Can I begin? Yes, we're ready. So everything is ready for the video? [Foreign language] . Yes. Good morning, and thank you very much for being present here with us in Lyon. And thank you to everybody else for being present via the video system. The video system that is very well organized. I don't know how you do it, guys, saying that it's easy. There is six people at the back of the room and equipment everywhere, and yet it all works perfectly. So thank you very much to those who are working and who've been here since 8:00 A.M. this morning. Purely and simply today, I wanted to say that we are in the starting blocks for a new ambitious plan for 2029 . There will be many details that will be provided, but these details will be given, let's say, in a pessimistic manner.
In other words, our objective is to always overachieve in relation to what we announce. I'm going to get told off by the people to my left. For those of you who are less familiar with Sword, ours is a company we used to call ourselves an SSII, as we say in French, but we target key accounts for the management of their data. That is our primary role. Next, there are many recurring words such as digital transformation and so on and so forth. But please keep in mind that what is important is data with a capital D, because we'll go into detail further down the line on data, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and so on and so forth. It's very difficult to do everything. In other words, very difficult to say we're capable of being in charge of key accounts, small to medium-sized countries.
We're also capable of managing databases, et cetera. However, we say that we've specialized, and we've done the right thing to specialize. We are specialized, we are globalized, 17 countries, that's quite good. We also have always high-performed very well. Let me remind you that this year we are continuing to perform well. Maybe our share price, exceptionally speaking, doesn't illustrate this, but how many companies such as ours can guarantee 15% of organic growth with 12% in terms of the EBITDA margin? Which is even more difficult, because at the end of the day, the revenue is relatively easy to achieve. Now, in terms of Sword's typology, we are highly globalized. We have 36 nationalities in total.
I thoroughly enjoy traveling and getting the opportunity to see all of our different companies, where there are no problems in terms of culture, in terms of color of the skin, or in terms of entente, getting on with each other. It's something that takes me out of what I call the ambient nervousness in France. So 2/3 of our revenue is achieved in large institutions. When you add them together, you have the European Union. I hope everybody's able to hear me. When you add together the European Union, the government, and also international organizations, you have 2/3 of the group. Generally speaking, this is revenue that is recurring revenue. I don't like this word, but nevertheless, it's revenue that generates a backlog, and that is something that is already tangible. Next, I wanted to provide you with a track record.
This enables me to specify the changes in perimeter, in particular. When I talk about a change in perimeter, I'm talking about the acquisitions and the disposals. Acquisitions and disposals that are not done any old how, contrary to what I've been able to read on Boursorama. I promised Stéphanie that I wouldn't speak in this way, but I'm very sorry, I am speaking in this way. When I see the level of the chats, I think we've fallen to very low levels in France. We specified revenue, full year revenue. This means that it is not in relation to the revenue from the year. We add on the revenue for the following year. So my answer is yes, we have sold AAA. Yes, we did the right thing selling AAA. For EUR 1 million, we sold 51%, and we sold it with a deficit.
It's in the books of EUR 932,000, minus EUR 932,000 . Yes, we bought a restructured AAA for EUR 8,000,000, plus EUR 320,000 in profit, and we paid EUR 1,400,000 multiplied by 51%. So saying that, this is just all playing around, no, it is not true. It is management. Next, you have an organization chart, that is a very male-driven organization chart. We do what we can, but we function in a business where it tends to be driven, managed by men, and there is no ambition whatsoever to say that we wish to exclude women from our organization chart. The proof in the pudding is that at the level of the board, we are currently enhancing the feminine nature of our board, and we haven't yet finished doing so.
We have a very clear ambition to be in line with our ESG ambitions. Nevertheless, we will not do so to the detriment of our performance, our efficiency, and our profitability, under no circumstances whatsoever. Moving ahead, I wanted to say just a few things. This might be very obvious to those of you who are present, but it's not always something that necessarily happens in certain companies. I would like to stress that ever since you've known us, we have always done what we've planned, what we've said we would do. Also, we are agile.... We never have any issues, because we deal with our problems, we deal with them almost before they happen. In other words, we do not keep something that can potentially have a negative impact on Sword the following year. Next, we also look for the long term.
This is why, for example, we're interested in working with the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, NASA in the past, et cetera. Also, we are extremely pragmatic. Three years ago, we could easily have said that we were going to go into blockchain within the next 12 months. Today, we could say we're 100% artificial intelligence invested. We could have said we focused on cybersecurity. No, I think we have to be reasonable. We have to head towards these technologies, but we have to follow the market and not anticipate on the market. Next, we have a forecast that we've announced in terms of our organic growth at 15% a year. 15%, one, five. This is something that we've scheduled. We consider it acceptable without acquisitions.
If it so happens, and we are going to announce a certain number of acquisitions to you, if it so happens that we have enormous acquisitions, let me tell you that we will achieve double-digit growth, definitely. However, if a company or a division begins to buy a company that achieves EUR 80 million in revenue, I think if they achieve 13% in organic growth, then nobody's going to be angry about that. So I'm simply saying that over the next few years, we'll have to get used to a situation where we achieve double-digit growth plus significant, sizable acquisitions. Have I changed? No. Simply, I used to refuse to make acquisitions in the past when they were overvalued. Currently, on the market, there are possibilities, possibilities to make acquisitions at normal prices. Definitely not on the West Coast, nevertheless, of the United States.
And artificial intelligence, too, that hasn't proved its worth and that we have to pay a fortune for, we will not buy that. However, companies that are serious companies in Europe, there are many of them, and why not in the Middle East as well? So that's what I wanted to say as a form of introduction. Further down the line, there are no changes in terms of this slide or in terms of this one. We are a group of serious people. We are ISO-certified, and you cannot target key accounts if you do not have these different certifications. Thank you. It's to a certain extent, thanks to the U.K. and to Belux that we have these certifications. I'm now going to pass the floor for the presentations on the U.K.
Thank you very much for having spent 15 hours yesterday, Kevin, in planes in order to come and join us here. Thank you for having solved all of the connection issues in Paris.
Good morning. Welcome. This is for the short Scottish guys, this mic. Good morning, Kevin Moreton. I'm the relatively recently appointed CEO for the U.K. and the U.K. services business. I was previously chief operating officer for a period of eight years, so very familiar with the business. However, with any new leadership, it was incumbent upon me to, how do you say? I say paint the floor white, make it feel different to our team and to our customers. It's about resetting our focus, our strategy, and direction for the U.K. business. As such, the first key thing that I've done in the U.K. is to re-establish what we call a sector model. What does that mean? Well, it's focused on our core markets. Why did I want to do that?
I thought we were getting dragged too much into being focused on technology as opposed to markets, so focus on core markets and use our domain expertise to thrive and survive. Also, I want to be very clear that I wanted to separate our generic technology offerings and digital platform from our domain expertise, sector-focused offerings, and also to make sure that we benefit from the integration of previous acquisitions that we've made in the U.K., so all of you may know, we've made numerous acquisitions over the years.
To reset our growth agenda, it's really important to me that I now get on with the integration of these businesses and look at strengthening our collective proposition to addressing bigger markets and bigger customers now, so we strengthen our offering, and I'm getting organized with the U.K. team to deliver as such. In terms of the sectors that we focus on, energy has obviously been a core market for us for many years. We deal with the move from traditional energy sources, oil and gas, in particular, to renewables. We're dealing with the challenges of fiscal taxation regimes and changes through the newly appointed U.K. government, so we're finding our way through that market changes at the moment.
What I'd like to say is, our energy business isn't going backwards, despite all the perceived headwinds that you might read in some of the press if you were to be based in the U.K. I'd also like to tell you that our renewables business is the fastest-growing part of Sword U.K. And I have organized our business, as you can see up there, I've created a business unit solely focused on addressing that renewables and utilities market, in particular, one key customer called SSE. We did zero business with them two years ago. We will do EUR 8 million with that one account this year. We think we can double that next year, and onwards and upwards. Talking about that account specifically in renewables, we've added capability recently with our acquisition of a company called IACS Consulting.
It really has strengthened our position from a cybersecurity perspective in the U.K. and bolstered our already capability we already had in networking cybersecurity. It's made us very, very relevant to highly regulated markets in the U.K. We now have a unique proposition where we have networking, cybersecurity, and operational technology cybersecurity as a joined-up offering. SSE, in particular, are going to market for a GBP 60 million deal that they that they've tendered for. We believe we are in pole position to win that tender. We'll see how that goes in the coming months. So there's lots to be excited about in the U.K. The news and the media would have you believe otherwise sometimes, but oil and gas is still trading.
And with uncertainty comes change, with change comes opportunity, especially as a service or a technology provider. So we're finding our way through that. Renewables, I've talked about a little bit there. Public sector is another area we're focused on. Obviously, there's been a bit of a hiatus this year with the change of government, as always, there's an unwillingness to commit capital to large-scale projects whilst you're going through that change. Now that we have clarity in terms of the government position, we're starting to see that investment flowing back into the public sector. Cyber resilience is something we talk about in the public sector. Jacques alluded to cybersecurity previously. We talk about cyber resilience in the U.K. What does that mean? Well, it's inevitable that every company will be targeted from a cyber perspective at some point.
It's how you now recover from that. So accept it's going to happen, and plan for how are you going to recover most quickly and preserve the operations of your business. We've seen many of our customers in recent years suffer from cyberattacks, so we're now talking to them about how you recover. I won't go into the technology that enables that recovery, but we're very well placed to deliver that. Also, financial services, we've been present in financial services for some time. We really would like to put a focus on the Scottish financial services market, as well as our already we've got a presence in London, in that market. But in Scotland, we see a bigger opportunity. We see a bigger opportunity with second- or third-round investments or scale-ups.
We're seeing challenges, particularly for companies that have went full cloud, from a cost perspective, and as such, they're starting to scale back and deliver hybrid infrastructure solutions. It's quite interesting, quite how the market's evolved from being cloud-first to moving back towards that hybrid mode. Anyway, we'll go into that in a bit more detail. I talked about... well, I'll talk about digital platform in a moment, and that's really the joining together of some of our businesses that we acquired, our traditional service desk and networking operation centers. Joining all of that capability together allows us to go after to bigger customers and indeed establish ourself internationally. Just touching on that international piece for a second, we're very active at targeting an acquisition in Ireland at the moment. Why?
Because our partners have strongly encouraged us to go there. The Irish market is strongly lacking in skills, particularly around cybersecurity. We have them, and our key partners are, as I said, strongly encouraging us to enter that market. So we're progressing with that conversation with a few targets. I will go back there in the first week of October, so I hope to give you an update the next time we talk. Our U.S. business, well, the focus is on just trying to preserve and continue to grow that. There's opportunities potentially on the back of, again, potential government change as we get into the autumn. We'll see what happens with that, but we see the opportunity in the Gulf of Mexico market from an oil and gas perspective in particular.
Today, one of my COOs, who was on that organization chart, is in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, so we're finalizing our setup of our legal entity there, which we've created recently, to service the demands of the NEOM giga project, which we have a contract to deliver on for information and data services. It is now our intention to go and try and develop that market, particularly around technology and particularly in the financial services space, is where I see the opportunity there. A lot of investment flowing into that region, particularly from big corporations like Microsoft, they're about to become very present in Saudi Arabia. We hope to piggyback on the back of some of that momentum. Just moving forward on to some of these more detailed slides. They're in your brief.
You can read them at your leisure. Oil and gas is about focusing on delivering information and data services. That's really the play there now. There's a big compliance agenda, specifically around NIST regulations, which every oil and gas company is going to have to comply with. We have a unique proposition and skill set to be able to help oil and gas operators be compliant in that particular domain. In general, trying to make sense, as Jacques said, around the adoption and application of artificial intelligence is something that's not lost on me. I don't want us to be breaking ground with regards to that, but we're very pragmatic in terms of our approach and how we bring AI solutions to our customers.
Perhaps we'll talk to you the next time around a more agentic approach that we're developing across the wider organization, in terms of how we bring solutions to our customers, but also how we help them internally unlock the benefits of the technology that's available to them. Last but not least, the digital platform, call it what you will, we're in a world of lots of terms, aren't we, in technology terms? Digital platform, as I said, is the joining together of our traditional IT services businesses focused on oil and gas, our networking and cybersecurity business that we acquired in Ping Network Solutions a few years back, and also the recent acquisition of IACS Consulting. Those three together offer us a very strong value proposition towards our customers.
We will create some new ones, specifically focused on cybersecurity and hybrid cloud moving into next year. All in all, I think the U.K., we faced some headwinds this year. We still managed to deliver growth. That's encouraging. We've got some exciting new propositions to bring to the market, and the consolidation of recent acquisitions has allowed us to position ourselves very well to deliver upon that 2028 plan. Any questions? Thanks.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. For those of you who don't yet know me, my name is Dieter Rogiers, and I, in fact, am in charge of Sword in Belgium, Luxembourg, Greece, and also in Spain. First of all, just a few words on the current situation. With over 900 staff members, and at the end of the year, at the end of 2024 , we should have figures that are extremely encouraging, above budget in terms of our revenue and also in terms of our profitability. However, Jacques has asked me, above all, to share with you our targets and also our ambitions for the next few years, and also our strategic plan that underpins this.
For the next few years, we are pretty confident that we'll be able to continue to grow with a growth rate of over 15%, so that in 2028, we'll achieve a revenue of EUR 170 million, with an order book of over EUR 350 million. In order to achieve this, we have an organization that is extremely sturdy, that is made up of 8 business units, and our organization, above all, has a focus on the markets, on our very specific markets, but also very different. On the one hand, we have the European institutions and the European agencies, and we also have all of the digital communications part of our business, and last but not least, the part that we refer to as the national offices.
These national offices work with the member states and all of the apps that we've developed for the European institutions.
Our aim,
I would argue, is to focus on three main markets at the level of the European institutions. In other words, we have taxation and tax. Next, we have everything that revolves around patents and intellectual property, and we also have the markets for control, safety, and security on the borders. Currently, we are among the top five or six of the IT players in the European organizations, but over the next few years, our ambition is to figure among the top three. And we would also like to be alongside our clients, to work alongside our clients, so that we can help them to implement their digital roadmap. That's what I wanted to say concerning the European organizations.
In terms of the European bodies, we have a very strong presence. We have a very important footprint in England, but we also see quite a lot of potential, notably at the level of the European agencies, where we see that their budgets are growing fast, and hence, we consider we should be able to win and grab hold of quite a few new markets and contracts. Next, let's move on to digital communication. It's very clear that we would like to combine the know-how that we have within Tipik with the database that we have for our current clients in Sword, so that we can grow our business, and above all, we'd also like to extend and broaden our offering so that our clients come to us, seeing us as a one-stop shop for all of their digital, IT, and communications needs.
Last but not least, the market that we're looking to delve into, it involves all of the national offices in the European member states, and these are national offices that very often are connected or very strongly linked, at least, with the apps that we've been able to develop for the European institutions. So that's the plan for the next few years.
As I said, ours is a market that is a pretty sturdy, pretty sound market. It's made up of consortiums with some of the major European players, and this basically means that we are in a position currently to sign more and more large-sized contracts that account for several thousands or tens of thousands of euros.
... This means that we're in a situation with a backlog. Jacques doesn't like the word recurring, but we do have a recurring backlog of approximately EUR 200 million. So this means that we are pretty sure that we're going to be able to continue with these contracts and new business that, of course, we will add on. As was said earlier on, we are aiming to delve into three different markets at the level of the institution, the European institutions, where we would like to become the top partner, both in terms of taxation and in terms of tax, and also in terms of patents and intellectual property, and then further down the line, border control and security. At the level of tax, I believe it's important to stress that TAXUD, the European organization that is responsible for tax, is a body within the European institutions.
It's actually the body that has the highest budget, EUR 44 billion, EUR 44 billion in budget. Of course, we'll never be able to snatch out of all of this amount, but there is a massive potential out there. And in particular, today, we're very busy and working very hard on the development side of the business, but we can see that there's also a massive amount of potential in terms of operational support and also in terms of integration with the national offices within the different member states. Next, we have the border control and security. It's very clear that the migration process is something that is quite problematic in Europe. It's also very clear that with the migration issues, the budgets have increased. The budgets that are allocated to these areas have increased rapidly.
We already have a strong presence, and we're already developing quite a few critical apps for border control in the Schengen space. We haven't yet announced it in the press, but we have just won another bid. We've won a bid for six new programs over the next few years. Clearly, we will be able to achieve clear growth in this sector also. Next, when it comes to patents and intellectual property, eight years ago, I would stress that we started out on this market working hand-in-hand with the European institutions. Sword Group already had an excellent reputation in this sector, and we've been able to capitalize on this so that we've become one of the major players in this sector.
The aim, or rather the objective that we have, is to guarantee that we're able to have a strong foothold in all of the agencies within the European Union agencies, wherever these different subjects need to be dealt with. Our targets for the next few years are that we wish to sign two or three major framework agreements. They are worth several million each time, even more oftentimes. These are framework agreements that are on our list. In order to achieve this, we have a bid team that is an excellent bid team, that I often refer back to that. Next, the budgets at the level of the agencies are being ramped up on a regular basis. This is why we want to strengthen our foothold and capitalize on our expertise in digital communications, for example.
How come I am particularly confident that we're going to be able to achieve the 15% over the next few years, as we've been able to do over the last 10 to 15 years? I would simply stress that we now have quite remarkable experience at the level of the European Union with one of the best bid teams on the market. I would even tend to say, the best bid team on the market. Next, we have loyal clients, and for the last 10 years, we haven't lost a single important client. We haven't lost any framework agreements. I'm not saying that in the future, sooner or later, we won't lose a client on a contract, but it will naturally be offset by other contracts.
And despite the fact that we work with the European bodies, we do have an order book that is so major, that is so sizable and recurring. I apologize once again, Jacques. I know you don't like this word, but nevertheless, it means that we're 100% focused, or not 100%, but very strongly focused on new business as well. I'm going to round off what I'm saying by saying that Sword, at the level of the agencies and the European institutions, has a reputation and also an image that I would qualify as being remarkable, particularly strong, both from the perspective of our clients, our partners, and also from the perspective of our consultants. At the level of the consultants, we have a pretty flat organization, which means that the management personally knows all of the consultants, all of the staff members.
These very strong links means that we have very little staff rotation compared with all our competitors on the same market. Also, at the level of our partners, and it's clear that in the market where we're present, partnerships and consortiums are extremely important. Given the fact that Sword is perceived by the market as being the company that achieves the strongest growth, then it's very clear that many different partners like to work hand in hand with us to be alongside us when we succeed. And our clients also see us as a trusted, trusting partner, a stable partner, but also a flexible partner. And it is this flexibility, I believe, that is extremely important. Jacques often says how important agility is in our business. If you don't have any questions for the moment, I will pass the floor back to Jacques.
[Foreign language].
Thank you very much, Dieter. You are Flemish. You had prepared everything in English, and one minute beforehand, I said to you, "Oh, Dieter, please, can you give the presentation in French?" So that was wonderful, given the circumstances. I am now in charge of the third division. In terms of the size, they're all very similar, and this division groups together the other entities. When we give you figures for the revenue, we give you figures that do not represent the staff, because the principle of the revenue comes from the entities that sell.
And when we say that, for example, we have 6% in revenue in the other countries, no, no, the other countries produce a lot more, but they invoice internally in order for the company that is working directly with the client to be able to take on board the revenue themselves. I wanted to say this simply to explain the 6% for other countries that might seem a bit small in relation to the staffing level. So Switzerland. Switzerland is a country where we've grown very quickly. We are number two or number three. It all depends on whether we take Swisscom into account or not. In French, that's the case for French-speaking Switzerland, and we have specialized fields, luxury, the United Nations, and sport. And of course, we have clear targets. The targets are to work with United Nations.
The United Nations are currently leaving New York in terms of management, contrary to what happened before. There are 11 United Nations agencies located in Geneva, but there are NGOs. You've got the Red Cross, for example, that is an NGO, but it's not the United Nations. If you add together all of the NGOs and the United Nations agencies, it's not 11 agencies that you've got, it's 30 or so. We already work for 7 agencies. What I want is by 2028, I want us to be the major player in terms of IT services within the United Nations and within these NGOs. For the moment, you've got the HCR, WIPO, the WHO, et cetera, but there will be others, and the Red Cross, of course.
Next, our expertise is expertise that's being provided by Canada, also by Switzerland, partially everything that revolves around workplace management. With Kevin, we already have a 24 hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week center located in Glasgow for Ping, P-I-N-G, and in Switzerland, we have exactly the same thing, but spread over three countries. We have Montreal, Lyon, and Chennai as well. We're going to continue with three countries. It's all well and good to have two models in the group, and it also enables us to sign contracts with WADA. WADA is the global agency for anti-doping, and we've signed a contract for EUR 68 million with them in order to revamp all of their IT.
We've applied this to the sporting sector, of course, and there are some major proposals being made locally in Lyon, proposals that are currently under study, and potentially this might enable us to duplicate this type of business. It's not the EUR 100 million that you sign every time in Belgium, but nevertheless, we're talking here about contracts that are worth EUR 50 million-EUR 60 million each time. In Switzerland, we also have a certain degree of artificial intelligence knowledge, quite essential knowledge, and artificial intelligence, let me, let me say, is a sector we're focusing on, and I'm anticipating on your questions. I know you will ask this question on the Middle East and on Saudi Arabia. In terms of artificial intelligence, we've decided to work on compliance management. We've also decided to work on our capacity to produce and develop.
In Barcelona, I think they've achieved a 15% increase in productivity that we'll be able to deploy across the board. Where Switzerland is concerned, we have many projects, many FPFT, fixed price, fixed time projects, and we're applying our tools to AAA that we've passed on to Kevin. Further down the line, we have this ambition to do additional things gradually, step by step, using artificial intelligence. In Dubai, we will become a major player for applications for chatbots. We do not want to develop chatbots. We do not want to do what everybody across the board is doing. We don't want to do software that will be has-been tomorrow morning. We are going to specialize. We're going to specialize in APIs based on AI. Canada.
Canada is an important sector for our development, and in 2028, Canada will be a division, a fully fledged division, let's say North America. Next, with regard to the Middle East and India, here, there's quite a large portion that corresponds to offshore. 50% of the Indians work for Ontario. We have three key clients. We have 100 or so Indian nationals who are working in Chennai, out of Chennai, for goeasy, Complete Innovations companies, basically, that are specialized in communications and that are based in Toronto. We also have the United Nations. United Nations are present pretty much across the board. Let's remember that in Spain, for example, and we've got to think a bit about Spain, it's in Valencia that the United Nations are going to relocate the IT services for several entities such as UNICEF.
We're already working for UNICEF in Valencia, and we're going to locate to Valencia a lot more in order to be able to gradually get into the United Nations. In the same way as Dieter was saying for the European Union, we are going to also focus on the agencies that we find in all of the different countries, and that report back to the European Union. There's at least one per country. I could refer to EMA in Germany. This is the agency that is what we call the European Medical Organization, but located in Germany. Sorry, not in Germany, in the Netherlands. We're going to do the same thing. Sorry, I'm not in charge of his entity. Dieter's right to correct me. We're also going to do the same thing with United Nations. The United Nations have entities everywhere around the world.
I'm sure you're familiar with Vienna and everything that revolves around the nuclear aspects. That's the most prestigious organization, but there are many, many of them. In Switzerland, we're not just going to be based in Geneva, we're going to reach out far and wide. For the Middle East, same thing. Our organization is extremely opportunistic, whereby we have a director in Beirut who's able to work for France. Why? Because he's Lebanese, and when you work with CGM, it is better to be Lebanese rather than French. CGM Marseille is managed out of Beirut, for example. I'm basically saying all of this simply to stress that we are extremely agile, very much focused on our offshore capacity.
Because when, for example, you have EUR 68 million in contracts for IT operations with a specific client, you sign that contract, but not at a higher price than they were paying previously. You have to sign it at a lower price and achieve a good margin, and we do this by exporting everything in terms of production to low-cost countries. The last point I wanted to raise concerns Saudi Arabia. We are present in Dubai, we're present in Glasgow, and we're currently working for NEOM. We have to penetrate the Saudi kingdom. It is one of my targets. We have to make inroads, and I'm going to work very hard to do so. I am sure that the wherewithal is out there to achieve very profitable growth in the future. Now, one thing I did want to do is focus on the acquisitions as well.
Among the acquisitions, we explained to you what we would do. So what we're interested in when we talk about acquisitions in the U.K., is the renewables. It doesn't mean that we necessarily need an acquisition, but we are not excluding the idea of purchasing a company in this sector, much more so than purchasing a company specialized solely in oil and gas. That being said, we're very strong in Scotland. Is it normal to have a position in London that is less important, less strong than in Scotland? Maybe not. Do feel reassured, gentlemen, the bankers, we're not going to buy everything under the sun. I'm just giving a few ideas. Next, you've got Ireland. As we've said, Ireland is an excellent country when it comes to investing in IT.
Ireland has managed to attract the attention of highly experienced IT specialists who have needs, and Ireland has specialized fields following on from Brexit. I believe that Ireland and the U.K. will be able to cooperate, and it's in their interest to do so, because the borders are very complicated in Northern Ireland. I still don't understand how that functions. I don't think Dieter understands either, the level of Europe. Next, we have Benelux. Benelux, these are the group of countries where the European agencies do a great deal of work. We're not just talking about Belgium and Luxembourg, potentially speaking, it can also be the Netherlands. It can be many different things. It is possible that we might buy a company in the Benelux, and we might round off our offering on the private market. We also have to think about Spain.
Very shortly, I hope we will be present in Alicante, thanks to a big European contract. We're present, as I said, in Valencia, with United Nations contracts, and also we're present in Barcelona. This is for all of the functional knowledge and understanding of the tax and customs setups. I think maybe it will be worthwhile for us to purchase a Spanish company so that we can strengthen our presence, also strengthen our presence in Barcelona, even if it's a very complicated region. They don't necessarily speak, all speak the same language. They want to stand out from the crowd, but it's still Spain. Next, we have Switzerland. In Switzerland, in 2028, you have to be based in German-speaking Switzerland. We now have made inroads in Bern. They don't speak French there, they all speak German, very fast German.
There we actually only speak English, but we do want to capitalize on our presence in Bern so that we can ramp up what we do with two very different targets, Basel or Zurich. Basel, they're all specialized in pharmacy, and Zurich, they're specialized in finance. Next, I'd like to focus on Canada. We might make an acquisition here, and my last point concerns the Middle East and also India. I don't think there are many acquisitions to be made. However, we do need to make sure that we're ready to make an acquisition in Saudi Arabia. I think maybe there are possibilities so that we can consolidate our position also in the United Arab Emirates. That's what I wanted to say regarding our vision for 2028 .
We've taken risks because we've told you today what we want to do over the next four years, and we haven't told you simply what we want to do next year. I'm sure you will appreciate this, but you have to accept, you have to accept certain fine-tuning between internal growth, external growth, between acquisitions on the right-hand side or on the left-hand side. But what we can tell you is that we are well and truly in a strong position, in a strong position to deploy this plan that will take us to one billion in market capitalization in 2028. I repeat, one billion in market capitalization in 2028. So with what figures? Let's delve into the figures.
We've presented you with this organic growth plan that is still topical, and we've told you that we might adjust it in the margins, but we will always show double digit growth. I maintain that we are capable of achieving this, that we will achieve this, and we're also going to add to it. Next, I have a target of EUR 100 million in terms of the investments, and I've told you what we're going to do with EUR 1 million , EUR 100 million . I think I'm being pessimistic. We've always told you that we will come up with the goods. We'll do what we say we're going to do, and this is why I'm presenting this. We will do better. We will do better than this plan. And when I present these figures, it's for the full year.
In other words, once again, it gives you an idea of the full year for the following full year. If we buy for EUR 30 million in June 2025, that will amount to EUR 15 million more in our consolidated. I remind you, it's full year figures. This means that we will achieve EUR 700 million in 2028, and I would like to achieve more. Now, our objectives are EUR 705 million, but my personal objective is for us to achieve more. This is pro forma. This is the P&L pro forma for 2025. This slide that is currently on the screen, the aim is to enable you to understand the distribution, the spread between external, internal, and also global. Moving ahead, you might all say, "Oh, he's just pulled this out of his pocket. What's he basing all of this on?
How does he think he's going to achieve this performance?" Well, let me say, this performance is based on what we're already doing. Oil and gas, Belux, we've delivered, we'll continue to deliver. Next, up until 2028, we've said we want to be the best in the renewables, for example, but also, we've talked about the European organizations, and we've also got accelerators. These are accelerators that we haven't budgeted. NEOM is an example of this. These accelerators will not necessarily all be successful, but some of them definitely will, and others will be replaced by others. So I simply wanted to remind you that we're following exactly the same logical process: 2028 vision, accelerators, growth, M&A growth, and non-M&A growth. Now, I think I need to move on to the figures.
I'm repeating a lot of what I've already said. This is the third quarter. It'll be very good, very good. Please feel reassured, and the figures are currently what are on the screen. We are still at 12% in terms of the EBITDA margin. We are so rigorous that Frédéric said to me, "But they're not going to believe us. They won't believe that it's true. You, you're always stuck on 12%." I very much apologize. Yes, our EBITDA margin is still stuck on 12%. Next, we've split all of this up per division, and personally speaking, I've split my two divisions into two lines. Sorry, my division into two lines. In other words, Switzerland on the one hand and the Middle East on the other.
If we look at the table, we see that we're continuing to perform, and there are two key metrics, organic growth, EBITDA margin. If everybody achieves too much organic growth, we'll have more than 12%, but if some people have a bit less growth and more EBITDA margin, it will achieve good consolidated figures. Here on the screen, you can see, for example, that Switzerland is outperforming a bit in terms of the EBITDA margin, but is outperforming a great deal, thanks to WADA, in terms of the growth. Why? Well, when you sign with WADA, you hire a range of people, you restructure, you have costs, and of course, these costs have to be taken on board during the course of the year. So they're not the same investments as when you purchase a company.
This is what I ask you to remember from this specific table. Two curves that necessarily need to be adjusted, and it's difficult to adjust them on a quarter-by-quarter basis. Please allow me to adjust them on an annual basis. The stock exchange is awful because the report, the reporting on a monthly basis, they just want to make you into slaves. Here you have the EBIT that amounts to 12%, the current EBIT and the profitability. There are a certain number of tables that I won't go into detail on. The net profit after corporate tax is 7.1%. The figures are all quite good. Thank you very much, Frédéric, for certain investments, and this means that we are on target with the budget. Next, moving on to the adjustments of our balance sheet. Not much to say here.
We have an adjusted balance sheet because we've been asked to to adjust it prior to the acquisition of IACS. IACS is a company that we acquired on the first of July. The figures that you have on the screen are up to the thirtieth of June, but the auditors and the IFRS people are people you can't negotiate with. In what I'm presenting to you here, IACS is in the accounts, or rather, is in the balance sheet for the first half of 2024 . This increases the goodwill, basically. That's the only reason. Next, for the work in progress, for the WIP, we have an increase because we are growing organically, growing by 15%, one, five, and that will continue this year.
We also have the initial phases of certain European programs, as I said, WADA and other European programs, and we are also slightly behind schedule, but that is planned in terms of the invoicing. Next, for the balance sheet, and here I'm focusing on the liabilities, you have the modification of the credit lines for the long term to short term, and what we're going to set in place is what we call 2028 credit lines or 2029 credit lines, so that we have clear visibility on a long-term basis of our financial wherewithal. We are going to attempt to add a loan, a considerable loan to these credit lines. These credit lines, let me stress that we have the choice in our company. We can choose to hire 40 CFOs and a whole team of people who will manage our cash.
In fact, we won't use much of these credit lines to manage our cash, subsidiary by subsidiary. Our solution is to use these credit lines and to have a lot fewer members of staff. It's much better. We will use, and I stress, for our growth, we will use approximately EUR 40 million from these credit lines, and we will use this money solely in order to guarantee that we have cash in our subsidiaries. It won't be clearly visible in our net cash position, but we need this. This is why it's important to note that we have this possibility of a loan of EUR 100 million, and this is what we're going to work on between now and the end of the year. Next, there is a decrease in terms of the share deal commitments.
For the share deals, I would like to say just a few words. Could you please not look at Boursorama? Full stop. Boursorama, please don't look. When we hear all of these stupid comments, we've had share deals that have been distributed. In other words, in year one, the Belux share deal began. Year two, the U.K. share deal began. In third year, Switzerland, and each year, we had closings, share deal closings. The next closing will take place next year for EUR 20 million. And we've decided to start all of our future share deals this year, and our share deals will lead us through to 2029. So we will no longer have yearly closings of these share deals because we have a joint target over time. Next, do I receive a penny from these share deals, as certain idiots say? No, not at all.
I am not part of the share deals. Please be reassured, I do not receive anything. Are share deals useful? Do they serve a purpose? Please keep in mind that if, initially speaking, I'd announced 5% of organic growth and 10% growth based on the acquisitions, how much would we have put in goodwill? How much would we have paid into we have paid in terms of goodwill? A lot more, a lot more than our share deals. So the share deals are definitely a good thing. Last but not least, IFRS, the authorities, are going to oblige us to put EUR 40 million in debt. This is a debt that literally doesn't exist, because in 2025, nobody will have delivered the performance that is required in 2029. So we're going to have to enter a debt.
We're going to have to enter a certain amount of money as a debt, money that we will not owe. Totally disagree with it. Let's move on now to the net cash position. We have a net cash position, thanks to our acquisitions, that will no longer be positive, but we're very happy with that. We made the decision for it to be the case. It's what we wanted. What is important is the enterprise value and also the price of the share. Enterprise value, I repeat, and the share price so we will have a corporate value that will increase, that will increase massively.
Currently, we have EUR 4.8 million in terms of our net cash position, and even if we use our credit lines, and we are also going to study the returns for France, but we won't do it at any old price, from a social perspective, we'll be very cautious. But I believe that France is a European country that counts in terms of the GDP, and I think we shouldn't exclude the idea of coming back to France, returning to France. It will take place quite quickly. Geneva is currently managing a big contract that we might sign in Lyon. Brussels, potentially, is going to work in Lille very quickly, and we might make an acquisition in Paris. Next, you have the details of our cash position and the flows.
Everything is quite stable, and in relation to what happened last year, the only notable difference is that the EUR 11.4 million that you can see, this was money that had been paid out for GRC that we sold in 2024. Sorry, that we sold in 2022, and EUR 121 million was paid, and then in 2023, EUR 11.4 million . That's what I wanted to say about the figures. Why do I not like recurring business? It's not because there isn't any. Of course, it's very good to have recurring business, Dieter, please be reassured. However, if you look at an information memorandum, take a look at all information memorandums. There isn't one that says that doesn't say that there is recurring revenue.
I wonder why people sell their companies, whereas they're wonderful, because apparently, they've always got a massive amount of recurring revenue. That's why I say, looking at the backlog is important. The backlog, at least, is tangible. That's very obvious. So let's have a look at our backlog in detail. It's very reasonable. So if one day we have 19 months of backlog, do not worry. I've always said that anything beyond eighteen months guarantees double-digit growth, and of course, taking into account the company configuration that we have. So for the moment, we have over eighteen months of backlog. Next, here you have the top ten, that is pretty stable. And when I look at the top 15, we have all of the top 10 from the previous year, or at the same level in the top 15.
So our top 10 are very, very stable, and the distribution, as you can see, is between the three divisions, so that's absolutely perfect. And naturally speaking, we're very European Union-focused. Sorry, I nearly said United Nations. Here, I just wanted to reassure you. Currently, it is standard practice to see companies that have high levels of staff turnover, 20% staff turnover. I'm very surprised to see fixed price, fixed time projects where you're supposed to guarantee continuity to your clients, and yet you've got a 20% staff turnover. I think 10 is a reasonable level because there is good staff turnover as well.
If I refer back to NEOM, NEOM is the contract that we signed because there's a former member of staff from Glasgow who set up shop in Saudi Arabia, and the person simply said to his boss, "I know a company that could do good work for you." So there's positive staff turnover as well. And positive staff turnover means that you can have a member of staff who goes to work for a client. The only thing you need to avoid is the type of turnover where you have a person who goes to work for your competitor. I don't think that happens very often within our organization. I think it's less than 5%.
Our staff turnover is what I refer to as useful staff turnover, and if you have no staff turnover, then it means you're taking risks in terms of the fixed price, fixed time projects. One very last point, somebody said, "Don't shoot Jean-Michel. He gave you caviar for 27 years." But I think we have to be honest all, all the same. We are down 15%, down 15% in terms of our stock exchange value at a moment where the company is very healthy. That's all I'd like to add. Should we shut up shop and say all is lost? Absolutely not. Secondly, what did... What have we always done in previous years? Integrating the dividends. I repeat, integrating, including the dividends. This is an average, an average of 19.5%, one-nine, 19.5% a year.
So I do apologize for the - 15% for the, for this year. I hope that things will gain momentum in 2025 with the first major acquisitions. So I'm not worried at all. We are extremely healthy. We believe in what we're doing, and we are going to be successful. Please avoid sending me letters containing threats or comments that are rather unkind on the social networks. It would be much nicer not to receive those. I'm saying that to those people who still have ears to listen, and we're now ready to answer any questions you might have. Kevin and Dieter. Feel free to put your questions to Kevin and Dieter as well, of course. There will be questions via Stéphanie, because we have a certain number of analysts who didn't want to come to Lyon, and so who are still in Paris. Grégoire.
Grégoire Ramirez, I have two questions. First of all, I have a question concerning development in France. You've talked about returning, coming back to France. From what I understand, you're talking about opening an office or an agency, much more than having an acquisition policy. Basically, you don't have the intention of buying back what was sold to Argos a few years ago?
No. Can I answer that question? The acquisition. Acquisitions are terrible. You announce what you want, you talk about the configuration that you're looking for, and you never do exactly what you said you'd do. Acquisitions are things where we have to be very flexible. So I would stress, it's true that we do not want to base our acquisition policy on France. In other words, the EUR 200 million that we might use, they will...
This money will not be used 100% in France. That being said, if in France, something magic is out there, something that is not expensive and that rounds off our product and service offering, why not? But for the moment, we're going to look to achieve organic growth, and we're going to be very cautious from a social perspective, and we're not gonna buy back Coexya.
Stephanie? Stephanie.
My microphone is now working. I have a second question concerning the European Union markets. There has been a bit of consolidation. There has been a bit of consolidation in the sector with the buyback of Intrasoft, and then Accenture bought out a company. Accenture, I know that they were already working on contracts with the European Union, but now with all of this consolidation that is ongoing, is it not likely to have an impact on Sword's activities?
Will it not change the balance of alliances in the consortiums when it comes to signing contracts with projects, or... Well, basically, I understand that you want to become number three in terms of the players, rather than being number five. In the change in the balance of competitors, after having described all of your strategy to achieve this, how do you actually take into account this change, all of these consolidations?
Thank you very much for your question. It's true, there have been quite a few acquisitions in the sector of the European institutions recently, but strangely, virtually all of these alliances have led to people getting in touch with us because we are still one of the only medium-sized companies, in terms of our volumes, on the market, a company that is extremely flexible.
And the large scale companies, such as Accenture, Netcompany, for years and years, they've tried to make inroads into the European Union Institution sector, and they haven't been successful. That's why they've bought companies. But they also know that if they want to continue, if they want to continue to be successful in this sector, what they need above all is flexibility. At Accenture, no decisions are made in Belgium, not even in Europe. All of the decisions are confirmed or are made in the United States, and they sign alliances with us. So I would argue, I see opportunities more than risks. I hope I've answered your question.
Yep, 100%. Can I just round off saying something? Could you please take a look at the value of these acquisitions? It's two times the pro rata of the current valuation of Belux, I believe two times.
Two times the valuation. It's unbelievable.
Yes, there aren't just the two alliances that I've just quote, referred to. We're already worth EUR 100 million more, just as of this comment.
Good morning, three of you. Nicolas Thorez from Oddo BHF. Jacques, I would like to refer back to your acquisition policy that you've just presented. First of all, to clarify, okay, we agree, we understand that, you're not talking about operations that will completely transform the company. When you talk about EUR 30,000 in acquisitions every year, are you saying you would, wouldn't acquire a massive company?
No, no, I've given you the minimum, and contrary to what we said, this is additional information. We said that we will only make micro acquisitions. We're being cautious. It's very good for developments.
However, we will make acquisitions, sizable acquisitions, but for me, it was very difficult to say exactly how much we'd allocate each year. Intuitively speaking, I put the minimum down, but what I hope is that in 2025 , it will maybe be EUR 50 million. Nevertheless, if I give a figure of EUR 30 million, it provides us with a pipeline. We can see what we can achieve, we can look at what's possible, and I have no problem with that, but we do have the target to buy bigger, to spend more. That's something that has changed.
Next, when it comes to the implementation process, are you looking to set up an M&A team, a dedicated M&A team? And in terms of the targets that you've identified, can you give us a bit more information?
I'm always very cautious about these senators, these people who are in charge of buying. Buy, buy, buy. We have a major colleague who is currently in distress, who did this for a certain number of years, and we're now seeing the impact. It's hard to buy. We've said we've got CFOs, some of whom have a certain amount of experience, and they're in the room with us here. Philippe Blancher, you come from video, don't you? You, Philippe, you're going to coordinate all of this. Nevertheless, we say we don't want to distract ourselves from the core business, so we will take advice outside of the company. We're going to work with external advisors. We are never going to transform ourselves into acquisition companies or specialists in acquiring companies. There will be nobody extra in-house.
Okay, that's very clear. Thank you. Another question on this point.
Just to fully understand the financial discipline that you want to keep, that you want to apply on paper, it's true. When I have a look, these are acquisitions that are growing towards double digit with EBITDA of 12%, with a good level of conversion of EBITDA into cash. In terms of the striking power, you talk about EUR 100 million or EUR 150 million, but what about the acquisition multiples? Are you going to be very disciplined or are you going to be flexible? You talked about flexibility. To what extent are you gonna be flexible in this field?
Huh, it's very interesting. We said that for the micro acquisitions, we applied the same thing as for the big acquisitions. If you say, "I want a multiple of five," people laugh at you, and they don't even meet you.
If, however, you say, for example, "I want to look at the problem from a different angle. I've got a company that isn't managed in an efficient manner and that is up for sale, I will estimate its value at being multiplied by eight. But I'm willing to study a solution so that the price that I pay, plus the cost of the restructuring, so that this enables me to obtain a ratio in A plus one, Y plus one, a four or five," that is possible. So it goes without saying that it would be wrong to target companies that are managed wonderfully well with the same DNA as ours, because in that case, we'll never manage to, earn or to have these points, multiples that we want. So our strategy will be based on our capacity to restructure the companies that we target.
Multiplying by six, it's easy to obtain with small acquisitions, but for the bigger acquisitions, this is where we're gonna have to work hard and be very efficient.
Okay, that's very clear, and we do agree, don't we? You will fund the acquisitions via the debt. No increase in the share capital, and we want to keep the debt.
Yes.
What about in terms of allocation of the share capital, and then I'll pass the floor back to everybody. You've often said in the past that 50% of the M&A operations destroy value over time. What philosophy do you have currently? What has changed in your analysis, above and beyond the acquisition multiples that have dropped? You seem relatively frustrated by the current share price, definitely, so what's changed in terms of the pure allocation of the capital, taking into account the debt or not?
What about share buyback? Will you buy back any shares?
I'm gonna be very transparent. Thank you for the question. Like Nicolas Sarkozy, I'm gonna answer you. I have looked. The fact... If we were to exit from the stock exchange, I've looked at it because, yes, I have felt very frustrated. I genuinely believe that with my personal money, I am poorly invested at the moment at this share price, so we're gonna have to work very hard. If I exit from the stock exchange, I could operate with sizable partners, and in that case, I could have 80% of the share capital that would be spread around in the pockets of investors, who would ask me to hire 40 controllers, who would reduce my margin by 3%, and who would reduce my hopes, my possibility of earning good money.
I believe the best thing is to continue to share with investors on the stock exchange, even if at a given moment in time, there are valuations that I don't particularly like, but let's not create a recurring phenomenon. This is the first time that this has happened for the last fifteen years, this drop in the share price, so I think it's temporary. Yes, I did think of exiting from the stock exchange. No, we're not going to exit from the stock exchange, and I believe we will succeed in our share plans. In our plans, sorry.
Thank you, Jacques.
I'm making the most of the opportunity to put one or two questions that have arrived via our virtual audience.
Jacques, you've just answered one other question on why not buy back shares instead.
There's another question, instead of paying out dividends, and what is the dividend policy going to be over the next few years?
You know full well that I'm very much interested, also personally, in dividends. As I've said in the past, for an investor, there are dividends that are deemed to be normal. Previously, they amounted to 1.2, now 1.7. I think we have to continue with these. There's no reason why somebody who's invested shouldn't receive a dividend. I think it's a good thing. Next, when it comes to super dividends, obviously, we pay them when there are super results, but today is not our objective. Currently, our objective is to increase our value in terms of the share value, and so it's not on the agenda to pay out more money in terms of the dividends.
It goes without saying that there are other strategies that are possible. However, I think what made me change my approach, it was the difference in value with companies that are put up for sale. When I saw this gap, I thought, "Hmm, maybe now is the right moment." Thank you.
Could we have an update on Saudi Arabia?
Oh, Saudi Arabia is something that needs to be looked at, taking into account the government scene from Dubai. Dubai, where we already have a certain number of proposals on the table, but they're very difficult to actually make inroads. Kevin, with Rob Mossop, I think he said, with NEOM, they've done some very tangible things, GBP 4 million a year. Next, not concerning NEOM itself, 'cause NEOM is the line, but concerning the region. We have the water authorities and the energy authorities that we're in contact with.
I've learned my lesson, and this is, this is what currently exists. Our aim, however, is to say, our ambition is for us to have the VAT number that makes us credible for future calls of tender for the government. And to achieve this, we need to find a Saudi partner, and this is what we want to do. It's what we want to achieve, because without the Saudi partner, we might sign for EUR 6 million or EUR 7 million instead of EUR 3 million, but we will never achieve, or obtain a real Saudi subsidiary. So for the moment, it's the beginning of an adventure, but we haven't yet converted the trials, we say.
Could we have an update on artificial intelligence, on the impact that you believe artificial intelligence is having on your business activities? Oh, I don't know, guys, whether you would like to answer.
Hello. We talked before about just that practical adoption. I mean, internally, we're finding efficiencies like many other businesses, just in terms of doing things smarter or finding efficiencies in software development. We talked about developing this agentic approach, which is really, Jacques referred to as APIs. It's developing a suite of things that solve real problems, that we can potentially turn into IP and take to the market, but really to offer our customers back knowledge and experience in terms of how they should be using AI within their business. So, we continue to step through that.
As I said, there are five or six separate strands that we're working on across the globe, and maybe next time I'll take my CTO, Greg, and he can talk to you in a bit more detail about the details of that AI approach.
Well,
Let me add something else concerning artificial intelligence. We absolutely have to make choices. We have to do just in time for all the rest. I think that the safety, I think that safety and security, security specifically, is a field that is maybe even more important for us than artificial intelligence. Okay, let's speak, let's be careful. Some people might perceive this negatively, imagining I don't want to do artificial intelligence. I do want to work in artificial intelligence, and we're investing EUR 1.5 million in this sector. We definitely want to be in this sector. However, security underpins everything. I see so many people who complain about artificial intelligence, saying that artificial intelligence is plugged into data that is not valid data.
At the end of the day, I find myself thinking that the foundations for everything is to first guarantee the quality, the sturdiness of the data, and so our investments, our IACS investment, is a very good starting point. But I think we have to do even more in terms of security. Of course, I'm not totally answering your question regarding artificial intelligence, but it's an angle with which we can analyze the question. I hope that Paris is satisfied with the answer.
Please, could we have an update on what Sword is doing in cybersecurity? What are our solutions?
Industrial process security. Over to you, Kevin. More English. The Scotsman, sorry.
I never thought I'd be on the stage speaking about cybersecurity, but here we go. I talked about it a little bit before. We've got inherent capability within one of the acquisitions we made, Ping from a few years back. So they do networking cybersecurity. The recent acquisition of IACS has brought us into that non-corporate network cybersecurity, which is really applicable to heavy process industries or plants or utilities, and potentially further afield into, you know, more bespoke manufacturing processes. What we're trying to develop in the U.K. is more of a services proposition around cybersecurity. So there aren't enough skills. People are using software and companies for a security operations center. We have a networking operated center. We intend to develop a unique proposition and offering to the market that combines the two.
So that's something we're really working hard on at the moment. We've recently appointed a group CISO. So we've appointed someone from a FTSE 100 business in the U.K. He's joined our team recently to help us both with our internal posture from a cybersecurity perspective, but also to strengthen our offerings and our propositions towards the market and advise our customers more strongly. So it's an area of great development. I'm not technical enough to get into the depths of what it is that we're actually doing, but suffice to say, we're very active on several fronts in that particular topic.
...The experience, the experienced CISO guy that we've hired illustrates that we can do more than just internal security. Once again, I do think it's important to be cautious. I ask you, please, not to imagine that we are going to develop software, generic software, and compete with Cisco, IBM, and the like. No, we are not capable of doing that, and we must not do that. Otherwise, we'll enable you to dream for a year or two, and then afterwards, we'll crash with the company that we've acquired. When you look at the Californian companies, for example, in the software sector, there are many, many companies that haven't seen a drop in value at all. You might talk about NVIDIA, that lost $280 billion in a day. Okay, but that's exceptional.
On the private market, Californian software still costs too much money for us. No questions from the room, so I'll continue. We do have one question. As I'm walking down, I'll pass the microphone to the person in the room.
The amount of the share deals associated with the business plan, does it amount to EUR 40 million, and this is a maximum amount? It is EUR 40 million.
Yes, EUR 40 million. If we, if we pay EUR 1 billion, we'll be very happy. We have it... There's no ceiling to it. It's absolutely mad to put a ceiling on, a limit on somebody who wants to make us even richer, who wants to make you even richer. We never put a ceiling or a cap on this kind of thing. We buy back shares at their value.
If the shares, the value is multiplied by four, then we will pay maybe EUR 60 million. The answer is no, it is not capped. Yes, it amounts to EUR 40 million in our accounts. Currently, the debt amounts to zero, I repeat.
We've heard about Atos selling things. I know you showed an interest in this a while ago. Could Atos be potential certain bits and subsidiaries, could they be of interest?
Yes. Yeah, if they want to listen to me, I'm interested. Mr. Meunier has refused to listen to me for more than 3 seconds, but we are interested. We'd love to enter into a discussion with him. I think we're good in the sports sector, and if we were able to take over Atos major events, we'd make it into a fabulous company. The answer is yes, we're interested in buying, but nothing's happening.
There have been lots of tests, one point, Kretinsky, et cetera. I'm continuing to work on the subject, but I'm not gonna go and beg for attention. I announced that we agreed to buy back certain parts of Atos. Yes, but not at any old price. Given the profitability of Atos, we will not pay a fortune for the company. But we're in there.
Jacques, I apologize. Nicolas Chaudot, once again. I have a follow-up concerning the share plans. The 40 million, or rather, the acquisition policy today, what will it change in relation to the share plans and what's been paid out? And can you remind us of the underlying points?
A poor acquisition of a division or by a division would reduce its expectations in terms of capital gains, because we have a valuation process, and we look at the positiveness of an acquisition.
If there is a very positive impact from the acquisition, then, of course, it will be good for the share deal. Whereas, if there's a negative impact, the people will receive less money. Is that clear? Does that answer your question?
Mm-hmm. Yes, but in fact, in order to understand fully in a very simple manner, based on what I've understood, you've got the 2024, 2025 cash base where the money is paid out to the key managers. Absolutely. If you make acquisitions today, if Sword makes acquisitions, are you going to keep exactly the same underlying approach?
Yes, the same underlying approach. Basically, when you make an acquisition, there is a debt. So for the first year, it's not very interesting for the buyer, and as a result, it motivates the different divisions to make sure that they make acquisitions as early as possible.
But it also motivates them to find acquisitions where they will have a very positive impact. But the underlying approach means that all of the division will benefit, and it comes from a Luxembourg fund that owns part of the subsidiary or the subsidiaries in the plural. I hope that's clear.
Yep, very clear. Maybe just one last question. One last question on Eximium. They may be here in the room. There is a spy. I saw an Eximium spy. Could you give us a brief update on their holding on the official discourse?
Eximium could have left at a certain moment in time. We talked about it, and moreover, we did adjust a certain number of things together, but it's no longer on the table, on the cards. We're going to work together.
We're going to work together in order to make sure we have the conditions that mean that they will want to stay till 2028. Eximium has no intention whatsoever, whatsoever of dilapidating its value. At the time when we talked about the potential departure of Eximium, it was with a share price of EUR 43. I hope that you can confirm this. I don't know where the person is. Thank you. Can you confirm? ... without a microphone. I'm afraid the speaker is not using a microphone. But it was basically to lighten up, whereas at the current time, there's absolutely no way that Eximium would be interested in leaving. Can you confirm that? 'Cause we're talking about you personally. The person is responding without a microphone. Thank you. That's reassuring.
Could you say a few words about the margin?
In 2010, it amounted to 19% (one, nine), and today it amounts to 12% (one, two).
Yes. It's important to look at what we used to operate. At the time, we used to operate in the software sector. When you work in the software sector, you run parts that have an EBITDA of 25% or 30%. It goes without saying that if you mix that with 12%, we used to achieve 19% (one, nine). But at the time, I remind you that the IT sector, the services sector, was at a profitability ratio of 10%, and we're now at 12%. So not only have we increased the profitability, but also we don't have the software sector anymore. That's the explanation.
Another question from one of our analysts: Why has Dave Bruce left? Why has he left us?
Dave Bruce. Mm-hmm, Dave Bruce. Dave has now acquired semi-retired status, and we're still working with him on AAA. Can you give us some news from Dave? Because we like Dave. Of course, we like Dave.
Okay, well, I keep telling Dave I'm the better version of Dave, so, perhaps that doesn't satisfy the question. Look, Dave recently became a grandfather. His priorities in life have changed quite simply. He wanted to spend more time. He's been a successful businessman for many years. I've worked quite closely with him. It's his personal agenda. I will meet him tomorrow. He's still closely affiliated to us, just changing personal circumstances. That happens once you get to his age.
It's not a revolution. We're not revolutionizing the palace, as we say in French. Dave contributed a great deal to the group. It's important to note that if you look at the ramp-up that we've seen in U.K., 10 years ago, we started from scratch. One more question on the share deals. The EUR 40 million, will they be consolidated on the 31st of December in the debt? The answer is yes, unfortunately. We're able to postpone the Brits by a month, so it'll be in the accounts on the 30th of March. So the answer is: there will be a part, because at the level of the U.K., for reasons related to personal investments, because as you know, they're all obliged to invest, and so it's good for them to wait for the previous plan to end before they invest in the new plan.
So we've given them till the end of January to reinvest, so there will not be EUR 40 million on the 31st of December. There will be only a part. However, there will be the cumulated figure. I should give you a microphone. There will be the cumulated figure between the EUR 20 million paid out in the first quarter of 2025 that will pay for all of the past part, and then what has already been allocated to Belux and to Switzerland, and to Dubai. Dubai, Beirut. Thank you very much. No other questions from the room?
I do have a brief question on the debt. Can you tell us a bit more about the debt, the EUR 100 million, the EUR 120 million, the maturity, the rate? Is that a sensitive subject or not?
Hmm.
It is a sensitive subject because I have a person in the room who is telling me not to answer. Nothing has yet been achieved in terms of the debt, so I'm obliged to say to you that it's all confidential for the moment. We have the credit lines, but the debt that I talked about potentially adding has not yet been fully defined, so I can't disclose anything for the moment. I just wanted to say that if we've forgotten any questions from the chat, we will, of course, answer all of the questions further down the line and as soon as possible. We have a question in the room. Are we going to go for a drink? Up, upstairs. Well, when we leave the room, drinks will be available towards the back on the right-hand side for a cocktail.
I'd like to say a very big thank you to everybody who's been present via the video conferencing system. Thank you very much to the team. Congratulations to Don, 'cause you've dealt with the Scots guy. Thank you, Stéphanie, for having found a place that is a great place. I want to come back here. Thank you very much. Thank you, Stéphanie.