Alessandro Dazza (Imerys) : "Nous allons avoir de belles surprises sur notre cours de Bourse !"

True, it's a shame that a company like ours is not really known to the general public. It's true that we serve industry rather than the end consumer. But it's true that in the paper on your table, there are probably Imerys carbonates and kaolins. In the car, there are batteries that contain Imerys minerals. In the toothpaste you used this morning, there are certainly Imerys carbonates. In the filtration of the beer that I hope to see tonight, or the wine I had, there is diatomite from Imerys. World leader indeed, but not well known. Other examples: you think it's easy? In these fascinating things, this discrepancy, it's a gift. In a pen, I read in my contact lenses, I have contact lenses, there is mica and quartz. Yes, yes, almost everything. The minerals and mineral solutions offered by Imerys, Imerys world leader, are really everywhere, used to improve the quality of daily life of society. And it's cute, what does it look like? Because when you say all these minerals, what do they look like when we extract them and transform them? They have different presentations and are made into different systems. Typically, they are very small particles that are reintroduced. You find them underground, typically underground.

Really, absolutely. How can we bring numbers? If you typically enter our plants and mining sites, carbon footprint, we use water, energy. So absolutely, we use some resources and energy, especially to treat water. But we know that we have targets for regular and continuous improvement also in energy consumption. Imerys publishes reports every year. The goal, in particular, the footprint on CO2, we have set a goal to reduce the amount of CO2 per revenue by 36% over ten years, which is really ambitious, but...

We are aligned with the industry. I disagree that we are more polluters. We are an industry, we process minerals, we have mines, we use vehicles. But we are aligned, I would say, with typical industry or production. Because all the machines you see there run on gasoline, on fossil energy, correct. In large mines, yes. Internally, we are changing to more electric vehicles. But in large-scale extraction, the technology has not yet arrived to support. On the energy used, we are putting a lot of effort to make the energy green, renewable. That is our goal, and we are groups that improve, as you say, moving from fossil energy to green energy. I would like to give you an example: this year we decided to invest 20 million euros to change all the burners that use carbon in the United States, in a large American plant, to biomass. That reduces the carbon footprint of the group by 5% per year. I find that exceptional.

For the majority of products and solutions we offer, we are major, we are the largest. We have built this position especially through acquisitions over the last 20 years. If you want, we can do better because we still have development opportunities on other minerals. For example, I haven't mentioned bentonite, it's a mineral used in many products and applications. We are number two worldwide for example. We have... it's not good, really. So it's both acquisitions and organic growth. It's also innovation. In mining, there is very strong innovation in products. As a specialty, as we produce today, innovation remains very important. We have two large research centers in France. Also, France remains the country with the greatest consideration of... in the group. The competitors, when we talk about competition, Imerys's competitors are typically focused on one solution or one mineral. Imerys is global. And especially, minerals are a bit of a niche market. In these cases, no, but it's true that there is no global competitor like that, really not many. There are large global competitors in one business, but the specialty of Imerys is to be present in all or almost all products in industrial minerals. The bulk of our business, I saw that it was construction and consumption, that's half of your sales. Construction also means that when we say construction, what minerals are used in construction? Many, again, small minerals, additives, very sparkling solutions, nothing to do with the big volume. In construction, we are really additives that improve the performance of the final products for consumers. For example, we are the largest global producer of additives to improve the hardening speed of cement. You build a building, you start with the foundation, and you have to wait between 4, 5, and 6 weeks for the cement to harden. If you add some additives produced by Imerys, they don't cost much, don't change the costs much, but after four days you can continue building. Imagine the advantage on construction sites today, in a market that is in very strong growth. We are the world leader, and we will also develop... autobiography? That's interesting.

Because finally, looking at the results, they were published a few days ago. The 2020 results are better than expected, but at the same time, profit has melted by 75%. So it's severe, worse than expected, when we have lost almost 80% of profit, we cannot rejoice. I do not completely agree with you, David. The decline you mention is due to asset impairments, asset impairments. So it's not a loss related to current activity. It's true that today, but no, even so, they are down. You noted correctly that revenue is down 12% to 3 billion euros exactly, and EBITDA, which is typically what we look at, is down 18% as well. But why these asset impairments? It means buying things that are no longer worth that price, some markets, and we have to destock, and we decided to adjust the current value to the expected future value. It's the acquisitions that were made before you arrived, certainly not what I did. It doesn't imply a year. Yes, I arrived in the position, poor guy, fifteen days before the first lockdown. Nothing. You are right, we have seen better in terms of timing. It started more and more difficult, the more you go, the more arduous. It's my gift at the beginning. I arrived on February 17, and three weeks later we were in lockdown. Well, at the beginning of this year, activity is picking up. For the moment, what are the geographical zones or sectors that are really accelerating and those that are in difficulty?