Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Jean-Marc and myself this morning for the presentation of our half year results at the end of June 2026.

I know that earnings season is in full swing, Jean-Marc and I will try to keep this brief. First, I wanted to share with you our satisfaction at being able to present our half year result today, nearly fully audited, nearly two months earlier than we have in recent years.

This is further evidence of our group's return to normalcy, which is reflected in all aspects of Emeis's operations. You may have seen already our press release, you may already guess how happy we are regarding this set of figures showing strong performance in H1, ahead of our initial expectations.

I'd like to begin this presentation by highlighting the major achievements of the first half of the year, achievements we are proud of and that have very well driven our financial and operational performance. First, I'd like to really thank and congratulate the Emeis teams, who performed exceptionally well through this difficult year, first in the face of quite significant flu season at the beginning of the year, and then during the heat waves more recently.

Health and safety measures alongside with proactive plans helped protect our residents. I would also like to take here the opportunity this morning to warmly congratulate our team looking after our residents when facing the forest fires in Gironde or in Spain these days.

Second, the significant improvement of our marketing processes, particularly in recruiting new residents, the number of prospects increased by nearly 22% in a single year, which obviously fuels the growth of our occupancy rate. In this context, we have also further refined our pricing strategy as occupancy rates rise across our markets.

Proactive pricing management for accommodation with tailored and dynamic pricing structures enabling through pricing effect to outperform inflation while increasing, at the same time, occupancy. In addition, this year we are seeing the positive effect of our opex optimization program that we call Boost, which aims to control operating expenses while maintaining the quality of care.

The first half of the year also saw a very strong performance in certain markets, as you will see with Jean-Marc's presentation. France is recovering quickly, but performance is particularly satisfying and exceed our expectation in Southern Europe and in Germany as well.

Finally, as we exited the safeguard plan during the first half of the year. We were able to settle our tax and social security debts and reassessed our maintenance capital expenditures budget to prepare for our group's future performance.

All these factors have contributed to the growth in the average occupancy rate of our facilities. It has risen by 2.8% percentage points over the past year, now above 90% in Q2 and even reaching over 91% for the first half in our mature markets.

This latest increase is part of the very favorable trend we have been observing for nearly four years now. This momentum show no sign of slowing down, and we do expect further improvement ahead.

It is also worth noting that the growth in our revenue has largely translated into higher operating margins and income. While revenue increased by €103 million, operating margin rose by nearly €70 million and our net income by nearly €100 million.

This is a result of our agility, our segmentation strategy, and our vigilance in controlling costs, something also that feed our confidence for the coming quarters. We continue to make successful progress toward all our objective to move our group towards recovery and stronger performance ahead.

We have now achieved our goal regarding confidence with our residents and patients, as well as quality of care and accommodation. The satisfaction rates shows strong process and is a proof of this.

We are also making strong progress in increasing our average occupancy rate, although we still have significant room for improvement ahead. The progress we've made so far is particularly encouraging.

Occupancy rate is now above 90%, as I said, in Q2, but we'll do even better ahead. Operating margins have risen sharply over the past two years, but here too we will deliver stronger figures in the coming years.

Our disposal plan has now been met and even exceeded. We will now be very opportunistic in this area going forward.

Our balance sheet, particularly with regard to our debt maturity profile, has normalized since the refinancing completed six months ago in December and in January 2026. Our financial leverage ratio has decreased considerably over the past two years.

It now stands at 8.7 times, but we are very confident that it will continue to decrease further in the coming semesters. The first semester thus exceeded our expectations in many respects, with sustained momentum in occupancy rate and effective control of operating expenses.

In some international markets, signs of supply constraints appear to be emerging in the market when occupancy rates now exceeding with 90%. In France, although still lagging behind other markets, the pace of growth is particularly strong, and the catch-up is therefore well underway.

We are thus ahead of our initial expectations, and as a result, the guidance for fiscal year 2026 has to be revised upwards. We now expect the group's EBITDAR on a like-for-like basis to grow between 12% and 14% in 2026, whereas we had previously anticipated growth of only slightly more than 10%.

Over the midterm, we continue to believe this momentum will continue, expecting a CAGR for EBITDAR between 2024 and 2028 between 12% and 16%. Thank you for your attention.

This was my introduction, and now I turn the floor to Jean-Marc Boursier, our Deputy CEO, to present this financial performance of the first half to you in greater detail, and I will be available to answer the question you may have afterwards. Jean-Marc.

Thank you, Laurent. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning.

I will begin my presentation by highlighting what I believe are the five most important points in our earnings release. First, revenue growth remains strong, reaching 6% like-for-like.

It is driven by improved occupancy rate as well as favorable price effect. Second, operating margin are improving very significantly.

The EBITDA margin excluding IFRS 16, for instance, rose by 46% on a like-for-like basis, and as a percentage of revenue, it has increased by 2.2 points to 7.6%. Third, net income remains negative at -€40 million, but has improved considerably, rising by €97 million versus last year.

Fourth, the operating contribution to our cash flow is very significant. In the first half of this year, however, it was offset by one-offs, transitional items related to the group normalization.

I'm referring to working capital requirements and to nonrecurring items, which I will discuss in more details later. Net operating cash flow and recurring free cash flow are consequently stable.

Finally, our leverage ratio continues to improve materially. Net debt to EBITDA ratio now reaches 7 8.7 times at the end of June versus 15.4 times a year ago.

This improvement is not only driven by net debt reduction, but also by the sharp increase in EBITDA. Let's look at the P&L in greater detail.

If we start by occupancy rate evolution, across the group, as you can see on this slide, in all of our markets and business segments and in all of our regions, our occupancy rate are rising significantly. This trend is relatively consistent across all regions, as you can see on the left-hand side of this slide.

For nursing homes in particular, the increase is very pronounced, with occupancy rates rising by 2.9 points to 89.4%. If we focus as usual on our two major markets, namely Germany on one hand and France nursing homes on the other hand, trends are also particularly favorable.

It showed that momentum remains strong and at a steady pace in both regions. In France, as you can see, the 380 basis points increase in the occupancy rate is certainly driven by the group's commercial performance.

Please note, however, that this trend also benefit from, first, reduction in the number of beds in the denominator, which now consists of marketable beds as in other regions versus authorized beds, and it benefits also from the sale of our senior living facilities. The sale was closed at the end of 2025, and the occupancy rate of those senior facility were slightly lower than the rest of the portfolio.

In France, we are also very happy to see that occupancy rate rose in Q2 versus Q1, whilst usually relatively stable in those two quarters, and this is very encouraging. In Germany, as you can see on the right-hand side of the slide, the occupancy rate continues to rise at a very rapid pace, +3.4 points, and this trend is therefore continuing for the third consecutive year, as you can see, with an occupancy rate now approaching 90%.

How does it translate into revenue growth? Laurent said it, we enjoyed an organic growth in revenue of 6% in H1.

While the increase in occupancy rate is obviously a significant factor, +2.6% if you include the new openings, the favorable price effect remains the primary driver of the revenue growth, contributing 3.4% in H1. On a current basis, not an organic basis, but a current basis, revenue is up 3.5%, slightly minored by, first, the disposal of our Czech Republic activities and the French senior housing I was mentioning in 2025, but also by the fact that we are currently disposing of our activities in Latin America, and therefore we have excluded LatAm from our revenue in application of the accounting norm IFRS 5.

If we look at the growth by activity, as you can see, nursing homes have outperformed again in H1 this year, with a like-for-like growth of 7.1%, a material performance reflecting the strong occupancy rate improvement seen in all markets, in addition to the capture of positive price effect. The momentum was maintained despite sanitary risk thanks to the proactive health protocols, which helped contain a particularly virulent flu season as well as heat waves more recently.

On clinics, although a bit weaker, the dynamics remain very satisfying, especially on mental health. This is benefiting from the effect of operational corrective measures taken throughout 2025 following, as you would maybe remember, a relatively weak Q1 last year.

That quarter fell short of expectation, particularly in terms of private room sales, but has been largely corrected since then. If we look at revenue increase by geography, nearly 60% of our revenue is generated internationally, and on those markets, the like-for-like growth is 7.5%.

In Spain, in Poland, in the Netherlands, growth is even double-digit. This performance is driven by very favorable price effect, like in Austria, in Germany, in Switzerland, and in Spain, as well as strong increases in occupancy rates in Italy and Poland, for instance.

Note that in Ireland, where rates were under significant pressure last year, this metrics is now rapidly recovering, although it remains below last year levels. In France, recovery is still going on, as said by Laurent.

We were particularly positively surprised with the very good momentum in occupancy rates, especially on our nursing homes business, while the price effect remain positive. As you can see on the next slide, the performance of our revenue is flowing nicely into operating margin.

Staff cost ratio has been further decreased, reflecting the measures we progressively implemented during the past 12 months to optimize the allocation of our human resources. At the same times, we also benefited from the initial effect of Boost, our operational performance program launched last year, which led to a reduction in the intensity of other costs or opex as well.

I'm very confident that those two cost components, namely staff costs and opex, can be further improved in the years to come. As a result, these measures are enabling us to maximize the conversion of revenue growth into operational profitability.

Consequently, EBITDAR margin reached 15.8% and EBITDA margin before IFRS 16 7.6%, both of them up 2 points versus last year. When we break down the EBITDAR growth by geography, we see that all region are contributing positively to this growth: +€50 million in France, +€13 million in Northern Europe, mainly driven by Germany and the Netherlands, +€11 million in Central Europe with a very strong performance in Switzerland, and finally +€8 million in Southern Europe.

Please note as well that our EBITDAR includes €23 million of profit on PropCo disposal versus only €5 million last year. Laurent mentioned Boost operational program, let's say a word about Boost.

The program was launched in 2025 and is designed to further improve the quality of our service while optimizing our opex base. To illustrate this, you can see a few examples of topics the team are currently working on.

The consolidation of regional pharmacies, the renegotiation of our laundry contracts, and the renewal of and standardization of our medical equipments are good examples of what we are tackling for the time being. Boost program addresses an opex base of approximately €400 million and is expected to reduce operating expenses by 2% per annum over the next three years, thus feeding our confidence for further margin expansion.

The initial results are very encouraging and prompt us to consider implementing similar measures outside France. If we continue to go down the P&L, you can see on the next page, growth in EBITDAR flows nicely into EBITDA and then into EBIT improvement.

Rental expenses are kept well under control despite important volume of PropCo disposal achieved last year. This is due to three factors: first, renegotiation of leases; second, OpCo disposal achieved in 2025; and third, acquisition in 2025 of some real estate assets that were historically leased, notably in Italy.

As a consequence, EBITDA excluding IFRS 16 is up 46% like-for-like at €228 million. You can also see on this page that EBIT grew by 83% versus H1 last year at €187 million, with a margin of now 6% 6.2% versus 3.5% last year, a very good trend that is very likely to continue, and since H1 2024, EBIT grew by €200 million, which is very noticeable.

If we finish now the analysis of our P&L with an EBIT that is up €83 million year-on-year, Emeis net result group share grew by €97 million, although still negative by -€40 million. Two further elements to be noted in this page: first, the reduction versus last year of nonrecurring items, since most of the big operation were finalized in 2025.

In H1 2026, please note that these nonrecurring items are largely related to the Emeis closing in January. Financial expenses are slightly up versus last year, +€18 million, but as a matter of fact, financial income from derivatives for €15 million was recognized last year.

This means that on a like-for-like basis, financial expenses would have been totally stable, and this trend generally reflects decline in net debt volume on one hand against the backdrop of rising interest during the period on the other hand. Let's move on to the cash flow.

The cash flow statement is facing, let's face it, some headwinds, with a very good operational contribution offset by two one-offs related to the group normalization. These two temporary and nonrecurring factors that have offsetted the growth in EBITDA are the following: first, a €94 million working capital increase.

This is largely the result of the normalization of our suppliers' payment processes, which were disrupted last year by the transition to a new accounting IT system in France. Second explanation, the early exit of Emeis safeguard proceedings, which made possible for us to settle the fiscal and social debt that had been frozen by the French state until then.

This largely explains the €164 million you can see listed here under nonrecurring items. Please note also the increase in maintenance capex that we have implemented to ensure Emeis performance over the medium and long term.

In the coming few years, the level of maintenance capex will continue to rise, but only very slightly. As you can see on the next slide, this is more or less the same.

You can see that the net operating cash flow and recurring cash flow remain broadly stable in H1, with a very strong operating contribution that was temporarily offsetted by two nonrecurring items, the two nonrecurring item that I just explained. A few words on disposal.

You may have noticed in the free cash flow the minimal contribution of asset disposal to the group this year, which is totally in line with our decision to adopt an extremely opportunistic approach on this topic now that the 2022 to 2025 disposal program has been met and even significantly exceeded. On the top of the Emeis transaction closed in January for €761 million and that is accounted for as capital contribution, €114 million of disposal have been achieved in H1, almost two-third of them related to a sale and leaseback operation with a yield lower than 5%, which is an excellent valuation for Emeis.

Note as well that on top of that, a further €156 million of disposal are expected to be finalized in the coming quarters. For your information, we have engaged the disposal of the full perimeter of our activities in LatAm, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, and Colombia.

At the end of June, 30% of the expected values were already finalized and cashed in, and a further 40% were already secured and signed, which mean that the whole LatAm perimeter is very likely to be sold before year-end. At the result of all information we are sharing with you today, you can see that the group net debt has decreased by €566 million since the beginning of the year and now amounts to €3.9 billion pre-IFRS.

As a consequence of both net debt reduction and operating margin increase, you can see that our leverage ratio continues its rapid downward trends. It stood at 8.7 times at the end of June compared to 11.8 times at the end of December and even 15.4 times a year ago.

Looking ahead, we are totally convinced that the group financial structure will continue to improve. As a reminder, we have agreed to a covenant of 6.5 times effective in 2029, and we believe we have room to maneuver.

Already, we are ahead of our commitment, which was to reach 12 times of leverage ratio by the end of '26, we are well below our covenant. To conclude my presentation, you will find here a few additional information regarding the debt structure.

I will highlight just a few points. Our debt has an average maturity of nearly five years, with no significant reimbursement until 2030, as you can see.

Our cash position stands at €601 million at the end of June, which is comfortable, and please note as well that 85% of our debt has now been hedged or is at a fixed rate. This paints a picture of a group whose financial performance is not only improving considerably, but whose financial structure has also been significantly strengthened.

We can now look ahead with confidence for the years to come. As today is the last time I will be addressing you as a CFO, and I will come to appreciate just how far we've come over the last two years.

Now that our financial situation has stabilized, we will focus with Laurent on continuing to improve our operational performance in line with our medium-term guidance and beyond. In my new role as Group COO alongside Laurent, I will be dedicated to this task.

Laurent, the floor is yours for the conclusion.

Thank you, Jean-Marc. Before answering your question, I wanted to remind you the main point of this presentation, the ones that make us particularly pleased with this H1 figures.

First, this half year highlights particularly strong momentum in our business, with a like-for-like growth rate of revenue of 6% and an increase of nearly three points in the average occupancy rate. Second, this growth has positively impacted our operating margins, which are rising sharply.

EBITDAR is up 18% like-for-like. Third, at the same time, our financial structure is strengthening significantly, with a leverage ratio now at 8.7, which will continue to decline in the next semesters.

Finally, as a result of this first half, which exceeded our expectations, we have raised our guidance for '26 and now expect EBITDAR to grow by 12% to 14% on a like-for-like basis. We are now available to answer to your questions.

First question from Frédéric [Diba?] : "Can you please provide more details on the sale and leaseback operation where you mention yields below 5%, geography, types of asset, duration of lease?

Below 5% seems aggressive compared to market comparables. How did you explain that?"

Yes, you're correct. This is quite aggressive.

This is very good performance of our real estate team. This is also explained by the geographical mix because some of the assets sold were in Switzerland.

This is also the proof that we are very selective now that we have exited from the safeguard period, that we are very selective with our operations, and we will really focus on operations that make sense for the company from a financial point of view and really are in very, very good conditions. This is really our strategy: selectivity and a very good price going forward.

Second question: "Congratulations for the results. Your margin improvement is impressive given the inflationary pressure on wages.

Should we expect Emeis to be more impacted in H2 '26?" We are managing this inflationary pressure.

As you have noticed, we've made specific efforts on prices to try to compensate, but at the same time, thanks to both productivity gains and management of costs through the Boost program, we are balancing this inflationary pressure by our actions, and we should continue to see an improvement in results in H2, and hence the revision of the guidance. We are not expecting more impact in H2, but that is still to be done.

It depends on the events. As you may have imagined, at the beginning of the year, we were not thinking about a war in Iran.

This had impact on the inflation. This had impact on our operations, but we immediately adjusted, and we were very very active on that front to be sure that this will not impact our P&L.

The second point is that, for sure, concerning H2, most of our costs that are non staff costs, most of our costs are already fixed and will not be impacted in a short term. This is particularly true concerning energy.

Une question au téléphone, c'est ça?

Hi. Good morning, Laurent, Jean-Marc, and congratulations on solid numbers.

Three questions from me, please. One on pricing: should we expect a similar price evolution in the second half as in the first half, or perhaps slightly higher given the dynamic pricing model you referenced?

On clinics, could you give a bit more reminder on the operational corrective measures implemented in 2025 and how you expect that to impact like-for-like growth versus the first half growth rate? Lastly on costs, very encouraging progress on the Boost program in France, but could you also give a bit of color perhaps on your actions with regards to staff costs and non-care-home-related central costs?

Thank you.

Concerning pricing, well, our active pricing strategy, really this is something that we started 1 year, 1 year and a half ago. Is this really continuous improvement facility by facility.

What is positive in most of the countries is now that with increased occupancy rate, we start to have more capacity to be selective and to enforce this pricing policy. To summary up, the higher the occupancy rate, the higher the capacity we have to pass prices to our customer.

I would say very very similar price effect in H2 compared to H1, even if it is sure that after the start of the war in Iran, we rebooted, if I may say so, our pricing policy. Concerning the clinics, same period, mid last year, first half last year, we launched corrective action to increase our single room sales, meaning that the private contribution of our customers to be sure that they've been taking a little bit more and pay more single rooms than before.

This had a significant impact starting already in the second half last year, but more in first half in first half 2026, and we expect further results in the second half of this year. Thank you for your comment on Boost.

On the staff cost, we continue to drive the staff cost down progressively, I would say, with a relatively cautious but steady approach month after month, quarter after quarter. This includes clearly organization optimization.

This includes simplification of our reporting through digitalization. This includes a lot of measures of productivity that obviously we do in our 1,000 facility across Europe.

This is really a progressive improvement everywhere, but this is a strong area of action. This is probably one of the area where we still have a significant opportunity to increase our margin.

We are totally conscious of that. Jean-Marc, you wanted to add something, or my answer was—

No, perfect.

Perfect. Sorry.

Another question?

Thank you, Laurent. Can I—

Sure.

Can I just confirm on the last point, are—

You have a follow-up question?

Yes, I do. Are there any financial targets you can share on staff costs and other central costs?

No, I think the real target is the one that we have given on EBITDAR progression over the midterm period, which is a growth of 12% to 16% average, and we will take the measures needed to achieve this midterm guidance, which is clearly one of our goal. Depending on the year, depending on what happens with inflation, depending on what happens with the organization, we may change the priorities to be sure to deliver this set of performance as it is our commitment.

One question of Emmanuel Arnauld: "Congratulations for this strong set of results. Could you please comment on how the EBITDAR margin, ideally without PropCo income, compares with other industry players?

I have the impression that industry standard EBITDA margin is slightly above 20% at now comparable occupancy rate. Thank you."

Jean-Marc, I'm speaking too much. Do you want to take this question?

No,

this is clear that we still have a lot of margin for maneuver in front of us. This is true that the best industry players are around the 20% EBITDAR margin.

We are at 16%. We have gained two points within 1 year, and we continue to work hard in order to catch up.

We will be there shortly, and we will be there even before the demographic wave that will come in front of us because, as demography will play very positive roles going forward as people born after 1945, after the Second World War, will arrive in our nursing homes at around 2029 or 2030. All of what has been explained by Laurent, is embedded in our medium-term guidance and will enable us to reach the type of EBITDAR margin that you are describing.

What is clear is that we are still at the early stage of our recovery. You're right in your comment, and this give us confidence that we can continue to show strong EBITDAR improvement over the years.

New guidance 20 Another question from Julien Thomas: "New guidance '26, it seems that your new guidance factors in some headwinds in H2: lesser real estate capital gains, wages, inflation, and so on and so on." At this stage, this guidance is reflecting clearly our expectations for the full year.

It takes into account the very good results of H1, obviously, but also it takes into account some risk, and inflation is one, cautiousness, and for sure, we are not expecting the same amount of real estate capital gain in the second half than in the first half. For sure, there is also opportunity.

It's really our best estimate at this time. Being above is definitely a possibility, and we will try to achieve that, but this is our best estimate at this time.

Your comment, Laurent, on capital gain is very important because last year we had generated €60 €64 million of capital gain, of which only five in H1. That has been factored in the guidance that we have been disclosing to you, but obviously we are there to try to beat it as we have demonstrated this year

in the first half, yeah. Question of Jean-Christophe Ganet.

What I'm I'm translating it in in in English at the same time, it will be a little bit slower than normal. "What is the rhythm of progression of occupancy rate you are expecting?

How are the temporary workers, people, number of people evolving? How is changing the turnover?

Are there constraints of of of health budget in Europe? Boost, is Boost more advanced in Europe versus France?"

I take some and I give you some, Jean-Marc. Occupancy rate progression, I think we as seen you have seen in the presentation, we have a quite steady rate of increase of of of of of of our occupancy rate in the in the in the last year in the last years.

We are expecting this trend, and it's page seven of the presentation. We are expecting something which is very close to that in in in the coming second half.

Moving forward, clearly, in some countries, for example in in in Spain, we have occupancy rate that are much higher, and then in these countries getting as you as you as you can understand is difficult to go above 100% occupancy rate. We we start to see in some country a slight slowing down.

At the same time, France is quite dynamic in that in that regard, Germany continues to be dynamic with an occupancy rate which is well above well below our our targets. I would say second half will continue to show a good improvement, and we expect that to continue over the years, perhaps moving forward at a little bit slower pace.

Temporary workers, I don't know if you talk about France or worldwide, this is clearly temporary workers is is really something on which we are we are working to decrease the number of of workers. We've made huge progress in in the in the two biggest country, Germany and and France, in in the last year.

It leads to a decrease in staff costs, which is which is one of our key key points. While clearly the the market the market is is not helping with difficulties to find some of our professional, especially when when we're talking about the more qualified care people.

Turnover is really going in the right direction. We've reached a low point in June in that respect.

If I take the only month of June, which was really great, we we have we have a turnover equivalent for the full year, we have a turnover of 15% in France in in June, and which this is to be compared with the numbers that we had three or four years ago, above 1/3. Really, we have making huge progress in that respect.

This is not the end. The goal is to really be as low as possible, as it is Having a low turnover is a very good thing for the cost of labor, the staff cost.

It's a very good thing for the quality, it's a very good thing for the company as a whole, as a capacity to retain its customers. Are there constraints on the budget in Europe?

Yes, for sure. The first country where we have constraints in the health budget is is is France definitely, definitely.

In in the other geographies, we don't see that with the same, I would say, with the same pressure. We we we have good price evolution and we have good trends in Germany, in Austria.

Even Spain is is is okay. We we may have one difficulty a little bit more than expected in in in the Netherlands, but we'll see that in the next months.

It's not completely fixed. For sure, overall, European countries have, I would say, a balance sheet issue and a spending issue.

They have constraints in their budget, and and health will be one of the one of the important budget under constraints. What it means for us, and we have already taken action in that respect, is that we need to increase the part that is paid by the families and by the patients.

This is clearly one of the key actions of of of of our strategy country by country, depending on the regulation in each country, what we can do to try to find additional ancillary revenues that are out-of-the-pocket money for for for for for more for more customers. Clearly, we are developing action plans everywhere with KPIs so that we can increase this this part of the private private payment.

Jean-Marc, you want to comment Boost?

Bonjour, Christophe-Raphaël. Boost is not a program that is only supposed to reduce costs by renegotiating with suppliers.

It's much more than that. It's a full operational transformation program where we have reviewed with the operations in our various residences and regions all the various verticals, such as food, transport, medical equipment, maintenance of our houses, energy management, drug distribution, laundry, even animation, and so on.

The idea is, can we at the same time improve quality while modifying the organization in such a way that we can optimize our opex structure? You have understood that we are tackling in France an opex base of €400 million and that we are expecting at least 2% of opex reduction at least for '26, '27, and '28.

It took us approximately a year to study and design the program and to roll it out in each and every region. We have very clear levers for improvement that we are currently implementing.

It's still much more advanced in France than it is in the rest of Europe, but based on what we've done in France, we are trying to duplicate it. We are starting the duplication in Belgium notably, as we speak, and it will be rolled out progressively in all of our other geography.

Question from Pierre Bosset: "What is the share of the room in our facilities with air conditioning? How does it compare with our listed peers, with the public sector?"

Very, very good question because we had the teams working very well in the last weeks on this heat period in Europe. In France, to give an example, for sure, 100% of our facilities have a common room which is air conditioned, which is just to be compliant with the law, but that's not the case for everybody in France.

In shares of room in our facility with air conditioning, we are at 50%. When we compare with the average of the private sector, we don't have any comparison with our listed peers.

We're not sure if they have communicated on that, but if we compare with the private sector overall in France, private sector is around 18%. Public sector, I think, sorry?

1/8.

1/8. Yes, 1/8, 18%, 1/8%.

The public sector is more around 6%, and the average of the sector is 10%. For sure, for us, it's a huge marketing competitive advantage that we have a higher rate of air conditioning, and we continue to have a program to roll out in the next year an equipment program, starting obviously with the south of France, where in some regions in the south of France, 90% of our rooms have air conditioning, as it is almost completely needed everywhere in our facilities in the south.

For sure, in the north of France, for few days in a year is less a priority in term of investment because it's less a priority for the family to choose the place where they are going to put their parents. Very important topic, for sure, in term of quality, and a huge marketing competitive advantage.

Another question of Arnaud Cadart: "Good morning, gentlemen. Congrats on this strong result.

When do you think you'll free yourself from the gross investment constraints imposed by your lenders?" For the time being, to be frank with you, I don't feel these constraints.

We have projects. We have increased our capex for renovation as we think it's critical to maintain a high level of quality of what we are providing to our clients.

We continue to spend a good money in renovation, and we will continue to increase in a year to come, especially to renovate our houses. We've started already, and we've never stopped in reality, even during the crisis, to invest in the countries where we think there are good opportunities.

We really never stopped to increase the number of facilities we have in the Netherlands. For sure, we are very selective in our decisions to grow.

What we cannot do for the time being, and I don't want to do that because of our financial constraints, is we want to prioritize deleveraging. This is our top priority, and you've seen it has been going down in the last years and it will continue to go down.

Disposals become more selective from now on, and we will limit that. Growth investment continue to be quite selective, but more with our own financial targets and return on investment than by a constraint from our lenders.

Jean-Marc, you want to add something?

Yes. Good morning, Arnaud.

In order for you to have a quantified answer, in the recent past, we have invested by semester into development capex something like €30 to €40 million, as you will notice on page 23. We have an upper limit that has been negotiated with the lenders of €130 million per annum.

We are totally satisfied with this limit, and as said by Laurent, our priority is operational improvement. We are not going to restart a vast expansion program as it was the case with our predecessors.

Any more question? No, it seems not.

Just as a conclusion, just the five main important points that you need to keep in mind. First, very good set of results, but the recovery is still at its early stage, and this is not the end of the turnaround.

We have still a lot of room ahead for improvement. The occupancy growth rate that we have shown in the last years and that we are still seeing in the first half is structural.

It's driven by quality, by marketing, by operational excellence. It's driven also by the fact that we have free capacity and room for improvement in occupancy rate, and also a very strong, long-term demand.

As you have seen, France is becoming now a margin recovery story, with Boost giving results, but we have room, as one of you mentioned, also in staff cost optimization. We've seen a small weakness in cash flow in the first half.

It has been very well explained by Jean-Marc why we have this one-off effect, because at the same time, the recurring cash flow generated by operation is improving. We continue to be very disciplined on capital allocation, with the priority number one being on deleveraging.

Disposal are very selective now, and we continue to increase our capacity and our investment selectively on growth, but with a approach which is very selective and focused on return on investment. This is really the key takeaways from this first half results, very strong results.

We are very happy about it, and we are very confident that we can continue to grow and improve our EBITDAR moving forward. Thank you for being with us this morning.

Have a good day. Bye-bye.

One last point before we—