Randstad Aktie

Hello, and welcome to the Randstad Q2 2026 Results Conference Call and Audio Webcast. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the word over to Sander van't Noordende, CEO. Mr. Van't Noordende, please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Elba, for that kind introduction, and good morning, everybody. I'm here with Jorge and our Investor Relations team to share our Q2 2026 results. I'm proud of our team's continued execution of our Partner for Talent Strategy. As we accelerate our transformation, it's delivering a strong foundation for growth. As a result, our overall revenue growth is picking up, delivering 1.9% organic growth for the quarter.

Together with our strong cost and productivity focus, this has resulted in a solid performance with revenues of EUR 5.9 billion and an EBITA of EUR 182 million, improving 8% year-on-year and representing a 3.1% margin. We are experiencing a strong uptick in the U.S., especially in our operational segment. Also, our business in Southern Europe remains strong, and it's very encouraging to see both Germany and the U.K. back to growth. This overall positive momentum is largely led by increasing demand in large clients. And furthermore, we're seeing our permanent digital and professional markets stabilizing further across the board.

We observed that in the current business environment, clients increasingly favor flexibility. Volume trends have improved through the quarter with continued progress in early July. And our focus on delivery excellence enables us to capture increasing demand, and it gives us confidence as we look to the quarter and the year ahead. As we progress through the year, our partner for talent strategy continues to gain traction. Our focus on specialization is clearly paying off. Through our 10x10x10 initiative, 10 deals of greater than EUR 10 million in 10 markets, we secured EUR 1.3 billion in new client wins in the first half of the year.

If we look at our specializations, we see that our Operational business is capturing the broader recovery in industrial and manufacturing activity in line with rising PMIs. We see strong demand for skilled trades, for example, through client wins in the AI and data center sectors. E-commerce and logistics also remained strong, up mid-single digits following new volume wins with major European players. In Professional, we are seeing sequential improvement. This is driven by strong health care growth in key markets like the Netherlands and Italy. Meanwhile, targeted investments like, for instance, in Japan and the U.S. are building solid momentum in engineering.

In Digital, we are streamlining our portfolio and have signed a partnership with LTM. We are pivoting the business to AI talent that is, of course, in high demand. We have made good progress with our digital marketplace Torc, resulting in 50% lower recruiting cost and 50% shorter time to fill. In Enterprise, our strong pipeline is converting into results, driving 7% RPO growth. We also secured several major MSP wins across life sciences, manufacturing and semiconductors including a significant global partnership with immunology leader argenx.

As we execute our strategy, we're making a deliberate shift to structurally reduce our cost to serve and become a more profitable company. At the heart of this is delivery excellence and the rollout of our talent service models. Over 50% of talent validation is now handled by our talent centers. This takes out friction and drives an increase in talent per FTE. Doing more with our existing teams is how we drive structural profitability. Through our digital marketplaces, we facilitated 1.7 million self-scheduled shifts in Q2, which is up double digits sequentially. There's a clear reason why adoption is increasing.

Talent and clients just love the digital model. Talent jumps on the app immediately because it makes selecting shifts and ensuring they get paid incredibly easy. For clients, it's a better value proposition, higher fill rates, lower no-shows since talents choose their own schedules and strong compliance because every movement is recorded digitally. It's a completely modern experience where clients can easily reorder and manage their demand instantly.

However, technology and delivery centers are just the engine. Our people are the ones driving it. We are the best team in the industry and our ranking as the #1 HR service provider in the Dow Jones Best-in-Class Index proves it. So I'm incredibly proud of their commitment to serving our clients and talent. In summary, we are running a leaner, more productive business, which puts us in a strong position to capture demand. Jorge, over to you.

Thank you, Sander, and good morning, everyone. So, I think, overall, I'd like to start by saying we delivered a quarter in line with our expectations. Trends are improving, perhaps more importantly, broader and profitability is also up year-over-year. From a business environment perspective, manufacturing and new order PMIs continue to be in expansion territory with large clients planning their demand. Simply said, we have more people at work today.

Despite facing tougher comparables, we are seeing a broader than until now step-up in growth in many of our markets. This pattern is consistent across temp, MSPs, where we orchestrate the contingency and incremental work spend of our clients and RPO, spanning both our operational and enterprise specializations.

And indeed, with most of our countries in revenue and gross profit growth, the scalability we've built into our operating model and the structural reduction in direct costs is starting to show financial gearing. In practice, we have captured incremental seasonal demand without adding any new capacity. And overall, this shows now in our recovery ratio of over 80% over the last 4 quarters. And this gives me confidence in our ability to show progress for the rest of the year in both revenue and profit growth.

But let's deep dive and let me now turn to the regional performance on Page 8, starting with North America. In North America, volumes continued to increase throughout the quarter with strong exit rates in our industrial sectors annualizing and accelerating growth over growth. In Operational, we grew 13%, now growing for 6 quarters in a row, ahead of the market with large clients dominating the early recovery. With its double-digit profit growth of 20%, this starts showing the power of our new model of central delivery and the digital marketplace.

Professional is still down 6%, but improving sequentially, as you heard from Sander, with pockets such as perm and engineering already in growth. In Enterprise, the pipeline we discussed early in the year is starting to materialize, and we are back to growth. Digital is still down 3%. Trends are slightly improving quarter-over-quarter. Canada is a pretty good mirror of the United States, back to growth with strong momentum in operational. And overall, our North American EBITA margin was 4.2%, up year-over-year and delivering absolute EBITA growth.

And now let's move on to the major European markets on Slide 10 (sic) [ Slide 9 ]. In our major European markets, we see broad-based sequential improvement. Let me start with the relative outlier, the Netherlands. Organic revenue here was down 1% as the market is finding its new equilibrium following the implementation of the new CLA. Volumes in the market have stabilized at a lower level with some of the price increases having a dilutive effect on our gross margins. Positioning is solid with in-house growing within logistics, retail and e-commerce clients while pursuing further growth now in skilled health care. EBITA margin came in at 3.8%, and the organization is adapting well to structurally improve its profitability.

Moving to Germany. In Germany, we successfully returned to growth, up 4% this quarter from a minus 4% in Q1, driven by an 8% uptick in our operational business. Manufacturing, logistics, making things and automotive are all firmly back in growth or improving. The current leaner operating model makes us ready to capture future profitable growth. Productivity has improved significantly, and our EBITA margin is now 2.3%.

Belgium declined 5% with operational at minus 4%. Adaptability is strong, delivering higher EBITDA, nevertheless, margin year-over-year. And in France. So, turning to France. France, we are turning the corner with now growth in operational crossing over year-over-year, driven by a strong uptick also in in-house revenue, plus 15% already in this quarter in Q2. Automotive and aerospace continues to do well, and logistics and e-commerce is benefiting from new client wins, while perm and healthcare still remains subdued.

Overall, profitability came in at 3.9%, down 50 basis points year-over-year, driven by higher branch costs in our Ausy digital business. Italy, growth continued at plus 4% with growth over growth in Operational, up 2% and with professional accelerating now to 17% year-over-year. Year-over-year absolute profit was stable while protecting strategic investments. And turning south, Iberia had another fantastic quarter, plus 11%, led by Spain, where we continue to see future growth opportunities.

And let's move to the broader markets, our international market slide on Slide 10. International markets are a bit of a mixed bag. So let me quickly unpack to your benefit. So in Europe, we saw the U.K. also back to growth as the temp market is improving. Growth, again, is driven by in-house clients where we celebrate the go-live as well of our DMP last quarter and adoption continues to increase week after week. Switzerland is also up 1% year-over-year, and Nordics are stabilizing at a lower level, while Poland minus 13%, saw demand down driven by specific client attrition, but the underlying good growth in the market continues.

In LATAM, we continue to see good momentum in Brazil, offset partially by ongoing tough macro environment in Argentina. Asia Pacific, Japan, again, continued its solid growth at 5%, and we continue to invest in structural opportunities, particularly in the Digital area. Australia and New Zealand declined 3% and India growth remains robust at plus 10%. Overall, the EBITA margin for the APAC region came in at 3.8%. And that concludes the performance of our key geographies.

So now let us walk you through our combined financial performance on Slide 12. Looking at our top line, we saw growth cementing now at 1.9% and overcoming 2% tougher comparable impact from last year, as such, showing true underlying demand improvement. As mentioned before, operational momentum is picking up and growing now at 4%. In Professional, we see momentum improving sequentially as well. Increasingly, we have worked our way through the post-COVID hiring slump and start to see hiring rates slowly moving and returning to the pre-COVID mean.

Examples of improvement are in the U.S., perm back to growth in Professionals, Italy, Japan and continued strong healthcare in the Netherlands. Digital saw slightly better sequential trends, mostly in the United States and Japan, while Europe saw further stabilization. And as Sander mentioned, we saw momentum clearly picking up in enterprise with good MSP and go-lives in RPO. Gross profit is still down minus 1.5% year-over-year, but sequentially, a step-up from minus 3.5% in Q1, 2% improvement. OPEX, on the other hand, remains down 3% year-over-year.

And as a result, we are decoupling the link between gross profit and OPEX. The quarter's EBITA margin was 3.1%. Underlying EBITA was EUR 182 million with an adverse FX impact still of EUR 2 million, which we expect to level off further from here. Integration costs and one-offs amounted to EUR 22 million this year and mostly related to harnessing the environment in the Netherlands and Randstad Digital North America as we continue to drive structural change across our organization.

In net finance costs, just the regular interest payment matching the seasonality of our net debt. The effective tax rate for the first 6 months was 32%, and we expect for 2026 an ETR towards the higher end of 30% to 32% range. This all leads to an adjusted net income of EUR 109 million for the quarter.

And with that, let's deep dive into our gross margin bridge on Slide 13. Gross margin was down 70 basis points versus 80 basis points in Q1. Within that, temp margin is also down 70 basis points, and let me break this out for you. First, we continue to have an adverse geographical and client mix impact that probably accounts for 40 to 50 basis points of the 70. This comes primarily from a continued outperformance, as you just heard, of large clients within key growing markets such as U.S. operational, Italy and Spain and some smaller ones responsible for 40 basis points to 50 basis points.

Secondly, as well, we have in France, we are ramping up major new e-commerce logistics and industrial clients, adding up another 10 basis points mix. And lastly, within the geographical and client mix, we continue to see a weak Japanese yen, which overall brings approximately the rest of this impact. Secondly, we still have 10 basis points gross margin dilution. We just talked about it following the CLA change in the Netherlands.

And lastly, idle time in digital and increasing long-term sickness in some new countries make up for the rest. Perm contribution, so the second or the third column in the graph above, was down 10 basis points as expected. It's still not growing, but yes, it's at minus 5%, so having a negative impact, but clearly flattening versus last year. U.S. Perm is already back to growth. Last but not least, in HRS, the growth we just talked about contributed positively 10 basis points.

And that brings me to the OPEX slide on Slide 15 (sic) [ Slide 14 ]. Remember, this one is sequentially. Operating expenses were EUR 889 million, down EUR 29 million year-over-year or 3%. FTE and indirect costs are flat sequentially. The quarter-on-quarter move is in line with our guidance and solely reflecting the compulsory seasonal effect around collective merit increases that kick in on the 1st of April. We can do, in short, significantly more with the existing capacity. And this is what is already at play in this quarter.

As we shift towards talent centers, delivery centers, assisted or fully through our digital marketplace, we continue to free up and reallocate capacity towards sales and growth. And these things are interconnected. We also need less accommodation. We need less spent in job boarding expenditure, and we continue to address our head office costs, emerging now with a cost that is significantly leaner and more scalable cost structure and cost to serve. The last quarters or the last four quarters recovery ratio is now at 82%. This means that we are improving conversions and our ability to convert gross profit into EBITA as growth returns.

With that in mind, let's move on to Slide 15, which contains our cash flow and balance sheet remarks. Our underlying free cash flow for the quarter was EUR 39 million positive. This is in line with normal seasonality with Q2 serving as a payout window for annual holiday payments in a few key markets. And at the same time, increased receivables as we have seasonally higher revenue compared to Q1, and we are back to growth.

DSO came in at 57.6 days, up 0.2 days sequentially. Our net debt decreased EUR 66 million year-over-year, and our leverage ratio stands at 1.8x, reflecting EUR 284 million payment of an ordinary dividend in April. Perhaps more relevant this quarter, as Sander just highlighted, we signed a partnership agreement with LTM as they acquire our technology and consulting services in a number of European countries and Australia. We expect the deal to close in half 2 with enterprise value of approximately EUR 160 million.

And that brings me to the outlook on Slide 16. So looking ahead, starting with June. June was the strongest month in the quarter, the largest month in the quarter, therefore, the most relevant one and also the strongest in the quarter. And volume trends in the first weeks of July continued in the trends seen in June. Q3 gross margin is expected to be modestly down sequentially, reflecting seasonality and mix as on one hand, perm and RPO share of revenue is approximately 1% lower versus Q2 during summer and two, adverse geographical mix, as we just explained, driven by large clients is likely to continue.

We expect the year-over-year gap to narrow as we will see an even broader recovery in other pockets and the more markets entering revenue and GP growth. Operating expenses are expected to decrease quarter-over-quarter, reflecting the typical seasonal holiday accrual release and continuing to benefit from a lot of the structural cost savings already being put in place this year. So to summarize, we have rolled out specializations to focus on growth. We're back to growth. We're driving scalability through our talent service models.

In the meantime, we take the opportunity to globalize our indirect costs, resulting in a leaner company. This quarter marked a crucial turning point, and we expect the positive growth and profit trajectory to continue. Lastly, as we continue to execute on our partner for talent strategy, the financial benefits will become increasingly clear. And that concludes our prepared remarks, and we now look forward to taking your questions. Operator, Elba?

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question comes from Andy Grobler from BNP Paribas.

Could I start with a question on gross margins, if that's okay? Just you've talked through the impacts in Q2. Could you just give a little more detail in terms of expectations for Q3 when you say modestly down, what does that mean? And also within that, are you [Technical Difficulty] normal cyclical rotation through the period? Or is there anything else that is impacting gross margins at this stage?

Andy, you broke out a little bit. I'll have a go at the answer, and I hope I meet what you -- because the last part I could not really hear. So in short, I mean, modestly down. I mean, we've been going from, let's say, 90 basis points then Q1, we had 80 basis points. Q2, now we are at 70 basis points. I mean, obviously, we don't need like a lot of ceconometrics to basically conclude what we are looking at into Q3.

Now there's always puts and takes. What we see is clearly large clients, a lot of the incremental work even now in more geographies. We have the U.K. back to growth. We have Germany back to growth. Basically, it's led by large clients. So there will always be puts and takes.

On the other hand, we also see perm starting to flatten year-over-year. So as we cross over into the next quarter, you continue to see the trends to improve. So it's difficult to exactly say what it will be. But if I had to basically follow the order that we've been, we basically see that trend continuing now.

I think what is important to say is in all the markets where we have in growth, we have growth in gross profit. We have more companies -- company coming into growth. That gross profit is converting into EBITA. So in many ways, the financial model is working well, and we're building a more scalable and profitable Randstad.

And just a follow-up, a slightly different topic. In terms of the digital platforms, could you talk about the growth through the quarter? And also to what extent are you seeing positive operational leverage come out of those platforms? Have they reached sufficient maturity to be experiencing that at this stage?

Yes. So good question, Andy. Obviously, where we have those platforms, and I think the most prominent case in point is the U.S. Operational. We've seen good growth and therefore, leverage. You've seen the profitability in North America and the U.S. going up a little bit in the quarter. So that's moving in the right direction. I would say more work to be done in refining the model, meaning refining the model in 2 ways, meaning making sure we have our people focused on sales rather than on delivery. That's one.

And we are increasingly complementing the model with our AI agents for talent outreach and validation. So that's sort of the next step in the game there. So North America is working well. Our healthcare businesses here in the Netherlands, but also in Australia are tracking well. In France, it's also tracking well from a digital point of view, but there, the business is quite challenging in healthcare, but the digital model is progressing.

So I'm actually pleased with the progress we're making. We are bringing online -- or we have brought online just recently a number of marketplaces in Belgium. In Japan, -- we're working on Spain. The U.K. has gone live. Jorge is adding here. So I think we're making progress step by step. And the overall picture is talent extremely excited. Clients absolutely appreciative of the model. It comes with a lot of work in terms of implementing it at clients, implementing it in our business. So it's definitely not a walk in the park, but I'm pleased with the progress.

The next question comes from Suhasini Varanasi from Goldman Sachs.

My first question is on the drop-through rates, please. You've seen an amazing drop-through rate given the focus on SG&A. But if this growth momentum continues for the rest of the year, can you discuss the requirement for investments and what kind of drop-through we should be ideally looking at by the end of the year?

Second question is for Q3, normally, September is the key month. Given your exposure and your growth is actually coming from larger clients, does this give you a bit more visibility on Q3 trends compared to, let's say, getting growth from SMEs, which has been weak so far?

Shall I say a few words on the drop-through rate or, let's say, in general. Well, first of all, our number of employees working per FTE has gone up by 5%. So there is also a productivity improvement in there, so as seen. So I think that's an important thing to note. And yes, we are absolutely focused on our indirect cost, and we will continue to be focused on that.

So the trajectory that we have put in motion, we will continue to focus on. So our intent is to keep the team stable -- and let's say, our volume growth in July was encouraging. Well, it's too early to say something about the full quarter, Q3 or even Q4. But the intent is to keep increasing the productivity and not increase the team a whole lot further.

[Technical Difficulty] Comes from Rory McKenzie from UBS.

It's Rory here. I wanted to extend Andy's question to kind of more mid-term gross margins, I guess, because group organic revenue obviously improved to be in 2% year-over-year growth, which is the net result of lots of segments that are growing and a few still declining, but gross profit is, of course, still declining overall.

So can you say what the average gross margin is across those segments which are growing, if that makes sense? Because at the moment, we can't really calculate like an incremental gross margin. And so how should we think about this new mix of your business? And where does that gross margin kind of trend to as this mix matures, if that makes sense?

Yes. So Rory, good morning, so let me put it in slightly different angles. So I mean, at the moment, the growth we have in the gross profit is down, but let's also be, let's say, very factual here. Where we have growth, gross profit is up. And we have primarily 2, 3 countries that are dragging our overall gross profit down. But even this quarter, we went to already up 2%.

So we are at minus 1.5% year-over-year. So made big steps in terms of gross profit growth. Those 3 markets are the France, the Netherlands and Randstad Digital. You put those 3 aside, the company is on gross profit growth, like all markets are on growth. The market at the moment is the market where it is.

Typically, it's not that strange in terms of early cyclical recovery being primarily led by manufacturing, logistics and large clients that plan ahead for their demand. I mean smaller clients can typically do with a little bit extra hour here, an extra hour there, someone helps and they can do. But large operations need to plan for their incremental work needs. So that's basically what's leading the pack now.

Just to put into other perspective, our in-house business is up 7% year-over-year. So clearly, it's large clients, large demand-led recovery. Also, if we put it from a gross margin perspective, and again, excluding these 2, 3 drags that we have and we are addressing towards the second half of the year, if you compare it to the company, let's say, of 2019 pre-COVID, we have a fundamental change in portfolio. I mean Italy has grown almost 46% in our mix. Spain, 50% in our mix.

So it's very -- we have to be very careful that we don't confuse gross profit margin with gross profit and with profit. I think ultimately, a lot of this extra gross profit that we're generating to the point of Suhasini is converting 100% into profit. And that's basically what makes us exciting in terms of the model is working. We are structurally a leaner company, more scalable. So the growth we find, we want to convert into extra profit.

Yes, that makes sense. And so the kind of key point there is that there's nowhere you have revenue growth, but gross profit decline in absolute terms?

Exactly. No.

Simon Van Oppen from Kepler Cheuvreux.

I have a question on Germany. We saw Randstad operational growing at 8% in the quarter. Can you please give a bit more color on the improvement there, specifically how it progressed through the quarter? And at which sectors do you see the demand? And maybe also on Randstad professional and digital in Germany, how did it perform in Q2?

Yes. So let me say a few things in general. I would say Germany, Simon, is a prime example of building back better. We've worked and the team has worked very hard on rightsizing our business, but at the same time, building the business back in a new and more efficient model with talent centers, delivery centers focused on our largest clients. The growth in Germany is driven by the overall economic activity. I mean, we've seen the Ifo Confidence Index moving in a positive territory. We've seen the PMIs above 50.

So the first thing we've done is I would say, drive higher productivity out of our existing people, meaning our people at the client have worked more hours in Q2. And that's been in automotive. Defense is increasingly having good traction. It looks like the big bazooka that Germany pulled out, EUR 800 billion is starting to trickle through in the numbers.

So I'm absolutely pleased with where we are. More work to be done in terms of professional and digital. I want to remind you that our digital business in Germany is part of the deal that we struck with LTM. So that one is moving out, and we will focus in Germany on our digital talent services. So you'll see some improvement over time there as well. I think you had a question about the numbers moving through the quarter.

Yes. So the exit rate in Germany, Simon was strong throughout the quarter. So we see the same trends entering into Q3.

Elba, next question?

Do we have next questions?

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you, Elba now.

I just had a question on cash. Can you help us understand a little bit how to think about the second half of the year in terms of cash, working capital dynamics? Anything that we should keep in mind considering seasonality trends?

Yes. Thank you, Virginia, and good to speak to you. So, I mean, typically, so the first half of the year, we have relative investments in operating working capital. As we now look into the second half of the year, what we'll see is basically 2 things. One is we have higher EBITA or higher EBITDA. So that has a strong impact on our cash flow generation.

And on top of that, we also have positive working capital movements, and it comes down to a few things. So one is bonus and all that typically we pay heavily on Q1 and Q2. This quarter, always we have in a few key countries where we are present, big holiday outflows. So it's a big holiday payout month. And it's also where we start investing because it's the richer quarters of the year.

As we go into the second half of the year, we don't have this bonus payouts and holiday outflows. Also, you start getting the larger quarters paid out. So typically, we boost free cash flow in the second half of the year. And that's what, again, we are expecting as we enter the year.

[Operator Instructions]

And the following question comes from Marc Zwartsenburg from ING.

I have a question about North America and the Netherlands on the margins there. So if you look at North America, the margin progression was a bit muted in Q2 if you compare to the top line growth and improvements with the digital platform productivity gains you should expect. How should I look at that gross margin?

So first of all, maybe can you explain a bit Q2 and what should we expect going forward for North America? And actually, the same question for the Netherlands a bit with the new CLA having maybe a slightly negative impact, as you said, on gross margin.

But you would expect also with the new CLA to have higher prices, et cetera, that you would see also some drop-through to the margin. So maybe you can drill down into those 2 areas, please.

Yes. So on -- first on North America, Marc, I'll argue -- I'd say, yes, we're not there yet. I think Sander even alluded to it earlier on. I mean we are refining what we can do. Let's at least separate the overall number. We have, on one hand, Randstad operational showing clearly more progression. I think we even said 20% uplift.

And we expect that to even continue and be more material, let's say, in Q3 or the second half of the year. We do have Randstad digital still in decline, as I just earlier on said, and it has, let's say, offset part of what you would otherwise see as a stronger number in North America.

In the Netherlands, it's simple. I mean the market probably went through the largest change it has had. We've been just through 6 months of basically going and arranging for all the collective labor agreements, implementation and renegotiation with every single client. I think Sander used the word equilibrium.

So we just passed that stage. So now basically, we have a reset and looking ahead. To be honest, it's relatively within the range of what we expect and even say on a good basis to now build where we can find growth and refine the profitability that we always had. We are #1 here. We have strong growth in certain pockets, also professional as well as operational. So the second half of the year, we expect profit margins to continue to increase.

Okay. That's very helpful. Maybe a final one, if I may, looking at maybe a bit more at the group level. Last year's 3.1% EBITA margin, we had more than EUR 10 million year-on-year improvement in EBITA absolute levels. Is that a bit of trend we should see also in the coming quarters that we see that double-digit uplift to the EBITA in absolute way that you get? -- to a higher EBITA margin for the full year on a group level? Is that a bit?

Yes, Marc, I mean, basically, what I think you see today, probably more clear than we've seen in previous quarters is what we discussed in the Capital Markets Day, remember, the growth algorithm as we normally refer to it. We are more efficient. We need less FTEs to drive growth. We continue to do capacity management. Like Sander said, implementing talent centers, delivery centers, 50% of our talent is now sorted to talent centers. That capacity means we can do more with less or at least we can use what we free up to now fuel growth as we are doing at the moment. So less FTEs.

At the same time, we've continued to remove head office costs, structural costs, support costs throughout the quarters. That means the important thing is Randstad, structurally speaking, has basically built profit discipline and it's, I would say, EUR 10 million to EUR 15 million every quarter more profitable than the quarter before. And that discipline is what we want to continue to build going forward.

So basically, we are structurally a leaner and a more scalable. Randstad, Suhasini talked about the conversion rate or the drop-through. We've seen it in recovery. We are now seeing it already many quarters in growth, and that's what we want to continue to see throughout the rest of the year.

The following question comes from Konrad Zomer from ABN AMRO ODDO BHF.

I have one question on your Digital business. You reported 4% revenue decline in Digital, including 3% decline in North America. While at the same time, you show some very impressive growth rates in your digital-first business with the double-digit sequential growth in self-scheduled shifts.

I was just wondering how we should square these 2 slightly conflicting results. And why do you not think your -- or why is the digital revenue growth not strongly positive for the quarter?

So Konrad, let me disentangle that for you. Our Digital business, so Randstad digital, is our digital talent services to our clients, i.e., that is technology talent going to our clients to do what they do, creating revenues, gross margin and profit. Our digital-first parts of the business are businesses that are enabled by digital business models, our digital marketplaces and increasingly by artificial intelligence.

So that's more the way we deliver and execute the business in Randstad operational, in healthcare, also in Randstad digital, by the way. So I understand it's slightly confusing. So Randstad digital is one of our 4 specializations that you see, and our digital-first business are those businesses that are underpinned by digital platforms.

[Operator Instructions]

The following question comes from James Rowland Clark from Barclays.

Two questions, please. You mentioned June and July -- sorry, the early July is in line with the June exit rate. Can you give us a sense on how that compares to the Q2 organic 1.9%? And a follow-up to that would just be what's the monthly seasonality for July, August, September in Q3 typically?

My second question is just on the market and your own execution. So obviously, peers are talking up the underlying market trends have improved and you're saying so as well. Can you just give us a sense of how much of the improved organic performance is the market versus your own execution? And would you flag any particular client wins in the quarter to speak of?

Yes. So let me start with the last one, James. Well, first of all, we feel good about our execution. And yes, the markets are helping in terms of increased economic activity. At the same time, we are amping up our commercial activity. We have our 10x10x10 initiatives. That's 10 deals bigger than EUR 10 million in 10 markets. And through that program, we have created EUR 1.3 billion of wins in the first half of the year.

In our Enterprise business, we have a good stream of new clients, both in RPO and MSP. So let's say, we're winning in the marketplace. We feel we're winning more than our fair share. One thing I will notice is we are always very keen to have not only volume but also value. So we make the right trade-offs there in our pricing because volume with no value is just spinning wheels, and that's not what we're looking for. I'll hand over to Jorge to talk about June, July, et cetera.

James, so just going back to your first question, I think, I mean, we've made it reasonably clear. So we had a good exit rate, so above the quarter growth rate. And we -- volume, let's say, which is in the end, the underlying driver, right? So it continued to grow throughout the quarter and thus so in the first weeks of July.

So I mean, it's very difficult to talk about the growth rate for July, August and September. It's summer period, but clearly, it is stronger than June. So we have a good basis for the quarter as a starting point.

Sorry, just the other question was the typical monthly seasonality in Q3 between July, August and September as a weighting of Q3.

Yes. So typically, I mean, again, this changes year-over-year. But I would say, if I had to make a guess, looking at previous years, a little bit -- the first 2 months are somewhat subdued, excuse me, and then clearly, a higher percentage of the revenue and therefore, of the growth rate representation in September.

From Maarten Verbeek from The Idea.

It's Maarten of the Idea. I'd like to get back to your cash flow. What you tend to see with the staffing companies once they grow that requires investments in working capital. And last year, free cash flow was helped by the working capital. Obviously, this year, it might be negative. So could you give the impact of organic growth on your working capital impacting free cash flow for this year, some kind of guidance?

Yes, Maarten. So obviously, it does require investments in working capital. You see it to a certain extent. At the same time, we are now halfway through the year. If I look at full year, I don't see any structural changes in cash flow generation. Again, I just -- I think it was to Virginia, we had a good discussion about the components of it.

Let's not also forget that the higher demands in terms of working cap investment, they also are partly or largely offset by higher profit as well or EBITA throughout the year. I think, yes, there is a spillover effect from the very strong, let's say, 2025. We should never really look at this year-over-year, should almost be last four quarters and running four quarters. But overall, the cash flow generation of the group for the full year is in line with what we expect it to be.

The question comes from Rory McKenzie from UBS.

I wanted to ask about the sale of those technology and consulting businesses to LTM. Do those exits relate to the point you were just making about how you need digital platforms to compete in these markets and some markets just don't have the scale necessary perhaps to afford those investments.

I think in total, that represented that sale about maybe 20% of the digital segment. So that's quite a portion of your markets. And I'm just wondering if there's any kind of further reviews or further markets you're evaluating given the new investment needs.

Yes. Good question, Rory. Let me just take a step back. The businesses that we are selling are in the business of solutions, systems integrations, if you will. They are collectively in those markets, EUR 500 million, and that makes us a very small player in those markets because in those markets, you're competing against the big Indian pure plays, the large multinational companies.

And in this time of innovation and AI, where that -- those markets are moving very rapidly, we thought a better owner for that business is a company specialized in that business. So for us, it was a small part of the business. Our remaining digital business is our talent services business. That means finding and deploying talent on a temporary or permanent basis to our clients. And in fact, there, we have a very strong story with our Torc platform in North America. And this is the new model of Randstad, I would say.

And the new model of Randstad is a platform, plus AI plus community plus team. And how does that platform work? Let me tell you a little bit about it. The client can put in an order by themselves or they can ask one of our colleagues. They can do that by speech. They can do that by taking profiles from the past that they have used. So lots of opportunities for the client to make it very easy to put in the order.

Then when the order comes in, the platform now starts to look for perfect matches, perfect matches in our community of IT specialists, of which we have a few million in North America. Those perfect matches, we automatically get a message saying we have a perfect match for you. Dear talent, are you interested in this job? The talent responds, not all of them respond with yes, but some of them will respond with yes. Then the platform says, 'Oh, that's very interesting. Here, you can go on the platform to do an assessment for that role'.

And like that, after a couple of days, the platform makes a shortlist. It gets then picked up by one of our talent specialists that looks at it for a last check and then passes it on to the client. So you see that the process is largely automated and much faster than it used to be. And obviously, that's appreciated by clients.

Also, the process for talent is much more personalized because I get offered those jobs that are relevant for me, not just a whole bunch of jobs that 99% of which are irrelevant. So that platform works really nicely, and that is supporting our digital talent services, and it was not so much supporting our solutions and systems integration business. So we focus on what we are good at. And LTM will, with that business, focus on what they are good at. That's the summary.

Okay. So it's almost like a kind of a product simplification, so not trying to compete with statement of work projects. It's positioning that contingent provider. And just to be clear, on those markets you've sold, do you no longer have any kind of digital staffing presence there? Or have you just sold those project businesses in those countries?

No. So in those countries, we have obviously our Randstad digital talent services business, which was a little bit tucked in, I would say, with our Randstad professional business, but we'll separate that out. We'll position that in the market as Randstad digital for talent services. So in Germany, in Belgium and in France. So we have teams there that will operate.

And the last question comes from Virginia Montorsi from Bank of America.

Just a quick follow-up on something we discussed initially on the autos improvement that you've outlined. Could I just ask if it's -- this has been driven by a specific brand? Or is it broad-based? Is there anything specific we should keep in mind about that?

I would say, Virginia, it's broad-based. We see it in France. We see it in Germany. Those are our 2 main countries in automotive. And of course, in Spain. So it's not one country, one brand. It is multiple clients, multiple countries, of course, the ones where the automotive industries are big.

I would like to hand the word over to Mr. Van't Noordende for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you very much, Elba, and thanks all for joining the call today. I think we produced a solid quarter. We'll stay on the case. And as we wrap up the call, I want to just say one thing about our teams.

They're doing a fantastic job, not only our teams in Randstad, but also our teams at our clients, of course. So a big thank you to the 600,000 people that work hard and give their everything day in, day out, proving once again that we have the best team in the industry.

Thank you, everyone.

Okay.

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the LTM Investor call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this call is being recorded.

During the call, we could make forward-looking statements. These statements consider the environment as we see today and carry risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in today's call. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements made on this call.

I now hand the call over to Mr. Venu Lambu, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director at LTM Limited. Over to you, sir.

Thank you, [ Inba ]. Good morning, everyone. Firstly, thank you very much for joining the call in short notice. Along with me, I have Vipul Chandra, the CFO and the Board member of LTM. Between I and Vipul, we will give you an overview of the very strategic and unique deal that we announced today morning. Let me take you through the overview of the transaction, and then happy to take your questions post that. I'm assuming that the slides are streamed, Inba, right? So we can -- Slides are visible. Okay. Thank you.

Firstly, we are very, very excited about the 2 fundamental aspects of this transaction. The first is about the deal construct. In the days where clients are navigating various complexities, whether it's a macroeconomic aspect, AI, transformational opportunities and the geopolitical dynamics, the creativity aspect of how you create value to clients and to all our stakeholders is the cornerstone of every deal that we construct. And this is a testimonial of a business creativity deal where there is a win-win arrangement, there is a value-creation opportunity for all the stakeholders.

Let me take you through the key tenets of the deal. The first tenet of the deal is the proposed acquisition of Randstad's Technology and Consulting Services business in Europe and Australia. As you all know, Randstad is world's leading talent company. They are a $24 billion-plus corporation. Within the group, there was a dedicated business unit, which was focused on technology and consulting services business in Europe and Australia. So we are talking about that asset.

The Technology and Consulting Services business across these 2 big markets is -- comes to annualized revenue of EUR 469 million. We have proposed enterprise value of EUR 160 million on a cash and a debt-free basis.

The geographies, the primary markets where we will get a great access, some of the market client logos are in the Mainland Europe region. And Continental Europe and the overall Europe has been a strategic growth focus area as part of our 5-year strategy. So hence, it aligns very well, and I'll talk a lot -- bit more about that in the subsequent slides.

The markets we're talking about predominantly is all the Continental Europe, and we will also have access to the nearshore delivery centers in Romania and Portugal. This will strengthen our nearshore capabilities in addition to the centers that we have in Poland. The geographies that I spoke about from Australia to the Continental Europe are completely white space for us. Our presence is subscale in this market. So in that context, it's a white space geographic opportunity.

Moving on to the verticals. It's the same approach, the verticals of aerospace, defence, automotive utilities, which includes some of the marquee logos from the telecom sector and the regional banks is completely white space for us, especially the first 3 verticals are hugely white space for us, both from a regional presence perspective and the vertical demand capability perspective.

In terms of capability, the fact that Randstad Technology and Consulting Services business has been hugely focused in creating your vertical-specific solutions, there is a significant demand capability that is embedded within the teams. And that fits in well with our tech demand conversion story that I spoke about as part of our 5-year strategy. And having access to a good number of talent with cybersecurity system, again, a very unique capability and a much more expected and something that we were subscale in that line of service. Now we get a scale and more so in the context of the sovereign solutions that gets built up and more so in the context of the regional cybersecurity at all. And the third capability synergizes with our iNXT capability, which is in the industrial IOI -- sorry, industrial AI and industrial IoT capabilities. So that's the first part of the deal, and I'll talk a bit more on that in the next few minutes.

On the second aspect of the deal is 5-year IT services partnership with the Randstad Group. Randstad Group has a huge aspiration of scaling up their GCC in India, and most importantly, make AI as the core of transformation of the services that gets delivered from Randstad India's GCC. And we are the preferred partner, and we have signed a 5-year agreement or to enable Randstad GCC with an AI-centric approach.

The third aspect of the deal is, as you all know, LTM has spent a good amount of spend on our subcontractors. We believe there is an opportunity in increasing the efficiency of our spend on sub costs, and also ensuring we enhance our compliance and speed of response in dealing with our subcontractor workforce. So we're going to leverage. The parent company, Randstad Group's MSP capabilities, our -- managing our subcons and most importantly, the contract covers the savings that will be realized through the subcons. So these are the 3 aspects of the deal.

Let me move on to the next one. A bit more detail about the vector or the aspect term the deal. As I mentioned, EUR 469 million, approximately about $500 million plus in U.S. dollar terms, 78% in Europe and 22% in Australia. I've already covered the areas that we will cover in the Mainland Europe. And of course, we get the delivery centers in Romania and Portugal and a significant presence in Australia. Australia as a geography, will become more than $100 million revenue for us. Marquee customers with 15-plus scale accounts, and we'll have access to a very rich domain driven digital engineering, cybersecurity, industrial IoT capabilities across different delivery centers in Romania and Portugal and onshore capabilities spread across 4 verticals that I spoke of, aerospace, defence, auto utilities and the BFS.

The other aspect of the talent is that we get access to the security-cleared talent which are extremely critical when servicing the aerospace and defence customers. And most importantly, these regions are consciously building the sovereign AI solutions and for that you need talent, which are not just about local but also certified in the security standards that is needed to address the aerospace and defence sector. Some of the marquee client base, we are hugely excited about this. And this is where the real value creation opportunity lies for us. All the customers that I show here are the customers where we have absolutely no presence. And that's a big headroom opportunity for us. In aerospace and defense, leading global aircraft OEM based out of Europe, one of the largest defence technology company, and the top 5 European aerospace and defense company are some of the marquee logos in aerospace and defense.

In the automotive sector, 3 out of the top 8 European auto manufacturers are -- is the access that we will get. And we will have access to the top 5 European automotive suppliers and leading commercial vehicle OEM.

In the utility segment, one of the largest European utility companies based out of France, 2 of the top 5 European telecom companies, and we also get access to the top 3 telecom and broadband companies in Australia. In BFS sector, 2 of the top 4 Australian banks and top 3 banks in France. And all these customers are the ones who have global aspirations, and these clients have a huge need for the global delivery model. And that's the huge headroom that we see in the growth over here.

Let me dwell a bit more on the complementary capabilities. On the left-hand side, as you all know, that we are -- our anchor market always has been North America with 73% of our revenue coming from North America and 15% and 12% between Europe and emerging markets. The regional presence that I spoke about in Continental Europe and Australia will only strengthen our vision of having a balanced portfolio in our business. We want to grow U.S. faster and we want to grow the other regions, especially Europe and emerging markets, much faster. The segments are hugely complementary. Our dominant presence in FS, tech services, consumer and production complements very well with the newer verticals that we are going to inherit in aerospace and defense, automotive and utilities. And the BFS in Australia will complement with our global BFS capability and strength that we have.

In terms of capabilities, as you are all aware, that LTM promoted itself into the AI-centric business with restructuring of 3 LOBs, of [ iron ], AI transform business AI powered by our BlueVerse agentic ecosystem. And now with a complementary domain and tech expertise that we get, we have a huge value creation opportunity in pivoting into the AI era and most importantly, in the regulated industry and in the markets where the aspects of AI in the context of sovereign solutions and the regional AI applications will become significant. The global delivery with offshore scale of what we have will complement with the nearshore and onshore capability that we will get as part of this transaction.

So in all aspects of the business, the market access, the capability access and the delivery and our talent access are complementary to each other with a minimal overlap areas. And that's why we believe this is a huge value-accretive acquisition. And most importantly, this is a value-accretive deal for both the parties because of the 360 degree relationship that I spoke about.

Let me go one at a time in terms of value accretive for us at LTM. We get a huge scale advantage in Europe. Post closure, we will be in excess of $1 billion business in Europe, and we will be 2x in APAC. And as I mentioned, we will be in excess of $100 million business in Australia. This will give us not just a scale advantage, but also the domain depth that is needed in the agentic AI era to have the large deals and to help our customers in transforming the AI era.

The second is sovereign AI, it's a head start. There are both for the regulated industries and the high-growth industries in these markets, the sovereign AI is identified as a high-growth area, and we'll get a head start into that as the market matures, and as the market captures the momentum on the sovereign AI. The third, as the target entity is focused on 3 primary capabilities. And if you look at the capabilities that exist within LTM, it's a huge opportunity for cross-sell and upsell. We can sell -- our enterprise platforms have SAP, Oracle, Cloud, data, our interactive capabilities and the business AI capabilities into these accounts. As these capabilities don't exist on the other side. So it was going to be hugely complementary and a huge cross-sell and upsell opportunity. The fourth aspect of value creation is about tower charging, our large deal viability. We have demonstrated that throughout FY '26 and this will only get strengthened more so in the context of Europe and also in the context of the global deals, which requires presence across some of the major markets.

Lastly, because of the global nature of our customers in the U.S. and also the global nature of the customers in Europe, the expanded regional scale and expertise will help in mapping and increasing our valid share in our global multi-region customers. And thereby, we can have a cross-pollination of expertise across the regions to scale. So that's a huge opportunity on a proposed acquisition.

As a quick recap, where does it fit in our 5-year strategy. We said, as I covered it, and I'll be covering a lot more details in our Investor Day, the positioning is all about being a partner who can solve a client's business problem through a creative approach, and that's why we positioned ourselves as a business creativity partner when we rebranded to LTM. And we said we will double down our focus in Americas, but at the same time, we'll keep an eye on the balance portfolio and derisk a high concentration of few areas. And we will make sure that we will scale Europe with a focused push in the key emerging markets. And this transaction fits very well into the first highlighted portion.

The second is what is needed to be worked for AI is the demand in tech capabilities, and we have to reimagine capabilities that we have as part of the core services. Again, these 2 areas are complementary and fits very well from a strategic rationale standpoint.

The third aspect of the strategic framework that I'm going to highlight here was about, we acknowledged when we designed the strategy that the AI pivot and AI transformation is going to be done with a huge collaboration of our global delivery capabilities and the local expertise as most of the countries become very sovereign in nature, in terms of how they handle data and how the AI infrastructure is built and how the AI will be implemented. So hence, it's extremely important that we have the complementary capabilities both in on-site nearshore and offshore capabilities. So this is hugely a strategic fit for all the elements that we define as part of our 5-year evolution. So that's all I had to share today.

And me and Vipul are here to take any questions that you may have.

[Operator Instructions] We take the first question from Prateek Maheshwari of HSBC Securities.

First of all, congratulations, the deal seems to be a good fit for your 5-year strategy. My -- something that I wanted to check about was the revenue trend that we have seen for the company. It's been declining for a 10% rate. So just Venu, if you could double-click on what's happening? And how do you see that? And then I have a follow-up question for Vipul.

Sure Yes. Thanks for the question, Prateek. And look, I think the -- there are 2 -- actually, there are 3 aspects to the revenue decline. And that's -- that was very clear when we made this decision. The first is like everyone else, over the last 2 years, there has been a macroeconomic challenges, specifically in Europe, and there was one part of that story. The second one is about -- there has been a conscious effort in FY '25 to actually trim the tail accounts because the seller was already in the process of divesting this part of it. And so there was a conscious effort from their side to make the tail accounts rationalized much faster so that it becomes -- and I said that they can transact smoothly. So that was the second thing.

The third thing is that -- and we have done this analysis. If you look at the clients that I spoke about, all these clients have a significant presence in India, especially over the last 2 years or so at the back of India and Europe trade agreements, at the back of an offset deal that is happening in -- especially in aerospace and other customers, they have ramped up GCC a lot. And Randstad Technology and Consulting Services business did not had to scale offshore. They had an offshore, but it was not a scale that we can do it. So if we were there 1 year back, probably we would have arrested that decline. But I see this as a positive movement because all these clients are hugely excited about it. And as part of this, I've spoken to 4 clients as part of the process and the excitement is very huge with these customers in terms of leveraging our global delivery model that complements with the on-site and nearshore capability. So these are the reasons that are there for the revenue decline, but they are not anything do with the structure of the business, but it's because of the reasons that I mentioned.

Venu, since said that they did not have an offshore capability. Could you also double-click on like what did you -- so the release had some GCC opportunity as well, right? And you also mentioned in your opening comments. So -- what do you expect out of it, if you could double-click on that as well?

Yes. See, okay. The second aspect of the deal that I'm talking about is the GCC for the Randstad Group's IT requirement and all the AI transformation requirement. So that's the GCC. Their spend is huge, as you can imagine, they are a $25 billion operation. So they have a huge technology spend and AI spend. So we're going to be the AI transformation partner in strengthening their GCC capabilities, which is actually based on our [indiscernible]. So that's the GCC concept. The point that I mentioned about the existing customers, they went about their own GCC, right, whether it's in aerospace customer or automotive customers, they went with their own GCC. So when somebody decides to go on a GCC, there is a lag before he starts complementing them with your capabilities and strategy. And that lag is what that resulted in decline in the later part of last year.

My question for Vipul was so how should we think about your margins? I see -- because they are more nearshore and on-site, the revenue per employee is about 3x of average of LTM, right? So probably margin profile could be a little lower, right? So I just wanted to understand how do you think about the steady state margin impact on the P&L because of the deal? And also, what do you expect in terms of your amortization and acquisition cost?

Yes. So thanks, Prateek, I think on the margin front, I can say that their gross margin on the on-site side is actually pretty good. I think what Venu touched upon right now in terms of the limited offshore model we still had, If you take that out, the on-site margin was -- is pretty good. I think coupled with our offshore muscle, the business has the potential to scale up on the margin side as well pretty good. As far as the -- what was the second question you were asking, Prateek?

Can I just add 1 point -- Sorry, just to add to the Vipul's point. We looked at the value creation with all the 3 aspects of the deal, right? So there is margin in the deal 1 business, which as Vipul said, there's a huge gross -- their gross margin is actually better than our gross margin for nearshore resources that we have in Poland versus the onsite and nearshore, their gross margin is much better than ours, number one. Number 2 is that as part of the 360 degree value creation, there is a margin contribution coming from the deal 2 that I spoke about, which is the scaling of the GCC part of it. And the third is that I spoke about increasing the efficiency on our subcon spend. So there is a savings realization as well on the deal 3 part of it. So for us, the contribution to the value come from the 3 aspects of deal 1, deal 2 and deal 3. And in summary, I just want to say there's going to be no material impact on the margin for this year, even after closure. And for the next year, we have a plan in place to make sure that there is no material impact.

This will be on EBITDA or this will be on EBIT as well, like no material impact?

This we are talking about the EBIT itself. In terms of -- I think the second question you asked about was the amortization. Yes, of course, we will follow. But I think -- if you look at the consideration and amortization on that, I don't think it's going to be a very material impact for us. And as Venu said, that we already have plans in place to improve the -- both the revenue and margin as we go forward.

Our next question is from Vibhor Singhal of Nuvama Equities.

Congrats on this acquisition. So Venu, just to continue from where the last question left. So first of all, I think, as you mentioned that we acquired this European and Australian IT Services business of Randstad. So does Randstad also have IT Services and Consulting business outside of these geographies, maybe in U.S. and some other domains? And if yes, then -- I mean, what would be the reason that we basically chose this part apart from, of course, these being the white spaces for us?

Secondly, you mentioned that basically the 3 reasons that you saw a revenue decline for these companies -- for the company over the past couple of years. So given -- at the time that we have acquired and given that they have already trimmed down their tail accounts and all, do we expect to stem the decline in revenues going forward? And will this part of the business be also able to grow at our company growth rate. And so let's say, for example, this year, we're expecting mid- to high single-digit growth rate, will this part of business we also be able to grow in the same range?

And just a related question. This business operates in the aerospace and auto verticals, in product design space as well, product engineering space as well. Does it kind of create any conflict of interest with the group company entities? Or that is kind of all cleared and nothing that we need to worry about there? That will be a question for you. I'll just have one follow-up for Vipul after that.

Okay. So let me cover one at a time. First, let me clarify the last point. That's an easy one, straight on. There is absolutely no contract with any of our group company. We are very conscious about it. We are focused on -- significantly on AI-led software engineering, AI-led digital engineering. So AI-led software engineering. We are very focused on bringing our data capabilities. As I mentioned, the cloud capabilities, focused on our business AI capabilities. Look at the opportunities in the enterprise platform, whether it's the enterprise apps like SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards or ServiceNow and Salesforce practices that we have, huge depth we have on our interactive practices. So all that put together is a huge opportunity there. The clients will always be common, right? I mean we have that even in the current model, but the capabilities are always complementary. So also iNXT capability, right? So iNXT has -- is one of our differentiated area when it comes to the industrial AI and capabilities part of it. So it will be complemented to the iNXT capabilities as well. So absolutely no conflict with that. If at all, it can be more and more complementary on that, right? I'm just covering up.

Now let me answer the first one. You said do they have a U.S. business and why we didn't consider it? Look, the answer is very obvious. If we try to do this acquisition from a regional context in the U.S., you will have more of overlap accounts. We are pretty much well present in most of the verticals that we want to focus on. So I don't think we would have got any great value creation opportunity if we had included in the scope. This is a very conscious decision that we had to create a balanced portfolio. We need to have a presence in Europe, and the markets that we are talking about in Europe are not the markets that you can easily build these capabilities organically. And more so in the current situation where the sovereign solutions in the end, the solution that you need to provide to the regulated industries needs a significant capabilities that complements with our global offshore capabilities. So -- and most importantly, when we looked at the clientele base, it was like completely white space. Whether it -- even if it is a BFS space where we are pretty strong globally, the accounts that we are getting as part of the BFS, both in Australia and in Europe are completely white space. We don't play in those accounts. So it's definitely complementary for us on that. So that was a huge upside and we don't see a value creation opportunity by including U.S. are there any other scope. This was a very targeted, focused market that fits into our strategy, and I wanted to go across that.

[indiscernible].

On the tail account, you said the -- [indiscernible] Look there is a bit of a noise in the background, it becomes difficult for me to follow.

Right, right, right. So just the question was on the revenue decline trajectory. Do you think that trimming of tail account is kind of complete and we can expect to the complete -- this part also grow to the company [indiscernible]?

Yes. That's a great question, Vibhor, right? My view is that I would assume a little bit more haircut in the short term. Just to transform the scale accounts. I mean these are marquee accounts that I spoke about, right? Our focus should be a lot more on those accounts. And they are like customers with that multibillion-dollar tech spend and AI spend. So we want to make sure that our strategy of putting all of our energy and focus on those accounts becomes extremely important. So if that results in trimming 10 more tail accounts over a period of time, it may not happen at 1 shot, but if we need to do that, we will do it. But that may be just a short term. Our focus and business plan and value creation is built on cross-selling and up-selling, and growing, and this fits in well with our 5-year strategy where we said we want to double our revenue in 5 years. So when we're looking at that 5-year strategy, it's only the growth that comes. Even though in the short term, from a transformation standpoint, we might look at trimming some tail accounts. If I may just add to that so that you get a better color on how we are going to execute this. We intend to keep this as a separate subsidiary of LTM so that we don't spend time on integration or anything. And as I said, since it is completely white space, both from the market standpoint as well as from the capability standpoint, there is no need for any sort of an integration as such, right, apart from your functional integration like your finance, HR, those kind of aspects, the business, there's nothing to integrate. I mean we are subscaling most of the markets. So it gives us a great opportunity not to get distracted, keep it stand-alone, focus on that, help the entity with all the capabilities that we can bring in LTM and cross and upsell in those accounts. So that's how we're going to focus on.

Got it. Got it. Very detailed answer. Just one quick question for Vipul. Vipul, you mentioned that we are expecting very minimal impact on the overall consolidated margins. And given it's -- we're acquiring at much lower than the book value, and it's not -- should not lead to any cash debt as well. Is it correct to assume that we will have -- this acquisition should be EPS accretive from day 1? And also, what would be the DSO day profile of the acquisition?

Okay. So in terms of the margin impact, as I already said that it's going to be minimal on or not really going to be there given our plans, which we already have in; place. And if the margin impact is not there, it's not going to be EPS dilutive also. So to that extent, I think that answer is there itself. As far as the DSO profile is concerned, it's regular DSO profile, which is there for any IT services kind of a company. It's not -- there is no abnormality out there. It's more or less in line with our own DSO profile as well.

Our next question is from Ravi Menon of Axis Capital.

Congrats on the acquisition. Venu, first of all, near term, at least, do you think that do you need to make some sales and marketing investments because this is -- these are geographies that are relatively subscale for you, right? So you'd need to assume new sales team that will go out there, try to cross-sell this because I don't think the existing Randstad digital sales team, if they are coming with it, they would still know your capabilities and be able to sell into these accounts rate.

Ravi, the investment will be very minimal and will be more in the overlay states, right? As part of this transaction, we are getting a lot of good talented salespeople who have a very deep client relationship. The clients that I spoke about, they are clients with a very material revenue right? So that means there's already a deep strengthen relationship that exists. Yes, if we need to cross and upsell my SAP, Oracle, Cloud, Data, AI and so on, then we need to have a few investments done for the overlay sales so that the cross-sell and upsell happens with our service line sales capability, but that I would sort of look at it as very minimal.

I would've have done it organically as well in those markets if we had that scale, so I wouldn't look at it as anything which is a huge investment, but something like a BAU investment, but we're going to create a separate team, which will provide the overlay sales support to this entity, more so from our service line capability standpoint.

And related question to that is how are these clients setup? I mean, so do you have to provide all sorts of IT services or was Randstad digital mostly set up with MSAs for just mostly staffing? Or what -- is it managed services, all of that? And do you -- can you provide all the sources that you offer? Or would that involve changing some of these MSAs?

Yes. Most of the clients have a good options to cross and upsell already built in. There may be a few customers where I need to introduce an offshore rate cut, for example, and create an offshore-based MSA or SOW, but considering the fact that these are deep relationships and also considering that these are the customers who are already in offshore, either on their own or through some other competitor. They're already there. So getting those offshore rate cuts clamped into existing contracts shouldn't be that much of a problem. But yes, to summarize it, it's going to be a mix of clients where it's a wholesome 360-degree contracts. In some cases, we might have to introduce in offshore contracts.

Absolutely. And just to add -- yes. I think you asked a specific question about the MSA and whether the MSAs provide for all kinds of services, the answer is yes, because even the existing business is a mix of the normal kind of contracts that we see in any IT services company, which is [ T&M ], fixed price solutions, all of those things. So the MSAs do provide for that. As Venu said, the only thing which we may have to add in, in some cases is the offshore rate cuts.

Right. So then with the remaining part, I would assume that Randstad Digital's U.S. and U.K. business, I would assume that, that is also going to get supported on an ongoing basis by the Randstad GCC, right? Or is the plan that these parts will get sold to somebody else. And the Randstad GCC will just be stand-alone for even most likely internal IT for...

Look, I don't want to comment on their behalf on what their plans are, which is not fair. So yes, I don't have any further comments to add on how we do it. But what this 360 degree, this is a very unique deal in the industry, right, to have a 360 degree relationship. And these are the deals that can be created in the market. And that's where the real value creation opportunity happens. These are the kind of deals that was pretty much restricted to the tech space among the a very limited set of in the AI value chain players, you're seeing that, how those 360 degree relationships were built. And we have set the trend upgrading a large deal kind of a construct with a 360 degree relationship. Now that we have relationships on both sides, we sell to them, they sell to us apart from this acquisition. If there is any need for any large deal support for them, they know they can reach out to us. So that's how the relationship will work.

Right. But would they become, say, Randstad U.S., would that become a competitor, a more formidable competitor with the GCC scale-up that you're enabling?

No, not really. Look, the way it is going to work is that firstly, the most of the GCC scale up will be focused firstly on the internal enterprise IT transformation. That's the first focus area, right? And second focus area is that anything that we do together where they can't support it in offshore and it will be LTM, which will support them in offshore for the clients.

Our next question is from Kumar Rakesh of BNP Paribas.

My first question was about the revenue opportunity from the 5-year GCC partnership, which you are forming with the company.

Yes. Look, I think the initial scope that we will ramp up will be closer to EUR 50 million to EUR 60 million TCV because it's a 5-year relationship, but you have to start with some scope to begin with. So we have identified a scope, which will start ramping up. At the same time, the closing happens for the deal 1. And the initial scope value is somewhere around EUR 55 million to EUR 60 million.

Got that. And just help me understand that how the day conversation would have gone through? Were you in the process of having a conversation around the GCC partnership in which they still came along and you were asked to look at this asset? Or it's the other way around that you were looking to expand your footprint and the GCC partnership came along with that?

Yes. Look, I think these kind of deals happens when you have access to the Board. You create a strategic proposition to the clients. And once you start discussing it, it sort of takes its own shape through various discussions and various ideation that happens between both the teams and that's exactly what happened. So there was a relationship at the Board level, and we had a proposition to put across to them and that one led to the other. And then as you can imagine, any large deal for that matter, it goes through its own ideation process and collaboration process before we come to a point where we say, okay, now we have a right shape, and we can sign on this deal. That's exactly what happened here.

Got that. And finally, on the rational part, I understand that it helps LTM address the white spaces by geography and vertical. But the kind of environment in which we have, many of the peers of yours are focusing aggressively on building capability side. And this doesn't seem to be addressing enough on building out capability, so do you think this is the best use of cash at this time to expansion in the white spaces by geography and vertical? And you may still remain subscale in those vertical and geographies, especially.

Look, I think probably I didn't articulate the second aspect of the white space, there are -- the white space, not just in the client acquisition, which is extremely critical, right? Because these are the clients where we can sell a lot of capabilities that we already have. And the second is the white space on the capabilities that complements. We are not that big on the cybersecurity space. So it's a huge thing. Cybersecurity in the agentic AI era is a huge aspect that we can focus on and scale on that. And it gives us a jump start in that and specifically in the areas and in the verticals that we can bring value out of it, as an example.

The second thing is that the capabilities that synergizes with our industrial AI capabilities that I spoke about, right? And that capability is hugely complementary, especially in the global scale. And that spans across all of our manufacturing customers in the U.S. as well. We can use the same capabilities for our production segment, whether it's manufacturing customers, energy and utilities customers per se on that. And the lastly is that the domain and tech convergence capability is very understated. It's very easy to build a -- it's a horizontal practices. You can hire a set of techies and build any of the practices around the various platforms or on various technologies. But the most hard muscle is getting the contextual capabilities for the industries, even if it is the context of capabilities for the BFS, the more we get those talent, it only strengthens our tech domain convergence story. The contextual capabilities that we get in the utility strengthens our ENDU story even in the North America and even in the Middle East, for example. The contextual capabilities that comes in, in the automotive sector will complement with our overall manufacturing capabilities. So there is a huge capability build-out that will come out as part of it. So it's not just buying for the set of clients. But as I mentioned, there are 3 white spaces that I see it here. One is the white space in clients, white space in capabilities and white space in the delivery talent across the globe.

Also, just to address the point about the use of cash on this one, per se, Kumar, if you look at the cash on our balance sheet and our consideration that we are going to be paying for this transition, it's not going to be more than 10%, 15%. So -- and in which way the other capabilities, et cetera, which you're talking about, we can always keep building that up as well. And we are investing in that side as well.

It is not at the cost of ABC. We'll do both.

Yes.

Vipul, maybe just 1 question, final on the margin side. So you said there should not be a material impact on margin once this acquisition is integrated. Does that imply that this part of the business has better margin than rest -- the overall business margin because Randstad overall margins are quite low, but you are indicating that there should not be material margin impact after the integration and amortization charges all put together?

Yes. So I think we answered this already in the -- and Venu mentioned about the 360 relationship and the overall transaction, you have to look at it together. That's one part. The second part is I also mentioned about their on-site gross margin being actually better than our on-site gross margin as of today. So I think once we start implementing the plans that we have, and the offshore muscle gets added and complemented, the revenue as well as margin will both grow together. And we also have other plans which we had already -- which we are already working on in terms of our new horizon initiative as well to deal with the margin at an aggregate overall level as well. So overall, keeping all of these things in mind is why I said that no material impact per se.

We take our next question from Nitin Padmanabhan of Investec.

I'm just conscious of the time. So this is the last question.

Absolutely. Congrats on the deal. I had a couple of quick ones. So one is Venu, you mentioned that there's a lot of domain-centric contextual capability that's difficult to build, which is highly appreciated. The only question I had around that was that what is the format of this engagement? Is it more of a staffing engagement where it's difficult to migrate that knowledge? Or do you think there needs to be a re-architecting of the way that engagement happens for us to really migrate that knowledge. That was the first one.

The second is that of the 15-plus stale accounts, I mean, 15-plus large accounts that we have, how big is it as a percentage of the overall revenue at the moment? And how big is it tail? Do we need to really cut the tail and that will be a drag for a year or so. And then from year 2 or year 3 when we really see a scale up.

And finally, in the context of the way this is, do you believe that initially, it will start with the pitch that we currently have on-site resources with you, let's put in an offshore mix, and that becomes the first port of call. And how long do you think before the set of wins from a revenue synergy perspective starts kicking in? Those were the 3 questions.

Okay. On the last point, I mean, just that I always remember the last one, so I start from there. On the last point, our current focus is to ensure that we focus on closing. And after closing, I'll be able to share a lot more details in terms of -- as part of our quarterly commentaries in terms of the deals that we're working on and the large deals that we have and so on and so things, right? But as I said, it is all aligned to our 5-year vision of doubling our revenue. And we have -- we already have a plan in parallel buildup for the cross-sell and upselling part of it as well. So Yes. So I'll give those commentaries as and when we reach to that stage. The other aspect is about the concentration of our account. This is where the real differentiation lies. In Europe, the top 25 customers contribute to 65% of the revenue. In Australia, top 10 customer contributes to 80% of the revenue. If it was hundreds of tail accounts, it doesn't fit into our strategy because that's not how LTM works. Even in LTM, not to an extent that we have been challenged a lot saying that you are concentrating a lot on few accounts, and you have a concentration risk, but that's a model we've always adopted that we go deeper in the relationship. And this was the thing which attracted to us that we have 65% of the revenue coming in from top 25 in Europe and 80% of the revenue is coming from the top 10 industrial. And that's where our focus is going to be a lot more from day 1 so that we not only make sure that we have a smooth transition of these customers, most importantly, use this opportunity to tell them about the things that we can help from an LTM standpoint and grow the customers.

The last one is about -- I think it was your first question. Look, from a commercial arrangement, it has a good mix of T&M commercial arrangement. But the average tenure of consultants in an account is greater than 5 years in these accounts. In fact, there are the highly experienced consultants that we -- when we looked at the tenure of them in the accounts is almost 7 to 8 years in 1 account, which is a very good even from an offshore standard perspective to have that. So -- and we need to make sure that we retain that stickiness of the talent of the customers so that the demand context remains in the ecosystem. And most importantly, we strengthened it with our demand capability that exists within LTM at global level. So that's how I would look at it. But yes, the commercial arrangement are a mix of T&M managed services and so on. But yes, it has a significant commercial arrangements of T&M, but what uses an assurance is that the tenure of the consultants and our contracts and analysis we did, and that tenure is a very long tenure in an account.

Yes. So just a quick follow-up on that one. If you could correct me if I'm wrong. So these people have been with the client for multiple years. Obviously, they are valuable and very core to the client. And usually, they wouldn't want to let go of those people. How fungible is the knowledge transfer for us to be able to use those same people to drive things? Because these will be controlled by the client. So I'm just trying to ask you about the assumption on being able to use those same people to drive new deal creation when they are completely controlled by the client. So that's the only assumption that I worry about and wanted your thoughts there.

Yes. Look, I think that happens in -- especially in accounts where you have the long tenure consultants and in those engagements, even in our current business, where clients have a say on the resources movement and so on. But we have a mechanism in terms of how the other employees cross and up learn from each of them. So there are various initiatives where we shadow people across these consultants where the domain knowledge gets transferred.

And second thing is that I think we will also have some work to do in terms of making sure that a lot of this knowledge in our global setup gets institutionalized. So that's where the focus will happen. And the fact that, now that the same clients will have an access to close to 87,000 for the talent of global scale from LTM. As we start selling different services, our ability to shadow those resources will also enhance. If I was focused only on one stream and one capability, then shadowing the resources becomes that much challenging, especially in the scenario that you explained. When we are trying to cross and upsell, I think if I can have the same account where there are 100 people working, if I can increase it to 250 people in that account, our ability to cross-pollinate knowledge will be that much easier. So again, it all comes down to the same point that I started off saying that can we cross and upsell faster? Can we expand the value share faster? Because you have a focused accounts that we can target, it's not like spanning across hundreds of accounts. And thereby, we get the advantage of both tech per mile convergence, get the advantage of capabilities that are truly white space for us.

Thank you. That was the last question for today. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of LTM Limited, that concludes today's call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now click on the leave icon to exit the meeting. Thank you for your participation. Goodbye.

Hello, and welcome to the Randstad Q1 end 2026 Results Conference Call and Audio Webcast. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the word over to Sander van 't Noordende, CEO. Mr. van't Noordende. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Barton, for that kind introduction. And good morning, everybody. I'm here with Jorge and our Investor Relations team to share our Q1 2012 results. Let me first say I'm proud of our team's continued execution of our partner for talent strategy, which is delivering a strong foundation for our growth ambitions. And as a result, our growth has broadened with 63% of Randstad now in growth, up from 50% in Q4, which equates to 0.4% growth for the quarter.

Overall, volume in contingent work was resilient with strong momentum in the U.S. and Southern Europe, especially, of course, in Randstad operational business. We see further stabilization in industrial markets in Northwest Europe, while the permanent and professional markets remain challenging. APAC remains robust. Together with strong adaptability, this has resulted in a solid performance with revenues of EUR 5.5 billion and an EBITA of EUR 146 million, representing a 2.7% margin. Volume trends in early April have been encouraging. And so far, we have seen very limited impact from the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. As you would expect, we are monitoring the situation vigilantly and are in constant dialogue with our clients to understand the impact they are noticing on their business. However, the current trajectory of our business gives us confidence for the months ahead.

As we move further into 2026, we continue to progress well on our partner for talent strategy. Our growth through specialization is fueled by the 10x10x10 initiative, 10 markets with each 10 opportunities of EUR 10 million or more. And [ Jorge ] and the team are doing a fantastic job here and secured over EUR 600 million of new wins in Q1. In operational, we saw an uptick of client activity across our industrial segments, particularly in manufacturing, including skilled trades in markets such as Germany and Italy.

We saw strong growth in the logistics sector with increased hiring forecast in key markets such as the U.S., France and the Netherlands. In Professional, we saw momentum improving in engineering in the U.S., Italy and Japan, and we are growing in health care, primarily driven by the Netherlands and Italy. After a slow January in our enterprise business, we expect trends to sequentially improve from here as we secured a number of new clients this quarter across life sciences, semiconductors and energy.

The health of our pipeline also bodes well for the rest of the year. We celebrated the rollout of our digital marketplace in the U.K. And once again, Talent loves it. Within 2 hours, we had 77% of the targeted talent on the app. We are now live in 9 markets. In March alone, we managed close to 600,000 self-service shift with around 240,000 monthly active users. We also went live into front and mid-office of our Randstad platform in Italy with our digital marketplace to follow later this year.

On AI, 80% of our staff are now AI trained, working smarter and more efficiently is essential to continue driving down indirect cost as a percentage of revenue. So as we enter 2026, I'm proud of our teams as our partner for talent strategy and commercial success provides a strong foundation for our growth ambitions. Because the notes on your minds, let me say a few words about the role of AI in the labor market.

Above all, we are AI optimist. In the context of an aging population and persistent labor mismatches, we view AI as a critical enabler for a very welcome productivity boost. And there are a few points I'd like to make here. First, studies show that the base case for the impact of AI is a job loss of 6% to 7% over the next 5 to 10 years, with a particular focus on clerical roles, customer service, marketing and design and software development, where our exposure as Randstad is currently limited.

Then it looks like AI is more about task and team augmentation than outright job replacement. So roles will change over time, and we, at Randstad call this the great adaptation of the workforce. Finally, the phenomenon of jobs disappearing and new jobs emerging is of all ages. Of the jobs we cater for today, around 60% to 70% did not exist 65 years ago when we started Randstad. Our first times were mostly executive assistance, which today are a fraction of our business.

So what does this all mean for Randstad? First of all, Randstad operational and health care are 2/3 of our business today. These are typically jobs that are human-centric and minimally impacted by AI. Think about maintenance technicians, welders and fabricators, HVAC specialists and, of course, nurses and care workers. Secondly, our strategy is to ensure that we are highly relevant where the future jobs are. That's why we have our 4 specializations, each with its own growth segments such as skilled trade, logistics, engineering, health care.

As the Canadian say, we are skating where the puck is going to be. In summary, we're confident by taking the right actions for our partner for talent strategy, we can navigate and benefit from the impact of AI on the labor market over the next 5 to 10 years.

I'm going to now hand over to Jorge to say a bit more about our financial results. Jorge?

Thank you, Sander, and good morning, everyone. Let me start by saying that overall, we are happy to see that this quarter mostly came in line with our expectations. The trends are consistent, they are more stable and the changes we are doing are also more structural. We saw sequential improvement in growth rates across most of our markets, and we returned to organic revenue growth. This growth is led by our operational business, as Sander just highlighted, which grew 3% globally, including a strong 8% in the U.S., where our digital marketplace is driving tangible market share gains.

But it's also positive to see manufacturing PMIs above 50 in most of our markets for the first time in many, many quarters. While remaining vigilant on geopolitics, we do balance momentum with strength discipline and investments in our road map, not only to protect the bottom line but also in growth to ensure we have the operational gearing ready for the coming quarters. Before we move on to the section in the markets, please a small note, we have simplified the reporting structure by removing the regional subsegments in Europe. Where applicable, the comparative figures are presented to align with this new structure.

So let's dive in and let's start with North America on Page 9. In North America, we continue to build throughout the quarter with strong exit rates in our industrial sectors. The U.S. operational grew 8%, significantly outpacing the market and its double-digit profit growth validates our new model of central delivery and the digital marketplace. Professional is down 8% but improving sequentially with forms returning now to growth. Enterprise started slow, as mentioned already at the end of Q4, but ended with stronger exit rates, driven by major new wins and a solid pipeline. Digital faced muted Q1 demand but adapted well. Canada mirrors the U.S. with strong operational growth offsetting a slower enterprise starts. Overall, North American EBITA margin was 3% year-over-year, delivering a 78% recovery ratio.

Now moving on to the major European markets on Slide 10. In Europe, momentum is improving across our major markets, though the split between a strong South and the slower North still remains. In the Netherlands, organic revenue returned to growth, driven by continued good performance in health care and solid positioning with large logistics and e-commerce clients. We spent Q1 implementing the new CLA together with our clients and while complex and not finished yet, we progressed well and expect this to be concluded in the next few weeks. Overall, profitability came in at 4.4%.

In Germany, we are seeing early signs of recovery, down just 4%, driven by improving PMIs. Industrial pockets are returning to growth, and even automotive was still declining, it is clearly bottoming out. Public infrastructure spending has yet to materialize. In Germany, the transformation we started last year is paying off as the business pushes hard to return to growth at a more sustainable level of profitability. Now in Belgium, we still declined 6% with operations minus 4%. The weakness in the market is mostly around permanent hiring and office jobs.

Now moving on to France. It remains still a 2 speed markets. On 1 side, our in-house and larger client portfolio is up 11%. On the other side, SME and skilled perm segments are currently lagging the market. Professionals here also declined 13% year-over-year, with volumes weighed down by the recent health care legislation. Overall profitability came in at 3.9%.

Italy. In Italy, growth continued to accelerate on the back of a successful Olympics campaign with operational up 9% and Professional also growing now at 6% as our recent investment over 2025 payoff. Profitability came in at 5.1%, impacted this quarter by an Olympic brand awareness campaign and strategic investments for the platform.

Iberia had a fantastic quarter, plus 9%, led by Spain, north of 10%, where we are firing on all cylinders, and we continue to invest in further growth, both in people and capabilities.

Let's now move on to the international market slide on Slide 11. International markets are a bit of a mixed bag, as you can see. So let me quickly unpack in more detail. In Europe, we celebrated the go-live RDMP in the U.K., like Sander mentioned, and it's great to see our first talent using the platform over the last 2, 3 weeks. Poland is still growing at 2%; Switzerland 3% continue to grow and offsetting still the subdued Nordics still at minus 11%.

In LatAm, we continue to see good momentum, particularly in Brazil. In Asia Pacific, Japan continued its solid growth at plus 5%, and we continue here to invest to capture structural opportunities, particularly in the digital area and in Tokyo. Australia and New Zealand declined 4% with some signs now of stabilization. India, growth accelerated to 16% as we continue to invest in growth segments.

Overall, the EBITA margin for the region came at 3.6%, reflecting growth investments. And that concludes the performance of our key geographies.

So let me now walk you through our combined financial performance on Slide 13. Looking at the revenue mix, we see the trends of the last few quarters continuing. Operational sees momentum now accelerating and is now growing 3%. Remember, it was flat on Q4. Professional also improved quarter-over-quarter due to strong demand in health care, particularly in the Netherlands and Italy, engineering in U.S. and Japan.

Digital and enterprise started the year slowly and tougher comps certainly did not help. Pipeline deal wins and exit rates for enterprise look better as we enter into Q2. Now our gross profit and OpEx were well aligned, but we will talk more about it particularly later. Zooming into EBITA. EBITA margin was 2.7%. Underlying EBITA was EUR 146 million with an adverse steel FX impact this quarter of EUR 6 million, which will start leveling off from here.

Integration costs and one-offs this quarter amounted to EUR 23 million, and they were mostly related to basically the Netherlands or Northern and Western Europe as we continue to drive structural change across our organization. Net finance costs are just a regular interest payments albeit lower, reflecting the lower net debt coming down. The effective tax rate for the first 3 months was 31%. We expect '26 ETR towards the higher end of 29% to 31% range, and this all led to an adjusted net income of EUR 91 million for the quarter.

But with that, let's indeed now deep dive into the gross margin slides on Slide 14. And a few things about the margins. So gross margin was down 80 basis points to 18.5%. Within that, our temp margin is down 60 basis points and primarily with the points we had highlighted already in the previous quarter. On one hand, operational remains more resilient, if not even now in growth versus professional and digital specializations.

Two, we continue to see geographical divergence with Northern Europe below group average and Southern Europe continuing to do better. The adverse FX impact following, let's say, liberation days, it still plays a role. And last but not least, as we mentioned in Q4, there were incidentals between Q4 and Q1 last year, which impacted a little bit the comparisons. Perm contribution was still down 20 basis points, is now somewhat stable at low level as key European perm markets still remain very challenging.

In HRS and other, remember, here, we include RPO, outplacement and a lot of other fee businesses, MSP is still flat. Now this is the market at the moment and where the majority of the gross margin pressure is simply a reflection of the continued growth divergence across our portfolio. Albeit most of this pressure starts to annualize as we progress through the quarters ahead.

Now let me bring you now in more details into Slide 15 on our OpEx bridge. Underlying operating expenses were EUR 873 million, moving in lockstep with gross profit as we've been doing in the previous quarters. Despite inflationary pressures we lowered core costs, excuse me, OpEx quarter-over-quarter, and we are building clear operational leverage. We're achieving this through delivery excellence, growing volumes in key markets and delivering to the most productive to service models without adding as much headcount. In fact, the correlation between volume and FTE is now at a 6-year low.

We also continue to reduce indirect costs as a percentage of revenue through scale and technology. Overall, I think the important point about our OpEx is that the change in the past 3 years proved to be structural with, again, the last 4 quarters, ICR hitting close to 70% at 68%. What this means is that we are improving our ability to offset gross profit declines by reducing OpEx or to convert gross profit into EBITA as growth returns.

And with that in mind, let's now move on to Slide 16, which contains our cash flow and balance sheet remarks. First, balance sheet, our underlying free cash flow for the quarter stood at minus EUR 98 million. We typically have the most seasonal negative working capital movements in this quarter such as VAT, wage taxes, commissions and prepayments. In addition, in particular, in Q1 this quarter, we had a delay in invoicing at the beginning of the quarter associated with the Netherlands following the implementation of the new regulatory framework of about EUR 40 million to EUR 50 million. This will obviously normalize now into Q2, and we expect the same cash trajectory for the full year.

DSO came in at 57.4 days, up 0.7 days sequentially and reflecting exactly the mix and the delay in invoicing. Net debt decreased EUR 131 million year-over-year, and our leverage ratio stands now at 1.5. And that brings me to the outlook on Slide 17. So looking at the current momentum, we see the positive volume trends in February and March, continuing to April, and that gives us confidence for the months ahead. Now remember, Sander highlighted, we have seen no direct impact from the Middle East, but we remain vigilant. Gross margin in Q2 is expected to be slightly down sequentially, reflecting the normal seasonal step up into volume higher clients, but also the lowest working day quarter of the year. And we continue to still see as we enter ongoing reluctance in hiring or permanent hiring by clients and talent. On the other hand, operating expenses are expected to increase slightly quarter-over-quarter, but always again, with strict operational discipline. So to summarize, by sustaining our growth momentum, continue to drive productivity from how we run our business and structurally reducing the cost to support it, we are inherently building operational leverage into Randstad.

And that concludes our prepared remarks, and we look forward now to take our questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Andy Grobler from BNPP.

Just the first one on the Netherlands, which was much stronger than it had been. And you talked about Zorgwerk impacting that. But I guess, Zorgwerk is relatively small. Can you just talk through the maths of what has changed and how much of that is due to Zorgwerk? How much of it is the rest of the business, please? And I have one follow-up. Just one. I'll go with that one, but I'll follow up later.

Okay. Well, a good question, Andy. Let me -- I'm going to first say that I think the team in the Netherlands has done an outstanding job in engaging with the clients and managing this -- through this whole situation. So that's phenomenal. We said it was manageable, and it turned out to be manageable. So I think that's very good. So I'm going to ask Jorge to say a few more words about the economics of all this.

Yes. So I would say, Andy, at a very high level, probably the, let's say, step-up from Q4 into Q1, and in this particular in the Netherlands, I'd expect about half of it being connected to the good performance of Zorgwerk health care, I mean, it's not a small company to be clear. And that has also to do, of course, that now this makes part of our organic growth rate. So that's -- as we annualize basically the acquisition of this and the remaining 50% has to do with strong performance in e-commerce and logistics and in general legislation as well, now including the support into Q1.

Follow-up question, Andy?

Just on a slightly different topic, given the rate environment, what are your expectations for finance costs through the remainder of the year, please?

Finance costs . Interesting.

To basically continue down. I mean you can see -- we can see we start the year with already a lower [ FIF ] into the year, and we continue to expect trending net debt down year-over-year, especially towards the second half of the year, as we always have the positive side of operating working capital.

Okay. So that Q1 number is -- we can expect similar levels through the remainder of the year?

Yes. We can expect similar numbers throughout the remaining of the year. Yes.

The next question comes from Remi Grenu from Morgan Stanley. .

Yes, my question would be on the momentum productivity, you're tagging that April was in line with March and I guess with the minus 2.4% in January and your organic growth through the quarter. It probably means that the current run rate is north of 1% organic growth in the later part in terms of exit rate in April. So if you could confirm that? And trying to think about how to how to think about the better momentum that you've experienced in the business and the potential negative from the environment. I'm trying to understand what's your -- what's the base case you're working on internally? Would it be like continued improvement in temp and maybe a little bit of weakness in permanent recruitment? Just a discussion around that, that better..

Thanks, Remi. So first of all, I mean, let me talk about the momentum. I think probably the most important comment is what Sander mentioned in the beginning. The step-up is broader. So it's across -- I think practically all markets have shown a better momentum, if not perhaps Belgium being the exception. The rest all our markets have stepped up. And that -- yes, that sustains our belief, okay. We made a step up. Two, you also see PMIs having improved significantly through -- atleast having been positive in most markets during Q1. So it is, let's say, something that we look at confidence, okay, what is at the basis of IT, at the core of it.

If I look in the quarter, indeed, you will remember when we talked about January, we -- our exit rate was approximately minus 0.4% in January. We had a step-up in February, but I think I'll prefer given the amount of working days and the holidays between 2 months, then you should take step, let's say, Feb and March together. And that will probably bring you, let's say, between 0.5% to 1% as an exit rate. Remember, we say April productivities are in line. We are continuing to take that into Q2. There are adverse comp effects, but we also had them in Q1. So for now, basically, we just take it as it comes, but it gives us confidence into Q2.

Okay. And just to follow up, the discussion on temp versus perm for the outlook. I mean we've heard some of your competitors being a little bit more cautious on permanent recruitment for the next few months. Is it something that you're looking at as well? And any insight from discussion with clients on that side?

Remi, what you probably have at the moment, if you look at the actual absolute amounts invoiced, they are quite stable. What you see is the critical roles are being replaced. When clients will have more confidence and talent to start changing jobs or organizing work with more permanent jobs, we don't know. We also have in the U.S. some green shoots in terms of permanent recruitment, perm. EU is still very weak. Now what I would argue is it's also a context where typically uncertainty will play out for any seasonal work to be primarily absorbed now by more temp or flexible solutions. And that's what we see at the moment.

The next question comes from Rory McKenzie from UBS.

It's Rory here. I wanted to ask about the digital marketplace, which you said did 1.45 million shifts in Q1. I just want to ask a lot more about the context for that number. So how much -- how many shifts did your business deliver in total in the quarter? And also just what kind of shifts are shifting to this marketplace? Is it more short-term one-off covers or are customers using the DMP to change how they staff entire businesses? And also, can you talk about is it changing your impact on the market in terms of new clients? Or is this about wallet share?

Yes. Very good questions, Rory. Let me sort of start from the top. Obviously, this is all about making sure that Randstad supplies or delivers what we call immediate talent availability. We -- I always say to the teams, we need to have the talent already there before the client even knows they need it. So that's one. You can only do that with digital technologies. And that means that in our operational business and our biggest example is, of course, in the U.S. in operational, but we also have marketplaces in health care, in France, in the Netherlands, in Australia. In operational, we are starting or have started in a number of countries, think Canada, also Australia, Japan. So this is becoming a widespread phenomenon and an integral part of our strategy as Randstad. So -- and why do we -- why do clients like this? Our clients like this because they get what they need. So the fulfillment is higher. It's easy to do business with.

In some clients, we are directly connected to their operational system. So the shifts that they cannot fill, they put immediately onto the marketplace. Those shifts are filled within minutes or hours. Generally, 50% to 60% of the shifts is filled within 1 hour, which gives the client confidence that the people will show up. Another benefit for the client is because people have selected those shifts themselves, the no-show rates have basically gone in half, so have reduced by 50%. So there's all goodness in there for the client. For the talent, there's also goodness in there because talent can now decide when and where they work is one. They can do that at the moment as they like, and that's typically in the evening. They don't have to call one of our consultants to talk to that. They can decide by themselves.

So again, the no-show rates increase. So this is clear benefits for clients and talents. Then all those benefits also add up to benefits for Randstad. Higher fill rate is more business. No shows reduced is more business. Fulfill rate up is happier clients, fill rate up is happier talent. Of course, efficiency productivity because there is no human intervention, client types in their own shift, talent selects their own shift. That means 0 marginal cost if there's more demand, meaning ramp-up is a lot easier because we have the talent there. The client decides that they need 10 or 20 people more the next day we put the shifts on the marketplace, it all works. And I'm absolutely convinced that our growth rate in U.S. operational this quarter is driven in part by the fact that we have a digital marketplace because when the market ramps up, you need to be quick. If you have the talent already there, and it's just a matter of filling shifts through the digital marketplace, it's all good.

In terms of what does this mean for our business? So we have 15% of our business now on digital marketplaces, roughly EUR 4 billion. EUR 3 billion of that, you have to think about EUR 3 billion of that is operational and EUR 1 billion of that is in our professional space in Randstad Digital in North America. This year is going to be a year of rollout, so where we start in a number of new markets. I mentioned a few of them already. So that next year, we can scale. So by the end of the year, we're looking at 22% of our business through digital marketplaces. And last but not least, the excitement that this is creating within Randstad is quite phenomenal because our people see that they are differentiated in the marketplace. We have more and more clients saying, we want to do business with Randstad, because you have the digital marketplace. That's easy for us, but it also means it is access to talent because talent lives in the digital world, not in a branch or somewhere else. So it's exciting for our people because we have something new. We have something exciting. We're differentiated, and it works very well. So you can guess I'm really excited about all of this and cannot go fast enough as far as I'm concerned.

Yes. That's a lot of detail and just one follow-up, if I can. It maybe to link this DMP to what you talked about on Slide 8. where you talked about AI in the world of work at a broad level, but maybe not about how AI could reshape the channel of connecting labor demand and supply. Do you think and do you hear that clients are engaging with maybe lots of different digital marketplaces for types of labor or channels? And what do you think happens to the kind of landscape of that labor supply as a result?

Yes, that's a good question. If you add up, Rory, the market share of all digital native companies combined in our space, the numbers that I've seen, they have a combined market share of around 5%, and that's the likes of professional marketplaces, freelance marketplaces and, let's say, operational marketplaces for your waiter or for your nurse. So the digital phenomenon in our industry is still relatively small. And that means there's a massive opportunity for us at Randstad to scale and to take share over time, because not all players will be able to implement a digital marketplace at the scale where we can.

First of all, because it's hard work. But secondly, you meet the expertise. But secondly, it's also big investments. And we are fortunate enough to have a strong balance sheet so we can afford those investments. So it's going to be an interesting time in terms of digitizing the industry.

The next question comes from Simon LeChipre from Jefferies.

Let's take the next one.

Can you hear me?

We were looking for you, but we couldn't hear you.

Sorry. First question on the gross margin for temp. I was a bit surprised to see the performance getting incrementally worse despite the better top line. So can you give us a bit more color on the different moving parts? And what does that mean about the drivers of this better top line?

Thank you, Simon. So I think -- I mean, we had spent some time on Q4. We had already highlighted that we should look basically at the 2 quarters, Q4 and Q1 together. So we actually think our -- let's say, gross margin came in well right in the middle of our expectations and the temp margin as well. So I would say in Q4, we had 40 basis points. If you remember, in Q1, we now have 60. We said it was impacted by incidental items last year between Q4 '24 and Q1 '25. So I will take the underlying run between both about approximately 40 basis points. So -- and the good thing is it came within our expectations, and we now see it basically things stabilizing and many of these movements starting to annualize as we go into the later quarters of the year.

Okay. And a follow-up on Netherlands and obviously, quite a step-up in top line, but it seems like the drop-through was quite weak with margin declining year-on-year. So can you give us the details behind this performance, please?

Yes. If you look at the 4.4%, that's probably quite the run rate also comparing to the last quarters. I just told as well that we had last year incidentals that were particularly in the Netherlands associated with sickness and now basically, we started normalizing for higher sickness rates over the last 2 to 3 years. So I think if we take that into account, I think things are pretty stable in the Netherlands and definitely even [ although ] versus Q4 is slightly up.

The next question comes from Simon Van Oppen.

Could you give us a little bit more color on your working capital in Q1? We saw free cash flow was a negative EUR 100 million versus EUR 60 million last year. And we understand that H1 is usually seasonally light in terms of cash inflow as staffing companies tend to absorb working capital as they grow. But we noticed that DSO increased year-on-year to 57.4 days versus 55 days last year, which is quite a step up, especially since one might assume you're dealing with broadly similar country mix effects as peers who seem to manage to bring DSO down while growing faster. Any thoughts on what's behind the difference would be helpful.

Thanks, Simon. So first of all, I mean, indeed, I mean, the fact that it is negative, I think it's been like EUR 218 million to EUR 219 million to probably [ EUR 220 million to EUR 224 million. ] So it is -- the Q1 is always a quarter heavily impacted by working capital typically investments. And that has to do, as I mentioned earlier on, with all wage taxes payments, VAT, but also commissions, bonus payouts and even especially as we have a lot of software licenses, prepayment of a lot of licenses. So that is the normal, let's say, impact. What we did have this year is we had a higher, let's say, a delay on invoicing in the Netherlands. So that especially compared to last year, takes an impact. In January, we were late by approximately EUR 40 million, EUR 50 million in invoicing, and that spills over into next quarter. That has to do with the implementation here in the Netherlands of the new CLA legislation that is sold. So basically, it will normalize now as we go into the year.

And then if you ask compared to last year as well, you will remember, we had a quite, let's say, low free cash flow generation in Q4 2024. That came primarily because the week -- the end of the year had finished in the weekend. So we've got a lot of, let's say, payments that were late paid into the first days of January last year. So that plays a little bit the comparison versus last year. I think in terms of trajectory for cash, we remain unchanged throughout the year. Now comparing to our competitors, look, DSO is not an established metric. So everyone is their own definition. At the same time, I think what we do see is, of course, our divergence in mix is quite significant. So yes, if we have Italy and Spain outgrowing and growing more than the market, we will play a role in our DSO. But I mean, we see our overdues continuing to decrease. We see credit losses even at historical low moment. So to be honest, I'm quite confident on the DSO -- on the cash trajectory.

The next question comes from Marc Zwartsenburg from ING. .

I would like to ask a question about the margin, regional margins, a couple of regions. So first of all, the Netherlands, you just explained a bit that there is a bit of normalization with sickness rates and that the margin has been lower. But on the other hand, we also have the new regulation in place with better pricing, and we have software doing really well. So maybe a few thoughts on how we should look at the margin going forward for the Netherlands. And if I look then to Region North America, yes, with also weaker enterprise, and the benefits from the digital marketplace, should we expect at some point that you will see quite some positive operational leverage in North America? And then 2 other regions, France and Italy, they are growing very fast, but we don't see a drop-through thing. Maybe explain a bit why that is?

Yes. So first of all, -- if I had a short answer -- good to speak to you, Mark, if I had a short answer, I'll say, yes. So it will be the short one. And what I mean by this is, clearly, I mean, we don't optimize for a quarter. There were a few timing events this quarter. Now as we go from the lowest seasonal quarter of the year into the higher seasonal quarters, Q2, Q3, it's very clear. Countries where we are growing, we're going to deliver operational gearing. That's basically what we can see happening from both, let's say, productivity that Sander alluded to before, plus everything else we've been doing in reducing structural costs. So I'm quite confident, let's say, that we're going to be delivering gearing in the countries where we have growth. On the ones where we're not, we're working hard to basically keep on improving, making them more agile, more resilient and making sure that they may also make a step up. So from that perspective is the short answer.

In the Netherlands, I want to be a little bit clear. The regulation, I mean, from a gross margin perspective, might be dilutive as well. So I wouldn't call it -- I mean, there is a lot of additional costs that have to be passed [ through ] That's the end impact in our margin but let's say, the first pressure will be a dilutive pressure in margin. Now we've also been adjusting our cost base in the Netherlands. You saw the one-offs this quarter primarily related to the Netherlands. So we are also starting to see about how to basically step up in profitability. But for now, I would say this level of profit is as going 4% to 5%.

Yes. And in Italy and Spain, where you're growing so far, what you...

Good point.

So we don't see really operational leverage there.

Yes, I'll say watch this space. So again, I told you there were some timing issues this quarter. In Italy, in particular, we've been investing. We also been -- we had an important marketing campaign this quarter in completing Q1 associated with the Olympics. We've also been investing in our, let's say, the rollout of our platform that Sander just has been describing. In Spain, we can see we continue to add head count year-over-year. So we've been investing and we continue to grow ahead of markets. I'm quite confident these countries will be showing operational gearing throughout the year.

That's very clear. And in U.S., is there any benefit at some point that we should see from the marketplace?

U.S., I think the marketplace has some investments, but as we progress into Q2, the same. Partially, there was an impact on enterprise. We started the year somewhat subdued. Again, we talked about -- Sander talked about pipeline. We talked about client implementations. All in all, if I look ahead, it's about also showing operational gearing.

The next question comes from James Rowland Clark from Barclays.

Two questions, please. On the marketplace that you're just discussing, do you think that's resulting in any new client conversations at this point or simply just better client conversations, more engagement? And then also on a similar topic, can you provide any color as to the profit line benefit from the marketplace at this point in Q1, maybe on an annualized basis, if possible? And then my second question is just on the gross margin that you sort of suggested should ease through the year. I'm just curious as to how you think that plays out because it looks like the lower margin regions in the temp business are set to continue to outperform the higher-margin regions. So just interested in your thoughts there and what it needs -- what you need to see in order for that mix effect to ease substantially?

Thank you very much, James. On the marketplaces, that's absolutely driving new client conversations. And in fact, I'm personally out there with [ Mickey Chen ] and our commercial team in North America to have those client conversations with some of the big logistics companies, some of the big service companies in catering, et cetera. So -- and they all are interested in hearing about what we call the digital talent supply chain because these clients generally are very much into digitization of their business, of their logistics, of their procurement, of their sales to clients, but the talent supply chain is sort of somewhat behind in terms of digitization, and that's what we offer. That means we talked about it, higher fulfillment, but also a lot more transparency, compliance and I would say, analytics and optimization opportunities in that workforce.

So yes, benefits at the high level, and I'll ask Jorge to say a bit more detail, benefits at a high level, higher productivity because we have more employees working per FTE in Randstad. That's definitely one of the major benefits. The other benefit is higher fulfillment because higher fulfillment sooner means more business tomorrow. That's pretty much how that works. I think overall, it's hard to tell at this particular point in time. I will tell you that is a work in progress, and we are -- the team here is working hard on getting more insights into that because we want to start sketching the picture of the new asset, including the economics over the next couple of quarters.

Yes. So James, just putting some numbers to it. I mean you see our fill rate has been, let's say, increasing 1%. This makes a difference in revenue. So it sustains more revenue growth. Our [ EWs per ] FTE, I talked about it at the beginning on my opening, but they are probably now up 6% to 7% year-over-year. We're now starting to prevalidate a lot of, let's say, the talent to talent centers, meaning when our talent advisers need talent, they are faster with clients. There's one point Sander highlight as well that I would like to highlight, if you actually spend time with the teams, redeployment because the beauty of self -- let's say, if you are in the Randstad family and you choose your next shift, your next appointment, your next job, then a lot of the redeployment we consider we have less setup costs in making, let's say, that transition from job to job, which also enables clients to plan better and organize themselves better.

So overall, supportive and especially now as we move into the more, yes, seasonally rich quarters.

Let me break down a little bit because I think it's connected to the question of Simon, your second question, so on the margin. So if I look ahead, we finished Q1, we just talked about it with the temp margin down approximately 60 basis points or delta 80. If we look ahead, we're probably looking more as we can see, 50 basis points year-over-year in Q2. That will mean still 30 to 30 basis points down in Q2. Now remember -- or year-over-year, but remember, it is a seasonal quarter. So clearly, more volume clients trading. It's also a smaller quarter in terms of working days. But I mean, if I compare it to Q1, where I would say it's probably about 45 basis points plus 15 FX. The other impact here is we start analyzing FX. So this should now start stabilizing at 30 to 40 basis points. We still expect 10 basis points negative from HRS. So the volume in RPO is still weak. I mean, not strangely if you look at what's happening in perm, though we are counting on some new clients being activated as well, so to be seen. And perm remains -- I mean, for now, we have 10 basis points, but remains a bit of the wildcard in the equation. So overall, let's say, from the 80 today, we're now looking at 50. And then as we continue throughout the year, what is also obviously some of the bigger shifts we talked about, geographic shifts, client shifts, yes, this basically start annualizing. So basically start reducing throughout the year.

Our next question comes from Virginia Montorsi from Bank of America.

Just a quick one. Is there anything worth flagging in the quarter that has either surprised you or performed in a way that you didn't expect that you think it's worth keeping in mind? Or did everything kind of play out according to your expectations if we think about beginning of the year to where we are now?

Yes. I'm thinking deeply Virginia, it's a good question, but I'm afraid the answer is no. No. Let's say, we set out -- we said there was going to be a step-up in the quarter in last call, and that's what's happened. Of course, you have always a put and a take here and there, but nothing major to report here.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Konrad Zomer from ABN AMRO, ODDO BHF.

A question on your productivity. You've made good progress over the last few quarters, and you're on the verge of actually capturing some operating leverage again. How much revenue growth do you think you could potentially achieve in the second half of this year if you were to decide to keep your headcount stable? Is that 1% or 2% or maybe 5%, particularly given what you are doing with AI and your digital marketplace?

Konrad, good to speak to you. I'll say, first of all, I mean, second half of the year, you know the 6-week rule. First and foremost, I think we feel confident with the capacity we have now to support already the seasonal next big quarter, which is Q2. So I mean, we don't expect FTE investments to cope with that. And even in terms of investments that we make are more surgical about growth segments where we say we are clearly missing out opportunity if we don't invest in. Looking into Q2, we're quite comfortable in terms of capacity. Now Q3 and Q4 typically hang around the level. I mean, it depends. If growth really accelerates, we may need to look at it. Now what I have basically been saying for a few quarters is if I look at where we are ahead, we're deploying our strategy, both, let's say, on ability to structurally quarter after quarter, adding up another quarter of recovery ratio. So accumulated always 4 quarters close to 60%, 70%. That plays out in decline, but I also clearly see it playing out in scalability and growth. So basically counting on now much more scalability and gearing as we come back to growth.

Thank you. And with that, I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Sander van't Noordende, for any closing remarks. Mr. Sander van't Noordende, go ahead.

Thank you, Barton, and thank you all for joining the call today. And as we wrap up the call, I mean, our people are doing a fantastic job day in, day out, and I would like to thank our more than 600,000 talent and Randstad team members for their hard work as they are truly the best team in the industry. Thank you. .

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It' 10 a.m., so I propose that we open this meeting. Welcome. I'm Cees ´t Hart. I Chair the Supervisory Board, and I'm pleased to open this Annual General Meeting of Shareholders and welcome you all. I'm also pleased to welcome those following this meeting online.

Today, all members of the Executive Board are present. From left to right, they're seated at the table, our COO, Jesus Echevarria; our CHRO, Myriam Beatove, CFO; Jorge Vazquez and our birthday boy, Sander van 't Noordende. And we hope that you'll join us for coffee on his behalf. I'm not going to sing happy birthday because I'm not sure what the result would be, but welcome, but welcome Sander van 't Noordende on behalf of the Supervisory Board, alongside myself. From left to right, the Audit Committee Chair, Laurence Debroux, the Remuneration Committee Chair, Annet Aris and Jeroen Drost. The other members of the Supervisory Board are attending the meeting online. Also with us this morning is

Also with us this morning is Jacobina Brinkman from the accountancy firm,PricewaterhouseCoopers at 2D adoption of the 2025 financial statements. She'll be happy to answer questions concerning the financial statements. Previous -- prior to this, she'll deliver a brief explanation about the annual audit process and the auditor's report. We also have with us the Company Secretary, Jelle Miedema, who I hereby appoint as Secretary of the meeting and will first explain some procedural matters.

Jelle, you have the floor.

Thank you, Cees. Good morning. You can attend this meeting in Dutch and in English. Simultaneous interpretation is provided to this end, and the presentation on the screen in the room and online will be in English. This meeting was convened on 11 February of this year, and all meeting documents were posted on our website that day. Shareholders may also attend the meeting online via the website, abnimro.com/evoting and ask questions via the chat function. To this end, they received a login following registration.

Shareholders have also been given the opportunity to submit voting instructions in advance either via the ABN AMRO website or via IQ-EQ Financial Services. Prior to the meeting, shareholders had the opportunity to submit questions and Humidian and the VBDO used this option.

And we have also discussed their questions in detail with both organizations. We will not be voting after addressing each agenda item today, but the vote will remain open on all agenda items throughout the meeting and will be closed after Item 8b. And after that, I will tell you the voting results. I will tell you the number present at the meeting later on as well as the number of votes represented.

The meeting is recorded and broadcast live via the website, including a video recording. The draft minutes of the meeting will be made available within 3 months. And after that, they will remain on the website for 3 months for your comments. And after 3 months, the Chair and I will adopt them.

Now back to you, Cees.

Thank you, Jelle. And we will now proceed to Item 2, the report from 2025. At this agenda item, we will be discussing 2a, the report from the Executive Board, including the sustainability report and the report from the Supervisory Board for 2025 at 2b, the highlights of the corporate governance structure and compliance with the corporate governance code for 2025; 2C, the remuneration report for 2025; 2D, the proposal to adopt the 2025 financial statements; 2E, the explanation corresponding to the reservation dividend policy; and 2F, the regular dividend for the 2025 financial year.

First, I'm pleased to give the floor to Sander, who will deliver a presentation about the general course of events in 2025. And after that, he will hand over to Jorge, who will discuss the financial course of events and other items stated. Birthday Boy, you have the floor.

Thank you, Cees. And it's good to see all of you here again today. Of course, I received some messages congratulating me this morning and everybody wished me a good day. And I said, well, we have our shareholders' meeting today. So today will certainly be a good day. Once again, this year, as Randstad, we did excellent work, I would say. And we achieved an impact on people's work and work figures prominently in people's lives.

And we're proud that this year, once again, we placed over 1.7 million people all over the world in jobs daily, about 560,000 people work with our clients at Ranstand. And if you think about that, that's roughly the population of Amsterdam. If you multiply that by the average household size of 2.5 million, then as Randstad, we're basically supporting about 1.5 million people via our talents, and we served over 150,000 clients in 2025, and we trained 530,000 people in 2025.

Customers and talents are satisfied and both customer and talent satisfaction. Our average score is 8. So overall, we can and are proud of what we have done at Randstad in 2025. And what we also did in 2025 is celebrating 65 years of Randstad. And this sheet reflects a few impressions from the festivities. At the bottom right, you see the Netherlands.

At the bottom right, you see Spain and Japan, if I'm correct, and that was a global celebration because 65 years ago, Frits Goldschmeding on the back of his bicycle brought our first temp person to the first customer and then expanded Randstad to a global company, of course, with our core values of knowing, serving and trusting know your customer and know your talent, serve your customer and your talent and trust, build trust with your customer and your talent and aim for perfection and protect the simultaneous interest of all Randstad stakeholders.

So in that respect, Fritz was well ahead of this day and set up a magnificent company. And of course, 65 years is a very special birthday, very special anniversary. And of course, we had a great celebration, and we also told each other, well, to make that happen together. So in that respect, it was a nice year of connecting. In April, we organized a capital markets event for our shareholders.

And some of you may have noticed that you noted a summary video play for you to give you a general impression of what we discussed with our shareholders and our analysts.

[Presentation]

The summary of the video very briefly is that we have a clear strategy. We have evidence that our strategy works at scale. And you saw our market, Marc-Etienne, who is in charge of the United States for us. We've got EUR 2 billion on the health care platform, and we have EUR 8 billion revenue on various platforms. In digital, we have EUR 2.3 billion on the platform. So altogether, about 15% in the new Randstad model.

Now moving on to the next slide. At the same time, we face a unique market situation. We faced some adversity in recent years and the graphs that I plotted on this slide explain why that happened. On the left graph, you see that in 2022, the number of temps in the U.S. economy of the total number of employees was 2.1%. Nowadays, it's about 1.5%, which means that over 1/4 of the market has dissipated in recent years. So the industry is cyclical.

As you see in the graph, this has happened before, especially during the financial recession and during COVID, which -- what makes today's situation unique is that in 2008, we had 6 consecutive quarters of a downward market. In 2020, those were 2 or 3 quarters in which the market declined and then rapidly rebounded. But what makes this situation from recent years different than what we've been -- and what makes it unique is that from mid-2022, so nearly 12 or 13 quarters consecutively, the market has been declining. The good news is that the market is stabilizing. So we do see some improvement at present. 50% of Randstad is growing. That's good news.

One year ago, it was 25%. And of course, we're working hard to make the 25% into 50% and then 75% and then 80% to 90% growth. So that's the challenge. The market has been extremely challenging. The graph at the right indicates how many people are recruited by companies in terms of permanent staff. You see that the number of permanent hirings, and that's also an important branch RPO recruitment process, outsourcing and permanent hiring are all under pressure. The context for this is that simultaneously with introducing our strategy and our transformation, we're coping with this.

Now on the next page, you see something about the challenges that we faced in recent years and still face today. When the market declines and Randstad is known for this, we adapt the organization. to give you an impression. And last year, we had -- we reduced our annual operating cost by EUR 600 million. That's a substantial amount. At our peak in 2022, we employed 48,000. Today, we have 38,000 employees. So we adapt the organization to ensure that we have enough people to meet market demand.

Next, digitization. You just saw on the video how that happens. We're busy implementing platforms where customers and talents can interact directly so that there's -- the customer always gets what he or she wants and talent has the flexibility to decide when and where he or she wants to work. At the same time, we're harmonizing our core systems because if you want to provide a good digital experience, you also need to structure your core systems properly, preferably on a global platform that's.

Standardized all over the world. So that's another exercise. And in recent years, to give you an impression in numbers, we have invested about EUR 150 million per annum in new technology. And we did that to position Randstad for the future and to ensure that in 5, 10 and 15 years, Randstad remains relevant in the world of work and jobs. And the third challenge that came our way in the past 1.5 years, and you heard one of our staff members mention this on the video, of course, that's artificial intelligence. And we are introducing AI in various parts of the process.

Many segments before somebody goes to work can be supported or even implemented by AI. But in our internal operations, in finance at our mid-office and our HR department, we can operate more efficiently and more effectively by implementing AI. So that's Randstad's third challenge.

Now I'll briefly update you on where we stand since April because, of course, we did not stop working in April. We continued. So on to the next slide. And I'll plot the 5 pillars of our strategy, growth through specialization.

We're firmly convinced that specialization is extremely important to serve customers and talent in the best possible way. It finding a nurse and placing that nurse in a job is entirely different from doing that for a software developer or a logistics service provider. So we have deployed those different branches in Randstad to ensure that the specialized teams work with the specialized buyers and customers. And we focus our specialization on our growth segments, which are now total a combined EUR 9 billion in revenue and are growing.

In addition, we need to take good care of our talent and equity, 1.7 million talent placed, 8.1 million is our talent satisfaction score, and we need talent to feel at home at Randstad, and we need talent to understand that they'll benefit from the current and the next job as well as that they receive training and can network with Kindred spirits. So that's why for each specialization, we have deployed community talent, and that's very much appreciated by our temp staff and talent.

Next, delivery excellence. I always say that delivering what you promise is Randstad's best market because if you promise your customers and talent and keep those promises, then the customer is happy to talk about more. And if you don't keep your promise to your talent, then your customer wants to talk with you about how you're going to solve that.

And we have a state-of-the-art way to do that increasingly recruiting talent happens primarily online nowadays. The talent addresses social media and Internet. So that's where we find our talent. And sometimes they approach us via WhatsApp or e-mail or even by telephone. And we increasingly do this at what we call talent centers.

In this building, there's a talent center for all of the Netherlands where all talents for our operational specializations such as bicycle careers, ball.com. They are founded and recruited in this building and presented to the customer or the branch or for other people related to the customer to get to work. We also have delivery centers and a delivery center is one team that addresses all retail customers in a country with various sites or addresses a single large customer to ensure that, that customer receives the best possible service.

Some of that work may happen locally, so here in the Netherlands or in the United States. But increasingly, some of that work is performed at our global delivery centers in India, Budapest and Latin America. Next, the Randstad talent platform. I said EUR 4 billion revenue in digital marketplace is about 15% of our revenue. We'll continue rolling that out. Each year, 6 million shifts are selected by talent who say, I want to work there at those times, and that's about 500,000 a month. That's a huge number. And as I just said, we're rolling out our Randstad talent platform.

Next, we always say we're the best team in the industry and 75% of our employees are now on a specialized career trajectory. So they focus specifically on finance, on skilled trade, on digital skills. And we have quite a few new leaders in our business that we recruited for specializations that we did not feature explicitly yet, and our employee engagement score is 7.7. So our employees are satisfied and that exceeds the benchmark in our industry.

Now moving on to our next slide. Oh, I see there is no longer a next slide. To sum it up again, we have a clear strategy, and we know that, that strategy works, and we know that it works to scale. The main challenge at present in Randstad is to continue rolling out that strategy with rigor and discipline and focus. Jorge and I regularly visit shareholders, and they ask us all kinds of questions. But one of the most intriguing questions that I was asked recently when we were in New York was what is least known about Randstad?

And my answer was we need to do a better job to tell you as our shareholders about our digital strategy and its benefits, and we need to quantify them. So we need to crunch those numbers for you, and we have a lot of work to do there. Another less well-known piece of information is that at Randstad because we place people in jobs with experienced abilities, we send people to jobs. And at the end of the day, they receive their pay. And that's a complex matter. And ultimately, that's a huge differentiator for us on the market. And it also makes it difficult to access our industry. So we have an underappreciated differentiator that is not always noticed on the market.

I just wanted to share that one with you as well. Now what are our plans for the coming period? Of course, we're entirely focused on growth. We have told our shareholders in our conference call about a month back that we are basically on a plateau scenario. And the January figures augured modest growth. So that was caused for optimism. We'll continue with our talent families, and we'll make sure that we take good care of those talents because talent is becoming increasingly scarce.

And I believe that whoever offered the best talent will have an edge on the market. We'll continue delivery excellence, and we'll continue scaling our Randstad talent platform, including artificial intelligence. And of course, we'll remain the best team. But as I say, the best team is increasingly complemented by AI, which means our 38,000 staff are trained in AI, and we ask them, look at how you do your work, what you do every week, what you do every month, what you do quarterly and how can AI support you in doing that work.

And wherever I go, I hear wonderful stories about how AI is being applied in contact with talent in formatting resumes in drafting job description. These are relatively simple tasks and AI is able to provide a major contribution fairly straightforwardly to ensure that we do a better and more efficient job for our customers. So we're on track, and we're going to continue along this course with our partner for talent strategy.

Good to see everyone. Good morning. Let me pick a few highlights. So Sander was clear we had probably now the longest decline in Randstad's history. That's basically the context in which we operated in 2025. But there's, I think, 2, 3 important remarks from, let's say, a financial performance perspective that I think speak for 2025, but also speak for 2026 and what's likely to come from our strategy.

One is growth. So clearly, a decline. We did not have the growth we were planning for. At the same time, it's a different 2025 than it was in 2024 and 2023. We have growth in the United States in our operational business. That's almost half of our company in the United States. We have growth in digital -- Randstad Digital in the United States. We have continued to see growth in Spain. We continue to see growth in Italy. We continue to see growth in Japan. We continue to see growth in Eastern Europe.

We continue to see growth in Latin America and many other parts. At the same time, for the third year in a row, we also see challenges here in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and France. But that's basically the context in which we come into 2026 and more a little bit about that later. The second one, and clearly, it's the fourth box there on the slide. We are in decline. So that means we need to do everything we can, both short term, but also not sacrificing medium and long term to protect our profitability. And in that, normally, we refer to that, remember, as adaptability.

This year on the third year of decline was 71% -- and that is a number that is important to highlight because if we double-click on that, as you remember from talking many years together, normally, the ratio we can manage at Randstad and we strive for is this 50% mark. So this means are we able to basically protect x percent of our profit or the impact of less revenue and less gross profit in our profit.

And this year, the 7% comes with a lot of difficult decisions, but there is one important difference from previous years is that the many changes that we do and Sander just explained from delivery excellence are enabling Randstad now in many of our markets where we are rolling out our strategy at pace to actually work smarter and to be able to do more with less and to be able to help our recruiters, our consultants, our talent advisers to achieve more with their efforts.

The second point is also on the remaining part of our cost base, and we talked a lot about that in our Capital Markets event. I'm also in a way, happy to see that Randstad has taken the opportunity to become a leaner company as we step into 2026. So being able to basically look on how to optimize itself and free up capacity to actually fund growth and invest in growth and invest in our capabilities. The third point apart from growth and adaptability is what we call capital discipline.

I'll talk more about that later. Strong cash flow generation. But more important to me, what that means is we're able to invest where we felt it was logical to invest. We were able to invest in skilled trades, invest in health care in many different markets, invest in engineering and not only in that, but also invest where, let's say, organically, we believe a lot of our strategic IT investments are needed. And more about that later as well, not only invest, but also take the opportunity in 2025 to reduce our debt and our leverage ratio.

Now if we look in 2026 and Sander already alluded to it, a few important points. So clearly, further stability. we are in April, so we are almost in April. We can't talk a lot about what we see, but we spoke about January. We see stability more on growth in more than 50% of our business in our markets. We see clearly operational stabilizing and in growth, and we see the remaining 50% either improving or starting to annualize very difficult comparables. But it's also true that we live in a world that if we think we are done with uncertainty, it keeps on surprising us, I would say, almost every second week.

So clearly, macro and geopolitical uncertainty are elevated. So the same attention that we had in 2025, we need to remain very clear that, that is absolutely critical in terms of adaptability into 2026.

Also, I think important to highlight, these levels of uncertainty, together with fears of AI and, let's say, the deflationary potential impact it can have in our industry or in many other industries have had an impact on both on the pressure and the volatility of our share price. And as a result, our move out of the AX is something that is definitely regrettable. But our focus remains the same, position Randstad to capture growth through specialization centered on, that's growth, and we are going for it, continue to build the best team and the best talent service models and continue to operate a smarter and leaner Randstad.

Financially, that means investing in growth, investing in the best propositions that the industry has and building structural scalability, make Randstad a a more scalable company so that we can grow and we can build more leverage and value in line with our mission. But let me double-click a little bit on our P&L and just put some numbers into the concrete 2025 performance. So the top line, we talked about it, EUR 23.1 billion. You see the decline of 2%, 2.5%. But clearly, we also talked about it.

Sander showed 2 graphs. We showed what was happening in terms of the contingency side of the business. And there, as we just said, we see much more resilience. So in many of our clients, when they now look about the flexibility and how to plan for work in what they need throughout the year, they're coming from Randstad, and we see a strong start of the year when it comes to our contingency and flexibility solutions. On the other hand, our permanent hiring, and that's basically a global phenomenon at the moment, the labor markets are stuck.

So permanent hiring and everything we do for permanent hiring is extremely, extremely down this year. Now that has an impact, as you can see on our gross profit and our gross margin because permanent hiring typically comes at very high percentages, 100% fee. And therefore, what we are managing is a minus 5% reality because that's the gross profit that's our net revenue. Now in that context, what probably I'm pleased to see from a responsibility perspective is that our operating expenses have matched that 5%.

And as I just said, that met for not only because a lot of effort, but because structurally, Randstad is changing and we see the benefits of our strategy while still protecting a high investment agenda in our IT systems and where we want to grow. This resulted for an EBITDA of EUR 720 million, which is exactly the 3.1% we had in 2024. Now for that, we also incurred, as you can see on line below, EUR 125 million of integration costs and one-offs and unsurprisingly, primarily in the markets where we've been facing more challenges.

So Northern Europe, Western Europe and primarily Central European countries. If we keep going down the P&L or the income statement, -- let me see that, as always, we an annual goodwill impairment test. And this year, we had a noncash goodwill impairment of EUR 9 million, specifically for our digital business or Randstad Digital business in Belgium. Now looking at the financing cost or the net finance costs, we see a normalization of EUR 79 million. Remember, last year, we recorded here the substantial fair value adjustments on the loans write-downs recognized with the joint venture.

And also to be fair, while we committed significant financial effort last year and again this year and strategic focus over the years, the insolvency of the joint venture was also realized in mid-2025. Our effective tax rate for the full year landed at 30.9%, very well within the range we provide. And therefore, our adjusted net income for holders of ordinary shares reached EUR 442 million. This number is important because it plugs into our capital allocation policy and into our dividend proposal this year.

Our free cash flow, as I mentioned before, improved to EUR 598 million, almost EUR 600 million, and our net debt and leverage ratio reduced to and 1.3x, respectively. With this in mind, let's turn to Slide 22, which contains our shareholder return proposal.

As always, I highlight our capital allocation policy has 3 goals: one, as we just mentioned repeatedly, first and foremost, organic growth investments. There's nothing better in terms of allocation of cash for Randstad than growth through our own business. Second, ensure always a strong balance sheet; and third, ensure solid shareholder returns. In terms of organic growth investments, Sander alluded to it, we continue to invest in our growth segments, health care, logistics, skill trades and clearing and also in our strategic transformation.

In terms of the balance sheet, I mentioned it before, the cash generated this year helped in reducing our leverage and our net debt. And in terms of shareholder returns, our dividend policy is very clear. It's embedded in our capital allocation policy, as you can see on the right-hand side of the slide. And our dividend policy targets a payout ratio of 40% to 50% of our adjusted net income with a conditional floor if the 40% to 50% do not get to that level of EUR 1.62 per share.

As this year floor exceeds that particular threshold for 2025, we are proposing, therefore, the floor dividend of EUR 1.62 per ordinary share. Remember, we also have preference shares and the proposed payment on the pref B and D shares totals EUR 8.2 million. Pending approval today, this and the ordinary dividend will be paid in April 2026. But turning also to another part of our year, broader sustainability statements.

And I'd like to say I'm pleased we talked significantly about it last year. I'm pleased to submit our second year, let's say, of sustainability statements in accordance with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, CSRD, for many here in the room. I also want to be clear, this is the second one in accordance to our CSRD. And at the same time, Randstad, and we've discussed this many times in the past, is at its core, managing on much broader impact than just financials. Sander alluded started the presentation. It's a long-term reporting basically on impact and on sustainability.

For us, purpose and sustainability are drivers of long-term resilience, one hand, walk in hand with the other. And what I have here on this chart, and important this because we have, let's say, the material topics on light blue, you can see them there, the 5 plus 6 is net zero, but you also have how we look at it. So from a sustainability strategy of Randstad, we basically pursuing 3 core outcomes: partnering for fair and work partnering with integrity and partnering for a better planet.

And I find important because all these material topics, find a home, find a place, find a discussion in Randstad through our sustainability strategy. Now important in 2025, remember, 2024 was basically a small update, a small refresh. But 2025, we had to do a full comprehensive refresh of our double materiality assessment.

And we prioritized 5 key material topics. So those are the first in light blue there, as you can also read in our annual report. And it will not be surprising to you that once again, from all the interviews, all the external and internal input that we received, social ESG still is the one pillar that we feel will make a difference. Business ethics, you see there as well and the importance of digital technology, like Sander just alluded to it, are key topics for us now in terms of governance G.

Now one area that received a lot of questions last year in terms of environment. And I want to make it clear, -- albeit not strictly a significant material topic compared to the other ones. For us, for our teams, for our people, when I travel, when I talk to people, there is one thing that is very important. It's our progress to net zero in 2050, and we continue to report on that. Albeit not being necessarily what we call accordingly strictly to CSRD, a material topic.

And finally, to wrap up, 2, 3 important 2025 specific governance remarks. This was the first year of our new auditor, PwC. And there's always a good opportunity to learn, to test, to challenge, to reconsider our processes, to relook at our control framework, and it has been very good to work together.

Our second point, our governance framework remains a cornerstone of our strategy. So as such, we have operated in full accordance with the Dutch Corporate Governance Code and our internal risk management and control systems are now effective in that respect, ensuring that they support our strategy and sustainable growth for.

And pleased also to see that as part of CSRD and as part of how we evolve our sustainability statements, as I'm sure you had a chance to read, we're also subject not only to the normal internal assurance, but also to the external assurance from the auditor. And that concludes my prepared remarks, Ceec. Thank you.

Thank you very much. After this extensive introduction, I suggest we proceed to agenda Item 2a, the report of the Executive Board, including the sustainability report and the report of the Supervisory Board for the financial year 2025. And I'm referring Pages 6 to 126 of the annual report. So I will give you the floor. You can ask questions. [Operator Instructions]

Mr. Stephens.

Mr. Chairman. To start, I would like to thank your staff for everything they have accomplished their performance this year, particularly the recruiters. I understand that they've pretty hard. I have some questions about ESG and the new law on temporary workers, taxes worldwide, working capital and the necessary recovery.

Let me start. start with working capital. I think that was the most striking thing. I haven't realized this. I -- the Secretary who gave me a microphone just said that he'd worked here for 33 years. And then I realized that I've been attending the AGMs for 32 years. And so it was a mid-cap at the time. I hadn't realized that.

So I didn't know any better. I just thought it was -- the shares were listed at the AEX. But then I looked at the share price and how that developed. Well, nothing to write home about. But it's better than at manpower. So I can tell you that I have quite a bit of experience with manpower, but it's rubbish. Working capital. A couple of years ago, I asked some questions about that. You pay out on a weekly basis. And if temporary workers want, they can be paid out once a month, but you send out your invoices later. And it takes a while for clients to pay.

What strikes me is that there's an increasingly big gap between the 2 payment times. What are you going to do to reduce the gap? Because, well, cash is an issue and the first half year is always tricky because holiday payments need to be made. So I'd like to hear a bit more about your DSO days. And then if we look at turnover or revenue, 5% is what I see of working capital. We think that that's not a lot. And we also think that market recovery would be important.

Well, you said quite a few things about that, but we would like to have more details. Something else that I've been hearing for 32 years is that we need to move from general to specialized services. But if I look at the graphs, we're still at the bottom of the market, the bottom end of the market and digitization, you talked about that. Something else that strikes us is that the number of employees doesn't -- isn't declining as fast as temporary workers.

So how can AI help you to achieve more productivity? And then Scope 1, 2 and 3 Don't you think we should pull the plug here because I think it's useless. Europe left, Brazil, shamefully. And if I look at the food, we don't want Dutch food products anymore. I talked to an auction director in [indiscernible] Zal pomoand it's a disaster. Runner beans come from Senegal, blueberries from Peru. So we tend to opt for food stuffs from abroad. So I'm thinking how to deal with ESG. And then the new law on temporary workers. I'm a member of a professional association, and I read the report. How are you going to implement all of that?

Because I'm thinking -- well, yes, you'll have to do the math to sort it. What about the bank holidays and a temporary worker is actually nowadays, the same thing as a permanent employee. So -- and then somewhere, I read about the worldwide tax rates. I think there's a bit of a problem here because we're living in a world of stiff competition. And we would like the different countries to compete more with each other and also in terms of taxes so that you can choose for yourself where to pay your taxes. And that way, you get more efficient governments. Well, that concludes my question so far or our questions so far.

Thank you Mr. Steve. Thank you very much for your detailed questions. I suggest that we cluster a couple of questions, Jorge. First of all, the working capital.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

There was something I'll use also with our sales teams because it's an important point. So it is working capital in 2025 has particularly come down. So if you look from 2024 to 2025. But the reality is Randstad is today a company that is at the moment, in this moment in the cycle, we have a lot of larger clients. So yes, in particular, the payment terms and the DSO side of the equation is higher.

But we continue to do everything we can to optimize our total working capital. So as an example, you made a very good remark about your process to invoice or how expedited are you? So that's the payment term component. And yes, there is a pressure from clients, from -- in general, the world we live in. At the same time, there is still a lot of opportunity and for a lot of, let's say, the process we are optimizing in addressing our time to invoice and make sure that, for instance, with new systems, we invoice right the first time, and there's a lot of effort in optimizing the working capital. The first step was this year -- the point is Randstad has a balanced tax approach.

We publish always next to our annual report, our tax report, and we've been doing this now for a few years. The principle is very simple where we create value, where we create value in the market, then it's where we should we should tax. We always guide for a quite stable tax rate. And that's the rate as well that we stick for 2026.

Thank you. On withSander. Market recovery, specialization and it. First of all, the market, perhaps, as I said in my introduction, 50% of Randstad is growing right now. So that means that the market has already recovered there. And if we then look at where that's happening in Southern Europe, Italy and Spain. That's where it is. And so between 5% and 10% growth is what we're achieving there. And the United States and is also growing. So we see that the market in those countries has already recovered.

So where are the challenges? Our challenges are located in the heart of Europe, Germany, France, Netherlands markets for us, as you know. So we're doing everything we can in order to make sure that we visit our clients as often as possible and do the best possible job. But we also depend on what's going on in the economies.

Germany is a matter of waiting for the big chunk of money, the investments in infrastructure, investments in defense, for instance, and similar dynamics is what we see in France, the Netherlands and Belgium, I would venture to say. And how that will pan out? Well, that's very difficult to say. The market seems to stabilize. That's our feeling.

And another issue is, of course, the conflicts in the Middle East. Now that doesn't help our clients in general. And if this continues for a longer period of time, that will have an impact on the amount our clients sell or produce and transport, and that obviously will have an impact on us. And so we hope that there will soon be an agreement in the Middle East so that the world economy can proceed in a positive way, to put it that way. Specialization. You highlighted that about 2/3 of our business in Randstad is in Randstad operational and you characterize it as the bottom of the market.

I wouldn't put it that way. It's an excellent sector. We are market leaders worldwide, and we do so very efficiently. And it's also a very profitable activity for us, a very profitable operation in Randstad. And then, of course, we have the professional digital specialization and also enterprise teams that work with large clients in terms of recruitment and workforce is at scale and to manage all that for our clients.

So the specialization strategy will remain. It's very important. It all depends on how the demand develops in the different areas and how we invest in the different specializations and how growth will develop there. Now as far as digitization is concerned, digitization really certainly helps in increasing productivity in our most digital operation. This is a company here in the Netherlands that we acquired recently.

So productivity is two or threefold the productivity in our traditional business. So we have the potential, absolutely. And Jorge actually already said that. If the market declines, obviously, we have to reduce our cost, but we can't do that at the same pace as the gross profit declines. So that's why we're focusing on the 50% to 70%. And that really explains the number of employees, the number of FTEs. That is not entirely up to scratch. The productivity is really not at the level it should be. So we need to work harder at that.

Sander, thank you. The new law on temporary workers. Vazquez us, could you say something about that?

Well, I'm going to split my answer into 2 big blocks. One is about the process, what is the law, what is the impact and how we manage the situation. And the other thing is about what's going to be the impact of the law in the market. Talking about the law itself. Well, the law at the end of the day, because we had premium pensions, we have a new -- a completely equal pay with the CLAs in the industry, and that brings that the salaries are going to be increased in average.

This is what is very relevant between 10%, 11%. I say in average because it's depending on the customer industry, CLA, whatever it can be 5%, it can be 20%. So that was a challenge. So we had 4 big blocks in order to organize the work is to understand perfectly from the legal point of view, what are the obligations for Randstad.

The second thing was to talk to the customers and to share with them what are the new obligations that we are going to be obliged to work with and to apply in our customers. That was a very tough and military work done for maybe from September to December.

And then we start with the challenges. It was a technical challenge also because we need to change all the systems. We need to have more people to know exactly what is going to be the impact of this new law in each one of the CLAs in each one of the customers. Luckily, this is done. The technical challenge has been fixed. We have been having all the conversations with the customers.

And then the fourth one in this process, in all the process is the commercial conversations with customers. because not every customer is very happy if you increase the cost by 10%, 11%. average, some customers is going to be 11%. So right now, from the technical point of view, we have done everything. All our obligations are in place. It has been hard. We have to invest in tech and in people in order to be on time because that was mandatory from January 1.

So the first week of the year, we pay with a new low, obviously. And right now, we are closing our commercial conversations with the customer. The process is almost done. There's still some negotiations pending, but it's more or less, I would say, completely in control. There are some large customers still pending if we can translate the cost -- the margin increase into the customer.

So this is process-wise. Then the second big question would be what's going to be the impact of this new labor law in the market? Is the market going to be impacted by the new labor law? Well, at this moment, we haven't seen any difference between the Q4 or Q3, Q4 and Q1 performance in the Netherlands. We are more or less with the same volumes. I would share with you that we don't have customers buying our services because they don't need that or because they are cheap.

Any customer that is asking for talent is because they need some talents to do the work. The experience that we have in other European countries, 3, 4 years ago, we had a similar labor change in Spain with the outsourcing business. And what we saw is that the impact in the volumes wasn't impacted. So too early to say that it is not going to be impacting the volume in the Netherlands. But what we see is that today, there is no impact in the volume and process-wise, everything has been done in the proper way.

Thank you all for. Thank you. And questions on ESG and stopping Scope 1, 2 and 3, well, that is out of our control. As you know, that is to be addressed at a European level. So I think we should leave it at that. Thank you for your questions. Let's proceed to the next question, Marc Zwartsenburg.

I'm Luca [ Ros. ] I'm here on behalf of the Association of Investors for Sustainable Development. And we would like to ask some questions about the sustainability report that was in your annual report. And I'm going to ask my questions in English. I'll read them out in English, if that's all right with you.

The first question concerns living wage as, "One of the most active advocates in the industry for protecting labor rights and ensuring people everywhere have access to fair and decent jobs that provide living wages". Randstad has executed living wage pilots in Poland and India and has developed a road map in 2024, which the VBDO very much applauds. However, little information is publicly accessible about these projects, and VBDO sees great value in transparency and knowledge sharing between peers and sectors and think that it would also suit Randstad's role as one of the world's most active advocates on this topic.

Think of how to engage with suppliers, on how to convince them to participate in such pilots, which methodology has been used, et cetera. So we would like to ask you whether Randstad would consider making these learnings publicly accessible or accessible for other industry members. And apart from knowledge sharing, the VBO would also encourage Randstad to share the interim targets and milestones that are part of the road map and report on the progress. So the question is, would Randstad be willing to start reporting on this in the next annual report?

The second question is related to the CSRD. And VBDO has seen that Randstad indeed has put significant steps towards adhering to the CSRD reporting requirements. And an important part of this is stakeholder engagement. In 2025, we saw that Randstad has diversified the methods applied for stakeholder engagement and besides surveys also engaged with stakeholders through dialogue. But it remains a bit unclear which topics are exactly discussed with specific stakeholder groups and what concrete insights have derived from those engagements and how those insights, again, have been taken along in the process of, for example, the double materiality assessment.

On Page 84 of the annual report, it's, for example, visualize that in the last phase of the DMA the prioritization and the concluding of which topics were material was solely done by the Executive Board. So the questions are, will Randstad in its next annual report provide more insight into the topics that have been discussed with different stakeholder groups and how their specific interests have been considered?

And especially regarding the stakeholder category society, it remains a bit too unclear for us which parties are considered to be NGOs. And we would like to encourage Randstad to publish a list of the NGOs that have been taken along in the engagements.

Thank you very much. Miriam, would you mind to talk about Live alone?

Yes. Thank you. I will start, and then on the CSRD reporting, Jorge may add also some points. So on the living wage to start with. First of all, we remain actively engaged, obviously, with living wage, both for talent and for our employees, as you said. We have indeed a plan that we started to share, I think, in the last AGM, or 2 years ago. In terms of the talent, we work on AOE and employees. We count on the AOE definition that will be issued, we expect in the course of this year, and that was what shared also in the last AGM. We will apply definitely the definition of the calculation based on that.

But in the meantime, obviously, we are taking actions for talent, particularly we comply 100% with the local minimum wages in all the countries where we operate. And we also actively participate in social dialogue for collective agreements. In addition to that, as you mentioned, we have started pilots in some countries, in a couple of countries and with some large clients who some of them appreciated the transparency and the openness and the productivity of us reaching out to them, partnering on that topic.

On the employees, as I said last time, tech is absolutely important for us if you want to do debt calculation and really reliable and auditable calculation or assessment on living wage and the equity, actually. So the tech road map was mentioned also in the last AGM. I'm pleased to say that in the meantime, we have progressed and we have completed the first phase of the work implementation in 3 main countries: Spain, India, and Switzerland. So that is definitely part of the road map that we continue to follow.

And as I said, we are now looking forward to the AOE definition to continue to build. In terms of transparency, we are in a pilot phase, as I mentioned. So we also need internally to learn about it. And this is, I can ensure you a topic, and you have seen in Jorge's presentation, one of the pillar of our sustainability strategy, and it is reviewed on the agenda of the Sustainability Committee. As we continue to learn, we will decide the road map for communication, external communication. Thank you.

Thank you. I think it's a good proposal. Let me reflect first on the process of this year. So, it was discussed indeed or decided or debated with EB, but it's a multifunctional team. And just to be absolutely clear, the whole process, both the internal consultations and the external consultation was led by an independent partner, together with us, of course, or together with a multifunctional team. So from a perspective of having an unbiased view on the feedback we were receiving.

I actually -- I'm pretty convinced we made a very step -- good step forward with this year's comprehensive refresh. Just to put a little bit some numbers into perspective, we said how many and what we've interviewed, or we've collected feedback from more than 2,000 clients. 20,000 talent at work, so basically 20,000 talents on our throughout the world. 2,000 also internal FTEs. So from a breadth perspective of the process, I think it's the second year of the CSRD, but I can see us making a step up.

Now indeed, going forward, 2026, what do we have? We have a survey refresh, right? We're going to have to do the full assessment. We're trying to basically make sure that the process improves year after year. We will consider internally to indeed disclose more of the feedback we received. It's a good suggestion. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question. Please state your name for the minutes.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Robert Vreeken from We Connect You. I am delighted with this top team, which is achieving wonderful results and is able to deliver. But what I don't seem to be hearing is we're in a cascade of crises. In 1973, we experienced the oil crisis, and we learned very quickly because 50 years later, we are in a mega oil crisis. In 1972, we had a report to make the world sustainable, 50 years later, we're in a mega sustainability crisis because in 2015, we had agreed not to exceed 1.5% global warming on earth. And 10 years later, that's where we are. And that is an enormous threat to our economy and to Randstad, and you can do something about this, because we have a CFO and a CCO from Latin America. And that's where the biggest forest in the world is you have the Amazon, and you can make a difference there.

I'd like to add that in Suriname, that country consists 95% jungle. Much money can be earned there. The oil industry is coming and Randstad should stay on top of it because much can be earned and much can be made sustainable and much can be preserved. And I didn't hear anybody mention India.

We're in a huge oil crisis and hardly a drop of petrol is entering India anymore. And I think that certainly merits our attention I think you mentioned that number of temps is down. Two years ago, there were 620,000, now it's only about 607,000, and we need a lot of people. Over half of the Netherlands is over 50 years old, and many people are happy to work 8, 12 or 16 hours a week. And you could find a lot of additional temps that way.

In addition, globally, I'm in dialogue with senior government officials and people in corporate industry. And I'm worried about cybercrime consider Odido and AI because AI magnifies the use of water and energy. It's almost impossible to keep up that and it's causing decertification in the landscape, and Randstad could address streamlining that those were my items thus far. So please ensure that we become energy independent, both gas and oil, and Randstad could do a lot to achieve that expand in Latin America, plant new forests. And you certainly can make a difference there, and open far more branches and countries globally because you're doing such a wonderful job that much of your profit could be used to expand and temps should not be diminishing, rather. You need far more temps all over the world. That's a wonderful challenge. And you've got what it takes. Sander.

Thank you for your point, Mr. Vreeken. Let me start with a minor adjustment, Mr. Vazquez [indiscernible] are not from Latin America. They're from Latin Europe, specifically Portugal and Spain, but that aside. And yes, we do excellent business in Brazil, Argentina, in Chile and Latin America. Those are the markets that we're focusing on, and we'll stick with those for the time being. We do not intend to open branches in other countries.

Of course, we do maintain close ties and deeply empathize with Suriname. I regretted when I do hear this morning that Suriname has not qualified for the championship, but instead a different South American country did that with Bolivia. So we don't have plans to open branches in Suriname.

Now regarding India. India, it has the second highest number of staff in of all of Randstad plus a great many people working for our customers, tens of thousands of work for our customers in India. So it's certainly an attractive market for us, and we're very active there.

Next, employees over 50. You're entirely right. Employees, the most rapidly -- the biggest labor market increase among a group of employees is among those over 50 in the past years. And more and more of that group of employees also works for Randstad. And that's a good news for our people. It's also good news for the world.

As for cybercrime, a few years ago, we did appoint a new Chief Information Security Officer, who got straight to work, and we did not have any incidents in the past years. So we are achieving good progress there. Now about water and energy, we are doing our bit, but to be quite honest, what we use is limited on a global scale, but according to our CSRD reports, you'll note that we are doing our bit there.

Next, I propose, if you would bring that gentleman on the second row the microphone. Here you are.

Good morning. I'm Mr. Keyner. I speak on behalf of the VEB. Prior to this meeting, another shareholder addressed me and said often, you criticize companies. Don't you have any good news? So if I criticize you too much then it might be because I'm verbally awkward. I don't just -- I'm not trying to disparage your company or the way you're pursuing progress. I do have some concerns. It's not because you're doing all kinds of things wrong, but perhaps we're past the peak, the golden era of Randstad.

And I am surprised in a good way that temp work can still be such a large industry and so profitable, but perhaps -- and I said this about 4 years ago, when your predecessor, Jack van den Broek was leaving with on a very high note and an excellent share price that his successor, Mr. Noordende might usher in a decline of Randstad, not because you're doing a bad job, but because the business has changed and the way that people are placing jobs have changed fundamentally.

So my first assertion and feel free to deliver your pitch about this, Randstad has passed its peak. The golden era is over. And if you could turn that around, a radical restructuring would be necessary. You don't need to have a physical temp agency, perhaps what you've said previously about torque, might be the way forward, but the rest of the organization would need to be discontinued as quickly as possible. Please I'd like to hear your views on that.

The second relates to AI, artificial intelligence. In the past, when you spoke about automation and new business model, is mainly concerned blue-collar workers, people in the factories who are made redundant. There was automation and robots were introduced, and the general expectation is that AI will have its greatest impact on clerical jobs office work. And that's the professional branch that you -- but what is more likely to be protected are the few remaining factory workers and a few call centers plus some logistics staff and health care workers.

And Assertion 2, which may contradict the first one is that Randstad is going back in time, and that's where the opportunities are and the hands that you cannot replace with an algorithm or what you might be able to replace very easily and efficiently with a robot, maybe that's where the future of Randstad lies.

And third, I keep trying to emphasize the same point, the business model for Randstad in the future relates to a comment from Mr. Van 't Noordende during his introduction today with a huge investor asked him what is little known about Randstad, and what I understood, but correct me if I'm wrong, that's the barrier. It's not that easy to place a human being at an employer, have that human being do the work, get paid and for some of it to trickle down to Randstad as the mediator.

I beg to differ. If you look at the past temp agencies were everywhere, every little town and every high street had a temp agency. I worked for several years for temp agencies and I did factory work. So somebody that is mediated by Randstad or by Tempo-Team, I know the drill. I was surprised that this still happens shouldn't this be discontinued and become entirely digitized and have been on digital marketplaces? If what Mr. van 't Noordende is describing is true, it's a barrier. You can't place people in jobs and see the bottom line that easily.

Why if you're the market leader, are the margins so low? The EBITDA margin, and your ambition for 20 years has been between 5% and 6%, but it's not within reach. If that barrier is so huge, why are you structurally unable to achieve that 5% to 6% margin? I sound more critical than I intend to because I'm not -- I don't mean you're doing a bad job, but it's virtually impossible to achieve greater profitability or higher growth.

Thank you. You formulated that very clearly, Mr. Keyner. Thank you. Sander could talk about this until the cows come home. And I'm sure he'd love to do that, but I'll ask him to be short and snappy.

Yes, I'll do my best, Mr. Keyner. Thank you very much for your questions. Those are exactly the same questions that we think about every day, day after day, saying that Randstad has passed its peak, the golden era is over. Well, I would say that Randstad is facing more golden eras and peaks than have passed. And you said that Randstad should change and that's exactly what we're doing, it relates to the specialization that we've discussed repeatedly and digitization that we also spoke about.

That's a transformation that takes time and a transformation, I always say in Randstad, where there's an old Dutch saying, I don't count your chickens before they hatch. We have to deploy that new model, and then transform the business accordingly. And it's good to see that we have 3 significant businesses that follow that digital structure. And recently, we appointed a Chief Digital Growth Officer, that's David Cook. He's in the back of the room, he arrived from Booking.com. And I'm sure you know that platform. And he is going to help us with our transformation.

So, we're working on that now about AI. You're right that the impact on work will be most pronounced in clerical jobs software development, customer service, marketing, design and the like. That's about 10% of our business. So that's the challenge that Randstad faces, and that's why we've defined our growth segments and our growth segments in Randstad operational are logistics as well as for craftsmen.

Think of plumbers, maintenance staff, service staff in factories. Think of the people working at data centers, electricians and the like in professional. So our health care business is growing. Engineering, obviously, for all infrastructure works that need to take place worldwide and, of course, Randstad Digital with all the digital skills.

So we do focus our specializations where we see growth and where we come from. Randstad Operational is 2/3 of our business, and we're perfectly optimistic because we excel at this. We understand that digital model. And we're convinced that those digital models will give us edge on the market, what will distinguish us.

Now to your final point, it's all very easy to open up a temp agency with 10, 20 or 30 people. But when technology becomes increasingly important, it becomes more difficult to access the market and consolidation will take place. And we want to guide that technology using our platforms.

Okay. Next question, the gentleman over there. Yes.

Good morning. I'm Jay Salo. Thank you for your explanation and for that fascinating video about your AI initiatives. My question also relates to AI because my question goes a bit further than what you mentioned in the video and told us. To what extent does the Board see AI as it means to improve the current business model versus a fundamental shift in the Randstad model? So what I mean is, do you expect AI to optimize margins. Or would you expect it to structurally change Randstad's role into a technology-driven platform, because that will have various implications for long-term value creation, for example?

Thank you, Mr. Sato. I'm glad that you asked that question because you're right. AI merely to improve and accelerate the current process is a dead-end street because nowadays, people may send 600 letters of application through AI. I received them in my inbox now, and then they receive a reply from AI, then they have to come for an interview that's also conducted by AI. And ultimately, there's only one job. So you get a wiz of AI-driven activities because that's possible. That's not a sustainable trajectory.

So our model is to take it from the top. We ensure immediate talent availability, and we make sure that we've got that talent on board before you as a customer state tell us what you need. So our customers in the United States that, for example, the UPS distribution center will enter request for x number on Monday morning and x number of people on Monday afternoon. And then we have a talent who's already organized on board and is ready to go and has the papers and says Monday morning, I'll be there. That's the model. So basically, we're reversing the model. We have talent and demand addresses the talent. So we're going to reverse the sequence in demand.

Yes. Okay. Next to the third row, please. Mr. Spanier.

Okay. Now it is me. I'm Mr. Spanier for the minutes. And I read the annual report, too. But the form Board is deeply -- excuse me, the preface is deeply disappointing because you write at length about Frits Goldschmeding, but the current CEO is doing exactly the opposite because for 11 or 12 consecutive quarters, we have heard nothing, but poor financials in finance. And the stock exchange is very clear and stated exactly what people think of Randstad.

And then the third paragraph in that same preface, we see what is this about a talent shortage, Mr. Frits Goldschmeding trained the talent. He had a training program for welders and he would train welders, and when they were good enough, then they would go to the shipping companies, and they would be assigned. They were good for the economy at that point. So there was never a shortage of talent.

That's not true. You're snoring. But let's put the current CEO in perspective when he arrived on March 2021, the rate was EUR 20.60. Now it's about EUR 23. So that's disastrous for investors. And we've been heavily penalized. And then what about geopolitical problems, No, if you simply have a training program for lorry drivers or electricians. They can work 1.5 meters apart because we need lower drivers for action, the action chain, and for the Aldi chain, and the Jet will improve supermarket because we all need to eat and consume, and we can do our shopping at 1.5-meter distance from each other. So there's plenty of decent work.

And in the same preface, you mentioned excellent services. How are these services excellent? The share price keeps plummeting. Do you call that excellent services for the market? Please reply.

You're crystal clear, Mr. Spanier, I always am. thank you for your questions. Now first, at the beginning of the presentation in this meeting, I described market trends in the past 3 years. And I said that we're in an exceptionally long cycle of market decline, from 2022 until today, roughly 1/4 of the market has been dissipated. So the situation has been extremely challenging on the market. And of course, that did impact the results in keeping with our Randstad tradition and targets, we tried to curtail costs as best we could.

I said that we cut EUR 600 million in costs at the organization. You're right about the share price. Let me point out -- and Mr. Stevens just mentioned that if you compare our total return to shareholders with that of our peers, we are outperforming our competitors. We're not satisfied with the trend in the share price, but you need to see this in perspective and relate it to what's happening in this industry. That's important.

As for the talent shortage, the market is currently declining for staff but in some market segments such as lorry drivers and forklift drivers and welders, et cetera, that's -- there's a shortage of them. And that's why we're addressing those markets and making sure that we train those people to place them in jobs. So we have already taken that tip seriously, and that's part of our daily work.

So long story short. We have a strategy, which is that digitization and specialization in new models. Our market situation is challenging. We expect the market to stabilize and to improve for the future. And when the time comes, we'll benefit from that. Our industry is cyclical. And at this point, we're at the nadir, we're bottoming out in that cycle.

Let me continue with people who haven't asked a question so far.

I'm a shareholder. I'm [indiscernible]. I represent the former Monster employees. Monster, as you know, it's a subsidiary that was closed down last fall. During this introduction, Mrs. Beatove presented all the good things that Randstad is doing for its current employees, but I would like to share with you a couple of things, a couple of words on what Randstad did not do for its former employees.

In September 2024, Randstad entered a joint venture agreement with the American Private Equity Fund Apollo, merging Monster with Randstad. And in this -- at the moment, it was announced that Monster -- sorry, Randstad have found the right partner for Monster. And in this equity data, in this joint venture, they took 49%.

So just one word towards who was a CareerBuilder. CareerBuilder was a company that had been purchased by Apollo in 2017. And in typical private equity style has been stripped to the bone, selling all the liquid assets, valuable and liquid assets. At the moment of the merger, the company was spinning by 40% year-on-year. Its turnover, it was overloaded with debt carrying a 10% interest. And the value of the debt was 150% the turnover of the company due for repayment less than 2 years after the rules. So that was the ideal partner.

So from the very beginning, the only interest of Monster in this joint venture was to offload Monster getting a minority shareholding, minority stake in order to justify the loss of operational control. But then there is another point, how do you manage when you merge a company that is much more valuable than CareerBuilder to get a minority share. But pretty simply by creating artificial depth of Monster towards Randstad.

So basically, by doing this, you become -- Randstad became at the same time, a shareholder and a creditor. The management was so confident in this joint venture that 3 months later, 86% of the debt was depreciated in the accounts. And a few months later, 100% became -- was depreciated. So on top of enabling Randstad to become a minority shareholder, this also enabled Randstad to get valuable tax assets. So you gain basically on two fronts.

Now what is important here to stress is that at no point in time, despite what is stressed, runs that ever thought about really giving a new chance to Monster. Since day 1, the only objective with their partner, was to close down the business while a minimizing its cost, maximizing the tax assets and not taking any responsibility towards its former employees. So at the moment, just at the moment of the Chapter 11, Monster, the joint venture carried the $360 million of debt, $135 million from Carrier Builder, $225 million from Monster and towards Randstad. All this carried a 10% interest rate.

And we don't need to have a PhD in finance to understand that when we have a company with a combined turnover of $200 million, which needs every year to produce more than $30 million just to pay the interest there are less -- there are a few chances that there is success, especially as you have two companies with problems.

So I would say it's pretty sad to see the founder of the company, Frits Goldschmeding was quoted a couple of times at the core of there was of his principle, the respect for the people, social responsibility, transparency and integrity, and how did this management play in our story. Complete disrespect for the former employees despite Sander always claiming that he's creating the most equitable talent company. No social responsibility as the company basically relied on the public funds to bail out only partially its former employees across Europe, always shielding behind excuse. We do not have any operational control.

And three, full lack of integrity as since Day 1, this joint venture was just as come to get rid of Monster at low cost. So I will go close quickly to the conclusion. [indiscernible] Is not against all the company of Randstad that because I have the privilege to work for 15 years, first as a vendor then as an employee and there are plenty of valuable, highly professional people in this company. But now there is the direction that the company has taken is not the right one. And I have to say that many, many managers in the company, they have been ashamed of what has been done, and they had a lot of people reaching out to me privately to express the solidarity.

In conclusion, so with -- actually, the previous person mentioned the collapse in share price. Nobody mentioned in this room for the moment. It was mentioned Manpower, but Adecco was never mentioned. Nobody claims that the market is very difficult currently, but Adecco is -- I mean it seems that now they regained the global leadership. So somebody is doing a better business in this industry in difficult conditions.

Despite all this, the -- there's been a pretty hefty pay rise agreed for the CEO, for the Board. However, there is -- there are no sense for its former employees. So dear shareholders, my conclusion is that I do not believe that this management is quoting a famous the economist cover page. I don't think this management is fit to lead the company. Thank you very much. And others, I had already asked quite a few technical questions, and I got the answers.

Thank you very much. Over to you, Jorge.

Thank you. There's a lot of inaccuracies in how you brought that. You have all the questions answered, as you rightly said in writing to you. But I'd just like to kind of restate a few points we've made and put it into perspective. And the first point is we acted with absolute conviction throughout all the time and the journey we had with Monster since 2016, as we discussed.

In 2022, as we also discussed, we were very clear in terms of strategy. We have 4 specializations. We don't have 5. And Monster, we felt during all the changes that have been happening in the market since 2016, in terms of technology, in terms of marketing, we were not the right owners for Monster. So the options and the choice was clear, pursue the right owner and the right house for Monster.

As you very well know, we tried to sell it several times, and we basically had bankers and the whole market approach from that respect. And we indeed found the right strategic fit with CareerBuilder which was not much smaller than us. And it was right on we said actually a better performing company than the Monster core job boards. By combining the #3 and #4 job orders, we explained to all employees, in the United States. That made it a strategic fit and a logical step for it.

We reviewed all the business plans with a look at all the cases, and we were convinced and acted that this is the right path for Monster. However, and regretfully, it did not turn out as we hoped. So as you very well know, since we started the conversations at the beginning of 2024, basically, as we go into the end of '24, quarter after quarter, month after month, the whole market in job Board kept on deteriorating exactly for the very same reasons that Sander just alluded to in what was happening in the market.

And that meant that the very all scenarios we had in terms of expectations kept on deteriorating. Then again, we chose what you call loans to do another injection to make sure that the company could restructure and guarantee that more employees will go from work to work and make sure that we prolong the life of the company to exactly do what we wanted to do to integrate the two.

We continued in this process in 2025. And again, month after month, the market -- the whole market, and therefore, our performance as well kept on deteriorating. Once again, we then basically relegated all the collateral we had to make sure that the company could orchestrate in itself, the joint venture could orchestrate in itself an orderly sales process through Chapter 11. Most -- or the vast majority of the jobs were basically sold and found now new owners and new companies.

And regretfully, indeed, there is a small part of the employees that did not find that. That part of the employees, we are not the owner of the company anymore, and we've discussed this. At the same time, there are national systems and legal processes in every country to cater and to care for these processes. And we, from a fiduciary duty perspective, we cannot now voluntarily intervene in a relationship that we are a minority shareholder.

All the answers are on your document and are probably online to you. And that regretfully, find ourselves in this situation after quarter after quarter, year after year, have been invested, protect and tried everything we could do to see success for Monster and to see success for all the employees of Monster that so many years worked with us. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's continue with the first round at the back of the room.

I spoke here as a temporary worker to alert management and shareholder about the situation of temporary worker in upfront and about the needs of dialogue with people in the field. Two years later, the situation is still warning. In France, in our area, we have seen about 20% drop in activity, around 25% fewer permanent employees and the accident rate of temporary workers remain high.

Today, I am here with my colleagues, who are also temporary worker. Our presence here comes from our customer commitment. This is not a unit initiative. We simply want to open a responsible dialogue about the reality in the field. We feel that decision taken only from the top have reached their limit. A company cannot be managed only from above without listing to the people.

We work every day in the agency assignment. Two years ago, we asked for a direct dialogue with people in the field. Today, we say must see a clearly that no direct dialogue has been established since day. We need a direct dialogue with Mr. [indiscernible].

So my first question is sample. Is the group management together with the shareholder now ready to finally open a direct dialogue with employer in the field and a temporary worker in order to find concrete solution for the future of the company? My second question is about workplace safety. Work accident among temporary workers remain high and represent not only a human issue but also an important economic cost for the company, for clean, for society. What specific objective has Randstad set in France to reduce the costs related to accident involving temporary worker and what concrete actions are being implemented to reach this objective? I believe this question is also an important for shareholders, because preventing accident is both human responsibility and a matter sustainable economic performance.

A global company like Randstad cannot success in the long term without the listing to the people who make the company work every day.

[Foreign Language] Miriam, over to you.

Yes. Thank you. And indeed, a good discussion this morning. So let me address your questions. First of all, in terms of dialogue, as you know, we have a culture that really values dialogue and this is very important for us. For that, we have a structural way and informal way to do it. So this morning conversation was helpful. But we have also social partners in countries that are elected by the employees, and we really value those social partnership in countries to share the information in an orderly manner. As it relates to France, in particular, we are today, as you know, in negotiations to renew. We have an electoral protocol that is very strict and requires unanimously sign off by the trade unions. . At the present, this is not the case. And therefore, the negotiations are going on. As we discussed this morning, I expect in the course of '26, we will be there because we are making already a good progress.

In the meantime, we have extended the mandate of the employee representatives. And this is important because it allows the representation body to still operate in a very normal way with our local management, obviously. So that's for that part. As part of that dialogue, actually, there were questions about a desire from some trade unions to reach an agreement that aligns with the future operating model, and that's important. So we have already established consultations in the past months, and that continues to be -- as you know, one of the pillar of the strategy, we mentioned this earlier on, is specialization.

And we are working in France, like other countries to the future operating model, specifically in OTS and PTS to strengthen the specialization that framework that we have. And again, this is done in consultation with our social partners. And actually, meetings are going on, and there is another one next week. And that will clarify to your point, the role of the branches, the role of the in-house delivery centers, digital marketplace. So that's exactly the core of the discussion with our social partners.

When it relates to health and safety, we mentioned this earlier on in the sustainability topic. Clearly, this is at the core of our sustainability strategy. It's one of the pillar. And it's very important for us, both for our employees, but also for the temporary workers. And in France, in particular, we are taking preventive actions, but that's across all countries. That goes from training to specific webinars and so on information that's practice sharing also with our clients.

We have in France KPIs that we measure closely like in any countries. And specifically in France, what we see is that we are achieving the best results from the past years. So specifically, we have a frequency rate that we measure, that is the number of accidents at work, and this has reached the lowest level since we started to measure that KPI in the past years. We also measure preventive index in France, that is the percentage of temporary workers without accident. And again, this year, in 2025, we have achieved the best level ever in France. So we continue the effort, and thank you for the dialogue and keeping us true to that goal. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Yes.

Thank you. As I said, my name is Keyner France. Someone talked to me prior to the meeting, and I recognize this gentleman from 2 or 3 years ago. I'm an absolute capitalist. So if there are discussions between workers or employees or intermediaries I'd say, "I want my money or I want a job." I will never choose for the employees. But on the other hand, Randstad should not facilitate that people be sent to unsafe environments. So if you have clients that cannot guarantee that people can work safely in a safe environment, in a factory, for instance, I don't want that as a shareholder.

And the fact that this gentleman was here a couple of years ago with the comparable comment is something that worries me. So I really hope you take his comments to heart. And this is something I, as a capitalist, I don't -- really don't want to go that far. People need to be able to go to work safely.

And then I'd like to comment on what Mr. Spanier said. Well, it was his typical way, it's a very direct way of putting things perhaps a bit aggressive. It doesn't mean to say that he is wrong. He's not wrong in the fact that the share performance of Randstad has not been very good over the past few years. In my own intervention, I put things into perspective. Of course, the market is tricky. We have had COVID and now we have Iran, and we have all these new crisis that we're going to face over the next few years.

Having said that, for a number of years, at least 20 years, you've been saying that you have targets for profitability, EBITDA margin between 5% and 6%. I understand that you would not be able to pull that off within a couple of years. But now decades have gone by and still it's 3.1% right now. And that has been calculated in a positive way because the one-off costs that keep recurring that are not that one-off have not been deducted. So in actual fact, the performance is a lot worse. And the question I have right now is not a question to the Executive Board, but to the Supervisory Board, how much patience are you going to have with the current Executive Board if it turns out that in over the next 2 years, 3 years with this strategy, or new strategy that you can't even hit the 5% or 6% and that you will be lagging behind around 3% without executions 3 years with this strategy, including the one-off cost of restructuring, et cetera, how much more patients will you have?

The Chairman, health and safety. I think that's more important than the margins I would venture to say. So -- and this is a main issue for the company. So I want Sander to once again emphasize that.

Thank you for that question. And evidently, we only send people to place -- to work at places where they can work safely. And part of our protocol is that if we have a new client or a new location, we do health and safety inspection, and we discuss with the clients, what the measures are, what -- which materials are new, what PPE is required protective equipment, et cetera, we make sure that these PPEs are made available.

And you just heard my colleague, Myriam Beatove would say that in France, the same gentleman indeed attended the meeting as well. And at the time, we said we will improve the situation and the situation has been improved.

And I understand from the French CEO, at the highest level of the industry even. So yes, it is right at the top of our agenda, number one, because if people can't work safely, there's no Randstad, actually. So I fully agree. Second question, I suggest we postponed it until when we discuss the reappointment of Sander. Otherwise, we have all these discussions, and we rehash them all the time to.

If you allow me, I'd like to postpone this matter so that we address it.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's almost 12:00, and we are still discussing 2A, Item 2A of an agenda of 9 points. So we really need to speed things up. So if you really have urgent comments, please go ahead, but please be concise.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't know whether I had addressed it, but age discrimination. You yourself discussed people over the age of 50. Randstad is not to blame. Very often, it's the client who's to blame. Client comes up with all sorts of issues, additional issues from which we can infer that the client feels that the temporary workers are too old. It happened to me not so long ago, I'd like to have a feeling, a feel for the shop floor. So this colleague couldn't get a job and the client had all sorts of requirements and she couldn't go along with that. So what can we do about that, Chairman?

Thank you. And then I think it's Mr. Flake. And then Mr. Spanier, if I'm not mistaken. And then we'll close this agenda item. Today is Sander van't Noordende's birthday. And then all these curious things that are coming up, I'd like you to take down in the minutes that he is assisted by a top team. You don't -- just is in the top 10 of the most influential supervisory directors. There are possibilities in the top 20 and is at its top 50 in case, the heart in the top 60.

So it is a top team. And I am putting some challenges to you here. The gentleman on the left-hand side is from Spain. Spain is the most sustainable country in Europe at this point in time. So there's a lot we can learn from Spain. And the line with Brazil. Brazil is a wonderful country, and that can also help us. So if the Supervisory Board can make sure that we can quickly open branches in more countries, we can boost our performance because my share was worth EUR 60 now, and now it's EUR 20. So there's a lot of work to be done. You have enough quality.

You're repeating your points as the Chairman. Thank you. Mrs. Spanier.

please, a concise question.

I'm always concise. Always concise, as you know, full well. Let me come back to the lorry drivers. And of course, I know a lot of people who work with lorries and I ask around. And they say, we go to Randstad. We want lorry drivers, but Randstad can't provide lorry drivers because either they don't have any trainings or they don't have enough training possibilities, not what we need. And Frits Goldschmeding says, he was in favor of talent, and he trained them himself. So why does the Supervisory Board not say to the Executive Board, you guys, you need to set up your own schools, your own training centers for electricians and the likes because there are shortages in very many professional areas. Why don't you pressure the Executive Board as a Supervisory Board. And of course, it's a disaster, the share price, but you are also owner of the sail ship Amsterdam.

You took part in sail Amsterdam. Randstad organized all sorts of parties on the ship. I saw it myself, and I saw these people. Why is it that we never received an invitation last year to party on the ship because the ship traveled or went -- was taken back from France. I know that because someone told me, a little bird told me, and I also know that the age category to take people back or to have people return, you also fixed that, et cetera, et cetera. So why didn't we get an invitation for the ship? That was really my question.

Well, it will disappoint you to know which parties the Supervisory Board attends. But anyway, neither here nor there, Sandra.

Let me start with age discrimination. Obviously, at Randstad, we do not discriminate in terms of age. And should there be any indications from clients that they select people on the basis of their age, we will engage with the client and make sure that the process proceeds in a proper way. That is what I can say and must say about this. As far as the lorry drivers sector is concerned, Mr. [indiscernible], I thought you were going to say, why doesn't the Supervisory Board start driving lorries? That's what I thought you would say. But hey, we have a specific team specialization in the Netherlands for the Lorry drivers who cooperate with training centers for Lorry drivers.

So what you say is precisely what we're doing, and we do that. We don't have our own training centers, but we do have reserved places in the training centers for Randstad. So we're working on that. And every day, we are making progress, and we are placing new Lorry drivers.

Mr. Spanier speaking off mic, the interpreter can't hear what Mr. Spanier is saying without a microphone. Very sorry. Mr. Spanier, you made your point. Agenda Item 2b, corporate governance structure and compliance with the corporate governance structure in 2025. All the relevant information you can find on Pages 145 to 160 of the annual report. Are there any questions?

So now we can proceed to 2C, which is the remuneration report 2025. You'll find that in the annual report -- sorry, Pages 145 to 160. And I'd like to give the floor to the Chair of the Remuneration Committee, Annet Aris, to give a short introduction.

I am pleased to elaborate briefly on the remuneration report for 2025, which you will also find in the annual report. It was discussed this morning that 2025 was another challenging year due to difficult volatile macroeconomic and specific market conditions by focusing on our rigid cost control, the impact on profitability was limited while strategic investments continued. In part as a result of the significant progress was achieved in implementing the partner for talent strategy, for example, increased specialization and the successful rollout of fully integrated front office IT platforms and digital marketplaces.

In 2025, this General Meeting of Shareholders approved the amended remuneration policy for both the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board with 87% and 88% of the votes cast, respectively. In 2025, remuneration was less approved in accordance with the policy at that time. In this year's remuneration report, we have once again sought to improve clarity and reliability. In 2025, the base salary of the CFO and CHRO was increased by 3.9% in keeping with the weighted group average for employees. The base salary of the CEO and the COO at the time was not increased.

The short-term financial targets resulted in a payout of 76% of the target, whereas the short-term nonfinancial targets resulted in 103% of the target, meaning that the combined STI for the CEI equaled 98.7% of base salary and for the other members of the Executive Board, 82.5% of base salary. As for the long-term performance share plan, which was conditionally granted in 2023, vested at the end of 2025 and resulted in a payout of 68% of target. I am pleased to answer any questions there may be. Mr Keyner.

I'm Mr. Keyner from the VEB. I'm in between both of the ladies holding microphones. I have no criticism of the remuneration system. It is what it is and was approved by shareholders. But for you as Remuneration Committee, it must seem very awkward that in a situation where shareholders for several years in a row seem to have lost out on their Randstad investment that any bonus at all is taking place. I sincerely understand that the hardest work of the executive is to make fundamental changes to the organization and to work on a future-proof business model that takes some years. In my view, it could be more radical and faster, but we can agree to disagree. But isn't it so that the actual financial results from the bonus should be expressed only once the shareholders have been able to benefit from them. So when the financial results are phenomenal. So don't you feel awkward that there is any bonus all as long as the shareholders continue to lose on their Randstad investment. You must at the very least see this is awkward.

Well, I'll take additional questions, and then we'll start answering them.

Basically, I agree with the VEB. I believe that the Supervisory Board listens carefully and realigns turbo such as increasing share prices, open many new branches in countries and with Mackenzie or Bol [indiscernible], that could be arranged. And there is a big improvement date. So if Randstad is willing to get on board, that could yield successes. But I believe that there is far more potential here because a share that goes one way and goes in the other direction in Heijmans, that's unfortunate. And of course, I'm very kind, but you have so many wonderful qualities that it could easily boost the share price. Consider the vocational education, you could score greatly if you train plumbers.

Well, you don't need to lecture us -- do you have a question for Annette Aris -- or is this a comment?

Well, I am addressing Annet Aris. And given your professional background, much could be done to change this.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments?

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Just the VEB says, -- on the slide, we learned that 2025 was still worse than 2024. And how can the bonuses distributed have exceeded 50% in the remuneration report, I did not find the answer, and I would like an itemized reply as to why it was distributed.

Referring back to the explanation that we received last year about -- sorry, that we provided last year about the remuneration system. If you're looking at what you're going to remunerate management for and incentivize them, there are 3 elements, and you're entirely right, absolute performance, revenue, share price and the like matter. Second, of course, you want to reward management for how they dealt with extremely difficult circumstances and how quickly they responded because you want them to do likewise in the future. And third, it's very important that progress is being achieved in the strategies. And ordinarily, if you revise a strategy or achieve a turnaround, the first results appear operationally by certain things that happen. And only later do you see the financial effect. So in our remuneration system, we tried to strike a balance between those 3 elements. And I agree with you that the absolute results were not as we would have liked them to be because you can see that certain -- on certain KPIs, the management received 0%.

And as much of the remuneration is based on the trend in share prices, management is suffering just as you are in that respect. Other things such as the extent to which the management was able to cope with difficult circumstances, so their relative performance. And we also consider that in setting targets, assuming the expectations for that cycle, also in relative terms, management achieved the objectives in part as well as on progress on strategy, which is quantified in relative operational progress, and we did see progress there. So it was a balance of those 3 elements because, of course, we value you as shareholders, but we also value management working on the right things.

Thank you, Annette. Next, 2 brief remarks remaining, Mr. Keyner. So apparently, there's a fight to give you the microphone.

My name is Mr.Keyner , not with Z. I understand that remuneration systems are highly complex. But what I sense from your reply is that they really did their best under very difficult circumstances.

What about -- and we're not doing as badly as our competitors look at them. And I have a twofold answer. One, is your management so impatient that they cannot await the fruits of their huge efforts financially, so the financial results as well as in how it reflects in the share price. That's my first reply. And the second part of my reply is if management needs to be rewarded for their dedication, why don't we simply abolish the base salary because that's the purpose of the base salary after all. But if you say, well, you as shareholders also benefit, but the shareholders are experiencing a deterioration of 10%, 20% or 30%, 40%. The base salary is not being reduced by 40%. That's the standard remuneration. And it's only in the event of exceptional performance over the long term that you receive additional benefits.

And I'd like to share those 2 considerations. And basically, your account is the same as at other firms, but that doesn't mean that your logic is right. Thank you very much.

Matti Nicolo again. Yes, just one comment. Obviously, the achievement of a target is the result of the target that is set. The financial target is the EBITDA. So EBITDA of last year was EUR 752 million. The EBITDA target was EUR 650 million. So there is a minus 14% year-on-year. So here, my question is, wasn't maybe the target a little bit shy usually in businesses, there are not many businesses that provide the targets with a big minus double-digit number, first thing. Second thing, we always speak that we are doing better than the competition. But I insist, I still feel that here, the elephant in the room, Adecco is never mentioned by anybody. And historically, it's always been a tight race between Randstad and Adecco. Adecco has been doing very well in the past 2 years.

So I insist -- the environment is complicated. Nobody is questioning this, but somebody is doing probably a better job. Thank you.

Yes. Maybe 2 comments with regard to the EBITDA target. It's indeed lower than last year, but we all know it's a very cyclical business. So we always try to balance what we think will be the impact of the economy, which is the relative effect and then what is a good absolute target. And our expectations for this year were for 2025 are definitely lower than for 2024 economy-wise, not even in taking into account all the geopolitical happenings, which we had actually no idea from when we set the targets at the end of 2024. With regard to Adecco, you will see we have one important financial target, which is relative revenue growth versus the main peers. that compares our performance amongst others [indiscernible].

And you see that the target achievement on that one has been 0%. So we definitely look at that aspect.

Thank you.

And I propose that we move on to the vote. The advisory vote on this and the next -- excuse me, the voting system will remain open during this item and throughout the rest of the meeting. The exact text appears in the agenda after 8B. I will close the vote and then Jelle Miedema will disclose the voting results after any other business.

On to 2b. Proposal adopt the financial statements for 2025. You'll see that on Pages 161 through 234 of the annual report, and it has been described in detail. I'm pleased to start by giving the floor to the Audit Committee, Laurence Debroux, to describe some of the activities of the Audit Committee in 2025 and cooperation with the external auditor. And after that, we'll hear from Jacobina Brinkman on behalf of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Laurence?

Good morning, everyone. So 2025 was obviously marked by continued business challenges, but also on the positive side by sustained progress in the transformation of the company. In that context, balancing long-term strategic priorities with short-term operational realities required a strong focus on financial discipline indeed. As you know, the Audit Committee supports the full Supervisory Board in overseeing Randstad's financial statements, financial and nonfinancial reporting processes, the financing policy and the risk management system. In 2025, the committee consisted of Cees 't Hart, [indiscernible] and myself. We held 5 meetings, 4 of them prior to the publication of the quarterly results. Ahead of each meeting, there were preparatory discussion with the CFO, with the Managing Directors for control, financial reporting and business risk and audit. And on behalf of the committee, I also met with the external auditors in advance of each meeting.

During the year, we paid particular attention to development in results, cash flow and financing.

We also had as recurring item agenda data protection, information security and cybersecurity, of course. We reviewed the development of IT general controls. We emphasized the need to further strengthen these controls, which the company is addressing through its digital transformation program, so a global approach. And we paid particular attention to the topic of access management, which is fully aligned with the external auditors' comments. At each meeting, we received updates from the Director of Business Risk and Audit on the work and the conclusions.

And of course, we also monitored progress towards the updated statement on risk management, the so-called [indiscernible], which is part of the management report in the annual report. The committee reviewed the audit plan of the external auditors that include the scope, materiality approach, focus areas, fees and independence. And as this was the first year of PwC as external auditor, attention was, of course, given to the transition.

I am pleased to report that no significant findings requiring action were identified in the transition process. The committee continued with a good practice of holding at least one annual private session with the external auditor without management present. In addition to the financial audit, the Supervisory Board has requested that PricewaterhouseCoopers perform limited assurance procedures on selected nonfinancial organization in according to information in accordance with CSRD.

And still on CSRD, the committee reviewed in depth the updated double materiality assessment. As a conclusion, I would like to thank the global finance team as well as the internal and external auditor for their hard work and for the dialogue with the Audit Committee. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Then I would like to hand over to Jacobina.

I'm Jacobina Brinkman. I'm the external auditor of Randstad on behalf of PwC, and I work closely with Martin -- but as such, who is also present here. As you will have read, we issued an unqualified audit opinion on Randstad's 2025 financial statements. That means that the financial statements accurately reflect Randstad's financial position as at 31 December 2025.

It also means that Randstad's annual report contains all material relevant information required by law. We have also issued a review report on Randstad's sustainability reporting. That means that based on the work performed and the information obtained, no information has come to light suggesting that the sustainability information is incorrect. I'm now pleased to explain a few key areas of focus and findings from our audit.

The first year of the audit. This was the first year of our audit that's been mentioned a few times. We reflect on a successful transition year in which we deepened our understanding of Randstad. That was our focus.

In the first year, we devoted particular attention to Randstad's internal control environment. The internal control environment is the entire system of how Randstad is organized to ensure that everything runs smoothly. It encompasses the culture rules, processes and management and staff attitudes together ensuring reliable financial reports, compliance with laws and regulations and prevention of errors or fraud. This is the foundation of an organization's internal control system. Randstad started standardizing and centralizing its IT landscape.

Over the past year, we have monitored how Randstad is prepared for this change. And in the years ahead, -- we will continue to track this carefully. The objective is to centralize future audits more and to increase the focus on the systems. Randstad is the parent company of a group of entities and the financial information of this group also appears in the consolidated financial statements. As group auditors, we are responsible for identifying and assessing the risks of material misstatements in the consolidated financial statements.

Based on this risk assessment, the audit approach has been tailored to perform sufficient audit procedures to express an opinion on the consolidated financial statements. determining the audit approach includes establishing whether other auditors need to be involved for parts of the group. And as explained in our audit opinion, we engaged 12 auditors mainly based abroad 2 audit parts of the group. And they are all auditors from PwC's global network.

As a result, our work covered 82% of the total consolidated revenue, and we audited the remaining 18% through analytical procedures. As group auditors, for example, we worked on the consolidated and group-wide matters, including valuation of goodwill, valuation of deferred tax assets, external debts and share-based payments. So as I mentioned, we used local auditors for the group entities because they're more familiar with local laws and regulations and therefore, better able to perform the audit.

We drafted instructions to this effect and stated our expectations as to what they were expected to do in their work. We participated in discussions about scheduling the local audits and monitor progress through ongoing communication. And we met with all auditors in all group entities, both online and in person. These in-person meetings took place in the United States, the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Germany. And we also held joint discussions with local management regarding the performance of the group entity and the internal control environment.

We reviewed the work of the local auditors received written communication and attended key meetings of group entity auditors with local management. By combining the work at group entity level with the work that we performed as group auditors, we are able to substantiate our opinion about the group and our unqualified audit opinion. Now materiality. For the audit, we defined a materiality threshold. And in this audit, established EUR 50 million as the materiality threshold based on 0.25% of total revenue. We also reported all audit differences exceeding EUR 2.5 million to the Supervisory Board. In our opinion, as with all our clients, we address fraud risks and business continuity. In our report, we specifically addressed several fraud risks we identified at Randstad and the procedures that we carried out in response.

First, we identify the risk that management may override internal control measures. In all our audits, we address this risk because management is uniquely positioned to commit fraud due to the possibility to manipulate the accounts and draft fraudulent financial statements by overriding measures that otherwise seem effective.

So to this end, we use data analysis to identify unusual transactions and subsequently worked on those, including inspecting source documentation. We also pay specific attention to access security within the IT systems and the possibility that this could lead to a breach of separation of duties. Our work did not yield any indications of fraud or suspicions thereof. Next, the second fraud risk in revenue recognition. Management is entitled to bonuses that depend in part on achieving certain financial targets such as revenue growth.

This may lead to management bias and to incentives to overstate revenue by recording fictitious revenue transactions. What did we do about this? We performed our audit procedures using a combination of testing internal controls and detailed procedures. We also use data analysts to identify revenue transactions that did not follow standard business processes and further examined these transactions. I'm almost done, 2 more pages. Our audit work did not reveal any specific indications or suspicions of fraud relating to preventing the reported revenue.

Key audit matters in our audit are issues that we pay particular attention to in our work. In the previous audit, we identified evaluation of goodwill as a key audit matter because determining this value is subject to considerable estimation uncertainty. Our work included in part, retaining experts. And we also questioned the management about evaluation of goodwill, especially when a 9-year projection period is used and the assumptions of management concerning in part revenue growth, EBITDA margin and the discount rate applied wherever necessary.

We substantiated internal information from management with external evidence. And for those cash flow generating units in which there could be an estimate of a loss in value, we assess the current results for the current year with the projected figures from the previous year to assess whether in those projections, the assumptions have been overly optimistic. And we use the outcome of this comparison as input to test whether the management's assumptions were reasonable and sensitive for future cash flows.

Based on the work we did and the audit evidence obtained, we consider management's assumptions to be reasonable and agree with the evaluation of goodwill. I mentioned earlier that we look back positively on our first year as Randstad's auditors.

Our colleagues in group entities have also indicated that the transformation went smoothly and in good cooperation and that they appreciate the fresh perspective we offer. In addition to our regular interactions with, for example, Randstad's finance, legal, IT departments and business risk and audit function, we spoke with various members of the management.

In addition, I attended the Audit Committee and Supervisory Board meetings. I found the discussions during these meetings to be open, professional and reflecting genuine interest in our findings, observations and recommendations. We believe that a solid foundation has been established, providing a strong basis for ongoing cooperation in the years ahead. Finally, I would like to thank the Supervisory Board, Management and staff at Randstad for the pleasant, constructive and professional working relationship over the past years.

And of course, I'll be happy to answer your questions. Are there any questions? Yes, I see some hands raised. First, [ Mr. Keiner ].

Yes. It's one of my huge concerning frustrations that women don't approach me, but I still got the microphone. And what the lady from PwC could have been said at many companies. I have only one question. In your first year of looking at Randstad, what surprised you in your audit? It doesn't have to be good or bad. But what would you say was entirely different from what you expected when you received the question?

We'll take the questions together this time, [ Mr. Spanier ]. [ Mr. Spanier ], my question is what percentage of your work did you do with AI? Because in its own auditor, KPMG said the price has to be reduced because X percent was spent on AI. And my second question is the audit of the subsidiaries. Your company changed from 0.9% in 2024 to 1.7% in 2025. Can you give me a specific explanation for that difference?

Do you have any other questions, [ Mr. Spanier ]?

Not yet. We live in Europe, the country with the greatest affluence and all our important data are in the United States. And somebody is in charge who is traveling around the world with a shotgun. How can we improve to avert the risk of our systems succumbing and us no longer having access to our data, how has that received consideration been secured also in relation to AI. First, what surprised you?

Well, yes, I was thinking about what surprised me. Well, we weren't that surprised, but we did determine that when you're working with a new company in the first audit year in the company, it is present in so many different places, then the job is always bigger than you initially expected. And before we can do our work, we need to understand exactly how certain processes take place one step at a time. And this company also includes many different systems, and that's very time consuming, perhaps more than we expected in advance. So that may have been one point where we thought, okay, all those different systems are a lot of work. We are very eager for greater harmonization and standardized systems. But I believe that management intends to do that.

Now next about AI. Well, I couldn't tell you what percentage was done by AI, but we're working with AI in many different fields, and we challenge our teams to make things easier for themselves every day and sometimes to improve their insights with all the resources available. But the exact share, I didn't add it up, but it is a very important principle. And in the years ahead, it will become increasingly important.

And the question about the subsidiaries, what does that question relate to? You're talking about the fees?

[Technical Difficulty]

Speaker off mic, interpreter apologizes. Speaker off mic, interpreter apologizes.

That must be the BDO. That's not us. The model that we apply here is that PwC audits everything needed to be able to sign off at the group level. There are also a great many local entities that require local financial statements, the statutory financial statements. And in our model, those are all audited by BDO. We're not BDO. And in the shift from Deloitte to PwC, of course, we redefined our scope. So sometimes we audit slightly different group entities than our predecessors did. And BDO, therefore, also audits different group entities. So there was a shift. But that's not the part that we do.

[Technical Difficulty]

Speaker off mic, interpreter apologizes.

Perhaps Jorge could say a bit about that. I can't say that not of the other group entities, that's what I was explaining. Only for the consolidated financial statements.

So the next question concerned the systems. Are we dependent on the United States? Has that been checked?

Well, I believe that question is for management. We did not focus on that specifically. Most parties that we work with in information technology, such as Amazon and Google do indeed hail from the United States. Of course, we took all measures that a good company, such as security backup and everything related to that. The risk that in the United States, somebody said, I'm just going to pull the plug has, for the time being, been assessed as a remote risk, but it's certainly something that this week, I spoke with my CIO, our CIO, to examine in what measure that's a genuine risk and which measures we should take. So it's on the agenda. Please stay tuned.

I think there was a question over there.

My name is [ Dekker ]. I'm from [indiscernible]. I have a detailed question. And this detailed question concerns a key audit matter, goodwill. We have text about this on page -- let me take a peek, Page 178, if I'm not mistaken, 87, so to speak -- sorry, Page 177 and Page 187. So if we look at that also in the light of the fact that it is a key audit matter, we see the position of Germany, important part of overall goodwill. And at the same time, on Page 187, we see that performance in Germany, to put it mildly, to be justified, of course, given Germany's position and the economic position. Well, the performance of Germany was not favorable.

So my question is, how -- what is your perspective on these developments also compared to the goodwill that you have on your books at Randstad? Did you yourself look at this? Or is this an item that you left to the foreign auditor? And I'm somewhat surprised that there was no adjustment for this in the financial year '25. So what are your arguments to say, well, that will sort itself? And over the next few years or the next decade, we will have a good profit because segments, not everything, the segments or the sectors Randstad is operating in, well, you can't really say that they have wonderful and spectacular short-term perspectives.

Yes, we have looked at it ourselves, anything concerning goodwill and the valuation thereof and also reviewing it, the value as it stands. We do that ourselves as a group team. And Randstad Germany is indeed -- has been part of that debate. And by the way, this is explained in the annual statements, the financial statements by management as an explanatory note to those items. In the financial statement, specifying that this concerns some sensitivity. And especially if you'd adjust the assumptions to a certain degree, this would be something that would be sensitive to that.

So we asked many, many questions about this. We consulted many source documents. We talked to management in Germany about the plans. We also looked at the number of branch offices. We looked at the number of clients, new clients, clients that have left. So in short, I can mention lots of other things. But we took a very detailed look at this, particularly to address the question that you have just asked because these are estimates, and these estimates have to be as reliable as possible. And it is up to us to challenge management in this respect. And therefore, we involve source data.

Conclusion is this year, nothing had to be accounted for. So if there's something sensitive this year, then next year, you will take a very critical look at it. And management will be the first to do that, and then we will be challenging management. That is all the assumptions that are being made.

[Technical Difficulty]

Comment off mic, the interpreter apologizes.

Well, we do that as well, says the Chairman. Let us move to agenda item 2E, explanation on the reserve and dividend policy. And Jorge already explained that. Are there any questions? Mr. [ Keiner ] has a question.

[ Keiner ], [ BEB ]. I'd like to commend you on your capital allocation policy, extremely transparent. I think that many companies should take you as an example. Last year, 2 million in shares have been repurchased when the share price was very low. And this is a big dilemma, but it is important to us. How do you make sure that in those times in which the share price is very low, that you do buy back lots of shares. On the other hand, when the share price is incredibly high that you do not buy back that many shares. So the sort of anticyclical operation. Well, apparently, it doesn't happen. So how do you deal with that dilemma?

[indiscernible] buyback. So the transaction you're talking about is primarily about purchase plans and employees. So we do not have a running share buyback program. As you can see and you know our capital allocation policy, our ordinary dividend is a cash dividend. And in the case we find ourselves with a leverage ratio below 1, we then have potentially a discussion about returning extra money to shareholders.

Now we also have to balance this with the need to invest in the business like we just discussed earlier on. And then indeed, in that optional, we can consider a special cash or a share buyback. At this moment, our leverage ratio is trending again towards 1. So there's no intention to do any special return. If we ever think about changing the capital allocation policy, we'll then communicate it right on time.

Any other questions? If there are no other questions, 2F, proposal to declare an ordinary dividend for the financial year 2025 proposed to pay an ordinary cash dividend for the financial year 2025 of EUR 1.62 per ordinary share, which corresponds to a payout ratio 64% of the underlying adjusted net profit. The dividend payment on preference shares B and C totals EUR 8.2 million.

Are there any questions? I would then ask you to vote on the agenda items under 2F insofar you have not already done so.

In the meantime, we will move on to agenda item 3A, granting discharge to members of the Executive Board for the performance of their duties. I propose the following resolution on discharge of responsibilities. The General Meeting of Shareholders grants discharge to members of the Executive Board for the performance of their duties in the financial year 2025. Insofar as this becomes apparent in the financial statements, the annual report or any other information submitted to the general meeting and the explanations provided at this meeting.

Are there any questions? Now we can move on to agenda item 3B, granting discharge to the members of the Supervisory Board for the performance of their duties. I propose the following resolution on release of liabilities. The General Meeting of Shareholders grants discharge to members of the Supervisory Board for the performance of their duties in the financial year 2025. Insofar as this is apparent from the financial statements, annual report, other information submitted to the general meeting and the explanations provided at this meeting.

Are there any questions? Could you now vote on agenda items 3A and 3B -- there is a question.

Yes. Well, I may not be that clever, but I simply don't understand. Adecco has been stable over this past year in terms of revenue and Randstad is declining. And if this trend continues, Randstad won't be a market leader, a global market leader. I'm concerned about this.

But we do have a secret weapon, fortunately. And he is in the top 20 of the top supervisory directors, Robert Jan van de Kraats. And he always showed all the increasing statistics. And so perhaps you can include him because I do think that there are important targets, independence from energy, independence from the United States and also boosting revenues and recruiting more employees and more temporary workers. And perhaps you can boost the turbo here. And I have every confidence that you'll be able to do that with Robert Jan van de Kraats. Okay. So can you now please cast your votes for items 3A and 3B.

Now on to agenda item 4, proposal to amend the remuneration policy of the Supervisory Board. And I'd like to give Annet Aris, the Chair of the Remuneration Committee, the floor to briefly explain.

Yes. Last year, as you know, we introduced a remuneration for the new Technology Committee, which was introduced at the time, assuming that this committee would be meeting twice a year. Well, as you all know, the whole subject of technology has become increasingly important. And it turns out that there is a need to meet at least once every quarter. So it is our proposal to increase the remuneration for the committee, which was lower than the committee -- the remuneration of other committees. So to bring it in line with the Remuneration Committee and the Nomination Committee.

So the increase is as follows. So the Chair from EUR 15,000 to EUR 21,000 and for the members from EUR 10,000 to EUR 15,000. And this is in line with what the members of the other committees receive.

Are there any questions? Yes, [ Mr. Spanier ].

Ms. Aris -- well, Chair. Chairman, can I ask a question to Ms. Aris directly? Or should I ask a question through yourself?

Yes, you can ask a question to the Chairman as the Chair, and I will decide who answers the question.

This is final. Okay. My question -- okay. Last year, this committee was set up. But last year, we also knew that technology was very important. How is it that you didn't know last year that you might want to meet every quarter, perhaps even every month? Why is it that just after a year, all of a sudden, you realize that the members require a 50% higher remuneration and the Chairman even more? How is it that after 12 months, you realized that you made a mistake? Is this symptomatic or something like that?

We made mistakes because the numbers of '24, '25 were disastrous as well. We've had a disastrous situation for 11 or 12 quarters. Well, you could also turn it around. We have understood that this takes more time. So this is why we're making the proposal. So I think we can leave it at that, as the Chairman.

Agenda item 5, proposal to reappoint Sander van 't Noordende as member of the Executive Board. You can read the explanation for this in the agenda. Sander was appointed as a member of the Executive Board in January 2022 and has been Chairman and CEO since March 2022. Under his leadership, Randstad's partner for talent strategy has been rolled out, including a clear strategic vision. A number of strategic priorities and a long-term perspective for value creation for all Randstad stakeholders. He possesses extensive knowledge of digital developments that impact our sector and our business model.

Adapting our strategy is essential now that our industry has been facing both cyclical and structural challenges for some time. Randstad is, therefore, fully engaged in a phase of strategic implementation and change. This requires leadership, perseverance and an energetic, consistent approach and execution. It is, therefore, crucial that Sander continues to contribute to Randstad. During his earlier presentation, he discussed at length what has been achieved over the past 4 years and what he sees as key priorities for the coming term. And so the Supervisory Board proposes to reappoint him for a second term of 4 years.

Are there any questions? Please go ahead. Well, you've already made a number of statements, well, not you personally, but others have earlier on in the meeting. So I suggest to all of you that if you have a point to make, you can always ask questions, but please be respectful.

My name is [ Steven ], [ Foundation Legal Protection of Investors. ] We would like to hear from Mr. Noordende. Why he wants to continue in this position for another 4 years? Have headhunters approached you over the past few months, asking you to switch to another company?

That's a good question. This is the Chairman, Sander. Well, from time to time, you do receive phone calls, but I don't answer the phone or I always keep the conversation short. So that really is a short answer to your question. Why do I want to remain CEO, Chairman of the Executive Board? Really, the main reason is that we have embarked on a strategy, and we've been through a difficult time, and we see the first results of the strategy, but we're not done yet, not for the time being. So the job is not done, and we have to keep up the good work for the best results, which is why I'm happy to commit for the next 4 years in order to finish the job in such a way that we have a Randstad fit for the future.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Please go ahead.

Yes. [ Keiner ] is my name. I'd like to remind you of a comment that we made earlier on. I read -- I carefully read your annual report. And I think that showing that the tone is more positive and optimistic than actual reality just -- would justify. But anyway, I reminded you of the duties in the long run and the long-term targets are coming closer. So that is the EBITDA margin between 5% and 6%, and you are not even coming close. You're stuck at 3.1% without deducting the one-off costs.

So my question to you, to the Supervisory Board is it's not that I want to get rid of Mr. Noordende. He might be doing an incredible job and how -- my question is how much patience do you have a Supervisory Board to allow this Executive Board, not only the CEO, to continue on this path? Or would you say that if it continues to be 3%, 3.5% over the next few years that you might think we might need a different team, a team that might take much more radical measures to achieve the 5% to 6%? And I'm also saying this because the long term can start today.

Thank you for your questions. The target of 5% to 6% has been around for far longer than Mr. van 't Noordende is CEO. And we've come very close to 5%, but that was it. We believe a Supervisory Board that the 5%, 6% and north of that would only be possible with the strategy that we've now embarked on. And just imagine that this company transitioned from analogous to digital and now AI supported from a generalist to a more specialized business. And these are 2 elements that are going to put pressure on the costs and are going to boost the margins.

Now in terms of your question, there might be criticism vis-a-vis the Executive Board in terms of how long this has been going on, 12 quarters. Well, a lot has been going on in the world, as you know, and we have to keep in mind that, obviously, this is very disappointing, but in relative terms, it's not that bad. And if you look at the TSR, the total return on investment for the shareholder, then relatively, we're doing somewhat better. We're not happy. We're not pleased with it, and Sander said so in an interview this weekend in the Financieele Dagblad.

So where do we stand? In fact, we're at a crossroads. All the initiatives now have to come to fruition. And all this is going to bear fruit now. And we had hoped that the global economy, the way it was developing actually at the beginning of the year that, that would start growing again so that businesses would start investing, would require more talent so that Randstad with its new way of working could visibly improve its performance and also margins. With everything that's going on in the Middle East, this is the million-dollar question whether this growth will return as quickly as we might think. And so we say, well, if we haven't hit the 5%, 6% in 2, 3 years' time, we're not going to say, well, the right-hand side of this table has to be changed. That's not the way we work.

The question is whether these changes are being put into practice? How about the speed of implementation? And can we see that there are units that are proof of the pudding, proof that the new model is working. Not the 5%, 6%, it is our target. It is our target, and we're convinced that we will hit the target at some point. But in terms of management and assessing management and taking measures, we're not going to look at the 5%, 6%, but we're really going to look at the speed of implementation. And in terms of the speed of implementation, if we're satisfied with that, and you must have read our annual report, you'll read that in the paragraph of the Chairman, you will have read that we would like more speed to increase the pace. But -- and the people on the right-hand side of the table, of course, have their own ambition. And in this new year, we will continue on that path. And -- it didn't take us so long to take a decision on the reappointment of Sander. We are absolutely convinced that this team is capable of realizing the strategy. Please be concise.

Very concise, very concise. I think it's a good thing that Mr. van 't Noordende should continue for the next 4 years. At the same time, it's always a good idea to look at succession. I think the current CFO has all the qualifications, and he also speaks excellent Dutch, which is a big advantage in this market and also a big advantage for other employees abroad. I would like Randstad to become much more visible by sponsoring the Dutch football team, national football team in terms of sports, but also the World Wildlife Fund and the Amsterdam Zoo ARTIS, they have a partnership. And I think that, that would help increase the visibility at an international level and would also boost revenues at a global level.

I know something about sponsorship. So the 3.1% that you saw is -- will decline once you engage in these big sponsorship contracts. But anyway, I do understand the background of your questions. In those countries in which we operate, not globally, but in those countries which we operate, we need to be visible and we have to be well known, and that is what the team is working on. And I assume that in the Netherlands, you will have seen the new campaign. Are there any other? No, you didn't see it. Okay. Well, it is certainly impressive. Any other questions?

Yes, again, [ Matt Nicolo ]. A quick question on the -- so in the last couple of years, there's been a revenue gap of 15% between -- well, the range that was above Adecco by about 15%. Now the -- you're both on the same line. You seem very convinced about this specialization structure -- strategy, sorry. And however, it seems that the markets they are not really appreciating at least to the extent that you believe it is worthy. What are you -- why are you thinking that -- what will you be doing differently from Adecco from your perspective to ensure that this gain -- this 15% points flip the other way? Will just a specialization achieve this? Or will anything else be required?

I don't think at first glance that we should only look at Adecco or the size of Adecco. Question is whether we are winning in the countries in which we already have a presence. And that's a very important debate in the Executive Board because it may well be that a big competitor may have different geographic positions and they may have a tailwind. The thing is that we need to win in those markets in which we operate in Netherlands, France, Belgium, U.S., et cetera, et cetera. And that is a very important parameter to measure our success and the impact of the Executive Board. And Randstad, how it's going vis-a-vis Adecco, what the differences are.

Sander, do you have anything to add?

No, not really. We have a strategy that works. It focuses on specialization and focusing on talent, delivery of excellence, digitization, making sure that we have the overall best team. We're doing that, and we are going to do that, and that will lead to the desired results, I'm sure.

Thank you. If there are no further questions, you can now proceed to vote on this agenda item. And before we proceed to item 6 -- before we move on to agenda item 6, I'd like to mention a bit about Annet Aris' membership of the Supervisory Board. You joined in 2018, and you have served on the Remuneration Committee and have been extremely involved in the organizational and strategical aspects of Randstad, especially in terms of strategy and digital remuneration policy. You provided an extremely important contribution to the Supervisory Board discussions. You did so in an extremely pleasant manner, and you're always thoroughly prepared. You had all those details ready and helped us reach a synthesizing conclusion that really mattered.

And we're very grateful for all those years that you did your best for this wonderful company. And we're also pleased that we have found a good successor. It was difficult, but we found somebody that we're very happy with, and that takes me to agenda item 6, which is to propose Martin Weiss as member of the Supervisory Board. And the explanation and the resume of Martin Weiss appear in the agenda for this meeting, and the Supervisory Board proposes appointing him for an initial 4-year term. But before you say anything about that, I would propose that Martin introduces himself briefly.

We're pressed for time, so I'll be very short. First of all, I'm absolutely delighted to be proposed for a term for 4 years on the Supervisory Board of Randstad Corporation. My personal career has now gone on for over 3 decades. I started out in consulting with McKinsey & Company. I then went on to become an entrepreneur, and I started a consulting company that then became a global consulting group. After 17 years as an entrepreneur, I then sold that company and I became a salaried employee again or as my wife says, I live the dream, but in reverse.

So what I did was I joined an international corporation in the telecommunications space in Africa and Latin America. And after that, joined a media company first on the investment side, then later on as an executive team and eventually ran that company as the global CEO. Apart from that, I've also, for the last 20 years, have worked on corporate boards, both on the listed and on the non-listed side and also in the workspace, [ New Work ] in Germany, is one of the companies where I was actually Chairman for 4 years.

If I look at the common theme that was in my professional career, it was change. And most often, it was digitally technologically induced change. And that is not the easiest of times, but that is usually the phase when companies undergo technological change when the most value is created. And if we look at the video that Sander presented earlier today, that is precisely the situation in which Randstad is today, and I hope I can contribute to that with my experience and with my insights. And I'm very much looking forward to working with the management team, with the Supervisory Board. And I'm, as I said, absolutely delighted to be here, and I thank you for your trust.

Thank you very much. Are there any questions about the intended appointment? Please go ahead. You have the floor.

I am Mr. Steven from the Foundation for Legal Protection for Investors. As usual, I'm curious how you discovered Mr. Weiss. How did you find them? Because you say you conducted a search, but you would nonetheless -- like to know exactly how you conducted your search. Did you use a headhunter or an executive service agency? What mission did you entrust them with? How long was the list? And did you subsequently compile a short list? And were these discussed in a small committee and who served on that committee?

Did this lead to the selection of a limited number of candidates? And did you then interview these candidates? And were they sent questions in advance so that they could prepare for the interview? How did the interviews go? And another experience that I saw from closeup was that 2 candidates were selected and it was impossible to aside between them. So ultimately, a third candidate was selected. Was that the case here as well?

Yes, you basically described the process in your question. We drafted a profile of the person that we hoped to bring on board, and that was focused on Mrs. Aris' profile on the Board. She's a professor on strategic development and digitization. And we wanted somebody with experience in transformation who would succeed Annet and replace her and who might have something new to contribute as well. And he has practical experience because on the one hand, we've adopted a strategy now, but what matters is implementing this strategy.

So we submitted this question to [indiscernible], and we started with a long list and selected a few candidates and the Nomination Committee, spoke with them, and that yielded a proposal that was discussed with the entire Board. Martin has met with each of the Board members as well as with the management team. And at a certain point, Martin may have thought that it would be more difficult. It would -- he thought it was very time consuming. He compared it with joining the management of the [ Landesbank ]. But I think at our end, we did the right thing, and that's why we're very enthusiastic and convinced in proposing Martin Weiss to you today.

Now the final question, we're running out of time. You'd like to respond?

Yes, I have another question to Mr. Weiss himself. He delivered a very eager statement, but he didn't describe the -- he didn't describe his experience in the application process. A short perspective on how you experienced this entire procedure.

Absolutely. Thank you. Great question. It was a very pleasant experience, I must say. And it was also a very thorough process. I had a series of interviews. First, I was being briefed by the colleagues from Egon Zehnder about the role. Then I had a very detailed chat with people on the management team. And then we actually engaged with every single person or I engaged with every single person on the supervisory team. So I managed to meet everybody on the management team and I managed to meet everyone on the Supervisory Board. I've sat on a number of boards that process isn't usually as detailed as that. And I think overall, I had 11 or 12 conversations.

And as the Chairman said, I think what I can really apply to this role is my experience as a CEO. I ran a company that was active in 16 countries. And it was a performance that needed through digitization. We optimized and it was a multiyear process. And a lot of things that I've seen, I can now see as a challenge exactly in this corporation. And what draws me to Randstad, maybe I'll finish on that.

What draws me to Randstad is really 3 things. The first one is it is a global company, and it is a global leader in its field. The second is it has very strong client relationships and talent relationships. And the third is, and I think Sander said that a number of times, there's a very clear strategy in place, and we now need to make sure we implement that strategy, and I hope I can be there with advice, but also sort of as a critical voice to accompany that. And the process was great. Now I'm looking forward to implementing it.

Martin, thank you. Now agenda item comprises 3 points. First, the proposal to designate the Executive Board as the authorized corporate body to issue shares and to restrict or exclude the preemptive right. B, to authorize the Executive Board to repurchase shares. And C, to cancel repurchase shares. You can read more in the explanatory notes.

Are there any comments about these 3 proposals? I was about to say if not, but please go ahead.

Two points I'd like to make. Be good and tell it ensure far more share of voice within the market because that will yield far more money and costs go before income, invest more in that, expand your network and make sure that there are far more temps globally. And then next, I think that one of these points is irrelevant because you need to invest far more and make sure that Randstad is back in the lead on the market. That matters far more to me.

Thank you for your opinion. I propose that you cast your vote on items 7A through 7C. That takes us to some corporate items, including item 8A, the proposal to reappoint Annelies van der Pauw as a Board member of the Randstad Trust Office. You'll find her resume in the agenda and explanatory notes of this meeting. And the Randstad Executive Board proposes reappointing her as Board member A for a second 4-year term. Once again, this is the foundation for financing preference shares. Annelies van der Pauw is not present here. She was unable to be with us today.

Are there any questions? Please cast your vote on agenda item 8A.

Next to agenda item 8B, which is the proposal to reappoint PricewaterhouseCoopers Accountants as our external auditor for the 2027 financial year and to carry out a limited assurance engagement on the 2027 sustainability report.

Are there any questions? If not, I would ask you now to cast your final votes before we move on to the next agenda item. I will close the vote and Jelle Miedema will announce the voting results after any other business.

That takes us to agenda item 9, any other business. And if I do this right, we'll wrap it up by 1:15. We have 4 more minutes, but we still have any other business. Yes, you have the floor.

Mr. Chairman, who will replace Mrs. Aris on her committee? Do you already have the name? And will you disclose that? My second question is much has happened in the world on 6th March in the Financial Daily. We read that changes are imminent because now you have to pay attention to the carpenter on the corner. How are you going to interpret that? So there are new temp rules for -- that will apply to the carpenter on the corner. How will you interpret those rules?

And third, what do you think of the impact with Australia? And which benefits do you envisage in Australia?

And the first is that Martin -- excuse me, Martin Weiss will serve on the Remuneration Committee. And we don't know exactly who will be the Chair, but Martin will serve on the Remuneration Committee. And [ Jesus ] has indicated regarding the second point, how we will deal with the new regulations in the Netherlands. So much work has been done on that and discussions are ongoing with clients, and we'll continue those. And we'll, as always, observe and adapt to current regulations. We're very excited about the partnership with Australia and are working hard on that.

Are there any more questions for any other business?

I'm here for my children, [ Jelmer and Lynn ] as well as for the children and grandchildren of the network of nephews and nieces because we had relatively pleasant childhood. But what they hear about crisis and oil crisis and sustainability crisis, we can still make some adjustments and need to forge ahead. That means that we shoulder an additional responsibility and help you'll take that on board so that your children and grandchildren, nephews and nieces can say you did an excellent job despite all the problems in the world.

I think you've seen as in every annual report that we're a purpose-driven company. Are there any other questions or comments? Then I will now hand over to Jelle Miedema for the voting results.

Thank you, Cees. And before I read out the voting results and project them on the screen, which they already have, I will tell you the number present largely via proxies, 2,062 shareholders representing 230,464,403 shares entitled to vote, including 25,200,000 preference shares B and 15,130,352 preference shares C and may cast a total of 164,334,051 votes, which equals 88.93% of the total number of shares that may be cast. That takes us to the voting results.

And on the screen for agenda item 2C, you see the approval of the remuneration report, which was adopted with 86.32% of the vote. Next 2D, the proposal to adopt the financial statements has been adopted with 99.98% and agenda item 2F, the proposal to adopt the regular dividend has been adopted with 99.92%. Next agenda item 3A, discharge of the Executive Board has been approved with 99.5%. And agenda item 3B, the discharge of the Supervisory Board has been approved with 99.5%. Agenda item 4, the proposal to amend the Supervisory Board remuneration has been adopted with 99.88% and agenda item 5, the proposal to reappoint Sander van 't Noordende has been approved with 99.96%.

Then agenda item 6, the proposal to appoint Martin Weiss to the Supervisory Board has been approved with 99.9% of the vote. And agenda item 7A, the proposal to designate the Executive Board as the authorized corporate body to issue shares has been approved with 87.47%. And 7B, the proposal to authorize the Executive Board to repurchase shares have been approved with 99.96%; and 7C, the proposal to cancel repurchase shares have been approved with 99.9% of the vote. Next, 8A, the proposal to reappoint Annelies van der Pauw as Chair of the Trust office has been approved with 99.68%; and 8B, the proposal to reappoint PwC has been approved with 100% of the votes cast in favor.

So at the end of the meeting, I was just telling Sander, this is like a North Korean voting outcome, including your reappointment. Congratulations, Sander. And that means that we have reached the end of this meeting and a light lunch will be served in the lobby. And we assume that you're interested in a cup of coffee and a sandwich. Thank you very much for coming, and we hope to see you back again next time. Thank you for listening.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

Welcome to the Randstad Q4 and Full Year 2025 Results Conference Call and Audio Webcast. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the word over to Sander van't Noordende, CEO. Mr. Sander van't Noordende, please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Alba, for that introduction, and good morning, everyone. I'm here with Jorge and our Investor Relations team to share our Q4 and full year 2025 results. First of all, 2025 has been a year characterized by great strides in our transformation, while I would say, navigating the cycle and demonstrating a resilient performance. It's also been a special year as we celebrated Randstad's 65th anniversary, a milestone reflecting our enduring commitment to being a true partner for talent.

The market environment in Q4 was in many ways similar to what we saw throughout the year. We remain in a stagnant job market, but we see more resilience in Temp with good growth in Southern Europe, and we see further signs of an early cyclical pickup in U.S. Operational. As mentioned in the previous call, the Professional and Perm markets remain challenging, particularly in Northern Europe, while APAC remains resilient.

Against this backdrop, we delivered solid results. We achieved revenues of EUR 5.8 billion and an EBITDA of EUR 191 million with a margin of 3.3%. For full year 2025, we delivered revenues of EUR 23.1 billion, 2% lower year-on-year, and an EBITDA of EUR 720 million with a margin of 3.1%. So I'm very proud of how our teams navigated their markets during the year with a consistent focus on delivery of results while transforming the business.

So whilst 2025 was a challenging year, we came out of the year in a much better place than we went into it. First of all, from a growth perspective, we now have over 50% of the business in growth compared to around 25% at the end of 2024. From a profitability point of view, we reap the benefits of our cost discipline with EUR 181 million lower cost in 2025 than in 2024, and our recovery ratio was very strong at 71% for the year.

From a productivity point of view, our focus on delivery excellence through our talent and delivery centers is making us a more [Technical Difficulty] organization. And as a [Technical Difficulty] we achieved 3% productivity gains in Q4 and 1% for the full year. This discipline led to a solid free cash flow of approximately EUR 600 million, further strengthening our balance sheet. In light of this, we will propose a dividend of EUR 1.62 or EUR 284 million, in line with our capital allocation policy.

We started 2026 with stability in our volumes. Our exit rate in December was solid and the January revenue trend is flattish. Of course, we remain laser-focused on serving our clients and talents while steadily executing our partner for talent strategy.

In Q3 and Q4, I visited all major countries, and on the ground, you can really feel the energy and excitement for our transformation. Our people get it and want to lead the market as we continue to move our business model toward a digital-first talent company where we deliver [Technical Difficulty] scale through our platforms. While there is still work to do, we are seeing the clear benefits of this transformation in how we run the business day-to-day.

First of all, we continue to [Technical Difficulty] life sciences, e-commerce and logistics, health care and, of course, all the digital hot skills around AI, cloud, data and analytics. Together, these segments delivered EUR 9 billion in revenue this year, growing 2% year-on-year.

Looking at our specializations. In Operational, we've seen good commercial progress and sustained momentum with an increase in clients' visits paying off. In Digital and Enterprise, we signed several new blue-chip clients in semiconductors and financial services. However, professional job flow was impacted by a combination of year-end slowdown and low hiring confidence.

With our digital marketplaces generating approximately EUR 4 billion in annualized revenue, we are running the business at a higher clock speed. In Q4, we saw around 1.4 million shifts self-scheduled by our talent, an increase of 30% quarter-on-quarter. Clients and talent clearly like the new models.

We will further accelerate our digital-first strategy, and that's why I'm very pleased to welcome David Koker, who will be Randstad's first Chief Digital Growth Officer. David knows how to build digital experiences at scale and brings over 25 years of experience in driving commercial and platform growth across Europe and Asia, most recently at Booking.com.

Finally, none of this is possible without the best team in the industry. Despite the pace of change, our employee engagement remained above benchmark at 7.7. And we also continue to invest in our people's future by providing AI readiness training to all of our colleagues. And you will understand that with everything we've done in 2025, both operationally and strategically, we couldn't be better positioned for a more complete recovery with profitable growth as we are more specialized, more digital and more efficient. Jorge, over to you.

Thank you, Sander, and let me shed some extra color on our results. So good morning, everyone. All in all, we saw a continuation of the trends observed throughout the year. And always first from a momentum perspective, once again, the seasonal pattern continued as we added 15,000 talent working sequentially since Q3, again, versus 10,000 last year. Earnings-wise, Q4 and Q3 were very similar. It was somewhat of an erratic quarter, I would say, in what was overall a step towards a stronger exit rate in December and the start of January. That is encouraging, and we'll talk more about that later.

We also continued to gain field productivity and materialized structural cost savings in indirect costs achieved even while increasing digital investments. Lastly, disciplined cash conversion, allowing us to balance deleveraging with shareholder returns in line with our capital allocation policy, and also more about that later.

But let's start and break this down, starting with the regional performance now on Page 8. In North America, we continued to see good progress this quarter with a pickup in the industrial pockets of our business. In U.S., our Operational business grew 6%, significantly ahead of the market. And we see this as a very testament to our new way of working, centering on the digital marketplace and central delivery.

Elsewhere, Professional is down 10% and Digital this quarter was flat, but with solid operational leverage. Enterprise was minus 3%, with demand in RPO becoming more muted as we reached year-end. Meanwhile, in Canada, we continued to grow. Permanent hiring showed also some signs of stabilization, albeit at a low level, declining still 14% as hiring confidence remains low. The EBITDA margin for North America came in at 3.6%, up 20 basis points year-over-year. This represents a recovery ratio of above 100%, meaning we've been able to expand EBITDA year-over-year more than the gross profit we lost with productivity continuing to increase in Operational.

And now moving to Northern Europe on Slide 9. In Northern Europe, we continued to navigate challenging markets, though as we exit the year and enter 2026, exit rates in December and January suggest bottoming out or sequential improvement. In the Netherlands, organic revenue remained subdued at minus 7% with hiring freezes in government and large professional clients. Q4 [Audio Gap] this quarter an increase of the sickness provision, reflecting a rise in long-term sickness rates and going forward as well probably to stay relatively high, and a EUR 5 million one-off dotation into the new pension scheme.

Looking ahead, the new Temp CLA and the Future Pensions Act, WTP, effective of January 1, will increase some of the wage components. It is still too early to tell what the legislation impact will be, but at first glance, we see higher bill rates offsetting some of the pressure on volumes. We also celebrate 1 year of the acquisition of Zorgwerk, which continues its impressive growth and synergies path, reinforcing our position in health care as a structural growth segment.

In Germany, things remain challenging with revenue at minus 10%, driven still by subdued automotive, though manufacturing is stabilizing. More importantly here, our structural improvements on the cost side, as you can see, are paying off, ensuring a profitability base and positioning us for a stronger company into 2026. Belgium declined 5% with operation at minus 4% against tougher comparables. And finally, Poland, 7% growth, Switzerland, 6% growth, continued to lead growth, offsetting the subdued Nordics, still at minus 14%.

And now moving on to the segment Southern Europe, U.K. and LatAm on Slide 10. France remains a story of a 2-speed market. On one hand, we see resilience in our industrial pockets, and this is most visible in in-house, which grew this quarter at 13%. On the other hand, the SME segment is still down double digits, leading to an overall operational decline of 4%. Professionals were down 14% year-over-year. And this quarter, health care saw sequentially less revenue, impacted primarily by legislative changes that came into effect in December.

Our leaner structure enabled us to deliver an EBITDA margin of 5.4%, up 130 basis points year-over-year. Italy posted its seventh consecutive quarter of growth. Operational grew 6%. Profitability landed at 5.7%, reflecting strategic investments ahead of the Randstad talent platform rollout. Iberia remains a stronghold, plus 5%, led by Spain, up 6%, where growth investments are paying off. Elsewhere, the picture is mixed. The U.K. remains tough. And across these regions, conversion does continue to increase, resulting in a 3% EBITDA margin.

And now let's move on to Asia Pacific on Slide 11. Japan continued its solid growth at plus 6%, and we continue to invest to capture structural opportunities, particularly in digital engineering, where we're growing 7%. India delivered double-digit growth as we continued to invest in growth segments, while Australia and New Zealand declined 7% against steep comparables in a subdued market. Overall, the EBITDA margin for the region came in at 3.3%.

And that concludes the performance of our key geographies. But now let me walk you through our combined financial performance on Slide 13. Let's start with the revenue. So looking at the revenue mix, we see the trends of the last few quarters continuing. Operational specialization continued to improve throughout the year and is now flat. Professional and Digital remained broadly stable throughout the year, albeit still at a low level. In Enterprise, we saw after several quarters of solid growth in RPO, demand softening in this quarter, resulting in a 4% decline.

If we move down, gross profit and OpEx remained very similar to Q3 levels, and this resulted in an EBITDA margin of 3.3%, stable sequentially and year-over-year. Underlying EBITDA came in at EUR 191 million, and it's worth noting that we again faced an adverse FX impact of around EUR 8 million. Adjusting for that, our operational profitability was very close to last year's level. Integration costs and one-offs this quarter amounted to EUR 34 million. And for the full year, one-offs totaled EUR 125 million with the largest focus on structural cost reductions in Northern and Western Europe.

Regarding amortization and impairment, we recorded an impairment of EUR 9 million related to our digital business in Belgium, reflecting the ongoing weak market conditions there. Net finance income of EUR 5 million for the quarter, where fair value adjustments, reversal of impairments on our loans and financial commitments resulted this quarter in a gain of EUR 18 million, effectively offsetting our regular interest expenses for the quarter. The effective tax rate was 31% for the year, within our guided range. In 2026, we expect a similar tax rate guidance of 29% to 31%. And this all leads to an adjusted net income of EUR 135 million for the quarter.

And with that, let's now dive deeper into the gross margin slide on Page 14. A few things about margin. So Temp margin was down 20 basis points year-over-year. Operational business remains more resilient versus Professional and Digital specializations. There we continue to see a geographical divergence with Northern Europe below group average and Southern Europe continuing to do better. And as we mentioned before, an adverse FX impact in 2025. Incidental items also took an impact in the Netherlands, as mentioned earlier, and that overall brought the gross margin in Temp down 20 basis points.

Perm contribution was down 20 basis points as well with a little sign still of stabilization in key perm markets remaining challenging. In HRS and other, this quarter was flat. RPO decline, 3%, 4%, is pretty much in line with group level, therefore, not impacting the overall gross margin mix. This is the market at the moment. Overall, looking back at 2025, the impact of geo mix, enterprise clients and specialization mix with Operational being more resilient carries a Temp margin decline that will progressively unwind with different market dynamics. Which brings me to the OpEx bridge on Slide 15. And remember always, this one is sequential.

Underlying operating expenses were EUR 880 million, once again, like throughout the year, moving in lockstep with gross profit. This means OpEx has stayed broadly in line sequentially, with seasonality and strategic investments offsetting cost -- offset by cost savings. The payback of the one-offs executed throughout the year remained well below the 12 months reference we normally provide.

And the real story here is our 71% recovery ratio. Over the last 3 years, we have become structurally more agile. Our structural changes to how we conduct and support our business have improved our ability to recover the decline in gross profit by reducing operating expenses or to convert more of gross profit into EBITDA in the countries where we see growth.

Today, we have more revenue also going through delivery centers. We have more parts of our process done digitally, and we have more and more revenue in our digital solutions. At the same time, in parallel, we continue to drive structural indirect costs down. Linking this back to our Capital Markets discussions in May, I am pleased to share that we've achieved north of EUR 100 million in net structural savings for 2025.

And with that in mind, let's now move on to Slide 16, which we discuss cash flow and balance sheet. Turning to cash flow. Our underlying free cash flow for the quarter was a positive EUR 213 million, reflecting mostly seasonality. For the full year, free cash flow totaled close to EUR 600 million, up EUR 260 million year-over-year, reflecting good cash conversion, while year-end timing was supportive in 2025. DSO came in at 56.7 days, up slightly by 0.5 days sequentially.

Net debt, therefore, decreased EUR 274 million year-over-year, and our leverage ratio now stands at 1.3. Consistent with our capital allocation, we proposed a regular dividend of EUR 1.62 per share. This reflects 64% of adjusted net earnings, which equals the floor when we temporarily exceed the 40% to 50% range.

And that brings me on Slide 17. All in all, we see further volume stability, especially in our Operational business with 50% of the business in growth to continue, and for the remaining 50%, we see support by improving end markets or annualization of some of the sharper declines of last year. In concrete, we are encouraged by the revenue trends, with a better exit of the quarter than we started and January coming in at 0.4% decline per working day.

Q1 2026 gross margin is expected to be broadly stable sequentially as we see more adverse effects and the lower Perm and RPO business offsetting some of the improved mix. Operating expenses are expected to be lower modestly quarter-over-quarter, and I believe it should be at least in the range of $10 million to $15 million, a reflection of our efforts taken this year. Lastly, the number of working days will be the same. For Q1, we stayed the course, balancing growth, strategic initiatives and then to protect relative profitability, although we never optimize for a quarter and we set ourselves for the year and the years to come.

And to summarize, 2025 was an important year for Randstad, finishing better than we started and setting us up for a better 2026. In terms of growth, decline rates eased over the year, and we entered 2025 at minus 5% and we finished with 50% in growth, and in the rest, bottoming out. Started 2026 crossing the line in terms of growth. And more structurally, we continued to position ourselves where growth is, our growth segments, and successfully integrated Zorgwerk.

In terms of field productivity, we continue to change how we work, digitizing more and with real revenue now flowing through our marketplaces in various countries and markets, with especially our Operational and Digital business marketplaces showing good progress. SG&A and indirect costs, we also took more than EUR 100 million structural costs that are now not coming back. In terms of profitability, the short-term plan was adaptability, but the long-term plan is about structurally building operational leverage and resilience, breaking the linear model, as we normally discuss, and the expectations that come with it.

If anything, in 2025, we've become more structurally more agile and scalable, proven by the 71% recovery ratio and despite continued investments. This has allowed us to deliver strong adaptability and now set the performance frame for 2026.

That concludes our prepared remarks, and we now look forward to taking your questions.

The first question comes from Remi Grenu from Morgan Stanley.

A few questions on my side, if I may. So the first one would be on organic growth. So good to see that it's trending in the right direction, I guess, going into 2026, but there is still a little bit of a gap with some of your competitors. So I'd like to understand how you would explain that gap and how you intend to bridge it. So is it about the necessity to reposition the business on more supportive segments? Is it about hiring more FTEs to generate volume? Or maybe a little bit of issue with the pricing positioning versus competitors? So just want to have your take on that competitive landscape and how you intend to bridge the performance gap.

The second question is on what you alluded to in the Netherlands. So there is this Dutch law coming into effect in July, if I'm not mistaken. So I just wanted to understand if you feel like the employers -- I mean, the clients you're discussing with have already adjusted ahead of the change? Or if you feel that there could be additional pressure in the second half of this year? And if so, if it's possible to quantify it a little bit given the revenue exposure of the company to that country?

And then the third one would be on your Enterprise business. So I think you said it was a little bit softer this quarter. What has driven that softness? Is it company-specific large contracts you would have lost or which would be ramping down? Or are you seeing largest employers being a little bit more cautious on hiring trend going into 2026?

Well, let me take a step back because, of course, it's all about growth here. So let me just sort of reflect on what's going on here. So let's maybe first make a few comments on Q4. As Jorge mentioned it, the way we see Q4 is that we had a little bit of a blip in a few parts of our business, and the blip was primarily in October and November because December and January have shown encouraging results. And I speak specifically about France, Belgium and Germany. And the story is with different reasons, more or less the same for those big 3 countries.

In Enterprise, your question is a good one. The main issue in enterprise is that we have seen somewhat lower hiring in Q4, basically some of our larger clients putting on the brake, stepping on the brake, not stopping, but reducing hiring in Q4. We have, at the same time, signed up a bunch of new clients which we are bringing up to speed in Q1, and hopefully, the revenues for those clients will start to come through in Q2 and definitely in Q3. So that's sort of the Q4 reflections.

Then if we look forward, we see that 50% of our business is in growth, and we are optimistic about the other 50% also improving from here on. What's driving that? Well, first of all, just sort of the macro headwinds are easing. Interest rates have been coming down. Inflation is easing. This whole thing about trade is more like the new normal. Clients are dealing with it, are knowing what to do, have taken their measures. So that's -- the uncertainty is somewhat dissipating.

The labor markets are getting unstuck. We see more mobility. We see some people -- more people leaving, some layoffs even here and there. So there's more dynamics and more mobility in the labor market. All of that could indicate a cyclical pattern, if you will. Temp is definitely more resilient and North America operational is leading the way here. That's great. In Europe, as I said, in those big 3, 4 countries, we see an encouraging start of the year as well. So that's all positive, I would say.

Then last but not least, and this is really important -- I mean, obviously, we have been building a more resilient and agile Randstad. And what does that mean? That means, first of all, a better experience for our clients and talents because that's why we are here on earth, that's how we make a living. But also all of that is fully focused on creating more leverage. So you have to realize that over the last years, we have been investing more than EUR 500 million in new processes, systems, talent centers, delivery centers, technology, and all of that is creating not only a better experience, but it's also creating more leverage in our business.

That's talent centers. We have to meet the talents where they are, and the talents are online. So we have talent centers complemented with technology, increasingly AI, by the way, to get more efficient -- to be more efficient in getting talent in the door. That's delivery centers, the central delivery for clients that have multiple locations with dedicated teams focusing on improving the fulfillment at those clients. And the results that you see left and right are actually quite staggering.

Then the DMP, and North America is a case in point. If there's one example of operational leverage, it's the DMP. If the client is asking for 100 people more, we can deliver those people -- we can deliver those 100 people more tomorrow with 0 marginal cost. That is how a DMP works, and that's extremely, extremely powerful. So all of that to say that we're steering the business in a very disciplined way, as you know. So we're aiming to do the same in 2026 as we have done in 2025, is steering with an ICR and IRR above historical levels, like we did in 2025, and you know we had 71%, which is, of course, something that we are extremely, extremely proud of.

So in short, I would say I'm actually pleased to get another 4 years in Randstad because I haven't been more optimistic at the beginning of the year in my tenure in Randstad. And you may know the saying every dog has its day. I think my day as a dog has maybe come starting in 2026. So I'm optimistic.

Just one -- Remi, your second question, if I'm not mistaken, was about the Netherlands. So just to be clear, the new temp CLA and the changes you were alluding to, they actually start on the 1st of January. We are working with our clients. It's a bit too early. I think, by and large, the increase we see in wage components, let's put it like this, will offset, if any, the volume pressure that we might see. But for now, that's what we are working on, yes.

The next question comes from Andy Grobler from BNP Paribas.

Just the one from me and a follow-up. Just in terms of gross margin, could you talk a little around the underlying pricing you're seeing in the constituent parts? And essentially, to what extent is the downward trend in gross margin about -- just about mix versus like-for-like changes? And particularly on that, your guide into Q1, sorry, and the moving parts inherent within that?

And let me basically just take a step and look at the full year and then how we enter 2026, because some of these things start potentially changing as we enter the year. So in terms of gross margin -- I mean, let's separate things. There's a service mix as always and then there's a temp margin. And I think we talk a lot about pricing, but I should also think I'll talk more about the market and the market we have today and how the industry is supporting different clients, different geographies and what we see.

Today, we have a Randstad that from a geographical perspective has growth and is supporting more clients in countries where there's a slightly lower temp margin, think Spain, think Italy versus, let's say, the Central European countries. But that's basically a geographical mix. We also have a client base at the moment in an industry that is leaning towards a bigger share of large clients, think in-house, think very large enterprises. And that, of course, brings as well a client mix impact.

And thirdly, and not the least, if you look at our specializations, and it's in line somehow with previous cycles that we've seen before. What is holding up better is clearly the Operational business. It's flat even at the end of the year, crossing into growth already. And we see the higher skilled specializations, think of professional, digital, still with, let's say, year-over-year declines. Meaning, again, the higher margin specializations declining and the lower margin specialization continuing to increase.

Now this is the market we have today. And if I look at 2025, we have basically around, I would say, 60 basis points delta on our gross margin, if you kind of normalize it throughout the quarters. And I would say 40 basis points -- Andy, that's the mix. It's the market we have today. I don't like to talk about mix because this has consequences for OpEx, has consequence for everything. It's where we have market and it's where we are gaining, it's where we're going to operate.

We also had an impact of 20 basis points from perm and a positive impact somehow from RPO as RPO was basically throughout the year growing faster than the group. That means approximately 60 basis points in 2025. If we now look at 2026, what is likely to happen, right? This 40 basis points from the temp side of things, so the geo, the client and specialization -- we don't really know, we want to grow everywhere. But clearly, they are starting to annualize or will start to ease.

If there's growth, more growth in the U.S., if it continues to be supported in Southern Europe, one way or the other, some of the things will annualize in the higher-margin accounts, and we should start seeing things bottoming out on at least easing the comparisons that we had. The same with client mix. I can't tell you we want to grow in every single client segment, but somehow, if we look at previous years, once things indeed increase towards large clients, the years after start analyzing.

And the specialization is the same. We're crossing over into growth and operational, but we still need to see how professional, how digital will evolve into 2026. Remember, we have pockets in digital. Look at United States, we're either in growth or flat. So it's already a very different start of the year than we had in 2025. And then perm, we continue still to count on 20 basis points, potentially 10 for now. We'll see how things ease throughout the year.

RPO, Sander alluded to it. The positive impact has now in Q4 kind of faded away. On the other hand, it will be about balancing business as usual with new implementations. And the pipeline and FX adds particularly in Q1. And remember, a lot of the bigger fluctuations happened in Q2, Q3 and Q4. So as we now ease into the year, FX will have an impact in Q1 and not in Q2. So at least if things don't change, less in Q2, Q3 and Q4. So again, into 2026, we see pretty similar margin trends as 2025, and potentially as we go into the year, easing off in some of the components.

Okay. And just one follow-up in terms of the in-house sort of large clients versus SMEs. In fairly broad terms, can you talk about the difference in gross margin between your average in-house solution and your more sort of branch-led SME business?

Yes. I would say, I mean, probably 10 to 15 -- it depends on the markets, right, Andy.

Yes, inside France, for example.

10 to 15 basis points roughly, I would say, on average at group level. I don't specify for country.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Rory McKenzie from UBS.

It's Rory here. I wanted to ask about the impact of the digital marketplaces. How much do you think is visible in these numbers? If it's now annualizing at nearly 20% of revenues, you called out 1.4 million self-scheduled shifts. Can we see that at all in the North American growth rate? Do you think that's been a part of why you've seen that improve? Has it allowed you to protect margins more? Or really do you think we're still waiting to see more of those benefits over time as market volumes recover? I know there was another restructuring charge in the quarter as well. So maybe could you say how much of that is relating to kind of the structural reshaping compared to maybe adjusting to the market conditions?

Well, where can we see the impact of digital marketplaces in our numbers? Well, first of all, in North America, in Operational. I think that part of the growth is because of our digital marketplaces, because once clients ask more, we are much faster and at much lower cost, of course, to deliver those additional FTEs. The digital marketplace is also differentiating us in the marketplace because some clients are saying, with Randstad, we have access to talent that we otherwise would not have. So it gives us a leg up in competing against our competitors for new clients.

We have seen the productivity in terms of EWs per FTE now surpassing the level of 2019. So that's a good sign. So you can see it in the U.S. at scale. The other places that we can see the impact of the digital marketplace are in health care. So in health care in the Netherlands, there has been a big shift from freelance to temp. Without the digital marketplace, we would not have been able to make that shift at the pace that we have been doing over the course of 2025. And it's actually quite phenomenal what that team has pulled off there over the last year. Similar dynamics both in France, where we have, of course, some challenges with regulation. But because we have the digital marketplace, we're better to navigate that. And last but not least, I would say, in Australia.

Finally, in Randstad Digital -- and I spent time with the team last week. About 80% of our fulfillment is now coming directly from our community in our digital marketplace in Randstad Digital in the United States. Obviously, you can imagine that means faster, that means more productivity and the likes. Now obviously, this is all EUR 4 billion on an annual basis. So we're now going to work hard to expand that to other markets most likely, so markets that we are focused on in 2026, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, Poland, just to name -- Canada, just to name a few.

So this model works. Clients and talent like it. We can now look at the business and run the business in a much more granular way. And frankly, we are start to -- we're only touching the surface -- scratching the surface of the opportunity that the digital marketplace is offering us in terms of talent availability, efficiency, precision, relationship with talent, redeployment. We're just scratching the surface. So I'm extremely optimistic. This model is working, and more to come.

Rory, any follow-up question?

Just about the -- maybe the disruption charge in Q4, and how much of that is related to kind of reshaping the business to get the most out of this platform compared to adjusting to the cyclical conditions?

The one-offs. Yes, sorry. Yes. Sander, can I just complement something from a finance perspective? Everything you heard from Sander, what excites me, Rory, is it's structurally changing the ability that the company has, becoming more agile, but also gearing up and converting. So a lot of what we sought was the art of the possible. We now see the benefits of digital and the benefits of everything we're doing, starting to basically be possible also in our industry and in Randstad. And that's quite exciting.

In terms of one-offs, let's be clear, they continued elevated in 2025, though lower than in 2024 and 2023. More important I would argue, when we make these decisions in terms of allocating capital to it, is the return on them. And from that perspective, if I look at the return we had from the one-offs, you can actually already see this very clearly in Q4 and as we enter into Q1. So a large part of, almost EUR 30 million, EUR 35 million actually, reduction in OpEx we had in Q4, I would say almost 2/3 of that were directly driven from the one-offs done this year. And we are well below the 12-month target that we set ourselves internally. And that will support us again into Q1.

The next question comes from Marc Zwartsenburg from ING.

Two questions from me as well, first on the EBITA margin in North America. The progress, 20 basis points year-on-year, it was a bit higher than previous quarters, but still conversion ratio of 100%. But how should we think about that margin in 2026? Should we see that the productivity gain from the digital marketplace and the self-placement or self-scheduling to feed through and the step-up -- really a step-up in the margin in '26, because now it's a bit volatile in the progress on the year-on-year? Can you maybe give a bit more color on what we should expect there in terms of margin progression?

And then following up on that, on the cost base. You already mentioned we should see the cost base will be relatively flat or slightly lower in Q1. How should we think about that throughout '26? Will you be able to offset all the inflationary because inflation is coming down, that you will be able to offset that? And that you can keep that OpEx level rather flat throughout the year? How should we think about that? And also in relation to the one-offs, how many one-offs will we see in '26 to keep that going? That's it.

Okay. I mean, first on the U.S. So yes, in terms of we want to see a step-up in profitability. There's a few things at play, Marc, as well. The exciting thing is we're seeing 10% productivity gains. You can see it in our numbers already in the U.S. overall, even more parts in our Operational business, where a lot of this model is already helping us supporting growth.

We still see perm somewhat subdued. Props still to recover as you've probably been reading on other players in the market. RPO also not necessarily yet in sustainable growth, though Sander alluded to it we are winning new business or we're implementing new clients. So there's a few variables there. But in short, yes, we want to see and we will see a step-up in profitability in North America.

In terms of the cost base, let's -- and the one-offs, let's look at it. We're actually starting the year at a lower level. I mean, I want to make a side note. We're now probably have the OpEx way below 2018, 2017 even levels of OpEx. So clearly, let's say, a lot of the OpEx we have incurred and we have perhaps inadvertently structurally had through COVID, a lot of it has been corrected back. And to the question of one-offs, the point here is making sure that it will not come back, because this is also eliminating and improving how we work and basically making sure they work differently. The point of having incurred these one-offs is to make sure this does not come back, these costs. So we are a leaner and meaner Randstad as we now prepare to cover -- or to go over into growth in 2026.

If we then look at the exact OpEx level, look, we'll start low in general with the seasonality of the year. We see growth in many markets and it's stepping up. So I don't want to make obviously a comment about our OpEx will stay flat throughout the year, but it's optional for us. So we can choose depending on how much growth we see and how we want to support potential opportunities in growth, how to develop our OpEx going from Q1 onwards. And we will never sacrifice growth for a quarter result or performance. But yes, we have the option within us.

That's very clear. And then from a cash flow perspective on the one-offs, is there any cash outflow to be expected from the one-offs still in '26?

Yes. I mean, look, as we continue to roll out -- again, they were lower this year. I don't expect them to -- I mean, I expect them again, if anything, to exist to be lower than 2025. But remember, I also told you very clearly, from a cash allocation, this is probably one of the best -- well, we shouldn't talk about it like that. But from a return perspective, it is way below the 12 months. There is likely to be some one-offs, but things are bottoming out. It's more about continuing to roll out better ways of working and our functional target operating models. That's basically where we -- what we are focused now.

The next question comes from Simon Van Oppen from Kepler Cheuvreux.

I would like to extend on Remi's question about the Netherlands. So we saw that revenues in the Netherlands was down 7% on an organic basis against an easier comparison base, while your corporate staff was actually up by 60 people in the Netherlands. And Jorge, you mentioned increase in wage components potentially offsetting volume pressure around regulations. But how should we look at profitability in the Netherlands for 2026? And can we expect further pressure on profitability with potentially higher number of FTEs due to more administrative work around the new regulations?

So let's -- first of all, on the Netherlands. So if you look ahead, yes, there's a big legislation change. I just told you that the first view we have is -- and remember, we're #1 here clearly. So it's where we also can add responsibility to lead the market in terms of implementation of legislation. And in that respect what we see for now is bill rates offsetting some of the volumes. We also see Zorgwerk stepping up and in growth territory. So you see a lot of things into Q1 that support growth.

And from a headcount perspective, this is probably a big change, one of the biggest change we had over the years in the Netherlands. So there is a temporary ramp-up, let's say, of people to help us, basically making sure that everything is in order for our clients and for our talents. Remember, we're #1. So for many companies, we are their partner, the one partner in the Netherlands in terms of managing flexibility and contingency on talent. And in that respect, we are basically making sure that everything is ready for this particular quarter.

Also take into account -- if you look at some of the one-off -- or the restructure costs that we've taken, they are primarily concentrated in Northern Europe, and, of course, that also includes the Netherlands, as we adjust to the running rate of the 7%. So we're not standing still. We're making sure that the legislation is well implemented. There's always opportunities and risks, but more important, we're also focusing on making sure that the business is balanced for 2026.

The next question comes from Vasia Kotlida from Barclays.

I have 2 questions. First one, you mentioned new client wins. Can you please give some color on what industries and geographies? And the second is about the January trends. These are almost flat. Is that comp related or a genuine pickup in activity from Q4 that was up minus 2%?

Yes. On the new client wins, a couple of exciting deals in RPO and MSP in Life Sciences and in Financial Services, primarily, I would say, in North America and a couple also here in the core of Europe. So good news there.

Yes. On the second question on the growth rate, Vasia. If you look at Q1, I mean, Sander alluded to it, we have 50% of the markets already in Q4 in growth. So again, those markets continue to be in growth, and in many of them, even encouraging signs. Also in volume -- I mean, we are literally crossing into volume growth already. And Q4 was probably the first quarter, I would say, since Q2 2022 that we were flat in employees working. So things clearly seeming to bottom out. And we see strong momentum in the U.S. and Southern Europe.

We also see a stronger or a better, I would say, exit rate in France. It's in line with market data. We just talked about the Netherlands, where we have slightly higher bill rates, and we also have Zorgwerk in growth. And in general, also, if you look at some of the more challenging markets like particularly in Q4, Belgium and Germany, let's say, the blip we saw in comparables in Q4, we now go back to the trend of Q3, so again, improving into Q1. So overall, we see supported revenue trends into Q1.

The following question comes from Simon LeChipre from Jefferies.

A follow-up on gross margin. So you are pointing to top line momentum improving into Q1 and particularly in North America, which should help gross margin. But your guidance suggests gross margin being down 90 bps year-on-year in Q1, which is a sequential deterioration. It was minus 40 bps in Q4. So how do you explain this? And my follow-up question is on -- so your 3% EBIT margin floor. I mean do you expect to break it in Q1? And are you confident to maintain this level at least for the full year?

So I mean, we don't -- Simon, we don't necessarily give guidance for a quarter. I think what the tone -- and Sander was quite clear on it, and I'm happy to confirm it from a financial perspective. We've built operational -- I mean, we can talk about adaptability in 2025. I think the year is more important than that, mainly because we've built operational gearing throughout -- let's say, for Randstad. So in terms of looking to 2026, I mean, given the current economic scenarios we see and even a range of them, I'm pretty sure we've built the ability to improve the results and profitability going forward.

If I look at the gross margin in particular, I think -- again, I tried to when talking to Andy to try to break out a little bit from the fog and the mist of one quarter and the other. We had incidentals in Q4 and Q1 last year. So that kind of mixes up things a little bit. But what you see into Q1, you see still a perm environment that is more negative than we had expected. You see probably -- but okay, we cannot obviously predict that -- a very subdued FX impact. Remember, Liberation Day and a lot of the swings or the corrections we got in exchange rates happened in Q2 last year. And we see RPO a little bit negative vis-a-vis what had been throughout 2025.

And this offset some of the better mix that we have. If anything, it better notch up as we go into 2026 for some of the annualization of our geo clients and specialization mix, as I explained before.

Our next question comes from Konrad Zomer from ABN AMRO - ODDO BHF.

On the bill rates in the Netherlands, I understand that some of the bill rates have gone up as much as 15%, mainly due to the pension regulatory changes. What could be the time delay in terms of volumes to come down? Because if temps get more expensive, I can see why employers would be more hesitant to recruit. And also, I think the minus 0.4% in January is certainly good. But what would be the impact specifically from these regulatory changes in the Netherlands?

Yes. So first, Konrad -- I mean, I don't want to go into, let's say, the very, very -- very detailed. But the 15% is -- it's -- I mean, I'm not -- we don't see that, so I'm not -- I think it's way -- just to be absolutely clear for everyone, that's way, way too high. I think there's 2 things happening, just to be absolutely clear. There's a pension scheme, as you very well know, the pension -- the Future Pension Act, and there's the collective labor agreement changes. And these 2 things, we don't expect them to be not even almost half of what you just -- let's say, half of what you just mentioned. And it's too early to tell what the impact will be, if any, on volumes.

What I would say is the first impression is -- or the first signs that the uplift you might get from, let's say, the bill rate effect, the wage components, seems to offset some of the pressure we might have on volume. But more about that later. We don't see more than that. And it's the same with any legislation. There's always a big uproar, and in the end, things normalize into the normal level of flexibility in an economy.

We have time for one last question. The question comes from Maarten Verbeek from the IDEA!

In the third quarter, you mentioned that your digital marketplace generated EUR 4 billion in annualized revenue, and exactly the same you mentioned today. So why haven't we seen any progress quarter-on-quarter? And in addition to that, have you set yourself a target for annualized revenue, what you would like to achieve in the fourth quarter of '26?

Yes, good question. Well, first of all, how we -- so of course, we need to add more countries and more scope to the digital marketplaces to grow. Yes, North America grew from Q3 to Q4. But let's say, in the bigger scheme of things, that's not a massive number, as you can understand. So it's just a matter of technicalities. As I said, in 2026, we will add more markets, somewhere around 5 to 7 markets with the digital marketplace. So we will add more scope, and therefore, we'll grow. I think it's too early to put a number on that because -- I mean, you can imagine that requires work, that requires go-live. So let's not put a number on that just yet. We'll keep you updated throughout the year.

Martin, any follow-up question?

No, thank you. That's it. Thank you.

Okay. With that, thank you all for joining the call. And before we wrap it up, as always, I would like to thank all our Randstad employees and our employees working for their hard work in Q4 and the hard work they're going to do in Q1, of course. And we wrap up the call here. Thank you very much.

Hello. Welcome to the Randstad Q3 2025 Results Conference Call and Audio Webcast. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand over the word to Sander van't Noordende, the CEO. Mr. Van't Noordende, please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Alba, for that kind introduction, and good morning, everybody. I'm here with Jorge and our Investor Relations team to share our Q3 results. Let me first say it's been a special quarter as we celebrated our 65-year anniversary. And of course, this milestone is a celebration of our enduring commitment to shaping the world of work and to be a true partner for talent, providing clients with the talent they need to succeed and finding talented jobs and careers they are looking for.

So this quarter, we've been very focused on executing our partner for talent strategy, and I'm pleased to report that our delivery excellence and our digital-first progress, combined with commercial and operational discipline, has led to a good set of results. The market environment in Q3 was in many ways similar to what we saw in Q2. We remain in a stagnant job market. We see more resilience in temp, while as expected, the professional and perm markets remain challenging. From a geographical perspective, we see diverging trends with ongoing recovery in North America and Southern Europe and sustained momentum in APAC.

Condition in Northern Europe remain challenging, and we expect this environment to persist for the remainder of the year. Against this backdrop, we delivered solid results. We achieved revenues of EUR 5.8 billion, an EBITA of EUR 191 million and a margin of 3.3%. Looking forward, we continue to see stabilization, most notably in North America and Southern Europe with temp more resilient than perm. On the other hand, the major Northwestern European countries face ongoing uncertainty in the wake of various domestic challenges. However, I'm proud of the discipline that we have shown in our execution in Q3 with good progress on our operational and enterprise specializations.

And from a commercial point of view, we've grown activity in Randstad operational. We have had some good client wins in enterprise and digital and professional job flow is back at pre-summer levels. And as said, we've been very focused on executing our strategy, and I want to share some meaningful progress that shows things are coming together at scale because that's what we need at Randstad. The main milestone this quarter is clearly Randstad Digital in the U.S. We went live with our talk digital marketplace with a talent community of now over 1 million IT specialists.

We have transformed our business from the classic linear and recruiter-dependent model into one that's community-centric, high velocity and AI-powered. And this does not only result in a better experience for clients and talent, but also in enhanced productivity. And with this move, we immediately add another EUR 1.3 billion in annualized revenues to our digital marketplaces. A second area where we are making great progress through our digital marketplaces is our healthcare growth segment. In the Netherlands, Zorgwerk successfully navigated the transition from freelance to temp, driving strong double-digit growth.

We've expanded our Appel Medical app in France with self-scheduling empowering talent even more. And as mentioned last quarter, we've gone live for healthcare in Belgium. And in the first month, talent take-up was enormous with 50% of shifts filled within 1 hour, of which 30% filled within 10 minutes. And finally, we're making strides in Australia with now over 40,000 self-scheduled shifts. And this growth segment has now generated over EUR 800 million annual revenues through digital marketplaces.

Lastly, I'm pleased with the transformation of our Randstad operational business in the U.S. And as I said before, it's not just the launch of the digital marketplace, it's the business model. Leveraging the power of digital first in combination with talent and delivery centers gives a better experience for talent in terms of flexibility and speed and for clients in terms of fulfillment and quality of talent. Also, it allows us to spend more time with clients because of a higher productivity in delivery. Finally, we run our business at a higher clock speed.

As an example, we now have our supply-demand balance by ZIP code and by role at our fingertips, allowing us to take immediate action where needed. And the good thing is that all of this is already contributing to growth and profitability. So these transformations are taking the way we run our business to a next level with a higher velocity, more data and more precision. We're setting up a new base camp, if you will. And the great thing is it's all powered by next-generation AI embedded in our digital marketplaces.

Combined, our digital marketplaces are now generating approximately EUR 4 billion in annualized revenue, which is 15% of our total business and that's massive. To conclude, we're executing well in fragile markets. We're operating our business with rigor and discipline and at the same time, delivering on our partner for talent strategy with, of course, the best team in the industry. Jorge, over to you.

Thank you, Sander, and good morning, everyone. Let me start by bringing where we left it last time. So overall, the stabilization we highlighted the whole year and in Q2, in particular, continued into Q3. We increased our workforce just to put into perspective by over 10,000 employees in Q3 sequentially compared to last year's similar increase of 4,000 employees, 2.5x. Despite an adverse foreign exchange impact, we'll talk more about it later, we generated more revenue sequentially as well. At the same time, while clients and caution are favoring flexibility, the actual hiring confidence remain extremely low, and our permanent placements felt that impact.

Overall, as the decline in rates ease, like Sander mentioned, combined with our focus on operational efficiency, combined again with a leaner cost structure allowed us to protect profitability and further deleverage. But let's break this down by regions first and starting on Page 8 with North America. In North America, we continue to see good strategic and financial progress this quarter with growth and profitability improving across all specializations. In the U.S., our operational business grew 1% and continues to perform ahead of the market, as we have now implemented our new way of working. Sander alluded to it, but let me remind you, this is not only the marketplace, it's a central delivery for our clients and talent.

It's optimizing roles and responsibilities around specialization, and it's the immediate talent availability and our accommodation footprint. Through digital first and more harmonized ways of working, we continue to generate quarter-after-quarter productivity gains and are able to remove structural costs, operating now already a significantly leaner cost structure. The professional solutions and permanent hiring showed signs of stabilization at a low level, declining still 11% and 18%, as I mentioned before, in permanent.

Digital grew 2%, and we celebrated rollout, as we heard from Sander, of the marketplace. Enterprise was for the whole region, 2% broadly stable sequentially. In Canada, we also saw good underlying improvement and returned to growth in the quarter. The EBITA margin for North America came in at 4.6%, up 100 basis points year-over-year, a solid step towards a structurally higher operating leverage already under the new model. And now let's move on to Northern Europe on Slide 9.

Especially here, we continue to navigate challenging markets. Temp clearly more resilient than perm, but it's too early still to call it the bottom, still fragile and slow paced. We see underlying demand stable, facing tougher comparables nevertheless, with early cyclical pockets continuing to improve, while professionals and perm are still trailing. In the Netherlands, zooming in, growth was more or less stable at a low level of minus 6%. We are responding well to market circumstances. Auto supply chain, hiring freeze across professionals in government, in particular, as well as incoming legislation impact are pressuring in the short term the sentiment.

But on the other hand, we are activating new clients, and we are winning in the healthcare market, where Zorgwerk as mentioned by Sander, is a major winning player. We remain laser-focused. The team is adapting well to these circumstances, and we were able to protect profitability, as you can see in the chart. Germany saw stable quarter-on-quarter movement, as decline rates remained at minus 7%. We see the labor market environment still challenging and unchanged, but our efforts here are paying off. We are back to profitability, as mentioned before already in the last call of Q2, and we are structurally improving our business. Our teams have done very well.

Belgium, virtually unchanged, a slight decline combined with good adaptability. Operational is growing 2%, reflecting improvement in Industrial segment. Like in other countries, professional remains challenging. And as mentioned in May during our Capital Markets Day, a good strategic progress. The healthcare marketplace is received well. And by putting decision-making in the hands of talent, talent immediately self-select and self-service 50% of the shifts in the first hour. If we then look at the Northern European subregions to the right, then we see a mixed picture. Poland is strong growth at 12% again and Switzerland, again at plus 7%, leading the pack, while Nordics remain challenging, subdued at minus 17%.

On the other hand, profitability is almost in line with group average, becoming good contributors and contributing to our diversification. And let's move on to the segment Southern Europe, U.K. and LatAm on Slide 10. In France, we see a story of 2 tails. On one hand, we see decline rates easing, and we continue to see resilience in our industrial pockets. Operational was down 3% year-on-year, but sequentially stable. On the other hand, as many of you, of course, are aware of, ongoing political uncertainty puts pressure on hiring confidence, something we see again weighing on our, in particular, perm business.

Professional, albeit still negative, stepped up to minus 8% from minus 18% in the previous quarter, as we start annualizing the healthcare legislation impact of 2024. Digital trades in line with France group. Despite the decline, good operational discipline and a leaner cost structure enabled us to achieve an EBITA margin of 4%. Italy continues to grow for 6 quarters in a row now. Operational was solid, plus 4%, while we are continuing to diversify our portfolio in growth segments such as digital and healthcare. Profitability came at 5.1%, reflecting key strategic investments, as we're getting ready for the Randstad Talent platform launch.

Iberia remains a key performing market, growing 7%. Spain grew strongly again at 8%. We see the payoff of our investments in growth segments, and we'll keep doing so in many -- with many opportunities still to grow further. Portugal, by the way, is also returning to growth. Furthermore, revenue and profit performance were mixed across other Southern European countries, U.K. and Latin America. U.K., in particular, showed some signs of stabilization, albeit at a low level, minus 8%, with perm still very weak at minus 21%. In Latin America, we still see growth, but the growing uncertainty in Argentina is starting to weigh in.

Now let's move on to now Asia Pacific on Slide 11. Japan. Japan demonstrated again solid growth, plus 6%, combined with strong profitability. Japan is one of the countries that operates talent centers at scale, supporting solid growth in our operational business. Digital continues to do well, and we are ideally positioned to support clients and talent in a structurally candidate scarce market. Australia and New Zealand, good adaptability, while the market conditions remain subdued. India continues to grow double digits, and we continue to invest in growth segments there. Overall, the EBITA margin for APAC was 4.3% in the third quarter, showing good execution, while continuing to invest in growth and a stronger Randstad. That concludes the performance of our key geographies.

So now let me now walk you through our combined financial performance on Slide 13. From a specialization point of view, building on the progress on the last few quarters and as Sander highlighted, operational is now flat. Professional and digital remained stable, while enterprise also saw growth in Q3. We continue to implement new wins from early in the year. And in this quarter, we won considerably 14 notable deals already in addition to the previous ones won earlier in the year. Once again, our gross profit and OpEx, as you can see, were well aligned, but more about that later.

The quarter's EBITA margin was 3.3%, similar profitability margin as last year. Underlying EBITA was EUR 191 million, very close in absolute terms. In reality, actually, the difference being only the adverse FX impact. Now let me unpack the items until net income. Integration costs and one-offs in Q3 amounted to EUR 38 million. This quarter, this was mostly related to harnessing the weak environment we still see in Northern Europe and France, as we continue to drive structural cost reduction. In the amortization and impairment of intangible assets, really nothing relevant, just a regular accounting treatment, as you can see of the PPA of Zorgwerk. Net finance costs, again, just the regular interest payments. And the effective tax rate also for the first 9 months was 30%, within our guidance of 29% to 31% for the full year.

Adjusted net income was EUR 120 million. And with that, let's continue and look at our gross margin bridge on Slide 14. Remember, like-for-like, we need to remove 40 basis points from the divestment of Monster in our line HRS, as we partly already deconsolidated last year in September. So overall, the year-over-year comparable is 70 basis points down. Temp margin is 50 basis points down year-over-year, broadly similar to the decline in Q2 and Q1. The key driver remains mix. Four main points: incremental demand coming primarily from enterprise clients. Operational, as you just saw, is still way more resilient than professional and digital specializations. And we continue to see even into 2025, geographical divergence with Northern Europe still stubbornly challenging and Southern Europe continuing to do better.

Furthermore, this quarter, in particular, we see a significant adverse FX impact in our gross margin and gross profit. Firm contribution was also down 20 basis points, decelerating even further despite annualizing steep declines as key perm markets, as we just mentioned before, remain challenging. In HRS and other, pretty much flat, excluding Monster, if you correct for the 40 basis points mentioned, RPO remains robust, growing 3% as we are finding new ways to revenue in mid-market, new clients and new activities. This is the market at the moment. And overall, we were able to offset a large part of these moving parts, if not all, in our results, which brings me now to the OpEx slide on Slide 15.

And remember, this one is sequentially. Our underlying operating expenses came in at EUR 878 million, down sequentially EUR 34 million organically. Operating discipline and focus on talent service models resulted once more in field productivity gains. Furthermore, we continue to drive structural indirect costs down quarter after quarter. Linking it back to our Capital Markets event, with these additional efforts in the first half of the year, we are now on track to deliver north of EUR 100 million net structural savings already in 2025.

We have incurred restructuring charges once again this quarter, as we continue to address permanently efficiency gains in Northern Europe and France primarily. Remember, the payback of this is lower than one year, as we can already see in action in this quarter. Despite the overall headline number for OpEx, this does include selective growth segment investments in Japan, Italy, Spain, United States, Canada, among others, as well as keeping and raising slightly our strategic investments. Similar to Q1 and Q2, we have successfully maintained our EBITA margin year-over-year, resulting again in a recovery ratio of over 70%. Overall, we continue to position Randstad for the future.

Moving on to our cash and solid balance sheet slides. Our free cash flow for the quarter was positive EUR 244 million, reflecting seasonality and solid cash conversion. Year-to-date, we currently have EUR 385 million free cash flow, up EUR 126 million versus last year. DSO was 56.2 days, up 5 days sequentially. Here again, the very same client mix puts upward pressure with most of the impact accounted by the larger clients. Our leverage ratio decreased to 1.6, and we were pleased to see net debt declined EUR 232 million sequentially from what is a seasonal peak in Q2. And that brings me to the outlook slide on Slide 17.

Let me start with the current momentum. Looking ahead, the overall mood remains cautious, in a way, fragile with mixed signals depending on the country. Volume in early October are in line with the broader quarter. Underlying trends remain largely unchanged, however, with a more pronounced year-over-year FX effect. Looking at gross margin, we expect gross margin to be stable to a notch higher quarter-on-quarter, balancing the seasonal holiday and idle time impact of Q3 versus the strength of manufacturing and logistics associated typically with the end of the year.

Sequentially, we also anticipate a slight increase in operating expenses due to the reversal of Q3 seasonality, partially again balanced out by the ongoing structural cost optimization in the linear Randstad. We expect similar to the previous quarters, at least a similar level of profitability in Q4 compared to Q3, broadly in line with the regular intra-year pattern. And to summarize, let me wrap up. The market stabilization we saw in Q2 continued into Q3. We once again protecting profitability, while funding growth and critical investments in our transformation. As Sander detailed, our focus on delivery excellence and digital first is actively transforming our business model, and we see it.

We are delivering and building the future of Randstad, a more specialized, differentiated Randstad with higher operating leverage from a smarter, more efficient delivery and a continuously leaner cost structure supporting it. And with this, we conclude our prepared remarks, and we open for questions.

Thank you very much, Jorge. And before we open for questions, maybe one small comment from my side. Last call, I was a little too quick to wrap up the call. So I owe you all an apology for that. So we'll make sure that we have ample time for all your questions this time. Again, apologies. So Alba, let's open it up for some questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Remi Grenu from Morgan Stanley.

I hope you can hear me okay. So my question would be a clarification on the outlook. So how should we think about your comments on stable activity in October? Does it mean that we should use the minus 1.2% organic growth in Q3 as a starting base for the upcoming quarter, given the current trading? And if so, I mean, except for the comp base, what has changed versus the trend of gradual but consistent sequential improvement we've seen in the organic growth over the last few quarters?

It feels to me like the comments are becoming a little bit more cautious on the outlook, especially on Europe. So I just want to understand your view on your feeling today versus when you ended Q2 and what you're seeing in terms of outlook for volume of activity, whether it's discussions from clients or signals that you're getting from the market?

Yes. So thank you, Remi, for that question. We were, of course, expecting that. I'll give the headlines and then I'll leave the fine print to Jorge, so to speak. I mean, by and large, what we're seeing. So we're seeing still a high level of uncertainty in the marketplace, the politics, the geopolitics. We're also seeing AI and AI boom, if you will, that's definitely helping economic activity, particularly in the United States. At the same time, all of that still, and I mentioned it in my comments, results in a stagnant labor market. So there's not a lot of mobility, not a lot of hiring, not a lot of quitting.

We have seen stabilizing demand, so that's good. So by and large, I would say the expectations are more of the same. There is no major catalyst up or down on the horizon now. As always, there will be puts and takes by geography, by industry, by specialization, the usual fluctuations in the business. I mean, over this quarter, we've seen good progress on temp, on operational, on digital in North America, in RPO in Spain, Japan, North America. So we have good nuggets in there. We also have the big challenges, and I would qualify -- I would summarize them as Northwest Europe and professional. That is the 2 big ones that are still out there. So Jorge, I don't know if...

Just a fine print as you call it. So I'll say, if you look -- your question was, does it change? No. So if you look at the starting point of October, I think it's fair to take, let's say, the quarter as a basis. Q3, probably that's why you might feel that Q3 is always a volatile -- has included volatile summer months. September was between minus 1%, minus 2%. But also remember, we're facing more, let's say, difficult comparables as we go into Q4. So that's probably why there is a caution. But overall, pretty much the same unchanging trends.

One overarching comment also for the questions to come. We now really are about fine, fine, fine print. I mean the tone of the last quarters, and again, this quarter, as we now look at Q4, is we are putting so much change in how we operate with discipline and a smarter Randstad, removing structurally leaner -- becoming a leaner company as well on how we support it, that we're looking at Q4 pretty much of an uptick not in profitability, but again, protecting profitability as we've been doing in Q3 and Q2.

Yes. And if I just may follow up on one of the things you said on Randstad operational versus professional, it seems like we see continued divergence between the 2. I mean earlier during this earnings season, we heard page flagging that they will stop working under their Page Personnel, which to me feels like it's the most [indiscernible] Randstad Professional, but correct me if I'm wrong. And that closure of Page Personnel is on AI risk and disintermediation risk.

So can you elaborate a little bit more on the weakness you are experiencing in that specialization on your organic growth and how the gross margin in that business has evolved since the mid- to high 20s you were flagging at the 2023 Capital Market Day, I think, that was...

No. So from a demand point of view, as you note, Remi, it's professional that's challenging. I think to make a clear link between AI and that trend is too early to call. My hunch and view is, given the uncertainty, clients are just very reluctant to hire. So I think it's more that than anything to do with AI. Even the biggest AI proponents and accelerators, the big tech companies, yes, they have fewer people, but it's a percentage or 2, maybe 3 here or there.

It's too early to say that that's all AI. I think it's a bit of an excuse, a bit of a flag, so to speak, but I think it's the market, the market environment, the uncertainty, the hesitance to invest in infrastructure, the hesitant to invest in teams and people. You have a few points more detailed on gross margin and stuff. I think Jorge will comment.

Remi, again, I'm the fine print now. So I think, look, professionals -- but to be clear as well, I mean, we can't celebrate, we're still in decline. But we do celebrate that things have improved again and continue to progress from Q1 to Q2, Q2 to Q3. So let me be also clear there. Our gross margin is stable. And what we do see, and I want to be clear, when we talk about growth segments and investments, in many of these are within our professional specialization.

In United States, in healthcare, in many areas, we continue to invest. So I wouldn't say it's too early. If anything, you see more resilience and more in line with the part where we are in the cycle on the operational specialization, and you see a behavior that is recognizable in professional, but more to do with confidence than necessarily anything else.

The next question comes from Simon LeChipre from Jefferies.

On gross profit margin, I mean, looking at the performance of your Temp business, so minus 50 bps year-on-year. So it is weaker than Q2 despite volumes have been improving. I mean, do you see more competition in the market? Or is there some impact from the growth of your digital platform that would explain this? And if you can comment on what you expect for this -- for the temp gross profit margin in Q4, please?

Yes. So let's be clear. So gross margin this quarter, in particular, there's 2, 3 items. I think it's important to highlight, Simon. One is FX. I mean you can see it from the tables that we disclosed, that's approximately EUR 10 million to EUR 13 million impact that just to put it into perspective, added EUR 5 million, and now we also have to kind of really go into fine, fine, fine print. Every EUR 5 million is 10 basis points. So you see the volatility that these things can have. So FX played an impact. Perm indeed turned out to be even decelerating from already a very low level.

On the temp side, I think actually, we see trends that are pretty similar. It's the market we are operating in, both from a geographical perspective and a specialization/large enterprises trading more or up trading more than smaller companies. The one thing perhaps that we also need to look at and you can see it in the numbers, is in some ways, slightly more idle time than initially expected, but you also see us addressing that. So if you look at some of the one-offs, some of this have been taken on the gross profit cost of service line, meaning that at least we are taking action in making sure that idle time remains within an acceptable level going forward. So looking into Q4, hardly any triggers changing in the market, so pretty much a stabilization and somewhat of a reverse of this seasonality impact.

Okay. And can you comment on the competitive environment? I mean, do you see more competition in some markets?

No. We see competition in markets as we've always seen, Simon. So no, not any different than Q2, Q1 2024 or 2023 for the matter. We remain firm in terms of pricing.

Let's go to our next question. This one comes from Suhasini Varanasi from Goldman Sachs.

Just one on SG&A, please. You did have some slightly higher one-off costs below the line and also SG&A came in better than expected in the quarter. Did you get the full benefit of the cost saving measures in Q3? Or is there more to come in Q4?

Yes. So thanks, Suhasini. I mean our OpEx -- again, let's also not forget and I want to be transparent, our gross profit is impacted clearly by FX, but of course, our OpEx as well, still organically significantly down. And as you rightly said, a large part of that, of course, is what we've been doing already in Q1 and Q2, removing, let's say, structurally eliminating costs and becoming a leaner Randstad, and that has a supportive impact of at least, I would say, EUR 15 million to EUR 20 million already this quarter 3. And that will obviously -- that is permanent so that will stay on as we progress through the year.

But as we now address still, let's say, primarily this quarter, Northern Europe and a little bit more in France, that will also support costs into Q4. The flip side of this is in Q3. We always have the seasonal impact of holidays. So it's going to be balancing one with the other as we go into Q4.

Our next question comes from Rory McKenzie from UBS.

It's Rory here. I want to ask about the cost base as well, please. Obviously, for several quarters now, we've seen the cost base reduce more than expected and restructuring charges higher than expected. What should we expect for the restructuring charge in Q4? And then just zooming out, I think this is the smallest quarterly cost base you've had since 2016. So how do you think about what that means for kind of the shape of Randstad in future years? And what are your thoughts about position in terms of spare capacity, as we think about how you're ready for the next cycle?

Yes. So I'll start and Alexander, if you want to complement anything. Look, Rory, we talked about our Capital Markets event at a very high level, Randstad is becoming a digital-first reorganizing around delivery excellence and our talent service models, which has 2 big consequences on our cost base. One is we become smarter, more efficient in doing our work, and that is basically the power of largely either having digital or having things done at scale instead of a very fragmented way. So we're becoming smarter and more efficient in how we do our work.

The second part is exactly because we digitize and harmonize much more, we can structurally reduce our supporting costs. And these 2 efforts continue to contribute quarter after quarter into what we see today in Q3. It is fair to say on your question, should we expect one-offs in Q4? I mean, by definition, one-offs, we don't forecast them. At the same time, let me also be transparent. Yes, as we continue to roll out our talent platforms, as we continue to optimize how we work, this will mean that we'll find ways to basically make Randstad a leaner company. The advantage of this is that we enter 2026 much stronger. And in the future, not only we are more resilient, but we increased significantly our earnings potential.

It feels like maybe another link between the ongoing, I guess, gross margin drop and reduction in SG&A is that the changing mix of your demand, not just your model. It feels that structurally, you've got more growth in large enterprise clients, much outsourcing. So does that reveal that clients are looking for just lower and lower cost channels for employment?

Well, I guess anyone is always looking for something more efficient. But what this reveals is the market at the moment and the demand there is at the moment, all the incremental demand, comes primarily from large enterprises, pretty much in line with previous cycles. And as I always say, I use the expression, I mean, in many ways, a large part of our OpEx walks hand-in-hand with our gross margin, our gross profit because indeed, as you know, both the geographical component of it, which is Southern European countries typically have a lower margin, but also a higher conversion than some of our Northern European countries and even North America.

But also on the client side, our large clients have a much more efficient cost to deliver than our traditional SME client base. So yes, there's a component of that. But what I highlight is the structural change underlying going throughout in 2025. That's what is really exciting me for 2026.

Our next question comes from Simon Van Oppen from Kepler Cheuvreux.

I have a question on France. You delivered quite an improvement in France sequentially in Q3 versus Q2 against the same comparators as last year. Can you talk a little bit more about the third quarter in France in terms of what end markets were performing well and about the quarter itself? Was it back-end loaded? And what was the exit rate in France going into Q4? Was it stable or sequentially improving?

Yes. So Simon, we normally don't necessarily talk too much about exit rates in particular, but was stable. So let's put it like this. And again, France is a bit of a story, I think, of 2 tails. Even geographically -- I mean, Sander were just there, but even geographically, you see a very sharp difference between the western part of the country and the eastern part of the country. But overall, we see actually the market relatively stable, operational continuing to improve.

I think if we continue to double click in that respect, professional for us has been a big step up. Obviously, we had this healthcare changing [ resolution ] last year. As you probably know, we have a strong, very strong healthcare specialization in France. Now we start analyzing that. But also what I think it's quite, let's say, remarkable in our French performance and more what it means for the future is some of the -- as we discussed in Q1 and Q2, some of our one-offs and restructuring charges had already been in France, and we now start seeing the benefit of that hitting our P&L in Q3. So that makes it basically more resilient and the company better prepared for 2026.

Our next question comes from Konrad Zomer from ABN AMRO - ODDO BHF.

I have 2, please. The first one, there's a general election coming up in the Netherlands next week. For the outlook of the Dutch staffing market, do you think a left wing or a right wing government would be beneficial? And my second question, what's, in your view, the single most important argument why Randstad would be a net beneficiary of the AI trends in the labor market as opposed to the risk of some disruption?

Yes, Konrad, thank you very much for that question. Well, I've learned not to preempt any election around the globe. So I'm not going to do that this time around. We'll see what the outcome is, and we'll deal with that accordingly. I don't think there are major differences in terms of the labor market between the various parties here. Yes, there are some nuances, but I think the direction is not going to change in a major way over the next couple of years, independent of the elections.

So why am I excited about AI? Sorry about that. If we -- if you take a step back -- and you know I'm a bit of a technology officer and that's why I'm so proud about our digital marketplaces and the fact that we now have 15% of our business running through those digital marketplaces. And on top of that, I graduated on AI in 1987. So I couldn't be more excited about AI finally seeing the light of day. And so we see it as a tremendous opportunity. Because if we have our digital marketplaces, we will embed AI, and we are embedding AI, and it's already embedded in those digital marketplaces to do what, to engage with talents, to find talents, to reach out to talents, to do skills assessments, to do interviews, to do onboarding. All of that is going to be part of our digital marketplaces. That's one thing.

The other thing, of course, similarly with clients, when to reach out to clients, how to reach out to clients, et cetera. And then what I like to call the Randstad Digital brain, and this is something focusing on supply/demand. I talked about the map in the U.S. We now know by ZIP code in the U.S., what our supply-demand situation is. So we can use AI to assess and to take action. So AI, let's say, we -- there couldn't be anyone more better positioned in this industry than Randstad to leverage AI, specifically because of our digital-first strategy.

And the good thing there is there's -- not everybody can win that game. A, we're leading. We're probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest company in the digital marketplace space, in the platform space, and we will continue to scale. So we talked a lot about the U.S. We talked a lot about Belgium. We talked about the various businesses in healthcare. For next year, we have on the role Canada, the U.K., Italy, France and the Netherlands to launch digital marketplaces, primarily in our operational business. So this is just the beginning of a major wave.

Why will we be successful? A, we have the investment capacity. You know we have been investing in our business over the last couple of years. We will continue to do that at the same levels. We have the scale to scale those marketplaces. We have the team to make it all happen. And last but not least, we have the wherewithal to make it all happen, and that is not the case for many players. So I think we couldn't be better positioned to benefit from AI, and we will move at pace to get to those benefits.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Marc Zwartsenburg from ING.

A couple of questions left. First, I want to come back to the OpEx line. We had a significant beat in Q3, partly driven then by FX, but your guidance there for Q4 is slightly higher due to seasonality, but yes, a bit difficult to call what the seasonality of looking a few years back. But given that you're making -- continuing to make progress on the rollout of the digital strategy, is it fair to say that maybe also Q4 will be again a better quarter than Q3?

And maybe looking even more important out to '26, should we take the second half of this year in terms of OpEx line as a bit of a starting base like multiplied by 2 to get to the '26 number? Or should we even assume further cost savings continuing to more than offset the price inflation that's currently going on and even have a lower OpEx line than the 2x second half this year? That's my first question. Should we take them one by one.

Great questions, Marc.

Yes. So on the -- first on Q3 to Q4 and then more on the esoteric question on 2026. On '26 -- on Q3 to Q4, so Marc, first of all, when we say seasonality, 2 important comments. One is -- one important comment. In Q3, we always have an impact from, let's say, holidays accounting and how we actually account for holidays throughout the year. So somewhat artificially, our Q3 OpEx get a little bit of a tailwind from that respect. And we account EUR 10 million to EUR 15 million for that.

That typically, of course, reverses in Q4. At the same time, yes, we continue to do structural cost savings as we just, again, did another -- well, another restructure on top of just normal attrition and management of our cost base, operational discipline. So yes, those 2 things will basically balance. For now, we also highlight that, I mean, we will enter into Q4 still investing in growth segments. We are, in many ways, continuing to roll out our transformation. So I think the best guidance we can give is stable to a notch higher.

As we enter 2026, the mantra is pretty much the same. So as we continue to roll out delivery excellence on our talent platform and capture, let's say, benefits from doing things smarter, both on gaining productivity but also eliminating continuously structurally our cost base. We said it before, the path to achieve that is clear. This will not only build resilience, but we will build a significantly more profitable Randstad on a growth environment. As for the modeling or the more like specific question for 2026, I think your rationale is logic. We'll continue to update anything as we progress into Q4, yes.

And the second question was, Marc?

Yes, just going back on your last remark. So my reasoning is rational to take the second half as a starting point and then add a little bit of savings into 2026. Is that how we should look at it?

Yes. Yes. That's what we mean by we are eliminating and making Randstad a leaner company.

And then maybe -- sorry, Marc, some comments. So we're going to be focused, of course, in '26 on growth despite; let's say, more of the same in the market. So our growth will be, I call it, our own growth, better fulfillment through delivery excellence, investing in growth segments, speedier fulfillment through our digital marketplaces. All of that will have a positive impact on our top line, if you will.

Yes, now clear. And then focusing on the U.S., your margin did see, let's say, a percentage point improvement year-on-year and also quarter-on-quarter, you see the progress and that totally fits into the digital marketplace strategy. And if you then look at the top line performance, it's slightly better than in Q2 in terms of growth, but only slightly. Is that because the market is simply a little bit weaker to be -- maybe a little bit more market share gains?

Yes. We find ourselves, I mean, ahead of the market so I don't call them -- I think the market hasn't changed. If you do look at things -- and Sander does not like when we highlight this. But if you look, we have significantly higher tough comparables in Q3 and Q4. Logistics picked up significantly last year already in Q3 and Q4. So I think if anything, from a percentage perspective, that's the only thing that you see that perhaps might have be comparable, but the rest doesn't change. We continue to be ahead of market, and we continue to roll out our digital marketplace there.

Can I squeeze in a last one as a follow-up on Konrad's question on the AI because I think...

Yes, because you're a friend...

Yes, they are friends. All right, Marc, go on then.

Go ahead.

Yes, so you addressed the AI side for Randstad, the benefits. They're obviously clear. But what about the supply side? How do you see that the repetitive jobs, particularly maybe in the accounting, consulting area that are, yes, maybe disappearing because of AI. And of course, there will be new jobs created, but it always takes a few years to get there. How do you see that part of AI impact?

Marc, I was talking to a client the other day in the U.S., and he told me 15 years ago, there were one million people in the U.S. in toll booth. They're not there anymore because we all have these digital vignettes today. Yet, the unemployment is at historically low levels. It has ticked up a little bit everywhere, but it's still low. So I guess what I'm saying is we are AI optimists. The world needs a productivity boost, which is good. Also, if you look at some of the research primarily by the World Economic Forum, I mean they say AI will drive the creation of 170 million new jobs, anticipating a net growth of 78 million new jobs.

So I think the history tells us and the issue there, Marc, is always it's easier to say, okay, that task or that job might disappear. It's a little bit more difficult to say what the new jobs are that will arise. But rest assured, we will be there where the new jobs will arise to help our clients find the talent they need. That's our job.

And then one more point maybe on the shorter term, I think the lack of hiring or the low hiring levels these days is more driven by the overall uncertainty in the market than by AI itself. We have the big tech companies, they have fewer jobs left and right, but it's a percentage or 2 or 3. It's not meaningful. And for the rest, everything you read is, yes, AI is great and it's here to stay and it's relevant. But scaling AI, that's yet another thing that will take a bit more time. So in summary, we're optimists, and we will skate as we always say, where the puck is going to be.

Any other questions?

It appears we have no more questions. So I will hand back over the word to Mr. Van't Noordende for any closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you very much, Alba, for your facilitations. And thanks to all on the call for your questions. Thanks to the team here for doing a good job again this quarter. And a final thank you, of course, to our more than 600,000 talent and Randstad team members for their hard work as truly the best team in the industry.

Thank you.

This concludes the call. Thank you, and have a good day.