Good evening. Good evening, all of you, and welcome to this webinar, where we're going to explain to you the turnover for the first quarter. I remind you how it's going to happen. We've got a webinar which will be in French and a webinar at the same time, simultaneously, in English for our English-speaking investors. A few rules. You can ask questions on the Questions tab, or you can chat between you on the chat area of the platform for the webinar. This presentation will last about 25 minutes, so don't hesitate to put in your questions as soon as you're ready to do so. We're going to respect one hour maximum for this webinar. You undoubtedly received the letter to shareholders number one, two, three, where we give a full breakdown of the quarter's results. First of all, a word about our workforce.
We had a very good first quarter of 2026 because, as you saw in our letter to shareholders, turnover is up. The growth of our turnover is greater than the very modest growth in our headcount, which is up 1.4%. As we'll see later on, we'll see that the turnover is much higher than that. We continue to respect that ratio that we keep an eye on all the time in the medium and long term. Analyzing these figures, we've been able to identify a number of positions in the group which are doubled up because of early recruitments made in preparation of certain departures. In terms of business activity, as you'll see in the letter, 17 of our 21 subsidiaries are in growth. That's a very good sign. In particular, six of them had growth over 10% in turnover, which is really important.
That's Mecafer, Domac, Isocel, Aello, Axelair, and Distrilabo. You see that these companies all work in different fields in retail, construction industry, and the water cycle. In the area of heat pumps, there's a positive trend both in France and Europe. We're mostly involved in the market in France, and you see this with Isocel, who supply heat pump manufacturers in France, and the figures for Thermador, who supply heat pump accessories, who have seen their turnover down over recent months, but has now come to a more stable position over December and the first quarter. That's very important for Thermador and its range of products, accessories for the heat pump market, slightly in growth. New builds of new homes. We've had some exciting announcements from the French government. They intend to build up to 400,000 housing units per year by 2030.
Just as a reminder, in France in 2025, we only built 275,000, so there's quite a gap. Even if that's good news, we've got no signs for the moment of that coming into practice. In the retail sector, we've got four major players dominating this market. They represent more than 80% of the market overall. There's a trend that we've seen and that's confirmed in those players is that they're investing in e-commerce, but also they're taking an interest in pro products, so selling to trade, which could be beneficial to us in the future for those product ranges, because we already have pro ranges, of course, already. In industry, a similar trend to what we saw at the end of last year, so a positive trend.
You'll see in the letter one, two, three, all the companies from Sferaco downwards are in growth, and that reflects good performance of those companies on that sector and even gains in market share. In terms of milestones, we've got price impact. The price impact remains negative at -1.4%, which is a bit of a surprise because we were expecting to move into positive territory fairly quickly this year. We'll see that will probably come true by the end of this year. Heavy rainfall, so very rainy weather, which has had a negative impact for our watering markets, Jetly and Odrea, but also for our sometimes direct customers in the public works sector. As you can imagine, when we have too much rainwater, it's very difficult to work on a public works project. That has impacted DPI and Jetly.
It's difficult to ignore the geopolitical situation at the moment for this first part of this year. No impact on our turnover for the moment from this war in the Middle East. We have signed transport contracts for 2026. The impact is under control. However, there have been major increases in prices for products such as polyethylene and PVC, and that, of course, affects DPI, who deliver directly to the sites. Though we're receiving some alerts from the manufacturers of polyethylene and PVC of a big impact and even possible shortages. We announced at the AGM separation of the roles of Chairman and CEO, and the day after that meeting, it was decided at the board meeting of the A pril 8th to name Olivier de la Clergerie as Chairman and myself as CEO. Patricia, over to you.
Just a mention of the AGM. It took place on the April 7th, and 205 shareholders joined us at the meeting. We had 1,000 voters and 78.9% of voting rights were accounted for. Thank you to all of you for accompanying us in this event. The resolutions were voted between 88%-99.99%. A very good result in terms of governance. The resolutions were well accepted. The closest one was the distribution of dividends, which was only 88% in favor. There was also Resolution 21 which was rejected, but that was in line with the advice of the board of directors. I'm going to move on to our results. Guillaume started talking about a number of milestones. This allows us to link up the news, if you like, with the figures for the first quarter. We've had a decline in the retail market at -1.2%.
On the one hand, a drop in turnover with Odrea in France and Spain, which was partially and mostly compensated for by Mecafer and Domac and their great performance in the first quarter. In terms of the pro channel, that covers industry, water cycle, and construction, of course. In those activities, we had the help of two new subsidiaries, of course, in C2AI and Quilinox, and which they arrived at their expected level, should we say, of turnover. As was more or less the case for the last part of 2025, because we'd already integrated it at that point. Concerning turnover, we've got industry where it's up, and construction which is up, and that's commented on by Guillaume already. 5.4% increase on the pro channel up. I guess an overall increase in 9.6% over the quarter and + 4.2% to constant scope.
That's due to good volumes and good performance from our subsidiaries. In terms of the profitability level for Axelair, working ventilation, which was created in 2014 and has had losses over the last 11 years, and they've seen growth in their turnover. There were some gains also in 2025. This continued at the beginning of 2026, and we see that they're over the break-even position for the period January to March, which is worth noting. Financial structure. We have, of course, historically a solid financial structure. A new record in terms of cash. We have EUR 105 million. Then in terms of debt, we've got EUR 40.2 million of debt. That's all debts with fixed rates and over seven years. We have no new loans in that area. It gives a positive net situation, taking off the EUR 90.3 million paid on April 17th.
We've got a EUR 45.6 million net positive cash position that allows us to have flexibility in terms of our investments from our own funds and maintain our independence and be able to look at external growth opportunities. That's, of course, we will look carefully at all options. I'm going to have a word about stock, because these are questions we've had in the past. In our meeting in Paris, we had a meeting of our shareholders after the AGM in Lyon, and a number of shareholders were worried about our stock levels. The stock represents 176 days. We'd already moved down from the level of December. We feel that is compatible with our activities. We had a bit of a problem with the Chinese New Year, and we see that our subsidiaries are turning to purchase.
That allows us to continue to supply our customers satisfactorily. I talked about funding from our own funds, from our own equity. We've got EUR 12.3 million of forecast investments. With EUR 6 million for the property part, and there are two major projects which concern Sferaco. Automation and extension over 2026, 2027. That's actually started. Of course, the automation of the logistics side, that will be going ahead over 2026, 2027. For the other project, which contains Distrilabo in Alsace. This subsidiary, we've just signed the first contracts for the new building for them. We're pretty sure now that'll be delayed to 2027. It gives us an investment forecast, readjusted forecast of EUR 9.5 million. That all allows us to continue to invest from our own equity.
Digitalization will continue within the group with electronic invoicing as well, and digitalization in the different companies of the group. Concerning the value of the share price, the return on reinvested dividends for the Thermador Groupe share, it's a pretty solid performance. This graph runs from 2016 to 2026, dates from last Friday, and we're very close to the performance of the CAC 40 index, and that confirms that it's a long-term share investment, and it reflects our dividend policy because we continue to issue dividends and that dividend rate has never gone down.
Of course, we are sensitive to short-term events, and you know that the geopolitical situation has a big impact on the stock exchange in general. For Thermador Groupe in particular, we're not spared by the effects of the uncontrolled declarations of the American president.
You saw on Friday afternoon a very strong growth on the stock exchange, and a drop again today after the opening and closing of the Strait of Hormuz.
If you remove the cash from the company, of course, that reduces the price of the share. The prospects are obviously very dependent on the geopolitical situation, and I want to really insist on that point because the questions we get from you is what is the impact of this war in the Middle East on the group in terms of new homes? We see there's a risk of an increase in mortgage rates, of interest rates in general. If this happens, obviously, that will affect mortgage rates and it could well bring an early end to this beginning of the promising cycle in the new homes, new builds that we've seen over recent months.
Having looked now at energy renovation, we're seeing the first questions coming in. The government, very encouraging announcements from the government, but I'd like to measure those a little, this compared to the geopolitical situation. The public authorities want to double the amount dedicated to electrification in France, so replacing fossil energies by electrical energy by 2030. When you ask the question of how this doubling is going to happen, we know that that won't come from the state's budget because there is no money available, and therefore all eyes turn to the energy saving certificates, the CEE, financed by the energy providers. Okay, that works really well when energy is inexpensive. At the moment, as you know, energy prices are going up, and in particular, the price of petrol at the pump.
This funding from the energy saving certificates may well be compromised by this increase in energy prices, fossil energy prices in the medium to long term. Good intentions from the public authorities, but beware in terms of the real impacts that they will have. Because when financing will have to be found outside of the state's budget, the public authorities were very precise with this announcement, which obviously caused good news for us because the prime minister wanted us to install in new and non-new buildings, 1 million heat pumps per year by 2030. That is a multiple of six of where we are today. That could, of course, benefit groups like Thermador, because the equipment dedicated to heat pumps in terms of value are greater than the accessories that we supply to the gas boiler market. It would be beneficial for us.
There's another major announcement was that the end of boiler installation is due at the end of 2026, so a very short timeline, and that includes hybrid, so gas, but also hybrid by the end of the year. No more boilers to be installed in new buildings. To be replaced, of course, by heat pumps. I've already answered the question that we've had on the chat. These of course are. They're promising, but there are obviously question marks about whether they're achievable. The pro markets that we have for February don't indicate any major improvements. We're waiting for the figures for March. We don't have those yet. We'll have those this week. For the moment, it's stable in terms of our B2B customers, for the wholesalers, for new works, and plumbing accessories. We keep an eye, of course, on the PMI index.
You know this index because when they are above 50, that shows that the market is growing from one month to the next. On the left-hand side is the curve for French and on the right for Europe. We see there's been very little impact of this geopolitical crisis on industrial activity in France and in Europe. It's obviously very likely that this impact will be very marked if the crisis continues, and in particular for industries like chemical and petroleum industry, to whom, of course, we sell. A much less favorable market environment, because we are attempting to gain market share, and if the market contracts, it's more difficult to increase turnover mechanically. In retail, no indication of a restart of this market.
In spite of the opportunities that were taken up by Domac and Mecafer at the beginning of the year, no real prospects because budgets dedicated to energy renovation are. Sorry, French people's disposable income is decreasing, so difficult for it to imagine people investing in the DIY market. A negative tendency for March, sorry, for April, which of course we don't see that yet on these results. We're hoping that will turn around a bit. In terms of e-commerce, talking about the different players on the market, you've got the pure players like Amazon, who stock and deliver equipment. Also on the marketplaces, in particular with one that has a really strategic position in France is called Leroy Merlin. Castorama, one of its competitors, is also showing being very active on that market.
Also, there's an opportunity for us to sell directly to the end user, especially on after-sale service. Of course, with always the objective of making those products last longer. That's a good option. I would like to emphasize that in France, and it's not very good for this market. The saving, the tendency towards saving is on the up, which is in line with the anxiety rate in France. In the water cycle, we've appointed Alexandra Statulat, who is currently Administrative Director at Odrea, and will progressively take over the management of DPI. She'll be there in September. She's already there part-time, but she'll be there full-time from September until the end of 2027, and that's the date at which Grégory Urpi, according to the agreements we had together, he'll be leaving at the end of 2027. DPI's sales departments are also being restructured.
In particular, we're working on the water cycle for a range of solutions in the gray water, the reuse of gray water, and the processing of water, the treatment of water. We joined a new association which is called AFREG. That's the French Alliance for Gray Water Recycling, and it's a grouping of companies that are working on these solutions. You know that water, even though it may not be the case of late, it will become rare and expensive in Europe, and it's a market that we're working on for the future. Internationally, a strategic appointment in progress. We're looking for a full-time employee to identify opportunities for acquisitions. That answers one of the questions that was asked. This is a question we haven't identified any opportunity that we can talk about to you at the moment.
Of course, we're keeping an eye on different options, but of course, as usual, we will only start talking about those options when a letter of intent has been signed, and that's not the case today. We are having discussions in France and with a company in France, but that's not far along enough to be able to talk to you about that today either. The role of this new employee will be to look at all the opportunities right across Europe, which correspond to the strategy, i.e., distribution in industry, but also in the water cycle, make contacts, keep in contact with the directors of those companies, the owners of the companies, and be able to contact them quickly if those companies became available on the market.
The price impact for 2026, it's clear that this impact will increase fairly quickly because we've already received notification of price increases from our suppliers, and we've already talked to our customers about those increases in prices, where we're expecting that to come into force in June 2026. We're feeling that the price effect at the moment, which is - 1.4% as we saw earlier on, but we're expecting that to be above 2% on average for 2026. To close, just a few words of optimism because we're looking at the last slide, which is organic growth by quarter over a period of about five years. We have moved out of this negative phase that you see over a period of almost two years. We have to modulate, of course, that with the possibilities of the current crisis.
If that geopolitical event that we're currently expecting, the crisis in the Middle East, we'll probably see that curve continuing in the upward direction. So now we've finished with our presentation, which gives us some time to answer your questions. I've already answered to the question about the government measures on heat pumps, but beware of the financing. We've also had a word from Rodolphe who's understood why the public authorities hadn't taken more interest in the construction of new building in the last two years, which I have no answer to that because, of course, there's a real need for it in France and the problems are ahead of us now. We've got behind in terms of capacities. Do you have any acquisition targets, especially outside France? Yes, we do.
Projects that are far enough along for us to be able to talk to you about it, well, no. What was the increase in volumes in Q1? They're obviously bigger in terms of volume because there was, of course, a negative price impact of -1.4%.
A bit of a problem with the English part, but I have an English question. This is a French question, sorry. In terms of electronic invoicing, will you see any savings? We're starting to work on productivity gains, where we'll be able to receive invoices from our suppliers electronically. We're hoping to get some productivity gains, and we're going to work on that. Another element is that any invoice is sent via platform, and that, of course, implies a cost.
We'd already worked a lot on sending our invoices via email and so forth for dematerialized invoicing, paperless invoicing. We're already fairly well along the way for that.
Victor wants to know what percentage of turnover is gained from heat pumps. We don't actually give that figure. We're sure that some of our competitors will be interested in this information, so we don't talk about it. We've got some detail per subsidiary. As I said earlier on, the variations that you may be seeing in our subsidiary, Isocel or Thermador, positive variation but negative in the past, would suggest that there is a positive impact on the heat pump market. There were two key events which helped Thermador, the increase in the sales of accessories for heat pumps but also the increase in sales of solar thermal panels.
The decline in the turnover for Thermador was a lack of funding. I can't give you any more precise figures than that, because I don't want to provide too much data for our competitors, which is this internal data. Do you mix conventional commerce and e-commerce? Yes. In Aello, for example, there's a very substantial part of turnover from an e-commerce platform.
It's not pure e-commerce, it's an actual order placing platform.
It's open to professionals. These technical solutions are progressively being rolled out throughout the group. The percentages of turnover from e-commerce platforms remains confidential too. The sales that we make directly to users via e-commerce platforms are really small in terms of percentage of turnover because it primarily concerns only after sales services sales. We have some sales in DIY superstores for SAV products.
There's a question about Axelair saying that they'd arrived at their break-even point. The question is for Thermacome and DPI, when are we going to get into positive territory with them? We've seen that DPI and Thermacome are losing money. It's important to understand that we've only just acquired, and there's an amortization of the goodwill. The customer relation to be exact. That means that DPI, without that amortization, was profitable, and Thermacome is the same case, made them very close to the break-even point. The idea is it's not an operating loss, it's just we've got the amortizations.
Why do we do that? It's to avoid having to depreciate assets a few years after the acquisition. It's a use of the customer relations, which we call goodwill.
Jean-Pierre asked a question about managerial transition at DPI. Maybe I didn't express it properly.
The departure of Grégory Urpi is planned for the end of 2027. These two will be working together from September. At the end of 2027 is exactly five years after the acquisition, as planned. It was planned that Grégory should leave at the end of 2027. Just to be precise for Jean-Pierre. We're finished with your questions.
No questions on the English side.
Sorry about the technical problem that we had on the English side.
The replay is in English. You won't be able to ask any questions, of course. Don't hesitate to ask us any of your questions by email.
Another question.
It's about Odrea and the results of Odrea and relating to its trend to a decline in turnover. +4% for Q1 2006.
That's a pretty brutal question. Shouldn't you imagine restructuring the subsidiary to take into account the persistent decline in turnover? It's a bit brutal. That would indicate reducing headcount. It's true that the budget for Odrea is not positive for 2026. We're likely to see a decline in turnover and a decline in profitability. We're working on it for recovery at the beginning of 2027 through investments in the distribution channels other than the traditional DIY channels.
There's also the Spanish side. Work started on that last year, and it continues this year to be able to find new developments, new customers.
Of course that takes time because it's referencing with different stores. They're negotiated on an annual basis, of course. It will take time. Romain, you're making things look worse than they are. You're talking about the decline in turnover for Odrea.
Odrea did manage to maintain its profitability, and that's why I want to reassure you for 2026. The manager of Odrea has no plan for loss and profit for 2026. We're working with certain customers at the moment, and we're going to be putting in place certain measures towards the recovery of Odrea, but certainly no plan for restructuring at Odrea. You know that in Thermador Groupe, we have a long-term vision, and that's why we're resistant during difficult times like we're experiencing at the moment. Are there any other questions? We're pretty satisfied with this first quarter because it's a long time that we haven't been able to announce a net increase in turnover and so many companies with growth around 6% with over 10%.
We remain cautious about the future and the short, medium, and short term because of the geopolitical situation will certainly have an impact in France and in the world, in Europe, sorry. Many companies like us are going to suffer, certainly, from all this instability in the world.
It's obviously an advantage for us to have a wide range of different activities. You see that our subsidiaries continue to resist. We hear people saying, "Well, you've lost turnover. You keep your employees in place." We know how valuable our brands are, and that's why we invest in them and stand by them. With those investments, I talked to you about EUR 9.5 million. That shows that we are intending to invest in our warehouses and so forth. We continue to have a positive outlook.
For our salespeople as well, we're happy to see the results of their work, our turnover increasing.
Thank you for your... We're being thanked for our efforts during this difficult period. I want to thank you for your support and our wonderful AGM. It was great satisfaction for us to be so close to 79%, which is a remarkable participation rate at our AGM. Of course, you used all the tools available to you to vote, for example, with Votaccess, all that. Thank you to all of you for your support. Since you have no more questions, we're not going to stay connected just for the pleasure of it.
We're going to see you, unless anything drastic happens in the middle of July, when we'll talk about mid-July for the results for the first half year and at the end of July for the end of the second quarter. Good evening, all of you.