Hello, and welcome to the 2020 annual results presentation. My name is Monique, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call.
This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now turn it over to your host, Daniel Julien, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Monique. Good morning, good afternoon, depending what place you are in the world. It's a pleasure today for the management team of Teleperformance to present to you the annual result of 2020. That was a very, very difficult year for the world, for the economies, and for the people. Fortunately, we have been lucky enough to continue to build a strong company, as you are going to see now. Next, please. Next. Next.
No.
Okay. Here we are. No. Please come back.
The premiere.
Come back, please. Here we are. At December 31, 2020, the headcount of the group was 380,000 employees, which mean that during 2020, we created net 50,000 jobs all around the world. That's something that I'm very happy with. Usual information, we speak almost all the dialects you can imagine. We are in 83 countries.
We serve 170 market. More importantly, at the end of 2020, we had 250,000 employees working from home, two-third of the group. Next, please. The highlights, very simple. Record growth, almost plus 12% like-for-like. A sharp acceleration in the like-for-like growth in the last quarter of the year, plus 23%, something we have not seen for many years.
A very resilient profitability despite the disruption of the COVID as we show an EBITDA margin of 12.8% and an actual amount of EUR 735 million, despite the near shutdown of our visa business, despite the additional cost created by the move from brick and mortar to work from home.
Finally, at the end of 2020, we deliver a net free cash flow of almost EUR 500 million, which is very significantly superior to last year. We are going to propose to the general assembly of the shareholders to maintain the EUR 2.40 dividend per share, unchanged from 2019. Specifically, we are able to do that because we are extremely confident in 2021. Next, please. This is what is extraordinarily important to understand when you consider the year 2020.
You see that January, February, we had a growth that was in the +8%, more or less in our guidance. 15th of March, the world stops. The second half of March is dramatic, and we end March with 0 growth. April, we end April with -3%. During these 6 weeks, we mobilize the group like a D-Day operation.
During these 6 weeks, we pass all over the world from less than 10,000 people working from home to 200,000 people at beginning of May. This was an incredible logistic mobilization, engagement of all the teams of Teleperformance all over the world, and our agility and ability to continue to ensure the service to our clients help us to grow. You see that starting June, and since June, every single month has been above double-digit growth to finish by the quarter you see. Next, please.
Next, please. Thank you. I think that we have been able to do that because from day 1, we are very clear on our priorities. We said we have 3 priorities, protecting the employee health, protecting the business, protecting the cash. Obviously, the logic was to pass to work at home. This work at home has been managed like, I would say, a Navy SEAL operation.
The executive management of the group had virtual meetings several times a week. The board of the group was meeting every two weeks, and we used to measure the progress every single day. Seeing the COVID crisis being here for a long time and definitely not over beginning of last summer, our R&D teams decided to build an integrated digital platform to manage our employees from remote.
This platform is called Teleperformance Cloud Campus. We hire the employees digitally, we train them digitally, we monitor and we manage them digitally, and we give them the second life, the virtual life, the campus life, virtual at TP. At the same time as the situation of the group was very solid, we decided in June, because we are very confident that the worst was behind us, to maintain our dividend to the shareholders in June.
We continued our acquisition strategy, acquiring a high-level kind of digital and human concierge business for the healthcare in the U.S.A. as Health Advocate. This acquisition has been signed in 2020, but will be closed only when we will get all the authorization of the U.S. authorities. We got the federal authorization. Now we still have to get the authorization of California because we are operating also a little bit in California.
It takes few more weeks than what we were expecting, but we should be able to start to consolidate as Advocate sometimes during the second quarter. Next, please. Next, please. Okay. Here, I'm going to be fast. You will be able to read that. These are the thank you notes that we received from some of our clients all over the world.
I have to tell you that we received also thank you note from some prime ministers for our support to the COVID line, specifically in the European region. Next, please. Okay. This is the Everest Group PEAK Matrix, and where you see clearly Teleperformance in the right-hand corner with a star, leader and star performer above all the competition, and at least it's the market perception that comes here to confirm the numbers that we were showing you. Next, please.
We are extraordinarily focused on delivering an outstanding environment and social responsibility. At delivering an environment and social good governance. This is in our values and in our philosophy of diversity and equity. We signed the United Nations Global Compact nine years ago. In 2020, we got certified Great Place to Work.
I remind you that Great Place to Work is a independent third-party organization that makes a deep survey to our employee base country per country, and that the status of Great Place to Work is definitely given by Teleperformance employees.
We were able to pass from 70% of our employee base working in Great Place to Work to 87% at the end of the year. We got the usual certification, Verego, Vigeo, MSCI, FTSE4Good. We got certified by all the actor who survey the environment and social responsibility governance. Thank you. Next, please.
For the next, please, we are going to see the strategy. Next. Wait, yeah. The vision is very simple. Teleperformance is becoming a leading global group of Digital Integrated Business Services. In fact, using high tech and high touch, plus knowledge services, we bring a unique selling proposition to our clients, which is that we are going to help them to develop simpler, faster, safer, better, more cost-effective interaction with the customer or citizen.
As I said, we are all about diversity, and we are all about fighting the global warming. We integrate in our management indicators and measures of the indicators that could be considered as qualitative, but our gender diversity, our carbon footprint and so on. The world is challenged. The world is challenged because there is a digital disruption plus the health disruption.
The economy is disrupted as well, because you have the digital disruptors and the traditional, more the brick-and-mortar, more traditional disrupted companies. Everybody needs today an agile transformation that implemented with a lot of discipline to overcome the global health crisis and to continue to grow. In 2020, we had an acceleration of the digital business, and that was super positive for Teleperformance because it's something that we had anticipated way before.
The growth, the strong dynamic of the e-commerce, e-service, e-streaming, e-entertainment, e-learning, e-government, has been more than able to cover the weak or negative dynamic of the activity sector that were very negatively impacted by the crisis, the health crisis.
I mean, the transportation, airline, hotels, and of course, the visa business. We are building up. Now we are with hundreds of thousand of knowledge service engineers, whether in technology, analytic and process.
We continue to build this knowledge service team at very high speed to reach the fastest possible by the end of 2021 or mid-2022, the magic number of 2,000 knowledge service engineers able to build a smart, sophisticated and efficient solution for our clients. Finally, we extend our line of services, not being only voice.
We do more and more, of course, digital channel, whether it's chat management, email management, or middle office and back office process. We continue also to have very clear in our mind our strategic acquisition process.
As I told you, we acquired Health Advocate end of 2020, and we are going to continue to make acquisitions either in 2021 or 2022. As usual, we do not want to acquire companies that are fragile. We only want to acquire company that provide similar or even stronger than Teleperformance.
We want them to do different things than what we do, either to serve different clients or to add expertise to the Teleperformance range of services. We are going to continue to make acquisition and obviously, to serve first the big U.S. market that is not just a U.S. domestic market, but the large global companies that are mostly based in Silicon Valley.
There are also large global companies that are based in China today, and we keep a strong focus on that. Next, please. I already presented the Health Advocate company, and it's a very specific company who helps the employees of our client to take better advantage of their health coverage in the maze of the U.S. healthcare market. This is a sophisticated company with a proprietary ERP platform and that delivers excellent margin for the group. Next, please.
This is not going to be new for you. The high-tech, I mean the robust infrastructure, the data security, the smart technology, digital analytics, RPA, and so on. Teleperformance has more than 20 proprietary solutions that improve the process of our clients. Generally, we are also an integrator of the best of breed technology that exists on the market. You know what? The world is hybrid.
Today with the pandemic, today with the digital, we know that the world is hybrid. The work organization is now and is going to be now more and more partially brick and mortar, partially work from remote. The economy is also hybrid. We have a digital economy, and we have a brick-and-mortar economy.
Somehow during the time of pandemic, where there is a lot of anxiety and people are at home, they tend to have more interaction with the company they buy product or service from or with governments. I can tell you something, in 2020, the star was named empathy, human empathy.
To be able to deliver human empathy, you had to have a very strong technology. The star is the empathy, the art director, I would say, is the technology. The future of our world is an augmented level of service, I am going to say a bionic service.
Next, please. Okay. Finally, every large company find its resilience in its purpose. For us, our purpose is to be a force of good, and to bring positive outcome for our different stakeholders. Of course, for our shareholders, but first for our clients.
Even before our clients, first for the employees in the communities where we operate. We decided to have now a global, sustainable, ESG management model. That's why for 2021, we are going to make sure that we have more than 90% of our employees working in a Great Place to Work Teleperformance organization.
We are going to decrease, and not only in one year, but in several years, our carbon footprint, making sure we use more renewable energy. We are very focused on gender balance. I have to tell you that we were extraordinarily proud a few days ago to receive the accolade of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for our outstanding management of diversity in India.
When you know what is the situation in India, you understand that we are a force of good there, like in many other places, like in most of other places, or maybe all other places. Next, please. This is the management of the group. Of course, in a group of 380,000 people, you can imagine there are several other people that are very important.
By the way, I systematically have a CEO webcast with the top 20,000 managers of the group. You have a line of 2,000 directors. You have a group, the global management group, who is made of a little bit more than 30 people. You have the Executive Committee, where you find Bhupender Singh, who used to be the CEO of Intelenet that we acquired two years ago. Bhupender is the Global Chief of Transformation.
He's in charge of knowledge services, R&D, marketing, Lean Six Sigma discipline, IT, and data security. He is an Indian citizen. You have Eric Dupuy, French citizen living in the U.S., who is the Global Chief of Business Development.
Miranda Collard, who is with the group for maybe 20 years, even if she is a young lady, as you can see, and who is the Global Chief Client Officer of the group. She's U.S. citizen. Agustin Grisanti, who is the Global Chief Operating Officer of the group, and he is citizen from Argentina and Spain.
Scott Klein, the President of our specialized service line, LanguageLine Solutions, the beautiful company. TLScontact, usually beautiful company, and that will come back to be a beautiful company when travel is going to resume, probably more in 2022 than 2021.
The recovery management and Health Advocate, as soon as we can consolidate it. Olivier Rigaudy, who is Deputy Chief Executive Officer and the Global CFO of the group, French. Scott is U.S. citizen. Leigh Ryan, who is our Chief Legal Officer, and who is a U.S. citizen. As you can see, an executive committee made of U.S. citizen, French, Indian, and LatAm leaders. Diverse.
Like our board, that is extraordinarily diverse. Next, please. 2021. We are end of February, so I can say that we have a reasonable good level of visibility. That's not 2021, excuse me. This is 2022. We maintain the drive that we gave a few years ago, saying that we would make EUR 7 billion in revenue by 2022, and we will have an EBITDA margin in 2022 of 14.5%.
You are going to see a little bit later that from 2020 to 2021 to 2022, '21 is way in the middle. Next, please. That's it for me. Now I'm going to give the floor to Olivier Rigaudy, the Deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer of the group.
Good evening, good morning for those who are in U.S., or good afternoon. Thank you to be there. I'm going to present you quickly the 2020 annual results, and we are going to start, of course, by the P&L summary. I'm sure you see the figure. I just wanted to highlight two things which seems to me important to notice.
First of all, as you can see, the like-for-like growth in 2020 is above the 2019 growth that was already achieved last year. We are at 11.6% versus 10.6% in 2019, showing this fantastic growth. Secondly, we delivered an EBITDA figure of EUR 735 million, which is only EUR 30 million less than last year, with a rate of 12.8%, which is a decrease in absolute term of less than 4%. This is something I just wanted to mention.
Of course, we are significantly above all guidance that we gave last July. Next slide, please. Yes. On this slide, I just wanted to classically explain to you what is the currency effect that we suffered this year. It was negative, mainly due to the Latin American currency, the Indian rupee, and to a less extent in the second part of the year, the US dollar.
I just wanted to highlight also that the like-for-like growth correspond to close to EUR 600 million that has been delivered again this year, knowing that, to make it simple, we lost more than EUR 100 million from TLS. This growth of EUR 600 million has been done with a negative figure coming from TLS, a little more than EUR 100 million. That's something that I just wanted to point out.
If we move to the next slide, again, this has been presented by Daniel a minute ago. I just wanted to stay a minute to show that we have been able to deliver good growth in January, February. Of course, March to end of May, we had some site shutdown, travel bans, and everything was totally disrupted.
The upturn in growth appeared starting in June. As you can see, there was an acceleration in Q3, as you remember, and we absolutely explode in Q4. Just to give you the figure, in Q1, we were at +6.2%, including the last 15 days of March that were negative. In Q2, a +3.8%. In Q3, we went to 12.3%, and in Q4, as you know, 23.3%. That's just to give you the pattern of the year, and this is, of course, promising for the beginning of 2021.
If we move now to the next slide. This is a classical slide that you know, but I just wanted to stop on it just to show how this group has changed over this year. Of course, the global accounts are now representing 50% of the group revenue, meaning that the global accounts are accounts in which we are serving for at least two country, maybe significantly more for other.
What we call the e-client are now more than 25% of our revenue, with the top first 250 clients. It shows how much the group has changed over the year. Of course, 90% of these clients were served from home solution at the height of the crisis.
When you look what happened, of course, from pay TV and telco versus 2013, but also when you look at the healthcare, the financial service, public sector, the media and entertainment are growing so fast, it show how much it match with what has been told to you about the different new clients that we were able to serve all along this year.
Next slide, please. I just wanted to stay a minute on this slide just to show what happened from H1- H2. Of course, you'll find on the link part of the slide, the full year figure. You'll find the EUR 764 and EUR 735 this year, which is a decline of 100 basis points. If you look in detail, all of it is coming from the first half.
The first half, you saw that we moved from 12.8- 9.5 while we were able to deliver the same level of profitability in margin, in %, in H2. This is absolutely noticeable. Knowing that, in the meantime, and I'm coming on the right side of the slide, we have been able to do that while we have spent EUR 45 million to protect employees and deploy during the full crisis. It was roughly split H1, H2 the same way.
We experienced this EUR 45 million of cost to cover, to deploy the work-at-home across the world in this group for the full year. There are some positive stuff that's happening for our rent reduction and various government support measures, but they are still very minimal, while we have been also able to continue to follow our receivables and the write-down on receivables are only EUR 4 million.
What is the most important things to notice there is not only we have been able to deliver a good figure for the full year, but we have been able to deliver very good figure for the second part of the year while being obliged to cover some cost for the work at home deployment.
Plus, I'll come back later on that, plus the fact that TLS was totally down all along the year. If we move now to the following slide, it gives you the figure, by quarter and by region, versus last year, and also for the full year.
What is the most interesting things to be told there is that in this quarter, everything go green. The core service grew by 26%, and the Specialized Services, which was largely affected last quarter by TLS, start to come back to a positive figure with LLS.
I'll come back in a minute to that. Of course, you have noticed that CEMEA is delivering a fantastic figure. I'll come back later on that. What is interesting, too, is to see that India and Middle East came back on green.
Ibero-LATAM is continuing to deliver a good growth as it did all along the year. EWAP also delivered a good growth, even if we knew that some people were moving their business from Philippines to Colombia and had an impact on them.
Finally, on specialized service, TLS is still down between 70%-80% on each year. LLS has been able to swallow that and to deliver a fantastic growth, as you can imagine. Coming to the next slide, just to give you the margin by region and for the H2 that shows that everything went well.
The core service moved from 13.3%- 4.3% in terms of margin rate, which was absolutely massive. It came, on course from Ibero-LATAM, from CEMEA, that grew dramatically, not only in terms of volume, but also in terms of percentage. On the fact that India and Middle East, given the decision we took, came back to a very high level of profit, delivering close to 21% margin in H2 2020.
The specialized service is, of course, down, given what we experienced with TLS. The impact of the shutdown of TLS in margin is close to EUR 80 million this year, just to give you an idea. Finally, the group was able to deliver on H2 the same figures than last year. If we move much more in detail in each zone.
In EWAP, we are back on track on the growth in Q4 with close to 16% growth and 6% like-for-like growth for the full year. An EBITDA that is still affected by the impact of Philippines, by the very tight restriction of movement of Philippines. Back on track in U.K., in China, in Malaysia, and is promising for the future.
If we move now to the next slide, Ibero-LATAM, I would say little to say. They continue to experience a growth that is between 25% and 27%, even in Q4. This is absolutely amazing. While the EBITDA is also increasing in H2 versus last year. Everything is okay. Most of the people have moved to a work at home model, as mentioned earlier on, to serve numerous new contract with e-client, notably in FinTech.
The main drivers are, of course, Colombia, that start to be a big operation, Mexico, Portugal and Spain. You see that there is a sharp increase in recurring EBITDA in H2 from the prior year period. If we move now to Europe. You have a 50% increase like-for-like growth in Q4, meaning that we are going to deliver a 23% like-for-like growth for the full year.
The margin consequently grew dramatically in second half, from 10.4% to 13.3%, reaching close to EUR 100 million. Where does this come from? It's come from new contracts signed before the crisis and brisk sale operation.
Deployment of COVID, the support service government, notably in Netherlands, but also in France, in Germany and in other country. We saw that the improvement of the profitability in H2.
If we move now to India and Middle East, as I told you, back on growth in Q4 after a difficult period in the first half, which was, I would say, managed, because we decided to reduce domestic operations that was not sufficiently profitable. We had, of course, a lot of disruption linked to the COVID.
We are back on track in Q4, and we see that the margin in H2 are significantly improving, given the decisions that we took all along the year. Finally, Specialized Services. Of course, there is an impact of TLS.
As I told you have a decrease on a full year basis, which is less important than the decrease of the sales of TLS. We are back on growth in Q4, while the recurring EBITDA is, of course, a little down versus last year.
If we move now to the other part of the result, two things to tell. There is nothing new, in fact, from what you saw. You have the performance share plan and the other, which are mainly non-recurring, non-cash item. The other are mainly the write-down of the goodwill of the mainly linked to the French-speaking market that was done already in H1. Next slide, please.
Two words about what's happening below the operating profit. Below the operating profit, you have the financial results. In fact, you have a decrease of financial charges by EUR 10 million, which is mainly due to the fact that we have been able to manage properly the financial charges. Of course, we have less foreign exchange gain that we had last year. That explains the stability of this figure.
More surprisingly, maybe for you, is the income tax. Two things to be told there. There is a mix effect, which is linked to the fact that we experienced good results in country in which we have higher tax rate, more than last year, meaning that Colombia and Greece, we are doing well, while Philippines and Tunisia were less good than the previous year.
In the meantime, you have the effective tax rate, which is impacted by the impairment charge on goodwill. Without that, we are much more between 28 and 29. The net profit is at EUR 324, and we decided to propose to maintain the dividend at the same level. Just a word that I'm going to tell you about the cash flow, which is something on which we can be proud.
As you might remember, last year, was not fantastic in terms of working cap in cash flow. It impacted our cash flow. We decided to put a much more focus on that this year. Not only we have been able to reduce the CapEx to 4.4% of revenue, of which a significant part is coming from the switch from brick and mortar to work at home.
Also we have been able to, I would say, to pay specific attention to our receivables, despite the growth gross expenses we experienced, we have been able to release a lot of cash from our receivables that were trapped last year. We are able to deliver this year a cash flow that is close to EUR 500 million. If we move to the next slide. The next slide, sorry.
What is interesting is that in this year, we have been able to repay debt close to EUR 400 million, of course, it's before the Health Advocate acquisition that is going to happen next year, while continuing to invest. That's something that is interesting, that the group is now at a good level of debt
. If you take the pure debt, financial debt versus EBITDA, we are below two, and our credit rating has been confirmed last year by Standard & Poor's, firstly in April, but also after in November, when we announced the acquisition of Health Advocate.
That's where we are today. Final word on the debt. The cost of the debt is 1.4% versus 1.7% last year and is certainly going to continue to decrease in 2021. The average maturity of the debt is 4.2 years. We are using different source.
We are well protected against potential increase in rate. As you may know and you may remember, we have issued a bond last November to cover the acquisition of Health Advocate. That is in our pocket, if I may say, and we are ready to finance this acquisition. Lastly, dividend.
Dividend maintained in the absolute term as proposed by Daniel a minute ago by the board. It increase in payout ratio because the net result has declined, but it is mostly due to the non-cash charges that we experienced last year.
We move now to the outlook, as mentioned by Daniel a minute ago. We are announcing to the market that our like-for-like growth will be at least 9% in 2021, probably much more important in the first half than in second half.
We will deliver at least an EBITDA margin of 14%, and we hope to integrate Health Advocate during Q2 2021. That's what I wanted to let you know about the figure, and I'm now, like probably Daniel, open for questions that you may have or you might have. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question and make a contribution on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad and you'll be advised when to ask your question. If you'd like to ask a question on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. Our first question comes from the line of Ed Stanley from Morgan Stanley. Edward, go ahead with your question.
Thank you. Evening, both, and congratulations. It's quite a performance. I've got three questions, if I could. Firstly, what does your margin and growth guidance assume for the TLS recovery, or are you not really assuming anything for TLS recovery in that 9% like-for-like and 14% margin?
The second question, I've already had a few questions from investors about how much of your revenue in 2020 was linked to COVID contracts that may drop away in 2021, and what the duration of those COVID contracts are.
The third question, it looks like 20% or so of your CapEx came from ramping up work from home. I presume that EUR 49 million of cost to get work-from-home agents set up won't recur in 2021.
I'm just keen to know what you think your steady state CapEx to sales is for the business, and if you've had more thoughts on how many staff you think are staying at home long term, please.
I'm going to answer to the first two, and Olivier is going to answer to the CapEx. First, regarding TLS 2021, we are not expecting a great recovery of TLS in 2021. We think that the business travel and the travel in a general way is going to really pick up again around 2022.
What we have in 2021 is a conservative approach on TLS, on which we know we are going to less significantly less money than last year because we have trimmed the SG&A, but just in a way to keep the tool solid to operate and restart, because it's not going to last forever. I always say TLS is a super horse. It's not because it's sick for two weeks that we are not going to help the horse to recover. This is what we are doing.
We do not put any strong positive expectation in revenue or results in 2021. COVID. In 2020, somehow, we have a pretty balanced impact of the positive coming from the COVID services, U.K. and Europe mostly, with the negative that we got from TLS, the travel industry, and the hotel business.
In 2021, our COVID service continue to exist and will continue probably during the all first half to ramp down, probably during the second half. At the end of the day, it should not create any specific disturbance in Teleperformance trends, because, in fact, it's an effect of balance. When we are going to have less COVID support, we are going to see the hotel business and the airline business picking up again.
If I-
Sorry.
Yeah, you hear me? I'm going to answer on the CapEx. Of course, you're right. We are not going to have the same level of CapEx on switching the workstation from brick and mortar to home.
There are still CapEx that will be paid for security and for some growth. On top of that, you have to remember that we are going to spend some CapEx for the GSS business that has been awarded to TLS, and that could explain a part of the growth.
As a whole, you are right. It probably is a level of CapEx in 2021 will be in % lower than it was in 2020. We are going to open less new station, brick and mortar station, and that could have an impact, yes.
For the one who don't know what is a GSS business.
So I'll-
Just excuse me.
Yeah.
The significant contract for visa service that we co-sign for the U.S. government on which we have a CapEx ahead of results. We are going to have probably significant CapEx in 2021 when we are going to have the activity much more in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, and so on.
Okay. Can I follow up very quickly? It looks like in your press release that you're adding in some workstations into existing sites. I just wonder, obviously, that is you forecasting that you will bring some of your staff back to the office.
I think in the past you've said you aim to keep maybe 40% or 50% of staff working at home. Is there an updated number for that proportion of staff that you expect to work from home long term?
Honestly, today, it's still a kind of moving situation. We have already set up the profile of the operation with some of our clients, not all. We are targeting to have more or less post-COVID, 50% brick and mortar and 50% work from remote. It can be 40/60 or 60/40. We have to be humble at this level today because the behavior of the people and their decision criteria can vary very significantly, and it depends also of the individuals who are at the helm of some of the companies.
Fair enough. Thank you very much.
All right. We have another question. Our next question comes from the line of Sylvia Barker from JPMorgan. Sylvia, go ahead with your question.
Thank you. I was just wondering, out of the 50% growth in CEMEA in Q4, could you just comment roughly how much of that was contracts kind of ramping up and how much was the incremental COVID work? First question. Secondly, on the COVID-related costs, they were basically the same in H1 and H2.
Just wondering, some of them related to move to working from home, will they now be a cost in the second half and will all these costs kind of fall away into 2021? Finally, just coming back to TLS. Did you make about EUR 30 million in 2020, if my maths are right? Do you now expect basically breakeven in 2021? Is that how we should understand your comments? Thank you.
I was not able to hear very well. Olivier, I'm going to let you answer.
Thank you. No, me too. For the growth that we had in CEMEA, a part of the growth is coming, of course, from contracts that have been ramped up before, notably in Greece, notably on the multilingual hub, and there are some COVID line too. It's a mix of those.
Daniel mentioned that the COVID government was roughly equal to what we lost. It's true on a full year. It might be a little different from quarter to another, of course, but that's part of the reason. That will continue later on.
The point, Olivier, to be fair, is that, yes, the COVID business magnifies the result of Europe when the problems in the hotel and aviation deserve the business in EWAP.
It's true. I'm not sure to have understood your second question, sorry. Can you repeat it and maybe to be a little far from your microphone, please?
Sure.
I'm sorry?
The second question is on the COVID costs, so that EUR 35 million. Basically it's split evenly in H1 and H2. Just trying to understand if in H1 that was mainly related to working from home setups, what are the costs in H2 related to? Should we assume that all that falls away in 2021? Thank you.
I'm really sorry, but I've hard time to understand what you said. The communication is really bad.
Yeah.
Maybe I would suggest you to send us your question by email. I'm trying to answer quickly after, but I've hard time to understand your second question and the third one linked to TLS, which I believe was linked to TLS, but I'm not sure to have understood the fundamental questions that you raised there. Can we move to another questions, please?
Yes. Our next question comes from the line of David Ruff from Bank of America. David, go ahead with your question.
Good evening, gentlemen. Just two questions from my side. Firstly, on new contracts. There was some very strong progress made in closing new contracts in 2Q and 3Q of 2020. I was hoping you could talk a bit about contract wins in the fourth quarter, if any, and also how you see the pipeline on potential new contract closes going into the first quarter. My second point is just on digital revenues or the former D.I.B.S. business on Intelenet. Can you perhaps talk about how much that is now contributing to overall revenue? Just to be clear, that is different from the e-client percentage of 26% that you presented. Just those two questions, please.
Okay. First, the pipeline. The whole business development activity in 2020 has been very strong. At the end of 2019 also, that's the reason why, because between the time we sign a contract and the time we start to really be at significant level, you typically have six to nine months.
What you see in 2020 is not just a result of what has been signed in 2020. It's partially for what has been signed in the first three months of the year, afterwards, it tend to manifest itself the year after.
The pipeline in 2021 is very strong. We do not have one ounce of anxiety on our pipeline. Now, regarding Intelenet, what is important to understand is that the policy of the Indian government, the confinement policy of the Indian government, has been extraordinarily tough in April and May.
We had a lot of our centers totally closed. In India, like in the Philippines, it's a little bit more difficult to have the employee working from home. We have a very significant percentage working from home, but you do not have the same level of home equipment in broadband, for example, that we may need.
Having said that, the India business, I would say, has been very positively contributing to the group. First, because beside the numbers, what we have acquired the day we acquired Intelenet was a very advanced digital business, and a very strong knowledge service activity. It's not by chance that we decided to promote the CEO of Intelenet to become the Global President of Business Transformation.
I can tell you that what the group has got from India is much more than the Indian results themselves, and probably part of the explanation of our great success in business development comes from the sophistication and the hybrid character of the solution that we propose to the client.
I got the question from Sylvia back here in written, so I can answer them. About the first one, there is a question related to the cost of COVID that are split roughly the same way between H1 and H2 that surprise a little.
This is not exactly comparable because in H1, you had some first cost linked to the panic for the first reaction, plus the cost of the mask, because we bought 7 million mask, I'm sure you remember, and we have all these cost incurred in the first half, while in the second part of the year, there was much more of the growth linked to the volume of the business that we have experienced. One thing, these costs are not away.
Some of them are continuing, because as you understand, there are still people, less, but still people working in your site, and we still continue to clean them on a very regular basis. We check them. There are some costs which are still there, and will continue to be there until the pandemic is finished. There will be, again, some cost in 2021, linked to this pandemic. Second question is about the-
Excuse me. Also, we are strengthening and spending quite a lot of money in data security. We are opening two data security center, one in Manila, one in Greece, to have full endpoint control seven days a week, 24/24. The strategy that we took in terms of data security and that is going on is more or less equivalent to what you would expect from the data security team of a bank.
Yeah, sure. Second question is about the result of TLS. You were betting on a result of EUR 45 million on a pre-COVID, and meaning a loss of EUR 25-30. This is not totally stupid. Our expectation for 2021 is, of course, we hope that this company will be able to break even.
Yes. At best.
At best.
All right. Our next question comes from the line of Suhasini Varanasi. Suhasini, go ahead with your question.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Two from me, please. If I think about the revenue guidance for 2021, at least at 9% like-for-like growth, if you use the exit rate in Q4, which is over 20% for first half, you can easily get double-digit growth if you even should put 0% growth for second half of the year.
Can you maybe talk us through what you're expecting in terms of second half expectations, drag from any contracts or just tougher comps, and why the growth should not be a little bit higher? Second one is on the cash flows. You did see some benefit from postponement of Social Security payments. Can you quantify what that was, please?
Yeah. I'm going to answer first question, Olivier, second. I love your question. I recognize the optimism and the positivism of the Indian culture. I'm from the old world, and I know something is that the world is not just heaven.
When I'm at the beginning of a year, I know that there will be always something bad that I don't know that will happen and that I better integrate, otherwise the market is going to kill us. Yes, there is a possibility to make more than 9% organically. 9% organically is the highest beginning of the year guidance that we have ever given. Let us see what's going to be the first half, and then we are going to discuss again.
Notably, the reference base for H2 this year is going to be higher. Last word on the cash flow, there are some costs that have been delayed, notably in U.K. and in U.S., social charges. The total amount is in the range of EUR 20 million-EUR 25 million. We hope to be able to swallow that in 2021 in term of cash flow.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
All right. Our next question comes from the line of Nicolas Tabor from Stifel. Nicolas, go ahead with your question.
Good evening. Can you hear me very well?
Yeah.
Great. Thank you very much for taking my question. The first one is on TLS. Can you give us an idea of what's the level of, let's say, revenue decline in Q4 so we understand if it's almost closed or if there's still some revenue stream there? Can you update us on the end of the bidding process for the GSS contract and what timing of revenue ramp-up we could expect, if that's possible? Coming back on the organic growth evolution into 2021.
As you're increasing your exposure to the e-economy, which seems to be growing very fast, isn't there a likelihood that if this trend continues, as your exposure to this fast-growing market expands, then you should also have a normative acceleration of the organic growth? You used to always show us this 8% average organic growth graph in the past years, I remember.
Is that something that should accelerate versus this historical normative?
TLS was not closed, and the team of TLS are doing a lot of work of process optimization and R&D right now. TLS is still losing money month per month. That's the point number one. The point number two, we already said it, we aim to have a balance. I mean, to be at zero in 2022. If we are more, welcome.
If we are a little bit less, it will not be a disaster. We know that we have a very solid business, clients who appreciate us, and they appreciate us even more today because they know that we remain open.
We continue to deliver the service while losing a significant amount of money. Yes, there is the GSS master contract that has been awarded to a pool of two companies, of which we are one of them. We know the value of this contract.
It's a multi-year contract. We do not expect to record any money, any revenue on this contract before 2022. On the growth, should it be more than 9%? Less than 9%? The fact that we are with the e-commerce goes very well. Yes, for sure. As long as the e-commerce company do not go bankrupt. If I remember well, there was a super e-commerce company that had an incredible value, few months ago. It was called WeWork.
How it has finished. Frankly speaking, we are reasonable people, and we do not disappoint, and we achieve better than the average of the market, and more or less, we achieve the double than the average of the market. We are not going to have a philosophical debate to know if it should be 9% or 10% or 11%. It doesn't make sense when you are in February.
Thank you very much.
All right. We have another question from the line of Daniel Hobden from Credit Suisse. Daniel, go ahead with your question.
Good evening, guys. Just one left from me, please. It's around the growth, but not around the number. It's around where the growth is coming from. Are you seeing structural growth opportunities coming through from new clients looking to outsource, or are you winning your work from your competitors?
A little bit of all. We are gaining share of wallet in many of our existing clients. We are winning new clients from some competitor, and we are also a kind of significant rebadging dynamic. What we call rebadging dynamic is taking business that was in-house and managing it. I really think that when you look at all the business analysts, they say that last year was either flat or very little growth of the market.
Obviously, we won market share and yes, we won new clients that were not usual outsourcers in the different regions. This help, but I'm unable here right now to quantify what is the percentage of each. When I say I'm unable, it's because I don't have the numbers just right in my mind.
Cool. Thank you.
I think we have a last question.
All right, our final question comes from the line of Laurent Gélébart from Exane. Laurent, go ahead with your question.
Good morning, Danielle. Good morning, Olivier. I have a couple of questions. The first one is, you are mentioning that you want to expand your addressable market to tap more broadly in the BPM market. Could you let us know where exactly you want to develop, and do you need M&A to enter those new segments?
That's the first question. The second question regards automation. Where do you stand with the roadmap of automation for the company, notably developing Intelenet solutions across the globe, and where do you stand in terms of also bots or rollouts for the company?
Okay. The addressable market the reason why we have an acquisition policy is exactly the reason why the U.S.A., at the beginning of the 20th century, had a very open immigration policy and melting pot policy. When we acquire a business, we want to acquire a business that is a complementary expertise from what we have.
Yes, the extension of the addressable market come from the fact that we present more sophisticated solutions to our clients. Clearly, and that we are much more proactive in the partnership with our clients.
The shortcut and the speed up, even if it has a cost, but it's more certainty comes also with the acquisition, like the one of Health Advocate. We plan to continue to make acquisition, in 2021 and 2022. First, to increase the percentage of the digital business within Teleperformance.
Second, in the BPO environment, you have what we call the customer experience management, but you have also the middle office and the back office support. I think it's something where Teleperformance is legitimate to progress.
There is a business in which we had no significant presence, I would say two years ago, where we have made significant inroads, and I think we are going to continue to make significant inroads, which is the trust and safety platform monitoring for the social media, for example.
In that case, it has been without acquisition, it's all homegrown. The second question, the automation and the bots, we follow that. In the monthly meeting of the management committee, we follow the growth region per region, vertical per vertical. It's going fast. All of our regions today have a Chief Knowledge Services, super mature.
We have center of excellence, of course, in India and in LATAM. Today, we have built a strong team in Europe. We have built a strong team, and we continue to strengthen it. In the U.S., we have a strong team in the Philippines.
Again, our vision of the future of the society and of the future of Teleperformance serving the society is the world is going to bring augmented services to the individuals, and these augmented services are going to be bionic. A mix of digital and human touch, empathy, emotional intelligence, we can call it different ways.
Thank you, Daniel. I think we are over now with the question. We are going to leave you and to leave you alone now. Hopefully, if you want to be in contact with the team tomorrow and the day after, we are of course available to answer all the questions you might have. All the documentation will be put on the site between tonight and Monday morning. Thank you.
Thank you for joining today's call.