Good morning. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Sodexo Fiscal 2024 Results conference call and webcast. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions by pressing star and one at any time. I advise you that this conference is being recorded today on Thursday, October 24th 2024 . At this time, I would like to hand over the conference to the Sodexo team. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fiscal 2024 results call. I'm here with Sophie Bellon and Sébastien de Tramasure. They'll go through the presentation and then take your questions, as usual. The slides and the press releases are available on sodexo.com, and you'll be able to access this webcast on our website for the next twelve months. The call is being 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 the Q1 fiscal 2024 revenues announcement will be on Tuesday, seventh of January. I now hand you over to Sophie.
Thank you very much, Virginia. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Fiscal year 2024 has been a transformative year, marked by two very major, and decisive steps to further focus and simplify the group. As you all know, we spun off Pluxee in February and sold our stake in Sofinsod, distributing a special interim dividend from the proceeds at the end of August. With our simplified structure, reorganized by geography, we are positioned as a pure player in food and targeted FM services in forty-five countries. Collectively, we are all mobilized to enhance our operational execution in food and FM services to drive profitable growth for the long term.
Before I go into the numbers, although as a rule, we do not comment market rumors, I want to confirm that there are no discussions with Aramark, and I will not comment any further on this subject. Let's now turn to the strong financial delivery in fiscal year 2024 at the top end of the guidance. Organic growth was 7.9%, driven by the strong performance in food services at +9.3%, which now account for 66% of total revenues. The underlying operating margin improved by 40 basis points to 4.7% and the underlying net income from continuing activities by 17.6%. We have also delivered on our commitment to reduce the net debt ratio to below 2 times following the spin-off and a year earlier than we thought.
Thanks to strong cash generation during the year, we have lowered financial leverage to 1.7 times, well within our target range of 1-2. We have a strong balance sheet and are ready to do more bolt-on acquisitions where there is a strategic rationale and potential to create value. Now, let's turn our attention to the strategic advances we've made this year to strengthen our position in food services and target our growth in facility management. We are transforming our offers and ways of working, particularly with our branded offers, as well as innovative off-site production facilities and new distribution options to provide more attractive choices for our consumers, flexibility and better consumer engagement for our clients. The deployment of our branded offers is moving fast, with Kitchen Works revenues up 45% and Modern Recipe up 30%.
Overall, our branded offerings are on target to reach about 50% of food revenues next year. In addition, we are scaling new models of production and distributions. Our first culinary workshop was launched in Chile seven years ago to meet the specific issues of running food services at very high altitudes. The workshop prepares components for a wide range of dishes for local finalization at the remote camps. We standardized our menu, optimized our purchasing, reduced energy and water consumption, simplified logistics, and reduced accidents. With this successful experience, we are now developing the concept in France, where we have a dense client base in the Paris region, and our first workshop started in 2022, and we are targeting 100 client sites by the end of this year, served by this workshop.
We are also just beginning the development of a similar concept of centralized food production in Hyderabad and Bangalore, in India. On the distribution side, our convenience brand, InReach, in the U.S., is growing fast through acquisition, self-synergies, and strong consumer buy-in. Our Noponto convenience brand in Brazil opened 140 micro markets in just six months after a few pilot launches. We are also rolling out our frictionless stores in the U.S. and French stadiums. Finally, in our FM activities, we are also investing in our expertise and digital tools to support our large integrated clients who are seeking to enhance their consumer engagement, attract their employees back to the office, invest in smart buildings with reduced floor space and upgraded holistic services, and progress on their sustainable journeys.
We are integrating IoT, AI, and data analytics to enhance asset management, predictive maintenance, and decision-making, which in turn is driving efficiency. This is why, in fiscal year 2024, we renewed more than EUR 500 million of revenues with four large global clients, such as Microsoft and AstraZeneca. And none of this could be done without our focus on our three tech strategic enablers. We have spent over EUR 600 million in tech, data, and digital in financial year 2024, which is nearly EUR 100 million more than a couple of years ago. Our move to cloud initiative is not just a technology upgrade, it's transforming how we operate, accelerating efficiency and mutualizing resources, and strengthening our ability to acquire customers. We have also seen a 25% increase in active app users, indicating that our digital transformation efforts are resonating with consumers.
Furthermore, we are embedding AI into our core operation, anchoring it as a critical component of our business processes to enhance decision-making, automate workflows, and drive smarter, data-driven strategies. Moving on to commercial excellence. We have established strong processes and tools that enable systematic targeting and prioritization, allowing us to be more strategic in our approach, and our targeted sales pipeline has grown by 25%. A key initiative has been to strengthen our Clients for Life program with a new training for account leaders. This initiative is designed to help them take proactive measures on contracts due for renewal over the next three years, by tracking them as rigorously as we would a sales pipeline and equipping our team with specialized training.
At the same time, we are actively promoting our upgraded offerings and bringing innovation to the table, ensuring that our clients see the added value in staying with us. Finally, on supply chain power, we have made significant progress around the world in reducing our SKUs by 25% in financial year 2024, and improving catalog compliance by 400 basis points. Our investments in talent and digital tools is helping us to further optimize our supply chain. Entegra achieved an impressive 17% organic growth, and our addressable spend has now reached 38 billion. All these achievements represent a collective step forward in building a stronger, more agile, and future-ready organization. Let me also share key updates on our people and planet initiatives. Safety remains our top priority, with a further improvement in HSE performance in 2024.
At 0.47, the LTIR was down 14.5%, helped by the training of 15,000 managers. We also made real progress in near-miss reporting, which will, in turn, help us to continue to reduce the number of accidents, though even one is too many for me. In well-being and development, we reached 60% coverage of our VITA program, and we have increased average skill, average employee training by 5.4%, with a strong focus this year on sustainable culinary skills. We continue to reduce emissions, achieving a 2.5% year-on-year decrease in Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, and 73% of electricity in our own building now comes from renewable sources. Our food waste reduction program is also on track, cutting waste by 40.7% across sites.
I'm proud of this achievement. They reflect our total commitment to creating a safer, more inclusive and sustainable future for our employees, consumers, clients, and all our other stakeholders. Now, let's turn to the commercial momentum for fiscal 2024. Net new signings reached 1.6% for the year. Retention at 94.2% was disappointing after a strong performance last year at 95.2%. This year, as you know, was impacted by the loss of a global FM contract for sixty basis points. Adjusted for that, retention would have been close to 95%. On the other hand, we had a record year for new signings, exceeding EUR 1.6 billion at above average margin. I remind you that these indicators are forward-looking, assessing the commercial performance during the year, regardless of the actual date of site closure or opening.
Now, let's take a closer look at this. As shown on the previous slide, our development rate was 7.54% and when we include new business generated from cross-selling, total new wins hit a record of EUR 1.9 billion, up from EUR 1.7 billion last year. And importantly, our pipeline as at the beginning of this new year is higher than it has ever been, more targeted, and also more advanced than usual, which means that our signing in the first half should be better than they were last year. If you remember, in fiscal year 2024, we signed much more in H2 than in H1. In Europe-- no, sorry.
Moving to the right of the slide, you can see that the share of food service within these new sales has increased to 65%, reflecting our strategic focus on food service. Moreover, in North America, the first time outsourcing trend continues, accounting now for 43% of new sales in 2024. On our retention performance, the global FM account had an impact of 0.6%. We also faced specific one-time challenges in Energy & R esources in Latin America, where we lost two contracts due to aggressive pricing in a changing competitive environment, accounting for another 0.3% of the losses. Without these three contracts, our retention would have been over 95%.
On the remaining 4.9% losses, 0.04% were due to site closures, and the rest were losses to competitors, mainly, and some contracts reverting to in-house management, especially in Healthcare Canada, where political decisions played a role. I would also like to highlight that Education was particularly impacted this year, as we were disciplined on pricing in a context where we had a lot of contracts up for renewal, particularly in U.S. schools, reflecting a change in regulation five years ago. I highlight the fact that more generally, net new business margins are creative, and one of the positives is that we have made very good progress in regions where we previously had lower retention, such as Brazil and France. However, I'm not happy with the overall retention in fiscal year 2024.
We have made several changes in terms of people and processes to rapidly increase retention back up to 95%, and we still aim for 96% client retention in the midterm, even though, as we have seen in fiscal year 2024, these targets can be impacted by the loss of one of our large accounts. While such losses can occur occasionally, they don't undermine the overall solid underlying performance of our retention efforts. That being said, with retention at 95%-96% and a 7%-8% development rate, this should allow us to achieve a net new development rate of above plus 3% annually midterm. I would like now to highlight example of some interesting accounts won this quarter.
In North America, Sodexo Live! has signed a multiyear agreement to be the exclusive hospitality partner for the new 60,000-seat Titans' Nashville stadium, opening in 2027. This venue, featuring a 12,000 sq ft community center, expands our NFL portfolio to four stadiums, including iconic locations like the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans and Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. In Europe, we have signed a four-year contract with Fontainebleau Hospital Center in France, covering three main sites. This partnership marks a key step in co-creating a customized food service for patients, residents, and staff with fresh on-site cooking, in line with the Egalim Law.
In the R est of the World, we have signed a significant food service partnership with Airbus for 2,000 consumers daily in their sites in India, with two branded offers, Warmly Yours and Global Cuisine, for both its local and foreign employees, as well as a gourmet offer supplied from Master Kitchen, our offsite culinary workshop in Bangalore, for workplaces where there is no kitchen. I can't finish without mentioning the Olympics. I've already mentioned the key figures in previous presentation. These games presented significant challenges for our group in terms of logistics and culinary choices. I'm proud of the teams for their amazing resourcefulness, flexibility and innovative spirit, and which will help us improve our offers going forward. We have set a new standard for large-scale events. Let's now turn over to Sébastien to present the results.
Thank you, Sophie, and good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to be here with you today to present a strong set of results for this fiscal year 2024. I will present just the continuing operations. The Pluxee contribution for the first five months of fiscal year 2024 is detailed in the appendices and in the management report. To state the obvious, it has not changed since the first half. Now let's start with the P&L. As I said, we delivered strong financial results this year, with underlying net profit up 17.6%. Revenue grew by 5.1%, or 7% at constant currency, and as Sophie said, organic growth was plus 7.9%.
Underlying operating profit reached EUR 1.1 billion, up 13.7%, and up 16% at constant currency, with a margin of 4.7%, up 40 basis points, and this is at the top of our guidance between 30 and 40 basis points, and I will come back to the margin a bit later in the presentation. Operating profit was up 24.1% to over EUR 1 billion, helped by the reduction in other operating income and expenses, and again, I will come back to this on the Sodexo Live! . Net financial expenses total EUR 63 million, and this is lower than both last year and our expectation.
Net borrowing costs were more or less stable, and this is partly due to the decision not to refinance the EUR 800 million reimbursed during the first half of the year, which were at an average rate of less than 1%. Had we refinanced it, it would have been at a much higher rate, and as a result, our blended cost of net at the end of fiscal year 2024 was only ten basis points higher than last year, at 1.8%, and this despite higher U.S. dollar floating rates. In other financial expenses, we knew that we no longer had the 14 million exceptional cost related to the bond consent process from last year, related to the spin-off of Pluxee.
But we also had a favorable currency impact and some good news, thirdly on our equity investment, and secondly, we had compensatory interest income linked to a Social Security claim in Brazil. For fiscal year 2025, we expect the financial result to go back to a more normal level of around EUR 100 million. The effective tax rate of 25.4% is higher than the 22% we had put into our modeling slide in the recent quarters. As expected, it was positively impacted by the Home Care sales capital gain and some tax asset recognition. However, in Q4, ongoing discussion with the French tax authorities on the past tax audit led to an update of our French tax exposure, partly mitigated by the use of our unrecognized tax asset, thanks to the sale of Sofinsod.
The projected tax rate for fiscal year 2024 is around 27%, and this does include an estimated impact from the French government's plan for an exceptional corporate tax contribution that would be partly mitigated by the use of deferred tax asset in France. Now, back to the group net profit from continuing activities. We deliver nearly 32% increase. Then adjusted for other operating income and expenses net of tax, and for exceptional tax items, the underlying net profit from continuing activities reached EUR 775 million , up 17.6%. So now for this fiscal year, other operating income and expense reached minus EUR 58 million , and this was positively impacted by the net gain of EUR 90 million from scope change, mainly from the sale of the Home Care business during the first half of the year.
Then we increased our restructuring cost by EUR 20 million due to the higher above- site restructuring. We continued the simplification and the streamlining of our organization during the year, and in addition to that, we are moving forward on the transformation of our transversal function at central level and at the region levels, toward the global business services model, and this will drive efficiency in the next few years. This transformation will accelerate in fiscal year 2025. In total, we expect to spend around EUR 130 million in other income and expense in fiscal year 2025, including around EUR 80 million of restructuring costs. You will find the modeling slide in the appendix as usual. Now let's move on to our strong cash flow performance. Operating cash flow was EUR 1.3 billion for the year.
It was up, but not as much as the increase in operating profit due to higher cash tax. However, we have made very good progress on the working capital outflow, which was just over EUR 40 million, showing a strong improvement from last year, which had been affected by unfavorable payroll timing effect in the U.S., and changes in regulation impacting European payment delays. CapEx was 2% of revenue; it was below last year's 2.2, and the CapEx level depends on the type of the signature each year and on the timing of the openings. We maintain a target level of 2.5% of revenues, and the team know that we have the capacity to finance the right opportunities, providing that we get the right returns.
Looking back to the slide, this brings us to a very positive free cash flow of EUR 661 million, nearly EUR 290 million better than last year, or a cash conversion relative to net income of 90%. We don't expect to replicate this strong performance next year because CapEx was slightly below, lower than normal, and we expect an exceptional tax cash payment this year linked to the discussion with the French tax authorities I mentioned earlier. On a normalized basis, cash conversion should be between 70% and 80%. Now, if we continue down the cash flow, net disposal was a positive EUR 986 million due to the sale of Sofinsod for EUR 980 million and the sale of the Home Care business.
This was partially offset by several bolt-on acquisitions in the North American convenience sector and by our expansion in China on the food service market. Dividends paid to shareholder were exceptional in fiscal year 2024, at EUR 1.3 billion, because of the special dividend paid in August of EUR 980 million, reflecting the return to shareholder of the Sofinsod sale, alongside with the usual ordinary dividend from December 2023. All in all, consolidated net debt decreased by EUR 380 million. As a result, as you can see in this slide, total net debt reached EUR 2.6 billion.
This net debt reduction, coupled with a year-on-year EBITDA increase of 11.5%, has resulted in a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.7, well below the fiscal year 2023 level of 2.2, and firmly back within our target range of 1-2 times, and this has come earlier than we had initially expected. There are a few areas I want to comment on the balance sheet. First of all, non-current assets have decreased as a result of the sale of Sofinsod. Shareholder equity is lower as a result of the special interim dividend paid in August 2024, following the sale of Sofinsod. I also want to highlight the significant reduction of gross borrowing as we repay two bonds without reissuing any new debt, as mentioned earlier.
Now, looking ahead to fiscal year 2025, we plan to use our excess cash to continue to reduce gross debt and intend to repay at least part of the EUR 700 million bond maturing in April 2025 from cash resources, and this will depend upon the level of M&A, and of course, this will not stop us from being more active in our bolt-on M&A strategy. Now moving on to EBITDA and return on capital. As you can see, the increase in both underlying EBITDA margin and the ROCE, thanks to our improved operational performance and effective capital utilization. As already said, EBITDA was up 11.5%, at close to EUR 1.5 billion , and the margin at 6.3%, up 40 basis points versus last year.
And ROCE is also up strongly at 12.9%, compared to 11.3% in fiscal year 2023. I also wanted to highlight the shareholder return of the year. I remind you that our shareholders have enjoyed a very strong total shareholder return in fiscal year 2024, after already very good performances in fiscal year 2023 and fiscal year 2022. Of course, a large part of this comes from the exceptional dividend linked to the sale of Sofinsod, which brings our TSR to 29% for fiscal year 2024. Now let's turn to the review of operations. I said earlier, fiscal year 2024 group revenue reached EUR 22.3 billion, up 5.1%.
This figure was impacted on the one hand by the negative currency impact of 1.8%, largely due to significant year-on-year fluctuation in the euro, especially at the start of the year of last year. On the other hand, by the scope change of minus 1%, mainly from the sale of the Home Care business. Organic growth was a robust 7.9%, 7.5% excluding the Rugby World Cup and the Olympics. I will delve into the detailed geographic performance in the next slide, but overall, growth was strong across all regions, driven by food services up 9.3%, reaching 66% of total sales. Our FM service also continued to grow, even if more modestly, by 5.5%. Now let's look at the impacts of inflation and pricing on our performance.
So in Q4, we observed a further easing of food inflation in Europe, but a slight uptick in the Americas. Meanwhile, labor inflation has decreased slightly to around 4.5% globally, and in this volatile context for inflation, I would like to highlight the very, very good performance of our supply management team. They have done a great job in controlling food costs, driving saving, and optimizing the supply chain. Pricing trends are now averaging approximately 3.5% in Q4, and 4% for the entire fiscal year, and this is in line with our expectation at the beginning of the year. Inflation trends appear to be less volatile, stabilizing at this level, and so we anticipate that pricing will continue to sustain top line growth by around 3% for the fiscal year 2025. Now, let's turn to the detail by geography.
On slide 23, starting with North America. So North America revenue reached EUR 11.1 billion, up 8.7% organically, driven by strong volume growth in most segments, and pricing of around 3.5%. And this result is despite the slowdown that we observed in Q4, and this was due to the combination of strong project work and convention center activity in last year, Q4, and the phasing of net new rents, especially in Education. Now, let's look at the performance segment by segment. In Business & Administrations, organic growth of 11.8% was driven by four factors: new business, pricing effect, continued return to the office, and Entegra's strong performance.
Sodexo Live! saw robust growth of 23.4% from stadium and event spending, and passenger counts in airports, airport lounges, as well as the mobilization of new contracts and in particular, American Airlines. Education grew 4.2% as a result of price hikes and increased meal counts, and despite some contract reduction and demobilization in Q4. Healthcare & Seniors are +5.1%, benefited from price increases, strong net new contribution and retail growth in hospitals, partially offset by some senior site closure. In Europe, revenue reached EUR 8.5 billion, and organic growth was 7.2%, and this was boosted by the Rugby World Cup in Q1 and the Olympics in Q4, as well as increased food volume and pricing of just below 5%.
Second half growth was impacted by the sequential slowdown in pricing and the collateral effect of the Olympics, which for a few months, diverted regular peak season tourism and some corporate activities in and around Paris. In Business & A dministrations, organic growth was 5.3%, driven by price increases, higher office attendance, and new business. Sodexo Live! grew by 25.5%, boosted by the Olympics and the Rugby World Cup. Underlying activity was also up at 6.6%, with strong performance in French sports venues, slightly offset by the collateral effect of the Olympics in the second half. In Education, growth reached 6.9%, boosted by price revision, offset slightly by the exit of low-performing contract in France.
Healthcare & Seniors reached 6.1% organic growth, benefiting from inflation pass-through and new business in Spain and in Belgium. Rest of the World revenue were EUR 4.2 billion , up 7.3% organically, driven by double-digit growth in APAC, especially in Australia and in India. For the last 5 quarters, Rest of the World organic growth has been impacted by an accounting change on a large Energy & R esources contract. For last year, the full year impact was actually taken retroactively in Q4. And the fourth quarter of this fiscal year 2024 was boosted by 8 points due to the base effect from the prior year retroactive impact. Full year organic growth for the year is 7.3%, and this, therefore, is like for like.
Growth in Business & A dministrations was 6.9%, with a double-digit organic growth in India and Australia, while Latin America saw a deceleration, particularly in the mining sector, due to some contract closure and losses. Sodexo Live! revenue doubled due to strong airport lounge activity, but off a very low base. Education, 11.2% strong growth was driven by new business and volume increases, particularly in Brazil, India, and a stronger Q4 in China. In Healthcare & Seniors, growth was 3.6%, driven by contract ramp-up in India. On the other end, China remained weak, and there was the impact of the contract exit in Brazil last year as well. Finally, let's look at our margin. Our UP margin increased by 40 basis points to 4.7%, driven by operational efficiencies and HQ cost reduction.
In North America, the 30 basis points increase in profitability was supported by revenue growth, labor efficiency, purchasing optimization, including the good performance of Entegra, while continuing to invest in sales, marketing, supply management, and tech to support the growth. In Europe, profitability improved 30 basis points too, through inflation mitigation, SKU reduction, and enhanced supplier compliance, combined with the ongoing price revision, especially in Education and in France, where catch-up was still required. In the Rest of the World, our margins were up 20 basis points, helped by successful price negotiation and the turnaround of underperforming contracts, somewhat offset by demobilization costs in Latin America. H2 costs were also well controlled, down 11% versus last year. So in summary, we deliver our margin guidance at the top of the range.
This performance was driven by three key factors: operating leverage from higher revenue, enhanced high productivity and supply efficiency, and rigorous cost control, and we continue to execute our strategy, and we are well positioned for the future profitable growth. With that, I will now hand over to Sophie to share our guidance for fiscal year 2025.
Thank you very much, Sébastien. Looking ahead to fiscal year 2025 , we are projecting organic revenue growth in the range of 5.5% to 6.6%, 6.5%, which is, in effect, plus 6% to plus 7%, excluding the base effect from the Olympics, the Rugby World Cup, and the leap year in fiscal year 2024. We expect pricing to average around plus 3%, supporting our growth outlook, and in addition, we anticipate like-for-like volume growth driven by increased demand for new or upgraded services and higher attendance in corporate services. We also foresee a positive net new contribution of approximately plus 2%, with growth expected to be more modest in the first half and picking up in the second half, due to the timing of mobilization and demobilization.
On the margin front, we anticipate an improvement in the underlying operating profit margin of thirty to forty basis points at constant currency, and this will be achieved through a disciplined commercial approach and further efficiencies gained from the deployment of digital tools, optimization of supply management, rollout of branded offers, and the introduction of new distribution and production models, all underpinned by rigorous cost control and the transformation of our transversal function towards a global business services model. In closing, we are confident in our ability to deliver on these targets. Thank you, and I will now open the floor for the Q&A session.
This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. The first question is from Jamie Rollo with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Three questions, please. First of all, in North America, the fourth quarter organic sales growth slowed quite a lot to around 5%. It was more like, I think, 9-10% in the first three quarters, and you talk about some lost university contracts. Could you please quantify those losses? And are there any factors causing that slowdown, or is it simply just normalization? Secondly, on retention, ninety basis points hit from the FM and ENR contract losses in just a few months, plus maybe something in U.S. universities. It feels like this could be the start of a trend. I'm just wondering what your confidence level is in the 95% retention target this year.
[audio distortion] And on the margin guidance of 30-40 basis points, that's clearly quite a good figure for 2025, given the higher base and slowing sales. Is that very much driven by internal action on cost rather than operating leverage on higher revenues? And also, which regions do you see most sort of margin upside in 2025? Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much, Jamie. I think, Sébastien is going to answer your first question.
Yeah, I will take the first question. So thank you, Jamie. So the slowdown in Q4 in North America, around 5%, as you said, it's a different type of impact. First, we mentioned that last year, in Q4, fiscal year 2023, we had a very strong quarter, with some strong activity in project work and convention center as well. So there is a kind of base effect there. There is also the slowdown in price increase between Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. This is also impacting Q4. And then there is a question on the impact from university, and mainly from Education, but it has a minor impact here, because as you know, the Q4 is not a big quarter for Education, so it has some impact.
This is also related to our very disciplined approach in terms of retention. We really want to focus on quality signing, but we want to focus on quality retention as well, to protect our margin. It has an impact slightly in Q4, but again, main reason was really baseline from Q4 fiscal 2023, slowdown, and slowdown of inflation.
Okay. Jamie, on your second question, on the 90 basis point retention impact on retention by FM contract. As you know, we pivot our strategy to refocus on food and be more targeted in FM. And we want to ensure, you know, that we work with clients who not only want to drive efficiency, but are also keen to double down on the experience and their employee engagement. So our objective is to retain and grow with such client, by building on our client engagement and bringing value through our services and technology also. I don't want to specifically comment on this loss, but on the FM loss.
On the ENR, as I said, it was also due to a very specific competitive environment this year, you know, in LATAM. It is rare that we lose a very large contract like the one, you know, that had an impact on 0.6%, that are global, complex, and we are often a key strategic partner. As I said, you know, we have renewed with the same type of contracts, more than EUR 500 million this year, with four contracts, of which Microsoft and AstraZeneca. In this highly competitive market, we successfully continue to proactive and retain many global clients across sectors like pharma, FMCG, tech, and we want to continue to do so.
Regarding your third question and the further improvement in margin for fiscal 2024, 2025, between 30 and 40 basis points, here we have different drivers. The first one is growth. I mean, increase, and we increase density, we scale in food procurement, we are able to leverage our overhead as well. So growth, our top line growth help us to improve margin. Then also we are working on enhancing the productivity at the site level. This is not new, but it's an ongoing and continuous effort on labor and on food costs. So we are also deploying new tools for workforce planning, for labor scheduling, and this definitely help the optimization of the model.
And then also we work on our overhead and transversal function cost. We already mentioned the simplification of our organization. We mentioned the reduction of our HQ costs, and also mentioned the new transformation of our service function, moving to a global business service model, and this will help to drive also efficiency in the coming years.
Right, thank you. Do you mind just quantifying the US university losses in terms of full year revenue, please? And also, Sophie, so what was your confidence level on 95%? I mean, your, there's no more big contracts you think you could lose in the next twelve months?
Well, you know what? We are pretty confident on the 95%. It is our target. You know, it is our target. You know, we were there last year. And then, of course, you know, if another very big contract is lost within that period, as you know, it can affect. But we are pretty confident that in our 95% retention rate for this year. And yeah, the higher Education, well, we're not giving the number, you know, we can't give you the specific number.
In Education, I remind you that there are universities, and there were a big number of universities, but also we have schools. And schools have also been very impacted because as you remember, in 2019 the Farm Bill law passed, and a massive amount of K-12 contract went into rebid during that time, around that time, you know, in 2018 and 2019, to get compliant with the change in the Farm Bill. And now we are five years later, so we are in a cycle of re-bidding. And last year, for the school business, was a big year. So it's not... It's going to slow down.
It was a big year for renewals, you know, and it is because of the impact of that change of law five years ago. It is slowing down. There are still some in this year, but it is slowing down this year and next year.
Okay, thank you very much. That's very helpful.
The next question is from Simona Sarli with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple of them, please. So your fiscal year 2025 guidance assumes quite some contribution from like-for-like volume growth. So what gives you visibility that you can achieve that, and also how much visibility you have? Second question is on the Q4. Again, you have achieved an organic growth of plus 5% on underlying basis and are guiding for 6-7% in fiscal year 2025, which is quite a sizable step up. So how can you please reconcile that? Thank you.
Okay. So, on the like-for-like, I will start, you know, giving you some qualitative elements, and maybe Sébastien can fill in and add some elements to that. So first, we have an ongoing gradual rollback of remote work policies. You know, as you heard, you know, many companies are forcing their employees to get back to work, so we expect a positive impact from that. We also, clients are looking for ways to make their offices more attractive to their employees, to bring them back with better food offers, concierge service, more animation, and sometimes converting desk spaces into meeting rooms and creative space to encourage sharing and group intelligence.
So that also is another element that is going to help us in the like-for-like. Our upselling will also come from our upgraded brand offers and complementary convenience in response to the client demand for flexibility, site attractivity, less environmental impact, and it will have an impact on our volume, but also on our prices. We also counting on some redesign of workplaces, you know, with smart building, city centers, smaller, more flexible, and we always have some GDP linked growth. That's for the like-for-like.
And just want to add that you have to be very clear that our cross-selling, in our case, cross-sell is in the like-for-like and the volume growth. Okay? And as Sophie mentioned, we have a lot of levers to boost also cross-selling during fiscal year 2025, so it's the reason why really we are very confident on the volume impact being between 1% and 2% normalized for next year.
Q4, second question.
Yeah, and the second question. So first, also, Q4, as you know, it's not a big quarter for us because of the seasonality of our activity. The exit rate is again around 5%. We know that for the year, and if I come back to the guidance, we are expecting around 3% increase from pricing, 2% from net new, and 1.2% from volume, meaning that we would be at 6%-7%. And it means that what we are expecting is clearly an acceleration of the net new contribution over the year. We are expecting a higher contribution in H2 than in H1, and this also will be based on the very, very strong H2 fiscal year 2024 development.
As we said, as Sophie said, we have a very strong pipeline, plus 25% versus last year, and we are expecting a very strong H1 in terms of development that will help organic growth during the second half of the year.
Thank you.
The next question is from Vicki Stern with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning. Just firstly wanted to talk about the medium term, how you're thinking now, sort of beyond 2025 in terms of medium-term organic growth and margin. So the organic growth, I think, Sophie, you laid out 3% net new would obviously be the target, but in terms of the other levers, and particularly volume, do you think you can sustain that 1% to 2%, sort of beyond next year? Second one's just on the higher restructuring charges. I didn't quite follow this transversal global business services model. So just a little bit more color on what exactly that is, and should we expect those higher restructuring charges to be a, a sort of one-year thing next year, or could those continue beyond next year? And then the last one's just back on the balance sheet.
You've obviously mentioned there that you're happy to repay some debt through the year, perhaps do some more small bolt-ons, but if you could just talk about the group's appetite for any larger M&A, or if bolt-on is really the desire right now, and to the extent that there's not sort of plenty of opportunities out there, your appetite going forward for any cash returns or additional cash returns to shareholders, or is really bolt-on M&A the main focus? Thanks.
Thank you, Vicki. So on the midterm, you know, organic growth, yeah, as you said, you know, we expect a net new of around 3%, and I explained how, and along with that, we have used inflation expectation in our model, around 3%. And yes, in the midterm, you know, we want to continue to have a like-for-like between 1% and 2%, thanks to the overall growth, thanks to the GDP growth, the upselling, you know, that we just described. So yeah, it is what we want to, you know, what we want to achieve.
We want to be very focused on our growth in the short term, but also in the midterm. Maybe on the margin or on the restructuring cost?
Yeah, on the transformation. As I said, Vicki, we thank you for the question. We are accelerating the transformation of our functional transversal function, sorry, to the GBS model. It's really the continuing of our journey, even if we are accelerating that. We have already two key shared service centers, one in Porto and another one in Mumbai, with more than 300 employees there. It's to have mainly finance, the objective is really to enlarge the function to other functions, in addition to finance, like HR, like purchasing, like health and safety, or other type of general services in those centers.
And at the same time, what we want to do is to also transform our back office and functional function with more automation, digitalization, and also the harmonization of our processes. It's a big transformation. It will take some years to do that, but it will definitely drive efficiencies in the coming years.
On the M&A strategy, as you've seen, you know, we have a strong balance sheet and we are ready to do more bolt-on acquisitions, when there is, you know, the strategic rationale and when it will create value. We said that we would spend EUR 300-500 million per year. But it doesn't mean, you know, first, to strengthen our position in key market, like in the U.S., some European countries, to expand our new production and distribution model, you know, like convenience and vending in North America. And also to continue, you know, like we did in the U.S. with the acquisition of Accent, and since we did five additional bolt-on acquisitions.
Also, we want to strengthen ourselves in GPO, but it doesn't mean, you know, that if we have a mid-size deal that fit our strategy, and that is the right target that is creating financial value, that we will not look at it. You know, we have said it's an average of 300-500 a year, but if something bigger comes up, we will of course look at it.
Thank you. And so just to follow back on that first question, thank you for the color on the medium-term organic growth. The medium-term margin growth, should we still be thinking about 30-40 basis points beyond next year?
As we said, we are fiscal year 2025 is the last year of the prior three-year plans. We are fully focused on delivering and execute our sell plans and executing and delivering the margin for fiscal year 2025. Then we'll continue, obviously, and to improve margin in the coming years with the growth of the top line and the transformation I mentioned also before. But again, today, the big focus is really to execute fiscal year 2025.
Yeah. And the mindset, you know, there, I think, Vicki, is really to become more efficient, you know, and to be able to continue to invest in our growth. I think it is exactly what we have done in the U.S. You know, I remind you that before COVID in the U.S., our organic growth was at 2%. We almost reached 9% this year, and we have invested a lot in the U.S. So that's why also our margin in the U.S. has not still recovered. The margin, it's the only zone where we have not yet recovered for pre-COVID margin.
I think it's, this is really the mindset, and of course, as Sébastien said, we want to continue to improve our margin.
That's great. Thanks very much.
The next question is from Jaafar Mestari with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I have three, if that's okay. Firstly, just on the free cash flow at EUR 661 million for full year 2024, can you update us, please, on where reverse factoring was at the end of the year? I think in H1, the increase in reverse factoring was a EUR 160 million benefit. Is it the same for the full year? Did it increase further? Did you take it down since, please? And then following up on U.S. Education, I appreciate you cannot necessarily quantify everything. If I calculate the implied Q4 organic growth by segments, U.S. Education is down -4.5% in Q4. I think in terms it has +5% for next year.
Is there anything in terms of calendar effects or any other one-offs to keep in mind in this Q4, or is it just the site closures, the contract losses, they're pronounced, we can model -4% for a couple of quarters? And lastly, more conceptually really, most years we're standing here in October, and we're looking at your net new business forward looking KPIs, retention, as you define it, minus growth signings, as you define them. And most years the discussion is that's where you can get, and how close will you get to that if we start factoring in the ramp up of the stuff you signed? This year it's 1.6%, and you're guiding to 2%.
You know, you made some points on. I'm not sure I get them, by the way, like the H2 phasing. Yeah, some of that stuff was signed late in H2, so it's taking some time. You expect a strong H1. What actions, like, my point is, what actions are you putting in place to ensure that this year the ramp up is very fast, that you sign more very soon, you ramp up as fast as possible, 'cause you're already two months into your fiscal year, and yeah, the exit rate is 1.6, you wanna do 2.
Okay. So I will take the first question. Thank you, thank you, Jaafar. So on the first question, this is really seasonal, talking about the reverse factoring. So it has come back now to last year level, okay? Again, the reverse factoring is very seasonal, and we are back to last year level.
Super, very clear.
On the second question, you know, I'm not sure I really recognize your number. Because, you know, the Education in Q4 is always a slow quarter because university, you know, they only start, you know, in August. So two months they are off, and school also they. And sometimes they don't even start in the beginning of August, they start in mid-August. Same thing for the school. So but it's true that yes, we have had some losses, and those losses they have an immediate effect at the beginning of the year. We also had some big wins.
I was in the Dallas area, and we have signed a huge school district contract. I'm not sure if I can mention the name or not. So I can't mention the name, okay, so you won't know the name, but I just visited it a month ago. It's huge, you know, we do elementary and primary schools, and it's a big contract that is going to ramp up, and we also have some project work in schools and also in the university. So that, you know, maybe can help you do the math with your figures.
In terms, before going, Sébastien goes into the detail in the net new, I remind you that our definition is, it's not the in-year indicator. For example, on this big contract, that FM contract that we lost, we are taking the full amount, we took the full amount in our retention at the end of fiscal year 2024, but we are going to run this contract until January. So it's true that, you know, depending on what happened, and that's what I said, into a mobilization and demobilization, and especially with big contract, whether it's signing, for example, this, school district contract that I just told you about in the Dallas area, it's starting on September 1st.
It has started. It has already started. And, for example, this other contract that we have lost, and it also has a big impact, where it's going to be open until January. So that's how, you know, there is a difference between our KPIs, our 12-month KPI and the in-year effect. You want to add something, Sébastien?
Just maybe to add on, again, on the second question. The Q4 it's not really a good proxy for Education, it's always very volatile. Again, we don't really recognize your number. I can tell you that school was down, but university was up, okay? And now getting back to the third question, well, we are very confident. Again, I mentioned it, the second half of last year was very strong, so we have a very good visibility of the opening during the year and the ramp up of the mobilization of this contract. Again, we have a very good visibility on our pipeline for Q1 and for Q2.
We start the year very strong in terms of development, and again, for those contracts, we know exactly what will be the opening date. So this is the reason why we are confident in terms of acceleration of the net new, with a higher H2 than H1.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from Leo Carrington with Citi. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you. Three for me as well, please. Firstly, on the margins, this margin progression guidance for FY 2025, is it to spread across the three regions relatively equally, or will the U.S. see some catch up to break back above 2019 levels? And then on, within margins, the central cost line, is this the new levels that grows with the business going forwards, or are further efficiencies possible, do you think, in absolute terms, just given the restructuring and central services investment? Secondly, the food and FM mix in the new development is running at 65%, but with some foods within integrated. Can you just break out what proportion of those IFM sales are food?
Then lastly, on the branded food offers, can you just elaborate more on the strategy here? Does this eventually go to 100% essentially, or are there still outlets or sub-sectors where you think the Sodexo brand itself is the right one? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Leo. Regarding your first question on the improvement of margin for next year, we are expecting an improvement in margin across all regions. I would say that we are expecting a higher improvement in Europe, because of the starting point, and it's a lower margin, so we know that there is more potential in term of margin improvement. Then to your second question regarding the central cost and the HQ. On the HQ side, we plan to remain below EUR 90 million for fiscal year 2025. And again, as I said earlier, we'll move on this transformation in term of transversal function, but this will impact region and country level.
But this will help also to improve the margin in fiscal year 2025 and in the next years as well.
The second one on the HQ contribution.
I mentioned it already.
Okay.
I mean, HQ-
So on the third one, you said, yeah, we have signed 65% of food contracts and also some IFM. It's difficult, you know, usually IFM is very often in the E&R business, but it's less, you know, the food contribution is less than a third in those contracts. And I'm not sure I really understood well your last question. Okay, can you repeat it? The second part of the question.
Sure. Just in terms of these branded food offers, is the-- Do you see the Sodexo brand as itself to consumers as still remaining, or do you intend to take these branded food offers across the whole portfolio? If it's 37% of food revenues now, and I think going above 50% next year.
Yeah. It, you know, you said it's a Sodexo brand. It's branded offers, you know, like a Modern Recipe, Kitchen Works in a manufacturing environment, The Good Eating Company, more premium, Fooditude that we have in the UK for offsite production, very premium for clients that don't have a kitchen. So within, you know, it's a portfolio of brand, and yes, going forward, of course, we want to increase that number. Will it go to 100% eventually? I don't know yet, you know, why not? But I think the objective is to increase, and as I said, you know, we've increased one brand by 45%, the other one by more than 30%.
It's to increase, it's to structure, you know, there is more SKU rationalization, menu, common menu, common product. So it's. And by doing that, you know, we our clients can benefit from all the work and all the insight that has been worked by our marketing and commercial team on that brand, and deliver the best service for those specific client and those specific consumers. So I think the idea is to improve, and at already reaching our 50% target is going to be a good goal. And as we are going to work on our 2025-2028 plan, you know, we will see what's the plan for the future.
Okay. Thank you, Sophie.
The next question is from Simon LeChipre with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yes, morning. I've got three, please. First of all, in North America, you mentioned the strong growth from Entegra. So, could you please give us the organic growth excluding Entegra, please? Secondly, on the net new wins, could you give us the actual contribution to Q4? And, I mean, I'm sorry if you gave it already. And lastly, as a follow-up on the medium-term target, I mean, based on your comments, does that mean that you expect to be at 3% plus net new wins as soon as 2026? Thank you.
Okay, on your first question, again, we gave you the performance of Entegra in North America. Again, very strong performance. We said also in different call that the objective was double the size of Entegra, and will be there in fiscal year 2025. And then, again, it means that the organic growth excluding Entegra remains good, slightly below the 8.7% we gave you, but very slightly because of the weight of Entegra in total revenue. On your second question, so to the net contribution to Q4, it was above 2%.
We don't usually by quarter, we don't give the split between like-for-like, volume and net contribution, because you may have some phasing impact. You have some porosity between the different buckets. So it's very relevant on a full year basis, is the reason why we gave you clearly that it was more than 2% for fiscal year 2024.
For the third question, you know, 3% on net new, it's an ambition. So, you know, I cannot tell you, but and we are not going beyond 25, so I cannot tell you. It's an ambition, so I'm not talking specifically about 26.
Okay, thank you. And a quick follow-up on the Q4 organic growth bridge. So, I mean, it seems that volumes were actually kind of flat in Q4. So, I mean, what gives you confidence on kind of low single digit growth for 2025 from volumes?
Yeah. Again, Q4, it's not necessarily a very good proxy because of the seasonality. Then also, we had the favorable impact in Q4 coming obviously from the Olympic Games with of EUR 66 million. And we had, and we mentioned it before, we had a kind of collateral impact from the Olympics in France, impacting our like for like, and our volume impact. So this explain also the lower impact in terms of volume for Q4.
Okay, thank you.
The next question is from Neil Tyler with Redburn Atlantic. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you. A few left from me, sorry. Margin, first of all, just like to tackle that outlook question from a different perspective. This year, you've had, you know, quite strong pricing catch up. Also, you know, healthy like-for-like volume growth, a big drop in central costs and, you know, some strong contribution, presumably from the Entegra growth. So can you outline what the negatives were, you know, pressuring margin this year? Because you're expecting next year to be similar, with presumably much reduced effects from all of those that I just listed. The second question, just more broadly on the retention, and just could you give us a picture as to how above or below average 2025 should be in terms of rebids?
Then, the point on CapEx being a bit lower in 2024, can you quantify how much, you know, that, that was lower, by? I'm sorry if I missed that. And then the Entegra compliance, I think you said catalog compliance was up 400 basis points. Are you able to share what level it is at on an absolute basis, please? Thank you.
Thank you, thank you for your question. If I take your first question on margin outlook. As I mentioned earlier, we have different types of drivers in terms of margin improvement. They remain the same, they can be stronger depending on the year, okay? Clearly, we have been continuing investing in supply and in Entegra, and this will remain a strong driver of the improvement of our margin in fiscal year 2025, especially in the U.S. and with the organic growth, it will give us more scale, so more power in terms of purchasing, and this will again help us to improve the margin. Okay?
I also mentioned the AI-enhanced productivity, middle of the page, so this will remain also a key driver for next year. We'll continue to work on our back office cost, transversal function, as I mentioned as well, and we'll accelerate that. So, at the region, country level, this will have a higher impact in fiscal year 2025. And then also, it's true that we had some also negative one-time impact in Q4. And one of them, and we mentioned it, it's linked to the poor retention in Latin America. We have some severance costs, exit costs linked to that, and we took the hit in Q4 for Rest of the World.
So in terms of retention and how our rebid trend levels in 2025, you know, the way we look at it is we look at two years, three years in advance. We look at the year, and we look at the contract ending, you know, contract ending in 2025, contract ending in 2026, contract ending in 2027. And then from that volume, we try to anticipate, you know, and avoid the rebid. So in terms of contract ending, what we can say is that the percentage has been pretty similar, you know, in 2023, 2024 and also 2025.
But what we do, and as I explained, is try to avoid the rebid by anticipating, and then that's how, you know, you decrease the risk, and you improve your retention.
So then on your third question, in the CapEx, where we said it was around 2%. If you look at fiscal year 2023, it was around 2.2%, sorry. So it's 20 basis points gap, I would say, if you compare to the level of the prior year. And we are expecting to be at 2.5% in fiscal year 2025. So it's around 20 basis points of revenue, if you want to factor what could be the impact of the low CapEx in 2024 and the increase of CapEx in 2025.
Okay. And in terms of the 4400 basis point improvement in compliance and supply management, what was the baseline? We do not give the baseline, but what we can tell you is that we have improved, and we can continue to improve. So, and that's the objective.
Okay, that's great. Thank you very much for the answers.
For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. Sodexo team, there are no more questions registered at this time.
Okay. Well, since there are no more question, thank you very much for being with us this morning. I remind you that the next announcement will be our Q1 fiscal 2025 revenue, and it will be on January seventh. So, thank you again, and have a good day.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones. Thank you.