Earnings Transcript for CA.PA - Q4 Fiscal Year 2015

Executives: Georges Plassat - CEO Pierre Jean Sivignon - CFO Jerome Bedier - General Secretary

Analysts: Xavier Le Mene - Bank of America Merrill Lynch Ivan Letessier - Le Figaro Sreedhar Mahamkali - Macquarie Matthew Maley - Deutsche Bank

Georges Plassat: Well, good morning. We're only missing the Eskimos really for this introduction, but there are quite a few people who are late, but apparently there's a reason for that because the Dutch king will be there on the Champs Elysees which were blocked and that's much more important than our presentation I'm sure. So I'm surrounded by people you know, Pierre Jean Sivignon and Jerome Bedier, who are both delegate general directors of Carrefour and who will assist me and support me when it comes to managing this group, which is a very large group. So, Pierre-Jean as usual will be telling you about the financial results, and Jerome shall be focusing on extra-financial performance which he's been working on for a few years already. So the results of 2015 are quite good, I would say. There are no surprises. There might be a few challenges, and we'll talk about these. But without any further ado, I'd like to give the floor to my two colleagues and I shall maybe wrap up afterwards and qualify these results. But I would also like to say a few words about the future of our corporation and how we see the future, what strategy we should like to implement for the future. So without any further ado, I'd like to give the floor to Pierre Jean Sivignon.

Pierre Jean Sivignon: Good morning, everybody and thank you for coming along this morning for the presentation of our annual results for 2015. I suggest we move on straightaway to the analysis of our accounts. In 2015, the Group once again recorded growth in its income. It has also has also been marked by a clear improvement in the management of free cash flow and by a reduction in our debt. Sales, excluding taxes, €76.9 billion, are up by 3% in organic terms and plus 5.5% excluding fuel at constant exchange rates. Our commercial margin and our EBITDA are also up compared to last year, both in terms of volume and in terms of percentage. Recurrent operating income, €2,445 million, is up 2.4% to constant current exchange rates and up 7% at constant exchange rates. Let me remind you that for France, this figure includes three special items

Jerome Bedier: Ladies and gentlemen, our Corporation now wants to provide regular updates on its extra financial performance as it does for its financial results. This is a will that was expressed at the last annual meeting in June 2015. And so for these annual results, we would like to say that the Company should be seen as a whole. There is financial figures on the one hand and the societal impact of the company on the other hand. Carrefour is a major stakeholder in its industry and we would like to take on our responsibility when it comes to corporate social responsibility. We are the industry leader in that front and we're amongst the top companies in all countries where we are present. We're also aware of the fact that this responsibility, which should make us a stakeholder that pays attention to its environment, is at the same time a must when it comes to creating value to better serve our customers The CSR policy of Carrefour is in line with a mid and long term vision of our business and of the contribution of our Company to society. Quite simply, what we mean is doing a good job. This is a motto and you've known it for quite some time now. This vision is of course based on the own characteristics of the company being local, because, thanks to multi format, usage of new technologies and broader international experiments, all actions will be used to better serve the priorities that we have defined. The impact of CSR is also key when it comes to efficiency and when it comes to motivating the 380,000 workers, employees of our company. It helps foster and better mobilize partners, suppliers, local stakeholders, and all civil society representatives. I no need to dwell on the methods that we use to boost our CSR approach, they are, they were already described and they're based on international standards and benchmarks which are known and they are detailed in the useful indicators with the useful indicators in the documents of the company. Actions taken by Carrefour in 2015 are based on three priorities, the three pillars of our CSR anti wastage, biodiversity, and relationships with our partners. And those were recognized by those who look at these monitor these policies. And our ranking is 96-B on the CDP assessment, which means we're in top of we're ahead of other French groups in this particular sector. And we improved our ranking by seven points on the RobecoSAM DJSI assessment. We got the prize in France we got several prizes and awards in France and abroad, the ESSEC prize for responsible trade in France, the Good Energy Award in Italy, the Top 10 Sustainability of the Chamber of Commerce in Argentina, and another award by the Forbes Magazine, and the Best Energy Efficiency Program of the Year in Romania. Now, to highlight that this is really well, I would like to focus on two subjects that marked our performance in 2015. The commitment of Carrefour for climate and the fact that we really want to focus on agro ecology. Climate, as you know, was one of the key topics of 2015, with the COP21, and we're actively involved with other companies as part of the French business climate pledge and the UN initiative called Caring for Climate. As far as this is concerned, we officially committed ourselves to cutting by 40% our CO2 emissions in our stores by 2025 and by 70% by 2050. This target is based on a program of actions using all possible levers. First of all, Carrefour last autumn decided to voluntarily set a price for CO2 to include it in our investment calculations. Setting the price of carbon means you add to the initial cost of your technology the cost of CO2 that it will be releasing during its life. I would like to recall that Carrefour released 3.58 million tons of CO2 in 2015. Secondly, savings will be generalized in our stores, thanks to closed cold storage units using LED lighting, centralized meters, optimization of cold and hot streams in conformant -- in compliance with ISO 50001. Number three, innovative experiments will be multiplied, the creation of self-sufficient stores, the objective in terms of consumption is 250 kilowatt-hours per square meter, plus new methodologies to monitor our energy consumption. Plus corrective action will be implemented immediately. The share of renewable energies in our supplies will continue to increase. Carrefour will continue producing electricity directly on its sites. Also intermittent energy storage was tested and we would like to get our overall consumption by 2.5%, and by the way, it's 5.9 terawatt-hours in 2015. HFC gases are no longer used in our new facilities and it's been the case since 2015. They are replaced by CO2. We have 260 cold production units based on that technology in seven countries, including in areas where it is particularly hot. Last but not least, CO2 emissions coming from transport were cut by 14.3% for the past five years and will be cut by at least as much within the next 10 years. We should also like to focus increasingly on agro-ecology across the world and we'd like to focus on a more environmentally friendly agriculture. This -- or farming. This is at the heart of the food -- of our food business and this is in line with the needs of our customers. As for many other areas of CSR, agro-ecology is a source of -- is a very useful source of innovation. It is a powerful tool for progress and differentiation, which will help better and sustainably meet the needs of consumers. Carrefour has long been committed on these issues, which sometimes lead to challenging debates but always useful debates like on GMOs, something that we -- or GMOs that we do not want to have in our quality sourcing approach. Many issues behind this word agro-ecology. Cutting usage of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, integrated farming, circular economy, reduction of antibiotics, bio-controls, better valuation of wastes coming from crops, closer sources of supply and animal food -- feed. And Carrefour would like to offer new solutions as far as all of these topics are concerned. Selling quality products based on our quality sourcing approach for 168 such products in 10 countries. That increased by 6.1% on 2014 in 2015, thanks to the developments and thanks to the information we have provided to our customers on the characteristics of these products. Similarly, sales of organic food have increased by 21.5% in 2015, which certainly bears witness to the fact that our customers are interested in these products. As far as sustainable fishing is concerned, I mean our concerns are the same. We need to focus on the best practices, the most respectful practices for nature, and which can help foster biodiversity. We are the industry leader as far as this is concerned and we work with several organizations like the Marine Stewardship Council in order to better qualify the choices made by our Company. Last but not least, I would like to say a few words on small and medium-sized companies which work for us. Across the world, developing bonds and links with SMEs is a top priority. This is in line with the strong values of our Company. It helps strengthen the territorial presence of our multi-format system and it helps present a local offering and it helps differentiate products and innovates. In all countries, the local offering was increased. The number of local products in France is now -- we now have 60,000 local products. 5,000 SMEs account for 9% of our sales. In Belgium, in 2014, we launched a new project which meant that 680 local producers could provide products more than 7,000 products to the stores that were less than 40 kilometers away. SMEs also have their own specific action programs to streamline their administrative relationships with our Company to have better referencing to have involved SMEs on CSR actions, based on self-tests for instance. Actions were taken, action was taken when it comes to boosting exports, in particular for our three brands, Reflets de France, Terre d'Italia and Nuestra Tierra. We carry out these programs hand in hand with organizations representing SMEs or agricultural cooperatives. Carrefour shall continue developing specific solutions for SMEs which have very, which are very different from large international corporations which are also our suppliers. Now that was just a quick overview of our extra-financial performance for Carrefour in 2015. It is way too short of course and it is certainly not complete. The idea, however, was to show that our Company is fully committed and we certainly want to tackle all of these issues in a very professional way to do a good job fostering and nurturing dialogue with all stakeholders. Thank you very much.

Georges Plassat: Thank you very much, Jerome. Well, I believe that the number one development in the retail sector is that we want to have a smart approach. This is a rough environment and things are changing. And we are moving towards what I would refer to as being intangible. And this is precisely what Jerome just said. I mean he's been focusing on the CSR. And this is something that is currently being implemented throughout the Company and of course there might be reluctances here and there because it's not immediately profitable and people don't necessarily immediately see the advantages of that CSR approach, but he has my full support. And I'm convinced that different leaders of different countries of Carrefour know that we have to focus on these strategies, focused on society, on environment. All stakeholders know that there is a good reason for that. Our stores are showcases of our, of what we do, and we can't just focus on prices. As far as financial results are concerned, I think everything was said. We are there. This is the result of balances that we've been developing for quite some time, different formats which are balanced. There's a new balance in terms of financial ingredients. We have contained debt, kept at a very reasonable level. We have free cash flow. We still have CapEx capacity whenever necessary, expansion, remodeling, and at the same new IT and logistics systems. So I would say that the teams of Carrefour in 2015 spared no effort and I should like to welcome the investments of our shareholders, generally speaking, and also I should like to say that you have economic societal and environmental elements, which mean, which helped lead to these results and which is the result of a lot of work. As far as the profile, Company profile is concerned, because this is what matters at the end of the day, Carrefour, increasingly over the past few years, especially since we've been merging with Promodes, Carrefour has been developing and from a hypermarket, we are increasingly a multi-format corporation and we need to insist on that. This is key when it comes to today's societal changes and developments. And so this new step, the idea is to refocus the Group on more local stores, so, convenience stores. And this is something we certainly want to do, we have to do. It means it is a cultural change. It means that we have to be closer to Promodes. And also this is a fundamental strategic decision. And also at the same time, I believe that, I believe that different formats of our society need to meet different needs. Hypermarkets is where you should have as many products as possible, at the best possible prices, and there should be several regular events and seasonal offerings, because there is enough space to do that. At the same time, this is a true marketplace where you can sell fresh produce, with a huge array of products available. And this is at the heart of our DNA but this is also at the heart of our sales and profits because 70% of our sales come from that. So, 65% eight to ten years ago and things are still developing, and this is quite good. And hypermarkets indeed are culturally in the DNA of Carrefour, and that will remain in the future. At the same time, when we take, when we sold shopping malls to Klepierre a couple of years ago, that means that we can control our hypermarkets but also our surrounding environment. And this means that we can now focus on new service approach. And this is new, providing services, relationships, developing our ability to show empathy, et cetera. This is all going in the right direction. So this means that all formats are there. We have hypermarkets, the events prices, et cetera. Supermarkets are stores where you have a huge well, you have a lot of traffic, meeting regular food needs and generating higher profits from the same customers in the same places. Now these supermarkets of course mean that our customers are closer to us, closer to where they live. And in the future this means that we'll be able to consolidate our food market share which is key of course. But at the same time we can develop our local presence, small convenience stores, whether it be a city, in urban areas or contacts which we're currently developing and I'll be talking about that in a minute, via the acquisition of Dia or Bio, because we also want to focus on the development of organic food. Bon App', this is something also modernizing and that will be very successful, I believe. And this is the grocery world linked to the catering restaurant world. All of this is currently developing across the world. We do that not in spectacular way or at a spectacular pace but this is much -- this will work in the long term. So, hypermarkets have their role to play. Supermarkets have their role to play. Local convenience stores have a role to play. And the 101 is food. We are the number one food retailer in the world today. And I think that our geographical distribution, following the divestment we carried out a couple of years when we left countries where we had very limited opportunities and we couldn't be the market leader and we couldn't be multi-format without huge investments that would have been problematic for our financial health or balance. We now have a distribution between Asia, South America and Europe, which is quite relevant, even though emerging countries were -- everyone was saying that these were wonderful a couple of years ago, but these are less emerging these days, and everybody said that Europe was going to be facing a disaster. But indeed this is not quite the case and things are recovering. And all of these are very positive signals for the future of Carrefour, provided we can capitalize on these assets, hypermarkets, the food business, and as Jerome just said, and this is the case when it comes to CSR, this wonderful culture of affiliates, subsidiaries, because we had lost track at some point. I mean we need to invest in our industry, we need to recruit the right professionals still. In the long term we have to be the food leader, we have to have the best brand of product offering, we have to have a retailer brand that should be positioned centrally. We should have -- we should be very efficient when it comes to price/quality ratio. We need to be sober in our packaging and our marketing definitions. And last but not least, we need to focus on low-end products, free products. And this is something we are currently doing across the board wherever we think it is relevant. So we need to be the leader when it comes to food, multi-function, multi-format. And whenever possible, we need to be leaders when it comes to the price/quality ratio. The key asset of Carrefour today is that, facing the development of the internet, the food business will still be a major business in the future. No one can deliver a customer in their home than the local convenience stores, for distance reasons, for time reasons, and for the -- because of the quality of the product. Also you may order books and you do order books and you might sell books in the hypermarkets. We're the number one bookstore in France by the way. But as far as food is concerned, food will indeed help keep that social bond, link between consumers and their environment. The other day somebody asked me whether from home, sitting on your sofa, using your mobile phone or smartphone, whether you could actually order from anywhere all products at the best price. Yes, it is possible. How long? We might die before that, but I don't know. But I believe that physical trade will be profitable in the future, provided and that's the challenge because there are pressures in terms of efficiency because the digital world is very efficient because there is no contact between people and products, but we have to be humane in our approach. And this indeed is what we are doing at Carrefour. If we keep food in our DNA, then we will win the game. This is the physical strategy of Carrefour. We are a multiyear format corporation in almost all countries in the world, in France of course. Italy, things have been taking off the past three to four years, and Italy is currently emerging in terms of emergent in terms of results, thanks to great improvement of our food offering, Terre d'Italia, et cetera. And so we can show that we believe in local produce. Spain, following a tough and challenging economic environment, is also booming these days, thanks to its food offering. We'll talk about China later. China, despite trouble because of the transformation the country is actually going through, is leading a low cost manufacturing business and moving towards added value activities, focusing more on the environment. And at the same time, we they try to have domestic consumption pickup. And this means that the fresh produce in Carrefour in the fresh food offering in China is developing and expanding. It will take time but it is working. So we are multi format in China too because we have Easy, which is the word we chose locally for convenience local stores. We also developed, we also tried to sell over the internet, food over the internet. In Taiwan, very close to China, they are developing wonderfully, especially so because our local employees and leaders revived the quality food approach. EBIT increased by 10% to 12% and the average basket has also increased similarly. And so if we do, if we do focus on food, then this is the basis of our global development. This is the first stage, the first step and we need to consolidate the physical foundations of our business. You cannot change the rest. If we get closer to our consumers with physical local stores, we help cut the distance, we have customized services and this in turn means we can be we can help cut carbon emissions. And we talked about that earlier. This is the first stage, which means a consolidation of multi format. We've been talking about that for quite some time and so it people might think that it doesn't mean anything. But it's not quite the case. We have to be multi-channel. Now things need to be streamlined and simplified. This is easy to understand. First of all, we need to consolidate our different formats wherever possible. This is what we are currently doing in France, in Brazil. This is also the case with the phenomenal success of Atacadao. Then there is the efficient revamping of our hyper markets which helped to boost the brand name in Brazil. We are currently developing a network of supermarkets that we had taken over and that had been left aside for quite some time. And now we are launching convenience stores, quite successfully. No need to talk about Argentina, but still this is a forgotten country that was that had started a crazy race. But it's no longer just focusing on itself. This is a country that is opening up. We are multi format. We have local stores. We have a great network of supermarkets, hypermarkets. We have Maxi which is the equivalent of Atacadao and hypermarkets which are working doing really well. And so the Group as a whole is developing and multi format, this approach is consolidating or being consolidated. And our vision is increasingly understood by our employees and we now need to move on to the second step or second stage, which is to have a better IT base and to go digital. What do I mean by digitization? Digitization means that you need to get rid of internal partitions within the company so that all data should be available when needed by all operators of our company. You might call that the cloud of big data. But at the end of the day the idea is to have big storage units where people can actually find information using relevant apps. And this is the entire challenge really. When you develop such a database which is compiled based on multi format, then of course people from logistics, purchasing units, our marketing people should be able to work on these data, compiling data, gathering data, processing data. And indeed, this is we are making our company more transparent than it was, in the future especially internally. And this is a major change. Psychologically speaking it will be a breakthrough. It's not quite the case yet. We are sparing no efforts when it comes to doing that, but we've seen the first results. I personally visited one of our hypermarkets in the Greater Paris area and in two minutes, we had all -- we had access to all data in terms of sales per brand category and price. And this is something that made me really happy because I could tell that a Company like ours with great talents, great people, when we really want to modernize ourselves, whilst capitalizing on our key assets, then the results can be wonderful. And so we are going digital, which means we have to have a greater IT basis. It means at the same time that we have to increase the flow of transactions and of databases and this needs to be made on a resilient and robust basis. And at the same time we are giving our people mobile connection instruments and new channels to access those data. Well, you know what the tools or the handsets are. This one is actually great. This is the greatest step forward humanity has ever made I would say. And we need everyone to be able to use these handsets plus computers etc. So digitization will lead to internal transparency and will lead to the ability for our employees to find in a shared database the information they need. From a technological point of view, it's a major breakthrough because instead of providing them information, top down, they can look for information, search and based on that they can assemble and create something new. And this means we're entering a new world. Exploration will be key and this means that people will have the ability to explore because exploring is what we do on a daily basis. We look here and there, a bit behind hedges, behind trees, beyond borders, etc. and we need to find this pleasure for exploration. And at the same time we need to be able to learn. So exploration, learning, these are key elements. And from a cultural point of view, these are wonderful elements. If we manage to do that and we will, it will be great. We'll manage because people are smart, smarter than we think and that's the only thing they are waiting for. They want to learn, they want to develop and put this at the service of the company they work for. And then the last point, exploring, learning, means setting out on an adventure. Yes, an adventure. But an adventure for whom? An adventure for us. In fact, if we do this in a disciplined way, if we fix a few limits, if we accept balances, if we accept the idea that independence and personal development is something that is stronger and more explicit when it leads to an association, a combination of skills towards a common end, towards the end of the Company in the direction fixed by the Group. If we can do that, I can say that everything is there to be able to make a success of this. So stage one, consolidation of the physical assets. Stage two, working on the IT, on a reinforced basis. And stage three, we go for it, all this without too much haste. Digitization is not a religion; it's a means like any other. It's more modern, more effective, it's faster. It's more stunning as it were and we can bring together an unprecedented quantity of data. But we don't need to rush ahead. We need to do things in the proper order. That's particularly true for a company of our size. We are not under pressure, pressure coming from the very considerable investments that are required for this business. But of course, investment expects a rapid payback and that means that everybody is under pressure. But I say we need to do this, but we need to do this cautiously, deliberately and without excessive haste. So that's what I believe in for Carrefour and I'm convinced that all this is now underway. We took some time to develop these ideas. They needed to be developed in a precise way. We had to do that so as not to be arrogant. We needed to remain modest because we have many challenges ahead of us. But all this is now underway. We are building something new, but we're building for the medium term. And so our investors, our shareholders, whom we respect, need to understand that in their own interests, we need to go ahead with the caution that I've indicated and taking the time that is required. Haste will only lead to disaster. And when you look at the extraordinary tidal wave of data which is going to engulf us tomorrow, then you can see that it's important to be able to filter all this to focus on the essential. And above all, we should not forget that if we bring together tangible elements, digital efforts, IT, plus our physical stores, it is nevertheless the people who finally make the difference. Robotization is possible in a certain number of types of industry. It helps to reduce physical labor. It makes it possible to perform repetitive tasks which can have a disruptive impact. But apart from that I think that robotization has no role to play. Our business remains very much a human business and so this is the major challenge for us in our Company. This challenge means looking ahead to the development and the training of our management teams because if we're present in 20, 30, 40 countries, it's obvious that managing from Paris, from Boulogne is no longer possible. Henceforth, we are working in a global business where the issues at stake in terms of image, in terms of corporate responsibility, in terms of environmental issues, but also in terms of tax issues, economic issues, social issues, are all enormous. So it's important that we should raise the level of understanding of our management staff. That I think is the major task that lies ahead of us. And if we pay close attention to this and if, here again, we come back to the policy which the Group has implemented for some years past now, which involves getting people to work together with a hierarchy based on the combination between two levels, so that we never lose contact. So that development is always mutual. So that investment and information can circulate without being too centralized. If we can do that, I think we've done everything. So that's how I see Carrefour tomorrow. And I'd like to add that some old skills which were abandoned are now coming back into focus. Property for example, property is coming back at high speed. I think that these are lines of business which can help us to create value. But I want to avoid some ambiguities which have been created around Carmila, particularly concerning the ability of our Company to maintain its share price. Property is essential for retail and will remain essential I believe. We are now professionalizing our approach here and it will create value. This will enable us to retain control of all the items involved. This will enable us to dynamize the management of our assets, which had become somewhat inactive. But it will also enable us to bring the various retailers who are in our shopping malls along with us. We can get them involved in our communication, in our databases, in our event organizations and so on. Let's not forget the back office. The back office is often overlooked, but it remains essential for us. Purchases, logistics, all these types of business are difficult and very often they have to work under pressure. But they remain extremely important. They're absolutely fundamental to us. In fact, they can't be replaced. People are essential here. Reflection of ideas, thinking, the quality of those ideas, that's something that you can't replace by computers. Computers, IT can help us; they can bring great advantages. But human judgment, human discernment, services and the neural connections that are essential between the back office and the stores, all these are essential. So once again, a major human issue for the future, but of course if we don't have major issues to face up to, then what's left in life? So let's face up to these challenges and these will give us great satisfaction. So we're looking ahead to Carrefour which will remain a world leader based on food retailing, in which fresh produce will remain essential to generate traffic. The representation of major brands of course will be a competitive advantage. The positioning of our own brands in the central situation will help us to rebalance the situation. We need to pay attention to entry level products, so as not to be overtaken by hard discounters who of course claim that they sell French products, whether that's true or not. And then of course we need to maintain physical proximity with the customer. This is absolutely essential if we are to face up to the attempts by some people to encourage deliveries to the home. So that's where we are. A well-balanced investment portfolio and I think that the rating that was mentioned and which is well deserved needs to be maintained. That's absolutely essential. I think that today our shareholder base has been enriched. It's become somewhat more exotic, let's say, with the arrival of a Brazilian operator in our capital structure. They represent 12% of holding in our Brazilian affiliate, but of course Carrefour holds the rest. I want to stress that fact. But this operator is also a shareholder in the capital of the Company as a whole. There's also the Moulin family that has joined us. They've been in this business for a long time, in a complementary line of business. They understand general retailing and they understand premium formats because they've done a brilliant job of developing convenience concepts on the basis of Monoprix. All this is very satisfactory so new shareholders, a new type of dynamism in commercial terms, stability, a good balance in financial terms. Professional and human management which I believe is excellent and which we are going to continue to promote in the future. That is where we are today. So 2015, 2015 was an adequate year, a very sufficient year I would say, which I think met market expectations. There were no major surprises. I hope that I've been able to shed some light for you on the future, which I think is a very promising future. And I'm very happy to be accompanied here throughout 2015, which had some negative points for some of us. But nevertheless we've seen that the Company remains very robust and fully turned towards its future. Thank you. That's what I wanted to say. And now if there are any questions, we shall try to give you an answer. The gentleman here. Would you please introduce yourself when you put your question? Mrs. Caron, somebody who has also undergone a transformation. Please go ahead. I'm sorry we can't hear the question. That's better.

Q - Unidentified Analyst: Three questions, with your permission. The first question concerns the criteria for the management of your price positioning and the efforts you make in terms of promotions in France. What are the criteria that you adopt here? How do the market share indications that we've been given accompany this? They perhaps harm your shareholding, your share price. And what about the generation of traffic? What are the trends in terms of traffic in the different formats? Can you explain how you manage on a weekly or monthly basis all these elements? Or even on an hourly basis how do you manage your price positioning and your promotions? That's the first question. The second question concerns Carmila. Can you please help us, guide us in terms of the major aggregates? Can you talk about the mechanism for the creation of value? Can you update us concerning Carmila? Can you talk about what you expect to hope for here? And the third question, the last question. There have been some comments over the last few weeks, in the United States and also in Europe concerning deflationary pressures in some market segments. Because of the effects induced by the drop in some commodity prices, some raw materials prices have gone down very sharply. So can you update us concerning the situation here? Are you afraid of these deflationary pressures in some markets or some segments, particularly in Europe?

Operator: Thank you. We have a question of the telephone line from John Kershaw. Your line is now open.

Operator: The next question is over the phone from Sreedhar Mahamkali, Macquarie.

Georges Plassat: Thank you very much. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We've overrun our time slightly. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you for coming along to this meeting. And I wish you all a very good day and we hope that we have managed to reassure you and that we have reinforced your confidence in the Carrefour group. I hope to see you again soon. Thank you very much.