Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for connecting to this conference call, during which, with Claude Laruelle, our CFO, we are going to present Veolia's nine-month results. As you will see, both our nine-month results and Q3 results are excellent and allow us to be very confident in our 2022 full year results. These very strong results are a new testament to the resilience of our business model, as well as our capacity to adapt to the new 2022 environment. The integration of SUEZ is going very well, both from a human resource point of view and in operational terms, and we are even ahead of the planned synergies at the end of September.
The group's 220,000 employees all work with the same ambition: to make Veolia the undisputed global leader in ecological transformation and to develop solutions to address global resource scarcity and treat pollution. On Page 5, you have the Q3 results, which are excellent. They combine Veolia and SUEZ in both 2021 and 2022, so that you have a good picture of the financial performance of the combined group, as we have, of course, benefited from a significant parameter effect coming from the first consolidation of SUEZ activities. Q3 revenue was close to EUR 9.2 billion, up 13.7% at constant scope and parameter, after +12.9% in the first half. This very strong growth was driven by continued high level of activity and volumes, combined with significant price increases, both in waste and in water.
In water, we benefited from a dry summer, as well as a full order book for our water technologies. I shall add that October is in line with Q3 trends. EBITDA growth in Q3 was very satisfactory, up 9.4% versus Q3 2021, excluding last year's positive one-off of EUR 83 million associated with the completion of the construction of an energy from waste unit in Troyes, which had no impact at EBIT level and which we had released last year. After 6.1% in the first half, this excellent performance is due notably to the accelerated synergy delivery, EUR 46 million in Q3 alone, almost as much as in the first semester. In nine months, we have already reached our annual synergy objective of EUR 100 million.
Current EBIT grew very strongly and reached EUR 644 million in Q3, a growth of 17.6%, a comparable rhythm to H1. These very strong results enabled us to generate a net free cash flow of EUR 337 million in Q3. On Page 6, you can see the nine-month results and their progression at constant scope and parameter. Our nine months revenue grew by 13.2% and reached EUR 30.7 billion. A great deal of this growth is attributed to energy prices, but restated for this effect, organic growth was still 7%, which is remarkable, especially as this growth covers all our business segments, water, waste, and energy. EBITDA reached EUR 4.533 billion, an increase of +5.2% after 6.1% in the first half.
Of course, the difficult comparison basis with the 83 million one-off in 2021 reduces the nine-month growth. The underlying EBITDA progression is strong across all our businesses. Current EBIT grew very strongly by 19.4% and reached EUR 2.217 billion. Given the most recent activity trends, I can already confirm that we target the upper range of the EBITDA guidance objective of 4%-6% for progression for the year. On top of these excellent operational and financial performances, I'm also very happy about the remarkable execution of the integration of SUEZ, easier and quicker than expected. I'm on Page 7. First of all, we have now secured all the divestiture processes required by the various antitrust authorities, both in terms of price and schedule, and expect total proceeds above EUR 3 billion with strong value creation.
We've obtained the green light from the EU antitrust authorities on the divestment of the hazardous waste activities of SUEZ in France, and are about to obtain the final authorization of the CMA on the divestment of the solid waste business in the U.K. All antitrust divestitures will be closed by year-end at the very high valuation multiples. If we take the example of the SUEZ solid waste business in the U.K., we signed the divestment based on multiple of 16.9 times 2021 EBITDA. We are keeping, I shall remind you, the same activities within Veolia, the historical Veolia activities, but twice as big. From an operational and human resource point of view, integration has been a reality in all geographies for several months now, and it is a real success. Management teams are merged and work actively together.
The success of the operational integration can be seen in the delivery of the synergies. In only eight months and a half, EUR 98 million of synergies were generated, significantly ahead of schedule, as EUR 100 million was our annual target, you remember. This enables us to be very confident in achieving the cumulative EUR 500 million synergies target. Beyond synergies or cost synergies, the pooling of assets, know-how, and technologies strengthen our development prospects and give Veolia a new dimension. We are now in the top three in virtually every geography where we are present, including, just to give you one example, the United States in regulated water and hazardous waste. Page 8. I would like to explain further our capacity to adapt to the new inflation environment, which is visible in our nine months performance, of course.
70% of our revenue is indexed, with escalation formulas reflecting our cost of factors and therefore protecting our margins. Escalations are generally computed on the anniversary dates of the contract, sometimes generating a little bit of lag effect. Typically, we're talking here about our municipal activities in water, in waste, or urban heating, as well as a proportion of our territory and industrial contract with hospitals, for instance. Be it in municipal water in France with +4.6%, in the U.S. with +6.6%, or in Chile with double-digit increases, the indexations already obtained in 2022 cover our cost inflation. For the remaining 30% of our revenue, we have a consistent and disciplined pricing policy to pass on to our client our cost of factors inflation.
We are talking here typically about some of our commercial and industrial activities in waste or water technologies. Our pricing discipline, put in place a few years ago, has enabled us to pass significant price increases, again in 2022, which covered our cost inflation as well. You can see many examples on Page 8 on the recent price increase, and so I won't mention them all. In hazardous waste, double-digit price increases were passed in Europe and in the U.S. In C&I waste, price increases range from 3% to +14%, depending on geographies, and I will say without loss of customers. A few detailed comments on our energy business now, and I'm on Page 9.
In the current context in Europe of high energy price and supply difficulties, Veolia is not only protected, but also ideally positioned to develop our energy efficiency businesses and increase our local and renewable energy production from wastewater or waste. I remind you that 60% of our revenue in energy lies in district heating, and the other 40% in energy efficiency services. Urban heating is much more efficient than individual heating from an energy point of view, which means the higher the price, the more new customers are encouraged to connect to the network, as we've seen actually in Central and Eastern Europe. Moreover, tariff increases are adjusted with the cost of fuel. Last but not least, we have secured 100% of our fuel procurement for the upcoming winter and 75% for the winter season 2023/2024.
The current energy crisis is also an opportunity for Veolia to further develop its energy efficiency business. I remind you that our business in this sector is to allow our customer to save typically 15% of energy without major construction work on the building, thanks to the optimization of remotely controlled installation via digital and specific know-how. Finally, we will look for all the local renewable energy sources that are still insufficiently tapped into, such as non-recyclable waste or wastewater. We have a very, very interesting example with France, where we aim at being fully energy self-sufficient in France in all our activities within five years. This will be done by optimizing our biogas production from landfill waste, by digesting the sludge from wastewater treatment plants to produce methane, and by installing photovoltaic panels on all closed landfills.
What we do for Veolia, of course we can do for our customers. This is an illustration of the resource plan, which I've launched as early as March 2022, and which is already a great success. Let's now move to our Q3 commercial wins, and I'm on Page 10. A few days ago, I was pleased to sign a landmark agreement on pollution treatment, which shows our leadership in hazardous waste, with two new hazardous waste treatment facilities for the refinery of ADNOC in Abu Dhabi, the fourth largest in the world. Size and location are very significant, and we plan to increase significantly as well, the initial capacity of 70,000 tons by expanding the customer base throughout the Ruwais industrial complex and beyond. Given the accessible market and the life of the assets, we are talking about more than $1 billion in activity for Veolia.
This contract is further evidence of our strong differentiation in the hazardous waste market, where we are the world leader with continued and very strong revenue growth in line with our Impact 2023 strategic plan, which I remind you targets EUR 4 billion revenue by the end of next year. It is also a great business development in the Middle East, which is a fast-growing geography for Veolia, for hazardous waste treatment as well as for desalination and energy efficiency. We should reach EUR 1 billion of revenue very quickly in this part of the world. On Page 11, you can see several other examples of new contracts which were won in water technologies, which is another strong development axis in the group. The merger between Veolia and Suez enabled the creation of the world leader in water technologies with a combined revenue of EUR 4 billion.
We signed remarkable contract with pharmaceutical manufacturers like GSK or semiconductors like STM or Micron, new gigafactories for electric vehicles like Li-Cycle and Redwood in the United States. These are industrial sectors which are very promising today, and as you know, independent of the economic cycle, and for which our patented technologies of processed water treatment, of production of ultrapure water, but also of recovery of lithium and treatment of hazardous waste are absolutely key. The merger with Suez through the addition of our know-how, offerings, and technologies, has created a world leader of ecological transformation and position the group as a key player of sustainable development. I shall say I'm doing this presentation in the middle of COP27, so it's quite an interesting date. I'm on Page 12. Our company stands for solutions to reduce pollution and preserve resources.
For existing solution, and there are many of them, our goal is to develop them widely across all our geographies. As far as the solution which don't exist yet, innovation and the sharing of our know-how will enable us to invent them. Moreover, we measure our performance in terms of our impact on our various stakeholders, and this multifaceted performance is deployed largely throughout the group, up to the compensation system and operational management. This unique positioning is already recognized by most organizations that rate companies in terms of sustainable development and ESG. On Page 13, you have the detail of the EUR 264 million efficiency gains we have generated over the first nine months of the year.
As you can see, we've maintained a sustained pace in the efficiency plan, and we are perfectly in line with our ambitious 2022 annual target of EUR 350 million. These efficiency gains come on top of the cost synergies for which we are much ahead of schedule, as I've already mentioned, with EUR 98 million already achieved in nine months compared to an annual target of EUR 100 million. To summarize, I'm now on Page 14, you can see that Veolia is a very solid group, able to face an economic slowdown with confidence. 85% of our revenue is not exposed to the economic cycle, which gives us a lot of visibility.
The indexation of 70% of our revenue, as well as our policy of putting pricing and value creation before volume, allow us to face inflation and protect our margin. We continue to generate a great deal of efficiency gains, of which we retain between 30% and 50%, depending on the years, and that fuels our earnings growth. They will be complemented by EUR 500 million of cumulative merger synergies, which we are ensuring further earnings growth for the years to come, regardless of the macroeconomic environment. Our balance sheet is strong, with a leverage ratio below 3x after the closing of the divestitures. The combined Veolia and Suez has enhanced growth potential, thanks to our range of unique offers available. All of this leads us to forecast a solid growth of our results over the next few years.
Following our very strong nine-month performance, and I'm on Page 15, we of course fully confirm all our targets for 2022 and target to be at the upper end of the guidance range of 4%-6% increase of EBITDA. Now hand over to Claude Laruelle, who will detail our nine-month results. We will answer your questions. Claude, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Estelle, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm on Slide 17, showing very strong results of the combined Veolia Suez group for the first nine months of 2022. We experienced a very strong revenue growth in Q3, even better than in H1, leading to +13.2% for the nine months at constant scope and Forex, with two main items. First, continued solid volumes in all our activities, and second, a strong pricing discipline on non-indexed businesses and good indexation on our long-term contracts. EBITDA is up 5.2% in the upper range of our guidance. As Estelle explained, that figure takes into account the negative impact of a EUR 83 million EBITDA one-off in 2021, with no EBIT impact, leading to an operating financial asset disposal for waste-to-energy plant in France.
If you exclude this one-off, EBITDA is growing by 7.2% for nine months, which is remarkable. Current EBIT is growing very strongly, +19.4%, and is perfectly in line with our objective to generate EUR 1.1 billion of current net income at year-end. On the right-hand side of the slide, you can see the Forex impact on our different main financial KPIs. With euro-dollar exchange rate changing very rapidly, it has a much bigger effect on the debt, EUR 616 million, as that is booked at closing Forex rates than on the EBITDA, +EUR 91 million, for which it is more progressive, as it's booked with average Forex rates over nine months, and not yet on a full year basis, of course.
The ratio between 616 for the debt and 91 for EBITDA is almost 7, and it should be close to 3 when Forex has stabilized. Our net debt has slightly decreased compared to H1, and we will be below 3x at year-end after all disposals, the working capital reversal, and the free cash flow generation of Q4. We will see more details at the end of the presentation. Moving to Slide 18. You can notice the acceleration of our revenue growth in Q3 with strong water and energy and resilient waste. If you exclude the energy price impact, revenue is growing by 7.7% in Q3. That reflects strong price increases and good volumes. France is up 1.8%, with good summer volumes in water, +2%, and contract selectivity in our solid waste business, especially in our municipal activity.
Rest of Europe continues to grow above 20%, with strong performance of Central and Eastern Europe on the energy segment and, again, a strong U.K. waste business. Rest of the world, plus 9.8%, is really driven by the U.S., +17. 9%, with strong tariff increase, good water and waste volumes on our regulated activities, and a very strong hazardous waste business. Water technology had a very strong quarter, with significant tariff increase in the chemical business for water technology and services, WTS, that we inherited from Suez, and strong technology sales in both Veolia Water Technologies, VWT, and WTS. On Slide 19, you can see the strong increase of all our business in all geographies. It demonstrate that inflation of cost is really passed to our clients in all geographies, either by indexation or by voluntary price increase.
I'm moving to Slide 20, and we review our activity by the usual segmentation of our seven business lines. First, municipal water growth is 6.7.% is driven by price indexation and better volumes in Europe and U.S. Water technology and works, +8.9%, with very solid businesses growing fast in both VWT and WTS as a world leader in many water technology fields. Bookings are well-oriented, and we have a strong pipeline of projects, especially in the Middle East. Solid waste, +6.2%, is driven by price increases and solid volumes. We'll have more details later in the slideshow. Hazardous waste continue to grow at double digit, +13%, which is remarkable, with a very strong p erformance in the U.S., Asia, and Europe, and continuous price increase in H2.
After a very solid Q3, October shows the same trend. Local loops of energy and energy services growth is driven by energy prices and a remarkable performance of the new assets we bought in 2020 in Prague and Budapest. Our industrial services are driven by a good commercial activities and energy price increases. On the next three slides, we have put a new presentation of our business by activity, Water, Waste, and Energy. We start by water on Page 21. Our Water revenue significantly increased with the Suez acquisition in the U.S., in Chile, and in Spain, reinforcing the visibility in our operation, especially in a time of high inflation, thanks to strong tariff indexation. We have put a reminder of the top countries for Veolia, France, U.S., Spain, and the Czech Republic. Not to mention Chile, which is also a strong regulated business.
For the first nine months, our water revenue grew by 8.2% like for like, compared to 5.9% in H1, thanks to strong volume in all geographies and works during the summer, contributing 3.8% to the water business growth and increased price indexation at 3.4%, an acceleration compared to 3.1% in H1. By activity, our water operations were up 7.6% and our water technology revenue grew by 10.7%, benefiting from strong price increase in the chemical products for WTS and strong technology sales. Moving to Slide 22. You have a look at the waste revenue variation, + 8.2% with strong pricing and resilient volumes. Let's have a look at the different items. Volumes are up 1.4% with solid waste activities in our key countries, including U.K., Germany, Australia, U.S., and hazardous waste in Europe.
We continue to remain selective in our contract renewal portfolio, especially in our commercial activity in France, which explains the slightly negative net contribution of our commerce. Price increases +4.3% continue accelerating compared to H1 at 3.2%, as we have the full effect of the price increase decided in H1 and the additional ones implemented in H2. In our waste activity, we maintain a strong pricing discipline, as we have always preferred the quality of the tons and the profitability over the volumes. The scope effect, -3.4%, is mostly coming from the disposal of assets in Australia by SUEZ to Cleanaway and Remondis, and a few hazardous waste assets in Europe, which are to be sold as antitrust remedies and which are no more consolidated. Our hazardous waste business did contribute to the solid performance and continues with strong volumes in October.
I'm moving to Slide 23, and you have the details of our energy business revenue growth. You can see that three-quarters of the growth, or 30% over 40%, is coming from energy price increases, which are passed through to the clients. Due to a strong commercial momentum in Italy and Spain, we have a significant organic growth of 7.9%. With unfavorable weather in Q1 and Q2 in Central Europe, with a mild winter, we have a negative effect of -1.7%. In summary, our combined heat and power generations and our district heating networks continue to drive the growth of our energy business and delivered a very solid performance due to strong increase of heat prices and very high electricity prices in Europe.
I'm moving to Slide 24 with our usual revenue bridge detailing the different variation with a strong organic growth of 13.2% and underlying revenue growth of 7.1% excluding energy prices. You can notice a positive Forex impact for 2.5% linked mostly to a strong U.S. Dollar, Australian dollar, renminbi, and in H1, the stronger GBP. Organic growth is really driven by energy prices for almost 50% for more than EUR 1.6 billion or 6.1%. We continue to have a solid commercial momentum in many geographies, as Estelle highlighted, and this is contributing for 2.8% to the revenue growth.
The last significant impact is the pricing for Water and Waste for EUR 935 million, coming both from escalation formulas for 70% of our business and voluntary price increases for the remaining 30%, especially in our industrial waste business to cover the inflation. With the escalation formula taking more into consideration the impact of the 2022 inflation, we see an acceleration of this pricing effect in our revenue. That was 2.8% in H1, and it's now 3.5% for nine months. I'm moving to Slide 25. Let's have a look at the EBITDA bridge showing 5.2% organic growth in the upper range of the guidance for the year, which is 4%-6%. Excluding the one-off effect, it is 7.2%. It is very similar to the H1 EBITDA bridge with the same business trends.
As usual, the main effect of our EBITDA increase is the efficiency and synergies for EUR 362 million, with efficiency plan delivering EUR 264 million, totally in line with our EUR 350 million goal for 2022. As Estelle said, the synergies have delivered much more in Q3, EUR 46 million after EUR 52 million in H1, for a total of EUR 98 million. The acceleration is coming from the contribution of the countries that have over-delivered in Q3 thanks to the first operational synergies as the combination is well advanced in the field. The price-cost gap that also includes contract negotiations we made in the same trend as H1 for a total of EUR 133 million.
As a reminder, the last item on the bridge for - EUR 116 million is linked for EUR 33 million, a positive one-off of the Suez scope in Q2 2021, especially for WTS and in the Middle East. On which we have also included the significant one-off at the for the 2021 operating financial asset disposal for EUR 83 million. Now on Slide 26, let's see how the EBITDA increase is boosting the current EBIT, which is growing very strongly, + 19.4%. Renewal expenses are at EUR 222 million, is almost flat despite the inflation. Amortization and provision are just slightly up by EUR 27 million. You can notice the Veolia operational financial asset repayment one-off for EUR 83 million in the 2021 column. Industrial and capital gains are linked to H1 disposal.
This line is almost stable. JVs had a good contribution at 9% compared to last year due to the resilience of our municipal activities in China, especially our water activities in China, not affected by the COVID lockdown and a good summer. I'm now Pn page 27. On CapEx and free cash flow items. To detail the Q3 net free cash flow generation of EUR 337 million, which is a very good performance. It's coming from a strong EBITDA contribution, stable working capital compared to H1, and control level of CapEx in Q3. For nine months, with strong EBITDA generation, well-managed industrial CapEx of EUR 2.1 billion, and a stable working capital requirement compared to June due to the significant increase of our revenue and the usual seasonality of the working capital in our business, the free cash flow is positive.
As we told you, the working capital will be reversed by year-end, generating very significant free cash flow in Q4. Regarding the net financial debt of EUR 22.1 billion, it is down in Q3 before Forex impact by EUR 350 million, thanks to a good free cash flow generation. As I said at the beginning of my presentation, the Forex impact is much stronger on the debt, EUR 616 million than on the EBITDA, EUR 91 million due to the very rapid evolution of Forex in many countries. We will gradually get the full impact on the EBITDA, as I explained, starting in Q4.
Taking into consideration all antitrust disposals for the European Commission and in the U.K., plus the other disposals that are in process for a total of more than EUR 3 billion and the strong free cash flow generation in Q4 that will include the reversal of the working capital, I can confirm that the leverage ratio will be below three times at the end of the year when all disposals will be closed. On Slide 28, you have the main debt variation with a strong impact of the Suez transaction for almost EUR 10.5 billion and the other items I have already mentioned. I'm moving now to Slide 29.
After this strong Q3 performance, I can fully confirm our 2022 guidance with an EBITDA increase that will be at the upper end of the 4%-6% range and current net income of around EUR 1.1 billion or an increase of more than 20%. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Claude. Now I will allow you to ask a question if you have some.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad.
Ajay, go ahead.
The first question comes from Ajay Patel from Goldman Sachs. Sir, please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you very much for the presentation. I have two questions, please. Firstly, is there any insight you could give to unhedged position that could take advantage of higher power prices, your net beneficiary? I just wanted to understand how much of an open exposure that kind of we could look at to maybe look for next year's numbers and the coming quarter. Second, just on Slide 25, where you give the EBITDA growth bridge, I was just wondering about the price net of cost inflation number. As we...
Is the right way to think about this is as we go through the quarters, there should be a reducing number here, i.e., the negative becomes lower, and especially as we go into next year or is this broadly gonna stay sort of at this sort of run rate per quarter or over this case of 11 months? Any insights would be really helpful. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for your question. I will start and will allow Claude to put additional color to the answer. In terms of the power price, you know, I guess three basic elements, if I may, before we give you a few a little bit of element on that. One is we are net producer of electricity in Veolia. That's the first fact. The second is the fact that we produce electricity as a by-product, so we are not a power generation, as you know, big utilities you would have in mind.
We produce electricity as a by-product of energy from waste, as a by-product of our cogeneration units and producing heat. I guess therefore the numbers you will have in mind are counted in a terawatt-hour as opposed to more than that. The third element is the fact that therefore we've already or always wanted to protect ourselves from the volatility of the price of power. We have a hedging policy, which means we sell in advance, and we actually buy what we have to buy in advance as well, over three years. Which means that we are benefiting from some positive effect of power price, but with a little bit of lagging effect and with a kind of amortization by the fact that we are hedged.
Typically, for next year, we've already in France sold almost 90% of our position, and in the U.K., more than 65%. That's quite typical. We sold that progressively throughout the year. Yes, there will be a positive impact, but don't do, I guess, a multiplication on the spot price of electricity, where we are voluntarily trying to hedge this. Yes, a positive effect, but which is counting in dozens of millions Euros as opposed to hundreds of millions EUR, if you want.
To answer the second question, you're mentioning the price net of cost inflation. This, you have two effects, in fact. You have this first effect and also the contract renegotiation. In terms of contract renegotiation, you know that it's part of the business model of Veolia. We have long-term contracts, and we, because we know how to be efficient and very efficient, this is what we sell to clients. When we are at the end of the contract, and we renegotiate the contract, and we renew our contract, we give back part of the value creation each time, and we continue for another long-term contract, and also to find efficiency gains. It is the normal course of business that will not change, and it is a significant portion of the EUR 133 million.
On the other hand, we have talked about indexation, and as inflation was growing faster this year, indexation, you know, it's progressive. This is what I have highlighted regarding the price indexation in our contracts on the revenue side. We have seen a gradual effect of the indexation in 2022. Depending on the rhythm of indexation and also the inflation growth in 2023, that can vary. It really depends on how the inflation will go in 2023 to answer your question.
In addition to what Claude says on the price cost squeeze, shall I remind that we've been, on the other hand, delivering for now pretty much 10 years, consistently very good and high efficiency gains and cost-cutting, on which we retain between 30% and 50%. It more than compensates for the price cost squeeze, and the value creation we have to give back to our customer at the end of the contract. We are able to grow our margin, thanks to this efficiency plan, typically, that we retain between 30% and 50%.
Fantastic. Thank you very much for your answers.
The next question comes from Arthur Sitbon, from Morgan Stanley. Sir, please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on recycled prices. I see you still have, well, a lower but still positive impact in the third quarter from recycled prices on your waste business. I was wondering what you expect for the next quarter, and why it's still positive in Q3 despite the strong fall in paper prices. The second question is on the PPA charge related to the Suez acquisition. I was wondering when we could hear news on that and what kind of impact it could have on your P&L.
My last question is, well, given your performance at the end of nine months, and given the fact that there is a, I think easy comps for the Q4 with a negative one-off Q4 last year, I was wondering what led you to not to increase your guidance for the year. Are there any potential negatives in Q4 that we're not aware of? Or any thought on that would be helpful. Thank you very much.
I will start by answering the third question and let Claude answer the first and the second one. I guess we are very confident we should achieve our guidance for the year, which I remind you is a very good growth on all across the board because, you know, it's a + 4%-6% EBITDA increase, plus a 20% net result increase, just to mention two figures. I think it's an ambitious growth, and we are very happy we should reach that. I've just said this morning that we target the upper part of the range in EBITDA guidance. If you ask, okay, why should I not raise the guidance, I guess we are on the ninth of November.
In Veolia, we have a guidance which is a yearly one. It's a matter of principle, you know, like, we target the higher we can, but the guidance is a yearly guidance. It's not meant to change at every quarter. Again, you know, an element of understanding for you is the fact that we target the upper part of the range for the EBITDA growth.
Arthur, I can confirm on the recycled prices that we have a positive impact for Q3, both on revenue and EBITDA. You understand that for Q4 that will be slightly different, but you understand the full confidence that we have for the Q4 delivery. With price effect, with very strong electricity prices, we are talking to our Waste BUs, they are very confident for Q4. We expect, and this is the reason why we have said that we'll be in the upper range of the guidance, after a very good month of October, we will deliver a strong Q4. In terms of PPA charges, we are still working on it. It's a massive exercise for Veolia, because we have to work with all the different BUs.
I would say that the hold separate did not help a lot because we are on the hold separate for a long period of time. We had a full range of work all, I mean, still under process. We have not finalized the numbers yet. We aim to finalize the numbers by the end of the year because the final target is January 18th. We will release for the full year 2022 results that will be on March second, the PPA number. You will have those numbers released with the full sets of results for 2022, Arthur.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Jenny Ping, Citi. Madam, please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Two questions, please. One, just going back to Slide 22, you mentioned briefly around this -1.3 commercial and selectivity impact. I just wondered whether you can give a little bit more clarity around what this is. Is this customers actually not having the volumes, so therefore you're walking away from some of the contracts? Or are they not having the affordability, so you're walking away? Some color around that would be great. Then just following on from the previous PPA question, can I just confirm that you will or will not be reporting EPS numbers with PPAs in there? Thanks.
Just on the first part of your question. We're not talking about, you know, like customer who couldn't afford our service or anything like that. I guess, you know, in a way, it shouldn't be news because we've been sending the message of, you know, value over volume for a few quarters now and a few, I mean, you know, like probably more two or three years, something like that. Because we want to focus the attention of all our teams on where we can create the most value and where we can have the most differentiation, and the customers are ready to pay for that and the very high level of service.
Typically here, when we walk away, we would be talking about municipal waste collection contracts, where there is no differentiation at times, there is no treatment associated with it. In some tenders, we see the lowest price is the only criteria for selecting, you know, a service provider. Plus you have to buy trucks, so it could be as well CapEx intensive. Anything we're trying to do in terms of, say, digitalization is not even contemplated. When you tick all or you don't tick any of those boxes, we at times don't even answer to the tenders. That's why we are very selective.
Typically in the municipal waste collection activity, we still answer to many tenders when we think we can make the difference and the customers are ready to pay for the quality of the service we offer. When it's not the case, we just simply walk away. In a way, it's a voluntary minus something in terms of volume that you have on the Slide, 22. Claude, maybe the second part of the question.
To answer the PPA. Yes. When we highlighted the value creation for the SUEZ acquisition, as a reminder, 10% accretion this year and 40% accretion in 2024, it's without PPA, before PPA impact. To answer your question, yes, we will report EPS before PPA impact, so you can understand the value creation of the SUEZ acquisition, of course, compared to the Veolia standalone. To answer your question, yes, we will report EPS before PPA.
Brilliant. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from Olly Jeffery from Deutsche Bank. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Two questions from me, please. The first one is just a continuation of talking about the full year guidance. With regards to the EUR 1.1 billion net income, you know, you mentioned October has been in line with Q3 trends. The impression I get is you seem very confident in the ability to hit EUR 1.1 billion, and the reality is that if we continue to have a mild impact from industrial production and waste volumes, or should we now think of this somewhere landing between or potentially up to EUR 1.2 billion for the full year? Just, I'm just trying to get a sense of, you know, if we don't see a slowdown in the rest of the year in your business, where could the net income number come up to in terms of a range?
Could it be EUR 1.1 billion-EUR 1.2 billion, or even beyond that perhaps? Any view on that would be very helpful. The second question is just on inflation. You know, as you pointed out on the slide, in the presentation that you're, you know, you're well protected against inflation and broadly a net neutral impact. I just would like to get some, you know, some of your thoughts on 2023 and inflation. Because the largest component of your cost base is wages. I believe a large amount of your wage increases would have gone through at the start of this year before much of the impact of inflation had been seen.
Do you have a view for next year if you will be a net neutral impact from inflation or is it simply too early to tell because, you know, we haven't gone through the round of the annual process of the majority of the wage increases? Your thoughts on inflation and the net impact on the business for 2023 as you see it would be very helpful. Thank you.
I guess I will start with the guidance again. I think I'm asked each time we publish very good result and, you know, like we've been publishing very good results for a few quarters, and, you know, a few is probably not the right word. I think it's, you know, real like a dozen or something like that. I should count them. Each time I'm asked or before me, Antoine was asked, "Okay, should we raise the guidance?" I won't, you know. Like, again, you know, guidance is an annual objective.
Again, + 20% increase in net result is exactly what we've guided for this year, leading to EUR 1.1 billion, and it's a very good performance given the global context we just highlighted in terms of inflation and energy crisis in Europe and so on and so forth. I'm very happy and confident we should aim at that, and we will deliver that. I guess as far as the rest is concerned, I will let you do your own bet because I'm more into delivering what we promised we would, and I think it's important we stick to that. In terms of leading into 2023, I guess two elements.
We have a natural increase in our revenue base by the full year effect, if you want, of indexation, because the numbers we published are for the nine months, but of course we had anniversary dates in January, in April, in July, in September, and so on and so forth. In a way, there will be a natural already granted and computed, you know, indexation, which will lead to a natural increase as well in 2023 just by the full year effect of the indexation we've seen throughout the year. Water in France is a good example.
I replay the figures where we had +3.8% indexation year to date, but +4.6% in Q3, which mean we'll be beyond 5% probably at one point in the next few weeks.
Mm-hmm.
If you look at the global effect of that.
To take an example.
Which means, on the cost base, you know, it goes in the same, in parallel, if you want. Everything we do, including in wages, is to ensure that our cost base doesn't increase by more than the indexation we have, and, you know, that we protect our margin. In terms of wages increase, we've already granted, you know, wages increase for the year, including in September, another series of wage increase in France only for the lower wage, lower paid people in the organization. But we've checked each time that it was covered by the indexation we already had computed. Fully protected, including for the wage increase, and the pressure on wages that we've seen everywhere. I've just given you the example in France.
We'll be at more than 5% of indexation, and we have granted roughly around 5% of wages increase for the lower paid and less than that for the higher paid in the organization.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Vincent Ayral from J.P. Morgan. Sir, please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Thank you for the presentation and the added slides. That was interesting. A quick one. We tend to have a lot of top line. I'm interested in EBITDA impact. We had a very strong Q3, especially in water with the hot weather. Could you help us and isolate what was the impact there in order to help update and better understand the dynamic there? The second question I would have is actually a follow-up. It's already been asked, but I'd like to follow up for more detail. It's regarding the power exposure, you know, merchant exposure. You have activities in the EFW, cogen, district heating.
Cogeneration and district heating is mostly a cost plus, EFW is not. Could you give us some order of magnitude of the unhedged volumes and terawatt-hours you have for 2023 and 2024? You've given percentages, but we don't necessarily have a clear state of how much terawatt-hours is produced where. So that would be extremely useful. The last question is regarding waste activity. Could you give us a bit of color on exposure per industry and what are the dynamics you're seeing on the ground at the moment? We see that Waste volumes seem still resilient in Q3. Some color at an industry specific level would be very interesting. Thank you.
Okay. I will just start with the first question and over to Claude. Claude will complement, but just to say, if your question is how come we've been able to deliver +9.3%, you know, like, EBITDA growth in Q3, which is a very, very strong result, which I would agree. Yes, we've been helped by the hot weather this summer, but not only. Efficiency plan, you know, was a big help. But the other very strong component is the synergies. I would like to highlight that because it's not only, I guess, you know, a weather element.
You know, I wouldn't say a self-help, but there is an element of we are not only resilient, we're very agile and quick to delivering the synergies we stressed. Again, to being able to achieve our annual target in less than nine months is a very strong performance I'm super happy with and needed a lot of preparation and a very good quality of execution. I guess it's really the two together which have helped to deliver some strong EBITDA growth such as the +9%. In terms of power, I will let Claude give you terawatt-hour figures.
Just in terms of waste activity, and you're right, you know, unhedged part of it is, you know, the electricity we generate in our waste-to-energy activities, typically in the U.K. with PFI. In an example like that, we are on the free market, if you want, so it's not a regulated market as such. We will benefit, and we are benefiting from higher power prices. We've hedged part of it over three years, as I explained, plus we have some profit sharing with local authorities. It's the mixture of all that which will lead to, in the end, plus a few dozens of million of Euros, as I explained, of EBITDA. You have to take into account the hedging as well as the profit sharing with the local authorities.
Maybe in terawatt-hour.
In terawatt hours, to give you numbers in France, we are producing 1.2 TWh, and we are selling 0.5 TWh on the free market. In the U.K. is 1.5 TWh, and everything is sold on the market. As Estelle mentioned, we told you that during 2022, we did not fully benefit from the high price of electricity because it was hedged in 2021 for most of it. We have this gradual effect to be able to give you a guidance at the start of the year, including, of course, the hedging policy of the electricity. The last question was in the waste activity. What we told you is very clear, Vincent. In October, we are very much aligned with what we have seen in Q3.
We continue and at latest data I got from the U.K., the U.K. is exactly at the same trend from C&I as it ended in Q3. We continue to see a good momentum. We continue also to see the same, let's take hazardous waste. October hazardous waste Europe is very strong, same in the U.S. We continue to have the same momentum in October as what we have seen in Q3.
Thank you very much.
We have no further question. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you that if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. We have a new question from Tancrède Fulop from Morningstar. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have just one. If you could share your view on the cardboard prices and maybe tell us what are the drivers of the recent drop in prices, if it is a slowdown in e-commerce or overcapacity, and maybe share your view on the price evolution going forward. Thank you.
In terms of recycled prices, the main evolution of course is the cardboard. What we have seen is the shutdown of a couple of plants in Germany. We understand that it was also linked to a high inventory. High inventory will be resolved gradually. We saw the cardboard price going down, but it is more than compensated in Q3 and it will be in Q4 by high electricity prices. When you look at the cardboard today, the market is slow because we have a slowdown in e-commerce on one side, and also we have this shutdown in Germany that will not last forever.
We'll see, in our view, a gradual better effect in the months and the quarters to come. Estelle, maybe you want to add something.
No, I think that's again, the underlying trend of recyclates, that's what I want to add on the mid and long-term basis. The need to have plastic recycled as opposed to virgin out of oil, the need to have cardboard linked with e-commerce, recycled and so on and so forth is here to stay and to grow over the years. That's what we've seen. If you de-zoom, if you want, that's what we've seen and that's what we anticipate, you know. Like, a scarcity of natural resource is not only here to stay, but even to be reinforced. Hence, the solution, which is recycling and circular economy is here to be developed.
Very interesting. Thank you.
The next question comes from Olly Jeffery from Deutsche Bank. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you. Two follow-ups, please. The first one is just on China. Because of the way in which that business is structured, it's not always obvious the impact that you've had from that business this year. Sorry to say that more clearly. Can you say for the nine months of the year, and possibly for the full year as well, what the EBITDA slowdown impact you've seen from China and also both at the EBITDA and the net income level? If you're able to give that for the full year or nine months, that'd be very helpful just to get a sense of the scale that that slowdown is causing on the business. Then just a follow-up on the recyclers, really. When I look at.
If I assume recycle, recycler prices stay where they are for next year, currently for cardboard, I see that as roughly being a EUR 60 million EBITDA headwind into next year. If cardboard and paper prices stay at the same level, would you agree that the headwind into next year at the EBITDA level is around that mid-double-digit level? Thank you.
Globally, two answers. On China, we've seen a drop obviously of the level of activity in China following the shutdown in the spring, in Shanghai in particular, which we have published at that time. What we see now is a going up to a more standard level, what we've seen in Q3 and what we anticipate will go on in Q4. I guess it's coming back to a more normal level of activity in China. And that, of course, included in the numbers. In terms of the effect of recyclates price ups and down, you have a good idea on our bridge, which we've published, where we published the effect in nine months.
You have the answer to your question looking at the bridge here. You can anticipate if they were to stay at the lowest level they are now, what would be the potential negative impact going into next year. On the other hand, as Claude said, we anticipate a positive impact on the power price with all the lagging effect and the sharing with the customer that we've explained. All in all, we don't anticipate the net effect to be negative, if you want, of the power plus and the recyclate minus if the price were to stay where they are.
Okay.
The next question comes from Juan Rodriguez from Kepler. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for taking our questions. I have two, if I may. The first one is on the synergies going ahead of expectations. I want to better understand what is going on that is better than initially expected. I want to confirm there are no sales synergies within your EUR 98 million performance. Given this or that confirmation that the EUR 500 million that you're targeting is still ex-Suez U.K. disposal. That would be the first one. The second one is I want to better understand the new ADNOC hazardous waste project. You first signaled that you were targeting a EUR 1 billion revenue for those assets.
I want to understand better the horizon, where you're expecting to reach this EUR 1 billion target. The second is what could be expected in terms of the profitability, I guess, on the EBITDA or the margins broadly in line with all the hazardous waste that you have for the group. Thank you.
On the synergies, a few different questions. Why are we going ahead of plan? Because it was well prepared, well executed. That's the global answer. In terms of, you know, to give you a bit more color, we started the first part of the year with more HQ type of synergies, typically like, having two teams going from two different buildings in the same city into saving rent by being into the same HQ, which we've seen across the globe. Now we've moved, in the third quarter into more operational type of synergies, typically in Australia, in the U.S. or in Latin America.
We are delivering very, very good, as in, you know, millions of Euros of, in each of those geographies in the third quarter only of synergies which are more operational, as in, you know, like, Suez merger in Australia typically, or, in the U.S.A., you know, combining our non-regulated water assets from the Suez and Veolia in this country. Very operational and very, I guess, deep into the organization already, if you want. In terms of the target, you know, I can confirm all the numbers I've mentioned, so the 198 already at the end of Q3, as well as the target EUR 500 million are cost synergies only. They don't include, you know, revenue synergies.
I'm able to confirm that we'll achieve EUR 500 million cost synergies accumulated, irrespective of the fact that we are selling the Suez U.K. Business. The answer is yes.
In terms of-
In terms of the EUR 1 billion target in the Middle East, Claude, do you want to take that one?
The EUR 1 billion, you're talking about the contract that we have just signed. We are very pleased to have signed this contract. It has been a long negotiation with ADNOC, but we are very pleased to have this very significant customer, part of our customer portfolio. The target in terms of revenue first is the revenue is around EUR 50 million. We are transforming a plant that was run by ADNOC into a merchant plant. The target for EBITDA is around, as you have said, what we have for hazardous waste, which is around 20% EBITDA target.
We expect to double the capacity of the plant.
Mm.
the next five years, something like that.
Perfect. Quite clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Philippe Ourpatian from Oddo BHF. Sir, please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning to all of you. I have in fact three question, quite very easy. You just mentioned that the EUR 500 million were cost synergies, and excluding any revenue synergies. Have you start to work on the revenue synergies? Is there some traction to be expected in Q4, or I do suppose 2023. One of the most easy way would be to offer energy services to the former Suez clients, which have not had this opportunity regarding the Suez perimeter. Where are you in this area? That's the first question. The second one is concerning, and specifically for Claude, the U.S. fiscal tax perimeter.
Where are you about the integration of the U.S. regulated water activity in this fiscal perimeter in order to benefit from the compensation of the tax credit Veolia had versus the cash tax paid in the U.S. If you just remind us also the amount of the tax credit in this area. The last question is more, let's say, general one. You are in advance regarding your cost cutting mainly linked to, I mean, the globally, I would say the EUR 500 million, but also the cost cutting on the Suez standalone basis, the EUR 350 million.
If there is an economic slowdown, let's say, as hypothesis, what kind of additional cost cutting you would be able to extract, just to illustrate your capacity to be a little bit more agile. Many thanks.
I will take maybe the first and the last one, and let Claude answer. As you mentioned, you want Claude to answer to that one. I will very pleased to have him answer to the tax in the U.S. one. In terms of synergies of revenue, you're right, we're targeting as well some synergies of revenue. Typically, what are we talking about? We're starting now. You're right, you know, like selling energy services to ex- SUEZ customers. SUEZ, as you know, didn't have any energy activities as contrary to Veolia, is an obvious one.
As you can imagine, with the energy crisis in Europe, everything we do to tap into untapped sources of energy, such as non-recyclable waste or wastewater, you know, is very valuable as it's local, renewable energy as opposed to importing fossil fuels. I guess everything which has to do with biogas and RDF, as we speak, is very, very much a big push on the economic and geopolitical standpoint in Europe. We have as well, you know, a lot of other revenue synergies in mind. When I say in mind, you know, which are, you know, planned and with a specific working group to be delivered.
One is by merging the activities of VWT and WTS, so our portfolios, combined portfolios of Water Technologies. Just to give you an idea, to put evaporation-crystallization together with membrane is a perfect solution, for a lot of industrial customers which are facing water scarcity, typically mining in the south of the world. There is another source of synergies, a large one here. A third example, if you allow me, would be the reuse of water, because we have great technologies in Veolia, but we didn't have so much of references yet, which we've combined, with the now Veolia activities in Spain as well as in the western part of the U.S., where they've developed the reuse of water much earlier on than typically France has.
It's three examples of revenue synergies on which we're talking about, but I can confirm the target of EUR 500 million is only covering cost synergies. In terms of your third question, okay. In a what if scenario, I hate the what if scenario on, you know, like an economic slowdown and whatever. I'd rather give you real examples of what we've been able to deliver. It's not such a long time ago, because we're talking about, you know, the COVID moment, where you remember that in addition to our efficiency plan, we've launched a Recover and Adapt plan, which was very specific and an additional cost-cutting plan. That has allowed us to come back to the pre-COVID result in less than six months.
That was between the spring 2020 and the autumn 2020. If you remember well, in the autumn 2020, we're not at all out of the woods in terms of, you know, vaccination or COVID altogether. That's a real example of our agility and ability to deliver in case we're facing specific headwinds.
Okay.
Maybe Claude, on the specific question.
Yes.
to you.
Yeah, for the tax credit, which is a little bit more than $300 million , $330 million to be precise. In order to get tax benefit, we have to merge Veolia North America with Suez North America, so we have to do the combination. The combination has been prepared, and it will be done this month. It has been a lot of work, a massive work done by the U.S. teams, prepared under hold separate management, and now it's ready to be implemented this year, before year-end, in November, this month, in fact. We will get the full benefit in 2023 and in 2024, up until 2026.
The full benefit of this tax group that we have created, that we will have created at the end of the month. That's the reason why when we have talked about what will be the tax rate for Veolia, you know, we are, we're high this year. We are around 29%. We will be able to decrease this tax rate one by one year by year in order to reach our goal, which is around 25%. We are creating the tax group that will give a benefit next year, Philippe. With other countries, we will get also other benefits as we will create also a tax integration in other countries.
Many thanks. Very clear.
Maybe we have-
Yeah. Just maybe,
Please go ahead.
May I have an additional comment? Yeah. Just my question was not exactly your capacity to recover. I was discussing about the potential additional synergy. But the fact that when the synergy are done, it's difficult to duplicate them. The sources of the reserve of synergy are still existing in case of economic slowdown. It was really the sense of my question, in fact.
Okay. Maybe I misunderstood your question. I guess we have a big additional sources of not only I would say cost-cutting, but I would say efficiency altogether with the resource plan I've launched in March this year, which is about energy savings and producing more energy. This is an additional one on top of the traditional efficiency plan, as well as the cost synergies. We are already, you know, like preparing all the projects to be able to deliver on that one. Energy is a potential.
Very clear. Many thanks.
Energy is a big potential for Veolia to be, you know, expanded altogether based on our Waste and Water activities as you want, on top of course, the traditional energy activities. I shall remember that we are already number two in the market in the district heating worldwide, and one of the top players in the energy efficiency market as well. As I said, energy efficiency is a market which is meant to be developed together with the high price of energy as we speak.
Very clear. Many thanks.
The next question comes from Verity from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the presentation and the extra disclosure. I just wanted to ask about the timing of completion of the Suez acquisition of the U.K. waste, and also about rising interest rates and the need for new debt perhaps in 2023. How is your balance sheet. You've given some targets, but how you see whether you'll be able to avoid the pressure on rising interest rates in your business expansion. That's my first question. My second one is just on Page 20. I was just interested how strong your industrial services segment was. You mentioned that has been strong growth in Europe. I mean, do you see that continuing? Was that a surprise or was that very much in line?
It seems a very positive figure. Thank you.
On the first question, basically, as I understand, when would we have the clearance, the full clearance of the CMA? If I translate well, my understanding of your question. The answer is imminent as in days. As we already have been granted what's called the findings or the final undertaking, sorry. The last element is for the CMA to approve the buyer, which is again very imminent, which means that we anticipate the closing of the sale by year-end. In terms of the interest rate and industrial services, I will let Claude answer. Maybe just a specific comment. You know, as in all together, when we say with Veolia, we have a municipal customer base and an industrial customer base.
Actually, we should say more that we have an industrial and tertiary base, because, you know, we group, you know, everything which is not municipal into the category in our portfolio, which means that we're talking from, you know, like pharmaceutical companies through to large hospitals, for instance, in the category which we call industry. Claude, maybe more-
Yes. Part of it is also, we are delivering some energy. We are delivering services. Could be water services, energy services, but also sometimes we provide the energy to the client, which is also pass through to the client. For example, the business that we have for industrial customers in Spain is heat and power generation, and we provide the gas. So part of the inflation is coming. Part of the growth is coming from the inflation of energy prices. The second part is very promising, as Estelle explained, is the growing number of contracts that we have on these segments, which is very promising because we see more and more clients asking for energy savings as energy prices are very high. So it's a promising segment.
Your second question about rising interest rates. The first thing, as a reminder, 85% of our debt is at fixed rate. If you look at the remaining part, we will be cash rich at the end of the year after we have sold all the disposal. In front of the variable debt, we will have the cash coming from the U.K., cash coming from also the antitrust disposal. We said more than EUR 3 billion will be disposed, so we'll be cash rich in order to have this cash rich in front of the variable debt. In terms of schedule of emission of new bonds, we have no need for refinancing.
We have no need to refinance any bond before we reimburse bonds at the end of 2023, sorry, but we have no need to reissue new bonds in 2023.
Great, thank you.
Maybe one last question.
Yes. The last question comes from Arnaud Palliez from CIC Market Solutions. Sir, please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everyone. I have just one remaining question about financing cost evolution. Two questions, in fact. The first one, you mention on Page 27 of the slideshow, the EUR 30 million savings coming from the repurchase of a GBP note. I would like to know if you have some other opportunities of this type for repurchasing existing bonds. The second question is, also part of your debt is in strong currencies such as U.S. dollar. I would like to know also what proportion of your debt is denominated in strong currencies, and what is the impact on the financing cost?
To answer the first question, yes, we took the opportunity, I have to say, of struggling U.K. in terms of headwinds in the U.K. and rising interest rates in October in order to secure a very nice financial operation. Because we had a rising interest rate in the U.K. above 4%, plus the spread that we put on top of it, we were able to repurchase EUR 535 million of this GBP note ending in 2037 at 6%, above 6% coupon, for zero impact on the P&L. I repeat, zero impact on the P&L. We will have, of course, the savings of EUR 30 million next year. That was a very nice financial operation.
We see an additional opportunity also for a very long-term debt. We still have a remaining EUR 300 million of long-term debt in the U.S., expiring in 2038. We will have this long-term debt. We will try to repurchase this long-term debt, and we are launching, in fact, the operation this week in order to try to get as much as we can. We have said up to EUR 300 million, which is our remaining part, in order, again, to reduce the financial cost for next year. If you look, your second question is on currency, what is on currency.
First of all, you have to look at what is the growth which is boosted by Suez, in fact. We have, in terms of currency, around $10 billion of,
10%.
10%, sorry. 10% of the debt, which is in a local currency and with impact of strong dollar. In dollar, sorry. It's 10% of U.S. dollar debt, to answer your question precisely.
Okay.
Okay? 10% of U.S. dollar.
Yeah. Clear. Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much. You know, for this conference call. Again, very good set of results. Confident for the rest of the year and for the years ahead, given you know, the full potential we have in the company, including positioning in very unique market of ecological transformation. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.