Your guest now in the big interview, live and also on replay on Boursorama and on YouTube, is Stéphane Boujnah, Chairman of the Managing Board of Euronext. Hello.
Hello. Thank you for having us on Boursorama.
Thank you for welcoming us in this environment.
It's Financial Education Week so we're relaxing, we're in couch mode.
We're very comfortable, it's very pleasant to be in a Danish furniture showroom. We won't mention any brand names.
Well, we obviously need to talk about Euronext's 2025 results, which are record-breaking. But first, we're all a bit lost with this war in Iran, and it's true that the prolongation of the conflict in Iran threatens — it's a question I'm asking you — does it threaten or not to derail the economy? That's where we are.
No. No, we have a conflict that is contained. The transmission belt between this conflict and the global economy is the price of hydrocarbons. It's important, but it's not systemic. It's important because it has an impact on the supply conditions of countries that are very dependent on Iran, which are essentially China and some Asian countries. It's important because at some point it will contaminate the price of inputs in agriculture, notably fertilizers and fuel used by the agri-food industry and agriculture on the planet. So it's serious, but it's not systemic at the scale of what we've experienced in major financial crises or Covid.
So no macroeconomic impact, even if oil were to stay at 100, 120, 130 dollars for several months?
First, we've experienced periods where oil was at those levels. Then, what's complicated is that now it has an impact on a very large economy like China. So, I'm not saying it has no impact, I'm saying we need to stay calm. This is a conflict that also has a very particular characteristic, which is that it can stop very quickly. It only takes the President of the United States to decide. We're not in a conflict where we're stuck forever like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. For the conflict to stop, the President of the United States has to decide. So it's something that is reversible — not reversible, but in any case can be interrupted quite quickly.
You agree that a conflict that lasts a few months is not the same story as a conflict that lasts a few weeks.
But for the moment, it hasn't even been a few weeks, it's been two and a half weeks.
Yes, so the question of whether there's a risk of a months-long conflict doesn't arise in the immediate term.
Well, after, do we hear the word... Some experts are wrong to say that...
Each day that passes where the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked increases the chances of stagflation, a recession, notably in the United States. Oil prices have risen, fuel at the pump has risen 25% in 15 days.
No, but we just talked about that, and indeed there is a direct impact, a connectivity between this conflict and the real economy through the price of fuel. But that is also entirely reversible. If the conflict stops and the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, we return to a previous world where hydrocarbon prices were not as high as they had been historically.
Some experts say that a barrel at 100 dollars, up to 100 dollars, is manageable for Western economies. A barrel above 100 dollars for several months is not the same story.
Yes, well, I'm not an expert, but I believe you yourself formulated the answer in your question. The question is less about $100 than about several months. That is, it's the duration of the period during which the price of inputs for the entire economic activity would increase. But I believe at this stage, we still need to stay very calm. What is true, and you formulated it in your previous question, is that there are other factors of fragility in the global economy: the level of increase in US debt, the inflationary risks posed by tariffs in the United States, the uncertainties about the coming private debt crisis, etc.
The problem with armed conflicts is less their direct effects than the fact that they can crystallize tensions and be, as teenagers say, the drop that makes the powder keg explode, that is, the...
...weaknesses that were already in the system. So in itself, the conflict as it's unfolding, in the form it has at this stage and in the geographic space in which it was built, is something that is reversible. If it were to have metastases, if it were to crack on other dimensions, on weaknesses that were prior to the conflict, then that's another matter.
You say we need to stay calm. Investors are globally still relatively calm, I'm thinking notably of Wall Street, global stock markets which wobble but don't sink. It's not that investors aren't panicking because they're ultimately betting on a short conflict — is that what we need to understand in essence?
Yes, well, perhaps the same analysis as what I'm trying to explain, that is, it's a conflict that is contained with an uncertainty linked to the contamination of the product, the increase in hydrocarbon prices, but it's a conflict that is contained. So there's very strong asset rotation. Obviously, airlines are affected. Obviously, aerospace and defense companies are affected in the other direction. Obviously, there's granularity in the analysis of actors in the hydrocarbon chain. But there's no systemic challenge to the world's capacity to grow at a different rate after this conflict compared to the rate it had before.
Some experts say, in any case, that investors are a bit too calm, notably when you hear the IEA, the International Energy Agency, talking about the worst oil crisis in several decades. We could have imagined, once again, an overreaction of equity markets that we haven't seen, for the reasons you mentioned. After, some also say that this potential entrenchment of the conflict isn't priced enough by the markets, because that is also, despite everything, a possibility.
Perhaps. I'm not a strategic analyst. I'm a modest IT operator in the Hauts-de-Seine who manages markets in Europe, and so we ensure efficient functioning regardless of volumes. At this stage, by analyzing asset valuations, I observe that there's no panic.
Hmm. And that means that the people who do the job of allocating resources to certain assets consider that we're still in something that's contained. The Trump administration, Stéphane Boujnah, was thinking about intervening on financial markets to influence oil prices, which would be unprecedented. You say bring it on, why not, or whoa there?
I don't really know what that means. I think there are things that are acting on actors on the planet who are capable of increasing the supply of hydrocarbons to have effects on prices, so diplomatic work with producing states, what they had already engaged with very good producers like Venezuela, what they announced in relations with Russia on the sanctions front, that's something we understand. Intervening on financial markets on prices, I don't really know what that means.
On futures, on futures markets, options, futures...
Yes, but I have trouble imagining — I must confess my ignorance — I have trouble imagining how the United States administration, which isn't very equipped for this kind of intervention, could invent tools to intervene on futures markets, and I don't understand what we're talking about. I understand the first topic well, I know that the American administration, the President of the United States, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of State, they've made it public, spend a lot of time on the phone with industry actors and with producing countries, that's true, to increase supply. Uh, intervening financially on the markets seems more difficult to imagine, but perhaps I lack information.
Stéphane Boujnah, I'm looking for the right way to say it, this return of volatility since the beginning of the year and even for 15 days, does it do business — once again I don't like putting it that way — for Euronext with more...
No, we have more volume as we had more volume during Liberation Day, the tariff announcements a year ago in March by the new administration, which was at the time the new Trump administration, as we had important volumes during the third invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 by Russia, as we had during the emergence of Covid in February 2020, important volumes, as there are each time there are in certain specific markets very important electoral deadlines. It's the very nature of markets that on the occasion of new information, some people decide to sell things and others decide to buy them. So there's more volume.
Yes, it's double-digit, I have the figures. Yes, yes, yes, there's growth plus 15, plus 10% or so.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, it's on equities, on equities, and on the sovereign debt part on which 2025 had been very good, there's still important growth. On the equities part, there's double-digit growth indeed.
Well, mid-February, Stéphane Boujnah, you published your 2025 results, a record year for Euronext. Hard to do better, or if the environment is favorable, we can imagine that 2026 will be better.
I don't know what 2026 will be, what I can tell you is that we're determined to make it not just a good year but an excellent year. We had a very good 2025 with double-digit growth across all levels of the P&L, and we had even made the 4th quarter of 2025 the 7th quarter of double-digit growth across all levels of the income statement. So we're extremely happy, but it doesn't happen by chance, you know. When we arrived with the team that today manages the company at the beginning of 2016, the company was worth between 1.5 and 2 billion.
You're worth 14 today. Revenue increased by how much over 10 years? Because you're talking about market cap x10.
Well, the revenue when I arrived was around 400 to 420 million and now it's 1.8 billion.
x4 and a bit. x4 and a bit. Let's be precise.
4 and a half. There. I say 4 and a half, 4, 4 and a half in 10 years. But it's true that we're now in situations where we almost each quarter make the revenue we used to make in a year when I arrived.
We'll remember from 2025, 740 million euros in profit. Plus 8%, that's the figure. Revenue 1.8 billion euros up 12%. Are those the two important metrics or not?
Yes, and in between, an EBITDA that is superior to 1.1 billion. And so with double-digit growth. The company grows because it makes acquisitions, because the company grows first because it generates free cash flow, that is, it manages its costs well and deploys the capital thus created by making acquisitions either to diversify our revenue base precisely so as not to be dependent on the volatility you mentioned yourself a few minutes ago, because we can't build a group's strategy just on being there.
Volatility impacts...? The...? Yes, 20 to 30% of...?
