Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. We're pleased to be with you again for the presentation of the H1 results of Séché Environnement. Beside me, Maxime Séché, CEO, who'll be presenting the highlights of this first half, 2022. Baptiste Janiaud, who's the Chief Financial Officer, who'll detail the figures at June 30th of this year. We'll answer your questions after the presentations. For that, you can address your questions by email to Manuel Andersen, Head of Investor Relations, the address on the screen. Our commercial, operational, financial, and non-financial achievements during H1 2022 confirm the relevance of our profitable strategy in France and internationally. For many months now, our companies have gone through a disruptive period due to energy, economic, and monetary crisis.
Yet during this period, Séché Environnement has once again demonstrated its ability to maintain an active acquisition strategy while successfully integrating its new subsidiary and sharply accelerating its organic growth while continuing to improve its operational financial performance. Lastly, the Séché business model is deeply resilient, especially in a period of disruption such as we're currently experiencing. We built our business model around four key values of sustainable development that account for its ability to anticipate and its resilience, adapting to social and environmental challenges and looking further out to boost our responsiveness, and then limiting our environmental footprint and impact and those of our clients, and then assessing long-term performance with a key focus on our growth.
We have three main missions: promoting the circular economy, preserving the climate via a reduction in our GHG emissions and that of our clients, and lastly, preserving biodiversity. To these three missions, we have the three business lines of our core business activities linked to the circular economy and decarbonization, focusing on climate, activities linked to hazard management, covering health and preservation of biodiversity. Lastly, environmental services, those of decontamination and environmental emergencies. We're addressing the long-term requirements of industrial corporations and local authorities. By long-term challenges, I'm thinking first and foremost of climate change and carbon neutrality. Then resource preservation, sobriety, which is one that is positive, that must add and not remove from the existing and above all, preserving living matter.
These issues are increasingly rigorously regulated in France, Europe, and internationally outside Europe. Our markets are recurring in nature with high visibility because our key business is protect human health and living standards. New challenges have emerged acutely during the recent period of globalization crisis following the COVID pandemic, characterized by disruptions in supply chains, shortages of commodities and electronic components and upsurge in inflation. A geopolitical crisis linking to a sharp rise in the cost of energy and commodities made worse by risk of shortages in Europe. These disruptions are that reindustrialization and territorial ecology are paramount and go hand in hand, strengthening the need to implement a sustainable industrial economy that is carbon neutral and based on shorter distribution cycles.
I strongly believe that waste businesses and Séché Environnement are more than ever at the heart of these issues of low carbon reindustrialization and rolling out a sustainable and responsible economy, in particular in France. I know that these disruptions constitute for clients an accelerator of their ecological transition. Séché is more than ever a strategic partner for its clients, promoting environmental solutions that are global, meeting the needs of the industrial and territorial environment protection. It produces regenerated material with high value added. Tomorrow with our plan to acquire industrial water, it will produce water from recycled processes.
Our local production of regenerated materials is replacing fossil sourced materials very often imported with high carbon content, meeting increased success in a backdrop characterized by rising prices and the possibility of shortages. Our markets that are sustainable with high visibility offer opportunities for M&A growth in France and abroad. We know how to seize these opportunities selectively with an eye to profitable growth to complete our territorial coverage and commercial offering. As you've seen, this first half further illustrates that the quality of our positioning and strategy is once again confirmed by our commercial, operational, financial, and non financial performance that I can't resist unveiling a few key figures, and I'm sure Baptiste won't begrudge me that. Right, Baptiste? Contributed revenue up 21%. That's cause for satisfaction. 23% for EBITDA. 45% for COI.
Net group share up 47%. EUR 23 against EUR 172. This commercial and financial performance rests on our financial robustness to generate substantial operational cash flow that self-finance investment and organic growth and controls our financial debt and optimize our financial flexibility. This performance is lasting, and we're all working within Séché to improve that. Further, the achievements of H1, notably the significant contribution of certain large scale contracts, lead us to revise upwards our growth outlook and operating profitability for 2022. We are anticipating full year organic growth between +5% and +10%, gross margin between 23% and 24% of contributed revenue with a financial leverage maintained at 2.7x EBITDA. That's the level that was already reached in 2022.
The good performance that we're anticipating for 2022 all goes well of the achievement of the objectives that we've set for 2025, notably revenue close to EUR 1 billion, like for like. EBITDA between 23%-24% of contributed revenue, excluding M&A and a financial leverage between two and three. Against this backdrop, I'm very much confident that we'll achieve these objectives, and I'll hand over to Maxime Séché.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. I'm very happy to see you all here again for this presentation for our results for the first financial half. I'd like to come back to a few of the things that we have done that have led to this positive growth dynamic that we're seeing. The first financial half was excellent for us. It's a period during which we ramped up our organic growth. We also continued our M&A policy and improved our operational performance. This was also an opportunity for us to confirm our ability to finance ourselves in a sustainable way. Our contracts have continued to grow in France. We have positions on sustainable markets as well.
With the rollout of the sustainable economy, we also have good presence in industry, and we are well present in the resilience market with private authorities, and we're also present in emergency measures and waste management, which continue to feed into our growth. International results also underline our overall international growth strategy. We're seeing strong growth dynamics in all of our regions where we have a business presence. We're meeting the needs of ever-changing regulations of a circular economy and also of environmental protection. We saw a strong bounce back of our subsidiaries in Latin America and also Solarca's chemical cleaning business, which was recently affected by the impact of the pandemic. In South Africa and Latin America, we also benefited from big spot contracts from environmental emergencies.
We're also reaping the fruits of our business efficiency policies, tools through which we can increase our incoming volumes and also improving our waste mix and leveraging positive price effects. This solid operational performance in the first half continues to feed into our outlook for the future. Séché Environnement has confirmed its ability to access green funding with the refinancing of our banking debt at the end of last year with the issue of a green bond and an RCF with ESG criteria for EUR 200 million. This strengthens our cash position and gives us the ability to seize external growth opportunities going forward. In the first half of 2022, the group continued its active M&A policy. I will be coming back to some purchases in France in services and the circular economy.
All of our business lines are growing as they are at the heart of the issues that are facing companies and private and public authorities today. Organic growth of circular economy business went up 9.4% with regulation changes and also thanks to the increasing needs of our clients. This was further strengthened by the energy crisis. Hazard management went up 14.5% organic. This is once again, thanks to changes in regulations. This means there are more examples of hazard management and types of waste, and that means our clients need more, and also we've been able to increase our efficiency. Revenue for services for the environment went up 37.3%, 19.6 of which was organic.
Séché, therefore, is continuing to strengthen its expertise in services which today account for 44% of our overall revenue, and this supports our other businesses into the circular economy and in hazard management. Our growth strategy, especially non-organic growth, is based on two main factors. Rounding out our offering to better meet the needs of our clients as upstream as possible in the value chain and filling out our geographic presence with our rolling out of close offerings. This means that we are being more present internationally going forward, now 30% of our revenue in the first half. Also in France, we are filling out our offering with our clients here, right here in the country. Now just a few words on our latest acquisitions. First of all, we finalized the purchase of the Sud Oise Île-de-France agencies. They're specialized in sanitation.
Since the first of January, they've been integrated into Séché Assainissement. This is to acquire further skills for our industrial clients and public authority clients and to strengthen our presence in the Greater Paris region. We wish to become the go-to player in these types of services, and therefore we acquired Assainissement 34. This is a company from Béziers in the South of France, and they provide services in the Hérault also near there. We're working alongside our subsidiary Triadis Services Béziers. This, therefore, fills out what we can provide to our clients in the Southeast of France and leverages business synergies. With Assainissement 34 and Béziers Assainissement, we should be looking at revenue of EUR 30 million for a full year. In June, we purchased All'Chem. This brought us new skills on the very technical field that is solvent purification.
All'Chem is a fine chemistry specialist, which is very complementary to our Speichim subsidiary. This is a strong growth and niche businesses that have a lot of added value. This consolidates our regeneration and purification pole. Thanks to synergies and complementarity within the industry, we are now able to offer an integrated offering in the value chain for recycling of chemicals. Thanks to business complementarity, we're able to increase production and our client numbers. This means we can create circular economy loops for our fine chem and pharma clients. As a reminder, a regenerated solvent GHG impact is 80% lower than for a solvent that is made from scratch. Thanks to this business, we're able to reduce the carbon footprint of our clients. This is an investment that enables us to provide green solutions for industrial relocalizations in France and abroad.
For industrial water activities, we wish to purchase part of Veolia's business. This is something that should play out at the end of 2022 or early 2023. Strengthening our effluent management subsidiary makes us a major player in industrial effluent management in France. This acquisition rounds out our industrial effluent pole with EUR 80 million of revenue. This market has strong growth given that industrial players are now looking to outsource effluent management. Today, revenue is EUR 1.8 billion France-wide with a subcontracted market of about EUR 270 million. Therefore, with this acquisition, we become the go-to player in France on industrial effluent management. As we were discussing earlier, the financials are excellent, and the group is continuing to deploy its ever-aggressive ESG strategy with non-financial targets that are ever more ambitious. Our excellent performance is based on three things.
First of all, rolling out our low carbon plan for the group, which was launched at the beginning of the year. This strategy aims to reduce our GHG emissions to get in line with the Paris Agreement, while also increasing the amount of offset emissions for our clients with recycled products and low carbon solutions. We have our Act for Nature commitment. This was launched in 2019 as part of a partnership with the Ministry for Environment in France and the French Office for Biodiversity. We remain confident in achieving 100% of our targets in this by the end of December. As a reminder, we had achieved 75% approved by our auditors at the end of 2021. To continue in this task, the group will be presenting its upcoming biodiversity plan at the beginning of 2023.
Finally, energy from waste enables us to reduce our climate impact further when it takes over from fossil energies, yes, but also enables us to reduce our dependency on imports. Today, we produce two times more energy than we consume. Our self-sufficiency rate is 227% on the whole group scope, and we wish to increase this to achieve 250% self-sufficiency rate by 2025. This will be achieved by increasing our green energy production while also reducing our energy consumption, especially consumption of energy from fossil fuels. We also wish to continue on our zero accident policy by reducing any workplace accidents. The frequency rate was 17 in 2021, down three points versus 2019, and we wish to reduce that rate by a further seven points by 2025.
I will be coming back to the results on the ESG policy when we present our annual results. Baptiste.
Thank you, Maxime. Good morning to you all. I'm going to present the financial results at June 30th, 2022. First of all, the key metrics, as we usually do, Joël presented the changes in the major aggregates. We have consolidated revenue at EUR 409 million, up 21% versus H1 2021. 14% organic growth at constant scope and Forex. That also leads to a 23% increase in EBITDA reaching EUR 99.9 million during H1, and an increase in EBITDA margin at 23.3%. Likewise, current operating income coming in at EUR 47.7 million, up 45% with an operating margin of 11%. Net income follows the same trend. Net income group share at EUR 25.2 million.
Recurring operating cash flow is up at EUR 88.5 million on the back of the increase in EBITDA and net financial debt at EUR 531 million, up directly linked to the acquisitions achieved during the course of H1 2022. In spite of the increase in net financial debt, we'll note the stability of the financial leverage coming in at 2.7x EBITDA, and that remains well below the midterm target that is below three. When we come back to the split of the contributed revenue, we have firstly, total revenue, non-contributed revenue up about EUR 7 million following the increase in the TGAP. That's a structural trend that increases by EUR 4.7 million during the first half, and also an increase in IFRIC 12 investments on this drive.
Behind this variance, it's actually the funding of the Montauban facility management coming EUR 7.1 million, up EUR 2 million. When we look at contributed revenue, we have a scope effect for EUR 21.5 million split as follows, EUR 13 million for Séché Assainissement, consolidated since the first of January this year, and EUR 8.5 million linked to Spill Tech. Just to remind you, we had four months of Spill Tech consolidation back in 2021 in H1 2021. Six months in H1 2022, so there are two months that scope effect. We're also seeing strong growth driven by solid contribution from all activities, particularly services and strong growth internationally.
When we look at that on a quarterly basis, we note the strong growth in Q1 and Q2, and an outstanding contribution of hazardous waste unit in Q2, thanks to service contracts internationally that were significant via spot contracts. When we disaggregate by geography, France international, France represents 70% of the business, sharply up almost EUR 300 million, up 14.6% with a scope effect. We're at +10%, like for like, which today is higher than we anticipated the annual results. Industrial markets that are buoyed by dynamic industrial output during H1 2022 and local authorities and municipalities driven by the implementation of circular economy regulation for the French segment. There are volume and price effects that are clearly positive. Spot contracts, just a word about that.
Very sustained during the course of H1, EUR 10 million on environmental services directly impacting H1 2022. Without these one-off contracts, we have a trend 6% more consistent with the long-term trend anticipated when we presented the strategic plan internationally. 30% of our business revenue coming in about EUR 130 million, up 30%, up 26% at constant scope and currency. Strong rebound of all our subsidiaries as shown with also a spot impact in H1 2022 of about EUR 15 million. When we remove that spot effect, we're up 14%, which is overall very dynamic. In Europe, a ramp-up of Mecomer and purification in Spain +21%. South Africa coming in with an excellent performance. Spill Tech with emergency interventions following flooding in South Africa.
Interwaste continuing to grow. Latin America, very sharp rebound with exceptional decontamination contracts in Peru. Solarca post-COVID period delivered a very sustained level of activities with significant catch-up effects during H1 2022. When we look more closely at the activity business mix, we see a strong contribution from all activities on the circular economy revenue coming in at EUR 132 million, 6% +9.4%. Positive contribution both in hazardous, non-hazardous waste with the rollout of more and more solutions for the circular economy on the back of rising energy and commodity prices. Hazard management, EUR 106 million +12% good for hazardous and non-hazardous. Positive price and volume effect in and a dynamic uptick in Latin America, South Africa. Environmental services, EUR 190 million +37%, +20% like-for-like.
Positive in hazardous and non-hazardous waste. There's +21.5%, scope effect +8.5% linked to Spill Tech hazardous waste, and +EUR 13 million linked to sanitation for the French unit, non-hazardous waste. Moving into the operating results, starting with EBITDA up 23%, going from EUR 81 million- EUR 99.9 million. EBITDA margin up to 23.3% from 22.9%. Globally stable in France and rising international figure on the back of the recovery of all our geographies and of course driven by significant spot contracts internationally.
When we split the EBITDA, take into account volume effects, mix effects, and price effects, we're seeing scope effects contribution of EUR 4.1 million of the new scope, Spill Tech and Assainissement, very significant volume effects driven by capacity availability and significant rise in environmental service contracts, positive price effect with good commercial momentum continuing the trend we saw last year, offset partially by variable operating expenses, personnel linked to the recovery in business and linked to the inflation in maintenance contracts, rising spare parts costs and all operating expenses, fees and certain taxes. EBIT, current operating income plus 45% increase in COI comprises a scope effect, EUR 2.6 million and linked to the growth in EBITDA.
Operating margin going from 9.3%- 11.1% was boosted by international ops and specific spot service contracts without specific investment. That's to be noted in the sharp rise in current operating income. Moving from current operating income to group net income very briefly, we have between current operating income and net income around EUR 2 million like last year linked to the registration rights, EUR 1.6 million for Séché Assainissement, the rest of miscellaneous fees, financial expense down 1.6%, stability in net financial debt in spite of the increase in net debt. This financing cost coming in at EUR 2.8 million, less Forex impact than last year. The financing rate goes from 2.78%- 2.56% in spite of the current rising rate.
Income tax up EUR 2.6 million. That's linked to current operating income increase in France and effective tax rate going from 33.5%- 26.8%, leading to an increase in net income group share at EUR 13.5 million-E UR 25.2 million. CapEx, we're seeing a containment of industrial CapEx, coming in at EUR 41 million in H1 2022, versus EUR 39 million last year. With growth in recurring CapEx, we're seeing a rising regulatory investments and increased investments on the back of international recovery.
The cash flow, free cash flow table, we're seeing an increase of recurring cash flow at EUR 88.5 million on the back of increased EBITDA and available operating cash flow that's positive, but was impacted on a one-off basis by deteriorating working capital by EUR 25 million linked to the growth in activity in Séché Assainissement EUR 10 million and a payment linked to receivables settled during the course of summer 2022 for about EUR 15 million. A cash conversion ratio of 26% impacted, as I said, cyclically by changes in working capital requirements. Debt that is impacted by acquisitions, EUR 531 million, directly linked to cash effects because of the acquisition of Séché Assainissement and All'Chem and financial leases over that period.
We're seeing the rest of CapEx that are well financed by free cash flow. Turning now to group liquidity, the company has a strong balance sheet with the liquidity at June 30th, EUR 341 million stable versus the end of last year. In spite of acquisitions, achieved positive cash at EUR 121 million at June 30th. Stable leverage, as I indicated, 2.7x EBITDA. Turning to maturities. Firstly, let's look at the RCF. That's a liquidity line refinanced during the course of H1 after the bond issue with ESG criteria that was done at the end of last year.
The group refinanced this liquidity line and upped its size by EUR 150 million-200 million five-year period with two one-year options of extensions.
Conditions which as you can see are very favorable, demonstrating the quality of Séché Environnement's credit rating, and that continues. Debt maturity profile. Maturities, we have long financial maturity, 5.7 years following the refinancing at the end of last year. Few maturities over the next few years, so little rate risk in the coming years. The 2022 targets are revised upwards. The lending contributed revenue expected up between 5%-10% on the year. Given H1 that was dynamic and positive. Price and volume positive return to a normal trend. We're not expecting an increase in spot contracts of a scale of what we saw during H1 in H2, maintaining an EBITDA at a high level between 23%-24%. That's consistent with what we saw in H1.
Industrial CapEx between EUR 90 million and EUR 100 million to fund our industrial CapEx through our operating cash flow with the goal of returning to free cash flow target above 35% of EBITDA, whilst preserving a strong balance sheet leverage target maintained at 2.7x EBITDA. Won't go back on the 25 targets that are, of course, maintained and strengthened by this good H1.
Thank you, Baptiste, for that rundown, and thank you, Maxime. This now brings us to our Q&A session. I'd like to give the floor to anyone in the room who wishes to speak. Jean-François from BHF. You discussed energy earlier. What is the part of energy, overall? Now, you said that you're more than self-sufficient, that you're selling more than you are using yourself. Can you tell us more about that item? How much are you selling? What's your exposure to energy markets, and how are you managing inflation right now? I know that this is something that is of concern for a lot of companies right now. Secondly, margins internationally. This is up 20.7%. Is this thanks to spot contracts? Is this sustainable? As we understand, in the 2025 targets, the aim is to break through that 20% internationally.
It appears that that's already been achieved. Is that sustainable at current levels, though? A third question regarding margins again. We've seen an increase in EBITDA margins of 40 basis points and 180 basis points increase in operating margins, so a lot of operational leverage ratio there. Can you tell us more about that significant uptick, and why is the French margin down slightly 40 basis points over the first half? My final question can you tell us more about the EUR 60 million in your recent acquisition or profitability of the entity that you acquired? That was industrial water acquisition.
On energy, we can see, given the current ongoing energy crisis, that the valuation of energy from waste is going up. Yes, our self-sufficiency rate is at 227% group wide right now, 269% France wide. This is about the equivalent to 1,200 GWh, i.e., domestic consumption of 1 million people excluding heating. 300,000 equivalent tons of carbon are not emitted thanks to our energy recycling, basically the equivalent of the emissions from a city of about 30,000 inhabitants. We're continuing to produce energy through waste, and given the current increase of prices and the current circumstances, the impact is therefore canceled out for the company. Yes, it cancels out on operating profit for this year.
That's at least our expectation, despite the fact that we are more than 200% self-sufficient. There are a number of things that explain this. First of all, indexing clauses that generally are changed annually, so currently we're not fully leveraging them. Whereas when we buy gas or electricity for some of our business lines, we're buying at spot prices, which right now are significantly up. Overall, we have about 50% coverage for our purchasing. If you take all of that together for 2022, we're looking at basically.
Zero impact on operating profit. There will be global impact for 2023, but we need to rediscuss that at 2023. Right now, we don't have much understanding of what the impact on our profitability is going to be going forward past 2023. As Maxime said, the important thing is, given the, those indexation clauses and the increase in our self-sufficiency rate, we should, going forward, be able to benefit from the increases in energy prices. Also, in our strategic plan, we're investing a lot in recovering the energy that is otherwise wasted as part of our operations and reusing that, which explains the increase in our self-sufficiency rate as well. The overall impact should be positive for Séché in the medium term. In the very short term, however, there may be a shearing effect due to spot prices going up.
On your question on international margins now, I use the word boosted, I believe in my presentation, because there's a rubber banding effect in some of our business lines, such as international chemical management, what happened in Peru, pollution events in South Africa as well. All of that has boosted our international margin. No, we haven't ratcheted up to beyond 20%. We are continuing to improve our margin rate, but right now it has benefited from a spike due to exceptional events in 2022. For EBITDA versus recurring operating profit, these depollution contracts internationally, which can either be an EBIT or recurring operating profit, do impact international recurring operational profit. The operating margin is then a reflection of that.
As you know, in France, however, we have invested a lot over the last years, which leads to pressure because we're amortizing the investments that we made, and that 0.40% is due to the changes in amortization costs. For water industry, you mentioned EUR 60 million out of EUR 4 million of operating profit. That is a pro forma based on the costs for standalone for the entity that we have estimated. That is certainly a number that should be taken with a grain of salt, and we will update you in 2023 once it's been consolidated from 2023 onwards. Arnaud Peyre from CEC. I have a number of questions as well. My first questions are related to the financials.
First of all, what is the spread today between gross debt at variable and fixed rates right now, and how could that change in the future given the increase in inflation? Secondly, the decrease of WCR in the second half. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? I might have tuned out a little bit or maybe not when you said that. Can you tell us what the WCR version might be like in the second half? That's for the financial side of things. Secondly, on your non-organic growth policy. For waste management in France, what is the structure of the market like? We're seeing that you're purchasing a lot of very local companies in that field. Are there lots of opportunities out there? Is this a highly fragmented market?
Maybe could you be a consolidating player in that market? Then my fourth and final question on Orchem. It appears that this is something of a new business for you, complementary to what you already have, sure. Can you give us a little bit more information on how this dovetails with the circular economy and how it complements what you're already doing? Okay, I'll start off. On the financial questions, first of all. Net and gross debt and the spread between variable and fixed rates. What's important to note here is our exposure to rate risk. For gross debt, we're 70% fixed, 30% variable. For net debt, what's different today is that the short rates are now positive. That means that the cash is going to be indexed to the short rates, give or take.
Through that indexation, we'll be at about 94% versus 6% variable, which means that we have very low exposure overall to rate risk, and that is the reason behind my statement that we're not going to see a lot of increase in interest payments if there was an uptick in interest rates, and a very low impact otherwise of the short rate interest rates. Now, on WCR, maybe I don't think you tuned out. I think maybe I wasn't entirely clear on that. We have seen a negative 25, so a worsening of the situation, EUR 25 million on WCR, EUR 10 million of which comes from the integration of Séché Assainissement. Out of that EUR 10 million, we are seeing effects directly related to the increase in the volume of debt. We are going to try and optimize that situation. Out of
Out of that EUR 10 million, there is the structural component due also to the increase in revenue, and EUR 15 million comes from the punctual effect on the 15th of June that you will not be seeing at the end of the financial year. This is debt that had not been paid on the 30th of June, but that was paid out over the summer. Is that clear? Okay. Thank you. Regarding your question on waste management, there are a lot of small, medium, and large players in France. Veolia, for example, is a big international player. Yes, it is a fragmented market. We want to continue to develop, but still fully in line with our stated strategy, which is to continue with acquisitions that are tied to our existing businesses. Triadis Béziers with Assainissement 34, they go well together.
You're doing waste management and then working with Trédi and the platform for hazardous waste management, working on the hazardous liquid waste that comes from the other businesses. Also with subcontracting, we have sites such as Trédi Salaise-sur-Sanne that require subcontracting in waste management, and then we can bring that in-house through the businesses that we're purchasing. We have the same kind of logic in other areas and regions. If we are to become a go-to player in these types of businesses, it will be through ties with other types of activities. For All'Chem, this is something that we've already been doing for years with Speichim and Valls Quimica in Spain. Purification of transition products in chemistry. The acquisition gives us access to new clients that we...
For which we can meet the needs with a rounded out solution and continue to provide turnkey solutions, to our industrial clients. The point of the circular economy is that they send us their solvents. We then distill those solvents, create a raw material that can then be reinserted into their industrial processes. We have skills and dedicated circular economies that are related to skills that we already have. This means that we can meet the needs of our clients, and also we've been able to increase the size of our client portfolio through these acquisitions. Question from Finance Connect or questions from Finance Connect. Regarding energy, the energy that you are selling is indexed annually. Indexation contracts are related to electricity, energy costs, or are the prices set by contract? How does that work?
Your spot contracts, I imagine, Speichim and others, so we're talking hazardous waste management. Is there an availability risk there? Could, for example, you be asked to use less energy or have to discontinue some of what you're doing to reduce energy usage? Can you give us an idea also of the spread of your revenue between France and Europe so we can better understand what's going on there? I didn't get the cost of acquisition for industrial water. 6x EBITDA, roughly? I know that's a ratio that you regularly use. When it comes to what we do, we have energy needs that are in line with the forecast that we can establish based on hazardous waste management needs, maybe for restarting after maintenance. That's something we can predict.
We also have our own annual consumption based on what we do, such as through Speichim. This enables us to avoid any issues. We do have recurring business. For example, when there's very hazardous waste that can be infectious in nature, that needs to be handled very quickly within 24 hours. In that regard, it is important for us to properly forecast and allow for our energy needs. Regarding price effects now, we are seeing a positive effect in France and abroad, mainly in France. That's all I can say right now for price effects. For industrial water, the acquisition price, Eau Industrielle, was higher simply because the multiples are higher in France versus what you've seen in other recent acquisitions. A question from Nicolas Royot.
This is online, a series of four questions, some of which have already received an answer, but I'm going to ask them anyway. The variable component of the debt, I think that's been answered. Can you remind us of the nature and the terms of your energy purchase contracts? Are you expecting a slowdown in the levels of business for your industrial clients, and are you expecting positive price effects? These are energy sale contracts, right? For purchasing contracts, as I said, these are short-term coverage purchasing contracts, 50% over 18 months. Sales contracts are long-term sales contracts that we have with our clients. We have these long-term contracts, and then we also have spot contracts for sale of energy. We do have indexation clauses related to the energy costs with a mix that depends on the contract.
Of course, the spot contracts are directly tied, of course, to spot energy prices. Regarding potential slowdown of our industrial clients, we established our guidance based on the visibility we have right now for the rest of 2022. We're not expecting any significant slowdown during this period. However, we are cautious given the current environment. This guidance includes quite a large range of 5%-10%, based on the various scenarios that may play out in the coming months. The price effects have been taken into account and integrated through 2022. Any other questions? I had exactly the same question as Nicolas asked on changes in business.
Now, I had it as dynamic in the first half because it was, but we do need to be cautious in the second half of the year, given the environment and the trends within industry. That's why our guidance states between 5%-10%. That means that the second half is likely to be in line with the second half of last year, maybe slightly up, based on what we had in our initial plan. That's the underlying logic behind our guidance. We are looking very carefully at what's going on with our clients right now, and it has been integrated into our 2022 guidance. When we present financial guidance for 2023, we may have a better understanding of the kind of landing situation for industry in 2022. Just a reminder, my name is [audio distortion] from Investir.
I believe you're purchasing the largest player in waste management in South Africa. Is that likely to change the landscape down there? Are players going to become more aggressive? Also, why the drop in EBITDA margins in France for the first half? On gross margins, 24.7%, now 24.4% this year-over-year. A slight drop-off, but pretty much stable, and there are no significant elements behind that. There are some price effects, and there are some volume effects that were good for us in France. That also led to similarly higher costs. For example, energy that we discussed, inflation for the payroll, and various costs for operation. That did have an impact on the operating margins in France, which remain, however, high and in line with our medium-term forecast. Regarding South Africa, we'll see.
I think it's still a little bit too early to discuss what the arrival of Suez in South Africa might be, and we're not here to second-guess their strategy. However, we do intend to develop in South Africa as well. I have a question about the changes, the impact of spot contracts on EBITDA. Overall, EUR 25 million, EUR 10 million in France, EUR 15 million abroad. Sorry, revenue. Gross operating profit has not been the object of any disclosure at this point. My question may seem a little strange, but energy production in local authorities, is that good for you when energy prices go up, such as right now? My question is there potential for Strasbourg, Laval and Montauban? Are there opportunities for you given the uptick in energy prices?
You need to be careful because there are spot effects and long-term effects at play here. When there's a structural increase in energy costs, that is good for public services in Montauban, Strasbourg or Nantes. We don't have one in Laval. It really is up to each public service delegation, as they're known, to work out their own situation because there are incentives where public authorities are incentivized relative to energy costs. Overall, the balance is favorable when energy prices go up, though, because all in all it is favorable between production and consumption. You have a heating network in Laval, do you not? Overall, Laval is not a public services delegation because we use waste solid combustible material that we get out of the waste management center, and then we produce steam for public buildings in Laval.
Quite logically, when the price of energy in all its forms goes up, that's good for steam production. Talking in kilowatt hours, is it better for your client to have the kind of thing that you're providing in Laval or to purchase energy directly? Well, the answer is yes, absolutely. Do you think we're going to see further rollout of the kind of Laval-like solution, seeing as everyone is looking for energy solutions right now? I certainly think that this is a potential development vector for alternative energy. Waste combustible materials right now are profitable versus energy as it is right now. A follow-up question, when you mention coming back to more nominal growth versus the spot contracts, do you think the 5% in the second half is nominal, logical?
Is that a trend that can be further extrapolated into 2023, despite what's going on? My second question brings us back to the margin. You're saying that French margins, excluding acquisitions, is good. Acquisitions are slightly dilutive in nature with EBITDA going down a little bit. Are further acquisitions going to continue to dilute the margin? And what is the potential to increase the margins in these acquisitions in waste management, which do have margins that are lower than your core business? Final question. You are confirming you're on target for your 2025 roadmap. It feels that you're a little bit ahead of the curve. Is 2025 now a little bit conservative in its targets? Yeah. Business changes in the second half.
+5% is within the range that we communicated for the year. 14% organic for the first half. If we hit 5% in the second half, overall, that will be 10%. You need to remember that our revenue is generally a little bit lower in the first half than the second half, overall, as we observed in 2021. +5% is certainly within the range. 5% would put us in the top end of the range that was communicated as part of our guidance. That doesn't mean it's not achievable, though. Achievable, of course it is, because it's in the guidance. That range is definitely accessible to us right now, but 5% will be in the top end. Regarding your question on 2023, well, that remains to be seen.
The trends still need to be understood. Continuing on current trend would certainly be fully in line with our 2025 roadmap. Whether 2023 will be in line with our roadmap, that remains to be seen, if we're able to offset the price and the volume effects and whether there's a business slowdown. Right now, we don't have much forward visibility on the impact in 2023 and the type of landing balance we might hit in 2023. On 2025, that's even further out. As I was saying, we are ahead of our margin plans for the first half. This is a medium-term business plan. This means that we should be conservative, and our 2022 guidance fully reflected the fact that we are in an uncertain environment right now, from a macroeconomics perspective.
Yes, you did have another question. Now, the aim here, as Maxime said, when we do these acquisitions, as we said, is to acquire companies that round out our offering to our clients. It completely makes sense that margins will be lower at the beginning, especially as with Séché Assainissemen t, we did have cost overruns for integration, information systems that needed to be recovered and integrated, contracts that needed to be integrated because we bought a customer base, so we needed to integrate the clients and the contracts. All of this led to costs, which did weigh down on margins in the first half. Those costs should taper off, and we will improve margins. The acquisition of Séché Assainissement was dilutive in the first half.
However, we believe that it will be fully in line with the rest of the group in the medium term. I can't see any further questions in the room. Therefore, I would like to thank you for listening this morning and wish you an excellent day.