(AOF) – Yann Leca, executive vice-president and chief financial officer of OVHcloud has decided to give a new direction to his professional career and will leave the company at the end of October, after the announcement of the financial results for the fiscal year 2022. A recruitment process is currently underway to fill his position.
“During several years of continuous and profitable growth, during which our company reached important milestones, including our historic and successful IPO, Yann contributed with excellence to making OVHcloud the largest European cloud provider in international dimension. In particular, he leaves behind a well-structured and competent team of finance professionals”, commented the French cloud specialist.
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Key points
– European number 1 in cloud services, created in 1999, with a network of 33 data centers hosting 400,000 servers on 4 continents;
– €663 million in revenue, generated mainly in Europe (81%, of which 52% in France), 4.5% from the United States, split between the private cloud for 60%, the historical activity (hosting sites and domain registration) for 26% and the public cloud for 14%;
– Vertically integrated production model, from the manufacture of servers, the operation of data centers and network resources to the management of IT infrastructures, this proprietary technology giving a substantial cost advantage;
– Capital controlled up to 69.6% by the Kabla family (employees holding 2.1%), Octave Kabla, founder, chairing the board of directors of 9 members and Michel Paulin being managing director;
– Net debt of €446 million, i.e. a leverage effect of 1.4, compared to €458 million in shareholders’ equity.
Challenges
– “Move to PaaS” strategy aiming for a 25% annual increase in revenues from 2025: market penetration of new uses of the cloud (artificial intelligence, encryption, etc.) and integrated PaaS solutions through partnerships / consolidation in Europe and development in the States United States and Asia (India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and Thailand) / medium-sized acquisitions;
– Innovation strategy by partnership ecosystem and open source: partnerships with 350 system integrators and 300 application providers, scientific and industrial partnerships, presence in collaborative platforms / Start-up Program, Marketplace, close links with manufacturers of components;
– Environmental strategy: net zero carbon and zero waste targets by 2030 and 100% use of renewable energy by 2025 / exclusive water-based cooling / number 1 in the sector for energy use (PUE) / environmental review data centers, often located in former industrial buildings;
– Specific strengths: competitive price, technical performance, open source solutions and data sovereignty via the “trusted cloud” positioning and integrated model limiting the risk of logistical disruption.
Challenges
– Outcome of the complaint against Amazon filed with the European Commission for abuse of a dominant position with the Azure cloud;
– Outcome of the collective complaint filed by 140 OVH Cloud customers, for damages after the fire at the Strasbourg site at the end of 2021;
– Confirmation of the strong growth of the public cloud, which is more profitable than the private cloud;
– Russia-Ukraine war: no physical service on site (Russia, Ukraine and Belarus: 1.5% of revenues) and no risk of recovery;
– Energy inflation impact: none in the short term, the costs being covered until mid-2023.
– 2021-2022 objectives, raised, of 15 to 17% growth in turnover and 11% for the operating margin, to + 40.1%.
Maximum staff turnover
Companies in the IT services sector have seen the departure of more than 20% of their workforce in twelve months. This trend is not unusual in the sector, but it is reaching an unprecedented scale, in a context of strong growth and good recruitment dynamics. In addition, employees have new requirements and aspirations. The main criterion is the flexibility of work and the way it is implemented in the company. The American-Indian company Cognizant saw around 35% of its 330,000 engineers leave the company in one year. Capgemini, grouping 32,000 French employees, recently suffered its first strike since 2008, with a demand for a collective increase in remuneration.