Good afternoon. It's 3:00 P.M. Thank you for your presence in spite of holidays and strikes. Thanks for your presence, as I said. I declare open the combined and general meeting convened according to the specific bulletins. I would like to draw your attention on the fact that this meeting is a public meeting that will be partially broadcasted on the internet site of our company. According to provisions of Article 19, the chairman of the meeting will be the chairman of the board of directors. I will chair this meeting. I have with me Léo Apotheker, who is a vice president, vice chairman, and independent board member, and Emmanuel Babeau, vice general manager of the group in charge of finances and legal affairs.
I would also like to call here our tellers, Mr. Claude Briquet, who chairs the supervisory board of the FCP or mutual fund of Schneider shareholders, Mr. Olivier Desnos, the two members of the meeting who have the largest number of votes. I would like to invite Delphine Gieux, she will be the secretary. Mr. Jean-Yves Gicquel and Loïc Wallaert, auditors of the company are present. I would like to say hello to all the members of the board of directors who are here with us today, apart from Mrs. Cathy Kopp, who apologizes she couldn't come. We have someone else as well who couldn't come in because of the strikes. You've seen their pictures. We worked extremely hard this morning, all of us. I would also like to say hello to the advisory committee of shareholders.
I would like to thank all the members of this committee on your behalf for the work they do and the advice they constantly give us. I have a specific thought for one of the members of this committee who recently left us, passed away. The necessary quorum for the validity of this meeting is one-quarter at least of the shares of the capital with a writing vote. In other words, more than 139 million. The 16th and 17th resolution are connected to the extraordinary general meeting. For this resolution, the quorum is one-fifth of the shares with a writing vote. According to the attendance sheet, I can say that when I opened the meeting, the number of shares present or represented reaches a quorum of 72.18%. The legal quorum to organize such a combined meeting has been reached.
I'd like to say that 388,700 and something million votes by correspondence. The members of the bureau will certify the attendance sheet, will sign it. I declare that this meeting has been regularly constituted, and it can deliberate. I will not read the whole agenda of the meeting, and I will let you read this simplified agenda that should be on the screen right now. I talk about the strategy, performance, governance. Léo Apotheker will talk about governance, by the way. We'll have the report of the auditors and the resolutions. We'll vote the resolutions after the Q&A session.
In this digital world, in spite of the fact that we live in a digital world, I have here a copy of the status and a copy of the notice of meeting, a copy of the official bulletin necessary to organize this meeting, the list of shareholders, registered shareholders, the attendance sheet, and the list of proxies of the shareholders represented, the reports, including the report of the board of directors on governance, with a specific part of the report of the board of directors to the general meeting, the report and option of the share subscription and performance shares. The accounts of the group, obviously, the reports of the auditors, the list of resolutions that will be voted this afternoon, and all sorts of various documents.
I would like to say that the accounts and the text of resolutions, the list of shareholders, all the documents are at the disposal of shareholders according to the law. If you agree, instead of reading the reports of the board, Emmanuel Babeau and myself are going to comment the slides which we have prepared, the slides which are a summary of the main elements of our strategy, the reports on the accounts. We'll then give the floor to Léo Apotheker, our vice chairman, who is an independent board member. He chairs the governance committee and the remuneration committee, and he will make a presentation on governance and managers' remuneration. I hope that this will be more interesting than actually reading a written report. I am going to leave this microphone, and talk about what takes most of my time. In other words, Schneider Electric.
Let's have a look at 2017. Let me remind you some basic points of Schneider Electric. We always talk about the reason of being, the mission of a company in France. Our mission is simple: It's give our technology at the disposal of any human being anywhere. Two technologies are absolutely fundamental, electricity, energy, it's at the basis of progress, of education. Then digital technology. In the 21st century, it's now as necessary to human beings as energy itself. In the world today, you have more people with a smartphone than people with Access to Energy. A picture of Schneider at the end of 2017, EUR 24.7 billion, that's for the turnover. 5% of the turnover is constantly invested in R&D. We've done it in a systematic way. We've done it over the past 15 year. 41% of the sales in new economies.
We are characteristic because we live in between the mature markets and the emerging markets. The turnover in Asia-Pacific is 1% higher than the turnover of sales in Western Europe and North America. 20% of our sales is in developing countries, in Africa, Middle East, and Eastern Europe. I'd like to remind you that you've been following us for 15 years now. We've been able to build a group that is actually leading, opening the way to transformation. The convergence of the digital world with the physical world, those two main transformations as our energy transition, what we call in France Energy of the Future. We are going to merge the world of information and data with the physical world of operations. If you look at the two businesses in 2017, managing energy is an activity in which we are global leaders.
Our global sales is EUR 19 billion, 4% growth rate. Automation, it's an additional business, I would say. It digitalizes energy. It's EUR 6 billion. It's structurally growing by 6% per year. We are not leaders, but we are among the top three in the world, we are constantly growing. We are becoming main challengers for our competitors. Here, what we do in Schneider Electric is catalyzing digital transformation of energy management and industrial automation. We have to do that. We have a fully integrated portfolio of technologies. We have products which are connected, control systems to help us control constantly what's going on. We have more and more softwares, including artificial intelligence, in order to better optimize what's going on in our customers. Our customers are constantly looking for more efficiency, more reliability, security, and sustainable development.
We can help them better make the most of their resources because we manage the efficiency of their industrial processes, we manage the efficiency of energy, thanks to our energy management systems. Let me go into the details of what we do. We report to the outside world all our activities, thanks to four main activities. Three of those activities do participate to energy management, we never sell them individually. A medium voltage, a low voltage, a secure energy, all this is usually combined within complicated and complete solutions that manage key applications. You have some examples here. According to the applications, you have more or less medium voltage, low voltage, secured energy, and so on. Our strength is to be able to supply all this energy in a continuous way to better serve our customers all the time.
In the list, you have a specific application, which is our main application. It's IT data center in the digital world. We are global leaders here, the secure energy part represents 2% of our sales, medium voltage and low voltage represent one-third of our sales. This portfolio of activity is quite synergetic. The other point for us is industrial automation. We sell products, obviously, connected products that will pilot and control industrial processes. We offer a full solution for automation of machines. That's for machine manufacturers. We have also full solutions in industrial processes, discrete or continuous. Then we have a full activity in the software business. I come back to this because, as you know, in 2017, after many years of discussions and negotiations, we were able to set up a leading company in the software business called AVEVA.
2017, well, we have been given a certain number of rewards in all sorts of different fields, we're very proud of all these rewards and proof of recognition. We are considered as the best employer in many countries. In India, for example. I'd like to mention and focus on two rewards I'm quite proud of. First of all, we are the fifth global company, taking into account all sorts of different businesses, in which the socially responsible investors have invested. We're number five. We are considered as number five here. We've been recognized by socially responsible investors. Second thing, Schneider Electric is an industrial company. One employee out of two works in the supply chain, in a factory, in a logistics center. This year, Gartner has rated us as the 18th best industrial company in the world.
In Europe, we're considered the second-best state-of-the-art company in the industrial sector. For our groups, for our teams, it's a major proof of recognition. We sell automation systems, but we are more than energy suppliers. We know what we're talking about when we are in the automation business. Two activities. Let's look at the strategic context. As I said before, we're talking about digital electricity. The most traditional way is to say that, well, electricity is traditional, it's the present, it's the past. Digital is the future. In Schneider, we do things in a different way. The first thing you should realize is that your company is present in the digital sector. 45% of what we sell, half of what we sell in Schneider, is part of a digital system. It is connected products, control systems, softwares.
EUR 12 billion today in the digital world. Things are speeding up, thanks to Internet of Things, augmented reality that will help operators use our systems. Deployment of artificial intelligence so that our customers can optimize all their facilities. The digital platform of Schneider is called EcoStruxure. Let me describe the main elements here. It's a platform, digital tools to speed up design and use of systems. It's a community of developers, integrators. It's also the expertise. The expertise of customers, the expertise of our teams per industrial sector in order to help our customers develop. I mentioned this platform before, so I'm not going to spend too much time on it, but you should remember 3 levels, objects connected to internet. Schneider has been the pioneers in Internet of Things. Our first system on the internet dates back to 1997.
After seven years of tests, it was called Transparent Factory. The first version of this EcoStruxure was launched 10 years ago. It's 10 year old, when most of our competitors are just discovering Internet of Things. Second level, you have local control systems. They control what's going on in your house, your factory, any machine. Third level, applications, softwares, more and more artificial intelligence that use the database, extract data to actually provide optimized functions to systems. All this is fully supported by clouds to stock data, either on-site or in a centralized center. We have cybersecurity, obviously. Our customers can then develop the best and most secure system for their equipments and solutions. The digital world will help you make sure that everything can become connected. You want to speed up things from the construction phase to the operating phase.
We have digital suites in all our applications. I'd like to focus on the industrial sector. Some of you have participated to the development of this industrial capacity. I would like to celebrate with you the fact that in 2018, we finalized, in 2018, a merging operation with AVEVA. We can then give our industrial customers a very specific solution, the digital modeling of their factory, design, construction of the project from the conception phase, design phase, to the maintenance phase. We offer this digital thing to the person who designs a project, from him to the person who actually operates and works in the plant. The sales number is EUR 750 million. It's one of the biggest companies of industrial software in the world. 4,400 employees. Two third come from Schneider, one third AVEVA. Market value.
This company, obviously, is still listed at the stock exchange in London in particular. Its market value is nearly EUR 4 billion. We are really developing our portfolio, and we have highlighted this particular thing here when we merged with AVEVA. We're going to show you a very short video, and it explains what is the added value of AVEVA.
AVEVA Everything3D is simply the most exciting design the product industry has seen. It will fundamentally improve the way you do your work.
AVEVA Everything3D has been a realization of a long-held desire to really push the boundaries of user experience and make that usability, and just tip people into being able to do their work better, faster, higher quality, and more enjoyably than they've ever been able to do it before.
AVEVA Everything3D is opening up new ways of working, unlocking 3D design efficiencies, and encouraging designer interaction with innovative capabilities. AVEVA E3D delivers dynamic design technology that brings laser data and 3D models together inside a unique hyperbubble environment, enabling clash-free, multidiscipline 3D design, driving right first-time fabrication and installation. It's enabling intuitive design modifications, checks, and design removals against an evolving point cloud. Taking interaction to a new level with unique laser scan demolish capabilities, removing the need to remodel existing site situations.
Well, it's all been about collaboration with our customers. We've really listened to them, and we've heard from them that their drivers are increased productivity, improved quality, drive down their scheduled time, and that's been the essence of developing E3D 2.1.
The feedback has been amazing. They're telling us that we've reached a new benchmark in the 3D design software world.
E3D is delivering game-changing capabilities for the way designers work. As a consequence, it's a fantastic time to be a designer.
It's a great technology, really. You realize that today when you develop a project in the building sector, for example, or industrial sector, 20%, 30% of the budget is reconstruction. It's difficult when you design a new project to think about everything that's going to happen in operations and so on. If you do what we do here, in other words, if you have a full digitalization of a system right from the beginning, you can group these type of problems to decrease design costs. You are using the same digital model to go from the project world to the operating world. Do not forget what we've been able to do or what we are doing at the moment. The fact that IGE+XAO, which is a digital It's a nugget, really. It's a French nugget. It's based in Toulouse. They specialize in the automatic electrical design.
They are very international, and they've decided to join us to speed up their deployment and development abroad. I'm just saying that we're not only talking about the industrial world, we are also transforming the world of electricity and of energy. Our community, we have 20,000 integrators of systems. They develop their own applications with our software bases. 25% growth, the number of objects or things connected to the cloud. We have half a million sites in which EcoStruxure has been deployed. The more developers you have, the more functions you have, the more sites are getting connected, and this is how we are developing ecosystem of the digital world with EcoStruxure. Expertise per segment.
We discovered 10 years ago when we launched the first generation of EcoStruxure, it was a product company. When you develop digital operations, you enter into the heart of your customers of all the activities. It took us time, many efforts. You were patient. You supported us all the time. We completed this with application teams. The teams can talk the gas language to customers, if they know the mine language, hospital language to customers. They have to go over the customer. They really have to find solutions to our customers' problems. We have R&D engineers and technicians. We have 15,000 technicians and application engineers. They sit with customers around a table, they help them define their needs, integrate their systems, and operate the systems. Where do we meet our customers?
Today, we wanted to share with you some moments of an event that took place two and a half weeks ago in Paris. It was the day of the marathon. You know that the day when you have a marathon in Paris, it becomes the greatest city in the world because it becomes green, and Schneider green. 5,000 customers and employees ran together out of 55,000 participants. The previous two days, 4,000 customers from all over the world joined us to share on EcoStruxure. Let's spend some moments on this.
I've not been to this event before. It's amazing to see the size and scale and actually the interest and the amount of people.
Great people, great networking, great technology. Couldn't find a better partner. I'm very happy with Schneider.
Better business for a better planet is the only way forward.
Schneider's global strategic vision is probably what impresses me the most.
It was very inspiring and very innovative. I was impressed.
Next shareholders meeting, we have the drums, promise. We've talked about digital world, but many customers are already digital, and even if electricity is 100 years old, the future is much more electric than it is today. We have asked many questions. We don't yet have all the questions, but consumption of electricity is booming up. IT represents 10% of global electricity consumption, but in the future, forecasts vary, obviously. With the power of calculation, which is really developing with blockchain and so on, IT could become the biggest electricity consumer before cars in 2030. Second element, 2017 was the milestone for us. We've accepted that the fuel transport will be electrical, and it's a radical change ever since the beginning of the use of energy. 30% of energy consumption is in the transport sector.
Everything will not become electrical, but most of the transport will become electrical. It's one of the most radical transformation in electricity, ever since the beginning of electricity. The price of renewable energies like wind or solar is decreasing. In many countries, solar energy costs less than fossil fuel. It seems that in 2030, solar plus other energies will be better and more interesting than fossil fuel use. Again, not everything will be replaced by renewable energy, but most of the traditional energies will be replaced by this main change. For some years, we've been talking about the mutation in the energy market. It is changing and getting to a new way. The first source of energy, the cheapest, the easiest to implement, the simplest to deploy, is energy efficiency.
We never speak about it, but this is where we all agree to say that this is the top priority. Second point is what we call smart grid. The third point is the fact that the generation or the production of electricity, which was centralized in the past, is now distributed to reduce the distribution cost. We have micro networks, micro grids closer to consumers. What is the long-term view? I could show you so many applications that we already have. You take Milford in the U.S., known for the high tech. They had reliability issues due to climatic variations, hurricanes on the East Coast of the U.S. They established a micro network to make their power supply more reliable and made 50%-30% annual savings on energy expenses because this is less expensive than the traditional energy supply.
I'd like to share another example with you, which took place three weeks ago when we inaugurated our new center in Southeast Asia, in Singapore.
We have a neighbor there. The group called Bolloré. They have a logistics center, but instead of speaking about Schneider Electric, this time I would like to share with you this testimony from a client. Bolloré Logistics is a tier one supply chain partner and a global leader in international transport and logistics. We are passionate, inventive, and enterprising, committed to social responsibility, sustainable development, and protecting the environment. My name is Nathalie Léger. I'm the head of one of our logistics hub here in Singapore. With 1.8 million sq m of warehouse space across 105 countries, we need to be at the forefront of technology in this fast-changing industry. Bolloré is the first logistic hub in the world to implement PowerTag, a wireless energy sensor which sends out an alert whenever there is any irregularity with our facilities.
This keeps us fully connected to the vital assets that power our business. EcoStruxure Power Monitoring Expert identifies power quality issue in our electrical distribution system. This allows us to proactively investigate any potential issues. Comprehensive metering diagnostics reports are presented through EcoStruxure Power Advisor, which helps us to communicate with stakeholders and customers. We've seen at least 10% decrease in energy consumption, and this is significant reduction to our carbon footprint. With Schneider Electric solutions in place, Bolloré Logistics is empowered to expand, innovate, and make the best decision with continuous, measurable energy saving and increased reliability. We look forward to continue working with Schneider Electric to improve our operations. I think it is better to hear that than listening to a very long explanation.
I'd like to link to the strategic axis with our acquisition, the acquisition we made last year, the acquisition of ASCO, which is a source inverter. This is what organizes the channel between the electric grid and alternative sources. Previously, we were talking about generators. Now, the world is more complex. You have your renewables, energy source, a battery source, an electric source. All this needed a lot of new technologies. We're leader in China, leaders in Europe. We were not enough in the U.S., so ASCO will help us fulfill our aim and reinforce our technology portfolio to meet those new needs in distribution. Now, the new electrification of the economy and digitizing of the economy is new. Clients now want to have benefits for their business. They want benefits for their installation.
First of all, they can be provided with more energy efficiency, thanks to this convergence between electricity and digital, more productivity in the projects and CapEx, reliability and security. We want to make sure we prevent major turnarounds or, for example, in an operation room in a hospital, there can be no interruption in power supply. It is also the reliability of operators on the machines. Thanks to the digitization, we can have augmented reality capacity to diagnose what is taking place in a dangerous environment, an electric cabinet, or a machine without having to put any hand on it. It's also sustainable development. A company such as ours is carbon neutral by 2020 or 2030, 100% renewable energy-based in 2030, and dividing by two our energy consumption by 2030.
Since we're talking about sustainable development, I'd like to remind you of the great vocation of Schneider, which is to serve sustainable development. Over the past 15 years, we developed our Schneider portfolio to provide our customers with new solutions to make more by using less resources. This is a commitment that will now cover all the aspects of what we do in Schneider. You know that through the technologies we address the climate problems, the necessity to divide by 2 our carbon emissions, there's a need to be 3 times more efficient than we are today. At each level, in the level of products and solutions, we have a real value proposition for our customers for their use. Our objective is to reduce our customers' emissions by 100 million tons in the next 3 years.
Every 3 years in Schneider, we have a multidimensional progress plan for CSR and sustainable development. We just finished this 3-year cycle. We met all our objectives, we are now beginning a new cycle where we will, of course, focus more on the fight against climate change. Also, we will stress the importance of circular economy, health, and fairness with international plans.
For the holidays of our employees, taking care of every event in their families, not just births, but any problems they have, and they want to have a leave to take care of their family. Ethics is another very important area for the company, and we also have a very important plan in development, providing energy to millions of people around the world. I added this slide because it really summarizes our ambition. By 2025, we want to be able to train 1 million people who come from the lowest levels of society to help them manage energy so they can have reliable, sustainable, and green energy for 50 million people. It's one of the most admirable programs we have. We want to be carbon neutral by 2030. All this through the plan I just explained. Renewable energy supply and dividing by 2 our footprint by 2030.
Everything we do is part of our strategy, the deployment of this strategy is not against the value we give to our shareholders. By focusing on the solution of the major issues our customers meet, we are also creating value for our shareholders, as proves the last financial year, 2017. As a teaser to our presentation by Emmanuel Babeau, I would like to remind you of the highlights of 2017. Back to growth with a continuous acceleration throughout the year. Productivity of EUR 2 billion over 3 years with a consistent increase of our operational margin in 2017, +9%, and net results 23%. With Schneider's team, I always think that what is good for the company is good for business. The achievement of the strategy I just described was proven by those numbers.
To look at this with more detail, I give the floor now to Emmanuel Babeau. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your attention. 2017 was an exceptional year. You saw all the strategic progress we made this year. 2017 is also a year of excellent financial performance for our company, and this is what I would like to cover with you. As an introduction, everybody could say 2017 was an easy year because the global economy was on the go, and it was easy to reach our numbers. Yes, of course. 2017 is taking profit, taking benefit of the improvement of the global economy. It goes beyond that, and it is a success of our strategy and the quality of its implementation. Look at how this translates.
We exceeded all the objectives we had set for ourselves at the beginning of the year, beginning with organic growth of our revenue. We were aiming 1%-3% beside the medium voltage activity, the objective being to improve our profitability. Well, actually, the result was +4.5% beside the medium voltage with an acceleration at the end of the year. We also wanted an organic improvement from 20-50 basis points. We doubled this number with +90 basis points. All this, of course, is converted into a strong cash flow generation, which is important to invest and pay dividends. Once again, we exceeded our long-term objectives, which was to transfer or convert 100% in a free cash flow. It also led to a major improvement of our investment on capital employed.
Our ROCE was supposed to be between 11% and 15%. The financial performance cannot be only the accounting of the company as such. As said, Jean-Pascal, our ambition, our vocation, is also to be a major player in sustainable development for our planet. This is one of our achievements, but Jean-Pascal already shared that with you. Let's look in more detail in all those numbers and begin with our revenue number, EUR 24.7 billion. This progression is +1.2%. With comparable scope of activities and same Forex, this progression is +3.2% over the year. What is interesting as well is that we made some progress on all our geographies.
Asia-Pacific is the top region with the highest growth, +6%, which is a remarkable performance with China, where we had a two-digit growth, and also great performance in all the other areas in the region, India, Vietnam, or Indonesia. Rest of the world, +3% with a vigorous growth. Rest of the world are all the emerging countries outside of Asia-Pacific. For 2017, we had beautiful growth in Russia, Africa, and most of our Middle East countries. North America is progressing by 2%. The end of the year noted an acceleration ending with +6% on Q4 for North America. Throughout the year, the American economy constantly improved and consistently showed an increase in the numbers. Europe, our growth is 2% there. Most of our large countries had growth such as France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
There are some worries in Europe, of course, as you know, with the United Kingdom, with uncertainties about the Brexit. To deliver a strong financial performance, of course, we have to grow our revenue, but also improve our margins. This is what we did in 2017. First, we made progress on our gross margin. With a comparable scope, we improved by 40 basis points. We have an inflationary environment. We improved our operational execution. This is thanks to our global supply chain Jean-Pascal described and also improved our margin on solutions. Under the gross margin, we were also able to grow our costs less than our revenue. This also contributes to the improvement of our margin, and this is really a challenge for our societies. We have many investments to make to support the digitization of economy. It is imperative that we achieve those investments.
In this context of high investments, we need to have costs that grow less than our revenue. This means we were very efficient in our savings plans, our simplification system. With those two elements of margin improvement, we get to a very high organic growth for our adjusted EBITDA. This is the operating income with a 9% growth, and we achieved EUR 3.65 billion. It is a historical record for the group. It is a margin by 14.8%. You need to know that the margin improvement took place thanks to two main business activities, and between energy management and industrial automation, we have 90 to 100 basis points in margin improvement. This is the main area for our activities in 2017. Great progression of our result. We also made other progress to deliver this great financial performance. We reduced the cost of debt.
We totally benefit from this environment with low interest rates, and we continue with our long-term debt, which is a promise of stability for Schneider Electric. Very low interest rates. In 2017, we had a very good maturity, a time of seven to eight years. We were able to finance the group thanks to our reputation, our sound financial system. Great conditions. We also been able to reduce our taxes. This is thanks to the acquisition of Invensys, which came with many tax levers . It is also due to the evolution of our profitability per country in the areas where we make our profit. It is also the U.S. tax reform, you might have heard about it, which reduced considerably the tax on companies. This is great news for us. All this leads to net earning results of EUR 2.25 billion, so a growth by 23%.
If you look at restructuring costs, the net earning adjusted reaches EUR 2.4 billion. It is a progression by 11% compared with the previous year. If you look at the net profit adjusted per share, our growth is even faster with a rate of 12%. Thanks to share buybacks in 2017, we were able to improve our profit per share. A strong progression in our revenue, and we were able to transform this revenue and free cash flow. This is another record for 2017. It is the highest free cash flow ever generated by the group, EUR 2.25 billion, which can support the profit growth. Thanks to this free cash flow, we were able to reduce our net debt in a significant way. The end of the year, our debt is EUR 4.3 billion, and our ratio, net debt on EBITDA, is 1.0 in 2017. Year-on-year, it's a reinforcement.
All this, strong cash flow, good performance, allow us to propose to this general assembly a dividend increase by 8%. You see the consistent increase of our dividends over the past nine years. If you approve this dividend, it will be on payment on May 4th. This year there's also a tax levy, which is particular because on the €2.29, €0.19 will be a normal dividend in France, and €2.01 will be seen as a contribution reimbursement, so it is not submitted to tax. As Jean-Pascal explained, our objective here is to continue provide our best return on your investment in Schneider. You see here that we put all our resources at the service of that. Plus 8% for the dividend, that is what we will propose today. Share buyback, which is funded with a very cheap debt.
We have almost the same result, but we can distribute this with less shareholders, so it's a bigger share for each person. If we look at the past three years, I think the numbers are quite striking. 75% of cash flow generated by the company was given back to our shareholders, either through the dividends or through the share buyback scheme. This progression is based on the highest return possible for our shareholders. Strong growth of our results in 2017. Excellent performance, very active year to continue to optimize our portfolio. We transferred one asset with very good conditions, $900 million. Telvent, a very nice asset, but the synergies with the rest of the group were still too limited. Jean-Pascal spoke about the major acquisitions that we made. They are absolutely key to reinforce our leadership in energy management or industrial automation.
The acquisition of AVEVA and great news here, the closing took place on March 1st, but we can already say that it is on a very positive note. The software grow by 5% on the first quarter, and for the scope before merger, AVEVA had a great two-digit growth. All this is great news. We're already in 2018. Let's have a look at how our business started the year. For Q1 in your company, there's been a new acceleration of our revenue growth. With comparable data plus 6.2%, this is a remarkable growth compared with 2017, where it was 3.2%. Energy management and industrial automation had a great growth, 6% and 9% respectively. Look at the Pacific Asia, spectacular with plus 14%. It's China which was really the most dramatic growth, but all the others as well.
India, of course, Indonesia, Vietnam, are also progressing very sharply. North America and rest of the world, same dynamics, plus 5%. We're talking about a global growth on the world economy with a great performance of our teams in North America. It's an excellent team, just like China, we think that we are gaining new market shares in the past few months. The most limited growth is in Western Europe, plus 2%, but there was a difference because of Easter holidays, which was overlapping Q1 and Q2. Spain and Italy, very good performance. A situation with a lot of uncertainties in the U.K. Very good beginning of this year for Schneider Electric. After Q1, we are able to confirm our objectives for the whole year 2018. Our objective is to deliver another strong growth for our adjusted EBITDA, around 7%. Remember, it was 9% in 2017.
A new year of strong organic growth, and we use two leverages for that. First, the organic growth of our revenue. We want to be in the top of this bracket from 3%-5%. And the second leverage is the margin improvement, and we hope here to get to the top of the bracket from 20-50 basis point improvement of our margin. This performance can be also seen in our stock exchange trend. It is nice to see the long-term investors, which is most of you around here. You are with us for a very long period of time, but we must also deliver performance on the short term. For the long-term performance, if you purchased Schneider shares 10 years ago and you reinvested the dividend in Schneider shares, you get 144% return over 10 years.
If you compare with the average of CAC 40, which did a 48% on the same period, you have 2.5 times the performance of CAC 40 over the past 10 years. On the last 12 months, there is less of an over-progression, but we are beating CAC 40 with 12.2% for the past year, when CAC 40 was performing by 11.2%. I would like to conclude telling you what is our relationship with our shareholders. This relationship is at the heart of our concerns. We provide all the resources for that. We have a dedicated team to support our shareholders. First of all, I would like to highlight the fact that we are developing a lot to nourish this relationship with our shareholders. It can be through site visits, conferences on different topics linked with our activities or our stock exchange development.
You have a few examples here of meetings or events organized by Schneider. Our next visit in June is our hub in Normandy. It is very interesting to see how a distribution center, which is really at the state of the art in terms of distribution, is organized. If you can join us for this event, please feel free to contact Amandine Petitdemange. She is in the room, and she will help you with your registration. We also have an information center, which is dedicated, where you can find a wealth of information on your company. And with great pleasure, as usual, I like to speak about our advisory committee. Patrick Debout is the chairman. He is in the room. I would like to say hello to Patrick. This is a very easy channel to get in touch with us, send through your remarks, critiques, suggestions, or even congratulations. Why not?
Feel free to use this number. It is a toll-free number. It will make our communication easy. This is the end of my presentation. Thank you very much. Back to Jean-Pascal. Now the main part of the meeting, governance. I am going to give the floor to Mr. Apotheker, who is responsible of this governance committee for the board of directors. He will tell you about the situation as an independent board member. A few words about the board itself. You have here your board members. If you could zoom. Do we have an available cameraman to film the first seats here? Yes, we have people. They are all with us, most of them. They pay great attention to this presentation, even if they know what is going on in this group, obviously. I would like to pay tribute to three board members, Cathy Kopp, Xavier Fontanet, and Henri Lachmann.
They are going to leave the board just after this meeting. Cathy Kopp couldn't be with us today. She's in Marseille, and as you might have heard, there is some strike in the transport system in France here at the moment. Anyway, I would like to thank them really from the bottom of my heart for their contribution to Schneider. I'd like to thank Henri Lachmann on a more specific way because he was my predecessor. He took me on board. He really helped me and he's always supported me. It was a great adventure, and I would like to thank him very much because we're all proud of what he's done of Schneider today. Thank you. This is the example of a well-prepared transition, of a transition which is quite smooth and everything's going on fine, really.
I would also like to seize this opportunity to say hello to Fleur Pellerin and Henri de Castries. First, they're with us here today. They're not yet board members. We will ask you to vote for their appointment at the board of directors. We would like to welcome them on board because we are quite convinced that they are of a great value and they will help this group. Now, I will give the floor to Léo Apotheker. He will say a few words about governance. I am going to make the most of this mic here. Anyway, good afternoon. Let me talk about governance. I will explain what this board does, your board, I should say. As you know, Schneider is very strict in the implementation of governance principles. Our organization guarantees an independent control of managers.
This is done by the board itself. The vice chairman of the board is an additional guarantee. This board is independent. 82% of the board members are independent members, and they work a lot. The average participation rate of board members, 90%. We meet eight times a year, including a session of four days dedicated to a strategy in China. On top of that, we have three executive sessions. In other words, we work without management during those sessions.
Every year, we review the functions of the chairman and general manager. I would like to thank the chairman, by the way. As always, we have renewed our trust in Jean-Pascal. As long as this function is unified, there will be an independent chairman and general manager. Your board works with five different committees, four traditional committees, and a new committee that was recently created, a digital committee. The powers of the CEO are limited, obviously. Any acquisition or divestment above EUR 250 million had to be approved by the board. The way of working of your board has been validated by an external firm, external experts. They confirm our self-assessment. They've been very positive. I'd like to draw your attention on a quote.
An external expert, international expert, I should say, said, "Compared to good practices of board of directors, the Schneider board is quite remarkable." I would like to congratulate and thank all the board members here for their work and competencies and constant presence. There are things that we should improve, nevertheless. We have to transform what we call the strategy committee into an investment strategy. We are going to formalize an integration program for new board members, and on a systematic basis, at the end of each meeting, we will talk about succession plans of managers, twice a year at least. In 2017, the board worked on a certain number of recurring subjects.
The combination of Software Activities of Schneider Electric and the merging with AVEVA, in other words, acquisition of ASCO, renewal of the board, creation of a digital committee, self-assessment formalized with the support of external experts in order to follow risks. We've worked on specific studies in logistics and supply chain compliance and quality, and succession plans of managers and of members of the executive committee and their remuneration. The four committees working on a certain number of specific points are the following: audit and risks, very traditional committee, I would say, we study the accounts, revenue, financial information, management control of risks, and the policy of distribution. The governance and remuneration committee, which I chair, is also in charge of the list of members of the board, integration of new board members, remuneration of managers, taking into account this French law called Sapin II.
Succession plans of managers and formalized self-assessment. Third committee, chaired by Linda Knoll. This committee is in charge of reviewing the remuneration policy of the members of the executive committee, professional and equal pay as well, and RSE performance, including this new barometer called Planète & Société . This is Schneider's sustainability impact. The strategic committee with Xavier Fontanet, that focuses on the preparation of the strategic session of the board, definition of themes connected to organic growth, and critical review of external growth projects of the group. That's it for this short presentation of what the board did in 2017. Let's talk about the main points on the agenda of this general meeting of shareholders. You have to approve a certain number of major decisions. Approval of the accounts and the amount of the dividend.
We'll go into the details of the resolutions of the board. We'll talk about the remuneration of the top managers, and we'll talk about the renewal of the status of the managers. You will also vote on the renewal of mandates and the appointment of the new members to the board, the renewal of financial authorization. Every year, this buyback planning are for 98% of the employees of the group, so it's a major success. Let's talk about resolution one to four. Reiteration amendment of the status of two board members, Mr. Tricoire and Babeau. First of all, the departure indemnity. We suggest that it is equal or inferior to twice the annual remuneration of the past three years with a certain number of specific conditions, performance conditions in particular. If the board is talking about this non-competition amendment, this remuneration will be different.
Third, the right to keep stock options and performance shares allocated for all new plans. It will be connected to the time of presence of the manager. Second point, the approval of the non-managing director board members' remuneration. This is the convention about the specific missions of the vice president who is an independent board member. Remuneration as indicated on the slide. I now can talk about the remuneration of the corporate managers. Let me remind you the principles we use to work on this remuneration. For years now, we have decided that we should build a remuneration strategy based on three pillars. First of all, remuneration of performance, alignment with the interests of shareholders, and competitiveness. These three pillars can be subdivided to principles. Performance, principle number 1, the variable component will prevail 80% for the CEO and 75% for the Vice Managing Director.
Second principle, evaluation of performances according to economic criteria that can actually be measured. Third principle, financial objectives, sustainable development, and transformation distributed in a very balanced way. Alignment with the interests of shareholders. We have here two main principles, relative overweighting of shares in the global remuneration, and principle number 5, alignment of performance conditions on what shareholders expect. We align ourselves on the published guidance. Competitiveness. We want to motivate and keep our managers in a very competitive international market. Two principles here. First of all, remuneration of corporate managers. We want to have the average of the group of reference. That's for the remuneration, as I said, of the top managers. Principle number 7, we'll take into account the Euro Stoxx 50 and CAC 40.
If you look at the performance and the way we compensate managers, the CEO, and the Vice CEO, the things are quite well aligned with the value creation for shareholders. This is what we want to keep, actually. This is a main basis for the calculation of the remuneration policy. Proposal for 2018, it's in line with our strategy. We suggest a slight increase of the fixed annual remuneration in order to reward the performances of the managers. We are quite successful. Emmanuel and Jean- Pascal have given you all the numbers. I won't give them again, but I'd like to draw your attention on the fact that we have an annual growth of the net earnings of 3.3% over this period of time. It seemed to us fair to actually apply this to the remuneration of managers. The merging with AVEVA was finalized successfully.
This was a crucial strategic operation for the future of the group. If we want to go on keeping an eye on competitiveness of managers, when we compare ourselves with other companies, we want to be competitive. We are going to suggest an increase of the fixed annual remuneration, plus 5% for Mr. Tricoire. Last time he got an increase was in 2013. Mr. Babeau, this increase will be plus 12% fixed annual remuneration in order to reward the managers for the successful transformation of the group, the development of its profitability structure. As far as Mr. Babeau is concerned, the specific success of the merger between the Software Activities and AVEVA. The summary of this remuneration proposal for 2017 and 2018. Mr. Tricoire, 2017 fixed remuneration EUR 950,000.
We are following here. We are strictly following the remuneration voted by the general meeting in 2017. We stick to the policy you approved. Fixed annual remuneration 2017 for Mr. Tricoire, EUR 950,000. Variable share was EUR 1.8 million, which means it gives a total number of EUR 2,832,000. We have given performance shares of EUR 3.2 million. Total remuneration plus share, EUR 6 million. Then pensions will be as indicated here, EUR 543,000. Total number is EUR 6.6 million. For 2018, the fixed share will be EUR 1 million. The variable share will be EUR 1.3 million, so EUR 2.3 million. Then EUR 3.2 million shares will be given to him. The value of the shares given to Mr. Tricoire is EUR 3.2 million, so total number EUR 5.5 million, total number EUR 3.35 million. Mr. Babeau in 2017, EUR 605,000 variable compensation, EUR 920,000 variable share-based compensation. Number of shares as indicated here, 12,000, and so on .
That gives us anyway a total number of EUR 3.2 million. 2018, EUR 680 fixed remuneration, same for the variable remuneration. Total number as indicated here, EUR 1.3 million performance shares plus pensions plus other advantages. That gives us a total number of EUR 3.1 million. That is what we are suggesting anyway for 2018. Let me introduce our new candidates. Mrs. Fleur Pellerin, she magistrate for the Cour des comptes, ex-minister of the government, and since September 2016, she's associated manager of an investment fund called Korelya Capital in France and Europe. We are very happy to take Mrs. Pellerin on board. She will share with us her economic and financial knowledge and her experience of business, her good knowledge of the economic world in France and Asia. She volunteers to join three committees, Audit and Risks, Human Resources, and RSE and Digital.
I've also a great pleasure to introduce Mr. Anders Runevad is CEO of Vestas Wind Systems A/S. He has had a long career, first for Ericsson in Sweden, Singapore, U.S., Brazil and U.K. He will give us his experience in growth strategies and changes in companies, in businesses. He's got a deep knowledge of the new world of energy, the activities of Schneider Electric and its competitive environment in all its geographies. He will join the investment committee. If you approve our proposal when we end this general meeting, your board will be younger, with strong additional competencies. Our board will be able to face the various issues of the future. The average age this year was 57.5 years, 13 board members, two of them employed by Schneider. 42% of the board members were ladies. Independent board members, 82%.
We'll have now eight board members with competencies in accounting and finances, seven with an industrial competency, five in the digital world, five have an excellent experience or knowledge of the U.S. market. Four have a good knowledge of the Asian market. I hope that these candidates, these appointments will be voted by you. Resolution 15 to 17, we are asking you to go on with our share buyback program, maximum EUR 90 per share. Renewal of authorization to have again, this increase of capital for the employees. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Léo. I would like to thank the board of directors because since with this new governance, the work of the board has been multiplied by at least two. A certain number of things were prepared in the past by a specific committee. Now the board is working hard.
People are very active. They spend a lot of time working for Schneider. It represents a lot. We had to organize a number of sessions outside France, so they have to travel, they have to suffer jet lag, and they have to be quite organized. Thank you very much. I would like to call the auditors who will make their presentation on the fiscal year. A special report on the accounts and on the certain number of authorization for profit-sharing plans and so on, increase of the capital strictly reserved for employees of the group. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It's a great pleasure to make this presentation on behalf of all the auditors, the five reports we have drafted for you. These reports are at your disposal, so I will just summarize them.
First of all, we have an opinion report on annual accounts and a report on consolidated accounts. We have a report on conventions and regulated commitments or agreements, and two reports on specific operations and specific operations for the corporate capital. In our opinion report, we certify that these annual accounts that you will now have to approve in the first and second resolutions of this general meeting. We approve this report. As part of the implementation of the European reform, the format of our reports has evolved. We now explain key points which according to us are the key points which have been the most important one for the establishment of these accounts. As far as the annual accounts are concerned, you have the assessment of the participation and the debts connected to this participation in other businesses.
As far as the consolidated accounts are concerned, we have selected four main theme. First, evaluation of goodwill, brand image, capitalization, and evaluation of development costs, recognition and as of assets. Last but not least, the identification of risks and evaluation of corresponding provisions. We also confirm that our reports comply with the law. Now, conventions and commitments. Our reports include two new conventions that have been accepted by the board of directors. It's a commitment vis-à-vis Mr. Jean-Pascal Tricoire and Mr. Emmanuel Babeau. You had the presentation of these commitments and conventions and agreements that you have approved previously that also took place in 2017 have been presented in our report. As far as the extraordinary general meeting is concerned, we have two specific reports on the resolutions of the corporate capital. In issuing of a certain number of shares.
We didn't have to make any specific comment on these operations, which are absolutely part of the legal system prevailing in this country. Thank you very much for your attention. Ladies and gentlemen, Emmanuel Babeau, myself, Mr. Apotheker, we are at your disposal to answer your questions, if any. Before I answer your questions, I'd like to say that we have received four questions, come from a shareholder who's got 12,000 shares of the company, and another one from Sébastien Poyet is a representative, is a shareholder with one share. The board met this morning, and we have drafted answers to the question, and the answers are on the website. Excuse me. Questions. In order to make sure that you can ask your question, please, if you have different questions, sorry, ask all your questions when you have the microphone.
I am going to start with the advisory committee of shareholders who is going to repeat the questions it got on our internet site in particular. The interpreter, we do not hear the question. Mr. Tricoire is answering a question the interpreter didn't hear, but anyway. We know all about cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is obviously very important. A certain number of things happened last year. Several elements in my answer. First of all, we have a digital committee. It will be chaired by Fred Kindle. The committee will obviously focus on cybersecurity. It will be one of the first issues that the committee will address. Second, to answer your question on internal cybersecurity, we have delegated IT, fully delegated to entities and businesses. A few years ago, we have globalized all this.
We have one IT manager who is in charge of the digital operations of Schneider, so he's in charge of internal digital businesses and external ones. Within Schneider, we have cybersecurity services. When we commission a system, when we take into account cybersecurity, we ask our customers the type of cybersecurity system they want, and we really give them the full power, I would say, of our R&D. We develop customized solutions, in other words. Obviously, we have to keep an open eye on this. There are more and more attacks on our system, internal customer systems and so on. We constantly work to defend ourselves, to increase defense. The fact that we are a big company, that we have good R&D budgets, so obviously, we are able to defend ourselves in a much better way than smaller companies.
Obviously, let's understand, let's keep a low profile here. We are constantly attacked. We constantly work on this. We always find solutions with authorities, in particular. There are new rules that will have to be used in Europe on data protection. This should start in May. All the employees of Schneider are being trained on this, and we will obviously comply with these new rules. Transformations in the energy business are very topical. smart grid, development of electric vehicles, the announcement of Total, who is going to acquire Direct Energie. What are the impacts on the business of Schneider Electric, and how does it influence your strategy? Well, it is reinforcing our strategy. You know as well, for 15 years, we announced a world that will be growing digital and electric. In the past couple of years, we had even a sharp acceleration here.
It's a move that is really very favorable for Schneider Electric, and a digital world is really very favorable for a company such as ours, bringing digital in building, in the industry, in the smart cities. Five years ago, it was still a marginal phenomenon compared with more traditional technologies, but it is now really accelerating, and I showed you 10% of the Chinese vehicles will be electric next year. All this will benefit our technologies. We won't be able to do everything. One of our strengths is really to continue to be focused, and we've always been more focused than our competitors. We will continue to do so. For the past 10, 15 years, we decided to focus on the downstream of the energy flow, that is after the distribution. Now with the digital, we are really enriching our offer with new functionalities.
One question from here in the center. Good afternoon. We were told that the French tax system is one of the strongest. We even send our agents in Greece when they had trouble, and things are much better for them now. Installation of Schneider in China, did it change something about your tax scheme?
I didn't understand the question.
Well, we pay our taxes only in France or in China or everywhere. What do we do?
We pay taxes in all the countries where we have business. Obviously, we pay our taxes in France. We also pay taxes in China and in all the countries where we operate. We are submitted to the local tax system. That is where the activity is taking place, where the business is taking place. It will depend on our activity in the country. It's not depending on the tax system.
You don't go to places where the tax is lighter?
We are where our customers can buy.
They tend to buy in the countries where there is less taxes, more dynamic countries. My name is Roger Tong, Mr. Chairman. I have two questions, one on governance I see that M&As after EUR 250 million need to be approved by the board of directors. My question is the following: if the answer by the board is negative, do you proceed anyhow to the acquisition or transfer? I obey. Second question for Fleur Pellerin. Could you tell us more about the Aster startup company? Will you have other startups like the one brought by Fleur Pellerin? To give you some elements of context, acquisitions and sessions beyond EUR 250 million are submitted to the review of the investment committee, which was previously the strategic committee, and then a decision of the board.
I am very keen on that because this is our tradition in Schneider, transparency and cross debate. Below that even we also have cases that are submitted to the board. There is the rules, but also the need for transparency. Concerning Astor, it's our venture capital fund associated to Schneider. With this fund, we can sponsor many startups around the world to be inspired by them, help them develop, and also link them to our growth. This will continue not only in France, in the United States, in China, where we have multiple startups. Besides this, Fleur Pellerin has her own investment fund, which has nothing to do with Astor, which belongs to Schneider. If you vote for her, she will be part of our directors, and there will be no relationship with Astor. One more question there.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. de Soulanges for the individual shareholdership fund. One question. You were able to value to EUR 3 billion your technology, your 3D technology. Will you have a frontal conflict with Dassault Systèmes? Second question. Several studies reveal that we will be missing 2 million engineers in augmented reality or artificial intelligence. How will Schneider face this scarcity of talents? Will you be able to achieve your metamorphosis with success? Concerning our first question, the 3D development is not because of Dassault Systèmes. We do that to serve our clients. It is a matter of positioning on the market. We have operations where we have a very strong and global brand image, but we were not there for the design of the project. If we want to be very efficient, our digital model must be the same from design to operations.
This is the reason why we create a continuum in the portfolio of the company. Everybody is producing 3D. It is not the monopoly of one company. It is a natural form of representing reality in our digital universe. Concerning talents, yes, there is a global talent war, not only for AI, but I showed you the global balance, and you see that one of the strong points we can value is the fact that we are multi-local. We have that organization that we call global and connected with responsibility centers that are not only in one place. In the current world, where global talents have offers from all over the place, we can manage their responsibilities globally while remaining to our clients', timelines, friends, families, this is an advantage. Only very few, if no companies at all, can propose that besides Schneider. This is our value proposition.
For those who join Schneider, they can stay in our culture, their local universe, while being emerged in the most global company in the industry. It is a privilege to work at the first row of all the main technological transformations of this century, the energy transformation and the convergence of industrial operations and IT. I will also add that there is a clear contribution to sustainable development. We are here to preserve our planet and solve the poverty issues with the Access to Energy and access to digital. This is what we are offering, and it is successful. This is our driver. It is our passion in Schneider. We have this mission or mission statement of the company, and at the same time, this luck we all have to work daily with a global community, which is multicolor, multicultural, diverse, and this is helping us to progress faster than others.
More questions?
Good afternoon. My name is Louis Mott. I am a shareholder in Pure Assets. Medium voltage with time, is it a business you continue to develop, or is it slightly leaving your core business? As explained, in the past 10 years, through acquisitions, we considerably reinforced the medium voltage industry in Schneider. We didn't do that for medium voltage per se. I am formerly from Merlin Gerin, and I always worked on medium voltage, but for a client, you don't speak about secure energy, low voltage, medium voltage. You speak about electric distribution, and outside buildings and houses, it begins with medium voltage. We need that. For all the companies we acquired, this medium voltage has not reached the maximum performance as could achieve a world leader. We are working at it.
For the past two years, the medium voltage performance is improving, but we're just at the middle of it for the time being. We haven't reached what it would take to be a world leader. We are in size, but we are not a leader in performance. We still need to develop this activity on the right segments and make sure we get the right synergies with low voltage and the rest of the distribution. I don't have an absolute answer to your question, but I spend most of my career to rebuild medium voltage muscle. Now it's up to the teams to make sure it works. Do we have more questions? Okay, one last question, and then we'll move on. Microphone number one. I'm an individual shareholder. I got in late, and I'd like to know up to when you take signatures on the attendance list?
It's over. It was closed at 2:30. I think the attendance list was closed at 3:00 o'clock. 3:00 o'clock after closure of the doors. What happens for those who are late? I know it's not a burning question, it's not easy to come here with all the strikes. I'm sorry for you, sir. No more question? A short question. What do you think about the Linky meter ? Well, you should turn to Enedis. You, what do you think about it as a technician? These smart meters are implemented in many countries. It's a gateway between the smart grid and industry automation and smart buildings to manage efficiency. It's been around for quite some time. Is there any interest for the consumer? I think you should call Enedis really.
In a digitized world, the main change you will have is that for the first time in the energy world, everything will be connected, from the power generator to the plug in your home. It is calibrated to cover the peak. Every year you have a consumption peak in winter, and there can be a shortage. If there is no peak, most of the time, the network is underused. Connecting the consumption point to the generation point improves hugely our efficiency of the networks. And I understand that Linky is one part of this. Thank you. We do not participate to that. We are upstream and downstream from that meter. Good afternoon. How about energy storage? Are you looking at batteries as an industry? Because this is very important, and we tend to think, apart from Elon Musk from Tesla, that there is nothing to do with batteries.
Is Schneider going to get there or not? Well, we won't be able to do everything. We are not in batteries, but we are with the biggest integrators of energy storage for the consumption. We're the world leader for energy supply to data centers. Each time you click on the web, you might get this energy from Schneider. All these data centers are extremely sensitive. It's very top of the technology IT, and they are secured by the batteries. And the management of this is a system from Schneider. Secondly, we speak about storage for the rich. Rich as Tesla, and particularly for California. 40% of our revenue is in emerging countries. We are leaders of the power storage in those countries with systems that are much, much, much cheaper and more developed, like in India, where we are providing secure energy for Indian households.
In India, it's a daily problem with the shortage or shutdowns for your computers, your fridges, your children who need to study at home. No, we're not going to produce batteries because this is chemical, and our core business is not in chemicals. We will have a very strong relationship with battery providers. In the Western world, we speak a lot about Tesla, but you have 25 times this capacity in batteries in China. They are not so loud, but they go much faster. It's a provider, which is a Japanese company called Panasonic. It concerns many different companies. They are in competition. Our job is to manage batteries as we manage solar panels and windmills. We provide the energy, the intelligence, and the muscles for the energy management.
With ASCO, which does source inversion, we can manage this new source of energy for storage. Good afternoon. I'm part of the advisory committee for shareholders, and I'd like to speak about the EcoStruxure development strategy. Your strategy is based on partnership and not vertical integration to do everything by yourself. What are the benefits of this strategy you chose? It's an excellent question. It is really linked to our genetics. In energy, we have many competitors who go and see the end users to integrate things for our end users. We decided to be the company number 1 in this business in terms of partnerships. We did that in the past with electricians, installers, automation integrators, et cetera. If you look at our sales portfolio, our channels for the market, we are by far the company which is structured through partnerships.
We think that everyone should focus on his best competence. In our case, it's technology. Having technology that can be assembled like Legos or plug-and-play with thousands of partners that are out there in the field. They know the culture better, they know the language, they know the characteristics better than us. This is why, from the beginning, we chose to do the partnerships. When we started in the digital world, we applied the same recipe as for the physical world, and we preferred to work with partners. For all the levels of EcoStruxure, connected products, control organizations, they are all developed on open standards, allowing thousands of partners to provide their bricks with their intelligence and added value to the system. We want to be the most open company in the sector. Thank you very much. This will conclude this Q&A session.
If nobody else wants to ask for the floor, I will submit our resolutions to the vote of the assembly. Let us start the vote. It's an important amendment in this assembly. Please stay up to the end of the vote. I would like to mention that we are happy to give you as a gift, a product from Schneider Electric. It's a solar panel with the light bulb. It was developed within the Access to Energy Program. You will see that it was done by our design department. It's full of smart devices. You can use it in many different situations. Remember that this is something we designed for the people who are at the bottom of the pyramid, living in difficult environments, make sure that they can use this in complicated environment with minimum comfort.
It is very successful, first for the coverage of the needs of these households, and we're selling this more and more in mature countries because people find a natural use to this lamp. It was distributed with NGOs. Also in 2017, we started working with the United Nations and were able to provide them to a refugee camp in Chad. We're very proud of this product, and we're happy to share this with you. You will have it after the vote. When you give your voting box back, there's no free lunch. Now Delphine will manage the proceedings for the vote. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good afternoon. I see that the number of shares by people present is 403,556,768, which is the final quorum, 72%. For the ordinary and the extraordinary assembly, the quorum is reached, so we can start the vote.
Before we start with voting for the resolutions, please watch this video that will explain how you can use the voting box. You just have to press the button giving your position in the 15 seconds following the explanation. Yes, no, abstention. Thank you for watching this video. We now move on to the first resolution, approval of corporate financial statements for 2017 financial year. Vote is open. The vote is closed. Resolution adopted. Second resolution. The second resolution is the approval of consolidated financial statements for 2017 financial year. Vote is open. Vote is closed. The second resolution is approved. The third resolution concerns the distribution of a dividend of EUR 2.2 after the financial year with an accrual which is negative. It will be issued on 4th of May, 2018. There's a specific tax system for this distribution. Up to EUR 2.01, it is considered as a reimbursement of contribution.
Vote is open. Vote is closed. The third resolution is adopted. Fourth resolution, approval of the regulated agreements and commitments relating to Mr. Jean-Pascal Tricoire's status. Vote is open. Vote is closed. The resolution number 4 is adopted. The fifth resolution is the approval of the regulated agreements and commitments relating to Mr. Emmanuel Babeau's status. Vote is open. Vote is closed. The fifth resolution is approved. The sixth resolution concerns the information regarding regulated agreements and commitments undertaken during previous financial years, in particular, the remuneration of Mr. Léo Apotheker as an independent director. Vote is open. The vote is closed. The sixth resolution is adopted. The seventh resolution is the approval of elements of compensation paid, due, or awarded in respect of the 2017 financial year to Jean-Pascal Tricoire. Vote is open. Vote