Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the first half fiscal 2022 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to the Sodexo team. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first half fiscal year 2022 results conference call. I'm here with Sophie Bellon, our Chairwoman and CEO, and Marc Rolland, our CFO. They'll go through the presentation and then take your questions. As usual, if you haven't already done so, the slides and press releases are available at sodexo.com. You'll be able to access this call on our website for the next 12 months. I remind you that this call is being recorded and may not be reproduced or transmitted without our consent. Please get back to me later if you have any questions, and I now turn the call over to Sophie.
Thank you very much, Virginia. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being with us today. We are very satisfied with our numbers, and the recovery out of COVID is well on its way, even if uncertainties remain. I suggest that we turn directly to Slide 4. Overall, our revenue growth was 19.4%. Organic revenue growth was 16.7% with strong recovery in Education, Corporate Services, and Sports and Leisure. The underlying operating margin was up 210 basis points at 5.2%. On-site services were up 17% with the margin back at 4.9%. Benefits and Rewards saw strong growth at 9.3% with a margin of 26.7%, with double-digit growth in employee benefits and in Brazil in the second quarter. We have been...
We have rarely been able to show such a clear improvement across the board. Retention was up 60 basis points with improvement in all regions and segments. However, to be fair, last year we had the loss of the very large Transforming Rehabilitation in the U.K., which weighed heavily. Nevertheless, this is a great performance. Development has also been very solid, up 90 basis points, and I'm really pleased to say that on top of the improvement, the average margin is also up 80 basis points. The pipeline is also solid for between now and the end of the year. Comparable unit growth reversed up 19.8% thanks to the strong recovery in Food Services, particularly in Education, Corporate Services, and Sports and Leisure.
As you have just seen, the momentum in contract wins has been good in this first half, so let me take you through a few of these case studies. Since January, at Disneyland Paris, we are providing cast members with 21 points of sales, partnering with brands such as [Foreign language] La Brioche Dorée, Caffè D'arte, Columbus Café, and Pret A Manger, combining traditional seated restaurants, fast food counters, and click-and-collect facilities. We're serving a wide variety of dishes from around the world 22 hours a day, 365 days a year with a team of 280 people at a rate of 2.5 million meals per annum.
In Education in the U.S., the South Dakota Board of Regents has moved to a system-wide food services solution for its six public universities and two schools serving special K-12 population in an effort to reduce costs and chosen Sodexo to accompany them. On a very different scale, using our new food model, we have widened our scope with LinkedIn's Singapore office, where we are delivering a data-driven food program from a micro production kitchen and accompanied by the Vital Spaces value proposition, which is deployed for the first time in Asia-Pacific. In U.S. healthcare, we have renewed and expanded our partnership with University Hospitals in Ohio. This is one of our largest integrated services healthcare client in the country, and we provide patient nutrition and retail for patients and staff, as well as facilities and construction management and healthcare technology management.
The system includes 21 hospitals, 48 health centers, and 226 ambulatory care sites. I just wanted to add that Benefits and Rewards has also had a good retention and development in this first half. The team renewed its contract with Telefónica in Brazil and expanded its contract with Amazon in Israel. On the next slide, I want to go through a new contract that we won for the Austrian Post. Before I do, I congratulate the team that each day demonstrates Sodexo's capacity to propose services that are adapted to the needs of our clients and consumers. The BRS Austrian team has just started a great project of a fully digital foods pass for Austrian Post. As one of the major employers in Austria and leading logistics and postal services provider, Austrian Post is committed to digital responsibility as part of its sustainability roadmap.
A decision was therefore taken to digitalize its in-house paper food subsidy vouchers. Drawing on our global assets, including Sodexo Connect and Sodexo ePayment, our teams worked with Austrian Post to create a local app solution. The fully digital Sodexo solution was added to My Sodexo app in January 2022. Enabled with 8,000 merchants, the solution integrates mobile payments with Android and Apple Pay for more than 16,000 users, a completely new onboarding process and consumer information. Congratulations to our global, regional, and local team for their very close and successful collaboration on this contract. As I am sure you all remember, when I took over from Denis back in October, I set the organization four key priorities. Let me give you a flavor of the momentum that's building in each of them. Firstly, boost our U.S. growth.
I have focused a lot of energy on the NorAm team, and I am pleased to report that we're really seeing improved momentum. We've had robust development with continued improvement in healthcare. The immediate pipeline is looking good, so we are also confident for the full year development levels. Retention is also very solid. As you all know, it is too early for Education to play significantly into these numbers since the selling season is really concentrated in the last months of the academic year, but the outlook for the year is also encouraging. Another piece of good news is that first-time outsourcing now accounts for around 40% of the signatures in North America. During the period, we also continued to invest in marketing and sales resources. Four new sales leaders in schools, government, sales operation, and the proposal development center have joined the company.
We have also increased the number of sales rep in most areas. A new data training has recently gone live. Very importantly, a specific U.S. long-term incentive scheme was awarded to the leadership teams last month. The new food transformation is accelerating. The addition of Frontline has significantly added kitchen capacities, smart fridges, technologies, and a lot of experienced people in the team. Now, on our second priority, the acceleration of the food model transformation. Firstly, I want to say that having just got back from the U.S., I can tell you that clients need help in bringing back people to the office, and they are looking for really attractive and new offers. We have to accelerate our capacities in this field, and I'm even more convinced that we have to move fast, very fast.
Let me run you through some of the things that we're doing, starting with the development of on-site brands and offers. We are actively scaling up The Good Eating Co in the U.S. It is gaining traction and in fact, given the recent signatures, has overtaken its British counterpart. What is exciting is that the new contracts we're signing with our new food model brands are being very successful in the tech and finance market, where we have been traditionally less present. We're also developing partnership with iBrands to support the new food model in North America, and we have recently signed an exclusive 10-year contract with For Five Coffee, a premium coffee and food company based in New York. I met up with the CEO in New York 10 days ago, and we're gaining traction with clients on this brand.
The For Five food menus are also available on our Foodee restaurant aggregator platform. We are also digitalizing the consumer experience in China with our partnership with Meican. It's allowing us to sign significant new business by leveraging their digital on-site terminal, their layout design, their online ordering facilities, mobile app, and smart waiters. All of this is allowing companies to provide more food choices in more and more expensive downtown sites with very small kitchens. In the States, we've just signed with Kiwibot to expand our fleet from 200 robots to 10 campuses to over 1,000 robots on 50 locations by the end of the year. Finally, progressively, we are going to transform production and logistics with off-site kitchens. All our recent acquisitions have brought us new facilities, kitchens, and expertise.
In October, we also open our own kitchen in the Boston area, and we are ramping up progressively with currently 50 clients from all segments. We have also just invested in China in an off-site kitchen to serve a very large local client. We are moving forward on all fronts, and I'm very happy with the progress. Third, our portfolio management has been very active in the last six months. We have made some strategic acquisitions to enhance our new food model, strengthen our GPO presence in Europe, and accelerating the technical equipment management field in the healthcare segment with an acquisition in China. We have also completed the disposal of a lot of non-core activities where we add neither scale nor density.
In on-site, we have sold our activities in Morocco and the Congo, and we have sold non-strategic account portfolios in Australia and the Czech Republic. We got out of our Benefits and Rewards activities in Russia in December, and we also sold our Sport Card in Romania and Spain. In both cases, we have commercial agreements to distribute the offers, but we will no longer actually manage the product. The sale of our childcare activities was completed on March 14th. There are other actions in preparation, but it is still too early to talk about them, and we are now down to 55 countries.
In terms of simplifying our organization and rendering it more efficient, the CEOs of the Schools and Government and Justice global segments have now been replaced now that the activities have been put back into the region. Annick de Vanssay has been appointed as Chief Human Resources Officer, having held the role on an interim basis since September. Since joining, she has restructured the HR function to better align with the needs of the business with a global HR expertise center and a global HR operations organization. Annick has defined her roadmap, a roadmap around four key pillars, employee centricity, talent nurturing, the digitalization of HR tools, and supporting change and culture. Alexandra Serizay is appointed to be our new Chief Strategy Officer to replace Sylvia Métayer, who has decided to take her retirement.
Alexandra has been my right hand for the last year or so after several years in strategy and operation in Corporate Services at Sodexo, as well as previous experiences, including as Deputy Head of HSBC's retail banking operation in France, where she led the transformation to a multi-channel model. Now, before I pass you on to Marc, I just wanted to say that we're also managing a tight ship. Our GET cost-saving program closed ahead of its objectives. Client CapEx is recovering even though our 1.5 % CapEx to sales ratio remains below our 2.5% ambition. Free cash flow has been impacted by the exceptional elements that we highlighted to you back in October. Recurring free cash flow remains strong, and I confirm that our balance sheet is solid. I'll now pass you on to Marc for the details of our first half numbers. Marc?
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 measures definitions, along with some information to help you with your modeling in the appendices. Let's now have a look at the P&L performance for first half fiscal 2022. After a difficult last year, this first half, our revenues are up 19.4%. Even the currencies have gone in the right direction at +3.5%, and excluding currency, the revenue were up 15.9%. This translates into a doubling of the underlying profit to EUR 538 million and a margin which is up 210 basis points at 5.2%. I should come back to the analysis of this performance by activity and segment later.
Our other operating income and expenses were -EUR 1 million, down from a net expense of -EUR 128 million last year. I shall come back to this, in the next slide. Financial expenses amounted to EUR 53 million versus EUR 50 million last year. This is directly related to the increased cost of debt resulting from the U.S. dollar bond issue in April 2021, which was partially offset by the EUR 600 million reimbursement of a Euro bond in October 2021. The blended cost of our gross debt at the end of February was 1.5% against 1.6% a year ago. The tax charge was up strongly in value at EUR 136 million, but the effective tax rate has returned to a more normal 28.3% versus the 63% of last year.
As a result of all these items, the group net profit was multiplied by 10 to reach EUR 337 million, versus EUR 33 million for the first half FY 2021. Given that the other operating income and expense were particularly low this year, the underlying profit was very close to the net profit at EUR 339 million, more than doubling relative to the previous year. On inflation, first, I can say that after having passed about 2% in Q1, we are now above 3% for H1. Most of the comments I have made on inflation in Q1 remain valid. Inflation continues to rise in all regions. In the first semester, we have been able to absorb a large part of it and protect our margins through price increases and mitigation actions implemented since the start of the year.
In North America, we have witnessed an acceleration in labor inflation coming from both annual salary increases and labor shortages. However, we've been able to pass more inflation to our customer than in Q1, and have had a special focus on workforce management in Q2. Our team in North America have also been proactively preparing the contractual pricing campaign in schools and universities for the next school year. In France, raw material inflation has accelerated in January and February. In addition, the year-end salary negotiations led to an increase in the cost of labor since January. While we remain confident that we will be able to renegotiate our contract in the private sector in the upcoming months, we anticipate more difficulties or delays on the public contract, notably in Education.
In the U.K., inflation has picked up in the second quarter, not so much on food, but more in equipment and materials, which are much more significant for us in the U.K., due to the particularly large share of the business in FM. As previously indicated, we are well-armed in the U.K. with cost-plus contract and strong indexation mechanisms embedded in our big contracts. In Brazil, we believe that we've reached the peak in Q2, but our teams keep demonstrating strong operational mitigation and their ability to pass through inflation to clients. Trying to look ahead, we still expect a 4%-5% impact on the top line for the full year and remain confident that we will be able to mitigate inflation costs. However, we shall remain prudent and that it's difficult to anticipate the consequence of the Ukraine war.
I'm not going to spend much more time on other income and expense. The key elements are, there are only EUR 3 million of restructuring costs, gains and losses on the sale of assets more or less offset each other, and we collected EUR 34 million on our claim against Hungary. The GET program has closed above its ambitions in terms of cost reductions and savings. As you can see in the slide, the total cost of the program was EUR 327 million, slightly below the allocated amount, with the cash impact expected at EUR 305 million. Annualized savings are EUR 382 million, nicely above the EUR 350 million target, and gives a ratio of savings to cost of 117% better than we expected.
At first sight, the free cash flow performance at -EUR 75 million does not look particularly good, but here are several reasons why it is better than it looks. I remind you that traditionally, we don't generate much cash in the first half because of the seasonality, and last year in the first half, we had exceptional free cash flow because we were carrying a lot of cash at BRS due to the lower reimbursement flows, and we had a lot of government support. As a result, we generated a record amount of cash during the period last year. Before I turn to that, just wanted to point out the operating cash flow was up significantly thanks to the improvement in profitability. CapEx recovered partially to EUR 159 million, which represents 1.5% of revenue versus an exceptionally low level last year.
Finally, you can see the resumption of the dividend payment this year. Let's see what weighed on our free cash flow in the first half? First, we had EUR 37 million of cash out from the restructuring from the previous year. We have unwound EUR 100 million of government support in the form of COVID-related payment measures. As far as the Tokyo Olympic Games are concerned, we have reimbursed EUR 55 million of ticketing, and we also decided to inject GBP 60 million in the U.K. pension fund. We have received EUR 34 million of compensation for the forced closure of our Hungarian activities. On the other hand, we made payments to the French competition authorities for an amount of EUR 27 million during the semester.
After taking into account all of this, our recurring free cash flow is EUR 182 million, which is a solid performance for a first half. Let's see how this has all impacted the balance sheet. Gross debt is higher than a year ago due to the net of the $1.25 billion bond issue in April and the reimbursement of the EUR 600 million bond in October. Net debt is up EUR 361 million year-on-year, and as you saw in the cash flow side, up EUR 564 million relative to August. Gearing is stable year-on-year. On the other hand, our net debt to EBITDA ratio has fallen back down to 1.8 x, back into our targeted range of 1x-2x, thanks to the recovery on the underlying EBITDA. Let's now turn to the review of operations.
The first half, 2022 revenue showed a significant recovery, up 19.4% for the group as a whole at EUR 10.3 billion. Currencies, due to the weakness of the euro, contributed a 3.5% boost. The scope effect shed 0.8% of the revenue due to the sale of non-strategic activities that Sophie has already talked about. Organic growth was 16.7%, of which offsite up 17% and Benefits and Rewards up 9.3%. Let's look first at the offsite business, starting with Business and Administration. In H1, B&A organic growth was up 19.5% as the recovery came through in Corporate Services and Sports and Leisure. North America bounced back up 45.2%. The return to work in North America remained slow but regular throughout the first half.
The impact of Omicron may have stalled a recovery, but there was no obvious fallback. Sports and Leisure was up very strongly from a very low base. There was a bit of a setback in the recovery in January and February, but it looks like it was very temporary. While Government and Agencies were subdued during the first half, Energy and Resources growth was strong, with the combination of new contract startups and the return of support workers on site. In Europe, first half revenue were up 15.1% organically, boosted by the strong recovery in Corporate Services and Sports and Leisure. Also, the speed of recovery stalled in the second quarter due to the protective measures put in place for Omicron.
On the other hand, the contribution from new contracts in the Government and Agencies and Energy and Resources segment was not enough to compensate the losses on Transforming Rehabilitation contract in the U.K. from last summer. In Asia, Pacific, Latam, Middle East, and Africa, organic revenue growth was 10.8%. The Corporate Services segment continued to grow double digits, as activity picked up strongly in India and remained strongly in all other regions. Energy and Resources continued to achieve very solid growth. New business ramp up and strong underlying growth in the energy sector compensated some contract losses in the mining sector. Healthcare and Seniors remain much more resilient than the other segments during the pandemic, so of course, there is no recovery type performance. Overall, segment organic growth was 5%.
In North America, organic growth was +4.7%, helped by some inflation and recovery in seniors occupancy. Hospital activity has been growing in volume, but retail activity is still at only 70% of pre-COVID levels. In Europe, organic growth was 4.8% for the first half, but with a reduction in the second quarter, which was down -1.5%. In the first quarter, we had our strongest quarter at the testing centers contract in the U.K., but by the second quarter, those volumes reduced and compared to a strong Q2 last year. This contract ended on March 31st, earlier than was expected. In Asia, Pacific, Latam, Middle East, and Africa, organic revenue growth was 9.6% due to strong volume growth related to new contracts in Asia and solid same-site growth in Brazil.
Education organic growth was 29.5% in the first half. North America was up 40.4% with all schools and colleges open since the summer. The recovery did stall in the second quarter compared to the first quarter due to Omicron and the full impact of the Chicago Public Schools contract termination. In universities, student board plans are nearly back up to fiscal 2019 levels. However, the retail and events activities were impacted by staff shortages and lower footfall. In Europe, revenue was up 3.1% organically. Again, schools were fully open but had been already across most of the region in the previous year, except maybe for the U.K., where there was a significant lockdown at the beginning of 2021.
However, attendance rates were still below normal levels due to Delta in the first quarter and in greater proportions, Omicron in the second quarter. In Asia Pacific, Latam, Middle East, and Africa, organic growth was 27.7%, reflecting very rapid ramp up in attendance in schools and universities in India. In H1, on-site underlying profit doubled and the margin rose to 4.9%, up by 200 basis points relative to H1 2021. What is important to note is that margin has improved progressively each semester as volumes have picked up, thanks to ongoing strict cost control, inflation compensation, thanks to indexation clauses, contract renegotiation, and efficiencies, particularly on the supply side. The positive impact of the GET program contributed, too. In Business and Administration, underlying operating profit increased sevenfold from a very low level in fiscal 2021.
As a result, the underlying operating margin was up 230 basis points to 2.7%. While the margin has recovered significantly in Corporate Services and is back to breakeven in Sports and Leisure, the margin in Energy and Resources has been temporarily impacted by high levels of Omicron-linked absenteeism, particularly in the mining sector, and some major contract ramp ups. In Healthcare and Seniors, the underlying profit margin is flat year-over-year at 6.4%, but higher than in the first half fiscal 2020, pre-COVID at 6.3%. Net new business is accretive to margins, and inflation is being passed on or compensated by productivity measures.
In Education, underlying operating profit more than doubled, and the margin was up by 410 basis points to 8.5%, back to the level in the first half fiscal 2020. In other words, the seasonality of the margin has come back. Now we turn to BRS. Let me remind you that the first half fiscal 2022 Benefits and Rewards Services revenue amounted to EUR 398 million, up 9.3% organically with a double digit organic growth of 11.4% in Q2. Employee benefits organic growth was back up to double digit at +14.5% compared to an issue volume up 13.3%. Reimbursement activity has now nearly caught up with issue volumes.
Services diversification was down 7.6% organically due to the decline in the COVID related public benefit, only partially offset by the strength of the strong fuel and fleet activity. Europe, Asia and USA organic growth was 9.9% boosted by strong new development and in particular in the second quarter, strong growth in issue volume. To catch up in reimbursement volume is now complete. There was also good growth in gift solution this semester. In Latin America, organic growth was 8.2% solid throughout the region. In the second quarter, we saw a significant improvement in Brazil with the return to a double-digit growth on a double-digit growth in issue volumes too.
While I'm on the subject of Brazil, I just wanted to point out that all planets appear to be aligned at the moment, with interest rates back up at well over 11% against only 3% a year ago, the Brazilian real back up at BRL 5.3 to the euro, and inflation also back up to 10.5%, and therefore, strong issue volume growth. This business is a great inflation hedge. Finally, you can see in this slide the organic growth in financial revenues of +16.6% and actually +25.5% in the second quarter, thanks to the Brazilian Selic. BRS underlying operating profit and margin are recovering from the low in the second half of fiscal 2020.
This performance is a result of operating leverage from the revenue growth, lower production costs linked to the increasing share of digital, the result of the restructuring program and very strict control of SG&A costs. This is despite ongoing investment in digital and business development. The currency impact on the margin remains slightly negative due to the very significant decline in the Turkish lira during the period. Thank you for your attention. Now I will hand over to Sophie for the conclusion.
Thank you, Marc. Let's turn now to the outlook. The world is full of uncertainty, and since we presented our guidance in October 2022, we've had Omicron combined with the resurgence of localized COVID outbreaks, for instance, in China at the moment. At the same time, in the U.K., the government has taken the decision to close its testing centers much earlier than expected. We have the Ukrainian-Russian war. Our exposure to Russia is limited, but we were expecting significant contract start-ups in Russia, which are now obviously interrupted. As a result of these different elements, we now believe that our organic growth will be around the bottom level of the range, 15%-18% range that we gave you in October.
The good news in euro million is that at today's rate, we have tailwind from currencies into the second half, and our teams are highly mobilized to manage these uncertainties and especially the additional inflation resulting from the supply disruption and ensuing inflation from the Ukraine war. We continue to expect a European margin at close to 5% at constant rates. Looking further out, I confirm that we expect on-site services to rapidly exceed pre-COVID levels and the performance of Benefits and Rewards to accelerate out of the crisis. Our aim is that the group returns to regular and sustained growth with, as a first step, a return to the pre-COVID underlying operating margin, and then as a second step, a margin that is back over 6%.
The structural reduction in SG&A, a more effective organization, enhanced execution on U.S. turnaround, an accelerated deployment of the new food model, and a more active portfolio management will all contribute. Thank you very much for your attention. Now, Marc and I are available to answer all your questions. Operator, could you launch the Q&A session, please?
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound hash key. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Your first question today comes from the line of Bilal Aziz from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. Just three from my side, please? Firstly, just on the new organic growth guidance, well, the reiteration of it, but towards the lower end. Can you perhaps talk us through the building blocks of that? So, you know, what relative to your previous expectations, you know, how lower is Russia now? How big were the testing contracts in total impact that you've lost, and what do you think about pricing in that as well? Second question, just on your confidence around the margin being close to 5%. Perhaps you could take us through the upside and downside risks around that as well, please. Then finally, you talked a lot around new development today.
Perhaps, Sophie, any update on Education where you've clearly reorganized the business there? Yeah, perhaps a bit of an update there, what exactly you're seeing in terms of improvements there, please? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for your question. On the revenue, there are three elements which are not controllable elements. The first is that Omicron impacted us in our Q2 for an estimate of EUR 60 million. Yeah, EUR 60 million because of lower attendance and protocols in Corporate Services and Education. The second item is Russia. In Russia, we had sold contracts late last year and earlier this year. We were supposed to ramp up in H2, and now we are you know, terminating those contracts. That will weigh EUR 40 million on the organic growth. Our business in Russia is small, but it was growing fast. We are losing EUR 40 million of organic growth on this one.
The testing center run rate was EUR 100 million per quarter. We started experiencing a drop in Q2 already. We will be missing few months because obviously we closed the contract as of yesterday, and it was not meant to close before the end of the year. We estimate that the testing center short revenue is about EUR 150 million. Altogether those three elements represent EUR 250 million of organic growth, which is about 150 basis points. On Education, you too.
On Education, you know, as you have seen, our retention rate is better at the semester. You know, in the last five years, we've never been at above 98%. We are pleased with our retention and it's also improving in Education. Though in Education, you know, the first semester is not yet relevant. On new development update, and if we look at NorAm, for example, we have a big weight in university and as you know, so we have started well the season.
We have a good pipeline, but as you know, most of the contract will not be signed before the end of the academic year. It's going to be more in the spring. We are confident that our net development and our new development will be good in Education.
In terms of upside and downside on margin guidance, in terms of pricing for inflation, you know, we were expecting to pass 4%-5% to our client this year, and I confirm that number of 4%-5%. As I said in the presentation, we've already passed above 3% in H1, so 4%-5% is the right range of what we will pass to clients. The inflation we were experiencing before the Ukraine war, you know, appears to be under control and our teams have factored in the actions.
The new inflation resulting from the Ukraine war, right now we are expecting an impact in Q4, and relatively limited impact in Q4 because it's not also our strongest month. This is what we have to watch, but right now, this is factored in our numbers.
Brilliant. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Neil Tyler from Redburn. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning. Thank you. I've got two questions, actually. I'll start with the follow-up to the answer you just gave on inflation. Does that, your comments on the Q4 impact suggest a much greater impact therefore in the next fiscal year and you know therefore sort of a difference in the phasing of the margin as you recover that through the second half of fiscal 2023? That's the first question. The second question I'd like to ask about participation rates really.
You know, footfall versus average per capita spend. Particularly whether you see current participation rates in Education and in Corporate Services as sustainable, and whether there are any sequential trends that are worth calling out in those participation rates. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. Yes, you're quite right. You know, as I said, given the relationship we have with supplier and the contracts we have and so forth, the impact of the Ukraine war inflation is purely on Q4. We've made some hypothesis in Q4. We believe with our hypothesis, we are fine. Now, it's true that it's going to be carrying inflation into next year. What we have done is remobilize our teams to go and adjust our pricing with clients. You know, it's a new effort that we have to do on this.
Right now it's starting, and it's important also we don't do it too early because we don't yet know the magnitude of the Ukraine war inflation, if I may call it that way. Yes, we will work between Q4 and Q1 to adjust our pricing. The question is how fast can we adjust it to start the year on a good foot? This is what we are working on, and it's too early to comment. We are working on that.
Thank you, Marc. On your second question on the footfall participant rate in Education and conference services, do we expect changes in trend? No. You know, the recovery is there and we saw regular improvement before Omicron and a pickup since. You know, we saw a strong pickup in universities in the U.S., and it's absolutely going to stay, you know. What we know is that we have to, and as I said in my speech, we have to offer different offer because the students are not going to eat. They want the best food anywhere, anytime. It's going to be different. We will be innovative. We will bring our innovation to the campuses.
I can also tell you know, we've heard a lot from. I'm sure, you know, you've heard also from the company you follow, but I was amazed by the difference between Europe and the U.S. I think companies are desperate to have people come back to the office.
The discussion that I had, you know, for example, with our partner, For Five Coffee, in New York, is that, yeah, companies are willing, you know, to want more innovation because they want people back in the office and they want to create an experience for their employee so that they don't stay home and they want to go back and so I think it's a big opportunity for us. I don't see, you know, the trend is going to come back.
Okay. Thank you. I suppose, yeah, being more specific though, if you compare in Education , Corporate Services, the per capita spend currently to your pre-pandemic levels, can you give us any indication of where that stands? Is that sort of, you know, in line, above or below?
I think in Corporate it's clearly above. In Education, I will reserve my comment on this when I'll have more data. Yeah, in Corporate, the average spend is higher.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Karl Green from RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah. Thank you very much. Just two questions from me. Firstly, Sophie, I think you mentioned that you'd introduced a new long-term incentive scheme for the U.S. leadership teams. If you could perhaps provide a little more detail about the criteria there, that would be helpful? Then the second question, again, just coming back to inflation. Are you able to indicate the magnitude of the gap between what your food and consumable suppliers are actually asking for and what you're actually agreeing to? Just trying to get a sense there as to how the pressure is being shared upstream rather than obviously you passing on the price increases downstream? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for your question. First, let me talk to you about the long-term incentive plan. Now, we've had every year a long-term incentive plan for our team. Prior to this year, you know, we had a global long-term incentives plan, meaning all our leaders and around 2,000 leaders benefit from this plan, where they were incentivized on group targets, you know, group revenue and UOP revenue plus TSR plus CSR indicators.
We decided, you know, considering the importance of our business in North America and the importance, you know, of boosting our growth and our performance in North America, we decided for the first time in January when we launched our long-term incentive plan for the American leaders to make a specific plan with an UOP and a revenue and UOP that is not the group a North American performance. And we...
We have increased, you know, the amount of the plan and so it gives us the opportunity, you know, to align the North American team on their plan and on the realization of that plan. It was very well received by our team, and I think it was. It's a very good thing.
On your question on inflation, when I look at our model for inflation on food costs and on the revenue, there is obviously a little gap. We are experiencing more inflation on food costs than we are passing to clients, because of the usual lag it takes and, you know, and the indexation. That gap in our model is about 100 basis points. Case by case, it's, you know, it depends on the relationships you have with a certain supplier. What's important is that what we explain is that when the inflation goes up, there is a lag of what we can pass to clients in B2B. There is no real lag in B2C or. It's almost immediate in cost plus.
In P&L contract, in B2B, there is a lag, hence why we have a gap at the start of inflation. Currently this gap is modeled at about 100 basis points. It will narrow and reverse over time. What could happen with the Ukraine war inflation is that this gap increased short term a little bit till we pass it on to client.
That's very helpful, Marc. Thank you. Just to be clear there. Typically if a food supplier is asking for X% increase year -on -year, you're typically accepting that, so they're not having to fully bear a greater element of the food inflation?
No. We are negotiating with. We are. I never said we were accepting the price increase. What we do is we are negotiating, we are changing suppliers, we are seeing. You know, the relationship with supplier is built over a long period of time, and it's not just we buy the cheapest banana available on the market. We try to build relationship having a reasonable sourcing and, you know, and this is built over time. If somebody wants a price increase, we discuss. I explained in Q1 that in some countries we had locked the price for a year, like in the U.K. and France. In the U.K., it was locked till February. In France, it was locked, I think, till January. Now we are having to set new prices.
There is a Ukraine war and there is a marked new inflation. It's all about negotiations. We try to establish long-term relationship and make sure that we have a reasonable price increase from our suppliers and then pass the reasonable price increase to our clients.
That makes sense. Thanks very much to both of you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Harry Martin from Bernstein. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Oh, yeah. Good morning, everyone. I've got three questions, if I may. The first one is on the sort of the cadence of growth for the rest of the year, me sort of particularly thinking about versus 2019 levels. You know, any comments you have trying to square the comments of rapidly going back above pre-COVID levels, you know, compared to the sort of the lower end of the organic growth guidance range, which on my numbers seems to suggest that, you know, we might get a little bit of a step back from the sort of, you know, 95%-96% that we saw in Q2?
The second question, just on, you know, on CapEx going to 2.5% of sales, I mean, that, you know, that would be a high level obviously than you've seen in the past. So can you give any commentary on sort of what level of net new wins that relies on? And how quickly you expect to get there? And then the final question, you know, big, a bigger picture question, just, you know, any sort of thoughts you have on the sort of long-term growth algorithm, that Sodexo can do sort of beyond the pandemic? What level of, you know, organic growth, margin expansion, and any sort of cash returns, you, that you think you can sort of deliver on an ongoing basis? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that?
Thank you very much.
Well, on the growth, you know, we were at 95% of fiscal 2019 in Q1. We are at 94% in Q2. Our aim has been since the beginning of the year to be 95% for the year. This remains the target. H2 will be double-digit growth, so clearly, I mean, it's going to be a significant growth. I just explained what were the impacts we are suffering that are not intrinsic to the organization. Omicron, Russia, and the testing centers. I hope I'm answering your question like this. On the CapEx at 2.5%, yes, it needs a stronger net new win, definitely.
That stronger net new win is 3%-4%. It also needs a focus on certain segments where there is more CapEx. Notoriously there is more CapEx in universities, in Sports and Leisure, and in some bits when in healthcare there is also a need for some larger CapEx for client investment. It also depends on where do we win and what do we win. Definitely needs better sales, which we are aiming to. I mean, clearly, we are working to have better sales and better retention, so a stronger net new wins. We are also targeting the segments where there is more CapEx.
On the organic growth or the margin expansion post-COVID. You know, as we said, you know, we want to get back to our post-COVID level, and the sooner the better. You know, we're close to it. We, you know, we will be close to it this fiscal year, so I'm not giving any guidance for next year, but that's where we want to be next year. As I said before, you know, we want to return quickly to pre-COVID underlying operating margin, which was at 5.5%. But we don't want to stop there.
You know, in the second step, we want to be back over 6%.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Star and one to ask a question. Your next question comes from the line of Jaafar Mestari from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, morning. It's Jaafar Mestari. Just one question for me on gross new business. If I calculate correctly, 3.7% annualized is EUR 650 million signed in the last six months. If my math is correct, this is stepping up from around EUR 620 million in H2 last year and EUR 540 million in H1 last year. Definitely continuing to nudge up. In a normal year before COVID, you would routinely sign EUR 1.4 billion of new business. My question here would be, what's not getting you there? What's not getting you to over EUR 700 million per half year? Is it because the pipeline of opportunities is not as big, which would sound strange? Is it because your win rates are lower? Is there any timing factor?
Are you bidding for larger stuff, more first-time outsourcing that takes more time to materialize?
Well, I will not get down and I will not get to check your math. You must be right. No, the fact is that clearly it's been a focus on targeting new sales. We clearly have worked a lot on the pipeline. As Sophie said, in the U.S., we worked a lot on the structuring of the team and the size of the team, the training. We are now in the U.S. signing 40% of first-time outsourcing. We have a better development rate than we had last year. When I look back three, four years, I think it's the better start of the year that we've had for three or four years. I think we are on a good track.
As we said also, we want to sign more and still signing quality. The fact that we sign more but with better gross margin is a good sign. We want to take it step by step, but I think it will take us maybe a couple of years? But we will get there.
Yeah. And, and, and we are-
7% development rate, a 7% development rate is a good target.
Yeah.
As we said in the past, 7%-8% is a good target for development rate.
Maybe I don't want to go as Marc said in the detail of your math, but you know, our base is lower today. It's like our. Of course you know when we talk about 3.7%, you know, if it was below two years ago pre-COVID in value, it was a bigger number. Now we have a lower base.
Yeah. I thought that actually helped here to actually if the opportunity out there is bigger today, if the win rates are similar, then if you win something similar on the lower base, it should be a bigger number?
The fact is we are working on the win rate to improve it, but we believe the pipeline is very solid and large. For us, it's now a question of focus and attention to get to the 7% development rate. It's feasible.
Yeah. 7% on the reported revenue base, really quite big. Not 7% on your current revenue base.
Looking at my numbers, which I'm not going to give you, but in the last, even in 2019, it was not exactly what you said. You know, it was below. I think even in value, over the last four years, we have improved very much the contracts, the amount of contract that we won. I'm looking at my H1 figures, and we were much below in value in our first semester of 2019, so pre-COVID level.
It did fluctuate. It was 1.3x in 2019, 1.4x in 2018, et cetera. Yeah, no, you're right. There are differences. Okay. Thank you. That was my only question. Thank you very much.
Yeah.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Vicki Stern from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Oh, hi. Morning. Yeah, just firstly, if you could just give us an update on the strategic review that you have on the BRS business and, you know, perhaps if there's not too much to add today, just sort of expected timeframe for when you think we might be able to hear more news? Just secondly, on the free cash flow, I think you often sort of guide to a free cash flow conversion for the full year. If you could just update us on what that looks like? Any sort of additional color about the moving parts for that cash in the second half? Thanks.
Well, thank you, Vicky, for your question. We're still on the BRS topic. We're still in the process of working on our strategic options. The strategic plan is advancing. We are going through an external process that we should be ready for a decision in the next several months, anyway before the summer. As I said before, you know, the ambition is to accelerate the growth and the diversification of BRS through organic and M&A development, but without losing the control of the activity. To do this, we intend and we have started to render Benefits and Rewards more autonomous with its governance in order to ensure that the strategic plan can be executed. Marc, you want to add on the cash flow?
On the cash flow, I mean, we are aiming at a cash conversion of 100%, like we do usually. I just want to point out, like we did earlier in this year, that in Appendix 7, you have the non-recurring cash impact, like the one I described for H1. In H1, there were EUR 257 million. And we believe that for full year it will be EUR 350 million. It's 100% cash conversion on a recurring basis, and then you need to take into account the Appendix 7.
Thank you. Sorry, just to follow -up back on the comment about BRS and the M&A point. What sorts of businesses would you be looking to buy? Are there any sort of specific areas you're looking at or geographies? Thanks.
Well, we're clearly focusing on what we call core and near core to BRS. Right now, we're not yet ready to go into a major diversification, but we believe core and near core there is plenty of targets with synergies and so forth, and this is what we want to focus on.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Thank you. There are no further questions. I will hand the call back for closing remarks.
Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much for your attention today and for being with us. Stay well, and thank you very much.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.