Bouygues Stock price
📊 Peer Group
📈 What is it?
The peer group consists of the companies with the most similar business model. They serve as a benchmark for putting a stock into context.
🧮 How is it selected?
Based on similarity of business model, meaning companies from the same industry with comparable products and a similar customer base. That's the only way to compare apples to apples.
🏛️ Why does it matter?
Whether a stock is cheap or expensive is best judged by comparison. A P/E of 18 or an EV/FCF of 20 can look cheap or expensive depending on the yardstick. The peer group gives you the most accurate one: companies with a similar business model that operate under the same conditions.
🎯 What does it mean for investors?
When a metric sits below the peer average, the stock is valued more cheaply relative to its competitors, and above the average more expensively. A discount to the peer group can be an opportunity, but it can also have a reason (for example lower growth). The comparison is a starting point, not a verdict.
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Invest better with AI
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👉 More detailed insights
👉 Exclusive perspectives on opportunities & risks
👉 Clear answers to your questions
Invest better with AI
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👉 More detailed insights
👉 Exclusive perspectives on opportunities & risks
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Key metrics
📘 Market Capitalization
📈 What is it?
Market capitalization shows how much a company is currently worth on the stock market.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps classify companies by size (Large, Mid, Small Cap) and indicates their market presence and relative stability.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Large-cap companies tend to be more stable, often pay dividends, but may grow more slowly.
- Smaller firms may offer higher growth potential but come with more volatility.
- Market capitalization is a useful indicator of company size — but not a measure of whether a stock is undervalued or overvalued.
📘 Enterprise Value (EV)
📈 What is it?
Enterprise Value represents the total cost to acquire a company — including its debt and excluding its cash reserves.
🧮 How is it calculated?
(= Market Cap + Net Debt)
🏛️ Why is it important?
EV gives a more complete picture of a company's value than market cap alone and is used in key valuation ratios like EV/FCF or EV/Sales.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Enterprise Value shows the true cost of buying a company, including all financial obligations.
- It is more accurate than just looking at market cap, especially when comparing companies with different levels of debt or cash.
- Professional investors prefer EV-based multiples because they better reflect the company’s full financial footprint.
📘 Net Debt
📈 What is it?
Net Debt shows how much debt remains after subtracting a company’s available cash reserves.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It indicates how dependent a company is on borrowed money and how easily it can service its debt in the short term.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Low or negative net debt signals financial strength and flexibility.
- Companies with strong cash positions are better positioned in crises.
- High net debt increases financial risk — especially in environments with rising interest rates or economic downturns.
📘 Cash
📈 What is it?
Cash represents all liquid assets a company can access immediately — including cash, bank deposits, and short-term investments.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It reflects a company’s financial flexibility and resilience — enabling investments, buybacks, or buffer in downturns.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A strong cash position means greater room for maneuver and crisis resistance.
- Cash-rich companies can invest, pay down debt, or repurchase shares.
- But excess idle cash might indicate a lack of growth opportunities.
📘 Shares Outstanding
📈 What is it?
Shares outstanding represent the total number of a company’s shares currently held by investors — excluding treasury stock.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It’s the basis for key metrics like Earnings Per Share (EPS), Market Capitalization, or the Price/Earnings ratio (P/E).
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Fewer shares in circulation typically increase earnings per share — making each share more valuable.
- Share buybacks reduce the number of shares and boost per-share metrics.
- Issuing new shares does the opposite — diluting shareholder value and lowering per-share figures.
📘 Price-to-Earnings Ratio (P/E)
📈 What is it?
The P/E ratio shows how many times a company's earnings per share are reflected in its current share price — in other words, how "expensive" the stock appears relative to its profits.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The P/E ratio is one of the most widely used valuation metrics. It helps investors assess whether a stock appears cheap or expensive compared to its earnings power.
🧮 Calculation
📊 P/E (TTM) = Based on earnings from the last 12 months (Trailing Twelve Months):🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low P/E may indicate undervaluation — or signal underlying issues.
- A high P/E may reflect strong growth expectations — or an overvalued stock.
📘 Price-to-Sales Ratio (P/S)
📈 What is it?
The P/S ratio shows how much investors are paying for $1 of the company’s revenue – regardless of profitability.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
P/S is especially useful for evaluating growth companies or businesses not yet profitable. It reflects how the market values the company’s sales.
🧮 Calculation
Market Cap = €16.91b | Revenue (TTM) = €56.30b
Market Cap = €16.91b | Estimated Revenue = €58.24b
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low P/S may indicate undervaluation — or low profitability.
- A high P/S can reflect strong growth expectations — or excessive optimism.
- Especially helpful when evaluating companies where profits are low, volatile, or negative.
📘 Enterprise Value to Sales (EV/Sales)
📈 What is it?
EV/Sales shows how much investors are paying for $1 of revenue — considering not just equity, but also debt and cash. It’s the capital structure–adjusted version of the P/S ratio.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It’s ideal for comparing companies with different levels of debt. It reflects a company's true cost relative to its revenue.
🧮 Calculation
Enterprise Value = €26.75b | Revenue (TTM) = €56.30b
Enterprise Value = €26.75b | Forward Revenue = €58.24b
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- EV/Sales allows for capital structure–neutral company comparisons.
- A lower ratio may indicate undervaluation; a higher one may signal strong growth expectations or overvaluation.
- Especially helpful when evaluating high-growth companies with low or negative earnings.
📘 Enterprise Value to Free Cash Flow (EV/FCF)
📈 What is it?
EV/FCF shows how many years it would take for a company to "pay back" its enterprise value using its free cash flow.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It focuses on real cash generation, ignoring accounting noise — ideal for assessing profitability and value based on liquidity, not earnings.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low EV/FCF may signal undervaluation and strong cash generation.
- A high EV/FCF might reflect weak recent cash flow or aggressive growth expectations.
- Best suited for stable, mature businesses with predictable free cash flows.
📘 Price-to-Book Ratio (P/B)
📈 What is it?
The P/B ratio compares a company’s market value to its book value — showing how much investors are paying for each dollar of net assets.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
P/B is commonly used for asset-heavy industries like banks or industrials. It helps assess whether a stock is trading above or below its net asset value.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A P/B below 1 may signal undervaluation — or weak profitability.
- A P/B above 1 implies the market expects future value creation (e.g., brand, IP, growth).
- Best used for companies with tangible assets and strong balance sheets.
📘 Dividend per Share (DPS)
📈 What is it?
Dividend per Share shows how much cash a company pays out to shareholders for each share they own – usually on an annual or quarterly basis.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
DPS is the absolute value of the payout per share – crucial for income-focused investors and dividend strategies.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A stable or growing DPS often signals a strong, shareholder-friendly business.
- DPS alone doesn’t tell you how attractive the payout is – the stock price also matters (→ see Dividend Yield).
- Long-term dividend growth is often a hallmark of high-quality companies – like the dividend aristocrats.
📘 Dividend Yield
📈 What is it?
Dividend yield shows how large a company’s dividend is in relation to its current share price.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It allows investors to compare dividend payouts across stocks, regardless of price or payout size.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A stable yield can reflect reliable distributions.
- Comparing 1Y and 5Y yield shows whether dividend growth keeps pace with stock price appreciation.
- A low yield isn’t always negative – it can signal strong past performance or growth focus.
📘 Dividend Growth
📈 What is it?
Dividend growth shows how much a company has increased its dividend per share over time.
🧮 How is it calculated?
5Y: Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)
🏛️ Why is it important?
Consistently rising dividends are often a sign of financial strength and shareholder orientation – especially relevant for long-term investors.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Stable dividend growth is a sign of sustainable earning power.
- High dividend growth can significantly boost your total return:
- If a company pays $1 in dividends and increases it by 15% annually over 5 years, you’ll receive $2 per share in year 5 – twice as much as at the start!
📘 Payout Ratio
📈 What is it?
The payout ratio shows what percentage of a company’s earnings (per share) is distributed to shareholders as dividends.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps assess whether the dividend is sustainable – especially in relation to the company’s profitability.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low payout ratio means the company retains more earnings for reinvestment – typical for growth companies.
- A moderate payout (e.g. 25–50%) indicates a healthy balance between returns and reinvestment.
- High payout ratios may seem attractive but can carry risk if earnings decline.
📘 Consecutive Dividend Increases
📈 What is it?
This metric shows how many consecutive years a company has raised its dividend per share – without any cuts or pauses.
🧮 How is it calculated?
(Special dividends are not considered.)
🏛️ Why is it important?
A long track record of increases reflects financial strength, consistency, and shareholder commitment.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A long dividend increase streak builds confidence – especially in volatile markets.
- Such companies are seen as reliable and income-friendly investments.
- The longer the streak, the stronger the company’s dividend discipline.
📘 Revenue
📈 What is it?
Revenue shows how much a company earns in total from selling its products and services – the gross income before any costs are deducted.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Revenue is one of the key figures to assess a company’s size, market position, and growth potential.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growing revenue indicates rising demand and can be an early signal of future earnings growth.
- Comparing actual and expected revenue reveals trends in the market environment and analyst sentiment.
- Note: Strong revenue alone isn’t enough – margins and profitability matter just as much.
📘 EBITDA
📈 What is it?
EBITDA stands for “Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization.” It reflects a company’s operating profit before the effects of financing, taxes, and accounting depreciation.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBITDA is widely used to evaluate a company’s operating performance – especially across capital-intensive sectors or international comparisons.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high or growing EBITDA indicates strong operational profitability – independent of taxes, interest, or accounting methods.
- It’s especially useful for comparing companies across sectors or geographies.
- Important: EBITDA is not a net income figure – it excludes key costs like depreciation and interest.
📘 EBIT
📈 What is it?
EBIT stands for “Earnings Before Interest and Taxes.” It reflects a company’s operating profit after depreciation, but before interest and tax expenses.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBIT is a core profitability metric that shows how well the company performs in its main business operations – independent of capital structure and tax environment.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBIT indicates strong profitability from the company’s core business – before financial and tax effects.
- It allows better comparison between companies with different debt levels or tax structures.
- Compared to EBITDA, EBIT already accounts for depreciation and reflects capital intensity more clearly.
📘 Net Income
📈 What is it?
Net income is the company’s total profit – the amount left after all expenses, taxes, interest, and depreciation have been deducted.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net income is the most comprehensive measure of a company’s profitability – showing how much actual profit remains after all business and financing costs.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growing net income indicates that the company is managing all of its costs efficiently.
- It directly influences valuation metrics like P/E ratio and the company’s dividend capacity.
- Over time, net income trends reveal how resilient and profitable the business model really is.
📘 Free Cash Flow (FCF)
📈 What is it?
Free Cash Flow shows how much actual cash remains after a company covers its operating expenses and capital expenditures.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
FCF reflects a company’s real financial strength – regardless of accounting profits. It shows how much flexibility a company has for dividends, share buybacks, or debt reduction.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- High free cash flow means the company generates real, usable cash – independent of reported net income.
- It’s often the most reliable base for sustainable dividends and buybacks.
- Declining FCF can be an early warning sign – even when profits appear stable.
📘 Revenue Growth
📈 What is it?
Revenue growth shows how much a company’s sales have changed compared to the previous year – both on a trailing basis (TTM) and based on forward projections.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected revenue ÷ Revenue in prior year − 1) × 100
Forward growth is based on analyst estimates for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Rising revenue signals growing demand, business expansion, and market share gains – especially important for growth-oriented companies.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growth is the engine of long-term value creation – especially in tech and growth sectors.
- What matters is not just current growth, but its sustainability.
- Forward projections reflect whether analysts expect continued momentum – or a slowdown.
📘 EBITDA Growth
📈 What is it?
EBITDA growth shows how much a company’s operating profit (before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) has increased or decreased compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected EBITDA ÷ EBITDA from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate is based on analyst projections for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Growing EBITDA indicates improving operational profitability – regardless of financing or accounting effects.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Strong EBITDA growth signals operational efficiency and scalability – especially during growth phases.
- EBITDA growth can be an early indicator of margin and earnings expansion – but should be assessed alongside revenue and EBIT.
📘 EBIT Growth
📈 What is it?
EBIT growth shows how much a company’s operating profit (after depreciation, but before interest and taxes) has increased compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected EBIT ÷ EBIT from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate is based on analyst projections for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBIT growth is a direct indicator of a company’s business performance – taking into account capital intensity through depreciation.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Rising EBIT signals improving operating profitability – even after accounting for depreciation.
- It’s especially important for evaluating companies with significant capital expenditures.
- Combined with revenue and EBITDA growth, EBIT growth provides a well-rounded view of operational progress.
📘 Net Income Growth
📈 What is it?
Net income growth shows how much a company’s bottom-line profit has increased or decreased compared to the previous year – both on a trailing basis (TTM) and based on analyst projections.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected net income ÷ Net income from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate reflects analysts’ expectations for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net income is the ultimate measure of profitability. Growing net income signals stronger efficiency, cost control, and sustainable earnings power.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Stronger net income boosts valuation, dividend potential, and investor confidence.
- If profits stall while revenue grows, it may signal margin pressure.
📘 Free Cash Flow Growth
📈 What is it?
Free cash flow (FCF) growth shows how a company’s available cash – after covering operating expenses and capital expenditures – has changed compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Free cash flow reflects real financial strength. Growing FCF indicates more flexibility for dividends, share buybacks, and reinvestment.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Declining FCF may point to rising investments, increasing costs, or weaker operating performance.
- Especially for dividend investors, FCF growth is critical – since dividends are paid from actual available cash.
- A negative trend isn't always bad, but it deserves closer attention.
📘 Gross Margin
📈 What is it?
Gross margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains after deducting the direct costs of goods sold (like materials and production). It represents the company’s “raw profit” before fixed costs, taxes, and interest.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Or simply: Gross Margin = Gross Profit ÷ Revenue × 100
🏛️ Why is it important?
Gross margin indicates how efficiently a company can produce or procure what it sells. It is a key measure of product-level profitability and pricing power.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high gross margin suggests strong pricing power and efficient production.
- Falling margins may signal rising input costs or competitive pressure.
- Compared to peers, gross margin offers insights into the quality of a business model.
📘 EBITDA Margin
📈 What is it?
The EBITDA margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as operating profit before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.It reflects operating efficiency without being distorted by financing or accounting factors.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The EBITDA margin reveals how much operating income a company generates per dollar of revenue – independent of capital structure and tax effects.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBITDA margin reflects strong core profitability – before accounting distortions.
- It allows for effective comparisons across companies and sectors.
- A stable or growing margin signals efficient cost control and business scalability.
📘 EBIT Margin
📈 What is it?
The EBIT margin shows what percentage of revenue remains as operating profit after depreciation but before interest and taxes.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The EBIT margin reflects a company’s core profitability while accounting for capital intensity (e.g. machinery, infrastructure). It’s especially useful for comparing businesses with different levels of depreciation.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBIT margin shows that the company remains efficient even after factoring in depreciation.
- It’s especially relevant for capital-intensive industries.
- Stable or rising EBIT margins over time are a strong indicator of pricing power and business quality.
📘 Net margin
📈 What is it?
Net margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as bottom-line profit after deducting all costs, interest, taxes, and depreciation.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net margin reflects a company’s overall efficiency – across operations, financing, and taxation. It shows how much actual profit is generated from each dollar of revenue.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high net margin means the company is not only strong operationally but also manages financing and taxes efficiently.
- Peer comparisons reveal business quality and competitiveness.
- Declining margins despite revenue growth can be a red flag for rising costs or inefficiencies.
📘 Free cash flow margin
📈 What is it?
The free cash flow (FCF) margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as actual free cash after covering all operating expenses and capital expenditures.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
This margin reflects the true liquidity generated by the business – independent of accounting rules or depreciation. It’s especially relevant for dividends, buybacks, and reinvestment decisions.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high FCF margin means a company consistently generates strong cash flow.
- It’s a positive signal for financial stability and shareholder returns.
- The long-term trend is key – a declining margin may indicate rising investments or weakening operating efficiency.
📘 Equity Ratio
📈 What is it?
The equity ratio indicates what portion of a company’s total assets is financed by shareholders’ equity – in other words, how much it relies on its own capital.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
A high equity ratio reflects financial strength and stability, especially during downturns. It’s a key indicator of a company’s solvency and long-term risk profile.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Companies with high equity ratios are generally more resilient and less dependent on external debt.
- Low equity ratios can signal higher risk or aggressive financial strategies.
- Important: Always assess the equity ratio in combination with the return on equity (ROE). This shows not just how stable the company is – but also how efficiently it uses shareholder capital.
📘 Return on Equity (ROE)
📈 What is it?
Return on equity (ROE) shows how efficiently a company uses its shareholders’ equity to generate profit. In other words: how much net income is earned per dollar of equity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROE is a core profitability metric. It helps investors understand whether a company delivers attractive returns on the capital provided by its shareholders.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROE indicates that the company is using its capital efficiently and profitably.
- It’s especially meaningful for capital-intensive businesses or firms with high equity bases.
- Important: A very high ROE can also result from high debt levels – always interpret it alongside the equity ratio to assess financial health.
📘 Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)
📈 What is it?
ROCE measures how efficiently a company generates profits from its total capital – including both equity and interest-bearing debt.
🧮 How is it calculated?
It evaluates the return on all capital employed, regardless of how it’s financed.
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROCE is ideal for comparing companies with different financing structures. It shows how well management uses capital to create value for both shareholders and creditors.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROCE means the company uses its capital efficiently – regardless of whether it's funded by debt or equity.
- The higher the ROCE compared to peers, the more value the company creates with its invested capital.
- Especially relevant for capital-intensive sectors like industrials, energy, or infrastructure.
📘 Return on Invested Capital (ROIC)
📈 What is it?
ROIC measures how efficiently a company generates returns from the capital invested in its core operations – regardless of whether the capital comes from equity or debt.
🧮 How is it calculated?
- NOPAT = Net Operating Profit After Taxes
- Invested Capital = Operating assets minus non-interest-bearing liabilities
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROIC is one of the most accurate indicators of capital efficiency. Unlike return on equity, it is not distorted by leverage and shows how much value is created for all capital providers.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROIC shows how effectively a company uses the capital that is truly invested in its core operations.
- Unlike ROCE, ROIC focuses only on the capital that is actively used to run the business – and that requires a return (i.e. interest-bearing).
- Especially useful when comparing companies with large amounts of excess cash or non-interest-bearing liabilities – giving a more realistic picture of capital efficiency.
📘 Leverage Ratio (Debt-to-Equity)
📈 What is it?
The leverage ratio indicates how much a company relies on interest-bearing debt (such as loans and bonds) relative to its shareholders’ equity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
This ratio helps assess a company’s financial structure and risk profile. High leverage can enhance returns – but also increases exposure to interest rate changes and financial stress.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low leverage ratio signals financial strength and independence.
- A higher ratio can improve returns in good times but increases risk during downturns or rising interest rate periods.
- 👉 Always interpret in the context of industry, capital intensity, and interest rate environment.
📘 Earnings per share (EPS)
📈 What is it?
Earnings per Share (EPS) shows how much profit is attributable to a single share – and is one of the most important metrics for evaluating a company's performance.
🧮 How is it calculated?
The diluted share count reflects potential new shares that could be issued through options, convertible bonds, or other rights.
🏛️ Why is it important?
EPS is the basis for many key valuation metrics like P/E ratio, PEG ratio, or payout ratio. It enables comparisons of profitability across companies, regardless of their size.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- EPS captures per-share profitability and is especially useful for comparisons over time or with analyst estimates.
- Rising EPS may signal consistent growth or share buybacks.
- Important: Always use diluted EPS for more realistic valuations – especially in companies with stock-based compensation.
📘 Free cash flow per share (FCF per share)
📈 What is it?
Free Cash Flow per Share shows how much free cash flow a company generates per outstanding share – after investments, but before dividends or debt repayments.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Free cash flow is calculated as operating cash flow minus capital expenditures (CapEx).
🏛️ Why is it important?
FCF per Share reveals how much real cash is available per share – useful for dividends, buybacks, or reducing debt. Unlike net income, free cash flow is harder to manipulate and often seen as a more reliable metric.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- High FCF per share signals strong financial flexibility.
- It shows how much capital the company can effectively reinvest or return to shareholders.
- Particularly relevant for dividend payers and capital-efficient businesses.
📘 Short interest
📈 What is it?
Short interest indicates how many shares of a company are currently sold short – that is, borrowed and sold by investors who expect the price to decline.
🧮 How is it calculated?
It reflects the percentage of a company’s shares that are being shorted relative to the total shares available.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Short interest serves as a sentiment indicator: A high value may signal skepticism or bearish expectations – but also increases the potential for a short squeeze if prices rise unexpectedly.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Low short interest usually indicates market confidence in the company.
- High short interest can be a warning sign – or an opportunity if sentiment shifts.
- Especially relevant in volatile markets or ahead of key earnings releases.
📘 Employees
📈 What is it?
The employee count shows how many people a company employs worldwide – offering insights into its size, structure, and business model.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps assess operational scale, labor intensity, and cost structure. Combined with revenue and profit, it enables key metrics like revenue per employee or productivity.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high headcount can signal operational complexity – but also significant growth capacity.
- Revenue per employee is a key indicator of efficiency.
- Especially useful for comparing tech, industrial, or service-heavy companies.
📘 Turnover per employee
📈 What is it?
Revenue per employee indicates how much revenue a company generates on average per employee – a key measure of efficiency and productivity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
The employee count is typically taken from the most recent annual report.
🏛️ Why is it important?
This metric helps compare business models – especially between labor-intensive and technology-driven companies. A high value suggests automation, operational efficiency, or strong value creation per head.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
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Bouygues Stock Analysis
Analyst Opinions
16 Analysts have issued a Bouygues forecast:
Analyst Opinions
16 Analysts have issued a Bouygues forecast:
Bouygues Events
Past Events
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JUL
30
Q2 2026 Earnings Call
about 2 months ago
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MAY
7
Q1 2026 Earnings Call
4 months ago
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APR
23
Shareholder/Analyst Call - Bouygues SA
5 months ago
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FEB
26
Q4 2025 Earnings Call
7 months ago
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NOV
5
Q3 2025 Earnings Call
10 months ago
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StocksGuide Free
Bouygues — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of the first half 2026 results. Please note that this presentation will be recorded. You will be able to ask questions on the phone after the presentation. [Operator Instructions]
I give the floor to Olivier Roussat, who is the CEO of Bouygues Group.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. This is a busy day, and so we're doing everything online to give people a chance to attend as many presentations as possible. I'll give you this presentation. Stephane Stoll will come in at some point, and then we'll be able to take questions together with all managers of this group. We start with Page 4. Now, let me remind you that this is a seasonal business and the performance of H1 are not representative of the annual performance, but the geopolitical environment is very uncertain and volatile. In spite of this, the group's performance on H1 has been extremely robust.
Revenue is slightly down 1.3% on a constant ForEx. The COPA is up EUR 33 million at EUR 829 million. As we expected, the significant improvement in EQUANS' COPA more than offsets the expected declines at TF1 and Bouygues Telecom. The net income group share is significantly up compared to last year in spite of the impact for the second year running of the so-called one-off surcharge -- tax surcharge for the large companies in France. One-off is not the case. In any case, at end 2026, the net financial debt was reduced by EUR 2 billion following the trend that we've had over the past 2 quarters.
And a few words about the Equans book-to-bill found a new momentum in Q2 with an order book historically high, up EUR 1.7 billion compared to June 2025. Equans' increased business in Q2 made it possible to catch up with a slow start in Q1. The profitability of Equans was 5.2% in H1, up 1.2 percentage points over 1 year. And so we confirm the group's outlook for the year 2026.
Move on to Page 5 with key figures. Group's revenue in the group was EUR 26.3 billion, down 2.2%. Let me remind you that in Q1, the decline was 3.2% over 1 year. So the Q2 made it possible to compensate for some of the loss. In operating results, COPA was up EUR 33 million at EUR 829 million. Net income group share came to EUR 287 million, a significant improvement over the year -- over 1 year, in spite of this tax surcharge for large companies in France, which came to EUR 35 million this year. Our net financial debt stood at EUR 6.5 billion at 30 June 2026 compared with EUR 8.5 billion at 30 June 2025.
Before we move on to the examination of the various businesses, we would like to give you a presentation of the various initiatives we've been taking in the CSR front. We have a number of challenges, the heat wave, the wildfires. So one example of what we've been doing, Colas has developed an initiative to support communities with -- to face heat waves and also floods. It's an initiative called street adapt, and it involves management of rainwater and adjustments in urban areas, creating cooling areas. And then we've developed -- Equans developed NEMOSYS FIRE, a fire detection device that can give early warning on possible fires. It's being used in the Gironde department, and that made it possible to detect a number of fire starts this year and therefore, call the fire brigades early on.
And Bouygues Immobilier published its white paper on cooling cities and housings. And of course, that came out in good time. I mean, it took a few weeks to write that white paper, but it came in the nick of time with the heat wave. And so we are offering cooling solutions for buildings and entire neighborhoods in cities to adapt to the new weather conditions. And this is how we do our part in addressing climate change. And so other than doing ordinary business, we're trying to protect territories, their inhabitants and adapt the various housing solutions to new circumstances.
And then -- we'll start with the construction business on Page 10 of the presentation. There are 2 major highlights of Q2, illustrating our ambition to extend our geographical footprint. There's one acquisition in Germany. We acquired Frauenrath. That's a company that builds roads in Germany. That's a first for Colas in Germany. Up until now, we had an acquisition with Colas Rail, and that was in 2022, the Hasselmann Group in 2022. And so we're continuing that extension in that territory in Germany because we believe this is very promising for the infrastructure business. We expect revenue in Germany to stand at about EUR 1 billion for all businesses. As things stand now, we are around -- we stand at about EUR 900 million.
Bouygues Construction also made an acquisition in the U.S., the Vannoy Construction company that covers 3 states in the U.S., Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Vannoy in 2025 had a revenue of about EUR 900 million. And so that makes it possible for Bouygues Construction to take another -- gain an additional foothold on the U.S. market. And so we can start building buildings in the U.S. market. And that opens the way for new synergies in the U.S. because we're looking at about EUR 5 billion in revenue, thanks to the presence of also Equans and Colas in the U.S. The order book is pretty high. It stands at EUR 33.4 billion, up 1% over the year. The favorable effects on the scope with the integration of Vannoy were slightly offset by the negative ForEx.
Moving on to Page 12, the order book of the construction business. We should be pointed out that in 2026, the share of orders to be performed in the next 18 months was up EUR 1.3 billion compared to end June 2025. Now needless to say, the integration of Vannoy does make a difference. Of course, it has contributed to the order book, but we did not take into account Frauenrath's order book because that will be integrated as Q3 -- as of Q3 2026. If we look at the detail, the Colas' order book is up 2% on a constant ForEx basis, not including main disposals and acquisitions. The road business is slightly down 1% and rail is stable. The order book for Bouygues Construction stood at EUR 17.9 billion, down -- up, sorry, 4% over the year, up 1% on 1 year on a constant exchange rate basis, not including disposals and acquisitions. It is supported by Bâtiment International, whose order book is up 32% with the integration of Vannoy and Bâtiment France, whose order book is up 12% over the year. Conversely, Travaux Publics, Public Works is down 18%, and this is very much to do with the unfavorable basis of comparison in H1 2025.
And of course, big projects are worth hundreds of million EUR. And depending on when they start, they can make a huge difference. So the comparison basis well, does not lend itself to actual comparisons in line with previous quarters with Immobilier facing challenging times. At end June, its order books was EUR 0.7 billion, down 11% over the year, down 5% on a constant ForEx basis and not including disposals and acquisitions. We had, of course, disposed of the Polish business in July 2025. If you do include reservations in the order books, well, then you'll find that Bouygues Immobilier's order books is actually up 10% over that period. If you look at the sales for Q -- for H1 in H1 2026, Colas had orders worth EUR 6.5 billion. In the road business, there's a significant slowdown in France to be expected because of the election period, especially municipal elections, but there are positive developments in various parts of the world in H1, particularly in North America, Canada and the U.S. An example is Colas through its subsidiary, Sully-Miller, got a contract worth EUR 260 million in California to repair freeway motorway.
And in Canada, the subsidiary, Miller Group got a contract worth about EUR 350 million for the Bradford Bypass motorway. The rail business, well, there were several significant contracts worth more than EUR 100 million -- several hundred million euros in the U.K. and Morocco, so a high basis of comparison. Colas Rail's contracts are very much like Bouygues Travaux Publics. We're looking at significant and lengthy contracts. So -- but still in Q2 in spite of this high comparison basis got new significant contracts in the rail business in Chile for the Santiago metro with about EUR 100 million. Bouygues Construction, of course, its business is related to large projects, but that doesn't happen on a regular basis. So there are big variations from one quarter to the next. And so there's significant fluctuations in order taking the way in which we have a layering of our order book to gain visibility.
We find that there's one significant order, EUR 4.8 billion in H1. A significant portion of that is what we call the normal course of business activities under EUR 100 million. But these are businesses where competition is toughest. And so when there's a good growth in that type of contract, it means that the company is, of course, more competitive. So a significant portion of these contracts are run-of-the-mill contracts accounting for about 60% of all orders. In H1, we also had several contracts worth more than EUR 100 million, in particular, in Australia for data center in the U.K. for the Lower Thames Crossing and then another contract, Jersey for hospital.
Finally, Bouygues Immobilier's sales for service buildings is at the standstill. Residential remains challenging. Indicators, however, for land purchasing are looking good. Unit reservations in housing are up 18% over the year. But of course, that improvement is somewhat hidden by block reservations, which will only occur later this year. So watch this space. There's a significant contract, a data center in Australia through our subsidiary, AW Edwards. It's a contract with AirTrunk. That contract is to be performed over a 2-year period. And so the idea is to build a data center with a capacity of 400 megawatts. As you know, these data centers are growing bigger and bigger because the demand for cloud computing is constantly increasing.
What's the revenue then of our 3 construction companies. The overall business stands at EUR 12.4 billion, down 2% over the year, but stable on the constant scope and ForEx basis. Colas' revenue was down 4% as published and down 3% on a constant ForEx basis. That 2% increase in the Rail business did not offset the 4% decline in the Road business. Bouygues Construction business is up. Sales were up 2% over the year, 3% on a constant rate basis. The activity is driven by Travaux Publics, Public Works, up 14%; Bâtiment France, up 6%, but Bâtiment International is down because, of course, a number of big projects we delivered in Morocco for a big hospital and another one in Australia.
Bouygues Immobilier's revenues were down 19% over the year, down 14% on a constant scope and ForEx basis. Of course, the disposal of the Polish businesses that distorts the basis of comparison, but we believe that we've reached -- I mean, H1 was marked by a number of operations that had a positive contribution to revenue. So that decline now is not representative of the expected performance for the year. Let's look at COPA for our construction businesses. Again, that COPA is not representative of the annual performance. However, COPA for the construction business was at EUR 43 million, up EUR 17 million over the year, driven by a significant improvement in COPA and margin at Bouygues Construction.
If we can move on to Equans at long last. As I said earlier on, by way of introduction, we have a good momentum of book-to-bail -- book-to-bill, sorry, in Q2, as you can see on the right-hand side of this slide. Book-to-bill was very effective in Q2. And for H1 as a whole, we have a good performance. The order book stands at EUR 27.6 billion, up EUR 1.7 billion compared to last year. So a 7% improvement. The order book is made up of, well, orders worth less than EUR 5 million, and that is slightly up for the year, accounting for about 65% of all orders. Orders for contracts worth more than EUR 5 million account for about 35% of orders. So this is significantly up over the year with significant, again, orders for a number of specialty segments, including, of course, data centers. This is, of course, booming in the U.S., and it's starting in Europe. Solar and storage is also picking up. A number of -- well, a significant item in Equans' strategy and in line with the previous quarters, we find good margins upon order taking and Equans is expecting high large orders in H2. And that, of course, will make a significant contribution to the order book as a whole.
Let's look at the results. Revenues, sales stood at EUR 8.9 billion in H1, down 3% on a constant ForEx basis, the sales in Q2 were almost the same as in Q2 2025. So partly offsets the slow start of the year. But we're confident while ForEx had a negative effect on revenue worth about EUR 90 million, we find that COPA at EUR 460 million was up almost EUR 100 million over the year. Margin now stands at 5.2%, up 1.2 percentage points compared to what it was a year ago. I should note that there were a number of one-off items. Equans disposed of its electric car recharging business in the Netherlands in Q2. And that is one of the disposals we announced. And so all the asset-based businesses are being sold off.
Regarding M&As and in line with the strategy, Equans has had 3 acquisitions -- 3 bolt-on acquisitions in H1. You have a company called SV in Italy, ASTI in Singapore, MCI Faser Power in Austria and more recently, in July in -- that's Q3 rather than H1. We acquired CV Services in Australia. So you have 4 acquisitions were generating about EUR 210 million in sales and other acquisitions are expected in the next weeks and months.
Regarding the Equans' outlook, let me remind you that Equans is continuing its strategic project. You may remember, as was presented at Capital Markets Day back in 2023. So 2026, we're looking at revenue stable in 2026. We're looking, at in conversion terms, 80% to 100% of COPA in cash flow before WCR. We are improving our guidance for the annual margin, looking at 5.2%. We were initially announcing 5%, 1 year ahead of schedule compared to what we announced at the 2023 Capital Markets Day.
And finally, on the last picture, you can see that for organizational reasons, we'll be having the next Capital Markets Day on the afternoon of the day when we present our numberswe present our numbers that will be 25 February rather than 27. So this means that you'll have by then the full picture for the year.
Now if we look at Bouygues Telecom's performance, we'll start with a little video celebrating 30 years of existence.
[Presentation]
Okay. Back to the figures for Bouygues Telecom. Now let's begin with the key figures in fixed telephones, thanks to its customer satisfaction and quality of service and of course, its BIG offering, our commercial momentum has continued. The number of new clients was 116,000 in the second half year, including 69,000 in Q2, which is a record quarter or second quarter since we launched this business back in 2008. Clients with FTTH now number 4.9 million. Now we haven't been marketing ADSL for a number of years now, but they represent a total of 88% of the total fixed line portfolio, up from 84% a year ago. That's an increase of 185,000 customers in the first half, including 96,000 in Q2.
We've been acknowledged for the quality of our network, and we are now the first operator to propose XGS-PON technology across our entire fiber-to-the-home network. This improves throughput for customers. Fixed ABPU rose EUR 0.20 over last year to reach EUR 33.20. As you can see on Page 24, Bouygues Telecom has performed well in mobile despite the fact that this is a difficult market impacted by ongoing price pressure. At the end of June, Bouygues Telecom has 18.8 million mobile plan customers, excluding MtoM, that's an increase of 173,000 customers in the first half year, including 82,000 in Q2. That's bigger than in the first half or the first quarter of '25, where we added 105,000 new clients. This is because of the continued good performance of BIG announced in late '24 and of course, its impact on churn.
Mobile ABPU totaled EUR 16.7, down EUR 0.60 over the last 12 months. This is because the market is still very competitive. ABPU is penalized by the acquisition of new customers whose ABPU is low, particularly in digital plans. Page 25, what do we get in terms of key figures? Well, sales bill to customers in the first half of '26 was stable year-on-year. The increase in fixed lines offsets the decline in mobile. Sales were up 3% over the period, which is comprised mainly of terminals, accessories and works up 16% over the period. These sales being nonlinear, very seasonal over the year, if you prefer, and of course, with the fluctuations that imposes.
EBITDA after leases of EUR 954 million, which was stable year-on-year despite the continuing and ongoing efforts in cost control, particularly in cost of networks and FTTH. So Bouygues Telecom is continuing to contain its costs. Current operating profit from activities totaled EUR 274 million for the first half year. This was in line with expectations, and particularly in view of the increase in amortization -- depreciation and amortization, in line with the CapEx trend of previous years with an average amortization period of 9 years.
Now the outlook for Bouygues Telecom in 2026, sales bill to customers after leases will be close to 2025 and showing moderate growth by comparison with 2023 before La Poste Telecom. Gross capital expenditure of close to EUR 1.3 billion, excluding frequencies, confirming a decline in the peak in CapEx observed over the last 5 years. Free cash flow before working capital requirements of around EUR 600 million, excluding La Poste Telecom and before the impact of income tax surcharge. If we were to include La Poste Telecom and this income tax surcharge, it will be around EUR 500 million. I should clarify that this outlook does not factor in the potential impacts of the proposed acquisition of SFR.
So speaking of SFR, what is the lie of the land? There's a progress report. On the 6th of June '26, we signed alongside Orange and Free-iliad, we signed a memorandum of understanding with Altice France with a view to acquiring SFR. Now there are a lot of things need to be done from the operational point of view, those things we've already commenced, and that involved quite a lot of people. There's the whole process of consulting the relevant employee representative bodies, which is underway. So we need the opinion of these representative bodies before we can proceed with the signing of any deal. There's also what we call the limit or known as the long stop date, which is the 6th of December 2026. As for the competition authorities, well, the French competition authority, ADLC has begun its work -- it's the French competition authority that will be competent in this instance. So we've already given notice of our initial intentions. We have commenced a whole process of exchange with the competition authority and indeed with the telecoms regulator.
This transaction could not be closed until the whole transaction is approved by the various authorities, particularly the ADLC, which is the competition authority, and after fulfillment of the other conditions precedent as specified in the sale contract. Given the amount of time it takes for these things to be processed by the competition authorities, we now feel that the likelihood is that this -- the deal will not be closed before late '27 or even early '28.
I propose that we now move directly on to Page 29. This is the results of TF1 as published last Friday. Rodolphe has already commented these with Pierre-Alain commented them on Friday evening. So I'll be brief. TF1 in the first half year maintained its viewership leadership in terms of audience, particularly among the women decision-makers under 50 and young people. Audience leadership was respectively, 33.2% and 29.8% in these 2 areas. TF1+ has also confirmed its success with 42 [ million ] monthly streamers on average in the first half year. That's up 20% year-on-year and a record of 44 million streamers in June of this year.
Finally, TF1 has set up a new unprecedented partnership under the leadership of Rodolphe that was with Netflix. Entered in 2025 was implemented in mid-June '26 France, whereby all Netflix subscribers can view TF1 and the TF1 content on Netflix. The idea behind this was to seek out people who do not connect via linear channels. This launch, I think, has confirmed our expectations. This has increased the number of streamers to a record of 8.3 million on the 25th of June. This was a record high. So a very, very promising launch.
TF1's performance, I think, is a reflection of the decline in linear advertising revenue in our revenue in the first half was almost EUR 1 billion, down 6% on a like-for-like basis. The media figure was down 11% or 7% on a like-for-like basis given the disposals of MyTele, Paris and Fleetu in 2025. This includes advertising revenue, which is down 9%. The advertising market in linear is now impacted by the macroeconomic uncertainties. In this context, TF1 has maintained a relatively stable market share. In digital, TF1 has continued to perform well with advertising revenue up 19% over -- year-on-year, which goes to show how attractive this platform is for advertisers as well. Studio TF1 was down 3%. A substantial amount of Studio TF1's income comes from the supply of series for the platforms. This often takes place in the second half of the year.
Now the COPA was down year-on-year as expected, but the margin of activity was 7.8%, in line with expectations. What about the outlook for TF1 in 2026? Well, we can confirm them. Rodolphe confirmed them last year with very limited visibility, and that's the context, but we are aiming at double-digit growth in digital, a dividend policy that will be on the rise in recent years and a margin on activities in the mid- to high single-digit margin of activities before capital gains. That is subject to the evolution of the linear market.
Let me now give the floor to Stephane Stoll, who will give you a detailed presentation of our financial statements. I see you have your notes, so you won't need mine.
Thank you, Olivier, and good morning, everybody. Just a few words by way of additional explanation on the accounts as of June 30, beginning with the income statement on Page 33. Now without dwelling on the sales figure at COPA, which you've already commented at some length. So no very significant comment required, no real changes this half year. But 2 things I would like to point out. The first of these concerns nonrecurring items, which are booked under other operating income and expenses. This is not a reflection of operating activity, but these include this half year, the booking at Bouygues Telecom and to a lesser extent at Bouygues SA, the booking of expenses relating to the proposed acquisition of SFR.
As you can imagine, we are spending -- have been spending quite a lot of money on fees and consulting fees, et cetera. This also includes expenses relating to the profit sharing program at Equans, which is to a lesser extent, of course, over this period. The second comment I wanted to make is that in the first half year, we booked a tax bill of EUR 173 million, not including the additional surcharge on large companies in France, which actually totaled EUR 39 million in the first half of this year. This is lower than in the first half of 2025, and this drop in the income tax burden was due to the fact that pretax profit at Bouygues Telecom was lower, Bouygues Telecom and at TF1. Also that the effective tax rate was not as high at Equans and Bouygues Construction. As a result, and taking into account the EUR 35 million surtax, the group's share of net income was EUR 287 million at the end of June, up EUR 114 million by comparison with the same period last year.
Moving on to the change in net debt. That's Page 34. Our net debt at the end of June was EUR 6.5 billion, up from EUR 4.2 billion at the end of September. Now that's an increase of EUR 2.3 billion. This is the usual variation in the first half year and is a good reflection of the seasonal aspect of our business. It is also in line with the increase we observed over the first half of last year. The important thing to point out here is that our net debt at June 30 this year is a EUR 2 billion improvement on the figure -- same figure 12 months ago. This is part of the continued improvement that we have been talking about for several quarters. This variation by comparison with year-end is mainly due to acquisitions net of disposals for EUR 133 million, mainly the acquisitions made by Colas, Bouygues Construction that Olivier already mentioned, but also the smaller bolt-on acquisitions made by Equans in the first half year.
Furthermore, as is customary, net debt is impacted by the payout of a dividend for a total of EUR 924 million this year, including EUR 809 million to be paid to the shareholders of Bouygues, the remainder corresponding to the -- remainder paid to shareholders in TF1 and Bouygues Telecom. We also have another item at EUR 1.3 billion, that's operations and other, which is a historically low level for the first half year, which I propose to look at in some detail in the next slide.
Let's begin with net cash flow. This was down EUR 180 million by comparison with last year. This was mainly due to TF1 whose results for the period were down. We also have a cash out for nonrecurring items that were not provisioned at Colas and a basis for comparison in 2025, which gave rise to a number of exceptional dividends from companies accounted for by the equity methods. Our CapEx, excluding frequencies, totaled approximately EUR 900 million. This was almost EUR 100 million lower than last year. The fact that the CapEx is lower is because of the fact that we invested less in Bouygues Telecom as announced.
Free cash flow before working capital requirements at EUR 360 million, again, lower than in the first half of '25 when it was EUR 440 million and the change in working capital requirements at every year, impacted by seasonal effects. That said, this year, the variation was a negative EUR 1.8 billion, which is an improvement on the variation we observed last year. Also various ForEx and IFRS 9 impacts that complete this change in net debt position. Overall, we can congratulate ourselves on the fact that quarter after quarter, we have successfully improved our working capital requirements and cash situation.
Let me conclude with the group's financial structure. Because of this improvement in our net debt, we now have a financial structure, which is, as you can see, very robust. The net gearing is 46%. That's a 16-point improvement over a 12-month period. Subsequent to the announcement last year of the signing of a memorandum of understanding for the acquisition of SFR, subsequent to that, Moody's announced on the 16th of June that it was maintaining the stable outlook on our A3 rating. This has been confirmed with a stable outlook. And on the 13th of June, S&P put it under a negative credit watch. It's A- with a negative credit watch. This rating is still A-, so still good. The group's liquidity is almost EUR 16 billion at the end of June. It's a very high level of liquidity. This breaks down into EUR 4.2 billion in cash and EUR 11.5 billion in undrawn medium and long-term facilities, undrawn, as I said, and covenants. Finally, as you can see on the bottom right, the bar chart, the debt maturity schedule is very well spread over time.
That brings me to the end of today's financial presentation. Thank you for your attention and Olivier, I give you back the floor for the outlook.
Thank you. Thank you, Stephane. We will now wrap up this presentation by reminding you about the outlook for 2026 for the Bouygues Group. This outlook has been confirmed. We are operating in buoyant markets. We have great diversity, geographic diversity and diversity of our business segments that enable us to develop and grow over the long term with a great sustained resilience in a very uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical environment. We will continue to be agile and adapt to developments in our markets.
For 2026, the group is aiming at stable sales at constant exchange rates and current operating profit from activities, what we call COPA at a record high after several years of significant improvement. The improvement of Equans COPA will offset the expected decline in the COPA of TF1 because of the higher CapEx. And we've decided to add a little sentence just to say that we will remain very vigilant regarding the consequences of the conflict in the Middle East, between Ukraine and the Middle East. We'll see what the future holds in store, but we are going to remain very vigilant and continue to adapt.
Let me now move on to Q&A. And alongside the different -- apologies, I was too fast. My apologies. Before moving on to questions and answers, I was going to say before we leave for holidays, I was one step ahead of myself here because of the less significance of certain quarterly results that I keep reminding you of, this is because a number of our businesses are very seasonal, in particular, Colas. And in order to be better aligned with the expectations of our stakeholders, the group has decided to change its quarterly financial reporting beginning from the publication of our results in Q1 next year.
From that date onwards and for all subsequent Q1 and Q3, our first 9 months publications, our financial reporting will focus on the following main indicators. In terms of business activity, we will talk about order intake reservations and the backlog for the Construction division and Equans. We will also communicate on the number of new fixed and mobile subscribers, the customer base and fixed and mobile ABPU for Bouygues Telecom. And in the case of TF1, we will communicate the main audience figures as well as metrics to track growth in online content consumption. As for financial indicators, we will be communicating the sales and net debt of the business segments and the group and the liquidity situation of TF1 and the group. These changes mean that the group's financial communication will be aligned in the future with market practice. This time, I think I have covered indeed, we've already given you the figure for the presentation of the first 9 months. That will be the 5th of November. And I will now, alongside my colleagues, Head of the business segments, take your questions. You have the floor.
[Operator Instructions] Next question comes from Mollie Witcombe from Goldman Sachs.
2. Question Answer
Regarding Equans, you gave us a guidance for Equans, but group-wide, I don't see much of a change. Is there a part of the risk which is lower than expected? Second, your competitors or Equans' competitors have enjoyed significant growth with the data centers. What's stopping you from taking advantage of that trend? And then of course, you want to -- well, to protect the image of the group, but I would like to know about that. And on the Telco business, could you give us some detail on the competition, especially for the mobile business? I believe there were signs of an improvement, but we don't see much in terms of ABPU. So maybe some color on the telecom market in France, especially the mobile business.
All right. Jérôme will take the question about Equans and then Benoit as Jérôme makes his way to the little spot on the stage where he can be seen. He'll give you an answer about the data centers. Of course, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to take advantage of that development. In 2025, there was a sudden boom, but then it slowed down in Europe, while business picked up in the U.S. So I'd like to, of course, surf on that wave. And indeed, we find that data centers, that business is picking up in Europe again.
I think you said it all.
No, no, no, you're trying hard to...
Yes, we have a plan -- development plan for data centers, both in the U.S. and in France and new technology towards direct cooling has led to lots of design work. But now the orders are picking up, and this will translate into revenue in the months to come.
And Benoit?
Regarding telecom business and regarding the mobile business, in particular, we're in the same position as we said earlier. The mobile market has become mature in as much as there's no growth -- volume growth on the market in France. And so with innovations, we can extend our client base. And in terms of ABPU, you have to remember, this is a competitive environment, especially for the entry-level contracts, which are very -- with lots of price pressure. And so because of this, our strategy for the past 18 months has been to work on convergence between -- to satisfy customers and reduce churn, and we have a lower -- significantly lower churn, and that explains the high number of Bouygues Telecom customers.
Stephane, sorry, you had -- there was a question about...
On the first question, we noted a higher guidance for Equans in light of the performance to date. We did not upgrade the group's guidance, but that doesn't mean to say that other businesses are in trouble. We're just being cautious. The year isn't over yet. There's an uncertain environment. We certainly hope that there will be an improvement in H2 as well. For now, we're simply confirm the guidance, but the Equans' improvement is not significant enough to upgrade the group's guidance.
Nonetheless, we have to recognize Jérôme's at Equans. They were able to bring up the margins. When we first presented the acquisition in 2023, a few people believed in it, but they've gone very fast indeed.
Next question comes from Mathieu Robilliard from Barclays.
I had a couple of questions. First, on Equans and the volumes, we find that we have an improvement on the top line on sales in Q2. I believe that there are contracts that have come into force, the other businesses. But does that reflect the fact that the selection -- the selective process that you started when you acquired Equans is behind us. There are a few unprofitable contracts? Or does that still make a difference that might that drive down profits this -- for the year, at least for the next quarter.
Regarding M&As, there have been acquisitions in various businesses, including Equans. And on Equans, you may have -- you were more cautious in the past. Are you prepared to make more acquisitions now because you're more confident about the business, the fundamentals or at least your understanding of Equans' growth drivers? And how does that fit in with the fact that, presumably, hopefully, you will be finalizing the deal with SFR. How does that fit in with your debt objectives or at least your rating objectives because I can imagine that the acquisition of SFR will -- might actually bloat your debt levels. So in other words, are your moves with Equans restricted because of the SFR project? Or do you feel you have a full leeway for acquisitions?
And about the energy business, we find that the cost -- the price of oil has been going up, price of electricity, maybe not so much. But what is your halving strategy in the telecom business in particular?
All right. Well, thank you. I'll take the second question. You -- Jérôme will give you details. And then in terms of hedging, not halving, the hedging we've been conducting in -- to cover -- to hedge for energy prices. And then we'll talk about electricity PPAs. On acquisitions, we will be passing the cap around the room to collect money for the next acquisition. Only kidding. In fact, we want to grow Colas and Equans through acquisitions, through external growth. The reason we do this is either when we want to enter a new market, for instance, in the road business in Germany, where we can't just come in from France with our trucks to gain contracts. You have to make acquisitions.
So penetration of the new market means you have to engage in M&A. And when you -- well, when we have a denser footprint, then we can grow our business. These are the main drivers you find in terms of which govern acquisitions in Colas and Equans. In Colas, we want to -- well, we acquired Vannoy to be present on the construction business in America. But in as much as our companies have a regular flow of profitable deals, regular level of profit margin, then we create enough value to justify acquisitions. But for EQUANS, you remember when we acquired Equans and we met you in February 2023, we said the profit margin was 2%. We said that by 2027, it will be 5%. You didn't believe us. And then we decided that we would consider acquisitions country by country.
Now of course, Equans has been making headway. I mean, initially, they had a pricing issue to be able to ascertain their own weight. And Jérôme has done a fine work in climbing up and turning down a number of contracts. So you had an initial status where you were tightening the screws and then you move on to situations where you make acquisitions. And so the first stage maybe you pass up acquisitions. Others do it instead. So that was the sort of the dry run. But now Equans' is back on track, and it is facing possible acquisitions and others are in the pipeline, but that is part and parcel, of course, of Equans' development model.
So the acquisition of SFR will not get in the way of Bouygues' strategy as regards to Colas and Equans because these are the 2 companies that need a lot of M&As. I mean Vannoy in itself was not a very costly acquisition. We're talking about EUR 100 million. So that was not very significant. Nonetheless, we certainly expect to keep this power of acquisition, both for Equans and Colas.
Regarding the first question, Mr. Robilliard's question. Yes, on that question as to whether in 2026, we still feel the effects of selectivity. Well, of course, there are a number of businesses we decided to phase out, and we had actually listed them, especially in Britain, Netherlands and Switzerland, there's still -- we're still being selective on a number of businesses, but we are now looking to a growth path everywhere we can do it.
In terms of hedging on the energy bill because we've been working hard ever since the Ukraine situation in 2022. Yes, on hedging on energy, there are 2 aspects for industrial sites and sites where you have -- you consume electricity, gas or coal, as is the case in Poland. So we've been hedging contracts. So about 70% of the contracts are covered by hedging provisions. And of course, the situation in Iran had less impact than the issue of diesel oil, the cost of fuel, of course, this is -- has a major effect on us. We put us -- we have 60,000 engines around the world. Many of them are diesel fueled. And so we had to update our markets. We had to pass on some of the costs to our customers. But we've been working hard on that. And of course, the market has adapted to various crises, especially public procurements, but we were able, in many cases, to renegotiate many of the deals in view of these developments.
Thank you and Benoit, about Bouygues Telecom.
Well, the power costs -- the energy cost is mostly power costs, electricity costs in Bouygues Telecom. So we've been hedging our electricity purchases. We have a 70% coverage -- hedge cover for 2027. And we are working hard on energy efficiency for our radio equipment so that on the radio network, which consumes a lot of electricity, we have locking features that enable us to consume less electricity, and we're working on that as well.
Well, thank you, Benoit.
The next question comes from Nicolas Mora from Morgan Stanley.
I had 3 questions, starting with Colas. Can you tell us what's going on? We have a rather more complex environment at the beginning of the year. In France, things are stable, but there are challenges in North America. So what's the outlook, the short-term outlook? We believe we sense that the margin is under pressure. What's being done to address all this? That's question number one.
On Vannoy construction, what's the strategy there? I mean, how do you propose to grow in the U.S.? We're looking here at residential -- the residential housing. And on Equans, I believe you have significant provisions in a volatile context. You said you have one-off items in Q2. Can you give us color on that?
And then a final question about data centers. Can you tell us about the group strategy? I mean, you have the big contract at AW Edwards in Australia. Bouygues Construction was also present in Australia. In Equans, you have a data center in the U.S. and you have some data centers showing up in Europe. How is it working? Does the group offer an integrated solution? And in terms of revenue, how will that translate? You're talking anywhere between EUR 800 million and EUR 1 billion. EUR 800 million to EUR 1 billion in 3, 4 years' time. So what sort of revenue are you looking at?
Let's begin with Colas. I think you need to clarify 1 or 2 points because what you have said is not quite what I think you said. I think the news is a little bit better than you're suggesting.
I'm a little surprised by your question, by the way. The first half year at Colas is in line, give or take, EUR 1 million, is in line with last year, same period last year, which was a good year for Colas. So we don't see any particular difficulty. Admittedly, the economic environment is a little turbulent, but it's business as usual. It's always perturbed one way or another. The only impact that we referred to at the time was the volume of business in France because of the fact that it's an election year, municipal elections, in particular, these are every 5 years and the year of municipal elections is usually a poor year with a decline in 3% to 5% in terms of the volume of activity. This is what we've observed this year. In fact, the local government budgets are somewhat poor this year than the state doesn't have a lot of money to spend on its roads this year. But this -- we anticipated this, we've managed and I think we've diversified a number of activities to offset that. But broadly speaking, I would say our first half year was good and in line with expectations.
I think in practice for roads in Colas in France, we are not giving you an outlook because 20% of Colas' business in France is not in roads. It's in what we call urgent works particularly urban construction, particularly the thermal islands I've been talking to you about. That's about 20%, which that 20% offsets the actual decline in roads, but this is not reflected in the figures we've quoted.
As for North America, Canada and the U.S.A. are 2 large countries. The market is faring well. I think we've considerably boosted the order intake and backlog, up 18% or 19%, particularly thanks to large contracts of over EUR 200 million. In Canada, this was the Bradford bypass. It's a greenfield project, a greenfield motorway project. And in the U.S.A., we have on the West Coast A number of projects underway are in the pipeline. This is for the interstate motorway. So this is a market that's performing well, a market in which we have our market share. So from my mind, the North America is a good market. So a good buoyant market with a good level of margin.
So in practice on North America roads are doing well, as Pierre has said. These are markets where the margins are good, bringing now to the way we -- Vannoy Construction. Pierre-Eric Saint-Andre, who's the Head of Bouygues Construction, will answer you.
Vannoy Construction. The acquisition is part of the strategic plan that we have devised, which consists in rebalancing our activities in mature countries. And of course, the U.S.A. is the biggest construction market in the world outside of China. So Vannoy is in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S.A. This is the region which has the highest demographic growth in recent years. So demographic growth usually leads to economic growth, which is a good platform for us via Vannoy, which is very well positioned geographically. In Vannoy, we're mostly in the field of education, health care, retail and industry. So we're not in the retail segment in the U.S.A. We're also in a region where we have business with Colas with Equans or potential synergy for all our businesses in this area. So this is a good stepping stone for us in a mature market.
Your third question concerns Equans, Stephane?
First of all, if I could just answer the first part of your question concerning nonrecurring items that we've referred to. These nonrecurring items, as we said, concern the capital gain on the sale of asset-based businesses, the EV charging stations in the Netherlands. As you no doubt will have seen, the margin in Q2 was 5.6% for Equans. So not withstanding these nonrecurring items, the recurring margin will be closer to 5.2%.
And Etienne Jacolin will answer the second part of your question. But let me reassure you that the quality of our accounts at Equans is excellent and has been certified by our statutory auditors who have not made any observations. So the whole issue of provisions and writing back provisions in the construction business, they're standard. That's the par for the course.
Of course, booking of provisions on historical contracts, depending on how these contracts advance, then we write back provisions even if that sometimes generates a cash outflow. But there's nothing unusual about that. Our provisioning policy for difficulties is very strict when we identify difficulties. Once the problem is solved, then we reverse the provision.
And to answer your last question about the data center business. In fact, we do not have a perfectly detailed French guideline. We operate as our companies are present. And when we are -- have a foothold in Australia, we deal through ED, Edwards when we're in Europe and France, depending on which country we're talking about, we will work with the Bouygues Construction and Equans. Sometimes in Italy, our solutions will be led by Equans in the U.S.A., these are solutions that will be driven by Equans. So we react depending on the strength of our foothold and our various businesses in the region of question. This is how we submit tenders and to generate the best possible synergies.
Finally, in Finland, for instance, Destia is our business. It's a mini Bouygues even if it works with -- through Colas, but Destia is our figurehead in Finland. That's how we operate in these different markets. It's to be put it simply, in a word, we are very pragmatic about the way we approach markets.
Next question comes from Eric Ravary from CIC CIB.
I have 2. First one concerns Vannoy Construction. You mentioned an acquisition price in the region of EUR 100 million for a sales figure of EUR 874 million doesn't strike as being very high. Could you tell us about the Vannoy's margin by comparison with the rest of Bouygues Construction?
My second question concerns Bouygues Telecom. You've talked about competitive pricing in mobile. Given the market dynamics, can we expect the ABPU margin to continue to decline in the second half year?
On Vannoy, I said in the region of EUR 100 million, that was a real rounding off because more specifically, the purchase price was -- well, I thought we said we weren't going to give that figure. My apologies. It's an order of magnitude. That's all we're giving in the region of EUR 100 million or so. So roughly speaking, around the EUR 100 million mark, but we're not going into details. The margin is the normalized margin. We have 3.5%, in line with Bouygues Construction. It's kind of border line between what we can and can't say. I'm only a beginner here. Benoit?
As for the impact of the competitive pricing on ABPU in mobile phones, clearly, if the market is fiercely competitive, we can expect ABPU to decline in mobile with simple dilution. When you have a mobile customer basis, we keep getting new customers or customers losing -- leaving, I should say. But new customers tend to be below the average quarter after quarter, this drives our ABPU, our average ABPU down.
The next question comes from Abhilash Mohapatra from BNP Paribas.
I just had one, please, on Equans, where, obviously, this quarter, we've seen a sort of strong improvement in your top line trend despite which obviously 1H is down 3%, you're guiding to sort of stable top line for the full year, implying you could do at least 3% revenue growth in the second half. Given everything you've told us about the strong order intakes and the fact that you're expecting more sort of projects to come through, is there any reason why top line growth next year won't be better than this sort of 3% kind of implied exit rate in H2?
So Mr. Stephane will answer you. We are just trying to be sure that we catch up with catch your question.
So as you rightly mentioned, we are catching up in terms of revenues after a slow start in early 2026, first quarter of 2026. You've also noted that we have a very strong order intake. Having said that, as you may know, and partly because these order intakes are linked to larger projects. There's always a time lapse between the time when we do recognize those order intakes and when those order intakes translate into revenues. So the plan, as we confirm the guidance for Equans in 2026 with revenues, which should be stable year-on-year, excluding exchange rate effects. That's the plan. That's the plan.
And as Olivier mentioned, these order intakes have led to a very strong order book, which will translate in revenues. Having said that, again, we look at a prudent approach to 2027 for now. The year is still not over. And part of these order intakes are also linked to projects where revenues will crystallize in the, I would say, not the short term, but longer term, for instance, in data centers, when we secure orders together with Bouygues Construction, first of all, the shell and core aspect of the building need to be completed before revenues for mechanical, electrical and plumbing activities can accelerate. So hence, the comments we had on the revenue and the top line of Equans. But we are confident that with this order book plus the contemplated acquisitions, we are looking midterm to a growth in the top line at Equans.
And we will see you again by February 2027 to explain what's the next path for the next 3 years. We will explain you by February to give you some -- how do we handle this next 3 years. So let's focus on 2026 for now.
The next question comes from Rohit Modi from Citi.
Most of my questions has been answered. I have just one follow-up from Mollie's question around group guidance. And looking at the commentary around individual segments and the order book position right now in construction and Equans and then also on the backdrop of easier comps in telecoms, I'm just wondering why you do not expect a better 2H than 1H in terms of trends, why you have a cautious -- still a cautious stance in the 2H. If you can give key reasons for that, just the geopolitics or French elections or anything?
Stephane?
Yes, for now, we've decided to confirm the 2026 guidance at group level. You've noted indeed that the first half of the year has been -- has proven robust. Having said that, the year is still not over, and we indeed commented on the fact that the geopolitical and economical context are quite volatile and uncertain, hence, a form of prudence, which leads us for now to confirm the guidance.
When you look at the geopolitical situation right now, for example, when we look about the consequence of Strait of Hormuz, the fact is closed, there is no real impact for us right now. But in case the situation will last long, it will lead to something negative at the global impact, and we will be as all in the world with some problem in the very future. But right now, we don't really know what will happen for this kind of situation in the next months.
[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions by phone. I'll give the floor to the speakers to conclude the presentation.
Well, we will conclude the presentation, wishing you a happy holiday. We look forward to seeing you on November 5 for the next presentation. Thank you, and have a good summer.
Bouygues — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
Bouygues — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
Robust H1: stable group COPA, Equans margin and orders improved, net debt down €2bn; guidance confirmed, SFR deal remains uncertain.
📊 Quarter at a Glance
- Revenue: €26.3bn (‑2.2% YoY published; ‑1.3% on constant FX), seasonal first half not representative of full year.
- COPA: €829m (+€33m YoY), current operating profit from activities (COPA) at multi‑year high.
- Net income: Group share €287m (+€114m YoY) despite a €35m tax surcharge for large French companies.
- Net debt: €6.5bn at 30‑Jun (improved ~€2bn vs Jun‑25); liquidity ~€16bn including undrawn facilities.
- Equans: H1 margin 5.2% (+1.2pp YoY); order book €27.6bn (+€1.7bn YoY).
🎯 What Management Says
- Guidance confirmed: Group targets stable sales at constant FX and record COPA for 2026, citing diversification and resilience.
- Operational focus: Continued bolt‑on M&A to expand Colas and Equans (Vannoy in US, Frauenrath in Germany); Equans selective country‑by‑country build‑out.
- CSR & product moves: Climate adaptation initiatives (cooling cities, NEMOSYS FIRE) and accelerated asset disposals at Equans to sharpen industrial profile.
🔭 Outlook & Guidance
- Group 2026: Confirmed — stable revenue (constant FX) and COPA at a record high; vigilance on geopolitical risks (Middle East, Ukraine) and French election season affecting roadworks.
- Equans: Revenue stable for 2026; margin guidance raised to ~5.2% (one year ahead of prior target); strong order book to support H2.
- Bouygues Telecom: Sales billed to customers close to 2025, gross CapEx ~€1.3bn, free cash flow before WCR ~€600m (ex‑La Poste Telecom); ABPU pressure expected from competitive mobile market.
- SFR transaction: MoU signed; French competition authority (ADLC) review underway; closing now expected late‑2027/early‑2028 — regulatory and consultation risks remain.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Equans growth & data centers: Management said book‑to‑bill rebounded in Q2, data center activity is picking up (US, Australia, Europe) but revenues lag order intake due to project phasing.
- M&A vs SFR: Management will continue targeted acquisitions in Colas/Equans; the SFR bid adds complexity but does not block bolt‑ons (acquisitions cited as modest in size so far).
- Telecom dynamics: Bouygues Telecom added subscribers (FTTH 4.9m; mobile 18.8m) but ABPU pressure persists as new customers skew lower; churn reduced via convergence strategy.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Conclusion: H1 shows operational improvement — notably Equans margin recovery and solid deleveraging — and management confirms 2026 targets while staying cautious on macro, election and regulatory risks (SFR). Shareholders get evidence of execution and cash/credit strength, but watch SFR timing, telecom ABPU trends and geopolitical volatility.
Bouygues — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Hello, and welcome to the Group Bouygues Q1 2026 Results Call. [Operator Instructions]
Now I will hand the conference over to Frederique Delavaud, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the presentation of Bouygues' First Quarter 2026 results. This presentation will be led by Stephane Stoll, Senior Vice President and CFO of Bouygues Group. Stephane Stoll is accompanied by Christian Lecoq, CFO of Bouygues Telecom. Following their presentation, they will be answering your questions.
Stephane, I'll now give you the floor.
Thank you, Frederique. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for attending. Before listening our highlights, I would like to point out that, obviously, the global macroeconomic and geopolitical environment has remained during the first quarter, very uncertain and very volatile. And as always, Q1 results, our group are not indicative of first half of the year and fiscal year results due to usual seasonality, especially at Colas. That being said, I'm pleased to say that Q1 group results were quite solid. Therefore, we are in a position to confirm the group outlook for 2026.
Entering details, group sales were down 3.2% year-on-year. Half of the decrease being attributed to negative change effects at constant exchange rates, group sales were only down 1.7% year-on-year. Group COPA was very resilient in Q1 2026, slightly up year-on-year, but I remind you that the [ group Q1 COPA ] is not representative of annual results. Then we also recorded a usual negative net result attributable to the group nevertheless, strongly improving versus Q1 2025. It was impacted for the second year in a row by the exceptional income tax surcharge for large companies in France. At end March 2026, our net debt significantly improved versus end March 2025 in keeping with the trend observed at the end of 2025.
Last, I have two comments on our business segments, [ COPA margin ] from activities continued to improve strongly at Equans reaching, respectively, EUR 205 million, up EUR 28 million year-on-year and achieving 4.8% margin, an improvement of 0.9 points year-on-year. These increases continue to demonstrate successful execution of the strategic perform plan. Sales [indiscernible] had a soft start to the year.
And in our Construction division, the backlog at end of March 2026 was at a high level of EUR 32.2 billion offering visibility on future activities. Let's now have a look at our key figures on Slide 5, and let me remind you once again that every year, mainly due to the seasonal nature of Colas activities, Q1 results are not indicative of half year and full year results. That said, group sales stood at EUR 12.2 billion, down 3.2% year-on-year. This decrease was explained as I already mentioned, for half of it by negative change effects weighing for almost EUR 200 million and for half of it by a decrease in activity at Equans and at a lesser extent at TF1 and Bouygues Immobilier levels. Organically speaking, sales in the Construction division was stable year-on-year and slightly up at Bouygues Telecom, which is good news. Like-for-like and at constant exchange rate group sales decreased by 1.6% only.
In the first quarter of 2026, the group COPA increased by EUR 8 million compared to the first quarter of 2025 and reached EUR 77 million. This increase was mainly led by Equans while TF1 and Bouygues Telecom were down as expected. The net result attributable to the group was minus EUR 94 million. It improved by EUR 62 million year-on-year. I recall that for the second year in a row. It was impacted by the exceptional income tax surcharge for large companies in France [indiscernible] for minus EUR 25 million during this first quarter. Last, net debt was EUR 5.1 billion, an improvement of more than EUR 2 billion year-on-year. This is a very good performance. Net debt at the end of March was higher than at the end of December of the previous year, as always, due to the seasonality of our activities. I will provide you with more details about the figures later during this call.
Let's now turn to the review of our operations of our Construction division on Slide 8 and. Let's begin, if you please, with the backlog in the Construction division. As I mentioned during the introduction of this call, the backlog at the end of March 2026 remain at a very high level of EUR 32.2 billion, providing visibility on future activity. Overall, the backlog was down 6% year-on-year, but only 3% like-for-like and at constant exchange rates. Taking a step back over a 5-year period, the backlog level at end of March 2026 was up 16% compared to end of March 2022 with all geographic areas improving over the period. Compared to last year, you see that the backlog was globally stable in France, which is a very good news and down in Europe and internationally. This is not a surprise. It is important to recall that Bouygues Construction's backlog had reached its record high level at the end of March 2025 driven by civil works. I remind you that we took more than EUR 2 billion order intake in end of 2024 due to the project of Torrens to Darlington in Adelaide in Australia and [indiscernible] international building with some very significant contracts notably awarded in H2 2024, as I mentioned.
Let's look into details on Slide 9 and start with Colas whose backlog reached EUR 14.3 billion, down 5% year-on-year and only 1% like-for-like and at constant exchange rates. In roads, the backlog was down 7% and even a bit more in France as it is typically the case in an election period, local election period, like-for-like and at constant exchange rates. The backlog in roads was down 3% only. In rail, the backlog was almost stable year-on-year and up 2% like-for-like and at constant exchange rate. At Bouygues Construction, the backlog stood at EUR 17.2 billion, down 6% year-on-year and only 3% like-for-like in constant exchange rate. In building, the French backlog was up 9% and the international backlog was up 6%. On civil works, as you know, the award of very large contracts [ mechanically volatility ] in order intake in the backlog that's normal in our business. And as I already mentioned, the basis of comparison with end of March 2025 was very high due in particular to the Torrens to Darlington contract. So we are not worried at all about good construction activity this year as 2026 activities coverage remains in line with 2025. And please refer to also the appendix detailing this backlog and the way it is spread over time in the coming year.
Finally, at Bouygues Immobilier, the backlog was at EUR 0.7 billion at end of March 2026, down 21% year-on-year, 15% like-for-like and at constant exchange rates, considering also the disposal of activities in Poland in July 2025. As you know, with the Mobile backlog is what we are used to call a secured backlog, meaning it includes only reservation [indiscernible] which is a bit different from what the market tends to communicate. So cut-off effects in our own accounting may have some impact. That was certainly the case in the first quarter. The share of backlog at end of March 2026 to be executed by the end of the year remains at a high level, providing visibility on future activity.
Next slide, let's talk about order intake. As you know, order intake is subject to significant variances in rail at Colas and in civil works and Bouygues Construction due to the timing of large project [ awards ]. As such, quarterly comparisons do not really make sense. In Q1 2026, order intake at Colas stood at EUR 2.8 billion. Order intake in road was down year-on-year in France. This decline was expected given the run-up to the March 2026 local elections. Internationally, the decrease reflects a very strong comparison basis, notably in Morocco and Finland were Colas recorded last year, important contracts. Let's notice the positive start of the year in the U.S., where Colas was notably awarded, beginning of March, a major contract with the construction of additional lanes on the Interstate 10 Highway in California, a contract worth approximately EUR 260 million. As planned, there was no significant contract in rail awarded in Q1 2026. I remind you that Q1 2025 was very strong and has benefited from two very large contracts, one in the U.K. and the other in Morocco, representing around EUR 640 million of order intake. At Bouygues Construction, the order intake in Q1 2026 stood at EUR 2.2 billion. This amount was largely driven by the normal course of business, which means for Bouygues Construction contracts worth less than EUR 100 million. This part of the business remained stable year-on-year at a high level and accounted for 74% of total order intake for the quarter. Even though the Q1 2025 basis of comparison was high, new major contracts were awarded in Q1. For example, a contract to design and build a Seine canal aqueduct, an iconic structure on the future of Seine-Nord Europe Canal, which will link Europe's major river basins worth approximately EUR 260 million. We also recorded a new series of work orders inside [indiscernible], Nuclear power plant representing around EUR 150 million and also a contract for new urban data center in Australia, representing around EUR 130 million. And you also probably read this morning that the Feronord Consortium comprising notably Bouygues Travaux Public for 41.5% and Colas [ high ] for 11.5% has been selected by the Swedish Transport Administration to carry out a significant contract for the East Link project. This contract covers the construction of approximately 36 kilometers of railway line, including major earthworks and the construction of 28 bridges and 3 viaducts, one of which is a major structure spanning 1.4 kilometers. At the end of March, the order for the first [ week ] was played for early works for EUR 50 million, but the total execution phase, which could get underway early 2028, is estimated to be worth EUR 1.2 billion. This is good news for future activity.
At Bouygues Immobilier, residential reservations in Q1 stood at EUR 0.3 billion, which is a strong level despite the context of municipal elections, [ landbank ] indicators were also strongly up year-on-year, and residential unit reservation in France improved year-on-year.
Let's now have a look at sales on Slide 11. I will start by saying that like every year, due to seasonality, as I already mentioned, the Construction division recorded results, which are not indicative of the first half and the full year results due to Colas. That being said, sales were stable like-for-like and at constant exchange rate, with Bouygues Construction continued dynamic offsetting anticipated soft start at Colas and Bouygues Immobilier.
Looking into details. First, sales at Colas were down 3% like-for-like and at constant exchange rate at EUR 2.6 billion. Q1 negative impact for exchange rate was EUR 50 million. As published, sales was driven by rail, up 3%, while road were down 6%, with France, down 4% in relation with local election and international down 8% penalized notably by adverse weather conditions in Morocco with very heavy rain in the first quarter; and Central Europe with a very cold winter and some negative exchange rates.
Second, Bouygues Construction sales were up 5% like-for-like and a constant [indiscernible] at EUR 2.6 billion, despite Q1 negative impact from exchange rates at EUR 60 million. As published, the sales were driven by France building activities at 10% and Civil works of 16% while international building was down 19% due to the end of important works, notably in Morocco and Australia. Last in Bouygues Immobilier, sales had a soft start with a -- and were down 6% like-for-like, we do not expect it to be representative of expected annual [indiscernible].
Next slide, current operating results from activity of the construction was minus EUR 212 million, improving EUR 28 million year-on-year, thanks to lower seasonal loss at Colas and better results at Bouygues construction. COPA margin at Bouygues Construction reached 3.1%, a record high since Q1 2018. And last COPA in Bouygues Immobilier was penalized mainly by lower activity in this first quarter.
Let's now please turn to the review of operations for Equans on Slide 14. At end of March 2026, Equans backlog stood at EUR 26.1 billion, a solid level even if down 1% year-on-year as published, but up 1% year-on-year like-for-like and at constant exchange rate. The order intake of the first 3 months of 2026 was robust and stood at EUR 5 billion, slightly down year-on-year with still a gradual and continuous improvement in the order intake margin. To be noted, new contracts were awarded in data centers and Giga factories in the U.S. and in Europe in Q1. Some additional contracts are expected in the coming weeks and months. Coming back to the Q1 full year, they expect Equans sales were down 6% year-on-year in Q1 due to 3 factors, essentially, the continued selective approach to contracts and business strategy; second, the soft start to the year in some niche markets and geographies; and last, around EUR 80 million of negative impact from exchange rate in North America, any growth in sales was totally offset by negative exchange rate effects. These Q1 figures do not affect our outlook for the year.
Regarding profitability, Equans' contribution to the group's COPA represented EUR 205 million with a 4.8% margin from activities, up 0.9 points year-on-year highlighting the continued successful execution of the strategic plan. Last, Equans secured during this first quarter, two bolt-on acquisitions in Italy and in Singapore, both specializing in clean room activities, they represent an annual revenue of around EUR 40 million.
To end with Equans on Slide 15, let me just add that Equans continues to roll out its strategic plan and confirm it is targeting for 2026 stable sales versus 2025 at constant exchange rates; a margin from activities of 5%; a year ahead of the target set at the 2023 Capital Markets day; and third, a cash conversion rate before working capital requirement of between 80% and 100%.
I now give the floor to Christian Lecoq for a detailed presentation of Bouygues Telecom's Q1 key figures.
Thank you, Stephane, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 17. Let's start with a few comments on Bouygues Telecom's solid commercial performance in fixed in both volume and value. This performance was driven by our strategy focused on customer loyalty and quality, which delivers lower churn. As you can see from the slide, we had a total of 5.5 million fixed customers at end March 2026. This represents an increase of 47,000 customers in Q1. FTTH continued to experience strong growth with 89,000 new customers during the first quarter with a total of 4.8 million customers they represented 87% of our fixed customer base, up from 83% one year ago. This is the result of a wider FTTH footprint combined with the excellent quality of our network and services. Fixed ABPU continued to grow up to EUR 0.3 year-on-year at EUR 33.5 per [ client per month ].
Commercial performance in mobile was also robust. As you can see on Slide 18. Even in a mature market, we continue to observe a sustained positive impact of Bouygues [indiscernible] at end March 2026, Bouygues Telecom had 80.7 million mobile client customers, excluding end to end, thanks to 91,000 new customers in Q1. Mobile ABPU stood at EUR 16.9 per [indiscernible] impairment during the first quarter in a market where acquisition prices for new customers remained low, especially in the low-end thing.
Let's have a look at the key figures on Slide 19, which are in line with our expected annual trajectory. First, sales [ billed ] to customers was stable year-on-year and growth in fixed offset the decline in mobile. Total sales were up 2% year-on-year, driven by 9% growth in [ other states ]. EBITDA after leases was stable year-on-year at EUR 415 million, thanks to tight cost control. The current operating profit from activities stood at EUR 82 million, down EUR 19 million year-on-year as expected. This reflects the continued increase in D&A related to the high level of CapEx over the last year. Last, gross CapEx was EUR 342 million in Q1 2026, EUR 52 million lower than in Q1 '25 and in line with our annual expectations.
Moving to Slide 20. Bouygues Telecom 2026 targets are concerned. First, sales billed to customers and EBITDA after leases close to 2025 levels. These figures will show more debt growth versus 2023, excluding [indiscernible]. Second, work capital expenditures close to EUR 1.3 billion, excluding frequency, confirming a decline after the CapEx peak observed over the last 5 years. And finally, free cash flow before working capital requirement of around EUR 600 million, excluding the impact of La Poste Telecom and before the impact of the income tax surcharge for large companies in France. Including these elements, it could be around EUR 500 million.
And now Stephane I'm giving you back the floor.
Thank you, Christian. Turning to Slide 22. Let's briefly talk about TF1's results, which were already released and commented on the 30th of April last week. First, the TF1 Group maintained its audience leadership in the first quarter 2026, both among women under 50 for purchasing decision-makers among individuals aged 25 to 49, which are the strategic targets. The average monthly streamers on the digital platform TF1+ continued also to increase at 41 million streamers in Q1 2026 versus EUR 35 million in Q1 '25. Total sales stood at EUR 472 million, down 9% year-on-year and down 5% year-on-year like-for-like and at constant exchange rates, the decline of 10% in the media sales was partly attributable to scope effects in relation with divestment of My Little Paris and Play Two completed in 2025. Like-for-like and at constant exchange rate, media sales were down 6% year-on-year. The remainder was linked to a declining advertising environment, although slightly improved compared to the fourth quarter of 2025. Studio TF1 revenues was fully stable year-on-year and COPA amounted to EUR 13 million, down EUR 30 million year-on-year, with a COPA margin at 2.8% in Q1 2026. The programming costs remained in the first quarter of 2026, similar to the level of the first quarter of 2025 at EUR 222 million with premium programming maintained, notably to support the launch of the new offering [ TF1 Prime ] and including notably the broadcast of 9 games of the Six Nations rugby tournament.
Turning to Slide 23. I will end on TF1 Group, I think that in the context of limited visibility, TF1 group's objective for '26 remain unchanged, a strong double-digit revenue growth in digital aiming for a growing dividend policy in the coming years and last, a mid- to high single-digit margin from activities before capital gains, subject to the evolution of the linear market.
I will now turn our attention to the financial statements on Slide 25. Starting with the P&L. We have already discussed the first quarter sales and current operating profit from activities at -- in the first part of this call. There are no significant changes to report this quarter. Let's notice two things. First, other operating income and expenses. We do not reflect operational activity was slightly lower than last year in relation notably with the lower charges linked to the Equans management incentive plan. Second, a tax charge was recorded for EUR 10 million, a lower amount in the first quarter of 2025 and despite slightly higher operational results. This amount excludes the EUR 28 million of exceptional income tax surcharge for large companies in France, the lower tax charges compared to Q1 2025 is notably due to the lower profit before tax at Bouygues Telecom and at TF1 in Q1 2026 compared to last year.
Let's now turn to Slide 26 to describe the net debt evolution between end of December '25 and end of March '26. As you see, net debt increased by around EUR 850 million since the end of 2025. Such changes is usual and related to the seasonality of our activities. This increase includes acquisition, net of disposal, totaling minus EUR 26 million including the two small acquisitions at Equans I mentioned and one small acquisition at Colas in Burgundy, France, a capital transaction and other for EUR 25 million include exercise of stock options and the change in liquidity contract. And last, minus EUR 854 million from operations that I will comment in the next slide.
Regarding acquisition, you probably read Cola's press release dated mid-March, saying it signed a memorandum of understanding to acquire the road construction and recycling activities of the Frauenrath Group, a family-owned company established in Germany since late 19th century. This transaction, which is Colas' first acquisition in the road sector in Germany is part of the company's wider growth strategy in Europe's largest market. We expect the transaction to be financed by end of the first half of 2026. Regarding our acquisition in the U.S. Suit-Kote. This transaction remains currently reviewed by U.S. competition authorities.
Turning to the breakdown of operations for the first quarter of 2026 on Slide 27. You can observe that net cash flow, including lease liabilities stood at EUR 380 million. Net CapEx was EUR 473 million, a lower amount compared to first quarter of 2025 and [ the decree ] notably explained by lower net CapEx at Bouygues Telecom level as anticipated. And you can see on the chart that the change in working capital requirements stood at minus EUR 809 million, a usual negative change from Q1 due to seasonality. This level is quite comparable to that of last year. That was already considered to be a very good level.
I will now turn our attention to the group financial structure on Slide 28. The group maintained a high level of liquidity at EUR 17.1 billion, much higher than the EUR 14.8 billion at the end of March 2025. It comprised EUR 5.9 billion in cash and equivalents and EUR 11.2 billion in undrawn medium- and long-term credit facilities. The position in cash and cash equivalent is more than EUR 2 billion higher than at the end of March 2025, which is a very good news. Net debt was EUR 5.1 billion at the end of March 2026, a strong improvement compared to end of March last year. And as a consequence, net gearing was 34% at end of March '26, a significant improvement compared to the 50% of last year. And you can see from the chart on the right, that the debt maturity schedule is very well spread over time. I'll remind you that our next bond redemption is later this year on October 6. Last I would say that the growth benefits from a particularly strong financial position and that our financial credit ratings remain strong, which will help us support our strategic developments in the coming months and years.
I will now conclude on Slide 30. Let me repeat that the Bouygues Group's business segments are driving growth. Their diversity enables the group to grow over the long term and demonstrate sustained resilience. In a highly uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, the group will remain agile to adapting to adapt into development in its respective market. For 2026, the group confirms it is aiming for stable sales at constant exchange rates, current operating profit from activities maintained at a record high level after several years of significant improvement. The improvement in Equans' COPA will allow to offset the expected decline in TF1's COPA due to the anticipated tensions in the linear TV advertisement market and in Bouygues Telecom's COPA due to the expected increase in depreciation and amortization. Of course, the group remains very vigilant regarding the indirect consequences related to the duration of the Middle East conflict.
Thank you for your attention. Operator, please open the floor for questions.
The next question comes from Mathieu Robilliard from Barclays.
2. Question Answer
I had two questions. The first one, I wanted to know if you could comment -- want to comment press reports that the deal closing with SFR could be delayed. Anything interesting would be helpful.
And second, as you flagged, it's a very volatile and uncertain geo macro environment. And I wanted to add some color in terms of if energy prices stay where they are, what could be the impact, notably on telecoms. Also, when inflation picks up, it can affect Colas' margin. It certainly did in the previous part of inflation. Have you changed a bit the contracts linked to inflation to protect yourself against that? And lastly, are you seeing an impact on demand for some of the long-term Equans projects, notably data centers because of all of these uncertainties?
Thank you. So well, we will comment in due course on the progress of the negotiations on the telecom transaction. I can only tell you that for now negotiations are in a quite active mode. So teams meet on a daily basis. So we are working hard on this transaction. Let me remind you that we entered into this phase of exclusive negotiation on the 17th of April only. So it's been 3 weeks. And as you can understand, negotiating contractual documentation on a deal of that magnitude is a long and steep road, so nothing to report.
On the volatile environment. For now, we do not see any significant impact on our Q1 result. Of course, we remain very vigilant. On the energy prices for telecom, specifically, we benefit from hedging policies so we do not expect in the short, medium term to be impacted by volatility on energy prices. And for the rest, as you may understand, we have learned quite a lot from the 2022, 2023 inflation crisis due to post-COVID and Ukrainian conflict. So we have been used to working in very stable and low inflation environments for more than a decade, but we've learned from that. So in the meantime, we have adjusted our contractual policies to be able to reflect any price increase in our prices to our clients. And in businesses like Colas, we also have put in place in some of our businesses and geographies, hedging policies or our long-term supply agreement, which help us for now cover any significant risk in the short term. We remain very vigilant, of course, and as you rightly mentioned, beyond these direct impacts on our supply costs, we are also very vigilant on what it could spend in terms of demand from our clients.
Having said that, especially when it comes to some specific niche markets like data centers, as you rightly mentioned or solar farms, for instance. We do not see any impact from now on the CapEx decision of our clients, quite the contrary. As you know, we had in the data center, some soft year last year in terms of order intake due to some delays in CapEx decision from our clients. Q1, we registered in Q1 interesting order intakes in data centers in the U.S. and in Europe again, and we expect in the coming weeks more of such order intake to be registered. So nothing to report for now on this specific business.
Okay. So on the deal, basically, the fact that it may be delayed is, I guess, the way you frame it, it's complex. These things can happen, and you remain confident, right?
It's the normal course of business of negotiations in any such deal.
The next question comes from Akhil Dattani from JPMorgan.
I've got a couple of questions as well, please. [ Minor instead ] on Equans. The Q1 margin at 4.8% is 100 basis points up year-over-year. I just wondered if you could give us some color on -- in the mix, what you're seeing here given the strong start to the year and sort of how we should think about the full year in that context. Clearly, that's a bigger year-over-year step-up than your full year guidance implies.
The second thing was just to get a general update on M&A. You closed a number of bolt-on deals at the end of last year. Could you help us understand the pipeline of transactions you're looking at? Any sort of update you can provide us on where your focus areas are and what the progress is? That would be great as well.
All right. Yes, we were quite satisfied with the level of Q1 margin for Equans at 4.8%. And as you rightly mentioned, it's a significant increase comparing to last year. It's very early in the year. So we'll see in due course as time goes by and the year develops how this will evolve, but this help us being very confident in achieving our 5% margin, which was already a year ahead of our guidance back in 2023. So very satisfied with that -- giving color to the mix. I mean this is -- I can only tell you that this increase is spread across the business. So -- and there is no significant one-off. So it's really the regular course of business, which leads to this margin increase. So that's good news and is a reflection that the strategic plan is being implemented successfully as we expected and even a bit ahead of schedule.
On the M&A pipeline of transaction, indeed, we secured some 7 or 8 acquisition last year spelling some EUR 200 million of revenues on a full year basis. Bolt-on acquisition scaling from a few million to some EUR 50 million in -- so our policy remains unchanged, nit's being -- so giving the green light to any business unit within Equans achieving more than 4% profitability to look for acquisition, bolt-on acquisition. We believe that this will help us have a positive impact on our margin and resilience. Our focus remains unchanged, especially focusing on Europe with a strong focus. We will have a stronger focus in on Germany, especially, but we will also look at bolt-on acquisition in all our geographies where we believe that there is still room for growth. This is why we announced also in this Q1, a new acquisition in Italy in the clean room business. And the other area of focus is North America. So that's the two major area of focus.
Growing M&A activities is not a very short-term move. It's a medium to long-term move. Acquiring companies is easy, and you just need to write a big check. What is difficult is to ensure that you are able to do it profitably and make money out of it and that needs seems to be prepared to do that, to be trained to do that. And so that will take time, but we are very confident to be able to grow this M&A strategy step-by-step in the coming months and year.
The next question comes from Eric Ravary from CIC CIB.
First question on Bouygues Telecom on the ABPU trend on mobile. So we saw that it was still declining in Q1 year-over-year and also sequentially. Could we have a comment on the current competition situation in France on prices? And shall we expect an improvement of the ABPU trend over the rest of the year? That's for Bouygues Telecom.
For Equans, two questions. First one is the soft revenues in Q1. Could you be more specific on the geographies and niche markets that were affected? And are you expecting an improvement over the rest of the year as you are confirming your guidance of stable revenues for Equans over 2026? And second question on Equans is about the EBITDA trend in Q1. So I saw that the EBITDA was down EUR 14 million, while the COPA was up EUR 28 million. So is there anything specific there that you could explain?
I will let Christian answer the first question.
Thank you, Stephane. Regarding Bouygues Telecom's mobile ABPU, you're right, in Q1 2026, our mobile ABPUs stands at EUR 16.9, down by EUR 0.6 year-on-year and down EUR 0.4 versus Q4 2025. It is explained mainly by two things. First, we still have low acquisition prices, especially on the low-end market. As I said during the presentation, the competition is still quite intense even if it's less intense than -- compared to middle of last year. But however, acquisition prices remain very low compared to historical levels.
Second point, regarding the comparison with Q4 2025, we have some seasonal effects, especially coming from roaming. So the EUR 0.4, the minus EUR 0.4 versus Q4 2025 you can split the EUR 0.4 by two, minus EUR 0.2 due to lower [indiscernible] prices and minus EUR 0.2 due to roaming impact. I remind you also that last year, we were able to have a stable ABPU in Q3 and Q4 compared to Q2 2025 and we benefited from roaming in Q3 2025 and from some more-for-more operations we did on our [indiscernible] in Q4 so we have been able to increase our EBITDA in Q4 due to this more formal operations in Q4 2025. We don't do that in Q1 of this year. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Christian. So reverting to your questions on Equans, I want to give you a bit more color, there is no one single geography or a market where we have seen a significant decrease. It's more -- I would say, broad-based and in multiple that we've seen some smaller -- some impacts. And just to give you a few examples, maybe which will help you understand, we've seen, for instance, in the U.K. a very soft start in revenues on solar farms. We our revenues in the U.K. in 2024, 2025 included a significant portion of solar farm project which were delivered successfully for the best part of them. But our clients have difficulties to connect those solar farms to the grid due to grid congestion. And so our clients delayed the start of new projects. So we are waiting for new projects to come. We have a strong pipeline. But of course, our clients won't invest until they get their -- deliver projects onto the grid.
Second example is in Belgium. Belgium, we have a historical very strong business in industrial maintenance, especially in the oil and gas business around the [indiscernible] port. In the current context, refineries in [indiscernible] run day and night to benefit from the higher fuel prices. And so our clients have decided to report any maintenance work to maximize production. So we are waiting for maintenance work to come because they can't be eternally postponed but that's another example.
A third example, maybe we had a very strong business of solar farms in Australia over the past year. We successfully delivered two very large projects end of last year, early this year, and we had a small delay in securing new orders which will come now in the Q2. So that's three good examples why we say [indiscernible] it's for now it's a soft start. It's still early in the year, and this is why we believe that there is still a way to get to what we had planned, and this is why we didn't change our guidance.
On the EBITDA question, I would just like to stress that we never report on EBITDA in Construction, Energies & Services, Infrastructure business simply because we do not believe it's a very appropriate KPI due to one specific element is that in this construction contract kind of business, you have a lot of move below the line of EBITDA affecting COPA margin when it comes to provision and provision reversals on construction contracts. And that's typically the case in Q1 for Equans this month. So as you may see in the appendices and in the -- we have registered provision reversals in this Q1 provision reversal, which were utilized. So of course, EBITDA is lower because the expenses and the losses on the contract, which had been provisioned are now crystallizing and -- but this is crystallizing below the line of EBITDA. Hence why the [ COPA ] is improving. So nothing specific. It's normal course of business.
The next question comes from Rohit Modi from Citi.
I have a couple of questions, all on Telecoms. Firstly, looking at the net addition trend, the [indiscernible] TF1 side, first quarter has been slightly lower than what the trends you have seen the past couple of quarters. Just trying to understand, did you see higher churn because I believe you did some price increases on some of the packages. So is that because of the higher churn? Or is it particularly market activity where you see in the market as kind of saturation that you're seeing on the fixed side.
Second, if you can comment around competitive intensity in the market that you're seeing now. I believe there's been comments from other operators that there has been lesser intensity, but how do you see it in the second quarter, particularly so far?
And third question is basically on the deal and apologies if you can't comment on it. I understand that. But SFR released last week mentioned about earnout which was not mentioned in the consortium's release. Just trying to get your view on this, is that a kind of deal breaker? Or what do you think about on our position there?
So your first question was about the fixed market. We are very happy with our performance in the fixed business either in new client acquisition and also in churn, we have a very low level of churn, thanks to the offer we launched in October 2024 a convergent offer. And so we are able to take new clients. We are increasing our market share in each area in France, every area in France, especially in [indiscernible] areas where we are not present in the past with DSM because we were not covering this [indiscernible]. And now our market share, our market share there is more than 10%, which is a very good performance.
Regarding the competitive intensity, as I said before, it is still a very intense in mobile market and especially on digital offers like being new for us. This is why we have quite low prices, less than EUR 10 for new clients. We estimate that the normal level should be around EUR 15 which was the case a few years before. And this is where we have some more, I would say, difficulties due to competition in the market with [ assets ] like for our big offers the situation is quite better.
Regarding the fixed business, the intensity, the competitive intensity is normal. The churn is very good. We stopped to -- we decided to stop to market our DSL offers one year ago, I think. And we are very happy to have done that because now we have less and less DSL clients. We are able to migrate them to FTTH, and we will be able to [indiscernible] our DSL equipment in probably a few years such [indiscernible] when it will happen.
On the deal, as you know, we've entered into exclusive negotiation on the 17th of April, so we are 3 weeks into these negotiations. The aim of this negotiation is to negotiate and finalize contractual documentation of -- for this transaction. These negotiations include a number of parameters including earn-out parameters, but significant other parameters, which we'll report on to in due course when this is finalized.
The next question comes from Mollie Witcombe from Goldman Sachs.
Two questions from me, please. Firstly, just to come back a little bit on French competition. I'm wondering if you were seeing any impact from the change in Iliad portfolio that took place during the quarter? And second question, just on weak construction Obviously, there's the civil works drag, which I believe was a project in Australia. When does that roll off? And then just a bit more color in terms of what you're seeing in trends in building, particularly in France, but also which markets you're seeing growth in, in international and what you're seeing in terms of competitive environment, et cetera?
Okay. So regarding [indiscernible], we didn't see any impact due to this offer. We know that they launched [indiscernible] with quite booming data elements targeting mainly frequent international travelers and very heavy data users. And so we -- our current plans already meet the data needs of customers and the need of travelers in Europe and worldwide. So we are not observing any impact on our sales [indiscernible].
On the construction side, we see very positive outlook for our Construction business. As you may have seen, we are on a growing trend and continued growth for Bouygues Construction, in particular, over the past semester and years now. You may have seen that order backlog increase significantly over time. And this has to do with the fact that good construction is really positioned on -- I would say, markets or niche markets, which offer a very interesting perspective. So we are less present in part of the business where we see difficult environments, such as residential buildings in France or in other parts of the world. So we are really focusing on more niche market where the demand is strong. So it's true for civil works with a number of transportation, infrastructure but also one market where we are very present and very active is a nuclear power plant construction. As you know, we are finishing the construction of the civil works part of Hinkley Point, we have started Sizewell, we have been selected as a potential partner for EDF for their EPR2 projects, and we hope to have good news in the coming year. Overall, the infrastructure business is strong for everything, also supporting climate transition. And in the building sector, we are also focusing on a number of niche markets where the demand is strong. So data centers, whether some -- in many instances, in joint venture with Equans is a typical example. We also see, for instance, another part of this is health infrastructure, so building hospitals. Education is another part where we see in many parts of the world, significant investments. So despite a very selective approach to projects, we see a very strong pipeline, and we are very confident in the way Bouygues Construction will continue to develop, and we are hopeful to secure significant new orders in the coming months to come.
Can I just come back slightly on that. In terms of public sector projects and contracts, a lot of the things you mentioned are public sector. I'm just wondering, are you seeing any difference in trend given the macro situation and any kind of rotation towards defense that's meaning that you're missing out on this side?
For now, this has no significant impact on Bouygues Construction. We -- it may be worth mentioning that we don't talk so much about that because in many instances, we have no right to talk about defense contracts, but we are also present in this business. We have been present for decades in this business. We are present in many of our businesses. We are present for Bouygues Construction. We are present with Colas. We recently secured significant orders to, for instance, renew tracks and taxiways for military airports. We have secured work in Finland with Destia on reinforcing the border with Russia and Equans is also active in this business on communication solutions, but also on M&A businesses in the ship construction business. So -- and for instance, in the U.K., this does not really translate into our numbers but Equans is a member of a 50-50 joint venture called VIVO, which represents more than EUR 1 billion worth of revenues every year in the facility management and maintenance of a great number of military facilities throughout England. So really, it's not a concern to us to see investment moving into the defense business. I think we have -- we see there also great opportunities.
The next question comes from Sven Edelfelt from ODDO.
You mentioned on one of your slides on Equans an additional significant data center contract expected shortly. I think this might refer to the cloud on the AI Development Act to be released in May to triple the EU data center capacity in the next 5 to 7 years. How much do you think you can improve the revenue on this data center? And I might try, do you believe you can get to something like EUR 800 million new order on the data center, which is a significant uptick compared to where you were, if I recall correctly.
And then the second question would be on cash, on order book. The order book is a bit light. You mentioned you are likely to sign significant contracts shortly or in the course of the year. So can you confirm it won't affect the cash contribution from advanced payment for the full year at the group level? And in other words, it shouldn't affect working capital on the negative in 2026? Thank you.
Okay. On the data center, we -- indeed, we foresee interesting opportunities with everything that is announced. Having said that, we are looking at shorter opportunities because what is announced today on the AI Act will only translate in concrete projects, not before long. If I may, and certainly not this year, simply because of administrative delays and the time to get this up and running. So what we see today is, however, our historical clients in Europe coming back and launching and kicking of projects. So we will report on Q2. It's too early to report. But we have won some new contracts in April. We are hopeful to secure new contracts in May and June, and we will report in Q2 on a number of new data center contracts beyond the one we've secured in Q1. Hard to say what this will spend in terms of revenues, and we do not report into such a level of detail for Equans.
On the construction order book, we do not have the same view on the order intake, and we not consider that we have some form of soft order book in construction. Quite the contrary. If you refer to the appendix on the backlog for Bouygues Construction, for instance. I think it's on Slide 35, you will see, for instance, that the 6% decrease year-on-year focuses on contracts to be executed starting 2028 and beyond. But at the contrary, you see that for execution in this year and in the year to come, backlog is stable or even slightly growing including negative exchange rates. So we are quite confident that our revenues will be strong. And so we consider that our backlog on the Bouygues Construction business is quite robust. We see indeed a slight drop in the backlog at Colas, but that was anticipated due to the local election, as I mentioned. And so -- as you know, we never report on -- or give any guidance on working capital in construction because it's just simply impossible to really anticipate. But we are hopeful that we will secure -- as I mentioned earlier in the answer to the Goldman Sachs question that we will enter in the coming -- we will report and register in the coming in the coming months, significant new orders for construction. So for now, we are really not concerned about that.
The next question comes from [ Abilash Mohapatra ] from BNP Paribas.
I just wanted to come back to Equans, please. Thank you for sharing all the color around I highly expect the new contract wins to help this business going forward. I just wanted to ask in terms of the cadence of the quarters, obviously, revenue is down 5% like-for-like in Q1 and you're guiding flat for the full year. How should we think about the shape of the recovery from here on? Is it being sort of more back-end weighted? Or should we already anticipate sort of revenue recovery in the second quarter? And just sort of related to that, you've previously said that over time, you expect Equans' top line trends to improve and catch up with some of your best-in-class peers. Is that something that you still feel comfortable with when you think about Equans' top line trends going forward?
And then second question, just around Telecoms and consolidation. I appreciate, obviously, you're in negotiations right now. So you may not want to comment, but to the extent you can, any thoughts around how you see synergies from this deal, which are the major areas where you could see cost savings, that would be helpful.
Okay. So on the Q1 revenues, as I mentioned, we are still hopeful to recover what we -- this soft start. Hence, why we confirm our guidance for this year with what we hope to be a stable revenues, excluding exchange rate. This will be a step-by-step recovery. So we see what happened in Q2, but I think this recovery will spread over the year. That's our expectation. Let me simply point out the fact that exchange rate impacts have significantly crystallized in Q1 because contrary to others, we are very strong in the U.S. at Equans. And the -- we -- you may remember that last year, the exchange rate effect mostly crystallized in the second half of the year and for the best part of it in Q4. This is true possibly also what we expected -- we expect this to be true for this year because we have a strong basis of comparison for the exchange rate of the U.S. versus euro comparing Q1 '25 to '26. And so that's where we are. So for now, we confirm our outlook for this year, and we hope that -- and we believe -- expect this recovery to take gradually place throughout the year.
On the top line, on the longer-term trend, we do not see any reason why in the midterm, we should not be able to catch up with the growth which peers do. This maybe in relation with the question or my answer to JPMorgan earlier in the call, this will also go with a step-by-step acceleration of our M&A activities. We want this to be done step by step because we need the people to be trained, to be capable of integrating these companies. So we started the journey last year, we'll continue this year, and this will also help us step-by-step get close to the growth level that our peers secure.
On the Telecom consolidation, in terms of synergies, what I can tell you is that what -- where we foresee cost synergies is essentially in networks because, of course, today in France, you have 4 telecom networks implemented throughout the territory. And looking forward, we will not need the best part of the network of SFR. And so this also explains why we believe that the horizon of such synergies will be a midterm because it will first start by some dismantling cost, but networks -- and then turning to Christian, is the essential part where we foresee the major synergies.
Yes. As Stephane said, the main synergies are on network and IT. Of course, we will keep the around 50% of SFR mobile network because we are sharing, you know, the mobile network with them in the London area but we'll be able to [indiscernible] mobile network in [indiscernible] to this month. FTTH equipment and also to not use in medium term, the transport network. And it is also the case for IT. We'll be able to migrate SFR clients to our IT system. As Stephane said, we will need to -- I would -- three periods. First one, we need some time to migrate mobile and fixed clients of SFR to our IT system and to our networks. It would last between 2 to 3 years. And after that, we'll be able to dismount the equipment, we will not use anymore. It will be probably 1 to 2 years period before to be in, I would say, a new situation with clearly on these 3 networks.
And sorry, if I may just clarify your comment, I didn't quite catch it for me. You mentioned something about the -- keeping the large parts of the shared network in the rural areas. Could you just please elaborate on that piece? Is it -- do we keep the entire network in the rural areas? Or you made a reference to the 50%? Just wanted to clarify that one, please.
No. Sorry. Yes. No. In France, we will keep the -- 100% of the network we are sharing with SFR. And We'll dismount the network in [indiscernible].
There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Okay. So thank you for joining us today. Thank you for your question and your interest into our business. We will be announcing half year 2026 results on 30th of July 2026. And should you have any more questions, please contact our Investor Relations team. Their contact information is on the press release and on our website, and have a nice day, and speak to you soon. Bye-bye.
Bouygues — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
Bouygues — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
Solid start to 2026; Bouygues confirms stable 2026 sales and margin progress amid macro volatility.
📊 Quarter at a Glance
- Sales EUR 12.2B, down 3.2% YoY; like-for-like at constant exchange rates down 1.6%.
- COPA EUR 77M, up EUR 8M YoY; COPA margin not given at group level.
- Net debt EUR 5.1B, improvement of >EUR 2.0B versus 2025 year-end; net gearing 34%.
- Net result EUR -94M, improved by EUR 62M YoY; affected by a EUR -25M exceptional French income tax surcharge.
- Backlog (Construction) EUR 32.2B, high level; down 6% YoY, 3% like-for-like; Bouygues Immobilier backlog EUR 0.7B, down 21% YoY.
🎯 What Management Says
- Strategy Group reaffirms 2026 outlook: stable sales at constant FX and COPA near a record high, anchored by Equans margin progress.
- Equans Q1 COPA margin 4.8% (up 0.9 pp); target 5%; 2026 sales expected flat at constant FX; cash conversion 80–100% before working capital.
- Backlogs & Wins Construction backlog remains robust; notable orders include the Seine canal aqueduct (~€260m), a Nuclear-related package (~€150m), and the Feronord–Bouygues/Colas consortium for East Link (potential ~€1.2B).
🔭 Outlook & Guidance
- Outlook 2026 target: stable group sales at constant FX; current operating profit from activities (COPA) at a record high, with Equans margin trajectory supporting the path.
- Risks macro/geo volatility, energy and inflation effects, and ongoing considerations around the Middle East conflict; deal progress (SFR) remains live but uncertain timing.
- Balance sheet liquidity strong; continued focus on deleveraging and funding for strategic growth.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Deal timing Barclays/JPMorgan: exclusive telecom transaction with SFR ongoing since mid-April; earn-outs and terms not disclosed yet; negotiations active.
- Equans margin Q1 margin 4.8% is ahead of some guidance; management still targets 5% and views mix as supportive but expects gradual evolution.
- Data centers & pipeline Questions on data-center opportunities and AI Act timing; management notes near-term visibility limited, with potential wins reported in Q2 and longer-term growth ahead.
⚡ Bottom Line
This quarter reinforces Bouygues’ resilience: diversified exposure across construction, energy, media and telecoms supports a stable 2026 path, with Equans driving margin improvement and a strong liquidity position backing growth. The key overhangs are the SFR deal’s final terms and broader geopolitical/energy inflation dynamics; execution of bolt-on acquisitions and large project wins will shape the upside for shareholders.
Bouygues — Shareholder/Analyst Call - Bouygues SA
1. Management Discussion
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being with us. Good afternoon to one and all. I propose to open up today's Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. We are -- myself and our senior managers are very happy to welcome you to this emblematic building, which must be close to 40 years old, if I remember correctly. It's a building that we maintain as best we can. It's part of the group's heritage, I should say.
Well, first of all, as Chairman of the Board of Directors, I will be chairing this combined AGM. I'd like to thank the members of the Board present here today. And if I may, I'd like to ask the 2 shareholders with the largest number of voting rights to act as tellers for today's AGM. This is Mr. Cyril Bouygues present. And the FCPE, this is a fund holding the shares purchased for the company savings scheme, represented today by Sylvie Bruneau, also present. Thank you.
I will now set up the bureau. I propose that Didier Casas act as Secretary for today's AGM. I see that the shareholders present, represented or having voted by correspondence between them have over 1/4 of shares with voting rights. The quorum required for the ordinary and extraordinary parts of the meeting has been reached.
I also see that we have [ Luis Mura and Sabine Liber ] appointed by the Works Council to represent the employees at today's AGM. As we have also Nicolas Pfeuty from Ernst & Young and Jean-Marc Deslandes from Forvis Mazars, they are statutory auditors.
There are also a number of people who are nonshareholders, particular journalists, analysts and justice are also present in the room. Now before beginning our presentation, I propose to show you our new institutional video. Every year, we are proud to share with you our main achievements and in doing so to pay tribute to the people in the group who really represent us throughout the world and who embody our values.
[Presentation]
Thank you. I now declare that the meeting is open, and I'm putting on the bureau the documents made available to shareholders. The main documents are listed on the slide that you can see on the screen. On the screen, you can see the agenda for today's AGM, which is also included in the notice of meeting that you have received.
First of all, the agenda for the ordinary part of the meeting, which includes 15 resolutions, followed by the agenda for the extraordinary part of the AGM, which comprises 6 resolutions. All the documents specified by the commercial code have been made available as required by law. I propose that you dispense us from reading the Board of Directors' report, which is included in the universal registration document that has been made available to you. Now with the help of Olivier Roussat, to my right, he is our CEO; Stephane Stoll, to his right, who is Deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer of the group. Edward Bouygues is to my left, he is Deputy CEO in charge of development in the field of telecommunications, CSR and innovation. And Didier Casas Secretary, General Secretary or Company Secretary, if you prefer, they're now going to present the situation of the Bouygues Group. This presentation will be followed by the presentation of the reports by the statutory auditors. Olivier?
Thank you, Martin. I will begin with the presentation of the group. I'm going to begin with an overview of the group. We have EUR 56.9 billion in sales, 200,000 employees and a presence in 80 countries. Construction represents approximately 49% of our sales. Energies and Services represent, along with EQUANS, 33% approximately of our total sales. So our group is comprised of 4 business segments: the Construction division, which -- and Energies and Services, Telecom and Media. And within these 4 segments, we have 6 different business lines.
If we now take a closer look at our global footprint, thanks to the acquisition of EQUANS back in 2022, we have reinforced the international aspect of our group. Now 54% of the group's headcount work outside of France. Europe is still the fulcrum and 50% of our sales are generated outside of France now. As for the shareholder list, we have reference shareholders in SCDM controlled by Martin, Olivier Bouygues and their families, accounted for 28.3% of the total share capital and the funds for the employees and former employees accounting for a total of 19.2%.
Bouygues is one of the companies in the CAC 40 with the largest number of employee shareholders, which from our point of view, is very important in terms of our group culture. Just a few words concerning this culture. We have a very strong culture. This is because of common values, values that are shared, clearly defined and that are abided by. Our group has always been consistent with itself. And in fact, among the former values of the group, we used to mention respect, trust, creativity and transmission. We already had values that were shared by the various business lines.
Nonetheless, we needed to redefine them, I think, in order to establish a better foundation of values, particularly when we integrated EQUANS and its 70,000 employees. So in this new pedestal of foundational values, we've maintained 2 values and added 2 more. We've added commitment and the pioneering spirit. This is something we did a head office before rolling it out to the executive committees of all our business lines. which were very involved around this project.
We then conducted an in-house study with our survey of our employees in France and outside of France, but also an independent survey to ensure that these values were consistent with the group's image and identity. This is particularly in the choice of terms. The fact that we translate certain values for our employees outside of France. We have to be sure that these words actually had the same significance in English, for instance.
Let me continue with our CSR ambition, which is a global ambition revolving around 3 main thrusts. First of all, the people at the heart of our group. We are a group -- services group. Our only great wealth is our people. They are our main asset. With this CSO organization, we are keen to contribute to the environmental and energy transitions, which involves fighting for climate change. It involves preserving resources and protecting biodiversity.
And finally, we want to be a trusted partner for our stakeholders. For us, this means that we must abide by strict ethical rules. We must establish relationships based on trust with our suppliers and subcontractors, ensure human rights are respected and be committed in company and to dialogue with our stakeholders.
I propose now to move on to the figures for 2025. The group's performance was published a few weeks back. If you saw our performance was very good with the backlog, giving us good visibility for the future. The group's sales figure was stable over the year. It was nonetheless impacted by negative currency translation effects, particularly in the second half of the year, and this came at a cost of EUR 580 million.
At constant exchange rates, the group's sales figure would have progressed by 1.3% over the year. The group's COPA is the current operating profit from activities. This is up substantially over the year, driven mostly by the Construction businesses and EQUANS. It actually exceeded our initial expectations. The group's share of net profit was up over the year despite the additional surcharge or of additional taxation. Free cash flow before working capital requirements is at an all-time high and up for the third consecutive year. The variation in working capital requirements amounted to EUR 941 million over the year. That is a positive aggregate of close to EUR 3 billion over a 3-year period. And at the end of 2025, the group's net debt was well below the level at the end of 2024. I should point out that the net cash situation of Colas and Bouygues Construction were at all-time highs.
Finally, I will come back to this a little bit later on. EQUAN's strategic plan called Perform is continuing to be well rolled out continues to be profitable and continues to generate cash. In this context, the Board of Directors is proposing the payment of a dividend at EUR 2.10, which is up 5% from 2024 and up for the third consecutive year.
Okay. The key figures. I've already mentioned the EUR 59.6 billion in sales, which is stable over the year and up fractionally on a like-for-like basis. The COPA figure for 2025 was up EUR 120 million over the year to reach EUR 2.655 billion. The group share of net profit was EUR 1.138 billion, up EUR 80 million despite the one-off contribution on the profits of large companies in France. The impact of this is a total of EUR 69 million. Were it not for this contribution and on a comparable basis with the previous year, the group share of net profit would have improved by EUR 149 million.
The impact on the net profit, the impact of the budget law and the law financing social welfare in France amounted to approximately EUR 93 million, in line with our expectations. Finally, our net debt amounted to EUR 4.2 billion at the end of December '25, which is a substantial improvement of almost EUR 1.9 billion over a 12-month period. That's a very good performance and a good reflection of the efforts made by all our business lines throughout the year.
And now some information about the women and men in our company, it's starting with, of course, health and safety, which is our #1 priority. Regarding the occurrence of accidents, there's a slight degradation. And this is something that is counterintuitive. If you look at the company, that degradation is to do with the fact that Bouygues Telecom shops have been experiencing holdups and heights. And of course, that usually entails some injuries. We had also 4 deadly accidents amongst our employees and 7 amongst our subcontractors.
Of course, these are tragedies to the victims themselves and all our people, and I would like to express our full sympathy. We certainly expect our people to be able to go home safely every day. It is essential to reinforce this safety culture in each of our trades around the world. In 2026, part of the bonuses for corporate offices includes a health and safety element precisely with a view to reduce the occurrence of accidents and such like. Diversity and inclusion is still a clear part of our performance strategy for commitment and cohesion, and this is part of our people-first HR strategy.
We have a clear ambition. We want to give equal opportunities to all talents. So gender balance is, of course, a special concern, but this is part of a more general picture where we want to take on board various aspects of our societal diversity with -- in line with the realities on the ground for all our businesses -- and so that's listed in nonfinancial criteria. We have several additional actions.
We monitor the career path, especially amongst women in operational lines. We have mixed international talent. We want to have better representation, access to responsibilities. We have consolidated indicators for that. We want to develop talent. We have dedicated programs to improve the chances of young leaders, especially women. And of course, we involve our own leaders. We have a governance policy, and that again is reflected in the financial -- in the compensation package.
So we look at such criteria, gender balance to reach our balances. And so by end 2026, we give ourselves a target of 30.5% of women in leading positions and 21.5% among managers. And that is part of a gradual in line with the group's own transform. And we have a clear desires to have a demanding line of diversity, a structured and inclusive policy based on sustainable development with the objectives of lasting social justice. And so let's look at the various business lines, starting with Colas.
[Presentation]
All right. And so let's look at the backlog of the Construction division. It stands at EUR 32 billion, which gives us plenty of visibility on future revenue on an equal scope basis. We have that the order book is up 1% over 1 year. The currency effects weighed more than EUR 600 million. That backlog is stable in France, slightly up in Europe outside France, but -- outside Europe, we have a slight decline. But of course, the basis of comparison was significant because we had many high contract -- big contracts in 2024.
Let's look at the order book in greater detail at end 2025. The share of orders to be performed in the next 12 months was stable over the year. This is rather reassuring. At Colas, the backlog stands at EUR 13.7 billion, up 4% over the year, up 6% on a constant scope and currency basis. And that increase is driven by the rail business whose backlog is up 17%, on the road business that is down 3%, especially in France as is usually the case in pre-election periods, especially for local and municipal elections. At Bouygues Construction, that order book stood at EUR 17.5 billion, down 4% over the year, down 2% on a constant scope and currency basis. It was up at Batiment France and Batiment International down in public works. And that is, again -- well, we had a high basis of comparison in 2024.
We had large contracts that we got in 2024. At Bouygues Construction portion of the business involves large projects, but this is not at all a regular feature over time. So between January and December, many things can happen. It's very difficult to make steady comparisons. 2024 was a prolific year because we had, of course, the T2D contract in Australia upwards of EUR 2 billion worth that was signed in Q3. So these -- well, when the contract is signed is when large amounts come in.
And of course, it sets up -- sets the comparison basis and it structures the order book. At end December, you had Bouygues Immobilier's book standing at EUR 0.8 billion, down 16% over the year and 9% on a constant scope basis, but we disposed of our business in Poland, and this is precisely because we disposed of that property business in Poland that the order book came down.
Let's look at the financial results of the construction business. We start with revenue, which stood at EUR 27.8 billion, up 1% over the year, 3% on a like-for-like basis. Colas' revenue figure was slightly up over the year, sustained by the rail business. That was up 13% over the year. The road business was stable over the year with a slight growth in France, a slight decline outside France, especially in Europe, Middle East and Africa and North America. Colas' revenue was impacted by a negative currency effect with EUR 270 million over the year, and this is in line with the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar, not just the U.S. but also the Canadian dollar. On the constant -- on a like-for-like basis, sales would have been up 2% over the year.
Bouygues Construction's sales were up 3%, driven by the 3 divisions, Batiment International, Batiment France and Public Works. This was also impacted with a negative currency effect to the tune of about EUR 150 million over the year, and this is mostly to do with the Australian dollar and to a lesser extent, the -- another dollar, that's the Hong Kong dollar. And of course, there was still a portion generated by the U.S. and Canadian dollars. Again, on a like-for-like basis, Bouygues Construction's sales figure would have stood -- would have been up 4%.
Finally, Bouygues Immobilier's revenue was [indiscernible] down 4% over the year, but it's slightly up on a like-for-like basis in view precisely of the disposals in July 2025. So what kind of COPA do you get out of that in the division? It stood at EUR 982 million in 2025. So that's EUR 155 million up over the year, again, driven by the 3 divisions. At Colas, COPA stood at EUR 586 million. Margin from activities stood at -- was up 0.2 percentage points at 3.7%. Bouygues Construction's COPA was EUR 376 million, margin up 0.3 percentage points at 3.5%.
And at Bouygues Immobilier, COPA was EUR 20 million, and there were some one-off items for a total amount of EUR 24 million, in particular, of course, the disposal of businesses in Poland, but there was also the positive effects of cost-cutting plans, structural cost cutting that started in 2024.
Let's take a look at the beautiful video for Bouygues Construction that is Batiment International division, in particular BYMARO which is, of course, a subsidiary in Morocco.
[Presentation]
I think you should know that the hospital was built in 24 months. And there's another hospital that began a month -- sorry, a year beforehand. We completed ours last September, the one beside it still hasn't been completed. So to build a building like that in 2 years was impossible. But we talked about transmission as a form of our corporate culture, but there were a lot of young people who asked the companions to come and help to develop their expertise and complete it quicker. This is very important to get things right for [indiscernible].
Let's move on to EQUANS. At the end of the year, EQUANS had an order backlog of EUR 25.4 billion. That's stable on the year. At constant exchange rates, it was up 1% by comparison with year-end '24. Over the year, it took in orders for EUR 18.3 billion. That's stable over the year. That stability is a good reflection of how selective we were about contracts, particularly for large contracts. This is a part of risk management. The order intake on orders of less than EUR 2 million -- less than EUR 5 million, I should say, was up over the year and represented 2/3 of the total order intake for the year.
We talked about data centers, and we've talked about them several times in 2025. We saw a quarter-on-quarter increase in the order intake for data centers in North America. At the end -- just at the very end of 2025, we saw a pickup in the data center activity in Europe. This is as a result of what the U.S. government decided. Hyperscalers have been building in the U.S. rather than in Europe. The margin on orders has continued to improve gradually. EQUANS sales figure totaled EUR 18.7 billion for the year, down slightly by 2% over the year. This is because of the wait-and-see policy in certain sectors of activity in data centers in particular, and our proactive exiting from certain areas that were nonstrategic and did not have sufficient strategic interest for EQUANS.
And of course, ForEx, which had a negative impact of EUR 160 million over the period, particularly because of the U.S. and Canadian dollars. As for COPA, COPA rose substantially by EUR 820 million, and the margin was up 0.8 percentage point to reach 4.4%. This is much better than the target we set ourselves at our Capital Market Days in 2023 when we announced the road map for EQUANS, we've had to revise that upwards 3 times since the Capital Markets Day.
On this slide, we are going to talk to you about the pro forma plan. This is the strategic plan we talked to you about in January and February 2023. It concerns a certain number of things, including sales, the margin and cash. They were the 3 big ones.
On this slide, you see the sales chart since 2022, slightly different to what we expected at the start of the plan. This is a 6% growth or an average annual sales growth of 2% for the period between '23 and '25. That may seem modest, but because we've been much more selective. We've been cherry-picking contracts to guarantee the lowest possible level of risk, the best possible COPA and the fact that we've exited nonstrategic activities, particularly in the U.K. and a number of activities also that we have disposed of over the last 2 years. Together, they represented approximately EUR 600 million.
Overall, the sales for 2025 was in line with our initial expectations. 2025 was the year in which we materialized our first acquisitions, representing sales of approximately EUR 200 million over a full year.
Moving on to the margin. This is the profitability slide. Here we have the different areas where we set our targets. In the yellow, we told the market that we could expect a margin of between 2.5% and 3%. As you can see, we're at the top of that bracket at 2.9%. That was in 2023. In 2025, we said we'll be close to 4%. When we said close to 4%, this usually means that we will be bordering on the underside of 4%.
Well, we actually achieved 4.4%. So we exceeded our guidance. That is because of what we presented at the Capital Markets Day, pricing effects, purchasing effects, what we call book killers, correcting a certain number of projects that were not going well. Before you could start earning money, you have to stop losing money. And of course, profit centers that we worked on with a view to boosting the margins and a special emphasis on productivity.
The third part of this Perform plan was cash -- generation of cash. The cash conversion rate that's COPA to cash flow.
We achieved the high end of the bucket, we told the markets about. And treasury also improved substantially since 2022, even more so if we allow for the debt that we had at the time of closing the operation back in October 2022. So overall, since October '22, we have generated some EUR 3 billion in cash, which includes the payout by EQUANS of some EUR 730 million to its shareholder, in other words between 2023 and 2025.
So what's the outlook for EQUANS. Outlook for EQUANS will continue to roll out its strategic plan. And for 2026, its objective is a stable sales figure by 2025 at constant exchange rates, a margin of 5%, which is a year ahead of the objective we gave at the Capital Markets Day back in 2023 and a conversion rate of COPA to cash flow before working capital requirements of 80% to 100%. We'll be organizing a new Capital Markets Day to tell you what our new ambitions will be. This will be somewhere towards the end of the year or possibly very start of next year. Let's now take a look at the institutional film for EQUANS.
[Presentation]
I propose to move on to Bouygues Telecom, which achieved its targets for 2025 with good sales performance in fixed lines in volume and value and of course, good growth dynamics in fiber because Bouygues Telecom has gained over 0.5 million new clients, including 139 million (sic) [ 139,000 ] in the last quarter. These are clients with fiber-to-the home now totaled 4.7 million and represent 86% of the total fixed ABPU. And overall, the fixed lines clients 5.4 million in total, up 267 million for the year, including 83 million in the last quarter. ABPU -- fixed line ABPU was up to EUR 33.8, up EUR 0.40 year over year.
In the mobile, we performed well in a highly competitive environment. At the end of December, Bouygues Telecom had 18.6 million mobile subscribers, not including mobile to mobile, MtoM. That's an increase of 316,000 clients over the year, including 86,000 in the last quarter. This is a good reflection of the continued benefits of Bouygues in convergence. This combined with convergence to satisfied clients and has a very positive impact on churn. ABPU, including -- for mobile, including France Telecom clients was EUR 17.3 per client per month, stable by comparison with the third and second quarter of 2025 and down over the first. This is because of the dilutive effect of La Poste Telecom, but also the pressure on prices with the acquisition of new clients in digital subscriptions, a very active market.
On the next slide, you'll see that sales billed to customers in 2025 was up 4% over the year. For La Poste Telecom, that figure was almost stable over the year, with the total sales up 4% per annum. This is comprised mainly of terminals, accessories that were up 5% over the year. EBITDA after leases totaled EUR 2.042 billion, was stable over the year and includes the limited contribution from La Poste Telecom. This stability of EBITDA after leases is because of the increase to sales billed, but also the continued efforts to contain costs, the increased energy costs. Bouygues Telecom no longer has the very positive hedging operations set up in '20 and 2021. They ended their effects in '24. COPA was down -- was expected, was down to EUR 674 million due to the increase in depreciation and amortization.
This is in line with the capital expenditure trajectory in the past and of course, the increase in energy costs. Gross investments over the year reached EUR 1.480 billion in 2025. This is our operating CapEx. Disposals over the year totaled EUR 393 million. That's a sharp increase over '24, mainly due to disposal of assets held by Infracos for a total of EUR 322 million. Infracos is a company that was owned 50% by SFR, 50% by Bouygues Telecom. This was for radio sites that we had in common with SFR. SFR and Bouygues Telecom discussed this together in -- this was concluded in the end of December 2025.
So what about the outlook for Bouygues Telecom in 2026? Well, 2026, we are targeting a sales billed to clients and EBITDA after leases close to 2025. As announced at the end of '24, they will be up slightly by comparison with 2023, not including La Poste Telecom. Operating, gross operating income should reach EUR 1.3 billion, excluding frequencies, confirming the decline after the peak CapEx observed in the last 5 years.
Finally, cash flow after -- free cash flow after working capital requirements will total approximately EUR 600 million. Cash flow, free cash flow before capital requirements, including La Poste Telecom, including the additional taxation charge will be in the region of EUR 500 million. I'd like you to make a note of the fact that Bouygues Telecom in 2026 will not exercise its call for the 51% of the joint venture called SDAIF. This is jointly owned 54% -- sorry, 49% by Bouygues Telecom, 51% by Vauban Infrastructure Partners. This is an investment in the rollout of fiber in medium-density zones.
First of all, I should say that this year is an important stage for Bouygues Telecom because we are celebrating our 30th anniversary. It's also a special year with all the major strategic challenges we have with the SFR case. Last week, on the 17th of April, the group announced a press release that Bouygues Telecom, Iliad and Orange were conducting exclusive negotiations with Altice France with a view to the acquisition of SFR.
The offer being tabled will be for the vast majority of the: SFR's assets, but will exclude investments in Intelcia, UltraEdge, XP Fibre, which is optical fibers and Altice Technical Services. These are subcontracted services developed by SFR. Also excluded the mobile operations overseas. This bid will concern a total of assets for EUR 20.35 billion in enterprise value. These are the assets under consideration.
Altice France has given us an exclusivity up until the 15th of May 2026. 15th of May '26 in order to finalize the terms of reference and the documents for this transaction. In a mature market, this operation will enable us to sustainably reinforce our ability to invest in high-throughput networks in cybersecurity and AI would enable us to consolidate our control of strategic infrastructure and digital sovereignty and would preserve a competitive system that it would benefit consumers. A lot of stages to go through beginning with this agreement to be signed with the seller and then a period of analysis by the antitrust authorities, which we expect will take several months.
Let's now move on to the results of TF1 published on the 12th of February. You may have attended the AGM last week. But in 2025, group TF1 confirmed its leadership. The share of leadership -- the share of audience among women under 50 in charge of purchasing decisions was 34.5%. For the age group 25 and 49 was 30.9%. And in digital, which is really the product of the future, TF1+ is a free -- the main free streaming platform with 38 million monthly streamers on average 2025, up from 33 million in 2024.
Sales figure took EUR 2.3 billion, down 1% over a year on a like-for-like basis. In the advertising market that has been deteriorated, particularly towards the end of the year. The media figure -- media revenue figure of EUR 1.9 billion, down 4% over the year. It includes advertising revenue, which is down 4%. The advertising market in linear, which is the former type of television has been impacted by all the various macroeconomic uncertainties between instability in France, war elsewhere in the world.
But in digital, TF1+ has continued to post very good performance with the advertising revenue up 36% over the year, which confirms just how attractive this platform is for advertisers. The sales of Studio TF1 reached EUR 376 million, up 9% a year and includes a contribution of EUR 44 million from JPG, which is a business that was acquired in the U.S.A.
JPG, which is a business that was acquired in the U.S.A. Its business is mainly -- was mainly towards the end of the year. Excluding JPG, TF1 -- studio TF1 figure was up 6% over the year. TF1's COPA was down to EUR 252 million. It includes the cost of programs for EUR 967 million. Remember that COPA in 2025 included capital gains from sales totaling EUR 38 million. In 2024, this included a capital gain of EUR 27 million. The operating margin was 11%, in line with the objective revised, which we said would be in the region of 10.5% to 11.5%. I'm going to round this off with the outlook for 2026 for TF1.
Because of its strategy and its innovative digital proposals, also with strong financial situation, the objectives are as follows: sustained double-digit growth in digital 2026; a dividend policy that will be on the up in the next few years; and of course, practices are changing very rapidly. Political and macroeconomic environments are unstable. Given this fact, I think that the advertising market and linear will remain under pressure in 2026. We are gradually transitioning towards digital. And in 2026, we expect the margin on -- the operating margin in the mid- to high-single digits depending on how the linear market develops [indiscernible] between 5% and 10%. I propose to show you a short video on TF1+.
[Presentation]
Thank you, Olivier. Thank you. To tell us about our environmental strategy, I'm now giving the floor to Edward Bouygues.
Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. 2025 was a year in which the group formalized its strategy in order to give our stakeholders greater visibility. First of all, we articulated this strategy around 2 big commitments. First of all, we have undertaken to reduce our impact on the environment. This reduction means that we will have to reduce our impact in 3 areas. First of all, greenhouse gases. We are reducing the amount of greenhouse gases we emit. Secondly, resources. We are increasingly focusing on the circular economy, recycling, reusing and so on. And finally, we are reducing pressure on ecosystems.
Second commitment is that we want to accompany or support the transition of our territories by developing activities in favor of sustainability, by setting up offers and solutions that enable our clients to be more adaptable and more resilient. And finally, by bringing our shareholders and bring everybody abroad by greater involvement in the environmental and energy transitions.
Now this strategy has been set up with all our business lines. We are emphasizing the particularities of each of our business lines, but the first indicators have already been drawn up. You see what we've called them. Some of these indicators are measured in a very accurate way. For instance, we have given you the percentage of carbon intensity that's been reduced in concrete. This is something we have to clarify. We haven't yet been able to calculate that figure accurately, but we hope to be able to give you that by the end of 2026. We will gradually be defining targets for a number of indicators in order to measure and manage our commitments.
Good news, very similar to what I said to you last year. Good news is that greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced in 2024 and again in 2025 and are now slightly below 20 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2025. This has been largely thanks to 3 of our businesses, maybe the biggest emitters, not surprisingly, Colas, Bouygues Construction and EQUANS. Colas have been buying fewer and fewer carbon -- less and less carbon content in our products. And of course, Bouygues Construction have been using products that emit less and less gas. This has enabled us to reduce our carbon emissions overall. EQUANS has been heading in the wrong direction. This is because of a change in the scope of what we measure. It's not a counter performance on the part of EQUANS. I think it's just that we are measuring it a little bit better. Thank you.
Thank you, Edward. We will now hear from the Ethics, CSR and Patronage Committee presented by its President, Clara Gaymard. I give the floor to Clara Gaymard.
[Foreign Language]
Now, I'll give the floor to Stephane Stoll who will present the financial statements for 2025? Stephane?
Good afternoon, everyone. So Olivier mentioned the revenue figures business line by business line and you have a few more details on the income statement. And for the year [ 2025 ], we had about EUR 100 million in PPA depreciation. That's similar to what we had in 2024. The EUR 100 million include EUR 46 million related to EQUANS and EUR 35 million from Bouygues Telecom. The noncurrent items nonrepresentative stood at EUR 224 million for the year. This is very much in line with that of 2024. Of course, that noncurrent result for 2025, of course, is different from that of 2024. This year, in one-off items, you have the following items, the incentive plans for EQUANS stock management.
In 2025, it was EUR 100 million. You had provisions at Bouygues Construction, and that was in line with the new fire regulation in the U.K. and that's for our construction business in the U.K. that was worth EUR 74 million this year. Expenses related to disputes and litigation at Colas with EUR 42 million. And the net balance of income and -- noncurrent income and expenditure at Bouygues Telecom, so EUR 9 million. You have capital gains for the disposals rather of site data centers and assets held in France by Infracos.
And then you had expenses related to some legal disputes. And in the financial result, and that includes the net cost of financial debt, the interest on leasing obligations and other income and expenditure, minus EUR 410 million, and that amount is close to that of 2024, which stood at minus EUR 392 million. And then we have taxes worth EUR 574 million that did not include the one-off additional tax for large companies. That was EUR 81 million. So altogether, it should be EUR 655 million. That was our tax bill for the year. And so therefore, the net profit group share stood at [ EUR 1.138 billion ], up EUR 80 million in spite of that surcharge, the tax surcharge. Altogether, the -- of course, the -- plus the extra budget for the welfare system in France, that stood at -- the effect of that was about EUR 93 million, and that was again in line with our initial estimates.
Now as you can see on this slide, the net financial debt at end 2025 stood at EUR 4.2 billion compared with EUR 6.1 billion at end 2024. So that's a very significant improvement to the tune of about EUR 1.9 billion from 1 year to the next. In 2025, there were rather few acquisitions. The total amount was about EUR 76 million -- well, the net balance of acquisitions and disposals was minus EUR 76 million. And of course, let me remind you that the acquisition of Colas by Suit-Kote is still being investigated by the American competition authorities.
If you look at the debt level, you had variations in capital, EUR 251 million that was stock options, the exercise of stock options, dividends, EUR 865 million, including EUR 755 million to Bouygues shareholders and then the balance was minority shareholders of TF1 and Bouygues Telecom and then the other item that was EUR 2.6 billion, we'll get details on that now. So you start with the net cash flow position after leasing obligations stood at EUR 3.7 billion. So that's very much in line with 2024. Capital expenditure, not including frequency stood at EUR 1.9 billion. It is somewhat -- it's EUR 400 million less than 2024 that there were some asset disposals at Bouygues Telecom worth EUR 393 million.
Free cash flow before WCR stood at EUR 1.8 billion, and that's a record level, and that's thanks to all the efforts of all the business lines throughout the year. So you had operations conducted by Bouygues Telecom in 2025 worth EUR 222 million, and that included the disposal of assets held by Infracos. If you look at capital -- working capital requirements, the change was EUR 941 million compared to last year. That's a significant amount for the third year running. We're looking at about EUR 3 billion accumulated over 3 years. That very positive development has been somewhat dampened this year by currency effect worth about EUR 200 million.
Now on the next slide, we look at the net financial debt since 2022. If you look at -- you have to remember that the net financial position stood at EUR 7.5 billion at the end of 2022 after the acquisitions of EQUANS, of course. Now we have a stringent financial discipline, and that led to a significant deleveraging over the past 3 years in spite of additional acquisitions that took place in 2023 and 2024, in particular, of course, the Colas operation in 2023, but also the acquisition of La Poste Telecom worth about EUR 1 billion, and that was in 2024. So the net financial debt came down by about EUR 3.3 billion. And so our financial position is very sound indeed. The outlook is promising. And so we were able to bring our dividend up. And as you know, we have -- our dividend policy is a long-term policy, and that is why we're suggesting a new increase in the dividend for the third year running. We take it up from EUR 2 to EUR 2.10 per share. If the resolution is adopted, then it means the payout will be up 17% -- will have been up 17% over 3 years.
A few words about our financial structure. The net financial debt is significantly down. And so therefore, the debt ratio stood at 28%, and that was up 14 percentage points over 1 year. We also had a confirmation from the rating agencies. We have sound ratings at Standard & Poor's our rating stands at A- stable outlook and Moody's A3 stable outlook. And the group's cash position stands at EUR 17.6 billion at end December. This is extremely high but of course, you have EUR 6.4 billion in actual cash and EUR 11 in medium- and long-term unused credit lines and then facilities.
And then as you can see on the chart at the bottom right corner, the distribution of debt schedule is extremely even. If you look at Bouygues SA, the holding company, the equities were up EUR 434 million. Now why is that? Well, you had, of course, the profit for the year, EUR 971 million and the exercise of stock options to the tune of EUR 258 million. So that's what you have on one hand. And then conversely, you had dividends paid out in 2024 with EUR 754 million and the cancellation of treasury shares with EUR 48 million. And so the net debt position down EUR 385 million was, of course, boosted by the exercise of stock options and other buying back of treasury shares.
At the end of 2025, the net profit for Bouygues SA stood at EUR 971 million, up EUR 63 million compared to last year. This is because there was a higher financial result, EUR 109 million because of the increased dividends from various business lines, in particular, Bouygues Construction and EQUANS. Then there were higher operating losses, EUR 22 million, and that was because of the -- well, the higher share price and the taxes on free shares given to employees. And then there were other -- there was smaller profits and taxes worth EUR 24 million. That's because there were fewer losses in integrated companies.
Thank you for your attention. Sorry about the delay.
Let's listen to the report of the Audit Committee. We have the Chair Benoît Maes, who will give you his report.
[Foreign Language]
I think we can applaud because these committees have a considerable workload. And I think cast light for the shareholders on how the company is run, which I think is a very good thing. So dear Mr. Benoît Maes, thank you for your report. I'm now going to give the floor to our statutory auditors for their various reports. Gentlemen, you have the floor.
Thank you, Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, the college of statutory auditors has issued several reports as part of its mission. First of all, certification of sustainability and the control of the publication of information under the taxonomy rule. Then under its ordinary general meeting, we have a report on the parent company and consolidated accounts, the Resolutions 1 and 2. Then we have a special report on what we call related party agreements. This will be covered by Resolution 4. Then under the Extraordinary General Meeting, we have drawn up reports on different transactions that you are asked to express an opinion on Resolutions 16 to 20, which we will go into in greater detail. And these are all available in the annual report. So I propose not to read them in extensive, but to report on them in the form of summaries.
First of all, the sustainability report, which is on Page 09 of the universal reference document the French version, that's Page 09. First concerns compliance with ESRS is what Bouygues has done in publishing its information. It's called the double materiality analysis. We have not identified any errors, emissions or substantial inconsistencies based on the checks that we carried out.
Secondly, is compliance of information on sustainability with ESRS standards. Here again, we haven't identified any substantial errors, emissions or consistencies based on our verifications. Our report comprises 3 comments. The first of these concerns the continued ongoing analysis conducted by the group aimed at identifying and quantifying certain levers in the decarbonizing of your transition in order to achieve the -- or reach the objectives approved by STBI. The second concerns the analysis carried out by the group, taking into account category 311, that's the use of products sold concerning the carbon footprint of certain equipment installed and not manufactured.
And thirdly, the work being conducted to extend the scope of certain social indicators and environmental data regarding waste. As for compliance with the demands to publish under the so-called green taxonomy, we haven't identified any errors, emissions or consistencies based on our verifications.
Now under the authority of the ordinary part of your AGM, we've issued a report on the statutory accounts and the consolidated accounts. The first of these is available on Page 529 of the French version of the universal reference document. We can confirm that we have carried out our audit of the Bouygues company's statutory and consolidated accounts in compliance with the practice in force in France. These are regular. We found that these are regular since I give a true opinion of the financial situation and results for the period.
This report comprises one observation I'd like to draw your attention to concerning the notes to the accounts explaining the first application of NC20226. That's the first application of -- we mentioned this in our work conducted on the audit in reference to the financial assets, which are a key part of this audit concerning the report on the consolidated accounts, which is covered by Resolution #2, Page 501 of the universal reference document, again, French version. We can confirm that we have conducted our audit based on the accounts as approved by the Board of Directors and in accordance with the practices -- accounting practices of France. We can confirm that these consolidated accounts, again, drawn up in compliance with IFRS are true and sincere and give a good reflection of the financial situation and the results of the transactions carried out in 2025.
We've identified 3 key points. First of all, the [indiscernible] goodwill, the accounting of sales, particularly on construction accounts, construction contracts rather, and the provision for litigation and disputes. For each of these risks, we have provided answers to these risks. These key points do not require any particular comment on our part, neither in terms of the methods used or the reasonable nature of the appraisals used or the relevance of the information used in the notes.
I'm going to give the floor to my colleague to tell you about the other reports drawn up for your attention.
In our special report on related party agreements, we are drawing your attention to 3 agreements entered into in 2025 with prior approval from your Board of Directors. Firstly, there's a rider to a brand license contract with Bouygues Telecom. This rider extends part of the rights conceded in 2029 and renewed in 2024. This makes the formalism less rigid or more so, I should say, in the event of a use of the name of Bouygues Telecom, just adding a fee and a 3-year revision mechanism.
Secondly, there's an agreement concerning renewal in 2026 of common service agreements with TF1, Bouygues Telecom and EQUANS as well as the renewal of the services agreement with SCDM, all of these under the same terms and conditions as beforehand. The parties concerned and the reasons justifying the importance of each of these agreements for your company have been set forth in detail in our report.
Concerning agreements approved during previous financial periods and that continue to be in effect in 2025, we'd like to draw your attention to the brand license agreement with Bouygues Telecom and the EIG 32 Hoche on the other hand, the common services or shared services agreements with the main subsidiaries of your company, the service agreements agreed with and entered into with SCDM and the availability of a plane agreement entered into with AirBy. You will find that the amounts concerned in each of these agreements are included in our report. We've also been informed of the continued -- continuation effect of the agreement for expenses incurred in defending senior managers in the investment dispute. No amounts were concerned by this agreement in 2025. Under the authority of the extraordinary part of today's AGM, we have issued 5 reports concerning authorizations or delegations of authority to be granted to your Board of Directors.
The 16th resolution aims at giving your Board of Directors the powers enabling it to cancel treasury shares up to the limit of 10% of the share capital. This delegation to be granted for a period of 18 months. We have no observations to make regarding this transaction, which is set forth as provided by the French commercial law. The 17th resolution proposes to delegate to your Board of Directors for a period of 26 months, the competence to issue new shares reserved for employees and corporate officers who are members of the company savings scheme up to a maximum of 5% of the share capital. We have no observations to make concerning the details on the issuance of the shares -- these new shares. And so far as the conditions for these capital increase have not yet been determined, we have no opinion concerning preferential subscription rights. If required, we will issue an additional report when and if this delegation authority is applied.
The 18th resolution, the Board of Directors asks you to attribute free shares to certain employees and/or corporate officers up to a limit of 1% of the share capital including a maximum of 0.15% to corporate officers. The 19th resolution also concerns an authorization to attribute free shares to certain employees and/or corporate officers but for the purposes of retirement. This is fixed at a limit, a maximum of 0.15%, including maximum 0.03% for corporate officers. We have no observations regarding either of these transactions.
Finally, the 20th resolution concerns the delegation of authority to be granted to your Board of Directors to issue equity warrants in the event of a public offer on your company. The shares that could be thus issued are limited to 25% of the shares constituting the share capital and a maximum nominal amount of EUR 96 million share capital. We have no observation to make concerning this transaction and we'll draw up when and if required, an additional report, as I said, when and if this delegation is used by your Board of Directors.
Thank you for your attention. Thank you for your trust.
Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you for your reports. We are now going to hear from the Governance Committee, the Committee for Governance selection and compensation to be presented by Pascaline de Dreuzy. The first part, which is in the form of video, concerns governance. The second part will concern compensation.
[Foreign Language]
Thank you, Pascaline de Dreuzy, for this very comprehensive presentation. And now I'll give the floor back to Olivier Roussat, who will tell you about the outlook for this year.
Well, the outlook, again, the businesses of Bouygues are very indeed robust, and they can certainly show resilience, have done so over the past few challenging years. Our macroeconomic and geopolitical environment remains uncertain. And of course, Bouygues will need to remain agile to adapt to future developments.
The year 2026, we're looking at stable revenue on a constant exchange rate. We expect COPA to remain historically high after several years of improvement. And of course, the expected improvement of Equans' COPA should enable to make up further loss of TF1's COPA in line with the decline of the advertising market.
Thank you. Now we have received a number of questions by e-mail. And so we provided answers in writing and so you could look it up on our website, bouygues.com. And so there's a window just for that. And now we can take your questions in the audience.
Mr. Chairman, I have been an individual shareholder for many years. In the past, you told us about your involvement in the Hinkley Point EPR site in Britain. Where do we stand? Has this site been completed? Has the -- have operations started?
And then Mr. Roussat referred to a data center. I believe that a number of data centers have already been built in France. And apparently, there are significant operating issues, especially as concerns, heat release for the buildings themselves, but also the piping holding high-voltage cables. Now is this a sort of thing that your group should develop specific know-how for?
Now on Hinkley Point, just two words. I mean, as far as Bouygues' contribution is concerned, but that business is completed. We are providing the finishing touches, but the site was completed in satisfactory conditions so much so that our customer trusted us with the building of 2 new EPRs in Britain. And so of course, this is a sign of trust. As you know, EPRs are now developing not just in France but elsewhere.
After having indicted nuclear energy for so many years, now it is getting as it were, wind in its sails again. And so this -- and this is a sort of thing we'll be working on, on the building of nuclear power plant.
Data centers, yes, we've been building quite a few. We're building them in Australia, Germany, Italy, France indeed. And indeed, we've built them in France and the U.S. We actually were not involved in the U.S. until the Trump administration decided to step this up. We've been getting good feedback from our customers.
Now Stephane was in charge of data centers until he became the group CFO and asked him if he had any knowledge of this. Data centers seem to be huge power consumers. They use a lot of energy, and there will be even more so in the future. There's one being built in France, and we're talking about 1 gigawatt. So there would be an entire power plant -- nuclear power plant unit being all eaten up by data center. But I speaking under the supervision of Jérôme, this business about cables.
Now what we're trying to do is to use that heat from these data centers to avoid having too much heat released in the air and hurt birds. So see if we could use it for district heating or something. And that heat can also be directed to the heat pumps for them to generate useful heat rather than useless heat as it were.
I had a complaint back in previous years. I have a Bbox subscription and I had a prepaid card without -- with unlimited duration. The number ended with 035. I complained with the local shop and they asked me to send a letter to top management. And here I am, the prepaid card had unlimited duration, and I spent about EUR 100 to use it. And back at the time, I used to travel abroad. And so that's why I put in all that money.
And then you deleted that offer. But people who payed into this, you couldn't get the money back on the money that had been credited to the card. That's not, right?
Again, the last 4 digits are 7035. And I would like to reiterate my request. I should get credit for this, and I should get -- I mean, that should be a credit to a new offer if that one has expired. That's very unfortunate, especially I used to work for Bouygues.
Well, sir, look, thank you for this -- for being so patient. I mean, clearly, apparently -- well, thank you for showing trust in the company. I mean, in spite of this, you have remained loyal to us. And you have here the very head of Bouygues Telecom. So yes, I'll take your details, sir, and I'll make sure that your issue is dealt with, and we do apologize for the inconvenience. Now then apart from that, on the -- yes, sir.
Yes. I'm an individual shareholder, and I have a question about artificial intelligence. Do you see any opportunities for the group in artificial intelligence?
As the CEO of Iliad says, we have 5 layers, you have power chips, data centers, models and then the actual apps. And on each level, I get the feeling that the Bouygues Group could play a role. But my question is what are the opportunities for the group at large?
Well, I'm sure Olivier Roussat.
Well, look, the data center business, of course, is a significant market, and that is why we have taken up positions in the U.S. that have been redeployed on hyperscalers that have redeployed to the U.S. And of course, in this contract, you have to be fast. We -- these contracts are worthwhile if you can be fast about it, and that's what Francois did with one of our companies in the U.S.
And on data centers, we have, of course, a significant project in Australia. It hasn't become public yet, but this has confirmed our relationship with our customers that they keep -- they have kept their trust in us. These are plants that will sort of host services, but the other contracts are -- were the clear criterion is how close we can stick to the budget and the timetable. But the next issue is what we do with AI.
Now AI is particularly useful when you can digitalize things. You have 2 companies that have lots of digital content, TF1 and Bouygues Telecom. So when you want to create, I don't know, special effects for movies or animations that can be done very efficiently. So this is transformative. But of course, for TF1, it means that everything they've been doing on fact checking, especially for news programs, especially as regards to Ukraine or Iran, it's hard to tell sometimes whether a video is authentic or fake news. And of course, we use AI to help us ascertain the truth of the news.
But other than that, of course, there are many other possibilities we could have. We can have settings for networks in a way that enables us to use AI technology. But in any case, that technology can be used in other areas, the amazing improvements. You may remember ChatGPT with the generative AI. Now we have agent or agentic AI, which is a significant development compared to what we had before.
And this is certainly going to change the way in which lots of businesses have been working. They used to work on a sort of a functional basis, and these are going to -- this is going to change significantly, and it will be for us to support not just the companies, but their employees as well. Now to make sure that the human dimension is there, but it will be there in a new capacity. And that will -- of course, this will have to be very industry-specific because AI in this respect is something of a revolution.
And so this is part of the job, but we don't want technology to be imposed upon us. We have to surf on it on the contrary so that we can take our people on board and make the most of that technology.
Well, thank you very much, Olivier, for that statement on AI. Yes.
Jacques from the magazine called [indiscernible]. On telecoms, you talked about SFR leaving the market as a -- how will I put it, a clearing up of the market for the greater benefit of consumers, but it's clearly for the greater benefit of the 3 remaining operators, that is the immediate impact. I have another question on that.
Okay. Let me answer that question, if I may. First of all, look at the situation of telecoms in Europe. What you see is that all the listed telcos have disastrous market caps. And put simply, the competitive landscape in Europe is such that the return on capital employed is very weak, if not nonexistent and even negative in some cases.
So that is not a sustainable solution. That is not how we can ensure the durability and development of networks in Europe. And France is no exception to the rule. Remember that the prices in France are probably the lowest in the whole world in both mobile and fixed lines.
Now when you reduce the number of operators from 4 to 3, you don't increase the market, you don't produce it. The market remains the same size. However, you substantially reduced the amount of CapEx and the amount of operating expenses involved by the -- or incurred by the market operators. The fact that you reduce the number of operators from 4 to 3 probably reduces CapEx and OpEx by approximately EUR 2 billion a year. This is what we call synergy.
So who will be the beneficiary? Well, the beneficiaries will be consumers. Also the operators who will finally, hopefully, see some return on the capital employed. May I remind you that Bouygues Telecom -- remember, we'd be celebrating our 30th anniversary, but the profitability in Bouygues Telecom has been very weak, and I'm not proud of that.
My other question concerns the international context. In 2025 -- for 2025, you say it was reasonably peaceful by comparison with previous shocks like COVID and war in Ukraine. I'm not sure we can say the same thing about April '26. That said, where would you position this shock, the war in the Middle East? How would you position it by comparison with previous events? What impact have you identified on Bouygues? And how do you propose to offset those impacts?
I'm going to answer this in 2 times. Olivier will give you more detail, but I'm tempted to tell you that in a few days' time, I'll be 74 years of age. So I've been working for quite some time, and I've never known a time of true peace. There's always somewhere something happening such that the world is changing. What has changed a lot is the -- all the noise that the media are making there. I think it gives a different scale on things. It puts a different scale and a different perception on how we see the events occurring in the world.
Remember, in 2025, there was something terrible happening. It was the war in Ukraine, and it's still ongoing. It's a terrible war. There have probably been millions of fatalities, and that war is still ongoing. In 2026, we have the events in the Middle East. Part of that is comprehensible. The problem with the proliferation of nuclear weapons is understandable and other aspects are more complex. We'll see how things pan out. We are informed by very good sources, thanks to DFR constantly. But as for the markets and the markets, Olivier will tell you more.
The current situation, I think the important part is the duration of the conflict. It could well be that this conflict will create the situation we had in early 2022 with the war in Ukraine with considerable -- considerably higher level of inflation in all our businesses as Martin says, in all our business construction, there's energy and cement and steel. And as energy becomes costly mechanically, there will be an impact.
Now our order books are well filled, particularly in construction. We have less backlog in roads, but it's a good backlog, all the same. But we can expect inflation, I think. As the war in Iran lasts longer, we can expect a recession to set in, in the world. Even with a good backlog sooner or later, we will be -- it will catch up on us. So I think the key issue here is the duration of the conflict. It's the duration that will tell us how diffusive an impact it will have.
Remember in 2022, when inflation really rose after the summer of 2022, though the initial invasion was in February. We've modified our clauses -- our contracts in 2022. We have revision clauses. We can come back to the table and discuss terms with inflation is one of these. There's another aspect that we had in 2022 for our employees. It's important to help our employees get through the storm. And if need be, we will do that again.
Another question, gentleman here.
I am an individual shareholder. Yesterday evening, the Bouygues share closed at EUR 51.46. Over 3 years, the extremes are EUR 53.48. At EUR 27.47, extremes. A few years back, you proposed to buy back Bouygues shares at EUR 30. I'm very glad that I kept mine.
To conclude, I'd like to come back to something that was said at last year's AGM. A shareholder pointed out that the AGMs of TF1 and LVMH were almost always at the same time. This year, TF1's AGM was last week and LVMH's took place this morning. Is that a coincidence? Or did you do something about that comment last year?
I'll be honest with you. It's coincidental, shall we say. To be honest, it's very difficult to organize ourselves. AGMs meet a certain number of criteria and legal obligations on the one hand.
That's be so many days after the Board meeting of the Board meeting that decides to approve the accounts and to convene an AGM, then you have to find a location or a venue. There are lots of obligations, lots of restrictions and the difficulties involved.
Now I wouldn't like to claim praise for something that we don't deserve. I think it was coincidental. No, Rodolphe has confirmed that, that was a coincidence. In all of this, thank you for being a loyal shareholder. I wasn't trying to shaft you by buying back your shares at EUR 30. On the contrary, I'm delighted to meet shareholders year after year at our Annual General Meetings because there's -- I don't think there's nothing more encouraging than the loyalty of our shareholders.
I'm a shareholder myself, as you know. Shareholders are a community of sorts. And companies need to feel the support of their shareholders. That's something that happens very often at Bouygues, and it's a great source of motivation, a great source of comfort for us all. So thank you for your loyalty.
And of course, the share price, well, to be honest, I'm like you. I have no idea what's going to happen. I have no crystal ball. So I can't say what's going to happen with the share price because every time I say to my children no, what I say, it turns out not to be. It may not reassure you, but that's the way it is. Any other questions?
Yes, we do. Gentlemen here.
I'm a registered shareholder. I became a registered shareholder when you were appointed CEO, and I wanted to support a young man full of -- with a great future in a difficult task, taking over from his father. It's easier said than done because I was registered. I noticed that you were sending me documents.
And at the time, the margin was below 2%. So you can look back to see if I'm wrong, but I'm convinced I'm not mistaken because it was below 2% every year, I've been tracking that margin in 2024 was 4.5% in 2025, up to 4.7%. This is your operating margin, of course. And this year, I'm sure you reach 5%. So I think you will with the documents we've received and particularly the -- what we know about EQUANS.
I think you should emphasize this. produce a slide showing that year after year, the real creation of wealth, it's thanks to the margin that you have generated. Maybe you take that into account. Obviously, my question is about SFR. Patrick Drahi is very smart because selling his somewhat mature company as the CEO said, to sell it for EUR 20 billion, which is the market cap of Bouygues or even Stellantis. These are huge amounts of money. That means that all the great companies, Colas, Bouygues Construction and EQUANS, they would amount to nothing. So Drahi is very, very smart. So I suppose my question is, do you plan to call a capital increase to pay for this nuggets?
First of all, thanks for your loyalty. Thanks to you, too, because you are talking about something that goes back to 1989 when I became Chairman of this group 20 -- '89, that's a long time ago.
So like you, we are very happy to see that the margin has increased. It's also important to bear in mind that the profile of the group has changed. In 1989, we were very much a construction group. Construction and public works are not very capital-intensive businesses with low margins. There's a considerable amount of risk. But at the moment, our businesses are much more capital intensive. And I've mentioned the problem of Bouygues Telecom.
But if you look at the other businesses like Colas, Colas is a very capital-intensive business, much more so than Bouygues Construction. And the proof of this is that Bouygues has EUR 15 billion in equity. Back in '89, we were far from that, well below that figure. So the group's profile has also changed. I believe that we've progressed. I also believe that we have people of great quality in every part of the group.
EQUANS, for instance, the integration of EQUANS has progressed marvelously, a few things left to do, but we've improved remarkably. We now have a whole reservoir of highly talented people in the group, which I believe enables us to regenerate the group generation after generation, but it also gives us a certain amount of stability and quality in the way we manage the group.
Unfortunately, we are never safe from unforeseeable accidents. But as for the rest of your question, Olivier, did you want to add anything? Capital increase. Oh, yes, you asked about a capital increase. Well, for the moment, we haven't any plans to increase the capital.
Concerning the valuation of SFR, I wouldn't like you to think that is going to get a check for EUR 20 billion and head off on holidays. The group has debt group has debt. So after paying the debt, there won't be a lot left out of the EUR 20 billion. It will be a substantially smaller figure after debt.
Now your assessment of Bouygues' valuation, if SFR is worth EUR 20 billion, Bouygues is worth EUR 20 billion, then we have 98% of Bouygues Telecom, half of TF1, which is a very, very good company, EQUANS, which is a magnificent company, Colas, another magnificent company, Bouygues Immobilier, which is important know-how, Bouygues construction all going very, very well. The level of debt at Bouygues has become very reasonable once again.
In the space of 5 years, we have invested considerable amounts of Bouygues Telecom, EQUANS, more investment in Colas, totaling a little over EUR 8 billion, I think. And despite that, we have reduced our net debt considerably. So the group has real qualities. I think what we have to do is continue to improve our COPA to improve our COPA margin, which means improving our net profit and our ability to distribute dividends.
Let me conclude by saying one thing. The net income of Bouygues Telecom is far from ridiculous. It's basically the only problem is that it can't be distributed. Why? Because we have to fund considerable amounts of CapEx. Bouygues Telecom, we've invested EUR 1.5 billion, EUR 1.5 billion a year in CapEx, which is a substantial amount.
But if you're not profitable enough, you can't fund this amount of CapEx. But Bouygues Telecom is a fully fledged part of the Bouygues Group. And that's the important thing for shareholders to understand. Bouygues is now comprised of a set of businesses that have very different features and characteristics.
You have businesses like Bouygues Construction or EQUANS or Bouygues Immobilier that all have the ability to distribute a substantial share of their net income because they're not very capital intensive. Unlike Bouygues Telecom. So Bouygues Telecom contributes to the profits of Bouygues, but if there were only Bouygues Telecom, the truth is that we would be hard put to pay a dividend.
I'm not even sure we'd be able to. So that's the problem, the ability to distribute income. This is why I'm saying that the reorganization of the telco market in France and even in the rest of Europe, it's a real problem because it's an issue. In telecommunications in Europe, and you could check it. It's very easy to check what I'm saying.
The market caps of the telecommunications operator in Europe are very poor because of that. There's too much competition, which has destroyed value and destroyed margins. It will only work for so long because after a while, there'll be no players left in the market if the market is too capital intensive.
So I think what's apparently happening in France, what is -- will hopefully happen in France, I think -- we've already seen something similar in Spain. Italy is in a similar situation. I think throughout Europe, the situation is very similar. I think this may be a trend on the number of players in the market. Sir.
I'm a loyal shareholder for the last 25 years. If you just give me a clarification concerning EQUANS, by comparison with what you expected in terms of profitability 5 years ago, it took you 2 years to achieve the profitability you wanted. But over the long term, what about sales?
SFR, you're talking about buying 40% of the business. Are you buying part of the retail clients? Some of my friends were unable to attend you this afternoon. They are at Dior. Would it not be possible to have your AGM on a Wednesday. There'll be no competition for...
If he prefers Dior to Bouygues, then well, to each his own. To answer your question on EQUANS, the indicators we gave at the Capital Market Day, I forget it was in January or February. It was February 28, 2023. We will finally reach the 5% target -- COPA target a year ahead of schedule because that has become our guidance this year.
Cash generation, as I've said, we're at the top end of the bracket, which would suggest that we're doing better than we expected. And finally, concerning sales, we said from the very start of 2023 that there were activities that we felt were less profitable and we plan to discontinue.
We did that with Places & Communities in the U.K. There were construction we felt that wasn't profitable enough. And then there are a number of business that we disposed of because they weren't aligned with EQUANS' core business because of the -- we had heat networks that were capital intensive that we didn't want to retain.
Then we had automotive charging facilities that we didn't want to keep because they involve a lot of CapEx and the profile that we want for EQUANS is that we want the COPA to become cash. We want to convert to cash very rapidly. We want EQUANS to have low CapEx, generate dividends that will be channeled back to the parent company, as Martin said.
And then the acquisition we're making, we are making what we call bolt-on acquisitions, small acquisitions because these are areas in which the densification in the areas we work on accelerate growth. We become power prices, which give us a better margin.
To answer your question on SFR, we're buying, if I remember correctly, 42% of SFR's sales. Within that 42%, you will find the B2B, but also the B2C, the -- what we call the retail business. Without that, you would not arrive at this level of sales. This is the breakdown that we have arrived at with the other telecom operators.
Now there are a lot of things to be -- still remain to be defined in terms of the feasibility. There's an 18-month period during which the various antitrust authorities will examine the situation. And of course, the telecommunications regulator, they will all have a say. So it's a long way to go just yet. Gentleman here.
Thank you, sir. I myself, I'm also an individual shareholder. And I have a question for Bouygues Telecom, not just for Bouygues Telecom. In fact, what I really would like to know is what do you propose to do to -- in terms of cybersecurity on mobile phones because what it is, is that you have -- you get unwanted calls on our phones, we'd like to be protected. Is there anything being planned about this?
Well, look, I'll give my -- I can ask my son, but there's an app called Ca Raccroche. It hangs up. What it is, is that they deal with a constant flow of unwanted phone calls and they stop calling you.
Yes. Well, there are apps, and that particular one is a community app. In other words, it's a nonprofit thing. And what it does is that it aggregates millions of numbers being used for solicitations and sort of aggressive selling is sometimes illegal. And that's really useful app because on iPhones, in particular, you get these calls, whereas on Android phones, there's an internal mechanism to prevent this.
But it's not just that. You have actual numbers, you have identity -- phone identity theft. You think it's somebody calling you. You recognize the name or the phone number. And then when you pick up, it's not that person talking to you. That is a phenomenon that started emerging 2 or 3 years ago.
The way it works is that these criminal operators, they use false foreign telco operators telling you, well, this number will -- is calling your customer and so let the call through. Now if it's one of our numbers, we know that the phone is located in France or not. But if it's a number belonging to one of our competitors, Orange, there's nothing we can do.
So we were about to create a database to make sure to ascertain whether the number is indeed present on the territory or not to prevent that kind of fraud, but it is a constant cat and mouse game. And you're right. This is something we are up against, and we were working hard to address this.
All right. Well, if there are no further questions, we move on to -- yes, please go ahead. Sorry, sorry, I didn't see you.
Yes, I was seated in the back. I'm also an individual shareholder. And I would like to say, I really like your videos are beautiful. And you have fine values on display. And there are not enough women in the AGM, and I'd like to see more women among the shareholders in any case. I have a question, and I have the same question for TF1. I asked a question, I got a negative answer.
But are you developing your own AI within the group? The reason I ask is that you have lots of AIs around and there's no reason why the Bouygues Group should not have its own AI. Talking about recent developments in the Middle East, there are issues of energy supply and other -- I mean, for instance, for those contracts in various parts of the region, have you suffered any attacks, any bombing?
And then finally, you're talking about a new media landscape, things that are moving fast now. But of course, your perception can vary from 1 year to the next because artificial intelligence is making significant inroads and might change in which -- the way in which content is generated.
Well, look, on the first question again about AI, there are many solutions being developed in-house. When we find something off the shelf, we might as well use that. But if we cannot find what we need, we develop our own AI tools to address our own specific -- industry-specific issues. But again, we lean on major existing models. We don't have to develop own in-house large language models because here you're talking about huge expenditure. We wouldn't do that.
On the Middle East, well, yes, there were about 1,000 people out in areas between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. We don't have many people in Qatar, but we have a small number in the rest of the region. In any case, we repatriated those families that wished to return. But it turns out many people prefer to stay there. They didn't wish to be taken back from. A few people did want to return.
On the sites where we're involved, we haven't had any issues. But in Dubai, there is a missile hit to tower just across the street from where we are located. And that's precisely why we felt it might be unsafe to stay there. But as to the consequences, there will be consequences because, well, fortunately, there are various purchasing portals in various parts of China, Panama, Turkey, et cetera. So sourcing is diversified nonetheless, The unit components we're using will be affected by the developments in the region.
All right. Well, thank you. And I think by now, the time -- we've run out of questions. So we'll check on the attendance sheet based on the central processing office and to address those verifications that were warranted by the bureau, and I think we've done just that.
And so if there are no objections, let's use our electronic voting system. You use a manual device. You were given a chance to vote ahead of the AGM. And Didier Casas, who's here, will give you some explanations about the vote, and then we'll be able to vote on the resolutions themselves. Didier, take it away.
Yes. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. A few details on the way in which the voting box operates. It's very simple. You press 1, this means you're voting in favor. If you press 2, you vote against. If you press 3, it's an abstention. You have 10 seconds to vote, and you can change your vote. You have 10 seconds to do that. And then, of course, the final vote, if you change your mind is -- will prevail.
So the quorum altogether has been reached, and you have the actual numbers on the screen. So the number of voting shares, the quorum. And please stay in the auditorium until the completion of the vote.
All right. We start with the vote on resolution #1. You are to approve the annual -- the parent company financial statements for the year ended 2025. Please vote now.
[Voting]
Voting is closed and the resolution was adopted. Resolution #2, this is about the consolidated financial statements, where you can see the profit attributable to the group listed somewhere. Please vote.
[Voting]
Voting is closed and the resolution was adopted. Then now we move on to resolution #3 to have a dividend set at EUR 2.1 per share and the balance of the net profit will be carried over. Please vote now.
[Voting]
Voting is completed, and the resolution was adopted. Number four, related party agreements. You asked to vote on conventions of services between Bouygues and its subsidiaries between Bouygues and SCDM and the rider to the brand license signed with Bouygues Telecom.
[Voting]
No more voting, and you can see that the resolution was carried. Number five, this is the approval of the remuneration policy for directors. And so you can find the details of that in Items 2.41 compensation in the universal registration document.
[Voting]
Approved. Sixth resolution, approval of the compensation policy for the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Voting is underway.
[Voting]
Voting is over and the resolution is approved. Seventh resolution concerns approval of the compensation policy for the Chief Executive Officer and Deputy Chief Executive Officers. Voting is underway.
[Voting]
Voting is over and the approval of the resolution is approved. Eighth resolution asks you to -- this concerns the post. This is approval of the information about the compensation of corporate officers mentioned in Paragraph 1 of the Commercial Code of Article L. 22-10-9 Voting is now underway.
[Voting]
Voting is over. And the resolution is approved. Ninth resolution, approval of the components of the total compensation and benefits of all kinds paid during or awarded in respect of 2025 to Martin Bouygues, Chairman of the Board of Directors. Please vote now.
[Voting]
And the resolution has been approved. Tenth resolution, approval of the compensation for 2025 paid to Olivier Roussat, Chief Executive Officer. Voting is underway.
[Voting]
Voting is over. And the resolution has been approved.
The 11th resolution concerns approval of the compensation of Pascal Grange, Deputy Chief Executive Officer for 2025. Voting is underway.
[Voting]
Voting is now over and the resolution is approved. 12th resolution concerns approval of the compensation for 2025 of Ed Bouygues, Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Please vote now.
[Voting]
Voting is over. The resolution has been approved. The 13th resolution concerns the proposed renewal of the term of office of 2 directors for a period of 3 years until the AGM, approving the accounts in 3 years' time. This is -- this resolution renewal of the term of office of Benoit Maes. Please vote now.
[Voting]
Voting is over. And the resolution has been approved. The 14th resolution concerns the renewal of the term of office of Alexandre de Rothschild as a director. Please vote now.
[Voting]
Voting is over. And the resolution has been approved.
The 15th resolution, as is the case every year, we ask you to renew your authorization to the Board of Directors to trade in the company's shares for a period of 18 months. This is as part of a share buyback plan. Voting underway.
[Voting]
Voting is over and the resolution has been approved.
We're now moving on to the Extraordinary General Meeting beginning with the 16th resolution concerning authorization to the Board of Directors for a period of 18 months, authorization to reduce the share capital by cancellation of shares held by the company. Please vote now.
[Voting]
Voting is over and the resolution has been approved.
The 17th resolution concerns delegation of competence to the Board of Directors for a period of 26 months with a view to increasing the share capital without preemptive rights for existing shareholders and for the benefit of employees or corporate officers of the company or the companies who are members of a company savings scheme. Voting is underway.
[Voting]
Voting is over. The resolution has been carried. 18th resolution, authorization to the Board of Directors for a period of 26 months to allot existing or new shares free of charge entailing the waiver by shareholders of the preemptive rights in favor of employees or corporate officers of the company or related companies. Please vote now.
[Voting]
Voting is over and the resolution has been approved.
The 19th resolution concerns authorization to the Board of Directors for a period of 26 months to allow existing or new shares free of charge as a retirement benefit, entailing the waiver by shareholders of their preemptive rights in favor of eligible employees or corporate officers of the company or related companies. Please vote now.
[Voting]
Voting is over and the resolution has been approved.
The 20th resolution, delegation of competence to the Board of Directors for a period of 18 months to issue equity warrants during the period of a public offer for the company's shares up to a limit of 25% of the share capital. Please vote now.
[Voting]
Voting is over and the resolution has been approved.
21st and final resolution asks you to grant powers to accomplish formalities concerning the AGM voting underway.
[Voting]
Voting is over and the resolution has been approved.
Thank you, dear shareholders. Thank you, Didier. I'd like to thank the members of the Board. And in fact, I'd like to thank you all for your loyalty, as we said earlier on. We have a lot of very loyal shareholders, and I'd like to thank them. I think the AGM is now over. So I wish you all a very pleasant evening. Thank you. Bye.
[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]
Bouygues — Shareholder/Analyst Call - Bouygues SA
Bouygues outlines a resilient, diversified path with strong cash generation and a pending SFR deal.
🎯 Key Message
- Overview: The group showcases solid 2025 fundamentals with debt falling to about EUR 4.2 billion, COPA at EUR 2.655 billion, and a dividend increase to EUR 2.10 per share for the third straight year, underscoring capital discipline across segments.
- Stability & upside: Revenue was stable, Equans improved margins, Bouygues Telecom benefited from fiber growth but remains capex‑heavy, and TF1 faces ad market pressures. Management signals a 2026 with stable revenue at constant exchange rates and elevated COPA.
- Strategic focus: The SFR acquisition process with Altice France looms as a major optionality to scale network assets and digital sovereignty, while AI and data‑center opportunities are highlighted as transformative for the group.
🧭 Strategic Highlights
- Equans Perform plan: Margin strength improved to 4.4% COPA with guidance to reach about 5% in 2026 and COPA‑to‑cash conversion of 80–100%; 2026 pace includes a new Capital Markets Day to outline newer ambitions.
- SFR deal: Exclusive negotiations with Altice France for most of SFR’s assets at EUR 20.35 billion enterprise value, with antitrust review and regulatory steps anticipated over many months; deal aims to boost high‑throughput networks, cybersecurity, and digital sovereignty.
- Telecom & digital footprint: Bouygues Telecom reaches ~4.7 million fiber households and 18.6 million mobile customers; 2026 targets emphasize revenue billed to clients and EBITDA after leases near 2025 levels, with CapEx peaking then easing.
🆕 New Information
- Governance & sustainability: Climate and CSR measures show emissions below 20 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2025; targets and indicators are being refined for end‑2026, with a continued emphasis on diversity and responsible governance.
- Shareholder returns & structure: Dividend progression and a prudent balance sheet remain central; the board reiterated no immediate capital increase planned to finance SFR or other projects.
- Other assets: TF1 and other units continue to diversify, with TF1+ digital growth and a focus on AI‑assisted content and verification strategies; data centers cited as a meaningful growth vector in the portfolio.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- SFR deal timing & scope: Questions focused on exclusivity, regulatory hurdles, and which SFR assets are in scope; management outlined a multi‑month antitrust process and the intention to reinforce digital infrastructure and strategic assets.
- Probing Bouygues Telecom’s profitability given ongoing CapEx and competition; management stressed the need for scale and the long‑term CAPEX cycle to enable network leadership and cash generation.
- Inquiries about in‑house vs. cloud‑based AI solutions and how AI could be deployed across TF1, Bouygues Telecom, and EQUANS; executives described a balanced approach using existing models, with selective in‑house development where needed.
⚡ Bottom Line
The AGM reinforced Bouygues’ disciplined, cash‑generative profile, ongoing deleveraging, and a constructive medium‑term outlook. A major potential upside rests with the SFR asset deal, while Equans’ margin expansion and the telecom framework underpin a resilient earnings path in 2026, albeit with macro and regulatory risks to monitor.
Bouygues — Q4 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
[Interpreted] Hello, good morning. We may as well start now a few seconds ahead of schedule. We have a little video by way of introduction. But before this, I would like to say a few words about the setting up of our Construction division. Well, more to the point we are bringing within our group there are 3 businesses involved in Construction, Colas [indiscernible] mobile. So we decided to have this division because it enables us to generate revenue synergies, and you can also boost both the sales and the profitability of our businesses. We do have some differentiation at -- in governance, Bouygues Construction, the Pascal Mino, who was Chair of the Board Mino is our Chair and Pascale becomes CEO, Managing Director as it were. He was in charge of Batimo and tenant Colas, we appointed Vasai is Chairman of the Board; and Pierre Vanco Fregat is now CEO. And at Bouygues Mobile, as you know, we had already distinguished between the Chair and the Pascal being the Chair of the Board; and Emmanuel Demesier becoming the CEO of Bouygues Mobile. So at the Construction division, the head is Pascal, Pascal in who chairs each of the boards of each of the 3 be used. And so let's move on to the little new institutional video.
[Presentation]
[Interpreted] Right. So this new video, this is our opportunity to display and show up all our skills and some of the businesses we engage in and all the work of our -- the good work of our employees.
Let's move on to Page 4. Revenue was stable year-on-year, it was -- it suffered from currency effects to the tune of EUR 560 million in H2. The overall effect for the year was EUR 580 million. On a constant exchange rate basis, revenue was up 1.3% over the year. So the results for 2025 is sound. COPA is significantly up over the year. driven mostly by the construction businesses, but also by Equans, and that has enabled us to get beyond expectations. The net income attributable to the group was up over the year in spite of a heavier tax burden in France free cash flow before and after WCR stood at a historically high level up for the third year running. Change in WCR stood at plus EUR 941 million over the year, an accumulated amount of EUR 3 billion over 3 years. And then the net debt is much less than it was at the end of 2024. The cash position of [indiscernible] both at historically high levels. And then -- and we'll get to that in detail.
The perform plan of Equans has been running smoothly both in terms of profitability and cash generation. In this context, the Board of Directors will suggest to the AGM in April, a payout of EUR 2.10 per share up 5% compared to 24%. Again, an increase for the third year running. If you look at -- on Page 5, the key figures, revenue stood at EUR 56.9 billion, stable over the year, slightly up on a constant scope and FX basis. COPA stood at EUR [ 2.65 ] billion, up EUR 120 million. Net income for the group stood at EUR 1.138 billion, up EUR 8 million. But if you restate this for exceptional tax contribution, the actual improvement was EUR 149 million. The effects of the new budget, the tax law and the special tax on social security which was voted in Q1 2025. That weighed about EUR 93 million altogether in line with our expectations. And then good news regarding the net debt position, standing at EUR 4.2 billion at end December 2025, a significant improvement, about EUR 1.9 billion over the year.
Nexen performance, reflecting the efforts deployed on cash management and the good cooperation between our operations people and our financial people. Now let's look at on greenhouse gas emissions where we stand at 2025 compared to 2024. Our global footprint stood at about 19.5 million tons tin-equivalent COT in 2025. So that's a 1.5 million tonne improvement over the year. The carbon intensity was also down. And that, of course, is a reflection of our commitments with SBTi. We've been producing solutions with lower or lower carbon footprint. So this is reflected in practice. But of course, in some parts of the world, the carbon footprint on de facto higher because of the source of energy used in various parts of the world. Let's move on to the order book. Our backlog for the Construction business, it stands at EUR 32 billion giving us good visibility for the future on the constant change and scope basis, order book was up 1% over the year -- the currency effects weighed down to the tune of EUR 600 million, but that order book was stable in France, slightly up in Europe outside France and the international region outside Europe was down -- but we did have significant contracts at the end of 2024. I'll get back to that later.
Let's look at a breakdown of the order book in the various businesses. The portion of orders to be performed in the next 12 months was stable over 1 year, and this is, of course, reassuring in terms of revenue generated to be generated rather in 2026. Colas order book stood at EUR 13.7 billion, up 4% over the year, 6% on a constant scope and exchange basis. That is -- was driven by rail. The order book was up 17%. Road work was down 3%, in particular in France because of the context of municipal elections ahead of local elections, there's very little done in terms of public works. At Bouygues order book stood at EUR 17.5 billion, down 4% over the year and down 2% and on a constant scope and FX basis. It was up inside Batimo France also up at Batimo International, but down for public works -- of course, there was an unfavorable basis of comparison in 2024. We had the T2D contract in Australia with upwards of EUR 2 billion -- having said that, I would qualify this by saying that when we -- with the order of size, well, we'll have about 1/3 of the whole project, about EUR 3 billion.
We haven't recognized EUR 3 billion. We only recognized to or EUR 300 million because the project will go batch by batch. But we know that the future years altogether, it will sum up to EUR 3 billion. So it depends on how we recognized projects. I mean, we could have more change in the order book depending on how we recorded. At Bouygues Mobile, the order book was EUR 800 million. down 16% over the year, 9% on a constant scope and exchange rate basis. We decided to dispose of guide in Poland in 2025 and of course, that is reflected on the order book. Colas orders -- order taking stood at EUR 13.7 billion over the year in France, new orders were slightly down again, there are the local elections that doesn't help. But abroad, the orders were up in Northern Europe and also in Asia Pacific and Canada. And for instance, in Q4, Miller, that is our roadworks company in Toronto in Canada. Took in an order worth EUR 100 million for the maintenance of road infrastructure in the rail, the order taking was up significantly up.
There was a train contract in Britain a high-speed train line in Morocco. There's a contract in France. In Northern Europe, there's a contractual tramway. You may remember our Finnish branch Destia got a EUR 100 million -- EUR 200 million contract for Trami in [indiscernible] order taking stood at EUR 10.1 billion. You have run-of-the-mill activities. -- at high level in 2025, a record level, what we call run of the mill at Bouygues Construction is all businesses worth less than EUR 100 million. So that's a pretty significant amount anyway. But when that business increases, we're looking at businesses where we have more competition because these are smaller projects. And so it goes to show that Bouygues is gaining market shares in a very competitive business. So this is very good news in the -- and you do have a few projects worth more than EUR 100 million. You have 2 data centers, 1 in Australia, 1 in France, worth EUR 400 million. At Bouygues, the market is still challenged and has been throughout 2025. We do have a few indicators indicating some resumption of business. We have building permits. We have reservations Also, the cancellation rates was down, and that's rather good news. By contrast, the office business is slowed down. It's actually ground to a hold. Right now, there's not much going on at all when but things may change when people are working from home will go back to the office in particularly the banking industry, the insurance industry are having their employees going back to work at the office. And so that might mean more office space. We'll see how it pans out in the future.
Looking at the Construction division, again, the revenue stood at EUR 27.8 billion, up 1% over the year, up 3% on a constant scope and exchange basis. Colas' revenue was slightly increased over the year, thanks to the rail business, up 13%, and the roadworks revenue was stable over the year, slightly up in France, slightly down overseas, but more in EMEA and North America. Colas' revenue was upwards of EUR 270 million, mostly to do with the Canadian and the U.S. dollars. But on a constant scope and exchange basis, Colas' revenue would have been up 2% over the year. Bouygues [indiscernible] revenue was up 3% driven by its 3 divisions: Batimo International, Batimo, France and Public Works. That also suffered EUR 150 million effect on currencies and as the -- to do with the Australian dollar, but also the Hong Kong dollar and to a lesser extent, because of the American dollar. Bouygues Construction's revenue on a constant basis would have been up 4% over the year.
Finally, [indiscernible] revenue on the face value is down 4% over the year. But in fact, on a constant scope, again, an exchange basis, it would have been up and that was because, of course, we disposed of our business in Poland in July 2025. Let's look at the operating performance of these various businesses. The construction divisions COPA stood at EUR 982 million [indiscernible] EUR 155 million over the year. Again, on all 3 fronts at Colas stood at EUR 586 million, Margin from activities improved 0.2 percentage points to 3.7%. At Bouygues Construction COPA stood at EUR 376 million, margin from activities improved to 0.3 percentage points. [indiscernible] But that was because we disposed of our business in Poland. But there is one structural positive item the restructuring gains, restructuring conducted in 2022, '24 and now bearing fruition so we can feel the benefit of that.
Now let's move on to Equans. At end December 2025. Equan's order book stood at EUR 25.4 billion, and that's stable over the -on-year. On a constant rate and scope basis, it would have been up 1% compared to December 2024. In 2025, it had orders worth EUR 18.3 billion, stable over the year. And that stability reflects our selectiveness in contracts at Equans, we consider contract to be big if it's more worth more than EUR 5 million because [indiscernible] is more worth more than EUR 100 million. At anyway, orders worth more than EUR 5 million were up -- sorry, contracts worth less than EUR 5 million accounted for 2/3 of all orders for the year. We worked a lot on data centers. You may remember that business slowed down in Europe. And now it started again in the U.S., and we have the big -- apparently a sign of that business resuming in Europe. There were 2 data center contracts taken by Bouygues Construction. Of course, before Equans provide services, we have to build the centers themselves. So when we see the concrete coming in, well, then later on at the next stage, we'll have machines bring in HVAC and such like, and that's Equans' business.
Anyway, Equans' revenue stood at EUR 18.7 billion year-over-the year, slightly down, down 2% year-on-year. Now that reflects the fact that, well, there was some wait and see with data centers, also the giga fabs in nonprofitable businesses, nonperforming or at least not in line with the ratios we expect [indiscernible] and -- the very good news though is COPA. COPA was significantly up to EUR 820 million. Margin from activity is up 8.8 percentage points to 4.4% and that is -- that performance is better than what we expected when we had our Capital Markets Day in 2023. The target we set was close to 4%, but 4.4% is significantly more than that. If you look at the Perform plan that Jerome and his team rolled out, you may remember that it's supposed to go from '23, '24, '25 and '26. This is now -- we are now at the beginning of 2026. If we look back on this plan, we have this on the next 3 lines, the trend in revenue well found the actual trend was better than what we expected. All in all, we have a 6% growth for the period, but that growth was driven by contradictory factors. On the one hand, they were proactive pulling out of nonstrategic businesses and that weighed about EUR 600 million over the past 2 years. There was, as I said, this wait-and-see business with the giga-fabs and data centers. But the revenue in 2025 turned out to be in line with expectations when we introduced the Perform plan.
Having said that, 2025 was the first year where we actually materialized on M&A operations. You may remember that Equans through small acquisitions. I think they were 5, 6 or maybe 7 of them. Equans made acquisitions worth I mean, in terms of revenue, about EUR 200 million worth over a full year. If we -- amongst sources of satisfaction we have with the Equans and Jerome's teams, we have excellent news on profit margin. You may remember that when we acquired Equans, the margin stood at about 2.2%, 2.3%. It's now in 2025, it stood at 4.4%. So ahead of schedule as it were. And you can see on the slide, the yellow areas there are where we expected fall back on our feet in 2023, we're upwards of our bracket in 2025, we were above the range announced. And again, we have to pay tribute to Jerome's teams. We did find job there when we showed the outlook in 2023, a few people believed that. Anyway, we had 5 ways of getting there. And all 5 ways were pursued, and there's still more to do. So that's very promising.
The other positive item, of course, is cash generation, cash to [indiscernible] to cash generation. You may remember that we were banking on 80% to 100%. But we are right there now. We are upwards of that range. I mean, we stood at 98%, now 96.3% way up there. And on the right-hand side of the slide, you find the net cash position, a significant improvement compared to 2022 and if we take on board the position of Equans, when we acquired it, it stood at EUR 200 million in net debt at closing. The position at end December 2025 was EUR 2.097 billion plus. So the improvement is EUR 2.3 billion. It should be pointed out that over that period, Equans paid out to its favorite shareholders EUR 730 million in dividends. So we're looking at EUR 3 billion generated. So again, congratulations to [indiscernible] and his teams that we're able to generate so much cash. I mean, it's a financial and an operating performance.
Now by way of conclusion, Equans has been pursuing its strategic plan. Well, you may remember that Equans plan was a turnaround plan that was to be completed by 2026. Now where do we stand? What's the guidance for Equans? We're looking at stable revenue compared to 2025 on a constant exchange rate basis. Margin for activities should be 5%, 1 year ahead. of the timetable we set during the Capital Markets Day in 2023. Cash conversion, well of 80% to 100% from COPA free cash flow before WCR. And then there'll be another Capital Markets Day at the end of the year so that Jerome and his team can give us the outlook for the following years, 2027, 2028 and '29. We'll get back to that. And now Bouygues Telecom. Bouygues Telecom has reached the target, it announced, billings to clients up on 2024, including Frontera after lease obligations close to 2024 and the gross operating CapEx, which we said would be around EUR 1.5 billion and ended about EUR 1.48 billion.
On the next page, we have a number of indicators on the left-hand side, a number of awards and classifications awarded by various institutions, in particular by institutions that take its data from crowd sourcing, let's say, a real perception of how we fare by comparison our competitors. You'll see that we are #1 everywhere. We picked the ones we like best. I'm not sure that we're #1 absolutely across the board, but everything on that screen is true. I suppose the very pleasant side of that is that when we began in fixed lines, we weren't very good. I was in charge of the company at the time. So I have to say, well done Benoit, your people have done a great job. On this slide, we've shown [indiscernible] quite a number of decoders. One that's known as the -- an AI boosted call it it's a better way of capturing a screen. I think this is only the early days of artificial intelligence. Our commercial performance in terms of volume and value. The growth momentum has continued in fiber because Bouygues Telecom has gained another 510,000 clients over the year, including out of 39,000 in Q9. The total number of clients is now 4.7 million clients with fiber-to-the-home, which is 86% of the whole national population with fiber to the home. A total of 5.4 million clients, which is an increase of 267,000 in 2025, an increase of 83,000 in Q4. Since the start of 2025, we Bouygues Telecom is not marketing the ADSL plan anymore. So this is all non-ADSL unlike our competitors. We feel that does not have a sufficiently good level of performance to sell Wi-Fi sets that have extraordinary performance with the -- little why that's too small and doesn't really enable us to reap the benefits of what we have at our disposal.
ABPU is up EUR 0.40 over the last year. So in mobile phones, we performed well, good strong momentum in the market. We could qualify as competitive at the end of December, we had 18.6 million plan subscribers, not including machine-to-machine, which is an increase of 316,000 clients over the year, including 86,000 in the last quarter. This effects, first of all, our improvement in terms of churn since we launched the big offering in October and November '24. Customer satisfaction, which has also improved. And of course, we've been successful with convergence offering. Growth also comes from La Poste, our ABPU in mobile, including Laposte Telecom, stands at EUR 17.30. That's stable by comparison with the second and third quarter. But down over the last year because of the dilutive effect of Laposte Telecom where the ABPU was lower than ours. And of course, there's considerable pressure on the acquisition costs when acquiring new clients in the market in 2025, particularly with a lot of aggression on the part of [indiscernible] or we telecoms figures. This is 2025, which rose by 4% over the year. And Laposte Telecom, that figure is almost stable over the year. Total sales up 4% which includes other sales, terminals, accessories and so on, which were up 5% over the year.
EBITDA after lease obligations stood at over EUR 2 billion, that's stable over the last 12 months. There's a limited contribution on the part of La Poste Telecom so far. The stability of EBITDA is a reflection of the increase in sales build and of course, good cost control, thanks to Benoit and his people. But conversely an increase in the cost of energy because big telecom does no longer have the energy coverage that negotiated in 2020 and '21 before the war in Ukraine, which, of course, had consequences on the cost of energy in Europe. COPA was down the year to EUR 674. This is largely because of amortization. CapEx peaked a number of years ago, we now must depreciate that. And this, of course, reduces the value of our current operating profit from activities, gross CapEx activities. I've already commented in 2025, Bouygues Telecom made acquisitions for a total of EUR 374 million, which is a big increase over 2024, mainly the disposal of infracos assets. InfraCo is a joint company that generates part of our shared network with Bouygues Telecom and SFO. That transaction was finalized in December of 2024. What is the outlook for Bouygues Telecom in 2026 for 2026, we are targeting a billing to clients and EBITDA after lease obligations, close to the level we achieved in 2025. As we announced at the end 2024, the market growth would be modest by comparison in 2023, not including La Poste Telecom. Gross operating CapEx is expected at EUR 1.3 billion, not including frequencies, which confirms that we have decreased our total CapEx over the last 5 years.
Free cash flow before [indiscernible] this -- when we include La Poste SFO, we expect that these free capital -- free cash flow from -- will be in the region of EUR 500 million. One final point here is that La Poste Telecom will not be exercising its purchase option on the 51% of the joint venture called SDAIF, which rolls out fiber in medium density zones. TF1 in 2025, the TF1 group confirmed its leadership in terms of viewership, the share of viewership among 50 old women is 34.5%. These are decision-makers in the home, share of audience share of viewership at 30.9% between 20 and 49%. And digital, TF1s has become the reference in a streaming platform with 38 million streamers per month on average, up from a mere 33 million in 2024. Sales in [ 2021 ] totaled EUR 2.3 billion, down fractionally over the year on a like-for-like basis. This is despite the fact that the advertising market deteriorated, especially in Q4 -- the media figure was EUR 1.9 billion, down 4% over the year. This includes advertising revenue down 4%. Advertising in linear television, that's traditional television, if you like, has been seriously adversely affected by the market conditions we had at the end of last year, given the political instability in France, in particular, which led to a lot of advertisers waiting to see.
In digit last TF1, we have continued to perform very well with advertising revenue up 36% over the year, those confirming just how attractive this platform is to advertisers. The sales figure of Studio TF1 reached EUR 276 million, up 9% over the year. And that includes a contribution of EUR 44 million from GPG, which is mostly focused on the latter part of the year. These are studio activities that are very close to the various orders placed. TF1 Studios figure -- sales figure increased by [indiscernible] per the year. TF1's COPA was down to EUR 252 million because of a relatively stable cost of programs at EUR 967 million. I should remind you that this COPA figure includes capital gains for EUR 38 million in 2025. In 2024, these included capital gains were EUR 27 million. So the margin was actually 11%, in line with the objective announced by Rudolf. When we published the results after 9 months, we were targeting a COPA margin of between 10.5% and 11.5%. What's the outlook for [indiscernible] Thanks to its strategy in the various new initiatives in digital. It's strong financial position as well. Well, the group has the following targets -- sustained double-digit growth in 2026, that sales growth. a dividend policy on the up in the years to come. And of course, customers are changing the macroeconomic and political environments are unstable.
We figure that the advertising market is, and will be under severe pressure in 2026. And during this phase towards advertising, which will be mainly digital intends to maintain its margin on activities, not including capital gains, of course, in the mid- to high single-digit range in line with the linear market. Now I'm going to give the floor to Pascal Grange, who will give you a detailed presentation of the accounts. Pascal will be giving this presentation for the last time because Pascal is about to retire. He'll be leaving the company tomorrow. So Pascal, you have the floor. And may I thank you for everything we have done over the last years. Pascal says, you talk too fast, you don't smile, you'll finish your sentences. I don't know how I did today, but I did my best. You can tell me what you think afterwards. Pascal my notes open up Page 38, please.
[Interpreted] Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much, Olivier, for these kind words. He has already spoken about the sales and COPA of the various businesses. I'm going to add a few items concerning the profit and loss account on Page 32. That's Slide 32. In 2025, we recorded EUR 100 million in amortization of PPAs, which is comparable to 2024. This EUR 100 million comprised mainly EUR 46 million linked to Equans carried by Bouygues SA and EUR 35 million linked to Retailco. Secondly, nonrecurring items, which are not representative of the business. They totaled a nonrecurring expense of EUR 224 million, broadly [indiscernible] is different from the previous year. This year, the components include something we already had last year that is the Equans management incentive plan given the good performance. This is partly a by Equans and partly by Bouygues SA. I know over the year, that represented in the region of EUR 100 million.
Secondly, provisions at Bouygues Construction due to the change of fireproofing regulations in the U.K. This amounted to EUR 74 million over the period. Thirdly, expenses concerning litigation expenses at Colas for EUR 42 million; and finally, a net balance of nonrecurring income and expenses at Bouygues Telecom for EUR 9 million. This included capital gains on the disposal of sites, data centers, various expenses concerning litigation. Totally, the financial results, which includes the net cost of finance, net interest expense on lease obligations and other financial income and expenses, totaled an expense of EUR 410 million up from EUR 392 million in 2024. Finally, the share of net profit of joint ventures associates totaled EUR 6 million after an expense of EUR 11 million last year. As a result, of our share of the exceptional surtax mentioned earlier on, that's EUR 69 million. Our group net share of net income was 1.1 sorry, [ EUR 1,138 million, EUR 235 million, ] up EUR 80 million. Barring that sure tax, we would have had an additional increase of EUR 149 million over the year. Overall, if we look at the impact of the Budget Act and the Social Security Budget Act voted in '25 for 2025. This impact total combined EUR 93 million which was consistent with our initial estimation.
As you can see on Page 33 now, our net debt at the end totaled EUR 4.2 billion, down from EUR 6.1 billion at the end of 2024. That's a very substantial increase EUR 1.9 billion less over the year, as Olivier said earlier on. The variation becomes at the end of 2024 is mainly due to the following acquisitions net of disposals for a total of minus EUR 76 million, which includes a number of acquisitions and disposals that Equans and investments in joint ventures by Bouygues Telecom. I should take this opportunity to remind you that the proposed acquisition of [indiscernible] by Colas is still being developed by the U.S. antitrust authorities. Change in debt also factors in the variations in share capital for plus EUR 100 million, EUR 251 million, mainly including the exercising of stock options by employees in 2025. Secondly, the dividend payout of EUR 865 million, including EUR 755 million paid to shareholders of Bouygues, the remainder being entirely paid to minority shareholders in TF1 and Bouygues telecom.
Finally, operations and other contributed a total of EUR 2.6 billion. And we're going to look at this. This is free cash flow from operations and other beginning with net -- this is a figure that is very comparable to 2024. Excluding frequencies, this was EUR 1 billion, which is considerably less than last year. It also includes disposal by Bouygues Telecom for mainly due to the disposal of assets held by infra costs. Free cash flow before income requirements was EUR 1.08 billion, and this record level is a reflection of the efforts made by all our business lines throughout the year. The figure also includes transactions carried out by Bouygues Telecom in 2025 for a total of EUR 220 million, including the disposal of assets held by Infracos and the resolution of litigation. Variations in working capital requirements, as we said earlier, totaled EUR 941 million. This is a positive amount for the third year in succession and represents close to EUR 3 billion in aggregate over 3 years. This very positive variation is lessened by the impact of foreign exchange, which burdened us by EUR 197 million this year.
Page 35. Net debt at the end of 2022 was EUR 7.6 billion following the acquisition of Equans. Our strong financial discipline has led us to significantly reduce that debt over the last 3 years, notwithstanding the financial transactions during the period. And I'm thinking in particular to the withdrawal offer on Colas in 2023 and the acquisition of La Poste Telecom in 2024. Our net debt has been reduced since we acquired Equans by close to EUR 3.3 billion. Our financial situation is very strong. The outlook is good. So we have raised the dividend proposal, which as you know, is part and parcel of a long-term strategy. This year, the Board of Directors will be asking the shareholders to approve at the AGM April 23, a new increase in the dividend for the third consecutive year by increasing that dividend from EUR 2 to EUR 2.10. If the resolution is approved, the dividend that we will pay to our shareholders will have increased by close to 17% in the space of 3 years.
Let's finish with a few words about our financial structure. Our net debt has diminished leaving us with a gearing of 28%, which is a 14-point improvement over a year. May I also a reminder that the rating agencies have given the group very strong ratings. S&P have given us an A- rating with a positive -- sorry, stable outlook. Moody's have given us an A3 rating again with a stable outlook. The group's cash situation stands at EUR 17.6 billion at the end of [indiscernible] at a very high level. It is comprised of EUR 6.4 billion in cash and cash equivalents at EUR 11.2 billion in medium- and long-term credit facilities that have not been drawn down. And finally, as you can see in the graph on the bottom right, the debt schedule is well spread over time. That brings me to the end of this presentation of our accounts.
If I could say a word on a more personal note before giving the floor back to Olivier. Over the last 6 years, I've had the pleasure and honor of meeting you and presenting the group's accounts every half year in a very interesting circumstances, sometimes very unusual circumstances. And I'm thinking, of course, the covered period, the acquisition of Equans, the acquisition of EIT and La Poste Telecom, which certain of a motion, I'm passing the baton to Stephan Stoll, who was appointed Group CFO on July 25. He knows the group particularly well. He joined 30 years ago and has performed brilliantly ever since [indiscernible] As for myself, after 40 years in the [indiscernible] Group, including 6 years, the last 6 years, at the senior management level. I've decided to retire. As you know, we live in a very turbulent world. The group is in a very, very good position. This is thanks to the great work of the men and women in the group year after year, and I'd like to thank them for their contribution.
Under the chairmanship of Martin Brigg, under the leadership of Olivier in now Stephane, the heads of the business lines are the members of the management committee. I have great confidence in the group's future and in its development. Thank you for your attention. And now, Olivier, you have the floor.
Thank you, Pascal. I'm sure we will get them to answer a few questions with Stephane. Okay. I think we can -- before moving on to Q&A, let's say a few words about the outlook for the group. Just a paragraph that doesn't change much when we describe our environment year in, year out. We keep saying that this is a rather chaotic disrupted environment, the macroeconomic and geopolitical situations are very shaky at the moment, and the group will continue to be agile and adapt to changes in these different markets.
What we're aiming for in 2026 is stability of our sales figure at constant exchange rates. We want to maintain our COPA at an all-time high level after several years of significant improvement. The improved COPA of Equans will enable us to offset the expected or anticipated falloff in COPA at TF1 because of tensions in the linear advertising market and that Obitelecom which is again the result of its previous investments. Next slide, just as a quick reminder of the upcoming [indiscernible] the AGM on the 23rd of April dividend results in May -- for the first quarter in May, the first half year in July, the end of July 30th of July, but it's still July. There was pressure on us to finish everything before 31. Thank you, Pascal. Thank you, Stephane, because he will be at the home with them. That may at the end of the presentation. We now to take your questions with the heads of the various business segments. You have the floor.
[Operator Instructions]
2. Question Answer
Good morning. Thank you for this presentation, and many thanks to Pascal for the present exchanges over the years, and welcome to the new CFO. I had a couple of questions, one on Equans. In 2025, you mentioned a wait-and-see attitude from your customers on data centers. You see there's some sort of glimmer of hope there. Is there a resumption of growth in 2026? Are you confident? Are you optimistic? That's question number one. Question number 2 is on working capital. You never gave guidance.
And we'll give you the usual answer. All right. We will come up with a different answer. I doubt it, but we'll see it all right then. I've been managing figures. Over the past 10 years, we find that working capital contribution levels out -- if I look at the past 2 years, we were above 0.
So do you believe that Equans, which is a new item in the group, does Equans bring a structurally positive dimension to cash -- generation of cash from working capital. And then third, maybe a provocative question, but on telecoms, can you say anything at all about talks regarding the acquisition of Altice. Can you share anything with us?
And stepping back from this, of course, money counts. But in light of Altice's operating performances, which really aren't that good. And I don't see how they will improve after a while, it's just not worth waiting because the assets will be back on the market probably at a low price in view of the trends. Right. Well, [indiscernible] then. The data center market has 3 items: the cloud AI and then the in terms of cloud has a stable influence, and we've had a few businesses in France. There's lots of capital expenditure on the much more in the U.S. than in France. For the dual reason, fast access to capacity at least access to data centers was much faster in the U.S., and we benefited from that because we started a few data centers in the U.S.
And then the second item is technological development, significant developments and players who are hesitating between 2 cooling technologies for data centers, and that slowed things down in terms of orders that were lots of studies conducted in Europe, and we believe that they will be ordered soon because these studies have borne fruit. But right now until such time as we get orders from AI data centers, we will be waiting. Now Stephane, on the working capital.
This company likes continuity. So we do not give guidance on working capital, but for a simple reason because as you know, a significant portion of our business is related to projects and projects follow a different timetable than the fiscal year. And so they are -- of course, accounts don't or cash flows don't stop at 31 December. So we don't want to give guidance on things that might change over a short period of time.
But you're right to point out that things have changed. Five years ago, we acquired Equans, an outside company, we knew that it showed great potential in improving its cash position. We humbly believe that with our background and our culture in the construction business, we have a pretty healthy financial culture -- corporate culture at Bouygues. And so when we acquired Equans, we had reason to believe that if we apply the self-same discipline at Equans, we could gain from that, and that's exactly what you saw on Olivier's slide on cash generation upwards of EUR 3 billion over the past few years. And so that reflects the tight management of WCR by the management teams. And third question on telecoms. The whole rate started off in April of last year. That's when we received the first visit from Alta saying that they were contemplating disposal of the assets. And at the time, we wonder whether what we could do about it, could we come up with our own offer our own bid? Or should we do -- should we work with others. But in terms of competition, of course, all 3 companies outside SFR had be aligned.
And for that to happen, it had to be a joint offer. But you're right. As time goes by, the value of the asset may well come down. If there are 3 partners on the boat as it were, there are inevitably exchanges between the 3. We published something mid-October. Talks, it started back in April. So it took that much. It took that time to arrive at something of a position, which is an achievement in itself because in the syndicate, you have 2 companies that are not exactly best chums. So to arrive at a joint position was not an easy matter. Now regarding the talks, there are confidentiality nondisclosure agreements we've signed with Altice. The latest press leak that you found on 22 January was fully orchestrated by Altice having listed a careful protocol of what would happen if there was a leak, but the leak happened that self same day. So I imagine they are happy with the protocol.
Anyway, we are in -- still in the process of due diligence. This process takes several weeks. We have to see how things happen inside the company to try and get what -- to find what synergies might come out of a deal. And so that's very careful work we are conducting after this diligence work with our partners to see rather opposite numbers to see what the company is worth, really, and then we'll come up with an offer and then things become fairly simple, the sellers' expectations should be in line what we find. I'm not in a position to tell you whether that is the case because we haven't had a chance to exchange on that, but it's a dual issue here.
On the one hand, we want to keep the agreement amongst the 3 of us, which ain't easy and then the big question is, are we in a position to come up with something that meets the sellers' expectations. But I do agree with you the present trend. For Altus is downwards and I find it difficult -- it probably will be difficult to slow this down or indeed to turn it around. I'm not the one driving Altice. And well, you go to the French Pentagon and you'll see the people there who can give you an answer. But we're not in a position at this point to say whether we will come up with anything. It depends on the sellers' own idea of the value of the asset. The asset has come down already and maybe we'll get to a point where we see eye to eye.
Good morning. Salim and I would like to thank Pascal Grange for his fine work over the years. I had a couple of questions again about Bouygues Telecom. Can you give us details on the on the competition. We see that the ABPU stabilized over Q4? And what's the outlook? What can we expect of mobile ABPU in 2026? About this SFR business, we've -- you've worked out value rather division of the cake as it were in October. Is this set in stone? Or might this change with your -- the 2 other operators?
And then to other questions on Bouygues Construction, excellent profit margin in 2025 upwards of 5%, so at the top of the range, I mean, 3.5%, you announced a guidance anywhere between 3.5% and 3.7%. Are we expecting the margin to be above that? Or have you leveled off? And on Equans, we find that some segments are slowing down. Can you give any color on what drives growth at Equans and what doesn't?
All right, on the -- what we call the Moban projects, and that is the acquisition of SFR, there will be marginal adjustments, but if we agree on a given base, there might be adjustments, but there will be marginal adjustments as to the market itself. Both for the mobile and the fixed business, 1 item you should keep in mind on the French mobile market since the end of 2023 -- the market as a whole hasn't grown. It's stable, it's mature. So the equipment rate will not grow any further. You can look at the asset publications. The contract market had maybe 4 million lines compared to several hundred years before.
So what we have is multi convergent offers and our competitors are doing the same. So what we're doing is working on customer loyalty. We started this in 2024. This is bearing fruit. We have a lower churn, but the convergence promotions also bringing down or at lease weighing down the ABPU curve. And then there's strong competition on digital plants, digital contracts, very much driven by SFR itself. And so in that category of contracts, the competition is tough and pressure on ABPU. As a result of that, we're looking at BP remaining flat on the mobile business. Of course, we can compensate with more volume and lower churn and generate good revenue and ABPU fixed ABB is funding an upward trend.
One thing in what Benoit said in the -- on the scene on the face with the competition, we work. We don't want to bring prices down to keep our market shares. We're working on churn and loyalty, but of course, the idea is not to bring prices down.
Now on Bouygues Construction, we have -- we stand at 3.5%. Is that a new trend?
Yes. Well, Well, our numbers, we ended up at 3.5%. So that's the upper limit of the range we announced. We are not changing that range. but there's no reason not to believe -- I mean, we might be able to be, again, next year within that range or at the top part of that range. And then Jerome?
Well, there are a number of markets growing, the solar plants, data centers, they slowed down, but they are promising. And hospitals, we don't mention that much, but the big growth there. And of course, the grid, the high-voltage networks, high-voltage grids in Europe. Biopharma airports, the defense industry, we have little exposure there, but the demand is strong. And then there's another market, not much mentioned, but that is security, electronic security and in the longer run, the nuclear industry. So that's our bread and butter as it were.
All right. The next question, Nicolas Mora from Morgan Stanley.
About free cash flow in WCR, that is a question maybe for Pascal. But over the past 3 years, we generated EUR 3 billion an inflow from WCR, can you account for this? So is that a conservative accounting that generated the surplus that is now in WCR? Or more structurally, is it at Equans better payment terms or service offer lower than demand so that you can have advanced payments and such like, that CR? About Equans, the guidance, a bit conservative, isn't it on revenue on a like-for-like basis. You can see that order taking has been moving since Q3 and Q4 of last year. Based on that surely, you could be a bit more aggressive on revenue, I mean, if not volumes, but as there's an improvement in order taking since the low point of 2025, isn't that the beginning of a turnaround.
And on the Equans brand, the year 2025 was exceptional wasn't it? There was an acceleration in gains in profit margins. Well, things are never linear, but how can you account for this remarkable turnaround in 2025, especially at the end of the year. Now 2026, the guidance gives us 60 basis points. That seems to be the average over 3 years. Can you project yourselves all the way to 20 and 28. Well, there will be a Capital Markets Day at the end of 2026. Well, there again, the profit margin seems to be bouncing back heading towards 4%. So we'd like to know whether this aspirational profit margin is that going to happen? Is that becoming real? And what's the expectation in the shorter term?
Just a word about different COPA figures that we gave you and particularly Equans COPA. The figure we gave you 3 years ago now on Equans COPA was the margin a margin. We said we'll be at 5%. We're telling you that we will be at 5% at the end of '26. That's not saying we won't do better, but it still leaves us a year ahead of schedule. As for the projection, remember that there's no reason why our performance on paper should be below those of our peers. And we do the same work is the same business as the -- when you look at the way we book this or that because staff advance, we treated differently, but there is no reason in theory anyway, why Equans should not achieve what its peers are achieving, give or take, not saying it to be exactly the same figures, but put it differently, Jerome has a bit of leeway is not flat out and really tell you how we exteriorize all this.
But it's too early at this point in time. But that said, Jerome, we will come back to that. Let's come back to the strict financial questions to begin with. Do you feel that there is a -- the beginning of a pickup? Now I'm going to stick to the guidance. It was only 5 minutes ago. I haven't changed in the last 5 minutes. So I haven't got much to add. I gave you the guidance 5 minutes ago. And yes, okay, the order intake picked up slightly in the third and fourth quarters. As a result, we are beginning the year on a better [indiscernible] , but not much more I can say the ForEx impact this year is not something we anticipated. It's not something have any control over.
And secondly, it's a significant impact, bordering on EUR 600 million negative impact in 2025 over a very short period because all happened in the second half year. And I'm talking about at group level. This is quite an impact. Now we'll continue with Stephane, who is now passing his test on.
Okay, this is my test. Just to say a little bit more about the mechanics of this issue, which is really the work of an [indiscernible] on a day-to-day basis. It's -- first of all, it's self-evident, but I'd say it all the same. We refused to act on the terms of payment to our suppliers. We abide by our commitments to our subcontractors and suppliers, which means that we really focus on the client side of working capital requirements. This is an ongoing process because, first of all, it's important to negotiate the best possible terms and conditions, advances on payments, the payment schedule, which leaves us secured very important to ensure that we have guarantees of payment for our projects.
But there's also a lot of work that goes into the field of energy and services and I feel I'm very familiar with. There's a lot of work that goes into invoicing and receiving a payment, improving working capital requirements is that the sum of a small little day-to-day series of tasks that consist in getting paid sooner. This is I said there's a lot of nitty-gritty in this because from a profit center, we're talking about a very, very substantial amount of money and a very, very large number of projects. So as I said earlier on to Matthew's in answer to Matthew's question, this is something that we've undertaken with great discipline. It requires great discipline, and it's something that we knew maybe hadn't been done as rigorously at Equans as we are used to doing it in our Construction division. So this, of course, has produced results. We're doing this very carefully. We're not up to speed right across the board, particularly in terms of days of sales outstanding, what we call DSO.
Now I would being cautious because, yes, okay, there are income booked in advance. Are we being cautious maybe. And if anything, it's a good thing to be cautious. I think this is a characteristic of our financial prudence.
The next question is Sven DeVelde from ODDO.
Good morning. I have 2 questions, in fact. I will come back to working capital requirements, but would you give us some guidance on free cash flow as one of your competitors has done. My second question is on Colas. When I look at the order intake, I'm a little surprised not to see the U.S. as a potential source of growth. I think I think there are still over 50% of the infrastructure jog packed funds that haven't been deployed. So how do you gauge demand in the U.S. infrastructure market unless I'm mistaken, Colas' margin in the U.S. is higher than in Europe.
Just to comment before we answer about free cash flow, it will be a very simple answer for Stephane. But to come back to Colas. I realized that I didn't answer the previous question about what we could eke out because we're looking for a COPA margin of 4%, and we feel that 4% is a realistic target. So the question is when or by when? Well, we've never been closer, but and it is very realistic.
Okay. In the U.S., margins are indeed higher than in Europe, but the particularity of the sectors we operate in, is that -- when I started this job in 2016, all the plans of Obama and others, every time a major infrastructure plan was announced we never thought actually materialize in our figures. We're very neutral with regard to that. But the reality of the situation is that our presence in the U.S. is quite rural depending on the states, things we can do, requires a lot of subsidies here, a little bit of help from a stimulus plan there. But I don't know Pierre if you'd like to add anything, but with the mic, please?
In the private market, we work a lot in the public works market. And even though the stimulus plan is beginning to come through, it's not exactly booming, but the private investment market in renewables or large harbor logistics platforms. They haven't really commenced. So there are a lot of things on standby because of the majority of large private investors and entirely reassured by the constant changes in policy in the U.S.A. So a lot of things on standby as a result of which there is more competition because broadly speaking, the companies that were working in this market are now turning to the public market to get through the winter.
Free cash flow?
I didn't know I was asking so many examples today.
There's one thing sitting the exam. It's another thing passing it. We use 2 different worlds. You sit a you may or may not pass it. You're disrupting me there. Okay. No, no guidance on free cash flow at group level. We do give some guidance where it makes sense in the business lines or segments -- so we do give guidance on telecoms. We give guidance, which I think makes sense in the field of energy and services. Our intention is to ensure that we can transform between 80% and 100% of our COPA as well, we're very dependent on contracting for this notion that doesn't have the same sense at all for all sorts of reasons that we could develop at length, the work starts, the delays, the temporality of our projects, which isn't aligned with the calendar year, which means that we could start on a project in late December and have to order CapEx in January.
But in the world of contracting more generally speaking, the cash curve and the income curve do not run in parallel. It's really at the end of the project, that the income looks like it should. That's why we don't give guidance in these areas. And that is why we do not give any guidance at group level.
Thank you, Stefan. Next question.
Next question from Mani am from Goldman Sachs.
I have just 2, I think talking about has been a lot of talk about the AI economy. We haven't really mentioned it today. Could you give us some information on your strategy in AI, particularly in the field of telecommunications and pretty interested in your CapEx projections. My next question, and I apologize in advance. Could we talk a bit more about the SFO project? Maybe we've been some people's interest to reach an agreement quicker than in yours. Is there any timing conflict between you and other parties? And could it be that the increase in your dividend means that you do not see an agreement being arrived at in the near future?
Well, the increase in the dividend is a very, very small amount by comparison with the investment that SFO would require. But to submit an offer to a potential buyer. We would have to agree among ourselves about the price to put on the table based on the synergies we anticipate. But for a project to be approved by the [indiscernible] authorities. It's important that we table a project that has synergies. If there are no synergies, while the antitrust authority will tell us that they say this doesn't fit.
We have to be able to show that we're capable of delivering this -- we have to convince the antitrust authority. So that's the first difficulty. The first discussion we have to have among ourselves to put a figure on this. Then we have to reach an agreement with the seller. The seller has expectations as regards the whole structure of the deal, the price. There's a lot of aspects, a lot of components. And you have to agree under these various components. So the process is underway. It takes time. We're talking about a project somewhere in the region of EUR 15 billion to EUR 20 billion. But it's so big that we have to take time to reach an agreement given the size of the project. There are 2 businesses where we do a lot of AI -- to be efficient in artificial intelligence, you need digitalized processors, and we have 2 completely digitalized processes, TF1 on the 1 hand and Bouygues Telecom on the other one. We have processes that are digitalized in other segments, but there's less digitalization.
People work in very concrete areas. But the 2 areas where we use a lot of as I said, Bouygues Telecom and TF1. Benoit concerning Bouygues Telecom, would you like to answer the --
On AI, there are 2 areas in which we work in AI for our own internal processes to help employees with the activities, but secondly, to provide new services to our clients. We began with Gigafactory sometime back to upscale and to progress. There are areas where we've made good strides forward in customer relations to help our customer relations managers with generative AI. In IT development. We also use AI tools. But broadly speaking, we're now at a stage where we will move on from experimentation to upscaling. We are now citing a tool for our employees in-house. We've over 1,000 agents involved with over 100 are multi-business cost-cutting. We're now at a phase where we are going to scale up.
And of course, for our clients, as Olivier said earlier on, we've begun, including an AI processor in Italy. That enables us to improve the quality of picture. We have HD high-definition resolution which will enable us to provide other functions in the months to come, fractions I won't tell you about today. But that will be enabled on our TV box in the future. In the liquid CapEx. Of course, we need to optimize networks. And of course, maybe some savings possible here, but it's way too early between what we're talking about and what's going to happen. We need to check things.
Thank you, and thank you to Pascal to whom I wish a very happy retirement.
Next question comes from Nicolas Mora from Morgan Stanley.
Good afternoon. One final question. We saw that your balance sheet is exceptionally good, exceptionally strong. You began with bolt-ons with Equans in a very measured manner. Have you got a pipeline that includes a bigger target in what region or what -- and what business segments would you like to expand within Equans? And of course, the U.S. deals for Colas, the deal that wasn't closed at the end of last year. what's the life of the land? Is it an antitrust issue or a price issue.
Now [indiscernible] which is the topic we discussed together last August, the deal hasn't been closed because it's in Phase II before the antitrust authorities. This usually lasts an average of about 9 months. We began Phase 2 last October. So I don't think the deal will move in the very short term. When it moves on, we will be very happy to close it out and tell you about it. We have 2 areas where we need M&A to improve our profitability. There are 2 big businesses, Colas and Equans. And in these 2 areas, it's only natural that we should seek to densify our presence because that will mechanically help us improve the profitability of our operations. That's the case with Kolar with Sukuk, and it's also the case with Equans.
Once we've said that, let me give you an example of an area where we'd like to expand. That is Germany. In Germany, Hasselman, is a railway company we felt at the time that this will be the first of a series of targets in Germany. To date, that list totals 1 company. It's not that we don't want to go any further. We're not buying the lake of buying, the targets must be of interest. Equans is an eagerness to expand. But where do you want to expand is the former Western civilization of Northern Europe, North America, Australia and potentially Southern Europe. But broadly speaking, M&A deals to come through where we need a pipeline the sales in Germany are just below the billion mark, mostly by Equans. We'd be very, very happy to do more, but we need reasonably priced targets. A number of small acquisitions, Jerome, you're quite right. There are areas where deals and until they're signed, well, they're not done.
Last year, we thought we would closed out 1 and just a day before, we lost our [indiscernible] it. The process isn't very industrialized, but a very professionalized industry. When Colas and at Equans, the companies are structured in such ways to analyze the deal flow and these bolt-ons are part and parcel of the business model of these companies. So we will do deals when good deals arise. With Bouygues Construction, the idea of improving our footprint or even of establishing a footprint in the country as we do the [indiscernible] in Australia, which was a new venture for us, can be a interest to be construction. But the real rationale behind M&A that will improve profitability.
The real rationale is in countries where we already exist. And that's what we're looking at with Colas and [indiscernible] when the opportunities arise. And of course, we are pretty much dependent on vendors. It's not a case of buying for the sake of buying, but you're quite right and will be deals when and if they become available. We have buyers were seeking sellers.
The next question comes from Akhil Diana from JP Morgan.
Kalana line is now unmuted. Please go ahead. The next question comes from Abilashmoapatra from BNP Paribas.
I've got 2, please. Firstly, on [indiscernible] this has already been answered. Just in terms of your top line trajectory, you're obviously guiding to stable in 2025, which is an improvement -- sorry, in 2026, which is already an improvement versus last year as you sort of execute on your plan? Do you see this business returning to top line growth in [indiscernible] I know you've talked about there's no reason why you can't catch up with your peers given these are very similar businesses. But just wondering if you have -- if you can give us some color on when we can see the business returning to top line growth? And then just on the telecom side, we saw an announced -- a recent announcement of 1 of your competitors continue to expand their network to sign a build-to-suit agreement for 2,500 towers. Just wondering, is that something on the cards for you? Or do you think that your network and towers are currently in the sort of right area?
Just to start, we start with telecommunications, the time that Jerome prepares the answer to the first one. So Benoit, about the ability to trend?
This was an announcement by our competitors. They have a partnership with Harco to expand the network the mobile network. Well, we do have similar partnerships at Bouygues Telecom. We've been doing this, and it is the sort of thing that does happen in the telecom industry in Europe or in France, we've been rolling out our own network as we speak. We're increasing the number of sites on the territory. We do not announce it ahead of time because as you can imagine, this is highly competitive and highly confidential.
But when we display all the awards, the fact they've been recognized as service providers not just for mobile, not just for things, but also for mobile telephony. So our intention is to provide best possible service to our customers, both in the mobile and in the fixed business. And so we are also expanding. On our mobile network.
Jerome, on top line at Equans, I believe we've already given the answer, we're pretty confident in the guidance we gave for 2026. All right. Well, thank you, Jerome. I'm afraid that was that.
The next question comes from Rohit Modi from Citi.
I have 2, please, as well. Firstly, again, on icons. But on the COPA margins, you are exiting [indiscernible] in 4Q at 5.2%. But you're guiding 5% for 2026. Just trying to understand if there's a step down in the margins that you're seeing sequentially from here, at the end of last half or over the year. Any color there would be very help -- and second question, again, sorry, on the SFR deal. We have seen some headlines today about the remedies that you spoke about. There could be some remedies. Now we have seen different level of remedies the sector ranging from introducing a new operator, literally fourth operator to very benign remedies recently - directionally, where you see France. Now it's a different market, but directionally, where you see frontend or what do you sense from the discussions with the regulator given that this might be one of the basis for still going ahead. So any color on that would be very helpful.
I'll start with the telecommunication answer, and then I will let Jerome give this guidance that when we give guidance testing that we will -- we won't do it better than what we say, but we will cover this later. And the first 1 is that I understand this is where the antitrust remedies that we could have this is a discussion when -- if we do the deal, there is one thing which is who will be the [indiscernible] authority able analyze it. And according to the -- there is 2 possibility, either it could be done through the antitrust, the French antitrust authority, either it could be done through Brazil.
And the question is, we have to talk with the one who will be designated as the antitrust authority. We think that there will be, at the end of the day, only one antitrust. There won't be -- we don't think there will be a situation, there would be part of the deal done through user of the direct the French one. We consider that there is logically, it could be done only in one place at all the procedure will be done at the same place because I remind you that there is not one procedure for the antitrust. There is 3 of them, one with Iliad and SFR, one with [indiscernible] with SFR and one with us, with SFR. So as there will be this 31 and when we know which antitrust authority will be in charge of it, we will discuss with them about what we could do. There is theorical approach where we consider that refusing as we know, the antitrust practice that could be asked from us to -- for the bid.
There is also maybe some change with the new [indiscernible] report to give us some opportunity to enhance the remedy process. But at this stage, I cannot answer. First, I don't know which entity will be in charge of it. And second, we need to talk to them to be able see what they will request. But for sure, there could be a situation if the remedy is to be able to consolidate the market from 4 to 3. We need to have a fourth one, I consider this is not exactly the definition of consolidation. Jerome, do you want to?
Yes, in Q4, 5.2% on Q4 alone. So you have a roller coaster effect. And it is often the case that the performance is better in Q4. Back in February 2023, I did answer one of your questions back then. You asked whether the first steps of improvement on these steps easier than the following ones. And I said something that remains to the first steps are those where you address issues of organizational improvement, things that you well known issues and then the next steps are changes in corporate culture and that is where you can generate a better performance down to a very fine level.
Now as Olivier pointed out, the big advantage is our competitors are ahead of us in terms of profitability. Some are doing even better. So we have reason to believe that -- well, this can drive us upwards. Having said that, the guidance was given for '26 at 2 at 5%. It hasn't changed. And we shall remain humble and focused to achieve just that.
No further questions by phone. I'll give the floor to the speakers. And no further questions from the audience. So enjoy the rest of the day. And we shall see you again. We shall see you again in July in this very room.
Bouygues — Q4 2025 Earnings Call
📊 Quarter at a Glance
- Revenue: EUR 56.9B, flat YoY; FX headwinds EUR 580m for the year (EUR 560m in H2); constant FX basis +1.3%.
- Net income: EUR 1.138B, up EUR 8m; excluding exceptional tax contribution, improvement was EUR 149m.
- Cash & debt: free cash flow before WCR around EUR 1.08B; change in working capital +EUR 0.941B; net debt at EUR 4.2B, down ~EUR 1.9B vs 2024; cash position robust.
- Dividend: proposed payout of EUR 2.10 per share, +5% vs 2024.
🎯 What Management Says
- Structure & governance: creation of a Bouygues Construction division uniting three businesses to unlock revenue synergies; new leadership across units to boost sales and profitability.
- Equans turnaround: COPA 820m, margin 4.4% (up 8.8 pp); cash generation strong with 3B+ total cash created since 2022; target COPA ~5% by end-2026.
- Balance sheet & capital allocation: disciplined deleveraging; dividend policy up for a third straight year; M&A remains selective with a pipeline in Europe and North America, including Germany.
🔭 Outlook & Guidance
- Group target: stable sales at constant exchange rates in 2026; COPA at an all-time high; Equans COPA guidance ~5% in 2026; cash conversion 80–100% of COPA; next Capital Markets Day to cover 2027–2029.
- Segment cues: Bouygues Telecom 2026 billing close to 2025; gross operating CapEx ~EUR 1.3B; free cash flow around EUR 500M including La Poste SFO; TF1 margin around mid-to-high single digits COPA; 2026 guidance unchanged.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Equans cash cycle: questions on 2026 growth and working capital; management cites disciplined receivables, but no group-level WCR guidance due to project timing variability; 2025 saw a meaningful cash build with ongoing improvement in DSO.
- Altice/SFO deal: due diligence ongoing; remedies and antitrust framing depend on which authority oversees the deal; any offer hinges on synergies and seller expectations; timeline remains uncertain.
- Mobile competitive dynamics: ABPU near flat in 2026 for Bouygues Telecom; competition intensity and convergence offers are weighing on pricing; network expansion and partnerships continue but specifics are not disclosed ahead of time.
⚡ Bottom Line
Bouygues delivered a solid 2025: revenue flat amid currency headwinds, robust cash generation, and meaningful debt reduction. Equans posted margin gains and strong cash flow, with a clear 2026 path to higher COPA. The group signals selective M&A, a raised dividend, and a stable 2026 outlook, but faces macro risks and a competitive telecom landscape.
Bouygues — Q3 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Hello, and welcome to the Group Bouygues 9 Months 2025 Results Call. [Operator Instructions]
Now I will hand the conference over to Frederique Delavaud, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the presentation of Bouygues 9 months 2025 results. This presentation will be led by Pascal Grange, Deputy CEO of the Bouygues Group; Stéphane Stoll, who, as you know, was appointed CFO of the Bouygues Group beginning of August; and Christian Lecoq, CFO of Bouygues Telecom. Following their presentation, they will be answering your questions.
Pascal, I'll let you start this call.
Thank you, Frederique, and good morning, everyone. Before listing our highlights, I would like to recall that, as we have already mentioned since the beginning of the year, the global macroeconomic and geopolitical environment remains very uncertain, notably in France. That being said, I want to highlight that group expects for 2025, a slight increase in sales year-on-year, excluding exchange rate effects and a slight increase in COPA year-on-year. These expectations are reflected in the group's 9 months results that are strong.
Looking at the main indicators for the 9 months, we can see that. First, group sales were up 0.9% year-on-year, notably driven by the construction businesses. Q3 group sales were stable year-on-year given ForEx, which had an impact of around minus EUR 50 million over the quarter. Second, COPA increase year-on-year was notable in the first 9 months 2025. The increase was driven by the construction businesses and Equans. Third, excluding the exceptional income tax surcharge for large companies in France of EUR 60 million, the net result attributable to the group was up year-on-year.
I'll remind you that the effects on the net profit attributable to the group of the French Finance law and the Social Security Financing law, which was passed during the first quarter of 2025, including mainly the exceptional income tax surcharge for large companies in France had been estimated at around EUR 100 million for the full year 2025. This is still our evaluation to date, and EUR 80 million already been recorded in the first 9 months 2025.
Fourth, the group benefits from a particularly robust financial structure. At end September 2025, our net debt improved versus end September 2024. And in September [Technical Difficulty] Standard & Poor's revised our negative to stable the outlook associated with its A- credit rating.
Let's now have a look at our key figures on Slide 5. Group sales in the first 9 months [Technical Difficulty] '25 stood at EUR 41.9 billion, up 0.9% year-on-year. This increase was notably driven by Bouygues Construction, Colas and Bouygues Telecom with the contribution of La Poste Telecom. In the first 9 months '25, the group COPA increased by EUR 95 million year-on-year and reached EUR 1,814 million. This increase was led by the construction businesses on Equans, TFA and Bouygues Telecom [Technical Difficulty] COPA being down year-on-year.
The net profit attributable to the group was EUR 675 million. This amount is not comparable to that of the 9 months 2024 as it includes the exceptional income tax surcharge for large companies in France, minus EUR 60 million. Excluding this surcharge on a comparable basis, the net profit attributable to the group would have been up EUR 48 million year-on-year at EUR 735 million. Last, Net debt was EUR 7.6 billion, an improvement of EUR 856 million year-on-year. This is a very good performance, in particular, if we consider the amount of net acquisitions made over the year, mainly including Bouygues Telecom's acquisition of La Poste Telecom for almost EUR 1 billion. This is a theoretical vision, of course. But without these acquisitions, our net debt would have been improved by EUR 1.9 billion year-on-year.
Let's now turn to the review of operations [Technical Difficulty] on Slide 8. Let's begin [Technical Difficulty] in the construction businesses. You can see that at end September 2025, the backlog was at a very high level of EUR 32.1 billion, providing good [Technical Difficulty]. Looking into details on Slide 9, let's start with Colas backlog, which was up EUR 1.4 billion year-on-year at EUR 14.2 billion, with Rail backlog up 31% year-on-year. In roads, the backlog was up 2% year-on-year, of which French and international backlogs were respectively down 3% and up 4% year-on-year. At constant exchange rates, the backlog was up 12% year-on-year. To be noted that the backlog [Technical Difficulty] to be executed in the current year and next year was up around EUR 400 million year-on-year.
At Bouygues Telecom -- Bouygues Construction, the backlog stood at EUR 17.2 billion, down EUR 0.7 billion year-on-year, but stable compared to end June 2025. Civil works was down 14% year-on-year. And in building, the French backlog was up 12%, and the international backlog was up 1%. At constant exchange rates, the backlog was down 3% year-on-year. It is important to notice that EUR 17.2 billion is a very high level of backlog. At end September 2025, the backlog to be executed in the current year and next year was down around EUR 200 million year-on-year. However, additional significant contracts are expected by mid-2026, notably internationally, which will support the level of the backlog.
In that respect, you probably read this morning that Bouygues Construction will carry out the civil engineering works for two new EPRs at Sizewell C nuclear power station in the U.K. as part of a civil work alliance. The share of Bouygues Construction in this construction is estimated at around EUR 3.3 billion. This is [Technical Difficulty] very good news. To be noticed that the scope of works will be carried out through the delivery of a series of work orders, and so Bouygues Construction will book the related orders as they are instructed starting from [Technical Difficulty] fourth quarter.
[Technical Difficulty] at Bouygues Immobilier, the backlog was at EUR 0.7 billion at end September 2025, down EUR 0.3 billion year-on-year. The decrease of around EUR 70 million in backlog since June 2025 is mainly due to the deconsolidation of activities in Poland in July 2025.
Moving to Slide 10. I will make a few comments on the strong commercial activity in the construction businesses. First, at [Technical Difficulty] level, the order intake [Technical Difficulty] was at EUR 10.8 billion. In Road activities, this order intake was slightly up with a slight decrease in Mainland France as expected in the pre local elections here, and it was up [indiscernible] internationally with significant [Technical Difficulty] awarded in Q3 in Morocco, in the U.S. and in Canada. In Rail, the order intake was up strongly in the first 9 months with also notably a significant contract awarded in the U.K. in Q3.
Then [Technical Difficulty] construction level, the order intake in the first 9 months reached EUR 6.8 billion, driven largely by the contracts of less than EUR 100 million. Several large contracts were awarded in 9 months 2025, including [Technical Difficulty] three contracts for more than EUR 100 million in Q3. Do not forget that year-on-year change in order intake at Bouygues Construction is not representative, given fluctuations in the award of large contracts. As a reminder, 9 months 2024 order intake included several major contracts, notably the Torrens to Darlington Highway contract worth more than EUR 2 billion, creating a particularly strong basis of comparison. And as I already mentioned in previous calls, please also note that additional significant contracts are expected by mid-2026.
At Bouygues Immobilier, residential reservations stood at EUR 0.9 billion at end September 2025. To be noted, an improvement year-on-year [Technical Difficulty] residential unit reservations [Technical Difficulty] and stable in volume in a still changing market environment and a decrease in block reservations. Two small positive signs are to be noted. Sell-off and cancellation rates improved year-on-year. Last, as we have already said many times, the commercial property market remains at a standstill.
Now let's have a look at sales on Slide 11. Sales were up 2% year-on-year and 3% like-for-like at constant exchange rates. First, sales were up 1% year-on-year at EUR 11.9 billion, driven by Rail up 12%. This growth being supported notably by Egypt, France and Germany. Roads were stable with France up 2%, EMEA up 2%, Asia Pacific strongly up 19%, and North America down 5%. Colas sales were up 2% year-on-year at constant exchange rates.
Second, Bouygues Construction sales were up 4% year-on-year [indiscernible] driven by its three segments of activity, all up year-on-year. Bouygues Construction sales were up 5% year-on-year at constant exchange rates. Last, at Bouygues Immobilier, sales were down 6% [Technical Difficulty] EUR 0.9 billion with residential property down 4% year-on-year, restated for the disposal of activities in Poland.
Next slide. Current operating profit from activities of the construction businesses was EUR 591 million, improving EUR 115 million compared to 9 months 2024, driven by the three business segments. COPA at Colas was slightly up year-on-year, improving by EUR 11 million with the [indiscernible] margin from activities improving 0.1 points at 2.7%. COPA at Bouygues Construction was strongly up year-on-year, increasing by EUR 45 million and with 0.4 points COPA margin improvement at 3.3%. At Bouygues Immobilier level, COPA was up EUR 59 million year-on-year. It includes some one-off items, representing a global amount of EUR 27 million with the disposal of Poland activities in particular.
Now I'll hand over to [Technical Difficulty] who will comment Equans results.
Thank you, Pascal. Good morning, everyone. Let's move to Slide 14. Equans backlog at end of September 2025 was stable year-on-year at EUR 25.8 billion. Order [Technical Difficulty] 9 months of 2025 stood at EUR 13.9 billion, a high level close to the one of September 2024. It is worth noticing that order intake in contracts of less than EUR 5 million was up year-on-year [Technical Difficulty] representing more than 2/3 [Technical Difficulty] intake. On the other hand, order intake in projects of more than EUR 5 million was down year-on-year, reflecting a high basis of comparison in 2024 and a wait-and-see stance in some areas of activity, notably in [Technical Difficulty] data centers in Europe and on the EV market.
In parallel, we continue to observe a gradual improvement in the order intake margin. As for sales, they were down 2% year-on-year in the 9 months 2025. This essentially reflects three main items. First, [indiscernible] the continued careful selection of [Technical Difficulty]. Second, a proactive exit from nonstrategic activities, notably the new business in the U.K. that we mentioned in the previous publications. And third, a temporary slowdown in relation to the wait-and-see stance in data centers and gigafactories I mentioned earlier.
First 9 months sales were also impacted by a negative exchange effect of minus EUR 55 million. This effect concentrated in Q3, sales being impacted by a negative minus EUR 66 million over the quarter. As such, Q3 sales down 4.2% year-on-year were down 2.8% year-on-year at constant exchange rates. Equans contribution to the group's COPA represented EUR 565 million, a significant increase of EUR 91 million year-on-year with a 4.1% COPA margin up 0.7 points year-on-year, confirming the continued successful execution of the Perform plan. Let me finally give you some updates on our recent M&A developments. Equans secured four bolt-on acquisitions in this quarter in Germany, Austria, Italy and North America, around EUR 180 million of full year sales. These acquisitions are in line with the strategy shared during the Capital Market Day back in 2023.
To end with Equans on Slide 15, let me just add that in [Technical Difficulty] 2025, Equans will continue its strategic plan and is aiming at achieving a slight decrease in sales versus 2024 at constant exchange rate given: one, the proactive exit from remaining nonstrategic and nonperforming activities; and second, the temporary slowdown in some areas of activity. And Equans is also aiming at achieving a margin from activities close to 4.3%, up from the 4.2% mentioned end of July. Finally, Equans confirmed it is targeting a cash conversion rate, which is COPA to cash flow before working capital requirement of between 80% and 100%. And as a reminder, Equans aims to gradually catch up with the organic growth of sector peers and to achieve a margin from activities of 5% in 2025.
Now Christian is going to detail Bouygues Telecom's main figures.
Thank you, Stéphane, and good morning, everyone. Before turning to Slide 17 and entering into the 9 months and the third quarter performance of Bouygues Telecom, I would like to say a few words about the integration of La Poste Telecom within Bouygues Telecom. It has now been 1 year since we [Technical Difficulty] completed the acquisition of La Poste Telecom [Technical Difficulty] have already achieved several successful milestones, notably: first, the strengthening of our mobile business, thanks to La Poste Telecom's customer base and the vast distribution network of over 6,000 post office of La Poste Group; and second, the promising [Technical Difficulty] fixed commercial offers [Technical Difficulty] in September 2025.
Since October 2025, new La Poste Mobile's customers have access to Bouygues Telecom's mobile network and can benefit from [Technical Difficulty] services such as 5G or [Technical Difficulty]. That being said, performance has remained this quarter, solid and fixed, as you can see on Slide 17. FTTH continued to experience strong growth with 371,000 new customers during the first 9 months [Technical Difficulty] third quarter. With a total of 4.6 million customers, FTTH customers represented 85% of our fixed customer base, up from 79% 1 year ago. This is the result of a wider FTTH [Technical Difficulty] combined with the excellent quality of our network and services. As we have already achieved a very high level of migrations from DSL to FTTH, we will certainly observe a logical slowdown in these migrations in the coming quarters. Please also note that the target of 40 million FTTH premises marketed have been reached more than 1 year ahead of schedule, which is also a very good achievement.
You can also see that we had a total of 5.3 million fixed customers at end September 2025. This represents an increase of 184,000 customers in the 9 months, of which 79,000 in the third quarter. This good momentum is driven by both: first, B.iG and B&YOU Pure Fibre offers with customer satisfaction improving and churn lowering. And second, as I have already mentioned, the promising launch of the fixed commercial offers of La Poste Telecom in September 2025. The momentum remained also good on value with fixed ABPU up EUR 0.2 year-on-year at EUR 33.4 per client and per month.
As you can see on Slide 18, the commercial performance was good in mobile in a mature and still competitive market. We observed ongoing positive effects of B.iG on customer satisfaction and churn, and continued growth of converged households and [Technical Difficulty] per household. At September 2025, Bouygues Telecom had 18.5 million mobile plan customers, excluding MtoM; thanks to 231,000 new customers in the first 9 months, of which 125,000 in third quarter. Mobile ABPU, including La Poste Telecom, was stable versus Q2 2025 at EUR 17.3 per client and per month. It reflects continued low pricing for new customers in the low-end segment and the dilutive effect of La Poste Telecom as expected.
Let's have a look at the key figures on Slide 19. As a reminder, La Poste Telecom has been consolidated in Bouygues Telecom's financial statements since 1st November 2024. That being said, we achieved a 5% growth in sales billed to customer year-on-year, broadly stable, excluding La Poste Telecom. Total sales were up 4% year-on-year with 3% growth in other sales. EBITDA, after leases, was stable year-on-year at EUR 1,505 million. This stability is explained by an increase in sales billed to customers and ongoing efforts to control costs, compensated by second, higher energy costs due to the end of very favorable hedging conditions between 2020 and 2024.
The current operating profit from activities was down EUR 94 million at EUR 509 million, reflecting the increase in G&A in line with our CapEx trajectory and of course, the higher energy costs I already mentioned. Last, you can notice that gross CapEx was EUR 1,036 million in 9 months 2025. I'll remind you that the CapEx are nonlinear over the year.
Moving to Slide 20. Let me remind you Bouygues Telecom's 2025 targets. First, sales billed to customers, including La Poste Telecom, would be higher than in 2024. Second, sales billed to customers like-to-like, excluding La Poste Telecom, are expected to be close to the level of 2024. The figure will be either slightly higher or slightly slower, depending on the duration and intensity of the competitive pressure currently [Technical Difficulty]. Third, EBITDA after leases will be broadly stable compared to 2024. In 2025, Bouygues Telecom will no longer benefit from the very favorable low hedged energy prices arranged in 2020 and 2021. La Poste Telecom’'s contribution to EBITDA after leases will be limited in 2025, with the full effect expected from 2028. And last, gross capital expenditures, excluding frequencies, is expected at around EUR 1.5 billion, including [Technical Difficulty] expenditure related to -- for the migration of La Poste Telecom Mobile customers.
Pascal, I now let you share a few words on TF1.
Thank you, Christian. Turning to Slide 22. Let's talk briefly about TF1's results, which were released on the 30th [Technical Difficulty]. First, the TF1 Group reinforced its audience leadership. Among them, the total audience share among women under 50 who are purchasing decision-makers was at 33.8%, up [Technical Difficulty] the total audience share among individuals aged 25 to 49 was at 30.7%, up 0.7 points. Second, in the 9 months 2025, [Technical Difficulty] were stable year-on-year. Media sales decreased by 1% year-on-year with advertising revenues down 2%, and the continued strong growth momentum for TF1+, up 41% year-on-year.
Studio TF1 posted revenues up 11% year-on-year, including a EUR 25 million contribution from JPG. Third, COPA amounted to EUR 191 million, slightly down EUR 7 million, and COPA margin was at 11.9% in 9 months '25, down 0.5 points year-on-year. It includes a cost of program of EUR 662 million. The slight decrease versus the 9 months 2024 was due notably to the base effect related to the EURO 2024 football tournament. Please also note that there was a capital gain of EUR 17 million in relation with the disposal of My Little Paris and PlayTwo recorded in Q3 2025. As a reminder, in Q3 2024 [Technical Difficulty] had a capital gain of EUR 27 million in relation to the disposal of the Ushuaia brand license.
Turning to Slide 23. I will end by saying that the TF1 Group confirmed the following targets. A strong double-digit revenue growth in digital. On the dividend side, aiming for a growing dividend policy in the coming years. After observing that domestic instability adversely impacted ad market in October, first indications are also below expectations in November visibility until year-end. As such, TF1 has adjusted its 2025 guidance for margin from activities to a level between 10.5% and 11.5%. Previously, TF1 Group was targeting a broadly stable margin from activities compared to 2024, which was 12.6%.
Stéphane, I'm now going to -- Stéphane is now going to comment on the group's key financial figures.
[Technical Difficulty] start with the P&L on Slide 25. We have already discussed 9 months sales and current operating profit from activities at the beginning of this call. I will thus focus on the bottom part of the P&L this morning. First, PPA was minus EUR 77 million, [Technical Difficulty] includes mainly EUR 35 million recorded at Bouygues SA level in relation to Equans, and EUR 26 million recorded at Bouygues Telecom level. Second, other operating income and expenses, which do not reflect operational activity were negative at minus EUR 151 million end of September 2025.
This amount is largely due to, on the one hand, noncurrent charges in relation to the Equans management incentive plan, which represented EUR 66 million, an amount split between Equans and Bouygues SA. On the other hand, some provision recorded at Bouygues Construction and Colas, respectively, in relation to a change in regulation in U.K. and to recent developments relating to an international project at Colas Rail dating back to 2011.
Third, financial result, which comprise [Technical Difficulty] cost of net debt, interest expense on lease obligation and other financial income and expenses stood at minus EUR 305 million, an amount close but a bit higher than to that of the 9 months of 2024. Fourth, a tax charge was recorded for EUR 443 million, higher than last year in relation to higher operational results. This amount excludes the EUR 71 million of exceptional income tax surcharge for large companies in France. Fifth, [Technical Difficulty] the tax surcharge on the net result attributable to the group was minus EUR 60 million, leading this result to reach EUR 675 million, down EUR 12 million versus last year. Excluding this tax surcharge, the net result attributable to the group [Technical Difficulty] have been up EUR 48 million this year, as already mentioned by Pascal.
Let's now turn to Slide 26 to describe the net debt evolution between end of December 2024 and end of September 2025. As you can see, net debt increased by around EUR 1.6 billion since the end of 2024. This negative change is quite usual and related to the seasonality of our activities. The good news is that the magnitude of the increase in the net debt is significantly lower than that of last year, which was around EUR 2.2 billion. This increase includes, first, acquisitions net of disposals totaling minus EUR 118 million achieved at Colas, Equans, Bouygues Immobilier and TF1, as well as investment in joint ventures at Bouygues Telecom and purchase of TF1 shares.
Second, capital transactions and other for EUR 155 million including largely exercise of stock option. Third, dividends for a total of EUR 864 million, including EUR 755 million from Bouygues' shareholder, the remaining part being almost entirely paid to Bouygues Telecom and TF1 minority shareholders. And last, minus EUR 725 million from operations that I will comment on the next slide.
So turning to the change in net debt [Technical Difficulty] for the first 9 months of 2025 on this Slide 27, you can observe that it breaks down as follows. On the one hand, net cash flow, including lease expense stood at EUR 2.7 billion, an improvement of EUR 162 million compared to the first 9 months [Technical Difficulty]. And on the other hand, net CapEx was EUR 1.5 billion, a slightly lower amount compared to the first 9 months of 2024. As such, our free cash flow before working capital requirements was EUR 1.2 billion, [Technical Difficulty] higher versus last year. on the chart that the change in working capital requirements and other stood at minus EUR 1.9 billion, a usual negative change at this period of the year.
I will now turn our attention to the group financial structure on Slide 28. You can see the group maintained a very high level of liquidity at EUR 14.4 billion, which comprised EUR 3.1 billion in cash and equivalents, and EUR 11.3 billion in undrawn medium- and long-term credit facilities. Both shareholders' equity and net debt improved significantly versus end of September 2024. As a result, net gearing reached 53% at end of September 2025, an improvement compared to 61% at end of September 2024. And you can see from the chart on the right-hand side that the debt maturity schedule is well spread over time. I remind you that our next bond redemption is in October 2026.
Last, I want to highlight that the group benefits from the strong credit ratings. At Standard & Poor's, our rating is A-, and the outlook associated to this rating has been revised in September from negative to stable. At Moody's, our rating is A3 with a stable outlook.
Pascal, I'm giving you back the floor for the conclusion.
Indeed, I will end this presentation on Slide 30 by saying that in a very uncertain global environment, the group's six business segments continued to prove their ability to keep pace with developments in their respective markets. They also pursues their efforts to improve profitability. [Technical Difficulty] we are targeting a slight increase in current operating profit from activities versus 2024. Second, [Technical Difficulty] we specified that group's 2025 sales are expected to be slightly up versus 2024 at constant exchange rates. And that given fluctuations in currencies, notably those related to the U.S. dollar, group sales as published are now expected to be close to the level of 2024.
I'll remind you that previously, the group -- the Bouygues Group was targeting for 2025 a slight increase in sales and in current operating profit from activities versus 2024. Last, the effects on profit -- on the net profit attributable to the group of the French Finance law and the Social Security financing law [Technical Difficulty] first quarter of 2025, remain estimated to date at around EUR 100 million for 2025.
We have finished our presentation, and we thank you for your attention. We are now with Stéphane and Christian ready to answer your questions. Operator, please open the floor for questions.
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Carlos Caburrasi from Kepler Cheuvreux.
2. Question Answer
Just a quick one from my side. You're again upgrading Equans 2025 margin target, but your 2027 view remains unchanged. So I was wondering if there's anything here that we're missing or if it's likely that by 2027, the margin will be above 5%. And if you allow me, hypothetically, where do you see Equans' margin by 2030? Does 6%, 7% seem a reasonable assumption?
Well, we -- nothing changed since our last publication. We are indeed very pleased that Equans is moving down to 4.3% this year. We confirm that our target for now for 2027 margin [Technical Difficulty] at 5% as per our guidance from -- dating back from Capital Market Day in 2023. We are confident that we will be able to achieve this 5% margin. For now, we don't want to communicate anything else.
And as to your question to the 2030 margin at Equans, let me simply state as we already stated in our last publication, that we see no reason why Equans would not be capable of achieving margins which [Technical Difficulty] are close or similar to the one that's our aim, mid long term. So that's what I can answer to your two questions.
The next question comes from Mathieu Robilliard from Barclays.
I had a few questions. First, if I may ask, I mean you made an offer, along with other players for Altice assets. Yes, the offer was refused. You didn't change your beat. I just wanted to check if you could confirm you're still in discussion with Altice at the moment?
The second one was on taxes. You flagged the impact of the change in the corporate tax in 2025, there's no discussions in the French Parliament, but 2026 would be about the same. So obviously, this has not been finalized and a lot of things can still change. But in principle, if the current proposal was to be passed, does it mean that the corporate tax that you pay in 2026 would be similar to the impact you saw in 2025 about EUR 100 million?
And lastly, on telecoms, I had a question about the ARPU. So Christian, you mentioned that the ARPU including La Poste, it's flat quarter-on-quarter. I was wondering if we look at ARPU, excluding La Poste, what was the trend in Q3 compared to Q2? Is it getting a bit worse? Is it stabilizing? Obviously, it's a very competitive environment, but any color in terms of the more recent trends would be great.
First, I will answer to the question related to taxes. In fact, if the current law was to be passed this year, we will have an additional impact this year related to the -- that this additional tax is based on level of tax [Technical Difficulty] this year. So we will have to renew a new charge of around approximately EUR 40 million to EUR 50 million this year. I mean [Technical Difficulty] we have the remaining part. Overall, it will be a bit lower because -- overall the second part of this additional tax will be paid in 2026.
Okay. On the Altice situation, as you rightly mentioned, we -- and as you know, we submitted a joint offer on October 14. And then as you know, this offer was promptly rejected by Altice on the next day. So for now, to be honest, we are not in discussion. We are hopeful that we are capable of entering into [Technical Difficulty] in the coming weeks. Since we believe that this EUR 17 billion offer that we submitted to be quite attractive for at least two major reasons: it offers a valuation of significantly more than EUR 21 billion for Altice, taking into account the valuation of the assets, which are not part of our proposal, such as XP Fibre. It thus represents a significant premium compared to the value estimated by brokers. As you know, some EUR 17 billion increase [Technical Difficulty] synergies leads to an attractive equity value for Altice shareholders.
And on the -- we also believe it's an attractive offer because it provides a global solution for most of Altice France assets. So I believe -- we believe it represents a credible [Technical Difficulty] very lengthy and highly uncertain. So we are not in discussion for now, but we are still hopeful that we will be capable of entering such discussion into the near future.
Regarding mobile ABPU, mobile ABPU for Bouygues Telecom excluding La Poste Telecom, was at EUR 18.4, so plus EUR 0.1 compared to Q2, 2025. You can find all the figures at the end of the presentation in the annex on the website. I'll just remind you that usually in Q3, ABPU is better or higher because of roaming impact. We have positive roaming impact in Q4.
The next question comes from Rohit Modi from Citi.
I've got two basically. Firstly, on your guidance -- full year guidance. I understand the revenue guidance, flat revenue guidance would imply a decline -- kind of decline in revenue in 4Q, but your COPA guidance, slight increase still leaves some room for a decline or upside. I mean, if you can directionally guide us how we should see COPA, whether it's declining, flat or continue to increase in 4Q. That would be great.
Second question is, again, sorry, on consolidation. Just trying to understand what happens in a no-deal scenario. How do you see -- are there any assets that can still go ahead and buy from SFR without having the consortium going for a joint bid? And how do you see the market if there is a no deal? Is that getting worse from here? Or you see the same kind of conditions?
Okay. On your first question regarding the full year guidance, what we can simply say for the Q4 2025 COPA, of course, this quarter is not [Technical Difficulty] So it's difficult to answer. But I'll remind you that Q4 2024 COPA was EUR 816 million and Q4 2025 COPA would probably in the same order of magnitude than this Q4 2024.
Please, I'll remind you that, in fact, there is no -- we have some exchange rate effects, but this exchange rate effects does not affect our profitability, in fact, because, in fact, we are very local. So [Technical Difficulty] our expenses are in the same current -- the currency of our revenues. So there is no ForEx significant impact, I mean.
On the consolidation and the no-deal scenario, [Technical Difficulty] this is still possibility. So what will change the market will remain as it is today with four competitors, and we believe that Bouygues Telecom will be capable of delivering its continued [Technical Difficulty] it's current state and delivering results in line with the strategy. So nothing more specific to comment, I believe, on this specific topic.
And will there be any other effect that in case there is no group deal you can still buy from SFR that SFR will be willing to sell?
For now, our consortium stands, our offer was confirmed. We are hopeful that we are -- we'll be still capable of entering into construction discussion with Altice in the coming weeks. It's -- we believe this deal to be of interest for all stakeholders. And so we are hopeful that we will be able at some point in time to convince Altice to change its mind.
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Mollie Witcombe from Goldman Sachs.
Just a couple of questions from me, please. Firstly, I'm just wondering how you're thinking about group capital allocation and shareholder remuneration in the context of the French offer. How long do you wait before looking to pursue potential other options in other businesses? Are you still looking at potential M&A options in other businesses even as this is kind of ticking along in the background?
And then my second question is just on Equans top line trends. You have talked about the connection to the slowdown in data centers, et cetera. I'm just wondering, do you feel that this is more industry-wide? Is there a kind of reason why Equans in particular, is seeing this trend? And how you're thinking about it going into next year? Should we expect this to continue into kind of H1 and beyond? Or how should we think about this in the midterm?
I will answer your first question. In fact, you have seen that our financial structure is very strong and the idea of maintaining a very strong financial structure is to be able to deliver [Technical Difficulty] all our business lines. And so we have obviously this important project of consolidation of the telecom market in France. But in the meantime, we are studying and we are working on some M&A for the other business lines. There is no relationship of these different of -- the development of all business lines is independent of what we do on SFR. So [Technical Difficulty] and we have some [Technical Difficulty] either in construction, in Equans, in Colas, no issue in that respect.
As you know, we communicated on a significant acquisition that we are pursuing in the U.S. for Colas. And as I mentioned, we [Technical Difficulty] secured Q3 quarter at Equans for bolt-on acquisitions in Germany, Austria, Italy and the U.S. So confirming the strategy of bolt-on acquisition that we presented back in 2023.
On trends, we certainly believe that the temporary slowdown that I mentioned on the data centers in Europe and the EV battery gigafactory [Technical Difficulty] is definitely industry-wide specific to Equans. Having said that, we still believe that fundamentally, the markets on which Equans operates are strong and will provide interesting development opportunities. So we do not expect any further significant slowdown for now. And so that -- we believe that Equans is on a continued path. We mentioned and we confirm that we expect to -- we expect Equans to get close to its peers in terms also of organic growth. [Technical Difficulty] the plan, and we are not worried at all for next year. Equans markets are resilient. We are at the heart of three long-lasting transition, energy transition, industry transition, digital transition, and that will not change.
The next question comes from Eric Ravary from CIC.
Two from my side. First one is on Bouygues Construction, it's very strong COPA figure in Q3. Could you give us any comment on this performance? Is it linked to one specific project? And second question is on Equans. Could you give us the share of data centers and gigafactories in the order intake in the 2024 to assess what is a decrease of all of the order intake in '25?
First, I will answer on Bouygues Construction. In fact, our aim for -- there is a Bouygues Construction cycle in projects, which are huge projects and the profitability could vary from 1 year to the other. But there is no very specific items this year, explaining the improvement of the profitability. We have a strategic plan in order to have Bouygues Construction raising profitability to 3% to 3.5%. So we are in that range, and this is due to that strategic plan. But no very specific reason. It's a good performance for Bouygues Construction for Equans.
On the gigafactories, as you know, just to answer your -- I don't have precise numbers available, but just gigafactories in Europe with the failure of Northvolt last year, the market is at a halt. So we don't have any significant order intake this year on this specific market, which explains the slowdown that we mentioned. And on the data center business, what we can say in general numbers is that we -- the order of magnitude of our revenues in this business is -- will be this year around EUR 800 million, and it's down more or less EUR 150 million year-to-year.
Having said that, we believe we see a very positive trend this time in terms of order intake in data centers in the U.S. While the market is slow in Europe, this might change in the coming months, but it is quite strong in the U.S. and we were able to secure first project in U.S. and in Canada. And this will spell strong revenues next year in this business in the U.S. and Canada. Overall, we are not concerned by the trends, mid-term trends, especially in data center, whether in Europe or in the U.S. Of course, gigafactories, this remains probably -- will remain a slow market next year.
The next question comes from Stéphane Beyazian from ODDO BHF.
Yes. I was wondering if you set -- if you have set yourself a deadline for getting to an agreement on the Altice bid or basically talks could resume whenever could be 1 month, in 3 months or in 6 months. Second question, I was also wondering how important infrastructure assets of SFR are in your offer. According to the press, Altice is considering to sell some of its infrastructure assets. And I was wondering if such a sale would make a deal easier or more difficulty in the future.
So regarding your second question, we share with two kinds of networks. The first one is the mobile network in medium dense area. I understood what I read in the press that the mobile network is not concerned by the willingness of SFR to sell some part of its network. The [Technical Difficulty] kind of network is the fiber network [Technical Difficulty] the horizontal part of the network. It's quite a small network and is not a problem for us if this network belongs to someone else. So no problem for...
And on the time line for now, we don't have any specific time line in mind, and it's whenever it will happen indeed, so.
There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you for joining us today. We'll be announcing full year 2025 results on 26th of February 2026. Should you have any question, please contact our Investor Relations team [Technical Difficulty] contacting for the press release and on our website. Thank you.
Financial data from Bouygues
Revenue
Revenue is the sum of all sales generated by a company, e.g. for its products or services.
Revenue (TTM) metric explainedDirect Costs
Direct costs are the costs incurred directly in connection with the manufacture of the product or service.
Gross Profit
Gross Profit indicates how much of the revenue remains in the company after deducting direct production costs. If the percentage share of sales is calculated, this is referred to as the gross margin.
Gross Profit metric explainedSelling and Administrative Expenses
Selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A) include all expenses for marketing and sales as well as the general administration of the company.
Research and Development Expense
Research and development costs (R&D) provide information on how much the company invests in the research and development of its products. The costs are particularly interesting as a percentage of revenue and in comparison to direct competitors.
EBITDA
EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) is the company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The EBITDA margin is calculated as a percentage of sales.
Depreciation and Amortization
Depreciation represents reductions in the value of the company's assets (e.g. due to wear and tear on machinery).
EBIT (Operating Income)
EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) is the company's profit before interest and taxes, also known as the operating income. The EBIT Margin is calculated as a percentage of sales at
.
Net Profit
Net Profit represents the profit or loss after deduction of all costs.
Net Profit metric explainedStocksGuide Premium
| Jun '26 |
+/-
%
|
||
| Revenue | 56,299 56,299 |
1%
1%
100%
|
|
| - Direct Costs | 24,313 24,313 |
4%
4%
43%
|
|
| Gross Profit | 31,986 31,986 |
0%
0%
57%
|
|
| - Selling and Administrative Expenses | 26,553 26,553 |
1%
1%
47%
|
|
| - Research and Development Expense | - - |
-
-
|
|
| EBITDA | 5,451 5,451 |
4%
4%
10%
|
|
| - Depreciation and Amortization | 3,086 3,086 |
0%
0%
5%
|
|
| EBIT (Operating Income) EBIT | 2,365 2,365 |
9%
9%
4%
|
|
| Net Profit | 1,252 1,252 |
20%
20%
2%
|
|
In millions EUR.
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Company Profile
Bouygues SA provides constructions for building, civil works, energy and services, property, roads and coals. The firm provides commercial, highway and residential construction and mobile telecommunication services. It provides construction businesses, bouygues construction bouygues immobilier and colas. The company was founded by Francis Bouygues in 1952 and is headquartered in Paris, France.
StocksGuide Premium
| Head office | France |
| CEO | Mr. Roussat |
| Employees | 200,000 |
| Founded | 1952 |
| Website | www.bouygues.com |


