Thales SA

PAR:HO

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q4

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to today's Thales Full Year 2021 Results Conference Call.

There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session.

[Operator Instructions]

I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today.

I would now like to hand over to Mr. Bertrand Delcaire, VP, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

[Bertrand Delcaire]

Yes. Hello. Good morning. Welcome and thank you for joining us for the presentation of Thales' 2021 full year results. I'm Bertrand Delcaire, the Head of Investor Relations at Thales.

With me today are Patrice Caine, our Chairman and CEO; and Pascal Bouchiat, CFO. As usual, the presentation will be in English and followed by a Q&A session. It is webcast live on our website at thalesgroup.com, where the slides, press release, and consolidated financial statements are also available for download. A replay of the call will be available in a few hours.

With that, I would like to turn over the call to Patrice Caine.

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Good morning, everyone. So, let's start with slide 2, as usual, with the highlights of 2021. So, looking first at the commercial dynamics, we had a pretty exceptional Q4 with more than €9 billion of new orders, which led us to achieve a new record order intake over the full year. So, as expected, both sales and EBIT recovered strongly, following the COVID-19-induced challenges we faced in 2020.

Organic sales growth was above 5% with all segments contributing an EBIT margin return slightly above 10%. Last but not least, on the results side – and of course, Pascal will explain this in detail – thanks to the mobilization of the teams, we generated an unprecedented level of free operating cash flow significantly above €2 billion, which is leading us to materially upgrade our medium-term cash flow target.

From a strategic point of view, let me highlight two major moves on which I will come back in the second part of the presentation. First, we announced the disposal of our Transport business to Hitachi, a key move that will allow us to simplify and refocus the group on three businesses. And second, as part of our dedicated ESG event in October, we announced our decision to accelerate our sustainability strategy and you will see the concrete impact of this move in today's presentation.

So, let's move now to slide 3, looking at our financial performance in a few charts. First, as a reminder, following the announcement of the Transport disposal, we are applying the IFRS 5 standard, which means that Transport is now treated as discontinued operations at the bottom of the P&L. So, the three charts on top of this slide exclude Transport, while the three charts at the bottom naturally continue to include it until the transaction closes. Also, since both scope and currency impact are negligible, we are only showing reported changes on this line. Well, at €19.9 billion, order intake was up by 18%. The book-to-bill ratio reached 1.23, very significantly above the target we had set for the year.

Sales grew by slightly more than 5%, 5.3% to be precise. EBIT and EBIT margin recovered strongly at more than €1.6 billion and 10.2%, up more than 2 points. At €1,361 million, adjusted net income grew even faster benefiting from the robust performance of Transport. Although, the Aerospace business remained strongly impacted by the health crisis, this adjusted net income was actually only 3% below the previous historical peak, €1,405 million, which we achieved in 2019.

Free operating cash flow reached an unprecedented level, €2.5 billion, almost 2.5 times higher than in 2020.

Last chart on the slide, the dividend. This new year of strong financial performance is leading our board to propose to the next AGM a 45% increase in the dividend at €2.56 per share.

So, now turning to slide 4 and looking at our non-financial performance. I will come back later on our sustainability priorities going forward, but I wanted to first report on our progress in 2021. You remember how our sustainability action plan is built around four pillars for which we have set several quantitative targets that drive part of the remuneration of a large share of staff.

First pillar, our strategy for low carbon future. With a 36% reduction in operational CO2 emissions compared to 2018, our 2021 performance was above our 2023 target. This was achieved thanks to the detailed action plan we have put in place with Jean-Loïc Galle presented at the October 2021 Investor Day. Our emissions also benefited from the constraints COVID-19 imposed on business travel, which will of course represent a headwind in 2022 and 2023, as we will progressively resume business travel. Turning to the deployment of eco-design, we made significant progress last year, 82% of new developments integrated eco-design versus 45% in 2020.

Second pillar, diversity and inclusion. Well, we have set two quantitative targets related to the gender-class ceiling. On both, we progressed in line with the 2023 target. At 71%, the percentage of management committee with more than three women gained 3 points compared to 2020, meaning that we are well on track to achieve 75% next year. The percentage of women in senior management gained 90 basis points between 2020 and 2021. Even though we are talking of a quite broad base, slightly more than 10,000 people, we have good confidence in our ability to achieve the 20% target we have set on this KPI by 2023.

Turning now to ethics and compliance, the target on which we mobilized the teams in 2021 was anticorruption training of all exposed employees. So, with more than 6,700 employees trained in 2021, we achieved this target as well.

Finally, on health and safety at work, the frequency of accidents at work was 35% lower than in 2018, which is ahead of our 2023 target. But here as well, on top of our action plan, the 2021 performance was boosted by the high level of work-from-home, so it is not yet time to upgrade the 2023 ambition.

Altogether, as you understand from these charts, I'm glad to see that in 2021, we made strong progress on all four pillars of our sustainability strategy.

So, after this rapid introduction, I now hand over to Pascal, who will comment our financial results in greater details.

[Pascal Bouchiat]

Thank you, Patrice, and good morning to everyone. I'm now on slide 5. So, starting with order intake dynamics. As Patrice mentioned, we achieved again a very strong order intake in 2021 with €19.9 billion, at 18% organically, and a strong book-to-bill of 1.23 and even 1.28 excluding DIS whose book-to-bill is structurally equal to 1. With 21 large orders over €100 million in 2021 for a total of €6.5 billion, we achieved an even better performance in terms of large orders than in 2020.

In particular, we booked two jumbo contracts with a value over €500 million. First, the VASSCO program to provide through-life support for the principal components of the National Air Command and Control System, SCCOA, in France, representing a €1.5 billion all for service estimated over 10 years. And secondly, the new Rafale order from Egypt for 30 aircrafts.

Q4 was a really strong quarter with 12 large orders, which included four contracts related to space, one exploration contract with the European Space Agency related to the development of the I-HAB lunar module and three telecommunications satellites, eight large contracts in Defense & Security.

On top of the two jumbo contract just mentioned before, we booked three contracts with the French armed forces, one with the UK MOD and two with undisclosed defense customers. Orders with a unit value of less than €100 million were up 13% compared to 2020 with a clear increase in defense orders between €50 million and €100 million.

The dynamics were strong in both mature markets, with an organic increase of 14%. Thanks to 13 large orders in Defense & Security in six countries and an even stronger organic growth of 38% in emerging countries, driven by Defense & Security and Space.

And finally, it's also important to highlight the good performance of small orders below €10 million, up by 4% and driven by Aerospace at plus 6%. So, overall, another very safe performance in 2021 in regards to order intake.

So, moving now to slide 6 looking at sales. The currency effect was slightly positive during Q4 at plus 1.2% of sales and almost neutral over the year at 0.1% of sales. There was no significant scope effect worth mentioning in 2021.

Turning to organic growth. The breakdown shows a rebound third quarter versus a strongly disrupted 2020. Of course, a strong recovery in Q2 after the 20% decline we faced in Q2 2020. A slowdown in Q3 versus a catch-up we achieved in Q3 2020, and a further rebound in Q4 2021 versus Q4 2020, which was already strong. Over the full year, sales achieved a good recovery at plus 5.3% with various dynamics.

First, our Aerospace sales, we are back at a positive 6.1% growth driven by a strong double-digit growth in our Space business and despite a still slightly negative growth of the Avionics business due to the ongoing impact on demand in civil aeronautics. Same scenario occurred with DIS, sales back at a positive 2% organic growth overall and driven by a double-digit increase in cybersecurity, but still affected by the health crisis in biometrics. And then Defense & Security sales, we are back at a solid growth of 5.7% organic after a small decline in 2020, minus 1.8%.

Moving on now to slide 7, looking at the adjusted P&L from sales to EBIT. As mentioned already, EBIT was up by 32% year-on-year with a margin progressing from 8.1% in 2020 to 10.2% in 2021. We'll have a look at the drivers of this performance in a minute, but looking at the key items of the P&L, let me point out that. First, we can see a positive impact on gross margin by 110 basis points, up from 26.1% to 27.2% with all our businesses outside civil aero and biometrics back at a fully normalized productivity.

We can also see that our indirect costs have increased less than our sales by 80 basis points plus 4.5% versus 5.3%. And despite the significant increase by 8.9% of our R&D expenses, we show how disciplined we have been with marketing and sales and G&A expenses. As expected, our restructuring costs were down from €160 million to €91 million with most of the structural cost actions related to the health crisis now fully achieved. Finally, Naval Group delivered a contribution to our EBIT back to a normalized level of €69 billion, slightly above the level it achieved back in 2019, €65 million.

Moving on now to slide 8, looking as usual into greater details of the drivers of the change in our EBIT between 2020 and 2021. Starting with 2020, our EBIT amounted to €1,248 million. The mechanical impacts, scope, currency and pension were very limited this year adding €6 million. A €385 million improvement in gross margin reflects the sales rebound as well as impacts of the cost adaptation program in our Avionics business.

In

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(00:17:21), you can see that we decided to invest part of these operational improvements into R&D, organically up €84 million in order to support future growth across our different businesses. Finally, both restructuring and equity affiliates contributed to the recovery of EBIT as you can see on the right of the chart.

Now, looking briefly at each segments one by one. I'm now on slide 9 starting with Aerospace. Orders were strongly up at 48% organically; thanks to the ongoing momentum in the Space business. As mentioned earlier, four large contracts were booked during Q4. Two telco satellites with SES and one with Telkom Indonesia, plus a new exploration contract related to the lunar module with the European Space Agency. We also noted a pickup by 33% of Avionics orders during Q4.

Sales were up by 6.1% organically, driven by the strong double-digits rebound in Space over the full year. As expected, the overall Avionics business was slightly down at around minus 3% versus the full year 2020, impacted during on these quarters by the health crisis. However, it's important to note in the beginning of a rebound in flight avionics aftermarket sales up by 13% in 2021 and also the positive trend in Q4, which grows between mid-single digit and up to double-digits across the various sub-segments.

EBIT was back at a positive €202 million after a full year 2020, deeply affected by the health crisis. This recovery is of course driven by the improvement in sales and by the effects of both the global adaptation plan and the civil aero structural cost adaptation plan.

Let me remind you, as I said during the H1 presentation that it also includes a negative one-off of €10 million related to the higher income tax rate in the UK, which affects one of our JV based there

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(00:20:22).

Now moving to slide 10, Defense & Security. Order intake amounted to €11.2 billion, up by 12% organically, setting for the third year in a row a new record high. This segment recorded 13 orders above €100 million with 8 new ones in Q4, including the 2 jumbo contracts I mentioned earlier.

Let me point out here that this performance naturally drives a new record-high backlog at €26.1 billion, which represents three years of sales. It materially extends our visibility on revenue. But since several of these contracts cover several years, it will not provide a strong boost for sales growth in the near term.

Sales amounted to €8.6 billion, up by 5.7% organically versus 2020, and also up by 3.5% versus 2019. Many business units contributed to this solid recovery, including underwater systems, cybersecurity solution, and networks and infrastructure systems.

EBIT margin remained strong, once again in the upper range of the medium-term guidance at 12.9%, and this despite our decision to further increase our R&D efforts by 50 basis points to support future growth.

Last segment on slide 11 with DIS, Digital Identity & Security. As usual, I don't comment on orders as they are structurally aligned with sales. Sales amounted to €3 billion, up 2% organically. The growth resulted from different moving parts.

The ongoing impact of the crisis on biometrics, down around 6% in 2021, but with some encouraging signs of recovery in Q4 with a mid-single-digit growth. Also, a positive growth by 2.5% in smart cards in spite of the supply chain tension on chips, which the team managed very well. These two factors partly offsetting the double-digit growth of cybersecurity activities.

At €358 million, EBIT was up by 6.2% organically with an EBIT margin rising further from 10.8% to 11.9% despite the ongoing disruptions I've just mentioned in biometrics. The segment benefited from additional cost synergies slightly ahead of our plan, the ongoing tight control on costs, and the leverage of the cyber sales growth.

This new achievement in term of EBIT confirms that the segment is fully on track to reach its medium-term target of an EBIT margin between 12.5% and 13.5%, and Patrice will come back on that later.

Turning now to slide 12, looking at items below the EBIT. First, taxes. As you can see, the effective tax rate decreased from 22% in 2020 to 17.3% in 2021. It mostly resulted from the tax rate decrease in France in 2020, moving down from 32% to 28.4%.

But it also resulted from two one-off items I already mentioned during the H1 results presentations related to the tax law changes in the UK and Italy. Excluding this one-off, our tax rate would have been 20.6% in 2021. And we expect the tax rate to remain in this range, 20% or 21%, in 2022.

Second, adjusted net income from discontinued operations. This is, of course, the contribution of transport, which doubled compared to 2020. Adjusting for items linked to the IFRS 5 classification, the EBIT margin of these segments would have reached 7.5%, fully in line with the target we had set.

Finally, minorities improved strongly and this is mostly driven by the recovery of Thales Alenia Space profitability. Thales Alenia Space being a joint ventures with Leonardo. All in all, this drove an adjusted net income group share of €1,361 billion and adjusted EPS of €6.39, only 3% below the previous peak that we achieved in 2019.

Moving now to slide number 13. Let's have a look at the conversions of EBIT into free operating cash flow. The usual recurring items were up versus 2020. Financial interest increasing from €49 million to €58 million in 2021, income tax paid €145 million in 2021 versus €97 million in 2020, and equity affiliates which corresponds to the gap between our share in their net income and the actual dividends we received from them representing negative €87 million.

We remain very stringent with CapEx projects, resulting in the global positive balance of € 48 million between CapEx and D&A.

As usual, the big swing factors was a change in working capital requirements, which represented €776 million paid within in 2021 boosted by several factors that I will discuss in greater detail on the next slide. Other cash items not included in the EBIT, such as cash restructuring, forex, or IFRS 16 lease depreciation, amounted to a net positive €177 million.

Finally, at €156 million, the contribution of transport was also quite strong, above its adjusted net income. So, all in all, an exceptionally strong free cash flow performance above €2.5 billion.

What is the impact of the strong 2021 reporting cash flow performance and our medium-term guidance? I'm now on slide 14. So, to answer these questions, we need to look into the drivers of our 2021 outperformance. There are actually mainly three reasons to highlight. First, the better-than-anticipated Q4 order intake, especially on export markets.

Second, the solid outcome of our cash action plan with positive impact in various items. Collection of over dues, reduction of stocks, extension of supply payment terms, and so forth and so on. We also benefited off a few positive one-off in 2020.

And finally and importantly, we estimate that around €400 million is due to cutoff effects that will unwind in 2022. As a reminder, these cutoff effects correspond to advance or early payments from customers and milestone, which earlier than anticipated and triggering cash payment milestone.

Based on these expectations that only $400 million will unwind in 2022 and taking into account the expected cash-in related to the Rafale in the UAE, we expect cash conversions to remain high in 2022 and 2023.

This is the target on the slide, around 100% of adjusted net income. In euro terms, this is roughly equivalent to €5.5 billion of free operating cash flow over the three years period from 2021 through 2023. And this represents around €900 million above current consensus.

Combined with the already strong performance in 2019 and 2020 and the exceptional performing 2021, this drives a 20 points upgrade to our 2019-2023 cash conversions target. So, in a nutshell, an exceptional 2021 cash conversions, which enable us to materially upgrade our 2019 to 2023 guidance from a previous average of 95% to 115% on a reported basis.

Moving on now to slide 15 with a quick look at the evolution of our net debt position. Nothing material to comment on the interest drivers, apart from the intensity of the labor chain achieved in 2021, from €2.5 billion at the end of 2020 to less than €800 million at the end of 2021, i.e., a reduction of more than €1.7 billion over 12 months and €2.5 billion over 24 months.

And to finish, a word on cash returns on slide 16. First, the dividend. This year, the board has decided to maintain the payout ratio at 40%, which drives a dividend of €2.56 per share, up 45% versus 2020. As you see from the chart, this corresponds to a 10% per year increase in the dividend since 2017, slightly above EPS goal.

Second, as you saw in the press release, the board has also approved the first share buyback program in the history of the group. It is sized at 3.5% of the share capital, €770 million at yesterday's price.

As you imagine, we'll not rush to implement this program in view of the share price over the past few days, but this is a major illustration that the board is ready to actively manage the excess cash that we generate. And Patrice will come back in details on this topic.

So, that's the end of this financial review. I'm now turning over the call to Patrice, who will address our current strategy and guidance.

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Thank you, Pascal. So, I'm now on slide 18, turning to our strategy and outlook. So, as I stressed at the beginning of this whole lecture, we have made significant progress on our strategic road map with the announcement of the disposal of the transport business and the acceleration of our sustainability strategy.

So, going forward, we are focused on the five strategic priorities listed on this slide, which I will develop in more details over the next few minutes.

First, let me come back on the portfolio change we announced last year, and I'm now on slide 19. I won't discuss the rationale behind the disposal of our Transport business. The point I wanted to make here is that this move reinforces our strategic position by allowing us really to focus our resources on three leading and highly synergistic businesses.

You remember what makes Thales quite unique. The combination of domain knowledge in demanding vertical markets, aerospace, defense, digital identity, and security with an exceptional breadth of technological capabilities focused on what we call the critical decision chain.

Almost all of our solutions serve one or several of the fundamental building blocks that make critical decision chains, sensing and data gathering, like radars and sonars or observation satellites, are good examples of them.

Secondly, data transmission and storage, which includes telecom satellites, aircraft connectivity solutions, or military networks and radio communications.

And third, data processing and decision making, which relies on software algorithms and machine interface. Good examples of this include flight management systems or command and control centers, like the ones that manage the airspace, surveillance, or air traffic control.

And, of course, digital security, cyber security is absolutely essential to ensure trust all along these critical decision chains.

These breadth of technologies is a key differentiating factor in our business model. It allows us to address civil markets with technologies and

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(00:37:31) or to integrate cybersecurity in every solution we sell. Each of our businesses benefits from this unique positioning and its links with the other segments.

So, looking briefly at each segment now one-by-one. So, starting with Aerospace on slide 20. Both components of this segment have strong growth prospects. Of course, on the analytics side, on top of the development of military business, sales will be driven by the rebound of air transport, which is set to last for several years.

At the same time, the chart from IATA reminds us that near-term visibility on the pace of air transport recovery remains low. Let's also acknowledge that widebody traffic and pollution levels will take several years to meaningfully recover.

Internally, we have completed the necessary structural cost adaptation and are preparing ourselves for the recovery of demand and the ramp-up of OEM production.

Since the middle of last year, we have transformed our service organization, setting up a dedicated global service business line. And going forward, EBIT margin will benefit from the leverage on sales growth and from the expansion of our service business.

Turning to Space, well, Pascal stressed the commercial successes we recorded last year. Let me add that on the telco side, our sustained R&D strategy really paid off as well. In the past three months, Space Inspire, our new flexible satellite product line, was selected by two of the largest satellite operators, namely SES and Intelsat.

This backlog and our future order prospects allow us to confirm the €2.5 billion sales targets by 2024, which will drive a 5% per year growth between now and then.

Turning to our second business segment, Defense & Security, and I'm now on slide 21. You all have in mind how, since 2015, defense budgets in Europe have returned to growth driven by the geopolitical context and terrorism.

The chart on the right shows deals forecast over the coming three years. 80% of our geographical portfolio benefits from at least 4% annual growth, France, Australia, the UK, Asia, the Middle East. These forecasts date from last month and, of course, it is too early to draw definitive conclusions on how much faster defense budgets will grow in the coming years, following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Still, hearing the German chancellor talking of €100 billion additional defense package and declaring an ambition to spend sustainably above 2% of GDP on defense, this gives a sense of the paradigm shift this crisis is triggering in Europe.

In addition, our product portfolio is very well aligned with what armed forces want to buy. Solutions to help them better sense their environment with, for example, radars and sonars, infrastructures to exchange more information and better coordinate themselves, etcetera. In particular, we see high demand for new generation, air surveillance, including the protection against UAVs, and for the integration of cloud capabilities in a military environment.

Well, these two factors explain why our growth guidance over the coming three years is significantly above consensus growth forecasts for other large defense companies in Europe, UK and the US as shown on the chart on the bottom right. Let me finish by remembering you that this business sustainably delivers industry-leading margins close to 13% last year; so really quite remarkable assets.

I am now on slide 22 looking at our third segment, DIS. As Pascal showed earlier, this business delivered a strong EBIT performance last year in spite of the COVID-19 impact on biometrics product line and all the supply chain challenges it faced. On top of a solid delivery on cost synergies above the planned €110 million, it leveraged its strict cost focus especially in the smart card business to achieve an 11.9% margin. This is more than 4 points above 2018, the last year it operated as a standalone business.

Last year, it also generated €400 million of free operating cash flow, more than doubled what it had achieved in 2018. So, undoubtedly, a strong financial performance in spite of COVID-19 in line with the medium-term EBIT margin target set at the October 2019 Capital Market Day.

In addition, DIS gives us, of course, strong positions in several very attractive growth markets such as data protection, which is expected to double by 2025, or eSIM and 5G SIM whose shipments are expected to triple over the same time period.

Finally, integrating Gemalto's key digital security capabilities in our products uniquely strengthens our competitive positioning. Last year, we won 141 such revenue synergy projects. Recent successes include airport, self-service solutions, drone management projects and our partnership with Google to offer a sovereign cloud solution in France.

Second priority, R&D investments, and I'm now on slide 23. Technology leadership remains a major driver of competitiveness in our markets. As you can see on the chart, we intend to continue growing R&D investments faster than sales, spending more than 6.5% of sales on self-funded R&D in the medium term.

Over the past few years, this budget increase has allowed us to systematically integrate digital technologies in products. Among the new focus areas, let me mention far-edge computing, quantum sensors, typically. Both technologies offer not just opportunities for higher processing and sensing performance; they can also be very energy efficient.

So, moving now to slide 24 with the third strategic priority, sustainability. As I announced at the ESG last October, accelerating our initiatives in this domain is a strategic priority for the coming years in line with our purpose and the expectations of our customers, our employees and future recruits and our shareholders.

First and foremost, sustainability is at the core of our product portfolio. And as shown on the chart, our solutions have key roles to play in making the world safer, the world greener, and the world more inclusive. Contributing to a safer world, protecting democracies, safeguarding liberties, these words have a different flavor now that we all see war at the edge of Europe. Peace can never be taken for granted.

In this context, I'm glad to see that the new report on the so-called social taxonomy has clearly acknowledged this reality, narrowing harmful defense activities to the weapons that are prohibited by international treaties.

On the previous slides, I already showed how our customers are increasing their investments to protect against both physical and digital threats. And in particular, our cybersecurity business recorded a double-digit growth last year. Environmental monitoring, navigation, the reduction of the digital divide are also driving strong growth at Thales Alenia Space.

And on a longer time horizon, we continue to see increased interest for our green aircraft operations concepts, which received new research funding. And as

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(00:48:18) described, the combination of new generation flight management systems and air traffic control offer a major potential to reduce CO2 emissions from aviation up to 10% of total emissions.

In parallel, we have made solid progress on our internal initiatives. I commented earlier on the 2021 performance in our four priority areas. We expect to submit our climate targets to the Science Based Target Initiative, SBTI, sometime during H1.

On the governance side, we recently created the position of a Chief Sustainability Officer reporting to our Group Secretary, Isabelle Simon, who will lead a new corporate department in charge of all CSR expertise and competencies. In addition, two board directors have joined the Strategy and CSR Committee of the board to contribute to the board discussions on ESG matters.

Finally, we will continue to develop best-in-class ethics and compliance practices from anti-corruption to export control or the use of AI in autonomous systems. This year, in particular, we will expand our ISO 30001 (sic) [ISO 37001] (00:49:59) certification to additional countries in the organization.

I am now on slide 25, operational performance. Operational performance constitutes the fourth strategic priority. So, beyond the four group-wide initiatives that are listed on the left, this year, we intend to focus on a few initiatives. First, the transformation of our engineering function. This initiative includes the deployment of a new generation of engineering digital tools as well as the ramp-up of our engineering competency centers in India and in Romania.

Second, we will implement several actions related to manufacturing competitiveness, such as further automation, design for manufacturing or the reduction of non-quality. Third, having run last year's several pilot projects on what is called S&OP, Sales and Operations Planning, we plan to broadly roll out these best practices in 2022, which will help us better address ongoing supply chain challenges and reduce inventory.

Fourth and finally, we will work hard to adapt our fixed cost structure to the new shape of the group after the disposal of the transport business. So, as you understand, the development of performance culture remained at the heart of our strategic plan, Ambition 10, and we continue to find many operational performance improvement opportunities.

Fifth strategic topic, last but not the least, capital allocation. I am now on slide 26. As we demonstrated over the past years, our businesses are very cash generative. Of course, defense businesses sometimes benefit from large down payments while many of our civil businesses are flow businesses and hence face less working capital volatility.

During the COVID crisis, this diversity helped us as well when we saw institutional customers being very supportive in cash terms. All in all, as explained by Pascal, we expect that cash generation will be significantly above cumulative adjusted net result over 2019-2023, driving a major deleveraging of our balance sheet.

On top of that, we will receive the cash-in from the disposal of Transport at the end of this year or at the beginning of 2023, which will further add to our cash optionality. This sustainably high cash generation will enable us to comfortably implement a balanced capital allocation, combining both investments in the business and cash returns to the shareholders. And I will reaffirm our M&A strategy in a minute.

Regarding cash returns, the board is proposing, as was already said, to the upcoming AGM a 45% increase in the dividend and the long-term EPS growth prospect to drive many years of further dividend progression. In addition, the board has approved the first share buyback program in the history of Thales. This represents an important signal to the market that we are actively managing our excess cash to support sustainable value creation.

So, zooming in on our M&A strategy, slide 27. Let me reaffirm what we explained in response to the rumors regarding our interest for Atos cybersecurity assets. First, our strategic focus is on bolt-on acquisitions defined as assets with an enterprise value of less than €500 million. These acquisitions must help us reinforce our technology portfolio and/or expand our geographical footprint. Second, we have no intention to diversify into markets other than those we already serve.

On the right side, on the right of the slide, you can find some details on two recent acquisitions that fit exactly in this criteria. While acquisitions form an integral part in our capital allocation strategy, let me stress that we intend to remain very disciplined saying no to any project if we are not fully convinced of its contribution to growth, its synergy potential or if we think its valuation is excessive.

Moving now to slide 28, discussing our 2022 outlook. Starting with the business assumptions on the left of the slide, the health situation is clearly improving, which should support a gradual recovery of air transport. Still, uncertainties remain particularly high at the beginning of this year. Global supply chains remain under tensions. And even if our logistics and energy exposures are low, we are seeing inflation picking up in particular on wages.

In addition, of course, the geopolitical context has profoundly changed since the middle of last week. On the one hand in the near term, the economic sanctions taken against Russia and the associated disruptions will have a temporary negative impact on our business. On the other hand, in the longer term, this context will drive higher defense spending for many of our customers, and the German decision I mentioned earlier is quite meaningful in this regard.

For 2022, I've listed here four key short-term priorities. First, operational issues will stay on top of the agenda; staffing, supply chain challenges, dealing with the consequences of economic sanctions on Russia. Second, we will continue to focus on our growth initiatives, in particular, the capture of revenue synergies with DIS and on reinforcing our technology leadership. Third, we will execute the disposal of the Transport business, carving out the entities that will be sold to Hitachi, adapting our fixed cost base and obtaining all the required authorizations. And finally, we will further implement, of course, our ESG strategy.

All this brings me to our financial objectives for 2022 considering the business environment and priorities that I just described. So, now I'm on slide 29. With respect to order intake, we expect another year of strong commercial performance, driving, again, a book-to-bill ratio above 1. Based on the February 2022 scope and foreign exchange rates, we expect sales to amount to between €16.6 billion and €17.2 billion, which corresponds to an organic growth between 2% and 6%. The wide range is, of course, due to the high uncertainties at the start of the year. And thanks to all the initiatives I presented earlier, I expect a further significant improvement in EBIT margin, reaching between 10.8% and 11.1%.

Let me finish with a quick summary on slide 30. Thales is now refocused on three leading businesses. All three offer long-term growth prospects, are able to sustainably deliver double-digit margins, and are aligned with major ESG trends. We continue to execute full speed on our strategic levers, investing in R&D, reinforcing our performance culture. And we will leverage the strength of our cash generation to maximize long-term value creation, implementing both disciplined M&A and cash returns to shareholders. The decision, in spite of the volatile context, to launch the first share buyback in the history of the group is, of course, a great demonstration of this balanced approach.

So, this concludes our presentation. Many thanks for your attention. And now, together with Pascal, we are pleased to take all your questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session.

[Operator Instructions]

We have the first question coming from George Zhao from Bernstein. Please ask your question.

[George Zhao, Analyst, Bernstein Autonomous LLP]

Hi. Yes. Good morning, everyone. I guess I want to ask about, when you say you have no interest to diversify into markets other than what you already serve, I guess first part, can you just confirm that that means that cyber is still on the table for the area that you could look at?

And two, how do you think about the other side of that? Meaning, even after the Transport sale, do you see room to further simplify the portfolio and focus more on your primary market of defense electronics, especially as we may see a period of more supportive global defense budget.

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Well, good morning and thank you, George, for your questions. So, the message is clear about no diversification, but it was worth, I would say, reiterating this strong message. Of course, cyber is totally core at Thales. It represents already a business of around €1 billion. So, clearly, it's a significant business where we have leading – world-leading positions and typically in data management, data protection where we are the world leader in this domain. So, why not envisaging, of course, acquisitions in the cyber domain if it makes sense and if the valuation are clearly correct.

Now, on the portfolio, it's true that we are now refocused. We are at least comfortable with the three pillars as mentioned and namely, Defense & Security, Aerospace and Space, and Digital Identity & Security. So, I do not see, I would say, any, I would say, large disposal looking forward. As we think that now the group is really positioned in three world-leading, world-class businesses, the three businesses I've just mentioned.

[George Zhao, Analyst, Bernstein Autonomous LLP]

Okay. Thanks. And then maybe just on the defense side, you mentioned it's too early to maybe draw indications, but what type of opportunities do you foresee from even the German announcement with their budget increase? And what we may hear from friends next week when they speak about defense?

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Probably two remarks on this point. For sure, the announcement of the German chancellor and probably others that will – that may come in the near future give a global positive tone on these budget investments looking forward. Now, it's a bit too soon to say what will be the exact, I would say, consequences for defense companies and, in particular, for Thales. But, overall, this is positive.

For us, Germany is 4% of our Defense & Security pillar. This is the third largest customer for us in Europe. Now, probably that in the short term the only consequence I see is probably, I would say, more active support and service, I would say, activities to make sure that the armed forces we serve are fully operational in particular in the context we know.

[George Zhao, Analyst, Bernstein Autonomous LLP]

All right. Thank you.

[Operator]

We have the next question coming from Celine Fornaro from UBS. Please ask your question.

[Celine Fornaro, Analyst, UBS AG (London Branch)]

Yes. Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got a couple, if I may. So, the first one is regarding the defense businesses, the defense and security and cyber in it. If you could maybe articulate how many are – how much is what you would call short cycle businesses? And if I look at the order book, things that are under the €100 million value are quite significant share of the order book. And with that, I would say how many could converge if the defense budget are raised, how many could converge quite quickly and not just in 2025 outlook?

And my second question is regarding the gross margin, which was nearly close at peak level of 27.5%, so excellent delivery there. And if you still think, Pascal, that there is further potential for that to expand. Thank you.

[Pascal Bouchiat]

Okay. Okay, Celine. Good morning. Thank you for your questions. So, quite a bit difficult to explain the proportions of all the – of our backlog in defense that can be converted right away. You know defense is a combination of both project executions. And in project executions, it can vary from project that we can execute in a 6, 12, 18 months' timeframe which is very short. But also, as we mentioned, for instance, in our VASSCO project that we booked in Q4 of 2021, project that will be executed over the next 10 years because it's a support contractor. This is the beauty of this business. It's really a combination of the two, so both short terms, but also long terms.

When it is, by the way, just build as opposed to support, when it is about execution of build project, here again, you can deliver quite simple, short-term projects in six, nine months' timeframe, but you can also execute projects on the longer run. A good example of that is our F126 frigate project that we booked in 2020, which is a very large size project that will be executed in the next few years. It will take time. Now, maybe behind your questions I can imagine being also can we speed up? Will we see customers' willingness to execute even more quickly? That might be the case. That might be the case. We will see.

What we can see is probably a need for additional support because we know that this crisis is probably triggering some of our key customers. We – to test themselves in terms of operational capabilities, which means that probably they will ask for more support to help them at least really test their own capabilities. Now, what can this lead in terms of growth at this point is probably really – it's probably – we need to earn.

Now, in terms of gross margin, first, we are quite happy with what we delivered in 2021. And you have seen this jump as compared to 2020 which was disrupted. Is there room to do even better there? I can assure you that this is a constant fight overall at Thales and a key indicator that we track is the gross margin on our order intake. It's a general indicator but it's very important indicator as this is a leading indicator then for our gross margin in our P&L. And without disclosing any precise figures, I can share with you the fact that we have been quite happy with the overall gross margin on our order intake.

In other words, this very large level of order intake that we managed to book in 2021 has not been done at the expense of lower gross margin on order intake in term of percentage. So, all of that is positive and this is also important for us. We keep saying this is a policy to keep investing more in terms of R&D as a proportion of revenue. And a clear message within Thales that we keep conveying to our teams is that a condition for us to keep increasing our level of R&D is, of course, to keep increasing the level of gross margin on order intake.

[Celine Fornaro, Analyst, UBS AG (London Branch)]

Thank you, Pascal. And if you're happy, I'm happy. Thank you.

[Pascal Bouchiat]

Thank you very much.

[Operator]

We have the next question coming from Ben Heelan from Bank of America. Please ask your question.

[Benjamin Heelan, Analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Yeah. Morning, guys. Thank you for the time. So, one of the questions I had was on the capital allocation policy. So, I was positively surprised by the buyback announcement and the comments around you guys will actively – and the board will be actively managing excess cash. Looking at the guidance that you've given, it implies a net debt number just north of €1 billion, I think, in 2022. Should we take this then that you guys think that you can run this business with a net debt position in the medium term? So that would be the first question there.

And then the second question would also be on M&A. Obviously, the environment has changed quite dramatically in the last seven days. Is this impacting how you think about M&A and you assess M&A? Is this a chance to be more aggressive from an M&A perspective given the budget support environment has clearly changed? Does it change how you think about geographies that you want to be exposed to? And does it change how you think about technology within defense that you want to be exposed to? Should we be thinking more land, more naval, more air as opposed to cyber? Just interested to see how you guys think about that. Thank you.

[Pascal Bouchiat]

Okay. Good morning, Ben. Thank you very much for your two questions. So, I suggest that I will take the first one and leave Patrice to take the second one. So, overall, on the level of net debt, we're happy with to run the company. The figure that you mentioned is, in my view, makes sense. So, I don't want to be more precise. And we see that this should leave us to combine both increasing the level of return to our shareholders and hence the decision of our board to launch this share buyback program, and also keeping investing in the company, both from an organic standpoint, but also in terms of the bolt-on acquisitions. So it's a combination of the two. It's going to be a balance. Capital allocations weighs, of course as I always said. A key point for us is to remain a very strong investment grade company. And we can combine all of those dimensions.

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

On the M&A, if I may continue, Pascal.

[Pascal Bouchiat]

Yes.

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Hi, Ben. No, there is no reason to be more aggressive or just aggressive. We always keep a cool head at Thales. You know us very well. So no reason to change what I said, by the way, what I've reiterated in our – in terms of M&A philosophy and M&A policy. In terms of geographies and technologies, in fact, we are looking at both where we can expand our geographical footprint. As you know, we are present in more than 50 countries at least. So, clearly, it's difficult to mention one country in particular. In fact, we are looking in these different countries. And then, it's a question of opportunity. So, difficult to predict and probably useless to mention names of countries where we would like to expand.

In terms of technologies, most of the time, technologies are agnostic of applications. So, if you take – I don't know I've mentioned during my presentation – edge, far edge computing, we could mention 5G, I mentioned quantum, and I can mention many other technologies. These technologies are clearly agnostic to use cases or applications.

That's why I – here again, difficult to say, we want to increase technologies in the naval domain or in the land domain. We would like to increase our technological leadership, full stop, and these technological leaderships then is applied in our vertical markets, namely Defense & Security, Aerospace and Space, and Digital Identity & Security. Hope it helps.

[Benjamin Heelan, Analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

No, it does. Thank you.

[Operator]

We have the next questions coming from Tristan Sanson from Bank of Exane (sic) [Exane BNP Paribas] (01:16:33). Please ask your question.

[Tristan Sanson, Analyst, Exane BNP Paribas]

Yes, good morning to the team. Thanks for taking my question. The first one would probably be a detailed question for Pascal, if I may, on duration of the EBIT scheduled for 2022 from 10.2% margin to the range from 10.8% to 11.5%. So, roughly, it's an increase by €250 million to €350 million.

Can you explain a bit what are the drivers just between restructuring, organic growth, the bidding costs, this kind of stuff? And do you expect a pickup in fixed cost? You mentioned wages inflation, potentially pressure from supply chain. If you can explain a bit how it impacts your performance and how you mitigated by efficiencies, that would be very helpful.

And the second question would probably be a question on cash allocation and the share buyback. I understand that Dassault has decided to change a bit its shareholding to make sure it doesn't go over 30% of shares. Can you tell us whether there's any change in the governance or the shareholder part is still holding? And is this a limit to the cash you can return through buybacks

[indiscernible]

(01:17:58) shareholding agreement between Dassault and the French state.

And if I may squeeze in a quick follow-up. I wanted to make sure that the underlying free cash flow guidance at maybe €1.5 billion, €1.6 billion was including the UAE contract on the Rafale, the first tranche of Indonesia, but no other Rafale exports and no last constellation contracts. That would be all. Many thanks.

[Pascal Bouchiat]

Okay. Good morning, Tristan. So, starting with the first question about the key drivers supporting progression in term of EBIT margin. So, it's going to be first top line growth, organic growth with an expectations of a slight further increase in term of gross margin as a proportion of sales.

So, even though, as I mentioned, I was quite happy with the level of gross margin in 2021, we're expecting this level of gross margin to go even further. So, the 27.2% that we deliver in 2021, we think that in 2022 we should be above this level.

Now, when it comes to indirect costs, a bit too early, but R&D expenses should be, in term of percentage, probably at the level that we had in 2021, which was significantly above 2020, 6.3%. So my view is, this 6.3% probably a good rule of thumb to consider what should be 2022.

A point which is quite important is marketing and sales, where we have seen quite a strong drop in 2021 with both cost containments, but also the positive effect of quite limited level of travel expenses in commercial populations, which, of course, has to travel.

So here, I'm expecting probably a bit of additional costs in term of marketing and selling expenses. Of course, G&A will continue to be very much under scrutiny, and we don't want any relaxation in this matter. My view is that overall level of restructuring should be probably in line with what we have seen in 2021.

So, in a nutshell, we think that there's still a way for us to keep increasing the level of gross margin. This reflecting the continuous implementation of cost optimization program in engineering, in

[indiscernible]

(01:21:25). And this also overall leveraging effect from a higher level of revenue.

Yes, of course, we're operating in a context where we need to handle pressure in term of both supply chain and wages. This is a matter of fact and this in many countries. And also on some important supply chain aspect, we're still not commented to the crisis and component, but on electronic components, shortage goes along with also inflation.

Now, I guess that we have demonstrated in 2021 that we can manage also and absorb this level of additional costs and pricing

[indiscernible]

(01:22:29) at our DIS business went extremely well in 2021. I'm expecting in particular in DIS ability to keep pushing prices to our customer base, and reflecting the fact that we cannot keep this additional cost for ourselves.

So, yes – and, of course, this is requiring attention to operate in this more inflationary world. But I'm not – I don't have any specific or strong concern on that. This is our duty and we'll manage that. And this very much consistent with the level of operating margins that we are targeting for 2022.

And second matter, Patrice...

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Good morning, Tristan. Very clear – very simple answer. Both Dassault Aviation or Dassault Group and the French state are happy – very happy shareholders. By the way, they simply support Thales and Thales management in our strategic journey. So, there is absolutely no change in governance and no change in typically the shareholders' agreement.

Probably what you are referring to comes from the fact that Dassault bylaw has to monitor its voting rights not to cross the 30% threshold. Otherwise, they would have to launch a public offer on Thales, which is not their intention.

So, they have to monitor the mix of the shares having, I would say, double voting rights and the other ones having single voting rights, so they monitor this mix. But quite probably you have read something about that. But clearly, it's just a technical aspect of – or a technical consequence of the reduction coming from – or resulting from the share buyback.

[Pascal Bouchiat]

Your last point, Tristan, was about cash flow and 2022 guidance. So, yes, this €1.5 billion is the implicit guidance that we're communicating today. And it takes into account our best view on what is going to happen in 2022 with – of course,

[indiscernible]

(01:25:23) this is, of course, quite a significant amount the impacts of the booking of the UAE contract.

And also, as I mentioned in my presentation,

[indiscernible]

(01:25:39) significant reversal of advance cash that we got in the last part of 2021 in particular some specific milestones that we achieved in December has only expected schedule.

[Tristan Sanson, Analyst, Exane BNP Paribas]

That is all very clear. Thank you very much, both.

[Operator]

We have the next questions coming from the line of

[ph]

Mike Pular (01:26:17) from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please ask your question.

Yeah. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one is, again, around capital allocation and the decision to start a share buyback, especially the arbitrage between the shareholder return and M&A. What would be your firepower for a large M&A deal? And would that share buyback indicate that you would not be ready to issue new shares for financing of a large deal, or doesn't it prevent any of that type of options?

And the second, on cybersecurity, you talked about a doubling of that business on an organic basis, and I was curious about the potential operational leverage and margin impact of that type of growth. Thank you.

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Thank you,

[ph]

Mark (01:27:14).

[indiscernible]

(01:27:17)

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Bonjour,

[ph]

Mike (01:27:20). On the capital allocation part of your question, again and again, let me reiterate the fact that our strategy is to focus on bolt-on acquisitions. So, this is clear and this is writing, this is said, and no diversification is clearly envisaged – is envisaged.

Cyber, yes, we said a while ago that we could double our cyber business, I said by 2025 if I remember – let's say midterm. And this is clearly the level looking at the growth rate of the market and the growth rate of our own cyber business.

Now, in terms of operational leverage, but clearly, it will play in favor of margin improvement, for sure, as part – not all of it, part of this business is software-driven business, more than hardware-driven business.

The second part of your question was...

[indiscernible]

(01:28:38).

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Sorry, I thought there was another part here. Okay. But is it okay for you,

[ph]

Mike (01:28:44)?

[Bertrand Delcaire]

I think...

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

I suppose so.

[Bertrand Delcaire]

I think that we lost

[ph]

Mike (01:28:54).

No, no, no, no, sorry, I was on mute.

[Bertrand Delcaire]

You are still there, sorry.

Yeah, I'm outside. So, I tried to cover the background noise. But if there was a larger deal opportunity, let's say, let's address the speculations around

[ph]

BDS, that's why I referred (01:29:09) by the press earlier in the year. We're talking several billion, so it's outside the bolt-on bracket. I mean, would you – what kind of leverage the group would be ready to take today?

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Really,

[ph]

Mike (01:29:23), this is just speculation, as we mentioned that we're not ready to consider any transformational acquisition. I don't think it's worth mentioning what would be a capital structure to fund transformational acquisitions. So, no, I cannot answer the questions, which, in my view, at this point is really just pure speculation.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

We have the next questions coming from Christophe Menard from Deutsche Bank. Please ask your question.

[Christophe Menard, Analyst, Deutsche Bank AG (France)]

Yes. Good morning. First, congratulations on your results. I have three questions. The first one, on the share buyback. I know it's a board decision, I don't know if you can comment, but what has driven the decision of share buyback over higher payout? It could have been 50% payout or – and it could come actually. But I was wondering what was the kind of motivation behind this, if you can comment.

And the second question is, in the current environment, with that increase in – I mean, potential demand, what bottleneck are you seeing in terms of production and labor if you were to increase production of OE product and services as well? And I will follow-up with the last question afterwards.

[Pascal Bouchiat]

Okay. So, Christophe, good morning. First, I suggest to take the first one and to leave, I mean, Patrice taking the second one. So, on the share buyback versus increasing the payout ratio. The first thing that we have done is to listen to investors. And we have been in contact with many investors over the last few months. And there was a clear overall feeling about the fact that Thales generating a sizable amount of cash flow and getting in the few quarters the proceeds from the disposal of our Transport business. Again, the question was very much about, I mean not piling up cash on balance sheet but increasing this return.

And I have to say that in most cases, not to say more, I mean, the share buyback was really the right tool for investors in order to address this specific situation. And I have to say that in most of those discussions, we have not been challenged about – I mean, the level of payout ratio, which is by the way pretty much in line with most of our peers. So, it was really about addressing, I mean this level of excess of cash generated by our performance in term of free cash flow generations, plus the disposal of our Transport business. So, it has not been, I mean, a long discussion with our board about what should be the right tool. Very naturally, I mean, the share buyback went as, I mean, the right tool, I mean, to address this specific situation.

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Hello, Christophe. On the second part of your question, bottlenecks, plus I would prefer to speak about challenges. Really challenges would be to continue to hire new talents or more talents. You know that our plan as of – for this year is to hire around 11,000 people across the world. This is a challenge but this is

[indiscernible]

(01:33:21) clearly, we have taken, I would say, appropriate measures to meet this first challenge.

The other one would be, of course, to probably look at our, if not production facilities, I would say integration facilities. And probably again it could require perhaps a bit more CapEx, but clearly this has nothing to do with other industries if you compare figures like the ones we can hear of or read around the components or chips factory, it has nothing to do with that. We are, I would say, more as I said, integrating electronics, I'm not producing electronics, I'm not producing components or chips.

So, for me, this is not a headache. It could be a nice challenge we would love to face to have even more, I would say, work to do. And at this time, I'd say, nothing to be worried about.

[Christophe Menard, Analyst, Deutsche Bank AG (France)]

Okay. Thank you very much for the answers. And the last question was actually a bit linked to the bottleneck and the labor. It's related to the wage increases. There is obviously some pressure at the moment. And it's part of your cost quite obviously. I was wondering, what – can you, in your fixed price contracts in Defense, can you pass some of those increases to clients? Or is it all for you basically? I mean, are there some clauses in the contracts that helps you revise the pricing?

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

I mean, it's quite clear. I mean, Christophe, if it is fixed price, I mean, there's no way, I mean, to change price. Now, most of our contracts are not based on fixed price, but are based on revised price where we have escalation mechanism, I mean, to reflect, I mean, this type of inflation. So, price escalation mechanism is in our Defense & Security, more the norm than fixed price. And when we are fixed price, I mean, we organize our self to make sure that we anticipate a increase in the supply chain cost.

[Bertrand Delcaire]

I think we need to close the Q&A session.

[Christophe Menard, Analyst, Deutsche Bank AG (France)]

Okay. Thank you very much. That's very clear. Got you.

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Thank you. We can take probably still a few question very quickly.

[Bertrand Delcaire]

Yes.

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

And we'll provide quite a quick answers.

[Operator]

We have the next questions coming from David Perry from JPMorgan. Please ask your question.

[David H. Perry, Analyst, JPMorgan Securities Plc]

Yes. Good morning, gentlemen. Just one question from me, please. When I think about this new Defense spending in Europe and the timeframe, I think as you said support will come very quick and then perhaps retrofit comes next and then perhaps new equipment, new platforms. I just wondered given electronics is a great way to retrofit and upgrade the in-stored fleet, as a high-level question, when you look across Europe's in-stored fleet, aircraft, helicopter, ships, tanks et cetera what do you see is a market opportunity for you to do upgrades and retrofit with your electronic offer. Thank you.

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

It's a good question. I'm not sure the answer is easy. It's a good question, David, as you rolled, of course. If you try to estimate, I would say, at which pace the turnover would be positively impacted, I think this is, I would say, the underlying

[indiscernible]

(01:37:26). I would say support and services maybe short term, but even retrofit take a bit of time because, integrating – just take a new generation radar on the old fleet.

Integrating a new radar is not, I would say, plug-and-play. It's not like your USB key being inserted in a computer. You need to integrate this radar with the combat management system. And clearly, it's a question at least of months. When I say months, if not more than one year or so, clearly it's not for 2022 and probably not before mid-2023 if it starts now. So, clearly the expected – not expected, so-called expected effect of retrofit and not to stick with new platform is clearly for me mid-term and not short-term.

[David H. Perry, Analyst, JPMorgan Securities Plc]

But just high level and then I'll shut up. Is that a big opportunity for you? Do you think that is a way that Europe can upgrade their capabilities quicker than buying brand-ew platforms?

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Yes, clearly, but potentially on the long term, yes, clearly, yes. It represents an even higher potential than some

[indiscernible]

(01:38:46), clearly.

[David H. Perry, Analyst, JPMorgan Securities Plc]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

So, Bertrand is asking me to tell you that we'll take one last question. So, I will follow Bertrand's instruction. So, we take the last one.

[Operator]

Thank you. We have another question from Andrew Humphrey from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.

[Andrew Humphrey, Analyst, Morgan Stanley & Co. International Plc]

Hi. Thank you. Hopefully, just a couple of quick-fire ones. I guess, firstly, on the supply chain. I wanted to clarify that. Can you give us an indication in basis points of how supply chain constraints have affected? What supply chain constraints and inflation have affected 2022 guidance compared to what you may have been thinking a month or two ago?

Also, I wanted to ask on Gemalto, you've given a figure for – or DIS, I should say, you've given a figure for what the margin would have been including synergies elsewhere in the group. I wonder if you could give us a bit more clarity on what exactly that is the benefits that Gemalto brings to the remainder of the group.

And then if I can just squeeze one final one, and can you confirm that the 2022-2023 cash guidance includes no contribution from Indonesia down payments? You mentioned UAE, but I wanted to ask about Indonesia.

[Pascal Bouchiat]

Okay. Okay, Andrew. So, I mean starting with the first question. I mean, it's quite difficult, I mean, to provide you with the basis points relating to the supply chain constraint on our 2022 guidance. I have to say that I'm not able to answer your questions. I have to say that in 2021, we managed at the end of the day not to have been impacted, so we – that's the reason why, I mean, we show a bit of caution from 2022 is that, I mean, we don't see the situations on components shortage to improve since the end of 2021. So, we know that it's going to be a challenge for all 2022 and probably also, I mean, the first part of 2023. And, because of that, I mean, we need to take a bit of caution.

On the second question, yes, I mean, cost synergies not accounted for DIS, but in other businesses. So, overall, something like €50 million would – goes in other businesses. And I will just take an example, I mean, for you to understand what it means. When you – when you bring Thales legacy and Gemalto sites, we choose to have, I mean, two different sites in the specific country, for instance. And you can bring them to a single site, and then you can save. I mean, the previous site costs of the Thales legacy business, then you allow, I mean, this Thales legacy business to get savings that have been driven by the fact that we have put together the two sites. And these savings of the previous

[indiscernible]

(01:42:43) costs of the Thales legacy business in this specific country is accounted for in the P&L of this specific Thales legacy business.

On cash flow 2022-2023, yes, of course, as I mentioned, it does include, I mean, UAE, but it also include, I mean, our additions today with regard Indonesia and in particular, I mean, what we expect in term of down payments relating to the first batch of six aircrafts in Indonesia as well. So, rest of the contract, I mean, at this point, of course, we need to be a bit cautious in term of schedule, I mean, for booking this contract. So, you need to consider that we have today, in our 2022 guidance, only the first batch of six aircrafts for Indonesia.

[Andrew Humphrey, Analyst, Morgan Stanley & Co. International Plc]

Great. Much appreciated. Thank you.

[Patrice Caine, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Thales SA]

Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, all, and I think I need to unfortunately close this Q&A session now, so just a few words in terms of conclusion.

So, as you understood, our 2021 financial performance was really strong as we made a good progress and we made, sorry, good progress on our non-financial targets as well. I would like to take this occasion to reiterate my thanks to the teams, for their mobilization throughout the year. Nothing would have been possible without their full mobilization, of course. We remain focus on the execution of our profitable growth strategy going forward. And, of course, as usual with Pascal, I look forward to speaking with you all in the upcoming Investor roadshows and conferences, of course.

Have a good day. Thank you very much and bye-bye.

[Bertrand Delcaire]

Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you didn't have a chance to ask your questions on today's conference call, please do not hesitate to send your questions to the Thales Group Investor Relations at e-mail address [e-mail], [e-mail], and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you for your participation. You may now all disconnect.