With KRUPS, you can trust your intuition. With the new KRUPS Intuition Coffee machines, making coffee is now completely intuitive. Your choice. Your intensity. Your coffee beans. Krups Intuition makes it easy. Perfect coffee, the way you love it. The new Intuition coffee machines by KRUPS.
[Foreign language] Pour Seb, être exigeant avec le café, c'est aussi être exigeant pour votre cafetière. Cafetière électrique Seb. Chez Seb, le café, c'est sacré.
Regardez bien la gamme des cafetières pression Moka Seb. Élégante, rapide, pratique. Avec Moka Seb, le paquet de café dure deux fois plus longtemps pour un résultat deux fois plus savoureux.
Super Sandwichboden.
[Foreign language] Kann man damit auch wirklich...
Alles können Sie kochen, alles! Warum denn ewig Erbsensuppe?
Ich kann doch noch nichts anderes.
WMF Schnelltopf. Alles Gute einfacher kochen.
Tu peux t'y mater. Le moulin coupant, électrique. L'ouvre-poêle et l'aspirateur.
Faites des gaufres!
Et des croque-gaufres Tefal!
Faites des gaufres!
Faites des gaufres!
Et des croque-gaufres Tefal!
Croque-gaufres Tefal.
Rowenta presents X-Force. Your mission: a clean job. With its display, control its running time and power. With the LED motorized brush, track even the hidden dust. And Rowenta's flex technology to reach up to 4x farther. Nothing can stop you. New X-Force by Rowenta.
Un bac amovible. Pas de sac. Plus d'efficacité. C'est l'aspirateur sans sac de Rowenta. Rowenta.
What makes Rowenta's robot vacuum cleaner unbeatable? Is it its four-in-one technology? Not only. It is above all the thinnest in its class. Only 6 cm high, powered by Rowenta's extreme efficiency. New robot cleaner X-Plorer by Rowenta.
[Foreign language] Que bom se tudo na vida tivesse botão autoclean. Pelo menos o liquidificador Arno não tem. O copo é integrado e não precisa desmontar. Para limpar, é só apertar o botão.
Beleza, galera. Agora eu vou fazer o de coco. Algum voluntário para lavar o liquidificador? Calma, gente. É Arno Limpa Fácil. Gente, então vou ajudar.
Eu sou o novo liquidificador Limpa Fácil da Arno, com lâminas removíveis muito mais fáceis de limpar e mais potentes na hora de triturar. Você imagina? Clique. A Arno faz.
Chaque recette a son secret. De Buyer.
[Foreign language] 毎日のお料理にティファールのフライパンができること。それはときめくような使い心地が長ーく続くこと。
できた！
秘密は新次元のこびりつきにくさ。
[Foreign language] Le revêtement Super T+.
Live life to the fullest and look your best. Always.
Jump into a new era.
Yeah, yeah.
With me, Ixio Power by Tefal. In one go, unleash the power of a steam station combined with the smartness of a steamer. Ixio Power.
Yeah, yeah.
Meet the revolution. Tefal.
[Foreign language] Fer à projection de vapeur Vapomatic. Toute la gamme des fers Calor. Calor, plus qu'une marque, une garantie. En vente chez tous les revendeurs d'appareils électroménagers.
[Foreign language] ただいま。
こんなときは僕、ティファールクックフォーミー。豊富なレシピから選んで、あとはナビにお任せ。
ほら、できた。
すぐおいしい。
できた。
[Foreign language] On l'attendait.
La reine de votre cuisine.
La Super Cocotte. Possibilité d'ouverture en pleine pression sans aucun danger pour surveiller la cuisson.
Tailles adaptées à tous vos besoins. Larges ou profondes. Rondes ou ovales. La bonne cuisine.
Super Cocotte Seb.
Marron sur fond orange. Alors, j'en ai très envie. Et puis enfin, malgré tout, on y retrouve son compte parce que les aliments sont... la cuisine est très bonne dans la cocotte.
Une nouvelle cocotte Seb parce qu'on y retrouve son compte.
Das ist der große Vorteil der Patentversilberung. Sie bewahrt den Bestecken stets ihr gutes Aussehen.
Das hat gar keinen Fleck. Das schafft nicht einmal der Zahn der Zeit.
Diese Schutzmarke ist in der ganzen Welt anerkannt als ein Begriff für Qualitätsarbeit.
Time to purify Teddy again. With Cube by Rowenta and its high-pressure steam, you can deeply and naturally sanitize all your fabrics with zero chemicals. Cube, the mobile steamer purifier by Rowenta.
[Foreign language] Légèreté, sécurité. Automatique et réglable suivant les tissus, le Vapomatic glisse sans effort sur un lit de vapeur. Plus de marques de fer, plus de tissus roussis. Le pressing à domicile, le fer qui repasse à toute vapeur, Vapomatic Calor.
This is Lucy and Emma, her mum. And this is me, Tefal's new steam station. Lucy's dress needs to be kicking for tonight's party. Paul must be coming. If Emma's smiling, it's because I'm the best to take care of it. And with my anti-stain technology, limescale is history. So the dress is perfect. Teens. Lucy goes, "Aren't your shoes?" Nice try. Tefal.
[Foreign language] À gauche, le chef cuisinier. À droite, la femme de chambre. Qui va gagner? Le chef cuisinier ou la moulinette électrique Moulinex? Tout d'abord, la viande. Êtes-vous prêts? Partez! Une, deux, trois secondes! La moulinette a gagné! Et maintenant, les oignons. Partez! Une, deux, trois secondes! Bravo, mademoiselle, vous avez encore gagné! Allons, chef, soyez bon joueur. La moulinette a gagné. Elle se lave en un tour de main. Bravo, moulinette!
If, like Anna, you need some comfort, thanks to me, the new InfinyMix+ and my Powelix Life Blade technology blend all types of ingredients to create the most unexpected recipes. Enhance every moment. InfinyMix+ , Tefal.
Oh non!
[Foreign language] La Moulinex!
Voici la Moulinex pour hacher en quelques secondes la viande crue, les oignons ou la viande cuite.
La Moulinex!
T'as inventé le robot genius. Ses systèmes autocontrôle et autodétection garantissent la vitesse idéale pour tout réussir.
Moulinex? L'essentiel, l'essentiel.
Avec son ROBOT MARIE TURBO Moulinex, Maman, elle prépare tout, tout sa cuisine. Maman, c'est le mixeur, ça?
Oui, ma chérie, pour le potage.
Tiens.
les batteurs, celui-ci pour les œufs en neige.
Je fais un gâteau.
Mm-hmm.
Tu m'en donnes?
Oui, ma chérie. ROBOT MARIE TURBO Moulinex, three speeds, 10 uses .
[Foreign language] จะเมนูร้อนหรือเมนูเย็น ไม่ยาก Tefal Ultrablend Boost ช่วยเอง เมนูร้อนง่ายๆ ปั่นพร้อมปรุงสุก หรือเมนูเย็นอร่อยชื่นใจ เทศกาลความอร่อยเกิดขึ้นได้ทุกวันจาก Tefal.
Rowenta [Foreign language] совершила революцию в домашней укладке с финн-щёткой Ultimate Experience. Благодаря новой системе Style Assist и автоматическому вращению она повторяет движения стилиста, создавая гладкую или объёмную укладку. Профессионалы рекомендуют Ultimate Experience. Nous ne fabriquons pas des objets. Nous concevons ce qui traverse le temps, ce qui dure, ce qui avance. À Pontevêque, on conçoit. À Remilly, on fabrique. À Is-sur-Tille, on reconditionne. Et partout, on invente tous les jours des idées neuves, des gestes précis. AeroSteam, X-Force Flex Made in France, Ingenio et ce qui n'a pas encore de nom. 47 usines, 160 pays, et une exigence : ne rien fabriquer qui ne mérite pas d'exister. Ici, l'innovation est concrète. Elle ne brille pas. Elle résout. Elle prolonge. Elle simplifie. On parle d'un monde où réparer est possible, mais aussi d'un monde où progresser est vital. Ce qu'on fabrique, ce n'est pas juste des produits.
Ce sont des standards, des repères, des preuves. Ce monde, on le veut durable, réparable et désirable. Parce qu'innover ici, ce n'est pas aller plus vite, c'est viser plus juste.
Mesdames, Messieurs, chers actionnaires, bonjour. Bienvenue au 28/05 pour l'assemblée générale annuelle de notre société. Je précise que cette assemblée est filmée, exprimée et également disponible en différé sur le site internet du groupe. Je préside cette assemblée accompagné de Stanislas de Gramont, Directeur Général, Olivier Casanova, Directeur Général Adjoint en charge des finances, Philippe Sumeire , Secrétaire Général et Secrétaire du Conseil d'Administration. Nous voudrions saluer les administrateurs présents au premier rang, au deuxième rang d'ailleurs en l'occurrence, les membres du comité de direction générale et du comité exécutif qui sont devant nous, ainsi que tous les salariés du groupe qui participent à cette assemblée. Je remercie également, pardonnez-moi, nos commissaires aux comptes pour leur présence. Mesdames, Messieurs, les actionnaires, cette assemblée vous est destinée. C'est un moment privilégié d'information et d'échange.
Nous débuterons cette assemblée par la présentation des résultats de l'année 2024, bien sûr, mais également quelques faits marquants de cet exercice. Et nous ferons le point sur le premier trimestre 2025. Nous poursuivrons ensuite avec une présentation des piliers sur lesquels s'appuie le groupe, des fondamentaux qui nous restent à la fois notre croissance et notre résilience face à l'environnement en constante évolution, on peut le dire en ce moment, avec l'innovation comme moteur essentiel de notre développement. Nous vous présenterons également notre nouvelle ambition RSE à l'horizon 2030, reflet de notre volonté de durablement se responsabiliser sur la responsabilité sociale et environnementale, qui est au cœur de notre stratégie. Puis, nous reviendrons sur la gouvernance de notre groupe à l'acquisition du conseil d'administration et de ses comités. Enfin, nous vous donnerons les informations sur lesquelles vous aurez le choix.
Je donnerai ensuite la parole à nos commissaires aux comptes pour qu'ils nous donnent un résumé de leurs questions par Madame [Henri Genzi], du cabinet KPMG. Je crois là. Nous vous donnerons ensuite la parole pour une séance de questions-réponses d'environ une trentaine de minutes afin de terminer. Je tiens à vous indiquer que les questions écrites et les questions que nous recevons au début de cette assemblée, comme nous le savons, seront disponibles sur le site internet. Nous finirons cette assemblée par le vote des opinions dont les textes figurent dans la brochure de convocation, l'avis de réunion publié au bulletin des annonces légales et obligatoires, ainsi que dans le document d'enregistrement universel 2024. Je vous invite à lire ce document. L'avis de réunion relatif à cette assemblée a été publié au bulletin des annonces légales obligatoires du 14th March 2025.
L'avis de convocation relatif à cette réunion relative à cette assemblée a également été publié le 18th April 2025 et le bulletin des annonces légales obligatoires a été publié au tribunal de Lyon par FAR, ainsi que les commissaires aux comptes.
S tatutory auditors were duly notified by letter of this meeting. The next step is to set up the board of directors, which I will chair. I call the two members of the meeting present and representing the greatest number of votes and propose them to act as tellers. Madame [Damaris Breda], representing VENELLE INVESTISSEMENT , and Mrs. [Caroline Chevalet], representing GÉNÉRACTION. Ladies, would you accept this function? Thank you. Philippe Sumeire will also act as secretary to the meeting. As usual, I have before me, as usual, the file containing all the documents required by the regulations in force.
In addition, all prior documents have been sent or made available to shareholders through shareholder services and on the company website in accordance with legal and statutory regulatory requirements. It is 2:42 P.M . I declare the general annual meeting open and I ask Philippe Sumeire to give us the provisional quorum.
The provisional quorum stands at 86.69% of the capital. 4,000 shares are present in the ordinary and 4,314. So we have a very broad quorum and we may validly deliberate. Thank you. We will be dealing with the first point in 2024 and for that purpose, I'll hand over to Stanislas de Gramont.
Thank you so much. Good day, everyone. We are going to meet with Mr. [Cozonel]. We have decided to talk about the events of note in 2024.
2024 was a year where the group had sustained growth, sustained growth which is reflected in sales which are EUR 8.266 million, which is an increase of 5% like for like compared to 2023, which resulted in a profit in EUR 800 million, up by 10.5%. That is a margin of 9.7%. The group share of EUR 432 million, which prior to deduction stood at EUR 541 million. We are proposing the assembly to vote a dividend of EUR 2.80 per share. These results from 2024 are in line with the indications and the guidance, as we say, sorry for my English, that we gave to the market in July last year with a growth on the order of 5% and an operational profit around 10%. When we look at what supported or created that growth in 2024, we had on the one hand public sales which were sustained, growth, 90% and 10% professional.
The professional had a more stable year, slightly down organically. We'll get back to that. The offer was up to 10%. Then through acquisitions and others, we did some strategic reinforcing in non-professional and professional. Now, when we look at the way the growth is broken down, we saw an organic growth on the order of 5%, EUR 400 million, sustained growth or negative currency effects, EUR 205 million, bound by Turkish and the Chinese yuan and the real from Brazil and the Egyptian currency. There is a scope effect of 0.8% positive, which brought about a total growth rate of 3.2%. As I was saying, this growth was different in different segments, whether it be consumer and professional, because the professional sector had a growth of 1.5% in organic, like-for-like, and like-for-like, a decrease in 4.5%. I'll get back to that in just a minute.
The public activity is up by 3.5% and 6.5%, like for like. In the professional sector, the year was stabilization. It was slightly down on the basis of 2023, but for us, 2023, the activity was up by 27%. In 2024, we did not benefit from the same benefit of a very huge contract which we signed in 2023. This effect, in comparison, had a negative incidence on sales. However, in current affairs, in other words, customers that are smaller and recurring business had enjoyed a very good performance, roughly 7% growth. In 2023, we continued the strategic development of that activity. We kicked off our new hub for production and development in China and we bought the Sofilac company, which is known for their brands, Charvet, Lacanche. In the professional sector.
This is a year where sales were not great, but the activity is continuing to make progress in the fundamentals. In terms of other non-professional activity, the economic environment is still complex with a lot of volatility, a lot of uncertainty. Nonetheless, the small domestic appliances market is still drawn forward by innovation. There was a lot of progress in the year, up 6%. If you look at the organic progress, other than China, it is 9% historically in emerging companies, Europe and North America. In that progress, there was one part which was linked to loyalty, 0.2 percentage points, but most of the progress we made was drawn forward by the big Europe continent and by North America, Mexico, but also the US and Canada.
In fact, almost all of the countries in this EMEA and North America zones have grown, except for Great Britain, which is not very big in the group sales figures. To summarize, when you look at the performance in the non-professional sector, you have the major part of Europe is up by 10.2%, like for like, and America's South and South Africa were up by 9.4%. Asia was basically almost stable, 0.7%, and the total of that is 6.3% in this sector. I'm going to hand over to Olivier Casanova, who's going to explain how did this happen in terms of financial results.
Thank you, Stanislas. As Stanislas indicated, the operating income stands at EUR 802 million. That is 10.5% up compared to 2023. The margin is up, it's standing at 9.7%. That's up 60 basis points compared to 2023.
Now, there is one word that can explain this improvement in results. There's a positive effect of volumes, an increase in volume, which is drawn by the public sector, but there's also a positive mix due to the fact of the product innovation. There's also an effect of the decrease in cost, both in raw materials, but also in components and in the finished products, both in the continuing of the decrease in 2023 and a new decrease in 2024. This made it possible to reinvest a part and only a part in the decrease in cost to support the activity and to reinforce the growth in volume. We also were able to increase the increase in volume to support that. Now a word about the changes in net debt.
We have free cash flow of EUR 260 million, which reflects a need for working capital requirement a bit greater than usual, which used to be between 10% and 15%, which is explained by the extension of the Suez Canal and the effect of that on our provisions. We have more inventory on the water, which costs us 1 percentage point, in other words, EUR 80 million of additional expense. We have subsequently financed the increase of the dividend of 7%, and all of this results in an intermediary level of EUR 1,714 million. We have two other decisions that were made. First, to continue to strategically reinforce the group with two acquisitions, Sofilac, which we spoke about, and development in Saudi Arabia.
We made a decision as well to take advantage of the future and us leaving the company to acquire a part of the company's shares in order to move towards a salary shareholdership that we provided for our insiders. We will be going back over that, and we will be able to feed that into the plan with existing shares and not have to create new shares to do that. The financial situation of the group is we have net debt to the gearing ratio of 1.8x, which is stable compared to last year. It is within our area of comfort, and the IFRS 16 and acquisitions, which stand at 1.6 x.
This improvement, and we took advantage of this year to improve the structure of the funding of the group and the balance sheet with the setting up of a new banking facility with EUR 495 million, a new banking facility, and a 12-year private placement over a 12-year period, which shows once again the huge amount of trust that our bankers have in us and in our robustness. This is the longest investment ever realized by the group. As of December 31, we had securities, which stands at EUR 2.5 billion in available liquidity, and the financial lines, which have not been drawn so much for the financials. Stanislas, I'm going to hand back over to the events of note.
In addition to the figures, we had events of note in 2024.
Obviously, there's a selection here that's a kind of a selective choice, but we chose with the management committee the things that seem to be of importance to us to reflect the events of note in the group, but also the dimensions of our strategic positions. I'm not going to go into them, but I'll get into them in just a minute. We're going to start maybe with what I mentioned earlier. It's the creation of the first professional equipment hub in China. Now, it's in Shaoxing. Shaoxing is where the biggest support plant is. This is a center for R&D. It's a purchasing and production facility. It's an investment of EUR 60,000,000 in two phases to improve the product coverage of our coffee machines and deepen our product range. Not only that, we wanted to reinforce significantly the presence of the group in the Chinese market.
The Chinese market of professional coffee is a market that's exploding. It's the biggest market with the most potential in the world. We believe that it is a strategic tool that will enable us to reach our ambition of not only being world leaders, which we already are in professional and non-professional, but to move further ahead of the pack. That's in China. The contract was signed in March 2024. That's where we shook hands with the Shaoxing authorities, with the president. The first stone was laid in September. You can see at the bottom, you've got the current state of advancement in March 2025, and you can see the middle image is what's going to be delivered in the first of July 2025. It's moving very quickly. We should start the first deliveries in January 2026.
This is a project which is moving fast and for which we have very promising signs on the part of our biggest customers and their interest in the products that are going to be coming out of there. Still, from a professional aspect, in 2024, we acquired Sofilac Group. Sofilac Group is a group of high-end professional and semi-professional cooking equipment. It's a group which represents EUR 62 million in sales, mostly in the professional segment. It represents more than 45 countries, and 1/3 of the sales come from exports. There are two major brands. You've got Charvet, which are cooking domino units for restaurants, and then very top of the range, high-end cooking ranges. There are three plants and 270 staff have joined us. It's a very promising acquisition for this activity. There have been strategic development acquisitions. We're also less positive events.
Philippe, let's talk about the competition authority.
Thank you, Stanislas. Hi everyone. Y2eah, 2024 concluded by an announcement which is far from being pleasant for us, less pleasant than what we heard already this morning. The decision was obviously quite surprising in more than one way. First of all, because it is the fruit of an inquiry which took a very long time. It was over more than 10 years, and it was kind of erratic, and especially by the amount of the sanction that was inflicted upon us. You can see the motivation of that decision was inadequately justified. Obviously, we already announced that we would be appealing as soon as we heard the decision in December. We have appealed the outcome of the decision in the Paris Tribunal, where this type of thing is handled.
This is going to be continuing, and we are asking for the cancellation of the decision purely and simply with a whole series of very serious arguments, but I'm not going to go over them now. I'd just like to note at this point, some of the doctrinal articles drafted by the law comment on the decision with a lot of reserves and surprises, such as the surprise I just expressed to you.
Thank you, Philippe. We will stay tuned. There's some difficult news, but there's still some things that go in the right direction. I'd like to talk about PFAS. A year ago, we were up here explaining to you that this initiative that's been taken by the National Assembly and the left-wing group to depose a proposal. You could have 10 years of PTFE in our pants. In February, the bill proposal was submitted.
On April 4, it passed into the first reading at the National Assembly, but it made it possible to use PTFE in this way. I'm sorry, I can't really read the whole thing. We were standing up here a year ago with a deadline in the Senate, and the deadline in the Senate adopted the 30th of May 2025. It passed in the first reading, but it was slightly different in substance than the first reading. It went back to the National Assembly on February 20, 2025, and I didn't pay much attention. In the second reading, the National Assembly adopted a law which prohibits the use of PFAS in a certain number of products, but not in pans. For the moment, this has been solved in France. There are other issues ongoing elsewhere in Europe, but they are taking longer.
In 2024, mid-December, we also presented a whole to our investment community. We presented our CSR strategy for 2030. On this opportunity, we went over all of our investment strategies, and we shared the fact that our trajectory for decarbonation had been approved by the SBTi, Science Based Targets initiative, which is the international organization which sanctions decarbonation policies of companies. We are in the top standard of the SBTi now, which approved our trajectory. I'm not going to go over it a lot more because we're going to get back to that. Now, the last point about 2024, or the last next to last point, is the opening of the repackaging center, the refurbishment facility. With the Vernon and Mayenne sites, we've trained our teams to refurbish products or to repair products.
Our intention is to strongly develop this activity by proposing a reconditioning offer and a repair offer later on, which will make it possible to develop sales of second-hand articles. We are well equipped for that. We know our products. We know how to take them apart and how to fix them. We are right next to our spare parts facilities. In terms of business objective, today, it is less than 1% of group sales. It is what we call the second-hand market, but that could be up to 3%-5% of sales of the group in the small domestic appliances. This is really exemplary of the fact that even if it is not big today, it could become totally significant in the upcoming years. The group will be ready and is ready to deal with products massively and repackaging and repairing these products.
We will develop that activity in France because production could actually be handled, and repairs could be handled abroad. That's totally possible as well. Rather than talking and just to cut into the discussion, let's have a video where we're inaugurating the reconditioning.
Enhancing the daily lives of millions of households with 13 products sold every second around the world, we at Groupe SEB are pioneers of repairability. Our strong commitment spans the entire product lifecycle, which includes eco-design products, recycled products, and recycling. Here in Is-sur-Tille and our new Groupe SEB Expert Center, we are setting out to conquer a new market to better meet the evolving needs of our consumers.
We see product refurbishment as a strategic investment, a responsible business model, and a promise to always be at the forefront of our industry, a unique place designed to renew your products by applying know-how we care about deeply. Product refurbishment made in France. Test, replace, repair, check, and recheck again and again. Who better than us to refurbish products that we designed and manufactured? Each refurbished product bears our signature. It has received expert care here with our original parts. We are proud to present our commitment. Refurbished by us for you.
[Foreign language] Une aventure passionnante qui va être une aventure extrêmement forte de nos collaborateurs, for which our coworkers are totally committed. Also, we find that our customers are attracted to second-hand products. Now, the group has made an announcement, not really in 2024. It was early 2025, but we were getting there in the end of 2024.
We announced the launch of the first closed loop of pan refurbishment. What is it all about? We are going to set up networks to collect used skillets, pans, and pots. We will sort them out and refurbish them. With the aluminum collected and recycled, we can make new pans in our Rumilly factory. Why is this interesting? Because we are rendering our consumers a service. Consumers do not know what to do with old pans, and especially it is going to help us reduce the environmental impact. It is a great contribution. Recycled aluminum consumes only 5% of the energy, or rather, the CO2 emissions for recycled aluminum are only 5% of the equivalent emissions for virgin aluminum. That is to say that we reduce by 95% the CO2 emissions when we use recycled aluminum. It is a fascinating project.
It's starting in France, and people are enthusiastic. The people participating in the collecting network, the coworkers, and you will hear more about that in the coming weeks. Now, one last highlight that we selected for 2024: the new employee shareholding plan for Horizon 2024. We launched this program in 37 countries for 19,000 eligible employees, subscription rate of over 28%, but it's greater than 50% in France, to be noted. Total value of the plan, EUR 19 million, and employee share ownership increased by 2.8%. So from 2.8%- 3.3%. It's a result worth mentioning, very satisfying, much better than what we did in the past, which goes to show how our employees are attached to the company. That's it for 2024. Now, Olivier, could you tell us about the first quarter of 2025?
Yes, Stanislas.
Revenue for the first quarter of 2025, EUR 1,906 million, stable sales figures versus the previous year. The ORfA is EUR 50 million, which gives us a 2.6% operating margin. Just a quick word on the start of the consumer business. It's a good start. We have a good momentum for consumer products, especially due to the return to growth in China. We still observe the effect we observed in 2024. The sales are broadly stable, thanks to some large accounts, especially in China. This effect is such that we have, as expected, a return to growth versus the same situation last year. Now, the ORfA evolution is lower contribution in professional for the first quarter due to the seasonal effect of this type of business. It is not representative of the year's trend. This being said, we're down compared with last year, mostly because of decreased professionals' product sales.
This was a high contribution at the first quarter of last year, which did not repeat itself this year. We also have conjunctural related effects such as currency volatility. We can come back to that later if you're interested. The turnover, the sales figures, organic growth is stable versus last year. We find two different situations. The comparison, very high comparison basis for professional products and good momentum for consumer products. Outside of the loyalty program, the growth is 3.3%. The currency effect, which may seem to be modest if we compare it with the sales, is better when we compare with the results. The American dollar and the Chinese and the currencies have a negative impact on the results, but a positive impact on sales, which means that they make up for the lower effect of the currencies in the emerging markets.
Altogether, we have a relatively limited effect on the sales. We also have a scope effect. We did not have the Sofilac consolidation first quarter of 2024. Also, we have this year the first consolidation for the La Brigade de Buyer. Just a few words regarding the professional market. The first quarter of 2024 was very strong, very strong momentum, up 18%, 18.5%, mostly fueled by a large contract with a large account in China. This effect is going to fade off progressively, and we're expecting a sequential improvement for the second quarter. During the second quarter, we should resume growth. The rest of the current business was stable. As I said earlier, we have consolidated in the first quarter the La Brigade de Buyer acquisition. This new acquisition is now contributing to our sales in professional cooking appliances.
Consumer products, the geopolitical and economic environment is relatively complex, as you probably imagine. Small domestic equipment markets are relatively well oriented overall in all the geographical areas. The group has good performances thanks to promising product launches, especially innovation. This is very encouraging for the coming quarters. We find what we call the sell-out, selling out to consumers by distributors, which is increasing in the first quarter in most countries, and particularly in Western Europe and France. Another factor which is noteworthy during the first quarter, the fact that we have restored growth in Asia, particularly in China, 3.5%, and growth in the rest of Asia is 7.5%, so very strong momentum. Just a few words to close regarding China. As we said in the past, there are two main reasons to account for supporting the momentum in China. First of all, innovation is very dynamic.
We have innovation in the main key categories of the group. We have shown a few pictures just to provide examples. There is a wok covered with a titanium coating and stainless steel coating, a rice cooker that mixes steam cooking and infrared cooking. There are also other innovations in different categories, of which we show a few examples to take into consideration changes in the consumers' trends. At the end of the COVID crisis, we found that people started to adopt nomadic patterns for leisure and outdoor activities. Here we have a small espresso machine, very convenient if you want to make coffee during a picnic, and there is a portable cooker. We have the product, the new portfolio of innovating products. Also, we need to note that support is very strong for new channels, online e-commerce, traditional e-commerce, Temu, JD.com, obviously still there.
We have new players, new distribution online channels, especially what we call social commerce, TikTok platform, for instance. We have a lot of live streaming. That is the new version of the TV broadcast, more than 2,000 hours per week and more than 10,000 influencers or YouTubers talking about the product. This is the reason why our sales are holding really well in China.
Thank you, Olivier. Now, we are going to move on to the most difficult part, the outlooks for 2025. Suffice to say that we confirm the growth scenario for 2025. Four-year organic sales growth is expected to be around 5%. We have disclosed the data, which are up. It is a difficult thing to do because the environment is volatile, very uncertain. April and May were very volatile, very uncertain months.
We all followed closely the announcements made by President Trump for tariffs in the U.S., the impact this has had on the world growth, and the uncertainties are having an impact on our business. However, we also have found that our markets can be resilient, especially in Europe and EMEA. We have prospects for growth in Asia, particularly, but China altogether. The first quarter performance in China is not an isolated event. It is going to be repeated in the future. We also have a good vision or capacity to compensate for the tariffs increase in the United States, with a median estimate of the impact that we are aware of. Now, this should be said with a pinch of salt because it is unpredictable. We have no idea in which directions the tariffs are going to be, in what areas, for what products.
We also, none of us knows what the indirect impacts are going to be on the other businesses. What about the demand in Europe? What about the demand in the US? What about spilling over of Chinese products to Europe? If we take the average scenario, we think that we can face this and limit the impact, mitigate the impact that these tariffs increase can have. Finally, for three quarters now, we've been talking about a very demanding comparison base in professional markets. We expect the professional market to start growing again in the second semester of 2025, which allows us to say with a degree of confidence in this very volatile environment that this growth scenario will be confirmed.
Thank you, Stanislas. Now, following this review of the 2024 results and the outlooks for 2025, we would like to talk about strategy.
Not really much difference versus what we have seen in the past. I mean, we are very stable. The way we see things is very stable. I'd like to say a few things about our mission. There is nothing new. It's not a new mission, and it's easy for us to make consumers' everyday lives easier and more enjoyable across the world. We really want to improve our consumers' everyday life and contribute to better living all around the world. That's part of our life. It's part of our DNA. It will allow us to make life better for everybody across the world. This is our vision of sustainable development, recyclability, repairability, and making sure that people will eat healthy food across the world. A few confirmations. You will always find some balance, a very balanced international presence.
Obviously, Western Europe is the biggest chunk, but there are places like France, Germany, and Western countries. There is EMEA, so Eastern Europe, as well as the Middle East and the Near East. They also account for a large chunk of the results, 16%. We have a big block in Asia, 26%, and especially China. China is making up one quarter of our sales, EUR 2 billion, and a very, very strong presence of the brand, which is very famous in China and a very dynamic business activity. There are other countries, other Asian countries. They have had a harder time, such as Japan. We are still present in Asia. North America, 11%. South America, 5%. South America has also suffered from devaluating currency, but we still believe we can play a role in South America. Our international presence is quite balanced.
Some areas are not doing so well. Other areas are doing much better, but there is a balance. Second part, a global and diversified industrial footprint. You're probably aware that we have 47 industrial sites across the world, of which 17 are located in France, 11 in the rest of Europe, 5 in Germany, 2 in Italy, 2 in Spain, 1 in the Czech Republic. So 27 industrial sites altogether in Europe. We are also present in China with 8 industrial sites, China, Vietnam, and 2 industrial sites in the US, worth mentioning, in California and near Pittsburgh, and 1 in Colombia and 1 in Brazil. We have a couple more in South America and across the world. Very strong industrial footprint. Two-thirds of our production from our French industrial sites is sold abroad, exported. We export goods from France.
40% of our sales in France are products made in France. We are still a European producer. Last year, we made more than 240 million products in our factories. We are very proud that we are a global industrial company. Second part, our world leading positions. 75% of our sales are obtained in markets where the group is a leader. By leader, we mean being the number one or the number two. We are historically the leaders for washing appliances and cooking appliances, number two blenders, and number one, obviously, for coffee machines, automatic espresso machines, since we bought WMF, especially for the professional market. A strong position as a world leader, and we are utterly convinced that our strength comes from this leading position. It is the reason why we are so strong on the market and we can invest so massively in our market. Brands.
We love brands. We have many brands in our portfolio. Some people say we have too many brands, but we believe it's part of our DNA. It's very important. I'd like to remind you, first of all, that if we add the age of each of our brands, we have 4,800 years. We have just taken a huge step forward by acquiring De Buyer. We have added 750 years to our long history in one acquisition because it is the oldest brand. The 32 Dumas, 32, 32 means that the brand originates in France, is 1632, and it's in the Museum of Knife Making in Thiers, 1632. The brand is almost 500 years old. Why all these brands?
Because we believe that for consumer markets and middle-class families, households, regardless of the country and whether you're a man or a woman, you always remember the brand of the utensils, the equipment your mother used to cook with. People who are called Imusa in Colombia have a very strong relationship with the people in Colombia. In Colombia, everybody cooked with an Imusa caldero. The consumers feel very close to the brands, and we believe it's a huge advantage. It also shows people that we are local players and that we give employment to people living in those countries. For premium markets, premium goods, premium brands have their own codes. Brands like Lagostina, WMF, they carry a message. All-Clad in the United States, Lacanche in France, they all carry a message related to premium brands. For professional brands, the same.
You can ask any chef across the world, he or she will always remember the brands they used when they were apprentices with the cooking with a chef. A strong international commercial presence. I believe that what I just want to show you on this slide, first of all, online trade, 41%. It was 25% not very long ago. E-commerce is growing across the world. In China, more than 70%. It's an exception. Online trade, it's there for us and all the other players. It doesn't stop there. We have all the other segments: group retail specialists, traditional electric specialists. We have our own retail stores in China and in many countries. There are other segments that we need to reckon with. We believe that we don't want to decide where the consumers want to buy. It's up to them.
They may want to buy from the internet. They may want to visit the retail shops. We want to be present in all the distribution channels. This would be entirely useless were it not fueled by innovation. For this, I will give the floor back to Stanislas, who's going to provide a few examples.
Yes, innovation is what gives our group its momentum. The starting point for innovation, or innovation at the industrial level, because we are launching new products by the hundreds every year, consists in having a very rigorous process. The process starts by understanding society trends and consumer needs, taking into consideration technological evolutions. AI is obviously the main source of inspiration or source of solutions.
We also need to be very accurate when working on innovation to elaborate a complete range of products because we are targeting the middle-class households, and we want to have a range that will cover all the price profiles. This process is based on the big resources. First of all, expertise that we invest in innovation, design offices very close to the factories, industrial control of the processes. We want to control the industrialization process to be able to stand out and create a difference and maintain that difference with innovation. We also have intercategory synergy for cooking utensils, for washing appliances, for floor cleaning appliances. Knowledge we have in aeronautics can be applied to vacuum cleaners. This will, in the end, close the loop and serve our group's mission to make our consumers' life easier. Every year, I'll share with you a few examples of innovation.
I would like to start with linen care. Linen care is a category on which we cover all the consumers' needs: iron, steam irons, and all kinds of appliances to remove wrinkles. Two novelties this year: AeroSteam, a product to remove wrinkles that will suck the linen onto the appliance. With a single hand, you can actually remove all the wrinkles. Revelation of the Year during the Paris Fair this year. Another spot cleaner called Clean-It will help you clean your sofas, your car, upholstery. This is a category that people consider as being mature. We believe that this is the category on which we have a 10% growth two years in a row across the world. We all want to use it. Yes, very promising launch as the sales are showing.
Second category, we have been working a lot on the last 15-20 years. We're talking about vacuum cleaners. Our group was always very present in vacuum cleaners, wheeled vacuum cleaners. Now we have these versatile new types of vacuum cleaners. They are called versatile because you can take them apart and use them as a small appliance. We have been working to develop new products. We now have a very good position. We're number two for market shares in Europe, number one in France for vacuum cleaning, vacuum cleaning with versatile vacuum cleaners in front of a well-known British brand. I joined the group in 2018, and I heard customers at the time saying, "Yeah, no way. You're not going to compete with them." We are competing with them.
This category shows our group's capacity to rise to a challenge and conquer the leading position in a context where we started late behind everybody else. There are new territories. Washing vacuum cleaners with two products that have landed on the products last quarter of 2024, X-Clean 4 and X-Clean 10. Absolutely fabulous. Great performances. Here again, the launch is very promising. This is it for linen care and washes. We also have cookware, and we are consolidating every year the group's leadership through innovation. Our offer is very, very wide, broad. We have different brands. The two main brands are Supor in China and Tefal in the rest of the world. Three premium brands: Lagostina, WMF, and All-Clad. Very soon, La Brigade de Buyer , which is going to be added to the portfolio.
On those brands, we work with innovation through the evolution of our coated aluminum pans, but also changes in the coating, ceramics, stainless steel on very broad ranges with a growth close to 10% on segments that we believe to be mature. Year after year, they're still growing. We find also that there are limitless innovations. We have just launched the removable handle, Ingenio, removable handle 20 years ago. The removable handle is still growing across the world. The growth rate is still 2%-3%, 20%-30% attraction in on inline commerce and historical countries, but also new countries. Finally, we have partnered with the big chefs. I'd like you to discover the last partnership that we have found with. [Foreign language] Là aussi, de très beaux produits qui arrivent sur le marché. Plenty of products will be introduced in the market in the next few days.
Obviously, we have to talk about oil-less fryers when we talk about 2025 innovation. Oil-less fryers are a great contribution, 50% growth in continental Europe in 2024. There are two different kinds of offers. We now have market offers, single drawer oil-less fryers, dual drawer oil-less fryers with two different cooking modes, multi-cooking mode fryers. We have the latest innovations such as silenced oil-less fryers because for those of you who have an oil-less fryer and use it very often, 4x, 5x, 6x a week, you're probably aware that they make as much noise as a lawnmower. We have now developed silent products. Also, the cooking performance is more homogeneous, more consistent for all the contents in the cooking drawer, especially with infrared cooking.
Another innovation, which is geometrical, really, in kind, we have developed a fryer which is no longer narrow and high, but wide and deep and flat. This is the cooking surface oil-less fryer, which can be used in different. On voyait des innovations toujours très centrées sur les besoins et les attentes des consommateurs. The real expectations that we've noted or supposed expectations. These innovations are those that will be creating value, but not only the market. In other words, consumers' expectations are not the same in various geographies. You have three examples of blenders and mixers, as it were, in Europe, in China, and in Colombia. These are devices that technical specifications are very similar, but they do not exactly do the same thing. In some countries, they might be doing milkshakes. In other countries, they might be preparing plant-based drinks.
A third, and due to this, these products are different. One of the strengths of the group is that ability to adapt your product offering to the uses of local consumers because a blender in Mexico is not used the same way as a blender in Brazil. That is not everything. We also work on major trends in blender development. Here is a first example of a blender we call high-speed. Now, these blenders are able to have a much stronger cutting potential to break up and blend harder foods. They can heat; some other ones can heat the food. You can make soups and things. These are devices that are of greater quality and more silent. Silence can be important in the use of a blender in the kitchen.
The first trend in developing blending, and the other ones you see on the right, are the new use of healthy cooking, easy to use and easy to clean. BlendUp was just kicked off in Europe. You can do your preparation, and the actual jar is on the top. You can obviously remove it and turn it over. You can bring it as a glass with you. You can bring your own drink once it's been prepared in the same device. These are mature markets. They're very different markets depending on the region in the world they're popular in. They do offer many opportunities for future development. I'd like to invite you to see how people use BlendUp that we've.
Move with the good. Shake it up, stop when the clock hits 13. You've been working but you're flirting with the weekend.
You can freak out one in a million. You're a gemshine when the light grows dim. Sing one, two, three, four. Cut, cut, cut. No one can do it like we do it, like we do it, like we do it. 'Cause no one can do it like we do it, like we do it, like we do it. 'Cause no one can do it like we do it, like we do it, like we do it. 'Cause no one can do it like we do it, like we do it, like we do it. We got the right to. We put the hammer right down. Wanna be like us? You better stick around. If you want it, you gotta prove it like we do it, like we do it.
[Foreign language] J'en profite pour remercier. I'd like to take advantage of this to thank all the group teams.
There are several thousand people working in marketing and development and industrialization and design in all of these products. It looks simple, but it's a lot of work and a lot of involvement, engagement with consumers and customers to reach that result. EUR 2.5 billion of sales in 2024 have been made with products that have been kicked off since 2022 and more than 50 product families. Innovation was at the very heart and is in our DNA. It is the heart of future growth. A few words about the strategy in the professional areas. We started in 2016 in this area with coffee, with the acquisition of WMF, which had bought Schiller before. The strategy here was going to be consistent to add bricks to our edifice. We are going to take the leadership and become world leader of professional coffee machines.
Professional coffee machines that are automatic. We have the WMF brand, which is made in Germany by Schiller. Also, Wilbur Curtis acquired another one in Los Angeles. We're number two in the US, which is getting very close to being number one. Zumo in Spain, after Curtis, Zumo, recently in 2023, they bought San Marco near Venice. These are major Italian brands, which are extremely elegant machines. The strategy in this area is very simple. You want to occupate the whole field. Filter coffee is traditional. There's cold coffee. We're developing a geographical extension in all areas, which will be accelerated by the launch of the hub, the standards last talked about in Shaoxing. There will be a new clientele, which will need smaller machines for offices. It's got to be smaller in an office than in a hotel. It also has to be cheaper.
We're looking at that as well, at that market. Now, we now have an older approach. Tefal has always been used in many restaurants in France and elsewhere. There are a lot of restaurant owners that buy that from Metro or elsewhere. It's historically present. More because it's a product like Schumer, it's used by professionals. We bought in 2024 All-Clad, which is the major brand at the top of the line in cooking utensils in Pittsburgh. There are seven layers of seven different metals, which is used by big chefs and also by demanding consumers in the US. In 2016, we acquired WMF. The second one was Hepp, which is a German brand as well, used in hotels, sold into hotels. Hepp is a brand which is stronger than WMF. We added Compo to that.
That's a French brand. They are near Quimper in Brittany. They are professional crepe makers. In 2023, we bought Bacojet. This is very specialized to produce ice cream. This is based near Zurich. In 2023, we bought Forgedo, which is mainly in semi-pro, but they're also in professional. In 2024, we indicated earlier, we bought Charvet, 100% professional. In 2025, the last acquisition, which was signed off at the end of January in this year, with the acquisition of the Brigade de Buyer. It has really added to our very complete product line. I just wanted to indicate that it's currently being acquired because the business of a professional is highly atomized. It's very far away from consumers. They do not want multi-usage. They want products that are targeted in one use because that's the safety above all.
The fact that these products need to work, and that's the most important thing. That's very specialized and very often in this business. There are very small companies, but that's not a problem for us. We know how to put them together, and we develop synergy with them. That's what our competitors in the U.S. and elsewhere do. The essential thing is to set up strategies. Just a word about the latest arrival, a word about La Brigade de Buyer. That's a flagship brand for chefs. The brand goes back to 1850, I think. Sabatier is a knife maker from Thiers in France. There are other brands called Scarité, which produces the grillette, they call them in French, that all of the bakers use to make bread. It's very technical because the blade should not break because it can be dangerous.
Because it could really kill somebody if it falls into the bread. This is a premium product, but also a professional product. It's very present internationally, notably in the U.S. EUR 66 million of sales in 2024. It's half out of France. 290 staff, three production sites in France, including one in Val d'Ajol, which is the biggest one, right near the Vosges Mountains. Why this acquisition? La Brigade de Buyer has a real multi-material expertise. You can see copper, you can see stainless, a lot of different materials. They have, as I was saying earlier, the technology, and restaurant owners remember this brand that they used when they're in training. Today, La Brigade de Buyer is the best known. The big names like Fauchon and all the cooking schools use this product. They're part of the training program of the chefs.
It is very important for us to have that brand on the professional market or semi-professional market. I'll conclude just by saying that in the Bocuse d'Or awards in Lyon, which is a world final every two years, All-Clad was the official partner for Bocuse d'Or, which sponsored all of the teams. The French team had a particularity that they had their own brand, and that brand was La Brigade de Buyer. Paul Marcon won the Bocuse d'Or, the group won that twice. We won an award twice because of their win in the Bocuse d'Or this year. A short film clip.
[Foreign language] On va travailler sur un ustensile qui est vraiment l'âme de la cuisine française, le cuivre. On a une uniformité de chaleur, une uniformité de diffusion vraiment très particulière. C'est vraiment l'outil traditionnel de la gastronomie française.
Beautiful. We talked about development and sustainable development.
In 2024, as I said, the group developed its new ambition in terms of corporate social responsibility and environmental responsibility. The previous agreement dated back to 2018 because in 2018, we looked at that last year, we shared the strategy on 14th of December 2024, with all of our investors and shareholders. We had a validation and strategy committee and a sustainable development group. The strategy starts from the group mission for facilitating the everyday life of consumers and to help people live better throughout the world. There are three main focuses: Act for nature, which is about water and climate and substances; Act as a leader in circular economy, working on eco- design and second-hand products; and Act for all, for our suppliers, for our consumers, for employees, and for communities.
We are focusing on these three priorities so that we can act responsibly and ethically. Let's take a look at-
Our story. It is one of innovation, a pioneering mindset, and responsibility driven by a commitment to make consumers' everyday lives easier and more enjoyable. Aware of rising environmental and social challenges, we are accelerating our sustainable transformation to create value, enhance competitiveness and resilience, and contribute to a fairer, more responsible world. Today, we are writing the next chapter of our ESG strategy with our 2024-2030 ambition, Act for better living. It is built on three pillars and one fundamental commitment: to act ethically and responsibly. Our roadmap to 2030 is clear and ambitious, built on our long-standing ESG commitments and achievements. It sets bolder objectives as well as breakthrough pioneering initiatives. Act for nature.
We're accelerating our actions to meet SBTi-approved climate goals by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement. We're improving our production methods and product design to protect natural resources. Act as a leader in circular economy. As repairability pioneers and experts, we're reducing further product environmental footprint by using more recycled materials and by improving energy efficiency. We're leading the way towards a more circular economy by developing a new business model based on refurbished product sales and creating a new recycling program for pots and pans. Act for all. We remain committed to inclusion, equal opportunities, and well-being at work. Alongside our suppliers, we ensure respect for our ethics values throughout our value chain. We promote responsible consumption and support local communities. This is the essence of our ambition.
To achieve this goal, each and every one of us has a critical role to play. Every one of our ideas, every one of our actions, from everyday gestures to large-scale projects, drives us forward. Commitment starts with us. Let's act together. Act for better living.
Very strong commitment on the part of the employees in the group, but also their quantitative objectives in the strategy and a quantified trajectory. That is what we did, and that is what we shared. First of all, our commitments concerning reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions, which have been validated by the SBTi, which we spoke about earlier, which are on a trajectory for carbon neutral by 2050. We also worked on our position as a leader in the circular economy in a few indices which are important to us. First of all, repairability of products.
If devices aren't repairable, there's no circular economy. Reducing by 85% the weight of our products, removal of the use of plastic in packaging. There are many main other obvious efforts, recycled and act as a leader in circular economy. We have quantified with our suppliers. We want 100% of our suppliers to be covered by purchasing responsibility commitments. We have quality follow-up on certifications of our suppliers, safety in the workplace, mixity, and so forth. Rather than getting into the details of objectives, I suggest that we look through the main results that were reached in 2024, because 2024 was the first year of the plan, starting with the greenhouse gas emissions of the scope L2 onto the direct emissions by the group in our own activities. Our mission was to reduce that by 42% by 2030 compared to 2021. We have 18% in 2024.
We are in line with that trajectory. Similarly, when you look at the greenhouse gas emissions of our products during the actual usage by consumers, we have an objective of 25% reduction in 2030. We stand at -13%. We are more than halfway there in 2024. These results have been sanctioned by the SBTi and approved by the CDP, which is a major organization for ratings of the carbon trajectory or decarbonation trajectory of companies. It was confirmed this year that our rating is A -. It is the second best rating. It is hard to keep those ratings because their requirements increase year after year. In addition to decarbonation, we worked on the circular economy. We worked on what we are doing in Acting for all, Act as a leader for all. That is our program, Act for all.
The utilization of recycled materials, our products, and our packaging went from 34%- 40%. The objective is 60%. We are working on reducing work-related accidents. We stood at 1.1 work-related accidents per million hours. The LTIR, total recordable injury rate. We now stand at 0.8 in 2024. It was not as good as 2023. We had a problem, but we are working on that. In terms of the number of women in management positions, we stood at 20% in 2021. We are targeting 30% by 2030. We stand at 27% now in 2024. We are in line with that trajectory. The circular economy, I am not going to go back over that, but I would like to remind you that we kicked off a world premiere with the first closed loop of casseroles and reusing materials to produce new pots and pans.
The transformation of the industrial site into a repackaging center is going to be ultimately the tool that will make it possible for us to realize between 3%-4% of reselling this type of recycled product to Western Europe. So much about the strategy and the results. We're going to be looking at the second part of our general meeting, and we're going to be talking about that with Philippe a bit about capital and governance. Let's have a look at capital. Not much change on the 21st of December 2024. 35% of the shareholders, 72. The presidents we'd like to thank again, FSBA and the BPI France, together represent 10% of capital. We're very happy that you're with us. We've also seen the observed the departure of Peugeot Invest.
It was said earlier, repetitively made it possible for us to conclude the salaried shareholders to get above the 3.3%. This is very of great importance to us. And 37% or the equivalent of family investments. In terms of voting rights, we have the differential. We've got BPI and FSBA roughly 10%, and institutional is 28%, and staff 3.6%. Now let's move on to less pleasant things. You've got the stock market prices upset between 2024. Let's go for it. You go, I go. It is disappointing in the stock market prices. Can't hide that. Disappointing results, I think, in 2024. The change in the listing prices is due a lot to the poor perception of an effect that we call the China effect.
Because when you look at the change of the stock market prices compared to all the whole set of the losses, which are qualified as activities that are close to Chinese, no even - 24%, - 30%, we see that all this bad news from China led to a fall in prices over the year 2024. What about the long haul, Terry?
Just to go into, we talked about volatility, which is extraordinary. Today, we wind up the price of the 31st of December, which is not good, but it is an improvement of the situation. I'm not saying we should think relatively, but over a long period, over 20, we're + 250%, and the IASB is 109. So we're going to continue in getting that stock market listing up.
In terms of the dividend, according to the policy we've been leading since the listing in 1975, we've always said that we were looking for regular growth in the dividend year- by- year. We don't have a P/E ratio. We just want to improve regularly. You can see the decrease in 2019 linked to the instructions we received from the government so as to reduce the fact of the partial employment linked to COVID. You can see that we never reduced the dividend. It was frozen in the previous year, once or twice, but we never decreased it. Over 20 years of 7% per year. We propose to the general meeting a growth in the dividend, which is on the order of 6.9% to EUR 2.80. Now, let's talk a little bit about the board and the committee. Philippe?
Yeah board of directors is comprised of 14 members, six representing the family group, four independent members, two designated by the trade unions, the Group finance committee and the European committee on the other, and the administrative person body who represents salaried shareholders. We have seen the percentage of percentages held by staff. This board, you might have seen compared to previous years, is smaller. It went from 17% to 16%. Now we are 15%. Now it is 14%. Obviously, we are respecting the reactions of 1/3 independent. It is comprised of 54% of women and the average age is 56. Now, the bit of information concerns BPI. Madame the mayor was designated during the year to replace Mr. [Guillaume Martellier].
If we move on to the breakdown of the committees, there are many changes. You have got the accounts audit and compliance committee, presided over by Catherine Wu, independent chairwoman.
It's comprised of Adeline Lemaire Rouillemet, François Ménariet for the family, and Désirée Isgos. She's an independent member. This respects the efforts of MEDEF recommendations, and 3/4 of these are independent that have qualifications in financial training and accounting training. They get together 5x a year, and their participation rate is 100%. The governance and remuneration committee presided over Mr. Jean-Laurent Lacas , who's here, who's an independent board member. It's composed for the independent board members of Catherine Poule. He's also represented by the two branches from the Conseil Familial, Caroline Chevalet, for GÉNÉRACTION et d'Amés Breda for investissement, and Brigitte Forestier as a salaried administrator board member. The committee meets a lot. They met 9x this year, where the participation rate is very high of 98%. The difference coming from the fact that sometimes some independent board members are board members in other companies.
Sometimes there are conflicts in their agendas. Lastly, the Strategic and CSR Committee, which is presided over by Thierry de La Tour d'Artaise, with independent members Catherine Wu and Adeline Lemaire, and representative of the Conseil Familial, William Garratt and Thierry Lescure. They meet 3x a year based on the rules established at the time it was created because they review the strategy and the CSR roadmap. In their first meetings, another meeting is devoted to external growth and strategy about that. The third meeting is devoted to reviewing strategic orientations, which are decided on a yearly basis by the group teams. These committees, as I said, have an activity rate, which is quite high during the year, which is one of the reasons for which we proposed a resolution to review their remuneration.
This committee, this board, and the committees have met many times, seven for the board and 17 for the committees. They are extremely involved in all issues concerning your group, strategy we spoke about, but also following up on activities in every board meeting and growth, external growth without exception as well. The ambition in CSR, after having the approval, is finance and audit and risk and governance and compensation nomination and the salary shareholdership project. You can see on this slide a real illustration of the involvement of your board. It is because in the month of March 2024, all of your board members went to China for a few days to be able to examine the progress made. We are seeing the Rangeau site. They went to Shaoxing as well, where we took this picture. Let's move on to prior information to voting on the resolutions. Philippe?
This year, we have 17 resolutions. I'm not going to take the 17th because that's just formalities. But the 16 resolutions, we have 14. We have 13 that are ordinary and 3 that are extraordinary. First of all, the classical approval of accounts, setting the dividend, and the buyback, which is resolution 13. We have resolutions having to do with governance about the statutory accounts. I think we can move over that quite quickly. Governance, c'est-à-dire governance issues, appointments of new directors, new board members. What we propose, the board proposes to renew the mandate of Brigitte Forestier as a board member representing salaried shareholders. Brigitte Forestier is in the group for a long time. She did her whole career in HR, I think, from Canard. She's here. She'll introduce herself. She's a board member and has been since 2017.
She was renewed for the investor fund for the account of staff and salaried shareholding and shareholding investment programs. Perhaps you'd like to see Brigitte. Par ailleurs, nous vous proposons une nouvelle nomination. We also would like to submit a new appointment. This causes a, and following the governance rules, when an independent director has been in the board for 12 years, he is supposed not to be independent anymore. Based on this assumption, the board of directors to the governance and remuneration committee looked for an independent director and offered the appointment to Éric Rondolat. Éric Rondolat is a company manager, is a former chief executive of a listed company, and I will allow him to introduce himself, which may provide an explanation as to why we chose him. Thank you.
Thank you. Messieurs, permettez-moi de me présenter. Gentlemen, I'd like to introduce myself. Éric Rondolat.
I'm French and Italian. I have lived in seven countries, four continents. I worked for two companies, mainly Schneider Electric, for 20 years and six years in the executive committee in the last three of those as a member of the presidency of the group in Asia-Pacific based in Beijing. I joined Philippe to become the general manager of the light and illumination sector. I finished with 13 years, nine of which president of a listed company. I listed the company, and we changed the name to Signify in 2018. Why Groupe SEB? Because for emotional reasons, because those are the products that I lived with for several years when I was younger. They were always paradigm of innovation and quality. I have always lived in an international environment like Groupe SEB. I'm fascinated by the organic and non-organic growth that the group has experienced during the last 10 years.
I was attracted by the group's director's ambition. I had a chance, got a chance to talk to the members of the board of directors and the management representatives. I realized that I would be able to work with people with whom I share principles and beliefs and core values. I thought we could work together to rise to challenges and seize opportunities in the coming years. If you do me the honor of appointing me as a director for the group, you may really rely on me to contribute to the strategy and the group's development to create value for the company's benefit and the company's shareholders. Thank you.
Thank you, Eric. We are happy. I hope that we will be able to welcome you very soon if the General Assembly votes in favor of your appointment. I hope they will.
I would like to also congratulate Brigitte Forestier for her reappointment. We're very happy that she was going to stay with us on the board of directors. I thank Isolise for the 12 years she spent with us making progress in the field of digital, which became a specialty, and in many other topics. Thank you very much for your contribution. Maybe now you can sleep at night because you're based in New York. Too often, the board of directors starting at 9:00 A.M., it was 3:00 A.M. in New York. We were very sorry for you. Thank you for having attended those boards of directors we've been to see for many years. Philippe, next, we have a number of resolutions. C'est en paie. Three resolutions, exposed and three for ex ante for 2024.
I'll go over this very quickly. The first one is about remuneration of the CEO exposed 2024. We applied what had been introduced as ex ante last year. Not much more I need to say. Exactly the same thing for the General Manager. You have elements of the exposed indications of remuneration. And in 2024, we implemented what had been decided ex ante during the previous General Assembly. Regarding remuneration for 2025 for the Chairman of the Board of Directors, no changes. It's fixed remuneration and remuneration as a director and president of the strategic committee. No other retributions, neither bonuses nor performance shares. Regarding the CEO, I'd like to remind you of the remuneration system structure for the variable part for many years now. You know that this is true for all the shareholders.
It's a quantitative part for 2/3 and qualitative part for 25% of the annual bonus being paid. The quantitative part is mainly made up of sales, consolidated sales, and goals for the group, but also the corporate responsibility goals for energy efficacy, the number of accidents, ethics, and compliance in different areas across the world where the questions may arise. Qualitative criteria are still regarding the individual performance based on three goals set up by the Chairman and the board of directors, and then a collective performance by the committee. Finally, regarding long-term remuneration for the CEO, it is based for everybody else who is eligible of a three-year scheme based on financial criteria measured annually, sales and offer for the annual part, and 20% based on corporate responsibility criteria, which are chosen due to the fact that they can be measured over three years rather than annually.
It doesn't mean that the remuneration is guaranteed. We have the example of the plan in 2022, which was granted in 2022 for 2022, 2023, 2024, and the number of shares which will finally be attributed will be 70% instead of 100% because in 2022, the goals had not been reached. It's just an example. Back to the CEO package for 2025, you see that the fixed remuneration is not changing. The bonus conditions are the same, 100% of the target, but capped at percent and the 13,000 shares for the performance shares. Finally, I'd like to come to the director's policy of remuneration.
The governance and remuneration committee has made a number of benchmarks and observed that if we compare with SBF 120, there was a delta regarding the average remuneration of the directors and suggested to the board to simply reach the median remuneration level in the market, which means that, and this is a resolution we are submitting to increase the envelope to retribute administrators from EUR 820,000 to EUR 1,100,000, which means that you can see in the table that the basic retribution will be increased and also the board members and the board chairman remuneration will be increased. You see that the committee activity is very, very dense to sustain. The variable annual remuneration is kept at 150%.
A few statutory changes to modulate the duration of the directors' terms of reference so that we renew the directors more often and we do not replace them all at the same time, avoiding some peak effects. Also, a change that was introduced by the attractivity law whereby there can be a written consultation of the directors suggested by the chairman, but protected by the law, and this will be in our bylaws. You have seen the resolution in such a way that any of the directors can oppose, veto this kind of consultation and suggest that it is carried out in a more conventional way by a board meeting.
Thank you very much, Philippe. I would like to give the floor to Mrs. [Sarah Regency] from the KPMG Statutory Auditor's Office for the annual accounts report from Leroy Associés and KPMG.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I'd like to introduce on behalf of the KPMG and the Leroy Auditors College the report we prepared for you. These reports can be found in the documents that you were given. The reports are the following: reports on annual accounts and consolidated accounts, a special report on regulated agreements, capital-related operations report, and sustainability information report. I'd like to focus on the essential items in the auditor's report on the annual accounts for this year, bearing in mind that our work, according to the professional standards, is to achieve a reasonable assurance that there are no significant abnormalities in the accounts. A report on the annual accounts is introduced in pages 343- 346 in the general registration document.
We certify that the accounts, according to the main French accounting rules and principle, are regular and sincere and provide a true and fair view of the result of operations for the past fiscal year, as well as the financial position and assets of the company at the end of that fiscal year. We also have described the key audit points regarding the evaluation of equity investments and the diligences that have been conducted. We have made no observation on the management report and the information regarding the governance of the company. We concluded that the presentation format of the annual accounts to be included in the annual financial report is in compliance with the single electronic reporting format for Europe. Regarding the consolidated accounts, our report is presented in pages 319-322 of the universal registration document.
We certify the accounts without reservation or observation with regard to the FRS standards adopted by the European Union. Regular and sincere and provide a true and fair view of the results of operations for the past fiscal year, as well as the financial position and assets at the end of the fiscal year for the entirety of the entities included in the consolidation. We have introduced in our report the key audit points regarding evaluation of the recoverable value of goodwill and indefinite lived trademarks, and evaluation and accounting of provisions for deferred rebates. We would like to inform you through this report that we have made no observation on the group's management report and the sincerity of the information provided in the management report.
We concluded that the presentation of the consolidated accounts to be included in the financial and annual report, including the tagging of these accounts, is in compliance with the information format for the European single electronic reporting format. Our special report on regulated agreements is shown on page 371 of the universal registration document. We have been informed of no new agreements submitted for approval by the general meeting, and no agreements were authorized and concluded during the past fiscal year, the execution of which would have continued during this last fiscal year. In connection with the capital operations, we have released an agreement for the general meeting to attribute free shares based on a performance condition according to the fourth resolution. No observations regarding the information provided in the board of directors' report.
Finally, our certification report for the information regarding durability is shown in page 331- 334 of the universal registration document. This report is divided in two parts, which each match one of the orientations of our assignment in compliance with the Code of Commerce disposition and the higher audit authority to convey a limited insurance. The first axis is the compliance with ESRS for the compliance of SEB S.A.'s implemented process to determine published information. Based on the verifications we conducted, we have not found any errors, omissions, or substantial inconsistency regarding the compliance of SEB S.A.'s process with ESRS. The elements which drew attention regard the identification of the stakeholders, identification of impacts, risks, and opportunities, and finally, evaluation of impact materiality and financial materiality.
The second orientation has to do with the certification of sustainability information and control of discussion requirements under Article 8 of Comma 8 and 4 of the Code of Commerce. Based on our certification, we found no errors, omissions, or substantial inconsistency regarding the information for durability included in the durability statement. Without questioning the conclusions reached previously, we attract your attention on the information appearing under the first application of ESRS paragraph, section basis of preparation of the sustainability statement. This note clarifies the limitations and uncertainties inherent with the first year of application, especially for some data points required by ESRS that are either not published in the sustainability statement or published within a partial scope or estimated.
Second, the information presented in paragraph E16 gross GHG emissions from scopes 1, 2, and 3, and total GHG emissions of section indicators related to climate change mitigation, as well as in section E16 gross GHG emissions from scopes 1, 2, and 3, and total GHG emissions, which actually explains the reasons why Groupe SEB uses a theoretical average usage duration of one year in average for all products sold when calculating the carbon footprint related to product use in scope 3.11. The elements that were given particular attention regard the information provided in application of the environmental standards, ESRS E1 to E5. Finally, acted through Article 8 of the European Union Rule 2022/852 for control of disclosure requirements. We found no mistakes, omissions, or inconsistency regarding compliance with the requirements of Article 8 of Regulation EU 2020/852. Particular attention was given to the eligibility of activities.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the summary of our report regarding the fiscal year 2024. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much, Mrs. Regency, and congratulations because it was not easy, but you summarized this really well. Thank you very much. We are not going to move on. Questions and answers. We are here to reply to all the questions and to make sure that we really can give everybody a chance to talk because many of you took a long trip to be here with you today. We will try to keep the questions and answers short so that we can take as many questions as possible. Replies to written questions were disclosed on the company's website, so we are not going to go through those questions, so you can actually read them on the website, and we will have more time for new questions. Can we have more light?
There are roaming microphones, so please raise your hand and someone will bring you a microphone.
Number one. I'll try to stand. I'd like to come back to refurbishment. 10 years ago, Groupe SEB started selling pans made of recycled aluminum. Initially, it was a failure, and the same happened with repairability of equipment. In the meantime, things have changed, and a big step forward was taken with the factory of Is-sur-Tille with a EUR 1 million investment, and the factory became the first European center for refurbishment. It is a premier across the world. I have three questions, very short questions. One. How many products have already gone through Is-sur-Tille to be reconditioned or refurbished and sold again? The second question, what are your goals for 2025? Third question, for the next five years, what percentage of your sales will be accounted for by refurbished products?
I have an ancillary question. That is four questions. Are you going to give us, as the traditional gift following the General Assembly, a refurbished product?
Thank you very much. I'd like to give the floor to Stanislas de Gramont. Some of the answers are already contained in the questions. How many products? Between 15,000 and 30,000 this year. It depends very much on how many products we collect. We're only just starting, and the activity is picking up speed progressively, so we want to make sure that we can process all the products of vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, or ironing stations. Between 15,000 and 30,000 products. I'm looking at Cathy Pianon, who will confirm.
Unfortunately, I cannot answer regarding the sales for the next five years. It depends on the consumer's mindset, and people are changing their minds.
I mean, smartphones 10 years ago, the second-hand rate of sales was less than 5%. Now they account for 30% of the market. What it boils down to is we need to be ready. We want to be ready to face this demand by increasing the quantity of products we collect and refurbish. Also, regarding the traditional gift to shareholders, it will depend on how the shareholders' mindset evolves if they follow the consumers' mindset evolution. I hope that one day I will be able to give you this kind of product as a traditional gift, but we need to have 300 or 400 products which are all similar because if we started giving shareholders different products, there would be an uproar. I am an individual shareholder. I have two questions. One regarding the turnover of the sales and one on repairability.
Now, regarding the sales, the sales have increased by approximately 5% in the last few years. You've been acquiring many different companies. Okay, but what about our core business? What about the core business? And two pressure cookers, one is seven years old and the other one is three years old, both. In both cases, the lid was stuck all of a sudden. We could not get it open again. Is that a default? Is that a manufacturing issue? Because we've been working with pressure cookers for 50 years, we've had two. Lately, we started wondering whether the quality was still the same. I will answer both questions. We apologize. We apologize that you had these issues with your pressure cookers because we have a very, very low fault rate. Please send us the products back to the headquarters at Écully.
We will replace them and we will check to understand what happened, why the lid was stuck, and we will check and repair. I guess it's a coincidence that it happened to you twice, and I really apologize. The pressure cookers are made at the Ursulanger factory, which is famous because since it was open, no single customer actually was injured or had an accident with a pressure cooker. Regarding the sales, when we talk about like-for-like sales revenue, less than 5%, we're talking about the organic sales based on existing products. The consolidated revenue usually is based on two dimensions: variation in the exchange rate, mostly negative, and scope variation, which is normally positive because we buy companies more than we sell companies. To answer your question for the core business, it's the 5% you have referred to.
That is the whole point when we talk about a like-for-like percentage. It means that every acquisition, when it joins the group, the next year, it becomes part of the core business and it is part of the organic growth. If we think about the next 20 years, half of the sales increase will be organic and half of the sales increase will be carried out with acquisitions. Does that answer your question?
I have been a shareholder for 25 years, and I find that ever since 2018, you have been acquiring many companies and still the sales are only increasing by 5%. Again, I believe that is a core business issue.
Many of the acquisitions are part of the core business. Once the company has been integrated, it becomes part of the core business.
Yes, but if we compare with 25 years ago, for instance, you did not acquire so many companies and still your sales were growing 5% every year.
Yeah, but that was not integrating the acquisitions, whereas the 5% today integrates the acquired companies. It is a structural issue and 5% makes sense.
Okay. I'm sorry, forgive me, but I'm not convinced and I don't think I'm the only one in the room.
Thank you very much for your question.
There's one question here in front. Christian Chevier, individual shareholder.
I had a question regarding AI. You mentioned artificial intelligence. How do you think you will be using AI, generative AI, and embedded AI in the products?
Thank you very much for this question. There is no dogma one way or another. AI is being used for marketing, for data processing, for a vast quantity of data.
Automatic search for keywords on the internet. That is very technical, but we use it increasingly for models to process data on a very large scale for marketing purposes. I said no dogma because regarding products, there might be a few areas in which it could be interesting, but not everywhere. For innovation, we are always guided by what will bring value to the consumer. Adding AI, for instance, in a pressure cooker or in an oil-fryer is not because the AI can render a service. It is because the AI provides a value that will be perceived by the consumer. At Groupe SEB, we have created our own AI portal. We are in a capacity to use AI in a safe environment. When I am talking about, when I say safe, I mean with regard to cybersecurity.
We have 300 people who work with AI on use cases virtually every week and every day. We have a governance committee that selects use cases that have been proven and use them in the group and discontinue those use cases that have not been proven. In summary, it is a very strong tool, and we have chosen to adapt a very pragmatic research approach based on use cases and based on our workers' experience and activity. I'd like to add that AI is a reality. It's here to stay. There is no way we're going to turn our back on it, on artificial intelligence. However, we need to be cautious, and sometimes there are bugs in the answers provided by AI. It's also something that we follow closely, especially us board of directors, because there may be huge consequences on the group's life and strategy.
Yes, sir. [Foreign language] Là, on ne vous rate pas parce que ça fait trois fois que vous demandez la parole. Je me souviens d'une publicité. I remember an ad. Groupe SEB, c'est bien. Groupe SEB, c'est bien. Groupe SEB is good. Now, maybe there was an ad for photocopiers to be continued. What I'd like, I've noted is that the development towards technology that is evolving so that you can counter and can stop copies. And since WMF, you've insisted pretty strongly on professional activities. Perhaps that's a better profitability. I hope that the shares from Peugeot Invest, you got them at a reasonable price.
Thank you. They were at the market price, so it was at the price at the time. Going over the requirements, you're right. We have decided to move very strongly towards the professional segment via acquisitions. Why?
As I said, in the professional area, there are very many small players. If we want to be a major player, we have to be in many areas. We do not do the same products that other companies do. That is why it justifies the large number of companies that we are buying. First of all, we are always a worldwide player. We are more concentrated into Europe, but we are looking at companies throughout all the areas and regions where we are present in the world. The third point is that we have defined, or we believe that we need the professionals should represent a significant part of our sales in the group. Today, we said it is more than EUR 1 billion professionals. We would rather have it be closer to EUR 2 billion and maybe someday EUR 10 billion.
The idea is to work on organic growth, which is synergy between our various units, and also opening up new geographies with the growth potential, as we said, for Charvet, for WMF, for China through the tea houses that are present, all the people at their tea houses, their centers that sell tea, and they sell more tea than coffee. There is a potentially very strong growth possibility in the US. In cooking, it is going to take years. We have not created the major activity in three years. We have had to wait. I believe that the professional activity is extremely complementary to what we do selling elsewhere. When we have products that are professional in nature, sometimes it is interesting to sell those as for con sumers.
Thank you. That was a question from the back of the room.
Hello. Thank you for your presentation. Very interesting.
Patrick Fehr, I'm an individual shareholder, and I represent the Association National of Shareholders of France, where I talk about the problem of ISR and CSR. I read your interesting report on the sustainability. There's one thing that I have a hard time understanding, and that is that your performance in emissions of CO2 are good. However, there is a figure where you take the megawatt-hours per millions of years of sales, and you go from 80- 82. It's increasing from one year to the next, whereas all of the other criteria are downswinging. I looked for the explanation in the text, and I didn't find any. Do you have an explanation? No, Stanislas, maybe? Or Charles?
It's kind of hard to answer that. I think there's an increase. We'll have to look into that.
Per million of sales, there's a volume effect, and there's also a country mix effect. As a function of the place, Chinese energy is 20 x more carbonated than French electricity. Depending on the place where you consume and you produce your emissions, you can have positive volume effects and negative volume effects. Let me just take your question in writing, and we'll respond on the site with no problem. I've understood. You're comparing megawatt-hours to millions in sales, and one's going up and one's going down. That's your question. The interpreter cannot hear the question. He's not using a microphone. Megawatt-hours fait avec du charbon ou avec de l'électricité, c'est toujours des megawatt-hours. Megawatt-hours, megawatt-hours, whatever the source. The emissions aren't the same, obviously. Here we're talking about the megawatt-hours. I'll have a look.
Thank you.
I'd like to take your question in writing so that we can make sure we're answering the right question. We'll obviously respond. Thank you.
In front here? Oui, Monsieur Gender. Monsieur Gender, yeah. Your hub in China is devoted to coffee, more or less. What brand are you using? Is it to sell to the Chinese market, or to do production where you sell just about anywhere in the world?
The brands are, our coffee machines are kind of brand agnostic. We could sell them in the future in WMF or other brands. First priority is the Chinese market because that's being developed in middle-of-the-line products that we cannot design and produce economically in Europe. These product lines are going to be extended outside of China. First of all, China, and then later in Europe.
The intention would be strategic after that with the coffee machines, which are totally professional, full professional, basically. That is going to be starting at EUR 5,000-EUR 6,000 today. We think we can do it at EUR 3,000, which will make it possible to increase exponentially the number of potential clients buying these machines and to ensure a growth acceleration of that machine. Perhaps in the area of professional coffee in China, there may be a certain number of players in China who are starting to take positions with local manufacturing. It is important to not have products that are competitive with the local competition. That is why we are manufacturing the Chinese machines for China in China. It is the same logic in the area of the professional machines because we have only machines manufactured in Europe.
We're going to leave the market, go to the Chinese who will be producing them locally. Does that answer your question?
Just one remark. There's a little bit of a lack of parity on the stage.
You're absolutely right. We cannot transform ourselves. Not enough air. Any other questions? If there are no further questions, thank you. We will move on to voting on the resolutions. I'm going to hand over to Philippe Sumeire for this purpose.
First of all, the quorum, before we move on. We'll check the final quorum, which is a little bit less than last year because in AGO, we have a quorum of 96.7%, and voting rights 88.24%. Last year, we had a percent and a half more for voting rights. In AGE, it's the same.
You have noted that 4,348 shareholders are present in AGO and 4,353 in AGE, which is very similar to previous years. We have very much the quorum to proceed with voting on the resolutions. We are moving on to the vote. The texts are in the brochures that you are familiar with. You have received the convening notice. If no one is opposed, we are going to summarize the resolution very briefly. You are going to have an electronic control box, and we are going to explain to you how that works. You will have eight seconds to vote. I think we are going to show you the explanation of how to use your voting units. Ladies and gentlemen shareholders, the number of votes that you hold or represent is loaded into your unit and is displayed on the screen. You only use three buttons: the green, the yellow, and the red.
The green button corresponds [Foreign language] à un vote pour. The touche jaune correspond à un vote abstention. The touche rouge correspond à un vote contre. Après la lecture de chacune des résolutions, il faut immédiatement procéder à son vote. Et une fois que le compte est ouvert, à cet instant, you will hear the vote is open. At this point in time, there's a rectangle which shows you the countdown of the number of seconds you have to vote. Lorsque le compte à rebours sera achevé, il sera déclaré le second est clos. You will hear the vote is closed, and you will no longer be able to vote. The display of the results will take place right away on your screen, just a few seconds after the vote is closed.
One last indication, thank you for turning off your cell phones during the voting process and to hand back the voting units on your way out of the room. Thank you. I think that's clear. Resolution 1 in ordinary resolutions. The first resolution is the approval of separate financial statements for a total net result of -EUR 10,691. This is due mainly to the sanction of the competition authority, which weighed heavily on the results. Not the consolidated accounts, which you're going to see. For this resolution, the vote is open. The vote is closed. We have 99. So this is carried 99.9%. Let's move on to resolution 2, approval of consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31st January, which showed a net profit of EUR 232 million. The vote is open. The vote is closed. The resolution is carried 99.99%.
Third resolution, allocation of the result for the year ended 31st December and setting the dividend at EUR 2.80 per share. The vote is open. The vote is closed. The vote is carried by 88.78%. Moving on to the fourth resolution, reappointment of Brigitte Forestier as Director for a period of four years as a board member. The vote is open. The vote is closed. 94.35% for. Congratulations. Brigitte has been reelected as a board member. The fifth resolution now, appointment of Éric Rondolat as Director as a board member for a period of four years. The vote is closed. 99.98%. Congratulations. This resolution is also adopted. We move on to the sixth resolution, which is approval of information about the remuneration of all executive officers referred to in Article L22109 of the French Commercial Code. The vote is open. The vote is closed. 96.7%. Resolution is carried.
Next, resolution 7, exposed for Monsieur Thierry de La Tour d'Artaise. The vote is closed. 81.74%. This resolution is carried. Eighth resolution, approval of fixed, variable, and exceptional components of the total remuneration and benefits of all kinds for Monsieur Stanislas de Gramont. The vote is open. The vote is closed. 86.74%. Next resolution, approval of the remuneration policy for the Chairman of the Board of Directors for 2025. The vote is open. The vote is closed. 84.59%. The resolution is carried. 10th resolution, approval of remuneration for the CEO. The vote is open. The vote is closed. Carried with 94.46%. Resolution is carried. On to the 11th resolution, which is the remuneration policy for board members in the year 2025. The vote is open. The vote is closed. Approved 99.19%. In favor, it is carried.
The 12th resolution, selecting the global amount for directors' remuneration, which we examined earlier, will go to EUR 820,000- EUR 1,100,000 per year for all members of the board. The vote is open. The vote is closed. Resolution is carried. Majority of 98.49%. Great. Now, we pass on to the 13th and last ordinary resolution, which is usual for the share buyback program, which is the same as the previous years. The vote is open. The vote is closed. Resolution is carried by a majority of 80.54%. It is approved. Moving on to extraordinary resolutions, modification of bylaws. I'm sorry. The authorization given to the board to grant performance shares, as we do every year. The vote is open. The vote is closed. The resolution is carried by 97.86%. 15th resolution is the amendment of Article 17 of the bylaws on the term of office of directors.
The vote is open. The vote is closed. 99.85%. The resolution is carried. [Foreign language] Enfin, la seizième résolution, amendment of Article 20 of the bylaws to introduce written consultation. The vote is open. The vote is closed. 99.53%. The last resolution, power to carry out formalities. The vote is open. The vote is closed. Also approved, 99.87%. All of the resolutions have been approved.
Thank you, Philippe. Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to thank you for your presence here today in the general meeting. It's a very important moment for our company. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your questions, and we will see you next year. By the time we meet, please do not forget to hand over your voting units and to pick up your gift. Even if it is not secondhand, we hope you'll like. Thank you.