Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the full year 2021 results presentation of Publicis Groupe. For your information, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Saskia. Bonjour, and welcome to Publicis Groupe 2021 full year results call. I am Arthur Sadoun, and I'm here in Paris with our CFO, Michel-Alain Proch, and our Secretary General, Anne-Gabrielle Heilbronner. Steve King, COO of Publicis Groupe, is joining us but remotely. As usual, we will take your questions together after the presentation, no, during the presentation, after the presentation. And after our call, Alessandra Girolami will be available to answer any of your questions offline. I will start this call by sharing the main highlights of our full year results. Then, Michel-Alain will take us through the details of our numbers. After that, I will share with you our strategic priorities for the year to come and conclude with the outlook. Finally, we will take all of your questions with the director.
Please take the time to read the disclaimer, as it is an important legal matter. In 2021, the Group ended the year strongly and ahead of expectations, exceeding 2019 levels on all KPIs. We delivered 10% organic growth on the year, implying a 3% increase versus 2019, with an historically high operating margin rate at 17.5% and EUR 1.4 billion in free cash flow. Thanks to our integrated model, our 2021 results demonstrate that we are emerging from this crisis as a stronger company. Let's start with the highlights of our performance last year. First, organic growth. Q4 was at plus 9.3%, above our upgraded expectations in October. This means we delivered an organic growth for the full year at plus 10%. Our activities were strong across all regions, both in Q4 and for the full year 2021.
In the U.S., organic growth came at plus 8.7% in Q4 and at plus 9.8% for the full year. In Europe, our business grew by plus 8.7% organically in Q4 and by plus 9.6% for the full year. Finally, in Asia, our organic performance was at plus 9.2% in Q4, with full year at plus 10.3%. Our model means we were best positioned to benefit from the structural shift in the industry toward first-party data management, digital media, and commerce, which have accelerated during the pandemic. This is reflected in the global performance of Epsilon and Publicis Sapient, which came in at plus 12.8% and plus 13.8% respectively for the full year. These were record numbers for the Group, supported by an overall increase in customer demand, which was fueled by cyclical recovery and government stimulus after a significant drop in marketing spend in 2020.
That said, we take the view that the real measure of our strength is our performance on a two-year basis. That's how we have been driving our operations throughout the year. In 2021, we exceeded 2019 level faster and more strongly than expected. At Group level, we recorded 5% growth in Q4 versus 2019 and 3% for the full year, and our momentum versus 2019 accelerated in H2 at plus 5% versus plus 1% in H1. In the U.S., where our model is the most advanced, our operations were up plus 8% versus 2019 on the full year. Our second highlight is new business. For the third time in the last four years, we topped the new business rankings, with league table placing us well ahead of the pack.
In one of the most intense years ever in terms of pitch activity, we secured the vast majority of our defensive reviews while converting a high number of offensive opportunities. Among those major wins were Stellantis Global Media Business, the global creative business for Infiniti and TikTok, and the global media account of Eli Lilly and Meta. We also saw significant local wins, starting in the US, where we won Walmart Media and Data and Planet Fitness Integrated Business. We were also awarded L'Oréal Media in China, Lloyds Media in the UK, Ferrero in Italy, and in Australia, Toyota Creative and Media, Johnson & Johnson Commerce and Digital Accounts. What is more, we are starting the year on a high note with some significant wins, including McDonald's National US Media Business.
It is actually worth noting that we have been awarded these important duties without a pitch, thanks to the uniqueness of our model and the relationship we previously built with the brand on data analytics and digital marketing with Epsilon and Publicis Sapient. In 2021, we also continued to improve and strengthen our model by investing in targeted acquisitions and strategic partnerships. We acquired CitrusAd to lead in retail media and Tremend to scale Publicis Sapient capabilities in Europe. We also acquired BBK Worldwide in the US to expand Publicis Health's clinical trial expertise and complement its end-to-end value proposition. Publicis Sapient launched a tech joint venture with Siam Commercial Bank in Southeast Asia, and we signed strategic partnerships with The Trade Desk, Adobe, and Salesforce to expand the reach of our data and identity backbone.
After spending nearly €300 million in 2021, in 2022, we will accelerate with €400 million-€600 million allocated to M&A to further expand our data and tech capabilities through new expertise and geographies. The fourth highlight is the strength of our financial KPIs thanks to our operating structures. Our margin rate was at 17.5%. This is a 150 basis points increase versus 2020 and the highest margin rate ever for the Group. On the one hand, we entered the year with a very lean cost base, thanks to our agile and flexible structure, which allowed us to adjust our costs when the crisis hit. This had a positive impact on our margin. On the other hand, thanks to the same agility and flexibility, we were also able to move fast to support our growth in 2021.
We welcomed over 9,000 net additional recruits in the year and invested in reward and retention. Taking all of this into account, our operating margin was at €1,840 million euros, an increase of €140 million compared to 2019. As a result, our headline EPS was up 17.6% versus 2020 at €5.02 per share, returning to its 2019 levels. In 2021, we generated €1.4 billion in free cash flow before working capital, ahead of the upgraded objective of circa €1.3 billion we communicated in October. This is a €175 million increase versus 2019. This strong free cash flow generation allowed us to accelerate our delivery despite the crisis. This means our average net debt returned to €1.5 billion, a broadly similar level to before the acquisition of Epsilon. With this, we are in a position to propose a dividend of €2.40, corresponding to a payout of 47.8%.
It is important to note that we will fully pay our dividend in cash, as we have decided, together with the board, to remove the scrip option in order to stop any kind of dilution on our share count. Our fifth highlight is not strictly financial, but is vitally important for our business. Two years after the crisis hit, not only Publicis is stronger than ever, but we are also emerging as a better and even more responsible company. The progress we have made across our ESG strategy is setting a clear industry standard. Our combined efforts on this front have led Publicis to top the industry ranking with eight out of 10 leading ESG ratings agencies. Our last highlight is maybe the most important one: the outstanding commitment that our people have shown to deliver this record year in what are still challenging times for everyone.
They have demonstrated incredible resilience, learning to live with the virus, and standing in solidarity with each other despite the lack of in-person connection. They have faced unprecedented business challenges and always put our clients' interests first. To thank them and reward them for their dedication and determination, we have doubled our bonus pool versus 2019. But this is not all. We have decided that everyone who has been with us since the beginning of the crisis fighting on our side will receive a bonus this year. This includes 35,000 employees who do not have any variable remuneration and will receive one week's additional salary. I will now leave the floor to Michel-Alain, who will provide further detail on the full year numbers, and I will come back later to share our priorities and outlook for 2022.
Thank you, Arthur, and good morning to all of you.
I'm glad to be with you today. I will begin on slide 13 with the evolution of our net revenue for the Q4 and full year 2021. The Group posted net revenue of €2,935 million in Q4, which is an organic growth of 9.3%. If we compare to 2019, we grew 5% organically in the Q4. This means that our second half showed strong acceleration to 5% after 1% in the first half. Reported growth in Q4 was at plus 13.1%. This includes a €10 million positive impact from acquisition and disposal. This quarter, the positive impact from foreign exchange rates was at €81 million, which is 3.1%, largely due to the USD to euro exchange rate. Full year net revenue was €10,487 million, which is an organic growth of 10%.
This means that we exceeded 2019 organic net revenue levels by 3% in the full year, faster and stronger than expected, just as Arthur said. After taking into account a negative foreign exchange of €191 million on the year, mostly due to the USD evolution on the first part of the year, reported growth was 8% in 2021. Let's now move on slide 14, which gives the dynamics of our Q4 organic growth by geography compared to both 2020 and 2019. North America posted another very strong quarter. This was visible in the region performance on a one-year and on a two-year basis at respectively 8.7% and 9% organic growth. Europe posted an 8.7% organic growth versus 2020 and was very close to fully recovering its 2019 levels in Q4. Asia-Pacific at 9.2% organic growth versus 2020 fully recovered its 2019 levels.
Middle East and Africa and Latin America both posted very strong organic growth at 15.3% and 22.6%, respectively. When looking at organic growth versus 2019, both regions saw their performance improve in Q4 as they exceeded their 2019 levels by 1% and 9%, respectively. I will detail the performance of each region in the following slide. And I begin with North America on slide 15. As I said, our operations in the region posted an 8.7% organic growth in Q4, with a broadly similar performance for both the US and Canada versus 2020. Compared to 2019, we grew at an impressive 9% organic, driven once again by the strength of our US operation, on which we will now focus. In the US, our operation grew 8.7% versus 2020. Media continued to post a good performance, both in traditional and digital.
Digital media and CJ Affiliate both grew double-digit, benefiting from a solid demand from Group major clients for the former and a positive environment for the latter. Creative sequentially improved again this quarter with a strong performance, with Group clients in financial services and notably in our production unit with CPG clients. Publicis Sapient posted a 22% organic growth in Q4. This comes on top of a positive performance in Q4 2020, thus a +23% performance compared to 2019. This is a strong sequential improvement in growth on a two-year basis after 11% in H1 and 17% in Q3. Publicis Sapient benefited from both ramp-up of new client contracts in the automotive and retail sector, both food and non-food, as well as incremental projects with Group major clients in financial services and TMT.
This performance demonstrates the relevance of the reorganization in 2019 by industry verticals and our ability to capture the shift in our client spend towards commerce, customer experience, and digital business transformation. Epsilon posted a 6% organic growth in Q4, implying double-digit organic growth versus 2019. This performance was achieved despite the expected lower activity in the U.S. car dealership due to the chip shortages. Epsilon Tech, Data, and Digital Media activities all performed very well in the quarter. Finally, Publicis Health delivered its seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit organic growth with increase of scope of work at Group major clients. Overall, Q4 showed a very strong performance for the U.S. Let me add that, as you remember, in Q4 2020, we recorded a positive 0.5% organic.
So again, on a two-year stack, the U.S. saw its growth accelerate to 9% in Q4 after 6% in H1 and 8% in Q3. Let's now turn to the performance of Europe on slide 16. As I mentioned earlier, Europe recorded an organic growth of 8.7% on the quarter and was very close to recovering its 2019 levels. The U.K., which represents 8% of Group net revenue in Q4, posted an organic growth of 6.5%. All our activities in the country were positive this quarter, with a strong contribution of health and some restart at leisure and travel. Creative and Media together grew mid-single digit, while Epsilon was a strong performer, although still on a small base.
It's important to note that Publicis Sapient in the U.K. returned to positive in Q4 2021 compared to 2020, as we had anticipated, although not fully recovering its 2019 levels, as its activity remained impacted by some client cuts, particularly in the financial services sector. Thanks to its most recent wins, which achieved our goal to diversify its activity to other sectors, notably retail, we are confident that Publicis Sapient will actually contribute to our growth in the U.K. in the coming quarters. Overall, and excluding the activity of Publicis Sapient, the U.K. was up 3% versus 2019 in the Q4. France, which represents 7% of Group net revenue in Q4, posted organic growth of 11.5% compared to 2020. It grew 3% compared to 2019, although this 3% is actually negative when excluding media transport and the drugstore.
Creative activities were stable and media slightly positive after several quarters of solid growth. Publicis Sapient grew strongly thanks to the ramp-up of contracts signed in 2020 in the B2B retail sector. Outdoor media and the drugstore rebounded significantly as the activities benefited from the full reopening of the economy in the quarter. Germany, representing 3% of Group net revenue, posted 5% organic growth but was down 6% compared to 2019. Creative activities were stable, while media posted high single-digit and Publicis Sapient double-digit growth. The decrease of 6% versus 2019 is due to the decision we've taken in 2020 to close down a low-margin print production unit as part of the COVID action plan. This rundown is now completed, and it will not affect 2022 performance. Finally, Central and Eastern Europe continued to post very strong growth with double-digit organic in both media and creative.
Poland, Russia, and Romania were extremely dynamic and the clear engines of growth in the region. On slide 17, let me give you a bit more color on our performance in the rest of the world. In Asia-Pacific, representing 10% of Group net revenue in Q4, we delivered another very solid quarter. The region grew 9.2% organically, with notably an impressive performance in China at 17%. In China, it's worth noting that we benefited from the ramp-up of our various new business wins, particularly in the non-food consumer products and automotive. Elsewhere in the region, the performance was more diverse, affected by local lockdown situation. India was flat this quarter, Australia up mid-single digit, while Singapore was down this quarter due to some delayed contracts. Thailand, on the other hand, doubled its net revenue in the quarter, driven by Publicis Sapient.
In Middle East and Africa, we posted 15.3% organic growth, supported by continued strong performance in the Middle East, particularly at Publicis Sapient. Latin America posted a 22.6% organic growth in the quarter, which was 9% growth versus 2019. The performance was mainly driven by media. All countries in the region were positive, with a notable 22% in Brazil, our largest country in the region. Let's now turn to slide 18, which summarizes organic growth by region in the full year. North America posted regular and strong performance throughout the year, leading to 9.7% in 2021 versus 2020, and as I said, 7% versus 2019. In Europe, our activities were up 9.6% for the full year, not fully recovering the 2019 levels yet. Excluding Publicis Sapient UK, though, Europe was nearly flat versus 2019.
Middle East and Africa saw its revenue grow 11.9% organically and almost recovered its 2019 levels in the year. Latin America was up 16.8% organically in 2021, and thanks to its strong Q4, was up 1% versus 2019. On slide 19, you will find the group performance by industry verticals for the full year. This is based, as usual, on an analysis of our main clients, representing 91% of our net revenue. It also excludes media transport and the drugstore. In 2021, all our client industries were positive. Health posted the strongest growth over the year at 17%. It also grew double-digit in Q4 on an already strong performance in 2020. Automotive grew 11% in 2021, despite some slowdown in the Q4 due to the supply shortages, as we anticipated it. The financial sector was slightly up on the year at 5%, but nonetheless did decelerate in Q4.
TMT, retail, and non-food industry posted double-digit growth for both the full year and in Q4. Public sector, I'm sorry, energy and manufacturing and leisure and travel, all accelerated in the Q4 compared to the first nine months. Moving now to page 20, our consolidated income statement. Our net revenue in 2021 was €10,487 million, and EBITDA was €2,317 million, up respectively 8% and 7.3%. Operating margin was at €1,840 million, which is a margin rate of 17.5%, up by 150 basis points year on year. This actually represents a historically high level for the group, above 2019 levels by 20 basis points. I will provide more details on this in the next two slides. Headline Group net income was €1,264 million in 2021, an increase of 22% versus last year.
Headline net financial expenses came, as expected, at €160 million, while income taxes increased to €407 million on the basis of a higher taxable income. After adding non-cash items, the Group net income was at €1,027 million in 2021, doubling compared to 2020 and up 43% versus 2019. Let me now get into more details for each of these aggregates. First, operating margin, which improved by 150 basis points versus last year, reported, and 160 basis points versus the comparable at constant perimeter and foreign exchange rate. Our personnel costs were up 10% on the year. After a 6% increase in the first half, this reflects the acceleration in our investment in talent in the second half to attract, retain, and reward, as Arthur mentioned previously, with a significant rise in our bonus pool and over 9,000 net recruits in 2021 to accompany our growth.
But we managed to maintain personal costs at 62.8%. Restructuring costs reached €53 million, down as expected by €121 million versus the prior year. I will detail, as I did in H1, the evolution of the other lines of the P&L in the next slide, which shows a bridge between the 15.9% comparable 2020 and the 17.5% we posted in 2021. Let me take you through our bridge of operating margin from the left to the right. I will begin with the 20 basis point increase in personal costs that I just talked about. Consistent with what I told you at our H1 earnings, the evolution derives from three different elements. First, an improvement in fixed personal costs corresponding to 160 basis points, which materialized mostly in the first semester due to a low cost base exiting 2020.
Second, an increase in people incentive by 110 basis points in order to both reward and retain. This includes a 50% rise in bonus pool versus 2020, and Arthur said it already, doubling the level of 2019. It also includes the exceptional additional one-week salary bonus that the group decided to award to 35,000 people who do not have a variable remuneration and were with us throughout the last two years. Finally, we increased our freelance resources amounting to 70 basis points to help us adapt to the rise in revenue in the second part of the year, then the decrease in restructuring costs in line with our anticipation that I previously mentioned represents an improvement of 130 basis points.
Cost of sales increased by 110 basis points, consistent with H1, and mainly reflecting a charge that used to be accounted for in depreciation and related to the short-term extension of two French outdoor media contracts. This impact will be reversed in 2022 as we actually renewed at the end of last year those two contracts for respectively 5 and 10 years. Half of the decrease in depreciation of 170 basis points is explained by the same technical point I just mentioned. The other half is a result of the reduction of real estate footprint that we have carried over in the last few years, our all-in-one program. Other operating expenses posted a slight negative 10 basis points to the margin rate performance. Within operating expenses, it's worth noting that G&A in percentage of revenue continued to decrease year on year as some expenses like travel have not yet fully restarted.
As a result, our operating margin rate in 2021 amounted to 17.5%, again an increase of 160 basis points compared to 2020 on a comparable basis. Let's move now quickly to our headline net financial expenses on slide 23, which is at minus EUR 160 million versus EUR 189 million last year, down by EUR 29 million. This decline is mostly due to two anticipated evolutions. First, a decrease in interest on net financial debt by EUR 18 million derived from the deleveraging of the group, and I will get back to that while commenting on the evolution of the group average net debt. And second, a decrease of EUR seven million in the interest on lease liabilities, which is a direct consequence of the continued reduction in the group real estate footprint that I just mentioned. Now, on slide 24, income tax.
Reported income taxes of €307 million increased along with the rise in profit before tax. To calculate the headline income taxes of €407 million, we are adding the non-cash elements of our P&L, i.e., the tax effect on amortization of intangibles, on impairment, and real estate consolidation, as well as other non-cash items. Effective tax rate reached 23.4%, which is down 130 basis points compared to 2020, and an improvement versus our expectation of a 24.5% rate. While the ETR is obviously the reflection of our regional and business mix, it was positively impacted in 2021 by a non-recurring deferred tax asset in France that we accounted for when we renewed the two French outdoor media contracts I mentioned earlier. Taking this into account, we expect our ETR for 2022 to be at around 24% in the current tax environment.
On slide 25, our headline earnings per share fully diluted increased by 17.6% year on year to €5.02, returning to its 2019 levels. This is obviously directly related to the increase in our operating margin, decrease of our financial cost, and the variation of our share count. Moving to slide 26, free cash flow. Our free cash flow before change in working capital was €1,427 million in 2021. It is a 20% growth year on year, and it's 14% compared to 2019. This improvement of €237 million versus 2020 derives from the following major evolution. First, a €158 million increase in EBITDA consequence of the 160 basis points increase in operating margin. Second, a reduction of €96 million in our lease liabilities, reflecting the benefit from our all-in-one real estate plan and the reclassification of the depreciation of the French outdoor media contract that I already mentioned.
Third, a EUR 19 million reduction in our CapEx for the year, mostly driven by the lower spend we had in the first half. Fourth, a EUR 33 million reduction in our interest paid, consistent with the group deleveraging. And finally, an incremental outflow of EUR 69 million of tax paid. Let's now move on to the next slide, our use of cash. In 2021, the change in working capital represented an outflow of EUR 216 million. This is a better outcome than the EUR 300-500 million reversal we initially anticipated after the record EUR 1 billion inflow in our working capital in December 2020. At December 2021, we now consider that the working capital at the group balance sheet is normalized.
Acquisition, net of disposal, and including earnouts and buyouts reached €283 million at the top end of the bracket of €200-€300 million envelope for bolt-on that we mentioned during the year. This notably includes the payment of our acquisition of CitrusAd, Boomerang, Octopus, and BBK. Other non-cash item was plus €192 million, resulting from two main factors. First, a €119 positive impact from Forex adjustment and change in fair value of swaps. Second, a €56 million positive impact from the non-cash change in earnouts and buyouts. In total, we decreased the group closing net debt by €757 million in December 2021 compared to December 2020. Moving on to slide 28, the net financial debt. The reduction in net debt I just described led to a closing net debt of €76 million at the end of 2021.
But you know that the debt KPI, which is the most important to judge the leverage of the group, is the average net debt. Our average financial net debt in 2021 was €1.5 billion. This is slightly better than the latest guidance I gave you in October of €1.6 billion. As you know, our priority for 2021 was the deleveraging of the group after the Epsilon acquisition. Thanks to this, we did reduce the group average net debt by a full turn of EBITDA, 1.6 times versus 2.6 times in 2020. Before handing over to Arthur, let's focus on our 2021 dividend and our cash allocation for 2022. First, on slide 29, our dividend. We are pleased, together with the board, to announce the dividend per share of €2.40. This dividend will be submitted to the shareholders' vote at our next AGM in May.
This represents a payout of 47.8% and an increase of 20% versus 2020. It is actually €0.10 higher than the 2019 dividend that we were planning to pay in 2020 before the crisis hit. Thanks to our strong cash performance, we have decided with the board to remove the scrip option, which had been in place since 2012. As a result, our 2021 dividend will be fully paid in cash. So let's now summarize our cash allocation for 2022 on slide 30, which Arthur and I commented on in the previous slides. First, we are upgrading our dividend policy to a 45%-50% payout ratio versus circa 45% previously. The 2021 payout of 47.8% is a good illustration of this. Second, as I just mentioned, we've decided to cancel the scrip dividend option in order to stabilize the number of group shares in circulation.
This means an outflow of around €600 million, i.e., €300 million more than in 2020. Third, we are accelerating our bolt-on acquisition strategy by allocating to it between €400 and €600 million in 2022, which is twice the envelope of 2021, to continue strengthening our capabilities in data, tech, and commerce. Fourth, we will use the remainder of our free cash flow generation to pursue the deleveraging of the group with the aim of reaching an average net debt of €1 billion by the end of 2022. This concludes my financial presentation, and now I give the floor back to you, Arthur.
Thank you, Michel-Alain. In 2020, our industry went through historic lows. In 2021, it rebounded to reach new heights. At every moment, thanks to our model, we were able to face the challenges and seize the opportunities.
We are now emerging as a stronger company with three clear priorities for 2022: leveraging our unique assets in data and technology, giving our people more opportunity to progress, and delivering growth that is both profitable and responsible. Let me break that down. Our first priority is to continue to leverage our unique assets in data and technology to help our clients win in a platform world. In the last years, we have shifted our organization from a holding company to a platform. We have put in place a country model, enabling us to connect our creative brand, our media clouds, and all of our digital agencies locally to seamlessly deliver omnichannel creative experiences that drive real business outcomes for our clients. But we did not stop there. We acquired and integrated Epsilon to take clear leadership in personalization at scale.
And we have repositioned Publicis Sapient around digital business transformation and industry verticals. There's been a lot of work, and for some years, it has penalized our short-term organic growth. But today, we are in position to lead the three major marketing revolutions that our clients are facing. It starts with privacy-led identity. In a soon-to-be cookie-less world, we have clear leadership in building, enriching, and activating first-party data, fully respecting the highest privacy standards with Epsilon transaction-based data and identity solution. This led to Forrester naming Epsilon as a leader in loyalty solutions, powering Publicis to the top of the rankings for loyalty services. And it was a key contributing factor to the Media Rating Council, awarding Epsilon the industry-first accreditation for outcome-based delivery for its ability to leverage data to link digital media to online, but also offline consumer purchasing behavior.
Next is a shift in investment toward new digital media channels. By leveraging our media leadership and capabilities, we are helping our clients lead in this rapidly changing landscape. Let me give you just two concrete examples. To meet the exponential demand in advanced TV, Publicis Media and Epsilon successfully launched PMX Lift in the U.S., and with CitrusAd that Forrester certified as a leader in retail media, we will lead the next generation of identity-led retail media solutions. Last but not least, the rise in direct-to-consumer that has exploded during the pandemic, we have the technology and 18,000 engineers and developers to build the platform and digital ecosystem our clients need to create direct relationships with their consumers and accelerate on commerce.
To address the drastic shift from paid to own channels, not only do we have best-in-class products in this front, as recognized by Forrester in its report on CRM and loyalty providers, but we also have the consulting and engineering services to deliver business transformation built around customer experiences. Last year, Gartner report rated Publicis Sapient higher than all competitors on that matter, including Accenture, Deloitte, and Capgemini. Criteria included driving innovation, reducing time to market, improving business process agility, and driving revenue growth. Let's be clear. Everyone in our industry will claim that they can deliver omnichannel creative experiences. But even if we all share the same core capabilities in creative and media, very few have been making the necessary investments to really transform and adapt to the new imperatives of the platform world as we have done in the past.
And none of them have done it at the same scale we have with the acquisition of Publicis Sapient and Epsilon or the same level of integration with the Country model. The best way to concretely measure not only how attractive but also how differentiating is our model is new business and retention rates. When it comes to new business, we have been number one for three years out of four in the rankings. And as for our retention rate, over the past four years, we are first in terms of net billing thanks to our ability to win significant new clients while maintaining and reinventing our relationship with existing ones. Our second objective is making our people progress in an ideal world by giving them more opportunity to grow than anywhere else. To do that, we have Marcel. We have today an adoption rate of 90% across the group.
We have designed it to become the personal growth platform for everyone at Publicis. It is a hub for learning with more than 30,000 online classes available. Last year, on average, 13 classes were taken by each of our 85,000 employees. It is also the place to find development opportunities with, on average, 2,000 applications to jobs and gigs each quarter. We have added new content, onboarding programs, and partnerships. More recently, we strive globally to equip our teams to lead the change in a hybrid world. We are bringing direct access to personalized progress dashboards that tap into Marcel's profile intelligence so that everyone in the group is now empowered to manage and track every step of their career path. What is more, we are reinventing the future of work by offering unprecedented experiences like Work Your World to attract and retain the best talent.
More than 13 million people viewed the launch film for Work Your World, and it led to 14,000 new applications to the Publicis Groupe career page. Last but not least, our third objective is delivering profitable and responsible growth in 2022 and beyond. We have built structures that enable us to deliver the best financial KPIs in the industry. Our country model, our group support functions, including our global delivery center, and our shared resource and platform mean we are confident in our ability to continue to deliver industry-leading financial ratios while investing in our people and future-facing capabilities. At the same time, because growth cannot be sustainable without being responsible, we are taking the lead in putting our environmental and social commitments at the core of everything we do.
We continue to build the most diverse, inclusive, and equitable working environment by bringing 40,000 of us together around the world on Marcel for our second Pause for Action Day to evaluate, implement, and advance on our D&I initiatives. We went further in creating a responsible marketing environment through initiatives like Once and For All Coalition and the rollout of the ALICE tool to measure the carbon impact of campaigns. And finally, in the fight against climate change, we became the first holding company to have our ambitious objective of carbon neutrality by 2030 validated by SBTi. As I said earlier, all of this means we topped industry ranking with 8 out of 10 leading external marketing agencies, and we will continue to double down across all of our ESG progress indicators in the year to come.
Delivering on those three priorities and assuming no major deterioration in the health situation, we aim to deliver between 4%-5% organic growth in 2022. This means sequential acceleration versus the two-year stack of 3% in 2021, mainly driven by the strength of our model and new business wins in what is still a positive environment for our advertising and business transformation. We expect the group Q1 2022 organic growth to land slightly above this full-year guidance range due to Q1 more favorable comps. When it comes to operating margin and free cash flow, we intend in 2022 to achieve the same levels as in 2021 at circa 17.5% and €1.4 billion respectively, as the efficiency of our structure will allow us to both invest in talent and absorb the impact of inflation. Voilà.
As you will have seen, we ended 2021 with a strong Q4, delivering record numbers for the full year for Publicis. We are emerging from this crisis stronger, both financially, with our KPIs exceeding 2019, and commercially, once again topping the new business ranking. We are entering 2022 with confidence thanks to the robust foundations we have put in place. We are committed to accelerate on organic growth versus our two-year stack while continuing to deliver industry-leading financials. We are focused on executing our plan and delivering for our clients, who I would like to thank for their partnership. Thank you for listening. And now, with the director, we will take all of your questions. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad.
If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. So once again, that is star one for your questions today. We will pause for a brief moment. Our first question today comes from Lina Gayor from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. I mean, absolutely some of it.
Hi, good morning. Lina here. Congratulations on the results. I have three questions, if that's okay. The first one is on the top line outlook for 2022. Can you explain a little bit what portion is related to new business, what is Publicis-specific, and what is more industry-specific? The second question is around the margin outlook. You're guiding for steady margin. Could you just give a little bit more color on the moving parts? How much operating leverage do you expect?
By how much will inflation and talent investment affect that? And thirdly, on your client behavior, Facebook published last night its results and mentioned that inflation and supply chain disruption have impacted advertisers' budgets. Have you seen anything similar on your clients apart from the automotive clients? And how do you factor that in your guidance?
Thank you very much. Make sure that your third question, because we didn't hear very well, is about inflation and supply chain shortage, no? Am I right?
Y es, correct, following Facebook comments last night.
Okay. If you don't mind, I'm going to start with number one on 4%-5%. Then I'll pass on Michel-Alain for the margin. I'll come back maybe with a word on inflation and supply chain, and then I'll close with you.
Again, looking at 2022, we definitely expect organic growth to be between 4%-5%, which, again, is going to be a sequential improvement versus our two-year stack of 3% and on the back of a 2021 at 10% growth. If I want to split a bit what is industry versus Publicis-specific, I would say several things. I'd say that we have three assumptions to get to this growth of 4%-5%. The first is the strength of our model, and we know that both Epsilon and Sapient will be accretive to our growth, and when you add to that, and this is a very important point, what they bring to our overall model, this is Publicis-specific for sure. The second thing that is Publicis-specific is the ramp-up of our strong new business win in 2021.
It has been a year with an increase of 50% of activity in new business. We had a great run. And this, of course, has a lot to do with the 4%-5%. What is not Publicis-specific but needs to be factored in is actually the positive environment that we are seeing for advertising that is going to be true to our peers, but also, which is more specific to us in terms of business transformation. Because I think you have to separate what you can hear about media from what we bring today, which is how can we really help our client transform. So there is an industry-specific about the fact that it looks that we have so far a positive environment for advertising. You have the business transformation, and you have roughly the three pillars that make us confident. Now, let's be clear.
We believe that this is a strong number, and there is a lot of work to do, but we are all focusing on that. Michel-Alain, you want to take the margin?
Yeah, sure. So, I take the margin, supply chain issue. I begin maybe with the supply chain issue that was mentioned yesterday in the Meta call. Maybe, Lina, as you may remember, we told you back in October that supply shortages may affect some industry verticals in Q4, and in particular, auto. We were right. It did materialize, but it was softer than anticipated because we were able to help clients redirect spend towards existing inventories and brand building. So now, when we look at 2022, we see these supply chain issues lingering in the first semester, but overall, progressively being resolved. We see that we are on the right path to a resolution.
This is what we have factored in our four to five growth guidance for the year. And as Arthur mentioned, with Q1 leading slightly above this range. Now, if I move on to your question about the guidance, let's first remember that the 17.5% we have achieved in 2021 is an all-time high for Publicis. And this 17.5% of 2021 is based on a very particular H1, as I'm sure you remember, where we entered into H1 with a very low cost base and then had the revenue pumping in. So what we are guiding to is a 17.5%. Yes, it's the same number, but we are transforming something that was a bit exceptional in H1, as we said, to a more recurring margin.
So now, in terms of dynamics in the P&L, we have the operating leverage of the 4%-5% exercising their strengths on the other operating costs of the group, so i.e., cost of sales, depreciation, other operating expenses. What we plan here, what we estimate, is that in basis points of revenue, it will be a decrease of about up to 100 basis points. And then we will have an increase of our group personal costs, including hiring, obviously, to sustain the 4%-5% growth, incentive - I think, Arthur, I mentioned it several times - retention packages, and obviously, increase in salary reflecting inflation. So that's the plus 100 that we get out of other operating costs, materializing the operating leverage of the group, which is matching this 100 basis points more group personal costs. So altogether, in round number, altogether, 17.5% for the year.
The problem is that Lina touched almost all topics in the first question. So maybe I'll just recap, and then we'll move on to the other one. But when it comes to the top line, we are confident to deliver between 4%-5% for three reasons: the strength of our model boosted by Epsilon and Sapient, the ramp-up of our new business wins in 2021, and the overall positive environment for advertising and business transformation. And to come back to your point, this includes possible supply chain shortage that could come in H1 and then linger over time. When it comes to the margin, we are maintaining the same margin as 2021 for three main reasons. Michel-Alain said it. We enter 2021 with a lean cost base, which is a big difference. We are anticipating to mitigate inflation that will be there.
And also, very importantly, we will continue to invest in our talent to sustain our growth because, again, we believe that when you are already at the best margin of the industry and the best margin ever for the group, what matters the most is to sustain our growth. And here, again, inflation is included and supply shortage are included into those numbers. Very clear.
Thank you both.
Thank you. We now move on to our next question, which comes from Lisa Yang of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I have three questions as well. The first one is a follow-up to the question on the full-year guidance. I'm just wondering, given how the nature of your business has evolved with maybe more project-based work at Sapient, more data transformation work, what percentage of your 2022 revenue do you feel you have visibility on today?
Just if you could just help us understand how you constructed that sort of 4%-5% would be helpful. The second question is regarding Sapient, where we've seen a great acceleration again in Q4 in the U.S. And again, just wondering if you can maybe give us a bit more color in terms of the pipeline of work there. And should we expect a continuation of that double-digit growth rate in 2022 to basically hit your guidance? And the third question is on capital allocation. I mean, I think your priorities for 2022 are very clear. I think most people I've spoke to this morning was, "Why do you want to be so conservative on the balance sheet? Is it you want to keep optionality for larger M&A? And at what point you would start considering buybacks?" So any comment that would be helpful as well. Thank you.
Lisa, Michel-Alain proposed you take one and three, and I'll take two after. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah.
So, on the dynamics of the 4%-5% guidance we're giving for 2022, I mean, several things we can say. First, in terms of activity, Epsilon and Sapient will be accretive to the group overall growth. That's as they have been in 2021. They will be in 2022. The second assumption and the second thing we see is media being strong contributors with a continued strength in digital. Third, in this 4%-5%, we are counting on a contribution of creative, which will be modest in terms of organic growth.
So you see, having said all of this, you need to look at our business as a whole, as Arthur was saying in the first part of his presentation, because each is playing a key role in driving overall growth in our integrated platform model. Arthur?
Yes. Maybe I add a word on that, Lisa. The strength of our model today lies in our capability to have at scale, and it's important to say at scale, data, creative, media, and technology to really transform the business of our clients. And where we are generating value, and maybe we'll talk about the smaller acquisition we have made later, but just to take a concrete example, where we are really adding value is our ability to connect those expertise through the power of one. This is where not only we generate growth but also profits.
A great example of that is what we have done with Epsilon. As you already remember, when we made the acquisition of Epsilon, it was a business that at the time was declining. We turned it to a high-growth engine for us, as for Sapient, by the way, because we've been able to connect it with our media operation. And we've been able to deliver for our client personalization at scale as none of our competitors can. So yes, it's important to look at the growth per expertise, and we are. But what really matters is to look at the growth overall and, by the way, the performance we're having in new business because, I mean, with the incredible work of our people to win new business, what is making the difference is the connection of our assets. Again, a great example of that is McDonald's.
Winning McDonald's without a pitch for their media business in the U.S. because we were working with them on data, because we were working on them on technology, is the best demonstration not only of the quality of our assets but our ability through the Power of One to come with an end-to-end solution.
Right. On the third question, Lisa, about capital allocation, I think, first of all, we should, guys, notice that we have formalized very clearly with the board for 2022 a capital allocation. We had a mandate in 2021, which was debt leveraging. We've been super clear about that throughout the year. And that's exactly what we did. As you've seen, we've reduced significantly our average net debt, and we've reduced it by a full round, a full turn of EBITDA.
Now, looking at 2022, we have, with the board, decided a more balanced capital allocation with three parts in there. The first one is, as Arthur mentioned, investment in our business to accelerate our growth by investing the double of the 2021 M&A envelope. We go from €200 to €300 to €400 to €600. The second part, and I think that's an important one, is a substantial return to shareholder with a dividend which is representing circa 48% of payout and which is fully paid in cash. And the third one, so the third part of this capital allocation, is a continued debt leverage, which is reflecting our strong financial discipline. We believe, with the board, that the cash allocation I just described will create more value for all our stakeholders than a purely financial share buyback.
Merci, Michel-Alain. Last but not least, your question on Sapient.
First, I know that many Sapient people are listening to this call, so give me an opportunity to thank them because we are extremely, extremely pleased with the turnaround and the transformation that Sapient under Nigel Vaz's leadership. And by the way, it's important to note that we are very grateful for their effort because, as you know, Sapient's delivery center - I mean, and I should not call it a delivery center because this is where we have our best engineers - are actually in India. And the least we can say is that 2021 has been a very tough moment for them professionally, but more importantly, personally. We did a lot of things, and we tried to help as much as we can. But delivering the performance, they are delivering 14% globally, is really a big achievement.
So now, to answer your question, we don't think you should consider 2021 number as a normalized level of growth. But to be very straightforward on your question, we are confident that Publicis Sapient will be highly accredited to the group organic growth in 2022. There are two factors for that. The first is the U.S. I mean, for those who were with us in 2019, you would remember that Sapient for a year has been structurally declining in the U.S. We did roughly three things. First, we had Nigel Vaz, who was in charge of the rest of the world, to take care of it. Second, we separated Sapient from Razorfish. And by the way, give me an opportunity to say that Razorfish now is growing pretty well while it was structurally declining too. And Jem Ripley and his team have been doing a great job in the U.S.
We actually transformed Sapient offer in the U.S. on the model that Nigel has developed around the world, which is industry verticals focusing on business transformation. By doing this, in 2021, Sapient in the U.S. reached 20%. So it gives you an idea of the potential. Again, don't take this number as a normalized number, but you see the potential. The second good news that matters a lot for us is that Sapient has been doing still a very good job internationally, but it's not reflected into our U.K. number for a very simple reason: is that many, not many, but a few, very big and very loyal clients have reduced their investments during 2020. And it had a big impact on our number in the U.K. for the last two years. There are two good news here. The first is that investments are starting to ramp up again.
And on the same pace, Sapient in the U.K. has started (and it comes back to the question you were asking about where are the opportunities) Sapient has started to win some very interesting and material business in the U.K. that makes us confident that Sapient will be back in the U.K. in 2022. So if you add the momentum we're having in the U.S. and the fact that U.K. will have recovered this year, we feel very good about the pipeline. We are, of course, very aware of the need to retain first and attract the best talents in an industry that is highly competitive. But we are putting in place all the mechanism. And I talked about that with Marcel, but there are many others to make sure that we can create the dynamic. Great. Very comprehensive.
Thank you.
Merci beaucoup.
Thank you.
We now move on to a question from Richard Eary from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Many thanks. And so just sort of a couple of questions for myself. Can you just talk about the capital allocation around M&A? Obviously, that's lifted to €400-€600 million. Can you just talk about, without obviously giving targets, what acquisitions you're looking to add to, what capabilities that you think you need to add to the business from here, and what contributions you expect from that investment this year and as we go into next year? So that's the first question. The second question just is on inflation. Obviously, we've got inflation running through various different businesses. Can you just talk through how inflation impacts your business?
And as we pivot to more sort of revenue streams that are more cost-plus in nature, can you start to pass through that underlying inflation through and whether that's a beneficiary to you as a business, and that's also supportive of the 4%-5% revenue growth? And then just lastly, just coming back to the 4%-5% guide, obviously, you've said—just so I can correct here—Sapient is number one contributor to growth, Epsilon second, media third. And within media, that includes account wins. And creative is basically broadly flat to slightly up. Just to confirm what you had said previously. Thanks.
Sorry. My mic was not on. So I'll start with the third one. This is correct. The assumptions you have are correct. This is exactly what Matt said. I'll go quickly on inflation. There is no doubt that there will be inflation this year. Everyone knows it.
Nothing new here, but when it comes to our business, the impact will be on personnel costs. And it is clearly there, and by the way, this is one of the reasons we are coming with 17.5% in terms of margin. The truth is, and I can go on and on about that, but I'm going to try to make a shorter answer now, is that when you look at the model we have built, shifting from a holding company to a platform, today we have the agility and the flexibility to actually mitigate inflation, continue to invest in talent, to invest in our growth, and maintain what is the industry-first margin and a record for us. Maybe I'll come back to the M&A because this is a great question.
We wanted to put our M&A track record of 2021 in the highlights to make one point, which is thanks to the acquisition we have made of Epsilon and Sapient, today, not only do we have the technology and the data backbone, but we have 18,000 engineers and developers that are able to land smaller tech acquisitions that can really reinforce our global offer, not only in terms of growth but also in terms of product and services that are made for the future. CitrusAd is a great example, and sorry to be a bit technical here, but I think it's important for you to see that we are making the best out of the investments we are making. When we make the CitrusAd acquisition, we buy one of the leaders in retail media. Not the leader, but one of the leaders.
What makes a difference between us and anyone else that could have bought is that through Epsilon, we have a CORE ID. So we have, for example, in the U.S., 250 million profiles that we can plug into the Citrus platform. And then immediately, we become the only company that can track a customer from on-site, any retailer site where we are doing the tech, to off-site thanks to Epsilon ID. This is a big difference. When you know that a retailer website will be a media that will be bigger than linear TV in 2025 in the U.S., you understand how important it is not only to have the technology to build it but to track customers. And so there is, and by the way, I can go on and on.
I said we do short answer, but I think it's a very important topic because it enables you to understand why we are raising our envelope. Tremend. Today, the pipeline of Sapient is very strong, sometimes too strong. I mean, the demand for business transformation coming from a company that's Sapient that has a true differentiator being part of Publicis is really encouraging. With Tremend, we are multiplying our capabilities to deliver and serve more clients in Europe and, by the way, create another global delivery center in Eastern Europe versus India that is paramount for us. And this, again, and this is why, by the way, on both cases, the competitors we have for those acquisitions are definitely not the holding company. They are more in the system integration or in the ad tech world.
But it is the addition of our existing capabilities to those new capabilities that make a difference, again, focusing on targeted acquisition that gave us people and technology. And so to come back to your question, for 2022, we have three priorities in terms of targets. The first is first-party data management outside of the U.S. We are leading by far in the U.S. We have a good position in Europe. We are progressing in Asia. We are starting in LATAM. And it is very important for us to continue to strengthen our first-party data management. The second thing is new digital media. We talk about retail media. As you know, we are number one in media in the U.S. We buy $1 out of three. We are second globally. How can we make sure that all this investment we manage for our clients are optimized in the best way?
And how do we bring the capabilities and the people to do it? So that's second. And third is commerce. And commerce, we see high growth at the moment. On a smaller scale, when it comes to shopper, on a big scale, when it comes to e-commerce, because this is where we have a leadership position with Sapient, this is the third area where we will invest. Sorry, it was long. Matt is telling me to go faster, but I wanted to make sure that I made the point.
No, no, no. That's super clear.
Thanks.
Thank you. We now move on to our next question from Omar Sheikh of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone. I've got three questions, if I could. Maybe if I could, first of all, after you go back to the Facebook comments from last night.
I mean, specifically, they talked about some of the cost pressures and inflation pressures and supply chain issues impacting advertising budgets. Could you just confirm that the comments that they made aren't being reflected in your guidance and the way you're thinking about your business this year? That's the first question. And then secondly, on reviews, new business, you put up those very helpful, JP Morgan, slides from the last three years. And I suppose the notable thing is that there was quite a big increase in the total number of account movements. If you look, it's about three times the level that you saw in a couple of years ago. So could you just maybe talk about what you're expecting in terms of account reviews this year, whether they're going to be defensive or offensive? And then finally, you've given guidance for 2022 on top line and margins.
I wonder whether you could just talk, maybe take a step back and talk about what you think normalized growth and margins might be for your business. Clearly, we're still going to be benefiting from above-average growth, I guess, during the course of 2022. And so how does growth and margins look for Publicis beyond that? Thank you very much.
I propose we do one, three, two. So can you start, Michel, with one?
Sure. So I mean, in terms of inflation, two points here, Omar. The first one is that as it relates to our top line, as of now, we do not see an impact on inflation on our top line. Now, is inflation going to be temporary or be there for a while? I don't know. I leave this to economists. But what I can say is that we don't see any impact for now.
The other point is that we believe that in this environment, we are the best equipped with our assets to continue to capture the shift in our client spend towards digital and data and business transformation. Now, on the cost base, I think I have explained the moving parts of the cost base for 2021 with personnel expense going up 100 basis points and the operating leverage providing another 100 basis points compensating one to another. The important point to underline here is that we are able to contain this personnel cost increase by the significant portion of our talent base that we have shifted to our global delivery center. It's true for Publicis, Sapient, and for Epsilon, but it's also true for media. It's also true for production and for our support function. Overall, we have an offshore base of about 25%.
We are going to carry on increasing this footprint. Last but not least, in terms of salary inflation, what we see in 2022, I can't give you an overall number. It doesn't have any meaning, really. But if we look country by country, we see the U.S. being mid-single digit. We see the U.K. being a bit below the U.S. In continental Europe, we don't see much. We don't see much, except obviously in Central and Eastern Europe where it's higher. And finally, in Asia, we see high single digit in India, for sure. And China, just a bit below India. Well, in terms of colors, what I can tell you about the inflation.
Merci. I'll take the question on beyond 2022, and I'll start with the growth.
Obviously, it's too early to make any comment beyond 2022, but I can make just a few remarks that hopefully will give you a bit of color. First, it's important to note, as I said, that 2022 will benefit from two factors that we need to be taking into account beyond this. First, new business track record in 2021. Again, this is one of the reasons why we feel confident in our four to five. And second, again, we are still in an overall positive environment when it comes to advertising and business transformation. So it's very difficult for us to predict beyond 2022 on this second point.
What I can tell you is that when you look at our model, our new business track record, and the dynamic we're having at the moment, we are actually confident that everything we have been building and the robust foundation we're having at the moment will help us deliver and will make us deliver sustainable growth and outperform the market in the midterm. But at this stage, don't ask me more on the growth because, as you know, there are many external factors, and it's way too early. On margin, it's different, Omar. And I've been in my job since 2017, but I think that Maurice will agree with me that it was the case before. It has been almost a decade with some analysts saying that our margin is going to decline and actually decline pretty steeply.
It hurt us in terms of image at the moment where we were confident, and we were saying it very clearly. I'm thinking about 2019, for example. And hopefully, at one point, people will just understand that now we maybe have a track record 10 years later. And that for all of this time, we have delivered the best margin of the industry. This year, we will deliver the best margin of the industry and an historic high for Publicis. And what is really important, and this is something that we have to bring, by the way, in our margin because we are listening on this, is it's not margin for the sake of margin. It's margin in order to invest in the future, and it's margin in order to invest in our growth. And this is why, again, we have a margin for 2022 that includes inflation.
I'm not going to come back to that, but includes also the necessary investments to get to what we believe is a strong growth of 4%-5% in 2022.
Great. Very clear. Thank you very much.
T hank you. And we now move on to our next questioner, which is Julien Roch from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Oui, bonjour. C'est Julien Roch de Barclays. Good morning. The usual three questions. The first one is on the capital allocation. I mean, you were very clear for full year 2022 on the dividend and the M&A, but I was wondering whether that is just for 2022 or you think that's going to be for another couple of years because if you take cash flow, less M&A, less dividend, there's not that much change in the net debt. That's my first question.
The second one is on the breakdown of net sales at group level. So you gave us Epsilon and Sapient growth rate at group level for the first time, which is great. What percentage of sales do they represent? I know it's around 15%, but if we could get 14 or 16 as an answer rather than 15, that would be great. And also, how much is media and pure healthcare, i.e., healthcare ex media, Sapient, Epsilon at group level? And I'll stop at two questions because I think we're running out of time. Thank you. There is no third question, but there is one and two. I'll leave it to you, Michel, I guess. Okay.
All right. So on the Julien, hello. So on the capital allocation for 2022, I don't think I go back on this.
I hope I was clear in terms of priorities with the three buckets. Now, if you look at it beyond 2022, obviously, it's a bit early to share our priority beyond 2022, but there are a few standing principles that we wish to highlight. So one, investing in the business through bolt-on is a key element of our strategy. I think Arthur has been super clear about that, to expand our capabilities in data, in tech, in commerce. And this will obviously take more than just one year. So you can consider this beyond 2022. The second point is dividend. It has always been one of the fundamentals of our return to shareholder. So you can take the 45%-50% payout range that we just upgraded beyond 2022 too.
And finally, when it comes to the scrip dividend, and I know it's important, we have been very clear that now our goal in the midterm, so it means beyond 2022, is to stabilize the share count at the level of December 2021. So again, these three are beyond 2022.
The second question, if I'm not mistaken, is related to the weight in the mix of Epsilon and Sapient, which, as I told you, are representing about 15% and 15%. I mean, it has changed a little bit, but not that much, as the rest of the group was making 10% of growth too. So 15%, 15%. Okay. And then we are running late.
I don't know if there are other questions.
Yeah? Do we still have some?
Wait. Sorry, Arthur. My question was also weight of media and healthcare on top of Sapient and Epsilon.
The healthcare is about 5% of the total. When you look at media, we've said several times that digital media is about 10% of our total revenue, and the rest is about 20% in traditional media. So 30% for the total media. Now, what is very interesting to look at, Julien, so I'm going to take a minute more, is that the way we have organized our operation, which, by the way, gives us the flexibility and the agility I was talking about, is to make sure that media and creative are managed mostly at the country level because it becomes more difficult every day to separate creative from media as, of course, we are creating experience, plus digital agency. What we really track at global level is Sapient and Epsilon because you need global capabilities that are delivered in a global model.
And that's, again, the perception for the thing we are tracking the most. Okay.
Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Tom Singlehurst from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning. It's Tom here from Citi. I'm essentially questioned out, but I had two sort of quick ones, if that's okay. You mentioned the directoire earlier, and I don't know whether Steve is on the line, but I was interested at a very high level about inflation and your thoughts on what that does for advertising versus promotion, and then within advertising for brand versus performance because I wonder whether, with all the questions about Meta and Facebook, there's maybe sort of comparing apples to oranges in terms of sort of inflationary impacts on your top line. That was the first question.
And then secondly, just to maybe challenge you a bit, I mean, the Tremend acquisition you talked about before delivering another sort of delivery center. I'm just wondering whether we should view some of the M&A as sort of essentially sort of acqui-hires. I mean, is this pushing into or doing deals like Tremend, signaling that you're running out of room to execute at Sapient? Those are the two questions.
Thank you. Tom, thank you.
Steve, I've got good news for you. We have decided anyway that the next question will be for you. Whatever was the question. So the good news is it is definitely appropriate. So I propose you take the first one, and I'll answer the Tremend question.
Okay. Hi, Tom. Good morning, everybody. Yeah, it's Steve here.
I thought I was going to get away with that and be answering any questions on this call for the first time. So I think, Tom, in terms of your question about advertising demand, I think what we've seen is a shift in a number of factors during the course of the pandemic. We've seen, obviously, the impact of the overall economy. We've seen the impact of COVID. We've seen shifting consumers' behaviors. And we've obviously seen, alongside that, the evolving media landscape. And you've been tracking long enough, Tom, to know that this is obviously what we used to call a quadrennial year. So you've got Olympics, and you've got the World Cup, and you've obviously got the midterm elections, all of which will have an upward impact on demand.
I think what we're also seeing, and I think this is maybe what you were getting at when you were talking about your apples and eggs comparison, and we talked in the previous earnings call about the resilience of our economy. We are seeing a real shift now with an increase of new entrants to the market, and that is really driving the resilience and the growth. And we've talked, obviously, and we've talked about the growth of digital media and business transformation, and particularly direct-to-consumer communications.
Although we're putting these together in joined, connected solutions where we're bringing together data, tech, and media, and creative, Tom, what we are certainly seeing, and I think the impact of the quadrennial year is lessened, and we are certainly seeing what I think is some significant change with new entrants to the marketplace, driving demand, less reliance on retail space, and building out direct-to-consumer relationships. I think that is why we have seen a stronger spike than perhaps we anticipated in 2021. We're seeing clearly that resilience and less macro level continue into 2022. Steven.
Tom, I'll take the second one. I just wanted to challenge you. I'm going to challenge you a bit. I think acqui-hire is very good. Again, when we make an acquisition like Tremend, but maybe I'll come back to CitrusAd because it is exactly the same. We have three criteria.
Criterion number one is the talents. Because, again, as I said earlier, everyone can talk about technology and data. If you don't have the scale in talent to deliver in a people business, you just don't exist. We have 18,000 engineers and developers among our 85,000 people. This is our biggest strength when it comes to data and technology. I'm going to come back to the platform later, but this is a very important point. And so take Tremend. Tremend today is roughly 650 highly skilled software engineers. Okay? When we're going to add those guys to our Sapient platform, we plan to actually accelerate headcount to 2,500 in the next years, which means that, yes, we want to gain scale in terms of talent because we are fighting against other players in this area that can serve their client in the same way. So scale in talent matters.
The second thing is technology. Every time we buy this kind of small acquisition, we look for the right technology that can add to what we do. And what they can bring to Sapient for some industry is extremely interesting. And last but not least, there is a clear business need. And in this case, the business need is Europe. But that's the combination of the three things: expanding our talent base. And again, this is why we are credible and why we are winning: getting new technology that we can land on our existing one and responding to a clear need. Same thing for CitrusAd. We bought engineers from all around the world that understand first-party data management and retail media at a moment where cookie will disappear.
We bought a technology, a SaaS, that we can bring into every retailer, and we are fitting with a need that we know is going to grow exponentially, which is retail media.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. We now move on to a question from Christophe Cherblanc from Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. So most high-level questions have been asked. So I have two quick ones. First one was on CapEx. CapEx was still two-thirds of the pre-COVID level. So is it a permanent reset to a more asset-light model, or should we expect CapEx to go back to the, let's say, €200 million? And the second one was on the Purdue opioid situation. I know there is a legal situation there. So do you have any visibility on the timetable? Are you tempted to settle? Any color on the issue would be good. Thank you.
Thank you. We're going to start with one with Michel, and we're going to move on to Anne-Gabrielle for two, except if Anne-Gabrielle want to start. Yeah? Allez. Anne-Gabrielle first.
Okay. So on the opioid, to be very clear, we consider that the lawsuit has no merit, that it should not have been brought to the court. And because now it's a lawsuit, we don't want to enter into details. As for the timeline, it's really too early to know. It can take years, actually. So we are working on it, and we'll continue monitoring the situation.
Okay. On CapEx, Christophe, so you're right. We had a low level of CapEx in 2021 coming, actually, and maybe you remember that, coming particularly from our first semester.
In 2022, we are estimating, indeed, a level of CapEx that will go back to the level of 2019, with most of the increase derived from the investment in our platforms in both digital media, Epsilon, and Sapient. So just to give you a round number, we think we'll be in CapEx around 220-230 for 2022.
Okay. Thank you. Very clear. Thank you very much.
I know we're a bit late, but maybe we'll take a last question.
Perfect. Our last question today comes from Conor O'Shea from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes. Yes. Morning. Thanks for taking the last question, Arthur. Very quickly, just a couple of follow-ups. I wonder if you could just give us the mix of the international part of Sapient in 2021, and particularly the UK business.
Secondly, just on the margins, obviously, overall, a very good performance, but if I'm not mistaken, quite a sharp drop in Asia-Pac and the Middle East versus the previous year. Can you just explain what was going on there? And then just very quickly, just in terms of the M&A pipeline, what kind of sales multiples on average would you expect to pay going forward? And are prices coming down or going up coming out of the pandemic? Do you have a strong pipeline already lined up? Thank you.
Thank you, Conor. I think that, Michel, I'm going to take the three questions, and then maybe I'll wrap up. Yeah. Cool. So I'm sorry.
My mic was not on. Sorry, guys. All right. So I was saying I begin with number two, which is the margin decrease in impact.
It's true we see a temporary margin deterioration. We had some minor non-recurring impact, so one-off in there that will not be repeated in 2022. That's on the one-off part. And then we made two very strong investments, particularly in China and the Middle East. So when you look at it, the margin in this region shall come back to the more normative level in 2022 that it had in 2020. That's for the margin. In regards to Sapient, we are not disclosing the size of Sapient by country. If I go back to the U.K., the major thing I want to say here is that Sapient U.K. will be contributive to the growth of the U.K. in 2022. And I think it's important because Arthur and I have been telling you for the last year, it's a negative organic growth.
It will go back to zero positive in Q4, and then it will be contributive in 2022, and it's exactly what's happening with the diversification of business we've made, not only financial services, but now retail too, and then finally is the acquisition that we are making. As Arthur was saying, there are these three criteria that Arthur just explained. So I'm not repeating them. Between talent, scale, technology, and basically the delivery, we are looking at this acquisition each time with a very strong discipline in matching them towards these three criteria. Obviously, we're buying them in terms of multiple, more than our multiple for sure. But each time, we're building up a business case that shows that the synergies manage to get back the value to the shareholder in the near term. Arthur?
Thank you.
Thank you, Michel. Thank you very much to all of you for listening.
Sorry, we have been running a bit long. Just to wrap up, as you have seen, we had a Q4 that was ahead of expectation and a record year on every KPIs. We do believe that we are emerging from this crisis as a stronger company. We have a growth, an operating margin, and a free cash flow that are above 2019 and at an historical high. Hopefully, you have felt that we are entering actually 2022 with confidence because we truly believe that we have built a very robust foundation. We are, though, committed to continue to deliver industry-leading financials with 17.5% operating margin. And again, despite inflation and while investing in our talent to maintain the growth. And when it comes to growth, we are committed to deliver around 4%-5%.
It's going to be a lot of work, but we believe that we have three reasons to be confident. The first, and we talked a lot about that, so thank you for the question, the strength of our model with Sapient and Epsilon that are equated to our growth, but again, that are also valuing our media and creative operation, leading to more new business and client loyalty. The new business win, that we have an impact this year, and it's a reason also for the 4 to 5, and what we see as a positive environment for advertising and business transformation. We talked a lot about business transformation, but we believe it's true for advertising too, so we're going to stop here. Thank you again for your time. Take very good care of you, and hopefully, see you soon in person. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.