The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: Jaafar Mestari - Exane BNP Paribas, Research Division - Analyst
: Two questions, please. Just firstly, as a follow-up on guidance, maybe to ask the same question differently. If your range includes things as bad as
general lockdowns in some major countries. Can I ask what is a scenario that is not included in your guidance that's if we hear about it tomorrow
morning, could take your revenue decline back to minus 30% or minus EUR 0.35? And then the second question on U.S. client retention. So I'm just
trying to unpick the different parts in North America. So total client retention in North America, if I'm correct, is improving by over 2 percentage
points. And that's despite your comments that U.S. health care is still problematic with a number of contract losses there. So does this suggest that
retention in U.S. B&I and U.S. Education is really, really strong, maybe fight or higher, I would guess at that stage. If that's the case, is that real
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OCTOBER 29, 2020 / 8:00AM, EXHO.PA - Full Year 2020 Sodexo SA Earnings Call
underlying improvements? Or is it just that in the B&I and Education, those contracts are just being renewed ad hoc and then they don't come up
for renewal because the client has other priorities?
Question: Jaafar Mestari - Exane BNP Paribas, Research Division - Analyst
: And sorry, maybe I'm just looking at the wrong things on this, but just to clarify, U.S. health care in your answer just now you said it was a contributor
to the improvement in retention. Maybe I didn't hear it correctly, but in your -- in Marc's commentary on North America, contract exits and losses
that continued into Q4 were flagged as a big reason why North America Healthcare was minus 15% in H2. So is this just a question of definition,
Are those Q4 contract losses not fully reflected in retention? Is U.S. Healthcare retention actually better year-on-year?
Question: Jaafar Mestari - Exane BNP Paribas, Research Division - Analyst
: So the retention number is forward-looking and it's getting better, including free U.S. Healthcare?
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