented here in 2014. She also knows our industrial activity, which she presented in 2019, where she was a Deputy CEO in charge of operations. She is now in charge of research, innovation, and technology, and she's going to present the fascinating world of green sciences based on the conviction that nature is the future of beauty. Barbara, over to you.
Yes, indeed. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Jean-Paul. I'm delighted to have the opportunity to show you around our laboratories today, and particularly to explain the extraordinary green science revolution which is taking place within research and innovation. As you know, L'Oréal was born from science and created from the idea of a chemist, Eugène Schueller. Since the beginning, science has been at the core of our business model. We've had the same strong belief for the past 110 years, namely that our success is built on our superior quality, performance, and capacity for innovation. Every day, new chapters of this wonderful adventure at L'Oréal Research and Innovation are being written by our 4,000 researchers in our seven research centers in France, the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, India, China, and Japan. This network is unique in the world of beauty and offers us an undeniable competitive advantage.
First, it enables us to be close to our consumers in all their diversity to better understand, decode, and respond to their specific needs, rituals, and multiple beauty aspirations. Also to be immersed in these international scientific ecosystems and to forge research partnerships with the world's most innovative suppliers, startups, and academics. Our research is also strong, as illustrated by our 2021 figures. A budget of over EUR 1 billion, more than 360 innovation projects, over 6,900 new formulas launched on the market, more than 12,000 product evaluation tests, and finally, 510 patents filed. Every day, our passionate research and innovation team with their cutting-edge skills and knowledge is pushing the boundaries of science to create the beauty that moves the world.
It is, in fact, these new areas of research based on what we call green sciences that I would like to explain to you today. Stemming from a double revolution in biology and new technologies, these sciences come from, are infused with, and are inspired by nature and the living world. The green sciences are leading us through a new revolution, much like the one we had 150 years ago, when synthetic chemistry revolutionized the world with its new materials and brought modernization to every era. These green sciences have opened up a new and exceptional field of innovation. They enable us to explore and develop an entire universe of molecules and materials which serve as biological vehicles for active ingredients, a unique new area of discovery which will shape the world of tomorrow.
We're all familiar with the best example of this scientific revolution, the mRNA messenger vaccine for COVID, where biotechnology allowed us to revolutionize the world of vaccination in record time. We have placed this revolution, the natural world augmented by technology, at the heart of all our research activity from our advanced research to our formulation laboratories. For that matter, we have begun a major transformation of our portfolio of raw materials, active ingredients, and formulations in order to reach two objectives. First, create beauty which respects the planet throughout the whole product cycle, from the sustainable supply of raw materials to the composition of our formulas, while respecting biodiversity, the aquatic environment, and biodegradability. The second goal is to explore the new frontiers of scientific discovery created by the force of nature in order to invent new, augmented, and unparalleled performances.
In order to help us reach these two key objectives, we are exploring the properties and power of four key forces of biology and nature. Proteins, these molecules are so complex that when recombined, they offer very unique properties. The metabolic potential of bacteria for performance. The biological activities of algae, fascinating organisms which have developed unique properties and resistance over the centuries. And finally, the extraordinary powers and fascinating world of mushrooms, of which there are an estimated 10 million species. In order to do this, we are focusing our research work on four disciplines. The first discipline is Agronomy 2.0, which uses technology to cultivate plants in an innovative and sustainable way while protecting biodiversity and guaranteeing supply without diminishing the planet's resources.
One example of this is the Centella asiatica from Madagascar, which we use for its healing, anti-inflammatory, and anti-aging properties in products like Cicaplast Baume B5 by La Roche-Posay. The second discipline is fermentation and biotechnology. This involves using a living organism, such as a plant or a bacteria, as a microfactory to create new ingredients. One example of this is using marine plankton. Vitreoscilla filiformis is the extract of microalgae, which we grow in our biotech plant in Tours. Its antimicrobial and antioxidant properties help the skin strengthen its natural defenses while promoting regeneration benefits. It can be found in the product Life Plankton Elixir by Biotherm. The third discipline is green extraction, which enables us to directly extract the most active molecules in plants, such as rosewood, known for its antioxidant properties, which is obtained through this eco-extraction process and used in Lancôme's Absolue The Serum.
Finally, the fourth discipline, green chemistry. This is a revised production process which limits the number of stages by using green energy and non-petrochemical solvents, such as water. We use green chemistry for our patented active ingredient Pro-Xylane. This is a sugar molecule developed from the beechwood tree, which accelerates cellular renewal, improves skin elasticity, and offers deep down correction for the signs of aging. We have succeeded in integrating a 30% concentration into the formula of Re-Plasty Age Recovery by Helena Rubinstein. As you can see, our researchers have deeply committed to this strategy for years, and even if there is so much yet to be invented and explored, we have already obtained tangible results. Today, 59% of our raw materials come from renewable plant-based sources, and 80% of them are biodegradable.
All this enables us to put on the market products which have remarkable environmental profiles, such as the recent Fructis Sleek & Shine Glass Hair Water by Garnier. 90% of its formula is of natural origin. It is sulfate and silicon-free. There is also Volume Million Lashes Mascara by L'Oréal Paris, whose formula contains 99% natural ingredients. Of course, we're transparent with our consumers and regularly share our progress with them so that they may make informed choices, but we want to go even further. We provide the list of the origin of the ingredient, the stages of transformation. All our products will provide this information as we go ahead in order to be able to choose the ingredients which are the most respectful for the planet.
We want to go even further, and our ambition translated into a range of commitments that we made for 2030 as part of the L'Oréal for the Future program. 100% of our formulae to be eco-designed. 100% of our formulae will respect the diversity of aquatic ecosystems. 95% of our ingredients will come from renewable plant-based sources or abundant minerals. Beyond our commitment to creating beauty which is entirely respectful of the planet, as I mentioned earlier, these green sciences are also a new source of scientific discovery and disruptive innovation in reaching a new dimension of productive performance. We display the environmental profiles of our formula. To illustrate just what the green sciences and the power of the living world can do, let me talk to you about the recent launch of Lipikar Baume by La Roche-Posay.
Almost 13% of the population on Earth suffers from the atopic eczema, which is associated with the presence of bacteria on the surface of the skin. Through our extensive research into the microbiome, we've been able to identify a microorganism whose action we've reproduced and enhanced using genomics, proteomics, and biotechnology. In just a few days, this active ingredient called Endobioma is capable of eliminating the bacteria responsible for cutaneous lesions which cause eczema. This revolutionary active ingredient, which we have patented, was developed in collaboration with the biotechnology startup, Micreos. The before/after photos that you can see on the screen show the spectacular efficacy of this product in just three days. Clearly, we would not have achieved this level of performance with synthetic chemistry.
Furthermore, this is where life science has created disruption and a real revolution, Endobioma only targets its action on this bacteria while totally respecting the skin's ecosystem, meaning it does not cause the resistance or long-term intolerance that we see in other treatments, such as antibiotics. As you can see, this research is complex, long. It requires years of exploration and collaboration with the best academic and industrial scientists in biotechnology. The researchers of L'Oréal have decided to rise to these challenges to create beauty that moves the world, augmented by the power of nature and the living world. In concluding, we entered this new era of green sciences several years ago. We were determined to offer our consumers around the globe responsible beauty which respects the planet.
Inspired, infused, and augmented by nature and the power of the living world, these green sciences are also opening up new, exciting opportunities of discovery, invention, and innovation, which we will seize and develop with our 400 researchers around the world. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Barbara. With her communicative passion and her abundant energy, Barbara has brought you into the world of green sciences, which is one of the biggest revolutions of L'Oréal in the first half of the 21st century. They have an extraordinary impact. For L'Oréal, which is a pioneer in this field, they are offering an extraordinary competitive advantage for the future. Barbara is at the heart of all our technology challenges for tomorrow, in particular beauty tech, which she will certainly present at a forthcoming meeting.
After listening to Nicolas and Barbara, who are CEO and Deputy CEO, Barbara, I'm sure you agree with me that they do represent a phenomenal team leading L'Oréal to new heights. Dear shareholders, I would now like to share with you my thoughts on the development of our company and report on the work of the board during the past year. One year, day-to-day, I was talking about my faith in handing over the reins of the company to Nicolas Hieronimus. As you can see for yourselves, your company is in the best possible hands. Even though a succession is well prepared, it's never a formality, and particularly in a company such as L'Oréal, which has only had six CEOs in 113 years of its history. Our transition took place in a very natural, harmonious manner in the purest tradition of our company for three very clear reasons.
First of all, it's the complete legitimacy of Nicolas Hieronimus in his new role. As soon as he took charge, he has proved that he is a great captain of industry at the helm of L'Oréal. With an executive committee that has been renewed, made more international, he is making his own mark. He has intimate knowledge of L'Oréal and how it works over the past 35 years. He is a beauty expert. His innovative look provides a different perspective on the different subjects. Don't blush, Nicolas. He's a brilliant, inspiring leader and who acts very clear-mindedly and with great discernment. He has the full trust of the board and of course my own. The second reason for this successful transition is that Nicolas and I have been working closely together for many years.
We've done this efficiently on the basis of mutual trust. The third reason is that the allocation of responsibilities between each of us is very clear, and our roles are complementary. The CEO, without any ambiguity whatsoever, is fully in charge of the operational running of the company. The chairperson defines the main strategic thrust of the company with the board and the CEO. He's in charge of corporate governance, and he guarantees respect for the values and the culture of the company. Our complementarity is highly productive for the well-being of our company. In this volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous environment I've so often talked about, which is even more chaotic and uncertain today, our new governance is a great strength. The quality of the 2021 results, which Nicolas and Christophe have presented, is the best possible illustration of this.
The group has weathered this crisis extremely well and continues on its virtuous path. This is because the strategic choices that we have made before the crisis in order to transform the company have paid off. The exceptional performance of 2021 enabled us to recommend a dividend of EUR 4.80, up +20%, and the increased dividend of +10% to EUR 5.28. For those among you who have held registered L'Oréal shares for over two years, this is to reward you for your long-term loyalty. There are almost 54,000 of you who display this faith in us, over 8% more than 2020, and I want to thank you warmly for this. As you know, we always seek to involve you in the success of our company.
The business model of our company is virtuous, robust, and creates value. Beyond economic success, you know that we're always seeking to be lead by example in ethical, environmental, social, and societal terms. L'Oréal will remain at the forefront on all of these fronts. On the front of the environment where each day counts, our L'Oréal for the Future program, launched two years ago in the middle of the pandemic, is transforming your company in a radical manner. All the teams are involved, all our resources are mobilized, because continuing to step up in this area is an absolute necessity.
In terms of inclusiveness, the L'Oréal Foundation, which I have the honor of chairing, is making unswerving efforts to accompany and to enhance the role of women because they are impacted disproportionately by the climate and health crisis, which have increased inequality, precariousness, and discrimination, and we stand with them. Nicolas talked about this. Our company is acting on many other areas. Behind each cause, there are women and men who can depend on L'Oréal support. Our dual financial, extra financial excellence is the backbone of our strategy, which takes us forward and lends meaning to our results. Our employees know this and are very proud of it. This is a precondition, in fact, for the youngest members of our staff working in a company aware that its actions have to have an impact. I know that this counts greatly for you too.
Many of you tell us this. Your company is successful, inclusive, ethical, committed, responsible, and displays solidarity. It has countless strength in order to continue on the path to success. Our number one strength, which is our 85,000 beauty experts who bring to life what L'Oréal, you and us love so much. They have created the lasting shared value. On my own behalf, on that of the board, I wish to thank each and every one of them very warmly. I should add that another of our great strengths is the quality and stability of our shareholder base. Dearest shareholders, you are an essential pillar for the success of L'Oréal. Your trust and your expression of support make us want to go even further. This is why we're constantly seeking to be close to you in whatever situation may prevail.
You will have seen over the past two years, we've developed more digital events and communication to remain in touch, and I hope that from now on, we will be able to meet on a regular basis. Your company has been rewarded for the quality of our relations in 2021. The investor award for the best site for L'Oréal Finance was awarded and a triple heart awarded by the Le Revenu weekly financial magazine. This recognition, as you know, is of great satisfaction to you. In order to be ever closer to you, our shareholders, and to have greater stability, in 2021, the shareholder stability of L'Oréal was strengthened through the unswerving support of the founding family, Bettencourt Meyers, which has been accompanying our development since inception and with Nestlé.
The agreement with a view to buying back 4% of L'Oréal share, of its share capital held by Nestlé is a strategic step for L'Oréal. It is in the interest of L'Oréal and in your interest. This stable share ownership is a fundamental strength for our long-term vision. I have great faith in the future of our company. First of all, because the twenty-first century will be the century of beauty. Whether we're going through happy or troubled times, men and women will always need to look after themselves and to have faith in themselves in order to move ahead. Next, because beauty will need L'Oréal more than ever. Your company has a wonderful role to play, an ever-increasing place to take, and the best strength to succeed. L'Oréal will thus reinvent itself through continuity to create the future of beauty.
Finally, because your company will need committed, responsible, civic companies such as L'Oréal in order to take forward the required transformation, which will be beneficial to all. A new remarkable era of the L'Oréal adventure is opening up. With your success and constantly improving governance, your company is constantly improving in terms of governance, and I will say a few words about governance. You can depend on L'Oréal's highly committed board of directors, which includes committed boards of directors who speak very freely in expressing their judgment and opinion with a view to upholding the interest of the company and its stakeholders. I share with each of the members the deep conviction that demanding sustainable governance is a source of essential value for the company.
It's a great honor for me to chair the board, and I would just like to say a few words about its activity in 2021. It fully assumed its role in defining the strategic thrust of the group and examined its long-term development opportunities through constructive dialogue and regular meetings with the senior management and regular meetings with the senior managers. The board of directors was fully informed of all the activities of the group, its performance versus competition, and the challenges for the future. This is a future that has to be imagined and built. In June 2021, a strategic council was established in order to conduct in-depth analysis on the future of beauty to 2030.
The board also wanted to hear the senior managers, the CEOs of three very important countries for the success of the group, China, India, and United States. The board has continued to track very closely digital transformation at L'Oréal. It is a strategic factor in the context of a rapidly changing mode of communication and consumption. Bearing in mind that there's no sustainable economic growth without taking into account the challenges to the planet and social requirements, the board has paid particular attention to the first year deployment of the ambitious program, L'Oréal for the Future to 2030, and it has sustained their implementation through the remuneration policy for the senior managers of the group.
Like every year, the board of directors has examined its human resources policy, in particular, the diversity and gender parity policy deployed at all levels of the company and the implementation of the ethics policy. We place great importance on the group culture, and the board has asked the senior management to establish a committee of values, which will report annually on measures seeking to promote our values. I will not dwell, we've already spoken about this, on the essential role of the board in the strategic operation of a share buyback from Nestlé, 4% of L'Oréal's own shares. This transaction strengthens our shareholder ownership with the founding family, Bettencourt Meyers and Nestlé. Finally, through the annual evaluation of its operational running, the board has, in particular, voiced its opinion on the first year of implementation of the dissociation of duties.
The board emphasized the complementarity between the duties of a chair and CEO. We have four study committees which met 17 times in 2021, and I'd like to say a few words about these four committees. The strategy and sustainable development committee is at the heart of the analysis of market trends, results, and strategic outlook for the group's growth. It has sought to examine the potential for the brand of the group and the performance of the most recent launches. It has systematically examined the acquisition projects. The audit committee reviewed the financial statements and financial situation of L'Oréal. It examined the internal control structure and analyzed the vigilance plan. It examined the transition plan of the new group of statutory auditors, which will be put to the vote at this general meeting.
It followed the activity of internal audit, including the CSR commitments of the group, and studied the regulatory changes in the future. The Human Resources and Remuneration Committee made proposals regarding remuneration policy of the executive officers and executive officers, and then evaluated my performance as Chair and CEO and that of the CEO to examine the remuneration plan, policy applicable to all employees. Finally, the Appointments and Governance Committee closely followed the implementation of the new governance. It examined the modifications, the changes made to statutes regarding the age limits applicable to the chairperson and the director general. It also considered the membership of the board and its short- and medium-term forecast.
On the basis of the recommendations of the appointments and governance committee, the board of directors has decided to recommend the renewal of three director terms. First of all, that of Madame Belén Garijo. Belén is Spanish. She is the chairperson of the management board and CEO of the science and technology group, Merck, since the first of May, 2021. Madame Belén Garijo has discharged her duties as an independent board member with a great deal of commitment and great freedom of opinion. The board wishes to continue benefiting from her experience as the CEO of a major international group. Her expertise in research and innovation through her career in the pharmaceutical innovation is a major strength for the board. As a member of the Human Resources and Remuneration Committee, she enables the board to benefit from her great knowledge of remuneration and HR policies at European level.
Furthermore, the term of Mr. Patrice Caine has reached expiry. You all know Mr. Patrice Caine, who is the CEO of Thales since 2014. He is an independent board director. He's highly involved in the work of the committees and the discussions at board meetings. He's taken an active part at the committee of appointments and governance in the succession process for the senior management in 2020 and 2021. He is also a member of the Strategy and Development, Sustainable Development committee, and contributes his views on international issues. Mr. Patrice Caine is contributing to the board his knowhow in governance related matters, his experience as a business leader, as a CEO of a major international company, and his in-depth knowledge of new technologies, and in particular, cybersecurity.
I'm confident that you will reappoint him for a new term. Finally, you will also vote on renewal of my own term. The board that will be meeting after our general meeting this afternoon will be called upon to decide on the renewal of my term as chairperson of the board of directors, and you know very well just how deeply attached I am to the success and the excellence of L'Oréal, and I, of course, will seek to actively chair the board meetings and take an active part in defining the strategy of L'Oréal. Finally, I'd like to inform you that we will be welcoming, after this meeting, two new directors representing the employees.
Mr. Thierry Hamel has been appointed by the CFE-CGC, the L'Oréal trade union, which is most representative in France, and Mr. Benny De Vlieger, who's been appointed by the European social dialogue body, which is our works council at European level. Thierry Hamel is in charge of regional development in the Professional Products division for France, and Mr. Benny De Vlieger joined L'Oréal Belgium in 1989. He has fulfilled the duties of representative for Professional Products division. I wish them every success. They're in the room, sitting in the front row, and they will succeed Madame Ana Sofia Amaral and Mr. Georges Liarokapis, who are completing now their second term. I want to thank them very warmly on your behalf for their excellent work and involvement, which has been greatly appreciated throughout these eight years.
The presence of employee director members on the board unquestionably contributes to the in-depth of our discussion and the quality of our governance. From this afternoon onwards, the board will have 16 board members, 50% women, 50% men, 50% independent members, with sitting with me, the CEO, Nicolas Hieronimus, a member of the board, who will be able to contribute directly to the work, discussions, and decisions made by the board. Five board members from our major shareholders, who are particularly mindful of the long-term interest of the group. Seven independent board members with senior-level experience as business leaders of major international groups, and two directors representing our employees with great knowledge of the company.
This membership reflects the diversity and complementarity of the profiles and the experience sought by the board. I've been very proud this year that the quality of the governance this year was recognized through the prestigious award of the AGEFI jury, which awarded our group the Grand Prix for corporate governance in 2021. I will now hand over to Madame Sophie Bellon, who will sum up the resolutions regarding the remuneration of our executive officers. Over to you.
Go ahead, Sophie.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, as in previous years, the shareholders meeting is being asked to approve, on the one hand, the compensation elements paid or allocated to the corporate officers in 2021 in accordance with the compensation policy that you have approved, and on the other hand, the compensation policy for 2022, from which compensation may be paid or granted to corporate officers. In my capacity as chairwoman of the Human Resources and Compensation Committee, I propose to present to you the resolutions relating to the compensation of executive directors.
First, for the year 2021, I will summarize the compensation paid or awarded to Mr. Jean-Paul Agon as Chairman and CEO for the period from January 1 to April 30, 2021. Mr. Agon's compensation consisted of a fixed annual compensation of EUR 2.2 million, which was paid on a pro rata basis, i.e., EUR 733,333, but also variable annual compensation of a maximum amount of EUR 2.2 million. Regarding his variable compensation, the board of directors assessed Mr. Jean-Paul Agon's performance at 100% of the maximum target for financial criteria and 99% for non-financial and qualitative criteria, which means a payment rate of 99.6%. Therefore, subject to the favorable vote of this resolution, Mr. Jean-Paul Agon will be paid a pro rata amount of EUR 733,400. No performance shares have been granted to Mr. Jean-Paul Agon in 2021.
Mr. Agon's total 2021 compensation as Chairman and CEO will therefore amount to, for the period from January to the end of April 2021, EUR 1,463,733. You are also asked to approve the compensation paid to Mr. Jean-Paul Agon in his capacity as Chairman of the Board for the period from May 1 until December 31, 2021. This compensation consisted exclusively of a fixed annual amount of EUR 1.6 million, excluding any variable compensation or compensation in shares. For 2021, he was paid a pro rata amount over eight months. That is EUR 1,660,666.
With regard to the compensation paid or awarded to Nicolas Hieronimus as CEO for the period from May 1 to December 31, 2021, his compensation consisted of a fixed annual compensation of EUR 2 million, which was paid on a pro-rata basis, that is EUR 1,333,333, and a variable annual compensation of EUR 2 million with a maximum of EUR 2.4 million. That is 120% of the fixed salary in the event of outperformance against objectives. The objectives and weightings are displayed on the screen. The board of directors assessed Mr. Hieronimus' performance at 116.45% of the target.
That is 119.3% for the financial criteria and 112.1% for the non-financial and qualitative criteria. Subject to this resolution receiving a favorable vote, Mr. Hieronimus will be paid an amount of EUR 1,552,667 on a pro-rata basis. The total fixed and variable compensation amounts to EUR 2,886,000. The board has also decided to grant 17,000 performance shares to the CEO for 2021, which means 2.89% of the total number of shares granted under the 2021 plan. Regarding the compensation policies for executive directors, the compensation policy for the Chairman of the Board of Directors applicable to Mr. Agon for the year 2022, this compensation policy isn't changed from the previous year.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors receives a fixed compensation of EUR 1.6 million, excluding any other element, no variable compensation, no performance shares, and no director's fees. This compensation was determined by the board on the basis of Mr. Jean-Paul Agon's experience and the specific responsibilities and missions entrusted to him by the board in his capacity as Chairman. The board also ensured that this compensation was competitive relative to a reference panel. You are then being asked to approve the compensation policy for the CEO applicable to Nicolas Hieronimus for the year 2022. The board of directors has also renewed the compensation policy applicable to the CEO. This remains unchanged, and you can see the main principles on the screen. This remuneration consists of a fixed salary, an annual variable compensation, and the allocation of performance shares.
This policy is balanced between short-term and long-term compensation. 75% of this compensation is subject to performance criteria. The fixed compensation of Mr. Hieronimus remains fixed at EUR 2 million. The variable annual compensation target remains set at 100% of the fixed salary and may reach up to 120% in the event of outperformance in relation to the objectives set. The board has chosen to maintain the same performance criteria and the same balance between financial and non-financial criteria. They are displayed on the screen. They are directly linked to L'Oréal's strategy and include a new sustainable development program by 2030 called L'Oréal for the Future. Lastly, the board may decide to grant performance shares to the CEO, and this grant will range between 50% and 60% of the total compensation.
Performance criteria would apply to 100% of the shares granted. The Board has decided to select, starting 2022, in addition to the financial performance criteria, which have been renewed, two non-financial performance criteria. Namely, the achievement of commitments from the L'Oréal for the Future program and the achievement of a gender parity target in the management bodies. The provisions applicable in the event of Mr. Hieronimus' departure, which fall under the procedure for related party agreements, were approved by the shareholders' meeting of April 2021. The Board of Directors meeting, held on February 9, 2022, confirmed their relevance and their terms. In the event of his departure, Mr. Hieronimus would be paid only the indemnities due under the suspended employment contract, and those would be calculated on the basis of the revalued compensation that he received before being appointed as CEO in 2021.
In the event of retirement, Mr. Hieronimus would continue to benefit from the defined benefit pension plan for the group's senior executives. The features of this plan are detailed on page 123 of the Universal Registration Document. I would like to thank the members of the HR and Compensation Committee on your behalf for their active participation and their commitment, and I thank you all for your attention.
Thank you very much, Sophie Bellon. I will now call on Madame Catherine Bellon to say a few words about the resolutions to be tabled for the vote.
Regarding the ordinary part of this meeting, the first three resolutions concern the accounts and the proposed dividend.
These elements were presented to you by Christophe Babule to a large extent at the beginning of the meeting. There's no reason to go back. Resolutions four, five, and six concern the renewal of the terms of office of Jean-Paul Agon, Patrice Caine, and Ms. Belén Garijo. These reappointments were presented to you earlier by the chairman as part of his presentation on the governance of your company, so I'm not going to spend more time on that. In resolutions seven and eight, the board of directors, on the recommendation of the audit committee, proposes to the general meeting to renew the appointment of Deloitte & Associés as statutory auditors for a period of six years, and to appoint as statutory auditors Ernst & Young as statutory auditors for a period of six years, also replacing PwC.
Resolutions 9-15 concern the compensation of corporate officers. Sophie Bellon just talked about it, so again, I'm not going to spend more time on that. Resolution 16 concerns the approval of the buyback agreement for the acquisition by L'Oréal from Nestlé of 22,260,000 L'Oréal shares, representing 4% of the capital within the framework of the procedure for related party agreements. This transaction was the subject of a special report by the statutory auditors, which will be referred to after my speech. Nestlé and Mr. Paul Bulcke, who's joint director of L'Oréal and Nestlé, will not take part in the vote on this resolution in accordance with the regulations.
In resolution 17, it is proposed that the shareholders' meeting grant the board a new authorization to continue, if necessary, its policy of buying back the company's own shares outside periods of public tender, public tender offers. The purchase price per share may not exceed EUR 600 . The authorization will cover a maximum of 10% of the share capital. Let's continue now with the resolutions regarding the extraordinary general meeting. In resolution 18, it is proposed that the board be given a new authorization for a period of 26 months to cancel shares acquired by the company within the legal limits. In resolution 19, it is proposed that the shareholders' meeting renew its authorization to grant shares subject to performance criteria to employees of the group and to its executive directors.
This authorization would be valid for 26 months and would be limited to 0.6% of the share capital. In resolutions 20 and 21, the shareholders' meeting is asked to delegate to the board of directors the authority to decide on a capital increase reserved for employees who are members of a company savings plan for a period of 26 months, and for employees of foreign subsidiaries for a period of 18 months. The aggregate amount of capital increases that may be carried out in this way may not exceed the maximum amount of 1% of the existing share capital. Finally, in resolutions 22-25, it is proposed that the shareholders' meeting amend the company's bylaws.
Firstly, Article 9 to provide that the Chairman of the Board of Directors must cease to hold office at the latest at the end of the ordinary general meeting following his 73rd birthday. Article 11 to specify that the CEO must cease to hold office at the end of the ordinary general meeting following his 65th birthday. Articles 2 and 7 of the bylaws, in order to bring them into line with legal and regulatory developments. Finally, Article 8, in order to delete the requirement that directors must own five shares of the company. The internal regulations of the Board of Directors already provide that each director appointed by the general meeting must own at least 250 shares of the company. So much for the draft resolutions, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much, Catherine. After the presentation of financial statements and the presentation of the resolutions, I will now hand over to Anne-Claire Ferrié from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the auditor who will speak on behalf of the College of Auditors. Madame, the floor is yours.
Merci, Monsieur le Président. Thank you, Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. On behalf of the statutory auditors, Deloitte & Associés and PricewaterhouseCoopers, I am pleased to report to you on the performance of our engagement for the year ended December 31st, 2021. We have issued a number of reports to enable you to exercise your judgment in voting on the resolutions. Regarding the ordinary general meeting, we have issued reports concerning the financial statements and related party agreements. Our reports to the extraordinary meeting are required in the event of the issue of shares or equity instruments. I will present to you the salient points of our reports as well as our findings.
First of all, in connection with the ordinary general meeting, we have issued the reports on the audit of the parent company financial statements and the consolidated financial statements of the group as of December 31st, 2021. These reports are set out in the universal registration document as well as in your notice of meeting. These financial statements were approved by your board of directors on February 9th, 2022, on the basis of the information available at that date. Our work is designed to provide you with reasonable assurance that the financial statements presented to you are free of material misstatement, that the accounting policies are appropriate, and that the risk estimates made by management are reasonable, and that the laws and regulations in force are complied with. Our approach is tailored to the organization of the L'Oréal Group, as well as its activities.
We have performed or coordinated audit work in all subsidiaries in nearly 70 countries. This work performed on the accounts and on the internal control processes in place cover the current operations, as well as the specific events in the year 2021. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion, and that we have the necessary resources to enable us to fulfill our responsibility to you. Accordingly, on February 18, 2022, we have issued an unqualified audit opinion on the financial statements of L'Oréal S.A. and the consolidated financial statements of the group.
In our reports, we highlight the key points of the audit, and these points are those that required particular attention because of their nature, or a risk of material misstatement and the relative weight in the accounts, or a significant degree of judgment in assessing the assumptions and estimates used. In 2021, the key points of the audit concern the valuation of intangible assets and equity investments, the recognition of revenues, in particular, the estimation of items deducted from revenues, and the valuation of provisions for risks and charges, and non-current tax liabilities and contingent liabilities. You will find a description of these key points, as well as of the work performed in our reports. We have also verified the management report of the board of directors.
In particular, we checked the accuracy of the accounting and financial information contained in this report, the information relating to the compensation and benefits paid to corporate officers, and also information relating to corporate governance. All our work and our detailed conclusions were regularly shared with the audit committee and with the board of directors of your group. Still in connection with the ordinary part of your shareholders' meeting, we have also issued another report which relates to related party agreements. It appears in your universal registration document, as well as in your notice of meeting brochure. To enable you to assess the interest involved in the conclusion of each agreement, it describes the agreements between L'Oréal and the companies with whom you have joint directors and also the agreements concluded between your company and one of its corporate officers.
Pursuant to Article L225-40 of the French Commercial Code, we have been advised of a new agreement, which was subject to the prior authorization of your board of directors on December 7, 2021. This agreement between your company and Nestlé concerns the buyback and subsequent cancellation of 22,260,000 L'Oréal shares from Nestlé for a total price of EUR 8.904 billion. The share buyback operation was carried out in accordance with the 16th resolution approved by the Combined General Meeting of April 20, 2021 via the acquisition of a block of shares off market and financed by EUR 4.5 billion of L'Oréal's available cash and the balance by bank financing. The shares purchased on December 15th, 2021 were canceled on February 10th, 2022.
In addition, our report presents the information required by Article R.225-31 of the French Commercial Code relating to the performance during the past year of agreements already approved by the shareholders' meeting. It notes that the agreement relating to the suspension of the employment contract of Mr. Jean-Paul Agon continued until April 30th, 2021, and that the agreement relating to the suspension of the employment contract of Mr. Nicolas Hieronimus took effect on May 1st, 2021. Regarding the resolutions affecting the share capital of your company and proposed under the extraordinary part of the general meeting, we have issued four reports which appear in your notice of meeting brochure. The first report concerns the proposed reduction in capital by cancellation of shares purchased and held by your company, presented in resolution number 18.
The second report concerns the authorization to grant existing or future bonus shares to employees and officers presented in resolution 19. The other two reports concern the proposed delegation of authority to the Board of Directors to issue shares or securities reserved for employees and members of a company savings plan. That's resolution 20. Or for employees of foreign subsidiaries. That's resolution 21. Up to a maximum of 1% of the share capital for periods of 26 and 18 months, respectively. We have no comments to make on any of these reports. It being specified that the transactions to which they relate are in accordance with the conditions laid down by law, and that all of the information required to enable you to assess the waiver of your preemptive subscription rights has been brought to your attention. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much, Madame Ferrié. Well done. I suggest that we now open the discussion. Before we start the discussion, I have to say that before the meeting, we have received questions in writing. First of all, from the Forum pour l'Investissement Responsable. Secondly, from Mr. Pierre Legros. Thirdly, from Mr. Cornelia Funke. The board of directors met on the 20th of April and answered the questions. It was decided that the answers of the board would be published on the company's website before the beginning of the general meeting in order to have as much time as possible in order to have a discussion with you. I recall the questions can be asked in the three following manners. First of all, we'll be taking questions from the room using the microphones, which the hostesses will be providing in the aisles.
I would ask each shareholder to introduce themselves and to actually ask one or two questions so that as many people can take part as possible. Secondly, we have questions from the room which have been set out on cards, special cards, and we also have questions which have been put on the platform of the general meeting, accessible on the loreal-finance.com website. We're going to regroup both series of questions by theme, and we'll answer first of all to those which have gathered the most shareholders. We'll try and provide succinct answers in order to answer as many questions as possible, bearing in mind that we will give priority to questions coming from shareholders who are with us in the room. Now, we've received some questions on two or three key subjects, which I propose we deal with first.
The first one, well, we have a lot of questions, and it's understandable, which is what will be the pricing policy of the group, given inflation, which seems to be picking up very strongly, not only in France, but around the world. Nicolas or Christophe. Christophe, do you want to take the question?
Yes, of course. Well, inflation, it's a fact, is up very sharply. We had lost the habit of having inflation in France and Europe, but it's not a new phenomenon. Inflation stood at 9% from 1973 to 1983. In other geographies, in some emerging countries, inflation is a recurring phenomenon, so this is something that we are familiar with. We know how to deal with it.
To respond specifically to this year, the important thing, as always, is to protect our margin, our gross margin, and we have activated various drivers to work on value. Now, when we talk about value, of course there are different drivers for this. We have prices, differentiated prices per category and per country, of course. We also optimize our catalog management policy with exclusive offers, promotional offers, which enable us to have differentiated prices, and this can involve other mechanisms. I'm thinking in particular to adjusting our formats in some cases. One of the strengths of our group, of course, is innovative launches, which enable us to enhance as soon as we come up with a new product launch to provide a new benefit for the consumer.
To reassure you, I can add that in the first quarter, for example, across the whole of our growth range, one-third is derived from volume, and two-thirds is derived from value and valuation.
Thank you, Christophe. That's most clear, and I think inflation indeed will not seriously undermine the L'Oréal model. Second question that comes up quite quickly, which is, given all the travel restrictions, what is the future of travel retail? Nicolas, you know this by heart, don't you?
Well, we have Vincent Boinay with us in the room who's in charge of group travel retail. Just a few some background information. Travel retail, of course, is consumer shopping during traveling, mainly in airport stores, sometimes in duty-free shops in the destination cities, and this activity has been very heavily impacted by the pandemic because, of course, air travel came to a halt. We went from over 3 billion passengers in 2019 around the world to less than 1 billion during the crisis. This activity, which accounts for a bit less than 8% of the sales of L'Oréal, shrank significantly. It refocused on a few major cities, in particular in China, with its Hainan island, shopping island. For Chinese people who could no longer travel abroad but who love shopping, this is where the market moved to, and now travel retail is taking off again.
It has taken off strongly in 2021, with the market up 16%, and at the beginning of the year, we are seeing a very strong recovery, again plus 18%, with air traffic resuming gradually. We think that air traffic will go back to 2019 levels by 2024, 2025. It's therefore going to take time. What's interesting for us is that we see that the consumption of beauty products is kicking off more quickly than air traffic itself, in particular through this Hainan Island situation. I think this is very important for our business, for the enhancement of our brands. It's often in airports that this happens, and these are wonderful areas for expressing our brands. I think travel retail will take up once again.
Thank you, Nicolas. I'd like to refer to a question we have from Mr. [Girerd], who asked us to ask the question, his question for him. His first question was, what are the expected consequences of CSRD at L'Oréal? How do you expect it to be implemented internally? What are the risks, and what are the competitive benefits that you expect? Christophe, you're the specialist here, aren't you?
Well, I'll try to answer simply. CSRD, for those of you who don't know this, is Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. This is a European directive, which was proposed in 2021, setting new standards and reporting duties on an extra-financial basis. It concerns 60,000 companies in Europe. What are the goals? What are the consequences? Well, of course, this new standard will reinforce the extra-financial transparency requirements through new European standards in order to improve accessibility and comparability of information.
What we now need, of course, is to be able to anticipate all these new information items to be published by L'Oréal and thousands of other companies to identify the process that is required. We've set up working groups within our group with our, all our experts. This involves the CSR teams, the legal affairs department, human resources department, and we have informed the Audit Committee of the regulatory change project and the work being done by the Senior Management, and we have reported to the Board of Directors, of course. Now looking at risks and benefits, what you need to know is that for the time being, these are draft directives subjected to public consultation, so it's difficult to know what these standards will finally be. They're still being discussed.
As you know, L'Oréal every year is well ahead in terms of transparency on environmental social issues because we already meet regulatory requirements by following cutting-edge reporting standards, in particular CSRD, GRI, et cetera. We are therefore fully prepared for this new regulatory framework.
Thank you very much, Christophe. There was a second question from Mr. [Girerd], which says Danone has been committed for a long time to a B Corp certification process, which seems to present many benefits. Would you undertake this, noting that many other players, Natura, others are committed to this virtuous process? I can perhaps briefly answer the question. B Corp certification was established in the United States. It distinguishes companies which are well ahead in CSR based on governance, environment, customers, employees.
L'Oréal to date has not undertaken the B Corp certification process because quite frankly, L'Oréal does not see any particular benefit in doing so. We can see some of the constraints, but we don't really see the benefits. What you need to know is that L'Oréal, as you've well understood, is by far and away the most advanced company in terms of corporate social responsibility and environmental policy. Because I don't know if you're aware of this, but there is one institute around the world which is called CDP, its former name. It is Carbon Disclosure Project, which rewards each year the best performing companies in terms of environmental policy.
This CDP has a choice of companies, and it awards its triple A ratings, and L'Oréal has a triple A carbon rating in terms of protecting forests and preserving water. To respond to your interest, there's only one company in the world in all industrial sectors, all of them, food, cosmetics, heavy industry, whatever you want, you name it, which achieved this triple A award three years in a row, and that was L'Oréal. I think we are showing that we can be pioneers, we can be exemplary champions in terms of sustainability and sustainable development without needing to resort to B Corp certification, though that's the decision we made, and I think it's more logical for L'Oréal to do it in this way. Third question, that will be the end for Mr. [Girerd]'s questions.
Ensuring talent loyalty, it's a key issue for companies such as L'Oréal or other companies. Have you established internally a 360-degree evaluation system which enables better evaluation and progress for managers? Do you have an independent benchmarking measure along the lines of best place to work? Yes, I'll answer that question from Remy. Indeed, the issue of talent is a major issue for us. For a very long time now, L'Oréal has been evaluating its managers and the working atmosphere in the company in a way that is benchmark. Now, what does 360 degrees mean? Well, it means that a manager is evaluated by all those who report to him, all his bosses, his peers, and this enables us to evaluate the quality of his management.
L'Oréal has established these 360-degree measures since 2017. We have 317 managers at L'Oréal who have used this tool, which is an evaluation tool, but in particular, it's an identification tool for areas of improvement because it enables one to work on these areas for improvements. We have rolled this out systematically. It's part of the bonus award process for all L'Oréal managers. We have a new system now called GLS, Global Leadership Survey, which is a bit lighter in terms of the number of questions you have to answer. We started off with the executive committee, and then we moved down to the 2,000 top managers at L'Oréal. This is a tool for measuring the quality of management at L'Oréal.
Furthermore, to answer the second part of the question, we every year assess the atmosphere in the company, the quality of the tools we provide our employees through a survey called Pulse. This is a survey used by Ipsos, Korn Ferry, Kantar, we work with them. It enables us to assess the quality of the working atmosphere at L'Oréal. Employees respond every year. The response level is 90%, so 66,000 employees respond, and we measure the commitment of the employees. This enabled us to say in our remarks that our commitment has strengthened because we have 77% commitment levels at L'Oréal, nine points above the market benchmark.
All the efforts being made by our human relations teams, the campus teams, managers, in order for it to be pleasant to work at L'Oréal, including in hybrid mode, are borne out by these and are established by these independent annual surveys. Moving to questions from the room, if I may. I would like to start with a question from our Consultative Shareholders Committee, which has questions. I think there's somebody somewhere in the room. Perhaps you could raise your hand. Ladies and gentlemen from the Shareholders Consultative Committee. There you are. Please take the microphone.
Thank you very much indeed. Good morning, Chair. [Jean-Pierre Monte], I'm a member of the Individual Shareholders Consultative Committee. I have two questions. Can we reconcile profitable growth, social, environmental responsibility, diversity, and raison d'être?
That's a good question. We have an answer to that.
Secondly, what is the border between health and beauty?
Those are excellent questions for Nicolas.
Well, I'm very happy to answer. Well, the first question is compatibility between growth, commitment, raison d'être, profitability. I think all this is indissociable today. They're mutually reinforcing principles.
We're living in a world where consumers will choose their products not only on the basis of quality and the product superiority, that's what we're always seeking to offer through our research, but also on the basis of enterprise value, commitment for the world, for diversity, for environment, and therefore, L'Oréal as a beauty leader has the duty, it has the means, since we have the financial success that enables us to invest in the program for the future, to invest in all of these, in the fulfillment of these goals and ambitions. Our ability to reconcile all this, which we've shown over many years, will confer on L'Oréal an additional competitive advantage compared to all of our competitors who would simply deliver good products without building a business that is positive for the planet and for the world's population.
I think all this is inextricably linked. L'Oréal's teams are fully committed, determined to take forward these ambitions in parallel. Secondly, the border between health and beauty. Well, I think both converge very significantly, and this is what underlies our Active Cosmetics division. You will recall that it saw the strongest strength of all our divisions over the past three years. Why? Because this was brought out by the pandemic, because consumers want safe, healthy products that help them to solve the beauty problems arising from skin disorders, UVs, eczema, stress. We've all undergone this, and consumers want products that perform that dual function. Active Cosmetics products, for example, are prescribed by dermatologists. That's one of the reasons for their success. It doesn't stop there.
Active Cosmetics, it goes through all the products of the group, which increasingly are being worked upon with some doctors, specialists, and in partnership with specialists such as Verily, Alphabet, other startups which enable us to analyze UVs, the environment for a given person, or the impact of sleep, let's say, on the quality of skin. All this data that we collect enable us to enhance our research and to offer more personalized product responses with greater accuracy and a better impact in terms of health.
Thank you very much, Nicolas. I saw a question from number four. Even with the mask, I think I recognize Mr. Dussolange in the room. Well done for being such an efficient fellow. Comes while I change glasses. My glasses, says Mr. Agon. Well, the APAA, the individual shareholders committee is delighted to be seeing you again in person. If I may, all the members are extremely attached to L'Oréal. We've heard that beauty is a strength, a powerful driving factor that enables people to move ahead, move forward, and that's why they always have beauty as part of their, in their portfolio. Well, that's an excellent idea, says Mr. Agon.
Thank you very much. A brief question. In June 2020, you announced the L'Oréal for the Future program. What conclusions have you drawn a year after the inception of the program? In particular, you have 15% incentives for the senior management. My second point is you have significantly increased your number of shareholders from 2020 to 2021. How are they do they consider it important to have a loyalty premium? And third question, operational rescue. Talked about this. It's how do you recruit and deploy your HR policy to ensure the loyalty of young talents through traditional talents using artificial intelligence or through social recruiting? And finally, what is L'Oréal's vision on metaverses and NFT? Is this a growth driver for L'Oréal? Thank you.
Thank you. Metaverse and NFTs, that's great. Well, I suggest that Nicolas answers the first and the last question, and I'll answer the question on individual shareholders. You see, we're dividing up the roles very harmoniously. So Nicolas is doing all the hard work. Well, shall we say three-quarters of the work.
First of all, the question on L'Oréal for the Future. What I would recall, first of all, is that this L'Oréal For the Future program follows on from the previous program, which was Sharing Beauty With All, from 2013 to 2020, where we had already set ambitious goals, which have been pretty well achieved, namely reducing carbon emissions, which declined by 86%, whereas our volume was up 29%, which was already a major achievement. We've taken these new commitments for the period running from 2020 to 2030 under L'Oréal For the Future with very ambitious goals once again. As you can see, on the table displayed on the screen, which is also in the annual report, we have set quantitative objectives based on many criteria, which we assess annually.
We assess our progress in this table that you can see in the report, which has also been commented upon by Christophe and some of the criteria, such as carbon neutrality on our sites by 2025. We are making very good progress. All the American sites and the Chinese sites have recognized this. We're up 15 points on the previous year, so we are well on track with our roadmap. On recycling water, we are improving as well, more slowly because it's more complex. 10 days ago, I visited our factory in Mexico City, which is recycling its water. You can see the ingredients and raw materials for packaging, bio-sourced. We're very close to the 100% we were aiming for.
Finally, one of the difficulties that we're overcoming with great determination is to have 100% of our packaging, plastic packaging, to be recycled or biosourced. We're at 21%. We have whole brands which have moved to 100%, for example, Fructis, Garnier. We are struggling with other industries to have as many, much as possible. We're very happy to see the investments being made by some, for example, Eastman in France, which is going to recycle plastic. We have invested in startups such as Carbios, which is a French startup. It's called Carbios, which has established its first plant near Clermont-Ferrand. It's recycling plastic and in particular PET with enzyme-based systems. We're using every possibility in order to have the largest number of possible sources for recycled plastic. Our ambitious...
Our ambition, our goals are very ambitious. We're following them very, very closely under the watchful eye of Alexandra Palt, our RSE director, CSR director. The company is going to make sure it achieves the goals that we have set ourselves in the established timeline. No, you take the second question.
Your other question, Mr. Dussolange, had to do with individual shareholders. I have the pleasure to report to you that the number of our individual shareholders increases on a regular basis. Now reaching 208,000 individual shareholders. Not bad. As you know, I'm also a director with Air Liquide, and I know that they're way ahead of us, but we are making progress. Let me address your question. 54,000 of registered shares. In 2021 we have made progress. 10,000 new individual shareholders, which is a very good win, including 6,000 bearer shares and the rest are registered shares. So I don't know whether they're sensitive to the 10% bonus, but I can tell you that I'm sure that they are. I'm sure that this incentive of 10% is obviously very much appreciated.
I'm sure that every shareholder present here will agree. It's quite the incentive. That's a very good thing. We are very happy with this progress, and we will encourage this initiative further because individual shareholders are very important to a company. It's important to fuel the discussion, learn from each other. It's absolutely key, and so we will keep it up. Question 3. Our recruiting methods and also brain drain, talent retention. I'd like to reassure our shareholders that we don't have a problem with that. We have received over 1 million candidacies across the world in 2021 because of different reasons. First of all, the company is dynamic, and we like to play for a winning team and also the company's reputation.
As you have seen, we are number 5 in the world when it comes to business school students, according to the universal ranking. We like to communicate in a way that appeals to the young generation. They're looking for meaning as well as personal growth. At the end of the day, we recruited 13,000 new staff members in 2021. Out of those millions of candidacies with additional internship opportunities as part of the L'Oréal For Youth program. To whittle it down from 1 million candidacies to 13,000 recruits, obviously we use technology, social media such as LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a top source of recruitment for a lot of companies. We use our HR teams under the aegis of Jean-Claude Le Grand. Our HR teams use artificial intelligence, use those tools as a filter.
There's a chat box, for example, to start the conversation with the recruit before they get to talk to an actual human being, an actual member of the HR team. We have an AI tool called Seedlink. Using three or four open-ended questions and based on the answers, we can eliminate candidates that simply don't have the profile. Once that funneling process, that filtering process is over, our HR teams meet with the applicants, and we try to recruit the best talents so we can deliver according to your expectations. Talent loyalty is based on two or three key priorities. First of all, quality. Quality of the assignment, quality compensation, the atmosphere at work, and this ties in with the question that I answered previously.
The Pulse survey is an opportunity to appreciate whether our staff are happy to work for us, and obviously not, there's no such thing as perfection. When there are problems, we do our best to fix them, and we try to make sure that our staff are even happier working with us and also quality pay. We have long-term incentives such as performance-driven shares. We talked about those before, which are assigned to or given to 3,600 workers that are part of L'Oréal and also training. We are operating in a fast-changing world, and this means that there's a constant need to upskill.
We need to train our people in the use of new techniques, train them to occupy new jobs, new professions, and we did that very much, during COVID because we needed to, train our people and they all received online training or in-person training, so we have it all. You're absolutely right. Quality talents is absolutely key, and we need to do our best to find them, recruit them, and hold on to them.
So NFTs and metaverses? Well, this requires a little bit of explanations. It won't be too long, though. This is a complex topic. At the end of the day, whether NFT or metaverses, you probably heard about both of them. The metaverse is the next phase in digital.
Remember Web 2.0, 3.0, et cetera, and now we're moving to the virtual world, augmented reality, worlds in which you can travel. You have a Oculus virtual reality helmet, you wear it, and you can live this artificial life, and this virtual world provides infinite opportunities. There are. The physical is no longer a limitation, and major players such as Facebook want to create these virtual worlds where people can travel, play, and shop, and they may shop NFTs, non-fungible tokens. These are assets that are not tangible. They're virtual tokens. But you actually have the deed, own the deed to what you bought, the NFT you bought, and you can prove to the rest of the community that you own this piece of art. This is new to us, but the possibilities are endless.
We get to promote our brands to consumers because it's not just boys who play video games, girls too. The whole young generation, there's a lot of people who spend a lot of time in those virtual worlds, and we get to introduce our brands to them. Makeup brands, virtual makeup. We have partnership agreements with NYX Professional Makeup. NYX Professional Makeup has undertaken a number of initiatives in the area of metaverses. We have brands that use ambassadors or models that are all virtual themselves. The latest Prada fragrance has a virtual model next to. So it's an opportunity for engaging with consumers. Maybe in the future, we will also use metaverses to sell virtual products. Makeup kits, for example. Because our primary task is to manufacture and sell tangible beauty products that actually work and that actually can be demonstrated.
Obviously, we're good at finishing what we start, and obviously we're going to spend most of our effort to selling real products, real mascara, real anti-blemish skin creams to our consumers. Virtual comes next.
Thank you, Chair. Mathieu Chauvat, I'm an individual shareholder. Mr. Chairman, I have two quick questions for you. Firstly, everybody here knows the close ties between L'Oréal and Nestlé. Aren't you afraid that Nestlé will be affected by the whole Buitoni pizza scandal? Secondly, L'Oréal is an important shareholder of Sanofi, and we are happy with the French-sourced Sanofi COVID vaccination. Would your group be willing to buy shares in Valneva, which is based out of Nantes? This company saved the honor of French research by developing a traditional French-made and patriotic COVID vaccine. Your economic performance is worth it. Thank you.
What a beautiful question, kind sir. I don't know whether Mr. Bulcke will agree, but thank you for that clear question. Let me start by saying that Nestlé is our shareholder. They own over 20% of our share capital, so I can't comment on Nestlé's difficulties. Nestlé is a very serious company. That much I can tell you. Their quality, safety standards are extreme. They're the highest in the world, both for their consumers and their employees. I know that the entire Nestlé group is terribly sorry about this unfortunate industrial accidents. Industrial accidents do happen, it's regrettable. It is not my place to comment on these events. Of course, we have zero power over Nestlé. Feel free to raise those questions at Nestlé's shareholders' meeting.
Again, Nestlé has been a shareholder of L'Oréal's for 50 years now, and we've always been very happy with their loyalty and the quality of the shareholder of this company, the excellence of their values. To some extent, this whole affair does nothing to challenge our relationship with Nestlé. Now, regarding Sanofi, to tell you the truth, we are not directly responsible operationally, but if we go back in history, we did not enter Sanofi's capital recently because we thought vaccines were an opportunity. It's kind of the same story as for Nestlé. We've been a shareholder of Sanofi since. Well, Sanofi wasn't called that back then. It used to be called differently. The first companies in which our group bought shares. At the time, we owned 50% of the share capital.
Over time, as these pharmaceutical companies grew, we diluted our equity, and now we own, what, 9%, Christophe? 9.5% of Sanofi's share capital. I would say that here again, we were sorry that Sanofi, which is also a remarkable company, a global vaccination player. They're a company with excellent researchers, amazing teams, high-level technology. We were sad that Sanofi was unable to market their own vaccine from the get-go. I know that they're on track to do that in the future, but of course, I'm not going to spoil anything here today. Like I said, it's not about trade-offs, it's not about pulling out of a company and buying shares in Valneva. No, that's not what we do. Let me try to address your question. Congratulations to Valneva. This is a company that is doing very interesting things, and that's all I can tell you, if that's all right with you.
Thank you, sir.
Okay. I can't see sideways, so maybe one more question from the audience, and maybe we will look at the written questions.
Hello. I'm an individual shareholder. L'Oréal is the global leader in beauty and in the U.K. L'Oréal's growth outperforms the market. What about M&A, Mergers and Acquisitions? Today, what is your strategy? The strategy of senior management on the one hand, but also the board of directors. What is your strategy regarding this M&A policy? What does the board want? Is it looking for well-established, powerful brands that they can buy and transform? Or are they looking for small brands that will eventually become billionaire brands? Is it looking for one or the other or both?
Are you also looking for technology building blocks? Very good question. Thank you for asking it. Okay, let's divvy up the work because I have to pull my weight here. I find this interesting because your question actually contains its own answer. When you say, for example, that over the past two years L'Oréal has grown faster than the market, that's what L'Oréal is all about. Organic growth is what we're all about. As everyone knows, organic growth means the ability to move faster than the competition, to outgrow the market, to gain market share year on year. I have to say that over the past two years, our performance has been amazing. I've been with L'Oréal 44 years now. Let me tell you, never before has L'Oréal outperformed this market so much than over the past few years.
We outperformed the market by a factor of 2 last year and also during the COVID crisis. As Nicolas was saying before, our market share gains have been spectacular over the past few years. That's what L'Oréal is all about, organic growth. This somehow answers your question. This being said, the other side of the coin, which is also interesting, if we look at our brand portfolio, today we have 30 brands, and out of those 30, there are about 29 acquisitions. You're touching upon the return to core of our model, and it's an original model. I don't know that many other companies that operate the way that we do. Here's the idea, the core idea, L'Oréal is capable of helping brands grow, admirably so. We are able to grow small brands into big ones.
From even before my time or Nicolas' time, from the very beginning, from Eugène Schueller, and Sir Owen-Jones, from the very beginning, L'Oréal's goal has been to prioritize organic growth and also to fuel that organic growth through M&A, the acquisition of small brands that we grow. No one else does that. I hope the competition is listening. Of course. Of course, they're listening to us so they can emulate us, but I'm not sure that they're doing as good a job as we do. Sorry for plugging my own, my own business. Now I know that you can't wait to speak now. Go ahead.
Well, the strategy is to identify, acquire brands which have an original positioning compared to those brands which we already have in the portfolio, and which enable us, and this is our history, which enable us to reach out to different consumers. We have 14% global market share. There are millions of consumers who want beauty products. They're all different. They all have different values, positions. Some want natural products, other ones dermatological products, others want glamour products. We seek products that have an original position.
For example, the Californian brand we just acquired called Youth to the People is a vegan health product which is deeply rooted in the Z generation that we have at present, which reaches out to consumers whom we're not reaching with our current brands, even though we're evolving along what we see going on on the market. These are brands that we go out, identify, acquire, seek to grow, for example, in this instance, in the United States and then around the world. I'll give you two examples which are highly illustrative of what Jean-Paul has just explained, which is Kiehl's, an American brand that we bought in the middle of the 2000s. It had EUR 20 million sales. It now has EUR 1.5 billion in sales. It's a global leader in skincare. CeraVe, which was acquired more recently.
It had $150 million in sales exclusively in the United States when it was acquired, and it's just exceeded $1 billion last year, always still in its original market. To finish answering your question, you're saying apart from brands, are we interested in acquiring technology? The answer is yes. This is what we did with ModiFace, which is a small Canadian startup which has augmented reality. It enables consumers to try out our products on their smartphone without moving to a store. That was very useful during the lockdown. ModiFace is a capacity, it's technology, and we're looking at others because there are other areas where we may need to be able to develop this capability.
You don't always buy them, and one of the reasons, and I'll hand over briefly to Christophe, because we took what I thought was a strategically important decision, which was to establish the BOLD innovation fund, which is to help invest in companies which we don't necessarily want to acquire. We want to see them grow because they provide a value-added for us. Christophe?
Yes. BOLD is a venture capital fund which enables us to come closer to work hand in hand with these young shoots. It's a credo at L'Oréal because they can contribute a great deal to us in terms of innovation, and we can contribute a great deal in helping them grow. At present, we have a fund which has over EUR 150 million, so it's far from negligible.
We have very strong choices in terms of our investments, not only in brands, but in green sciences. We talked about that earlier. Tech, and we are interested in, to go back to one of the previous questions, in acquiring technological breakthroughs. In the 10 direct investments we have done, we've talked about this. We have Carbios, which is based in near Clermont-Ferrand, which has invented an enzyme-based product for recycling plastic. We have an energy company. We have stakes in cutting edge companies in terms of social commerce. We have one called Replika. I won't give you the whole list, but this accounts for EUR 50 million in companies which are developing strongly alongside L'Oréal.
Well, listen, well done. We're moving to the left now. Number one. Well, we won't be able to take many other questions, because otherwise we would have to spend the afternoon here.
[Roger Pratt], I'm the shareholder who whispers into the ear of the CEOs. Three questions from me. Have you taken a stake in Carbios and PBO and Global Bioenergies, and recently in Verily, what led you to do that? What was the appeal? Yesterday, next yesterday, I was at the GM of Hermès, and they provided some comfort to us because Mr. Axel Dumas more has more or less copied from you, and this is regarding lipstick. So how are they co-opted onto your board of directors? That's the second question, right, says Mr. Agon. Yes. Next, the third question concerns your cooperation with a Japanese company on Sonaca. Mr. Pesquet last year moved. Mr. Pesquet moved in. What did Mr. Pesquet do?
I didn't quite catch what you said, because last year, Thomas Pesquet went into orbit for six months with the International Space Station, and he came. He walked in space, and did he therefore look after your telescope, the L'Oréal, the L'Oréal telescope?
You're talking about a telescope, sir?
A mini-[ EUSO] telescope. I think I'll give that question. I'll let Nicolas answer that question. I'm sending a SMS to Thomas Pesquet. I didn't know we had a telescope. Now, maybe Nicolas has been hiding things from me, but this is a very good test.
I'm going to answer Mr. Sylla Ba's question. Yes, indeed, Mr. Axel Dumas has joined our board because at the time, we were delighted to have Mr. Axel Dumas on the board of directors.
He gives a lot of time to the board. You know, L'Oréal is very loyal to these long-standing links. Jean-Louis Dumas, 20, 30 years ago, at the time, was on L'Oréal's board of directors. L'Oréal's board really was greatly appreciative of his word. We thought, I thought, well, maybe it was my mistake, but I thought we should continue in that tradition and have Axel Dumas on the board. At the time, there was just a small, activity or slightly overlapping, businesses, as we say, which is a fragrance, business, but it really wasn't important enough to create a conflict of interest. What happened is we had not been told that Hermès was preparing to launch a range of fragrances. In fact, we discovered this in the press.
When we discovered this in the press, I called Axel Dumas. I said, "Listen, Axel, I'm so sorry, but you can't be on L'Oréal's board if you yourself are preparing to launch a fragrance business," which is a great shame because he was a very good director and without minimizing a competitor's business. I think that his fragrance business and the sample we got yesterday perhaps reflects that. All this to say that it's a great shame, but that's how it is. We can't mess around with this kind of thing. Of course, there must not be any conflicts of interest on the L'Oréal board of directors. The question was, are the criteria for choosing to invest in other companies such as Carbios, et cetera. Well, just to clarify, because you also mentioned Verily.
We have not invested in Verily because Verily is the tech business of Alphabet, therefore of Google. That's just a partnership that we have, a research partnership between L'Oréal Innovation and Verily in our cosmetics division in order to exploit the huge cohorts of investors and consumers that they have, consumers, in order to establish the link between lifestyle, biological data, beauty, the state of one's skin, hair, et cetera. It's a cooperation project under the guidance of Barbara Lavernos, who was on the rostrum earlier. There's no investment there. Now, regarding Carbios or Global Bioenergies or Gjosa, which is the company I was recalling earlier, that creates these small showers that reduce the consumption of water in hairdressing salons and soon homes.
These are three innovative companies which have innovated in areas that reflect our own ambitions. Carbios, they've found solutions to reduce the environmental impact of our business, the environmental footprint, so it's in our interest that they develop. Sometimes when they come and see us, we have persons monitoring them, and we say, "Right, we'll help them with a L'Oréal funding to step up their growth." We're not the only ones. With Carbios, you have Michelin working with Carbios as well. That's why they're near Clermont-Ferrand. That's why we help them create new technologies that help L'Oréal. Now, to conclude, the telescope. Right. I must say, I have a great deal of admiration. I greatly admire Thomas Pesquet.
I'm not aware, and I'm sorry about this, nor is Barbara, about the initiative that we may have taken with a telescope in Japan, if I understood your question correctly. I don't quite know what to say, apart from one thing, which is that very often our division heads, brand heads, set themselves ambitious goals and they say, "At L'Oréal, you need to aim for the moon, because even if you miss the moon, you will end up in the stars."
"Well done," says Mr. Agon. Well done indeed. Well, on that note, I think we're going to have to stop the questions because we are running 20 minutes late. Therefore, thank you all very much for your questions. I recall that if you sent questions in writing on a card, we will of course answer those questions after the general meeting. Madame Catherine Bellon will now give us the final quorum and some practical details on the vote.
I give you the final quorum. The final attendance sheet shows that 431,339,352 shares are represented, which means approximately 80% of all the shares making up the company's capital with bearing rights. 1,074 shareholders present at the meeting. 144 are represented. 7,925 have given the proxy to the chairman. I'd like to remind you that in the context of the vote of the resolutions for a mixed general meeting, these are approved by a simple majority for the resolutions pertaining to the ordinary part, and by a 2/3 majority for the resolutions pertaining to the extraordinary part. To vote, you only have to use three keys on the voting box.
The green button for a yes vote, the yellow for an abstention, and the red button for a no vote. As usual, we will announce when the vote will be open. The hourglass will appear on the screen, and then we will tell you when the vote is closed. The final results will be projected on the screen after the vote on each resolution, and at the end of the meeting, the complete results will be displayed on the screens and will also be available on the loreal-finance.com website as early as this afternoon. I think that's it. Let us begin voting operations.
Resolution one: approval of the 2021 parent company financial statements. Please vote.
Time's up. 99.9% yes. Resolution two: approval of the 2021 consolidated financial statements. Please vote. Time's up.
Resolution carried with 99.86% yes votes. Resolution three: allocation of the dividend. Of course, I meant allocation of the company's net profit for 2021 and setting of the dividend. Yes to the tune of 99%. Resolution for renewal of the term of office of Jean-Paul Agon as director.
Le vote est clos.
Time's up. Resolution carried, 96.18% yes votes. Resolution 5: renewal of the term of office of Patrice Caine as director. Please vote.
Le vote est clos.
Time's up. Resolution carried 99.11% yes votes. Resolution 6: renewal of the term of office of Ms. Belén Garijo as director. Please vote.
Le vote est clos.
Time's up. Resolution carried, 90.84% yes votes. Resolution 7: renewal of the appointment of Deloitte & Associés as statutory auditors. Please vote.
Le scrutin est clos.
Time's up. 97.94%. Resolution 8: appointment of VNY as statutory auditors. Please vote.
Le scrutin est clos.
Time's up. Yes votes account for 99.91% of answers. Next resolution, which is resolution 10. Actually resolution 9: approval of the information on the compensation of each corporate officer. Please vote.
La neuvième résolution est adoptée.
Resolution nine is carried, 97.34%. Resolution ten: approval of the fixed and variable components of the total compensation and benefits of any kind paid during financial year 2021, or allocated for that year to Jean-Paul Agon in his capacity as Chairman and CEO. Please vote.
Le scrutin est clos.
Time's up. Yes votes account for 85.25%. Resolution 11: approval of the fixed and variable components of the total compensation and benefits of any kind paid during fiscal 2021, or allocated for that year to Jean-Paul Agon in his capacity as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Please vote.
Le scrutin est clos.
Time's up. Resolution carried 95.98%. Resolution 12: approval of the fixed and variable components of the total compensation and benefits of any kind paid during fiscal 2021, or allocated for that year to Nicolas Hieronimus in his capacity as CEO. Please vote.
Le scrutin est clos.
Time's up. Resolution 12 is carried with a yes vote of 96.73%. Next resolution 13, approval of the compensation policy for directors. Please vote.
La treizième résolution est adoptée.
Resolution 13 carried, 99.73% of the vote. Resolution 14: approval of the compensation policy for the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Please vote.
Time's up. Resolution carried 95.8%. Resolution 15, approval of the compensation policy for the CEO. Please vote.
Time's up. Yes votes account for 93.04%. Resolution 16, approval of the buyback agreement for L'Oréal's acquisition from Nestlé of 22 million two hundred and sixty thousand L'Oréal shares, representing 4% of the capital as part of the procedure for related party agreements. Please vote.
Time's up. Resolution carried by 99.86% of the vote. Resolution 17, authorization for the company to buy back its own shares. Please vote.
Time's up. Resolution 17 carried by 99.26%.
Resolution 18, authorization given to the board of directors to reduce the share capital by canceling the shares acquired by the company under Article L.22-10-62 of the French Commercial Code. We are now moved on to the extraordinary part of the shareholders' meeting. Please vote.
Time's up. Resolution 18 carried by 99.81%. Resolution 19, authorization granted to the board of directors to carry out free grants of existing shares and/or shares to be issued with cancellation of shareholders' preferential subscription right to employees and executive officers. Please vote.
Time's up. Resolution carried, 98.55%. Resolution 20, delegation of authority to the board of directors for the purpose of carrying out a capital increase reserved for employees with cancellation of the shareholders' preferential subscription rights. Please vote.
Time's up. Resolution carried 99.17%. Resolution 21, delegation of authority granted to the board of directors for the purpose of carrying out a capital increase reserved for categories of beneficiaries consisting of employees of foreign subsidiaries with cancellation of preferential subscription rights within the framework of an employee share ownership plan. Please vote.
Time's up. Resolution carried 99.18% of the vote. Resolution 22, amendment of Article 9 of the company's articles of association in order to change the age limit for holding the office of Chairman of the Board of Directors. Please vote.
Time's up. Resolution carried 99.73% of the vote. Resolution 23, amendment of Article 11 of the company's articles of association in order to specify the age limit for holding the position of CEO. Please vote.
Time's up. Resolution carried 99.21%. Resolution 24, amendment of articles 2 and 7 of the Company's articles of association in the context of legislative or regulatory changes. Please vote.
Time's up. Resolution carried 99.99%. Resolution 25, amendment of article 8 of the Company's articles of association in order to remove the requirement for directors to own five shares in the Company. Please vote.
Time's up. Resolution carried 99.32%. Lastly, last resolution, powers for formalities. Please vote. Resolution carried 99.99%. Very good. Thank you very much.
All the resolutions have been adopted. The votes will be displayed on the screens as you exit the meeting and displayed on the website. Thank you all very much once again for being here. This was a really great moment for having an exchange. I hope we provided plenty of information to you and to convey the wonderful prospects for our company in the years ahead. In order to help us ensure that this event always meets your expectations, please do respond to our participant survey and give it to the hostesses as you leave. See you next year for a new general meeting here at the Palais des Congrès on Friday, 21st of April, 2023. Thank you very much and stay safe.