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Edenred SE
PAR:EDEN

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Edenred SE
PAR:EDEN
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Price: 45.38 EUR 2.62%
Updated: May 3, 2024

Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2021-Q3

from 0
Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Edenred 2021 Q3 Revenue Conference Call. I now hand over to Mr. Julien Tanguy, CFO. Sir, please go ahead.

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. I'm happy to be with you today to comment on the Q3 2021 revenue of Edenred. I propose that we move to Page 2 of the presentation. So thanks to a strong performance in Q3 2021, Edenred is now aiming for 2021 EBITDA in the upper half of the target range. Three key messages for these introductions. First, Edenred delivered strong sales performance, leveraging its distribution and innovation capabilities to further scale its business and improve customer experience. Our Q3 2021 operating revenue stands at EUR 393 million, i.e., 30% like-for-like growth, both versus Q3 2020 and versus Q3 2019. We compare 2021 to 2019 as 2019 is the pre-COVID recurrence year. Growth rates accelerate versus 2019 in all regions in Q3 2021 after an already good H1 2021. We delivered double-digit organic growth in Q3 2021 versus Q3 2019 in all business lines and all region, except in Latin America, Hispanic, which was still badly impacted by COVID-19. And year-to-date, operating revenue increased by 14% like-for-like versus the 9 first month of 2020 and plus 11% like-for-like versus the 9 first months of 2019. Second message. Given the strong performance in Q3, Edenred is confident in its ability to generate a full year 2021 EBITDA in the upper half of the previously indicated EUR 620 million, EUR 670 million target range, assuming no new major restrictions related to the health situation. Then assuming no major pandemic surge, Edenred is reinstating its pre-COVID Next Frontier targets for 2022 with 3 KPIs. First one is like-for-like annual operating revenue growth at a minimum of 8%; second one is the annual EBITDA like-for-like growth at a minimum of 10%; and the third one, an annual free cash flow EBITDA conversion rate at a minimum of 65%. Let's move to Q3 highlights, and let's talk about innovation, innovation in distribution channel, innovation in product evolution, innovation in customer satisfaction, and we will also focus on ESG. I move to Page 4. So Edenred is leveraging innovative partnerships. In Brazil, we are deploying our partnership signed with Itaú in 2019. This partnership deals with the distribution of meal benefits. I remember you, Itaú is a leading privately held bank in Brazil, owning 4,000 branches across the country, and Itaú is managing the biggest B2B client portfolio in Brazil, especially on the SME market. We continue to see a good ramp-up of this partnership in Brazil, which delivered a strong double-digit quarter-on-quarter growth in 2021, thanks to the dedicated organization implemented to manage this powerful sales channel. In the U.S., we are integrating CSI, our B2B payment platform, with key B2B players to target specific segments. The B2B payment market in the U.S. is large and fragmented. And to address this large market, we are joining our forces with top-tier U.S. banks such as Citi, and it allowed us to win major deals such as ours, for instance. On top of partnerships with banks, we also partnered with software editor, Sage, to target smaller companies. Our solutions are available in the AP module of Sage ERP. I move now to Page 5. We are looking now at an innovative solution, who's name is Plasticless. With Plasticless, you can access your benefits account with your mobile phone, thanks to a 100% digital onboarding and without receiving a plastic card. This solution is a clear gain for all of stakeholders. It is more eco-friendly. You don't need paper anymore. You don't need card anymore, and you don't need to manage delivery anymore. It is more efficient for HR teams as a simple order on our website is enough, and everything is done. And it is much more comfortable for the users. The solution is available within 24 hours. You can pay with your mobile as we are providing access to the 3 Epay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay and Apple Pay, plus Edenred Pay in some countries, and you can access the connected meals delivery voucher platforms. We have more than 160 platforms connected to our solutions in the world. I give you some of these situations of the new solution. In Taiwan, we showed more than 30 million of e-coupons, and in Europe, we have now 6 programs running in 5 countries. I am now on Page 6 to share with you how we use digital to deliver higher customer satisfaction. First, keep in mind that passion for customers is a core value for Edenred, i.e., one of the 5 values of the company. The level of satisfaction of our users is recognized by rewards and external certification. The rating of our apps in App Store and Google Play is high, 4.4 stars and 4.5 stars. And at Edenred, we believe the employee engagement is driving customer satisfaction. With Eden Voice, we are measuring the engagement of our teams, and the way we engage our employees is also recognized by top employer institutes and a Great Place to Work in different countries. And we have put in place digital tools to take customer centricity one step further. With digital, the expectations of our stakeholders are now driven by B2C standards, and we use automated tools to get real-time feedback. We have launched a global digital Net Promotor Score program that covers 80% of group revenue. It covers all our stakeholders, i.e., merchants, users and corporate clients. And with both cold and hot feedback, we can see how they perceive the relationship with us. Hot feedback is done right after an interaction with Edenred with digital tools or with our customer care, and cold feedback is done 2 days after an interaction with Edenred. We are managing this program using Medallia, one of the best tools of the market, and this program demonstrates how our merchants user and corporate clients are at the heart of our actions. I move now Page 7 and to environmental, social and corporate governance. ESG is an important topic for us, and the strong involvement of Edenred is recognized by rating agencies. Our V.E rating improved strongly, moving up from 47 to 59 out of 100. Our AA rating has been confirmed by MSCI. And Edenred is part of the FTSE4Good Index for the tenth year in a row. All those rating agencies are considering we are among the best performers of our industry. Transparent communication and governance practices are also recognized. We'll take 2 examples. The General Meeting & Gender Business Diversity Award received from Responsible Capitalism Institute and the Responsible Strategic Plan Award received from EIM and KPMG for our Next Frontier Plan 2019, 2022. After the Q3 highlights, we are now moving to our Q3 2021 performance and I am on Page 9. As explained during the introduction, we have posted a double-digit organic growth versus both 2019 and 2020 in Q3. This strong performance in Q3 leads us to a strong year-to-date performance, plus 14.4% like-for-like growth compared to 2020 and plus 10.7% like-for-like growth versus 2019. We accelerated our growth versus 2019 after an already good, strong H1 2021 performance. I move to Page 10 to look at our performance per business line. You can see on the left-hand side of the slide the growth acceleration in Q3 versus H1. And regarding the business lines, in Q3 2021 versus 2019, we have posted double-digit growth across all business lines. Employee Benefits accelerated sharply and is up 10.1% compared to 3.3% in H1. This acceleration is driven by virtual canteen solution and by the dynamism of the SME segment. The reopening of partner merchants also contributed to this performance. Fleet & Mobility reported strong double-digit growth in Q3 2021, in line with the performance delivered in H1. This performance was driven by a robust sales momentum and the success of our Beyond Fuel strategy. Complementary Solutions is up 15.9% compared to Q3 2019 and decelerating compared to H1 where some specific-purpose programs linked to the situation were still in place. I move to Page 11 to contemplate our performance per geography. In Q3, our revenue growth accelerated significantly across all regions versus 2019. In Europe, Edenred delivered a 14.8% growth like-for-like compared to 2019 after 11.2% growth recorded in first half 2021. In Latin America, the growth represents a like-for-like increase of 8.7% on the third quarter of 2019 and is an improvement on the growth reported in the first half of 2021, plus 6%. In the Rest of the World, the operating revenue was 19.3% higher like-for-like compared to Q3 2019. This performance is supported by the success of fully digital solutions in Taiwan and by CSI in the U.S. CSI continues to recover, driven by the ramp-up of its commercial partnership and despite the continuing subdued volumes in the hotel segments. On the Page 12, I zoom in the strong performance of Europe. In Q3 2021, France and Rest of Europe are growing double digit versus 2019. Versus 2020, it is important to underline the high comparison basis. In 2020, we benefited from a strong catch-up due to accumulated benefits during the strict lockdown period from March to May. In Q3, we delivered a faster organic growth in both France and Rest of Europe, supported by good sales momentum in all business lines and in all segments. The positive trend on the SME segment continues. In 2021, we benefited from catch-up related to merchants reopening, especially restaurants in France. We noticed limited disruptions for Ticket Restaurant usage despite implementation of the COVID certificate. And we also delivered a strong growth in Fleet & Mobility Solutions across the regions, thanks to higher traffic level and Beyond Fuel strategy, illustrated by UTA One, the toolbox, which is continuing its geographical expansion. This is it for Europe. Now we zoom in Latin America on Page 13. We posted a high single-digit organic growth versus 2019 in Q3. In Brazil, Edenred delivered a double-digit organic growth versus 2019, while Hispanic, Latin America continues to be impacted by COVID-related restrictions. Fleet & Mobility Solutions delivered strong growth in both regions, notably thanks to the continued rollout of Beyond Fuel services such as toll and maintenance. Solid sales performance in Employee Benefits in Brazil notably benefiting from the promising ramp-up of the Itaú partnership and from a gradual improvement in the health situation. The review of our operating revenue is now over. I move to Page 14 to comment on other revenues. At the end of September, the other revenue stands at EUR 32 million. It is a 10% increase like-for-like compared to 2020. Please note that we are increasing interstate outside of Europe. We have no increase in Europe short-term interest rates, and I remember you that more than 80% of the float is located in Europe, and we have significant negative currency effect outside Europe. To conclude with the Q3 performance, I move to Page 15. At the end of September, our total revenue stands at EUR 1.162 billion, up 13% like-for-like compared to 2020 and up 10% compared to 2019. I remember you that the total revenue is the sum of operating revenue and other revenue. I move now to the last part of the presentation, the outlook target on Page 17. So Edenred will continue to leverage its platform to generate sustainable and profitable growth in 2021 and beyond. We are more confident for 2021, thanks to a strong Q3 performance, and assuming no new major restrictions related to health situation, Edenred is confident in its ability to generate a full year 2021 EBITDA in the upper half of the previously indicated target range of EUR 620 million, EUR 670 million. It means an EBITDA which will reach at least EUR 645 million, i.e., circa 13% increase versus 2020. And thanks to our performance in 2021, we are reinstating Next Frontier targets, assuming no major pandemic surge. I remember the Next Frontier target, like-for-like annual revenue growth of 8% minimum, like-for-like annual EBITDA growth of 10% minimum and an annual free cash flow EBITDA conversion rate of 65% minimum. This is the end of the presentation. I thank you for your attention, and I'm ready to answer your questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We have a first question from Simon LeChipre from Stifel.

S
Simon LeChipre
Analyst

Yes. Three questions, if I may. First of all, looking to Q3, could you give us any color on the phasing of the performance during the quarter? And basically, what does that mean for Q4? Secondly, on the EBITDA guidance. Just wondering, what would be the drivers that would put you at a very top end, so basically EUR 670 million? And lastly, on digital adoption in Employee Benefits in Europe, if I remember well, it has increased by around 10 points last year. So just wondering if you have seen the same phase this year, and basically, where do you stand on the digital rate overall in Europe at the moment?

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

Okay. Thank you, Simon. So your first question about the phasing in Q4. Well, first of all, that Q4 is a big quarter for Edenred. You know that we are managing, especially, the gift voucher for the peak season in -- for Christmas. And we are only at the end of October, meaning that we have 2 months in front of us before the end of this quarter. So what we see is that the trend that we have in Q3 was pretty good with this increase of 13%. Now we know that, well, this fourth quarter is important, and we still have uncertainty to manage. We have some potential impact of health restriction, especially in Eastern Europe. So we are confident, as we said, to reach at least EUR 645 million of EBITDA for this year, and then it will depend on the -- our performance in still uncertain context. Then when it comes to the digital rate in Europe. So we have a strong impact of the COVID and because COVID has been very profitable for us in terms of digitalization of our solutions. We have been able to propose a digital voucher in countries where digital was not the #1 solution for Edenred, like in France, for instance. So year-to-date increase in digital is in line with what we've done last year, and we believe that it will continue to the end of this year. And for instance, in the country where the paper was the most important before the crisis in France, we have now more than 50% of our volume that has been digitalized, and we see the trend continue in the coming months.

S
Simon LeChipre
Analyst

Okay. Just a quick follow-up. Are you ready to share the September exit rate?

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

No. We don't give this kind of information. And we did, as we said, a good performance during the quarter. And well, I would say that the trend is good during all the quarters. So no exit rate in September to be communicated.

Operator

Next question from Julien Richer from Kepler.

J
Julien Richer
Equity Research Analyst

Two questions for me, please. The first one on pricing and the situation in Brazil. Usually, the country is suffering from bad pricing during the downturn. Is it recovering now? And what kind of pricing do you see in this region? And the second one, if you can give us a little bit of granularity on the virtual canteen strategy and impact. So you talked about more than 200 signatures over the last 12 months. How has it accelerated? And if we can have the split by geography and what kind of clients you are signing now.

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

Well, so first question regarding the pricing in Brazil. Well, you know that the pricing is something which is moving fast in Brazil, meaning that when we are entering a crisis, then the pricing is going down, and we know that when the business is recovering, we know that the pricing can go up. And it's something which is quite cultural in Brazil. So due to the crisis, we had some kind of pressure on the client side. However, when we look at the performance that we've been able to deliver in Brazil, especially in Q3, we've been able to grow plus 12% compared to 2019. So we've been able to perform very well. And when we say that we have a pressure on pricing, it's true for the large international accounts. It is less true for the SME segment. And as we said, the partnership with Itaú is working very well. So we are able to get new clients on -- in Brazil. So, well, as I said, it's something which is cultural, and we hope that once the economy will recover, we will be able to manage that. Then regarding the virtual canteen. So as you said, in H1, we have communicated about the number of contracts that have been signed. We are now above 300 contracts signed since the beginning of this year with the virtual canteen. And I would say that the performance that we are doing with the move from physical canteen to digital canteen is a continued success that is part of our Employee Benefits penetration strategy, meaning that you know that the digital canteen allows us to go further in penetration with the large accounts, and the digital canteen is also something key to conquer new clients on the SME segment. What we see in terms of trend in the work organization of our client is that working from home is becoming more and more important, meaning that more and more companies are signing agreements with employees to implement working from home. And each time that the company is deciding to put in place 2 days per week of working from home, the question of how people are going to get their lunch is coming, and we have the right solution to answer to this need. So the number of contract that we are signing is increasing. And as we said since the beginning of this year, it will take time to deploy digital canteen in -- on the market. But we see that the trend is here and that the trend will last.

Operator

Next question from Geoffrey d'Halluin from Bank of America.

G
Geoffrey d'Halluin
Director & Research Analyst

This is Geoffrey d'Halluin from BofA Securities. Two questions from my side, please. The first one is regarding the growth rate you've posted in France in the third quarter. So I guess it was up about 2%. Well, how do we need to think about France for the next coming quarters, especially compared to the growth rate you are now guiding for the Next Frontier plan? And maybe any sense on the start of the gift voucher business for the Q4? And my second question is regarding inflation. Would you mind to remind us what are the main effect of inflation in your business, maybe your sensitivity you've got on the Fleet & Mobility part? But also any opportunities you can add on the benefits and also given higher input costs?

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

Okay. So your first question about France and the growth rate versus 2020. Well, to understand these growth rates, we need to understand the context of Q3 last year. As I said, in 2020, we have this strict lockdown from March to May in France, meaning that our users got their benefits but did not spend it during this period of time, okay? It means that a lot of money has been accumulated until the end of June, and then during the summer, the users spent their benefits. So it had a big impact on our revenue. And you can see that the growth between the Q3 2020 and the Q3 2019 was up 9% last year, which was quite big and was the consequence of the spend of the benefits during the summer. So when we look at the 2% this year versus 2020, it is a consequence of what happened last year, meaning that we have a comparison basis, which is not favorable and which is explained by the atypical year 2020. So clearly, we need to take into consideration the growth versus 2019, so plus 12%, to judge the performance of France in Q3. Now regarding Q4 and the gift voucher. It's too early to say. We are at the end of October. The gift voucher period has not started yet. It starts at the beginning of November. So I cannot give you any information about that. Then regarding inflation. As you said, we have to look at inflation through our different business lines and also through our cash-positive situation. So regarding Fleet & Mobility, when we look at what Fleet & Mobility represents in our business, so it's 25% of our total business, among this 25%, we have some revenues that are linked to the pricing of fuel, and we have our Beyond Fuel strategy, which is doing well. So the revenue coming from Beyond Fuel strategy is growing month-after-month. And as we already explained, when we look at the total revenue of the group, 9% of this total revenue in 2020 was sensitive to fuel price. So what does it mean? It means that when the fuel price at pump is increasing, it has an impact on our revenue. And what I say is very important, meaning that what is important for us is not the oil price, meaning the crude on the market, but it's really the price that you pay when you fuel at pump. And you know that this fuel at pump is including the margins from the old crude. It is including taxes. So it is not totally linked to the oil price in the market. So keep in mind that each time the price of fuel is moving by 10%, it has an impact of EUR 7 million on our total revenue. But keep also in mind that 2020 is a very atypical year and that the price of oil went down in Q2 last year and that the comparison between 2021 and 2020 is not easy to compute. So if the price of oil is going up or down, it has an impact on our revenue, but it is quite limited. Then regarding inflation with Employee Benefits. Yes, inflation with Employee Benefits can be positive for Edenred because in order to save the purchasing power of its employees, company can decide to move the sales value up, meaning giving more money for their employees for their lunch. So this is the first impact of the inflation. The second impact is that when we are discussing with the government, they can decide to increase the tax break level of Employee Benefits to give more purchase power to the citizens. And we are pushing, for instance, in France, to move the maximum face value of Ticket Restaurant from EUR 11 to EUR 15. And inflation could help this kind of proposition to be adopted by government. And last thing regarding inflation. If the inflation is coming, we will see the long-term interest rate going up in the first time. And then the short-term interest rates should also increase. And you know that we are investing our money, our float at short term. So for us, what is important is the level of short-term interest rate. So it could increase, but we know that it will take time.

Operator

Next question from Paul Sullivan from Barclays.

P
Paul Daniel Alexander Sullivan
Director & Analyst

Yes. A couple for me. Firstly, can you just talk about how your relationship with the food delivery platforms continues to evolve? And who needs who more, particularly in the context of the recent Just Eat announcement with Sodexo, and they're sort of moving to payments as well? And then secondly, I think in a recent publication, you talked about some agreement with the world's largest e-commerce company. Presumably that's Amazon, and presumably that's in the Employee Benefits. So could you talk about that and also add some more color around your Employee Benefit strategy in the U.S. more generally?

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

Okay. Thank you, Paul, for your question. So first, our relationship with the food delivery platform. Well, our relationship are good indeed, and we are signing more and more agreements. As I said now, we have more than 160 meal delivery platform connected to our platform. It means that we are signing more and more agreements with them, and we are signing agreements with, of course, the top players that we all know. But we are also signing agreements with a local platform, which is key for us because when we are signing this kind of platform, it is to improve the user experience. And in many large cities, people want to be able to order their meal through local platforms. So the number of platform that is connected to us is increasing, and I strongly believe that it will continue. So I would say that it is today one way to use your benefits. And obviously, digital is key to have access to this kind of platform. And today, the relationship we have with the large number of platform is a key differentiator compared to our competitors, and we can see that in the countries where digitalization is still growing. It helps a lot when you visit clients to explain that you are able to order your meal through so many platforms. Then regarding the agreement with a large e-commerce company. You said the name. I will not add anything to that. And yes, it is a new client in the U.S. where we are developing our Employee Benefit solution. You know that in the U.S., we have a commuter benefit, which allows people to use public transportation to go from home to their office. And then we are still pushing for Ticket Restaurant to sign deals looking like what we did with Spotify last year. Well, so it takes time, and we have no tax break on this kind of benefit in the U.S., but we are working on that. And it's -- well, it's something we are working on and that we try to develop.

P
Paul Daniel Alexander Sullivan
Director & Analyst

And do you think that's really now starting to gain a bit of traction? Because I think there's always been a bit of skepticism that you can push Ticket Restaurant in the U.S.

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

Well, we have a lot of discussion with new clients, but without tax break, it takes more time to explain them the benefits of Ticket Restaurants. So yes, obviously, it will take time to develop in the U.S. with this kind of product, but we believe that there are still opportunities, and we are also working on the public affair side to see how we could implement tax break in the U.S. to improve our capacity to develop this business.

P
Paul Daniel Alexander Sullivan
Director & Analyst

Okay. That's very interesting. And just finally, just on that food delivery platform point. Has there been any notable change in the economics between you and the platforms over the last 12, 18 months -- last 12 months?

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

No, no, no. No change in the economics. We've got the same contracts with them.

Operator

Next question from Ed Young from Morgan Stanley.

E
Edward Young
Equity Analyst

Two from me as well. First of all, Latin America is obviously strong growth in Q3. Could you help us understand the catch-up potential in Hispanic, Latin America? The statement calls out a couple of factors, including Mexico. Can you maybe help us quantify the potential benefit we could have in Q4 versus Q3 with the situation changing there? And then just because you raised it in the presentation around Plasticless. I just wonder if you could talk about how widespread you expect that to roll out across the system. It sounds like it might have a sales benefit, given it seems like it's higher satisfaction, easier, quicker to install, et cetera but also potentially maybe a margin benefit, no delivery, et cetera. So could you perhaps quantify either of those?

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

Okay. So first question regarding LatAm. Yes, we've been able to post good growth in LatAm especially in Brazil and we see that in Hispanic, Latin America the growth is not high. So we believe that it is a potential we have, we know that the health situation in this country is changing almost every month. It is a case in Mexico but it is also the case in other countries in Latin America. So I would say that our capacity to rebound in this country is intact. We believe that the potential of growth is still there but the health situation that we cannot manage as an impact on that. So once the health restriction will be behind us we are quite confident in the fact that we will be able to grow again in this geography and I think that's what we are doing in Brazil is showing that it is possible and that it will come. It really depends on health restriction. And then regarding Plasticless. So well, we are at the beginning of the journey with that. We think that it is a kind of ultimate state towards digitalization, meaning that it's really a huge step in terms of user experience, meaning that you can get your benefits with a few clicks on your mobile. We do what we call in-app provisioning, meaning that once you have installed the My Edenred application on your phone, you just have to push one button and to go through your wallet to install your virtual card, and it takes really a few minutes, and it allows the employer to give access to benefits very quickly, which is key today because everybody wants to have these kind of services very rapidly. So we know that we will deploy this kind of solution in many countries. And today, to give you an idea, we've been able to manage 40 million transactions through mobile during the 9 first months of this year. This number has doubled compared to last year. And we see that the use of mobile, which is key for this kind of solution, is really booming in a lot of countries. And we really believe that this kind of solution is, first, innovative and then is expected by our users.

E
Edward Young
Equity Analyst

Can I just follow up on the Latin America one? Would you say that there's a sign that the health situation is improving? You mentioned Mexico and return to school in September in the statement. Is that the kind of indication you're making that the trajectory there is improving in terms of the health situation? Or is that kind of one data point amongst many, and it's still either uncertain or unchanged from where you've been in sort of Q2 or Q3?

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

What we see is that the situation has improved in September. But because, in these countries, the vaccination rate is quite low, then we don't know how it will happen in the coming weeks. And what we've seen since the beginning of the pandemic is that 1 month can go better, and the month after, the health restrictions are back. So it's difficult to say what will happen in the coming weeks or months. We hope that vaccination will improve, but today, it's not the case yet.

Operator

Next question from Mourad Lahmidi from Exane.

M
Mourad Lahmidi
Analyst

Yes. Actually, most of my questions were answered, but I have one that's there regarding the gift vouchers. I think that last year, in Q4, you -- I mean there were some regulatory tailwinds in France and Italy benefiting to gift vouchers. So I was wondering how much of a boost was that for you in Q4 last year.

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

Well, yes, we had the regulatory tailwinds last year, and you said it, it was in Italy and in France mainly, but we had also other tailwinds in Greece, for instance, or in Romania. So in Italy, it is still the case this year, meaning that the cap of gift vouchers has been doubled, and it will last till the end of December this year. And in France, we added, but it came very lately last year. It was at the beginning of December, so quite close to Christmas, so it was late. Just keep in mind that gift voucher only represents 15% of our operating revenue in Q4. So it can improve the performance, but the impact is not so big, and that's it.

Operator

Next question from Andre Juillard from Deutsche Bank.

A
Andre Juillard
Research Analyst

Yes. Most of them have been answered, but I wanted to have some more general information. But first, penetration. Could you come back on the kind of rate you are seeing on the different families of products you have. Secondly, about competition, what do you see in the different countries? You know that we've talked a lot about Swile in France. But what do you see both in Europe and in LatAm? And third question about M&A. You've been talking early this year about your search for additional acquisitions, especially in the corporate payments. Could you give us some more color about what is going on?

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

Okay. So first question, penetration rate. Well, if we look at our different markets, Employee Benefits or Fleet & Mobility. So on Employee Benefit, the penetration rate of our solution is about 25%, so it's still quite low. And well, the good news of what we see today in the market is that the -- our capacity to sell to SME is still there. As we said during the half year publication, we've been able to sign the same number of contracts with SME during the first 6 months of 2021 compared to the first 6 months of 2019. So the penetration rate is still low, and we see that we are still able to grab new clients, thanks to digital canteen for the large accounts, and thanks to digital for the same.On Fleet & Mobility, the market is also a low-penetrated market, and we see that we still have big opportunities in Europe and in Latin America. Then it depends on the segment, but we see that regarding the SME, the potential is still there, and we have many, many opportunities to develop this business. Then regarding competition. So obviously, we have competitors. When we look at our different markets in Employee Benefits, we have at least 4 competitors to market. But if you look at a market like Brazil, we have more than this number of competitors. We see -- we heard a lot of things about Swile in France during the last week, but for us, it's not a growing concern. As we said, we've been able to grow our market share by 1% per year during the last 4 years in France. We are the leader by far in digital. I remember that we have 40% market share when we take digital and paper in France and that our market share in digital is above this level of 40%. And what we see with Swile is that, they announced a capital increase of EUR 170 million. They already announced EUR 100 million capital increase during the last 2 years. So we see that they need a lot of money to enter the market. It confirms that the barriers to entry are there. And we see that together in France, and they need this huge amount of money to take position on the market. So nothing new for us. And keep in mind, as we said that we are going to generate this year at least EUR 645 million of EBITDA, and we are able to invest this money to innovate. And I think that Plasticless is a good illustration of what we can do today in terms of digitalization on the market.

A
Andre Juillard
Research Analyst

For M&A?

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

Yes. And for the M&A, so yes, we have -- we are looking at some acquisitions, especially in the U.S. with the corporate payment. You've seen that the multiples are quite high. And when we are looking at an asset, we want to be sure that it has the right value in terms of, obviously, client portfolio, in terms of teams and in terms of technology. So we are looking at some acquisitions, but nothing is done yet. And maybe we will sign a few things before the end of this year, but it will depend on the quality of the assets that we will find on the market. And yes, we are focused on the bolt-on acquisition today.

Operator

Next question from Johanna Jourdain, ODDO BHF.

J
Johanna Jourdain
Analyst

Yes. Two questions from me, please. The first one regarding CSI. I think at H1 release, I think you said, you would expect CSI to grow in H2. So do you still expect this trend to continue? And could you also give us some colors in terms of growth trends by the main verticals at CSI? And my second question is regarding Beyond Fuel strategy in the Fleet & Mob. I think this segment is -- seems to be trading very well. So how much does it represent now in the Fleet & Mobility division? And could you also give us some color on the growth rate in the Beyond Fuel solutions compared to the fuel solutions?

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

Well, so first question regarding CSI. You know that the sales momentum at CSI is still good. We are able to conquer new clients with our own sales team but also with the partnership we sign, and we talk about the partnership with Citi. So the number and the volume of transaction is growing. However, we still have some verticals where the volume is not back to what it was before the crisis, and it is the case in the hospitality vertical. You know that business travel is not at the level where it was before the crisis. So on this vertical, we have not recovered the volume we had before the crisis. However, as I said, we see a good sales momentum, and the level of transactions on other verticals is growing again. Then regarding Beyond Fuel. So today, 1/3 of our Fleet & Mobility revenue is coming from our Beyond Fuel strategy. I remember you that what we call Beyond Fuel strategy is the development of new services, which are not linked to a multi-energy card. So we are talking about maintenance. We are talking of tools. And we intend to become the one-stop shop for the fleet managers. So we built some platforms, especially in Brazil, to manage the fleet manager needs. And well, we see that this business is growing fastly. And we will develop this kind of products in other countries using the platform that has been built in Brazil, and we are going to deploy these services in other Latin America countries.

Operator

There is no more question. Back to you for the conclusion.

J
Julien Tanguy
Executive Vice President of Finance

Well, thank you very much to attend this meeting, and thank you for your questions. And I hope to talk to you soon. Have a nice day.

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

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