-
Annual general meeting of Solutions30
Source: Nasdaq GlobeNewswire / 16 Jun 2023 06:45:00 America/New_York
At its annual general meeting, Solutions30 presents the results of its transformation, which has put it on track to reach €1 billion in revenue in 2023 and €2.5 billion in the medium term
- Milestone of €1 billion in revenue in 2023
- Completion of the 2018-2023 corporate transformation and structuring plan
- Governance changes
- New medium-term revenue target of €2.5 billion
The annual general meeting of Solutions30 was held in Luxembourg on June 16, 2023, and Chaired by its Chief Executive Officer, Gianbeppi Fortis.
Shareholders approved all the resolutions they were called upon to vote.
At this year’s meeting, Solutions30 management presented the results of its 5-year strategic plan, which has seen the company expand into 10 countries and achieve €1 billion in revenue in 2023.
Looking back on five years of continuous growth, Gianbeppi Fortis said: “Over the past five years, our plan has had two priorities: first, to grow the company by replicating its historic model across Europe and diversifying its portfolio, especially in France, and second, to restructure the company through a transformation plan whose implementation accelerated in 2021.
The company has demonstrated its ability to replicate its methods and expertise and has built a solid reputation among some of Europe’s biggest corporations. We just passed the milestone of generating more than 50% of our revenue outside France. At the same time, we have developed new expertise in the energy industry – smart meters, charging stations, and solar panels – and began offering new services in France under major European investment plans. Our growth model and financial strength have allowed us to grow steadily and weather crises while preserving the company’s business.
Solutions30 managed this growth by constantly strengthening its internal control processes. Starting in 2019, we launched a far-reaching overhaul of both the company’s standards and the internal organization of risk control and compliance. In 2022, an in-depth external audit helped us complete this process.
Finally, under the responsibility of our Group Head of ESG, Risk and Compliance, we are now fully committed to our CSR approach. We will soon present our objectives, focusing on our societal role with young people, our safety and diversity commitments for employees, and our carbon reduction targets.
During this general meeting, to prepare for the group’s expansion in the medium term, we have broadened the skills and expertise of our supervisory board and reorganized our management board. With its more diverse skill set, our supervisory board will be better equipped to fulfill its advisory and oversight roles. Our management board is now more agile and surrounded by an enlarged executive committee of experts. This reorganized team will soon be charting the course that will bring us to €2.5 billion in revenue in the medium term.”
Five years of transformation that have brought Solutions30 to €1 billion in revenue
In 20 years, Solutions30 has grown from a small business to an international corporation that is on track to reach €1 billion in revenue in 2023. To support such fast-paced growth, Solutions30 has strengthened its compliance, risk management, and ESG standards:
Strengthening of the risk management, internal control, and compliance policy
Starting in 2022, Solutions30 began defining new control processes and creating a risks and internal control system manual. To ensure that these procedures are properly implemented, and more broadly to reinforce group compliance, Solutions30 has appointed Nathalie Duchesne as Group Head of ESG, Risk and Compliance. She has begun training and raising the awareness of all employees about these topics, implemented control processes in each country and department, and gathered relevant information to better inform the decisions of the Management Board. She works with a dedicated network of local contacts in the departments of each country.
Simplification of the legal organization chart
In less than five years, Solutions30 has carried out a comprehensive legal simplification program to facilitate its internal control, eliminating nearly 50 legal entities, mainly through intra-group restructuring.
Systematic control of the company’s subcontractors
Solutions30 has implemented a new third-party verification policy and appointed a dedicated team of eight people to carry out systematic checks on its subcontractors. This approach relies on the subcontractor sourcing platform the group set up in 2021, mySupplace, which currently includes 3,000 partner companies. This collaborative platform also serves as the group’s compliance tool, allowing documents supplied by these companies to be verified, analyzed, and archived.
New governance
Over the past five years, Solutions30 has strengthened and broadened the skills of all its management bodies (Supervisory Board, Management Board, and Executive Committee), with more than 50% of their members being newly appointed. In recent years, the Supervisory Board has welcomed five new members, out of seven, each bringing to the table extensive expertise in finance, auditing, compliance, ESG, and corporate strategy.
At the same time, Solutions30 has strengthened its codes of conduct and anti-corruption policy, while focusing on team training and awareness. A whistleblowing platform, which has proven its effectiveness at resolving situations, ensures that all weak signals, misconduct, non-compliance, or internal risks get reported.
Building a CSR approach
Since 2019, Solutions30 has been committed to CSR (corporate social responsibility) that is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In 2022, the group stepped up this commitment by changing the “Strategy” committee to the “Strategy and ESG” committee, making ESG a core part of the group’s roadmap. The ESG strategy, objectives, and performance indicators were overhauled to make them more transparent, and the group is currently working on a carbon footprint project using the GHG Protocol to improve how it measures CO2 emissions. The results of this work will be communicated in the near future.
In terms of employee safety, Solutions30 has initiated a review of procedures aimed at preventing work-related accidents and illnesses, raised awareness among employees on how to reduce their exposure to risk, and trained teams in ethics and compliance.
For its social commitments, Solutions30 has a yearslong recruitment, skills development, and vocational training policy designed to help young people, some of whom have dropped out of school, to land their first job. The policy also helps people in the process of changing careers by training them for positions in the digital and energy professions of the future. In 2022, Solutions30 recruited 924 young people under the age of 30, representing 40% of new hires and up to 21% of the entire workforce. More than 180,000 hours of training, or 25 hours per employee, were provided in 2022 in promising technical fields or in training modules on interpersonal skills and customer service.
The group is also working towards gender equality by giving women a more central role, with the aim of increasing the number of women in managerial positions by more than 10% in 2023 and achieving equal pay for men and women. The addition of Paola Bruno to the Supervisory Board brings the proportion of women on this governance body to 43%.
Solutions30 enters a new phase of growth and changes dimension
With its solid structure and strengthened governance, Solutions30 is poised to enter a new phase in its history and is ready to scale accordingly.
To meet the market’s needs, customer expectations, and the challenges of its ongoing transformation, Solutions30 now relies on three complementary bodies: (i) a Supervisory Board with enhanced powers to fulfill its oversight role, (ii) a Management Board limited to four members, which keeps the group agile, streamlines decision-making, and conserves its strong growth momentum, and (iii) an expanded Excom that includes support functions and country heads, all of whom work in close collaboration with the Management Board.
A Supervisory Board with strengthened and diversified competences to meet the demands of its oversight role
With today’s approval of Paola Bruno’s nomination, the Supervisory Board now comprises 7 members, all of whom are independent:
- Three long-standing members, who joined before the 2018-2023 period, to guarantee the stability of the group’s governance: Alexander Sator, Caroline Tissot, and Jean-Paul Cottet. Their intricate knowledge of Solutions30 and its objectives for the next 5 years puts them in an ideal position to offer strategic advice for the company’s future.
- Three recently appointed members, who have brought new ideas to the board and broadened its expertise in finance, audit, risk and compliance: Thomas Kremer, appointed in 2022, who brings his legal and corporate governance expertise as well as his knowledge of data protection, compliance, and risk management; Yves Kerveillant and Pascale Mourvillier, who bring their expertise in corporate finance and auditing.
- One new member, Paola Bruno, with 30 years’ experience in investment banking, who once again strengthens the diversity and skills of the Supervisory Board with her background in market finance, corporate finance and strategy, investor relations, and compliance, especially in times of crisis. Her experience in both Italy and the United Kingdom, two key markets for the group, is an important asset and preserves the complementarity of international experience among Supervisory Board members.
Forty-three percent of the Supervisory Board members are now female, which brings the group into compliance with the European “Women on Boards” Directive, ahead of its transposition into Luxembourg law.
To help the Supervisory Board oversee the group’s commitments, the audit and strategy committees have been expanded to cover risk management, compliance, and ESG. These committees have been renamed the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee and the Strategy and ESG Committee.
A smaller Management Board with an expanded Excom for agile, streamlined performance
Comprising four members with in-depth knowledge of the company, the Management Board continues to be headed by Gianbeppi Fortis, Solutions30’s founding CEO, who defines and steers the group’s strategy. Luc Brusselaers, Chief Revenue Officer, coordinates the group’s sales force to maximize synergies, standardize processes, and grow sales across Europe.
Wojciech Pomykała, who joined the Management Board last February, has been named Chief Operations Officer. He will be responsible for managing the group’s operations, including information systems and Solutions30’s ongoing transformation. His role will be to keep operations in sync with promising areas of development for the group, specifically its strong growth in the telecom market outside France.
Amaury Boilot will take over as General Manager of the French entity. After three years running one of the French business units, which he successfully transformed and grew, Amaury was then put in charge of the group’s Finance Department in 2017 and joined the Management Board. Drawing on his operational and financial experience, his mission will be to improve profitability in France and continue the transition to new energy activities. He has also been appointed Secretary General, with responsibility for the group’s financial, compliance, and legal support functions. His term of office as a member of the Management Board has been renewed for four more years.
João Martinho’s term was not renewed. João Martinho will leave Solutions30 at the end of July. Solutions30 thanks him for his commitment and hard work.
This agile structure will streamline decision-making, allowing the company to quickly seize market opportunities.
The Management Board is supported by an Executive Committee whose members manage the company’s support functions, including finance, human resources, risk, compliance and ESG, communications and investor relations, information systems, and legal. The head of each country is also part of this committee, reflecting the group’s international strategic ambitions and the growing share of revenue generated outside France, now over 50%.
Nomination of a new Chief Financial Officer to prepare for the new phase of growth
Reporting to Amaury Boilot, Jonathan Crauwels has been named CFO and will also be a member of the Executive Committee. His role will be to support the group’s businesses as their fast-paced growth continues. Before stepping into this role, he successfully drove the profitable and cash-generating growth of Solutions30 Belgium, doubling revenue at Unit-T and playing a key role in setting up the joint venture with Telenet in 2018.
A new dimension: Solutions30 targets revenue of €2.5 billion in the medium term
With this new organization and its solid positioning in businesses driven by Europe’s massive digital and energy investment plans, management confirms that Solutions30 is embarking on a new period of growth with a medium-term revenue target of €2.5 billion and double-digit EBITDA margins. A new strategic plan will be announced at the end of 2023.
Upcoming event
2023 Q2 Revenue Report July 25, 2023
About Solutions30 SE
The Solutions30 group is the European leader in solutions for new technologies. Its mission is to make the technological developments that are transforming our daily lives accessible to everyone, individuals and businesses alike. Yesterday, it was computers and the Internet. Today, it’s digital technology. Tomorrow, it will be technologies that make the world even more interconnected in real time. With more than 65 million call-outs carried out since it was founded and a network of more than 15,000 local technicians, Solutions30 currently covers all of France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Iberian Peninsula, the United Kingdom, and Poland. The share capital of Solutions30 SE consists of 107,127,984 shares, equal to the number of theoretical votes that can be exercised.
Solutions30 SE is listed on the Euronext Paris exchange (ISIN FR0013379484- code S30). Indexes: MSCI Europe ex-UK Small Cap | SBF 120 | CAC Mid 60 | NEXT 150 | CAC Technology | CAC PME.
Visit our website for more information: www.solutions30.comContact
Individual Shareholders:
Investor Relations - Tel: +33 1 86 86 00 63 - shareholders@solutions30.comAnalysts/Investors:
Nathalie Boumendil - Tel: +33 6 85 82 41 95 - nathalie.boumendil@solutions30.comPress - Image 7:
Charlotte Le Barbier - Tel: +33 6 78 37 27 60 - clebarbier@image7.fr
Leslie Jung - Tel: +33 6 78 70 05 55 - ljung@image7.frAttachment