Glanbia Plc Ord

Good morning and welcome to the Glanbia PLC 2021 Full Year Results Call with Siobhan Talbot, Group Managing Director and Mark Garvey, Group Finance Director. Today's conference is being recorded and at this time I'd like to turn the conference over to Liam Hennigan, Group Director of Strategic Planning and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to today's call. During the call, the directors may make forward-looking statements. These statements have been made by the directors in good faith based upon the information available to them up to the time of their approval of the full year 2021 release and the presentation. Due to the inherent uncertainties, including both economic and business risk factors underlying such forward-looking information, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. The directors undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking information made on today's call. Good morning and thank you all for joining today's call.

On the call today I will outline a summary of our financial performance and strategic execution during 2021 as well as the trends we are seeing so far in 2022. Mark will cover the finances and then I'll conclude with an update on our strategy and outlook after which we'll be very happy to take any questions. So turning then to our performance in 2021. When I spoke to you this time last year, we expected to grow our adjusted earnings per share in a range of 6% to 12%, constant currency, based on what we were seeing at that time. As we moved through the year, our strong delivery led us to upgrade our guidance and we're pleased to ultimately report results much stronger than those original expectations across all of our key metrics of revenue growth, margin and, of course, cash conversion. Adjusted EPS for 21 has grown on a constant currency basis by 23.9% for continuing operations. That obviously excludes the impact of the Glanbia Ireland joint venture, which is now held for sale. Including the impact of the joint venture, our adjusted EPS grew by 22.1% constant currency. This result was driven by strong growth in both of our two key platforms of both GPN and GNNS. with GPN increasing like-for-like revenues by 15.9%, with branded like-for-like growing 18.3%, and GN Solutions increasing like-for-like revenue by 17.3%. Through the year, we continued to focus strongly on our financial discipline and continued an excellent cash performance for the year. Our operating cash flow conversion was over 100%, and we put that cash to good use. investing across the business, making some acquisitions, and also delivering returns to our shareholders with a 10% increase in our final dividend, as well as returning over 90 million in share buybacks through the year. 2022 has started very well, and we expect further revenue and earnings growth this year. Before I get into the outlook, I'd like to speak with you first about our strategic execution on 21, because that provides important context for our 22 plans. 21 was overall a very busy year for the group, and while we were navigating COVID, we also stayed very focused on delivering our strategic imperative. The GPN transformation project made significant progress through the 21 year, with the project over-delivering in terms of top line and margin momentum versus its original business case. This key project, which commenced in the latter part of 19, and since then is well on track to deliver over the 200 basis point of net margin benefits that we spoke to with the growth savings being reinvested as planned in higher brand marketing investment. The project, as we've mentioned previously, has a broad range of initiatives focused on both driving revenue momentum and indeed efficiency. From a revenue perspective, it has enabled brand momentum. It has driven focused revenue growth management opportunities, including significant pricing actions with a number over the last 18 months. and also realigned our operating model, and indeed talent, to match our growth agenda. The range of projects to drive efficiencies was also very broad. It included a rationalisation of over a third of SKUs from the portfolio, an exit of our contract business in North America, such that all of our business is now branded, really, in GPM, significant realignment of our routes to markets in regions outside North America, and a consolidation of our supply chain activity, particularly a consolidation of the North American manufacturing footprint. The strong delivery on this project to date has been a really strong underpin of the double-digit EBITDA margins achieved in GPN in 21, and we believe has structurally lifted the profitability of the business relative to its 2019 base. We made significant progress on our portfolio during the year, in line with the strategy of simplifying the group behind our growth platform. The most significant portfolio realignment has been the agreement to dispose of our remaining 40% interest in Glanbia Ireland to the Co-op in Q4. Our strategic growth journey will remain that blend of organic M&A and portfolio review, and the acquisition by GPN of the Level Up brand in Q2 and by nutritional solutions of Pacmore and Q3 are very aligned to our overall growth strategy. Finally, further leveraging the capabilities we have in building and operating very large-scale dairy facilities in the US, we very successfully completed the commissioning of the cheese and whey facility in Michigan in the first half of the year. COVID, of course, continued to make life challenging for us all in 21. And once again, I can only thank and really acknowledge the way that all of my Glanbia colleagues, our supply chain partners, and of course our customers, worked tirelessly together to navigate the challenges of the pandemic. Our number one priority since the outset of the pandemic has been the health and safety of our employees. And through strict protocols, we operated all of our plans to plan last year. We maintained the integrity of our supply chain throughout 21 and into 22, to maintain delivery of our nutritious brands and ingredients to our customers and consumers. So turning then to our outlook for 22. Through the second half of 21, the underlying consumption trends that we'd seen in the first half very much continued. In GPN, we had continued strong momentum in our performance and general lifestyle brands, while the diet category remained sluggish, as consumers just didn't prioritize dieting, in a COVID challenge environment. In GN Nutritional Solutions, we had continued strong top-line momentum, which was fueled by continued customer and consumer trends in areas such as healthy snacking, immunity, where we have a huge range of innovative ingredient solutions. Of course, as we've spoken of previously, inflation became the emerging theme of the second half of the year. And as we've outlined, we have been progressively mitigating that trend, most particularly around pricing action since the latter part of 21. Our clear strategic focus for 22 and beyond is to drive growth across both GPN and nutritional solutions as the nutrition partner of choice for our customers and consumers. During 22, we anticipate the effects of COVID-19 will abate further, However, the ongoing impact of cost inflation, particularly dairy-related, will continue to be very actively managed, as indeed we did through 21. Given this context, we have started 22 very well, with very good growth momentum across both GPN and GN nutritional solutions, and we're very focused on maintaining the top-line momentum through the year. We believe that the actions we have taken in simplifying our portfolio, transforming the business, and investing for long-term sustainable growth will position us really well when we move through the current inflationary cycle. Based on today's market environment and our current expectations for the rest of the year, we expect to deliver both group revenue and EBITDA growth for 2022. We expect high single-digit revenue growth in both GPN and nutritional solutions, largely driven by our pricing actions. We express growth in earnings, with EBITDA growth to be driven by the continued growth of nutritional solutions. For GPN, we expect the full-year EBITDA to be broadly in line with 21, as anticipated revenue growth is offset by a margin decline of about 100 basis points versus the prior year. The impact of inflation in GPN is material, with year-to-year cost of goods inflation of approximately 20%, with inflation of dairy input costs around 70% of that total figure. Importantly, GPN has secured supply and fixed pricing for almost 90% of its expected dairy inputs requirements for the current year, and that gives us really good visibility, as well as protection against any further dairy price increases. Over the full year 22, Inflation is currently estimated to result in an EBITDA margin headwinds net of pricing action of about 300 basis points, against which we're driving further efficiencies and cost-saving initiatives that will contain the EBITDA margin decline versus 21 to around 100 basis points. We expect nutritional solutions EBITDA to grow in 2022. Material inflation headwinds there are also a factor. However, the combined impact of pricing actions plus further cost savings and indeed further efficiencies are expected to drive a nutritional solutions margin broadly in line with 21. For full year 22, performance in our GNUS cheese business will be broadly in line with 21. and the continuing joint ventures are expected to reduce somewhat versus the prior year, as we have some ongoing startup costs in our European joint venture and some inflation headwinds. So therefore, at a group level for full year 22, we expect adjusted earnings per share growth for continuing operations of between 2% and 8%. All of the earlier numbers I've said are on a constant currency basis, and all those numbers will rise on a reported basis with the adjusted earnings per share expected to rise by 5% if currency rates stay where they are today. Turning then to this segmental performance for 21. GPN recovered strongly in 21 from the COVID challenges of 20, a performance facilitated by the benefits achieved through the transformation program. Constant currency volume growth was 11.4% and price was up 4.5%. With the exit of the North American private label manufacture business, 98% of our revenues are now branded, and we grew those branded like-for-like revenues by over 18%, 18.3% in fact. Volume growth was strong across all channels and markets. Consumption trends across sports and general lifestyle nutrition have been very good throughout the year, and as mentioned earlier, this has continued into 22. GPN acquired the Level Up Gaming Nutrition brand in the second quarter, and this has been integrated successfully into our direct-to-consumer platform in Europe. Pricing was driven by increases in both the third quarter of 2020 and the third quarter of 2021. And to date, we've not seen material demand elasticity in response to those actions. We will, of course, continue to monitor that as we move through 2022. Margins for 21 were up 320 basis points as a result of our pricing actions taken. Efficiency from the GPN transformation programme and operating leverage was also part of our margin story as indeed was that strong volume growth. Overall, this led to a 65.5% increase in GPN EBIT A to 145 million. As noted earlier, GPN has started well in 22 to date. For the full year, we're focused on maintaining that top-line momentum. We expect high single-digit revenue growth at EBITDA broadly in line with 21 levels. Turning then to our leading brands, Optimum Nutrition continues to consolidate its position as the number one brand in the sports nutrition category and is now over half of GPN branded revenue. The team have delivered growth in ON through strong brand activation programs across pack design, creative, portfolio focus, and of course, investment discipline. Global revenue for ON was really strong, growing by almost 35%, with growth across all regions. Brand consumption in the key North American market in measured channels was also strong, up almost 19% in 21, driven by brand expansion and good velocities across key channels. ON is our pace and category growth, and we saw market share gains in our top five tracked markets, including the US, UK, China, Australia, India. During the year, we continued the global rollout of our proven marketing campaign with the More Than Your Body, Creative, now in 25 markets. We have over 1,000 individual partnerships globally with elite athletes and teams, coaches, trainers, ambassadors, and influencers. including Olympians, Indian Premier League, NFL, AFL, and, of course, rugby. This activity is key towards building education and influence with our target consumers. ON is a really strong platform for innovation, and with a strong focus on products like Gold Standard Whey and Amino Energy, in 2021, we expanded our reach with Amino Energy sparkling, ready to drink, for example, in the UK, US, and Australia. Overall, our energy platform is about 10% of our GPN revenues now, and is becoming a really exciting platform for us. On our GPN lifestyle nutrition brand portfolio, again, it's 31% of our overall brand of revenues, and that grew by almost 4% in 21. This encompasses SlimFast, Think, and Amazing Grass. SlimFast, as you know, is our lifestyle brand in the diet category, and we did see continued headwinds in that category, which led to consumption being down over 4% in North American key channels, over 21. Globally, our revenue declined by 0.6%, as North America declined was offset by growth in the UK. SlimFast continues to be a very strong brand and the most recognized weight management brand in the US, with 98% brand recognition in the category. To drive continued brand relevance, we have engaged with our consumers, and I think as I mentioned previously, we plan to reshape our SlimFast portfolio to meet the evolving needs of our consumers across both the weight loss but also weight management journey. In 21, we launched a new SlimFast advertising with Make an Entrance, or might surprise you, marketing campaigns in the US and the UK. We continue to innovate across formats, including keto, and we had a very successful keto rollout in the UK in Q4 of 21. You'll know that the other brands in our lifestyle portfolio are Think and Amazing Graphs, both growing very strongly through 21. We saw consumption growth across both those brands up almost 10%, with revenue up 14%. Again, as you probably know, Amazing Grass is a plant-based supplement and is the number one brand in the greens category in the US, with overall plants now about 5% of GPN revenue. The Think Protein Bar had a great year, and its growth outpaced the category. We had a good performance from the core Think range, as well as a really successful rollout of keto-related innovations under the Think brand. Across all of our lifestyle brands, we had integrated marketing campaigns as you would expect, across digital and traditional media, as we continued to build awareness and conversion. Turning then to Glanby Nutritionals. Glanby Nutritionals had a very strong year, with volume growth of over 18%. Price for the segment declined almost 8%, but this was all related to US cheese market price volatility, with a lower year-on-year average pricing. EBITDA was up almost 10% to 125 million, and this was driven entirely by the nutritional solutions business. As you know, nutritional solutions completed the acquisition of Pacmore in the third quarter, which increases our capability in the healthy snacking arena. Nutritional solutions, our ingredient solutions business, again had a really strong year. Volume was up 13.6%, with strong customer demand across essential nutrition, immunity solutions, and healthy snacking solutions. Pricing was up 3.7% as we passed through increasing dairy market pricing during the year. Margin was slightly back by 50 basis points, largely as a result of some higher input costs, but EBITDA grew 15.7% to 101 million. For GNNS, for the full year 22, we expect to deliver high single-digit revenue growth and good EBITDA growth. While NS is also experiencing material inflation headwinds, we expect the combined impact of pricing action plus further cost savings and efficiencies will drive an NS margin for 22, broadly in line with 21. The NS business is delivering growth ahead of its end market. It's leveraging its core capability across a really broad range of sectors, all of which are in growth. From an ingredient perspective, NS has strong capability across both dairy and non-dairy, with non-dairy now representing 59% of the business and is primarily focused on micronutrients, immunity solutions, and flavors. This part of the business grew almost 14% in volume in 21. The dairy business, which has primarily focused on healthy snacking, and specialized key dairy ingredients also had strong volume growth of around 13%, part of which was, of course, driven by the commissioning and commercialization of the whey from the Midwest Cheese Facility. In total, Nutritional Solutions delivered 17.3% like-for-like revenue growth. Nutritional Solutions occupies key positions in ingredient solutions and is a key player globally. where we service sports and lifestyle nutrition, supplements and immunity, and of course, mainstream food and bev, and specialized nutrition also, with ingredients that can add key nutritional benefits to products within those categories. On U.S. cheese, it had a resilient performance in what was a volatile environment. Volume was up almost 20%, which was driven by the commissioning of the large facility I've mentioned earlier in Michigan. US cheese markets were volatile in 21, and the business operates a pass-through model, as you know, but pricing declined a top line by 12% reflecting those lower markets. EBITDA was back slightly, slightly over 3 million, due to higher operating costs. With that, I'll hand over to Mark, who will speak to the financials.

Thanks, Siobhan, and good morning to everyone on the call. I will walk through some of the key financial highlights of the year. As Siobhan has said, 2021 was a good year for the group, with a strong performance across all metrics. Wholly owned revenue grew by 13.1% constant currency to €4.2 billion, with both wholly owned businesses performing well. The average euro-dollar rate for the year was €1.18 to the euro, compared to €1.14 for the prior year, resulting in an approximate 4% headwind in reported results, compared to constant currency in 2021. Adjusted earnings per share for continuing operations was up 23.9% on a constant currency basis. The group had strong cash flow during the year as a result of higher earnings. Just over 100% of EBITDA was converted into operating cash flow. The group ended the year with a strong balance sheet and net debt of €603 million and a net debt EBITDA ratio of 1.7 times in line with the prior year. During the year, the group spent €76 billion in acquisition activity, acquiring 60% of Level Up, a direct-to-consumer gaming nutrition business in GPN, and Pack More, a healthy snacking business in Nutritional Solutions. €91 million was returned to shareholders via share buyback activity during 2021, and today we are announcing a 10% increase in the 2021 final dividend, which will bring the total 2021 dividend to 29.28 cents, representing a 33.6% payout of 2021 earnings. Last November, we announced that the group had entered into an agreement to sell the PLC's 40% stake in Glambia Ireland to Glambia Cooperation Society for €307 million. Since that date, the shareholders of the PLC and the Society have separately voted in favour of the transaction. Subject to final regulatory approvals, we expect this transaction will close in the second quarter and €307 million will be received in cash. As Glanbia Ireland represents a significant component and separately reported segment of the group, the group's share of Glanbia Ireland's results have been reported separately in the financial statements as discontinued operations. At year end, the book value of the PLC's investment in Glanbia Ireland was €234 million. Looking at the income statement, you can see that on a constant currency basis, revenues are up 13.1%, EBITDA was up 34% as a result of strong performance by GPN and GN. The group's EBITDA margin increased from 5.5% to 6.4%, primarily due to the transformation program and higher operating leverage in GPN during the year as COVID restrictions abated across our markets. Net finance costs for the year were €17.5 million compared to €20.5 million, reflecting the benefit of lower average net debt in 2021 compared to the prior year. The average net debt was €534 million in 2021 and €631 million in 2020. The average interest rate for the year was approximately 3%. Share of joint ventures reported that continuing operations rose 19.2 million euros profit after tax compared to 37.7 million in 2021. 2021 performance was in line with expectations following an exceptional year in 2020 due to unusual dairy market dynamics, which favored our U.S. joint venture, which we did not expect to repeat in 2021. The effective tax rate for the year was 13%, an increase of 11.3%, representing the geographic footprint of the group's profitability. Adjusted earnings per share for the year was 87.15 cents, of which 77.84 cents related to continuing operations, and 9.31 cents represented discontinued operations. Operating cash flow generated for the year was 334 million euros, in line with the prior year, albeit with higher EBITDA and increased working capital investment. Operating cash flow conversion was just over 100% of EBITDA, coming in well ahead of our target of 80%. There was increased working capital investment in the second half of the year to ensure the group had appropriate levels of inventory to meet demand and to manage any supply chain dynamics. In 2022, we will be targeting an 80% conversion rate, and we do expect a working capital outflow for the year, in particular due to the inflationary environment. Capital expenditure for the year was 77.5 million euros with 62 million euros spent on strategic CapEx. The most significant strategic CapEx project was the investment in the consolidation of GPN manufacturing facilities in Chicago as part of the transformation program which is now complete. In 2022, we expect to spend between 75 and 85 billion euros on capital expenditure. Group has a strong balance sheet at the end of 2021 with net debt of €603 million compared to €494 million at the end of the prior year. The increase was primarily due to acquisition and share buyback activity as well as restructuring of legacy pension liabilities. Net debt EBITDA was 1.71 times and interest cover was 15.1 times well within confidence and the Group has total available banking facilities of €1.16 billion with no arrangement expiring prior to January 2024. In 2021, the Group had exceptional items of €42.1 million net of tax, which are primarily related to the transformation programme in Zambia Performance Nutrition and the restructuring of pension liabilities. The GPN transformation programme commenced in 2019 and has aligned operating and supply chain structures in support of individual businesses, sharpened focus on brands and optimised routes to market across non-US markets to drive greater efficiencies, improve margin and deliver top-line growth. €18 million pre-tax was incurred in the current year of the programme and the investment phase of this multi-year strategic programme is now complete and no further costs are anticipated. During the year, legacy defined benefit pension schemes were restructured initiating a process for the ultimate buyout and wind-up of certain UK schemes and there was a further simplification of remaining schemes. The net charge was €30 million before tax. These processes have further reduced the group's net pension liabilities which at year-end were €14 million compared to €29 million a year ago and €110 million five years ago. In 2022, we expect the effective tax rates to be between 12% and 13%. As I mentioned, the average euro-dollar rate for 21 was €1 equals to $1.18. As of this week, the exchange rate is approximately $1.12. Should the rate stay at a similar level to this for the year, our reported results would be approximately 5% higher than the constant currency results. Return on capital employed was 10.1%, an improvement of 110 basis points, reflecting the improved profitability of the Group in 2021. As I mentioned earlier, during 2021, the Group allocated €91 million to share buyback activity, purchasing 7.3 million shares at an average price of €12.51. This 2021 activity would be approximately 1% accretive to 2022 adjusted EPS. In 2022, to date, the group has spent a further €73 million on buyback activity, purchasing 5.9 million shares at an average price of €12.36. This included participation in the co-op share placing in January and just this week, including the €50 million programme announced last November. This 2022 activity will result in an additional adjusted earnings per share accretion of approximately 2% in 2022. And reflecting the strong cash flow of the group, today we are announcing a further €50 million Euro buyback programme which will commence immediately. Following the announcement of the disposal of the Group's 40% interest in Glanbia, Ireland last November, the Group has completed or announced buyback activity of approximately €130 million. And importantly, at the upcoming AGM, the Board will seek approval to renew the Group's authorisation to continue to use share buyback programmes as a capital allocation tool. And with that, I will hand it back to Siobhan.

Thank you, Mark. Turning then to strategy. Glanbia has a very strong and very rich heritage which started with the purpose of delivering a brighter future for the farm family communities in which we operate. And today we have evolved that strategy to a purpose of delivering on a global scale better nutrition for every step of life's journey. We are really ambitious to deliver that purpose. We are very clear on both our strategic priorities and indeed the specific capabilities that are unique to Glanbia that will drive that long-term sustainable growth. We've touched on many of these areas earlier in our presentation today. Our strategic priorities are not new in their focus on driving growth in our portfolio of leading sports and lifestyle brands and science-led ingredient solutions through a blend of organic and acquired growth. What we term organisation enablers is really the engine room that provides the infrastructure and toolkit to our people to deliver these strategic priorities. This, of course, has been a key focus area for myself and all of the team in the last two years, during which we've reshaped our operating model in key areas of the group, while we've invested in new skills, new talent, and indeed new relationships to fuel our future growth. I am really confident that the focused investment and reshaping of the key enablers over the last two years will serve us really well, both to navigate the current short-term inflationary headwinds but importantly, to drive future sustainable growth. If you think of the evolution of the Glambia nutrition portfolio, it is really probably best characterized as a progressive journey of allocating capital, investment, and resources to areas of nutrition where we can create as a group and sustain clear competitive advantage. In recent years, we've divested away from commodity exposures, and now have a strong portfolio of leading sports and lifestyle brands and ingredient solutions, which are aligned with the de-risked participation in primary dairy production, largely in our core US market. We are clear that the priority for our capital allocation and investment is the continued growth of our GPN and our Glandry Nutritional Solutions portfolios, where we invest to grow organically across a range of ingredient sources, product formats, and indeed consumer usage occasions and motivations, both in the US and in selected key international geographies. Our US cheese and joint venture businesses, quite separately reported, are strongly aligned operationally and commercially. And these ventures, through innovative self-financed models, provide supply chain and innovation capability, provide visibility and assurance, which support our two primary growth platforms. I've outlined earlier our performance expectations for 22, which are focused on growing revenue and earnings, despite significant inflation headwinds across the group. As we move beyond 22, we are very confident on the fundamental drivers on the long-term sustainable growth of Flambia. As we previously noted, we believe that the unfortunate health crisis that has been COVID-19 has, over the last two years, only accelerated consumer perspectives and motivations on the merits and importance of maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle. Structurally, we believe that this trend will be positive for our brand and ingredient capabilities, and it underpins our view on a sustainable top-line momentum across both GPN and GN nutritional solutions of between 4% and 6%, a metric we expect to overachieve on in 2022. Margin optimization is, of course, and has been an ongoing focus for the group, particularly, again, in those growth platforms of GPN and GN nutritional solutions. Recent work on the GPN transformation program and the ongoing portfolio evolution of nutritional solutions will, we believe, strongly underpin a structural margin, EBITDA margin, of over 12% in both those businesses. The largest 22 inflation headwinds, as I said earlier, is dairy, cost of goods and GPN. And we have a long experience and deep knowledge of the dairy space. And that gives us confidence to navigate this current inflationary cycle. We believe the current spike, particularly in whey cost of goods, will rebalance, probably in the latter part of 22 or early 23. And therefore, our focus is both on the short-term clear mitigating actions so that we can optimize our near-term performance, but also keeping a very keen eye to the long term. And our approach and continued investment across key areas of brand marketing or indeed innovation will really position as well when the dairy inflation cycle turns and COGS return to more usual pricing. My final comment on this slide is that, of course, importantly we acknowledge we're very focused on delivering shareholder value across all of our metrics. top line, margin, and return on capital employed. And ultimately the Board will continue to regularly review capital allocation across that blend of M&A activity, investments, capex, dividends, and of course buybacks. As we stated earlier, we now have a really strong portfolio in GPM across consumer motivations, channels, and indeed geography. and together that delivered branded like-for-like revenue growth in 21 of over 18%, and a two-year growth of over 5%, having fully recovered from the COVID challenges of 2020. We had good growth across all of our channels in 21, as continued growth in channels that had performed well through COVID, such as online and food, drug, mass and club, complemented our recovery in the more COVID-related channels of specialty and distributors. From a consumer motivation perspective, both aspects of our portfolio grew in 21, with, of course, very strong growth in the sports nutrition side, particularly optimum nutrition, but also Think, Isofuro, and Amazing Grass. All of that growth offsetting the slightly more challenged SlimFast performance. Lambie Nutrition and its Nutrition Solutions is now a SCADE platform, a billion-dollar revenue business focused on ingredient solutions. with strong capabilities across a range of ingredient sources playing into a broad range of customer segments, all of which are growing in the consumer nutrition space. We really think of the capabilities of NS through the lens of consumer motivations, and our current portfolio has two essential bedrocks. Firstly, we are about protein, and in particular its application to consumer healthy snacking across a variety of ingredient sources and delivery formats. And secondly, we are about micronutrient bespoke blends of vitamin and mineral premixes, which support consumer needs across a range of needs, infonutrition, clinical nutrition, immunity, and mainstream food and beverage. This portfolio is supported by a really strong innovation capability, which has evolved strongly in recent years and been augmented by acquisitions of further complementary capabilities. as we really develop solutions capability to meet our customer and consumer needs. We've enhanced our capabilities across bioactive, flavors, further healthy snacking technologies, plant-based solutions, and of course, novel ingredients, including, for example, clean label edible film and glitter. On the area of sustainability, we've made significant progress on our total Environmental, Social and Governance Agenda in 21. Our environmental sustainability strategy, which is labelled Pure Food plus Pure Planet, was published with associated targets. We're very focused on actions in areas that are most important to our stakeholders, and we've prioritised work in the area of carbon reduction, water, waste management and packaging. In terms of carbon emissions, We've committed to a 31% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 2030 and to reduce our carbon emission intensity in our dairy supply chain by 25% again by 2030 from a 2018 base year. These targets have been validated by SBTI to a well below 2 degrees Celsius pathway. We have reduced Scope 1 and 2 emissions to date by 8% compared to that baseline. We have re-baselined our fresh water data across all of our operational sites in 21, and that will inform our action plans for water conservation and management. On waste, we've committed to 100% zero waste to landfill by 25 across all of our production sites, building on an achievement that has already been made with zero waste to landfill in GPN locations. We've also committed to a reduction in food waste by 50% by 2030, And on packaging, are committed to full brand packaging, recyclable materials, either recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2030. And we've made really good progress on that to date. On the social agenda, we've also made really good progress on our diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda during the year, with significant engagement across all parts of the organization, which have culminated in a vision in Glanbia, a vision of inclusion, to advance a culture where we celebrate individuality because we know that together we are more. The organisation of Glanvia has never been more ready to embrace this journey and we've increased our resourcing in the area and launched a series of very specific actions across education, talent acquisition and engagement to both action and embed progress. Of course the health and safety of our teams has always been a priority for us We're really pleased that we had zero critical injuries in 21 and we've made improvements in health and safety across many of our sites, all of which reflects our strong commitment to our core values and an ambition of, of course, zero harm for our employees. Finally, then, on governance, the representation structures of the board continue to evolve in 21 to facilitate broader diversity. The agreed reduction in the representation of our largest shareholder is progressing as planned and the percentage of female representation on the board has increased during the year. In conclusion then, 21 was a strong year for the group, and the actions taken over the last two years has positioned us really well to navigate the significant pandemic-related disruption and to deliver growth in our key areas of nutrition expertise across our leading brands and ingredient solutions. All of our targets across financial and, indeed, non-financial metrics were met or exceeded in 21. We've made progress on a significant number of strategic initiatives. GPN over-delivered against its plans on the transformation program. It added the German-based Level Up brand to our portfolio. Nutritional Solutions expanded our healthy snacking capability with the acquisition of Packmore, and we successfully commissioned the large-scale facility in Michigan. We progressed our portfolio activity in line with the strategy of simplifying our business behind our growth platforms through the disposal of our interest in Glanbia Ireland to the co-op. We have strong cash flow, returning over 90 million to shareholders via buybacks and of course have increased our dividends. As a truly purpose-driven organisation, we have progressed our environmental, social and governance agenda. We're prioritising our roadmap to carbon emissions reduction and implementing our diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy. The current market environment is, of course, volatile across many dimensions. Inflationary pressures, COVID-19, and, of course, geopolitical tensions. Our clear strategic focus for 2022 and beyond is to drive growth across the platforms of GPN and Nutrition Solutions, where we want to and will be our customers' and consumers' partner of choice. We expect the disruptive impact of COVID-19 will abate through 2022, and we will actively manage, as we have been doing, the ongoing impact of cost inflation. So based on our current market environment and our current expectations for the year ahead, we expect to deliver group growth in adjusted EPS for continuing operations in a range of 2% to 8% on a constant currency basis. Our reported growth rate will be higher than that by 5%, based on the current foreign exchange rates. With that, we'd be very happy to take your questions.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, that is star one to ask a question. We will take our first question from Jason Mullins, Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good morning, Siobhan and Mark. Just wanted to pick into 2022 and your guidance with regards to the high single-digit revenue growth that you mentioned. Can you give us a sense of split between volume and pricing, assumptions that you're making for GPN and nutritional solutions? And then, Siobhan, you mentioned in your remarks on the way pricing backdrop that you expect to You said normalize in the latter part of 2022 or early 2023. Can you just give us the confidence levels or why you feel that's the statement that you're happy to make? And then just given that cost backdrop that you're facing this year and the various hedging and secured purchasing that you've got in place, how should we think about the shape of the year ahead between a sort of H1 and a H2? They're my questions. Thanks.

Thanks Jason and good morning. So yes, in relation to 22, firstly I would say we've started the year very well on revenue across both GPN and Nutritional Solutions, but of course we're very conscious that there's a lot to navigate. So we're confident that we will do the high single digits. Overall revenue, largely pricing, we believe, Jason, at this point in time. And the ultimate split between pricing and volume has a lot to play out within that because we haven't seen elasticity on the volume side to date. But of course, it's very early in the year and we're not overly calibrating. So what I would say to you at this point in time, very confident that we will at least do the high single digit. You should take that that would be largely pricing and we'll monitor the volumes and elasticity as we go. In terms of your wave pricing piece, yes, the inflation we've seen through the latter part of 21 and into 22 is really unprecedented in recent times. We haven't seen this level of pricing since 2014 and probably didn't in truth even hit the current level of pricing at that point in time. The one thing I would say to you is that we know dairy very, very well. We know that demand and supply always rebalances actually. The fundamentals of dairy and the relative mix that producers have the option to produce really don't support the current spike in weight prices. What you have happen really is a disruption, a COVID-related disruption to the dynamic of demand and supply. So if you think what happened in 2021 was supplies fell off with COVID happening in the early part of 2020. Producers recalibrated their production mix, came out of high end ways, went into some other products. Then, of course, in 21, you had demand come back very strongly across lots of different areas that use protein. And so you had this demand reaching a supply that had recalibrated the prior year. And so you had then a surge in pricing. We've seen this before, as I say, in 14, and what has happened is that demand ultimately responds to high prices and supply, sorry, supply responds to high prices and it starts to meet demand. And so that gives us the confidence of that recalibration. It's really difficult to be prescriptive on the quarter that that flows through, but our general knowledge of dairy is that dairy does respond to high pricing and prices are very high for milk right across the globe currently. That's not to say they're not seeing their own inflation headwinds, but over the run of 22 and as we come into 23, I've every confidence that milk supply globally will grow, and particularly the high-end ways we will see that supply meeting demand and therefore pricing normalising. And the actions we're taking, Jason, in that context, which has a series of price increases through 20, 21, and 22, I think will position us really well in that normalization stage because traditionally we've held a lot of the pricing when the cost of goods has reduced. So that's a key part of our long-term confidence in the space that, as I say, we know very well. To your point around our hedging strategy, in the context of what we were seeing at the back end of 21, the GPN team, again, who are very good at procurement in this space, went long in terms of supply. And as I've mentioned, we are now 90% covered for 2022 on our key dairy input requirements, which puts us in a really strong position. The shape of the movements through 21 and 22 means that you're going to see the bulk of the margin drag actually in the first half because we've been coming from a declining market into a rising market of 21. So you're going to see a margin impact in the first half and then coming a more normalization in the second half and margin increasing as we go through the back end of the year. That's the general shape. Hopefully that helps.

Okay, that's helpful. Sorry, just sort of one follow-up, if you don't mind. In terms of the way pricing dynamic in the high-end versus the low and medium quality, is there any major differences between the two, given you're more exposed, I guess, on the high-end side?

Yeah, it's an interesting point actually, because I would say that the high-end whey rose earlier than the general dairy complex, but as you've probably seen in recent times, all of dairy has increased, particularly protein. But still, when you look at a relative point of protein basis, high-end whey would still be out of kilter versus the commodities. So the commodities have risen, but again, high-end whey is more so. Again, part of our confidence that ultimately the high-end whey will recalibrate back.

Thanks very much.

We will now take our next question from James Target. Please go ahead.

Hello. Good morning, Siobhan. Good morning, Mark. A couple of questions for me. Firstly, on the Q4 volume developments, Can you just talk a little bit about what's behind the declines in volumes in GPN in Q4? Maybe some comments on the split between the trends in ON and SlimFast in Q4. And you mentioned a strong start to 22, so any kind of phasing benefits or phasing impacts you wanted to call out. I wondered if that positive start to Q1 included SlimFast as well? And do you expect SlimFast to to grow in FY22. So that's my first question on Q4 volumes, and then we'll start to Q1 with SlimFast. And my second question is on the GPN margin. Just to talk about the outlook, just to talk about what are some of these sort of productivity initiatives providing a 200 basis point offset to the 300 basis point input cost headwind expected? Thank you.

Thanks, James, and good morning. So in relation to Q4, as you mentioned, for GPN, overall I would say we're not concerned about the Q4 performance. As you've seen, we had a very good overall volume performance of almost 14% in GPN. And yes, Q4 volumes were back, but that was really a conscious decision on our part. in the context of the inflationary trends that we were seeing and the pricing action that we'd already taken and planned, where we decided not to promote the brands heavily, nor did we facilitate pre-ordering in advance of price increases that we put through in early 22. And the key piece for us actually, James, was that the consumption trends that we had seen through the year up to Q4 actually sustained in Q4. So we continue to see that very strong Optimum performance, think amazing grass, still saw, I'm afraid, the sluggishness of Slimfast, but the overall portfolio very strong. So that was more a conscious piece on our part. And as you say, I think that absolutely has come back in 2022. We've seen really nice volume growth in January and February, early in the year, though it is. So as I say, that gives us that confidence that we're not concerned about the Q4 piece. It was a conscious, as I said. So in terms of that consumption piece at the early part of 22, again, very much seeing the same trends. Sports, very strong. Consumption across the regions, very strong in the measured channels in North America. Think, again, ice, pure amazing grass, all strong. It's fair to say that SlimFast, the diet category, hasn't come back in the early part of 22, as we might have planned for, but overall the portfolio can absolutely absorb that. We have very clear plans for Slimfast, very optimistic about the brand potential. The reality is that the diet category hasn't come back indeed as players might have expected in January. There's generally a lift in January versus the prior back end of the year. And while there was a lift, it just wasn't the level of historically across the category and all players would have seen that. So our work on SlimFast continues to be areas we've spoken about before, continuing to innovate, doing some really good work in terms of broadening the reach of the brand. We've been very focused on the weight, the fast weight loss piece, but we're broadening the brand into the weight management. And you can see in the category how brands like Think, for example, that is in that general health, possibly weight management space, have been doing really well and so their overall lifestyle portfolio growing and putting particular emphasis on Slimfast as we move through 22 but overall very pleased about the total portfolio both that consumption and indeed a revenue in terms of the start for 22. Maybe Mark will take the margin point.

Good morning James, I mean in terms of the ability for us to mitigate some of these significant inflation headwinds of course the fact that we have a transformation program in place is very helpful in that regard because of the cadence around that in terms of looking at various costs and making sure we have the appropriate continuous improvement around bringing those costs down. So areas like procurement, SG&A, just making sure we're managing personnel costs really tightly, et cetera. That program has been continued in terms of its process into 2022, and that's going to allow us to mitigate not everything, but it will significantly mitigate some of the inflationary impacts, which will obviously help us in 2022.

Okay, thank you.

We'll take our next question from Carol . Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes, good morning all. Thanks for taking the questions. I have a couple of follow-up ones. The first one is coming back to the U.S. dieting market. What does your consumer insight tell you? COVID is away long now in the U.S. Why is the category not coming back as expected? And then the second question is on slide 23 with the medium-term targets. Are you a guide for 4% to 6% growth? I was wondering if that number assumes some add-on deals or not. And looking to the recent performance, in particular of nutritional solutions, you've been well above the 46% range in recent years. So isn't that a bit cautious for this unit? And the last question is coming back to this inflation piece and dairy prices. Supply-demand might rebalance, as you say, but what's different, of course, to the past is that farmers are also confronted with high prices high cost on site. So what are you seeing in terms of farm income levels? Because that ultimately needs to be good despite high selling prices in order for them to expand production on site. Thank you.

Good morning, Carl, and thank you. In terms of the category of dieting, quite simply, our belief from talking to consumers is that it is COVID-related and it is the relative prioritization of activities as people emerge from COVID. And our consumer research would tell us very clearly that a significant number of consumers, particularly in our core in North America, absolutely still want to lose weight. But as there has been waves of caution around COVID and around mobility, and indeed people not back in offices or doing all of the things that we all did so frequently pre-COVID, it is really and only just that caution. So we remain very, very confident on the long-term perspective on the category. We will broaden the reach of Slimfast, as I've mentioned, and this is really just the ongoing impact of COVID in that space. But, you know, it doesn't fundamentally alter our views in any way. In terms of our volume piece, the 4% to 6%, that would be organic growth as an ambition. So it wouldn't include further acquisition activity. And, you know, I acknowledge your point. And what I would say to you, yes, we will always be ambitious to optimize our performance over a period of time. And we have indeed had very strong growth within the nutritional solutions, and we'll continue to be ambitious to drive that. We're also conscious of the fundamental growth levels of the categories in which we play in as well, and indeed they can ebb and flow. So in putting out medium targets, We are cautious to some level, to your point, but always will be ambitious to overachieve against that. I mean, nutritional solutions... is a fantastic business for us. And I think, you know, we have a lot of excitement across both of our platforms. Nutritional Solutions delivered a really resilient performance all through COVID, has built on that further in 2021, and will build on that further again in 2022. And GPN, having recovered in 2021 from more challenge, will build its top line and sustain that overall, in fact, grow earnings on a reported basis for the reasons that we've outlined. In terms of dairy recovery, of course, and I think I referenced it, Carl, you're absolutely right, that at farm level, farmers are seeing inflation across a number of dimensions as well, for sure, whether it is feed and fertilizer, and we remain conscious of that. But current pricing would actually absorb that and should still facilitate growth. We've not seen growth to date come in the current year, and there's a number of dynamics playing in that, not least repairing of some of the balance sheets of some of the primary producers and weather events. But over the longer term, we would have a high degree of confidence in the dairy space. And we believe that even at current pricing, that will promote growth. But it will take some time. I mean, we've seen the sector to be very resilient through their own input cost inflation and respond to trigger events in market where pricing would drive them on to actually optimize their own output. Again, you know, we work with very large scale patrons, as we call them in the US. They're scale businesses. They drive a lot of efficiencies on farm and are very much part of the sector for the long haul.

All right. Thank you.

We will now take our next question from Alex Sloan. Please go ahead, your line.

Yeah, hi, morning all. A couple of questions for me. Just on the midterm ambitions and the 12% plus margin ambition for GPN and nutritional solutions, I'd just be interested in terms of what point you think GPN can get back there. Can this be 2023 or is it going to be longer than that. I think previously you talked about exiting 2022 maybe close to that level, but clearly inflation has stepped up. So just any comments on the timing outlook there would be useful. And the second one, just on return on capital employed, obviously 9% to 12% target You're just over 10% today. I'm assuming it would be M&A that might cause you to stay at the lower end of that range, given the targeted mid-term margin improvement in GPN and NS. So I'd be interested, what are the key priorities from here in terms of M&A, and how do you think about return to criteria when you're assessing M&A opportunities? Thanks.

Thank you. And on the GPN margin, absolutely. We are really confident on the structural 12%. And the reason I can say that is the scale of the transformation work that we have done. Absent the current spike in inflation, we would be well within and above that 12% target range. So that really gives us the confidence because we can see line of sight of that. So based on what we can see today, we'd be very confident on hitting it for 2023. In fact, There's a set of scenarios that we can see that could have us, as you say, as an exit run rate at the back end of 2022. So the heavy lifting has been done in terms of the underlying dynamics of our business to do that. And our job of work, as I've said, is really about navigating what is a very spiky short-term, we believe, short-term inflation piece that positions us really well across many dimensions, not least that structural point then as we move through the back end of the year. Mark, maybe we'll take the returning capital.

Good morning, Alex. Last year, I remember reporting 9% returning capital and I said our goal is to get back into double digits and we've done that this year, so very pleased to get over 10% again at 10.1% and obviously our ambition is to drive that on further. But to your question, On M&A, M&A is absolutely an important part of our overall investment strategy as well as our internal organic CapEx program as well. As we look at M&A targets, we continue to have criteria in our investment committee that we get to that 12% return after year three. I can tell you the vote on acquisitions we'll be doing in nutritional solutions have been absolutely on target in terms of that, so we're very, very pleased with returns we're getting A lot of that, of course, is connected to the price that you pay, so it's something we have to be quite careful and just diligent on in terms of how we're comfortable paying for certain assets out there. But we do have an M&A program that's important to us. We are looking at continued add-ons potentially in our nutritional solutions business, and we also keep our eyes out for particular assets that may be important to add to the portfolio performance nutrition. But the criteria remains to get to that 12% in year three in terms of how we look at assets.

Very helpful. Thank you. We'll now take the next question from Kyle Kenny. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Morning, all. A couple of quick questions from my side. Firstly, just on page 24, your GPN revenue growth by channel, can you just comment on the online component? That was up 10.7% here and there. You might provide additional color on that. Secondly, in your prepared remarks, you mentioned energy being 10% of sales within GPN. I'm just interested to know what sits behind that. Thirdly, on your high single-digit guide for 22 for GPN, any commentary on the split between lifestyle and sports nutrition? And finally, on inflation for GPN, is it fair to say that this all resides within the powders format or other formats seeing significant COGS inflation as well? They're my questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Cahill. In terms of online, we continue to grow really nicely in that channel. In fact, as you look, I think one of the strengths of GPN is both that sectoral reach, the geographic reach, of course, but also the channel reach and the fact that we're growing across all channels. That's been a really nice build and capability for us. And we have a very strong position, as you know, with some of the key players and retain our strong market share in some of the key players, particularly in North America. So really pleased to see that. and that will be an ongoing point of focus for us. On the energy side, yes, we have a really nice product under Optimal Nutrition, Amino Energy. We have an Amino Energy product now across a number of channels in the U.S. It is in powder format. It's in a ready-to-drink sparkling format as well, getting some really nice incremental distribution on that product across a number of channels in the U.S., Very complimentary to the overall GPN portfolio. So a lot of really exciting activity happening in that space for us and it's a really good product and getting really nice traction. In terms of the high single digits, I think at this point it's fair to say that the growth in sports will outpace the growth in lifestyle. We're continuing the trends I've referenced now a few times on the call. We have a very strong brand position with Optimum Nutrition. It's now over 50%. of our branded sales in GPN, really strong brands getting really nice growth in that core North America as well as internationally, growing its relevance across consumers both in the dairy powder space but also, for example, in the energy space that I've referenced. Also in plants, we have an optimum nutrition offering as well. So you'll hear and I'll speak a lot more about the evolution of the portfolio and optimum nutrition is a super platform for us to do that. Clearly some really great brands on the lifestyle side as well. I've spoken an amount about SlimFast, very optimistic for that brand for the future. Navigating some COVID disruption currently and we'll continue to do that. I think has had a really great run in recent times post a rebranding that we did of that. So again, very strong as are, you know, amazing grass playing into the plant space, isopure playing into a really nice clean product. So, you know, very optimistic about the overall growth, but sports will outpace lifestyle, I think, again for 2022. Forgive me on the last question on inflation. Oh, inflation on powders, yes. I mean, the dairy, it is, of course we're seeing inflation across a number of dimensions, Cahal, as everybody is. You know, we're seeing across labour, across transport, across packaging, across ingredients, but the primary one that we've referenced is on the waste side, which is which is in the powder space, as you say. We're navigating all of that very clearly, taking really decisive actions across pricing, but also the things you would also expect us to be doing across cost savings and efficiencies as well.

Okay, thank you.

We'll now take our next question from Lauren Molyneux. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Hi, morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I just had a couple around pricing. So there's further pricing actions in GPN in 2022. I was just wondering how to think about the magnitude of these and when you might be putting these through. And also, how quickly are you able to put through pricing when you see these more significant inflation coming through? So how many opportunities do you have with retailers to come to the table and put more pricing through? And then just to follow on around brands and categories in your portfolio where you think is a bit more or less volume elastic than others. Those are the questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Lauren. In terms of pricing, we've taken pricing action and already communicated significant pricing action at the back end of 21. and pricing action that's literally in play and taking effect as we speak for the early part of 22. So we do have a number of opportunities. Clearly, there can be specific rhythms in certain channels, such as food, drug, and mass, but across other channels, we have opportunities as the need arises. A lot of that pricing is in trades to find some of the final moves, not quite at consumer level as yet. But those pricing actions, which are probably around the mid-teens of pricing activity across some of our core brands, would position us very well against the gross inflation trends that we've seen. So really the point for us at this stage is monitoring the elasticity. If there's other pricing that we need to do, we can do that. But there's also other areas of revenue growth management or indeed cost efficiency pieces that we can look at through the rest of the year. The confidence piece for us is that we've locked in the most sensitive cost of goods item at this point of time with 90% of our cost of goods locked in. So we have a very clear line of sight of the mitigating actions that we need to do to give you the guidance that we're speaking to today of the net 100 basis points margin over the full year. And having that good visibility, I think, positions as well against that. In terms of the elasticity, it's a really interesting question because, again, you know, history, I know, doesn't always dictate the future, but if you look at historical patterns, our brands, particularly on the sports side, have tended to be quite resilient in times of, economic recession or challenges at individual consumer level because really consumers are taking a lifestyle choice around areas of healthy living or activity and in many instances they will prioritise that over other more discretionary aspects of their lives because it can be quite fundamental to how they choose to live and maintain their health. So traditionally, we have had instances where we have put through actually three series of price increases, and the elasticity we didn't see, for example, until we hit the third one, and then that might be just for a period, and then we've seen volumes rebound again. That's what we've seen historically. We believe our categories can be quite resilient. Of course, we're not complacent about that point, and we continue to navigate it and be very watchful to it as we move through 2022. We're not seeing significant elasticity to date, but because we continue to invest behind the brands. stay front and centre of our consumers' minds as we've been navigating this and we'll continue to do that. So really, really focus on both navigating the short term but keeping that eye to the long-term strength of the brands because we absolutely believe that this inflationary cycle, particularly on the dairy side will turn, and it's about being there and strong with our consumers. We've done this before. We have a very experienced team in terms of how to navigate this, and so we will keep that longer-term perspective and stay relevant.

We'll now take our final question from Martin Deboe. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yeah, morning everyone. Martin De Boer, Jeff. I just want to mop up some of the things in the conversation and forgive me on the first one. I've been a bit distracted on the call if it's already been asked, but just to really drill into the GPN FY22 guidance, the high single digit organic growth, just for everything I'm hearing on the call would suggest to me that that will be mainly price driven with little or no volume, give or slow lifestyle, etc. But tell me if Help me if you can on that, and if I've missed an earlier question on that, forgive me. The other one I wanted to ask is the 300 basis points of margin headwind. I haven't done the arithmetic on this, Siobhan and Mark, but is that just simply the arithmetic dilution of gross profit that comes from protecting gross profit in a rising price environment, or does it signal that you expect to under-recover your input inflation in pricing? Those are the two questions.

Hi Martin, thanks a million for that. On the high single digits, yes, it's fair to say that our current view is that that will be mainly pricing. But I think as I referenced earlier, Martin, I think the volume has to play out a little. Again, it's somewhat dependent on the elasticity point, so we may well see some volume, but at this point in time, given it's so early in the year, I think it's absolutely fair to assume that it is mainly pricing. On your margin point of the 300 basis points, the important point there, I think, to reassure folk is that at a gross level, our pricing actions would largely cover the inflation trends that we're seeing. Our caution, therefore, is around elasticity. And of course, there's a lag in that. So you're absolutely right. That's the 300 basis points that you're seeing. You're seeing a lag effect between the inflation and the pricing movements. And what we're doing then is acknowledging that and working on efficiencies and driving other savings, et cetera, that negate that back down to the 100 basis points.

Very clear, Siobhan. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We have no further questions.

Thank you very much for your time this morning as always and I'm very happy to take any follow-up questions. Thank you very much. Take care and stay safe and well.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.