SEB Stock price
Compare with Peer Group
📊 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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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 = €3.07b | Revenue (TTM) = €8.17b
Market Cap = €3.07b | Estimated Revenue = €8.58b
🎯 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 = €5.58b | Revenue (TTM) = €8.17b
Enterprise Value = €5.58b | Forward Revenue = €8.58b
🎯 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.
🎯 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?
- A high revenue per employee indicates a scalable and margin-strong business model.
- A low figure may reflect labor-intensive operations or lower value-add.
- Especially helpful when comparing tech companies to industrial or service sectors.
SEB Stock Analysis
Analyst Opinions
20 Analysts have issued a SEB forecast:
Analyst Opinions
20 Analysts have issued a SEB forecast:
SEB Events
Past Events
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JUL
22
Q2 2026 Earnings Call
about 2 months ago
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MAY
12
Shareholder/Analyst Call - SEB SA
4 months ago
|
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APR
23
Q1 2026 Earnings Call
5 months ago
|
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FEB
25
Q4 2025 Earnings Call
7 months ago
|
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OCT
23
Q3 2025 Earnings Call
11 months ago
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StocksGuide Free
SEB — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Welcome to the Group SEB 2026 First Half Results Presentation. Today's conference will be hosted by Stanislas de Gramont, Chief Executive Officer; and Olivier Casanova, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to this first half results presentation. I'll be doing this presentation together with Olivier Casanova. Stanislas de Gramont speaking. Starting with the first half year highlights. I think there are 3 highlights, 3 main highlights. The first one is half 1 has seen a recovery of our operating results. We see the first results of the Rebound plan during this semester, and we confirm at the end of this semester, our full year outlook. Now, if we go a bit more into details, we've seen in this first half a deteriorated economic and geopolitical environment with mixed consumption prospects. We have had a slight organic sales growth in the first half. ORfA recovery, I mentioned it, notably driven by internal levers, the famous self-help improvement for the profit.
We announced and deployed our Rebound plan, and the rollout is on track with our objectives, and we already see first financial results in the first half. We confirm our outlook for 2026 with a full year growth of our ORfA, a return to a more normative free cash flow generation continuing the half 1 trend. And we also, to conclude those highlights, have further recognition of the group's ESG commitments with improved EcoVadis rating, reaching platinum rating, that is the top 1%, and CDP ratings on water and carbon emissions. Going to the key figures.
First half lands at sales of EUR 3.743 billion, a growth of 1.7% like-for-like versus 2025 and flat versus last year in reported. That generated an operating result from activity of EUR 172 million, which is 44% growth on a yet-low base for 2025. The second quarter was essentially similar with sales growing 0.6% like-for-like with 0.9% reported and ORfA improving to -- advancing to EUR 100 million, up 45.3% versus 2025. Last, on the first half, we generated a positive free cash flow of EUR 53 million when last year first half was consuming cash for minus EUR 213 million.
I hand it over to Olivier to give the details of the sales and financial performance. Olivier?
Thank you, Stanislas. So starting with H1 sales bridge. As you can see, as we said, our H1 sales at EUR 3.743 billion is essentially in line on a reported basis with last year, which means that the organic growth effect of 1.7% is essentially offset by the negative currency effect. Now let me start with the currency effect first. On the face of it, it looks a similar amount to last year, which was minus EUR 64 million, but the composition actually is quite different. Last year, we had a strong depreciation from emerging markets and a modest -- emerging market currencies and a modest negative impact from U.S. dollar and CNY, and this year, it's a reverse effect. We have, in fact, a modest depreciation of emerging market currencies and a much more significant impact from the depreciation of CNY and U.S. dollar, which leads me to the organic growth.
I will comment further in the rest of the presentation, but the lower depreciation of currencies in emerging markets is also translating into a lower price increase impact, and this is costing us approximately 1 percentage point in organic growth, leading to plus 1.7%. Commenting further on Q2, you can see this effect of currency is even more pronounced, is positive, in fact, in Q2. So on the next page, you can see what I was referring to. We have, in fact, a positive contribution from a strengthening of the Colombian peso, the Mexican peso, the ruble, even a small negative impact in Argentinian peso. And on the other hand, we have a strong negative impact from the depreciation of the CNY and the depreciation of the U.S. dollar in addition to the Turkish lira. So let's look at sales by activity now. The professional activity generated EUR 476 million up -- sorry, down 2.8% on a like-for-like basis, whilst the consumer business generated EUR 3.268 billion, up 2.3%.
So let's start with the professional sales. Generally speaking, as you can see, we have a negative minus 2.8% on a like-for-like basis. This is made of a solid core business, but low contribution from large deals. We are operating in, as we know, an uncertain geopolitical context, Stanislas referred to it in his introduction, which translates for the professional market into a persistent wait-and-see attitude from food service clients, and this is particularly true in the U.S. and the Middle East. We see, however, a steady core business, including a strong service contribution, which represents, as you know, approximately 35% of sales. And on the other hand, a low contribution compared to historic basis from large deals. That being said, we continue to prepare for future growth. We are ramping up the Shaoxing hub, as we explained, and our 2 new models, Peak and Elevation, which are addressing the segment, the entry-level and the semiprofessional segment are being rolled out into more than 15 countries now.
We see also progress on the expansion of our customer portfolio, in particular, with success in ChaPanda, which is a famous tea chain in China, but also Scooter's in the U.S. and a global listing with McDonald's, which is also quite positive for the future. And finally, on the strategic front, we strengthened our one-stop-shop offer with the acquisition of a stake in a small specialist ingredient dispenser in China. So let's turn to Consumer now. As you can see, we have organic growth in all regions, 1.6% in EMEA, 8.4% in the Americas and plus 1.1% in Asia. So we'll start with comments on EMEA with Western Europe. So we have an organic growth of 2% in H1. Generally speaking, we have a positive sellout trend, but we have to acknowledge an increased caution amongst retailers in Q2, which is translating in some cases to lower inventory policy. We have, however, a good product momentum, in particular, driven by floor washers, garment steamers, cookware with the launch of FusionCore and full-auto coffee machine with the success of Coffee Crush. We have, in particular, and it's notable a good performance in France with market share gains across the board, a favorable impact, of course, of loyalty program, particularly in Q1. And in Germany, which remains, let's say, a difficult market in general, a complex environment. The priority is being given to margin improvement, which is progressing to the detriment of sales growth.
In other EMEA countries, we see, as you can see, a stability in H1 despite the disruptions in the Middle East. Turkey and Egypt are accelerating, driven by linen care, cooking and e-commerce. Eastern Europe presents a heterogeneous picture with, in some cases, a high comparison base, especially in Poland, for example. But we are seeing promising launches of our latest innovations, in particular, of course, the success of Coffee Crush as well, but also interestingly on ice cream machines with the success of Dolce and Freeze and also on washers. And as I mentioned, finally, we are seeing, of course, a sales decline in the Middle East. It's not surprising. It represents a small percentage of the group sales, but it's about 10% of the sales in other EMEA countries. Turning to the Americas. Starting with North America, we see 9.5% growth in H1 and an acceleration in Q2 at plus 15%.
Of course, it's off a low base last year, in particular in the U.S. Last year, in North America, our sales decreased by 12%. That being said, we had, let's say, a volatile market, not very favorable in Q1, but better oriented in Q2. And more generally, we are registering market share gains in cookware, which is our main, as you know, activity and also in linen care. In Mexico, we have a positive sellout, particularly online in a market which remains quite competitive. Turning to South America. We grew 6.1% in H1, which is, let's say, driven by Colombia with a strong momentum across our product range. We continue to expand our categories with coffee, floor care or blenders. And interestingly, we returned to growth in fan sales in Q2, which is different from the situation in Brazil. In Brazil, we have a good online performance. But generally, we are penalized by the difficulties of the physical retail. And we have to say that the weather contrary to Colombia, was unfavorable to fan sales in Brazil.
But if we believe the weather forecast, it will change in H2 with the return of El Niño. So consumer in Asia -- starting with China, we had overall a slight growth in H1 with plus 1.3% and a more difficult context in Q2. Generally speaking, Supor continues to grow in cookware, kitchenware and linen care. However, we see increased promotional intensity in the market in Q2. And we are, as we've indicated before, focusing primarily on, let's say, managing the balance between chasing sales growth and protecting profitability. We are, however, registering market share gains overall in H1. One specific situation, which is large kitchen appliance. As you know, it's not an activity that we have elsewhere in the group, but it's an activity that we have in China. It's a modest activity at less than 10% of sales. It did benefit last year from the incentives that were introduced by the government, and the removal of these incentives this half is impacting significantly this modest activity.
Turning to other Asian countries. We had a stable situation in H1 with a strong performance in online and offline across the region. Growth in key categories in China -- sorry, in Japan and stable sales in Southeast Asia, but a more difficult situation in South Korea with a market decline marked in particular by difficulties in physical retail. So let's turn now to results and cash flow generation. So starting with ORfA, as Stanislas indicated, our ORfA increased from a low base last year to EUR 172 million in the first half, generating an operating margin of 4.6%, up 140 basis points. So how do we explain this evolution? We have the bridge on the next page. Starting with the combination of volumes, price/mix, cost of sales and in fact, also currency. So we are managing the balance of these different elements. And, in total, delivering a net positive.
Of course, the benefit that we have on the currency is especially on the short currencies, which we are using to purchase finished goods and raw material and components. And so it is, to some extent, also impacting the price/mix dynamics. We have also, as I mentioned earlier, a lower depreciation from emerging market currencies, which is in turn translating into a lower price increase effect in emerging markets. This is costing us approximately EUR 30 million in the price/mix bucket. Finally, we have on the cost of sales, yes, a positive impact from the reimbursement of U.S. tariffs to the tune of about EUR 15 million, but this is merely offsetting, in fact, the increased tariff in H1 versus last year. As you know, the tariffs -- in particular, the reciprocal tariffs were introduced at the beginning of Q2. And therefore, if we compare to last year, we have, let's say, a negative effect in terms of tariff, which is offset by the reimbursement.
So net-net, the positive impact in cost of sales translates or is the reflection of a positive effect on our purchasing of raw material components and finished goods, which is contributing to the business. And then finally, we have a decrease, as you can see, in structure cost by about EUR 25 million, which shows, in particular, the first results from the Rebound plan. So now if we move below ORfA, you can see, in particular, that the big, let's say, item is the line other operating income and expenses, which was minus EUR 24 million last year and is now minus EUR 185 million. Of course, this reflects principally the provisions for social costs related to the Rebound plan in France and Germany. We now have -- and this will be detailed further by Stanislas in the second part. We have now reached the stage where we can make a good estimate of those costs. But at this stage, of course, it is still an estimate.
Secondly, you can see the income tax line is, let's say, made of 2 different elements. We have to distinguish, let's say, the normal recurring business, which I will say call excluding Rebound effect, where, in fact, we have a higher tax rate than usual. Normally, we are around 25%. This year, we have an unfavorable country mix, which is increasing this rate from 25% to 30%. And then we have the negative impact from Rebound, which is creating a significant, as I mentioned, significant charge. At this stage, in order to be -- to take a prudent position, we have limited the recognition of deferred tax asset at this stage. And this is why we are not benefiting to the full extent from the expected tax shield. Finally, this translates into profit attributable to our shareholders of minus EUR 124 million. And we have stated below, let's say, the profit, excluding the Rebound plan effect, which would be plus EUR 41 million, which compares to plus EUR 1 million last year.
Moving to balance sheet and cash flow. So starting with the working capital requirement. As you can see, of course, in H1, we have, let's say, a traditional seasonality in our business, which means that H1 June working capital is traditionally higher than December. That being said, this year, as you can see, we are reducing working capital to EUR 1.466 billion compared to EUR 1.540 billion last year. So the ratio is moving from 18.6% last year to 17.9% this year. This is, first and foremost, as a result of lower inventory compared to last year on a reported basis, down EUR 115 million, but there is in there a negative currency effect. So on a like-for-like basis, it's down EUR 160 million. Of course, the inventory level is not yet at, let's say, our optimum level, in particular, because we continue, as you know, to be impacted by the closure of the Suez Canal and the longer transportation time length.
So moving to free cash flow generation. Of course, the adjusted EBITDA is up by EUR 53 million in a similar way to the increase in ORfA. We have the positive effect of the optimization of working capital. On the CapEx side, we are much lower than last year. H1 last year was minus EUR 160 million. Of course, you remember that last year, we had substantial investment in our Shaoxing hub and also the tail end of the Til-Châtel investment, which is our cookware warehouse for Western Europe. And then, of course, we have the effect from tax and financial debt. And all that translates into a positive free cash flow of EUR 53 million, which compares to minus EUR 213 million last year. So we're up -- we're better than last year by EUR 266 million. On a rolling 12-month basis, this translates into a free cash flow generation of EUR 390 million.
And then finally, to conclude this section, let's look at the change in net debt. If we take into account the EUR 160 million of dividend to the SEB shareholders and the EUR 43 million dividend to the Supor minority shareholders, the currency effect and modest acquisitions, which is mostly in a few contribution on SEB Alliance and the modest acquisition of a stake in our beverage dispenser in China, we end up with EUR 2.516 billion, which is down EUR 152 million compared to last year.
And now I hand over back to Stanislas.
Thank you very much, Olivier. So this was the summary of the first half sales and financial results. I'll now navigate you through what happened in the Rebound plan, starting with the start, which is the rollout is there. It's been deployed and is on track with our objectives. We've set ourselves an ambition for Rebound to return to our profitable growth trajectory with 3 main goals: reinventing our growth model, restoring our profitability and strengthening our stakeholders' engagement using group-wide levers on AI, on data and on simplification. Now let me take you through these 2 elements -- these 3 elements. Starting with the reinvention of our growth model, which is a key plan. We've set 3 big priorities. The first one is our ability to roll out our successes, the ability to reinvent categories and the ability to reimagine or to create evolving activation strategies, putting social networks first, and I'll give you some illustrations of that.
Starting with the deployment of our successes. The X-Clean vacuum cleaner washers were launched late Q4 in 2024, reaching 70 countries with 5 models in June '26. We'll expand to 9 models in the end of the year in the same 70 countries. In the same period, we launched Clean-It with one model that is now with 3 models in 20 countries, reaching 5 models, 20 countries at the end of the year. We launched AeroSteam, another potential big success for the group in late 2024 or early 2025, reaching 25 countries in June this year with 3 models in 30 countries at the end of this year and same applies for FusionCore in the course of the last 15 months. So what this says is that we have an ability to develop good selling products, good innovations, and we are now expanding and strengthening our muscle in the ability to deploy them fast and expanding them faster.
We're also working hard on reinventing our categories. Cookeo is a 15-year-old saga in France. EPC is a very substantial market in France and in the world. And we've totally reinvented Cookeo in the back end of 2024 with a new all-in-one appliance combining a multi-cooker and an air fryer, and we moved from double-digit negative to double-digit positive. And this trend keeps pursuing in the first full year of launch of Cookeo Infinity. We've also -- we are also bringing a breakthrough innovation on coffee -- on full-auto coffee machine. We are launching Coffee Crush. Coffee Crush is a 50% more compact coffee machine compared to a conventional full-auto. And what it does beyond size is it's recruiting a whole new generation of consumers to this coffee machine category, reaching double-digit market share in the first few weeks of sales in the countries it is being launched in.
And beyond the product in Coffee Crush, we've also reinvented our activation strategy with a social-first approach. We started 2 months before the launch event with embarking, onboarding what we've called the Crush Crew, 10 influencers being invited in our premises to discover and test the product. The launch event was in France at the back end of March. We had over 70 influencers covering in total over 20 million reach with 5 million views on the moment of the event. That is being nowadays amplified to reach 50 countries in 2026. We estimate we'll get 172 million consumers reached potentially, and we'll spend over 60% of our investments in social media. So I think this is a great illustration of transformation in action. And this transformation first bears its first great fruits in terms of results on Coffee Crush, and we are systematizing this approach on all the key launches in the back end of 2026.
The second key pillar of Rebound is to restore our profitability. We've been talking about delivering a target of EUR 200 million in recurring annual savings at a run rate by the end of 2027, focusing on 3 main levers: organizations working on structure costs and industrial efficiencies, indirect purchases and group-wide transitional levers of simplification of product ranges and working processes. The estimated cost of the plan don't change. They are at 1x to 1.25x the recurring annual savings. They will be mainly recognized in P&L at the end of 2025 for EUR 24 million and in the first half of 2026 for EUR 178 million, as explained by Olivier early on. The cash outflows on their side will be mostly in 2027.
Now when we look at where we are, we are in line, maybe slightly ahead of the announced time line. We expect to generate EUR 40 million to EUR 60 million in 2026 and around EUR 200 million between '27 and '28. We will be at the full run rate of EUR 200 million at the end of 2027, maybe not in full EUR 200 million in 2027 but that will be further specified in the quarters to come. Now the progress we make on organizations, as I mentioned, we are working on the reduction of structural costs and the industrial efficiency improvement. That is mainly in France and Germany for the social heavy countries. We've signed our labor agreements in France and most of them -- and in most of the German entities involved in this restructuring plan. And we expect the departures to start from September this year. On the indirect purchasing, we are working on the pooling and the standardization of our purchasing needs. We've launched over 400 actions that aim at generating 5% to 6% saving of the indirect purchasing in scope, and we start to see the first results in the P&L as of this first half of 2026.
And, last, we've identified cross-functional levers around simplification of organization and processes, and we've been pooling several functions of the company already. We've also committed ourselves to reducing by 25% to 30% our SKUs, our product references, and we've now identified 90% of those reductions, of which 9% are already initiated, and they will be completed by -- the whole program will be completed by early 2027. And last, we have a strong focus on data improvement and AI rollout. On this front, we have run in the first 6 months of the year over 140 workshops to really exploit and exploit and expand AI as a group-wide efficiency lever. Those workshops have scanned 360 degrees the group in all functions, in BUs, in Pros, in consumer in markets. We've identified 800-plus use cases, and we now have a more and more robust work plan to generate through AI savings, short, mid and long term, but also ability to contribute much further to the acceleration of our growth drivers, accelerating our top line levers, accelerating our innovation, accelerating and improving our activation.
We are -- we've been working at a pretty intensive pace in half 1, and we now have a portfolio of value creation opportunities identified across all the group's functions. Right. This is what we wanted to share with you in terms of the results and the key events of the first half of the year. Now it's time to share with you the outlook for 2026, which is unchanged. But maybe putting a bit of color on this unchanged outlook. Starting with the environment, we have a deteriorating macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, and I could add pretty volatile and unstable. We see mixed consumption prospects. We see increased inflationary pressures on costs, mainly coming from the Iran conflict. But at the same time, we also see a resilience of our small domestic equipment markets.
Backing our performance as in the first half, we see momentum being built on our innovation pipeline. We are taking some targeted pricing actions in some geographies, and we have a strict COGS and OpEx management with some further Rebound plan impact. These positives and negatives allow us to confirm our outlook for 2026 of a full year ORfA growth of a return to a more normative free cash flow generation, continuing the very good H1 trend, lowering the financial leverage with the objective of returning to the group standard of around 2x, excluding acquisition by 2027. Right. I think we are done with our presentation.
I will now hand over to you to get your questions that we'll be answering with Olivier. Thank you very much.
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Ope Otaniyi from GS.
2. Question Answer
Maybe just to start off with organic growth. I know you, kind of, talked about the outlook, but could you give some visibility into Q3 and maybe bridge the growth you saw in Q1 -- in Q2, sorry, between sort of innovation, volume growth and then just easy comps?
Olivier? Do you want to go?
So I think as we've indicated, we -- the environment, I think, remains quite volatile and complex. So we prefer not to focus on guiding on sales growth. I think the focus of the year is clearly on profit recovery, as indicated by Stanislas and on cash flow generation. And that's what we will focus on, helped, of course, principally by, let's say, our own actions and our own levers. In terms of the dynamic, as you've seen from the bridge, we have a strong contribution from volume growth. Which is in large part driven by our innovation and the success that we've seen on the various categories that we discussed on Coffee Crush, on the washers, on AeroSteam, et cetera, et cetera.
There is a strong growth also in cookware, which is, let's say, continues to be a quite dynamic category. And finally, as we said, we have been helped by, let's say, the good performance on loyalty program. Last year, as we mentioned, in Q1, we had a low year in terms of loyalty program. This year, we have a year which is above average, and this is clearly contributing also to the volume growth.
Great. And maybe just on cost-out -- sorry, go ahead.
Go ahead.
Maybe just on cost out. I suppose you have a bit more visibility now. Could you, sort of, give an update on how much you think would be reinvested? And then just to clarify, would most of the restructuring costs come out in Q2, I suppose, and maybe some more in the coming quarters, but the bulk of it in Q2?
Okay. I'll take this one. So as you have commented on the bridge, we have, let's say, positive contribution, in particular on the purchasing side in H1. This is, of course, we were not impacted so much in H1 by the increases linked to the Iran crisis. We'll see that more in H2. This is particularly the case on raw material, especially and component raw material impacting aluminum and plastics. We see also, let's say, some impact on the rise of oil price. which is impacting transport cost and shipping cost. Of course, some of these costs or the negative impact from some of this cost increase is mitigated by our hedging strategy, especially on aluminum, for example.
So we expect some negative impact. We are trying -- we're looking to offset some of those impacts starting in H2 by our, let's say, price optimization. In some cases, it's adjusting the launch price of some products. On other cases, it's optimizing promotions. Net-net, from the Iran crisis, we see a total impact in H2 around EUR 30 million negative. Of course, this -- there are other positives against that in H2. We have, let's say, a positive impact in H1 on Rebound. We'll have further impact because the plan is, of course, contributing more in H2 than H1.
So we have an upside to the tune of EUR 20 million or EUR 40 million in H2. And we'll have also, let's say, some further probably contribution from tariff reimbursement in the second half and more generally also the more positive environment in North America, especially compared to Q3 last year, which was very depressed. And then finally, we have still some positive tailwind from FX in the second half if rates stay where they are today. So that's what I can say on the, let's say, cost -- likely cost evolution in H2.
Thank you, Olivier.
The next question comes from Natasha Brilliant from UBS.
My first one, just to come back on sales growth. I understand that you don't want to guide, but can you just give us some color on consumer behavior and spending patterns for the first few weeks of Q3, how that compared to Q2 and perhaps how Q2 progressed as well? My second question is just on your full year guidance, which you've reiterated. It's obviously quite broad in terms of growth in ORfA. So given where we are at the halfway point, could you just give us a bit more color? For example, if you look at consensus, it's for an 8% margin.
Does that look achievable? Or does that look too conservative in your view? Just any thoughts on that would be helpful. And then my final question is around Professional and just the pipeline of contracts, whether you have any visibility there, whether there's any negotiations ongoing and whether we might get some news in the second half?
Thank you, Natasha. So you want a sales profit and Professional guidance.
Yes, that's all.
On the sales, I think it's -- what can I say? I can say that we see that the markets are resilient. Consumption in our categories are resilient. We have a rather positive consumer behavior. Yes, we see a deteriorating consumption environment. We see that our innovations bear some momentum, and we see that we have potential upsides because of the base comparison in North and Latin America. So that's what I can say in terms of the inputs. What I cannot be more precise is I don't know -- I don't really know what the effect of this Iran war is going to be in the back end of the year. I mean we had this call 3 weeks ago, I would have probably had a very different speech. And today, things are different.
Now when it comes to the full year guidance and the consensus, I think Olivier has just shared with your colleague, the key elements that will be impacting our cost base and in the year-to-go evolution. Now you observe that we don't comment on the consensus, and that means that we don't have much problem with the consensus. So I will not give you further detail on the guidance, but that's what it is.
On the professional [front], I think it is -- we have some great leads with great customers. I mean, the listings of major customers like McDonald's are key elements and the worldwide listing is a very notable achievement. We are disappointed, frustrated, I mean, choose the word. We would expect those contracts to materialize faster than they do today. So certainly, it's not a challenge of pipeline or competitiveness of the offer. It is a challenge of conversion of these contracts into actual sales, and we are working very hard to convert them fast and faster.
The next question comes from Marie-Line Fort from Bernstein.
I would like to come back on the slide on Page 33. You mentioned EUR 40 million to EUR 60 million saving in terms of ORfA 2026. I suspect that it's 1/3 organization, 2/3 indirect purchase. Shall we do consider that the EUR 200 million is a total and you still have to unlock EUR 140 million, EUR 160 million over the next years? That's my first question. My second question is to know what part of the EUR 40 million, EUR 60 million have been locked already in the first half? Second question is about your destocking SKUs. You've got ambitious targets on that side. You made some progress. Have you measured the impact on sales at this stage or from retailers? And my last question is about retail.
In which topic, pardon, Marie, in...
SKUs.
SKUs, yes, okay. Sorry, I'll take this. Okay, go ahead.
And lastly, what is the retailers' policy at this stage? Are they more cautious, less cautious? If you could give us some color about your clients?
Yes. I'll take the last 2, Olivier, you will bridge the Rebound. SKUs reduction is a complex project. We are talking about over 25,000 SKUs. So a reduction of 25% to 30% is a big number. We are very happy about the progress we've made. We think when we say 90% [initiated], 9% completed, that is a very fast track for implementation. We will see substantial impacts in -- probably from next year's first half onwards. We don't expect any impact on sales. We expect impacts on inventories and simplification of the overall business. Now when we talk about retailers, prudence in handling inventory. You know that I rarely mention variations between sell-in and sell-out. And in this instance, in this quarter, in particular in Europe, we do see some gaps or discrepancies between our current sell-out and the sell-in we observe in retailers. Olivier...
Okay. And I will take the first one...
You mean your sell-in was better than your sell-out?
No, my sell-in is worse than my sell-out. When they reduce inventory, that mean they buy less than they sell.
In Europe or everywhere?
Mainly in Europe.
Mainly in Europe. Yeah. So on the benefit, so EUR 40 million to EUR 60 million effectively is on a full year basis, as we said. And we have about EUR 20 million contribution out of that in H1 already. So that means an upside of EUR 20 million to EUR 40 million in H2 this year. As Stanislas indicated and as is stated on the chart, we are aiming to generate overall, as you know, EUR 200 million, but it's over, let's say, the '27, '28 horizon, which means that we want to lock in all the actions by the end of 2027. It doesn't mean to say necessarily that 100% of the benefit will be already in the P&L in 2027.
There's likely to be some carryover because that would imply that all the actions are actually finished starting on the 1st of January '27, which is unlikely for some of them. So it's not a very precise answer, but I think you will understand, Marie, that many of these actions are still in progress. So it's difficult to be much more precise. But I would say a large bulk of the EUR 200 million will be already contributing to the performance in '27. And the numbers that we are showing are cumulative, of course.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Alessandro Cecchini from Equita.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Actually, the first one is on the tariff refunds. You stated about EUR 50 million positive impact in the second quarter. Are you -- so this is a gross amount or -- so just to understand if you expect that to this kind of amount of money to give back to clients to support, I would say, sales in the U.S. So just if you would like to add these elements? And the second one, just a clarification. So in the first quarter, you had around EUR 10 million positive cost of sales. I understood correctly that you are estimating roughly on the cost side, of course, due to higher inflation, around EUR 30 million, 3-0 negative in the second half, mostly due to the Iran situation. So this could be very helpful.
Okay. So maybe I'll take...
I'll take the second one. Your assumption is correct.
This is the easy one. Yes, on the tariff refund, so we are specifically talking about the impact in the P&L which is effectively EUR 15 million.
EUR 15 million. 1-5.
-- in H1. We're expecting probably some further positive impact, but more modest in the second half. And of course, there is no legal obligation to repay any of the refund to customers. But of course, it's all a matter of commercial negotiation. And the relationship with our, let's say, customers involves many different elements, and this is only one of them. So that's all we can say, I think, at this stage. But we are, let's say, confident that the EUR 15 million that we've registered in H1 will stay in the P&L.
Okay. Okay. So this is helpful. And secondly, on the Forex side, so basically, you had EUR 12 million positive on the ORfA. I mean, given the hedging, of course, and given your short situation, so you expect probably a similar magnitude in the second half given the current spot rates or -- so just to dig into these numbers.
Well, as you say, given the current FX rates, but it's always a bet. But let's say, yes, we are -- net-net, we are probably expecting some further tailwind in H2 from FX, but it's difficult to put a hard number, but it's probably not very far from H1.
Thank you, Alessandro.
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Geoffrey d'Halluin from BNP Paribas.
I will have 2 questions, please. The first one is related to China. So we've seen a slowdown in Q2 compared to Q1. So well, happy to get your thoughts on what are the market conditions in China and maybe what you could expect in the second half of the year? And my second question is related to the heat waves we had in Europe in the last few weeks. Could you just remind me how much of your product...
Geoffrey, we lost you, but I think I got your question. So the second question is how much of your sales in Q2 are made of home comfort and fan-style products? Geoffrey, you're still there? We lost the connection with you. So anyway, -- so I will answer your first question on the China slowdown in the second quarter. Well, I think it is in the papers. We've seen that China has missed its consumption targets. We've seen our categories impacted by lower consumption. We've made a clear choice of balancing between profit improvement and sales growth. At the same time, we've maintained or slightly improved our market share. So we're on a fine line in a market which is subdued. We don't have much visibility in the year to go. We don't expect it to get any worse. We don't see worsening market conditions in China. But equally, we don't see a spectacular recovery or improvement. Heat waves, Olivier?
Okay. So yes, of course, the heat wave has been, let's say, positive for fan sales in Europe. It's not, of course, the biggest region for fan sales. We sell much more in Latin America. However, it has contributed. We've seen, in fact, an increase of about 30% in the month of June compared to, let's say, the previous year. But it remains, let's say, a relatively modest contribution compared to the whole size of the group.
The next question comes from Geoffrey d'Halluin from BNP Paribas.
I guess you know I've been disconnected.
Sorry.
Did you -- were you there when we answered Geoffrey? We lost him again.
Okay. So we'll talk to him. Any other questions?
There are no further questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speaker for any closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you very much for your attention. I think it's a year that is unfolding in terms of performance the way we are expecting it. We are facing a lot of turbulences and a very volatile environment. We said since the beginning of the year that our actions would be driving and generating the bulk of the improvements in the profit and in cash flow generation. We are taking or facing the second half with the same determination of improving cash flow, improving profit as we guide them. We see good progress in the implementation of our Rebound plan, both in terms of the evolution of the way we do marketing and in terms of our ability to generate the cost savings that we have.
So it's a good start of the year. As you know, the first half of the year is only a fraction of the full year. So we are of that -- conscious of that, and we are very focused on delivering a very serious, disciplined and solid second half. Thank you very much for your time. For those who take holidays, I wish you a good break and look forward to seeing some of you in the next few days in roadshows. Thank you.
SEB — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
SEB — Shareholder/Analyst Call - SEB SA
1. Management Discussion
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good afternoon. Welcome to Pavillon [ Gabriel ]. I hope you like the venue for the Annual General Meeting. This meeting will be videotaped, is being broadcast and will be available on the group's website.
I will be chairing the meeting with Stanislas de Gramont, General Manager; Olivier Casanova, in charge of Finance; Philippe Sumeire, General Secretary and Secretary of the Board of Director; Cathy Pianon, who's the Vice General Manager in charge of Public Affairs and Communication. You can recognize them. We would like to say hello to the directors who are here, the members of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee and all the company's employees, and I would like to thank our statutory auditors for being here. The meeting statement was published in the Bulletin des Annonces Legales as per law on 11th of March 2026, and it was also published in the legal announcement Gazette. And the shareholders and the statutory auditors have been invited to attend the meeting.
I will be the Chair of the bureau of the Board of Directors, and I would like to call the 2 members representing the largest number of votes. Please be the scrutineers, Mrs. Damarys Braida and Mrs. Caroline Chevalley representing G and the other lady represents the shareholders. Ladies, would you like to do this?
Thank you very much. Philippe Sumeire will be the General and the Secretary for this meeting. By the way, it is an important moment for Philippe because Philippe will be the Secretary for the last time. He's officially retiring at the end of this year. He joined the group in '22. He was the Legal Director of Moulinex when we acquired Moulinex in 2001, and he became Secretary of the Board in 2011. And I think I can speak on behalf of the Board and all of the people working for the company, we all very much enjoyed his career. He's definitely a legal specialist of high quality, and he has beautiful vision on our activities and our work and our products in all the countries. And I'm very happy that I was -- had the opportunity to work with him for 25 years, and I would like to thank him for this collaboration. He will be attending the general meeting next year, but as a shareholder.
As usual, I have all of the documents required by the regulations. All the documents were made available to the shareholders by the shareholders department and on the website according to the rules and regulations. Written questions from the shareholders were received before the meeting as we are authorized by law. And these -- we answered the questions and the answers and the questions are available on the website.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, this is your general assembly. It's a time to provide information and for the exchange with the managers of this group. We will start with a short introduction, which will be followed by the presentation of the 2025 results and first quarter of 2026, which will be delivered by Stanislas de Gramont. We will continue with the presentation on the Rebound plan, a project which should help us restore the profitable growth trajectory. We will then take stock of the situation regarding our ESG 2030 ambition, whereby we would like to anchor the environmental challenges within the heart of our strategy.
We will come back to the highlights of the 2025 governance as well as the members of the Board and the various committees. We will then provide information on the resolutions on which you will need to vote. I will then give the floor to our statutory auditors, and they will summarize their report. The presentation will be delivered by Nicolas Prigent, if I'm not mistaken, who is a partner in the Deloitte company. We will then have a question-and-answer session, and we will close with the votes on the resolutions. You have the resolutions in the documents you were given, the meeting opinion and the documents for 2025.
What did I do? It is officially 2:37. I declare the general assembly open. And I would like to ask Philippe Sumeire to share with us the provisional quorum figures. With regard to the ordinary part of the general assembly, we have 1,430 shareholders who voted online, 1,944 gave to the President, 379 to the shareholders and 231 shareholders are present. So we have 71.7% of the capital present for the AG and the ordinary general assembly and slightly less 70.9% for the extraordinary general assembly. In order to be able to vote, the assembly should have at least 20% and 25% for both the general ordinary and exceptional assembly. So we have the necessary quorum, and we will have the final quorum before we vote for the resolutions. Thank you very much.
Now a short introduction. I would like to say that this year was unfortunately not up to our expectations. The revenue was stable, but the offer was down 25%. So we had to see our perspectives twice -- revise our perspectives and decrease them by 40%. As the Chairman of the Board, I would like to tell you that we are very much disappointed by what happened this year, and we are absolutely determined to restore the previous situation as quickly as possible.
Before I give the floor to Stanislas, I would like to place SEB in our group in a longer perspective. And I would like to share with you a few things that we should keep in mind. SEB is the world leader of small domestic appliances. For more than 20 years, our growth has been above 7% per year on the long run. And this business was carried out for 70% with products or in geographical areas where SEB is the leader with 10% to 20% -- 10% to 15% market share. So we are highly profitable on a large part of our portfolio and the result on invested capital is higher than 15%. Therefore, there is a good balance between mature markets and emerging markets. Mature markets are more than 50% and emerging markets where we are growing and will be growing tomorrow at slightly less than 50%. And we have a industrial presence of 70% -- 75% in load factor areas so that we can perform local activity for local markets and emerging markets, but also to produce simple products for our European sites in France, Germany and France and Germany are mainly focused on high added value products.
SEB has the capacity to develop further. We have EUR 1.5 billion of commercial resources and motor resources. Very few players have these resources available. We have a yearly cash flow of EUR 400 million, which means that we have the necessary capacity for industrial investments, 2% to 3% of our turnover every year. We are an industrial company. We have [ 48 ] industrial sites across the world, more than 15 of which are located in France.
And we also have the capacity to perform acquisitions in order to enlarge our playing field for product categories and geographical areas so that we can strengthen our historical leadership. External growth has always been a part of our traditional strategy. And some companies we acquired when they were small like Supor, less than EUR 130 million turnover in China when we started negotiating. Now they have reached a mark of EUR 2 billion. [indiscernible] is more than EUR 200 million in turnover. Colombia, [indiscernible], also small companies, EUR 60 million are now reaching the EUR 200 million mark or nearly. Acquisitions have always been a part of our growth strategy. So we have the necessary resources and very few players have such a sound basis.
Third thing I'd like to say, I've made an observation, our environment has changed deeply. Geopolitical issues and our core business. Geopolitical issues, obviously, there's nothing new. As early as 1998, we had been challenged by geopolitical issues. 15th of August 1998, the Russian banking system collapsed and the euro, which was RUB 9 for dollar went to RUB 33. [indiscernible] who landed in Moscow at that time to manage the company, we remember it. So the whole Russian economy collapsed, and I had never witnessed this before. For several months, we had a negative turnover, which rarely happens to a company such as ours because we were actually buying back goods. We had -- taking back the goods we had sold to our customers because they couldn't pay for them. So that was the first serious crisis.
There were also other crisis in Latin America and Southeast Asia. The Gulf war, the war in Ukraine that started in 2022, which obviously had a negative impact on us. But there was a world order, which was still under the American [indiscernible] and China was mostly at the time looking after its own economy and Europe was still being led by the French, German there, which we really wonder where they've gone. So there was some stability up to a certain extent.
We are now witnessing and all the companies will be witnessed of this. We are witnessing the emergence of a world turmoil. We don't know what will happen. The war between Russia and Ukraine is coming into its fifth year. There is now the Middle East war, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, the Gulf countries with military but also economical consequences. Two economic wars, the tariff war in the United States, which caused us issues in 2025, but we were not the only ones facing those challenges, which led to also some uncertainties with all economic players. There were the tariffs, but also nobody knew what was going to happen and how they would evolve. There's also the hidden conflict between America and China with lots of products landing from China to Europe.
And there is also the economic situation with some currencies collapsing in emerging countries, and it's difficult to operate in such -- in areas such as Russia because we know the European Union has imposed sanctions. It's also a major element in the interpretation of the 2025 situation, which Stanislas and Olivier are going to cover later.
So according to what the Americans like to say, the world has become uncertain. You know the expression, [indiscernible], volatile uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. Welcome to today's world. It is a reality that we are facing and what we can do is try and understand how we can face the situation.
The second thing I would like to dwell on is how is our business going to evolve. We hear that nothing happened for many years, and it's happening now. It isn't true. It isn't true. Our industry has been through some turmoil. A few years ago, modern distribution appeared, which replayed all the wholesalers with direct retail and direct trade and distribution, but also textile and toys and our industry have become de localized. It started in the '70s and '80s in the United States, then it landed in Europe. And all our competitors transferred their production to cheap labor countries, including China.
And for those of you following us for many years, in 2015, we saw the new brand -- distributor brands appearing with products that went from EUR 20 to EUR 5 almost overnight. At the time, the production costs for all the coffee makers and toasters were EUR 19. So can you imagine what it meant for us? It was a shock. And for those of you who were shareholders at the time and some of you may have been shareholders at the time, we had to close down some of our factories to adjust to the situation.
And after the last few years, we have also witnessed a new evolution. Distribution has now become digital. We will see the figures later. More than 50% of retail trade is digital, 80% in some places. It depends on the countries, obviously. And the movement has been picking up speed since the COVID, but it questions all the consumption rules and codes. Now all these evolutions are -- have hit our industry very hard. Some of us resisted and said remain the world leader in spite of the turmoil, but some of the other players actually disappeared or went through a very difficult time.
We are facing a new evolution in our industry. It's recent, but it is going to impact all our industry in Europe regardless of what we manufacture. And there will be new players with new characteristics, new features, players who forgive me, if I say this in English, but they are digital native. They were born in the digital world. They think digital. And artificial intelligence, obviously, is involved. Two, innovation is almost exclusively coming from China, very often subcontracted, many people no longer have any innovation activities. They rely on a local network of suppliers. And some companies are fabless. They have no factories or very low-cost factories. They sell through platforms, no structures, no trade structures or very limited trade structures or sales structures, and they invest mostly in marketing activities. This is what we went through in 2025 like many of our competitors, the major competitors.
What conclusions can we draw? What lessons can we learn? Our industry -- is our industry in danger? No, it isn't because people will always want to live a better life. People are prepared to spend money, a lot of money to celebrate, to have fun, to enjoy their family, to be in good health, to live a comfortable life and to simplify everyday jobs. So we still have a beautiful future. And in mature countries with innovating products being developed and in emerging countries with the middle class going up, it's a generalized movement. There is a good correlation between the household equipment rate and the GDP per inhabitant.
So now in our world, we adapt to the strategy, and there is the incentive of innovation more than the quality of execution all through the value chain. This is going to be a turning point. We have an advantage versus many of our competitors. We know the whole world. I mean, we have the biggest network. We have marketing resources available, research and development resources, production resources across all the continents, especially in China. China, which is the heart, the beating heart of the innovation ecosystem, production and online trade more than 80% of the world online trade and new methods and new ways that Stanislas will discover -- will describe with under the half hour delivery times, and this is still changing.
So what we observe is that the model is inherited from the past is too complex. Our product diversity, our world presence is a major chunk out. But there is -- it is very demanding because it needs to be controlled in a very accurate way. We need to be quick. We need to be disciplined, and this is absolutely vital. And this leads us to the Rebound plan that Stanislas de Gramont is going to explain, simplification, optimization, acceleration, reallocation of resources to go further and faster.
Our growth engines are there, innovation, geographical expansion, new consumer needs, development of professional areas, which we are the world leaders for and a quicker and more selective and more efficient implementation. Our priority for 2026 and '27 will be to restore profitability quickly so that we can restore our operational standards with an operational margin in excess of 10%, which doesn't mean that we are giving up on our historic turnover growth standard, which we will need to restore once we have restored the profitability target so that we can go back to a 5% per year organic growth as we traditionally have had for many, many years.
One last word for the Board of Directors and the shareholders. I would like to say that in this situation, the Board of Directors is extremely active. Obviously, we are there to make sure that the execution level is on the same level as the strategic ambition. Myself and all the directors are committed to reaching this target. And I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the shareholders, the family shareholders, the employee shareholders, our directors, independent directors for their commitment, the commitment they have shown throughout all of the meetings we have held since the beginning of the year and which we will continue holding until the end of the year.
I will close my introduction by saying, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, we will be able to rely on your long-standing loyalty and your legitimate demand. We are honored but we also know that we have a responsibility we have to provide you with the financial results.
And I would like to thank you for being here, and I will give the floor to Stanislas.
Thank you, Thierry. With Olivier, Cathy, we're going to review the results for 2025, the first quarter, and we'll be sharing with you some important information about the pickup in activity.
Let me immediately start with a very short summary of 2025. We published our results on the 24th of February. I should not repeat what Thierry said for 2025, slight organic sales growth. This conceals some mixed results across a number of categories. Our sales have been up. E-commerce and online DTC across our own sites are very vibrant with 2-digit growth rates. So let's start with the 2. We have been facing cyclical headwinds due to currency effects and to what happened in Americas, the tariffs in North America, the climate in South America and also base effects on professional, which have led to 60% decrease across the year. But besides these cyclical headwinds, we identified some structural elements that have been addressed by the Chair, which has prompted us to quickly launch the Rebound plan to structurally revive our activity, but I'll come back to this later.
Now let's Look at 2025. Let's quickly review the figures. Sales at EUR 8.169 billion, up 0.3% on a like-for-like basis. [indiscernible] at EUR 601 million, it's disappointing, down by EUR 201 million against 2024, which leads to an operating margin of 7.4% against 9.7% in 2024. So minus 2.3%, which has led to a net profit group share of EUR 245 million against EUR 232 million in 2024. But in 2024, we had the fine payable to the French competition authority. So the real comparison base was EUR 422 million. Net financial debt of EUR 2.342 billion, up by EUR 226 million against the end of 2024. And last, a proposed dividend that will be put to the vote of this general meeting, EUR 2.8 per share, it is stable relative to 2024.
Now over to Olivier, who is going to explain this performance in detail and address the first quarter.
Thank you, Stanislas. Greetings. Let's start with Professional. As you can see, a drop in sales of 5.9% on a like-for-like and constant currency basis. Two different quarters. The first half was strongly down. The comparison basis for the first half of 2024 was very high with very high sales with our main Chinese key accounts. And in the second half, a stabilization of organic growth. It was marked by a good performance in machine deliveries in Germany and China. We can also report a good performance in services in Germany, to a double-digit growth in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East. Despite that, customers are still in a wait-and-see attitude to professional customers in the U.S., mainly due to tariffs. As a reminder, there were 39% tariffs on the imports of our machines from Switzerland.
Progress, however, strategically speaking, in 2025 with the strengthening of professional culinary with the acquisition of La Brigade de Buyer that occurred in the first quarter of 2025. As you know, it's a brand of premium culinary cookware professionals and for demanding enthusiasts.
Now let's look at Consumer. Mixed performance here. Well, let's start with EMEA. Europe, Middle East, Africa, up 2%. Actually, if you exclude the loyalty program, it's actually up 2.8%. Now we can see the total markets are growing, 11 markets with growth above 5%, which is mainly driven by the success of our innovations. But some markets, specifically Germany, under-delivered. Eastern Europe, again, very high, growth above 10%. So much for EMEA. Asia now, we're back to growth over the year, plus 2.7%. Of course, it's thanks to our performance in China with organic growth of 2.7%. A market that's not very buoyant, but the activity is driven by our ability to innovate and the success of online sales. Outside China, return to growth in Japan and activity, which is still looking good in the whole of Southeast Asia, which is mainly driven by online sales.
Let's finish with Americas. As you can see, negative growth, minus 4.9% in sales, 2 different realities here. In North America, specifically in the U.S., the market, of course, was affected by the introduction of tariffs in early April by President Trump, which led our customers to engage into wait-and-see attitude. So sales were down in Q2 and Q3. However, the situation has started to normalize again in the fourth quarter, up by 4.7%. In Latin America, mainly the weather effect with the La Nina climate phenomenon, which is very adverse for the sales of fans. As regards to our product lines, we can see a good momentum in cookware, in floor care with the very strong success of washers and also in linen care with the success of garment steamers. One last thing, slight decrease in kitchen in cookware, especially the slowdown in air fryers. Last point, online sales remained vibrant with growth of close to 10%, especially direct sales DTC across our sites.
Let's look at profitability now. The offer, the operating result from activity is at EUR 601 million, down 25%. Of course, this is disappointing. It is under our expectations. The operating margin is at 7.4%, as you can see, minus 2.3% against the previous year. However, we can see here that the performance was better in Q4, EUR 334 million in operating profit from activity offer, only down by 6.7% and a margin at 13.3%, which was slightly lower than the previous year. But I think that the Q4 2024 was an all-time high for the group. So it was a comparison with a [indiscernible] performance in 2024.
Now if you look at what has led to this result in 2025, you can see that here, we're trying to break down the results. We're looking at the 2 different effects, cyclical headwinds and then what we call other effects, which, of course, have led to the launch of the rebound effect. First, let's look at the cyclical headwinds, 3 different aspects that every time account for -- accounts for EUR 40 million. First, the impact of tariffs, as I said, with a very strong drop in Q2 and Q3 in North America. But also, we raised prices to offset tariffs. Of course, there was a lag between the introduction of tariffs in early April and the pass-through of price increases. Now currency, strong volatility in emerging currencies. We were also affected by the strength of USD and of the [indiscernible] at the start of the year. And you will see that it took some time for us to benefit from the depreciation that occurred, which was obvious as from the second quarter.
Last cyclical aspect, Professional, we had a very high comparison base, as we said, in 2024. This activity has an accretive margin gains for the group's margin. Of course, its decline has affected our results. But it's not the only element. As you can see, there's a fourth block, minus EUR 80 million. The growth in volumes and the decrease in production costs, unfortunately, were not enough to offset price pressures and the rise in overheads and communication costs. And as we've said, of course, this prompted us to launch the Rebound plan.
Last thing, as you can see, performance increase in the Q4, you can see that the cyclical effects overall faded in Q4. In North America, we returned to growth, plus 4.7%. The market started to normalize again in Q4. The currency effect also became positive. We started to benefit from the drop in USD and the renminbi that are 2 short currencies and a return to moderate growth in the second half in Professional. We can see that the effect on the rest of activity was more limited in Q4.
Last, let's wrap up with the financial structure and our debt. As you can see, our net financial debt stands at EUR 2.342 billion. Of course, it's been strongly affected by the payment in May 2025 of the EUR 190 million for the fine that we have to pay to the French Competition Authority. As you know, we disagree with this decision. Therefore, we have decided to take steps to apply for refund of that fine. Excluding this, our debt is up EUR 226 million. It reflects 2 things: the free cash flow generation, of course, which is under expectations, EUR 124 million for the year only. Of course, it's due to the result of the drop in the offer and the WCR that remains high, also due to the fact that our investments and capital expenses were higher than the trend of the last years, especially with the famous Shaoxing hub for Professional. And second, of course, it reflects that the dividends at EUR 207 million, including EUR 50 million for SEB and a fairly limited amount in acquisitions, especially with the La Brigade de Buyer.
The financial leverage ratio stands at 2.7 above our objective, which is to be around 2.5. As you know, in 2026, we committed to decreasing this and to returning to approximately 2, which is our objective -- 2.5, which is our objective. That being said, the group's financial structure remains very robust. We have financial security, a very high financial security with more than EUR 2.5 billion in available liquidity. And we carried out a great refinancing with a great bond issue in 2025 with very good rates at under very competitive terms and large subscription, which demonstrates that the financial markets continue to trust us. And as you know, we have no covenant for our debt. So a very strong financial robustness.
Let's move on now to the results of Q1. Sales stand at EUR 1.885 billion. As you can see, growth is up 2.7% on a like-for-like and constant currency basis. The offer, EUR 72 million, up 42% and the operating margin is itself slightly up.
Now if we look at the highlights of this performance in Q1, I shall not discuss again organic growth. Of course, as the Chair said, we are still in a geopolitical and macroeconomic environment, which is highly complex and uncertain which actually has deteriorated since early 2025, specifically since the breakout -- the outbreak of the war in the Middle East. Despite this, we have growth across all activities and regions. I will go back to this in the previous -- in the next slide. And the offer is up 42%, as I've said, of course, relative to the comparison base of Q1 last year, which was low, but the -- there's a positive effect -- the positive effect from the growth in sales. Also, as I've said, the positive effect from currencies, especially short currencies, USD and renminbi and the drop in operating costs. We've been extremely selective in our resources, but also we've reduced our overheads.
All this leads to an improvement of the offer. We've turned it around. And since the announcement in early 2025, we've launched the delivery of the rebound plan. Stanislas will go back to this later on.
On the next slide, you can see a return to growth across the 4 activities, Professional on the one hand and the 3 main regions on the other hand, for Consumer, especially 6.7% in Americas. Now let's look at this in greater detail. In Professional, 1.1% in growth. It is lower than our ambition in terms of medium-term growth. This is mainly due to the wait-and-see attitude of clients and customers in America, but also now in the Middle East, of course, because of the geopolitical context. That being said, our sales momentum is quite good. In China, we can see large volumes with Luckin Coffee. Also, we are still acquiring new customers with ChaPanda, a new tea chain and other tea chains.
In North America, also new clients with the Scooter's, a chain with more than 1,000 sales outlets in America. And in Europe, a good performance in our operations, mainly driven by services. Also another highlight of Q1, the start of production in our new hub in Shaoxing. This will allow us to penetrate in a much more competitive way the office and small retail segment with the peak and elevation models that you may have seen on your way in this building.
Now, Consumer. As you can see, 2.5% growth in the EMEA region. This is mainly driven by good performance in France, plus 21%. Now of course, we do benefit here from major loyalty programs on Q1. But excluding loyalty programs, growth in France is 5%, which is noteworthy. Loyalty points are part of our traditional business model. We do mention this because they do not step in at the same time every year, which may slightly change results of Professional and may change the reading of figures.
Now Germany, our performance is down in line with the performance in 2025. Other EMEA countries slightly down, but the comparison base, especially in Eastern base was very high. And of course, the area is affected by the region in the Middle East. Now for the group as a whole, it only accounts for 2% of our sales. It's an area that is fairly moderate compared with the rest of the group. But for the rest of the EMEA, it accounts for 10% of that zone. Asia, 2.2% in growth. We maintain our growth rate in China, plus 2.3%. Our performance in other Asian countries is still characterized by good momentum in Japan and also good growth in Southeast Asia.
Let's wrap up with Americas, plus 6.7%, in line with Q4. Again, good performance in North America, plus 4.7%. The market itself is not very promising, not very buoyant, but SEB has acquired quite commendable market shares. And in South America, we have -- South America, we have a more favorable comparison base due to the El Nino phenomenon. We are still at an intermediate stage with a decline in the sales of fans, but we still have good commercial successes, especially with the expansion of our ranges in some specific categories.
Thanks so much for the details. Thank you, Olivier. Well, this has prompted us to reassert our prospects, as we said in February for 2026. We do indeed live currently in a macroeconomic and geopolitical environment that is uncertain and deteriorated. I think we can all see the news every day. However, we can confirm our ambition for the offer for 2026 on the one hand. And on the other hand, a free cash flow generation that would be more in line with the average performance of the last years, which means that as early as 2026, it should help us reduce our leverage ratio. Our objective is to bring it down to the group standards, that is a ratio of 2, excluding acquisitions, by 2027.
We have talked about the Rebound plan several times since October and in some of our statements, I think it's important to discuss with you, ladies and gentlemen, our dear shareholders, what that means, what the content of this plan is and what this ambition is. Let's discuss it now.
What is the medium-term ambition to serve the group? The group's mission for the last 25 years has been to improve daily life of consumers and improve their lives across the world. It means a consumer ambition that consists in reinforcing our leadership position. And for professional customers, the initiative started about 10 years ago with the [indiscernible] acquisition. We want to become the reference player across the world.
Now if we look at the assumptions or the working hypothesis that structure our strategy as a group, we feel that we have success key factors, significant success key factors. Thierry said 75% of our turnover is acquired in markets where we are the leaders, #1 for coffee makers, automatic professional coffee makers, #1 for cooking utensils, linen care, electric cooking, #1, #2 for electric blenders, strong positions relying on the position of some countries. We also have a strong brand portfolio, 80% of our consumer sales, DTC consumer sales are carried out with 5 major brands, Tefal, [indiscernible] and WMF. If we add Krups, we reached 85%. And if we add a few more brands with a different name, but actually belonging to the same group of brands, Calor, Tefal for ironing, for instance, it's 90% of our turnover focused on brands or brand systems that are very compact. These brands are often iconic brands. Very often, they are deeply rooted in our consumers' daily life, and it's essential in a world where communication is increasingly focused on brands.
Thierry said this in his introduction, we see the evolution of our environment evolution picking up speed. The speed at which launches are carried out, the fact that product become viral. Innovation is no longer communicated on TV. Innovation is communicated on social media. Innovation goes from product to customer experience. Increasingly, influencers will describe the product and the innovation, not describing the sum of functions and features, but rather the experience lived by the consumers, the interaction with the product or the fact that the product makes some factors in their life easier and the priority is given to social media. A lot start and happens and becomes amplified by social media.
And this is something we need to take in consideration, which brings me to the transition for the next item, the way the relationship between brands and consumers is changing. Increasingly, the consumers recognize themselves in communities, in social media communities, influencers become the content creators, the people who produce the content and the messages talk about the qualities of the brand. The ratings and reviews that Amazon's described very often are becoming vital factors in the choices made by consumers. 90% of the consumers have a look at the reviews before they choose a product.
And finally, real-time data. The world has -- is changing at a fast pace and promotions encouragement for the consumers are changing very, very fast. And mutations are also -- mutations in the access to market are happening at a faster speed. Online e-commerce has developed recently. DTC sales, direct-to-consumer sales are increasing. We see also social commerce appearing. TikTok is developing its own boutiques, its own shops. TikTok Shops in 25 countries over the last 10 years. TikTok Shop is now the third e-commerce network in China. And finally, omnichannel systems, players like Jana, who's #2 in online platform with the Dingdong brand. And they recently acquired CECONOMY, which owns MediaMarkt in Europe, the first channel in e-commerce specialist. So omnichannel trade is developing.
Finally, rising importance of sustainability, something we have observed. Consumers are increasingly aware of repairability, product lifespan, energy efficiency, refurbishment, second life for product recycling. So the world is moving faster. It's picking up speed and is increasingly led by social media. On the other hand, we also have consumers that's not necessarily contradictory, consumers who are looking for sustainable products.
The Rebound plan, the Rebound plan means that we want to restore a profitable transitory, and we are observing vital it is to restore our growth model. We want to act as leaders in innovation by developing new product segments. And we have initiatives such as Coffee Crush, and it's an initiative to reinvent the automatic coffee maker. We want our new marketing practices to become systematized. This applies also to e-commerce practice and -- practices, and we are going to use this [indiscernible] for dozens of products across the world, and we want to accelerate with the more buoyant products. We want to restore our profitability by simplifying the organizations and simplifying our operating methods and simplifying our product ranges. We want to decrease by 20%, 30% our product ranges depending on the family.
We also want to reduce our -- improve our industrial efficacy and our purchasing efficacy. We still have room for improvement. We can improve our productivity, and we are using those opportunities. We want to reduce our overhead by simplifying the way we work and also by using the contribution of AI to its full potential.
Finally, we want to reinforce the connection and the stakeholder engagement. We want to nourish the connection and the involvement of our consumers. We want to develop the way our consumers are involved with our brands. We want to develop meaningful innovations. And we want this to be carried by inspiring brands. We're lucky that we have more than 70% of our turnover coming from cooking, cuisine, where we know there is culture, intimacy, and we go inside the households with our cooking utensils and our brands are a symbol, and we believe this is a trump card.
In such a transformation era, we want our employees to be at the center of the transformation process. So you understand by now that many of our initiatives are across the board levers based on artificial intelligence and the increasing role it is going to play in the way we carry out business. We will have a greater role played by data and simplification. Simplification will become our motto. It will become our [indiscernible] in many things we do for this plan.
Now the Rebound plan, the rebound plan means a number of initiatives currently being discussed and shaped, developed by all our teams. There are more than 300 people involved in developing the rebound plan. It's only the first stage really. The plan will last for many years. And the whole group will go on board, and this will also structure our road map around artificial intelligence.
What do I mean by that? I mean that we are facing some challenges and addressing those challenges. We're fully aware that our world is changing. AI will change the way we do business, will change our companies. A few months ago, we did a 360-degree scan of all the functions, pro and consumer business units, consumer markets. We carried out 140 workshops in Q1 with more than 500 employees. We identified more than 800 use cases where we could generate value. And so we are already working on a very ambitious program.
Beyond the Rebound plan, there will also be a road map given to the group in order to support growth, to improve operational excellence and to rely on a robust technology basis for our employees' sake. We are fully committed, and we will see the first results as early as 2026. And the plan will continue beyond 2026. It will create value for all of our business units, all our functions from turnover generation to margin improvement and also operational efficacy improvement.
On the short term, the Rebound plan will have quantitative targets. We -- the target -- the ambition is to generate as early as 2027, EUR 200 million recurrent annual savings, partly by changing our organizations, partly also by changing the way we perform indirect purchases. It will have an impact on our structures, on our industrial efficacy, and it will also have an impact on our indirect purchasing basis. This plan will involve up to 2,100 positions worldwide, of which 1,400 are located in Europe, potentially 500 in France, but all on a voluntary basis. The plan -- the P&L provisions will mainly be in 2026 with disbursements mostly in 2027. And we believe that the onetime plan cost will be in the range of 1 to 1.25x the recurrent annual savings that we have forecast.
This will bring us back or should bring us back to what has been our road map since 2023. Our 2023 ambition to place the group back on its midterm trajectory for a turn of organic growth of 5% annual growth and an operating margin of 10%, progressing towards 11%. The Rebound plan is aiming at placing us back on this trajectory on this route for 2026, 2027. And then we will continue adjusting and improving the group and adapting it to today and tomorrow's environment and after -- the day after tomorrow's environment. This is it for the Rebound plan.
I will move on and talk about innovation and activation. As you may have surmised in the Rebound plan, we talk about innovation, acceleration, activation, transformation. But I would like to share with you what we mean exactly by that. And what we have already started doing and what we want to continue doing and insist on.
The innovation pipeline, first. But before -- rather than giving you a list of products, I would like to show you a video, a quick reminder of the innovations last year and the coming years.
[Presentation]
These innovations show material results. The washing vacuum cleaners started in 2024 for the first full year in this category, more than EUR 100 million sales in turnover. I mean this is a historical high. This brings us to second position in Europe. Textile stain removers were launched at the same time in Europe. And wrinkle removers, this was an innovation. The first one reached EUR 90 million sales, double-digit growth for garment steamers. And innovation is new products, new categories, but also the renovation of existing categories. You may have followed over the last 10, 12 years, the success of the Cookeo story between 2012 and 2024, more than 5 million products being sold. And we have relaunched Cookeo fourth quarter of 2025 with a new product and a new brand, a brand that was losing steam and was suffering from the consumers looking away. But the fact that we relaunched in 2025 -- Q4 of 2025, the new Cookeo version with a new Cookeo Infinity offer has allowed us to move the whole Cookeo brand in France from minus 20 or so minus 20% sales in 2025 to a 10% growth in 2026. So we are working on innovation. We're working on renovations of existing materials and products.
We're working on new segments, and we're working on core business segments, cooking utensils such as fans, 35% of the group turnover. We have launched with the material success, new initiatives in 2025 in [indiscernible] Europe, but also elsewhere, new offers for stainless steel, cooking pencils, ceramic coating and also [indiscernible] coated stay aluminum in Europe, which are all contributing to making this circled stabilized activity, a growing activity 10% organic growth in 2025, which comes back to what Terry was saying earlier, our products or categories are magic. And even on businesses which we thought were mature -- reaching maturity with high innovation, we can find second [indiscernible] and the new growth area. Now if we look at the portfolio, quite promising. The lean range, development of [indiscernible] 1612 is the evolution of the [indiscernible] found here in the hall. Arata is a lighter version but a better performance version. With Supor, we are launching work ranges work in China is cooking skillet. It's more than 50% of cookware China with the new titanium coating, which seems to have a lot of success. We've sold more than 1 million pieces [indiscernible] described. And in the whole here, you can see the pizza pronto oven, which we will see on TV very soon. There will be a very strengthen TV. I will allow Katy to talk about that later. And finally, coffee [indiscernible], a new kind of automatic coffee machines, much compact, efficient launch in France a few weeks ago and already very successful, absolutely remarkable. We will discuss it late July when we look at the second quarter results.
Innovation in the consumer business, but also professional business. We have recently opened the casing hub as for the re-ID center purchasing and a production facility. And thanks to this new hub, we are now launching 2 new machines, models that have been designed for small companies or office blocks, machines that can make between 50 and 100 coffee cups every day and which are serving a very interesting market. We have operated so seen in March. And I would like to you still have a look at a video to introduce this new hub.
[Presentation]
We're talking about innovation in the last weeks, we've also talked a lot about activation. We have carried out an in-depth review of our activation policies for our new products. And instead of telling you about our marketing strategies, I wanted to share with you the example of the launch of coffee crossed. How did it work. We did a prelaunch with several dozens of influencers 2 months before the official launch to create content to make sure that we fully understand the machine and to work with them on the content that they're waiting to launch. We organized an event in March 2026 in France with 75 influencers with a potential coverage of more than 20 million consumers.
Since the launch, we've had more than 5 million views on the generated content. The product is being rolled out extremely fast. It will be available in more than 50 markets in 2026, and our market share in the first 6 weeks in France has more than tripled if you compare with Delong or other competitors. So a very promising start, a very promising launch. But actually, let's watch short video.
[Presentation]
One thing I had not expected coming to the group event was to run into a guy could say to the coffee well. Someone's spotted me at last. Well, I sitting all night, I'll stay put. Well, that's a good thing, Vincent, because tonight's Coke is revealing its latest gen the coffee crush. And clearly, they went big, well, not for the machine, of course. The size is really impressive. I do not expect it to be so resilient is such screen. It's a sleek, it's really handy, you come up, you walk up, you press puts and gets in coffee. It's small, it's discrete, it blends seamless thing to a kitchen even in a lounge and also aromatic bar tenders that were mixing cocktails with coffee, of course, a crush camera, both with original questions coffee and demonstrations of the machine. And we had everything to spend a great, but I think the main segue is now that's coffee grocers available everywhere for you.
Good afternoon, everybody. Let's carry on with activations. As you have seen, we will continue to organized number of events, which we already have another invent in early April with 60 influencers and journalists presents all our products, all our innovations. The objective was to stage this, like the fashion showing to have the fashion domestic show. I suggest we now so quickly do. It's an emergent into our different bands and our different universes.
[Presentation]
The concept of the event was to have a full day dedicated to our products, have people discover them wanted to convene influencers who attending the event at night. And since probably we've had generally the events who have been writing about our products. We have also signed a partnership with the French Institute of Fashion, Institute of La Mede in Paris. There are 45 luxury companies that are members and said will become a member for a chair on [indiscernible] cookware. It will also be part of some work on the objects of desire that are part of our everyday lives. Here is a video of our show. Visitors could have a fun and play with the different cycles. You can see the evolution of activation in Europe, in the U.S., in the rest of the world. But there's another country where some of these trends are also shaping up, and China is clearly one of the countries that is at the forefront of this, which is 1 of the most advanced countries. We know that merchant social media developed in China, 20% of support sales online are on these merchant sites. [indiscernible], for example, which is known outside China as TikTok.
That's where live streaming was born. That's where a number of activation techniques were born. They are now or cast across the world or live streams across the world. But now we have instant sales that is one order delivered on your to your doorstep in less than 30 minutes with warehouses that are fully automated delivery riders or delivery staff that enter the warehouse do picking themselves. Everything is AI-driven and automated. Same for replenishment of inventories. So we can see that in China, part of the development of merchant social media or -- of new distribution methods and marketing methods and patents are developing. They are developing and expanding beyond the borders of China. And in 2025 only, we opened close to 13 kicked off shops across 13 different countries, but activity is quite intense. Transformation is underway. The point here is to tell you that our innovation is rich. That's the first thing. Second, activation is transforming its amplifying and is developing fast across all the countries where we have operations.
Now of course, we are mindful. We don't forget our ESG ambitions. It's a very strong aspect of the group strategy. It's been a very important aspect since the last since -- for the last 30 years. Now let's watch the first video about the different aspects of our ESG policy.
[Presentation]
[indiscernible] Impacting for the environment, reducing our carbon footprint. We work to decarbonize the activities of our factories and our logistics hubs through energy efficiency and conservation. I have talked about the deployment of the tool over the last few years, which has helped us to reduce overall 20% of energy use across all sites that were equipped with this in 2021. The modernization of our hardware, a lot of plastic injection machines have gone electric. They are much more energy efficient. Also, the development of renewables, the acceleration initio of renewables, 2 very practical cases in shelfing in China, where we have moved from gas to power, thereby reducing fossil-fuel use with, therefore, a strong reduction in the carbon footprint, carbon footprint or the chilled warehouse in Bergen in France, which is our new European warehouses for cookware, which is equipped with PV panels.
This shows that we can meet our demands our own requirements, but also redistribute power to surrounding sites. Then the reduction in the footprint of our products. I will come back to this in the next slides. But we also work on the use and the use of our products and the CO2 emissions -- sorry, let me all say the speaker. CO2 emissions and the use in the lifespan of our products, Sumito the toaster, for example, on the right-hand side, the acceleration of the rising temperature reduces by 20% of the energy required to post your bread. This is quite energy going, so to speak. Well, we've managed to cut energy use by 20%. The same for rice cookers by [indiscernible] where all the work on the conservation we will manage to reduce the energy use in this device. Now as regards to circular economy, as I've said, we work a lot on the development of recycled materials and the integration of recycled materials in our machines. So with 3 key materials, stainless steel, aluminum and plastics, we have some very specific examples, the WMF 1500S plus coffee machine, as you can see on the slide, contains up to 39% of recycled steel which means a reduction of up to 80% of CO2 emissions or the renew range, [indiscernible] face range where we managed to reduce emissions by almost 90%, thanks to the integration of recycled materials.
Also in the last years, we have developed pioneering circle economy initiatives with 2 examples, which I think are highly inspiring and how should I put it, are extremely promising for the future. So first, the aluminum closed buckle that we -- that was -- so it's a collection circuit to recover aluminum parts, recycle them -- so it's the first closed aluminum circuit recycling circuit, it's a global first. It has been expanded to Belgium. We now have plans to develop this in America, in the U.S. another project, which has been extremely popular with consumers and investors the post to the French post office at first has opened more than 1,500 post offices to collect pots and pans for consumers. The other projects that we've mentioned already is the transformation of the -- of our factory in [indiscernible] to turn it into a European refurbishment center. We started this last year.
Now this plant recovers refurbishes and resales of the products of several European subsidiaries. Today, we have 65 per SKUs that are available for sale with reselling prices that are 20% to 30% lower than new products. The ambition is to process hundreds of thousands of [indiscernible] per annum in the medium term. Third aspect regarding the ESG policy. We want to act for the community. We work a lot on our suppliers' portfolio strategically, rather on strategic suppliers. We have -- we want to focus on 500 strategic suppliers that account for 80% of the group's carbon footprint.
We try to work with them with on. We took some steps in 2025. For example, we have organized seminars at the group level in English and Chinese. Fulls strategic suppliers to really onboard them in our carbon reduction push. Another -- well, this is quite an important objective as this accounts for one, less than 1/3 of our carbon footprint less than the standoff prints related to these suppliers.
Now all these efforts have been recognized by institutes and firms that audit and certify or assess environmental performance, extra financial performance of the group. You can see here a number of institutions that are not comments this slide any further, but we are constantly going up. It's quite outstanding because the criteria used by these institutions or these extra financial rating agencies become more and more demanding and more difficult to achieve.
Thank you very much. Stanislas. We've done with the first part, which is about informing you on our activity. We are now going to move on to the more legal and governance related part of this meeting, and we should start with the share capital. You can see on this slide the breakdown of the share capital and shares and both more than 5.3 million shares and voting rights almost 80 million votes. Two things we can say about 2025. First, a great stability in our shareholding structure or in the family shareholding, especially the voting block. I think that the creation of age our [indiscernible] few years back that buying back shares from our shareholders has been quite successful as there has been no diluting effect for a number of years, which is a very good thing for the future.
This will ensure the sustainability of the family control in the voting block. Second point, you may -- actually, you may not see it, but a very strong rise in the number or in the percentage held by individual shareholders. For many years, we used to say that individual shareholders at this part of our shareholding structure tended to crumble. But here, in 2025, we've moved from 6.4% to 9.1% owned by individual shareholders. We are thrilled at this. Many of you are here attending this event today. We'd like to thank you. And we grew from 39,000 to 48,000 individual shareholders over 1 year, a growth of 10%. That's a great success. I'm absolutely thrilled and I would like to thank you for this.
Second aspect, where it's not our [indiscernible] our share price since January 2025. As I said in my opening remarks, it went down by 43%. It's slightly up now by 9%. It's been up 9% since the start of the year. Still, it is at an all-time low or historical low. The only thing I can say here is that we have the same development in our share prices, other players in the market with American or European players who've been through the same ups and downs on financial markets.
Of course, we will do our best in pro results. And we do hope that this will have a bearing on our share price -- the following aspect is our dividends. I think that this chart speaks volumes. You can see that since our IPO, we did not go back to as far as [ 975 ] since our IPO, the dividend has always followed the payout policy decided by our predecessors. That is an annual regular improvement in the dividend, no payout ratio, but regular steady improvement, as you can see here, we took a 20-year period here an annual average versus 7%.
Sometimes when events justified, it's a drop in this figure, sometimes the dividend is put on hold. The only time we reduced the dividend, you probably remember, it was during Kobi, the President of the Republic and the asset the French organization of private business recommended that companies reduce their dividends by 30% to be able to deal with short-time work. So we did it at the time. but we did believe that this year, despite the fact that our results were low, we would maintain our dividend, there was no reason to go against this dividend stability policy.
Now just a quick word on your board, the Board of Directors. Maybe 2 or 3 things I could point out here First, of course, in 2025, we've had [indiscernible] who joined us. He was already with us last year. He replaced Italys Kasko, who had finished his term. Also, the replacement of Laurent Hari, who was representative of employee who has been replaced by Jean Laurent Lacaze, who's here. He works in Italy. And has been sitting on this call with us and the state part taken by several meetings. We're delighted to have them.
We still have 14 members, independent directors account for 1/3 of the entire membership. As you know, that you know that this is a area by the asset [indiscernible]. We only take into account directors, excluding employee directors and employee directors, who are shareholders. That's 4 out of 11. That's 36%. That's above 33% as required by the AFEP-MEDEF code.
Regarding gender parity, we have 50% of women. And if we apply the calculation method, we exclude the directors representing employee shareholders from this calculation. So 5 on 10. So that's 50%. We are on target with the rule, the minimum is 40%. We're even doing better than that. One word on the committee composition, no major changes. Thank you for showing the slide. So 3 committees, Audit and Compliance Committee chaired by Darin Pool, Governance and Remuneration Committee, chaired by Jean-luc independent director CetaneCommittee and the Strategic and CSR Committee chaired by myself. I would simply like to remind you, if we look at every committee, the Governance and Remuneration Committee play 3 roles: governance of the Board of Directors is in charge of the operation assessment procedure.
We assess the committee -- the Board operation. We validate the application for the directors' position. And this year, we also defined table of skills and competencies, which we wanted our directors to have that we had all the different skills experience represented within the board to be efficient. Then we also have to be in charge of corporate officers and follow them. So we want to look at the remuneration policy for corporate officers and their performance is also assessed.
And finally, product. And the third role is regards to human resources, the free action -- free shares plan and the human resource is the challenge [indiscernible]. The Strategic Committee is in charge of strategic orientation, 3-year priorities, which are revised and updated every year and are being introduced to the strategic committee. The CSR policy follow-up on the M&A follow-up, we follow the acquisitions performed and we look at possible acquisitions, and we review these possibilities, and we introduce them to the Board of Directors.
And finally, the Audit and Compliance Committee looks at internal assessment, risk mapping and statutory auditor's appointment as well as the sustainability report, which is acquiring greater importance every year. Independent rates of our committees, the Audit and Compliance Committee is 75% independent. The Governance and Remuneration Committee is 60% independent with [indiscernible] who is representative of the committee has increased the independence rate. So we have a greater percentage of independents. And finally, strategic install Committee, 50% of independent members, attendance rate is [ 100% and 94 ]%, 5 meetings for the Audit Committee and 3 meetings and 3 meetings for the other 2 committees governance, remuneration and trade, you can see so I'm getting ahead of myself.
Finally, last year, we showed a slide regarding trip that the Board of Directors took in China in 2024, we think that the Board should travel to see what is happening on site in the -- across the world, so we travel off-site. And this year, we took all of the Board members to an event taking place in Lyon, it's in English, where the IPC International Products Conference. It's a meeting lasting 1 week, bringing together 800 people representing all business units creating products. We -- you have seen many of them earlier. And we had all the people representing marketing departments and the general management of our markets, selling products and a once a year to discover new products to define our strategies and priorities.
It's a very interesting meeting because innovation is the heart of our business. It's a very important event that we wanted our directors to be able to witness it themselves and they spend half of data, and they really liked it. I think they found it very interesting. That's it. And I will give the floor now to Philippe, we're almost on time. We're in a few minutes. we will try to get it.
Like every year, we're going to have a look at the agenda and the main resolution project. So no surprises, almost always the same. There is nothing really new. Obviously, the audience resolutions on the approval of the financial statements and for instance, the setting of dividends, we wanted to remind you of one thing. With regard to this particular item. Resolution project was submitted called Resolution A in order to set the dividend in a different way from what the Board of Directors is suggesting.
We want to keep the dividend at 2.80, which is in compliance with policy we have been following for the last few years. But shareholders want to decrease the dividend by 40% and bring it down to 1.16. We're going to vote on the resolutions. And when we reach resolution #3. On dividends, if the resolution -- should the resolution be voted, we would not submit the alternative resolution to the vote, which was submitted because it's the contrary, either or it cannot be both of the resolutions being voted. That's it for this particular item.
Then if we move to the next slide, you will see that some initiatives are being reappointed. BPI France investment represented by [indiscernible]. BPI became a shareholder in 2022, she became a director at that time, and she needs to be reported, and we suggest she is really appointed your Board of Director has observed that we were facing a situation where in 2027, we might end up with directors that needed to be renewed and the total of 12 being chosen by the [indiscernible] because 2 are chosen by the employee representatives. So that's half of the directors needing to be renewed.
And for good governance reason, we want to avoid the situation we want to [indiscernible] time reappointments or new appointments. And therefore, we submitted this to the family Board the possibility to postpone to reappointments. So 2 people submitted a resignation for this is [indiscernible] for 3 years and [indiscernible] for 4 years should be very important so that we can reinstall some flexibility in the way we renew the appoint the directors. Then we have the remuneration.
Obviously, the resolutions are the same. There aren't many changes on exchanges. We apply the same rules to set the remuneration of our corporate officers and managers, regarding the export remuneration of the Chairman, the 1 paid in 2025, it is compliant with what you voted in 2025, fixed remuneration and variable remuneration. I'm picturization as the Chairman for the General Manager, as you can see here, and as you probably saw in the document universal regulation document and also in the invitation to the meeting.
The fixed start -- fixed portion has not changed in 2024 and 2025. However, the variable part has decreased for the reasons we have explained because we didn't reach our targets, and there was a profit warning in 2025, as you probably be aware of, which means that the variable recommission decreased about connected condition to quantitative targets and the results which were not reached and also individual targets and a collective operating target for the Executive Committee, which were both considered to be worthy of some remuneration, although they were not extraordinarily high. If I move on to remuneration, there is the detail. And therefore, I suggest [indiscernible] 2026 remuneration policy.
For the Chairman of the Board of Directors, no change. So we can move on regarding the Chief Executive Officer. We would like to apply the same structure that you are already familiar with because we have described them. And I have been seeing them for like 24, 25 years. And obviously, this is a proven system stable in time based both on quantitative criteria, i.e., turnover and financial results the Board of Directors every year and very demanding. You have seen this but also qualitative criteria well, yes, competitive criteria with EFG, which are new.
We started them in 2018. They are directly connected to the ESC group policy, but they can be quantified because they are based on the rate of accidents in workplace, including the temp workers. And based on 2 other pillars, compliance with -- the minimum social basis in those countries where we have factories, checks are being conducted in 4 or 5 sites every year by an independent company called [indiscernible], and they are very famous and experienced for doing this kind of work. With regards to CO2 emissions reductions, Stanislas has already mentioned this earlier, we have targets, and we have reached our results, and those are the quantitative ESG criteria, 15%. Again, quantitative ESG performance. And finally, we have individual performance criteria for this year, essentially, it's about implementing the rebound plan. Next, we move on the other remuneration items.
Here, we have -- anything regarding the ordinary general assembly. Sorry, can you go back? Yes, this is a [indiscernible]. Free share plan, the system the shares are given annually for the managers who can benefit from it, 600, 700 managers, including the Chief Executive Officer and the number of shares is capped. So it's really equivalent to what we saw last year, and it's also based on financial criteria for the 3 years corresponding to the vesting time for share acquisition and 20% for ESG criteria, which is slightly different from the ones being applied for the annual variable retribution.
This is detailed in all the documents you have received. So we'll move on. And we will discuss remuneration policy -- sorry, of course, to close with the Chief Executive Officer, remuneration policy. We have the fixed remuneration, variable the ESG performance and also the retribution in kind, such as the vehicle, the debt insurance and the unemployment insurance. We have resignment commitment, personal protection health insurance line life insurance noncompete indemnity and severance pay.
And I would like to remind you that this is in compliance with the [indiscernible] code. Now we move on to the directors' remuneration policy constant, if we compare with 2025, the total amount was revised in 2025 simply because we performed a benchmark over several years. And we found that there was a 1 difference between the market average and a number of companies that are similar to ours and this is the reason why in 2025, the remuneration level of the directors was revised to be aligned on the market average.
The structure is compliant with the governance of prescriptions. There is a fixed half proportion and the variable portion in this remuneration, there is the Director, the member of the committee and the Chairman of the committee works and I can testify to this. As a member of the Board, our committees are working very hard. And the workload has increased. The Audit Committee for instance need to revise a greater number of risks, different types of risks. And also the ESG committee has to work on the succession plans of the managers. So finally, financial delegations and authorization, very quickly because it's always the same every 2 years, they're back every 2 years.
Cancellation by the company of its own shares. Issue securities within the limit of 10%, issue securities without preemptive subscription rights so directly on the market and capped at 10% of share capital. And finally, we also have level of limitation of authorizations on 2 levels in such a way that we cannot multiply the authorizations in order to exceed 11 million shares, which would be a maximum of 20% of share capital.
Finally, there is a resolution that allows to incorporate reserves and bonuses in the capital. And we also have the resolution on the year program. And we also have a program to comply with the Women on Board directive according to which in the calculation of gender parity, you can take in consideration the lady who represents employee shareholders.
That's it. I'm done with the main presentation on resolutions.
Thank you, Philippe. I will now ask [indiscernible] from the Deloitte company to introduce the stautory auditors report.
Chairman, dear shareholders. On behalf of the statutory auditors presented KPMG and Deloitte, I am honored to introduce a report regarding the annual financial statement consolidated accounts and information regarding sustainability. I'd like to tell you about the essential points on annual consolidated financial statement. Our work is based on professional standards in order to obtain a reasonable assurance that there are no material abnormality.
Regarding annual accounts, we certify that the SFSA accounts give a true and fair view in accordance with French accounting rules and principles on the results of the operations for the year that ended and of the financial position and assets of the company as at the end of the year. We have integrated an observation on the change of accounting method regarding the first application of the new accounting rules regarding modernization of statements.
We have included a key point of the audit regarding the assessment of the participation [indiscernible] and we have no observations on the report and the information with regard to company government.
With regard to consolidated accounts. We certified the deconsolidated accounts based on the IFRS standards adopted by the European Union are true and fair in accordance results of the operation for the year then ended in of the financial position in assets as of at the end of that year on the person and total entities included in the consolidation.
We have included the key audit matters regarding the assessment of the recoverable value of goodwill and trademarks with indefinite useful life. Assessment and recognition of provisions for deferred rebates. We would also like to tell you that we have no observations on the group's management report as shown in the report.
I would like to move to the special report. It will be very simple. We have been informed of no agreement submitted to the Annual General Meeting for approval. And no agreements already approved by the Annual General Meeting that would be continued during the financial year, which brings me to the report on capital transactions. We have 4 reports, 1 report with the 15 resolutions delegation of authority for a period of 26 months and within a ceiling defined in Resolution 19, to issue shares and various share equivalent.
In this report, we have no observations to make. As regards to the issuance of share capital share or marketable securities and access, we do not have any opinion as regards to the terms to determine the issuance terms of the securities. Not anything related to the preemptive subscription rights. When appropriate, we will provide additional information. We also drive to 3 further reports as regards to the fourth resolution regarding the delegation of authority for a period of 26 months to cancel with limited in terms of share capital of 24 months, the shares of [indiscernible] authorization to buy back the company's own shares also reported the 21st resolution, authorization [indiscernible] 14 months to grant existing total shares to employees and/or executive officers and a report on the 22nd resolution on the delegation of authority granted to your Board for a period of 26 months to decide on the issuance of ordinary shares and/or various share equivalents reserved for members of company savings plan.
We do not have any comments to make as regards to these 3 reports as regards to the last one, where appropriate, we will issue an additional report when this delegation of authority is used.
Now on to our last report on the certification of information in terms of sustainability. For the first time last year, this report was presented to you. It includes 3 distinct parts. Each of them corresponds to every standard action as provided for by the commercial code and the guidelines of the French audit institution.
The first [indiscernible] relates to the compliance with the ESRS or the process implemented by the group to determine the information to be published. Based on the verifications we have performed, we have not notified any emissions and consistencies or misstatements as regards the conformity of the process is carried out by the group with the ESRSs. We're mainly focused on how the group updates its analysis of double materiality.
The second trend relates to compliance of information in terms of sustainability with the standards of the French Commercial Code and the ESRS. On the basis of our verifications, we haven't identified any material areas, emissions and inconsistencies regarding the compliance of the sustainability information including the sustainability statements. However, we'd like to draw your attention to 2 points. First, in relation to the data collection limitations that the group has continued to face and the expected progress prospects regarding the remuneration indicator specified in section -- in the following section, ratio within the total annual remuneration of the higher state person and the median annual remuneration of all employees.
The second point relates to the operational limitations of the group that the group -- the operational limitations that the group has continued to face for the reliability and consultation at group level of information relating to reparability product recycling and eco-packaging as specified in section -- in the following section indicators relating to resource use and the circular economy.
The matters that we see particular intention related to the information provided in accordance with the environmental standards, ESRS E1 to E5.
Last, the third strand relates to compliance with the disclosure requirements provided for the Article 8 of the European regulation. On the basis of our verifications, we haven't identified any material errors emissions or inconsistencies regarding compliance with the requirements of the same article. We are specifically focused on the eligibility of activities. Ladies and gentlemen, this was a summary of our various reports for 2025. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much. Thank you for the clarity of your presentation. It's not always easy as the chair. On to questions and answers, the Q&A session though. Let's listen to Philippe's instructions. We have 6 [indiscernible] or attendance will be making available microphones to make sure that the Q&A runs smoothly, if you agree to it to make sure the Q&A session go smoothly, please wave at our hosts to get the microphone so that they can then go on to other participants. Sir?
Good afternoon, Chair, ladies and gentlemen. I have 3 questions. The first one for the statutory auditor. This gentlemen has told us that there was no significant error. But what does it mean by [indiscernible], what is material? 1 million, 10 million, 100 million? Another question regarding competitors. Who is the fiercest competitor for SEB in terms of products, marketing and distribution? And last, you haven't mentioned Africa. Africa is developing much more than Europe, especially it's middle class. Why is SEB not present in Africa?
Thank you very much. Could we give the microphone to one of our statutory auditors Nicolas, maybe so they can explain what they mean by material error?
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Because of the regulation, we cannot give you an answer. I'm afraid that's dissatisfactory but we have to comply with the regulation -- the chair.
Well, if it's -- what the regulation says you cannot give you an answer. I'm absolutely unable to give you an answer on this, I'm afraid.
Now the fiercest competitor. That's a tough one. First of all, the group operates across several regions across several projects family, so to speak. I think the first thing we need to say is that our competitors are very diverse, depending on countries and product families. For example, if we look at cookware in France, our competitors are private labels. If we look at ironing across the world, our competitor is Philips. If we look at electrical cooking, it could be [indiscernible] on geographical areas, Philips in another area. Therefore, I don't think there's 1 single answer. We are not in a linear world as in the business where I used to work, [indiscernible], for example, where there were 3 or 4 global players that have very standardized product portfolios.
I think that as regards the distribution landscape and the competition, several things to say here. First, we are very well balanced with lots of product families in many countries. This is really a fact of that allows us to be very well balanced. We can see that many of our competitors that are very much oriented on 1 product, for example, or 1 family of products like British competitors that are going through success, but also suffering some severe setbacks because they only focus on 1 type of product or 1 type of product family.
Second, competition is evolving very fast indeed and often unpredictably as [indiscernible] said in his opening remarks. You mentioned 2024, right? [ In 2004 ], we had this capital crisis that with the price going down from EUR 25. Today, we are witnessing Chinese competition that works in the lower-range products, that's also premium, more sophisticated products with higher value added. And maybe 5 or 10 years, I could have told you about Japanese or Korean products. Thus I think that this competition issue is a recurring one. This is a very attractive industry. But to us, it's more a stimulation. It encourages us to match our competitors in every single area, marketing distribution. We're not the best everywhere. But we do have this ambition I mean when we're not the best, we try to call ourselves into a question to redo the hard work and become the best.
Now as regards to a question on Africa, you're quite right. We don't talk a lot about it. I was just doing the math. We generated slightly more than EUR 100 million in Africa already. We have very important fundamental foundational initiatives.
We launched a joint venture with [indiscernible], a company in Egypt. It's very successful. Three or four years ago, we entered into another JV in Morocco. It is also thriving. We are the leader in for electrical appliances, small domestic appliances in [indiscernible] in Kenya. Actually [indiscernible] say, the middle class is developing that these markets remain small, for example, in Kenya. I think that in modern mass retail, we have 35% of market share, about EUR 6 million in sales. So what we do in Africa is creating the conditions for the success of tomorrow, making sure that in major urban areas in large metropolitan areas, we have a presence.
Of course, it has to be cost effective. We don't want to overdo it. We don't want to force through this development by working on prices and affordability only I suppose we can discuss this during 1 of our next general meetings, but we are interested in this continent.
Now on a more personal note, I started to work in Africa with [indiscernible] in 1998 in my previous career at Santori, 15% of my business was in Africa. -- what my experience has shown is that we have to be patient. We need to be strategic. We need to do things in the right order. We need to do things right. We need to properly build our brands. We don't want to jump the gun. We don't want to give too fast.
Yes. And I can also say for fun, if I may say so, is that Africa is a constant where there's a lot of counter feeding from China or elsewhere.
For example, there are lots of countries where you have [ Koh'l ] branded products like [ Kahl ], [ Mamolex ] that sounds like Moulinex. So a lot of exotic brands like this. But of course, the prices as exotic -- [indiscernible] rather.
My name -- I'm an individual shareholder. I'm very disappointed at the performance of the share price for this beautiful brand, minus 40% over 10 years. I can't possibly fathom this. You have a beautiful brand. You are a leader and you organize great events. I need to understand.
So I have three questions. First, as regards to the timing of the rebound plan, why did you wait? Why did you wait that long? Why did you wait for the share price to be that low to propose this very strong plan. To me, it's almost like a restructuring scheme. Why this very -- this belated awakening?
Second, about the track record of your launches, I suppose a lot of successes well done. But maybe all sorts of flops. Maybe this could shed light on your operating methods. Could you give us some examples? And could you maybe explain why they didn't work?
Third question about your great stake in Supor, 83%. Could you tell us more about its market cap today, its market valuation? Is it possible to raise your stake?
And one last bonus question. I'm quite curious how do Supor general meetings go in China? What about the Q&A sessions at Supor general meetings in China? Thank you very much for your questions.
First of all, we do understand your frustration and your anger. No one can be satisfied at these results. The first thing we need to say here that we need to say loud and clear. We have members of the Executive Committee here. This is a concern that we share with you.
As regards to the timing of the rebound plan, it was announced in September, the end of September 2025. We started to work on it with the Executive Committee in July. I think it's important to remember that in 2024, the group's performance was -- in terms of sales, I mean, was satisfactory. It was not at 5%. I think it was in the region of 4%. There was a significant improvement in the reported operating profit.
The rebound plan is not a response to the share price. It's a response to what we think we are seeing a structural need to transform the company to become profitable again, but also the management team does believe that there are cyclical explanations of our performance in 2025, but let us not be fooled. There are more structural issues that we need to address and tackle.
The rebound plan is not a response to the evolution of the share price. It's an initiative of the management team. We have looked at the more structural dimensions of what has to be done, if we want to return to this profitable growth path.
As regards to the results of our launches, you're quite right. Some of them are successful. Now you're asking me about the flops. Well, it's not -- it doesn't work like this exactly. We don't have launches that are unsuccessful. The thing is that we have a core business where things might deteriorate. Let me give you a very simple example. Optigrill, one of our products, which I suppose account for about 10% of our sales in Germany. This product has been down by 15% to 20% in the last 15 months. The problem is not that innovation didn't work. The problem is that we have countries that are really mainstay pillars where activities crumbling is eroding. That's the problem when you have a large product portfolio, large coverage in terms of family -- product families and geographical areas.
I used to -- I said earlier on that it is an advantage can act as a shock absorber, but there's a problem. If we want our innovations to be successful, to be tangible successes, we need to take steps. Now if you look at this rebound plan in greater detail, all we say is that we need to be faster in our innovation. We need to be stronger and more relevant in how we activate this innovation. What do we mean by that? More relevant in the activation. That means it's all about our ability to turn a good or great idea into a good success and possibly a great success.
We did some launches in the past that were, for example, superior to the washer. Now the innovation -- the great thing with the washer in its launch in 2025 is that it's been a success, and we generated EUR 100 million, but it's not enough. We need to have five launches like this and more and faster. Why? That's the very purpose of the rebound plan. We do this because our competitors respond to the market much faster than before.
10 years ago, when you launched an innovation, you would see the first Chinese copies or counterfeits or copy products get on the market 5, 10 years later. Now it's after 3 or 6 months. And in China, we visited Supor with Thierry a few weeks back. copies hit the market maybe 8 weeks afterwards. So we do some monitoring of the competition, especially in China. It gives us the objective in terms of pace, the standards we need to meet in order for us to generate innovation that is successful, but not only that, innovation that can offset what is not as successful and that can generate this additional growth that we wish for. Also, we have to be the first on the market segments that we're interested in. And we want to be able to derive some profits for this and faster than our competitors. Thank you very much for what you said about Supor for what you said.
Now about Supor. -- you're absolutely right. At this point, Supor is worth EUR 4.8 billion, [ CNY ] 9 billion, whereas SEB is worth [ CNY ] 2.9 billion. So even if we have 83% of our share capital. That means that actually Supor is much -- is worth much more than SEB as a whole. If we want to buy the remaining EUR 2 billion, that means that we go in the red and we're negative. That doesn't make sense.
Now let me give you some information, a few points. Supor is EUR 3 billion, EUR 3 billion for China. But for a lot of people who look at Support through SEB, it's EUR 2 billion. For 15,000 Chinese shareholders, I can see a company that generates EUR 3 billion in sales, which first is very big. It's the largest one. And second, which is clearly the undisputed Chinese leader today. we have already overtaken Douyin and [ BDA ], which they are very dynamic. Second, as you know, clearly, the market cap on Asian stock exchange, especially on Shenzhen have the multiples that are much higher than the European stock market and the French stock market. It all comes into play.
And now the third reason, I think, is that the share price is particularly low. Supor's share price is not very much different or is not lagging behind that of its Chinese competitors. It's fair to say that SEB share price is way under what we would like it to be. It should reflect the company's value. I think, however, that China that has been driving us -- that really drove us a few years back when we had this development of -- from EUR 130 million to EUR 2 billion on the Chinese market.
Two things have changed since then. First, China scares a number of people since Xi Jinping became President and also since the COVID policy that has caused some doubts as to the strength and reliability of China, we believe it's overstated. And also some still believe that China can have a 10% annual growth rate.
But if you have an opportunity to go to China, go to large Chinese cities, even in small 10 million cities like Hangzhou, where we are based, there are many more Lamborghini and Porsche car dealerships than in Paris. Today, China is a mature market with an equipment rate within -- amongst households for our products, which is very high. Actually, the products we sell are very expensive on the Supor market. There's been an evolution. And the development of China means that today, China's growth rate will not be the same. However, the most fundamental explanation is that SEB share price, we believe, but of course, we cannot judge our own share price. All we can say is that we are fully determined to ensure that results pick up fast to make sure that investors can trust the plan that we want to deliver that they will trust in our recovery.
And I do hope that the share price will move fast as it already has, as it already did. Our share prices have dropped until October 2022. I think we were in the region of -- I think we lost most of our value. We were at EUR 58, and then we picked up at the general meeting in May 2023 up to EUR 106 , EUR 58 to EUR 106 in just a few months. I do hope and we'll do our level best to make sure that we can do the same.
Now about how a general assembly is conducted in China, I'll allow Philippe to answer that question.
Well, according to Chinese law with regard to the stock exchange, they're very close to ours, our system. They've tap into our system and the British system. They've mixed the 2. So it's very mature, legally speaking. However, in practice, there are some differences, especially one. There are no shareholders carrying the shares. Everybody is registered. If you have a share, you cannot just simply carry the share. You have to be registered by the administrative authorities. So the visibility on the capital composition on -- it's very detailed. We don't have that in Europe.
And also regarding general assemblies, there are very many resolutions. There are many more items being voted on during the general assembly, especially the related party agreements between the shareholders and SEB because there are EUR 1 billion worth of products being called as related party agreements and being sold under the group's brands. And this is voted in the assembly and scrutinized with attention.
There are a few questions. The general assembly is entirely remote in the meeting -- in the Board meeting room, there are only the managers present, a few directors and all the shareholders are attending the general assembly online and voting online.
There's another question I did not have time to answer, sorry. You were asking if we had 82% and whether we can increase. Yes, we can. We can go up to 80%, 90%. And from 90% onwards, we would have to unlist the share, and we don't want to do that, but we want to be listed in China. We're the only company across the world, having been authorized by Chinese authority to have the majority control of a listed company. That had never happened before 2007. It's never happened since 2007. So we have a very special situation, but we like that. It's very good for us because we are de facto a Chinese company. Yes, we own 83% of the shares, but the other 17% are very small shareholders. No one has more than 1%, 1.5% of the shares, individual shareholders, financial shareholders, pension funds, but they have a very limited number of shares. So we are in control. We are the captains. It means a lot.
But on the one hand, it means that we have -- we need to have three independent directors. We have six directors. And the rest are independent directors. We have accounting professor, a Chinese professor teaching accounting in China. It's by law. We have to have that. And we also have two ladies, independent directors. One is a French lady living in Shanghai and the other one is Chinese lady who lives in Paris. She's a lawyer. And the Board meetings are held every quarter, at least twice we meet in person, and we perform a working session just like any other Board meeting in France. It's very interesting.
That's it. And now we have -- yes, according to the Chinese law that's recently changed. There used to be a group of shareholders who sat on the Board and did not vote. Now we have an employee director who votes. It's been the same one for like 20 years, the same person, but now he has a voting right. He's in the company as a factory manager, and he -- we have great stability with regard to management on all the levels. I think that last year, we ended out 600 medals for people who were -- had been in the company for more than 10 years and 60 medals to people who have been with the company for 30 years. They say that in China, there's a lot of turnover. You have a look for yourself.
Patrick individual shareholders representing the National Association of French Shareholders. And I would like to thank you and congratulate you on the increase of the number of individual shareholders. Now the first question, you explained that you moved from 6.4% of the capital held by individual shareholders to 9.1% that family shareholders were stable. So it's institutional shareholders that have lowered their share in the capital. Is it possible that the lower share value comes from the fact that institutional shareholders have left the company?
And the second question, if I may. Mr. Gramont, could you please tell us more to elaborate on the TikTok Shop? Where are they located? How does it work? How do they work?
Well, I will answer the first question. Yes, of course, we cannot rule out that some financial investors who saw the share value dropping decided to pull out, and we cannot exclude that this might explain also the shareholders' value dropping. And TikTok shops, yes, I can explain where they're located. TikTok is a social media, very powerful in China. The figures for September last year are staggering, 800 [ million ] weekly visitors, 800 [ million ] weekly visits in China. it's huge, it's staggering. TikTok started developing in Southeast Asia. So the more mature TikTok sites are in Southeast Asia. And it makes sense that social media sites becoming an e-commerce site happens where there is the greatest traffic. So the first places where we opened TikTok shops were Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, and we opened them on the brand that we sell in those countries, Tefal. These are countries where only -- almost only Tefal products are being sold.
Then there's a second level. The countries where TikTok developed in priority outside of Asia. So it's the United States, and I think that it was October, we opened the Tefal TikTok shop in the U.S. The United Kingdom also, we opened fourth quarter, we opened the shop. And then Germany is a country where TikTok is developing.
This is for the TikTok brand. We also opened two sites for the Rowenta plant, one in the U.S. because in the U.S., we sell two brands, Rowenta and Tefal. And in Spain, we also have Rowenta very strong on floor management, maintenance and linen care. And Spain is a pilot market. So we also have a Moulinex site. And one of the biggest brands in one of the biggest countries is WMF in Germany. WMF, we opened a shop -- a site -- a TikTok site in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Good afternoon. Now if we have a look in 15 years from now, we will have populations from Japan, India and Europe aging, many elderly people who will be overequipped. The only country where the 30-year-olds will increase in numbers will be the United States. And then in India, there will be a 400 million middle class. Half of the population less than 30 years old will be in India. They will need to buy equipment, have access to our comfort level. Do you have a factory in India? Are you going to organize a hub with China? How do you see this market in the coming years? Because we should start thinking about the future now.
I will allow Thierry to answer the question. It's his specialty. And I will add something if I need to.
We're agreeing according to the U.S. The U.S. is a very dynamic market. We're very -- we have an average presence in the U.S., but we could reinforce it. And if the conditions are met. Very few players have succeeded in the U.S., only two of them, and they cannot be bought and the others are not doing well at all.
India. India, how can I phrase this? India is a bit of a mystery to me because India is a country where the population is growing. It's a country where they are developing not so more with industry, but rather with service. They are very well educated and university trained. They have all the conditions to become a big country, the biggest country in the world with regards to population, and this should be developing very fast.
So that's the theory. And until now, we haven't seen it happen in our business, in our industry for two reasons, two main reasons. The first reason is that India is a country where there is no modern retail distribution network. It's coming, but it's very slow. They prevented all international distributors from taking a foothold in the country, and it was allowed on the federal level, but every state refused it. And the trade system is still based on mom-and-pop stores, very small stores, local stores, 15 square meters, each selling their own product. And oftentimes, the products are very basic products. So it's not a structured market. There are no big players and the distribution network is fragmented.
And it is also an extremely complicated country. It's a federal state, and they have excise duties between the state, the federal state. Logistics are scary because you drive on the motorway and then all of a sudden, there's a car crossing motorway. It's a country where country to China. I mean, China was a very quick development. In India, we have never succeeded. And I don't think that it is among our priorities. India is clearly not on our list of priorities. It will take so much time. And there are other countries such as Southeast Asia countries where the population is high and they have a much higher purchasing power, and they will become a El dorado, which we can conquer faster than India.
Well, even mature countries, developed countries, so-called saturated markets, they continue to grow in an interesting way. Household equipment rates in Western Europe, according to our figures, reached 25, 28 appliances per household. And we see that the consumers tend to duplicate or even triplicate their equipment in every French household, there is 1.8 vacuum cleaner. 15 years ago, there was less than 1 vacuum cleaner per household. Now there's more than one vacuum cleaner. So what you're saying is quite relevant. demography growth will come from India or the U.S. However, we see growth pockets through innovation in mature countries, mature markets. Three more questions here.
[ Jean-Michel Chi ] here, I'm an individual shareholder. I have three small questions, three things I'd like to discuss with you, Tefal, whose brand image is suffering from the anti adhesive coating. And apparently, one director. Well, there was one issue where the Tefal plant is located. So in order to make sure they don't lose too many jobs in that factory, do you have any substitution products, maybe fine plants with different coating or titanium coating that could be manufactured there so they don't lose all their jobs there.
And Supor, their e-commerce site, does it sell products that you want to push in those countries? Or is the trade limited to Supor product? And finally, in the presentation, in Mr. Sumeire's presentation, I did not quite grasp the attribution of performance shares in 2025. I think it was 13,000, but we didn't see any variation versus the previous year. The variable share dropped, the variable portion dropped. Did the performance share number decrease as well?
Well, we'll talk about [ PFAS ] at the end. Supor maybe first, Supor, e-commerce site. Yes, we choose. We decide together with Supor what we want to sell on the Chinese market. I'll give you an example. We are currently developing a range of coffee makers, coffee machines with international brands sold and developed by Supor. So choice of what we sell on the Supor e-commerce site and the choice of brands we offer is definitely something that we control the group and Supor is behaving like a market company. If we want to launch a new range of fine pans or mixers, blenders or cookers, it's the -- we decide what brand we want to sell the products under.
Well, we have [ AR ], big success in Europe, and we have an A team with a support brand in China, and it's also very successful.
Philippe Sumeire, two words. On the performance shares. There is the annual attribution, but that can only be acquired over a 3-year period. So the one you're talking about 2025, 13,000 shares can only be measured the final performance and the real assignment of number of shares that could be lower or higher. It will be measured over the '25, '26, '27 period, and it will be measured in May '28 based on the economic performance of year '25, '26, '27.
How is the economic performance target set? Every year, the Board following the disclosure of the accounts will decide on the targets set by the management. It was set targets for turnover and over. And just to give you a concrete example, on the 2023 plan, what was given -- distributed in 2023, measured in 2023, 2024, 2025, the economic performance was quite okay, 120% in 2023. 2024 was even higher than that. The offer was EUR 200 million, and then the next year was 0. So in average, for 2023, again, measured in '23, '24, '25, it was 74% of the shares that had been promised. So there were -- the number was decreased. There was an impact on the number of shares being given to the CEO or the other managers who can receive performance shares.
Does it answer your question? Let me answer your question. The group makes stainless steel pans and also in [ KEFI ] and for [ RE ], the pans are mainly made in ceramics and [ PTFE ]. So we have both coatings on our site. And of course, we stand our ground. We have a very clear objective. We want to remain the #1 in terms of all materials.
Hello, I'm an individual shareholder. Thank you very much for all these product presentations. That's something that we haven't discussed at all, which, however, I think is very important. The ergonomics and the user friendliness of your products. Very often use manuals or user manuals are lacking. And sometimes users have to deal with extremely complicated tasks. Do you have an example, sir?
Well, first, I suggest we address this outside this general meeting about products that leave our factories that cannot be used, that's a real problem. We try to make sure that users' manuals are increasingly paperless, that we have videos on YouTube and pictures online.
I would be tempted to say that actually, we do a lot to make our products accessible to explain how they work. But if you have a different take on our product, I would be very interested. And a couple of people -- a couple of my colleagues on the Executive Committee will listen to what you have to say.
I just have a quick comment. You talked about 360 degrees for the scan. Well, that's -- you've come full circle if you do 360 degrees. Anyway, you referred a lot to AI. You haven't mentioned at all human intelligence. I would like to understand what AI will do for this company according to you. How will it develop within the group, especially in terms of jobs, can you give us an overview? Thank you, for your answer.
360 degrees, that's more comment than a question. Yes, a 360-degree scan. That means that you look at everything from all angles. You look at all scopes of the company. Now as regards to AI, maybe the two of us can answer this.
Let's proceed this way. Artificial intelligence offers a number of opportunities to optimize, to improve things. There are several ways you can harness AI. What we try to do is to find the right balance between AI and human intelligence or rather the human factor. [indiscernible], I suppose you can continue.
We -- our work on AI rests on several pillars. First, people, as you said. The idea is that it should be a tool to augment the capabilities of our employees and not displace them.
We said, for example, we've worked on 800 use cases. We don't want to use AI for the sake of it. We want to introduce it when it really helps us also when we can -- when we have the data for it.
Of course, we are going to focus on AI. Of course, we want our employees to be able to keep abreast of what's happening in AI. We don't want them to become obsolete. If they are not surrounded by AI and assisted by AI, it might become very difficult.
Let's not forget that we have several pillars, three pillars. We have one pillar about responsibility because we do also take the account on the environmental footprint of AI, but also we have another pillar on human training and we're trying to see how we can help our employees. AI is meant to augment our employees, if I can use that term.
I'd like to pick up on this because it's absolutely essential. We have always worked on employability. I think that the duties amongst others, one of the duties of companies to make sure that our employees remain employable. And that applies to the industry. We've, for example, worked with people to help them move from assembly jobs to robots or machine controlling work. We want to make sure they remain employable.
Now AI is a revolution that is going to hit all businesses with full force across the world. If we don't prepare our employees to use AI, they will not be employable anymore. We need to do this. It requires a lot of hard work, but I think that it's one of the duties of business. the member of the public.
I understand your answer. But in your presentations and in your remarks, you haven't mentioned people at any time. That's just my point. I do understand that AI cannot be ruled out. But maybe you could say that at some point that someone thinks that the team thinks that an R&D team thinks on this. Maybe it would be worthwhile saying this during a general meeting.
Thank you. It gives me an opportunity to clarify this. On one of our slides, you have the number of people, employees, humans who took part in these workshops because we don't forget them. They are at the very heart of our work. We mentioned employees who were onboarded on this AI road map. We already have 500 people. It's a joint development. We don't impose this on our employees. It's teamwork. We can take one last question, if you don't mind.
A quick question about the rebound program. Is it the program of last resort? Is it because there were delivery mistakes by the current management? And how can we be sure that the rebound program will be successful because I've gathered that when you buy out entities in the professional sector, it was to develop them.
I can see that figures in the professional sector are very poor. How can you guarantee that this rebound will happen? And I'm thinking here about the share price, which reflects this. We are at the very bottom. We bottomed out.
One last point about the eighth resolution. It's a question I wanted to ask last year. We have the remuneration of the Chair, EUR 750,000 and corporate officers fees as well. I asked at the time about the pension of Mr. Les [indiscernible], and I was told that it was confidential information. Actually, I've double checked. It's on the reference document on Page 128 of 2022. And the pension that was financed at the time by said was EUR 450,000 per annum.
Therefore, I'd like the company to include this information on the eighth resolution or the information that is in the reference document as it gives information about the Chair's overall remuneration.
As to your first question, the rebound plan is not the plan of last resort, and it's not a response to what's happening on the stock market. That's what I said in response to the first question that was asked.
The rebound plan is meant to adapt the practices and policy and organization of the group to today's context and to the context of tomorrow. It's important to do it now because this context keeps changing ever faster. We need to do this swiftly as we know that after the rebound plan, there will be other evolutions. We know that the pace of innovation will accelerate. There will be an intensification of activation policies.
Thus, the question is not whether rebound is the last resort. We've generated EUR 600 million in operating profit last year. However, it's required or necessary adaptation of the group of its policies of how it works of its organization so that it can deal with the competition and with consumers. Excellent. Right. I can see that it's quite late. We are behind schedule. You do have a question?
Just a quick question about AI. You mentioned AI in the rebound plan on repeated occasions. There are several types of AIs. For example, if you look at what NVIDIA says, they categorize the different types of AI. There's perception AI, agentic AI, generative AI and robotic or physical layout, it is mainly robotic. Could you give us specific examples of how you want to use AI in these different categories?
It can be, for example, to answer or to help some of our consumers, for example, chatbots to help consumers. Also for prediction, AI, the AIs that can look at supply chains. You know that we have a lot of work in terms of deliveries. Also content automation to do things faster rather than using agencies. We've identified 800 potential use cases that are interesting.
What about the Agentic AI? We do have agentic AI, but not only that. I'm talking about use cases to make sure it's clear to all our shareholders, yes.
Excellent. Let us now move on to the vote, the final quorum. Over to you, Philippe.
The final quorum has slightly improved. 4,068 shareholders attending or represented at this general meeting. It represents 71.32% and 71.9% for the extraordinary General Meeting, 71 -- that's a voting -- that's 78% in terms of voting rights. You can see the figures here. The general meeting can validate on the ordinary and extraordinary issues.
If you don't mind, we'll briefly describe each resolution before the vote. The voting devices have been handed to you. Instructions will come on screen. It's the same as every year. Please make sure you -- well, remember that you have 8 seconds to vote on each resolution. Can you play the video? It's the instructions on how to use the voting device.
[Presentation]
Right. The first resolution, approval of the separate financial statements for the ended December 31, 2025, showing a net profit of EUR 127,161,182. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is over. This resolution is approved at 99.96%.
Second resolution, the consolidated financial statements, EUR 244 million.
[Voting]
The results are on its way. The vote is closed. This resolution is approved with 99.9%. It is approved.
The third resolution, allocation of the profit of the results. That is the setting of the ordinary dividend at [ 2.8 ]. And remind you of what I said at the start of this meeting. It is an alternative resolution relative to the resolution tabled by a shareholder. We have [ 1.68 ] in the alternative. And this is the third resolution [ 2.8 ]. Let's start the vote.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 83.13%. This resolution is approved. We won't have to vote on Resolution A, which is considered as rejected.
Fourth resolution, reappointment of BPIfrance Investissement represented by [ Ms. Adeline Lemaire ] for 4 years. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 93.4%. This resolution is also approved.
The fifth resolution, appointment of Mr. William Gerard for 4 years as part of the staggering of director terms. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 88.47%. This resolution is approved.
On to the sixth resolution, appointment of Mr. Thierry as Director for 3 years, as part of the staggering of director terms. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 90.19%. The resolution is approved.
On to the seventh resolution, approval of the remuneration of all executive officers. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 96.72%, this resolution is also approved.
On to the eighth resolution, the ex-post remuneration of the Chair for 2025. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 76.41%, this resolution is approved.
On to the next resolution, the ex-post remuneration of the Chief Executive Officer for 2025. Vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 78.26%. This resolution is approved.
On to the remuneration of the Chair of the Board for 2026. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. This resolution is approved with a majority 82.41%.
On to the next resolution, the remuneration for 2026. It's the structure of the remuneration policy for the CEO. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 82.47%.
This resolved to the 12th resolution, which is the approval of the remuneration policy for directors. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 85.12%. This resolved.
On to the resolution 13, authorization to be granted to the Board of directors to buy back its own shares. The vote is open.
[Voting]
This resolution is adopted majority of 77.75% of the votes. We move on to Resolution A, which is not going to be voted, on Resolution B, which was not approved by the Board of Directors. Resolution B is about setting of the total amount of directors' remuneration at EUR 650,000 from EUR 1.1 million for the 2026 financial year. The vote is open.
[Voting]
Votes closed. This resolution is rejected 80.75% Extraordinary resolutions, Resolution 14, authorization to be granted to the Board of Directors need the company to cancel its own shares. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed, 99.24% is approved.
The next is Resolution 15 to increase the share capital by issuing ordinary shares and all securities giving access to the share capital and debt securities. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed, 86.58% in favor, the resolution is adopted.
Resolution 16, delegation of authority granted to Board of Directors to issue ordinary shares and securities by offering on the market. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 83.57% adopted.
Resolution 17 follows the 16 delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors to issue ordinary shares and using the referred to in Article 41 and the vote is open.
[Voting]
Resolution adopted 83.3%.
Resolution #18, issue of power to the Board of Directors to increase the company's share capital by issuing shares and/or securities, giving immediate or future access to the company's share capital and consider for the company. The vote is open.
[Voting]
85.18% approved.
Extraordinary resolution #19, blanket ceiling on financial authorization. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 97.89% approved.
Extraordinary resolution #20, delegation of authority to be granted to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital by capitalizing retained profit premiums. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 99.88%.
Extraordinary resolution #21, authorization to be granted to the Board of Directors to grant performance shares to the general management and the managers. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 96.66% resolution approved.
We move to resolution #22, delegation of authority granted to the Board of Directors to carry out share capital increases restricted to members of the company or group savings plan. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. Resolution adopted 99.45%.
23, amendment of article 16 of the bylaws. We already explained earlier. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed. 97.82%, resolution adopted.
Finally, the last one is resolution 24, powers to carry out formalities. The vote is open.
[Voting]
The vote is closed and the resolution is adopted, 99.94%. All the resolutions have been approved, Chairman.
Thank you, Philippe. Well, before we close, I'd like to thank you for attending the general meeting and for voting all the resolutions submitted by the Board.
Please do not forget to give back your voting device, and you will be given a token of our appreciation. We would like to thank you, and we will meet you again next year for the next general assembly.
SEB — Shareholder/Analyst Call - SEB SA
SEB — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Welcome to the Groupe SEB 2026 First Quarter Sales Presentation. Today's conference will be hosted by Stanislas de Gramont, Chief Executive Officer; and Olivier Casanova, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. [Operator Instructions]
Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you for attending this call. I'm Stanislas de Gramont. I will be managing this presentation together with Olivier Casanova, our CFO. We will start with a short presentation, I think, and then we'll carry on with answering your -- all the questions you may have.
Olivier, you want to get started?
Okay. Thank you, Stanislas. So moving on to the key figures for the quarter. Our sales stood at EUR 1.885 billion, up 2.7% on a like-for-like basis. ORfA stood at EUR 72 million, up 42% and operating margin was up 1.2 percentage points at 3.8%. So moving on to the highlights on the next page. As I said, 2.7% organic growth. Of course, we have been operating in Q1 in an environment with a lot of uncertainty on the macroeconomic and geopolitical front. And of course, it has deteriorated in the latter part of the quarter. We'll come back to that, no doubt in the Q&A.
In this environment, however, we have delivered balanced growth between activities and region, driven in large part by our innovation portfolio. ORfA has increased year-on-year, of course, supported by a favorable base effect because the Q1 ORfA of last year was low by historic standards, but also supported by organic sales growth and a decrease in operating expense. And finally, we have launched the rollout of our Rebound plan, and it is progressing in line with the announced schedule.
So moving on to the top line. So as I said, 2.7% organic growth. We have a currency effect of minus 3.8% and no change in scope because La Brigade de Buyer, which was acquired in -- at the beginning of 2025 was consolidated for a full quarter. So let's describe briefly the currency effect. Of course, we have a negative impact from the depreciation of the CNY and the U.S. dollar. We all remember that they were actually quite firm in the first quarter of last year. And the CNY has depreciated year-on-year 6% and the U.S. dollar 11%. Secondly, we have also suffered from the depreciation of the Turkish lira and the Japanese yen. We can expect, in particular, for the U.S. dollar and the CNY, of course, a lower impact later in the year given the depreciation that we experienced in '25.
Now let's look at the split of our turnover by business unit. So our Professional business unit had EUR 231 million sales in Q1, up 1.1% on a like-for-like basis and Consumer sales stood at EUR 1.654 billion, up 2.9% on a like-for-like basis. So overall, as we said, a balanced organic growth, 1.1%, as I mentioned, on Professional. And you can see that on the Consumer side, it's also quite balanced by region with 2.5% growth in EMEA, 2.2% growth in Asia and a hefty 6.7% growth in the Americas.
So now I turn over to you, Stanislas, to cover these results in detail.
Thanks, Olivier. Let's look now at the detailed description of our activities per activity -- sorry, sales performance per activity.
Starting with the Professional business, where we experienced a slight organic growth with an activity that is up 1% organically, which is very much in line with our Q4 2025 trend. What we can see on the less positive side is that a persistent client wait-and-see attitude, of course, in the United States. This has not changed materially since the last quarter or the last quarter of last year, but also in the Middle East for obvious reasons, and that's intensified by the geopolitical context, of course.
Yet we see a continuation of the positive commercial momentum, consolidating our leadership in China with Luckin Coffee, our biggest customer out there, but also new contracts in tea chain segment with a customer called Cha Panda, which is progressively expanding -- where we are progressively expanding our coverage. We also see new customers coming in, in North America, a chain called Scooter's of restaurants, that's a very good customer for us. And last but not least, Europe has shown positive performance, driven in particularly by the service business, which is more than elsewhere compensating the wait-and-see attitude on new machines purchase.
We see and we are expanding our new growth levers. You know that by now that we've opened our Chinese hub in Shaoxing for production and development of new coffee machines, new ranges of coffee machines. And the 2 first new models we've developed called Peak and Elevation have seen great reception, particularly in the small businesses and offices segments, be it in Asia or in Europe.
Now when it comes to the Consumer business, Olivier was saying that we have a balanced organic growth with total Consumer up 2.9%, EMEA up 2.5%, Asia up 2.2% and Americas up 6.7%. And before going into the details of these performance, it's interesting to look at the innovations that drive this performance. The big hit of last year, the washer category with X-Clean 10, which category we've reached EUR 100 million in 2025. We launched and are expanding last year -- we launched last year and are expanding this year, AeroSteam, which is the first vacuum garment steamer. We have a great expansion of our Titanium wok in Supor in China. The big success of Q4 last year that is continuing into Q1 is Cookeo Infinity, which is combining great multi-cooker programming and cooking programs together with air fryer function and the storing function. And the last 2 newcomers in the market that have been launched in France in March are Pizza Pronto, which is an electric pizza oven outdoor and Coffee Crush
which is a revolutionary bean-to-cup coffee machine, which again, has started in France in March and is really giving promising results at the start.
But beyond products and product innovations, we've also moved forward in the way we interact with consumers. We've made 2 kind of great activities. We had -- we organized in early April in Paris, a SEB Fashion Domestic Show with a digital show and staging, showcasing our consumer innovations, staging products as iconic pieces with lights, music, narration, a very original way to portray and to display our products. We've done great stunts on collections and immersion with product demos, with interactive experiences, with a gallery of innovations in best sellers, outdoor spaces, conviviality and tastings. And last but not least, we had great following and attendance by influencers. We've generated premium content on site that have boosted the visibility of those innovations. We had over 60 influencers with a cumulative reach of 16 million people. And in the very day of the event, we had already 1 million views on content generated that day.
So that's what we did generally to introduce our innovations in France. But we also did a very specific dedicated event for the Coffee Crush launch, which started actually 2 months before the event with a prelaunch phase with influencers. We co-created content with them, the Crush Crew, as we call them, with a claim that is all the taste, less space. This machine is only 15 centimeters wide. So it is the most compact bean-to-cup coffee machine. And during that event at the end of March, we gathered 75 influencers with a total reach cumulated over 20 million. And since launch, we've generated over 5 million views. And last but not least, we've launched it in France, but we are now fast rolling out in over 50 markets by the end of 2026. So you've heard us say in the last few months that we will evolve our go-to-market, and we will intensify and accelerate our innovation strategy. And I think these are prime examples of what is changing in the way we connect and interact with consumers.
Now back to numbers. EMEA had a pretty good quarter at 2.5% growth like-for-like, with Western Europe up 4.8% and other EMEA countries down 1.8% or is organic. In Western Europe, we had some positives with a good flow of loyalty programs. In fact, it is more than the flow of loyalty programs. Q1 last year was historically weak. So we are back this quarter on a regular flow of loyalty programs for the first quarter, maybe a little bit high, but still in line with what we usually do. That's the positive and the negative. Our German market remains challenging, and that continues the 2025 trend, which we are working very hard to fix. And the great super positive is France that delivered 21% growth, 5%, excluding loyalty programs, gaining market share and strengthening our digital activation strategies.
So all in all, Western Europe that has been holding up quite well. Whilst in the other EMEA countries, we've experienced a slight decline in organic sales. Comps driven mainly for Eastern Europe. We had a very, very strong Q1 last year. We see growth in Turkey. That's great. And we have, of course, significant direct disruptions in the Middle East. Middle East is circa 2% of the total group revenue, but around 10% of that region, and that weighs somewhat materially on the performance of that subregion.
If we go west to the Americas, we've confirmed in Q1 the improvement of sales in North America. We are up 4.7% like-for-like, driven by market share growth in cookware and in linen care in the U.S. And those market share gains are driven by innovation in a somewhat deteriorating market. Mexico shows negative sell-in impacted by still high inventories from retailers and fans, but positive sell-out, leaving a room for an improvement through the year.
When it comes to South America, we've experienced a return to growth, up 10.9% in the subcontinent, driven by range expansion into new categories, coffee-based products, floor care, blenders, a less pronounced decline in fan sales. You know that we are still comping strong numbers. And of course, this La Niña effect is fading away, a favorable comparison base in Brazil, which was pretty slow last year in Q1 and a very healthy continuous double-digit growth in Colombia.
If we go East, China growth momentum is maintained at 2.3%, that continues 2025 trend. The environment is highly promotional still in China, and we are managing the balance between sales growth and profitability growth. Our growth is multi-category driven by cookware. I mentioned the Titanium wok as one of the key innovations for the year, but also kitchen utensils, garment steamers, rice cookers with new heating systems, which are catching up very well in the market. And we are confirming notable success for Supor in social commerce. We are #1 in Douyin. Douyin is, as you know, the Chinese name for TikTok. Going around the other Asian countries. Overall, it's a positive quarter with continued growth in Japan and continued growth in South Korea, where the market is still very complex.
We have good momentum in most Southeast Asian countries, especially online and in social commerce, 2 strong platforms, Shopee and Lazada, where we are driving the bulk of our growth up there. And we're expanding our ranges of products in Australia with blenders, spot cleaners and others.
Now how does that materialize in [ profitability ]?
Okay. Thank you. So first, let's say, a reminder, which we, of course, provide every year for the first quarter. As you know, this is historically providing a limited contribution to the full year results given the seasonality of sales. And secondly, of course, we need to be cautious and not draw too many conclusions on the full year trajectory. And of course, in addition, last year was a particularly, let's say, low quarter for Groupe SEB.
That being said, we are delivering EUR 72 million of ORfA in the first quarter, up 42% on Q1 last year. This translates into 3.8% operating margin, up 1.2 percentage points. This is the result of positive organic sales growth, which is driving increased contribution at the gross margin level. We are benefiting, as we had announced from positive currency effect in the quarter. Of course, the positive contribution of short currencies. You remember that those benefits, let's say, took some time to filter through our P&L last year. But finally, in Q4, we benefited from this positive contribution.
And as expected as well, we are seeing in Q1 this year, a better offsetting of the long currencies depreciation through price increases. In addition to these elements, we are benefiting this quarter from decreasing operating expenses, which is, let's say, principally the result of selectivity in terms of growth driver engagement, but also reduced structural costs, in particular, on G&A, which is evidence to some extent also from the [indiscernible] initial benefit of the Rebound plan.
[Foreign Language] Olivier, I will now go on the outlook with 2 parts. The first one is still fairly qualitative, but I think it's worth mentioning. It's on the Rebound plan. We are deploying that plan and the deployment is in line with our objectives and deadlines. As you remember that the Rebound plan was with 2 dimensions. One was to reinvent our growth model and you see that there is an acceleration of the innovation. You see that there is an evolution of our marketing transformation, and we are deploying this marketing transformation throughout our market companies. We have an ambitious target of reducing our SKU ranges by 20% to 30%, depending on the categories. We've identified 80% of the candidates and are now in the execution phase of that project.
And when it comes to the second dimension, which is about reducing our cost, we've launched almost all initiatives related to indirect purchasing. And we already see in the first quarter some initial benefits in the P&L. So that's great. I mean that is what supports the first quarter that is ahead of expectations in terms of profits. And when it comes to the dimensions of industrial efficiency and overheads, we started our negotiations with employee representatives the day after the announcement on the 25th of February. And today, those negotiations are in line with the set schedule we've set ourselves. So we confirm what we've said as a time line for the Rebound plan.
Now when it comes to the outlook for 2026, we've added a comment -- the outlook is the same as the one for 2026 as the one we shared back in February. We've added one comment, which is about the uncertain and deteriorating macroeconomic and geopolitical environment. Even with that, we confirm our ORfA growth in 2026 together with a more normative free cash flow generation. And we also confirm our ambition to lower our financial leverage in 2026 with the objective of returning to the group standards of around 2x, excluding acquisitions by 2027.
[Foreign Language] It's been pretty fast. It's now your turn to come up with your questions that we'll be delighted to answer. Thank you very much.
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Ope Otaniyi from GS.
2. Question Answer
Just 2 from my end on sort of what you're seeing from consumers, but also maybe addressing sort of anything that's changed from -- on logistics and costs just given the current crisis. So do you mind just giving a sense of what you've seen through the quarter in terms of consumer behavior and how you see that translating into sort of underlying demand? And then just given the Middle East crisis, could you sort of comment on how to think through costs for the rest of the year, sort of any impact on logistic costs as well or any commodity inputs as well?
Thank you for your question. Not surprising question. I think it's in everybody's mind. Well, let's say that the first quarter hasn't really seen any impact either on the cost or on the consumer demand or consumer confidence, except, of course, the direct exposure to the Middle East, which I commented in the EMEA segment.
The second comment as I would make is we are -- we don't have clarity as anybody else on what is the scenario and what is the impact of that crisis. It depends on the length of the crisis. It depends on the depth of that crisis. And maybe what I can say is that we are confirming our perspective for the full year, having considered the likely scenarios, which are currently being evaluated by the various institutes or economist reports.
Maybe the third thing I'd like to add is a lot of our profit because you can ask, well, you would be -- it would be fair to ask but why are you still confident? I think the bulk of our profit improvement comes from our own actions. First, we have a favorable base effect, and we know that we have some negative contractual effects last year that will not materialize or are not -- do not seem to be materializing this year to any extent. So that's the base effect that is probably supporting part of our profit development.
Our innovations, we see that our market even in more difficult market conditions when we have powerful innovations that are well activated, we're able to generate some sales and margins development. So I would say the third argument that makes us stick to our forecast is that most of the improvement will be driven by our own actions.
And maybe just -- I appreciate maybe Q1 and Q2 sort of maybe not the most important quarters, but do you mind just commenting on working capital and what you've seen in terms of logistic costs and sort of inventory levels?
Yes, sorry. Maybe I should have added, but that's -- I made it in my comment of the first quarter performance. We have the Rebound, of course, which will be a contributor to that recovery or that development of the profit base. Sorry, I skipped it because I said it in the last sentence of the [ expose ].
Now logistics, today, what we see is fuel surcharges, be it on the sea freight or on the road transport. Those surcharges are well identified. We know how much they impact. It's a bit early again to share a number. But what we -- the actions we put in place are more than enough to compensate and offset those negative impacts. That's for the cost -- the direct cost side. On the current product access and ability to ship products, we do not see at this stage any impact on our ability to ship products from Asia to Europe or to the United States. And we don't foresee in the current scenario [ maybe ] because the Strait of Hormuz is not a route that we use to ship our products.
Does that answer your question?
No, that's yes.
The next question comes from Natasha Brilliant from UBS.
Just to come back to the previous question, just on kind of current trading. You said that Q1 hadn't really had any impact so far. But just to confirm, any color you can give us on the first few weeks of Q2? And if there's been any change, that would be helpful.
Second question is just on the Professional business. I think you mentioned some new contracts in China and some new clients in the U.S. So if there's any more detail you can share on those and if you have any visibility on other contracts in the pipeline?
And then my last question is just on the Rebound plan and as you start to implement it, if you can tell us what the cost has been so far in Q1?
I will -- okay, thank you very much. I think that the general comment on all these 3 questions is they're probably a bit early to be able to give you more color. I can answer the first one that today, we don't see any material change in Consumer sentiment in the first 3 or 4 weeks of April. I've been speaking to a couple of customers in the last few days in a couple of countries, and they don't see any material impact. Of course, there's seasonal impact, but nothing where they can say, there's a shift.
On the Professional contracts, we don't disclose our contracts. We use those examples to illustrate the fact that the activity, albeit slightly growing only still is collecting and is gathering new contracts in our core business. And we have a pipeline that is not bigger, not smaller than usual on large contracts. And for the cost of the Rebound plan, it's very early. I mean the bulk of the savings that we've collected so far are on indirect purchasing, and they are mostly savings with no cost attached to it. The bulk of the cost of the Rebound plan is linked to the social activities, and those have not been booked yet.
Olivier, do you want to complement on that point?
As you said, we've indicated during the full year results call that we expect to be booking most of these, let's say, provisions in the second quarter before the June close. We expect at that time to have sufficient clarity on especially the social terms in order to be able to book the provision. So far in Q1, it's still too early, as Stan mentioned.
The next question comes from Marie-Line Fort from Bernstein.
I just want to come back on the currency impact on your first quarter earnings. I know it's not really representative. I just want to know what is the phasing all over the year because you started to benefit to better currencies on Q4. On the top line, currencies will fade in negative terms on your top line as soon as Q3, probably. How do you see the momentum in terms of currency and positive impact on your earnings? That's my first question.
The second question is about your -- the indirect savings that you made in Q1. Could you confirm the envelope that you are targeting for the full year? I've got in mind EUR 50 million, 5-0. Could you just confirm these figures?
And my last question is about Coffee Crush. Just wanting to know where the machine is produced. The machine is sold at very low prices. Is it still margin-wise, same-wise -- same margins at the consumer? Or would it be dilutive on margin? And also, when do you plan to increase the coverage over the European market?
Okay. I'll start with the third one, and then Olivier will answer the last 2 -- the first 2, sorry.
Coffee Crush is margin dilutive to the Consumer business. It is made in China. It is sold at EUR 350, EUR 320 and EUR 300, which is -- which delivers pretty good margins. It will be expanded in 50 countries beyond France by the end of 2026. So it's a very good business. And it is made today outside of SEB in OEM manufacturer in China. Olivier?
So on the currency impact, if I split between long and short. So on the short side, of course, if the CNY and the U.S. dollar remain at the current level, we should continue to benefit from a positive impact throughout the year as we've indicated in the past. On the other -- the long currencies, in particular, currencies from emerging markets, we are seeing maybe less depreciation than we were expecting. Of course, it's impossible to say whether that's going to last or not.
But if it does, we'll probably see, let's say, a lower impact than expected. But as you know, in those countries, we are able to compensate the depreciation by price increases. So if there is less depreciation, by definition, there will be less compensation. So net-net, we are probably operating in a slightly more favorable environment in terms of currencies, but I think we need to be very prudent given, let's say, the high volatility in the current geopolitical and macroeconomic environment.
On indirect savings, we said that the bulk of the EUR 200 million savings that we are expecting to generate should come from the effort on the structural cost base and that indirect savings will represent a smaller portion. So you say EUR 60 million. I don't recall precisely stating a number, but it's not a million miles away. I think we are confirming that this is very much our objective. We'll see. It's a bit too early to say whether we can exceed that objective, but it's certainly being confirmed by all the more detailed work that we have been carrying on. And as we said, we have already implemented the vast majority of these actions. They are currently already starting to produce some positive results.
The next question comes from Alessandro Cecchini from Equita.
We can't hear you.
The next question comes from Fraser Donlon from Berenberg.
Just checking, you can hear me?
Yes.
So the first question was just about the loyalty programs. Could you maybe help understand what would be the organic growth in Western Europe ex LPs? I know sometimes you gave that number in the past. And then how should we think about the phasing impact on loyalty through the rest of the year? If you could just give a reminder there.
And then the second question was just thinking about the changes to tariffs on aluminum and steel products in April. Could you kind of highlight how we should think about that basically for the kind of Tefal products primarily?
Change of aluminum and steel tariffs in April. So Olivier will take both questions, Fraser.
Okay. Thank you. Fraser. On the loyalty program, I mean, the first thing that we should maybe restate is that loyalty programs are, of course, part of our business. They're an integral part of the Consumer business. They are just one of the different ways in which we are doing business. The reason why we sometimes highlight the importance of this loyalty program is that it's the same with large contracts for Professional. They can provide some distortion in the reading of the number.
And it's true that last year, our loyalty program were particularly low. And this year, as we said, they are, let's say, back to a more normalized level, and they provide a significant positive tailwind for this quarter. I think the thing to bear in mind is that France is where we have the largest impact. And France, excluding loyalty program, is up 5%. And this is evidence of market share gains in many product categories, thanks to our strong product pipeline.
On the second topic, which is the input cost, well, first, yes, we have seen some tensions on raw material. You name aluminum, but of course, we have the same with plastics and, let's say, a few other input costs. The extent of this increase, of course, will depend to some -- on the length of the current crisis in the Middle East. And so we are monitoring this situation, of course, very closely. We have identified already some, let's say, counter-measures and some of them are being implemented, and we will adjust as the situation develops. But as we mentioned, we don't think that they are of a nature at this stage to change our forecast for the full year. On aluminum, more specifically, you will remember that we have a rather prudent hedging policy. And in particular, on purchases for Europe, we are very well hedged above 80% at the beginning of the year. So that is, of course, limiting the negative impact on our results from aluminum increases.
[Operator Instructions]
Maybe it's Alessandro from Equita?
No, we don't have him back.
Okay.
The next question comes from Geoffrey d'Halluin from BNP Paribas.
I will have one question regarding to the U.S. tariffs and the Section 232. I guess there is a new proposal from early April, which has been put in place. Just wondering if you have any thoughts and if you could be impacted by this new proposal, please?
Olivier?
Okay. So thank you for the question. It's a fascinating topic, of course. We have to distinguish 2 things: the reciprocal tariff on the one hand and the Section 232, which is applicable for aluminum and steel derivatives. So on the reciprocal tariff, first -- the first topic for us, of course, is to obtain the benefit of the reimbursement after the U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year. So we can confirm that we have put a request for reimbursement after the opening of the CAPE platform on the 20th of April, and those claims have been accepted.
So we will wait, of course, until -- wait for the reimbursement to hit our bank account before we can, let's say, disclose more details, but that, of course, should be although an exceptional, but it should be a positive for us this year. With regards to the 232, there has been a change in the way this is calculated. It was until the recent change calculated, it was a 50% surcharge calculated on the aluminum or steel content. It's been replaced by a new method of calculation, which is 25% on the overall product.
That change is almost neutral for us. So there is no big difference in terms of the -- given the content of aluminum and steel in the product. The final change is the, let's say, removal of the reciprocal tariff and the implementation of a 10% surcharge for all countries. That probably has a moderate net positive impact for us, but we remain very cautious because, of course, these things are fluctuating and we are, of course, monitoring the impact this has on selling prices. So I think net-net, let's say, no material adverse impact, potentially slightly positive.
There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing remarks.
All right. Thank you very much for your questions. No surprising questions. I think this is a solid quarter, one that we were expecting to drive through. We've started the year saying that we would be managing our business with a strong priority of recovering profitability. I think, as Olivier said, the first quarter is only a mere 10% or 8% of the total year. But still, I think it represents the way we want to drive the year.
We feel the context is getting more and more uncertain and deteriorated, yet we are on track to implement the right level of actions in terms of margin protection, in terms of cost savings, and we're confident that we will be able to navigate this year with what we see today.
Thank you very much for your support. Thank you very much for your analysis, and I wish you all a great result season. Thank you.
SEB — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
SEB — Q4 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this Groupe SEB 2025 Full Year Results Presentation. I am Stanislas de Gramont, Chief Executive Officer of the group, and I will be doing this presentation together with Olivier Casanova, our Chief Financial Officer.
Right. We will cover the following points in this presentation. And of course, after these presentations, there will be a question-and-answer session. The points of the agenda will be the key elements of 2025 regarding sales, our results, our financial structures, what have been our ESG achievements. We will talk about the growth relaunch Rebound plan initiative that we've announced today to our employees and shareholders, and we will conclude. Then we'll take, of course, your questions together with Olivier.
As a way of introduction, I think it's fair to say that 2025 performance is closing on a better note. We are in line with the targets that we revised in October. We've confirmed and launched the Rebound plan that we again announced in October. And if I step back and look at the overall year, we have a very slight organic sales growth, 0.3%. We are in a complex environment, yet our small domestic equipment markets remain resilient. Our results are down in 2025. Yes, we have good sales growth in floor care, in linen care, in cookware, and this is supported by good product innovation.
We have a very dynamic growth in e-commerce, especially via our direct-to-consumer sales. We've seen, as you know, and we've amply talked about it through the second and third quarter of the year, significant cyclical headwinds on currencies, on Americas, on Professional, and that impacts around about EUR 120 million in profit, operating profit through 2025. And we also have an acceleration in the transformation of the environment in terms of go-to-market, in terms of digital activation, and this is what triggers our launch of the Rebound plan that is designed to bring the group back to a profitable growth trajectory.
Now if we move into numbers, 2025 December, we have sales of EUR 8.169 billion, up 0.3% like-for-like. Our ORfA is at EUR 601 million, down EUR 201 million versus last year. That translates into an operating margin of 7.4%. As a result of that, the net profit group share is EUR 245 million. That compares to EUR 232 million, but you will remember that last year's net profit was impacted by the Competition Authority fine of EUR 190 million.
We end the year with a net financial debt at EUR 2.34 billion. That is EUR 2.152 billion, excluding this Competition Authority fine, and that's EUR 226 million versus the end of 2024. And the Board is proposing to the general assembly a dividend of EUR 2.8 per share, stable versus 2024. This will be approved and voted in the AGM of May 12, 2026.
Now if we go into the analysis of the year, starting with the sales. As I said, we have a slight organic sales growth in 2025, 0.3%. To note that we still have a pretty substantial currency effect on our sales, 2.5% of net sales. It's not extraordinary, but it's pretty steady, and we expect to have a comparable one in 2026. The scope was up -- was contributing to 1 percentage points with the acquisition of La Brigade de Buyer and some phasing into the integration of Sofilac, leading to net sales of EUR 8.169 billion.
If we break it down by activities, we see that the Professional business reports EUR 995 million on sales, up 2.1% in reported, minus 6%, minus 5.9% like-for-like, with a fourth quarter better, fourth quarter at 6.7% growth, flat like-for-like. Whilst on the Consumer division, we have an overall sales growth of minus 1.6% reported, but plus 1.1% like-for-like with a fourth quarter essentially similar at 1% like-for-like growth.
Now if we look at the Consumer business and if we look at the overall business, we have, in fact, 2 blocks. We have on the left side, EMEA and Asia, which are around about 60%, 65% of the group sales, which have grown, respectively, 2% and 2.7%. In fact, EMEA without the loyalty programs grew 2.8%. So 2/3 of the business has grown by 2.8%, 2.7%. On the other side, we had the Americas that have declined by 4.9% with U.S. at minus 4.5% and the Professional business that has declined 5.9%. And these 2 represents around about 30% of the overall group business, 25% less. And that, I think, explains the -- that explains why we say that this year is a contrasted year in terms of sales performance.
Now if we look a bit more detail into the quarters, let's start with North America. We started the year great. We started the year with Q1 at 4.9% growth was great. Then we had 2 dips in Q2 and Q3 at, respectively, minus 11% and minus 14%, and the reassuring fact that Q4 ends at 4.7%. And if you remember, we said in Q2 and Q3 that we had -- we were suffering a clients' wait-and-see attitude and that we would see a normalization of the activity in Q4 that we have observed.
Equally, on the Professional, we started the year with a very negative first quarter that was expected, minus 21%. That has recovered through Q2 and Q3 and leading to a flat Q4. We'll come back to that, in fact, right away.
We've seen a stabilization of the business in the second half. And if you look at the details of that business in the second half of the year -- next slide, we have a contrasted situation. We have good momentum for machine deliveries in Germany and China, which are roughly 40% of the business and strong growth in services, which is great.
We have double-digit growth in new regions like Eastern Europe and the Middle East. And that has been tempered by a wait-and-see attitude of customers in the United States in part due to, I would say, that tariff hike on Switzerland of 39% that stayed around between mid-July up until mid-October to end of October and in part to a caution in implementing CapEx in machines from large U.S. customers.
On the other side, on the positive side on the Professional business, we've integrated La Brigade de Buyer in our culinary activity that is showing very, very strong growth driven by high-end stainless steel cookware and online sales.
Beyond numbers, in the Professional business, we have started production in our Professional Coffee hub in China. I remind you, this is an R&D center. It's a processing, it's a production facility. We constructed it in 2025 through 2025, started serial production early in 2026. That's an investment of approximately EUR 40 million.
And I'm very happy to share with you the first 2 machines that are coming out of this hub, beautiful machines. And you see that the number of cups per day, which is a way to qualify the type of customers the machine is aiming for is contained 50 cups per day, 80 cups per day. And that reflects our priority to focus these machines on the small businesses and the offices segment, which is a great new business opportunity for Professional Coffee machines that we want to exploit. And those machines are -- will be the spearhead for our development in that new segment of Professional Coffee.
When we move to Consumer sales, we have through 2025, mixed performances and overall moderate sales growth. By geography, we are moderate growth in EMEA. I talked about it, 2.8% ex loyalty, excluding loyalty programs with maybe 2 -- again, here a contrasted situation. We have 11 markets with growth at or above 5%. We have an underperformance in Germany that we need to deal with. We've returned to annual growth in Asia and particularly in China. And in America, we have seen sales decline with a gradual normalization in North America through the end of the year.
When we look at our product lines, we have great momentum in cookware, in kitchen utensils, in floor care and linen care. Those are all supported by strong product innovation. We see a slight decline in kitchen electrics. And last, on Consumer sales, we see our online sales up by around 10% organically, supported in particular by direct-to-consumer sales.
Let's do our round-the-world exploration, starting with Western Europe. Western Europe posts 1.1% growth in 2025, 2% like-for-like, 2.8% if we exclude loyalty programs. Again, our sales are up in most -- in almost all Western European countries bar Germany. France is positive, excluding LPs. And the momentum, again, is still very positive in cookware. We see very successful innovations. I'll talk about that in a second. We have less buoyant categories, and I think that explains in part our difficulties in Germany, grills, multi-cookers. And overall, our market shares on the segments we operate on are stable.
In the other EMEA countries, we have good organic sales growth, consistent organic sales growth around 10% in Eastern Europe. Turkey keeps growing, driven by our key categories and a very strong development of online sales. We've seen disturbances in Africa and the Middle East and very much related to the geopolitical environment.
Now let's look back at 2025 and look at what happened on the product front. The first thing and the most important thing that happened in 2025 for us on the product side is the very, very strong and powerful expansion of washer vacuum cleaners. We've reached almost EUR 100 million of sales in year 1. We have #2 position just behind a Chinese competitor, way ahead of all our traditional British or American competitors. We've also expanded fast in the spot cleaners segment, great products, EUR 25 million sales in year 1 only, #2 in a market that we were not present in a year ago, a remarkable achievement.
And back to our core categories, we've launched this year garment steamer with vacuum function, which is called Aerosteam that has delivered -- that has contributed to delivering EUR 90 million in sales in garment steamers in Europe only, double-digit growth, strengthening our #1 competition. So we see that our development in Western Europe and in Europe has been driven by strong innovation.
Beyond that, we mentioned a couple of times through the year that we had some challenges on our historical core pillars, and Cookeo is one of them. Cookeo is a remarkable long-standing success story of the group, launched in 2012, sold over 5 million products. We relaunched it in Q4 with Cookeo Infinity. And what is tracking is that against a 20% decline first 9 months 2025, our sales in Q4 on the strength of this relaunch reached 10% growth, showing that -- and what is this product? It's an air fryer and pressure cooker combined equipment. Very, very strong popular success, very strong success with influencers, very strong talks on social networks. I think that also says -- shows us a way to evolve our marketing. We'll come back to that later on.
I mentioned a couple of times that cookware is a very strong pillar of the group. We have a multi-material, multi-coating strategy. We are leaders in all those coatings and materials. And we've posted, again, I would say, in 2025 in EMEA, a growth of 10% in that category, a very strong pillar for the group.
Going west to the Americas, we commented it amply vastly in the course of the year. So North America finishes the year at minus 4.5% like-for-like. You see the effect of currencies. I think it's around minus 9%, minus 10% in reported. I will not expand again on something that we've very, very often discussed. We have the direct and indirect effects of changes on U.S. tariffs that created a wait-and-see attitude with U.S. customers. We see through fourth quarter a better alignment between sell-in and sell-out, and that is the explanation of sell-out/sell-in recovery. We have consolidated our market shares in our core categories of cookware and linen care. And we see Mexico that still is a strong country but has a volatile year, yet to be noted, a very good acceleration of online sales in a country that was a bit backwards.
Coming to South America. South America is skewed towards the fans business, which is very climate or weather dependent. La Nina is a cold weather phenomenon, and that has impacted our fan sales through Latin America, particularly in Brazil. Yet we see very strong performance in Colombia across all categories, including our fans business.
And when I step back and look at our North American business, maybe something we don't often enough talk about, which is All-Clad. All-Clad is an American brand of premium cookware. And we celebrate again year after year very strong successes. It's local, it's premium, it's in the U.S. Sales have been growing around 10% per year over the past 5 years. We're leaders in the premium cookware in the business. We increased our U.S. local production, and we've increased it by more than 50% over the past 3 years, and we're now implementing complementary capacity investments in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania to expand again the capacity. So that shows that we have not only a mainstream business with Tefal market leader in the U.S., we also have the leading premium U.S. brand in cookware.
Going south, again, Colombia is a good example of how we are expanding our business. We have double-digit organic growth in Colombia and have had so for the last couple of years based on very strong historical positions in fans and cookware to which we've added #1 position in food preparation and more recently, #1 position in the full automatic cool coffee machines. We are creating the market in Colombia and I would say, also in Mexico, and that is for us a good relay of growth in this part of the world.
Going east now with an Asian business that has recovered growth, both in China and in the rest of Asia. Starting with that rest of Asia. The good news of the year is the return to growth in Japan and a good momentum in Southeast Asia. We have a slightly weaker performance in Korea. I think the environment in Korea is a very challenging one. Overall, we have success in cookware and the growth in SDA is more mixed between categories and markets.
China has returned to organic growth in a broadly stable market in 2025. We are confirming month after month, quarter after quarter, year after year, our online and offline leadership in our 2 core categories of cookware and kitchen electrics. We've seen successful launches, rice cookers with stainless steel bows, titanium works, garment steamers with vacuum function. I think there's still a strong dynamic on innovation in our Chinese business. And we see some very strong dynamics of the online segment with an ever-moving online landscape.
And if we go to the next slide, we see that something that we've talked about in the last 3 to 5 years, which is the expansion of social commerce with a very rapid growth in China. 25% of Supor's online sales are now in social commerce, and that's tripled since 2021. We're leaders in China in that segment, including on Douyin, Douyin, which is TikTok in China, both in kitchen electrics and in cookware. And we see developing instant retail, which is through platforms with very, very short direct delivery. Instant retail is a channel that grows very strongly in 2025, and we are already #1 in this new channel of sales -- new channel in this alternative way of doing online sales in China.
As far as social commerce is concerned, we see a strong development outside China. We've opened in 2025 alone 13 TikTok shops in various countries in the world following or anticipating the development of this platform.
I now hand it over to Olivier to share with us the financial results of the year.
Thank you, Stanislas. So let's move to the main numbers. So as you can see, we achieved an ORfA of EUR 601 million for the full year, which is 25% below last year, but at the high end of the revised range, which we had indicated back in October of EUR 550 million to EUR 600 million. This translates into operational margin of 7.4%, which is, of course, disappointing 230 basis points below last year.
If we look at Q4 now, as you can see, we delivered EUR 334 million of ORfA, which was, I would say, only 6.7% down versus 2024. You have to remember that 2024 was the highest ever. And so with this performance in '25, in fact, we are delivering the third highest ORfA for Q4, very close, in fact, to the performance of 2023. And this was in terms of operational margin, 13.3%, only 80 basis points below last year.
Let's look at the bridge now. As you know, and we talked about this in earlier, let's say, presentations, we have a very complex year. So you will find the traditional ORfA bridge back in appendix, but we thought it would be more telling to identify and isolate the 3 cyclical headwinds that Stanislas talked about. So as you can see on the full year, we confirm what we have said before.
We've had 3 distinct conjunctural impacts. The first one, of course, is North America, which has impacted us by EUR 40 million compared to the prior year. This is a combination of 2 effects. On the one hand, it's the fact that we increased prices to compensate the negative impact of tariff, but there was, of course, a time lag. The tariffs were implemented on beginning of April and the price increases happened at the end of the second quarter.
And the second element, again, which Stanislas highlighted, we've had in Q2 and Q3, minus 12%, minus 14% in sales as customers adopted a wait-and-see attitude given the significant volatility and uncertainty regarding tariffs and in particular, changed also the way they imported the product from direct import to local sales.
Secondly, on currencies, we had a negative impact of EUR 40 million, which is, again, 2 things. It's the delayed positive impact from U.S. dollar and CNY as we, let's say, went through our inventory. And we had only, in fact, a positive -- a small positive impact for the full year, and we'll talk about this in a second.
The second element, of course, which is by far the biggest is the negative impact from emerging market -- you know that traditionally, we are compensating the depreciation by implementing price increases. We operate, of course, in a high inflation environment in many of these countries. And this year, because of the depreciation, in particular, of the U.S. dollar versus the euro, we were not able to compensate as much as we traditionally do, and this impacted us by EUR 40 million.
And then the third element we already talked about is the fact that we had a very high basis of comparison in '24 with, in particular, very significant order in China.
The last element is the -- what we call other effects, which is the growth volume -- price volume mix effect and the COGS effect on the rest of the business. We had positive volume effect, not as much as we would have liked and insufficient price/mix effect. And this is in large part why we are, of course, launching the Rebound plan. We'll talk about this in the rest of the presentation.
Now what is interesting is to look at the Q4 performance on the same parameters because you can see that the 3 cyclical headwinds, in fact, turned around in Q4 as we had expected. So first, on North America, you can see that we were flat in terms of profit versus last year. Of course, we regained growth with 4.7% organic growth. The markets have been progressively normalizing. Again, we are not going back to the situation we had in the U.S. market at the beginning of '25. But nevertheless, we are seeing a progressive normalization. And secondly, of course, we have the full benefit now of the price increases, which are compensating the negative impact on tariff.
The second element on currencies, we had finally the strong positive impact from the depreciation of the U.S. dollar and the CNY, as you know, which are 2 currencies where we are deeply short. And therefore, we have benefited from this positive impact in Q4.
And then finally, on Professional, as we've explained, we returned to growth in the second half, and we are flat versus the prior in Q4. And so this translates into a stable performance versus last year. And we still had a slight negative impact on the rest of the business versus last year. Again, remember that Q4 2024 was the highest ever achieved by the group. But it's true that it's lower than our expectation in terms of volume effect and in terms of price mix. And this is why, again, we've launched the Rebound plan.
Now how does this translate over, let's say, the fourth quarter? You can see that in H1, we were around 50% below the prior year. We have closed partly this gap in Q3 at minus 25%, and then we are very close to the prior year in Q4.
If we now move to the rest of the P&L, you can see that this translates into -- the EUR 601 million translates into an operating profit of EUR 502 million. The main element, of course, is the line other operating income and expenses. Last year, of course, we had the significant impact from the fine from the Competition Authority, which cost us -- which was provisioned at the time for EUR 190 million.
This year, we have a total charge of EUR 81 million, which includes EUR 24 million of provision and expenses related to the Rebound plan. We have, in particular, taken some impairment related to the decision on certain industrial sites. This translates into a net profit group share of EUR 245 million for the full year, which is, of course, slightly up on EUR 232 million last year. But as you know, the EUR 232 million included the fine from the Competition Authorities.
If we move to the working capital requirement, as we had warned, we are on the high side compared to our traditional target of 15% to 17%. The -- let's say, relatively good news is that we are back to the same level as last year in terms of inventory. You remember that at the end of H1, we had an inventory, which was significantly higher than the prior year. So we have managed to bring this down to the same level as last year. It is still higher than where we would like to be, where it should be, in part because we are continuing to suffer from increased amount of stock on water because of the closure of the Red Sea of the Suez Canal. This is costing us around 0.6 percentage points of working capital.
And we have also a slightly lower amount of payables, as you can see, at 13.2% versus 13.8% last year. Again, this reflects the slowdown of production in the second half to adjust the inventory level. So we are determined to bring our working capital requirements back to the range of 15% to 17% in 2026. And this will be done in part by optimizing our inventory level. We think that we have some way to go and therefore, are confident to go back to our range.
If we move to the free cash flow statement, you can see that I've mentioned the working capital variation, of course. On CapEx, as expected, we are slightly on the high side also because we had, of course, the -- to finish the significant investment in our new Professional Coffee hub in China, in Shaoxing. We have also the completion of the Til-Chatel logistics platform in Europe for cookware. And so this explains that CapEx was slightly on the high side. And I don't comment on the other elements. This brings us to a free cash flow for the full year of EUR 124 million. And interestingly, we had a strong free cash flow generation in H2 at EUR 337 million this year.
So let's now bridge to the net debt level. So in terms of dividend, as you know, we had EUR 150 million of dividend payment for the mother company, SEB SA. And in addition, we continue to repatriate a significant dividend from Supor. And this means that we had also EUR 50 million paid out to the minorities. In acquisitions, with, let's say, a relatively modest year in terms of acquisition spend, mostly attributable to the acquisition of La Brigade de Buyer and to a smaller extent to some investment in SEB Alliance. This brings us to a net debt level of EUR 2.152 billion, excluding the fine and EUR 2.342 billion, including the fine of EUR 190 million.
In terms of financial structure, we have still a very strong financial structure. Of course, our financial leverage ratio has increased to 2.7x, 2.5x excluding the FCA fine. This is in large part due to also the decrease in the EBITDA. But we are determined to bring this level back to the comfort zone, which, as you know, is around 2 between, let's say, 1.8 and 2.2. And we are determined to do this starting quickly in 2026.
We retain, of course, a very strong financial flexibility. We have continued to optimize our financing structure in 2025, including by refinancing with a new bond issue successfully placed in June, a bond issue, which was vastly oversubscribed. We, of course, continue to have no covenant in our financial debt and financial security, which is very high at EUR 2.5 billion and including EUR 1.5 billion of committed but undrawn backup facilities. That concludes the section on financials.
Let's maybe move to the -- our ESG progress. Now as you can see on the next slide, we have made progress on our objective to reduce GHG greenhouse gas emissions. So we are down 23% versus the reference year of 2021. This compares to, let's say, minus 18% in 2024. So I think we are making good progress towards our target. This is due to various initiatives. Of course, the deployment of solar panels in China in 2025 and will continue in '26. The deployment also of an energy management tool, which has continued in '25 and various energy-efficient equipment, for example, on injection molding machines.
We are making progress also on the health and safety front with lost time injury rate, which is down to 0.76 versus 0.81 in 2024. This is due in large part to the deployment of a training program across the group.
Finally, on, let's say, our objective to reduce indirect greenhouse gas. As you can see, we are down minus 9% versus 2021. We have made several significant progress in 2025. On the recycled material, in particular, as you can see, we are now at a level of 52% of recycled materials in our product. This compares to 34% in -- only in 2021. And we've made particular progress on recycled aluminum, which is now at 51% versus 9% in 2021.
We are also making progress on energy efficiency, in particular, both from, let's say, product design to usage by encouraging, of course, the deployment of eco mode in our products. And we are confident, of course, to reach our target of minus 25% by 2030.
Finally, the progress were recognized by various rating agencies. We've seen notable improvement in our ratings in 2025 and early '26. I will just point 2 of them. On SUSTAINALYTICS, we have moved from medium risk to low risk. And on MSCI, we have moved from BBB to single A. So again, very good progress recognized by agencies.
That concludes my presentation. Stan, I hand over to you for the Rebound plan.
Thank you very much, Olivier. So the last section of this presentation, I would say, before the question-and-answer, of course, session is around the Rebound plan. And I would start with the start. The start is our mission, our mission and our ambition. Our midterm ambition is to grow our Consumer business, strengthening our global leadership and to become a reference player in the Professional business. This to serve a mission to make consumers' everyday lives easier and more enjoyable and contribute to better living all around the world. And that is what drives us in this plan.
Now when we look at what makes us believe that and what makes the group very strong, the first one is we have very strong world-leading positions. We are -- we have 75% of our sales in markets where we have a leader positions, #1 or #2. Of course, we are #1 in Professional full automatic coffee machines. We're #1 in cookware. We're #1 in linen care. We're #1 in electrical cooking. We're #2 in blenders, and that is a very strong base to start from.
We make over 80% of our sales on our top 5 brands, Tefal, Supor, Moulinex, Rowenta and WMF. When we go a bit further in details, we have a strong global presence. We are the most international brand or company in our industry. We serve every distribution channels. And of course, yes, we are overrepresented still in the offline business, but that's because we started very strong in the offline business. We have an extensive product offering covering several products -- many product families, which allows us to create and to have balance between those families that become very popular and those families that are more stable in some instances.
And last but not least, we have a diversified industrial footprint, having factory -- having over 47 factories worldwide in Americas, in Europe and in Asia and a good balance between what we make, 61% of what we sell and what we source, 39% of what we sell. So we see the group as a very solid position, very balanced position. And that explains, I think, the successes of the last decades.
At the same time, we see an acceleration in the transformation of our environment. We see acceleration of innovation, the launch cadence, the variety of product that becomes a key element of marketing. We've moved from product-centric to consumer experience-driven innovation. Communication has become social first. And that's a good transition to the second point. We see a fast transformation of the brand consumers relationship driven by social media, driven by influencers, user-generated content, influencers today are the #1 source of information for new products. Ratings and reviews have become paramount and real-time data management in the way we activate and we market our products becomes a must and a given.
We see an acceleration of the shift in the go-to-market strategies and in the way and the places consumers buy products from. The speech of the last 5, 7 years was the development of e-commerce. Now the talk is the development of direct-to-consumers, brands selling directly to consumers, social commerce that is expanding very fast as we've seen. Omnichannel is now reaching a new maturity.
And last, we see the rising importance of sustainability around repairability, around product lifespan and managing that lifespan, energy efficiency, refurbishment, second life. All these elements create an imperative of speed, and evolution of our marketing practices and the evolution of the resources we invest into marketing.
And this Rebound plan, in fact, is designed to return to a profitable growth trajectory. And everyone is important. Reinventing our growth model first, we want to act as a leader in innovation. We want to systematize a new marketing and e-commerce practice around the globe, and we want to accelerate the development of our sales in the most promising segment, sorry.
We will restore our profitability through this plan by simplifying our organizations and operating methods. We want to increase our purchasing and industrial efficiency in all fronts, and we want to reduce our overheads. And last, we will strengthen our stakeholders' engagement. We want to nourish and evolve the connection and the involvement of our consumers. We want to create more desirability. We want to develop meaningful innovations carried by inspiring brands.
We do a lot of that already. I mean every day, 400 million consumers use our products. We've sold over 2 billion products in the last decades. But we think that we can update that element of our interaction and connection with consumers. And of course, we will only do that, thanks to the engagement and energy that our employees put in the transformation -- in this transformation day in, day out.
Now concretely, what will that mean? That means faster launches and more impactful innovations. We use some KPIs just to illustrate that. We want to accelerate our time to market for innovations by 1/3, gain 30%. We want to have over 80% of our key innovations reaching 4.5 and above ratings. And that will be developing new categories, new usages that will be co-developing products with consumers and with influencers. And of course, that will be on the Consumer front, but also on the Professional front and hub in Shaoxing will be a centerpiece of that, too.
I mentioned we need to evolve our digital marketing and e-commerce practice. There are -- there's a strong evolution of marketing and the way we interact with consumers with a strong skew towards social media and influencers. And we will indeed focus our efforts on social media, on influencers. We will accelerate the production of targeted contents through the use of artificial intelligence. We will guide our marketing investments much more through systematically using data, and we will increase the allocation of resources on the online sales, including direct to consumers.
Now to give you some color, as we say, on those matters, that is material. We will triple our social media investments in the course of the next 2 or 3 years. We'll multiply by 3 or add 1 billion views of our influencer videos in the next 2 or 3 years, and we will increase our active consumer base in our CRM platform -- CRM platform, sorry, by -- we'll double it basically.
There will be an efficiency dimension in this plan. We want to reduce complexity. We want to regain operational agility. There will be a strong focus on data, and we will generalize the use of artificial intelligence as and where, as an enabler, it can help the business run more automatically run faster. We will simplify our product ranges. We have some complexity in our product ranges.
We will simplify our organizations and processes, and we will reduce materially our indirect purchases amount, massifying and harmonizing our needs between all parts of the business. And again, here are some KPIs to illustrate that. Our SKU ranges will decline by 25% to 30%, depending on the category. We'll have a 5% to 6% reduction in the addressed indirect purchasing envelope, making it a material area for savings.
Now if we wrap up the financial part of this Rebound plan beyond the recover growth part, we expect EUR 200 million recurring savings by 2027 on this plan with 3 areas of cost savings, indirect purchases, industrial efficiency and overheads that will have a potential impact of up to 2,100 positions worldwide, of which 1,400 in Europe. And this will include potentially 500 positions in France that will all be made on a voluntary basis.
We will accrue mainly in 2026, the cost of this plan and we will disburse mostly in 2027. As far as the one-time plan cost is concerned, we see it between 1 to 1.25x the recurring annual savings.
Well, as a conclusion, I will start by a statement that is very, very traditional in the group. We know that the group's business is very much skewed towards the fourth quarter. In fact, last year's fourth quarter is over 50% of the profit -- of the annual profit. So usually, we don't give financial or quantitative guidance at the start of the year. We wait until July usually to do that.
Now what we see and what we can say in 2026 as a guidance is that we want to return to growth in ORfA in 2026. This is clearly a clear priority. We want to go back to a more normative free cash flow generation. That's also something that is -- that we need to bring back into our usual trajectory. We will lower in 2026 our financial leverage with the objective, as Olivier said, of returning to the group standards of around 2 by 2027. That, of course, excludes acquisitions.
But more importantly, and I think the analysis of 2026, the results of the fourth quarter and the deployment -- the fast deployment of the Rebound plan that we want to execute in under 2 years, confirm our ambition to go back to our midterm ambition. That is, to remind you, a target of 5% annual organic sales growth and operating margins of 10%, then progressing towards 11%. And I think that is what guides us. This is our beacon. And I think we are putting together the right actions and the right mobilization of our teams to deliver that.
Thank you very much. We'll now hand over to you for your questions.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Geoffrey d'Halluin from BNP Paribas.
2. Question Answer
I will have 3 questions, please. First of all, happy to get your thoughts on what you've seen in the start to the year 2026, especially for the month of January and Feb, I'm aware it's a small quarter for you, but happy to get any thoughts on the current trading, please?
Secondly, I guess you said the one-off cost linked to the Rebound plan is going to be about 1 to 1.25x. So that means about EUR 300 million to EUR 350 million. Could you spread this cost between the next coming years? Should we expect all of these costs to be booked in 2026? And actually, is it cash cost?
And the third question is related to the Professional business. So we've seen an improvement in Q4, flattish growth. What are you seeing for 2026? Do you expect the unit to go back to the, I would say, medium-term algorithm -- growth algorithm you provided to the market before?
I will take 1 and 3. Olivier, maybe you want to evacuate the second question.
Okay. So let's deal with the second question. So as indicated, we will take, I think, most of the provision in 2026, probably, in fact, in the first half because by that time, we will have, I think, enough, let's say, parameters to evaluate and be able to take a provision. We have, as I mentioned, taken EUR 24 million in '25 already, and part of that was noncash. I would say 90% of the charge will be a cash charge and only around 10% will be noncash.
Olivier, I'll take the next 2 questions. Starting with maybe the Q1 current trading. It's very early to say. I mean, we have a Chinese New Year that is moving 2 weeks backwards forward 1 year to the other. So January, February are very unstable. We don't see an extraordinary Q1. We don't see a bad Q1. I think we are in a trajectory where we are building a business with a clear discipline and focus on recovering profitability and Q1, hopefully, will reflect that.
The Professional question is a fair question. I think Professional is a very healthy business potentially. We have some areas of great stability and sustained growth. I mean, Germany, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Asia. We have more instability in China, as you know, linked to the fluctuations of the large contracts. And we have this U.S. situation, which in a way delays or hampers the conversion of great projects into contracts. So we don't give guidance at this stage to Professional through 2026.
Now if you step back, I think the drivers of our Professional business are 2 or 3 large contracts. And today, we have no signs of up or down versus historical. So it's pretty constant.
We have geographical expansion, which is year after year confirming as a good growth driver. And we have something new this year, which is the development of these new machines into new market segments, small businesses, offices. I think we're coming in the market. We are the first European company to come on the market with such a range of competitive machines, cost competitive, very profitable machines in that area. And I think that will weigh materially on the development of the Professional Coffee business this year.
I hope that answers your questions, Geoffrey.
We now move to our next question from Christophe Chaput from ODDO BHF.
[Foreign Language]
Just one question remaining for me. I just would like to come back on currency impact. So as you say, you started to benefit in Q4 from the positive impact on U.S. dollar and Chinese yuan depreciation on your ORfA, I mean. Could you remind me how much it impacted the Q4? I'm not sure you give the figure. And assuming those currencies stay at the same level than the actual one, what could be the positive impact for the full year 2026 because it's quite meaningful, if I may?
Okay. I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you, and I won't give you very precise numbers. But I think what we can say is that we had a net positive impact, which is a mix of positive impact from CNY and U.S. dollar, but still negative impact on other currencies. I think it's quite, let's say, normal. And in 2026, we expect, again, overall for the full year, a positive impact again from U.S. dollar and CNY, but still negative impact on other emerging market currencies.
We expect further depreciation in the Turkish lira, Egyptian pound, Mexican peso, et cetera. So there will be some negative impact from currencies. But overall, I think what we can say is that we are expecting a total, let's say, impact of currencies on ORfA, which would be still negative, but much less than in prior year because of the positive impact, net positive impact from U.S. dollar and CNY.
I hope that answers your question.
Just to be sure, ORfA 2026 negative related to currency?
Well, just to be sure, in 2025, the negative impact was EUR 80 million in '25. What we're saying is that the negative impact will be much smaller in '26, much smaller than minus EUR 80 million.
Okay. Understood. And on the top line, you say more or less the same level than in '25, which means minus EUR 200 million.
Yes.
Our next question is from Alessandro Cecchini from Equita.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
The first one, actually, it's on your cost base, I would say, excluding, of course, the Rebound plan. So just to have a sense on 2026 about the various moving parts on input costs, on raw material transportation. So just to have your idea which kind of year you see in 2026 in terms of input costs, of course, excluding the -- I mean, the Rebound plan.
My second question is instead about the U.S. market. You explained very well that -- I mean, we had minus EUR 40 million of negative impact in 2025 in terms of bridge. So just to have a sense, do you expect to have a positive now in 2026? And I mean, what kind of share you expect to recover in the U.S. given the several statements that you said before?
Okay. I will start with the second one, Olivier will take the first one.
On the U.S. market, we have -- as we were disappointed by Q2 and Q3. You remember, we have a much better than -- a big improvement in Q4 versus Q2 and Q3. And I think that reflects the strength of our brands in the U.S. that reflects the strength of our market positions. Remember, the U.S. market is 3 pillars for us in the Consumer business. I'm not talking Professional, I'm talking Consumers. And I guess your question refers to Consumers.
It's based on Tefal cookware. It's based on All-Clad cookware and kitchenware, and it's based on Rowenta linen care. And those 3 have leadership positions. And what Q4 shows in a market -- in a consumption market that is not very dynamic in the United States, the strength of our brands and of our positions. And in fact, when we look at the current trading in the U.S., it is positive in dollars despite price increases, despite all the uncertainties on consumption. And I think that reflects the strength of our Consumer brands and of our Consumer business in the U.S.
So in a way, we do expect to recover a material part of what we lost last year in sales and profit in the United States. That said, the current level of uncertainties on demand, and I'm sure you read the same papers and documents as we read on U.S. consumer sentiment without even mentioning the announcements of U.S. President last weekend on tariffs. I think there's an area of uncertainty around the U.S. business that may alter that expectation to recover a material part of what we lost last year through 2027.
But I think the key point for us in the U.S. is the strength of our brands -- is the strength of our brand positions because where we -- we are not everywhere, of course, we know that. But where we are, we are very strong and we have very strong positions.
Olivier?
Okay. On input cost, I think we don't expect a very significant impact either way. There are some pluses and minuses, but it shouldn't be a major driver of profitability in 2026. We can expect maybe some slightly higher cost on some metals. For example, you've seen the strong price increase at the beginning of the year. Of course, it is -- the impact is very significantly moderated because of our hedging policy, which is, as you know, hedging over a long period. But still, there could be some slight increase. On the other side, we have maybe some positives on the shipping cost. So overall, it should not be a major driver.
What is going to drive our profitability this year is much more the initiatives that we're taking on the industrial side to improve our efficiency and our productivity and also all the initiatives around redesign to cost, where we are looking to improve, let's say, the bill of material and the cost of some of our major products.
Okay. So very clear. My last point was instead on the Professional business. So it's a business with opportunities you have already highlighted correctly, my view. So just to have in mind, so if we expect, I mean, a trend more or less flattish or slightly up in 2026. So if we take the fourth quarter as a reference, you think that to recover the ORfA lost maybe could be more in the 2027. So just to have an idea which is your perception on the profitability and business dynamics for the Professional business.
I understand where you want to get to, Alessandro. It's early to say. We've seen a stabilization of the business. We have some good plans. We need to see how those plans materialize. We need to see how the U.S. business is evolving because it's a key element of -- it's a key part of our Professional business. So allow me to take a few weeks before we can give you a flavor and the direction for this Professional business. It's not that I don't want to. But today, we don't have qualified-enough elements to give you that flavor you're looking for. I'm sorry.
We will now move to our next question from Natasha Brilliant from UBS.
I've got a few or 3 questions. First one is just on the Professional Coffee hub in China. How does the pricing and the profitability of these machines compared to the existing Professional business?
My second question is on the Rebound plan. So if growth trends change materially, either better or worse, could you increase the cost savings above EUR 200 million or even reduce them if you don't feel that you need it? Or is that EUR 200 million pretty much the level that's set now through to 2027?
And then my last question is just on the midterm targets. So if I look at consensus out to even 2030, I think margins are below 10%, closer to 9%, organic growth also just below 5%. So my question is really when do you think the midterm targets might be achievable?
I'll let the first one to Olivier.
On the flexibility of the Rebound plan, I think the Rebound plan is characterized by a large spread of projects. So we are not depending on 1 initiative or 2 initiatives. We have several initiatives in the support functions, in marketing functions, in development. And I think that gives us -- that lowers the risk of execution of one single part of the plan that could not materialize. I think that's some reassurance. I don't see very much upwards or downwards risks in terms of the execution. You may have some slippage of 3 months, 6 months just because of the voluntary dimension on most of the social measures. But it's pretty much where I think where we see it.
Our midterm targets, I think the -- we are focused on recovering our level of profitability. That will be our priority in the next couple of years. I think growth will come back with -- it's on base. We have, as I said, a good base. I mean, we say no growth in 2025, yet China or Asia and Europe, EMEA grew by 2.7%. It's not 5%, it's not 0. So I think we -- this will be, I think, what fluctuates the achievement of the midterm target. But certainly, it is before 2028 that we want to reach that 10% at or before 2028. Why do I say that? Because midterm today is 2 to 3 years, it's not 10 years. So read our midterm guidance as 2 to 3 years, not 5.
Okay. On the first question, so as we mentioned, the machines that we've presented the elevation and peak, in fact, are addressing a customer base where we are not so present today, which is small offices, medium-sized businesses. And those are naturally positioned in terms of price points much lower than, let's say, the high-end machines, which are designed for customers that need, let's say, 350 cups per day.
So here, we are looking at machines which are positioned below EUR 2,000, below EUR 1,000. But we are, of course, designing those machines, and this is also why they are let's say, produced and assembled in China. We are designing them and we are producing them in the most competitive way in order to achieve a similar, let's say, target gross margin as we do on the high-end machines. So that's our objective. It's the same strategy, by the way, that we have on the Consumer side. We have to design those machines in a way to deliver the target constant gross margin.
[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Alessandro Cuglietta from Kepler Cheuvreux.
I hope you can hear me well. Just a quick one on the Rebound plan. How much of the benefit from the EUR 200 million savings do you expect to have in 2026? Is it like maybe 25% of the total? And how much of the total savings do you expect to reinvest because you mentioned more investments in marketing, innovation? So wondering if there's reinvestments out of those EUR 200 million.
Olivier?
Okay. So we don't -- I mean, we're just launching the plan and -- we have to go, of course, through discussions with the unions and the employee representative, et cetera. So I think it's too early to be very precise on the timing of the execution, and this will impact, of course, the amount of benefit that we have in 2026. Overall, it's going to be, I'd say, a small portion compared to the total. Most of the benefits, of course, will come in 2027 and probably a small carryover in 2028.
We -- your second question on the reinvestment. In fact, we don't really look at it this way. Of course, we're looking to invest more. We said that it's an important element. It's redirecting our investment and also investing overall more to support our innovation and amplify, let's say, the impact of our innovation. But of course, those investments, they have to have a return above 1. So we are not looking to precisely reinvest the savings that we want to generate. Those are, let's say, 2 separate things.
And I would say, I mean, let's also speak clearly, we also want to improve our profitability. So I think there's a clear focus of the management of the leadership teams to improve profitability. And we are creating a plan that will structurally improve our ability to deliver growth. That will imply some investments, some increased investments in marketing, but we want to improve substantially the profitability of the company.
So there are currently no further questions over the phone. With this, I hand over for any webcast questions.
Should I read them? How do we do it? Let me read the first one. Given global market shifts, what our group sales top strategic priorities for 2026, 2030 in both consumer and institutional channels, especially in high-growth markets such as China?
But I think it should be China rather than India.
I think the group has a widespread coverage of product families, product categories and geographies. Today, our Indian business is very small. I mean, we are almost inexistent in India. The way we look at it today is we see that our existing markets have a very strong and important potential for development. We see that innovation day in, day out drives extra consumption and extra value in every market, including India.
We see India as a further opportunity down the road. It's not in the next 3 to 5 years road map of the group to develop in India. We see the development in the next 2 to 3 years, very much focused on the geographies we are in, developing, reinventing or evolving our relationship with consumers through the evolution of our marketing practices, accelerating our pace of innovation on existing or adjacent categories where we are in.
We will have some geographical development in countries where we have some understanding of how we perform in neighboring countries. We think India is another dimension, and we don't have any plans to develop our business in India in the next 3 to 5 years. That is in the current setup of organic developments. Now the acquisitions will, of course, study them.
So the next question, maybe I can ask you, Stan. From your perspective, how important will e-commerce become for our Professional segment in the coming years, both in terms of direct digital sales and supporting customers with digital self-service?
It's a great question. Thank you very much. The first thing is there is a very strong connection already between our Professional customers and our Professional business on telemetry for machines management. We have our own programs. We have distance service programs. I think 1/5 or 1/4 of our servicing of machines in Germany is done online. So there is a very strong online connection already between our customers and our Professional Coffee business.
That said, we see that the Professional distribution business in the U.S. is expanding rapidly D2C. The direct-to-consumer distribution is expanding rapidly in all Professional segments. We also see that the more we will move towards smaller customers, customers for 1, 2, 5, 10 machines, the more D2C service or serving of these customers will be relevant for buying, for servicing, for spare parts for all these dimensions of the activity.
The good news is that we have a very substantial chunk of our machines, which are connected or connectable to our own platforms or to customers' platforms. We are very advanced in this industry in our ability to connect machines to customer systems or to our own systems. So we have the infrastructure by design that allows us to be digital or D2C ready in those dimensions.
I'm reading the screen. I see that we have another question on the phone, please.
Yes. So we have a follow-up question from Alessandro Cuglietta from Kepler Cheuvreux.
It's me again. A quick question because if you look at the plan and the margin targets, I mean, we assume that to get back to your 10% EBIT margin, we need sales growth. And so I'm wondering how do you look at sales growth, I mean, at the market level in your Consumer business? Do you expect low single-digit growth over the next 2 to 3 years? And a follow-up to that, do you expect to gain market share? Is that part of the strategy as well?
Of course, I understand the question where it's coming from. I think -- I mean, when you look at the equation, 2028, below 10% profit will be disappointing for all of us. I think that starts from there. We are in an unstable environment. We have an unstable 2026. So it's early to give a guidance for 2026 sales growth.
I think what you can think -- you can think of our business as our priority will be to restore the conditions for having sustained and sustainable sales growth. Our financial priority is to go back to our financial trajectory -- traditional financial trajectory, which I remind you is towards 10% operating profit growth is towards normative free cash flow generation, is reaching a leverage around 2.
So I think that gives you enough indications. And what we try to do is to [ desensibilize ], if you want, the achievement of those financial targets from the organic sales growth ambition. That said, we remain convinced that the model of value creation of the group is based on profitable sales growth. That is the surest and more consistent way to deliver cash flows and to deliver return to shareholders.
There are currently no further questions.
All right. I see no more questions. I would like to make a couple of closing words.
2025 has been a rather difficult year. We are creating the conditions to see 2025 as an inflection point for the group. We've heard and we are determined to restore the trajectory of the group, which is a profitable growth trajectory with a strong financial discipline with recovery of profitability, but at the same time, with creating the conditions for a Rebound plan to create a group that will again be able to deliver this 5% organic sales growth consistently and profitably.
I would like to have the final, final word as a thank you for the analysts and the investors that follow us. And we will speak again in the publication of the first quarter results. Thank you very much.
SEB — Q3 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Welcome to the Group SEB 2025 Third Quarter Sales Presentation. Today's conference will be hosted by Stanislas de Gramont, Chief Executive Officer; and Olivier Casanova, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
[Operator Instructions]
Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for being with us tonight. As discussed, we'll be with Olivier Casanova managing this results presentation. We're talking about the first 9 months and third quarter key figures, sales and profit for group sales, and we will review also the 2025 outlook.
Now when we look at the numbers at the end of September 2025, we are posting a flat like-for-like sales growth at EUR 5.66 billion, converting into EUR 267 million ORfA for the first 9 months. In the third quarter, sales are EUR 1.9 billion, minus 1.2% like-for-like, posting an ORfA performance at EUR 148 million, down EUR 52 million versus 2024.
Now I think it's worth starting this conversation by commenting on the revised 2025 outlook that we posted on the 6th of October. Starting with the sales outlook. We were talking in July about the full year organic sales growth between 2.2% and 4% that we've moved to stable to slightly positive sales growth forecast for -- on the 6th of October.
Now when we look at what has changed between July and October, first, we had a softer-than-expected Q3 activity, especially in September, which is the start of the high season. We have and that was planned or expected a continued wait-and-see attitude among customers in North America. Olivier will come back to that. We've seen European markets less buoyant than anticipating, which hides 2 realities. We have several, if not many, of our European markets that are posting very healthy growth. But at the same time, some of our key bigger markets have had a stagnant third quarter.
We continue to see positive growth in Asia, albeit lower than expected outside of China. China posts a very consistent growth path between H1 and Q3 around 3.5%. We did see some recovery in South America, albeit lower than expected. And we have, and that's good news, returned growth in professional coffee but this wasn't as good as we expected, tempered in particular by the U.S. market. And overall, what drives also our guidance is we're still in a pretty uncertain and volatile environment, hence a more cautious approach for year-end. So that's on the sales front.
On the ORfA front, we've revised our full year ORfA from between EUR 700 million and EUR 750 million to EUR 500 million to EUR 600 million. Now where does come from? Well, primarily from softer-than-expected sales growth expectation in second half. I won't come back to that but that's clear and in particular, the less accretion of results from professional markets in Europe. We see a lower-than-expected offsetting of our currency effects, which is due to the appreciation of the euro. We see a lower-than-expected compensation through price in emerging markets of the euro revaluation against these volatile currencies. And last, we see, that's confirmed, continued pretty strict discipline in managing operating expenses. So this is what drives the revision of our guidance.
Now I leave it up to Olivier to take you through the organic sales performance in the sales performance in the third quarter, and I'll come back with the last comments.
Thank you, Stanislas, and good evening to you all. So starting with our 9 months organic sales. As you can see, organic growth is flat, in fact, compared to last year. We have a negative currency effect, and I'll come back to that in a second, and a slight 1.1 percentage point perimeter effect, which is both the consolidation of La Brigade de Buyer since the beginning of this year but also the fact that we consolidated Sofilac only from the second quarter onwards last year. And therefore, we have 1 quarter this year of perimeter effect.
Moving on to the performance in the third quarter. You can see that we have a slight negative growth of minus 1.2% and a currency effect of minus 3% and a slight scope effect. Let's address straight away the currency effect on the following slide. So you can see that we've had a continuation of the negative impact in Q3 of minus EUR 60 million compared to minus EUR 57 million in Q2 and only minus EUR 7 million in Q1. Of course, we highlight here on this slide the effect on the U.S. dollar and the CNY, even though the year-on-year decrease is only a moderate 3%, of course, they represent a significant portion of our sales, and therefore, they lead to a significant currency impact. The other significant deviations concern emerging market currencies, the Turkish lira, the Mexican peso, the Brazilian real, to name the top 3. And there, the fluctuation versus last year is very significant. In particular, for example, for the Turkish lira, it's depreciated year-on-year by 22%.
So moving on to the breakdown by division. You can see that the minus 1.2% in Q3 breaks down into minus 4.1% in Professional and minus 0.8% in Consumer. And I will dive into Professional straight away. So here on the Professional, the first thing to note is that on the 9-month basis, we are down around EUR 45 million versus last year, and it's all due to the delta of sales in China versus last year. The second thing to note is that in Q3, we are, let's say, showing a negative like-for-like sales of minus 4.1% but it includes an unfavorable, let's say, accounting effect, which is that last year, in the third quarter, we consolidated the first 6 months of Sofilac after the acquisition in April. We're not ready to consolidate in the second quarter, and therefore, we consolidated 6 months into 1 quarter, which, of course, distorts the basis of comparison.
And if you remove this Sofilac effect, the like-for-like sales growth is 2.4%. And this is due in particular to a return to growth as expected, as announced in Professional Coffee, which grew 3% on a like-for-like basis. So it's very good news. And of course, we expect this trend to continue in the fourth quarter. This is due to a dynamic core business in Germany, also renewed growth in China but also significant, let's say, continued momentum in Southeast Asia, in the Middle East and in North and Eastern Europe.
We're also reinforcing, strengthening our offer of services with the recruitment of service technicians in Germany. And as you know, we also announced a small acquisition, but quite sort of strategic with Tasty in China, which provides us with a basis to provide services to our customers in the country.
And then finally, let's say, the slight negative in the quarter is the decline in sales in the United States, which reflects, in fact, the wait-and-see attitude, which we will see in a second in consumer goods, which is also impacting, of course, the Professional sales in the country. And we've seen a couple of deals delayed into next year because of the current situation in the U.S.
One -- on the next page, one, let's say, important milestone, which was passed in the third quarter this year. We have reached over 100,000 machines on each of our 2, let's say, star models, which is the Schaerer Soul C and the WMF 1100 S. And in total, since the launch of these 2 machines, they represent over EUR 1 billion of cumulative sales. So clearly, star products in the market of professional coffee machine in full auto coffee machines.
Moving on to the Consumer segment. So the first thing is that in the quarter, we report minus 0.8% like-for-like growth. Last year, we had a significant loyalty program in the second half, which is, therefore, distorting the basis of comparison. If you exclude this, we are slightly up at 0.5%. As Stanislas has indicated, the activity in the third quarter in our consumer business has been softer than expected, in particular, less buoyant markets in Europe, notably in France and Germany. And in the U.S., the continuation but that was largely expected, the continuation of the wait-and-see attitude from our customers.
However, there are some noteworthy achievements, which are worth pointing out. The first thing is that, if you exclude LP and North America in the rest of the business, we grew 3% organically in the third quarter. This is due in particular to the success of recent launches, and Stanislas will come back on this with washers, spot cleaners and versatile. It's also due to continued strong sales momentum in Southern Europe, in Eastern Europe and in Northern Europe, including the U.K., and that's worthwhile to note.
And then finally, the continuation of a solid growth in China. So let's take a look at the global picture. Here, starting with the 9 months, you can see a very, let's say, different dynamic in our 3 major, let's say, geographic areas. In Americas, a decrease of 7.3% versus 9 months last year, whereas in EMEA and Asia, we had a growth of 3.5%, excluding LP in EMEA and 3.6% in Asia.
More specifically, in the third quarter, as Stanislas indicated, we had a slightly more negative dynamic in the U.S. in North America than expected with minus 14.4%. So instead of a slight improvement versus the dynamic in Q2, we had a slight worsening. We also had a softer market conditions in South America, other EMEA and other Asian countries. Two of those are positive, and in particular, South America turned back to a positive territory but slightly more modest than initially expected. And then on a more positive note, we can see that EMEA, Western Europe is growing at 4.3%, excluding LP, and China continues its solid trajectory at 3.5% growth.
So let's now focus on the first geographic area, Americas. You can see that we are down, as I said, 14.4%, which is largely reflecting the wait-and-see attitude from customers, which are, let's say, lowering their inventory level, which are shortening their replenishment cycle. There has been also a significant change in, let's say, the import patterns. There was a substantial part of our business, which was direct import, and this has now moved to delivered in the U.S. This obviously creates a lag effect on sales a couple of weeks of delay basically in the recognition of turnover.
The sellout, however, is proving to be quite resilient in cookware and linen care. We are, in fact, up on last year, and we're consolidating our leadership positions in these categories. In Mexico, we are continuing to grow despite reductions in retailers' inventories. A word on South America. We have a very strong performance in Colombia with sharp increases in many categories but the region is impacted by the continuous, let's say, unfavorable climate or weather climate in Brazil, which has delayed, unfortunately, the start of the fan seasons, which we're expecting initially in the third quarter.
And unfortunately, there is still a high level of inventory and therefore, delaying, let's say, the replenishment of fans at retail. Let's now, let's say, focus on the U.S. tariff situation. First, to note that it's still, as you know, a very moving target, and there is almost a continuous flow of news in this regard. There has been a change in the Section 232, which is applicable for aluminum and steel and their derivatives and therefore, concerns cookware. The percentage applicable has moved from 25% to 50%, but it's not the same basis of calculation.
The first one was on the entire, let's say, cost of the product, whereas the 50% is only applicable on the raw material portion. Therefore, in total, it is marginally higher than before but not very significantly. We are obviously continuing with speed on the implementation of the measures to offset this tariff increase. As we mentioned in July, it's both, of course, the increase in our local production capacity in All-Clad in Canonsburg. It's also the relocation of our cookware production in Supor from China to Supor in Vietnam. It's also supplier diversification and renegotiation with our Chinese suppliers and also relocation or move of transfer of production to supplier facilities outside of China.
Our action plan also includes the increase of selling prices. As we said, we started in May and June and continued over the summer. So we have only, let's say, a partial offset at this stage, but still it is starting to show. And finally, we are also implementing some measures to mitigate the impact on the Professional segment. So all in all, to -- the conclusion is that our measures are being increasingly effective but this does not compensate, of course, the wait-and-see attitude of retailers.
Moving to Asia. In China, we see a moderate but solid growth still at 3.5%, 3.6% for the whole region and 3.5% for China, which is, of course, reflecting the strength of Supor in digital activation in particular. As you know, social commerce is becoming a big thing in China, and Supor is very agile and very efficient in those new channels. In this context, we are consolidating our global leadership, in particular, on cookware and on kitchen electrics. In cookware, the works are still very important, particularly titanium nonstick work. And in electrical cooking, we can note the successes in rice cookers and oil-less fryers.
In the rest of Asia, we have a contrasted performance, very strong performance in Southeast Asia with expansion of retail distribution network and development of new categories. We have, unfortunately, as you know, a weak situation in Japan and South Korea, in particular, impacted by weak consumer spending but also the depreciation of the currency, which has increased in the third quarter. And in Australia, we have a continued product expansion, including with the recent launch of our ice cream maker, Dolce and -- but in a competitive environment.
Moving to EMEA. In Western Europe, as I mentioned, we have a positive performance, 1% like-for-like, excluding LP, we're at plus 4.3%. However, it is a little bit softer than anticipated. It is driven by double-digit growth in cookware but also Floor Care and Linen Care, continuing the trend that we saw in H1. We noted that our performance was weaker than expected in France and Germany, in particular, because we are suffering on some of our historic electrical cooking core categories. But we still see a very positive momentum in Southern and Northern Europe, fueled by our innovation success, including on washers and versatile and oil-less fryers, for example.
On other EMEA countries, the trend remains very positive in Eastern Europe, driven by Poland but we are also experiencing more difficulties, more issues in Africa and the Middle East related in particular to the geopolitical environment.
With that, I hand over now to Stanislas for the remainder of the presentation.
Thank you, Olivier. It's interesting to hand over now because we see that in Southern Europe, in Northern Europe, in Eastern Europe, our growth is driven and is fueled by innovation. And it's interesting to review some of the big innovations we have or we are introducing this quarter or this semester. Starting with versatile vacuum cleaners. We've sold over 1 million units of this X-Force Flex range of 2024. This is a key driver of the growth made in France products for 3 out of 4. We are now #2 in Europe on versatile vacuum cleaners, and we see the continuous introduction in the second half of 2025 of the flagship, the most expensive products X-Force Flex 1660.
This year also marks the development and the explosion of the robot -- of the versatile vacuum cleaner market. It is a market that is going to deliver over EUR 100 million of sales this year only for Group, the first full year. We've rolled it out in 70 countries since the end of 2024, and our XP10 is the best seller in Europe in the first 6 months of the year on the GFK panel. So we are introducing in the second half of the year 3 new variants, XP2, XP5, XP7, again, feeding a strong portfolio of innovation that is delivering material sales growth.
And the last [indiscernible] , I was going to say, the last arrival is the Cookeo Infinity that we've just launched in France around about a month ago. It is the first all-in-one device that combines pressure cooker and a fryer in the same appliance. It has been introduced in France on the 23rd of September and already shows on the French market a significant material impact on the development.
And last, within -- we've chosen quite a few innovations. We are expanding further the [indiscernible] launch in the second half '25 in cookware in Europe with a ceramic cover that is 4x more resistant than the previous, confirming our leadership in multi-material coatings, including ceramic with that product being expanding and launched across Europe. So you see a quite dynamic product activity, which supports and funds and feeds the growth of our fourth quarter, and that helps compensate some of the more negative news we have on some geographies or some segments of the market.
Now when we step back and go back to the first 9 months, we see -- if we look at it by product line, we see that Floor Care is growing a strong double-digit growth in the first 9 months of the year, followed by cookware that has, again, a pretty strong dynamic. Linen Care confirms its dynamism. Food preparation is positive. We see more mixed performance in electrical cooking due to some difficulties in our core and historical product families but we are fixing it. And I think the launch of Cookeo Infinity is a great answer to that. And home comfort, I think Olivier has mentioned that the weather issues we have in Brazil.
The last part of this presentation or the one before last is around the Q3 ORfA. As you've seen, the ORfA in Q3 is down EUR 52 million versus 2024. It is primarily driven by sales level, which is slightly below 2024 and the impact on the operational leverage. We continue to see a decline in North America, around EUR 20 million in the quarter, which is close to the one of half 1 and Q2.
As I said, the strengthening of the euro and the ability to offset currency effects is still penalizing in emerging countries. That weighs for EUR 15 million in the third quarter against EUR 25 million in the first half. The contribution on Professional Coffee on the contrary is in line with last year in Q3, and that's after a decrease of EUR 40 million in the first half, and our investment in growth drivers have been stable in Q3 when it was up EUR 60 million in the third quarter -- in the -- sorry, first half. So that leads to an ORfA margin that is declining 230 basis points versus the ORfA margin last year.
Now the last part is the outlook and some comments about the plan we just announced. The outlook for 2025, I'm just confirming what we said a couple of weeks ago is for a full year organic growth sales stable to slightly positive with a full year ORfA landing between EUR 550 million and EUR 600 million.
Now of course, as you know, the fourth quarter is the most important quarter in the year. So we're in the middle of the peak season. What do we see as key actions now? We see -- we continue to see a growth acceleration in the most promising segments. We've seen, and I just described them, intensive product launches with unoptimized multichannel activation. We will have sustained and targeting marketing and advertising investments in the period, which is pretty dense of commercial events, of course, Black Friday in New York -- in Europe and the United States, Christmas holidays, 11/11 Singles Day in China and so on. We are focusing on strengthening the service offering in professional, and that goes with continued good momentum in coffee machine sales in Europe and Asia. So we see a positive outlook for professional coffee in the fourth quarter.
And we, of course, continue and intensify our cost reduction programs of nonessential spending throughout all lines of the P&L. On top of that, we've announced today that we are launching a plan with the aim to restore profitable growth momentum by 2027. What's the situation? What's the objectives? Well we want to restore our growth momentum, we want to restore our profitability standards, and we want to adapt the group to the rapid shift in our markets.
So the actions we implement are around generating approximately EUR 200 million of recurring cost savings by 2027, focusing our initiatives on purchases, on structure optimization, on improving industrial efficiency and on simplifying our work processes. That will allow us to accelerate our growth by substantially increasing our investment capacity in innovation, in artificial intelligence and in digital marketing, in particular, to streamline our organization to enhance our agility and our speed and to strengthen our consumer engagement around experience and sustainability.
We don't give more details on this plan today. I think it's already some details. We will communicate more on this topic in early 2026. I think we're done with our presentation. Thank you very much for your attention.
I will hand over to our administrator to organize the question-and-answer session. Thank you.
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Geoffrey d'Halluin from BNPP Exane.
2. Question Answer
I have 3 questions, please. The first one is related to competition. I guess you mentioned in your press release 2 weeks ago, sustained market competition. Just curious to get your thoughts on what you are seeing? Do you think you are losing market shares in a few product categories or in a few geographies? And maybe overall, are you seeing any competitors being more aggressive in terms of pricing?
My second question is related to your revenue and EBIT bridge into 2026. Just wondering if you think any elements which have impacted your 2025 numbers are one-off by nature and so should not come back in 2026 and may support next year growth?
And the last question is on the balance sheet. If you can share any thoughts on where do you expect to land in terms of leverage at the end of this year?
[Foreign Language] I will take the first and second and Olivier will take the third one. I'll start with the second to say it's pretty early to comment on 2026. We are -- as you've seen, we have been unsettled in 2025 in our forecast. So we are now working very hard on landing 2025 and taking the landings of 2025. When it comes to competition, we see some aggressiveness on the market from, I would say, Western competitors and from Chinese competition. We are able to manage that on our margins because that would be a question that comes immediately after.
But yes, there is a high intensity -- highly intense competition on the market. We don't think we are losing share in the segments we operate in broadly. Now there may be some market swings between categories that robot vacuum cleaners in particular, that may impact our global share. But when you look at our competitive position on the main markets we operate in, there is no sign of a share loss. I think we are more affected by category mix and the country mix.
Olivier?
Okay. So on the leverage, of course, we're not going to provide a precise guidelines at this stage of the year. But I think I can give you a few pointers. The first one, of course, you remember that we paid a fine from the French Competition Authority of around EUR 190 million in the second quarter. So of course, that will remain, let's say, a difference between last year's position and this year. Our working capital remains on the high side, even though we are progressively, let's say, reducing our inventory level versus last year, we are still penalized by the Red Sea crisis. And therefore, we have a working capital, which is higher than our target range.
And this year, we have a few CapEx. We have, of course, CapEx cycles. And this year, we have a few important investments, in particular, to expand or build our new Shaoxing hub in Professional Coffee machines in China. And therefore, they will be a little bit, let's say, higher than the average. So we can expect a leverage position, which will be higher than our standards this year. We are, however, looking to fix that. Of course, we are -- as you saw today, we are announcing a significant plan. So we are determined to recover in our ROPA.
We also -- we will continue to work on working capital to go back to our standards of 15% to 17% of sales. And we'll see whether they -- there are some good news on the Red Sea crisis but we'll certainly work to improve our working capital position and therefore, contribute to go back to our standards. We are, as you know, very comfortable around 2x net debt to EBITDA. And when occasionally we diverge from this target position, we take the necessary actions to go back as soon as possible to our comfort zone.
The next question comes from Alessandro Cecchini from Equita.
The first one is on the saving plan. You know that -- we know that you don't provide additional information but just to understand how much of the portion of savings are you cashing in this year? I mean, in 2025, you stated in the press release. And if you expect -- when you expect most of the benefits come through the P&L? And if you expect, I mean, restructuring charges relevant or something, I would say, not so relevant. So just if you can elaborate a little bit more on these topics.
My second question is still about competition. Probably I lost a little bit because to understand if the level of competition that you are seeing in this moment is like you had in the first half or you are seeing a different situation? So already, you stated a high level of competition. So just to understand if the competitive environment is competitive but stable. And I missed if you talked about, in particular, Chinese company. So if you can elaborate a little bit more on this?
And my final question was on the ForEx headwinds. Can you elaborate a little bit more on the total ForEx headwinds on ORfA for the 9 months because probably minus 15% is just a portion.
Okay. Thank you, Alessandro. On the saving plan, the portion of the saving plan, the plan is Okay. We are announcing a structural plan. And we say that we will complete this plan by 2027, which means we would like to get a very strong chunk of the savings by 2027, not all of it because there will be phasing. As far as 2025 is concerned, I think the first measures were taken back in June, July this year. And you see that in our ORfA results in the third quarter already that our spending growth has been almost totally curved versus -- or in line with last year.
Most -- now the portion of the benefits that will go to the P&L, I think this plan is a plan to restore growth. There will be some reinvestments on this plan. But of course, the aim is to go back to our profit growth trajectory that I remind you, we discussed in the Capital Market Day back in 2023, where we said we want to go towards 11% [indiscernible]. We should finish this year 7%, 7.5% [indiscernible]. So of course, there is a clear priority to recover ORfA and operating margin through this plan. Now it's very early to say when and how much will be hitting 2026 and 2027 and 2028. But you should keep from this plan that it's material, it's important. It will be recurring structural savings, and it will be fast because we want to complete it by 2027.
Your second question on competition sorry.
No, no, please. And then please...
No, if you have any comment because I was going to switch to your second question.
No, yes. On the second question, so if I understood correctly, so the plan is having already, I mean, some benefits in 2025 and the plan will be rolled out through 2027 with, I presume, the full impact on 2028. It's correct?
I mean it's early to say. I mean, you are -- I understand and I recognize your impatience -- what I'm saying is that we have already undertaken some cost-saving measures in the second half of 2025. We are accelerating that and put together a plan that will generate in the next 2 years, EUR 200 million additional recurrent savings. Okay?
Okay. Yes. And on the final...
So on the Chinese -- on the competition intensity and the Chinese companies, we see, I think, probably more intense competition than there was in the first half of the year. This is driven by all competitors. We see more and more Chinese companies in the areas of floor care and kitchen electrics coming in, in Europe. We think we are able within our guidance to face this Chinese competition, and we're confident that with what we know and what we see in the market, we will be able to confront that competition as we've done it in the first half of the year.
Olivier, do you want to take the first ForEX question?
Absolutely. So on FX, let's say, several -- in total, let's say, for the first 9 months, it's just under EUR 50 million of negative impact. So it's obviously very material, but it's made of several components. The first one is on U.S. dollar and CNY. We commented on this in the first half. We're expecting the impact to be breakeven in the third quarter and to turn positive in the fourth quarter because, obviously, we are typically short of those 2 currencies are short. What happened is that, in fact, in the third quarter, we still had a negative net impact. So we -- this is delaying, let's say, the positive momentum to Q4. But clearly, this will be going forward, if the levels stay where they are, this will be a positive effect on our margins. We are also suffering from the Chinese -- from the Japanese yen and the Korean won weakness. Last year, we were -- on the Japanese yen, we were protected by our hedges. But unfortunately, this year, they are not providing much of a cover.
And then the last point, which is probably the more material is that we are facing difficulties this year to compensate the depreciation of emerging market currencies by price increases. As you know, traditionally, in the past, we've been able to compensate the majority, let's say, 70%, 80% of the negative impact. The different situation that we are facing this year is the diverging trajectory between U.S. dollar, in particular and the euro. And many of our competitors, of course, and many of those markets are dollar market. And when the euro is strengthening like this and the U.S. dollar is depreciating, it is making it more difficult, at least in the short term, to pass those price increases to compensate for the depreciation. So this is one of the significant component of the negative FX impact in our results this year.
I'd like to maybe add something on the -- Olivier, on the intensity of the competition. You know that we are Chinese in China. And you know that facing Chinese competition and the Chinese aggressiveness is our daily bread and butter in China. So I think you shouldn't keep from my comments that the competition is increasing and that will impact the results. You should keep from our comment that competition is increasing, and we feel we are able to navigate with this increased competition intensity with a good management of our margins. I think this is the key message you should keep for this part.
Okay. And lastly, asking restructuring charges. So if you -- just a sense.
Too early to say. Too early to say. We'll come back to you -- we'll come back to the market early in 2026 to give you the full details. And of course, this will be part of the details, okay?
Okay.
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Sarah Thirion from TPICAP Europe.
I was wondering if you could remind me the date of the big renewal of major contracts in Coffee -- Professional Coffee, sorry. Because if I remember well, the medium-term ambition was supposed assumed an increase in Professional division weight in percentage of consolidated revenues. And if there is no acquisition, I think that the medium-term targets could be harder to achieve. So if you could remind me the renewal date would be great.
[Foreign Language] Right. We had a big wave of contracts in the U.S. in '17, '18, '19 mainly, I think. And we say that those contracts are -- those machines have 6, 7, 8 years life expectancy. Our machines, unfortunately, are more reliable and last longer. So we expect to start to see an impact, let's say, in '27, '28 with a bigger impact in the, call it, '27, '28, just to be precise. There will be -- and that's the first comment.
The second comment on the Professional Coffee is that with all those blips and the cycle effects, we still see that the underlying growth of the business is between 5% and 10% quarter after quarter. So we are confident that this will -- that we stay in course with the Professional Coffee. And of course, the exit of these bad comps and Q4 should be the first clear quarter of growth should be -- should help us see more clearly in that direction.
The last thing I wanted to say on Professional coffee is that, as you know, we've opened -- we are opening now the Shaoxing Professional Coffee hub that will expand further our ability to develop machines for the Semipro entry market, thus allowing us to enter more easily on coffee chains on office work. So we see a potential for expansion of the professional coffee category through those new ranges of machines that should help us deliver our expectations on that segment.
Olivier?
Just to complement, mass production. So we are -- the facility, as you know, has been built in record time. It was delivered this summer. The machines and the ramp-up of the production is starting as we speak. And in fact, we expect mass production to start in the beginning of 2026. And as we mentioned, Sarah, in the past, we are developing, in fact, very rapidly several new products for the semiprofessional and entry-level segment. And those will be, of course, additional to what we do today.
Okay. Just if I may, I guess that the U.S. tariff could be challenging for share in the U.S. Do you have any comments on this?
Yes. We are -- as many of our Professional Coffee competitors, we are manufacturing in Switzerland. We are looking at it. We have options in Germany. We have options in China. So it is something that we're looking at, and it is not -- it may be an operational concern short term. It is not a strategic concern for us. We will fix it. We will have solutions if those tariffs are confirmed and if that impacts materially our P&L, okay?
Okay.
The next question comes from Alessandro Cuglietta from Kepler.
Just a quick one for me. On China, could you maybe elaborate on the current market trends and especially the sustainability of the current like-for-like growth you posted because we have a lot of headlines on China quite negative at the moment. So I wanted to have your opinion on that.
Right. We see a slightly slower fourth quarter in China. but it would be still positive. It will be -- we see a market that is not markedly slowing down. I mean the first holiday season, the Golden Week was an impressive in terms of retail sales. And I mean, we've seen the same statistics as you've seen. But our business is holding up quite well. Our channel mix is holding quite well. Our margin mix is holding quite well. Our core categories on cookware and kitchen electrics are holding up quite well. So no sign of a change of a trend that has now been on for 4, 5 quarters in China with consistent year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter evolutions, which are positive and which are driven and fed by sound business.
The next question comes from Christophe Chaput from ODDO.
Just a quick one for me on North America. So you say that you have a negative impact by EUR 20 million in Q3, obviously. I just wonder, is it possible to strip out the volume effect on your sales and the price effect or the -- yes, the price hike that you are going to -- that you already passed, sorry, to offset the tariffs. So in another word, on the minus 20, do you fully, let's say, offset the impact of the tariff with your price increase? And so the minus 20% came from the volume? Or do you need a further price increase?
Olivier?
[Foreign Language] So in -- the extent of our price increases is designed to offset the majority of the negative impact from increased tariff. And this is implemented progressively, not at the same time on all categories. So it's a growing, let's say, it's a growing offset, and it was not -- it did not offset 100% of the tariff in the third quarter. That being said, the big impact is really on volumes, which is due to, as we said, the wait-and-see attitude from customers and the change of incoterms, the change of -- from direct import locally to local sales. And that's why we are expecting an improved performance in the fourth quarter.
So progressively, the measures that we are taking are, let's say, delivering their results. And progressively, we expect the markets to normalize. In total, we still have positive sell-out momentum, not quite to the extent of the price increases. So it means that there is a slight negative impact on volumes, but it's a very moderate impact. Okay.
There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, everyone. We are -- first, we are in action, we are in movement. We have the biggest quarter in front of us. We're in the middle of it. So all our teams are mobilized and in action and very active to fight against those headwinds that we are facing. We know that our guidance has led to some disappointment, but we are determined, and that's my second point, to bring the group back to the financial trajectory that we've set for ourselves a couple of years ago.
And the third comment is this is why we put together a plan that will accelerate that path to recovery, both in terms of resetting our operating margin and in terms of giving ourselves the resources to deliver the growth that is absolutely needed to deliver value creation in this company. Fourth, we have a year where we've had ups and down more hubs, in fact, on inventories. We may not catch up everything on this year's lending on inventory but we are very conscious of the market and our investors' expectations and ambitions in terms of cash flow delivery, and this is one of our preoccupations.
I thank you all for your continuous follow-up and support for your questions, and I wish you a good results week or season. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Financial data from SEB
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 | 8,165 8,165 |
1%
1%
100%
|
|
| - Direct Costs | - - |
-
-
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|
| Gross Profit | - - |
-
-
|
|
| - Selling and Administrative Expenses | 463 463 |
82%
82%
6%
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|
| - Research and Development Expense | - - |
-
-
|
|
| EBITDA | 678 678 |
8%
8%
8%
|
|
| - Depreciation and Amortization | 285 285 |
0%
0%
3%
|
|
| EBIT (Operating Income) EBIT | 393 393 |
13%
13%
5%
|
|
| Net Profit | 120 120 |
10%
10%
1%
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In millions EUR.
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Company Profile
SEB SA is engaged in the manufacturing of small domestic equipment and cookware. It operates through the following divisions: Cookware, Kitchen Electrics, and Home & Personal Care Products. The Cookware division manufactures frying pans, saucepans, casseroles, baking trays, oven dishes, pressure cookers, low-pressure steam pots, kitchen utensils. The Kitchen Electrics division engages in the Electrical Cooking and Preparation. The Electrical Cooking includes deep fryers, table-top ovens, rice cookers, induction hobs, electric pressure cookers, barbecues, informal meal appliances, waffl e makers, meat grills, toasters, steam cookers and bread makers. The Preparation include food processors, beaters, mixers, blenders, centrifugal juice extractors, small food-preparation appliances, coffee makers electric kettles, instant hot-water dispensers, home beertapping machines and soya milk makers. The Home & Personal Care Products division engages in personal care products, linen care and home care products. Its brands include Krups, Lagostina, Moulinex, Rowenta, and Tefal. The company was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Écully, France.
StocksGuide Premium
| Head office | France |
| CEO | Mr. Gramont |
| Employees | 31,856 |
| Founded | 1974 |
| Website | www.groupeseb.com |


