Go ahead Sébastien, try it. This is the grand ball. François, everyone says hello, it's nice. You know François Gabard, Sébastien Bazin? Oh really? You know everyone. Thank you for being with us this morning on the Good Morning Business set. We'll obviously talk about tourism. Accor has 45 different brands, 5,700 hotels in 110 countries. But at the end of May, you were renewed until 2028.
The job isn't done yet. You said what must absolutely be finished first? First, simplify the group further; we're still too complex. After that, continue to accelerate our growth; we must completely exit real estate. So we still have a small session to do. We need to prepare the talents who will succeed me. There are many. And I haven't completely enriched myself with the stock price yet. So the company is doing well, the results are there, growth is there, the brands are there, the talents are there.
You set yourself a stock price target before leaving.
But you have one, right? Oh yes, I have one in mind. Yes, it's higher today. No, no, no. Even if I don't reach it, I'm leaving.
Ah, so, in any case, it will be a question of age limit. No,
It will be first a question. Yes, but he just changed it for me already.
So, regarding real estate, the issue is SND. You had it, was it the asset?
Well, I received SNDI a little while ago. So, Accor Invest, the former Accor Invest. You still have a small part. When must it be divested? It must be divested. We announced this in March, we gave ourselves 12 to 18 months. So we should receive offers by mid-November, end of November. We'll select the two happy finalists probably, I don't know, January, February, and we'll have concluded by next summer.
But has the context become more complicated, specifically on the real estate issue?
It's the most beautiful hotel portfolio in Europe, and by far. You have nearly 550 hotels. It's at least 7 billion in value, so it's enormous. No one can replace what has been created over 50 years. So whoever comes, they are lucky. They will inherit 30% of our stake, finally 30% which is our stake within the group, and then they will help in management, and they will bring a fresh eye, and above all, they will bring additional capital because SND went through a storm like us during Covid, and we were too focused on financial restructuring and not enough on de-assetization. So some of these hotels need investment, in hundreds of millions of euros for these 500 hotels. So this person will bring cash that will give me and give the company. So no, it will be good news for everyone.
Regarding brands, Formula 1 was for sale for some time. Have you received proposals?
In Formula 1, we received offers, but since we're not obligated to sell either SND or Formula 1, the proposal we received wasn't good enough. So we decided not to take that proposal and to get back to work to bring more optimism to the Formula 1 teams and perhaps fresh capital. So no, for now, it's not sold.
So that means fresh capital, you could reinvest in Formula 1?
Ah no, we won't, I don't know yet, but Formula 1 needs partners, and Accor has an extremely solid balance sheet and financial means, so we won't let brands fade. We just need to take care of the baby. It's a beautiful baby, and it's not about bad presentation; it's that people see a risk character. Maybe they're wrong or not, but we'll keep it for now.
In this market segment, we don't say budget, we say entry-level. Americans say select service.
There is a clientele for this type of market today. It's a clientele from construction, social emergency services, a certain number of immigrants, and others. So it's a fairly particular clientele that can come for 2 days, or 15 days. And so it's a clientele that staff must know how to address. And so it's a bit of a separate business. It's a beautiful business that has been in the group for now 60 years. It's more than just hospitality. It's hospitality. It's assistance. It's protection, it's shelter. So, but I like the brand. Plus, it reminds me of racing stables. So it's rather quite funny. You won't let it drop for any reason? I won't let anything drop. Accor won't drop anything. No brand nor any person.
Completely different range. On lifestyle, we see that average revenue per room continues to grow. But in the range just below, have prices risen too much today? Is the clientele having trouble following?
No, prices haven't risen too much. We've managed to set a price for a room and service that doesn't really increase anymore. That means we increase between 1 and 3% per year, which is inflation. But we've found the cruising speed. So today, we don't fight so much on price, we fight on occupancy rate. But I'll say today to all our friends that the travel, hotel, and restaurant industry is a blessed industry. And the problem is that it's a complex business. There's a lot of human capital, you need to know how to handle it, you never sleep. It's open 24 hours a day. But it's a business that will see growth for the next 20 years because demographics are growing, the emergence of the middle class is increasing, and transportation means are also increasing. If you have these three cylinders, you won't sleep much but you'll have fun.
