Hello, and welcome to SPIE 9 months 2022 results conference call. My name is Priscilla, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this call is being recorded, and your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end during the Q&A session. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Mr. Gauthier Louette, the Chairman and CEO, and Mr. Jérôme Vanhove to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Yeah. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for attending our conference call for Q3 results at SPIE. During this third quarter, we had a very busy quarter, and we continued to deliver strong performance. Our organic growth is accelerating compared to the first half of the year, with a continued focus on margin strength and progression. Our sales results illustrate our unique strategic position as a key enabler of the energy transition, even more reinforced in the current situation of rising energy prices. We demonstrated our agility to pass on inflation and even increase our margin in the context of inflation. We sold our UK business, allowing us to further focus on our continental footprint.
Finally, our record backlog, combined with the strong demand on energy-related markets, allow us to upgrade our organic growth outlook for the full year 2022. Let me start with a few examples highlighting our expertise in energy efficiency, grid connection and sustainability. In Belgium, we worked on the Flagey building. It is an iconic art deco building completed in 1978, and it's a former headquarters of the National Radio Broadcasting. The picture is not very much art deco. It is a boiler room. We won a 15-year energy performance contract, which includes a replacement of HVAC system as well as an efficient building management. For this project, we're aiming at achieving 15% of savings on gas consumption and 10% of savings on electricity consumption. In Germany, we're contracted by Pyrum to install the energy supply system for the new production facility.
Pyrum can recycle around 2 liters of oil as well as carbon and coveted raw material from just 1 old tire. Obviously, the right energy supply is vital to their process, and we propose an innovative solution for a new substation with installation of transformer stations, one on top of the other. Moving to slide 5. Again, in Germany, we implemented a high voltage overhead line in the Upper Palatinate for one of our main customer, TenneT. The line is set to transport wind energy from north to south and will enable decentralized local feed-in of renewable energy. For this ambitious project, we have mobilized as many as 100 highly experienced speed technicians. Again, it is a good example of our contribution to the transition of the energy supply in Germany.
Then on slide six, in Belgium, SPIE is providing the Flemish public transport company, De Lijn, with 252 additional charging stations for its fleet of electric and E-hybrid buses. We do the delivery, commissioning, and we will also do the maintenance of this charging station. The goal of De Lijn is to achieve zero-emission public transport service by 2035. Clearly on this example as well, SPIE is part of the solution, helping our customer to achieve the sustainability goals. Now I will move to the highlights of the quarter, and this is on slide eight. Organic growth over this nine-month period did accelerate at 5.6%, including an outstanding 8.5% organic growth in Q3.
EBITDA margin improved by 20 basis points in Q3, which supports the 20 basis points improvements over the 9 months period. We recently announced the full divestiture of our U.K. business, allowing us to fully focus on our operations in continental Europe, where our growth model has proven to be very successful and very value creative. We also announced the completion of our EUR 1.2 billion sustainability-linked refinancing, which is a testimony of the high confidence of our core banks in our model and our strong commitment to achieve our ESG objective. Finally, our strong organic growth for this 9 months period, combined with our solid backlog, allow us to upgrade our organic growth outlook for the full year 2022 to at least 5%.
On slide nine, as mentioned, our organic growth momentum did accelerate in Q3 at +8.5%, leading to +5.6% over the nine months period, including the contribution of our acquisition and notably Worksphere. Our total growth reached 14.7% over the nine months. Let me stress in passing that we are really pleased with the Worksphere integration and with the contribution to the results of SPIE. Regarding our margin, the 20 basis point improvement of our EBITDA margin is confirmed in Q3 as well as for the nine months year to date. This is very much in line with our full year outlook. Looking now in detail at our growth per segment at constant ForEx. Benefited from strong organic dynamism in all our markets over the first nine months.
Organic growth reached a good level at 5.5% in France. Organic growth was at 4.7% in Germany and Central Europe, as well as in Northwestern Europe. On the latter, organic growth would even have reached an impressive 6.4%, excluding the UK. Finally, oil and gas and nuclear segment recorded a very high 13.8% Organic growth, mainly driven by strong momentum in OpEx spend for oil and gas services. Growth from acquisitions total 8.7% at group level, including Worksphere, with a 30.7% impact on the Northwestern Europe segment alone. Now if you look at Q3 alone on page eleven. Q3 evidences the acceleration of organic growth in most of our businesses. Growth also supported by our ability to pass on cost increases in our prices.
France enjoyed a buoyant 7.8%, excluding the UK. Organic growth at Northwestern Europe was at a strong 11.1%, thanks to a high level of activity compounded with a low comparison basis. With UK, it was at 14.6%. Germany and Central Europe was up 5.5%. Germany was lagging behind at 3.7% due to phasing effects in the high voltage activity, while showing a positive momentum in comparison with Q2. Oil and gas and nuclear segment was up 13.6%, driven, as explained previously, by the good momentum on our oil and gas activities. Growth from acquisition was significant at 7.4%, mainly linked to Worksphere's integration. Now looking at our margins on slide 12. We again enjoyed a 20 basis point improvement in Q3.
Our EBITDA margin increase has been very consistent quarter- after- quarter, with 20 basis points increase over the first nine months. We are well on track to achieve our full year objective of a 6.3% EBITDA margin. This demonstrate our agility in current inflation context, as detailed on the next slide 13. SPIE has a strong and proven model with efficient levers to protect and increase its EBITDA margin in the current inflationary environment. We do manage to pass on cost increase thanks to the indexation clauses that reflect our cost structure, shorter lead times, the frequent updating of our pricing tools and databases, and the usual short-term cycle for activities. We also enjoy a proven pricing power. Our mission-critical positioning has been evidenced in the recent years, and we have a close relationship with our customer.
We come up with innovative solutions, and clearly the proximity and stickiness of our clients has even been reinforced over the recent years and through the recent crisis. Clearly, we do keep a constant focus on operational excellence in all our operations. Now moving to slide 14. Regarding bolt-on M&A, it remains a key pillar of our value strategy. During these first 9 months, we have realized 4 acquisitions, adding EUR 132 million of revenue on a full year basis. The last one that was announced earlier this week is the acquisition of the fire protection business unit from Belfor in France. It will enable to strengthen SPIE's market position in passive fire protection in the nuclear sector in France.
As previously announced, there were two acquisitions in Germany, PTC Telecom, a technical services and technical solutions company, and a technical facility management activity related to three core production sites from a German blue chip industrial company. One acquisition in Poland, Stangl Technik, a leading player for installation services in mechanical and electrical building. Looking forward, we have an active pipeline of opportunities, and we are likely to sign more deals before the end of this year. Not reaching, however, our initial guidance of circa EUR 250 million acquired revenue. Now let's get more into the details of each business segment, starting with France on slide 16. The organic growth accelerated at 5.5% in the first nine months, illustrating our good positioning for energy transition and the more so in the context of rising cost of energy.
The contribution from Bolt-on was at 2.7%. We do see growing customer demand for energy performance contracts and for energy improvement in Tech FM and commercial installation. City networks also perform well, driven by increasing demand for e-mobility, which is really performing very well at the moment. Work on the improvement of the energy networks and smart lighting solutions. Finally, industrial services were dynamic, supported by decarbonization trends and the accelerated payback of our solutions, considering the current levels of energy prices. In Germany and Central Europe, our organic growth was at 4.7% over the nine months, and contribution from acquisition was at 5.2%. In Germany, organic growth was at 4.6% over the nine months period, with a 3.7% organic growth in Q3. High voltage revenue was still impacted by contract phasing effects.
In this activity, the backlog is at record level, and the quarterly breakdown of revenue may sway, as we have seen in the past, due to somewhat chunkier projects. Tech FM and city networks and grids enjoyed a strong dynamic. I remind you that across our activities in Germany, we have very limited exposure to industrial services and not at all in the area of process. In Central Europe, we recorded a strong organic growth, especially a double-digit growth in Austria. In Switzerland, ICS remained impacted by supply chain delays, which are now slowly reducing. In Northwestern Europe, slide 18, we recorded a solid organic growth at 4.7%. In the Netherlands, the market remains very dynamic in transmission and distribution, in industry services, and in Tech FM. We are experiencing good growth in optical fiber rollout and data centers.
Worksphere integration is as good as completed. Operational organization is fully in place. Synergies are delivered as planned. Indeed, we are very pleased with the contribution of Worksphere. It brings innovative solutions, and it brings a really high quality customer portfolio. With Worksphere, we are now number one in the Netherlands. This country is fully engaged in the energy transition and the digital transformation. It does offer bright prospects for our services. In Belgium, both building and industry services were dynamic, driven by energy efficiency needs. In the UK, we have decided to exit the country with a full disposal of our operations. Our efforts in the previous year to turn around the business have been successful. After a thorough strategic review led since April, we have come to the conclusion that SPIE UK would enjoy better perspectives under new shareholding.
The sale process that was then launched led to a successful completion with Imtech, and Jérôme will take you through the associated numbers. Finally, moving to markets. Markets are generally well-oriented and providing us with a good visibility. Total growth was at 16.7%, including a very strong organic growth at 13.8% and a favorable currency impact of 4.3%, obviously due to some operations in U.S. dollar for oil and gas activities. Oil and gas enjoyed a good momentum in OpEx spend. Our strong backlog, including multiyear contracts, provides us with a good midterm visibility. In nuclear services, nine months revenue were only slightly up, with a weak Q3 due to the changes in maintenance planning decided by EDF. Long-term visibility remains good, and we are receiving the first call for tenders for primary works related to the new EPRs.
I will now hand over to Jérôme, who will comment on our financial performance.
Thank you, Gauthier, and good morning, everyone. I'm on slide 21. As Gauthier pointed out, we achieved a very solid financial performance as reflected in all our key figures. In Q3, group revenue reached EUR 2,018 million, up 16.4%, and our EBITDA margin reached 6.6%, a 20 basis points improvement. Over the first nine months, group revenue reached EUR 5,773 million, up 14.7%, and our EBITDA margin reached 5.6%, again, a 20 basis points improvement. I'm on slide 22. This nine-month revenue bridge highlights the accelerating organic growth and the contribution from our acquisitions. Our 14.7% revenue increase in the first nine months takes into account a 14.3% increase at constant ForEx, of which a very strong 5.6% organic growth.
The 8.9% scope effect is mainly coming from the Worksphere consolidation as from February of this year. This is 5.9% out of the total scope effect of 8.9%. The 0.4% currency effect is mainly related to the strengthening of the US dollar against the euro, especially in our oil and gas business. Last month, we have completed the refinancing of our EUR 1.2 billion syndicated loan, as previously announced in July. This success of the syndication confirms again the high confidence of our core banks in our business model. This refinancing enabled to further extend the maturity of our debt and maintain good spread conditions.
In parallel to the closing of this refinancing, and in a context of rising interest rates, we set up an interest rate swap on a EUR 300 million portion of the drawn term loan, meaning 50% of it, with a maturity of 5 years. With this swap, 85% of our gross debt is now at fixed rate or hedged for the respective maturities. Our sustainability-linked refinancing highlights again our strong ESG commitments and is fully aligned with our 2025 ESG targets. I'm on slide 24. We have recently announced the full disposal of our UK operations. A few details regarding the economics of these transactions. The purchase price is at circa EUR 50 million, precisely GBP 43 million.
This transaction will generate an estimated exceptional negative impact of around EUR 80 million on the group annual net income for the year, for the fiscal year of 2022, including an estimated EUR 95 million of capital loss, non-cash, reduced by a circa EUR 12 million of deferred tax assets contribution. For the avoidance of doubt, again, our 2022 group net income will remain largely positive, and it will not have any impact on the adjusted net income, and the group's dividend policy remains unchanged. This transaction will have a positive impact on the group net debt, estimated at around EUR 40 million. We anticipate this transaction being fully completed before the end of 2022. This concludes my part. I will now hand it back to Gauthier.
Thank you, Jérôme. Before concluding this presentation, I would like to share with you the outstanding success of last SPIE's employee sharing plan. The Share for You 2022 was the sixth edition of our program since our IPO in 2015. Around 11,000 employees participated, and more than 200, 2,500 employees invested for the first time. 13 countries were involved, and we're very pleased to offer this plan to our colleagues who recently joined us from Worksphere in the Netherlands. Upon completion of the related capital increase, the share of employees and management would account for close to 9% of SPIE's capital. Involving our employees is in the SPIE entrepreneurial adventure very important to us. It is a key factor to our success. We're a people business.
Retaining quality personnel is key, and this sort of tool are very efficient in this regard. It is also very important that our employees do feel part of the green solution, and I'll come to that on the next slide. As you know, today, the energy transition is accelerating, and we're benefiting from strong tailwinds linked to increasing cost of energy, ESG regulation, and decarbonization commitments at our customers. 65% of what we do does mitigate climate change through three key drivers, the shift in energy mix of 24%, energy efficiency for 36%, and mobility for 5%. We are more than ever part of the solution, and we are enthusiastic about providing the best solutions for our customers. Now moving to slide 28. Thanks to our very promising first nine months, we have revised upwards our organic growth.
We now expect organic growth of at least 5% versus at least 4% previously. We target an EBITDA margin of 6.3%, up 20 basis points. Regarding Bolt-on M&A, our pipeline of opportunities remains very strong, with multiple ongoing live situations, while phasing effects will lead to total full-year revenue to be acquired in 2022 in the order of EUR 150 million. This is obviously not considering the EUR 450 million of annual revenue gained from Worksphere. Operating in very fragmented markets, Bolt-on M&A remains a key pillar for long-term value-creating strategy. We target a broadly stable leverage ratio at the end of the year, and our proposed dividend payout ratio will remain at circa 40% of adjusted net income. We are very confident to deliver on this updated 2022 guidance.
Looking further ahead, we have demonstrated that we are in a key position to help our customers tackle the energy transition and the digital transformation. Being on the solution side is a strong asset to support our future growth. I thank you for your attention and now with Jérôme, we are ready to answer your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your questions, please press star two. We'll now take our first question from Ibrahim Homani from CIC. Please go ahead, sir, your line is open.
Hello. Congrats for this. This is Ibrahim from CIC, not EIS. In Germany, the first question is about Germany. After the slowdown in growth in Q3, should we expect an acceleration in Q4? My second question is about the oil and gas and nuclear segment. Should we expect a decline in activity in 2023 if energy prices fall? We know that this is the brands that generate the highest level of margin. My last question is about the impact of the disposal in the UK on the EBIT margin. Can we imagine other disposals?
Regarding Germany, as I said, the Q3 was impacted by some phasing effects of our high voltage project, and these are chunkier projects and they may vary from one quarter to the other. We expect an organic growth in Q4, which will not be very dissimilar, probably slightly better than Q3, yeah. Altogether the German market remains very strong, yeah. Again, we have, be it in high voltage, be it in efficient, in Tech FM, a very strong backlog and a very good order intake. We are not concerned at all about the German business.
Regarding oil and gas, well, we're obviously not going to guide for 2023, but want to stress that we have had a very good commercial performance this year. So not only the customers are spending more, but also we are gaining market shares and evidence for instance, by the new contracts we gain in Denmark for maintenance of the TotalEnergies assets over the next five years. So I'm really confident about the prospects for, you know, going forward in oil and gas. Nuclear, it's a bit more blurred at the moment, with all the what is happening at EDF. Well, it is usually fairly stable.
As you have seen, the Q3 has been a bit impacted by all what's happening at EDF right now. I think that the situation is going to normalize over the next year. Regarding UK disposal, well, it has a very small relative impact on our margins, all things equal. It has become a small operation within SPIE, so you see the impact on margin is small. We do not plan any other disposals. Clearly, UK, we had launched a strategic review. It was important to do it thoroughly. I think we have come to a sensible solution. We always say that this market will need to be consolidated.
We are not really feeling like being part of the consolidators. I think this is a very sensible move. From the SPIE point of view, I think it's also very sensible for the employees of SPIE who are now going to have better opportunities in a different shareholding environment.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next participant. David Cerdan from Kepler. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning. This is David Sanon from Kepler Cheuvreux. I have a few questions for Gauthier Louette and Jérôme Vanhove. My first question is regarding your 8.5% organic growth in Q3. Can you split between the price effect and the volume effect? Second question is regarding wages. By how much have you increased wages year- to- date, and what do you expect for 2023? My last question is related to Caverion. Have you had a look at Caverion? Thank you.
To the first point, as we have said before, it is very difficult for us to split between price and volume, because we do not have simple units of measurement. If you sell ton of steel, well you sell number of ton and the price per ton, it is easy. For us, it is obviously much more intricate. Very difficult to do the split. Regarding wages, well, year to date, we have worked with the agreements we had in the various countries.
Beginning of the year, we had wage increase in the range of maybe between 2% and 4% depending on the countries. We are now in all of the countries negotiating for next year. In some countries it is done by at the branch level, like IG Metall in Germany. At national level, for instance, in Belgium with an index formula. We do expect more inflation on the wages next year than this year. Again, this is something we are already anticipating in our pricing. With the concern towards our margin for next year. Looking at Caverion, we know Caverion well.
Clearly this was not on our target list. It is not synergistic and two totally different geographies. Probably entering new geography with a turnaround case is not the best idea. It was not on our target list.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, David. We'll now move on to our next participant, Oscar Val from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Good morning, Gauthier and Jérôme. I have three questions. The first one is going back to Germany. You talk about a strong backlog with transmission distribution. Is it possible to quantify how big that backlog is? That's the first question. The second question, again, on employee situation. You've talked about wages. Could you talk about the ability to hire? Is it becoming easier to hire electricians than it was six months ago, or is it still difficult? The final question is, again, going back on M&A. You talk about potentially a few deals in what's left of the year. Do you expect to see more deals next year if competitors or family-owned businesses are more likely to sell themselves, or do you expect next year to be a more difficult year for M&A?
Well, regarding backlog, we do not communicate on backlog and certainly not on specific segment. Just generally, you know, this in high voltage, the backlog does spread over several years, and because these are chunkier projects and that take us some more time to execute. It gives us a very good visibility over the next years on one side. The other side, I'd like to mention also that in terms of margins, the quality of the backlog is of excellent quality with regard to margin. Regarding ability to hire, it's certainly not getting easier.
Clearly, as you see, despite all the turmoil in the economy that we've seen right now, we're still enjoying good growth, which is a sign of the high demand for our type of services, meaning that our resources are at a premium. Customers do need also technical profile, so it does happen that we lose some of our people to our customers now, which have a good and a bad side. It's not easy to find good people at the moment, hence also our ability to maintain or increase our margins. It does help us in a way in this regard, as well. Some of our customers, they are very much aware of the scarcity of resources.
They don't want to rock the boat, and they prolong contracts with us because they feel it is a safe way to keep good technical resources at hand. Regarding M&A, it's not usually when the economy is more complicated. It doesn't make M&A activity easier because a number of vendors are reluctant to sell and wait for a better time. It's not a major impact either. We have an excellent pipeline. I think we're really confident of our ability to maintain a good deal flow in the future.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next participant, Mr. Augustin Cendre from Stifel. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions, if I may. If we could come back to the oil and gas division, and then specifically you mentioned the number of multi-year contracts that are the main arguments for you being confident on the backlog growth going forward. Could you share with us the share of multi-year contracts in this backlog, or at least maybe the exposure you have to multi-year contracts? And on the second question, with the U.K. divestments, could you quantify or maybe not quantify, but give us an indication on the working capital impact we should expect? Is it in line with the rest of the group?
Thank you. Well, regarding oil and gas, I think, first of all, you know, in oil and gas, our exposure to OpEx is probably in the range of 85%-90%. Then when it is CapEx, it is a small usually investment in brownfields, et cetera. We're not involved in larger projects. The share of multi-year contract you'd be looking at probably in the range of 70%-75% of what we do. It is really our focus, we maintain large assets like FPSOs offshore Angola, offshore Nigeria.
Now we have this contract offshore Denmark, and this is really the main focus of what we do. Jérôme will have a word about the working capital.
Yeah. Regarding the working capital impact from the divestiture of the UK, bear in mind that at the same time, we turned around the business in 2020, and in 2021 in the UK, we significantly improved also their trajectory regarding working capital management. As from the end of 2021, and again confirmed in Q1, Q2, and Q3 of this year, we've been pleased to see SPIE UK trading with a structurally negative working cap along the same performance of the group. In a nutshell, no impact from that divestiture.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We have David Cerdan from Kepler. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
Okay. Thank you for the new questions. Globally speaking, do you think that, or do you consider that the current market condition and prospects have never been so attractive for you?
Well, if you had asked me the question January 30th last year, or beginning of this year, I would have said definitely yes. Nowadays, obviously, it is there's a bit more questioning around the macro and the fact that we have a war at the border of three countries where SPIE is operating. We are operating Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and they all have a border with Ukraine. It's a different mood. However, first, in times of recession, we have always been extremely resilient. As we've said many times, we do not plan at all to play defense. The cost structure is extremely flexible. We operate multi mission critical services.
We're not afraid of the downturn of the economy at all. We'll be able to maintain our margins and a very good level of activity. I'm not saying that, you know, I'm not an economist, so I'm not saying what will happen in terms of macro. What we do see, however, and compared to other tough times we had to go through in the past, the driver of decarbonization and energy efficiency is stronger than it has ever been. All companies are committed to carbon neutrality in the years to come, and immediate carbon reduction.
The cost of energy induces all our customer to take a stern look at their energy spend and the way they can save energy. The return on investment on energy saving project is better than it has even ever been, and the solutions do exist. Even if the macro might be a bit more bleak than it used to be, we have stronger drivers than we ever had. All together, I would say that we are in a very decent position.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next participant, Eric Lemarié from CIC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Good morning, Eric from CIC. Thanks for taking my question. I've got two actually. On Equans, have you started to see some changes in the market since the acquisition of Equans by Bouygues? The second question, still on Equans, I have noticed that the average contract for Equans stands around EUR 70,000. I think it's around EUR 30,000 for SPI. I was wondering what could explain the difference in your view? Well, to the second part of the question, it's very difficult to say.
I don't know exactly how they've been calculating this, but what I see is that there's a stronger appetite at Equans for larger projects, which was one of our issues when we did the due diligence, because these larger projects are very successful. Regarding the attitude, so far we see Equans was a bit in a limbo and not between signing and closing. We have not seen a major change of attitude, not worsening, but not improving really either over the next year. I do expect a change now and with Bouygues as a shareholder.
We have seen progress over the last two years at Bouygues Energies & Services. Clearly they have ceased to be a disruptive player. Bouygues Energies & Services has been much more disciplined on pricing and much more focused on margin, and they achieve margin improvement. I think it bodes well for what is going to happen once Bouygues' holdings start to take a grip on accounts.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next participant, Peter Testa from One Investments. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
Hi. No, thanks for taking the question. I have two topics, please. One is just on the German phasing, if I could understand a bit better. I mean, obviously Q2 and Q3 have been what they are, and you mentioned Q4 would be kind of like Q3. I was trying to understand on these high voltage contracts how they phase if they don't phase inside a year. Maybe whether you can give a sense also whether the high voltage business, while being very high quality, high margin, is also a growing business or whether it's, you know, these are long, relatively stable contracts in Germany. That's the first question.
Yeah. Well, you know, this contract, again, is ours for 10 years size. Depending when they start and when they finish, you have a variation regarding the production of a given quarter. It is not easy to really forecast its accuracy because you invariably have a few issues with delays in start because some permits or some last minute hiccups with some of the landowners or wherever. Or sometimes also, as happens right now in the Netherlands, a bit of administrative hiccups on the customer side. This accounts for this sort of variation.
We do not exactly have the same size of project all the time, so it is an added variation. Altogether, the trend of the market is positive, and clearly, the demand is very high, which has really helped us stacking up our margins over the last 18 months on one end, and which also provides for good visibility. The key factor is also to find the right level of resources. This is what we are working at together also with our colleagues in Poland and in Slovakia. We try to use these resources in Germany as well. The idea is to grow the business in the years to come.
The level of investment from the customer will allow that, provided that we find the right resources.
Okay. Given the what you talked about in terms of phasing and just getting the contracts launched, are you expecting quite a bit there for the launch next year, or how do we understand that?
No, we're looking at a strong next year altogether, huh? Again, I'm not commenting on phasing quarter- by- quarter, but we're looking at a strong-
Okay.
Strong, a stronger year next year and beyond. Clearly, you know, we're bidding. A few days ago, I was reviewing a project which will extend until 2030, and for main trunk line in the western part of Germany. It is a very active market.
Okay. It should be a good support the next year.
Thank you.
The other question I had was on, you know, the step up in growth in Q3. As you highlighted, the wage pressure, you know, while it's there, it has not dramatically changed in this period of time, and the growth has picked up. I was wondering whether, you know, you were just seeing a very good inflow. Was it just a good summer, or are you seeing a pretty strong inflow now of projects across the piece?
I think generally the trends are good. And again, if we look at our order book, our backlog, it is fairly favorable. One of the questions is clearly execution. We do have a few hindrances linked with the supply chain. Well, we mentioned ICT. It also happens in some other areas. So generally the trends are good. I do not expect Q4 to be as strong as Q3, clearly. We had a very strong August and September. I do not expect the last quarter to be as strong as we have seen in Q3.
Yeah. Okay. The last thing is just on hiring. It was asked earlier, but do you think you're able to step up the hiring pace now given your efforts and your comments about quality and mix of projects?
We are stepping up the hiring pace, but the key issue is that we also see a small increase in the resignation rate. It has moved from 6% to slightly above 7%. You know, we are filling the bucket that we also want to make sure that we don't have too many leakages. Talent attraction is key, and this year we managed to hire probably over 6,000 people. Talent retention is also essential. Hence, for instance, we showed program for employees, but also other stuff we try to do. Clearly, we need to work on both fronts.
We are perfectly able to attract people. Retaining them is for me the main concern.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much for the help.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next participant, David Green from Goldhaven. Please go ahead. Your line is open, sir.
Hi. Good morning. Just a couple of questions if I could. Obviously very strong top line performance. Just interested to get a bit more color on why there wasn't more operating leverage. I appreciate that, you know, there's obviously a cost headwind element, but any more granularity there? Just with regard to the sort of strength overall in organic sales growth, could you maybe give us a little bit more color in terms of what's driving that across the different businesses? To the extent you referenced the energy transition theme accelerating in terms of interest for obvious reasons. Is that something that's really only just had started to have an impact in Q3, and we should expect that to accelerate? The final question is on net debt.
I think you previously guided to a full year 2022 net debt of around 1.8 x EBITDA by 2021. Just wanted to make sure that you're still on track for that.
Well, regarding the operating leverage, well, as you have seen, improving our margins by 20 basis points. Which I do not consider an easy task in the current environment. We will have to face headwinds in terms of inflation. We have to work to pass on the inflation cost to the customer. We have older contracts where we see, for some contracts, which have been signed two years ago, inflation was not so much of a concern. Some of them do not have indexation, and we have to talk with our customers. It's the scarcity of resources that doesn't help either.
The supply chain issues bring us some time to have to, you know, to buy on an emergency basis to come up for customers who was not delivered. Not specific. It's very easy on the spot. I would not disregard the 20 basis point margin increase and consider that it was easy to achieve. I think operating leverage has helped us a bit in this regard, as well. Now with the organic growth drivers of what we've seen, clearly, I think we have said that in the past.
We're in a world where there's which is shifting a lot to electricity. The mix in electricity in the energy supply is becoming more important generally. The concern about energy efficiency has increased even more with the rising energy prices. The e-mobility has become a very important aspect of what we do. In France this year, we do three times as much recharge points as we did last year. All our type of customers are craving for this sort of right now.
Finally, the energy transition as we have seen in especially in Germany or in the Netherlands, but also in Belgium, brings a lot of investment to transport electricity from offshore wind farms to the consumer centers. These are the main drivers that we have seen in the past. They concern all part of the activity. If we look at industry, there's a lot of demand now for energy saving in the industry as well. On top of that, we have everything which is linked with the digitization or the optical fiber, which has a very strong activity right now in the Netherlands.
A lot of drivers, and I'm not mentioning data centers, et cetera. These are the main components leading to organic growth. I will answer your third question regarding the debt. The answer is yes, 1.8 x remains as the leverage remains our target. While it doesn't get easier, honestly speaking, in this new context. I think we have some very good levers we can play with, starting with our very strong discipline in managing our cash. Our strong discipline in our ability to invoice, to negotiate cash advances with our supplier, to manage constantly and to monitor constantly reduced overdues.
That would lead us to maintain so far our targeted leverage at 1.8 x, identical to end of last year.
On the comments on the supply chain. Just interested, what are the specific constraints there and what specific business areas is that covering?
Well, supply chain, the main direct impact is clearly on our ICT activity. We mentioned from, as you know, Cisco is the first supplier of SPIE, and Cisco happen to have a very rough ride over the last two years, being we lost a lot of visibility on the delivery times, et cetera. For a number of customers are the only choice, they don't want alternative solutions, so we have to deal with that. It is the main direct impact, ICT supply and specifically Cisco.
You see it is more issues in other areas where lead time for you know transformers have become longer and sometimes we install a new cooler and then the microprocessor will only come a few weeks later and so we have to go back to the site et cetera. It is more issues. The main concern is ICT and then generally elsewhere we do have to cope with slightly extended lead times.
Many thanks.
Thank you for the questions. It appears there is no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back to your host for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you.
Well, thank you very much for your attention today. I think, SPIE is on a good track. We have worked a lot on our strategic positioning. We have streamlined our portfolio, and we do benefit from the drivers of the decarbonization which is core to our business. Confident to deliver once more on our guidance for 2022 and confident going forward. Thanks a lot. Have a good day.
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