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Article Excerpt
Original Source: FD (FAIR DISCLOSURE) WIRE
FREDERIC ROSTAND, CHAIRMAN, EXECUTIVE BOARD, GENERALE DE SANTE: So, I guess the working language today is English. So, good morning to everybody. Thank you for coming. (Technical difficulty) you a very warm welcome here at Hopital Prive d'Antony, our flagship, as you know.
Hopital Prive d'Antony has been built in the year 2002 and has become, in the whole Paris region, number three (technical difficulty) private hospital, number three in healthcare production and number one in surgery, just to give you an idea of what's this flagship, Hopital Prive d'Antony.
So, Filippo Monteleone is the General Manager and member of the management board, Emmanuel de Geuser, who is the Finance Director and myself, will be happy to answer your questions after the short presentation we will make on our 2007 set of accounts.
Let me also introduce you to Mr. Pierre de Pesquidoux, who joined us a few days ago. Pierre is coming from Alcatel-Lucent, and he is now in charge of treasury and financing, working for (technical difficulty). Thank you for being here, Pierre. Thank you.
So, 2007, in a view, in a nutshell, has been a year of growth. Growth, driven on one hand by the acquisitions we have been able to complete. At the beginning of 2007 we acquired, from the French Red Cross, Les Peupliers [in Paris], in Annemasse, Lamartine and, in Montelimar, Les Pins, and in the Lille region, La Louviere.
But the more important thing is, of course, the organic growth that has been achieved at the level of 5.2%. In fact, we have to neutralize the effects of the payback of the 2006 tariff decrease decision. As you know, and Emmanuel will come back about this topic, the Conseil d'Etat, so the administrative court -- French administrative court has declared that the second price decrease in 2006 was not regular and, so, should be reversed. So the net of this effect, we have an organic growth of 4.4% and this is quite an achievement.
In the past year the French Assurances Maladies gave an indication of the organic growth for the whole private healthcare sector and hospitalization, with a growth of 1.7%. So you see we are able to gain market share basically and, this is, of course, the result of the attractiveness of our clinics; this helps us to over-perform the market.
Nevertheless, as we said, we had a depressed Q2, as all of you know, and we have not been able to recover in the second half all of the missed activity. So this 9.4% revenue increase is standing slightly below our initial target of 10% top line growth.
2007 has also been a year of profitable growth. We had a significant improvement in our operating margin, thanks to improved efficiency gains, resource-sharing efforts and, of course, this high level of organic growth. So our earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and rents have increased by 18.1% last year.
And there is a specificity in the 2007 set of accounts with, of course, the full effect of the Hestia Real Estate sale and rent operation that has been completed in 2006. And now we have, on a yearly basis, EUR34m rent fee to pay.
So now, the main highlights on a chronological basis. In January 2007 we acquired La Louviere, as I said, for EUR31m. We are happy to say today that the integration of La Louviere is a success, seen as of today.
In February, we undertook the employee share ownership program, which led to a capital increase of EUR26.2m.
In March, as everybody here knows, Sante Developpement Europe led by Dr. Antonino Ligresti made his takeover on the shares of Generale de Sante, with a result of slightly above 80% of the shares that are held now, leading to a stabilization of our ownership.
In April, we completed the acquisition of the building of Les Peupliers, as I said, located in central Paris.
In June, we bought the Real Estate company of our Mermoz clinic that will open in September 2008. So we bought the Real Estates in central Lyon.
In July, we signed with GECIMED the contract for the construction of the Hopital Prive de l'Estuaire in Le Havre for a total amount exceeding EUR100m.
In October, we signed a new financing agreement with our partners Mediobanca and Calyon. We are very happy also to have with us today, Mr. [McFarlane] and Mr. [Glaze] and their teams; so, welcome to you.
Then, in December, before Christmas we had the debts pushed down, as all of you are aware of. And then in December we had also this, let's call it a gift from the Conseil d'Etat, this payback of this 2006 tariff decrease, wrongly made by the (inaudible), bringing EUR6.5m in revenue and also earnings before taxes for us.
Now, a word about the recent developments in 2008. As you know, we stated in January our willingness to sell our clinics in Italy. We will remain in Italy with Fleming Labs, our diagnosis network business and, of course, we will keep the Omegna contract.
You know, Omegna, we are very proud of this turnaround case where we took the management -- we took over the management of a loss-making public hospital five years ago and today it's a profitable business. And, of course, we are happy to be able to show our expertise in this field and maybe, one day, also to the French authorities; one never knows.
So, clearly, to come back to this divestment aim, we want to focus on our core business, that is, the French hospitalization and the chain upwards and downwards.
And then, we stand to complete in March this year the acquisition of the walls of Antony, where we are today, a prime asset also, as you can judge by yourself, for an investment value of EUR76m.
So, Emmanuel will now brief you about the financial year 2007 financial statements. Thank you.
EMMANUEL DE GEUSER, FINANCE DIRECTOR, GENERALE DE SANTE: Thank you, Frederic. I would like first to say that I'm very glad to see that you've made all the efforts to come to the center of Paris for the 2007 financial statements presentation. So, thank you for everybody for coming and I hope that this presentation will totally fulfill your requests and your expectations about the explanation we...
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