Thank you for joining the Sodexo Fiscal 2022 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to the Sodexo team. You have the floor.
Thank you very much. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fiscal 2022 results call. On the call today, as usual, we've got Sophie Bellon and Marc Rolland. If you haven't already downloaded them, the slides and press releases are now available on our site at sodexo.com, and you'll be able to access this call on our website for the next 12 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 hope to see you next week in Paris or online for our Capital Markets Day on Wednesday, November 2nd. For those of you who do want to come to the meeting in Paris but responded, please do so as soon as possible. I now turn the call over to Sophie. Sophie?
Good morning, and thanks for being with us today for our fiscal 2022 results announcement. As usual, I will introduce the numbers, Marc will go into the detail, and then I shall come back to conclude. Then, of course, both of us will take your questions. This has been an exciting and very challenging year. We have managed through war, inflation, and Omicron, and I'm proud of the numbers we have achieved. Let's go into the details. Firstly, organic growth was 16.9%, ending up in the upper end of our guidance range. The underlying operating profit margin is 5%, in line with what we are aiming for. Progress has been strong in both on-site and BRS, up 160 basis points and 370 basis points respectively.
On slide five, you can see that in Q4, the group was back up to fiscal year 2019 levels with on-site at 99% and BRS well ahead at 115%. We are confident that we should be able to exceed 2019 revenue levels in 2023, with room for upside, particularly in food, where we are still at 87% for the full year. The really good news is that retention is improving, up 140 basis points to a record level of 94.5%, and my conviction is that retention is the KPI for sustainable, profitable growth. If we keep our clients, we can go and get more. This is a very satisfying result, even though I'm sure we can do better.
Development has also improved, up 150 basis points to 7.5%. The annual development, including cross-sell, net new business, is positive for the first time in many years, and this is particularly true in North America. As you may remember, I had four strategic priorities when I took over in October last year. The first one was to boost U.S. Growth. I'm really pleased with the performance here. Retention is back over 96%, up 400 basis points, and it is the best retention in the past 10 years. We have also had a strong development, also up 400 basis points. As I said before, we have also had some strong cross-selling. We have also increased the share of first-time outsourcing in our signings at 44% during the year.
The second priority was to accelerate the food model transformation. We've been developing our [inadible] on a global basis. We have done some targeted M&A to strengthen our position in North America and China, and we're transforming production and logistics with off-site kitchen in France, in China, in the U.S., in the U.K., and Chile. Our advanced food model revenues now account for 6% of Corporate Services food sales from less than 2% a year ago. We have also continued to manage our portfolio more actively. On top of the advanced model acquisition, we have also been building out our European Entegra network and growing our technical equipment management services in Asia Pacific. We have also completed a lot of disposal of non-core activities and geographies. Just to confirm this, we are now down to 53 countries.
We are in the process of enhancing the effectiveness of our organization. The full transfer of P&L to three geographic zones, North America, Europe, and Rest of the World, is now effective. We have also given BRS a dedicated governance. Marc and I are following the execution of the strategic plan very carefully, and the board is also monitoring the progress at each board meeting, and we have decided to grant a specific BRS LTIP to the top manager as we did for North America last year. As you probably have already seen, we have decided that BRS should have its own guidance for the year. Because I'm proud of what the teams have done in North America, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about the progress being made in healthcare in North America.
As you can see on the chart, our retention and development picked up strongly this year. For the first time in a while, we have a positive net new win. Retention has increased by 60 basis points, and development was up 390 basis points as well. The profitability of what we signed is also better. I wanted to draw your attention on two big contracts won and retained. The first is a very significant extension to our activity with Ardent Health Services. We have signed a seven-year contract in which we shall serve 50 locations with patient and staff dining, nutrition counseling, retail, and environmental services, including our Protecta Protocol offer. In this contract, we have taken some business from competitors, but we have also taken over services that were previously done in-house.
We won this because the client liked what we were doing on our small touch and the value added that we proposed for their group. We have also been reappointed by University Hospitals for another 5 + 3 years. They value our partnership, and we have some exciting development projects to manage with UH over the next few years. In slide nine, I wanted to talk about how BRS has been growing strongly in the meal market for several years and has become the reference with a really excellent year in fiscal year 2022. Israeli tech companies are having to cope with employees who are mobile and sought after, so the benefit packages are vital. I remind you there are no tax benefits in Israel.
Our enhanced digital omni-channel meal experience is totally centered around end user expectation, and we have also seen up-bidding our marketing and sales mindset. The result is that we have increased our issue volumes by 53% in one year, while underlying volumes are increasing, the development helped at a very strong 35%. We have won EUR 83 million of issue volume this year, among which 1,150 new tech clients. This bring us ahead of all other competitors with a 50% market share overall. Ending on a high, with Ardent, we have had some excellent win this year in all areas and regions. Let's take a few examples. We have just started up a 10-year partnership with Eastern Nazarene College in the Boston area for food and facilities management on campus.
We are building a new menu program, working with a dietician to develop a clean eating program, updating the look and feel of the dining space, adding tech options, including mobile ordering options, as well as FM services, including custodial services, ground maintenance, and building management. Sodexo Live! has been awarded the British Airways and American Airlines contract in North America within our airport lounge portfolio. They are co-locating their services in a brand new state-of-the-art space in the JFK Airport, housing three premium lounges specifically dedicated to trans-Atlantic and coast-to-coast passengers. The British Airways contract in North America also covers eight lounges across major cities with business and first class dining and the creation of a specialist beverage program. We've also retained some great contracts. In 2022, renewed its contract with Life Insurance Corporation of India for the fifth time.
Life Insurance Corporation serves over 290 million policy holders. Their 10,000 employees receive meal benefits via card and mobile app every month at all of the more than 2,300 locations. Sodexo has been Abingdon School's catering partner since 2007. The new contract will see the enhancement of the prep school kitchen servery and a new dining facility added to the current catering facilities. Sodexo provide breakfast, lunch, and supper for both the senior school, which has 1,000 students, and the 250 pupils at the prep school located a few miles away. The Sodexo team also provide hospitality for all events.
Extension. We have also won the new flagship of Sanofi near Boston, including offices and R&D, and we will be providing a full FM solution from Sodexo Magic premium food services to maintenance and hospitality services with floor ambassadors. The campus has two buildings close to all the major universities, including Harvard and MIT. There will be 76 employees working in regulated spaces in the client production lines. With all this, group net profit was multiplied by 5 back up to EUR 695 million, catching up with the underlying net profits, which I remind you is corrected for restructuring charges among others, and which doubled to EUR 699 million, resulting in a EUR 4.78 earnings per share.
The board is proposing a dividend of EUR 2.4 this year, up 20% on last year and representing a payout ratio of 50% of underlying net profit in line with the group dividend policy. In slide two, I wanted to highlight that gross CapEx reached 2.3% of revenues, with more investment going into retention than last year and still solid IT and digital investment. Free cash flow was also very good, thanks to a much improved operating cash flow and despite significant non-recurring outflows. As a result, cash conversion was at 91%, and the reduction in net debt continued this year, bringing the net debt ratio back down to 1%, 1x EBITDA. I remind you that our target is between one and two.
I also wanted to highlight that we are making progress against most of our Better Tomorrow 2025 objectives. The business value which benefits SMEs rose 13% to EUR 7.8 billion. Obviously, our direct emission increased with revenues. However, our total scope one, two, and three emissions are down by 27% against a baseline compared to our 2025 target of 34%. For the first time, we now have full disclosure of our emissions, which you will find in our universal registration document, which we will publish in about two weeks. We have also continued to reduce waste. However, the overall reduction is only 41.5% versus last year at 45.8%. We are now measuring on double the number of sites since last year, so this is an excellent performance.
We are targeting to be fully measured on more than 84% of our purchasing base by 2025, and we are currently at half of that today. I now hand over to Marc for the detailed numbers.
Thank you, Sophie, and good morning, everyone. As usual, you will find the alternative performance measure definition in the appendices, along with extra information to help you with your modeling. Now let's start with the fiscal 2022 P&L. Fiscal year 2022 revenues amounted to EUR 21.1 billion, up 21.2% or 15.7% excluding the currency impact. As Sophie pointed out in her first slide, plus 16.9% organically. Underlying operating profit was back up over EUR 1 billion, up 83.3% or 73.5% excluding the currency impact, and the margin increased 170 basis points to 5% without any significant currency impact. This was a combination of onsite improving by 160 basis points at constant rates and BRS up 30 basis points at constant rates too.
Other operating income and expenses were negligible at EUR -5 million this year. I shall come back to this later. Financial expenses also fell to EUR 87 million, down from 106 million the previous year. This is mostly due to the increase in interest income while financial charges remained flat. The blended cost of debt at fiscal 2022 year-end was unchanged at 1.6%. The tax charge was up EUR 264 million, reflecting the higher pre-tax profit. However, the effective tax rate was at 27.5%, back down to a more normal rate compared to the 43.9% last year impacted by restricted recognition of deferred tax assets. Cash tax was at EUR 200 million at current rates.
As a result, in fiscal 2022, the net profit was multiplied by 5 to EUR 695 million, and the underlying net profit was multiplied by 2 to EUR 699 million. To finish the picture, published EPS was EUR 4.75, and the underlying EPS was EUR 4.78. I remind you that this, the underlying EPS, is the basis for the dividend policy. I just want to highlight the fact that inflation management was under control. The in-year impact in pricing is circa 4.5%, progressively increasing from quarter to quarter, reaching just over 6% in Q4. We have applied our contract clauses to ensure that inflation has been passed on.
We have also been very dynamic on retail price reviews, and we have also been engaged in active renegotiation beyond contractual terms. The teams have also implemented substantial mitigation action plan, active procurement measures such as product swapping to limit cost inflation relative to the market indices, and in operations to enhance labor scheduling, range in their menus, and as Sophie mentioned, reducing waste and more. For fiscal 2023, we are expecting a similar pricing effect, although it is likely to be more front-ended, and we are expecting that at some stage inflation trends should come down. Let's now go back to the other income and expense that we are down to only -EUR 5 million in fiscal 2022. First, after two years of significant GET cost, the restructuring costs were only EUR 10 million, down from E 153 million in 2021 and 191 million in 2020.
Second, we had a positive next Scope Change impact of EUR 50 million linked to the disposal of activities. I remind you also about the indemnity we collected in relation to the Hungary litigation reported on the other line. Turning to free cash flow, this was much better than I had anticipated at EUR 631 million against 483 million in fiscal 2021. Operating cash flow of EUR 1,243 million improved significantly compared to the previous year at EUR 766 million, boosted by the strong recovery in underlying operating profit and for instance, by the Benefits & Rewards s indemnity from the Hungarian government. The working capital outflow in fiscal 2020 of EUR 63 million was due to some significant exceptional items, as we pointed out in the first half announcement. We have listed them in appendix 11.
There is nothing new. Net capital expenditure increased significantly to EUR 341 million or 1.6% of revenues compared to a particularly low level of EUR 211 million in the preceding year, or 1.2% of revenues. The gross CapEx, which includes all client investments that are deducted from revenues, was EUR 478 million or 2.3% of revenues. Digital and IT investment accounted for 30% of the growth spend, with the remainder focused on client-facing investment. M&A activity was on the low side in fiscal year 2022, with acquisition spend of just EUR 70 million, and it was more than offset by disposals of EUR 84 million. After taking into account other changes, consolidated net debt decreased by EUR 210 million, ending the year to EUR 1.3 billion.
As a result, cash conversion came out at 91%, below 100% and below the average excluding the COVID years. This number did include -EUR 363 million of non-recurring elements. Without them, we would have been easily above the average. Next slide, you can see the reduced net debt to just under EUR 1.3 billion. Combined with the revaluation of financial assets and positive currencies, this plays favorably into the gearing ratio, which fell from 47% in August 2021 to only 29% at year-end. The net debt ratio also came back significantly from 1.7x to 1x at the bottom of our target range of between 1x and 2x. In October 2021, Sodexo reimbursed by anticipation a EUR 600 million bond due to mature in January 2022.
Our prudent debt management meant that at year-end, 96% of the group's gross debt of EUR 5.7 billion was at fixed rates, and by currencies, 71% is euro-denominated, 6% in Sterling, and 22% dollar-denominated. The average maturity was 4.8 years at the end of August. I also remind you that our debt is 100% covenant free. By the end of fiscal 2022, operating cash reached a total of EUR 4.5 billion, including 960 million of restricted cash and EUR 297 million of financial assets of BRS. The assets to liability coverage improved significantly to circa 120% compared to 113% as August 31, 2021.
I would like to point out that the rest of the group also had a significant operating cash position of EUR 1.7 billion. At year-end, unused credit lines totaled EUR 2 billion. I thought it might be useful to show you the underlying EBITDA at group level and for BRS. As you can see here, our underlying EBITDA is almost back where we were at in fiscal year 2018 at group level and already back to fiscal year 2018 level for BRS. The road shape of the group is recovering pretty well as well to 17.2% last year. Now let's move on to the operations. In slide 23, you can see that group revenues reached EUR 21.1 billion, up 21.2% as published and 16.9% organically.
The Scope Change of -1.2% reflects the net of the disposal and the acquisition with, for instance, the childcare activities being deconsolidated from March. The currency impact was a strong 5.5%, boosted by the strength of most currencies against the euro and in particular the dollar. On-Site Services were up 17%, reflecting very significant recovery in North America out of COVID at +24%. Europe and the Rest of the World were also strong, up 13% and 11.5% respectively. Benefits & Rewards s was up +14.2% for the year, accelerating quarter after quarter. Let's go into the details starting with on-site. Fiscal 2022 Business & Administration was up 22.7% organically.
Before going into the geographical details, I first wanted to go back to our 2020 prediction on the working from home expected impact. Based on the last two months of trading, we are where we thought we should be in terms of loss of food volumes, about EUR 500 million annual pro forma. The good news is that we are convinced that there will be further progress in terms of food volume recovery in the months and quarters to come. Now by geography. Organic growth in North America was 45.1% with a progressive return to the office quarter-on-quarter and a strong recovery in Sports & Leisure , first in the stadiums and then in the convention centers. Government & Agencies and energy and resources were both up thanks to new business and a gradual return of office workers on site.
Neither segment have been significantly impacted during the pandemic. In Europe, revenues were up +20.3% organically, driven by the progressive return to the office, strong recovery in the Sports & Leisure activities, first in the sporting event, then in the second half, corporate entertaining and tourism. Government and agency was impacted by the end of the TR contract in the UK and little new business. Energy and resources was flat due to weak activity in the energy sector. In Asia, Pacific, Latam, Middle East and Africa, Organic Revenue Growth was 11.6%. Growth in Corporate Services segment remained solid across all regions, particularly in India, where the COVID related recovery was strong and despite the multiple COVID confinements.
Energy and resources continued to achieve very solid growth, particularly in mining, with new business ramp-ups in Latin America, more than offsetting the lack of new oil and gas projects and some contract losses in the Asia Pacific region. Healthcare & Seniors was up +4% organically. In North America, organic growth was +6.1%. Activity in hospitals and occupancy in senior homes increased, helped by some cross-selling and a recovery in retail sales, even though this seems to be stabilizing at just over 80% in the fourth quarter. Pricing is benefiting from inflation pass-through. The contribution of net new business remained low as the new signings during the year have not yet fed through into revenue.
In Europe, organic growth was +0.7%, impacted by the closure of the testing centers in the UK at the end of March with a negative revenue differential of about EUR 90 million year-on-year. Excluding this impact, the organic growth would have been nearly 6%, resulting from pricing new contracts in seniors in France and some increase in volumes, especially in retail sales. In Asia, Pacific, Latam, Middle East and Africa, the 8.5% organic growth was due to increased volumes, pricing and some new business. I remind you that the healthcare business is principally located in India, China and Brazil. Education was up 22% organically and was much stronger in North America and Asia-Pacific, where the return to school was well behind Europe.
North America was up 27.9%, reflecting full reopening of schools and universities from the beginning of the 2021 academic year, even though staff shortage and Omicron impacted retail and special catering activities in the first half. In the fourth quarter, summer camp activity was strong and the 2022 start of the academic year was helped by an extra day and higher levels of staffing. In Europe, revenue was up 6.5% organically. All schools and universities were fully opened. However, meals were impacted by high level of absenteeism due to the different waves of COVID in the first half. Organic growth was +24% in Asia-Pacific, reflecting a reopening of schools and universities in China and India. On-Site Services underlying operating profit was EUR 926 million, up 90%.
The margin came out at 4.6%, up 170 basis points. This improvement was linked to the strong recovery in volumes in Corporate Services, Sodexo Live! and Education. The positive impact of the GET savings and the portfolio management, which has been going on over the last few years. In business and administration, the 230 basis points improvement in the underlying operating margin was particularly helped by the flow-through of the significant improvement in the activity levels in Corporate Services and Sports & Leisure. In Healthcare & Seniors, the margin was flat. In a highly inflationary environment, particularly in North America, pricing has been robust and the teams have been very active in rolling out their mitigation actions. In education, plus 260 basis points improvement in margins.
The improved performance is strongly linked to the flow-through of the revenue recovery, particularly in North America this year. High inflation and staff shortages have been offset by very significant mitigation efforts on the ground as well as pricing in North America. On the other hand, the situation has been very difficult in France, where the national inflation index used in the school contract has underperformed our input cost increases. Now let's turn to Benefits & Rewards s. First, I want to show you the acceleration in revenue growth from the first quarter through to the fourth quarter, when we were running at 19.8%. This acceleration is in all regions and coming from strong growth in operating revenues, but also helped by the higher interest rates. Employee benefits were up 18.7%, accelerating quarter by quarter to 23.1% in the fourth quarter.
Issue volumes amounted to EUR 14.3 billion for the year and was up 16.2% organically, boosted by strong net new business, leveraging digital products and end-in-sales efficiencies, as well as face value increases. Financial revenues were also up strongly, supported by rising interest rates, particularly in Latin America and for instance, Eastern Europe. Services diversification was down 1.3% organically for the year. This reflects the end of the COVID-related public benefits and solid growth in mobility solutions in Latin America. Organic Revenue Growth was strong across all geographies, with Europe, USA and Asia up 14.4% and Latin America up 13.8%. This performance was due to strong net new business in all key markets, sustained increase in face values.
In addition, financial revenues were also up strongly, thanks to increasing interest rates in Latin America and in Eastern Europe. The increase in operating revenue of 12.4% reflects strong growth in issue volumes due to face value increases and significant net new business in most countries and in most services, except public benefits. Financial revenues were up 43.7% due to the progressive effect of the increase in interest rates in Latin America and Europe. The BRS underlying operating profit was up 33.2%, and EBITDA was up 27.5%. While the EBITDA margin increased by 310 basis points, the UOP margin increased by 360 basis points.
Of course, the quarterly momentum in volumes helped, and particularly given that part of the momentum was due to the increase in financial revenue, which flows straight through into results. At the same time, we continue to increase investment to fuel the BRS transformation in digital and IT. Thank you for your attention. I now hand you back to Sophie for the outlook.
Thank you, Marc. Now let's turn to the guidance for the group. Strong organic growth will continue, and we're expecting 8%-10% for fiscal year 2023, and this will come from a further recovery in Corporate Services and sport and leisure as they catch up with 2019 levels for the whole year. The positive net new business momentum, including a further improvement in retention. We expect to gain inflation in the top line for the year of between 4% and 5%. On the other hand, the end of the testing centers will cost 100 basis points of growth in the year. As we have always said, once we have revenue back up to 2019 levels, we will get our margin back up too. We expect to be at close to 5.5% at constant rate.
Obviously, the further ramp up in volumes will help, but we also expect to pass through inflation as we did in fiscal year 2022, with a combination of pricing and mitigating measures. We are constantly improving our operating performance, helped, among other things, by further supply chain efficiency. We decided that from now, BRS should have also its own guidance. On slide 38, you can see we are planning for organic growth between 12% and 15%, which is boosted by further progress in new business, cross-selling and retention, strong demand in all regions and the benefits of inflation through face value increases and interest rate in financial revenues. We expect the UOP margin to be around 30% coming from the top line growth flow through, while maintaining a high level of investment in technology, digital offers, brand and sales and marketing.
We have decided to reserve our midterm guidance for the next week at our Capital Market Week. We hope that you will all be there with us in Paris or online. I thank you very much for your attention. Now Marc and I are available to answer all your questions on the fiscal year 2022 numbers. Operator, can you move on to the question?
Thank you. 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. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Jamie Rollo with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Three, please. First, obviously a very good set of results, but just want to focus on a couple of bps that stand out as weakening quite sharply. The facilities management revenue fell from 115% to 108% of 2019 sales between the third and fourth quarter. I don't think that can be the U.K. TR contracts that went in March, I think. Also, the schools went from over 100% to under 90%, between the beginning and the end of the year. Could you please talk about those two and what the sort of impact is on 2023?
I know you quantified U.K. testing as 100 basis points, but I think these are separate items. Secondly, sort of linked to that very good retention of 94.5%, it looks like outside North America, that's still pretty low, sort of 93% or so. Just really wondering what the impact of the exits I mentioned in my first question are on that. What would the 94.5% be excluding some of those headwinds? Also that 93% outside North America, where do you think that can really get to? Finally, the balance sheet is clearly very strong, free cash flow very good. What are your thoughts on returning cash to shareholders? Could that possibly involve somehow sort of collapsing the Sofinsod stake that you effectively have in yourself through Bellon SA? Thank you.
The one on the schools question, the answer is related to the cash disposal, which came up as I mentioned in the second half. With regards to the FM, I believe this is a testing center impact.
I thought the testing contract ended in March. Was it the justice rehabilitation contract?
The rehabilitation contract was the year before, but it lasted till the end of the year and dropped at the beginning of the new year. The testing centers dropped in March, but I think there was some ramp down in volume. Last year was strong. Testing center last year was strong, but in fiscal year 2022 was pretty weak in the second half.
Regarding retention, as you know, one of my key initiative was to boost the U.S. Growth. It's true that we've made a lot, you know, of investment in boosting that growth, both on retention and development. Concerning the rest of the group, the performance has not been even. For example, France had a good performance in retention last year, but as you know, we lost the justice contract in France and some other contracts. We didn't have such a good performance. We also lost a number of our contracts in ENR in Australia, so it affected the performance of APAC. I'm pretty confident, you know, that retention is going to.
Retention is on top of mind of every leader today, you know it's in everybody's conversation. You know, it's, as I said, it is the indicator that when we start a meeting, you know, we start talking about, and when I meet a team and they know that, so it's on everybody's mind. I'm pretty confident that the progress we have made in the U.S. of course needs to be sustainable and that when we have not performed this year we will progress next year.
On the balance sheet, yes, we have a strong balance sheet. We are going to be paying EUR 2.4 dividend. There is no plan for any other type of return of cash. Yeah, no plans discussed at the moment. What about collecting the [inadible] stake? I mean, we right now studied it, but there is no decision and
Yeah.
It's not happening.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Vicki Stern with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Just firstly coming back on the leverage. You've made it clear there's not a sort of plan at this stage for incremental returns of cash. I suppose what is the plan within the target leverage range? How should we think about your use of cash, your priorities? Is M&A, you know, quite high up the list? Would you still consider really bolt-on deals or you'd be open to anything larger there? Secondly, just on BRS, if you could help and hold our hands a little bit just on the interest income. You did EUR 61 million this year. Just how do we see that progressing into next year? Just perhaps a reminder of where you're invested, how quickly you feel the benefit of the rising interest rates.
Coming back on the retention and the signings, I guess your exit rate implies something like 2% net new if we take your retention and the signings figures you gave. Is that the sort of level we should be looking at for net new business growth next year? You know, do you think that is a sustainable level to have in mind or potentially better going forward? Thanks.
On the cash returns.
Yeah. On the cash, we have some ideas for M&A, but it's going to be very focused. It's going to be bolt-on. It's not going to be massive M&A. There could be a bit more in BRS in core and near core, but we will tell you more at the Capital Markets Day. On interest income at BRS, as you've seen, there is a growth. This year we had a growth of EUR 18 million and 44%. I think we should have a relatively similar growth in the coming year in percentage on the higher base. It will be a little bit more in euros, but this is what we are expecting.
The interest rates for us, the euro interest rates, are also going up, so you know, we have to await the maturity of our investment to reinvest, but it's coming up, so we are expecting a similar growth next year.
On the net new, the 2% net new, yes, it will contribute to the growth for next year. As you've seen, you know, with the improvement on the indicators in the U.S., it's much better in the U.S. As I said, you know, we want a 94.5% retention is not the final objective. We want to first reach at least 95 and also very quickly a 96% across the group. In terms of a new development, we have progressed 150 basis points this year, but we also target to increase that number.
Thank you. Just to follow up back on the interest income, any color you can give us also just on the sort of geographic mix you have, and sort of how you're invested so we have a sense on how quickly we feel the interest rate benefit flow through?
We are invested in the country where we operate now because the cash remain in country. Obviously, I mean, right now we benefited significantly from the BRL interest going up because it's been going up now for a few quarters. In the Eurozone, we have a fair pool of cash, so it's now going up now. In the Eastern Europe country like Romania, Czech Republic, Poland and so forth, it went up earlier because there was tension on their interest rates earlier than on the euros. The reais will, we will benefit from an uplift on the reais, but the euro uplift will be significant in the coming year. Nothing much happened on the Euro last year.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from Jarrod Castle with UBS. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Just also three for me. Just, firstly on BRS, you're talking about 12%-15% organic growth. Within that number, what do you see kind of as face value growth, like for like, new contract wins? Any color on that? Secondly, just on margins. You know, you've obviously done a lot of cost cutting, you know, during the three odd years of COVID and you're kind of getting back, you know, with more in terms of revenues, but you're still talking about getting back to pre-COVID margins. You know, what's happening with the benefits from the cost cutting? You know, are there structural benefits which are gonna come through in 2023, actually?
You know, in relation to that, you know, I guess your peak margin was 6.4%-6.5%. You know, could we go back towards that? Then just on pricing, you say inflationary pricing 4%-5%. You know, obviously Q4 was 6%, I guess, you know, hoping for moderation. But is that passing on all your costs and can you give us the split where things currently stand with cost-plus fixed price and P&L contracts? Thanks.
BRS, the organic growth, even if I strip out the financial income or the financial revenue growth, the BRS growth is a solid double-digit growth, supported by a great year of selling in fiscal year 2022. Aurélien will tell you more at the Capital Markets Day, but we had a very strong selling year in 2022. We are also benefiting from face value increase. You know, the inflation passed through by our clients to the benefit of their employees. Very strong sales on new digital products. We gave you the example of Israel.
I mean, this is typically, you know, the kind of things the team is doing. On the margin for the group, you know, we benefit again next year from elements of ramp up. As we told you, Corporate Services and Sodexo Live!, and to a certain extent, Education, are further ramp up to do. There will be a ramp up. Then we have also efficiencies, which are the benefits of efficiencies were up to fiscal year 2022, but they remain there. They're especially on the SG&A, they are structural benefit. We are confident with the 5.5%. I will not comment on the 6.4% as you mentioned.
I think we'll tell you more at the Capital Markets Day. On the inflationary pricing, we passed circa 4.5%. We passed circa 4.5% in fiscal year 2022. The input cost is more 6%-7%, let's say maybe even 7% on the food cost, then 5%-6% on the salary cost. Obviously if I just look at what we passed and what we have as input, there is a gap. As we explained already a few quarters ago, we have mitigation actions to close the gap. Our teams are closing the gap as we speak. You have 4.5% on pricing, 5%-6% on labor and 6.5%-7%, I will say on food cost.
Thanks. Just this contract split.
Does not change much. You know, we, I think globally we have 25% in cost split with a big focus in the U.S. where it's more than 40% and the rest is P&L and we have more and more retail. I think in the U.S. on the rest we've got 20%-25%, which is retail, where we can flex the prices. The proportions of split cost-plus and P&L has not changed much.
Thanks very much.
The next question is from Jaafar Mestari with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning. I've got three questions if that's all right. First one, just very quickly putting together all your comments here on the different components of organic growth and next year, does it sound correct if the 8%-10% is 4%-5% inflation, around 2% net new business and implicitly between 2 and 3 points of like-for-like volumes recovery? I guess, more specifically on new business, I appreciate the forward-looking trends as of today look like EUR 300 million and, you know, that could be 2%. If I take full year 2022 organic growth +17%, of which like-for-like +21%. The in-periods contribution from net new business was -4%, and that's not improving at all compared to H1 or to Q3.
How do we get comfortable with an overnight improvement to 2%? Is there a specific moment where all the losses have annualized? How do you put a date on this? I think you were previously talking about broadly neutral for the full year or at least positive in H2. I appreciate it's really difficult to call, but you know, when does it turn positive? And lastly, on the very good retention performance this year, especially in the U.S., I'm just keen to hear any extra context, if you could maybe talk about your success rates rather than retention. Was 2022 a normal year? Did you have as many big university contracts actually up for renewal as you would normally have, or were you in any way helped by the timing of renewals?
Maybe I'll take the last question. No, I don't think, you know, we were helped by. It was a pretty normal year in terms of renewal. We had a lot of renewals, but it is a topic that we have been working on, you know, for two years now, two, three years. I think we have put even more pressure in anticipation of the renewal of the big contracts. I think now it's, you know, the renewed focus from the team on the topic. We have invested more also on retention. It has, and we have performed better.
As you know, retention. It has the focus has to be in a constant and we want to stay at that level and we're doing everything for that.
In your first question on the components of the 8%-10%, I would say yes, inflation at 4.5% looks fine. We have a bit of cross-selling. We have a -1% of the rapid testing center that you should not forget. Otherwise, the ramp up and the net development, yeah, this is more or less where we are. Do not forget also that in the modeling and the appendix for the modeling, we have a Scope Change, yeah. Of -1% that you should be expecting next year, so to be factored in.
When we look at the net new, the impact of the net new of 2022 in 2022 was modest. Because of the timing of the wins and losses, you know, Ardent for instance, was won at the very end of the year. There will definitely be an impact next year, and we expect to repeat the net new of 2023 at the same level or higher next year. There will be a compounded impact. The net new is there to happen in fiscal year 2023, and will be supported by a renewed net new in 2023. Yes, I think in Q3 we said that there will be a neutral in-year contribution in Q4 and it.
We were a little surprised by the strength of our Q4 numbers, so we had a little bit more in-year than what we were expecting, but the bulk will happen next year.
Sorry, just on that point, I'm not sure I get the math right then. In the year, if I take organic growth and remove like-for-like of 2021, it looks like -4%. Then in H1, organic growth was 17%, and like-for-like were 19%, so it's more like 2.5%. Am I getting this wrong? Because it doesn't look like it's improving.
I'm not following your math, so I suggest you take it offline with Virginia. I think we are very clear as to what we mean, but I'm not sure I capture your question well.
Okay. Well, you're saying net new business was positive in period in Q4 and above expectations.
I think we had more revenue in Q4, and contribution of net new in Q4 was part of it, but we also had more volumes and more ramp-ups.
Okay.
Some contributions in Q4.
Thanks. Thank you.
The next question is from Leo Carrington with Citi. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning. Firstly, can you just outline the rationale behind issuing the BRS financial targets? Is this purely about enhancing focus and tying, you know, the incentives of the division to the performance? Or are you sort of trying to send a signal that you are, you know, in particular focusing on this asset in isolation? And then two quick follow-ups, please. On inflation versus price, obviously you mentioned France education segment. But at these levels of inflation, at a group level, will margins in 2023 see any negative impacts from the price increases lagging the input cost of inflation that you see? And secondly, on CapEx, can you give any guidance as to what we would expect for 2023?
What level is consistent with the new organic growth guidance? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for your question. On the rationale behind BRS targets, it's clearly, you know, as we explained to you last year, we have defined a new roadmap to accelerate the development of benefit and rewards. We are convinced, you know, there is still stronger potential development. The fact, you know, the post-COVID period is also accelerating that. You know, companies are desperate to engage and incentivize and motivate their employee whether they are at the office or out of the office. You've seen that the numbers have really accelerated. Q1 we were at 7%, Q2 11%, Q3 17.7%, Q4 19.8%.
We really think that, you know, that we'll continue to accelerate that growth and it's part of the plan. Of course, the current environment, you know, with the rising interest and inflation is also a tailwind for that. Especially for our Benefits & Rewards model. On the incentive of performance, you know, it has not been implemented yet, so it's not, you know, we cannot. We hope that for the future it will help us sustain those rates. I think we will, you know, give you more detail next week on how we plan to achieve that growth, but we're pretty confident.
With regard to France, actually France education, 2023 will be better than 2022, because in 2022 we passed very little inflation to our clients in France in education, while we had the input costs. At least now this year we've managed to pass inflation to many clients. The discussions have been difficult, but we are doing it. 2023 will be a much better year for school in France than 2022 was.
I think also for France, you know, we have a lot of discussion with the profession on indexes, you know, because we didn't have, especially for public contract. I think that finally we think that for 2023 we will get indexes that are going to be closer to what to the reality of the business. It's a potential, you know, margin for improvement. Here I'm talking specifically about public contract in France.
For CapEx, I see today the gross CapEx are at 2.3%. I can see clearly the gross CapEx above 2.5%. We've already made some CapEx commitments in September and October, as we speak. I will expect to be higher than the 2.3%. I would say above 2.5%.
Okay. Thank you both. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Neil Tyler with Redburn. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you. Two questions left, please. First one on facilities management revenues again. I think if I've interpreted your disclosures correctly, that they ran at about EUR 7.9 billion in aggregate in the year 2022. Looking back, this figure looks like it's still about EUR 1.5 billion higher than was the case in 2019. Now, I'm not sure that those numbers are accurate, but I think they are. If they are comparable, I understand the testing contracts are going to unwind. Can you put some context around your sort of efforts to push facilities and how that has translated into that uplift, and whether there's any component in that?
I suppose related to the very first question on this call, whether there's any component in those revenues that might unwind as things normalize. The second question on margin guidance, it's a quicker one. Do you assume any drag from mobilization costs of the new, the net new wins as they land, through 2023? Thank you.
The FM this year is you know we are back at the end of 2022 at the split of 60% food, 40% FM, which I think was almost the split we had in 2019. I think we were 58%, 42% or something like this. As you can see, the food has really bounced back in 2022. The FM has grown, but I think it's circa 3% or we have had a modest growth in FM in fiscal year 2022. It's true that the contract with the Chicago Public Schools, where the FM contract with Chicago Public Schools was lost last year, was in our Q4 numbers last year. The contract did a super Q4 last year.
It's true that we've had some contracts which are pure FM ending. Other than that, there is no unwinding of contracts except those two which we highlighted very clearly in our past quarters publication. I don't see any other. There is clearly a focus on food, on growing food and ramping up food back to 2019 level. I don't know if you want to say something, Sophie, but yeah.
Yeah. No, they definitely, I think we will discuss it even further next week. There is definitely, you know, a focus on food, and especially in that period where, you know, we have to reinvent our food business. But we see a very much upside, you know, of this post-COVID period because everything that has happened during the COVID has been accelerating all the trends, you know, have been accelerated. Now we are ready, you know, to take this opportunity, and especially in our food business. On, in terms of the mobilization cost, you're right.
I mean, it's absolutely. We know that when we mobilize contracts, the first year, the profitability is not the profitability that we signed, but it's really something that is already taken into account in our margin, you know, in our target. It should not affect, you know, some of the big contracts that we won. We've been working on those contracts for many months, and so it has been taken into account.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question is from André Juillard with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. First one was about the retention rate. I was just wondering if you were still planning some cleaning of portfolio and things like that, and the 95%-96% you were targeting was something achievable for 2023, and you could keep that level in the following years. Second question about profitability. If we take in consideration the 5.5% you're targeting for 2023, this is more or less corresponding to the level you were before the COVID. In between, you've put in place some savings and we should have normally the positive effect of these savings in 2023. I was wondering where the difference was coming from.
At last, on BRS, I was just wondering if you could give us some more color about the split of businesses between meal vouchers and other kind of vouchers and maybe give us some more color about the digitalization of the business. Thank you.
On retention, no. I mean, we don't plan to have some portfolio cleaning. I think it's something that we have done, you know, in the last years. Some of our portfolio was affected by COVID, but some of the margin of some of our clients, of course, was affected by COVID. Now that we are in an almost fully recovered or that we will be next year in fully recovered situation, you know, it will help. You know, and recover the margin of those contracts that were affected by the COVID. In terms of the achievable targets, you know, the.
We will do our best to first stay at the level where we are, because I remind you that we have not been at that level in the last 10 years. We need to stay there. You know, we need to go to 95%. 95% is a minimum. Then we need to target at 96%. As you have seen, as it was discussed before, you know, it depends on the regions, and where we had an issue last year, you know, we're putting in place an action plan to make sure that we are progressing. It is not even an indicator for me, you know, it's a philosophy. You don't lose a contract that you don't want to lose.
The plan is to get the whole organization aligned behind that, and behind that objective. Hopefully, yes, we will continue to make progress, and we will stay at that level.
On profitability, our commitment was to come back to 2019 level in 2023 in revenue and margin. This is what we are working toward. What we want to do is to avoid what happened in the past, where we had ups and downs and fluctuation in margin. The question here is we need to invest in 2023, like we started to do in 2022, to maintain high retention and good organic growth and solid organic growth over time. We will tell you more at the Capital Markets Day about our mid-term ambitions.
What matters to us is not delivering a little bit more margin next year, but to be able to sustainably grow stronger in a recurrent fashion year- after- year. For that, we have decided to invest some of our savings in doing this. The BRS, you know, employee benefits, which the bulk of it is meal and food, has grown 18.7% last year and grew at 23% in the fourth quarter. In the speech earlier, I was highlighting those numbers. Meal and food is 90% of employee benefit. The digitalization level today, we are at 90%.
Do we have to anticipate some specific investment in the digitalization or nothing special?
Yeah. The BRS has been investing more and more, and Aurélien will tell you more next week. Yes, he plans to invest north of 9% of revenue in CapEx, but he will tell you more next week as to what does he plan to invest in. Most of BRS investment, 90% of them are IT and digital investments.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Simon LeChipre with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Two questions, please on margins. First of all, at the group level, what do you expect as an impact from FX on your 2023 margin? I particularly think about the impact from the Brazilian Real. Secondly, on the BRS margin, based on your guidance and your commentaries for financial review next year, it implies operating EBIT margin still well below 2019 and even further below to some 17% level. Why is that? Do you expect at some point to get back to the same operating EBIT margin than before?
The FX and it's factored in because we took you know the constant rate now is the average 2022 rate that we use for the guidance. We've had some impact on the margin, but it was in bps, So it was not massive. That could be a further a bit impact next year if the dollar keeps being very strong and the rate too. It's too early to evaluate. It brings a handful of bps, now it's not tens of bps. I think the impacts are modest, but they are there.
I think the BRS margin, if we can save the question for this Capital Markets Day, Aurélien will explain his plan and what does he plan to invest and when how fast does he plan to increase the margin. I think there is a plan and we will want to show that to you next week.
Okay, thank you.
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