Givaudan S.A.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Givaudan 2023 Full Year Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Sandra, the course call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants have been listened on in mode and the conference has been recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and 0. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Gilles Landrier, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, good evening to Asia, and good morning to the Americans. Welcome to our 2023 full year results conference call. Tom Hallam, our CFO, will also be on this call. We will take you through the presentation before answering your questions at the end. All relevant documents related to the fuel year and results, including the slides which will be presented now, have been published this morning and are available in the results center on our website. So I'm very pleased. to present to you a strong set of figures with a sustained growth and a record high free cash flow for 2023. This has been achieved despite the challenging environment that we have faced throughout the year with de-stocking in end markets, the impact of shrink inflation and the sustained high raw material costs. Those results have been achieved thanks to the strategic choices which have consistently guided us for the long and the short term. To name three of them. Our focus on high value added consumer differentiating supported by continuous innovation, ingredients and solutions. Our natural hedges across customers, geographies and product segments, which help deliver consistent results in the turbulent market. And finally, the proactive steps that we have taken to adapt to the broader environment and deliver a strong financial performance. Let's start on slide 3 to comment on our performance highlights. We have delivered total sales of 6.9 billion Swiss francs, a solid like-for-like growth of 4.1%, supported by the strong contribution of high-growth markets, growing at plus 10%. and the implementation of price increases to fully compensate for the increases in input costs in 2023. With the strengthening of the Swiss francs against all currencies, sales declined 2.8% in Swiss francs. The reported ABTDA in Swiss francs remains stable at 1.473 million Swiss francs compared to 2022, despite the strong currency headwind. Measured in local currencies, the ABTDA increased by 8.8%. This means the comparable ABTDA margin increased by 150 bps to 22.4% on the back of the positive contribution from the price increases across all businesses. The performance improvement program which we implemented early in 2023, and the continued effective cost management across the business. Last but not least, we have reached a record high free cash flow of 920 million Swiss francs, corresponding to 13.3% of our sales, and with that delivering on our target range of above 12%. Tom will elaborate in more details on the financial results shortly. Finally, the Board of Directors will propose a dividend of 68 Swiss francs at the AGM of 21st of March 2024, which marks the 23rd consecutive dividend increase for our shareholders. Let's have a more detailed look on the top-line performance on slide 4. In an operating environment which continues to be challenging in some key markets and segments, we sustain good business momentum in both divisions. We are very happy we are able to deliver on the things we can control, our pricing actions, our focus on performance improvement, and our project pipeline, as well as our win rates. The like-for-like sales growth for the group of 4.1% consists of a strong pricing element of 6.3% and a balance of 2.2% in volume decline. The reasons for the volume decline are well known. Destocking, shrinkflation, lower consumption, elements reflected in the numbers published by our own clients. The positive news is is that volume development in both divisions has sequentially improved in the second half. The group sales increased by 7.9% on a like-for-like basis in the fourth quarter. The strengthening of the Swiss franc continued to have a substantial negative translation effect of over 500 million Swiss francs, or 7.3% on ourselves. On a like-for-like basis, our fragrance and beauty division grew strongly at plus 7.6%, and our taste and well-being division was slightly up at 1.1% for the full year 2023, with similar pricing contributions across the two divisions. The divergence between the two divisions' volume growth can partially be explained by the fact that inflation in food and beverage prices has been particularly strong. And in fact, there are easier alternatives in the home kitchen than for fragrance and beauty products, such as laundry, household, or personal care. We'll get to more details by division shortly. But first, let's have a look at the performance from a geographic standpoint, starting on slide five. One of the differentiating traits of Giroudon that we have already mentioned, is really our natural hedges which come across the portfolio of product segments, regions, and markets. They allow to provide balance and protection in a difficult environment. Our strong global presence allows us to cope with the singular market issues which may occur from time to time, whilst at the same time benefiting from the sustained excellent growth that we have seen in certain high-growth markets. So the continued strong life or life growth at plus 10% in high growth markets was driven by Latin America and the Middle East, leading to a novel sales share of 46% of group sales. Our presence in high growth markets has already been a key driver for our growth and continues to be one of our key strategies pillars for 2025. Mature markets, like folic cells, were slightly down by minus 0.6%, almost entirely driven by North America. On a positive note, we have seen continued solid growth in Europe, in particular driven by strong demand for fine fragrances in France, Iberia, and Italy. Slide 6 shows the geographic cell development on a more granular basis by region for the group. As mentioned before, Latin America continued its strong growth trajectory at plus 15.1%, supported by key markets like Brazil and Argentina in both divisions. Life-or-life sales growth in Asia Pacific remained modest at plus 3.9%. The double-digit growth in India and the mid-single-digit growth in China was combined with a soft growth in Southeast Asia mainly driven by the weakness in taste and well-being. The life-for-life performance in North America was minus 6.8% for the full year, with similar declines in all business segments. We have, however, seen a stabilization in the second half on the back of easy comparables. Sales were slightly up for both divisions for the fourth quarter over a week comparables. Overall, our positioning in the U.S. remains strong, and whilst it is too early to say when the turnaround will gain traction, we are very well placed to respond when market conditions improve. Finally, we have seen continued good momentum in the EME region, growing like-for-like at plus 8.4%, even amidst record growth at the previous year of over plus 11% in 2022. As mentioned before, the strong performance was broad-based in mature markets such as France, Spain, Italy, as well as in high-growth markets such as the Middle East. Turning to a divisional view on slide 7, starting with fragrance and beauty. Sales amounted to 3,312,000,000 CHF, up 7.6% on a like-for-like basis, and plus 1.7% in CHF. The strong Life4Life growth was driven by the impressive progression in fine fragrances and an acceleration of volume growth in the consumer products business in the second half of the year, as well as the positive impact of price increases across all segments. Fine fragrances showed a continued excellent Life4Life growth of plus 14%, a double-digit increase for the third year in a row. We are well positioned across prestige fine fragrances, specialty retail, and we have seen a pickup in travel retail in 2023. Volume growth accelerated in consumer products in the second half, together with the already implemented price increases leading to a sound life or life growth of plus 7.1% for the full year. Fragrance ingredients and active beauty increased by plus 1%, like for like, on the back of a strong prior year. The active beauty part continued to show positive growth in the mid-single-digit range, particularly given the high comparables of the recent year. Let's have a closer look at the performance of the taste and well-being division on slide 8. Sales in this division amounted for $3. 603 million Swiss francs, growing 1.1% on the like-for-like basis, and a decline of 6.7% in Swiss francs. The positive pricing impact to compensate for higher raw mats was partially offset by the weaker demand in North America and some markets in Asia-Pacific. Overall, the strategic focus areas with high-growth markets and local and regional customers continue to contribute positively to the division's performance. Looking at the regional performance, the way the division is managed, like-for-like sales remain solid for Europe with plus 3%, and continue to be very strong in Samia, which includes India, with plus 13.2%. Latin America increased by 16.8%, and as mentioned before, North America like-for-like sales declined by 7.5% due to destocking and shrinkation, whilst Asia-Pacific declined by 2.6% on the back of consumers opting for solutions from their own kitchen as opposed to packaged food. From a segment perspective, double-digit growth was achieved in snacks and growth momentum in sweet goods further improved. This was offset by weaker volumes in the other segments. Let me now move from the financial facts to other highlights around innovation and other purpose-led targets, starting with slide 9. Innovation is our lifeblood from creating differentiating solutions that address our customers' challenges to leading the way in areas such as biotechnology, sustainability, and digitalization. Responding to more than 300,000 individual customer briefs annually and winning more than our fair share lie at its core our ability to deliver unique innovations. Imperative, not only to offset the industry's average 10% erosion, but also to meet our long-term sales growth targets of 4% to 5% annually. Our R&D activities. allow us to provide our creation and development teams working on those briefs with novel technologies, differentiating ingredients, which will make those bespoke solutions we develop with our customers win the brief and win the consumer. In 2023, we have increased our R&D spend in local currencies by plus 6%, corresponding to an absolute amount of 519 million Swiss francs, So let me share with you some examples of the outcome. In taste and well-being, we have introduced OatWell, a unique prebiotic fiber ingredient harnessing the natural goodness of oats to support gut health. With consumers actively seeking ways of optimizing well-being and increasingly aware of the crucial role of gut health, OatWell delivers nutritious and delightful food experiences with scientifically proven benefits in every bite. In fragrance and beauty, we expanded the boundaries of skin hydration. Prime Mile Hyal, our new cationic hyaluronic acid crafted by White Technology, is a unique cosmetic active outperforming standard HA hydration benefits by at least a factor of two. And finally, we stimulate both divisions with the use of digitalization and generative AI, for example, with e-commerce solutions for local customers, which are being piloted in Indonesia and China, for the use of proprietary AI models, supporting the creativity of our perfumers and flavorists. Let me share now some highlights on our ESG achievements on slide 10. In addition to the financial targets, we also aim to deliver on key non-financial targets around sustainability, diversity, safety, linked to Givaudan's purpose. Let me highlight today our progress against our nature ambitions targets. At Givaudan, we are committed to being the change that we want to see in the world and showing our love for nature in everything we do. Our decarbonization roadmap has been in place since 2010. It's an integral part of our purpose commitments to become climate positive before 2050 with clear set interim milestones. And our ambitions are closely aligned with stakeholders, customers and shareholders through the long-term incentive plan. Our climate journey is already well underway and in 2023, we have made further progress towards those ambitions. Our scope 1 and 2 emissions have been reduced by 43% compared to the 2015 baseline. Converting to renewable energy sources is also part of our emissions reduction strategy, and by the end of 2023, we reached a level of 94% renewable electricity being used across all our sites. We are proud to have achieved and received the prestigious Enterprising Leader Award at the RE100 Awards in New York in 2023, recognizing our leadership in the industry by embarking on the renewable electricity journey. And with that, I now hand over to Tom for more details on the financial results.

Thank you, Gilles. I would also like to welcome you all to the call. On the following slides, I would like to focus on the groups, financial performance, and those of the two divisions. Let me start with the financial highlights on slide 12. Group sales increased this year to 6.915 million Swiss francs, an increase of 4.1 percent on a like-for-like basis, and a decrease of 2.8 percent in Swiss francs. The decrease in Swiss francs is solely due to the currency impact of the strong Swiss franc in comparison with the other major currencies the group operates in, as we will see on the following slide in the presentation. If we exclude the effect of currencies, sales growth in local currency would have been 5%, including acquisitions. The net income increased to 893 million Swiss francs an increase of 4.3% compared to 2022, and an increase of 14.3% when measured in local currency. The net income margin was 12.9% of sales. As Gilles has mentioned, the group achieved a record free cash flow of 920 million Swiss francs, or 13.3% of sales. Our net debt to EBTDA was 2.9 times at the end of the year, compared to 3.7 times at June 2023, and 3.1 times at December 2022. Please turn to slide 13, which shows the exchange rate development. This slide shows the comparison of the exchange rates in 2023 versus 2022. In the current year, mainly due to the ongoing geopolitical instability and the economic uncertainty, the Swiss franc has continued to strengthen against most of the major currencies in which the group operates, with an impact on the sales in Swiss francs as previously mentioned. Overall, the impact has been limited because of our operational and geographical spread, which continues to provide good natural hedges and our eBTDA margin remains well protected against currency fluctuations. For instance, eBTDA increased by 9% on a currency-neutral basis, but was flat on a reported currency basis. Please turn to slide 14 for an overview of the operating performance of the group. The gross margin increased from 38.8% in 2022 to 41.2% this year. The gross margin dilution effect of the pricing actions to compensate for higher import costs, as well as the lower cost absorption due to lower volumes, were more than offset by the price increase and by the margin improvement measures taken by the group's performance improvement program launched at the beginning of the year. On an eBTDA level, the margin improvement measures taken also resulted in an eBTDA margin increase from 20.7% in 2022 to 21.3% in 2023. In absolute numbers, eBTDA was 1473 million Swiss francs in 2023, compared to 1.476 million Swiss francs in the prior year. We had a number of one-off items in the year, amounting to 74 million Swiss francs, all related to restructuring and project-related expenses, and mainly related to the group's performance improvement program and footprint optimization. The underlying EBTDA margin was 22.4% this year, compared to 20.9 percent in 2022. Operating income increased to 1.116 million Swiss francs in 23 compared to 1.112 million in 2022, an increase of 0.3 percent, which represents an excellent increase of 11 percent when measured in local currency terms. On the next two slides, I will spend a few minutes on the operating performance of the two divisions. If you turn to slide 15, we will start with fragrance and beauty. So fragrance and beauty recorded a sales increase of 7.6% on a like-for-like basis, 1.7% in Swiss francs, mainly driven by the continued excellent growth of fine fragrance. and an acceleration in volume growth in the consumer business products business and price increases in all units. EBTDA for the division in 2023 was 769 million Swiss francs compared to 698 million Swiss francs in 2022. The underlying EBTDA margin was 24.7% in 2023 compared to 21.6% in 2022. If you now turn to page 16, we will cover the performance of taste and well-being. Taste and well-being recorded a sales increase of 1.1% on a like-for-like basis and a decrease of 6.7% in Swiss francs. Sales continue to be good in Europe, South Asia, Middle East, and Africa, as well as Latin America, but are challenging in North America and Asia Pacific. The division faced lower cost absorption due to lower volumes and recorded an EBITDA of 704 million Swiss francs in 2023 compared to 778 million Swiss francs in the prior year. On a comparable basis, the underlying EBITDA margin was 20.3% flat when compared to 2022. Please turn to slide 17 for the net income. The net income before tax was 989 million Swiss francs in 2023 compared to 928 million Swiss francs in 2022, with the increase due to lower non-operating expenses compared to the prior year. Although interest expenses increased, the group incurred significantly lower realized and unrealized losses on FX derivatives. The effective tax rate increased to 10% in 2023 compared to 8% in 2022. Net income was up to 893 million Swiss francs in 2023, which is a solid increase of 4.3%. Measured in local currency, net income increased by 14.3%. Net income margin was 12.9% in the year, and basic earnings per share was 96.81 Swiss francs compared to 92.83 Swiss francs in 2022. Please turn to slide 18, which shows the free cash flow. I'm particularly happy with the strong improvement in our free cash flow driven by the various actions that we have taken in the year. This resulted in a free cash flow conversion of 13.3% in 2023 compared to 6.7% in 2022. The increase is mostly explained by the lower cash investment in working capital especially the positive impact of inventory management as part of the group's performance improvement program. During 2023, the group generated a record 920 million of free cash flow compared to 479 million Swiss francs in 2022. Total net investments were 270 million Swiss francs, And as a percentage of sales, net investments was 3.9% compared to 4.1% in the prior year, as the group continues to invest in growth opportunities. Working capital was 24.1% of sales compared to 26.8% in 2022. Slide 19 has been updated to include the final acquisition values of Ameris, acquired in 2023, and it gives you a perspective of the future expected amortization for 24 and 25. Please turn to slide 20. Since the year 2000, the company has generated a cumulative 11.7 billion Swiss francs of free cash flow. Including the proposed dividend for 2023, Givaudan has returned 7.6 billion Swiss francs to shareholders in the form of either dividends or share buybacks since its spinoff in 2000. As mentioned in previous years, this clearly underlines the strong commitment of Givaudan to return surplus cash to shareholders. The Board of Directors will propose a further increase of the dividend to 68 Swiss francs per share from 67 Swiss francs in 2022, an increase of 1.5 percent. Please turn to slide 21 to look at the debt profile of the group. This slide shows a well-balanced and stable debt profile, as in the prior year, with interest rates which have been locked in at attractive rates. At the end of the year, net debt was 4.3 billion Swiss francs, with a weighted average interest rate of 1.7 percent at the end of the year, compared to 1.7 percent in 2022. Finally, please turn to slide 22, which shows the net debt to eBTDA ratio. At the end of the year, net debt to eBTDA was 2.9 times, a significant improvement compared to 3.7 times in June 2023 and 3.1 times in December of 2022. We continue to focus on deleveraging the balance sheet using our stronger profitability and lower working capital to reduce our net debt. With this, I would like to conclude my section of the presentation and hand it back to Gilles.

Gilles Baillet- Thank you, Tom. So let me now come back to our 2025 strategy and the outlook for 2024 on the next coming slides. As a reminder, allow me to highlight the key features of our 2025 ambitions. We are committed to growth with purpose, creating for happier, healthier lives with love for nature. We are placing customers at the heart of our business, supporting them to grow, and create products that are loved by consumers. The 2025 strategies focus around three growth drivers, expand the portfolio, extend the customer reach, and focus market strategies. In accordance with the company's purpose, four growth enablers are defined, namely creations, nature, people, and communities. These three growth drivers and four enablers are all underpinned by a commitment to excellence, innovation, and simplicity in everything we do. Let's look now at the performance commitments of the 2025 strategy on slide 25. We have now completed three years of our five-year strategic cycle, and our performance thus far reconfirms our strategic choices. Giraudan's 2025 strategy consists of ambitious targets aiming to achieve like-for-like average sales growth of 4% to 5% and free cash flow above 12% of sales on an average basis. They are both measured over the five-year period in averages. In addition, the company aims to deliver on key non-financial targets around sustainability, diversity, and safety, linked to Giraudan's purpose. Our focus remains on implementing our 2025 strategic focus areas guided by our purpose. We remain confident in our plan and have the right foundations in place to continue growing with our customers. Let me finish now with the 2024 outlook on slide 26. We are very well positioned with our capabilities the quality of our portfolio, and our creative strengths to deliver on our 2025 strategy. Our natural hedges across the portfolio, segments, regions, clients, and markets provide balance. For 2024, the increase in input costs for the group is expected to be minor, however, with continued pressure in some key naturals. Our proactive approach with the performance improvement program delivered first results in 2023. We'll maintain a strong focus on operational excellence, reviewing the manufacturing footprint, supply chains, particularly in taste and well-being in the next two years of the strategic cycle, while emphasizing business continuity to navigate in the volatile geopolitical environment. We expect for this an associated cost of around 50 million Swiss francs in 2024. With that, we arrive now at the end of our 2023 full year results presentation, and let me hand back to the operator for the instructions to open the Q&A. Tom and I look forward to taking your questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on the touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Anyone with a question may press star and 1 at this time. Our first question comes from Celine Pannuti from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Gilles and Tom. My first question is on the volume outlook as I think about 2024. Gilles, you mentioned that there were three issues that you faced, restocking, shrinkflation, and lower consumption as far as volume is concerned. Can you talk about those three pillars as I look into 2024? Do you expect some form of restocking? What could be the benefit from the reverse shrinkflation? And then overall, how should we think about consumption when some of your customers seem to still be facing weaker demand? My second question is on the margin improvement that has been quite impressive, especially on the fragrance side. But taste and well-being has been flat. You mentioned that you are focusing on manufacturing footprint in that division. But at the same time, I see that there will be some cost pressure on the natural side. So can you talk about how we should think about the margin progression across the two divisions as we look into the next few years? Thank you.

Thank you, Céline. I see that you're already in 24, commenting on 23. So the outlook. Well, as you know, we don't give a given outlook. But responding to your questions on the three things which we have seen explaining the volume decline in 23, I would say that we can expect that destocking and shrinkflation are things which are one-time things in a way, because at some point, our clients cannot decrease inventories to a certain point. And shrinkflation, it's a bit the same. So yes, in Q3 we saw a bit the end of the stabilization of the destocking, but also the shrinkflation, and then confirmed in Q4 by seeing an improvement in the volume growth. So we could say that obviously those two things are over. But one thing to mention, which I think is important, and especially, well, essentially for the destocking, there is an interesting analysis, if one does it, is that if we look actually at ourselves in 2021, for actually both businesses, taste and well-being and consumer products, our growth was actually very strong. And actually, it's much stronger than our own clients when you compare the two volume development. And in a way, and we can only know that now, is that somehow there was a substantial upstocking in 21, which was essentially consequent to issues around, if you remember, the supply chain and our freight and all of that, which essentially turned out to be a destocking in 23. So let's not consider the D-stocking of 23 followed by an up-stocking in 24. Basically, we have a plus in 21 and a minus in 23. And then from now on, at least from what we can expect, is coming back to a sort of a more normalized growth, but with no element of going back to higher inventory levels. Shrinkflation, let's see how that develops because obviously the shrinkflation is consequent to prices that have been increased by our clients in the first place. So let's see how that develops. Do we come back to normal sizes and so on? Yet to be seen, that would be, I would say, more the cherry on the cake than anything else. So going forward, the volumes, we should see... and hope for normal sort of volume development. One indication, as you know, we don't have a portfolio of orders that take us beyond four to five weeks. So one indication that we always is a good proxy is the amount of briefs that we work on, which testifies and supports the, obviously, the innovation, the appetite for our clients to innovate, to launch new products, and also, I would say, testifying basically how they see the future in terms of volume development. And so, for us, really, the brief pipeline is very good. We have also our win rates, which are also very good, you know, showing the the clear competitive, let's say, differentiations that the Givaudan brings in this competitive world. So this is also a positive indication going forward. The lower consumption that we mentioned, obviously that's more the uncertain part because that can continue going on. But we remain optimistic, looking also at... 20 years of volume growth for Giraudan, again, and the natural hedges, we have always managed to deliver consistent results. As it relates to the margin development, so we are happy with the sort of step improvement that we have seen for the group ABTDA. Yes, with the differentiated margin, ABTDA margin between the two divisions, but that means So the way we look at ABTDA, and we have said that a few times now, as well on multiple roadshows, is that we are aiming at coming back to sort of an entitled ABTDA of 24% ABTDA margin through the improvement of the gross profit margin. So we have made a step change there, and we have yet to further improve our gross profit margin, and that especially on the taste and well-being division. And that by working, as I said, on the manufacturing footprint, you know, costs on the supply chain, we have some opportunities to be better there. But let's not forget something. The fact that even on the taste and well-being division, which is actually delivering an ABTDA margin very, very... know reflecting the highly specialized business we are in you know if i look at it from a competitive standpoint holding a 20.3 percent ability margin when you have such a decline in volume has been quite an achievement that i feel very proud that the team has achieved because as you see as you know the operational leverage to improve everything margin on the back of growth is always a reality for us, but it can also work the other way. And despite that, we have managed to hold on the comparable ABTD margin. So we are very much committed and focused on improving that furthermore, and there are works to be done on the footprint, on the supply chain going forward, and I'm confident we'll get there. The input cost Yes, it's really sort of a stable, mild increase with pluses in some naturals, slight minuses on other parts. But it will not create a material headwind for the ABTDA of the taste and well-being division as it relates to naturals. So next question.

The next question comes from Nicola Tang from BNB Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. First, I was intrigued, Gilles, by your comments on, in Asia Pacific, consumers switching to kitchen solutions versus packaged foods. Do you see any risk that this trend could emerge in other markets outside of Asia, either from a cost perspective or perhaps because of consumer awareness around health and wellness and processed foods? And what do you think needs to happen to get the consumers in APAC to switch back? And then the second question, on consumer products, you noted the volume acceleration sequentially in H2 last year. Do you see this as a restocking trend, or is it more reflective of underlying demand? Should we expect continued acceleration into H1 as well? Thanks.

Thank you, Delight. On Asia-Pacific, you know, obviously we have, you know, this idea of competing, as we say, with the kitchen. Yes, it's an explanation to explain, you know, sort of the lower consumption on packaged foods. We don't think it's a long-term trend. It's really sort of a singular response when you have inflation, I mean, sharp inflation on food and food and beverage, because at the end of the day, there is still... still a fundamental thing where convenience for consumers is very important. And especially when you have urbanization, more people working in cities and so on, convenience is important. So we see it as maybe sort of obviously a temporary trend in Asia Pacific and especially in countries where income are very low. So that's one thing. And the health and wellness products, so the switch is not due to health and wellness. Actually, health and wellness is a very good trend for us. When consumers switch to health, diet, and so forth, we are also there with, as we call them, taste modulators to help those products. product stays good, but also all the phyto-active, health, natural products, you know, which is a very nice portfolio that we have from Naturex, are also helping getting there. So health and wellness is not competing or explaining some of those trends when you go back to the kitchen, and it's yet very specific to some countries in Asia Pacific. On the consumer product side, the acceleration that we have seen is I would say more the stop of the destocking coming back to actually normal volume growth. And from what we see, this has nothing to do with the idea of restocking. Again, take into consideration that the stocking up or the restocking or whatever we call it, happened in 21 and somehow the destocking is basically, which happened in 23 for both taste and consumer product, we see it as coming back to sort of the more normal inventory levels that were prior 21. So again, the idea of restocking going forward is not the assumption. This is more about coming back to a normal sort of consumption pace for both consumer products and taste.

The next question comes from Arben Hazanayi from Fontobu. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. I would have three shorter questions. First of all, on free cash flow. So there I was wondering what kind of levers can you still pull there because it seems like in terms of networking capital, you've already come a long way. So apart from general increase in profitability, where do you see still potential there? Then the second question will be around M&A. Can we assume that M&A is now again higher on the agenda, given that free cash flow has bounced back and also net debt has decreased a little? Or can we assume that 2024 will be really focused on footprint optimization before you consider any additions there? And then a final short question on fine fragrances. I mean, given the growth that you've seen there, are you planning specific capacity extensions for fine fragrances, or can you accommodate that growth kind of given the footprint that you have right now? Thanks.

So thanks, Armin, for the questions. Maybe I'll take the free cash flow part of the M&A and I'll hand it to Gilles for the the complementary part of M&A and then fine fragrance. So, you know, free cash flow, you know, 13.3 percent in the year. You know, what were the two biggest drivers? As you've seen, it's really an improving EBTDA margin and a reduction in the working capital as a percentage of sales. And, you know, Gilles already referred to the EBTDA going forward over the next couple of years. We believe that we have opportunity to increase the margin. And on working capital, we also believe we have margin. We finished the year at 24.1% of sales. If you look at where we've been historically, we've been somewhere between 22 and 23%. So really those are the two levers, is increasing the EBITDA margin and reducing the working capital margin. On M&A, look, I mean, we've never seen our debt and our net debt, EBTDA, as a ceiling or something that's blocking us. The M&A pipeline has been quiet. You know, Gilles, I think, will refer to the areas we're interested in. But, you know, we've always been active. We were active in 23. You remember we did the deal with Amaris at the beginning of the year. and we continue to look for opportunities. You know, it's more that there's not so many sellers in the market, but I'll pass it to Gilles to complement on M&A and then on the fine fragrance.

Yeah, as Tom stated, so obviously we are more in an increasingly more comfortable position to do M&As, but even though it's not a hurdle for us and never been, It's really a question of assets, available assets. Let me remind some of the themes under which we screen potential opportunities. One is obviously still around our core business. You still have assets around, I would say, pure players, around fragrance makers, as well as flavors makers around local and regional clients. So opportunities there to increase, again, our footprint in certain areas. countries which actually allow us to go and engage with new sets of local clients. Actually, I'm very happy with the track record we have had in terms of value creation with all those, I would say, small, mid-sized players, Foil, Expression Parfumée, Drome, Custom Essence in the US as examples. So we'll continue in this direction. The second direction has to do with expanding in the field of those, again, high value added ingredients which go beyond flavors around, remember that we expanded on colors, it can be on natural, it can be on things around health and wellness. So those themes are still quite valid. And then the third direction can be in terms of further a bit integrating on some ingredients that we would make rather than buy. So those are examples of the things we look at. I forgot active beauty, which is also a fantastic success story over the last few years. But yet we have to find sellers. So basically it takes two to dance. Multiples are slightly depressed. Maybe you have less sellers and transactions. And then I'll finish with your question on fine fragrances. Yes, I must say we are very happy and very proud of this growth. Yes, it's a question of the market. The market has been growing. When you look at some of our clients growing strongly in fine fragrances, but it has also to do with I would say, the market share gain that we have done in fine fragrances. And I would say the third reason is also something which makes a bit, again, Giroudon special, is that we are in every part of fine fragrance, meaning that, yes, it's about prestige fine fragrances, and we've seen tremendous successes with some of the new launches, but it's also... fine fragrance clients in Samea, which has been a spectacular growth over the last few years. Actually, Samea for us is as big as LATAM now in fine fragrances. We started from zero 15 years ago. And then the end market, or rather two end markets. On one side, the sort of more specialty retail mass fine fragrances, as well as the prestige, I mean, niche, what we call the niche high-end fragrances. We are really in all different markets, and many of them are growing strongly. So in terms of production capacity, obviously fine fragrances doesn't take as much volume as what you see on consumer products, and so we are well-equipped to continue growing in fine with the production capacity that we have at hand.

All right, thank you very much.

The next question comes from Günter Zechmann from Allianz Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon, gentlemen. A couple of questions from my side, please, if you can hear me all right. Firstly, would you mind talking us through the stabilization you've seen in Asian well-being in North America, especially in Q4 incrementally? That would be really helpful in terms of the categories and the customers where you've seen that uptake. That's the first one. Secondly, any comment on supply chain disruptions on those early days? But are you looking into implementing any third parties because of red sea disruptions similar to what we've seen with Suez Canal ships getting stuck in the past, for example? And then if I can sneak one more in, please. provide us with an update on the investigation of anti-competitive behavior by the CMA and other authorities, which has recently extended to personal approaches.

Okay, so that was very patchy, so I got some help to understand your questions. So, yeah, the first one around, I would say, the stabilization of taste and flavor in Q4, and you could argue the stabilization as well on consumer products. Actually, we have seen mild growth in Q4 finally. Obviously, in all honesty, we have a lower comparable in Q4 2022, but at the same time, it's a good signal that maybe we come back to normal times. We have seen on the positive side, in terms of the pipeline, the briefs, The wind rate, we have a very encouraging position in North America in both taste and well-being and consumer products. So that's really the part, as you know, that we can always control, or at least by focusing on wind rate, that can help compensating for higher levels of erosion. So there I know that gives us confidence. Then on the supply chain disruption, I think you referred maybe to the Red Sea. Obviously, what we see is that delays have increased to actually get, we have quite substantial flows, material flow going through this route. So lead times have increased with some additional charges, but yet which are, let's say, controllable and minimized. And then your final question on investigation. Well, essentially, I don't have much news other than repeating what we have already said. It's a worldwide investigation with all US, European committees, Switzerland and the UK. And it involves all the key players. But we are fully collaborating with all of them with no... idea about the outcome yet. But it will take time.

The next question comes from Daniel Bürki from Zürcher Kantonalbank. Please, go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. I have a question on this factory optimization program. Could you give us more details? You mentioned it will take two years, 50 million of costs. Will we also see some costs in 2025? and what could be possible benefit savings out of this program? Thank you.

Yeah, so thank you, Daniel, for the question. So, you know, the cost that we outlined in the 50 million is for 2024. You know, I expect that we will also have costs in 25 as well. In terms of the benefits, I mean, I think Jill already elaborated on what you should expect to see on the taste side because most of the optimization is expected on the taste division. You know, we expect in the long term to have very, very consistent margins. And historically, the two divisions have had very, very similar eBTDA margins. So, you know, there you can already factor in or calculate the benefits that we would expect to see from those two programs. And, you know, that's very similar to what we've done in the past. You know, if you look back, and I'm sure you remember the period 2012 to 2015, we had similar programs. And over those three or four years, we were able to increase the margins back to the levels that Gilles was talking about before.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the question and answer session. I hand back over to the management for any closing comments.

Thank you. So, dear ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your interest and your questions. I'd like to remind you we will publish our Q124 sales results on April 11th of this year and welcome you to register to our investor event on the same day. This year we will break with tradition and we will hold the event in Kemptal, close to Zurich. And with that, I thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing CoreSchool and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.