ORANY - Orange S.A.
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Q1 2026 Earnings Call
2026-04-23Operator: Hello to all of you. Welcome to Orange Q1 2026 Results Conference. For your information, this conference will be recorded. The call today will be hosted by Christel Heydemann, our CEO; Laurent Martinez, our CFO, with other members of Orange Executive Committee for the Q&A session after the presentation. So let's start with the presentation. Christel Heydemann, the floor is yours.
Christel Heydemann: Good morning. Thank you for joining our Q1 results presentation. Before getting into our Q1 results, I would like to mention that last week in France, we announced entering into exclusive negotiation with the Altice France Group for the acquisition of SFR jointly with Bouygues Telecom and the Free-iliad Group. Our joint offer reflects a total enterprise value of EUR 20.35 billion for the Altice France assets under consideration. Orange's share within the split of price and value between buyers would be around 27%. This transaction would help sustain and strengthen the entire digital economy and the telecommunications sector in France. There is no certainty though, that this process will result in an agreement. In parallel, in Spain, we already received the approval of the antitrust authorities, and we are confirming a closing of MASORANGE transaction in Q2. Back to our results. The year 2026 started with the presentation of our new strategic plan, Trust the future. This plan was well received, and we are now fully focused on its execution. In Q1, we reported very strong financial results with group revenues up by plus 3.5% and EBITDAaL up at plus 6.6%. This is fueled by a very robust retail services performance, growing plus 1.1% in France and in Europe and plus 13% in Middle East and Africa. We also accounted for significant positive wholesale nonrecurring items in France. These items were mostly anticipated and therefore, already integrated into our guidance. Excluding these effects, the underlying growth in group revenues is circa plus 2.5% and circa plus 3.5% in EBITDAaL. Based on these solid results, we are upgrading our EBITDAaL group guidance from circa 3% to above 3%, while fully confirming the rest of the '26 guidance. Lastly, I would like to emphasize that in the current volatile environment, Orange remains very solid and highly resilient. We closely monitor conflict situations, particularly in the Middle East, always prioritizing the safety of our employees. Additionally, we are well hedged regarding energy in Europe and benefit from the high level of solar power adoption in Africa and Middle East. As a result, our exposure to the indirect impacts of the crisis is limited. Let's now review our strong Q1 results. Revenues reached EUR 10.1 billion and grew by 3.5%, driven by retail growth across all geographies and the expected positive wholesale nonrecurring items in France. EBITDAaL is up 6.6% this quarter, reflecting growth in retail services, continuous efficiency efforts and the positive effect of wholesale nonrecurring items. We maintained discipline on eCapEx with eCapEx to sales around 15%, in line with our guidance. This solid first quarter gives us strong confidence in achieving our 2026 guidance with an EBITDAaL growth now expected to be above 3%. Q1 was a dynamic quarter marked by the launch of several strategic Trust the future initiatives in our 3 core ambitions. Customer intimacy, innovative growth and excellence at scale. In customer intimacy, we introduced 2 AI assistants in France. Sharlie, a 24/7 conversational assistant dedicated to answering our Sosh clients and my AI assistant, MAIA, an assistant helping Orange sales teams better understand customer needs. We also launched new loyalty programs in France. Regarding innovative growth, we announced more than 10 innovative offers at the Orange Business Summit, including Europe's first anti-drone-as-a-service solution, sovereign collaboration tools and an AI-powered cybersecurity offer. In terms of excellence at scale, Orange Business announced a partnership with Tech Mahindra to accelerate digital transformation for our international customers. And in France, we began decommissioning 2G and copper networks closing 900,000 households while implementing our new organization to boost efficiency. Trust the future is in action. I will now hand over to Laurent for the business review, starting with France on Slide 8.
Laurent Martinez: Thank you, Christel. Moving to France. The competitive environment remained generally stable on the high end and slightly improved on the low end. In the first quarter, our efficient commercial strategy led to robust commercial performance. We recorded the lowest churn on fixed broadband and convergence since Q2 2022, and mobile churn improved by more than 1 point. Net adds remained strong with 55,000 in fixed, a record since Q4 2021, 40,000 in mobile and 15,000 in convergence. Convergence ARPU is up by EUR 0.3 year-on-year and fixed broadband ARPU is stable, both sustained by our cross-sell strategy. Mobile-only ARPU is down by EUR 0.8, still reflecting the mix effect related to the competitive landscape over the past year. On the financial slide, revenues reached EUR 4.4 billion, up by 2.3% year-on-year. Retail services, excluding PSTN, increased by 1.1%. The strong performance of fixed broadband and convergence, driven by our focus on our customer loyalty and multiservice approach offset the expected decline in PSTN services this quarter. We increased our NPS to above 34, widening the gap versus the #2 to 11 points while reducing churn across all segments. On the wholesale side, revenues increased by 6%, mainly due to the positive impact of circa EUR 100 million wholesale nonrecurring items, which includes significant cost financing anticipated in our plan. The strong results give us confidence in achieving our target of stable plus EBITDAaL growth in 2026 in France. Turning to Africa and Middle East, which continues to deliver a very strong performance, demonstrating our positive momentum. Revenues increased double digits for the 12th quarter in a row, driven by money, 4G, fixed broadband and B2B. Remarkably, 2/3 of our countries are up double-digit growth in terms of revenues. Looking forward, we are very comfortable on our high single-digit EBITDAaL growth outlook for 2026. Let's continue with Europe. Europe posted a solid start of the year with revenue up 2.2% year-on-year. Services remained strong, fueled by good commercial momentum, balanced between volume and value. Over the quarter, net add remains robust with 66,000 in mobile, 51,000 in FTTH and 21,000 in convergence. Convergence ARPU is up by 4.2% in Q1 in Poland. IT&IS is up by 12%, mainly driven by Belgium and Poland. Wholesale growth was driven notably by low margin activities such as international interconnection. Thanks to this robust result, we confirm the low to mid-single-digit EBITDAaL growth outlook for 2026. Moving to Orange Business. In a market environment that remains very challenging, IT&IS revenue growth was driven by strong equipment sales and sustainable growth within Orange Cyber Defense of more than 9% in the quarter. We announced a new partnership with Tech Mahindra and the launch of 14 new innovative offers at the Orange Business Summit. Overall, we continue to actively drive the transformation of Orange Business, and we confirm our outlook for continued improvement. Turning to MASORANGE. The acquisition process, as you know, is well advanced with the recent clearance by the antitrust authorities, and we are expecting a closing in the second quarter of this year. Total revenues are up by 1.2% year-on-year, driven by B2B equipment sales and wholesale services, offsetting the expected mix impact on the services in a challenging market environment. Over 1 year, total clients is up significantly with over 400,000 mobile lines, with a limited reduction during the first quarter of 2026. Synergies are on track and the 2026 outlook remains confirmed. I will now hand over to Christel for the guidance update.
Christel Heydemann: Thank you, Laurent. We are proud of this very strong Q1 results, which mark a very solid start for our new Trust the future plan announced a few weeks ago. Our 2026 guidance, excluding MASORANGE for now, is fully confirmed and is upgraded on EBITDAaL, mainly thanks to a very strong performance of Africa Middle East. The expected impacts of the reconsolidation of MASORANGE on our guidance are confirmed as well. We expect the closing of the MASORANGE operation in Q2 2026 and plan to provide further details alongside our H1 results. Laurent, Jerome and I are now ready for your questions.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] So the first question is coming from Ondrej Cabej ek from UBS. Ondrej Cabejšek: Hello, can you hear me? Hello? [Technical Difficulty]
Christel Heydemann: Yes, we can hear you. Ondrej Cabejšek: Okay. So 2 questions for me, please. First of all, congratulations on entering exclusive talks. And I was hoping you can give us color on key aspects of the second bid such as whether it is now largely a legal formality and you are confident this new offer will be accepted. What has allowed you to increase the bid by roughly 20%, whether there is any update on the regulatory process and time line and so forth? That would be the first question. Second question, please, is really on the French competitive dynamics where the retail ex PSTN trends have improved sequentially. So if you could please speak as to what is driving this? How sustainable it is? And whether now that there is a deal in place, we can expect maybe continued rationalization in the French market already?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you. On the Altice negotiation. As you know, we submitted a revised offer compared to the offer we had submitted in October. And of course, in October, we had very limited information, since then we entered into due diligence in January, February and have been able to submit this revised offer, which has been accepted by the seller given the granted exclusive negotiation. In terms of what's now planned, as you know, we have this exclusive window until mid-May. There is, of course, a lot of usual items to be discussed, legal aspects as well as commercial as usual in this type of transaction. So I won't provide more details. As you know, this is a complex transaction given we are not bidding as Orange. We are bidding as part of a consortium, and we have also agreements within the consortium. But of course, as soon and if we reach an agreement and sign an MOU in the next weeks, we will, of course, provide you with more details. We are -- as we said, our share in the transaction is reflecting the value created and the price, 27%, which is unchanged compared to our offer in October. And then in terms of what has been driving the price evolution, a lot of aspects. Just to give you one item. Back in October, we were considering an asset deal. We are now talking of a share transaction for the acquisition of SFR shares. So that's just one item. And I don't want to go into more details given really at this stage, there is no certainty that this transaction will go to an end. But you know how important this transaction is not just for Orange and France, but at large for the telecom market. We've been very vocal on the need for market consolidation. We believe it's critical to sustain investment on our critical infrastructure. And that's why, of course, we will continue to engage with authorities, country authorities as well as regulatory authorities, but not just us, of course, as a consortium. So difficult to provide you more details at this stage, but stay tuned. And of course, as soon as we have progressed, we will give you more colors. On the French market environment, the Q1 competitive dynamics was less aggressive, especially on the low end. The broadband and the high-end market remains what it was before. Now on one side, you could say Q1 is usually a lower competitive quarter. There's some seasonality effect, even though it's not been like that over the past years, all Q1s. And this is normally the consequence of a very active promotional activity for the Christmas and end-of-year period. But the -- but clearly, lower competitive -- less aggressive. And of course, our performance is also very much driven by the lower churn on all our segments, mobile, broadband, convergence. And this is what we've highlighted in our Trust the future plan. Our focus on churn reduction is, of course, a key enabler of our commercial performance. In terms of what we could expect from a consolidation, let's be very clear. The transaction between the consortium and SFR, I suspect, especially in the current environment where purchasing power is under pressure because of the Middle East crisis. I don't think that if we were convinced that this transaction would drive price increase in the French market, I'm pretty sure the antitrust authorities would not approve it. So this is something that -- on which we are, on one side, very confident on the need for this transaction to happen and consolidation to happen, but also clearly, we know the market will remain competitive no matter what. And we also know that France has -- is one of the cheapest market in Europe as well. Ondrej Cabejšek: I may have one quick follow-up. Can you just confirm that part of the deal could now be share-based? Is that what you said? And if so, how could that possibly look like?
Christel Heydemann: Well, this is a technicality, but indeed, the consortium would buy the SFR shares that are part of Altice. In addition, we would also buy other assets. So again, too early to provide you more details. We're not buying the Altice shares, to be clear. But this was just one example of something that changed between October and our latest offer.
Operator: So our next question is coming from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs.
Andrew Lee: Just checking, you can hear me?
Operator: Yes, we can hear you well.
Andrew Lee: Okay. I have 2 organic questions for you. Just one on France and one on Spain. So useful color from you guys on a slightly less aggressive low end of the market in France. And as you've commented in the past, some of the pricing is coming up by EUR 1 to EUR 2. So kind of a part A and part B question to this one. When can we start seeing that come through in your ARPU trends in mobile in France? And is it enough of an improvement for mobile ARPU to turn positive through the year? The Part B question is Iliad launched some unlimited offers at the end of the quarter. Has that impacted your perception of competitive aggression in France at all? And then just on Spain, you saw an improvement in MASORANGE's growth to 1.2% in the quarter. Are we seeing any signs of an improved outlook for growth there, whether that be MASORANGE's positioning or the market environment?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you, Andrew. On the French market, I mean, we don't guide on the mobile ARPU trend, but clearly, what we see is less aggressive offers for the low end of the mobile market, which probably also drives less market dynamic and part of the explanation for churn reduction. The lowest part of the market is very sensitive to price. And so it's difficult to directly reconcile this dynamic with, of course, the future trend. Part of our ARPU drive is really linked to churn reduction and upsell on our base. So -- and again, we don't guide on the mobile ARPU trend. And as you know, our strategy to grow is also convergence. So migrating mobile-only customers to convergence customers. On the Free Max offer, which is the high-end offer from -- announced by Iliad, we -- I mean, this is, of course, their strategy. I'm not going to comment on their strategy. That being said, if we think of high capacity or big package for travelers, we have competitive offers in our portfolio, be it Sosh or Orange that are actually cheaper than this Free Max offer. And EUR 30 a month for mobile is not cheap. So we -- I mean, at least, we have our own strategy. We don't think that this at least will change what we drive. But we've seen a good take-up on all our travel offers as well. And as you know, I mean, Q2 is typically an active quarter for that. So expect more commercials as well from us on this side. But of course, Free is sending a signal in the market that they need higher-end offers compared to their, I would say, brand that has been built on this EUR 2 voice mainly offer. On the Spanish market, the Spanish market remains extremely competitive on the low end. Our performance in Spain is as per plan, and we expect to stabilize. So it's the same recipe as in France, focused on churn reduction, focused on customer value management, and we have been -- we have seen some price increases on the high end of the market. And of course, we play with our different brands, but we definitely forecast an improvement. And actually, Q4, if we compare our Q1 performance in Spain compared to Q4, we have already improved the trends. So this is as per plan.
Operator: So the next question is from Akhil Dattani from JPMorgan.
Akhil Dattani: Can you hear me?
Christel Heydemann: Yes, we can.
Akhil Dattani: Great. I've got two as well, please, if I can. The first is just on the anticipated merger review process on the SFR deal. I'd love to get your early thoughts more just around jurisdiction. Bouygues has been talking in the last couple of months around their expectation that the deal will likely not be split between both the French authorities and the EC, but will more likely be led by one party. I just wondered if that is your assessment at this stage. Now we're a bit more advanced in the process. And I guess I'm particularly interested in your thoughts around the press reports last week around the EU's new merger review process draft that was leaked to the Financial Times. It looks like there is a lot more supportive rhetoric around consolidation and a focus away from consumer pricing and more to innovation investments in creating European champion. So would love to just get your understanding of where we are and your engagement with the relevant bodies. So that's the first question. And then the second question is, I guess, a bit of a simple one around the EBITDAaL guidance. Q1 obviously was very strong at 6.6%. Christel, you mentioned underlying it's still 3.5%. If we were to just very simplistically take the 3.5% for the next 3 quarters, you'd obviously get well above 4%. So could you just talk us through when we look through guidance? I know it's obviously very early in the year. But is this just a bit of conservatism in the context of obviously lots of macro unknowns? Or are there specific phasing items we should think about for the next few quarters?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you, Akhil. On the merger review process, you're right that, as you know, this would be 3 files, one for each member of the consortium. And we know Bouygues would be led from the French authorities and Iliad would be led by Brussels. And regarding Orange, it would depend linked also to the closing and the time line of our Spanish transaction. That being said, you're right, ultimately, in this type of deal, and same was true when we did the MASORANGE transaction. You would expect one of the authority to take the lead, and this is something that the 2 authorities would agree on. That being said, I think that given the scale of the transaction, the impact this would have on the telecom market in Europe, I'd be surprised that even if the French authorities lead the analysis, and again, this is not for us to decide. It's going to be an agreement between the authorities. I'd be surprised if Brussels does not follow closely and if they don't work together. So of course, it's -- we don't have any signal of any sign. And of course, I can only remind that so far, we don't have an agreement to submit. So it's a bit premature. But of course, we started to discuss with authorities to get them ready because we also know that these antitrust process takes time, and we want to make sure we can help them get up to speed quickly. In terms of what the new draft or at least the leakage we got in the FT article, we follow closely, of course, and we expect to see the revised guidelines of the draft in the coming weeks. We take it as positive. We can recognize from what has been leaked that some of the ask we had are in the leakage. So it's -- I would say it goes in the right direction. As you know, we've been pretty vocal for the past years. And so this is key. Now let's -- we are -- there is a new Head of DG Competition that was recently appointed but we also know the administration will not completely walk away from consumer prices, especially, as I said, in the current environment where I don't think any political leader could easily talk to their -- I mean to citizens and country population and completely discard price impact or purchasing power. So of course, this is something that if we look at the CMA decision in the U.K. was taken into account with some behavioral remedies and some abilities to drive that. And of course, this is something that we are also considering. But again, too early to comment further given we're still actively discussing on how to get an agreement agreed. In terms of the guidance, as we said, we are upgrading above 3%, and we are, I mean, very confident and very -- I mean these are good results, very good results for Q1. As we also said, we will update and provide you more details and the impact of the MASORANGE consolidation in -- with our full H1 results. So I mean I won't give you now a more detailed guidance. But indeed, we are very confident with our guidance.
Operator: So we have now a question from Nick Lyall from Berenberg.
Nicholas Lyall: I hope you can hear me.
Operator: Yes, very well.
Nicholas Lyall: There was a couple of questions on France, please. Firstly, I think, Laurent, in your comments, you mentioned the top end of the market is stable, but I just wanted to ask on the convergent ARPUs. It looks as if by next quarter, they could be negative and slipping. So is it possible to give us a bit of an update on what's happening there, please? And then secondly, again, in Orange France, in the revenue line, the other revenue seems to be up by about EUR 30 million as well. Apologies for being a bit of a spotter here, but revenue is up about EUR 30 million. That would account for about 70 basis points of growth. What's in there? Is that a one-off for, say, copper sales or something? Or is there -- is that just a normal underlying number, please?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you. On the convergent ARPU, as I said for the mobile ARPU question, we don't guide on the ARPU trend, but there is also a seasonality effect between Q4 and Q1 related to content or roaming, for instance. So -- but again, we don't guide on convergence, but we are comfortable. And of course, we are successfully executing our plan where the growth is driven by churn reduction and our convergent strategy. On the question on others, Laurent?
Laurent Martinez: Nick, so on the others, indeed, we are EUR 22 million year-on-year. So it's a small item, but this is related notably to the copper resale phasing in France. This is the main element of this variation.
Nicholas Lyall: Okay. That's great. And can I just come back on maybe Akhil's question as well. Is there any difference, Christel, you think in terms of timing between French and EC authorities? Just -- it's probably a very, very difficult one to answer, of course. But is there any sense that the French authorities may be faster if it was a French process? Could you help us on that?
Christel Heydemann: Well, I'd love to tell you that it's going to be fast, but my own experience with our different files has been pretty disappointing. And you know, I mean, based on our Spanish experience, if you want to move fast in this type of transaction, of course, you have to be very proactive in terms of remedies. And if I look at our Spanish approval, so you could say, okay, it was in a previous world with a different commission, old guidelines, but still, it took time also because we didn't want to say yes to everything that was required. So -- so there's a thin line between trying to move fast and making sure we build a proper and sustainable environment for the future. So -- but clearly, in order for us to move fast, we are anticipating, preparing, I mean, notification, a lot of work that has to take place. But again, I don't want to -- the French authorities. We know that the authorities will do their best also to move fast. They know they have pressure and political pressure and economic pressure. But there's a lot of work to be done, and we have to respect that.
Operator: So next question is from Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank.
Roshan Ranjit: Can you hear me now?
Operator: Very well.
Roshan Ranjit: I've got 2, please. First one, sorry, going back to France and maybe a bit more focused on the fixed ARPU, which, I guess, reversing some of the declines, which we've seen in the previous quarters. Something which you guys have talked about before, which was the perhaps targeted price increases as well as the ongoing upselling. Is it possible to kind of give us a bit more detail around if there was an element of that this quarter in these targeted price increases, and perhaps what percentage of the base that was allocated to? And can we expect some of that going forward? And secondly, Africa Middle East, which I guess we don't get the EBITDAaL split this quarter, but based on the top line, seems to be going very well. I got a sense from the CMD that there is an element of upside through the year maybe. But can you remind us on the energy situation regarding, I think, is it subsidies versus the solar split and how you are not officially hedged on energy, but how you are able to scale that dynamic given the energy situation?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you, Roshan. On the fixed market, maybe, I mean, I will let Jerome comment on the impact of our price increases and whether we plan more and Laurent will answer on our energy hedging policy.
Jerome Henique: Yes. Thank you, Christel. Well, as mentioned, we are stable year-on-year and quarter-over-quarter on our fixed broadband ARPU. This reflects the success of our upsell and cross-sell strategy first. It's as well fueled by our multiservice activities or new growth engine such as subscription VOD or other packages, helping us to push for high-end mix in our sales which means fixed broadband above EUR 40, which represent now a large share of our sales, thanks to the enrichment of the packages. As far as price increases are concerned, we do a very limited and targeted one. I don't think we do comment on volumes on that.
Laurent Martinez: So Roshan, moving to the energy and the MEA situation. Just overall, if I look at Europe, we are 100% hedged on the energy for Europe in '26, more than 90% in 2027, and we are well advanced as well in '28. So very much extremely well covered. On Middle East and Africa, we are covered as well naturally because we have a lot of our sites, which are solar powered. And we continue to expand on this in terms of investments. And of course, we'll have some headwinds related to the fuel price, and there is a lot of mechanism indeed, in terms of subsidies, mitigation. So overall, we are not at all concerned that would put at risk our overall guidance and the positive momentum we have in Middle East and Africa when it comes to the EBITDA.
Operator: So we are going now to take a question from Carl Murdock-Smith from Citi.
Carl Murdock-Smith: Given the other issues I thought I'd just double check. Can you hear me?
Operator: Yes, very well, Carl.
Carl Murdock-Smith: That's fantastic. Two questions from me, please, both slightly on kind of prudence in guidance. So firstly, on Africa and the Middle East, following up kind of on Roshan's question. The evidence in Q1 is that it's still growing very well. Laurent, I think you said that you're very comfortable on the EBITDAaL guidance. Is it fair to say that your high single-digit guidance for this year on EBITDA versus 14% last year could be seen as conservative? And are you simply staying prudent given, as you just talked about, the kind of potential impacts from energy prices and geopolitical events? And then secondly, I was reading the universal registration document. And I wanted to ask about the disparity between annual bonus targets and the LTIP. So in your 2025 annual bonus, your organic cash flow beat targets with 23.5% payout versus its 20% weighting. And that follows on from beats in 2023 and 2024 as well. So you've beaten your target in the scorecard in each of the last 3 years. But if I look at the 3-year LTIP over the same time period of 2023 to 2025, you came in below target at just below EUR 10.7 billion versus a target of just above EUR 10.8 billion. So you only got a 94.5% payout on that metric. So I guess I'm asking just what's going on there. Is Orange more prudent when issuing its 1 year targets and guidance and then more stretching in its medium-term budgets? I'm just trying to reconcile that overachievement on 1-year performance versus underperformance on the 3-year. And I suppose I'm asking with one eye on your 2026 guidance, which might be viewed as prudent, but also another eye on the 2028 organic cash flow target of EUR 5.2 billion, and your likely overachievement or underachievement relative to that target?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you, Carl. So I mean, as we -- I mean, first, I mean, the guidance is a combination of -- I mean, it's our best estimate from what we see on our group portfolio of activities, and we are rightfully confirming and as you said, I mean, MEA is really outperforming, and it's been like that for actually several quarters. Now we do not underestimate as well the difficulty for the teams to achieve those results in a very complex environment and sometimes volatile environment. But -- and we will reconsolidate MASORANGE in Q2, which has also impact on our overall numbers. So we will provide you more details, especially on the cash flow accretion that this would bring knowing that for the rest of the guidance, the MASORANGE, we reconfirm the guidance. When it comes to how we drive the performance of our teams with annual bonus and LTIP. So the LTIP, of course, is on 3 years. Just so that you know in terms of why the '25 performance and this has been an intense discussion with my Board of Directors. The guidance had been set in the context where initially MASORANGE was not included, and it was revised to include MASORANGE. And so somehow the LTIP was more demanding, I would say, in terms of target than the annual bonus. But this is -- there is no specific intent to be more strict or ambitious in LTIP than in annual bonus. We take the same balance where we were -- we want objectives that are reachable, but we also want to make sure we reward over performance. And all our executives in the company, our top 300, they both have an objective on their division, the business they drive as well as a group objective and the LTIP is a global reward system. So that now we are increasing the volume of LTIP to our top management, and I know this is a comment we had over the years from you to make sure that we aligned objectives from -- on the performance and the shares and investors and top executives. So this goes in the right direction. But I also recognize that our Board of Directors is trying to push us and challenge us by setting ambitious objective. But again, it's always an exercise where it's all about making the objectives ambitious but also reachable. So it's a lot of internal discussion, as you would expect. But there is no specific intent in terms of why '25 was different between the annual bonus and the LTIP.
Operator: So next question is from Russell Waller from New Street.
Russell Waller: Hope you can hear me.
Operator: It's okay. A bit far away, but it's okay.
Russell Waller: Okay. Yes, I had a question on the consortium offer. You said that there was a possibility that you were thinking about bidding for the shares rather than the asset. And I just wanted to ask about that, please. What are the implications of that? Does that mean that you then take on some tax liabilities or working capital adjustment? Or are there any other liabilities or assets? And why is it important or relevant? Is this something that the seller has asked for? And why is it important to hear?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you. On the -- I mean, this was just one example of something that changed between our revised offer and the first offer in October. But I won't provide you more details, but just the objective of the share transaction for SFR is to be faster in terms of transition and executability of the transaction because if you think of a pure asset deal, that would mean acquiring customers, acquiring IT, acquiring very different type of assets with a risk of execution that was too high. Now I won't comment on tax and liabilities because as you can expect, this is something that in any transaction is reviewed in detail. And I don't think there's any difference whether it's an asset or share deal, I mean, in any case, liabilities and taxes are included. And this is something that we've reviewed. And of course, we would comment in more details if and when we have an agreement.
Operator: So next question, this is from St phane Beyazian, ODDO. Stéphane Beyazian: I was wondering with MASORANGE potentially France, obviously, the timing of the 2 transactions are obviously not the same, not the same year. But I was wondering whether you're considering some noncore asset sales, tiny bits that perhaps you could be selling in order to bringing a little bit of cash. And my second question is regarding the copper network shutdown, whether you've made progress there? What color can you give us about this?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you. I mean, as you know, we always review our portfolio of assets, and we have been -- we have been exiting or selling several assets, of course, Orange Bank a few years back, our content activities as well. More recently, we announced the sale of Globecast, and we are now in the process of consulting employee representatives. And this is something -- a transaction that would -- that we plan to close later -- I mean, in the next month, later in the year. So there is, of course, a number of assets that we always consider to make sure that they get the proper shareholding structure for their own strategy. But this type of portfolio review is not linked to our balance sheet need. I would say that for the MASORANGE and the considered Altice transaction. As you know, this is something which we took care of, and we have the ability to fund through our cash flow trajectory. But of course, that doesn't preclude us from reviewing on a regular basis, our portfolio of assets. On the copper, Jerome? Copper.
Jerome Henique: Yes. Thank you, Christel. Well on our copper network removal and technical shutdown, we successfully passed the Phase 2 last Jan, which was a scaling one as we had a technical shutdown for close to 1 million households. It went very smooth and well indeed. And I think it was underlined by the Arcep regulation authority as such. We as well, commercially speaking, closed 21.5 million households for copper offer sales. So we are rolling out this industrial project as per plan with no issues so far. Stéphane Beyazian: And have you already contracted with -- I think you were planning to launch a tender. Have you done all of that already?
Jerome Henique: Yes. It's still in process because the next phases will be, of course, more and more important in terms of scale of removal, and we need to control the end-to-end process, including treatment and resale. RFPs are still going on.
Operator: We now have a question from Eric Ravary, CIC. So Eric, we cannot hear you because we see on our device, on our screen that your mic is muted. Okay. Well, in any case, as you know, the team is fully at your disposal after the call to follow up with your question. So Eric was the last question in the list. So we could possibly take a very last one if someone is willing to do so. If not, I will leave the floor to Christel for concluding remarks. So Christel, please.
Christel Heydemann: Thank you. Q1 marks an excellent start to our Trust the future plan, and we are very pleased with our very strong results. Based on these achievements and our outlook for the upcoming months, we are slightly raising our group EBITDAaL guidance from circa 3% to above 3%, and we will again provide you with an update on our guidance with H1 results following the closing of the MASORANGE operation. Thank you, and I wish you a pleasant day.
Christel Heydemann: Good morning. Thank you for joining our Q1 results presentation. Before getting into our Q1 results, I would like to mention that last week in France, we announced entering into exclusive negotiation with the Altice France Group for the acquisition of SFR jointly with Bouygues Telecom and the Free-iliad Group. Our joint offer reflects a total enterprise value of EUR 20.35 billion for the Altice France assets under consideration. Orange's share within the split of price and value between buyers would be around 27%. This transaction would help sustain and strengthen the entire digital economy and the telecommunications sector in France. There is no certainty though, that this process will result in an agreement. In parallel, in Spain, we already received the approval of the antitrust authorities, and we are confirming a closing of MASORANGE transaction in Q2. Back to our results. The year 2026 started with the presentation of our new strategic plan, Trust the future. This plan was well received, and we are now fully focused on its execution. In Q1, we reported very strong financial results with group revenues up by plus 3.5% and EBITDAaL up at plus 6.6%. This is fueled by a very robust retail services performance, growing plus 1.1% in France and in Europe and plus 13% in Middle East and Africa. We also accounted for significant positive wholesale nonrecurring items in France. These items were mostly anticipated and therefore, already integrated into our guidance. Excluding these effects, the underlying growth in group revenues is circa plus 2.5% and circa plus 3.5% in EBITDAaL. Based on these solid results, we are upgrading our EBITDAaL group guidance from circa 3% to above 3%, while fully confirming the rest of the '26 guidance. Lastly, I would like to emphasize that in the current volatile environment, Orange remains very solid and highly resilient. We closely monitor conflict situations, particularly in the Middle East, always prioritizing the safety of our employees. Additionally, we are well hedged regarding energy in Europe and benefit from the high level of solar power adoption in Africa and Middle East. As a result, our exposure to the indirect impacts of the crisis is limited. Let's now review our strong Q1 results. Revenues reached EUR 10.1 billion and grew by 3.5%, driven by retail growth across all geographies and the expected positive wholesale nonrecurring items in France. EBITDAaL is up 6.6% this quarter, reflecting growth in retail services, continuous efficiency efforts and the positive effect of wholesale nonrecurring items. We maintained discipline on eCapEx with eCapEx to sales around 15%, in line with our guidance. This solid first quarter gives us strong confidence in achieving our 2026 guidance with an EBITDAaL growth now expected to be above 3%. Q1 was a dynamic quarter marked by the launch of several strategic Trust the future initiatives in our 3 core ambitions. Customer intimacy, innovative growth and excellence at scale. In customer intimacy, we introduced 2 AI assistants in France. Sharlie, a 24/7 conversational assistant dedicated to answering our Sosh clients and my AI assistant, MAIA, an assistant helping Orange sales teams better understand customer needs. We also launched new loyalty programs in France. Regarding innovative growth, we announced more than 10 innovative offers at the Orange Business Summit, including Europe's first anti-drone-as-a-service solution, sovereign collaboration tools and an AI-powered cybersecurity offer. In terms of excellence at scale, Orange Business announced a partnership with Tech Mahindra to accelerate digital transformation for our international customers. And in France, we began decommissioning 2G and copper networks closing 900,000 households while implementing our new organization to boost efficiency. Trust the future is in action. I will now hand over to Laurent for the business review, starting with France on Slide 8.
Laurent Martinez: Thank you, Christel. Moving to France. The competitive environment remained generally stable on the high end and slightly improved on the low end. In the first quarter, our efficient commercial strategy led to robust commercial performance. We recorded the lowest churn on fixed broadband and convergence since Q2 2022, and mobile churn improved by more than 1 point. Net adds remained strong with 55,000 in fixed, a record since Q4 2021, 40,000 in mobile and 15,000 in convergence. Convergence ARPU is up by EUR 0.3 year-on-year and fixed broadband ARPU is stable, both sustained by our cross-sell strategy. Mobile-only ARPU is down by EUR 0.8, still reflecting the mix effect related to the competitive landscape over the past year. On the financial slide, revenues reached EUR 4.4 billion, up by 2.3% year-on-year. Retail services, excluding PSTN, increased by 1.1%. The strong performance of fixed broadband and convergence, driven by our focus on our customer loyalty and multiservice approach offset the expected decline in PSTN services this quarter. We increased our NPS to above 34, widening the gap versus the #2 to 11 points while reducing churn across all segments. On the wholesale side, revenues increased by 6%, mainly due to the positive impact of circa EUR 100 million wholesale nonrecurring items, which includes significant cost financing anticipated in our plan. The strong results give us confidence in achieving our target of stable plus EBITDAaL growth in 2026 in France. Turning to Africa and Middle East, which continues to deliver a very strong performance, demonstrating our positive momentum. Revenues increased double digits for the 12th quarter in a row, driven by money, 4G, fixed broadband and B2B. Remarkably, 2/3 of our countries are up double-digit growth in terms of revenues. Looking forward, we are very comfortable on our high single-digit EBITDAaL growth outlook for 2026. Let's continue with Europe. Europe posted a solid start of the year with revenue up 2.2% year-on-year. Services remained strong, fueled by good commercial momentum, balanced between volume and value. Over the quarter, net add remains robust with 66,000 in mobile, 51,000 in FTTH and 21,000 in convergence. Convergence ARPU is up by 4.2% in Q1 in Poland. IT&IS is up by 12%, mainly driven by Belgium and Poland. Wholesale growth was driven notably by low margin activities such as international interconnection. Thanks to this robust result, we confirm the low to mid-single-digit EBITDAaL growth outlook for 2026. Moving to Orange Business. In a market environment that remains very challenging, IT&IS revenue growth was driven by strong equipment sales and sustainable growth within Orange Cyber Defense of more than 9% in the quarter. We announced a new partnership with Tech Mahindra and the launch of 14 new innovative offers at the Orange Business Summit. Overall, we continue to actively drive the transformation of Orange Business, and we confirm our outlook for continued improvement. Turning to MASORANGE. The acquisition process, as you know, is well advanced with the recent clearance by the antitrust authorities, and we are expecting a closing in the second quarter of this year. Total revenues are up by 1.2% year-on-year, driven by B2B equipment sales and wholesale services, offsetting the expected mix impact on the services in a challenging market environment. Over 1 year, total clients is up significantly with over 400,000 mobile lines, with a limited reduction during the first quarter of 2026. Synergies are on track and the 2026 outlook remains confirmed. I will now hand over to Christel for the guidance update.
Christel Heydemann: Thank you, Laurent. We are proud of this very strong Q1 results, which mark a very solid start for our new Trust the future plan announced a few weeks ago. Our 2026 guidance, excluding MASORANGE for now, is fully confirmed and is upgraded on EBITDAaL, mainly thanks to a very strong performance of Africa Middle East. The expected impacts of the reconsolidation of MASORANGE on our guidance are confirmed as well. We expect the closing of the MASORANGE operation in Q2 2026 and plan to provide further details alongside our H1 results. Laurent, Jerome and I are now ready for your questions.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] So the first question is coming from Ondrej Cabej ek from UBS. Ondrej Cabejšek: Hello, can you hear me? Hello? [Technical Difficulty]
Christel Heydemann: Yes, we can hear you. Ondrej Cabejšek: Okay. So 2 questions for me, please. First of all, congratulations on entering exclusive talks. And I was hoping you can give us color on key aspects of the second bid such as whether it is now largely a legal formality and you are confident this new offer will be accepted. What has allowed you to increase the bid by roughly 20%, whether there is any update on the regulatory process and time line and so forth? That would be the first question. Second question, please, is really on the French competitive dynamics where the retail ex PSTN trends have improved sequentially. So if you could please speak as to what is driving this? How sustainable it is? And whether now that there is a deal in place, we can expect maybe continued rationalization in the French market already?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you. On the Altice negotiation. As you know, we submitted a revised offer compared to the offer we had submitted in October. And of course, in October, we had very limited information, since then we entered into due diligence in January, February and have been able to submit this revised offer, which has been accepted by the seller given the granted exclusive negotiation. In terms of what's now planned, as you know, we have this exclusive window until mid-May. There is, of course, a lot of usual items to be discussed, legal aspects as well as commercial as usual in this type of transaction. So I won't provide more details. As you know, this is a complex transaction given we are not bidding as Orange. We are bidding as part of a consortium, and we have also agreements within the consortium. But of course, as soon and if we reach an agreement and sign an MOU in the next weeks, we will, of course, provide you with more details. We are -- as we said, our share in the transaction is reflecting the value created and the price, 27%, which is unchanged compared to our offer in October. And then in terms of what has been driving the price evolution, a lot of aspects. Just to give you one item. Back in October, we were considering an asset deal. We are now talking of a share transaction for the acquisition of SFR shares. So that's just one item. And I don't want to go into more details given really at this stage, there is no certainty that this transaction will go to an end. But you know how important this transaction is not just for Orange and France, but at large for the telecom market. We've been very vocal on the need for market consolidation. We believe it's critical to sustain investment on our critical infrastructure. And that's why, of course, we will continue to engage with authorities, country authorities as well as regulatory authorities, but not just us, of course, as a consortium. So difficult to provide you more details at this stage, but stay tuned. And of course, as soon as we have progressed, we will give you more colors. On the French market environment, the Q1 competitive dynamics was less aggressive, especially on the low end. The broadband and the high-end market remains what it was before. Now on one side, you could say Q1 is usually a lower competitive quarter. There's some seasonality effect, even though it's not been like that over the past years, all Q1s. And this is normally the consequence of a very active promotional activity for the Christmas and end-of-year period. But the -- but clearly, lower competitive -- less aggressive. And of course, our performance is also very much driven by the lower churn on all our segments, mobile, broadband, convergence. And this is what we've highlighted in our Trust the future plan. Our focus on churn reduction is, of course, a key enabler of our commercial performance. In terms of what we could expect from a consolidation, let's be very clear. The transaction between the consortium and SFR, I suspect, especially in the current environment where purchasing power is under pressure because of the Middle East crisis. I don't think that if we were convinced that this transaction would drive price increase in the French market, I'm pretty sure the antitrust authorities would not approve it. So this is something that -- on which we are, on one side, very confident on the need for this transaction to happen and consolidation to happen, but also clearly, we know the market will remain competitive no matter what. And we also know that France has -- is one of the cheapest market in Europe as well. Ondrej Cabejšek: I may have one quick follow-up. Can you just confirm that part of the deal could now be share-based? Is that what you said? And if so, how could that possibly look like?
Christel Heydemann: Well, this is a technicality, but indeed, the consortium would buy the SFR shares that are part of Altice. In addition, we would also buy other assets. So again, too early to provide you more details. We're not buying the Altice shares, to be clear. But this was just one example of something that changed between October and our latest offer.
Operator: So our next question is coming from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs.
Andrew Lee: Just checking, you can hear me?
Operator: Yes, we can hear you well.
Andrew Lee: Okay. I have 2 organic questions for you. Just one on France and one on Spain. So useful color from you guys on a slightly less aggressive low end of the market in France. And as you've commented in the past, some of the pricing is coming up by EUR 1 to EUR 2. So kind of a part A and part B question to this one. When can we start seeing that come through in your ARPU trends in mobile in France? And is it enough of an improvement for mobile ARPU to turn positive through the year? The Part B question is Iliad launched some unlimited offers at the end of the quarter. Has that impacted your perception of competitive aggression in France at all? And then just on Spain, you saw an improvement in MASORANGE's growth to 1.2% in the quarter. Are we seeing any signs of an improved outlook for growth there, whether that be MASORANGE's positioning or the market environment?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you, Andrew. On the French market, I mean, we don't guide on the mobile ARPU trend, but clearly, what we see is less aggressive offers for the low end of the mobile market, which probably also drives less market dynamic and part of the explanation for churn reduction. The lowest part of the market is very sensitive to price. And so it's difficult to directly reconcile this dynamic with, of course, the future trend. Part of our ARPU drive is really linked to churn reduction and upsell on our base. So -- and again, we don't guide on the mobile ARPU trend. And as you know, our strategy to grow is also convergence. So migrating mobile-only customers to convergence customers. On the Free Max offer, which is the high-end offer from -- announced by Iliad, we -- I mean, this is, of course, their strategy. I'm not going to comment on their strategy. That being said, if we think of high capacity or big package for travelers, we have competitive offers in our portfolio, be it Sosh or Orange that are actually cheaper than this Free Max offer. And EUR 30 a month for mobile is not cheap. So we -- I mean, at least, we have our own strategy. We don't think that this at least will change what we drive. But we've seen a good take-up on all our travel offers as well. And as you know, I mean, Q2 is typically an active quarter for that. So expect more commercials as well from us on this side. But of course, Free is sending a signal in the market that they need higher-end offers compared to their, I would say, brand that has been built on this EUR 2 voice mainly offer. On the Spanish market, the Spanish market remains extremely competitive on the low end. Our performance in Spain is as per plan, and we expect to stabilize. So it's the same recipe as in France, focused on churn reduction, focused on customer value management, and we have been -- we have seen some price increases on the high end of the market. And of course, we play with our different brands, but we definitely forecast an improvement. And actually, Q4, if we compare our Q1 performance in Spain compared to Q4, we have already improved the trends. So this is as per plan.
Operator: So the next question is from Akhil Dattani from JPMorgan.
Akhil Dattani: Can you hear me?
Christel Heydemann: Yes, we can.
Akhil Dattani: Great. I've got two as well, please, if I can. The first is just on the anticipated merger review process on the SFR deal. I'd love to get your early thoughts more just around jurisdiction. Bouygues has been talking in the last couple of months around their expectation that the deal will likely not be split between both the French authorities and the EC, but will more likely be led by one party. I just wondered if that is your assessment at this stage. Now we're a bit more advanced in the process. And I guess I'm particularly interested in your thoughts around the press reports last week around the EU's new merger review process draft that was leaked to the Financial Times. It looks like there is a lot more supportive rhetoric around consolidation and a focus away from consumer pricing and more to innovation investments in creating European champion. So would love to just get your understanding of where we are and your engagement with the relevant bodies. So that's the first question. And then the second question is, I guess, a bit of a simple one around the EBITDAaL guidance. Q1 obviously was very strong at 6.6%. Christel, you mentioned underlying it's still 3.5%. If we were to just very simplistically take the 3.5% for the next 3 quarters, you'd obviously get well above 4%. So could you just talk us through when we look through guidance? I know it's obviously very early in the year. But is this just a bit of conservatism in the context of obviously lots of macro unknowns? Or are there specific phasing items we should think about for the next few quarters?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you, Akhil. On the merger review process, you're right that, as you know, this would be 3 files, one for each member of the consortium. And we know Bouygues would be led from the French authorities and Iliad would be led by Brussels. And regarding Orange, it would depend linked also to the closing and the time line of our Spanish transaction. That being said, you're right, ultimately, in this type of deal, and same was true when we did the MASORANGE transaction. You would expect one of the authority to take the lead, and this is something that the 2 authorities would agree on. That being said, I think that given the scale of the transaction, the impact this would have on the telecom market in Europe, I'd be surprised that even if the French authorities lead the analysis, and again, this is not for us to decide. It's going to be an agreement between the authorities. I'd be surprised if Brussels does not follow closely and if they don't work together. So of course, it's -- we don't have any signal of any sign. And of course, I can only remind that so far, we don't have an agreement to submit. So it's a bit premature. But of course, we started to discuss with authorities to get them ready because we also know that these antitrust process takes time, and we want to make sure we can help them get up to speed quickly. In terms of what the new draft or at least the leakage we got in the FT article, we follow closely, of course, and we expect to see the revised guidelines of the draft in the coming weeks. We take it as positive. We can recognize from what has been leaked that some of the ask we had are in the leakage. So it's -- I would say it goes in the right direction. As you know, we've been pretty vocal for the past years. And so this is key. Now let's -- we are -- there is a new Head of DG Competition that was recently appointed but we also know the administration will not completely walk away from consumer prices, especially, as I said, in the current environment where I don't think any political leader could easily talk to their -- I mean to citizens and country population and completely discard price impact or purchasing power. So of course, this is something that if we look at the CMA decision in the U.K. was taken into account with some behavioral remedies and some abilities to drive that. And of course, this is something that we are also considering. But again, too early to comment further given we're still actively discussing on how to get an agreement agreed. In terms of the guidance, as we said, we are upgrading above 3%, and we are, I mean, very confident and very -- I mean these are good results, very good results for Q1. As we also said, we will update and provide you more details and the impact of the MASORANGE consolidation in -- with our full H1 results. So I mean I won't give you now a more detailed guidance. But indeed, we are very confident with our guidance.
Operator: So we have now a question from Nick Lyall from Berenberg.
Nicholas Lyall: I hope you can hear me.
Operator: Yes, very well.
Nicholas Lyall: There was a couple of questions on France, please. Firstly, I think, Laurent, in your comments, you mentioned the top end of the market is stable, but I just wanted to ask on the convergent ARPUs. It looks as if by next quarter, they could be negative and slipping. So is it possible to give us a bit of an update on what's happening there, please? And then secondly, again, in Orange France, in the revenue line, the other revenue seems to be up by about EUR 30 million as well. Apologies for being a bit of a spotter here, but revenue is up about EUR 30 million. That would account for about 70 basis points of growth. What's in there? Is that a one-off for, say, copper sales or something? Or is there -- is that just a normal underlying number, please?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you. On the convergent ARPU, as I said for the mobile ARPU question, we don't guide on the ARPU trend, but there is also a seasonality effect between Q4 and Q1 related to content or roaming, for instance. So -- but again, we don't guide on convergence, but we are comfortable. And of course, we are successfully executing our plan where the growth is driven by churn reduction and our convergent strategy. On the question on others, Laurent?
Laurent Martinez: Nick, so on the others, indeed, we are EUR 22 million year-on-year. So it's a small item, but this is related notably to the copper resale phasing in France. This is the main element of this variation.
Nicholas Lyall: Okay. That's great. And can I just come back on maybe Akhil's question as well. Is there any difference, Christel, you think in terms of timing between French and EC authorities? Just -- it's probably a very, very difficult one to answer, of course. But is there any sense that the French authorities may be faster if it was a French process? Could you help us on that?
Christel Heydemann: Well, I'd love to tell you that it's going to be fast, but my own experience with our different files has been pretty disappointing. And you know, I mean, based on our Spanish experience, if you want to move fast in this type of transaction, of course, you have to be very proactive in terms of remedies. And if I look at our Spanish approval, so you could say, okay, it was in a previous world with a different commission, old guidelines, but still, it took time also because we didn't want to say yes to everything that was required. So -- so there's a thin line between trying to move fast and making sure we build a proper and sustainable environment for the future. So -- but clearly, in order for us to move fast, we are anticipating, preparing, I mean, notification, a lot of work that has to take place. But again, I don't want to -- the French authorities. We know that the authorities will do their best also to move fast. They know they have pressure and political pressure and economic pressure. But there's a lot of work to be done, and we have to respect that.
Operator: So next question is from Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank.
Roshan Ranjit: Can you hear me now?
Operator: Very well.
Roshan Ranjit: I've got 2, please. First one, sorry, going back to France and maybe a bit more focused on the fixed ARPU, which, I guess, reversing some of the declines, which we've seen in the previous quarters. Something which you guys have talked about before, which was the perhaps targeted price increases as well as the ongoing upselling. Is it possible to kind of give us a bit more detail around if there was an element of that this quarter in these targeted price increases, and perhaps what percentage of the base that was allocated to? And can we expect some of that going forward? And secondly, Africa Middle East, which I guess we don't get the EBITDAaL split this quarter, but based on the top line, seems to be going very well. I got a sense from the CMD that there is an element of upside through the year maybe. But can you remind us on the energy situation regarding, I think, is it subsidies versus the solar split and how you are not officially hedged on energy, but how you are able to scale that dynamic given the energy situation?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you, Roshan. On the fixed market, maybe, I mean, I will let Jerome comment on the impact of our price increases and whether we plan more and Laurent will answer on our energy hedging policy.
Jerome Henique: Yes. Thank you, Christel. Well, as mentioned, we are stable year-on-year and quarter-over-quarter on our fixed broadband ARPU. This reflects the success of our upsell and cross-sell strategy first. It's as well fueled by our multiservice activities or new growth engine such as subscription VOD or other packages, helping us to push for high-end mix in our sales which means fixed broadband above EUR 40, which represent now a large share of our sales, thanks to the enrichment of the packages. As far as price increases are concerned, we do a very limited and targeted one. I don't think we do comment on volumes on that.
Laurent Martinez: So Roshan, moving to the energy and the MEA situation. Just overall, if I look at Europe, we are 100% hedged on the energy for Europe in '26, more than 90% in 2027, and we are well advanced as well in '28. So very much extremely well covered. On Middle East and Africa, we are covered as well naturally because we have a lot of our sites, which are solar powered. And we continue to expand on this in terms of investments. And of course, we'll have some headwinds related to the fuel price, and there is a lot of mechanism indeed, in terms of subsidies, mitigation. So overall, we are not at all concerned that would put at risk our overall guidance and the positive momentum we have in Middle East and Africa when it comes to the EBITDA.
Operator: So we are going now to take a question from Carl Murdock-Smith from Citi.
Carl Murdock-Smith: Given the other issues I thought I'd just double check. Can you hear me?
Operator: Yes, very well, Carl.
Carl Murdock-Smith: That's fantastic. Two questions from me, please, both slightly on kind of prudence in guidance. So firstly, on Africa and the Middle East, following up kind of on Roshan's question. The evidence in Q1 is that it's still growing very well. Laurent, I think you said that you're very comfortable on the EBITDAaL guidance. Is it fair to say that your high single-digit guidance for this year on EBITDA versus 14% last year could be seen as conservative? And are you simply staying prudent given, as you just talked about, the kind of potential impacts from energy prices and geopolitical events? And then secondly, I was reading the universal registration document. And I wanted to ask about the disparity between annual bonus targets and the LTIP. So in your 2025 annual bonus, your organic cash flow beat targets with 23.5% payout versus its 20% weighting. And that follows on from beats in 2023 and 2024 as well. So you've beaten your target in the scorecard in each of the last 3 years. But if I look at the 3-year LTIP over the same time period of 2023 to 2025, you came in below target at just below EUR 10.7 billion versus a target of just above EUR 10.8 billion. So you only got a 94.5% payout on that metric. So I guess I'm asking just what's going on there. Is Orange more prudent when issuing its 1 year targets and guidance and then more stretching in its medium-term budgets? I'm just trying to reconcile that overachievement on 1-year performance versus underperformance on the 3-year. And I suppose I'm asking with one eye on your 2026 guidance, which might be viewed as prudent, but also another eye on the 2028 organic cash flow target of EUR 5.2 billion, and your likely overachievement or underachievement relative to that target?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you, Carl. So I mean, as we -- I mean, first, I mean, the guidance is a combination of -- I mean, it's our best estimate from what we see on our group portfolio of activities, and we are rightfully confirming and as you said, I mean, MEA is really outperforming, and it's been like that for actually several quarters. Now we do not underestimate as well the difficulty for the teams to achieve those results in a very complex environment and sometimes volatile environment. But -- and we will reconsolidate MASORANGE in Q2, which has also impact on our overall numbers. So we will provide you more details, especially on the cash flow accretion that this would bring knowing that for the rest of the guidance, the MASORANGE, we reconfirm the guidance. When it comes to how we drive the performance of our teams with annual bonus and LTIP. So the LTIP, of course, is on 3 years. Just so that you know in terms of why the '25 performance and this has been an intense discussion with my Board of Directors. The guidance had been set in the context where initially MASORANGE was not included, and it was revised to include MASORANGE. And so somehow the LTIP was more demanding, I would say, in terms of target than the annual bonus. But this is -- there is no specific intent to be more strict or ambitious in LTIP than in annual bonus. We take the same balance where we were -- we want objectives that are reachable, but we also want to make sure we reward over performance. And all our executives in the company, our top 300, they both have an objective on their division, the business they drive as well as a group objective and the LTIP is a global reward system. So that now we are increasing the volume of LTIP to our top management, and I know this is a comment we had over the years from you to make sure that we aligned objectives from -- on the performance and the shares and investors and top executives. So this goes in the right direction. But I also recognize that our Board of Directors is trying to push us and challenge us by setting ambitious objective. But again, it's always an exercise where it's all about making the objectives ambitious but also reachable. So it's a lot of internal discussion, as you would expect. But there is no specific intent in terms of why '25 was different between the annual bonus and the LTIP.
Operator: So next question is from Russell Waller from New Street.
Russell Waller: Hope you can hear me.
Operator: It's okay. A bit far away, but it's okay.
Russell Waller: Okay. Yes, I had a question on the consortium offer. You said that there was a possibility that you were thinking about bidding for the shares rather than the asset. And I just wanted to ask about that, please. What are the implications of that? Does that mean that you then take on some tax liabilities or working capital adjustment? Or are there any other liabilities or assets? And why is it important or relevant? Is this something that the seller has asked for? And why is it important to hear?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you. On the -- I mean, this was just one example of something that changed between our revised offer and the first offer in October. But I won't provide you more details, but just the objective of the share transaction for SFR is to be faster in terms of transition and executability of the transaction because if you think of a pure asset deal, that would mean acquiring customers, acquiring IT, acquiring very different type of assets with a risk of execution that was too high. Now I won't comment on tax and liabilities because as you can expect, this is something that in any transaction is reviewed in detail. And I don't think there's any difference whether it's an asset or share deal, I mean, in any case, liabilities and taxes are included. And this is something that we've reviewed. And of course, we would comment in more details if and when we have an agreement.
Operator: So next question, this is from St phane Beyazian, ODDO. Stéphane Beyazian: I was wondering with MASORANGE potentially France, obviously, the timing of the 2 transactions are obviously not the same, not the same year. But I was wondering whether you're considering some noncore asset sales, tiny bits that perhaps you could be selling in order to bringing a little bit of cash. And my second question is regarding the copper network shutdown, whether you've made progress there? What color can you give us about this?
Christel Heydemann: Thank you. I mean, as you know, we always review our portfolio of assets, and we have been -- we have been exiting or selling several assets, of course, Orange Bank a few years back, our content activities as well. More recently, we announced the sale of Globecast, and we are now in the process of consulting employee representatives. And this is something -- a transaction that would -- that we plan to close later -- I mean, in the next month, later in the year. So there is, of course, a number of assets that we always consider to make sure that they get the proper shareholding structure for their own strategy. But this type of portfolio review is not linked to our balance sheet need. I would say that for the MASORANGE and the considered Altice transaction. As you know, this is something which we took care of, and we have the ability to fund through our cash flow trajectory. But of course, that doesn't preclude us from reviewing on a regular basis, our portfolio of assets. On the copper, Jerome? Copper.
Jerome Henique: Yes. Thank you, Christel. Well on our copper network removal and technical shutdown, we successfully passed the Phase 2 last Jan, which was a scaling one as we had a technical shutdown for close to 1 million households. It went very smooth and well indeed. And I think it was underlined by the Arcep regulation authority as such. We as well, commercially speaking, closed 21.5 million households for copper offer sales. So we are rolling out this industrial project as per plan with no issues so far. Stéphane Beyazian: And have you already contracted with -- I think you were planning to launch a tender. Have you done all of that already?
Jerome Henique: Yes. It's still in process because the next phases will be, of course, more and more important in terms of scale of removal, and we need to control the end-to-end process, including treatment and resale. RFPs are still going on.
Operator: We now have a question from Eric Ravary, CIC. So Eric, we cannot hear you because we see on our device, on our screen that your mic is muted. Okay. Well, in any case, as you know, the team is fully at your disposal after the call to follow up with your question. So Eric was the last question in the list. So we could possibly take a very last one if someone is willing to do so. If not, I will leave the floor to Christel for concluding remarks. So Christel, please.
Christel Heydemann: Thank you. Q1 marks an excellent start to our Trust the future plan, and we are very pleased with our very strong results. Based on these achievements and our outlook for the upcoming months, we are slightly raising our group EBITDAaL guidance from circa 3% to above 3%, and we will again provide you with an update on our guidance with H1 results following the closing of the MASORANGE operation. Thank you, and I wish you a pleasant day.