Orange S.A. (EPA:ORA)
France flag France · Delayed Price · Currency is EUR
17.39
-0.27 (-1.50%)
Apr 27, 2026, 5:35 PM CET
← View all transcripts

Earnings Call: Q4 2025

Feb 18, 2026

Operator

The call today will be hosted by Christel Heydemann, CEO, and Laurent Martinez, CFO, with other members of Orange's executive committee for the Q&A session that will start after the presentation. Thank you, and let me hand over the floor to Christel Heydemann.

Christel Heydemann
CEO, Orange

Good evening, and thank you for joining our 2025 Results Presentation. These 2025 results successfully conclude our 3-year Lead the Future plan, which has been marked by consistent execution and focus on value creation. All our key objectives have been met or overachieved. We also finished the year with sustained strategic activity. In Spain, we signed a binding agreement with Lorca to acquire full ownership of MasOrange by acquiring the remaining 50% stake in the joint venture for a price of EUR 4.25 billion. With this operation, Spain will become our second largest market in Europe, and we will be able, upon closing, to capture 100% of MasOrange value creation. Premium Fiber, the co-owned FiberC o with Vodafone and GIC, began operations in Q4.

With over 12 million premises and nearly 5 million connected customers, this is the biggest Fiber Co in Europe in terms of customers. In France, we submitted in October, together with Bouygues Telecom and Free Groupe Iliad, a joint non-binding offer to acquire a large part of Altice activities in France. In a challenging competitive environment, this deal would allow us to strengthen investments in France while maintaining a competitive ecosystem for the benefit of consumers. Due diligence works have been initiated in early January 2026. There is no certainty that this process will result in an agreement. Back to our 2025 results, we are really pleased to report a robust commercial performance in France, Europe, and Africa, Middle East, fueling strong results fully in line with our guidance.

After two consecutive guidance upgrades this year, full year EBITDAaL grew by 3.8% with a solid 0.9-point margin rate improvement. Organic cash flow reached EUR 3.7 billion, representing more than 8% growth year-on-year, overachieving our Lead the Future guidance. Let's now review our strong full year and Q4 results. On the top line, the group delivered EUR 40.4 billion in revenues, representing a 0.9% increase, driven by growth in retail and EMEA. EBITDAaL performance is up +3.8% for the full year. France grew at an accelerated pace. Europe's growth remains solid, and Africa, Middle East continues to perform strongly in the double-digit territory. Finally, Orange Business further improved its EBITDAaL trend. We maintained discipline on eCapEx, with eCapEx to sales at around 15%, in line with our target.

Organic cash flow reached EUR 3.7 billion, rising by more than 8% and well in line with our annual goal of at least EUR 3.6 billion. Our free cash flow all-in stands at EUR 2.8 billion. Our balance sheet remains robust, with a net debt to EBITDAaL ratio of 1.8 times. We also fully achieved our 2025 greenhouse gas emissions target on all scopes. Lead the Future has built a strong, sustainable momentum across the company, uniquely positioning Orange on its markets. With a powerful brand, cutting-edge networks, and our global teams, we are now serving 340 million customers worldwide. We are stronger in our core business, more efficient in our operations, and financially healthier.

We have been very active in in-market consolidation across Europe, notably through the successful creation of MasOrange, now the leading operator in Spain. We are about to get full ownership of this operation, delivering synergies at full speed. I continue to advocate Europe to review its regulatory framework, as we believe a strong digital and telecom ecosystem is essential for enhancing competitiveness in the region. Over the past 3 years, we have strengthened our leadership in NPS across 16 countries and delivered solid retail performance with an outstanding double-digit growth in Africa, Middle East, and leadership of Orange Cyberdefense. All of this has been achieved by maintaining a solid balance sheet while owning our infrastructures, which is a key differentiator. FTTH deployment is almost done in Europe, and we now have approximately 100 million FTTH connectable homes. Our primary focus over the period has been execution.

We streamlined our portfolio with the exit of Orange Bank in Europe, the sale of OCS and Orange Studio in 2024, and the continued transformation of Orange Business. Additionally, we accelerated efficiency through a major workforce planning agreement in France, simplified group processes, and maintained a relentless focus on cost optimization and operational efficiency. Financially, free cash flow all-in has grown significantly by 74% over three years, translating into an additional EUR 1.2 billion in cash. The dividend increased by 7% over the last three years, while total shareholder returns surged by 82% in three years. We are very proud of these achievements. We have now very solid foundations for our next strategic plan, which we will present to you tomorrow. Looking at our sustainable performance, we all made significant achievement over the last three years, and we exceeded our 2025 targets.

Greenhouse gas emissions are down 49% on Scope 1 and 2 compared to 2015, and Scope 3 is down 16% compared to 2018. Those results reflect all the efforts and levers activated. As for instance, our Partners to Net Zero Carbon Program, for which we signed 7 partnerships. We are committed to our mission to reduce the digital divide and have increased 4G population coverage in MEA to 80%. Regarding digital inclusion, more than 3 million people benefited from free digital training since 2022. Finally, as part of our trust development strategy, we continued to launch new offers for youth protection and B2C cybersecurity. In December, we appointed a Chief Trust Officer, Guillaume Poupard, to accelerate this strategy. I will now hand over to Laurent for the financial review on slide 8.

Laurent Martinez
CFO, Orange

Thank you, Christel, and good evening, everyone. Let's start on revenues, up 0.9% in 2025 at EUR 40 billion, fueled by robust service growth of 2%, which offset the expected wholesale decline. From a segment perspective, revenue growth is driven by Africa and Middle East, outstanding double-digit growth and Europe at +2%. In France, retail ex-PSTN is up 0.6%, as expected, and was offset by anticipated decline in wholesale. Orange Business is still impacted by portfolio pruning and by the difficult IT market and French macro environment. On efficiency, we have delivered strong result and achieved our three years net saving target of EUR 600 million. This success has been driven by strong operational efficiency, leading to a solid improvement in the EBITDAaL margin of close to one point in 2025.

Regarding our procurement initiative, we are well on track to meet our midterm target of EUR 700 million, and we exceed EUR 300 million of value created thanks to AI in 2025. This sets the stage for the next phase of efficiency, which we will present tomorrow at our Capital Market Day. Moving to EBITDAaL, growth reached 3.8% for this year. Strong result, which is driven by outstanding double-digit performance from Africa and Middle East, a continued solid growth in Europe, and a positive EBITDAaL momentum in France. Finally, Orange Business continued its EBITDAaL improvement trend, despite current and macroeconomic headwinds.

Turning to net income, 2025 net income is driven by EBITDAaL step up, offset by tax and by three main exceptional items: the booking of a provision related to the Senior Part-Time for EUR 1.2 billion net of tax, the impairment of Orange Business activities for around EUR 330 million, driven by market evolution, and the start of depreciation of the copper dismantling asset booked in 2025 for around EUR 370 million. Related to copper in France, 2025 marks the beginning of the industrial phase of copper shutdown, in line with the decommission plan announced in 2022. As part of this process, we have recognized, as per IFRS standard, a provision of EUR 1.7 billion in 2025, representing the best estimate of the dismantling cost. This provision will be reversed as real costs occur.

In symmetry to this provision, a dismantling asset of EUR 1.7 billion has been recorded and will be amortized on a roughly linear basis until 2030. In parallel, to ease the analysis of our underlying performance, we introduce a new indicators, including excluding specific elements, the adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share. Altogether, the adjusted net income amounts to EUR 3.1 billion in 2025, considering around EUR 1.95 billion of adjustment, mainly driven by the three exceptional items of 2025 that I just described. Let's move to CapEx. We maintain our discipline policy with 15% eCapEx to sales ratio. We pursued our investment in Africa and Middle East to support our strong revenue and decrease CapEx in all segments. Excluding Africa and Middle East, our group eCapEx decreased by more than 3% year-over-year.

On organic cash flow, the organic cash flow is up EUR 280 million, reaching EUR 3.7 billion, well in line with our guidance of at least EUR 3.6 billion. This strong growth is mainly driven by EBITDAaL increase. Free cash flow all-in reached EUR 2.8 billion, with a slight decline year-on-year due to the expected phasing telco license payment between 2024 and 2025. Net debt is stable and stands at 1.8 times EBITDAaL, in line with our guidance of around 2 times. We are very proud to have successfully issued two jumbo bonds at the end of 2025 and early 2026, amounting to EUR 5 billion and $6 billion, both of them massively oversubscribed. This achievement secures the upcoming refinancing of MasOrange debt and demonstrates the strengths and attractiveness of our group on the debt market.

Moving to the business review and starting with France, the competitive environment remains generally stable with sustained competition on the low end. In this context, we are laser-focused on our efficient commercial strategy, grounded in segmentation, strong customer loyalty, and value. This approach has driven robust commercial performance this year. This quarter, we maintained positive momentum with 134,000 mobile net add, 315,000 on fiber, and a record since the last quarter of 2022, and 25,000 on convergence. This performance is fueled by positive result on both Orange and Sosh brands and effective churn management, with mobile churn reducing by more than 2 points year-on-year.

Convergent ARPU at close to 79 EUR, continue to grow and is up 1.2% year-on-year in Q4, while mobile and fixed broadband ARPU decline year-on-year, reflecting the mix effect and our strategy to attract customers on all segment and then upsell and cross-sell. Overall, we continue to demonstrate our leadership and innovation in France. We are once again recognized by ARCEP as the best customer service and for the 15th consecutive time as the best mobile network. We also have launched the innovative Direct-to-Device Satellite SMS offering and successfully tested next-generation GPON fiber technology. Moving to the financials, our efficient commercial strategy led to a 0.6% growth in retail ex-PSTN revenues in 2025, and 0.5% in Q4, as expected, outperforming all the players of the market in a challenging environment. As anticipated, revenues remains impacted by the structural decline in wholesale.

In Q4, this decline was offset by slightly more co-financing received this quarter. 2025 also marks the beginning of the technical closure of copper, with more than 200,000 premises completion. The robust improvement in EBITDAaL trend in 2025 and operating cash flow growth is driven by rigorous cost management, with a significant 4% OpEx reduction over the year. This translate into a 1.1-point EBITDAaL margin improvement and an increase of close to 3% of EBITDAaL minus CapEx. Turning to Africa and Middle East, which continues to deliver a very strong performance, demonstrating once again our positive momentum. Revenues are up double digits for the 11th consecutive quarters, driven by our 4 key drivers.

Thanks to revenue growth and strict cost control, we delivered double-digit EBITDAaL growth in 2025 for the sixth consecutive year, raising the bar of EBITDAaL margin to above 39%, up by 0.6 points. EBITDAaL minus CapEx is up at 17% on the FX comparable basis and 14% on a historical basis, leading to a strong cash generation in euros, our top priority for MEA. Moving on to Europe, revenues are back to growth, increasing by more than 2% in 2025, sustained by services in IT and IS, thanks notably to large deals in Poland and Romania. Services remain strong, fueled by effective volume-value strategy, an increase of customer base by around 700,000 customers in 2025. Over the quarter, net adds remain robust, with mobile net adds above 100,000.

Convergence revenues are up by 6% over the quarters, with net add at 32,000 and growing ARPU, notably in Poland. EBITDAaL reached EUR 2 billion, up 3.2% in 2025, and EBITDAaL minus eCapEx is up by more than 12%. Moving to Orange Business, revenues are still impacted by last year's portfolio pruning and by the French macroeconomic environment. While the French market remains difficult, international segment of the business is showing clear signs of improvement, as reflected by a win ratio of close to 50%. Orange Cyberdefense continue to grow sustainably at 7% in 2025. From a value proposition perspective, our new Secure Connectivity offer is a significant success, with over EUR 240 million in orders this year and nearly 60% customer growth in second half of 2025.

With this new modular platform, our clients now have the opportunity to use connectivity as a service, offering self-service, dynamic pricing, and AI-driven automation. Together with Orange Cyberdefense, we are driving growth and profitability with our combined offers, leveraging both telco and cyber strengths. We are stepping up as well on our new flagship product, such as our trusted AI platform, Live Intelligence. In that context, the EBITDAaL trend at -6% year-on-year is improving for the third consecutive year, while not fully at our initial 2025 target. Let's turn to Spain. On a standalone basis, Orange fully achieved its 2025 ambition. In particular, the company delivered above the targeted EUR 300 million in cumulative synergies at the end of the year. From a commercial standpoint, we achieved strong net add in the mobile segment and maintained stable volume in fixed broadband.

Revenues are up by 0.7% in the fourth quarters, top line benefiting from strong growth in both B2B and our new business initiative, offsetting the challenging telco retail market. Adjusted EBITDA minus recurring net CapEx is up 10%, in line with our 2025 outlook. Finally, proceeds from the FiberC o transaction resulted in a significant deleverage, with a net debt to adjusted EBITDA now at 3.6 times from 4.5 times at the end of 2024. Moving to a word on Premium Fiber, we are very pleased to have successfully completed this FiberCo transaction closing at the end of the year, maximizing the value of the largest fiber network in Spain.

Going forward, the impact of the rental fees to access Premium Fiber network will be broadly cash neutral, thanks to the reduction in interest costs driven by the strong deleveraging. With this, I hand over back the floor to Christel for the conclusion.

Christel Heydemann
CEO, Orange

Thank you, Laurent. We are proud of these strong 2025 results and the achievements over the past three years. They provide a solid foundation for our next plan, which will be presented tomorrow. Laurent, Jérôme, Yasser, Meini, and I are now ready for your questions. Please note that we will only answer questions related to full year 2025 results. All forward-looking questions will be addressed tomorrow.

Operator

In order to give time to everyone, please ask only one or two questions. As a reminder, to ask for the floor, please raise your hand in Teams. Please ensure that your mute function on your device is switched off to allow us to hear you when it is time for us to take your question. If we do not have time to take your question, then please contact our investor relations team after the call. Journalists will have a separate Q&A in French immediately following this one. So journalists, please stay connected after the analyst's Q&A is over. Our first question today comes from Akhil Dattani from J.P. Morgan. Akhil, please unmute yourself and ask your question.

Akhil Dattani
Managing Director, JP Morgan

Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Christel, firstly, one for you, if I can. You mentioned in your opening remarks that you started due diligence on SFR with the consortium in January. You may have seen the press reports that have come out in the last few weeks suggesting that due diligence has been closed, and that there's a chance of potentially quite a fast deal close. Now, I'm sure you won't be able to comment too specifically, but can you sort of give us a bit of color on exactly what's been going on? And if high level, there is anything within that, that you know, is you can help us with to better understand what's going on. And then the second one was on MasOrange.

I saw helpfully on slide 32, you've given us pro forma financials for the asset. I just wanted to better understand a little bit what you've given us. And what I'm trying to understand is, firstly, the EBITDA impact from Premium Fiber at EUR 350 million is a bit higher than I thought. If you could maybe just help us understand what's in that, just to understand if that's a reasonable starting point for going forward. And I was always also interested to see that there's no CapEx that moves to Premium Fiber. So maybe you can help us understand why that is. Thanks a lot.

Christel Heydemann
CEO, Orange

Thanks, Akhil. So, on SFR, as we communicated a few weeks back, we have started due diligence work early January. And, to be fair, those discussions and due diligence and exchanges are still continuing. So I was not the source of the press report that you saw. But clearly, the legal and financial terms of a transaction have not yet been agreed upon, and we are still discussing and working on the due diligence. So nothing has been concluded. And as we said, it's still too early to say whether or not we will be able to reach an agreement. On the MasOrange pro forma number, Laurent?

Laurent Martinez
CFO, Orange

Yes. Good evening, Akhil. So 350 is a good proxy in terms of indeed lease costs moving forward, and of course, there will be a CPI inflation on top of it over time, obviously. So that's a good benchmark. And in terms of CapEx, many maybe you can say well, but there is very few CapEx attached to the impact of this.

Meinrad Spenger
CEO, MasOrange

Yeah. Yes. So, this year is basically no CapEx assigned to Premium Fiber. And, in general, the CapEx intensity for MasOrange is very low.

Akhil Dattani
Managing Director, JP Morgan

Great. Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Stéphane Beyazian from ODDO. Stéphane, please unmute yourself and ask your question.

Stéphane Beyazian
Equity Research Analyst, ODDO

Yes, thank you. Good evening. Can I ask you if you can comment on the competitive environment in France? We've seen a little bit more pressure on your non-convergent ARPUs in Q4. And you know, in the past few days, or perhaps today, we've seen also a one offer a bit more aggressive from one of your competitors in the fixed market. So I was just curious if there's anything you could comment overall on the competitive environment, especially for perhaps the first quarter. Perhaps the market is a bit more softer than in the past. And my second question is regarding to capital expenditures.

It's interesting to see that it was down in the second half of 2025 in Europe at business services and in carrier services. You know, without you know obviously telling too much on what you will be saying tomorrow, but I was just curious if there was anything, you know, to mention specifically for the second half. Or you believe that this is part of the savings that you're doing, and potentially that could continue in the future? Thank you.

Christel Heydemann
CEO, Orange

Thank you, Stéphane. So on the French market, and I will start, and then Jérôme can comment further. But generally speaking, as we said, the low end of the market, be it broadband or mobile, remains competitive. We have not seen an increase. Actually, Q1 is, as usual, a bit less intense in terms of promotion than the Q4 and the end-of-year season. But we have not seen, I would say, a drastic change from the overall environment, which remains competitive on the low end. And when it comes to our ARPUs evolution, as we've said, there is nothing that wasn't planned, and this is the evolution of the mix.

And because we play on the volume and value, and we acquire a customer, including low-end price customers, but then our strategy is to upsell them. Mechanically, we are feeding the growth also through convergence, and you see the continued growth of our convergent ARPU. But we see a small impact on the ARPU evolution, in mobile only and broadband only. Convergence remains the bedrock of our growth strategy, and that's 31% of our total revenue and very important. Jérôme, if you want to-

Jérôme Hénique
CEO, Orange France

Thank you, Christel. I think you said it all. It's overall a stable market. Still quite aggressive on the low end, but overall stable on the high end, particularly on fixed broadband. Of course, we adapt to shield our market share, but as you saw, we had a remarkable performance on sales, on commercial performance during the quarter. And about the ARPU, I think it's worth saying that for fixed broadband, it's stable quarter-over-quarter. So we mentioned last quarter the decrease year-over-year, but on a quarter-over-quarter basis, Q4 versus Q3, we remain stable.

And, as Laurent mentioned, we use, of course, low entry-level pricing for fixed broadband and mobile to attract customers, and then we upsell them on higher packages and particularly on convergence. And this is why you see a more value uplift on convergence and an increase in the convergence ARPU.

Christel Heydemann
CEO, Orange

On the question on CapEx, Laurent, if you want to H2 CapEx trend?

Laurent Martinez
CFO, Orange

Yes. So, of course, we continue to optimize our CapEx evolution, and you spotted the one in Europe, so we continue to optimize this. Of course, we'll come back to you with more depths on that tomorrow in terms of a forward-looking statement. But you see, of course, in H2, the first perspective of our CapEx optimization in the region.

Stéphane Beyazian
Equity Research Analyst, ODDO

Specifically at Orange Business Services, was there a decision in order to protect the free cash flow generation, you know, a strategic decision to stop investing? I mean, I exaggerate, obviously, but, you know, a strategic decision there.

Laurent Martinez
CFO, Orange

No, no. No strategic decision, Stéphane. This is more a phasing of our CapEx project. Some of them are customer related, so it's purely phasing.

Stéphane Beyazian
Equity Research Analyst, ODDO

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from Roshan Ranjit, from Deutsche Bank. Roshan, the floor is yours.

Roshan Ranjit
TMT Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Great, good evening, everyone. I've got two questions, please, and perhaps just sticking with the French KPIs. Yes, for the last 12 months, we've been talking about slowing overall market volumes. Yet this quarter, as we saw, I think in Q1, Q2, you know, you had taken market share and in particular, the record fiber adds, I think, since the end of Q4 2022. So can you tell us what's happening there, particularly on the fiber side, given the maturing market? Has there been a change in strategy? What is driving the customers to kind of, you know, take fiber now versus about 12 months ago? And secondly, thank you for providing the net income bridge from slide 11. One question just around the copper decommissioning component.

Should we expect that to continue for the next few years? And tied to that, when should we start seeing the benefits, on the OpEx level, from those lower costs from switching off the copper network? Thank you.

Christel Heydemann
CEO, Orange

Thank you. Thank you, Roshan. On the French KPIs, I think, Jérôme can provide you more details, but that's really long-term work that we've done on our quality of operation, on the shortening the timing between, you know, a customer signs up for broadband and then can be connected. And a lot of work focusing as well on, of course, the copper decommissioning that's also feeding broadband growth. But I'm sure, Jérôme, you have a lot more details on that.

Jérôme Hénique
CEO, Orange France

Yes, maybe just saying that our sales machine is working particularly well as you underlined, and with a very strong adds momentum during Q4 in all segments. Convergence, fixed broadband with very strong performance on fiber. And mobile as well. Mobile net adds are comparable to Q3. Of course, we are protecting value while making sure that we are attracting new customers and having a strong market share on growth adds. And as Christel said, this is the result of, let's say, a long-term work on our commercial channels, sales channels. Is it shops, but as well digital and all channels.

And this is the result as well of, I think, very positive image in the market of Orange as, the best operator in terms of, quality of service, recognized by, ARCEP, as mentioned by, by Laurent. And we know that, those days, customers are looking for price, but they are looking as well for quality. And this is a clear differentiation for us, which translate into the best, NPS in, in the market, as well as different, awards and, recognition from the regulator.

Christel Heydemann
CEO, Orange

Thank you, Jérôme. On copper decommissioning, of course, I mean, this program was launched a few years back, and it's gonna last until 2034. So for all forward-looking OpEx reduction and efficiency impact, of course, we will discuss it then, tomorrow. But on the closing of 2025 and the provision, Laurent?

Laurent Martinez
CFO, Orange

Yes. Roshan, just to clarify, we have booked EUR 1.7 billion into our assets, which will be depreciated over time, up to 2030. Around EUR 360 million in 2025, and should expect something roughly linear until end of 2030, which will be impacting our net income, net income.

Roshan Ranjit
TMT Equity Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Great. Thank you.

Operator

As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please raise your hand in Teams. Our next question comes from Josh Mills, BNP Paribas. Josh, please unmute yourself and ask your question.

Josh Mills
Executive Director of Telecoms Research, BNP Paribas

Hi, guys. Thank you for the questions. Two from my side. So firstly, on the French service revenues, PSTN, we saw a bit of an improvement in Q4 versus Q3. I just wanted to check, are there any one-offs there regarding co-investment, fiber payments, anything else we should be aware of? Because given the commentary last quarter on the commercial trends and the RP declines we're seeing this quarter, it seemed a bit surprising that service revenues are picked up in the fourth quarter. And then secondly, perhaps a question for Meinrad on the MasOrange business. So, it looks from my tracker at least like we saw a bit of a deterioration in retail service revenues this quarter, and EBITDA on a year-on-year basis is down 17%.

Now, I know EBITDA in MasOrange has been very volatile over the year, but are there any drivers within that minus 17% year-on-year quarterly EBITDA decline? And in particular, does that include the one month of FiberC o payments, which I think you've highlighted in the slides as well? So France and Spain would be my questions. Thank you.

Christel Heydemann
CEO, Orange

Thank you, Josh. On the retail French services performance in Q4, we continued to have positive growth this trimester, of course, excluding PSTN. This is driven by good volumes and our convergent ARPU growth and our efficient commercial strategy. Back to your question, there is no one-off explaining this performance. As you know, we were guiding, and we were—when we had our H1 and Q3 results, we were saying that the environment would be flat to small positive for retail services revenue. That's what we see for the full H2. Very consistent, and in the end, it's the outcome of our efficient commercial strategy. On the MasOrange, Meini?

Meinrad Spenger
CEO, MasOrange

Yes, thank you, Joshua. First of all, overall, the big picture, and we are growing around 3% in revenues and around 10% in operating cash flow, so it's very positive result for us. Regarding Q4, we don't see a negative trend. We see some, let's say, special seasonality effects, both in revenues as well as in EBITDA. In terms of revenues, we have seasonality in enterprise solutions and in wholesale. In wholesale, by the way, a low-margin business, because it's international carrier services related. In retail services, as you can see, we have a stable FMC ARPU, which is positive in a very challenging environment. However, we have some negative effects on mobile and fixed-only ARPU.

However, we have 84% of our client base in convergence, so it only affects a minor part of our client base. In terms of EBITDA, again, we compare to a very strong Q4 2024, and that was particularly strong because of some seasonality effects, because of accounting effects. In Q4, we reversed an excess provision recorded in previous quarters related to content cost. And we have been especially prudent regarding the football soccer rights, which are- quite expensive in Spain, and we have done the reversal of this provision in Q4 last year. And then, very important, we are doing an incremental investment in our growth areas, in B2B and the new businesses where we have short-term some negative effects. But we believe mid and long term, it's the right thing to do.

Josh Mills
Executive Director of Telecoms Research, BNP Paribas

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Our last question this evening comes from Ondrej Cabejsek from UBS. Ondrej, the floor is yours. Please unmute yourself.

Ondrej Cabejsek
Executive Director of Telecoms Research, UBS

Hi, everyone, and thank you for the presentation. Two questions from me, please. Just one following up on the question around M&A. My question, Christel, is basically we've seen a lot of conflicting messaging from various stakeholders. I believe, for example, the French government seems to be, you know, supportive in the situation. The European Council seems to be support or in support of M&A. Even the head of the commission seems to be in support of M&A. But then we've seen other very important stakeholders, such as the DG Comp or the commission responsible for consolidation put out, you know, less encouraging messages. So I guess, what is your view of the situation more broadly? That's question number one.

The question number two is basically on, on the Spanish situation, where, you know, once the deal is closed, as you're saying, sometime around 2Q, how fast do you think you will be able to refinance the, you know, debt stack to, to, like, an investment grade, and thus, you know, add to the, you know, free cash flow potential of this unit? Thank you.

Christel Heydemann
CEO, Orange

Thank you, Ondrej. On the M&A and the conflicting or sometimes different messages from different stakeholders, let's be, I mean, very clear. First of all, I mean, we've been advocating for how important that is to just realize in Europe that we cannot continue with so many fragmented markets and so much competition when the rest of the world is actually acting differently. It's not just me talking. You've seen the Mario Draghi report, the Enrico Letta report, and this is something where I think there's a clear awareness politically, and that's true from the Brussels, I would say, leaders. That's also true from country leaders.

And if I step back to where we were when we were negotiating on the MásMóvil-Orange merger, we had a strong support from the Spanish government. We also had support politically, I would say, from Brussels. Despite that, we had to go through a long and probably too long, but still, concluded positively, and got the approval from DG Competition. So, our take on this one is there's definitely awareness. We hear supporting messages from political leaders. That being said, we will not wait. Let's be clear, that's why we are actively discussing in France. We've been driving consolidation as well in Belgium, in Romania.

We are not waiting for, let's say, merger guidelines to be fully revisited, and we are of the opinion that the concrete test cases will be the best way to prove our case that mergers, national consolidation creates efficiency, and efficiency is the best way to continue to invest, and it's the best way to secure, in the long run, low prices for consumers. So that's something that we are very much convinced about, and we see that based on facts after the merger of MásMóvil and Orange in Spain. So I think we are confident, but again, you cannot expect DG Competition, and I would say experts who have been working one way to change from one day to another. So it, it's based...

It has to be based on concrete, concrete facts, and that's, that's our, our opinion. On the MasOrange strategy, I would say on the refinancing, Laurent?

Laurent Martinez
CFO, Orange

Yes. Hi, Ondrej. So, to make it simple, just to have the high-level pictures, we have EUR 9.4 billion of debt at MasOrange, plus around EUR 4.2 billion of the price to Lorca. So we are talking about around EUR 13 billion. But as I explained, we have issued in advance two jumbo bonds for EUR 10 billion, end of 2025, early 2026. So you see, the very large majority of this refinancing is feasible at closing, and we'll be doing that at closing. We have as well a strong liquidity on our side to get to where we want to be overall.

Just to take a note that this refinancing will yield interest savings for MasOrange Orange, and this will offset nicely the lease that we discussed in your question, in the question number one for the Premium Fiber. So that will be a good synergies that we'll be implementing post-closing of MasOrange.

Ondrej Cabejsek
Executive Director of Telecoms Research, UBS

Thank you. In other words, can I just follow up that. In other words, you see no kind of obstacle to the full EUR 13 billion roughly being refinanced almost immediately because you've secured some financing already, but the rest, y ou think will not be a problem in terms of any-

Laurent Martinez
CFO, Orange

Yeah.

Ondrej Cabejsek
Executive Director of Telecoms Research, UBS

Okay.

Laurent Martinez
CFO, Orange

We have 10 out of 13, plus the extra liquidity we have, and then we will have the flexibility until closing, either to keep a bit of a small bit of the current MasOrange financing or basically to have other solution. But globally, the financing is secured and completed.

Ondrej Cabejsek
Executive Director of Telecoms Research, UBS

Thank you very much.

Operator

That concludes the Q&A with financial analysts. Journalists, as a reminder, please stay connected. Your session will start shortly. I will now hand it back over to Christel Heydemann for any concluding remarks.

Christel Heydemann
CEO, Orange

Thank you. We are pleased with our full year results, strong full year results, and Lead the Future achievements, which position us very well to meet upcoming challenges and seize new opportunities in our markets. Thank you, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow at 9:00 A.M. for our Capital Markets Day.

Powered by