Good morning. Thank you for standing by and welcome to Sodexo's Fiscal 2021 Results Conference Call. I advise you that this conference is being recorded today on Wednesday, October 27, 2021. At this time, I would like now to hand the conference over to the Sodexo team. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Fiscal 2021 Results Conference Call. On the call today, we have Sophie Bellon, our Chairwoman and Interim CEO, and Marc Rolland, our CFO. If you haven't already done so, the slides and press releases are available at sodexo.com, and you'll be able to access this call on our website for the next 12 months. The call is being re-recorded but may not be reproduced or transmitted without our consent. Please get back to the IR team if you have any further questions after the call. I remind you that we shall be publishing our universal registration document on November 10th. Our next event will be the AGM on December 14th, and the next numbers announcement will be the first quarter figures on January 6th, 2022. I now turn the call over to Sophie.
Good morning and thanks for being with us today for our Fiscal 2021 results announcement. This is the first time that with Marc, I shall be presenting the results. As usual with our announcement, I, as Interim CEO, will introduce the numbers. Marc will go into the detail and then I shall come back to conclude. Then, of course, both of us will answer and take your question. The good news is that the results are above our H2 guidance. Organic growth is at 18.1% compared to our guidance of around 15%. The underlying operating profit margin at constant rate is 3.7%, 20 basis points above guidance. In terms of the cash generation, we are way above our guidance with a cash conversion at about 350%.
The other piece of good news is that we can see the recovery in all our segments and activities. You can see that all the onsite segments are improving in Q4 with healthcare back up to fiscal 2019 level. Education recovered strongly in the last quarter with the start of the academic year in the United States. While universities are still below pre-COVID levels, schools were back up to 99%. Business and administration is slower due to the very progressive return to the office in many countries, and s port and leisure really only picked up in July and August, ending at 43% of pre-COVID levels in the quarter. You can see the difference between the performance of food and FM services.
While FM is well ahead of pre-COVID levels, Food Services is still at 73% in Q4, even if we are seeing a very regular recovery. As far as Benefits and Rewards is concerned, Europe is now back over the Fiscal Year 2019 level, and you can see the volatility linked to the closing and the opening of restaurants. On the other end, in Latin America, there is still some way to catch up due to the effect on revenues of the very competitive environment in Brazil. Retention is down 40 basis points at 93.1%, but as we pointed out at the end of the first half, this is due to the loss of the Transforming Rehabilitation contract in the U.K. Without this, it would have been flat. However, this is not as good as I would like it to be.
We lost a very large school contract in North America this summer, which accounts for nearly twice the Transforming Rehabilitation contract. As far as business development is concerned, there is real progress year-over-year, in percentage and in millions of Euro and in quality. Finally, Comparable Unit Growth is still negative against this year at about 6%, but we did see a real improvement in the second half, even if we still have a way to go. Let's go in the detail of the sales dynamic. You can see the volume of new signing is at a much higher profitability, up 80 basis points and 200 basis points better in North America. Also what we're losing is at a lower margin.
The good news is that healthcare development in North America is up 230 basis points and retention is up a further 80 basis points after 590 basis points in the previous year. Universities in North America is also doing better with a development rate up 110 basis points and a retention rate up 270 basis points, even though there were relatively few renewals this year. I would like to highlight one emblematic contract, which shows how good we can be as a trusted partner, bringing our leadership in workplace services to implement global solutions, serving the performance of organization and improving the quality of life of consumers. Initiated in 2018 for 80 corporate sites in 33 countries, NORAM, LATAM, EMEA, t his contract for a leading pharmaceutical organization was extended in 2021 for the management of 33 additional manufacturing sites in seven countries.
The client's main objective is to manage the post-COVID employee experience, creating workplaces that will become strategic advantages for talent attraction, retention, and productivity. At the same time, the client wants to promote a sustainable approach with new technology and a seamless experience. Using Vital Spaces, our comprehensive value proposition, the team is working with the client to switch from an FM approach to a holistic hospitality approach starting from the solution design based on the analysis of the consumer journey.
The vision is a global work-life solution with a wide range of services adapted to each site and consumer experience as a focus point including in the strategy of food, offers on site, Circles digital concierge services, as well as cleaning, energy management services, and so on. Sodexo will also be supplying a comprehensive suite of technology to support client operational efficiency through business intelligence and reporting, as well as the 12 hub implemented in a few sites to improve employee experience. This year has been active for the M&A team. On the acquisition partnership side, activity has been focused on the new digital food model space, both in terms of offers and technology solutions. There was also a lot of activity on disposals, e ight more countries were exited.
We started a much more aggressive management of our portfolio this summer with the announcement of disposal of Lifely and Rydoo. I wanted to highlight the Wedoogift acquisition. Digitally native, note the 4.8 App Store rating, and combining this with our gift services, we have created the new leader in employee gift solution in France with 55,000 in client and 5 million consumers. We're going to learn a lot in terms of seamless and personalized employee experiences in hybrid environments. Despite the loss of EUR 4.5 billion of revenue in two years, our financials remain very solid. Thanks to the teams on the ground, we have had strong free cash flow and therefore exceptional cash conversion.
Yes, this is helped by the fact that some CapEx has been delayed into Fiscal Year 2022, but this has led to an outstanding liquidity of EUR 6.4 billion at year-end. At 1.7, our net debt ratio is already back into the target range between one and two. Alongside our financial performance, I also wanted to share with you in a more complete way how we are also advancing on most of our 2025 CSR objectives. I remind you, t hey were set up in 2017, and given all that has happened since then, the performance has been variable. Several key things are to be proud of. Firstly, in the top left-hand box, employee engagement is the latest survey was 78.3%.
This is a bit below last year when we achieved an amazing 80.1% in the midst of the pandemic. I think it is still a very good performance as we come out of the pandemic and remains very close to our 2025 objective of 80%. Plus, it is supported by a very high participation rate at 63% versus 59% in 2020. In the box in the middle, you will see that we're also showing our willingness to include more and more local small and medium-sized enterprises into our value chain. Our business value benefiting SMEs increased significantly in Fiscal Year 2021 to EUR 6.9 billion, way up on last year and on track to get to EUR 10 billion by 2025.
This is mainly due to the implementation of specific monitoring of merchants and affiliates for the benefit and reward services activity. This increase is also explained by a sharp increase in the benefit and reward services activity with SMEs in Brazil. There are two indicators I want to highlight concerning our contribution to fight climate change. On carbon emissions since 2019, Sodexo was one of the first multinationals to adopt a reduction target for its direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions. Scope 1, 2, and 3, - 34% by 2025 as compared to 2017. This target has been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative, SBTi, and is in accordance with the Paris Agreement 1.5°C scenario.
Since 2017, Sodexo has reduced its direct greenhouse gas emissions, Scope 1 and 2, by 37.2% in absolute value, and its supply chain emissions, Scope 3, by 23.2% in absolute value. In 2020, Sodexo's approach won the company a place on the prestigious Climate A List of the CDP, and we are definitely going in the right direction. In the bottom right-hand box, you will find our waste reduction result, which is up on last year and is very much in line with the target reduction of 50%. Controlling production and the processing of resources to avoid any loss in value is one of Sodexo's major challenges. To us, it's not just a question of cost effectiveness, it's a moral obligation. Sodexo is in a unique position to drive the behavioral change we need towards more sustainable consumption.
What is important is that despite the program delay due to a lot of sites being closed or at very low levels of activities, implementation is now picking up fast. We had 878 reporting in Fiscal Year 2021 versus 291 in Fiscal Year 2020, and currently we're getting to 1,300 sites deployed. Finally, let me highlight that we have introduced a new KPI this year about the important topic of nutrition and well-being of our consumers. Today, 73.8% of our sites provide consumers with a healthy lifestyle option. Our ambition is to get 100% by 2025, so still a lot of work to do. On that high note, I hand you over to Marc for the Fiscal 2021 detail.
Thank you, Sophie, and good morning, everyone. I am very pleased to be here with you this morning. As usual, you will find the alternative performance measure definitions in the appendices, along with extra information to help you with your modeling. Now, let's start with the P&L for Fiscal 2021. We continue to be severely impacted in Fiscal 2021 by the sanitary crisis. As Sophie pointed out, even though we have been climbing out of the crisis progressively during the year, we lost a further EUR 2 billion of revenues this year on top of the EUR 2.5 billion lost in Fiscal 2020. Fiscal 2021 revenues amounted to EUR 17.4 billion, down 9.8% or 5.8% excluding the currency impact, and down 5.6% organically.
The good news is that the trend reversed in the second half, where organic growth was 18.1% against the COVID-impacted comparable base, compared to a decline of 21.7% in the first half. Despite lower revenues, underlying profit was up 1.6% or 12.4% excluding the currency impact, and the margin increased 40 basis points to 3.3% and up 60 basis points if you exclude the currency impact. The margin stepped up to 3.1% in the first half and then 3.5% in the second half. The last step may seem a small step, but don't forget that usually we have a 100 basis points gap in margins between the first and the second half, so this is a significant step-up. Other operating income and expense were more than half this year.
I shall come back to this in the next slide. Financial expenses also fell substantially back down to a more normal level at EUR 106 million. I remind you that last year we had the make whole of EUR 150 million on the early reimbursement of the USPP. The year-end blended cost of debt was stable at 1.6% compared to August 2020. The tax charge was stable at EUR 101 million, with an effective tax rate of 43.9%. This rate is higher than normal due to the non-recognition of deferred tax assets in France where un like last year, we restricted the recognition of deferred tax assets to the amount of the deferred tax liability. Excluding this factor, the underlying effective tax rate would have been 28.3%.
As a result, in Fiscal 2021, we generated a net profit of EUR 139 million, versus a net loss last year of EUR 315 million. EPS was EUR 0.95. When you strip out all the other income and expenses, net of taxes, the underlying net profit was EUR 346 million, up 13.1% or 30.5% excluding currencies. The underlying EPS was therefore EUR 2.37, up 13%. Let's now go back to the OIE that were more than halved from EUR 503 million last year to EUR 239 million this year. The restructuring cost fell back down to EUR 153 million from EUR 191 million last year of which EUR 46 million in H2.
We also had EUR 27 million of impairments, well below the EUR 234 million of last year, and t his year, we have also been disposing of assets which generated net losses of EUR 32 million. As we've just seen, restructuring costs have been significant in the last two years due to the implementation of our GET program, which reached EUR 312 million by the end of Fiscal 2021. By the end of the year, EUR 217 million had been cashed out. The program has already generated EUR 280 million of savings in Fiscal 2021. EUR 91 million of these savings are structural reduction in SG&A. The rest is cost avoidance, by which we mean that we have reduced on-site staff where we do not expect revenues to come back fully.
We expect to have about EUR 18 million of further GET costs which have slipped from Fiscal 2021 to Fiscal 2022. We shall end up slightly better than target on costs and stronger in total cost savings at 120% of cost versus the 100% planned. As the effect of the pandemic receded progressively during Fiscal 2021, cash sales started to come back and feed into operating cash flow and working capital. CapEx was also much lower at only EUR 211 million or 1.2% of sales. The reduction was in the onsite activities and in particular the sports and leisure where several contract exits led to some reimbursement of investments. Total reimbursements amounted to EUR 72 million.
Stripping this out, gross CapEx to sales would have been more like 1.6% against 2% the prior year. For the rest of onsite, healthcare was flat and education was slightly up. BRS CapEx was maintained along with investment in IT and digital. Given the group's mix of segments and geography, I maintain that group CapEx to sales should run at around 2.5% of revenue when things get back to normal. As a result of all this, free cash flow was EUR 483 million against EUR 72 million in Fiscal 2020. Cash conversion was at 350%, well above the objective of 100%. I would just like to point out that this is a great number and our teams worked very hard to achieve this.
It does include some reimbursement of COVID-related delayed payment government support programs, some impact of Tokyo Olympics, but mostly the significant restructuring cash impact we experienced in 2021. However, for these three items, we still have about EUR 300 million more to come out in Fiscal 2022. We had light M&A activity in Fiscal 2021 with a net spend of EUR 42 million being the net of acquisition and disposals. The absence of a dividend on Fiscal 2021 earnings due to the COVID pandemic impacted favorably the level of total cash. As a result, consolidated net debt fell by EUR 390 million year-on-year. In slide 20, you can see the reduced net debt to just under EUR 1.5 billion.
Combined with the revaluation of financial assets, this played favorably into the gearing ratio, which fell from 67% in August 2020 to only 47% at year-end. The net debt ratio at 1.7 is back into the target range of between one and two. After all the different financing operations, borrowings are now 23% dollar-denominated at an average maturity of 5.2 years and at an average rate of 1.6%. 95% of those borrowings are at fixed rate and 100% is covenant free. By the end of Fiscal 2021, operating cash reached a total of EUR 4.6 billion of which half was benefits and reward services, and therefore, the other half for the rest of the group. At year-end, we have a very comfortable liquidity position of EUR 6.4 billion.
Yesterday, we early redeemed at no extra cost the EUR 600 million bond. The board has proposed a dividend of EUR 2 to be put to the vote at the AGM on December 14. This includes a recurrent part of EUR 1.2, reflecting a return to a normal dividend payout ratio of 50% of the underlying net profit, plus an exceptional part of EUR 0.8 linked to the disposal program, which will raise about EUR 120 million between H2 of last year and H1 of Fiscal Year 2022. Now let's move on to the operations focused on the second half performance compared to a COVID-impacted base last year. You can see that second half group revenues reached EUR 8.8 billion, up 15.8% as published, and 18.1% organically.
The scope change of -0.6% reflects the net of the disposals and the acquisition. I remind you in the first half, this was neutral. The currency impact reduced slightly during the semester to only -1.7% against a more significant -4.8% in the first half. This is due to the relative stabilization of the Brazilian Real and the U.S. Dollar in the second half. On-site and benefits and reward services performed perfectly in line at 18% for one and 18.2% for the other. Let's start with onsite.
You see that B&A generated H2 organic growth of 14.6%. The 25% growth in North America is the result of on the one hand solid ongoing growth in G&A and E&R, and on the other hand, the recovery in corporate services, even though this remained below our expectations due to the Delta variant. Sports and leisure also started to pick back up principally in the sports activity and in the last quarter only. North America B&A was in H2 only at 65% of pre-COVID levels. In Europe, while the organic growth was more modest at 11%, Europe is already back up to 75% of pre-COVID levels. The return to office in Continental Europe after the end of the lockdown started earlier than in the U.S. and is continuing to progress.
There was some recovery in the sports and leisure activities during the summer, and in particular in sports events, and more surprisingly, even in tourism. E&R and government and agency segments performed well due to new business and despite the impact from the loss of the Transforming Rehabilitation contract in the U.K. during the fourth quarter. In Asia Pacific, LATAM, Middle East, and Africa, activity levels are already 8% above pre-COVID levels in H2. Corporate services and energy and resources account for the vast majority of the activity in the region. The 12.9% organic growth was driven by new business and strong underlying growth in Latin America, which more than offset the rundown of the extra COVID-related FM services in the Asia Pac region. Now let's turn to healthcare and senior, up 8.7% in the second half.
In North America, the 1.9% reflects the progressive increase in elective surgery and strong cross-selling. The retail sales only started to pick up in the fourth quarter. However, senior home occupancy remains impacted by the effects of the pandemic. Healthcare and senior in the U.S. is still only at 80% of Fiscal 2019, and this is linked to contract losses in Fiscal 2019 and 2020 and lower levels still on retail sales. In Europe, organic growth was up 18.7% and activity is now 19% above pre-COVID levels, thanks to the very large rapid testing centers contract in the U.K. Retail activity remains low. Cross-selling of new COVID-related hygiene services remains strong. Seniors activities has also continued to pick up progressively during the second half.
In Asia Pac, LATAM, Middle East, and Africa, organic revenue growth was 22.5% due to strong recovery in volumes and new business wins in China, India, and Brazil. Education was up 55.2% in H2 from a very low base last year, with all the three major countries, U.S., France, and the U.K., totally confined. North America was up 47.6% in the second half. The return to school and university was much slower than in Europe in Q2 and Q3. However, in Q4, there were some summer camps, activities, and project work, and most importantly, all sites reopened for the start of the new academic year in August. Europe was back up to 90% of pre-COVID levels in the second half. Revenues were up 78% organically.
Most schools were open from April, even if there were some class closures and high absenteeism due to the Delta variant in the last months of the school year, particularly in the U.K. In Asia Pac, LATAM, Middle East, and Africa, organic growth was 49.5%, reflecting progressive reopening of schools and universities in China, but not in India due to the Delta variant. The region only reached 60% of pre-COVID levels in H2. The significant step up in the underlying operating margin of onsite services in the second half Fiscal 2020 reflects the progressive improvement in activity levels, very tight cost control, numerous contractor negotiation, more active portfolio management, and the contribution from the GET program.
In H2, we also absorb the traditional 100 basis points profitability gap between the first and second half linked to education, which you can see here, and the early decision in many of our markets. Business and Administration significantly improve margin step by step. Energy and Resources, and Government and Agencies segments are both ahead relative to Fiscal 2019. Only Sports & Leisure is loss-making due to incompressible fixed costs and very low volumes. Reflecting the relatively resilient revenues, Healthcare and Seniors margin has remained solid, also increasing progressively since the beginning of the pandemic, helped by the positive effects of the net new business and despite lower retail sales. In Education, the second half margin came back up to just positive. The drop in margin from H1 is due to seasonality.
The return to higher margins is dependent upon the full reopening of schools and university in all regions from the start of the new academic year, which appears to be the case. Now let's turn to benefits and rewards. You can see that in H2, employee benefits were up 18.2% on issue volume growth of 11%, demonstrating the catch-up of reimbursement volume as restaurants reopen. Issue volumes are now back over pre-COVID levels. Services diversification was also up 18.5% organically against very low level last year in travel and expense, and incentive and recognition. Public benefits continued to grow due to ongoing and new government schemes in several countries but more slowly. The growth was very strong in Europe, Asia and U.S.A at 22.9% as restaurants reopened and activity picked back up in all the diversified services.
In Latin America, the 10.7% organic growth was boosted by issue volume growth, even though the environment in Brazil remains very competitive. Growth in the rest of the region was mixed with strong activity in Mexico, thanks to solid development in the fuel card activities. On the other hand, growth in the COVID-related public benefits activity slowed compared to the strong comparative base of the previous year. Thanks to strong recovery in issue volume growth, and the catch-up in reimbursement as well as the diversification services operating, so revenues were up 19.3%. Financial revenues turned the corner up 5% as the Brazilian interest rate started to rise from March. BRS margins are very dependent on volume. The progressive pickup in revenues during the year is clearly visible in the pickup in margin.
I'll remind you that the margin in the second half of Fiscal 2020 was at 20.8%, picking up to 23.6% in H1 and 26.2% in H2. Importantly, during this period, we maintained our investment in both CapEx and OpEx to continue the digitalization of the operation. Thank you for your attention. I now hand you back to Sophie for the outlook.
Thank you, Marc. Now, as you all know, I took over as Interim CEO on October 1st, and you will see here my four key priorities for this period of transition. My first priority is to ensure that the team boosts the growth in the U.S. with a more efficient geographic governance, now that we have brought more of the activities under the regional authority, and a pipeline that is getting better too in all segments. More branding focus, w e have just launched The Good Eating Company on the East Coast, and the acquisition we have made in the last year to develop our new food model, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Also, as we're talking about the new food model, we absolutely need to accelerate deployment. We have done some acquisition.
Our first offsite production facility went live in Boston on October 4th and is delivering food runs to 10 client sites in three different segments: healthcare, universities, and corporate services. This is just a start. The labor shortage and the slow return to work is making these convenience and commissary services very attractive. These are flexible, efficient, offsite solutions for the client, but we need to go fast to protect our market position. Thirdly, as you have already seen this summer with the childcare activities and Rydoo, we are managing our portfolio more actively. The next project is to accelerate the growth and diversification of Benefits and Rewards, and the board of directors has decided to explore a number of strategic options to enhance support, focus, and the resources of Benefits and Rewards services while retaining the control.
We will keep you informed on the evolution of this project. Lastly, we need to enhance the effectiveness of our organization. I have decided two important moves. First, to improve efficiency in schools, activities, and government and agencies activities. These two segments will now be managed regionally. As a result, each region and country chair will be responsible for the segment in their region. These two segments are only present in size in North America, the U.K., France, and especially for schools in China and India. Our clients, by nature, are very local and with many very local specificities, especially in the government segment. Secondly, a transition committee has been created to steer progress on the priorities defined for the transition period and manage business performance and prioritize projects and investments.
This 13-person committee is composed of representatives of the activity segments, regions, and functions, and it will help to accelerate decision-making and deployment. Now, let's turn to our Fiscal 2022 guidance. As you all know, the massive deployment of the vaccination in many countries has led to reopening or ramping up of sites in all our major markets, some segments and activities faster than others. Benefits and Rewards services has also seen its merchant revenue picking up with the reopening of restaurants.
Given the current trends, we are confident in our capacity to continue the recovery to pre-COVID levels with organic growth for 2022 of between 15% and 18% for the full- year, which would bring us to about 95% of the pre-COVID levels on revenues. With this, we expect to be able to improve the underlying operating profit margin from 3.3% last year to nearly 5% this year. Looking further out, we expect onsite services to exceed pre-COVID levels and the performance of Benefit and Reward services to accelerate out of the crisis. Our aim is that the group rapidly returns to regular and sustained growth and over the pre-COVID underlying operating margin.
The boost in the U.S. growth, the accelerated deployment of the new food model, the active portfolio management and a more effective organization, plus a structural reduction in SG&A will all contribute. I thank you for your attention and now Marc and I are available to answer all your questions. Operator, can you please launch the Q&A session?
Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. If you wish to cancel your request, please press hash two. Star one if you wish to ask a question. The first question came from the line of Jamie Rollo from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my questions. Morning, everyone. I've got three, please. First, just on the guidance for 2022, it'd be quite helpful if you can give us a feel for the cadence during the year, both on margin and sales. On margin, are we still expecting the normal 100 basis points seasonality to return, which might suggest the first half is maybe 5.5%? On sales, you've delivered two quarters of 400 basis points sequential improvement. Is that the sort of near-term trajectory do you think for the first quarter? Secondly, on retention, you flagged this U.S. schools loss at the end of the period, so we can quantify that. Y ou also, I think, mentioned, Marc, in your CapEx commentary some sports and leisure contract losses.
It would be helpful just to get the sort of run rate of contract losses. Also, you sounded a bit nervous when you reported last time about possible further healthcare U.S. losses. Are those more stable now? Then just finally, if I may, just on BRS, w hen the strategic options also means you retain control, what does that really mean? Does that mean no partial spinoff, no merger with another company that keeps a majority stake? Therefore, is it really internal operational turnaround, perhaps with some M&A, a bit like an Edenred? Is that really what we're talking about here? Nothing particularly extravagant. Thank you.
Thank you, Jamie. Well, we give a yearly guidance, so we are off the half year guidance. What you can expect is a bit more of an impact, a bit more of seasonality than in 2021. I will not expect a full seasonality like we had because we are still ramping up in many activities. You can expect a bit more seasonality than in 2021. I mean, the trend in revenue, you mentioned 400 sequential growth. I think the comparative base is very sensitive. Last year, I must remind you that we had a very decent start of the year, okay?
We are off to compare to a base which was not a bad start of the year last year. I mean, growth will be there and that's why we gave the guidance range. We are confident, of course. You mentioned sales, renewals and retention. First, I'll speak about sports and leisure. Sports and leisure, and I mentioned some exits. Yes, we had some CapEx reimbursements, for instance, in some contracts we exited in sports. We also had some impact with the Tokyo closing. It's more us cleaning up the portfolio or exiting contracts than us losing contracts.
In schools, it was on the works for quite a few weeks and months on the CPS, so we knew it was coming. It's a one-off event. It's been very challenging as a contract and it was a very challenging bidding process. So we've lost the CPS. In healthcare, yes, we're always a little worried on healthcare because you know, retention is key in healthcare. But as you've seen in our slide and what Sophie presented, we are doing a lot better in retention. We are doing a lot better in focus in healthcare. Same in universities North America. We are confident the team is on the ball to make it happen and improve the ratios.
Maybe on BRS, I'll let Sophie comment.
Yeah. Thank you, Marc. On Benefit and Rewards, you know, we really want to accelerate our growth and our diversification plan. Whatever the scenario, you know, BRS, it's a very strategic business for the group and Sodexo will remain a controlling shareholder. I said it, we're not considering IPO. Benefit and rewards, and the global employee benefit market is a fast-growing market and we want to invest even more, you know, after the post-COVID crisis. We will really want to mobilize, you know, our strengths and time, and spend more time on this activity to speed up the growth and of course, we will communicate on any changes when things happen.
Thank you. A s one follow-up on the retention, if I may, just taking your comments on CPS. Does that mean that retention's gonna mathematically drop in Fiscal 2022 or is your calculation essentially a sort of full run rate as measured at the end of the year? Thank you.
No, you know, Jamie, the way we calculate retention, the full impact of the loss of CPS is in 2021 numbers, so 2022 numbers will improve.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your question. The next question is from Bilal Aziz from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions, and three for me too, please. Firstly, just to follow up on the exit rate on revenue so far, clearly education very, very important for you in your Q1 and Q2. Perhaps just an update on what you've seen in U.S. universities so far into October this year. Secondly, Sophie, you've already highlighted quite a few changes with the transition committee with a clear focus on boosting growth eventually. Perhaps if you could highlight, what do you think the cost of all of this extra focus and investment potentially will be, and should we be thinking about extra investment or restructuring potentially going ahead? Then very finally, on onsite services, you now see revenues greater than you did before.
Perhaps if you could walk us through your thought process there as well, given the subdued signing rate. Is that FM offsetting some of the decline you're seeing in white collar or something else? Thank you.
Yeah. On your first question, the Q4 versus Fiscal Year 2019, as we said, was 87%. When I look at P-12, we were very close to 87%. We saw some variances, obviously, I mean, sports and leisure is picking up. We've seen P-12 sports and leisure being obviously better than Q4 every month which passes is a better month. The rest of the geographies has been relatively stable between Q4 and P-12. We see also a lot of schools being open and universities being open in August.
For us, it's a set of good signs for Q1 but I will not want to comment further than that.
I will take the question on the Benefit and Reward and the cost of the extra focus. But I don't think, you know, it's a question of cost. I t's a question of looking at a strategic option. When we talk about focus, you know, it's also a question of executing the current plan, but also, you know, for the board, taking more time to look at those options, and also for Marc and I and some of the members of the executive committee to spend more time on that activity to accelerate the growth. For the moment, you know, it's not a question of cost.
On your last question, you know, we've shown you that there are parts of the business which are already well recovered. For instance, in healthcare and seniors, in geographies also, if you look at, you know, the rest, what we qualify the rest of the world and so forth. We've also shown you that FM is well above Fiscal year 2019 levels. Yes, there will be impact from work from home, but in the medium term, we expect to reabsorb this and be on fiscal year 2019 numbers in revenue.
Brilliant. Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Tim. Please go ahead. Your line is open
We can't hear anything on our end.
Tim? The next question from James Ainley from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Morning, everybody. Can you hear me okay?
Yep. Fine.
Great. Thank you. So, three questions, please. First one, first couple probably for Sophie, please. Could you give us a bit of color about what you're looking for from a new CEO? Do you think there's a need to review the operations more broadly, or is it more about driving growth? Second on BRS, you said it's strategic. Could you talk about why you think it's strategic, and what synergies you see between the two operations? And then the third question, perhaps back to Marc, is on labor and labor cost inflation, supply chain issues. Could you talk about what levels of inflation you're seeing in each category, and update us on your confidence and your ability to pass on those costs to clients? Thank you.
Well, thank you. Thank you, James, for your questions. First, I will take your first question on the new CEO. As you can imagine, it is a priority, you know, and as I said, you know, we're looking for candidates that have an international experience, a good knowledge of the U.S. market, a solid experience of company transformation, and yes, you know, we want to accelerate our growth globally. I talked about accelerating in BRS, but we also want to accelerate our growth in onsite, and, o f course, you know, we want a sustainable growth, so a profitable growth.
Did that answer your question?
Yes. Yes. Thank you.
On BRS, I think it is a strategic activity for Sodexo. You know, we are in the quality of life services, and BRS is definitely, you know, on that market and fits in that market. As I said, it's a growing market. It's a fast-growing market. About the synergies, it complements our onsite food activities, especially, you know, in this post-COVID world where people want any food, anytime, anywhere.
At the same time, you know, we want to develop and accelerate the growth of our benefit and reward activity by themselves too, you know, that's what has been decided, and that's what we're exploring with different strategic options.
To what extent?
On labor.
Yeah. Can I just quickly follow up on that last point? To what extent are our clients buying both services? To what extent is there complementarity in your client base between the two businesses?
Well, we started to show this to you, I think it was the last publication, or at least the last two publications. For instance, in France, where we have the three models, the FoodChéri delivery, the BRS digital and the onsite capabilities, we have more and more clients electing to buy the three or allowing their consumers to navigate between the three offers freely. It happens. It's true. I mean, in France, we have the three pillars for doing this. We don't necessarily have them in some other countries. It's a question of building them over time. We see what we call the convergence of those three offers into a unique response to client and consumer happening.
It's early stage still, but it's happening.
Okay.
On your last question, yes, we are experiencing a labor inflation. I would be lying if I were saying the contrary. It's not necessarily on the increase. I mean, we felt in the U.S., for instance, it was sharper a few months ago, and it's kind of not dropping, but averaging. W e are still having, you know, 5%-6% labor increase in the U.S. We are experiencing labor increase in some other markets. In France, and there is a tension on the minimum salaries. In the U.K., I mean, there will be a, you know, increase in contributions.
We see some tensions on the labor, but at the same time, we are at a moment where we are working out of the COVID crisis. We know we did a lot of negotiations. Subcontracts were cost plus. It is a proper moment to discuss with clients and change the scope of work or pass those inflation into clients. It's a good moment for us operationally to review our scheduling in the R ota's and re-staff differently, so that we can gain in productivity, and we've seen a lot of that happening too. Right now we're not seeing it in our numbers. W e don't see negative impact on our numbers. We are monitoring this carefully on a weekly basis.
We have the tools. I'll tell you more in the future, but right now it seems to be under control.
Okay, v ery good. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. The next question from Richard Clarke from Bernstein. Ple ase go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions, t hree if I may. Sophie, you mentioned in your prepared remarks you're not very satisfied with 93.5% retention. That's been the level for a few years now. What do you think that can kind of naturally trend towards over time? Maybe the same question on the business development. If you can deliver 6% business development on 1.6% CapEx, you know, can we just scale up to the 2.5% to think about what you should be delivering as you start spending more? Second question, just on capital allocation. You've brought in this special dividend on disposals. Is that how we should think about disposals going forward? Any disposal will result in special dividends?
You've still got cash on your balance sheet, about EUR 3.5 billion. Obviously, the dividends coming out, you've done the bond repayment, but it's still quite a high level. Any other thoughts on what that cash can be used for? Is there more deleveraging to come? The last question, just on your slide 18, you've raised the GP cost avoidance from EUR 175 million to EUR 228 million. When you talked about that, Marc, you said that was your anticipation of how much labor you could take out for lower volumes. Can we read anything into that extra EUR 50 million that you're actually now more negative on the long-term volume impact within your business?
Okay. Let me answer you on retention, y ou know, yeah, absolutely. W e have had a stable retention if we do not take into account the Transforming Rehabilitation contract. It is not satisfying because our objective is to be at least at 95% of retention. The good thing, you know, is that in the last couple of years, where we've put a strong emphasis on the topic, for example, in healthcare in the U.S. or in universities, we have made significant progress.
I think the message that I will pass on to the team and, a s soon as today, you know, because we're talking to the team for the results in a few hours, is that it is not satisfying, and we absolutely need to reinforce. For me, retention is a basis. It is not acceptable to have a retention rate like that. We need to improve, and we need to improve everywhere in all segments and in all geography. That's the first point, and there will be a strong focus on that.
In terms of development, you know, we are at 6%, and I think we're much closer to our current objective, you know, to be at least at 7% development. That has to be sustainable. It has to be sustainable in all geography. I think currently it's still too low in North America. That's why when I said we need to boost our U.S. growth, it has to come, of course, from the retention, but also from the development. In other geography, I think, you know, in Latin America, in France, we had a very good development this year. In Asia, we are above our competitors, so that's a good thing. It doesn't have enough impact yet.
We absolutely need to accelerate the development in North America. I think we are making progress but we will keep the focus on that.
Richard, if they need more CapEx to do that, we'll give it to them. That's the message. That's why we are saying 10 .5 is maintained as a normal target for CapEx. We have, as you said, ample cash to do that. We need to push the development in the U.S. In terms of capital allocation, I don't want, and I think the Board will not want you to think that any disposal will be paid half of dividend. It's a one-off. It's, as we said, exceptional. The Board wanted to show the confidence we have by increasing the dividend slightly, but don't make this a habit. It will not happen in the future. The cash to be used for what? The cash to be used for CapEx to first.
Yes, we have cash to do M&A. We want to be a lot more targeted and a lot more focused. I think Sophie has been very clear to the team. It has to be extremely strategic when we do M&A. It has to make sense for the long run. We have cash for M&A. Deleveraging, it's not a priority. We are now between one and two. We have cash. We are managing the cash actively, like reimbursing the EUR 600 million was making sense from a P&L point of view and a cash point of view. We've got cash for investments in CapEx and M&A.
On slide 18, don't rate the good work of our teams in the field that have restructured more and more the teams that they are worried. It comes from all over the place. Obviously, corporate services and sports and leisure, we're very active in restructuring. They really try to lower the cost base, and I think they did well. No, it's just that it's actually helping every day because on labor inflation and so forth, if you have restructured your teams and you operate with a leaner structure, you can absorb inflation better. It's part of the good work. We push them hard on that. They responded well and they've done well.
Don't read into this that we are worried on the revenue. We said in the long-term outlook that we will recover the full Fiscal Year 2019 revenues at some point. We are confident in that.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you for your question. The next question from Neil Tyler from Redburn. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, j ust one from me, please. Specifically in education, you mentioned that the margin recovery there depends on a full reopening of institutions, schools and universities. I wondered there, given the experience of the end of the academic year with fluctuating student numbers, whether you've been able to renegotiate, reshape any of the contracts to protect profitability there, you know, in the event that those sorts of fluctuating numbers continue into the next academic year. You know, is there a chance you can re-attain historic margins in the current sort of uncertain volume environment? Thank you.
Yes. First, the restart of the year at the end of August was solid with, as I said, many of the education sites being open in the U.S. and in Europe. We are seeing this. You can see in the H2 European margin of education, it was not much, but it was not negative, that actually we benefited from the fact that we had renegotiated during 2020 and 2021, many education contracts to move them to cost plus, so that we will not suffer when the volumes are low. I know the European margin was not much in H2 education but it's positive. That's a very good sign, given the lower volume we experienced.
Going forward, it's really all depends on the attendance. I think we are seeing very good attendance in schools. We are seeing good attendance in universities. It's not perfect but it's very good. W e can move back now from some customers to P&L, and I think we are confident we've passed the quarter in education. In Europe, I mean, things are almost back to normal.
Okay, thank you. It would require you to move all of those cost plus contracts back to P&L in order to, you know, to achieve old margins.
They have not yet- moved back to P&L. They have not yet fully moved back to P&L.
Yes, no, I understand. Yeah.
With regards to the margin level, I don't think we will be at the pre-COVID margin level until we have recovered the full volumes on every services. We are improving significantly but we are not yet fully at the margin level of the past.
Understand. Thank you very much.
Thank you for your question. The next question from Jaafar Mestari from Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Can I just start with a quick sort of box ticking exercise on BRS? If that's okay, I have another one. O n BRS, I think you said explicitly now you're not considering a majority IPO of over 50% of the business. Can I just mention a couple of other possibilities, and you just let me know if they are on the table at all? For example, you could do a minority IPO of smaller than 50% of the business.
No, Jaafar, we will not get into that exercise. I think what Sophie said is we will not do an IPO.
Yeah. No IPO.
No IPO.
Majority, minority, no IPO.
No IPO. Other options, I mean, other options are available. That's it. We are considering other options.
Okay. The spectrum is.
We will not comment further.
Partial, n o comment. Thank you. Well, I'll move on.
We're going to focus on the acceleration of that business.
Yeah.
It's very important. You know, we consider that it has a lot of potential, and we want to spend more time on that business to accelerate the growth of that business.
Got it.
Very exciting.
Things like introducing a separate executive board for just BRS, a Board of Directors that are specialists in that business, for example, more organizational stuff?
Well, we are exploring. No comment.
Okay. Thank you. Well, okay, that will go and I got it . On the more fundamental questions, on business development, if we look at it in absolute terms, 6%, if I'm correct, means that you find EUR 1.1 billion of gross new contracts in the full- year. In 2019, it was EUR 1.3 billion. In comparison, Compass Group, just in their fiscal H1, in six months, they had signed GBP 1.1 billion. I'm not saying it will be double for the full- year, but that was ahead just in six months. Would you still say that there is currently an industry tailwind that is happening from increased outsourcing that you are benefiting from?
If so, what early signs do we have to build confidence that eventually you will be winning your fair share of what's out there? Separate question, your full- year 2022 guidance 15% to 18%, as you said, it implies you get back to 95% of pre-COVID revenue for the year on average. Now you have businesses like schools and healthcare that are already pretty much at 100%. Net new business between retention and new business looks like it, let's say flat, slightly negative right now. Are you saying that just business and administration and universities alone will add EUR 3 billion of like-for-like revenue in one year?
Is there something you expect to change and for example, by the end of the year, retention will be points better and new business will already have started contributing to get you to your target?
Complex questions, Jaafar. Thank you for your question. Yes, we are expecting to increase the development trend. To start with it, you're right to say that 6% is on the lower prior year numbers than in fiscal year 2019. In volume, we still need to increase the net development. There is no reason why we will not win our fair shares of first time outsourcing, as we mentioned in July in our Q3, we have a strong pipeline. Yes, we are confident we can increase the development. As Sophie said, we want the development to be above 7%.
As the base grows, the value of that development in Euros will grow. Obviously, I mean, we have to grow the Euro number as well as the percentage. Your next question is, you're saying yes, we are about 95% of pre-COVID level. What you need to remember is that in food services, in corporate services, we will not fully recover. We you know we still have the work from home to factor in and the ramping up in 2022. We also have sports and leisure.
Sports and leisure is doing better, as we mentioned in Q4, they were only at 43% of Fiscal Year 2019, and they have a long way to get to 100%. It's not going to be happening within that year. We also are at some disposal and so forth. Yeah, 95% looks a right number, and I think this is where we should be around that. Yeah.
Thanks. Specifically, if I end up assuming schools and healthcare stay at 100%, net new business is not meaningful for the full- year, but then you get such a significant rebound in like-for-likes in Business and Administrations, and Sports and Leisure, that can be the single thing that takes you to the guidance.
Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
We've shown you know, in the KPI page, we've shown you the CAGR, instead of giving it to you in a percentage, we give it to you in numbers, because we feel it's more meaningful for you to look at our CAGR in value. Yes, the CAGR will be strong.
Thanks. Thanks.
Thank you for your question. The next question from André Juillard from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead, Johannes.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Part of my question have already been answered but I wanted to come back on the cost base. You've put in place last year a strong and aggressive cost saving plan. Could you give us some more detail about the proportion of the saving plan you are expecting to structurally keep on the profitability of the group? I know that you will probably not give us a midterm guidance, but could you give us some more color about the structural gain you are expecting from that? On second question on the branding side, you have insisted on the fact that you wanted to develop some more branding and some more attractive products.
Does that mean that you will have to do some more acquisitions, that you will develop your own brand, or you could consider some franchise? Thank you.
Yeah. W e say we want we will get back over the Fiscal Year 2019 margin. I think this is the main midterm outlook margin. What we've done with GET is one part protecting the business going forward by anticipating on the cost base the impact of reduced volumes. W e also had some government support, so we need to make this permanent because we were supported in many countries by government aid. Now we need to replace it by proper savings going forward. On the SG&A, as you said, the SG&A savings are the ones will stick better over time. We are expecting those SG&A savings to be there.
At the same time, we are reinvesting also in value-added operational expenses to bring the growth back. What I can tell you is that the midterm guidance is that we will get back over the Fiscal Year 2019 margin.
On the brand side, I think it's a very good question, and I think it's a little of everything. First, you know, let me take the example of what we've done, you know, even though it was a very difficult period for our teams in sport and leisure, but they have been working very actively on a specific brand for that activity. We have launched it a few weeks ago, Sodexo Live. I can tell you that it has a very positive, very strong impact, first for the team, but also for the client. In this recovery period, it has been a great launch and we are convinced that it's going to help us accelerate the recovery.
In terms of our acquisition, we made some acquisition, you know, a couple of years ago. Three years ago, we made The Good Eating Company. It was an acquisition in the U.K., a very specific brand, very specific offer, and we launched that brand in the U.S. We have signed a number of contracts. We want to expand it. I think we have to look at brands differently. We have to look at acquisition that we already made and keep those brands, leverage on the strength of those brands. It's something, it's a little new for us, and w ith the importance of the consumers, we need to accelerate that.
That being said, you know, we did The Good Eating Company a few years ago, and then we did recently Fooditude, Nourish, and we have FoodChéri in France. We need to leverage that, and, of course, in our transformation of our new food model, if there are other brands that or other acquisition that represent that, we will definitely do them.
As a follow-up, could you consider as well some franchise or is it something really too much different compared to what you do?
No, I think franchise is not the priority. I think we have a lot of brands internally. When we do acquisition, you know, it enriches our portfolio. Now we really have to scale up this portfolio, which is already, you know, very, very rich. As I said, you know, we have a very good brand, Good Eating Company, that's only in the U.K. Well, now we are scaling it up in the U.S., so it's a lot of opportunity and it's working well, so we have to do more of that.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you for your question. The next question is coming from Mathieu Vittoria . Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Mathieu Vittoria , Le Figaro. Are you hearing me? [Foreign language]. Thanks a lot. I had two questions, one about Sodexo Live!. You recently said you are thinking of selling Le Lido to Accor. Do you consider a more deeply reshape for those activities? Second question regarding the U.S., a lot has already been done to improve the results. How do you explain you still have difficulties compared to your competitors? Why is this market so hard? Thank you very much.
On Le Lido, we can just say that there are ongoing discussions, but nothing has been acted on, so we will not comment further. It's a small activity and we decided to review it. There is no deeper reshaping to be expected in sports and leisure. As I said earlier, it's ramping up. It's doing a lot better. The revenue is coming up. We are committed to Sodexo Live.
On the U.S., you know, yes, I think a lot has already been done, you know, and there are a lot of things that where we feel very satisfied. We talked about healthcare and universities retention. We talked about the better margin in development, business fundamental back on track, advancement in, you know, new offers, in new food models, in new marketing offers. I wouldn't say, you know, that the situation remains hard because the competition is hard, and that's why we want to boost the growth.
I think, you know, it is part of the plan, and I think we've made a lot of progress, and we want to continue those progress in North America. W e're still a big player in that geography and it's in a very important market. That's why, you know, it's one of my priority to put a focus and on that geography and continue the progress that we have made so far.
Yeah. Thank you.
Can we take now the last question?
Yes, ma'am. The last question is for Karl Green for RBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you very much. You've already helpfully discussed the manageability of labor inflation. Could you perhaps talk a little bit more about the other cost buckets, specifically the regional trends you're seeing in food inflation, consumables, cleaning chemicals, packaging, et cetera, and what you're budgeting for Fiscal 2022? Then sort of secondarily, and partly related to that, just in terms of kitchen equipment, the bottlenecks which are appearing, particularly in the commercial oven supply chain, do you think there's any risk there that that affects your ability to mobilize new contracts and fit outs at all? Thanks very much.
All right. On kitchen equipment, it has not come up to me that there was a concern on the lack of availability of equipment, but I'll check. I must say, I mean, it's not yet been in my radar. On food inflation, yes, we are seeing food inflation in many places on certain products. For instance, we have food inflation in proteins, in dairy, in seafood in the U.S. We also have some delivery shortages, which probably is what worries us so most is the fact that delivery schedules are imperfect, as I would say, I mean, they're not complete, so it creates some stress on the delivery.
The teams are managing this and we are passing. W e have a good history of passing this to clients. When it's a cost plus contract, you pass this immediately to clients, and we have more cost plus contract post-COVID than we had pre-COVID, so that helps. Right now, as I said, we have not seen any impact in our margins. We are monitoring this carefully on a weekly basis and we have taken some of it in our projections because the inflation is not a new thing. It didn't happen last week or last month only. We've experienced this at least seriously since spring. The team have had the time to factor it in and so forth. We are watching this carefully.
Understood. Thanks very much and j ust back on that. I mean, do you think that the current situation would lead to you perhaps deferring the reconversion of some of the P&L contracts back from cost plus? Do you think until this situation settles down, it might make sense?
Let's say that we are less in a hurry than we were thinking about it six months ago. It's true that six months ago we were thinking, "So when are we going back to P&L?" First, we wanted to wait visibility on the ramp up, you know. We always said, "Once we have visibility on the ramp up, if going back to P&L makes sense, we'll push for it." It's true that right now we are not so keen on pushing for P&L contract right now. We've converted some, but we still have cost plus contract in segment, but we are less in a hurry.
Thank you very much, v ery helpful.
Well, thank you very much for all your questions and I wish you all a very good day.
Thank you.
That concludes the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.