EXECUTIVE INSIGHT Q . SO ON THE ACQUISITION SIDE , YOU ’ RE LOOKING FOR BUSINESSES THAT ARE ALREADY PROFITABLE ?
» Sometimes we do buy businesses that are just about breakeven , so they ’ re not a drag on your EPS . They may not be contributing to your EPS in the early stages , but typically once we integrate them and bring them as part of the portfolio , we do get a return on invested capital which is attractive .
Q . CAN YOU GIVE SOME EXAMPLES OF ACQUISITIONS INVOLVING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ( AI ) TECHNOLOGIES ?
» We ’ ve been investing in AI technologies for a decade now . In fact , about half of our digital products do have some form of our AI . We recently bought accounting software products from the Isabel Group in Belgium .
Q . IF 11 % OF REVENUE IS SPENT ON INTERNAL INVESTMENT OR ACQUISITION , WHAT PERCENTAGE IS SPENT ON PAYING DOWN DEBT OR GIVING RETURNS TO SHAREHOLDERS ?
» Right now we reward our shareholders in two ways . We have a progressive dividend policy , which means our shareholders should expect their dividend to increase every year – good year , bad year , good economy , bad economy , strong dollar , weak dollar . Their euro dividend will increase every year . Over the last several years , our dividend has been increasing about 15 % a year , a little bit ahead of our EPS growth .
We ’ ve also been doing a share buyback programme to the tune of a billion euros . So this year , my free cash flow will be somewhere around € 1.2bn ( US $ 1.3bn ).
154 January 2025