Three regions of activities: Europe, North America, Asia Pacific. EUR 13.37 billion in sales. 55% in Europe, 36% North America, 9% Asia Pacific. 1 million-plus electrical products available. 500,000 orders processed per day. Nearly 2,000 branches. Rexel supports its customers in managing their business. In 2018, Rexel, its 650,000 active customers around the world. Three end markets, 25% residential, 45% commercial. Strategic roadmap based on three value propositions: proximity, projects, specialty. Proximity, 65% of group sales. Projects, 20% of group sales. Specialty, 15% of group sales. 50,000 products available on next day basis. Multichannel approach. Customer, external sales rep, call center, tech center, web configurator, applications, innovation, and digital. In 2018, EUR 2.1 billion in digital sales, 16% of total sales, 15.5%. An enhanced e-commerce platform, 1 billion unique online visitors. Digital application designed for each customer issue, each market. Sustainable development. Three objectives for 2020.
To double our sales and product services, reduce by 30% gas emissions, 80% of direct purchase for the group. Rexel Foundation. More than 70 projects have been initiated by the foundation. 165,000 more people worldwide involved. A world of energy. Good morning, each and everyone. I'm sorry for my French. I have difficulties remembering what I learned 50 years ago. For those of you who do not know me yet, I am Ian Meakins, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rexel, and I'm very happy to welcome you for the annual general meeting of the company's shareholders. Next to me, we have Patrick Berard, CEO of the group, Laurent Delabarre, CFO of the group, François Henrot, Vice President and leading independent administrator in the Board of Directors, and Sébastien Thierry, Secretary General and Secretary of the Board of Directors. I now open the meeting.
First of all, we need to set up the bureau of the assembly. I will be chairing this meeting. The two shareholders, Rexel Actionnariat Classique France, represented by Mr. Jacques Rougé, and the other fund, Rexel Actionnariat Classique International, represented by Peter Aman, attending and have accepted are appointed as scrutineers. Sébastien Thierry will be the secretary. PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG Audit, auditors for the companies, are attending the meeting. The attendance sheet allows us to note that we have reached the quorum of one-fifth of shares having a right to vote for the ordinary general meeting and the quorum of one-fourth of shares having a voting right for the extraordinary part of it. Consequently, I declare this meeting regularly set up and it can validly deliberate. All the documents planned by law have been put on the bureau of the assembly.
These documents have been made available to the shareholders at the head office of the company and have been also put online on the Rexel's website within the lead time planned for by the legislations and regulations. For simplicity concern, we will not be reading the following reports: The management report of the board of directors about the activity of the company and about the consolidated annual financial statements. The management report is including the report of the board of directors about the company governance. The reports of the board of directors on allocated free shares and on stock options. The report of the board of directors on the draft resolutions. I will give the floor to the auditors so that they can introduce their respective reports. We will be available to answer all your questions.
I would like to remind you that the annual general meeting of shareholders has been convened in order to rule on the agenda that has been mentioned on the convening notice published at the BALO. In the convening notice that has been sent to you, this agenda is also mentioned in the convening brochure that has been given to you at the entrance. I give the floor to Patrick Berard, CEO of the group.
Thank you, Ian. Morning, ladies and gentlemen. I have to introduce the activity and the profile of your group, of Rexel. Before any further ado, I would like to introduce again and mention the evolutions that the Executive Committee experienced during the year. As you can see on the two blocks, we still have a balance between operational people and the functional part of the group.
This time we have a little weight from the operational sector, the new members who joined us. Let us talk about changes right away. Pierre Benoit, Director General for Belgium, Netherlands, and the U.K. Pierre Benoit joined us, has a long history with the group, long history of performance. He knows the job very well, and he's been giving us the honor to join us for this somewhat complicated part, given Brexit, for this part of the world. Roger Little from Canada, who is strengthening the North American presence as Jeff Baker was already a member of the Executive Committee representing the U.S. Roger Little is now reinforcing this part of the world, which for us is a strategic part. Nathalie Rachou, she joined the group in 2017.
She will still be in charge of IT and digital transformation for the group, but she has also now the responsibility of the three Nordic countries, for this Nordic area, i.e., Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Next to me, we have Laurent Delabarre, our CFO, is the guarantee of the financial integrity of the group. Sébastien Thierry, who is the guarantee for all governances, and they are quite numerous, and he's also guaranteeing the good practices of governances inside the group. Further to his function as Secretary General and Secretary of the Board of Directors. Frank Waldmann, who is in charge of the development of a rare wealth of the group, i.e., the resources, human resources we will need for tomorrow. This has been the change, or these have been the changes in the Executive Committee.
On this slide, you can see that we did what we say we would do. We have had disposals of assets. Some geographical areas were closed, either because market conditions or our performances were not helping us to have a long-standing presence and a profitable presence in this country. Some streamlining took place over the past two years. Sometimes it was difficult, we delivered what we promised. In other words, a withdrawal from some areas, asset disposals, and a EUR 650 million decrease in revenues did bring the 25 basis point results that were planned. Of course, we are remaining very much cautious as regards our portfolio management that is important for any international group. Second pillar, we're moving forward. We are having good results in the U.S. upturn with a change in model.
We were having national brands, now we have regional structures, multi-brand structure with a progressive rolling out. There has been a stronger empowering for each regional manager in order to optimize the constraints experienced in the U.S. today, which are different on the West Coast or East Coast, North, South, or in the central territories of the U.S. Here we have an important growth factor. We will be dealing or using the wealth of the former brands regrouped into regional companies. This will be an impetus for our development. We also invested in stock, in agencies, in human resources, and progressively, we have been able to see a speeding up till last year, and at the beginning of this year, an upturn in organic growth. There are also restructuring, necessary ones that were carried out last year in some countries, Germany, Spain, also partly in the U.K.
We had to simplify the basis of our heritage. We needed to make choices in the industry in Germany, one single company regrouped for the U.K. in order to pick up during this year. On the next slide, this model is showing that. Another promise that we made, more SKUs, more customers, more products for each of our customers. This pillar of our strategy was really implemented. It is operational today. We are back, and your company is now having an organic growth. Second, it had to be done while improving the profitability. We do have these two components, organic growth and profitability. Of course, all this means that we can have a logistics efficiency that is better anchored and focusing on customer satisfactions, because otherwise there wouldn't be any improvement in profitability without improving customer service. I've already mentioned the managing team.
It has evolved, it is also evolving in countries. Managing people in countries means that we want to develop local skills and competencies. This is for selling methods, for supply methods. We want to improve the relationship we're having with our suppliers, while having a very specific knowledge of our customers through the digital tools. We'll come back to this later. Of course, I've just mentioned it, there's the digital sector. What is the share of connected object? This is a priority for our company. We need to move forward on that. We first needed to lay the foundations. We needed to prepare the tools, the people. A huge effort had to be made with our customers so that they can change the way they interface with us.
We are doing this for more than EUR 2 billion, the figures are increasing every day. We don't do anything in B2B distribution without having privileged relationships, well-controlled relationships with some leading suppliers and emerging suppliers. Leading suppliers, because we need to have a certain volume, we need the strength. We should be able to work with them on all new technologies. Emerging suppliers, because in this world of electricity, where the digital technology has entered, there are many new products, many new solutions, connected products, IoTs. They are arriving not only through leading suppliers, but also with emerging suppliers. It is a combination of this that no doubt will create the future of the company in its product offer, in its service offer, and this, of course, with skillful people. On slide seven, of course, you can see the trends.
Whatever is said with words, figures speak for themselves. All the growing trends for sales, for constant number of working days on a like-for-like basis are still developing. The EBITDA, of course, is in line. The net recurring result, similarly. Our return on capital employed. Well, this is something that is dear to us, really, because after some years in different capitalistic structures and given a period of more complicated results, we were below a minimum threshold so that your money, remuneration, the WACC, was a kind of a benchmark for us. We need to go back onto these territories. For the first time, we're back with 7.8%. The adjusted EBITDA margin, you know it, and the improvement in our debt ratio since the financial market are looking at this criteria. We wanted to decrease this ratio that was part of a starting contract.
We still want to lower it with time in order to be less sensitive to the ups and downs in economic situations. I will now give the floor to Laurent Delabarre, who is going to introduce the financial results, and I'll come back later on to talk about other aspects about the company's development, the future of the company, and the social components and environmental components of our business.
Merci, Patrick. Thank you very much, Patrick. Good morning to you all. Let's go now into a little bit more detail as we review the financial results for 2018. On slide nine, we present our performance for the entire year 2018. We have achieved all of the objectives that we set for ourselves at the start of the year. Sales come out at EUR 13.4 billion, an increase of 3.5% for the same number of working days, representing growth across all three geographic areas. The gross margins was overall stable at 24.7%, representing solid performance, a robust performance in the current context. EBITDA adjusted has increased by 6.1%, with a margin of 4.6%, which has grown by 10 basis points like for like.
This growth is the result of a combination of a positive volume impact and strong successful cost control, as well as being offset by inflationist impact, as well as continuing our investment in future growth. Recurrent net income has increased by 12.8% to EUR 328.1 million. We have also seen a decrease in 17 basis points of our debt ratio for 2018. Slide 10, let me just present to you our increase in turnover for 2018. From our published results, our increase in sales in 2018 is increased by 0.5%, thanks to a positive increase of 3.5% in sales for the same number of working days, and a positive calendar impact of 0.3%.
This is offset to negative effects, the impact of changes in consolidation scope of 0.7% as a result of disposals in Southeast Asia, and the exchange rate impact of minus 2.5%, largely due to depreciation of American, Australian, Canadian dollars, as well as of the Swedish krona compared to the euro. On the next slide, you will see for each of our major geographic zones, the change in sales for the same number of working days on a constant basis, which has increased by 3.5%. If we begin with Europe, this is represented as indicated in the chart in the top right-hand corner, 55% of the group sales for 2018. Sales have increased by 1.7% on a constant basis and for the same number of working days. For France, which represents more than one-third of our sales in Europe, has seen growth of 1.7% across the whole year.
We have benefited fully from the improvement in the overall market, notably residential and industrial, which have won market share in the second half of the year. As a result of reorganization in Germany and the U.K., sales have fallen respectively by 6% and 4.8%. The other European countries have done very well overall, like the Nordic countries, which have grown by 4.4%. If we move now to the other side of the Atlantic, across the pond, we have North America, which has been very much a driver of growth in the group with 36% of our sales in 2018. U.S. have shown growth of 6.9% in 2018, thanks to initiatives that have been undertaken over the last two years, which are now bearing fruit.
This includes improvements of customer service with the great availability of products, notably thanks to growth in our stock of around EUR 160 million over two years. This strong growth is explained partly by the deployment of our regionalization strategy and opening 48 new branches, which has contributed about 2% of our growth in 2018. Finally, Asia-Pacific. This represents 9% of the group's total sales in 2018. The situation has improved here as well, especially in Asia, where growth comes out at 10.7% thanks to all of the countries, including China, where activity is very much on the right track. If we look at the next slide, looking at the consolidated accounts, I've already gone into detail about the top-line sales with almost EUR 14 billion.
The trading margin for the year has been set at just over EUR 3.2 billion, meaning 24.7%, representing almost stable margin compared to 2017, thanks especially to North America and Asia-Pacific. Our operational cost, including amortization, has improved by 13 base points by percentage of sales. This shows that we have a good cost control in the context of continuing investments. Our EBITDA adjusted margin has increased 13 base points at 4.6% of sales. Our EBITDA adjusted value is up at EUR 608.3 million in 2018. That is growth of 6.1%, in line with the objective communicated initially as between 5% and 10%. Slide 13, we look at the lower part of the balance sheet. We can see adjusted EBITDA at EUR 608.3 million, up 6.1%. The published figure was EUR 600.4 million, up 1.1% over the previous year as a result of an increase in the cost of copper.
Other products have a negative amount of EUR 174.9 million and increased restructuring costs of EUR 82.5 million, largely linked to reorganization in Germany and Spain, as well as the depreciation in goodwill of around EUR 62 million, largely in Northern Europe. For 2019, we expect to see restructuring costs coming closer to the normative rate of EUR 45 million-EUR 50 million. The net financial charges have improved at EUR 100.6 million. This reflects a fall in the net interest rate on our gross debt of 2.81% thanks to recent refinancing operations. We've also seen an increase in our tax on profits at EUR 157 million. In 2017, there was exceptional gain in this area as a result of the fiscal reform in the U.S. In 2018, our tax rate is 50.8%.
This is considerably higher than our normative rate of 33% as a result of the non-deductibility of the exceptional items that I mentioned earlier. For 2019, we expect to see a normal tax rate that is closer to 33%. The net income increases to EUR 152.3 million, an increase of 45.6%. Our net recurrent income has increased considerably to reach EUR 328.1 million, an increase of 12.8%. On the next slide 14, you can see the cash flow table. The net cash flow over the course of the year after interest and taxes has improved by EUR 11 million to EUR 191 million. As a result, the conversion of the free tax flow available before interest and taxes and EBITA is set at 51%, which is below our historic ratio because of the implementation of our strategy of increasing stocks in the U.S. and restructuring costs, notably in Germany.
We foresee a conversion rate that is closer to our historic level in 2019. Our net debt has fallen by around EUR 11 million to EUR 2.3 billion. As a result of a negative impact of exchange rates. A necessary part of this presentation before we look at the corporate accounts of Rexel S.A. The operating revenue is up in 2019 by EUR 2.5 million, largely due to invoicing of services to subsidiary companies. The operating costs are at EUR 11.7 million, down compared to the previous year. In 2017, there was a non-recurrent cost linked to the issuance of bonds of EUR 9.3 million in 2017. The financial results reflect net charges of minus EUR 19.3 million, compared to a net charge of EUR 46.8 million in 2017. The difference is the result of early repayment premium for borrowing in 2018, whereas in 2017, this was impacted to a level of EUR 24.7 million.
Corporate taxes represented probably EUR 54.4 million. As a result of the fiscal integration agreement, Rexel will cover the taxes for the group as a whole. This is, of course, the parent company of the integrated group. As a result, the net result of the company Rexel S.A. in 2018 has been profit of EUR 26 million. This is a smooth transition before we talk about the first quarter for 2019 and closing the review of the financial year of 2018, I will propose dividends for the year that has just ended to be paid subject to approval on the 5th of July. The amount that we put to you for approval is EUR 0.44, an increase of EUR 0.02 compared to the previous year.
This is totally in line with the stated policy of distributing 40% of the recurrent net income, as shown on the table with a distribution rate in 2019 of 41%. This dividend will be paid entirely in cash, which will avoid any kind of diluting effect for you, our shareholders. The yield comes out at 3.6%, €10.76 at close business yesterday. This is the end of the overview of 2018, and I suggest that we now look at the first quarter of 2019, which was made public on the 30th of April last. Slide 18, we are looking at the sales of the first quarter, an increase of 4.2% compared to the published results end of 3.1%, so at comparable scope reaching €3.3 billion. This is our 10th consecutive quarter of growth for the same number of working days.
Over the course of the quarter, there has been a positive impact of the exchange rate of 2.4% thanks to the appreciation of the EUR compared to the USD, offsetting a negative impact of a change in scope of 0.4% and a negative calendar impact of 1%. This impact will continue to be negative in the second quarter at minus 0.5%, and this will be reversed in the second half of 2019. This impact of the calendar will be negative on the adjusted EBITA growth of the first half of the year, which we estimate around 2%, which will be reversed across the group in the second quarter. The contribution of copper has been unfavorable at 0.5% for the second consecutive quarter. This change should be improved in the second half of the year.
In slide 19, you will see that we have registered an increase in sales in two of our three geographic zones. In North America, which represents 37% of our sales. For the same number of working days, there has been a strong increase at 8.5%, largely due to gains in market share and the result of initiatives undertaken over the last two years. In Europe, which represents 55% of our sales, growth for the same number of working days has been 0.4% or 3.4% if we adjust for the impact of the closure of branches in Germany and Spain in 2018. In Asia Pacific, sales are down by 1.9%, but represent an increase of 1.9% adjusted for the impact of the disposal in April 2018 of the industrial automatics, Rockwell, in Australia. Our sales have strongly increased in China by 8.2%.
Finally, for slide 20, we look more closely at the scheduling spread of our debt repayment as a result of the refinancing occurring at the end of February. We have refinanced successfully our debt for 2023, thanks to issuing EUR 600 million of bonds for 2.75%, reaching maturity in June 2026. Thanks to this active refinancing strategy, we don't have any repayments before June 2024. And the average repayment period has been extended by six months to reach four years. This refinancing has also allowed us to optimize our financing cost and to mitigate the slight increase in the interest rates in the short term. I now give the floor to Patrick Berard. Thank you.
Thank you, Laurent. Ladies and gentlemen, your company is in a buoyant market since there is a resilience of requests, need, and resilience of solutions. This is something that we sometimes forgot to look at closely. Today, the multiplication of electrical usages and replacing thermal aspect to electrical aspects, whether in factories, in mobility, in residential buildings. Well, this is still moving forward, thus creating a very substantial underlying aspects for the future trend in all countries. Of course, Rexel is playing a key role and will be playing a more and more substantial role among professional installers, users, upstream users, and the supplying of energy made by energy companies. There is a second underlying factor that shouldn't be neglected. The progressive development of decarbonation. We may question the production of energy, but it is most of the time leading to a very advantageous factors.
Well-regulated objects, well-measured objects located at the right place with the right sensors. All this enable us to really move forward in looking for decarbonated solutions. The Internet of Things, a topic that has been making headlines recently. There aren't many being used, but these are being developed for daily comfort. Conversely, something we do not see, but it is key for Rexel. It is the Internet of Things, but for the industry. The so-called Industry 4.0, all objects being connected among each other. We are also to mention two other trends that will be key for future markets, mass effect and electronics in products that were just on and off products in the past. All this type of regulation and the use of electronics is leading to different price trends and accessibility for products.
These products are turning into a mass market, thus leading to a decrease in the price of components. This is much favorable for the different types of uses. Multiplying usages means multiplying markets, leading to more clients and more SKUs. Of course, all this taking into account safety and security standards where electricity is playing a key role, where electrical current can be upheld through various detecting equipment, reading information, turning off a machine, so on and so forth. Today, we are witnessing structural long-term trends that are very much favorable to the basic business of Rexel. I wanted to say this because what is the job of an electricity company? Well, for us it is usages, products that go with these uses, and we are witnessing very deep trends for the next 10 years. These are the most buoyant on the market.
When we look at the next slide. The question is, what did we choose to go towards a situation where we can profit from this basic trend and as rapidly as possible. On the lower line, the perform line, you have all the actions we described to have a new management team, more clients, customers, more SKUs, asset disposals, that I mentioned earlier on, a reorganizing for the U.S., a price strategy to go back to profitability, new relationship with suppliers, something very much constructive for the long term, restructuring in Germany, in Spain, a repositioning of our activities in China, and so on and so forth. Of course, we'll continue having an active management of our portfolio to optimize value creation for our shareholders. At the same time, what about the future? This is for the upper curve. The future.
What is going to relay our improvement in time is first and foremost, what are we going to do with digitization? We have a huge database about products, about customers, about usages, about possible replacements. We have this data every day. For just France, we invoice 1 million orders. There is a consumer profile. You have usages, mixed evolutions, all this knowledge that can be acquired through data. This is being installed in the company because we made investments, we recruited the right people, and we made the deliberate choice to really understand what was available to us, to give it a structure, and to turn it into an internal model for the company first, in order to be more relevant, more customers, more products, more SKUs, better service. As for the digital sector, we measure our service through the Net Promoter Score.
We measure this in agencies, on the web, everywhere where there are opportunities, because it is a permanent obsessional data for our company. Robotization that has been entering many countries, more mechanized, automated management of stocks with more modern tools, finer stock management thanks to this automation. As you can see here, a company being managed through data. That's all the data I mentioned. Part of our sales force are managed with tools, with time management, the right presence with customers. This is our model in the market, the way we want to touch our customers, the way we want to be on the market. This can be transformed by our data and those of our clients. Improvement in our monitoring. I talked about the Net Promoter Score. It is a tool to measure our activity, to correct our defects.
Today, these tools were not with us two years ago. We are using them. We train our human resources to use them a lot, so that these are an element of a professional DNA. It is this transformation, our transformation. It goes further, of course, because today we are starting using not just data in a statistical way and intelligently, we're using it in a predictive way. We're using it also in order to have a business knowledge to how to replace a product by another one. You can see that there is an evolution model in an evolving market. First, we needed to transform the company that is very much solid on its foundations in order to be able to go towards this transformation.
When I'm looking at the short term, when I look a little bit further on a very buoyant market, we can see that this transformation of our model that we're doing now is putting us in a very healthy competition position. On the next slide, we'll see the allocation of capital given these choices. We can't do everything, we need to respect some balances. Today, growth of profits being reinvested for this digital transformation. For two years, it's been footprint agencies in the U.S., there were restructuring costs, now we need to develop the digital sector on a more generic and global sector. It's not one country doing it and the other countries waiting. No. There should be a leader, all countries are to deploy. It shouldn't always be the same leader. There's a dividend policy.
For the past three years, it has been stable, predictive, corresponding to the criteria that Laurent described, but a minimum distribution level of 40% of the net recurring result. We delivered on that. We continue decreasing our debt, and as Laurent said, we have a decrease in our debt ratio, apart from acquisition mergers, if some were to be made. First and foremost, we want to reduce this debt ratio. The objective being to reach levels that make you, our shareholders, more comfortable. Of course, in a selective way on quality objects. In the digital sector, there could be acquisitions or JVs. We need to be very much open on that. There's nothing in the pipeline, but we're looking everywhere because this is really part of how to transform our company in the digital sector, and to acquire something that we wouldn't have developed ourselves.
I also have to sum up the perspectives for 2019. This is the first year of the pathway I've just described. Like for like, we decided to have a growth in sales in between 2% and 4%, outside the unfavorable effect of 1% coming from the closing of agencies last year in Germany and Spain. An EBITDA growth that has been adjusted in between 5%-7%, that's guidance. A continuation of the improvement of our indebtedness ratio, net debt on EBITDA. This is what I wanted to tell you, and I will now talk about company or corporate responsibility. Corporate responsibility, this is also a key element for the success of the group. One element, because there are four pillars. There is ethics and integrity. We also have values with an increased vigilance duty. The world is changing. International markets are also more and more complex.
There are rules, there are charters, there are trainings. These are really necessary. They can be measured and checked for each and every one of our employees, in terms of ethics, good practices, and in terms of integrity as well. We won't compromise on these topics. All new collaborator is receiving a kind of ethics kit. All existing collaborator has a minimum of training sessions to go through against corruption, for competition law, for the right management of people, gender equality, respect of others, of generations, and so on. All these topics today are not coming from projects, but they are one element of the daily DNA of our collaborators. We're living in a changing world.
There are traditional people, there are suppliers, newcomers, people coming from other industry, and not everyone is having the same understanding of these values, ethics, and of the respect of global trade. It was important for us to have our own DNA on that. I think that we're moving forward with a lot of willingness. There is the extra financial performance. In other words, I said so verbally, it is mentioned here on this slide, you have the charter, the reference, the ethics guide, the charter, awareness building, and the respect of all cases that you can find here and there. Inside the company, outside the company, is being considered as references or non-references cases. The involvement of our employees. This is a complex topic. How to attract and retain talents.
In a country like France, we're used to saying that with 10% unemployment, we would always find people. Today, even if it has been lowered somewhat, it's difficult to find the right people. A lot of promotions in internal mobility, a lot of work for training. As for now, we have seven job offers on the Rexel job board in-house. Similarly, it's roughly the same figures at the end of the fourth quarter. People leaving us, retiring, and the arrival of a new generation. This is a permanent topic for one agency, for one region, for one entity, for one country. This is valid for all countries. Management of performance. It is important for each and everyone to know that within the framework of this talent policy, what's their performance, what's their future. We committed ourselves to very high levels.
We are giving them materiality. 80% of our employees had an assessment interview, and I got from the HR department that they had to do these assessment interviews for those people reporting directly to me. To favor the commitment and the employability of our collaborators, of course, we are carrying the section surveys. The latest one had better results than the previous one. 85% of our employees are proud to work for their company. For those who would have the opportunity to come from the outside and discover one agency, there is a certain passion for the business, for products, and for Rexel's DNA. I do think that this is something that each shareholder can be proud of. We considerably increased the number of training sessions. There was a deficit for the sector, a deficit in many different balances, in skills, in gender balance, in all training sectors.
When people come to us, we have a generational issue, not enough young people being trained. There's a gender imbalance because we have a majority of boys in training sessions. There are also geographical imbalances. We do have, I would say, some deserts in terms of people available for electrotechniques, whatever their level of education, up to the engineering level. We decided to invest more ourselves. 24,000 of our collaborators have been trained in 2018, that's up 20%, and 824 training modules have been developed. We have technical training on environment, on IoTs, on solutions, and on how to use digital applications. A lot of effort is being made. This will be the case for one, two, three, four years as we want to privilege internal development, training, and the transformation of our company.
There's also the topic of diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunity for all. We have clear commitment for that, favoring an inclusive working environment and of the well-being of the group's collaborators. These words five years ago were absent. Inclusion, this is a word that is much present today. It is key, really. This is not just vocabulary. We need to talk about that freely. We should ask the right questions, and many of our collaborators do contribute to it with an element of pride. The four pillars of corporate responsibilities to act with ethics and integrity, involve and support our collaborators, improve our environmental performance, and promote responsible practices in the value chain, already tackled on that, but these are under these four headlines. On the next slide, if I may have it. Environmental performance now.
When you're working in the electricity sector, you're already in a place that is less severe in terms of problems for the environment than other types of fossil energies. Now, some objectives are to be reached because an old electrical engine is highly consuming. Same thing for an old heating system that is burning dust when you turn it on. There's nothing more inefficient than a water boiler that is full of tartar, really. These are examples of daily lives. We are facing an installed park of equipment that is not efficient from an energy standpoint. Our duty is really to make a relationship with environmental development. When we install a new generation engine, when we replace a 200-liter old water boiler with 150-liter water boiler, that will never be full of tartar. Okay. Our role is key in this market for energy and environmental performance.
We set some commitments for ourselves. We decided to be part of the Science Based Targets initiative. We really want to disseminate, communicate, promote. We're not just a distributor. We want to promote efficient solutions and that are energy efficient in a chain of usages, whether it is for the industry, for residential buildings, and so on. With little investments, there's a lot of new possible levers. Of course, we must be the best in class, so we need to apply this to our own buildings. When I visit the logistics centers today where they had been looking for lighting variability, LEDs, very efficient with a decrease in intensity, where there are no operators, with zoning movements, with ups and downs.
Of course, this is having an impact not just on the energy bill, but on environmental consumption, as LEDs will last for 40,000 hours, so much longer than previous bulbs. Transport optimization, what we did in that sector, we're continuing doing. Good news, as from September, the Paris region will benefit from vehicles, vans, that would be 100% electrical or will be using liquefied gas, but no diesel, no petrol as from September this year. We'll also favor a sustainable management of resources since we'll be going beyond regulatory obligations. We still have a lot of work.
We're doing a lot of work with expert companies as for the collection of yard waste, electrical waste, the engine of a borer, an electrical heater that is no longer landfilled, but that are entering recycle or recycling activities so that we can recycle these waste and that they are not just landfilled. This is for each and everyone, and again, it is part of our DNA. In all agencies, you can see tanks for that, for lighting, for electrical engines. We are everywhere. That's true in Switzerland, Austria, in France. We are part of a network for the improvement of environmental improvement, not just industrial, but it is true for all buildings and all collaborators. That's what I wanted to share with you regarding environmental performance. Of course, we need to promote practices, responsible practices in the value chain.
I think I talked about that when I talked about our relationship with suppliers. We are closely assessing, we are measuring the progression rates with these suppliers. We do additional audits when we have doubts. We also look at how to create values for our customers. That's why we were given the gold standard by EcoVadis in 2018 on energy efficiency solutions and renewable energies. We are supporting installers in development of good solution knowledge, not just what the final consumers think it's good to do, compliance and security of products for the users and final users. Of course, we want to daily monitor customer satisfaction. Rexel is having its own foundation. It has a bureau. It is making choices.
In the bureau, there are external members that are not members of Rexel, and they are making the choices what to do with the revenues and resources of the foundation. This foundation, with great pleasure, we can see that the foundation supported 70 projects, more than 60 partners committed themselves in projects where we're alone or just leaders. We also helped in reducing energy poverty. We supported 160,000 people, citizens, and EUR 1.2 million of donations were made by the group, out of which EUR 0.5 million by the Rexel Foundation. This is essentially for energy poverty as this topic has imposed itself to us over the past three, four years. This is really being developed. We have projects in Roubaix, in many other locations. It is not just to set examples, but I want to thank the collaborators and the employees of the foundation.
When we are in Roubaix, for example, they are the agency in Roubaix, the regional employees. Rexel's DNA is also being developed at the same time. We also have projects in the U.S., in Oakland, and elsewhere in the world. Sorry, I somewhat modified the agenda because I'm not following my text. My collaborators had prepared small videos. There's one video about inclusion, and there's a video about the foundation. I should have shown the inclusion video at the time of inclusion, and I'm sorry for that because they were really entitled to make this video so that you can appreciate. You will have the first video on inclusion and the other one about the foundation. You can watch these videos.
What would you like to see for the women in Rexel?" This is what we asked our employees, and there were four main themes that came out of this. Firstly, a working environment that is both empowering and collaborative. Balance between your personal and working life. They would like to see women in positions of responsibility, and they would like to see equal career opportunities based on skills and ability. Rexel is making a commitment in favor of diversity to create a working environment that is empowering and based on our spirit. We want to enhance the well-being of our workers. We want to promote more and more women into positions of responsibility. We want to offer opportunities for career progression based on their skills. Together, we can make these commitments a reality. Rexel, a world of energy. This is a wonderful video.
I haven't at all contributed either to the visuals. This is a direct testimony, ladies and gentlemen, our shareholders are the people who work for us. Before I hand over and we watch the next video on the Rexel Foundation, I will just comment on what is also shown here, the environment and our energy projects with Rexel and the Rexel Foundation together, a performance that has been recognized already by a number of international organizations and extra-financial bodies. 2018, we're very proud of what was achieved then. Obviously progress continues. Everything is setting us on track for considerable improvements because these are extra-financial ratings, which are, of course, very important to us. Now perhaps time to watch the second video on the Rexel Foundation, and I'm sure you are very keen to discover this as am I.
The Rexel Foundation for Energy Progress, our mission to promote access to energy efficiency for all. Since 2013, we have supported more than 70 projects in 20 countries with more than 60 partners. 165,000 people have been positively impacted by our work. There are 3 different types of programs: solidarity programs, social innovation. 30 projects supported. These have been led by associations and NGOs. Our aim, to improve the living conditions for the most marginalized communities. How can we do this? Through reconstruction professional training, through renewable energies. Our social innovation projects, we have supported 25 projects. These have been led by social entrepreneurs. The aim is to develop new economic models with a strong social impact. How? Raising awareness, renovation, accompanying entrepreneurs. Three of our projects are on knowledge. 17 projects have been supported in this area. The aim, to develop knowledge and awareness about energy efficiency. How?
Through research with the University of California, Berkeley, making available tools, guides, and methodologies. Webinar projects with the UN Foundation about energy poverty. A guide for measuring social impact.
There you have it. Thank you very much for your attention. That is it from me about corporate social responsibility, and I'm going to hand over to François Henrot. He will talk to us about our corporate governance.
Good morning. You will see, this next section has seen some significant changes over the last year. Sorry, little change over the last year. Not that we have been idle on that front, we have decided to go for constancy. We have abided by the same principles and the same rules because you, last year, directly expressed certain things through your votes also by way of the specialized branches representing our institutional shareholders.
You expressed a very strong level of satisfaction as to how the company is governed. We now have a board of directors made of 11 directors. Ian, who you heard from earlier and who you will see again, myself as Vice-President and Independent Lead Director, Elen Phillips, Independent Director, Fritz Froehlich, Independent Director, Maria Richter, Independent Director, Marcus Alexandersson, Non-Independent Director, our first significant shareholder with almost 20%, also makes a very quality contribution to our strategy and to performance control. The third Independent Director, Agnès Touraine, Thomas Farr, Independent Director. Non-Independent Director, Patrick, and Julien Bonnel, who represents the employees. We also have a Non-Voting Director, François Auque. This makes eight Independent Directors on our board of directors, being 80% of the board.
There are four women making up 40%, which is in accordance with, in line with the legal threshold, but we may, of course, surpass this in the future. We have seven members of the board with a foreign nationality. This reflects the geographic scope of the company and also the desire to have a governing body like the Comex Executive Committee that draws the greatest amount of skills from all over the world without necessarily having to find them close to where we are in France. I think this is the most diverse board in terms of origins as regards major companies on the Paris bourse, and this makes us very competitive. The board met nine times in 2018 with a participation rate that I would say is almost at 100%. It was actually at, on average, 96%.
I think, given the diary constraints, I think, of individuals, it would be a bit difficult to do better than that. As you know, very little has changed here. The audit committee is led by Fritz Froehlich, Fritz Froehlich. You also have the appointments committee and the compensation committee. We also have here the recommendations committee, the compensation committee, which met eight times. The compensation committee led by [Agnès Tourain] met seven times with a participation level of 98%. There you have it. The governing bodies of the company are meeting regularly. They're almost always present and have no complacency whatsoever, and a quality of directors and contribution and level of participation. I've seen a number of different boards over the course of my career, and I think this one is truly exceptional in terms of the level of service.
As regards the other committees, in May 2018, you decided to renew the terms of the directors Marcus Alexanderson, Håkan Bergendahl, and Maria Richter for a period of four years. The board of directors, for its part, decided on the 24th of October 2018, that Fritz Froehlich's term of office, sadly, I would say because I think he has been absolutely exemplary in his service. His term has reached its end. Unfortunately, due to the statutory limit, we have decided to appoint François Henrot, who is here as the non-voting director so that he can learn about the company. The board now proposes that we together appoint François Auque as director and president of the Audit and Risks Committee in place of Fritz Froehlich. I will ask François Auque to come and introduce himself.
I think you will have to use a microphone if at all possible, if you would like to have interpretation. The interpreter apologizes she cannot hear the speaker.
Perfect. Merci, François.
Thank you. Yes, my name is François Auque. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very honored by this proposal that has been made and which you may accept, which consists in joining this board. As François said, I have been with the company since last autumn, and I have really been able to come very close to and really grasping the characteristics, professionalism, the characteristics of this company. Professionalism, a spirit of conquest, I think is really something that sets you apart. I'm very, very proud to be part of this adventure with a very competent board and an extremely diverse one at that. What have I been doing up until now? Well, I've had three professional lives, if you will, up until now, which hasn't been very long, admittedly. My first professional life, if you like, was in finance. I worked in the court of auditors.
I worked with a bank of the Suez Group. At the end of my financial career, I joined the aerospace industry, which was absolutely fascinating, the ancestor of Airbus. For about 10 years, I was joint director of aerospace. I participated to the consolidation of the aerospace industry in the 1990s. In the 2000s, the second phase, if you like, of my professional life, the merger between aerospace industries, EADS, as it's now known, there began my second phase of my professional life. It's now called Airbus, of course. A very interesting period. We together made the third largest aerospace group with billions in turnovers, emblematic products, and people who are just as passionate about what they do as here at Rexel.
In 2016, for me, a third professional period began because I took responsibility of a venture capital group of Airbus. There we were able to invest in digital startups all over the world, notably in California and Europe, and also in Asia. Today, I am going to continue along this investor's trajectory, because I am joining a private equity company to create and lead an investment fund in digital transformation companies. I have great admiration for what you do in Rexel.
Thank you very much. François Auque will chair the audit committee, henceforth, based on his own introduction and based on the professional background of his, you'll agree, I'm sure, that we have chosen someone who has a strong track record of professional success in the company as a manager.
He has a very strong financial background, which within just a few months after his arrival, has allowed him to chair the audit committee. He also has a culture of innovation, notably digital innovation, which is going to make him a great supporter of our own transformation. The renewal of Agnès Touraine and Hélène Ploix' mandate is also submitted to you. It's not a renewal of their term of office, but a renewal of their participation, because we have in our statutes it says that it has to be renewed one quarter at a time every year, so that we are entirely renewed subject to your approval at the end of each four-year period. If you vote in favor of these two renewals and seven appointments, we will still have 11 directors, four of them will continue to be women, and eight of them will continue to be independent.
We will have slightly less foreign directors. As regards the attendance fees, this has not changed since 2014 at EUR 1.315 million. In 2018, we decided to continue the attendance fee policy that is applicable for 2017. We put to you that this should be continued this year. The 2018, the attendance fees has increased compared to 2017, not because we changed the rules, I just told you that they haven't changed, but actually because the participation rate was very high. All of the directors completed a full mandate in 2018, whereas in 2017, there was a pro rata of duration. Also in April 2018, we co-opted François Auque as the non-voting director. Just a reminder here, I think of memory.
As I know that these are now sensitive topics, delicate topics, that neither the chair of the board nor the director general, neither of these two receive attendance fees. I'll just point that out to you. Also, a great deal of continuity again in 2018 for our non-executive corporate officers. We ask you to vote on the principle of compensation for 2018. This is the exempted CMP, that is resolution number 6. We ask you also to approve their compensation ex-post for 2018. That is resolution number 8. We also have the DG executive corporate officer. Similarly, you are asked to vote on their principal compensations, CMP exempted by resolution number 7, and also compensation for 2018, resolution number 9. Let me now remind you about our compensation policy for the corporate officers.
For 2017 and for 2018, we set compensation for corporate officers for the entire term of office. That is the principal amount. We decided this would not be changed over the period. You will see that this discipline has led to a result that I think is a little bit frustrating for our DG, because now their remuneration is at the bottom of the heap in terms of benchmarks, and even below the first quartile of compensation for DGs of companies of the same size and similar sectors. This is the commitment that we made, and so we will stick to it. We are trying to take into account performance as much as possible, and it is for this reason that more than three quarters of their compensation is subject to performance conditions.
The specialized agencies that represent us tell us that we are quite exemplary in terms of the transparency governing compensation, because all the parts of the compensation for our corporate officers are made known, and that is pages 103 to 106 of the reference documents. The Chair of the Board of Directors, just last year, has a set fee of EUR 500,000, which is in the median level. For Ian Meakins, this is slightly higher than the median as a result of taking into account his career, his profile, and also the involvement that the Board has expected from him, which I think goes beyond the usual limits of non-executive director, notwithstanding the executive officers. Patrick Berard, EUR 660,000. This, again, is below the industry standard, below the first quartile. According to a report by Willis Towers Watson, our independent auditors, it is EUR 770,000.
If we had not made a commitment to maintain this for the entire term of office, we would have offered to increase it this year. We make a point of abiding by our commitment. Part of it is variable, and 75% of it is dependent on our financial objectives and 15% subject to digital transformation and 10% for TSR, dependent on the B2B targets. 10% dependent on CSR objectives being met. The financial objectives can achieve a maximum result of 150%, and the individual proportion is capped at 100% of completion, and variable proportion cannot go beyond 165%. The financial criteria for 2019 are increase in volume, 40%, increase in EBITDA adjusted for volume 40%, and the average working capital requirement 20%. Previously, the weighting for these three objectives was one third each. This has changed.
I think we wanted to increase the proportion of sales by volume because the growth of turnover for the company after several years where we lost market share in major markets, we felt it was important to really put that at the core this year and give directors a bonus in line with the importance of that priority for us at this stage. Rather than having this to the detriment of our margins, we've decided to apply the weightings in such a way that we will only take into account the growth in volume only if we achieve our margin objectives by 80%. 40% of the weighting criteria, that's what that is subject to. We haven't taken any risks with profitability at the expense of growth in volume.
We propose that the DG and the executive officers and above, the executives, they also have performance shares for the Chief Executive Officer is measured because the shares cannot go beyond their fixed and variable compensation. This could not reach levels that would be shocking either internally or externally, where this is very important to us. This is why we have representatives on the Compensation Committee, and the total number of shares attributed to the corporate officers cannot be greater than 10% of the total envelope given to all beneficiaries. In order to be sure that these performance shares to your corporate officers do not skew their actions in the short term compared to the long term, they should maintain at least one-fifth of the shares acquired through this mechanism right to the end of their mandate.
They're not able to sell them over the course of their term of office.
We took account of some elements that made the headlines in Paris recently. Finally, I would like to specify that Patrick Berard is receiving no termination compensation under his mandate. It is an exception to the general policy normally applied to corporate officers. In his case, and given his age, his career, and since we maintained his retirement system and is the only beneficiary of such a retirement regime that was closed in 2016, we decided that there would not be any termination compensation. What does it mean in figures? Well, you have the table here. No surprise, no change compared to last year. This next table is for Ian Meakins. No change at all. Additional lines on this table for Patrick's compensation. He was granted a EUR 777,660 year bonus. Perks of EUR 780,000 in kind were rather limited.
It was just a car being made available, EUR 100,000 performance share valued at EUR 1 million, which is strictly respecting the capping I mentioned earlier on. Total compensation of EUR 2.5 million. One specific aspect in the retirement system that Patrick is the last beneficiary today since it has been closed, he would benefit from a growth annual retirement if he was to retire today, that would be of EUR 188,200. You can see this in the figures that it is not excessive nor abnormal, and it is not calling upon any comment. Of course, I'm available should you have questions about this topic. I will now ask Mrs. Amélie Varin to read the reports of the auditors. Thank you, Mr. Henrot.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, on behalf of the auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit and KPMG Audit, I'm going to report on our job on the reports of the financial statement closed December 2018. Summary. As for the annual and consolidated account, the objective of our job was given the rules and accounting rules, a reasonable assurance about the sincerity, regularity, and faithful image of the accounts, and that these do not have any significant abnormalities. To do so, we use our diligences directly through our firms in our networks for all significant entities of the group Rexel in France, abroad. That's roughly 30 countries. Our approach is adapted to the group's organization, to its activities, and we want really to check upon current operations and exceptional operations as acquisitions, transfers, restructuring, or financing operations.
We also reviewed the impact of the first application of the new IFRS 15 and IFRS 9 standards. Our conclusions have been presented in a report to the audit committee and to the board of directors on the 12th of February 2019. Furthermore, we have no observation to make regarding the sincerity and the concordance of the accounts with information being presented in the management report and in the documents made available to you. The exactness and the sincerity of information concerning compensation and perks paid to corporate offices, plus commitments in their favor, plus the various information concerning the identity of capital owners or owners of right of vote. On this slide, in compliance with the commercial code, we are mentioning the key points of the audits that may lead to significant abnormalities, and these, according to us, were the most important for the accounts.
For the consolidated accounts, that's the assessment of the recoverable value of goodwill and other intangible assets having final durations, and for the annual account, this is the assessment of the participation securities. Unreservedly, we are a positive opinion on all the accounts. Special report. The first one is about convention and regulated commitments. Pursuant to the commercial code, we were told that a commitment has been made in favor of Mr. Patrick Berard, CEO of Group Rexel. Your board of directors on the 24th of May 2018, decided to retain the additional retirement for Mr. Berard for the remainder of his term of office. The other specific report are for capital operations that are being planned, and as Resolution 14 to 20, no observation to make on the causes and conditions in the decrease in capital, Resolution 14.
No observation on the modalities to determine the issuance price for Resolutions 16, 17, and 19, no opinion to make on the choices for the calculation elements for the issuance of capital issuance for Resolution 15 and 20. As for the conditions for Resolutions 16 and 17. Additional report could be made when using these delegations by your board of directors. Finally, one report about the consolidated performance about extra-financial performance. These are social-environmental data illustrating the responsibility of the companies as presented to you. Our work enabled us to assess the compliance of this with regulations and the sincerity of this information so that we can have moderate insurance conclusion. We checked that this declaration is presenting the new required information as business model and risks to the group businesses.
That was made for the consolidating entity and a sample of size between 16%-22% of key performance indicators. Given these audits, we noted no significant abnormalities. Thank you for your attention. I now give the floor to Mr. Sébastien Thierry.