Good evening, all of you. I'm going to start. I believe that I'm on live, but I'm not too sure. I'm happy to be with you tonight to comment on the 2022 first half results. This is going to be the agenda for today. Can we move to the next slide, please? It's a classic disclaimer, as you know. I'm not going to read it. You know it well. I'm going to cover two things. First, just to give you some first half highlight before we enter in detail in the first half result and after finishing with Outlook. Next slide, please.
Who we are, not to surprise you know, Teleperformance for a while now. We are still 420,000 people, mostly working at home. As you can see, 70% of people are still working at home from 88 countries, serving more than 1,000 clients in 170 markets with 265 languages. Teleperformance has not changed, and we continue to be there. Next slide. What for me the most important stuff to keep in mind for the first half? We have been able to deliver a sustained business earnings growth in first half 2022.
I'm sure that all of you have noticed that we had some global environment which was not simple, but we have been able to deliver sales that are growing by 15% on a reported basis, which made for a like-for-like growth of 5.5% despite high prior comps, notably on COVID line. I will be back on that. Meaning a 12.9% growth excluding non-recurring item, meaning excluding the non-COVID, the COVID line that we sold last year. More importantly, not only we grew on a significant part from non-COVID, but we increased the growth in second quarter versus the first quarter, which was already delivering good figures.
This is interesting because the exit rate is good, and it shows that the growth is not absolutely stopping at Teleperformance. Far from that. On top of that, not only we grew, but we have been able to deliver an improved margin by 30 basis points to 14.3% versus the 14% figures that we had. Those are the main steps that you have to keep in mind. What are for me the four key drivers that you have to keep in mind? First of all, it's of course, market structural digitalization. This is not so new. This is continuing, and this is going to continue for the future.
Whatever the recession, whatever the growth will be, whether the market will be good or bad, we do believe, and we are seeing that on a regular basis, that the market is going more digital, and it's really helping us. Secondly, and that's probably something that people forget, but you have to keep in mind that the portfolio of Teleperformance is very diversified and very robust. We are not selling one market, only unicorns or only retail or only stuff like that. We are covering all the spectrum of the economy, and of course, we are taking advantage of this global diversified portfolio.
Third point, which is important to notice also, is the fact that TLS has been able to come back to a certain level of growth, and we are going to see that in a minute. This is also helping the group largely to swallow all the difficulties that was ahead of us, notably the non-COVID line. Last but not least, we have been able to successfully integrate the two recent acquisitions that we've done. Last year for Health Advocate and at the end of last year too, for Senture. Next slide, please. Two things that I just wanted to mention also. We have been able to extend capacity with some 20 new sites in H1 in Europe, in Africa, in U.S., in Peru, in India.
Meaning that on top of the people that are working at home, we have been able to add 7,000 totally new workstations. It helps to drive the growth, and will help to drive the growth in the second half of the year. As I told you, 70% of the group employees are still working at home, and I don't see why it could change. Maybe I don't know, but I would not be surprised that at least for fall, maybe for winter, that the COVID will come back and will force us to keep people working at home. Last but not least, we continue to support our employees because we do believe that we cannot win without our employees.
We push for them, we help them, and we have been able to be certified in 64 countries today, four more than last year, representing more than 90% of the group workforce. That is the first half. Let's move now to next slide and the figure. Next slide, please. As I told you, like-for-like growth of 15% to close to EUR 4 billion. We are not far from EUR 4 billion in the first half, meaning a reported growth of 15%, growth made of 5.5% like-for-like revenue growth despite the loss of COVID line. I will come back in a minute to that.
A 12.9% like-for-like gain, excluding impact from COVID support contract. As you can see, either on the EBITDA level or EBITDA level, we have been able to improve our margin by 30 basis points, which is really really appreciable, and to drive profit up to a net profit of EUR 274 million at the end of this first half. Let's move now to a more precise analysis of our revenue growth analysis in the following slide, please. Of course, when you look to what happened in this first half, we have a currency effect that it's not a surprise of close to EUR 160 million, which is mostly made by coming from the US appreciation of the US dollar, EUR 110 million, and other currency.
If you take that, you have after a growth of 4.5% sorry, close to EUR 200 million, made of a decrease of COVID line by EUR 266 million, which is not a small amount, and an increase of like-for-like growth of EUR 462 million, which is a 12.9% that I just mentioned a minute ago. Out of this, on top of that, of course, there is a change in scope, half year for our Senture and for our Health Advocate, adding EUR 160 million to the total of the group. This is clearly the way we have been able.
Positive impact from currency, positive impact from change in scope and an organic growth that exceed largely the increase of the COVID lines that was waiting. Let me go to the next slide, which is probably the most interesting for me to explain what happened. Here, of course, we are showing on a two years and half period, the like-for-like growth including COVID line and the like-for-like growth excluding COVID line. Not a surprise, in 2022, there was a decrease in contribution of COVID line, as expected, probably much more in the second quarter than the first one, but clearly a decrease that was waiting.
Beyond that, and if you exclude this part, you see that over the period, the non-COVID growth is steady above 10% post health crisis prices and accelerating even in Q2 versus Q1. This is exactly what we were waiting for. We are able to continue to grow. This slide is showing not only the size of the growth of Teleperformance, but also the quality of the growth. Teleperformance is able to take advantage of the conjunctural growth when there is a COVID line that has to be set up, but also to take advantage of the structural growth that is coming from the deep division of the market and from the different client.
Of course, we do believe that in the second part of the year, COVID line should also decline. To be honest, I'm not too sure what will be the landscape. We might think that COVID line may start again, partially at least in Q3 and Q4 if the COVID is starting to develop again, notably in Europe. Next slide, please. This is exactly what I explained just before, just to show how the group is diversified, has a well-diversified client portfolio. We are not betting on one single or two single, I would say, sector. We are everywhere in this business, across the different business, across the world. We are able to capture any wave that can happen.
Let's say in Gaming, I'm not speaking of gambling, of course, but gaming in mind, but also Government, Financial Service, Healthcare, Telco, that is probably going to come back. While of course, the unicorns are going to be less growing in the future. Even that, you know, social media will continue to grow and we are here to capture this growth, whether it's a digital transformation in new economy or a traditional one that has to react to this to this global environment. Teleperformance can enjoy a large, diversified client portfolio that enable us to achieve and to grab the growth where it lies. Next slide, please.
I'm just here to give you much more detail about what happened over the Q2 and the H1 for like-for-like growth per region and also on reported. I'm going to stay on like-for-like. Even if I would be happy to point out the growth of H1 in specialized service reported, which is more than 50%. Of course, it's coming from the dollar, but not only. If you look much more to the Q2 like-for-like growth, you will discover that of course, not a surprise, IberoLatam is still growing at 17%, India close to 19%. And on top of that, specialized service has grown by 20% or 23%, close to 23%, specifically due to the recovery of TLScontact.
When it comes to EWAP and EMEA, of course, these two region are growing at high level, but have been suffering from the COVID line, where they lost significant part of their business, showing negative figure for the quarter for EMEA, which is not a surprise if the positive figure, largely positive figure if you exclude COVID line. Let's move now to the EBITDA by activity. Next slide, please. As you can see, we have gained 30 basis points in this first half. Because roughly margin have been maintained in core service roughly, even if it's a little decline, but globally it's due to the fact that COVID line have decreased while specialized services has increased dramatically over the period.
We are able to deliver 30 basis points in H1 which is exactly what we promised to the market for the full year, knowing that the first half is not always as easy to deliver. Of course, we had some help from the increase of the US dollar, but not dramatically. Let's move now on the following slide. We can analyze region by region. If you come to the English market, we see that as expected, we have a relevant momentum in the North American market, whether it's domestic and offshore. Of course, it has been driven by social media, online entertainment, travel, financial services that grew very fast.
In the meantime, as expected, there was a contribution of support contract in UK that has been reduced into the COVID support. This is not a surprise. That's the reason why the growth seems to be limited. If you take that out, the growth is significant, double digits, and the EBITDA has significantly grown over the period. Let's move to IberoLatam. Next slide, please. Very few things to say except that we are growing very fast in all the every country of the region, even if the basis of comparison was not so easy to beat. Of course, also you'll find there the most dynamic sector of Social Media, Online Entertainment, Healthcare, Financial Service, and always Travel that is back on track.
The growth is roughly the same, whether it's Q1 and Q2, around 17%, and the margin is a little down. It's mostly because we are ramping up a new real site and new contract to support this growth, and I do believe we are going to see a better margin in the second part of the year. Very good figure for me, IberoLatam. Let's move to CEMEA. Next slide, please. Here we have, of course, a big impact of the decrease of the COVID line, notably in Q2, which was more important in Q2 than in Q1. But if you strip that out, the growth is significant, high single digits, and good results with multinational client in the Travel, again, Automotive, Financial Service and Online Entertainment sector.
The margin is a little down, of course, in terms of breakeven of the operational impact of the reduction of the COVID line, but still delivering good margin at the global level. Let's move to the next slide, India, where I would say there is little to say. Growth is consistent quarter-over-quarter from Q1 to Q2, close to 19% both sides. Revenue and margin significantly increasing to 17.5%. Here we are harvesting, I would say the machine of the group to concentrate on international business and to make all the work that we did on the local domestic contract and on the other two. Good margin and again, good growth. Finally, specialized service. Next slide, please.
Of course, big growth linked to the TLS, but also LanguageLine Solutions continue to deliver good figures, whether it's margin or growth. We had to add also Health Advocate since July, so it's coming on the consolidation for the first time. Growing fast, good margin above 30% again. We see that continuing over the next months. If we move to the next slide, I will give you much more detail on the other part of the first half result. We have the amortization of intangible assets that are growing mainly under the US dollar appreciation, so no big impact.
You have two issues of increase also of performance share plans linked to the new share plans that we are issuing and some others that are limited to some specific operation, notably Nordics. The operating profit is growing by 10% at high level. Next slide, please. If we move back to the following stuff, you have the decrease of the results, financial results, which is due to two things. Of course, the non-cash impact of the operation that we did last June in issuing a new bond. We have been obliged to amortize previous non-amortized bonds that were not amortized over the period, plus the impact of the inflation in Turkey and in Argentina.
As a whole, the financial charges is roughly flat. Income tax has no major change. We finally have been able to deliver a net profit of EUR 274 million, growing at 7.5%, this first half. Next slide, which is interesting, please, is the cash flow. I think that's something which is very interesting to understand that the net free cash flow seems to be roughly equal to last year. In the meantime, we have been able to significantly increase our net capital expenditure by EUR 60 million, not only on new site as mentioned, but also in IT, in our IT system to be much more under control and the monitoring on the cloud service that has an impact on our CapEx.
We have been able also to generate EUR 40 million from the working cap, which is interesting. At the end of the day, we are able not only to restart our investment that was very low last year to a certain level, control our working capital and being able to deliver a very good cash flow for paying dividend and paying the debt. Very good performance in cash flow. I'm not going to comment the next slide, but let's go to the following one, which is more interesting, which is what happened on the debt. The debt is flat, but in the meantime, we have been able to pay the dividend, to buy back some shares and to be impacted by the FX.
We increased lease liability, and we have some more, some loans that are going to be repaid in second part of the year. I do expect that in the second part of the year, we'll be able to significantly reduce the debt, and you will see that in the second part of the year. As far as finance is concerned, we still have our BBB rating from Standard & Poor's. We have duration of our debt, and we have a level of debt that help us to be in a position to size any acquisition provided they are coming on stream. As a whole, if I come to the next slide, very good growth, very good margin and very good cash flow.
We are happy with this first half. Let's have a look at what will be the second part of the year on the next slide, please. We confirm totally our full year targets with the recurring like-for-like growth excluding COVID line, growing above 10%. Like-for-like growth including COVID line above 5%, 30 basis points increase in EBITDA margin and targeting selective acquisition, creating value for the group. Those are our targets for the full year. As you have understood, the world has changed. Globally, this is more complex to manage, but the group is very confident in the future to be able to continue to grow, to deliver good margin and cash flow in this global environment that is, I would say, uncertain.
I'm of course ready to take any questions that might occur from you right now.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one. Please unmute your phone and record your name clearly when prompted. Your name is required to introduce your question. To cancel your request, please press star two . One moment, please, for our incoming questions. Our first question comes from the line of Simon Lechipre from Stifel. Your line is now open.
Again, is there a question?
My apologies, speakers. Simon has disconnected. We will now proceed to the next question coming from the line of Oscar Val from JP Morgan. Your line is now open.
Yes. Good afternoon, Olivier.
Yes.
I have three questions. The first one is could you give some more color on why you've seen like-for-like accelerate ex-COVID in Q2 from Q1? Was it easier to hire people? Have you seen some more outsourcing from your customers? That's the first question. The second question is on CapEx. So CapEx was higher than last year. In the past, you've talked about CapEx stepping down post-COVID because you have work from home. Can you talk about the full year guidance for CapEx? Then the final question is just on FX. You've talked about FX, both translational but also transactional being a benefit in H1. Could you quantify that benefit?
Mm-hmm.
Just give some color on FX? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for your question. Whether Q2 is higher than Q1, I'm not sure it's because we have been able to hire better, you know, it's always the same story. When you have volumes that are coming, when you are getting client, it takes time. It's not happening from day one. I'm not sure you have a specific, I would say, reason of Q2 being above Q1, except that, as I told you, we have been able to attract the right clients. We have been able to develop our own commercial force on time. Of course, there are. We took advantage of some.
Probably there is some a factor that's coming from travel that helps, but not only, we have been able to get new client too. The structural digitization of this world, this new client, the ability to open the spectrum largely helps the growth. That is the reason. What is interesting is that business is there. Despite this global environment that is gloomy and if you read the paper, you can jump out of the window. We are there to be able to grab the market. Our CapEx, I believe we are going to land something around 3.5% of the sales, maybe 3.6%. It's difficult to tell. In CapEx, you have two stuff.
One is IT, and you have to put much more money on IT to secure everything and to develop a Cloud Campus solution across the world. The other is just to open new site in some specific region. I mentioned Peru. I mentioned also India, where we are putting much more volume, where there are still people wanting working on brick and mortar. That's the reason. There are two ways of speaking of CapEx. One is, of course, less cash flow at the time you invest. The other one is of course positive because it's creating much more value for the future.
I do believe this is the second part of this appreciation that has to be retained. We are here able to generate further sales not only for 2022, but also for 2023. That's where I believe we are going to land something between 3.6%-3.7%, maybe. Difficult to tell roughly, but roughly in this area. As far as FX is concerned, you have two issues. One is of course the translation of the high margin business, mostly LanguageLine Solutions and subsidiary from the US dollar to the euro. Given the higher margin, this helps a little, the translation stuff. But that's not the most important one.
The most important one, which is difficult also to assess, is to prepare 2023 because having a dollar equal to euro, as you can imagine, all this currency in Mexico, less in Mexico, but in, say, India, in Colombia, in Philippines that are decreasing versus dollar helps to increase your margin. While in the meantime, you have of course increasing wages. What I'm just telling is that it helps to develop the business. To quantify it precisely, I would have hard time to do it because most of the time it's a balance between increase in the sales and in the revenue. While you have some inflation costs that are coming on top of that on wages.
at least it help us to continue to have, I would say, solutions that are profitable for people that want to outsource. Let's put it this way.
Okay, that was very clear. Maybe just a quick technical follow-up to check on the last point. Do you hedge or what percentage do you hedge of your dollar revenue that has cost bases in emerging markets, for example?
As you can imagine, we have already started 2023 hedges. We are above 50%, of course, as we speak.
Okay. Thank you very much, Olivier.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Anvesh Agrawal from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Good evening, Olivier. Just got two questions. First, I mean, given the strong Q1 and strong Q2 really sort of ahead of the expectation, what's sort of holding you back from upgrading the guidance? Is it the usual prudence or you are sort of aware of the macro uncertainty and you're seeing something that's sort of not driving the upgrade? Then second is just for you to unpick on the margins point really. I mean, the DIBS margin declined 50 basis points. Our understanding is COVID is not particularly very higher margin business than the core. So just trying to understand why the margins have declined and do you see this dynamic playing out in the second half again as the COVID continues to wind down?
Two things. Guidance, I don't know if you know us very well, but we are careful guys. We are not there to announce figures or not to deliver them. We'll see what we will do later on. So far we are staying on what we said to the market and there is no reason to change. Of course, the global environment is complex. As I told you, we have significant visibility. Of course, we don't know what will be. As always, we don't know what will be the volume in the last quarter, depending on our client. We are reasonably confident that we are going to deliver a good year. That's what I can tell you. The margin of COVID, two things. First of all, you have to understand the margin glo...
The COVID margin globally versus UK and versus Europe. As a whole, they are also different globally, they are also different from the core service. What has an impact, and I mentioned it earlier on, is the size of the business, so the operational gearing. If you look at that we have lost roughly EUR 300 million from this business, of course it has an impact on the margin. Of course we gain all those stuff, but that's the reason. What will be the second part of the year? Difficult to tell. Of course, there are still EUR 300 million to swallow in the second part of the year, roughly. I'm not too sure we are not going to be able to deliver some COVID business in the second part of the year.
That's too early to tell. It might help a little the margin. As you have seen, we have been able to deliver good margin in U.S., with the good margin in India, right? Of course, the specialized service and, of course, we are growing very fast in LATAM. And this is when you ramp up so many clients, so many sites, it has an impact on your margin. That's what I can tell you.
Maybe just to sort of brief follow-up. Is it fair to assume that if you exclude the impact from the unwind of the COVID related revenue and the impact on the margins, your margin in DIBS would be sort of higher year-on-year as well?
Yeah, no, margin will be up. If you, of course, have understood that the impact of the TLS's recovery is significant. We are growing everywhere. A little, of course. I would prefer to make this distinction at the end of the yea r, because the first half is always difficult to judge because you have classically ramping up that is starting in Q1 and Q2, and you take advantage of the growth in the Q3 and Q4. As a whole, there is no decrease of the margin by far in core service as a whole.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Antonin Baudry from HSBC. Your line is now open.
Hi. Good morning. Good evening, Olivier. This is Antonin from HSBC.
Hi.
Would it be possible to have more details on what you are preparing if we have a downturn in one or two quarters or even a recession, let's say? We speak more and more about recession in 2023. Did you prepare something in terms of contract, in terms of effort, in terms of existing clients versus new clients, how to chase new clients? What do you do at your level in the group?
No. First of all, as you know us, we are also very careful on cost. There is no doubt on that, and it's not changing. In the meantime, we have to have the right people and the right team to seize the advantage of new growing business. As always, you have to select your clients. Clearly, even in recession, there are people that are going to be wanting to outsource. Some of them wanting to offshore. Some of them will ask for more sales. I'm not sure recession is going. I'm quite sure that the recession, to a certain extent, create business. Create business because people have to react. All the job is just to be prepared.
Debt collection is going to increase, or there are stuffs that are going to increase. Even in this troubled time, Teleperformance can grab business. I cannot give you figures, and I cannot give you precise name. What I can tell you, we are prepared to. We have tightened the belt significantly early on in the group. Also to be able to seize any opportunities that might come linked to this global en vironment, the gloomy environment that is happening, that is painted by the market, by the press, by the analyst, and by everybody.
Thank you. Perhaps a quick follow-up. Will it possible to have the split of your growth between the new clients and existing clients, please? Thank you.
I must say, I don't have the figure right now. I should have prepared that. Frankly, from what I know, we are still very new client-oriented. More than 70%, close to 80%. We are able new clients or new LOBs, let's put it this way, line of business. We are able to get new clients. As always, the growth of farming much more is much more happening in the second part of the years than in the first part. We see that also at the end of the year. We have been able to grab new clients, clearly.
Thank you, Olivier.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Patrick Jousseaume from Société Générale. Your line is now open.
Can you hear me, Olivier?
Very well.
Okay, perfect. My question is about the bottom of the P&L with amortization of intangible performance share plan, also the tax rate. Could you guide us on that? It seems that the market was expecting net profit to be a bit higher than it was or in H1, and I guess that it might have come from this item. Could you be a bit more precise on what we should model over the full year for these three items, please?
It should be roughly double what it is in terms of. I'll give you the precise figure, but something like that is going to be double next year. What is difficult to predict is the impact of the US dollar on the amortization. You have EUR 70 million in the first half. It should be in the range of EUR 140 million-EUR 150 million for the year. It's my guess today. Of course, it might change with the US dollar. For the plan, it's going to be double what it is, close to double what was the figure for the first half.
Tax rate should be up also 100 basis points as it has been on first half?
I don't know. Difficult to tell, but it's going to be between 28% and 29%. Let's take 28%, 28.5%. Let's keep this global figure as stable for the full year, yes. The problem is that we are-
Yeah.
We are not losing money. We are being taxed.
Okay, thank you for all these, answers.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Simon Lechipre from Stifel. Your line is now open.
Oh, you are back.
Yeah. Can you hear me now?
Yeah, very well.
Okay. Good evening. Simon from Stifel. Two questions, please. First of all, as a follow-up on the macro environment, when you discuss with your clients across the different end markets, do you see any kind of cautiousness or let's say any change in behavior due to the macro uncertainties? Secondly, on inflation, could you give us an update on how you have been managing inflation so far? Perhaps if you could give us an update on the pricing effect in your top line in H1, and how does it compare to the average labor cost inflation you are experiencing? Thank you.
Complex question. Thank you to have raised this point because it's of course made of plenty of stuff. As far as clients are concerned, there are people who are probably much more, I would say, worried than others. Not surprised. You can read the Wall Street Journal or whatever. As a whole, we have not seen any collapse, let's put it this way. We could have seen softness in some clients, but some growth in others, and new clients coming that is significantly higher than expected. The pipeline seems to be more than correct, so we are not really afraid. Of course, there are ups and downs, and you know, we are used to live with that. There is no general decrease.
It might happen tomorrow, but today we are not seeing that by far. Secondly, on the inflation. What we have done is that we start to follow that very precisely, to measure it, to follow all the contract where we have increased price, which was essentially linked to increase in salary. You know, to a certain extent, and not to a certain extent, we are happy to increase salaries. There is no need and no problem with that. No. The client cannot say, "I'm increasing my salary in my own organization," and denying to increase the price where we are increasing your salary in an outsourced organization. We are following that. We are tracking that by contract.
We have, I would say, a master plan that help us to follow precisely country by country, region by region, where we are in terms of increase of price, and we follow the margin like maniacs. I can tell you that of course it depends a lot from country to other. You have more inflation in some country, less than others. On top of that, you have currencies that are slipping more than others. It's difficult to tell you what is exactly whether we are to conduct an analysis between price, volume and FX. What I can tell you, because we are following that on a volume basis, because we are following the paid production hour, we are exactly in line between price and volume.
We have no discrepancy between volume and price. We are following that precisely just to keep our margin safe.
Okay, thank you. That's, that helps with.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Karl Green from RBC. Your line is now open.
Yeah. Thank you very much. Good evening. I've just got three questions as well. Firstly, just in terms of your recommitment in the outlook to pursuing value-added M&A, just if you can make any comments about the shape of the M&A pipeline versus how it stood six months ago. The second question just goes back to the rapid improvements in TLScontact, just in terms of what proportion of the Q2 organic growth uplift was represented by TLScontact. I'm assuming it's a very large proportion, but just some sort of color there would be helpful. Then the final question, just a technical one, just on the net finance charge. I think you mentioned that there was the refi cost of the June bond refinancing. Can you just indicate-
I understand.
What that was in absolute terms, please?
The first question was on M&A.
M&A pipeline. Sorry.
M&A pipeline. M&A pipeline, you know, there are some pipelines as always. I do believe that the global environment is going to change and probably to make the story different than it was over the last 18 months, where money was floating up and people were ready to buy stuff at 20x the EBITDA figure. Multiples of that scaling up to our capacity, let's put it this way. It should help. Of course, we are not going to. You know, there are of course financial criteria on the acquisition, whether in terms of growth, in terms of multiple, in terms of diluting our P&L. That has not changed. Of course, the global environment should help to a certain extent. We'll see what will happen.
When you have a quality assets, people are waiting for good price. This is something that is going to continue. In terms of strategic stuff, because the main story is there. Are we going to buy something that is going to be supporting? We are not going to buy the same stuff that we are doing. There is no interest to buy the same stuff that we are already having. Of course, adding new stuff, whether it's by vertical, whether on specific market, whether on specific geography, that could be interesting. Could happen. It's less not so easy or specific verticals or specific product. In terms of specialized service, of course, we are looking to different stuff, whether it's niche, whether it's a large business.
We probably will continue to focus on the US and European market, just to be clear. That is clearly for tomorrow. There are some stuff in the pipeline. I cannot comment more. It's not because you have something in pipeline that you have been doing acquisition. I'm well paid to know that. But of course, we are looking to different opportunities. I cannot, of course, commit on that. About TLScontact, what I can tell about TLScontact. TLScontact, you know, we have two legs. One is the Schengen area, the other one being the UK, the UK contract. In fact, we are in the UKVI, in UK business, we are above what we were in 2019.
Surprisingly, people are traveling a lot, and we have been able to grab that, as far as visa is concerned. Clearly this is working well. I do believe that this is going to continue at least until the end of the summer. We'll see what will be the story after. This is something that is good. On the Schengen area, which was mainly France, but not only Germany, there was also country, but the big part was France. Clearly, we are not at the level that we were before, because of China. Chinese people are not traveling to Paris or to Europe. This is not happening as we speak.
In the meantime, to a certain extent, TLS, I would say, in brackets, took advantage of this crisis to be much more fit. People are much more organized, company is much more digitalized and being able to grab much more business. No, not grab much more business, but being much more profitable on the business that we got. That is the reason why. I do believe that to a certain extent, TLS is stronger than it was before the crisis. I hope the Chinese would come back. This is too early to tell, but that's something clear.
On the financial side, you have EUR 3 million-EUR 4 million that are coming from the fact that, you know, when you issue bond, you have a premium and you amortize the premium over the length of the bonds. As we have paid back a significant part of the bond that was maturing in 2024 and 2025, we have amortized quicker these charges that was supposed to be amortized over the length of the bond. That's it.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
At this time, speakers, we don't have any questions in the queue. You may proceed.
If there is no more question, I'm happy to wish you a very good evening. For those who are taking holiday, which are probably numerous of you, number of you next week, I wish you happy holiday and we'll meet together at any time. Of course, the team is ready. Quy, Julien, and all the IR team is ready to answer all the questions you might have. I will be delighted to meet you in the roadshow that are going to come back to end of August, early September. Thank you so much.