3i Group plc (III) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day and thank you for standing by. [Operator Instructions] Welcome to the first session of the 3i Group plc Action Capital Market Seminar. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I will now hand over to the CEO of 3i Group plc, Simon Borrows, to open the presentation. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to 3i's Capital Market seminar for Action's 2023 results. My name is Simon Borrows. I am the CEO of 3i and the Chairman of Action. Also on the call is James Hatchley, CFO of 3i; as well as Hajir Hajji, CEO of Action; and Joost Sliepenbeek, CFO of Action. We plan to take you through a presentation on Action's results and strategy, which has been put out on our website this morning. At 12:30 p.m. today, there will be a second Action call on the topic of sustainability. This second call will last about 45 minutes. Action's excellent track record has continued in 2023 with very strong growth in stores, sales, profits and cash flow. Once again, Action's flexible format and low prices have driven significant transaction growth against the retail sector that has seen very high retail price inflation. Action's performance over the last 5 years sets it apart from other listed peers and is a testament to the strength of the format and the hard work and dedication of the Action team. There are very few scale retailers that can move into new geographic markets as seamlessly and successfully as Action demonstrates time and time again. Slide 5 updates our compounding slide to the 31st of December '23 and shows the unbroken record of Action's stellar progress since our acquisition in 2011. 3i has prioritized Action's long-term potential. And the business has grown considerably due to its rare combination of high growth, high returns and high cash flow. Okay. Let me hand over to the Action team. Hajir, over to you.

Thank you for your introduction, Simon. During this part, I would like to provide you with an update on our performance throughout 2023, followed by an update on our strategy. And before we continue, I would like to welcome you to Action with a short video. [Presentation]

As you have just seen, customers are warmly welcomed at Action by our employees, and shopping is a pleasant experience. Our store layout is simple with wide aisles and uniform across all our stores in Europe. In 2023, on average, 50 million customers visited our stores for their daily necessities and discovered 150 new surprising products every week across 14 categories. Let me continue with an update on our 2023 performance. In 2023, we marked a significant milestone: Action's 30 years anniversary. Being part of this incredible journey for the past 27 years, I've witnessed the transformation from 12 stores back then into the successful nonfood discounter we have become today. It never stops to amaze me that wherever we set foot on the ground and open stores, customers immediately know where to find us in great numbers. This shows the strength, relevance and success of our formula and is only made possible by the hard work and dedication of all our employees. In 2023, we added a record of 303 stores, including our first stores in Slovakia. At year-end 2023, we had 2,566 stores across 11 countries. In terms of sales, we reported a 16.7% like-for-like sales growth and an GBP 11.3 billion in total sales, an increase of 28% versus last year. And we delivered GBP 1.615 million operating EBITDA, an increase of 34% compared to last year. One of the key strengths of our formula is flexibility. In the past years, we have showed our ability to quickly adapt our product offering to the ever-changing market dynamics and customers' needs. Let me give you some examples of how we adapted our product range to a strong and relevant offering across our 14 categories over the years. In 2022, due to COVID, hygiene products available in our stores became a top priority on customers' shopping list. With travel restrictions in place in 2021, people spent more time at home. We saw an uplift in our garden and outdoor but also in our decoration products. In 2022, the high energy prices made our customers more aware of their energy bill, resulting in a higher demand for products such as fleece blankets and candles. From 2023 onwards, customers have become more budget-conscious due to the cost-of-living crisis. Customers visit us more frequently for their everyday necessities, including FMCG. Reflecting on 2023, I see multiple factors that contributed to our strong performance. First of all, we opened more stores than ever before, setting a new record for our expansion. Secondly, we have noticed a shift where Action is becoming customers' first choice for their daily shopping needs. We see this reflected in their purchases of daily necessities such as cleaning products and paper towels. And thirdly, it is a part of our DNA to always offer the lowest price to our customers. We are not aiming to maximize our gross margin. Instead, we always look to lower the sales price for our customers and invest in our product quality and sustainability. And because we buy in volume and have an efficient operating model, we are able to offer the lowest price. In 2023, from August onwards, our buying and transport costs came down, and this enabled us to reduce the prices of more than 2,500 products for the benefit of our customers. And year-to-date, we decreased our prices for another 500-plus products. This not only enhanced our value proposition but also supported loyalty amongst our customer base as these drivers resulted in an increase in new and existing customers visiting our stores. One of the main reasons customers shop at Action is because we offer good quality products at the lowest price. If we do not have the lowest price, our buying team takes action by either lowering our prices, renegotiating the buying prices, changing the product for a different one or delisting the product. With the help of advanced technology, we measure competitor prices weekly in all the markets we're operating in, ensuring the lowest price. This applies for both offline and local online competitors. We always take action when we see competitors responding to our price adjustments and sometimes follow. In the measurement, we compare between the 1,500 to 2,000 products in each individual country. The graph shows the average price distance to the lowest competitor across all the categories and all product measured over the fourth quarter 2023 and 2022. It is a highly dynamic process and can differ from week to week as our assortment and that from competitors' changes on a continuous basis. The measurements represent our full assortment, and they include comparison on A brands as well as private labels. In addition, promotional pricing is monitored but not included in the price distance on this slide. In 2023, we again saw strong price distance to competition. And the distance in The Netherlands and Belgium was positively impacted by changes in the competitive market in the 2023 measurements. Our performance is further reflected by the strong like-for-like growth in each and every product category and in all countries. The strength of the formula lies in its flexibility and diverse offering of 14 categories. We consistently assess the relevance of our 14 categories and adapt when needed. Something that stood out is the growing number of customers visiting Action as their first destination for buying daily necessities. This is reflected in one of our better performing categories, laundry and cleaning. On the other hand, clothing showed good performance but lower compared to other categories. Our assortment and store layout are flexible. So moving into 2024, we decided to apply changes in our store layout for 7 of our 14 categories. And let me highlight 2 examples. The first one is we will expand the area dedicated to our laundry and cleaning category in response to the trend observed over the past years. And the second one, despite good performance, we are reducing meters for clothing to further optimize the assortment mix. As a discounter, cost discipline is embedded in our DNA, and we consistently assess all our cost lines to identify the areas for improvement. We have successfully managed the effects of inflation through disciplined price and cost management. It is through our size and scale that we are able to buy products at competitive prices. Combined with the flexibility of our formula, we efficiently manage our assortment and gross margin. During the year, we were able to maintain consistent level of product availability and healthy stock levels throughout our supply chain. The strong transaction volumes we had in quarter 4 led to challenges in the availability of high-volume items, resulting in our low year-end inventory level. While the overall impact on sales was limited, we did run out of some key seasonal items too early in December. Clearly when we include the lessons learned into further optimizing our operations, to increase the service to our stores and customers. As we have a simple, efficient and scalable operating model, we were able to add 303 stores across Europe, demonstrating our ability to raise the bar. In March 2023, we entered our 11 markets, Slovakia. We opened our first store in Bratislava, and another 14 during the year spread across the country. It is remarkable how customers embrace our formula from day 1. During the year, we continued to expand in the Central and Eastern Europe reaching million of new customers. We opened our 50th store in the Czech Republic, our 100th store in Austria and our 300th store in Poland. In our #1 market France, we added 73 stores, ending the year with 799 stores. On Saturday, the 13th of January, we opened our store #800. In Germany, we added 45 stores, surpassing the milestone of 500. And I will discuss on recently opened markets, Italy and Spain later in the presentation. This slide shows our expansion pace into 2 specific urban areas, being into ÃŽle-de-France and Brussels. And I will provide some context. Historically, our expansion pace into urban areas was moderate. This was driven by location availability, criteria for locations and property rents being above our threshold. In more recent years, we have gained experience and awareness amongst landlords, enabling us to pick up the expansion pace in these areas. In our more established markets, we decided to continue to expand in these urban areas as the amount of customers make these stores an instant success. These stores generate double or triple the store sales of the country average and enable us to absorb the typical higher rents for these locations. It needs to be addressed that these type of stores usually serve a larger catchment area as long as our store network is not close to maturity. During certain periods of the year, this means that existing stores are faced with significant customer traffic. This poses challenges in upholding the quality of our operations and perception of our stores. Looking at this from a positive angle, I can only conclude that there is a huge remaining potential in these areas. We believe our store should be a pleasant shopping environment for our customers and a nice place to work for our employees. To us, this means that we strive for a fresh and modern storm, strengthening our total value proposition. In 2023, we relocated 20 stores to better available locations and enlarged 4 stores to optimize the sales floor area. Next to that, we completed 30 refurbishments of older format stores, making them more sustainable by converting them to be all electric and implementing solutions such as LED lighting and smart meters. The ongoing investment in our stores also includes maintaining their appearance with new signage and fresh paints. We are very pleased with our ability to attract and retain good teams to support our expansion pace and store performance in Italy, Spain and Slovakia, currently tracking ahead of our expectations. In Italy, we opened our first store in the Rome region in mid-October, celebrating our 50th store in Italy. At the same time, we welcomed our 1,000th employee in the country when opening these stores. And in only 1 year, we doubled our store number ending 2023 with 67 stores. As from next year, our search area will include Central and Southern Italy. To support our store growth, we plan to open a distribution center in Altedo in the north of the country. In Spain, we have expanded from Barcelona towards the West, reaching Madrid, which is quite a move from our current expansion area in the Northeastern regions in Spain. During the year, we have opened 21 new stores, adding up to a total of 26 at the end of 2023. We expect to open a distribution center near Madrid this year, to support our store growth in the Southwestern regions as well as Portugal. In Slovakia, we opened our first store in Bratislava in March. And by the end of 2023, we had 15 stores across the country. And then in the beginning of this year, we opened our first 2 Action stores in Portugal. In Action, we believe we can offer good quality products at the lowest price while still minimizing the impact on the environment. Given the size of our business, we can make a significant impact. The Action sustainability program sets out our ambitions that reach across our business. I will briefly go through the pillars and progress of our program. Firstly, people. Our colleagues are the key to our success, and we believe it is important to invest in them. More than 65,000 colleagues participated in one or more of our trainings and over 3,000 colleagues were internally promoted. Secondly, planning. In our journey to reach 60% emission reduction in Scope 1 and 2 by 2023 versus the baseline of 2021 and by the end of 2023, we realized a total reduction of 46%. We are on track to reach our objective. And let me continue with the product pillar. Much of our impact on society and the environment comes through the product that we buy. We continuously invest in the quality and sustainability of our products. For an example, we reached 100% sustainably sourced cotton and 95% sustainably sourced timber. We have further built on social and environmental standards into our supply chain. And at last partnership, we want to support the ambition that every child should grow up in a safe and secure environment. And let me highlight 2 of our partnerships. We have a longstanding partnership with SOS Children's Villages. That means that for every new store opening, we support a child. And for every new DC in country, we support a village. Next to that, we extend our partnership with the Cruyff Foundation, aiming to support sports projects for children in areas in the neighborhood of our stores. Let's be very clear without the dedication and hard work of our employees, Action would never have been as successful. Across our stores, distribution centers and offices, Action employs over the 69,000 colleagues representing 155 nationalities reflecting the diverse communities in which we operate. In doing so, we offer employment opportunities to a diverse group of individuals including those who might face challenges in accessing the job market otherwise. We find it important to continuously invest in our people through training and internal promotions. By developing talent internally, we can maintain our unique Action DNA. In addition, we measure employee engagement via our employee survey, which was completed by 94% of our employees in 2023. Based on the outcomes, we established and implemented action plans with the objective to become better every day. And finally, we celebrated Action's 30 years anniversary by rewarding our employees with a special anniversary bonus. And this brings me to the end of the business performance update, and I will continue with an update on our strategy. We start the strategy section with the slides that you may recognize from the past years. Action's strategy remains simple and consistent and there is no need for adjustment. The flexibility and simplicity of our formula are key, allowing us to rapidly scale at low cost. As mentioned earlier, we can offer low prices due to our ability to buy products on a large scale, the flexibility of our assortment and type of store locations. Due to our high volumes, each of our trucks deliver a high volume to only a few stores, resulting in a relatively low transport costs. And finally, we maintain a simple business model and have low overhead and marketing spend. Moving on to our assortment. We offer 6,000 products across 14 product categories, from multimedia, household and decoration to garden and outdoor. We offer Action's own private label and supplier brands with the remainder coming from well-known A brands. And we continuously invest to improve the quality and sustainability of our products, which is recognized and valued by our customers. For various products, we won the Best Product of the Year Award. To further elaborate on our proposition, part of our formula is our 150 new products a week promise aiming to surprise our customers on an ongoing basis. 1/3 of our assortment is fixed, including articles such as Spargo, microfiber cloths, while 2/3 of our assortment changes over time. A recent example of a non-fixed product is for Bites for birds, which is a popular seasonal product. We offer the lowest prices with more than 2/3 of our product selling for less than EUR 2. To ensure this, our prices are continuously monitored against our competitors, and we take measures if necessary. Our investments in private labels are resulting in an award-winning product. We always provide quality at the lowest price and to just highlight 2 examples: our Superfinn anti-limescale, which received the Best Buy 2023 in the Netherlands. Last year, I also highlighted the Zenova sunmilk when it was best buy 2022 in its category. In 2023, we were awarded Green Choice 2023. Zenova sunmilk serves as just one of the examples of our commitments to sustainability in our product range. In collaboration with our supplier, we have now extended the sustainability formula into the full Zenova product line. Over the upcoming years, we will continue to invest in our private labels, aiming to enhance the quality and sustainability of our products. Currently, we have 73 private labels across 14 product categories with private label sales increasing in line with the overall growth of our company. Private label sales in 2023 represented close to 20% of our total volume sold, underlining the importance for our customers. As you can see, Action formula appeals to everyone. In previous years, we presented the customer profile by country. However, we now show the market average of the countries in which we operate. The differences between countries are limited. We attract customers across all demographics and different backgrounds. It clearly shows that Action is a store for everyone. The growing awareness of our brand reflect in its strong appeal. Nowadays, people know Action through word of mouth, digital channels and from other countries where we operate. We benefit from this momentum in mature and new markets, with faster growing awareness of our brand. Brand awareness and penetration in newer markets grow faster than what we have experienced in the past. For example, the brand awareness for our catchment area in Czechia grew from 24% in 2022 to 49% in 2023. And I'm proud to highlight that our brand awareness is reflected by several prices that we won in 2023. In Germany and Austria, we received the award for Best Retailer of the Year in the categories Decoration, Household and Presence. Since our entry in Poland in 2017, we are proud to have received the award for most popular nonfood retailer. And in our #1 market France, where we have been operating for just over 10 years, we improved our position from #3 to the most loved retail brand, which is the first year a non-French retailer wins this price. All of these are prices voted by consumers. Our customers highly value our combination of low prices and the diverse product range. This is largely made possible by our unique sourcing mix, which include various types of suppliers. We have increased our collaboration with A brands over time, as these products can be easily compared and they drive price and quality perception. Importers and wholesalers play a vital role in our sourcing ecosystem. Their deep product knowledge and commercial expertise enable us to access a wide range of trending and surprising products often serving as an extension of our buying team. And additionally, we're actively expanding our direct sourcing initiatives. Over the next years, it is our aim to source around 20% of our assortment directly. This not only allows us to secure products at competitive prices, but also aligns with our sustainability goals. Moreover, the insights gained from direct sourcing enhance our interaction with other suppliers. And lastly, we leveraged partnerships with stock lot traders, which further diversifies our sourcing options. The balance of our 4 sourcing types is our strength. It offered different supplier options per product and this delivers unique offering that sets us apart in the market. We continue to invest in long-term relationships with our suppliers. And as we grow, our suppliers grow with us. In the past years, we have built a strong digital ecosystem and customer touch points. Online, we provide tailored content for every touch point in their journey. By engaging with our customers online, we drive customers to our stores. We call this ROPO, research online, purchase offline. A few highlights to underline how we inspire customers to come to our stores through different touch points in the past year. So we reached 5.3 million active users with the Action app in 7 countries as more customers discover inspiration for their store visits through our platform. With Portugal added this year, our app is now active in 8 countries. While we grow our social media presence with content, reaching 2.5 million followers on Instagram, we are building a community that loves sharing their Action favorites. And next to that, we are maintaining our website as one of the most relevant places to check out our surprising assortment. We reached 499 million sessions versus 356 million sessions in 2022. Finally, through our web shop available in the Netherlands and also recently in Belgium, we offer a different range of products compared to our stores, focusing on higher price points. We continue to learn and experiment with this concept. The Action sustainability program is very important for action and our strategy. We focus on the 4 pillars guided by the UN sustainable development goals and have significant commitments for the years to come. Let me highlight a few. First of all, our people. Our colleagues are the beating heart of Action. We continue to invest in our employees, and we want them to be proud to work for Action. They value teamwork and the development opportunities that Action provides. Secondly, on product, we aim to deliver 100% transparent supply chain by 2030 for all tiers. Thirdly, the planet. We focus on further reduction of our own emissions, Scope 1 and 2 and are developing Scope 3 near-term targets in line with the science-based targets initiative. And lastly, on partnership. As a responsible partner to society, we aim to improve children's welfare through different partnerships and program. At the same time, we continue to provide relief goods and financial emergency aid when disaster strike in areas that affect us. We have more detailed plans, which we will present in a separate webcast scheduled for later today. This overview shows our ability to grow a significant store network after the pilot phase. Germany was the third country we entered in 2009. Prior to the 3i acquisition in 2011, our expansion base was much lower in combination with a longer pilot phase. As of 2012, we accelerated the expansion as a result of our strategy development, efficient operations and dedicated resourcing. We expand as fast as we can, but we will never compromise on the quality of our stores. Today, we run our 500 successful stores. The learnings have been incorporated into our store opening processes. And we noticed that our brand is becoming stronger in Germany being emphasized by improved store performance. And lastly, we were able to open 5 new stores in Germany only last week. Poland is an example of how we successfully established ourselves in a new market. Within 7 years, we were able to open 322 stores. In 2023, Poland was our second growth market with 66 new store openings. And also in 2024, we intend to open many new stores. Highlighting only Germany and Poland, obviously, does not provide the full picture on our expansion so far. This slide shows the store density per million people and provides direction on the significant expansion potential in the different markets. We are consistently opening new stores across all our markets. The positive response and success in Italy, Spain and Slovakia underscore our accelerated growth. And as you know, we recently opened our first 2 stores in Portugal and are planning to open more stores this year. So let me explain about our future growth. Our projected additional white space store potential is 4,700 in existing and currently in scope countries. While we grow, we continue to learn. And as mentioned last year, we would revisit the density numbers and have now added about 300 stores net. This is a result of extending the estimation potential for in-scope countries by 600 stores and opening 303 new stores in 2023. The majority of the increase in full potential relates to existing markets. Based on our current performance, we see an opportunity for a more dense store network. Looking forward, we plan about 330 stores in 2024. And furthermore, I'm pleased to announce that in 2025, we'll take a step forward by expanding into both Switzerland and Romania. This marks the first time in Action's history that we aim to open in 2 countries within a single year. While the main focus is to accelerate the pace of our European expansion, we also perform market studies outside of Continental Europe, for instance, Asia, the U.S. and the U.K. And these studies take on average 3 years. As customer demand grows over the next few years, we'll continue expanding our network with new stores, we will also add new distribution centers to ensure we run a cost-efficient operation with sufficient capacity, high service levels and within short distance to our stores. In 2023, we opened 2 new distribution centers, 1 in Zakroczym in Poland and Ensues in France, reaching 13 DCs in total. For 2024, we plan to open 2 additional distribution centers, 1 in Illescas, Spain and 1 in Altedo in Italy. All our new distribution centers are built using a minimum the excellent BRIM certification. In 2024, our commitment remains strong to invest in a future-proof distribution network supporting the expansion of our stores. So finally, 2023, the 30-year anniversary of Action for me was an exciting year with an exceptional performance. We achieved this success through our customer focus, continuous product improvement and flexibility of our formula. None of this would have been possible without the hard work of our dedicated colleagues, and we will maintain this momentum moving forward. We started 2024 entering into the new market of Portugal with a very promising performance. Now I will hand over to Joost Sliepenbeek, the CFO of Action, who will provide you more background on and financial results and elaborate on our 2024 performance to date.

Thank you, Hajir, and good morning, everybody. I will now present and explain our financial performance in 2023. After that, I will provide a short update on our 2024 trading up to and including last week, which was week 11. For the past 5 years, this was my first slide. And today, it is again my first slide. And that is, of course, because our financial model complements a strategy. They are 2 sides of the same coin. Hence, as Hajir has explained, our strategy remains simple and consistent. And the same is true for our financial model. It remains unchanged. In my presentation, I will show the strength of the model. For instance, demonstrated by the very significant operating leverage from our exceptionally high like-for-like sales growth in 2023, but also by the very strong cash conversion, which in 2023 was even higher than 100%. I will also provide the proof points for the predictability and consistency of our performance. Predictable, feasible in the performance, for instance, of our newest market, Slovakia. Consistent across various aspects, for instance, gross margin across categories and store profitability across sizes and countries. New store rollout and country expansion are important long-term drivers of value. In 2023, we again increased the number of store openings adding 303 stores versus 280 in 2022. In our existing markets, the stores that we open perform in line with existing stores in terms of productivity and contribution margin from day 1. This is possible because we have a streamlined and optimized way of working for all the steps in the store opening process. Starting with finding and negotiating locations, then executing the store build process and finally opening the store with dedicated store opening teams and recruitment and training of store employees in nearby training stores. Also, new stores ramp up quickly in terms of sales in the first year and then typically grow to the average like-for-like sales growth after 3 years. This performance as from day 1, in combination with the fast ramp-up, have led to a payback that was historically circa 1 year. And, as I will show on a later slide, for the stores opened since 2020, this has accelerated to significantly shorter than a year. In 2023, we added Slovakia as our 11th country. Slovakia underlines how our format travels across borders. In total, we opened 15 stores in Slovakia in 2023. And in that first year, they already had an average store contribution margin equal to the action average of 24%. In 2023, we realized a 28% increase in net sales and 34% increase in operating EBITDA. The comparison to our average growth over the previous 5 years shows that 2023 was truly an exceptionally strong year. The higher growth of our operating EBITDA versus net sales growth has expanded our EBITDA margin by 70 basis points to 14.3%. And by the way, when I'm referring to EBITDA numbers in this presentation, I always show and mention numbers that exclude the impact of IFRS 16. In the back of the presentation, we've added an appendix with all the numbers including IFRS 16. The overall sales growth of 28% was driven by like-for-like sales growth of 16.7%. This like-for-like can be broken down into growth of number of transactions and ticket amount. With 14.9% growth in transactions, we clearly benefited from both higher frequency from existing customers as well as new customers. And the ticket amount contributed to balance. This exceptionally high like-for-like can be explained by the relevance of our offering in the current times. As was already explained by Hajir, with an escalating cost of living, consumers have made different choices and changed their behavior. And we know from past experience that this sticks. On this slide, I provide more color on the like-for-like performance by showing the development over the quarters. You will remember that because of the distortions that we had from the corona-related closings and restrictions, we used a normalized like-for-like in 2022. I will compare to this normalized number to make the analysis more meaningful. Quarter 1 started very strong with a reported like-for-like of 24.3%. However, this number should be read in perspective to a slightly negative normalized like-for-like of minus 0.7% in 2022. And the explanation for this negative like-for-like in 2022 lies on the 1 hand, in the strong performance in the first quarter of 2021, where, for example, we benefited from the fact that in Poland, some of our competitors were forced to close due to COVID restrictions. And then on the other hand, the performance in the first quarter of 2022 was negatively impacted by vaccination entrance restrictions that we had in certain German states and Austria, for which we did not normalize. In quarter 2, we had a good uptake within our fast-moving consumer goods categories and Summer Garden assortment. In quarter 3, strong like-for-like performance resulted from significant growth in the number of transactions. Also in this quarter, we started with price reductions. In quarter 4, our like-for-like growth was primarily driven by volume. In line with our strategy to always offer the lowest price, we continue to pass on reduced cost of goods sold to customers. Throughout this period, customer appreciation for our FMCG categories remained evident, further complemented by a robust performance in our seasonal assortment. In the last quarter of the year, average price growth, including mix, was close to 0. We see this trend continuing in the beginning of 2024. We continue to pass on the lower cost of goods sold to the customer, which means that like-for-like growth in 2024 will be primarily driven by growth in volume. As a consequence, operating leverage will not benefit from growth in average price as it did in the first 3 quarters of 2023. The exceptionally good sell-through that we had in quarter 4 both of nonseasonal and seasonal assortment led to a low year-end inventory level. In fact, in absolute terms, the inventory was lower than in 2022 in spite of the overall growth of the company. These low inventory levels were especially in our distribution centers and hubs. Finally, a brief word on seasonality. Historically, we have a light first quarter and then the second and third quarter each account for about 25% of annual sales. The fourth quarter consistently stands out with the stronger sales performance propelled by customer buying patterns associated with the holiday season. On this slide, we present the absolute sales growth in the years 2021, '22 and '23 and in all cases, compared to 2019 and only for stores that were opened before 2019. In other words, a comparable group of stores. And the graph only includes the weeks that the stores were both open and selling the full assortment. Czechia, Italy, Spain and Slovakia are not included in this analysis, as the first stores in these countries were opened after 2019. Nevertheless, the performance of these countries is very promising as they currently grow with double-digit like-for-likes. As we added Slovakia in 2023, there is no like-for-like yet, but first year sales in Slovakia are significantly above our expectations. As you can see from the graph, the performance of Action has been very strong in all countries without exception. Having said that, there are some differences between the years, all the development of individual countries versus the overall Action development. And I will talk you through the most notable differences. In our most mature market, the Netherlands, we still realized strong growth in all years compared to 2019. In Germany, we realized a significant step-up of more than 20 percentage points from 29.2% growth in 2022 to 50.1% growth in '23 compared to 2019. This is mainly driven by a positive development in number of transactions, proving that we have gained momentum, which brings Germany closer to our other markets in terms of performance. Performance in our largest market, France, was above average compared to Action total. And the strongest performance is observed in Poland, where an impressive 75.1% growth is realized compared to 2019. Even though only 25 stores are included in this calculation, I can say that the country as a whole is performing very strongly. We had a record of 308 store openings in 2023, achieving our ambition to open significantly more stores compared to 2022. In part, this was realized by increasing the expansion pace in the new countries. We also had to close 5 stores. As you know, we've never had to close the store because of performance. The stores we closed in 2023 were mainly as a result of redevelopment plans by municipalities or landlords. And then in France, one store was set on fire during riots in Paris in July, and we're still working on the replacement for this store. Consequently, we added 303 stores, bringing our total number of stores at year-end to 2,566. The main growth countries were France with 73 stores added, Poland, 66 and Germany 45. Notably, we also opened 39 stores in Italy, which is together with Spain, considered an important future growth market. The number of store openings and white space in these countries underpin our ambition to grow even faster going forward. For 2024, our target is to add 330 stores. The main growth countries will be Germany, France, Poland and Italy. On 29 February, we opened our first store in Portugal, our 12th market, where we today have 2 stores already. Gross margin is an important driver of our strong performance. The flexibility of a formula is a very valuable asset in this process, as we deliberately offer a changing range of products across 14 categories. Besides providing a surprising assortment to our customer, this also allows us to buy only products that provide an attractive margin. Gross margin in 2023 was 40.2% versus 39.8% in 2022. 40 basis points of this increase can be explained by lower buying prices and transport costs with another 10 basis points coming from a lower promotional pressure, partly offset by a negative impact from the category mix due to a higher FMCG share. Over the next couple of minutes, I will talk about profitability. On this slide, I want to analyze profitability for stores that were open for the full year in 2019, which are 1,319 in total. The slide shows the average store contribution margin by country. Our store contribution margin is calculated as the gross margin realized by a store minus all operating costs that are directly attributable. In 2023, this includes the higher gross margin, but not the full operating leverage because store contribution margin does not include indirect expenses and supply chain and headquarters costs. Overall, the increase was 270 basis points for this group of stores opened before 2019. On this slide, you see the contribution margin of our stores. First, and that's indicated on the left Y axis, by the contribution margin per store in euros in the blue bar. And then second, indicated on the right Y axis, by the contribution margin as a percentage of net sales indicated by the orange dots. The graph includes all stores opened before 2022. The graph shows that all these stores are profitable and that store contribution margins are very consistent across the store portfolio. In other words, we do not have any loss-making stores. All our stores contribute positively. Actually, none of these stores have a contribution margin below 12%. This underlines that while expanding our store base, we have always focused on the good quality of our new stores. Finally, I can say that the statement that all these stores are profitable is also true if we add supply chain costs to the calculation. On this slide, you see the attractive payback period that we have for new stores. The numbers represent the average CapEx, net sales and store contribution for the period 2020 until 2022. Capital intensity per store is low. In this period, we spent circa EUR 450,000 on average per new store. We rent all stores and we pay relatively low rents because we don't need to be in high traffic or A1 locations. The investment number on this slide does not include working capital. And as a reminder, we operate with a negative working capital. Therefore, the payback for new stores would even be shorter if we factored in working capital. In 2023, the average net sales per Action store was GBP 4.4 million. As I've explained on an earlier slide, new stores ramp up quickly in terms of sales in the first year and then typically grow to the average like-for-like sales growth after 3 years. Historically, our average payback period was around 1 year. As you can see on the slide, for the more recent period of 2020 until 2022, this improved to less than a year, reflecting higher first year sales and higher contribution margins. In practice, of course, the payback varies per store and is related to several factors leading to a payback sometimes as short as half a year, but also sometimes longer than the average. Our increasing scale, together with store and country maturity, has a positive effect on our profitability. In 2019, slightly less than 75% of our net sales was achieved by stores with a contribution margin above 20%. In 2023, the share has increased to 93% while net sales over the same period increased by EUR 6.2 billion. Leverage is also visible in the development of our supply chain costs as a percentage of net sales. Our increasing scale allows us to operate more efficiently within our supply chain. An important driver is the efficiency of our distribution network, often indicated by the average distance from our stores to a distribution center. The average distance decreased by 10% from 2019 to 2023. However, when compared to the average of '22, the distance slightly increased in 2023 as a consequence of store expansion in Italy and Spain. Both countries are still being supplied from [ RDCs ] in France, which will change over the course of this year, as explained by Hajir. After the strong increase in EBITDA margin of 150 basis points in 2022, we again realized a very significant increase in 2023 of 70 basis points. I will talk you through the most important drivers behind our EBITDA margin development in 2023. I have already explained the increase in gross margin on the slide about gross margin. Included in the 40 basis points in the bridge is also a 10 basis points increase of stock losses. Although we see a trend in increasing shrink at other retailers, the impact at Action is less. And only a small part of this increase can be attributed to the self-checkouts that we have mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium. We're working on improvements to our overall concept for self-checkouts and will decide based on the results of further rollout. Operating leverage is the result of a 28% sales growth and, in particular, the 16.7% like-for-like growth. Inflation impacted various of our cost lines, thereby negatively impacting our EBITDA margin by 150 basis points. As expected and in line with the market, we see that in our wages, energy costs and through indexation in the majority of our rent contracts in our housing costs. Various other factors together contributed another 10 basis points to our EBITDA margins. Overall, we can conclude that our operating model, margin management and tight cost control resulted in the strong expansion of our EBITDA margin. Looking at 2024, I have already mentioned that we continue to pass on the lower cost of goods sold to customers. That means that like-for-like growth will be primarily driven by growth in volume. Therefore, operating leverage will not benefit from growth in average price as it did in 2022 and 2023. The inflation in our OpEx lines will continue to have a negative impact, but to a lesser extent than in 2023. And if I add these factors together in terms of the expected EBITDA margin for 2024, I feel safe in guiding towards an EBITDA margin 10 to 20 basis points higher than last year. One of the elements of our financial model is high sales density. Compared to other nonfood retail formats, Action historically has high sales per square meter. This has grown over the years, mostly because of our like-for-like sales growth, partly offset by store openings. Over the period 2018 until 2022, this has grown with an annual growth rate of 5%, driven by the exceptionally high like-for-like in 2023. Last year, the increase was an impressive 13%. The operating leverage of our financial model means that operating EBITDA per square meter grows even faster. Here, the historical growth rate was 11%, and last year, the increase was an impressive 18%. In 2023, our CapEx increased by EUR 30 million or 26% to EUR 260 million. CapEx as a percentage of sales was 2.3%, down from 2.6% in 2022. Our store expansion CapEx increased to EUR 168 million in 2023 which is partly explained by the 26 more store openings. A larger part of the explanation lies in higher average CapEx per new store which was EUR 545,000 per store in 2023 compared to EUR 485,000 per store in 2022. The impact of inflation and scarcity of materials led to an upward pressure. In addition, CapEx in some of our newer markets is also higher. So there's also a mix effect included in this increase. As a consequence, our CapEx per square meter increased by 8.4% from EUR 395 per square meter in 2022 and to EUR 428 per square meter in 2023. This increase is less than the increase in CapEx per store, meaning that in 2023, the average store that we opened had also slightly more square meters. In addition to building new stores, Hajir mentioned, we also maintain our existing store portfolio. In 2023, we invested EUR 42 million in store maintenance and relocations, enlargements and refurbishments or RERs, as we call them. This is an increase of EUR 13 million compared to EUR 29 million in 2022. This difference can be mainly explained by a different mix of RER projects as well as the impact of inflation. CapEx for new DCs had a net positive effect on our cash flow of EUR 26 million in 2023. The driver was the sale and leaseback of our distribution center in Verrieres. Our investments in technology in 2023 increased compared to prior years as we continue to invest in a number of large-scale infrastructure projects and because certain projects are no longer capitalized following IFRS. One of the elements of our financial model is excellent cash generation. This translates into a high cash conversion historically, gradually increasing from 64% in 2018 to 78% in 2022 with a similar pattern being visible in operating cash flow as a percentage of net sales, increasing from 6.8% in 2018 to 10.6% in 2022. And same as last year, in this calculation, we include all CapEx, so that is also the CapEx for new DCs. The 104% for 2023 is significantly higher compared to 2022. And this can be mostly explained by 2 factors: first, a low year-end inventory level; in fact, lower than 2022 in spite of the overall growth of the company. As I have explained on the slide with our like-for-like performance in all quarters, we had a very good sell-through in quarter 4, both of nonseasonal and seasonal assortment. And this has led to low inventory levels, especially in our DCs and hubs. We worked hard to rebuild these levels to normal in the first months of this year, and I expect a normal level of inventory at the end of this year, also reflecting our growth in 2023 and 2024. And then second, we had the sale of a leaseback of Verrieres, which increased our operating cash flow by EUR 42 million. As both will probably not repeat, our cash conversion will this year most likely return to a range in between 80% and 90%. Not included in operating cash flow are the financing transactions and the capital restructuring of October and the dividends that we paid in March and December of last year. Including this December dividend payment, we ended the year with cash and cash equivalents of EUR 1.1 billion. After completing an amend and extend of our largest term loan in March, in October, we successfully completed a debut U.S. dollar term loan issuance in the U.S. leverage loan market, raising $1.5 billion. The loan has been fully hedged back to the euro, with 70% of the debt fixed at an all-in cost of 6.3%. As part of this process, Action's public, corporate and instrument ratings from credit raters, S&P and Moody's were upgraded. S&P went to BB stable and Moody's to Ba2 stable. The proceeds of this transaction have been used to complete a restructuring of our capital through a pro rata redemption of shares in October. After completion of this transaction and the capital restructuring and including the December dividend, we ended the year with net leverage of 2x versus 1.7x end of last year, end of '22, I should say, and 1.4x end of quarter 3 2023. This demonstrates our capability to delever quickly because of our growth in EBITDA and high cash conversion. This slide summarizes our operating performance over the last 3 years, where 2021 was impacted heavily by the COVID pandemic. To be clear, this slide includes all the impacts and presents unadjusted figures. Finally, I want to give you an update on trading in 2024. So today, we are in week 12. And as you probably know, Action operates a 52-week and 12-period reporting calendar with quarters of each 3 periods with 4, 4 and 5 weeks. That means that we are today in week 4 of our period 3 with still 1 week to go until the end of the first quarter. The information on this slide covers year-to-date until last week being week 11. As you can see, our overall sales growth for these 11 weeks was strong at 21%. Like-for-like was 9.6%. But when comparing to last year, we had 1 sales day less. Adjusted for this, like-for-like would have been 11.1%. The like-for-like growth year-to-date was mainly driven by a 10% growth in transactions. We are carefully monitoring the situation in the Red Sea and working with our carriers to ensure that the disruption is minimized. Freight costs in the short term may be higher due to surcharges. But so far, the impact on profitability is not significant. Based on year-to-date sales and like-for-like performance, we expect a strong first quarter for both sales and EBITDA growth. Last year, we ended with 2,566 stores. Our store openings in '24 are on track to realize our target to add 330 stores. Up to and including week 11, we opened 32 stores, including 6 in Italy, 4 in Spain, 1 in Slovakia and of course, our first 2 stores in Portugal. So far this week, we've opened an additional 2 new stores, 1 in Slovakia and 1 in Poland. Our total number of stores today is 2,600. And last Sunday, our cash and cash equivalents stood at EUR 1.077 billion. Same as last year, we plan to pay a dividend in March. This will be paid next week. After this dividend, our cash level remains solid, especially given that in light of our normal seasonality, we are strongly cash positive from March onwards. And with that, I hand back to our Chairman, Simon Borrows.

Thank you, Joost. So Action has started the year very well, and we're on track to see another good step up in EBITDA at the 31st of March. And as Action's main shareholder, we're looking forward to receiving another dividend next week. This slide shows the remarkable expansion of Action over the last 5 years and now how become a significant pan-European retail chain. The extent and success of this organic expansion sets Action apart from other nonfood discount formats. And Action's increased scale and outstanding like-for-like performance have underpinned a transformation in its store economics, reinforcing Action's moat as it continues to expand. Action's 2019 business plan formally ended in 2023. And as you can see on this slide, this plan turned out to be somewhat cautious compared to Action's actual results. And let's not forget, this was quite a disrupted period for Europe with a pandemic, war in Ukraine and supply chain and inflation challenges. Let me update our guidance slide. Having just banked a very strong initial year in 2023 where we opened 300 stores last year and with our target of 330 this year, we are in line with the guidance to 2026 on store openings. We would like to stick to our medium-term like-for-like sales guidance, but there is a risk of Action performing slightly above this range in 2024. And finally, we have changed the EBITDA margin guidance going forward. We now expect some 10 to 20 basis points improvement for each of the next 3 years, culminating in a 15% EBITDA margin in 2026. Now let me finish by thanking Hajir, Joost and all the Action team for another outstanding year in 2023 and an excellent start to 2024. It is both a pleasure and great fun to work with Hajir and the Action team. Let me close with one of my favorite charts. Action crossed over the 100 bagger milestone last summer. It did so in under 13 years, which is rapid for any business, let alone a retail business. And it is already well on the way to 200x. There are very few retailers that achieve that level of growth and success on this chart, which focuses on the top line helps position Action against some of those outstanding retail success stories. Okay. I will now hand back to the moderator before commencing the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Luke Mason from BNP Paribas Exane.

Three questions, please. Firstly, on volume growth, it's been very impressive volume growth over the last year and year-to-date. Just thinking about the confidence you get in achieving, I mean, close to double digit again this year, the key drivers of that being shipping for Essentials, taking market share. How should we think about that? And then how should we think about volume growth in the medium term trending back to more historic levels? And then secondly, just in terms of EBITDA margin, again, just thinking through the drivers of that uplift in the coming years. So could you talk through the mix of improvement there within contribution margin for less mature countries like Germany, Poland, and newer countries like Italy and Spain? And how should we think about 15% or beyond 2026 expect continued margin improvement beyond that level? And then just third question. And obviously, this is still very early stage, but you mentioned Asia, U.K. and the U.S. doing studies there. Just about first impressions, how realistic would it be to open in those regions, just given more competitive markets and more challenging logistically to enter?

Okay. Thanks, Luke. Joost, do you want to take the volume short and medium term and the EBITDA margin? The first 2 questions? And Hajir, you can maybe address the region question.

So I did include some remarks about like-for-like and how it's composed or the sales drivers already in my presentation. So for the current year, I've said that this is going to be largely volume driven. And I haven't given any guidance for later years other than that we expected at some point to return to the historical trend. And now you have to help me Simon, what was the second question?

It was about EBITDA margin and how that might move going forward?

After '26. I think we've given the guidance until '26 on purpose. So I think I shouldn't dwell too much on what's going to happen after that, other than my introduction slide, where I have made the point that through our operating leverage, we will continue to benefit from the growth that we have.

Okay. Hajir?

Yes. So this was the question around the U.S. and Asia, if I understood correctly?

Yes.

Yes. So I think I just want to start with that we still have a lot of potential in Europe. If you look to what we have shown on the slide and there's still the current markets where we can grow in. Looking to the success in the countries where we are active in, well, we think that it makes sense to also do a market study in those countries, and we really need to wait on the outcome before we can say something about that.

Our next question comes from the line of Bruce Hamilton from Morgan Stanley.

Okay. Perfect. Yes. So I've got a few. So firstly, just on the closing, you mentioned that, that relatively had performed less well than essential items and so forth. I wondered, are you seeing increased -- obviously, there's been debate around the competition from players like Temu. Are you seeing specific competitors pressure there? And can you just remind on how you're reacting? Secondly, can you just remind us the CapEx cost of new distribution centers and how we should think about the frequency of you opening those as the stores rollouts continue? Third point, just on the releveraging plans, given you're probably already below 2x net debt EBITDA after Q1, I assume. So just timing and scale of that? And then just finally, on the sort of guidance, I admire the conservatism saying there's a risk that you might do better than high single digit given that you've just done 10% against a phenomenally difficult like-for-like. So when you look forward, you're talking about like-for-like returning to historical trends, but are there good reasons why they remain higher, given the broader popularity, the fact you're now the most popular retailer in France, the growth and profitability in new markets like Poland, which looks to be a lot better than your core markets. Why doesn't the like-for-like sustainably grow faster?

Okay. Thanks, Bruce. Pushing it with 4 questions, I would say, but we'll do that. So first one is clothing and any impacts from Temu, et cetera. Hajir, do you want to take that?

Yes. So first of all, I would like to start with saying that we had and saw a good performance across all our categories. So clothing also had a good performance in 2023. But I think if you look to clothing and what we are selling, these are most -- the basic items. So it is not really fashionable, but although it is very focused on basic items, we really see that seasonalities, you really need to have the peak moments in the season. So it needs to be really warm weather or cold weather to sell your peak. And I think that is something which we have seen changes over time. So for us, it is going back in clothing is really related to everything that we're seeing happening in weather in Europe, what is really weather related. On Temu, I can tell you that it is not being measured in the pricing slide, which we have shown, but we are measuring prices of Temu. Not our full assortment is being offered by Temu. And I think we are really making sure that both on price and quality that we are following what they are doing. I can tell you that there is quite a gap between Action and Temu in terms of price but also quality.

Okay. So hard to sell clothes when it's cold in Northern Europe in the summer or it's warm in the winter. The next 1 was CapEx around new DCs, Joost, and the frequency going forward.

So the CapEx for new DCs depends a little bit on how it's developed because I explained about the sale and leaseback of Verrier. So that is an example of a DC where we did the development ourselves and then did the sale and leaseback. In that case, I mentioned that the amount was EUR 42 million, but then obviously, through the sale and leaseback, it returns in a later year mostly. If the development is done by a third party, then we typically invest certain things still ourselves. So these are usually customizations on our request as well as the IT, and then you have to think of an amount which can be between EUR 5 million and EUR 10 million per DC. In terms of number of DCs, that depends a little bit. But as a rule of thumb, we build these DCs for a capacity between 150 and a little bit more than 200 stores. So if we would open 330 stores, you would need 2 DCs to supply these stores.

Very good. Let me take releveraging plans. Bruce, we really haven't got anything definite in mind at the moment. We obviously want to see how this year sets off and form a view before we come to any of that. So there's nothing in train at the moment on that particular subject. And then the final thing, guidance on like-for-likes. Maybe Hajir, you should take this because people are questioning whether our guidance is too cautious on like-for-likes.

Well, as Joost was already mentioning, I think this year, the like-for-like is really driven by the volume and well, personally, I think that the like-for-like, as Joost has presented, is the right one for this year. It's a totally different dynamic in your whole chain if it's driven by volume.

So we would like to stick to something just a little bit above the high single-digit guidance broadly in line with where the year started given we're pretty early in the year still.

Your next question comes from the line of Haley Tam from UBS.

If I could ask 3, please. The first 2 actually about your expansion. So expansion into urban areas, first of all, you clearly set out that the higher sales that are helping absorb the higher rents. Can you maybe tell us a little bit about the profitability of those open stores? Are they equivalent to more traditional ones or are, in fact, higher and so might be a positive driver for profit margins going forward? Secondly, in terms of expansion, you mentioned Switzerland and Romania in 2025. I assume Switzerland is also a higher rent environment. So is it your urban store experience that's leading to confident to expand given that? Or -- and are you expecting the store economics in Switzerland to be similar to other countries? And then the third and final question, if I can. Sorry to follow up again on Bruce's question. But like-for-like growth of almost 10% in the first 11 weeks and as you said, adjusted for that one trading that would actually be closer to 11%. We know your comparatives last year were the highest in Q1 with that 24% like-for-like. So could you help us understand why the like-for-like growth should not be much more than 11% for the rest of this year? And maybe this comment about volume, is it that you're actually expecting a negative impact from pricing?

Okay. Thanks, Haley. Why don't we start with the expansion of urban areas? Do you want to take that, Hajir?

Yes. So maybe I can see something about Switzerland and Romania?

Okay. So Joost, do you want to talk about the profitability in urban stores, et cetera?

Yes. Well, I've shown the slide with the store contribution margins for our store portfolio and that included all the stores opened before 2022. Obviously, some of these urban areas that we discussed about are after that. But I can say that typically, -- it's not different from what I've shown on the slide. We have a few that actually are showing a payback that -- and I mentioned this as well, is closer to half a year that's really. And then obviously, because of the higher sales in euros, the amount that we have as profit in these stores is higher. But in terms of percentage, performance, it differs a little bit, but it's not different from what I've shown on the slide.

Okay.

So in terms of Switzerland and the higher rents, that is indeed true. Having said that, I still think that if you look to Switzerland as a country and you look to the competition, there is a huge potential for Action, which should not, at the end up in different numbers than what we have seen until now in the current countries.

And it's fair to say there's a lot of Swiss citizens are very familiar with actual stores already.

Yes. So that's also what we're seeing in France and Germany, they then driving over.

Yes. Okay. And then who wants to have a go at the like-for-like question, again?

Well, I think that I can start, and Joost, fill me in, but I think -- this year, if you just look to the percentage of like-for-like and corrected for the public holiday, it's around 11%, it's all driven by volume. And that is really totally different. So the needs to happen much more to the full chain, the supply chain, the commercial team, but also the stores to get to the same number and 11% on top of what we had last year, 16.7%, I think, is a good guidance for now.

Yes. Haley, I think it's just very early in the year for anyone to try and stick their neck out further than they've stuck it out. So if we can leave it there.

Your next question comes from the line of Manjari Dhar from RBC.

I also had 3, if I may. Firstly, it's another question on the store expansion side of things. But could you give some color on how easy it is to find new store locations in various countries? And are there any markets where availability of new locations is looking better or worse perhaps? And then secondly, just on sourcing. I know last year, you talked about increasing proximity sourcing. So I was just wondering how you view the current sourcing distribution geographically. Is there any more work to be done here? And could this have any sort of cost impact? And then finally, just on sort of the margin implications of some of the shifts that you've been talking to more towards the essentials away clothing side of things. Are there any potential areas of offset that you're expecting or efficiencies you're expecting to offset negative mix shift impact?

Okay. Thank you. Do you want to talk about new store locations and the ability to find those across the various markets, Hajir?

Yes. So I think in the different countries, we have, of course, different rules which you need to apply. So in some countries, it's more difficult than others. Some countries permits are taking longer. And in some countries, we have less availability of locations. If you look for an example, in Germany, the permit process takes longer than for an example, in a country like France. So these are all things which we're taking into account country by country. Yes, I think what I can say about Action today and our size is that more and more landlords across different countries are familiar with Action. So also in the new countries, it's very helpful that if they just have a look at the track record of Action today, but also looking to the current markets that they're really willing to put a lot more effort to get the Action stores in as soon as possible. And that is really something which we have seen in the latest countries.

Yes. Okay. I think you're probably best for proximity of sourcing and maybe the shift away from China and things like that.

Yes. So today, 49% is coming out of China. I think we already have seen in 2023 that there was a slight shift from China more to Europe. And I think that we also see that for the coming years, more happening, so we see quite some potential to source more from India, but we also see more potential to source from Europe, especially Turkey, but also Poland, France and Germany.

And do you think there will be any material cost impact from that shift?

No.

No. Okay. What about margin implications of more FMCG, store necessities? Are there any major implications for that, Joost?

No. I think if you look at gross margin, I explained the increase last year. But generally speaking, our gross margin management aims to keep it quite consistent and the only exception to that rule and we've also explained this in the past is when we increase the percentage of direct import because that generally leads to a slightly higher gross margin, but then also to certain costs lower in the P&L.

Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Sykes from Redburn Atlantic.

I was just wondering if there's additional color you could provide on in Germany, in particular? I mean, obviously, we previously spoke about it being a more challenging competitive environment and being one of the largest markets in Europe with lower sales density. FY '23 saw positive like-for-like sales growth. So I was just wondering and the confidence in terms of accelerating the store expansion in that region in particular? And then just as a second question, if I may. I was just curious in terms of the 2025 plans in terms of the expansion into Romania, when we talk a little bit about the distance from a DC for supplying those stores, I'm just intrigued as to why we've kind of jumped through the likes of Hungary, et cetera, on the way?

Hajir, I think they're both for you, really.

Yes. So I showed in my presentation how we started in Germany, so in 2009, but actually only can say that we started really officially in 2012. I think in Germany itself, we saw that the awareness, the customer awareness took us longer. And as I explained, the whole permit process is more difficult compared to other countries. Having said that, I'm very happy with the overall strong sales performance, both in like-for-like and new stores. And as you already mentioned, it's a country where we have a huge potential. So yes, personally, I think that we can continue in Germany like this, and we still have a lot of possibilities to grow.

Isn't it fair to say that we feel the brand is being much more strongly embraced by the Germans there?

Yes. And that is -- so the awareness is much higher. You also see that back in the like-for-like performance.

Yes. Yes. And what about Romania, why are you hopping over hungry?

Hungary at this moment is a very difficult country to open stores. Romania -- by the way, we also see a lot of commercial opportunities in Hungary. But I think from an political perspective, it's more difficult and challenging. So we have made a choice to make the step to Romania. We really think that this is a great Action country, and we see a lot of potential. And it means that we're also considering to have a temporary or a DC in place from the beginning on, which is different than what we have done now, but I still think that if you look to the country and the potential that we are able to do that.

Yes. We see it as a big opportunity.

I'm showing no further questions, so I will hand over to Silver Santoro 3i's Group Investor Relations Director to address the written questions submitted via the webcast page.

Okay. So we have a first question from [ Nico de Velde ] at Real London, which is what are the benefits of having different private label brands for each category as opposed to having a singular Action private label brand across every different category like what Kirkland's branded Costco?

You want to take that, Hajir?

Yes. So firstly, I think if you look to Action and how the format has been set up, it's all about changing the assortment and creating this newness -- and for that, we really believe in different private labels in different categories because that is a much fresher look in your total assortment and the whole surprising part that you have well, one label across the whole store. So that has really been a decision.

A further question from Nico, Real London, which is will Action scale advantages from big volume purchasing increase over the next 10 years, similar to the last? Or do you reach a level in most products where you get them at the lowest possible price, so increased volumes don't result in further scaled benefits?

No. Personally, I just expect that as we're going to have more scale in place that it's also going to give a cost benefit. This is something which we have seen historically, and this is also something which we expect going forward.

The next question is from Greg Knox at Numis. What are the lessons learned on running out of some seasonal items at the end of the year? Is it more than just ordering more products?

No. I think the simple answer is just ordering more products. I think the shift where the volume uplift was so extremely high at the end of the year, that is something which we could not have foreseen, but that is the answer.

The next question is from [ Adam Kelly ] at JPMorgan. In the past couple of years, the store openings have been weighted to the second half of the calendar year, should we expect a similar trend in 2024 and future years? And what were the reasons for the store openings being mostly in H2 over the past years?

Well, I think if you take the combination of the current markets and the new markets, you see that if you want to have a certain level in the new markets in, it's always building it up to the end of the year. The second thing, what you need to take into account, we are renting all our stores, but it means that sometimes there are also new buildings in, which is, for example, a big proportion of our Polish expansion, you have periods where they just stopped the building because of the weather. So my expectations are that we're going to see this trend for the coming years.

We have another question from [ Adam ] at JPMorgan. How much scope is there for further reductions in supply chain costs as a percentage of net sales in the near to medium term? Or should we expect to see supply chain costs as a percentage of net sales increase if Action opens more DCs in 2024? .

Well, the number of DCs per se is not necessarily a drive as long as it continues in sync with our store openings. But there are some other factors which provide either upward or downward pressure on our supply chain cost. But generally speaking, our leverage should enable us to bring that down also in the coming years.

The next question is from Samarth Agrawal at Citi. He says I wanted to understand around the key initiatives which have led to an improvement in the payback period for new stores to less than a year.

Joost, do you want take it?

Yes. Well, on the slide, I mentioned that 2 important elements of that, I wouldn't necessarily call it initiatives, is the first year sales and contribution margin. And especially contribution margin obviously is part of the overall improvement that we had for the format.

The next question is from Kim Bergoe at Deutsche Numis. In light of the strong performance in 2023 and updated guidance, how should we be thinking about the valuation multiple?

James, do you want to take that?

Sure. Kim, as you know, 3i has a strong independent valuation process, which considers the performance of each of its portfolio companies against relevant external benchmarks. We do that every quarter. So Action is no different from any other portfolio company. It's worth reminding you that the approach is driven by longer-term sustainable valuation multiples. And as such, I wouldn't expect any change, but it's ultimately a question for the valuation committee as part of the year-end process.

And the next question is from Vishal Bhatia [indiscernible]. Are you able to disclose the net debt-to-EBITDA in Action, including leases?

I'm not only able to do it, it is, in fact, I think, in the appendix, but I can also give the number now. So excluding it was 2x, including it increases to 2.3x.

And then we have a question from a private shareholder, Simon, can you please share your thoughts on how to think about deploying the increasing amounts of cash received from Action, also seeing this against the background of your past comments on a difficult environment in private equity and few transactions going on?

Sure. I mean we do have 3 priorities for the use of cash rolling forward in the business. One would be to be able to clean out the remnants of the carry that's in 10 12, which is the vintage in which Action was in of which there is still some monies outstanding. Another would be to pick up any marginal interest in Action that may come available from some of the LPs who need liquidity. We and other -- some of the other large GPs would -- large LPs would like to be able to do that. And finally is to focus on new investments across the broader portfolio. But at the moment, we are still seeing something of a gap between buyers and sellers. So that has proved a pretty frustrating experience over the last 9 months, but we do believe it will come back.

There are no more questions through the webcast. And I believe no further questions on the line.

Okay. Thanks, Silvia. Well, thanks again, everyone, particularly Joost and Hajir for doing this. So this concludes the first part of this morning's agenda. Again, can I remind you of our second session on sustainability, which is due to start at 12:30 today. Thank you all for your attention, and goodbye. Have a good day.

Welcome to the second session of the 3i Group plc Action Capital Markets Seminar. This session is focused on Action Sustainability Program. [Operator Instructions] A reminder that today's conference is being recorded. I would now hand over to Hajir Hajji, Action's CEO, to open the presentation. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon and welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining this presentation dedicated to the Action Sustainability Program, in short, ASP. My name is Hajir Hajji and I'm the CEO of Action. Those of you that attended the main capital markets presentation this morning will recognize that I briefly touched upon the topic of sustainability in terms of progress to date and our longer-term ambitions and objectives. During this session, we will elaborate on the ASP and the different components. Before moving on to the content, let me first introduce the team joining me for this presentation. Firstly, there is Tjeerd Bartels, Head of Sustainability, responsible for leading the overall Action Sustainability Program. Tjeerd has joined Action in 2012. And prior to his current role, Tjeerd held various management positions at Action. Secondly, Karl Knight is joining us, responsible for product quality, sustainability and regulatory affairs. In this role, he and his team are responsible for the sustainability strategy initiatives related to our product assortment. Prior to joining Action in 2016, Karl held various leadership roles at Marks & Spencer. After a general introduction on the Action Sustainability Program covered by myself, Tjeerd will elaborate about the people, planet and partnership pillars for the program. And subsequently, Karl will take us through the content of the product pillar. We aim to present around 25 minutes, after which we will open a Q&A session. Our strategy has remained unchanged. Growth is driven by strengthening our unique customer proposition and further international expansion. This requires a simple scalable operating model. And in the last year, we increased our focus on sustainability. We recognize that running our business comes with a responsibility. That is why sustainability is an important component in our strategy. At Action, we believe we can continue to offer good quality products at the lowest price while still minimizing our impact on the environment. Our size amplifies the impact on our actions and that is where we can make a big difference as we become more sustainable. We are taking action to continuously improve our quality and sustainability. Last but not least, we continue to focus on our employees as they are essential to our success. Our sustainability strategy known as the Action Sustainability Program is guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Based on our 4 pillars, people, planet, product and partnership, the ASP sets out our ambitions on climate and the development of our people and are making sure we uphold minimum social and environmental standards in our supply chain. Let me briefly introduce the 4 Ps. Firstly, the people pillar. We want to be a good and responsible employer. Our colleagues are essential in everything we do. And we want our employees to excel and therefore, offer a safe and inclusive work environment, together with training and career opportunities. Moving on to the second pillar, planet. We acknowledge that our business, like other businesses, impact the environment, which is why we are working to reduce emissions from our operations. And thirdly, the product pillar. Much of our impact comes through the products that we buy. We are working closely with our suppliers to build and improve social and environmental standards into the supply chain. And last but not least, our fourth pillar, partnership. Action is a part of the community in which we operate. Next to our role in making good products available at the lowest price, we also contribute to our communities where we can, through our partnerships with charities focusing on children to support the ambition that every child should be able to grow up in a safe and secure environment. When it concerns governance, our program is overseen by a dedicated ASP committee chaired by myself and joined by other key stakeholders throughout the organization. We already see that this topic is widely supported by our young workforce. We believe that the best way to achieve further support and change is to integrate the program and responsibilities throughout our business. We have done so by integrating sustainability KPIs in the remuneration of our employees. Progress and updates to the Action Sustainability Program are a fixed item on the Board agenda. I've now covered the general introduction and will hand over to Tjeerd Bartels.

Thank you, Hajir and good afternoon, everyone. The first pillar of our sustainability program is people. With over 69,000 colleagues working in our stores, distribution centers, transport and offices, people are crucial to everything we do. Our people strategy lays the groundwork for future growth. First of all, we foster a development and internal promotion of employees. We see internal promotions as a key way of preserving the Action DNA as we continue to expand our store network. Last year, we promoted over 3,100 store employees to a store management position, reaching our goal to have at least one internal promotion per store per year. In 2023, we've had over 65,000 training participants in various in-house and external courses, some mandatory, such as safety, first aid and data privacy. Others are focused on skills training and leadership development. Second, we ran -- we care for employee well-being and offer a safe and healthy working environment. We offer training, conduct risk assessments and have dedicated health and safety teams. In 2023, we ran our second Vitality Week across our stores, distribution centers and offices by promoting healthy food in the canteens, offering health checks and health tips for employees. We regularly measure employee engagement via our Voice of Action survey, which was completed by 94% of all our employees when we carried it out in 2023. Besides good overall engagement scores, our people are very positive about collaboration with colleagues and the working relationship between managers and team members. Results from this survey are shared with management so they can design follow-up plans with their teams to further improve working conditions, which are tracked in each country as part of the implementation of our broader people plan. Finally, we believe that a diverse workforce and an inclusive working environment contribute to higher engagement and satisfaction and eventually company success. We currently employ 155 different nationalities and over 70% of our store management and 35% of our management is female. Being a store for everyone, we believe our workforce should always reflect the neighborhoods we are operating in. I will now continue with the partnership pillar. Action is a strong partner in the communities in which we operate. We provide jobs and development opportunities to our colleagues, make good quality daily necessities and products that make daily life easier or more enjoyable, available at the lowest price to our customers. And we contribute to our communities to support resilience and livability when we can. Our focus is on helping children grow up in a safe and healthy environment. We have a long-term partnership with SOS Children's Villages, focused on basic human needs like housing and education; and the Johan Cruyff Foundation, focused on helping children lead more active lives. These partnerships increase as our company grows. For every new store opening, we support a child. For every new distribution center and country, we support an entire village. Last year, we prolonged the partnership with SOS Children's Villages and extended the partnership with the Johan Cruyff Foundation to Germany and France. In addition, we provide relief goods and financial emergency aid in several disaster regions that affect us, for instance, because many employees or customers have close ties with them. Through NGOs such as UNICEF, Red Cross and People for People, our donations, both in cash and kind, totaled [ EUR 4.3 million ] over 2023. Now moving on to an introduction on our planet pillar. In accordance with the greenhouse gas protocol, our direct and indirect carbon emissions can be categorized in Scope 1, 2 and 3. Action Scope 1 emissions include the gas heating of stores and warehouses and the transport from distribution centers to stores with our own trucks. Our Scope 2 entails the emission from purchased electricity for own use. Scope 3 includes all other emission throughout the total value chain. Upstream emissions are primarily related to raw materials, production and shipping of goods. Downstream emissions are mostly related to the use of products sold in the end-of-life treatment. For already a few years, we have clear visibility, targets and reduction programs in place for our Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Scope 3 is a far more complex domain. Last year, we calculated our Scope 3 emissions for the first time, starting with the baseline year 2021. I will touch upon both parts in the next 2 slides. Action is committed to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 60% in 2030 versus baseline year 2021. By 2023, we had reduced emissions by 46%. So we are on track for our 2030 objectives. A number of actions and initiatives have contributed to this reduction. First of all, we installed solar panels at 2 more distribution centers, bringing the total to 7. The energy produced equates for 63% of the total energy consumption at all DCs. Second, we implemented biofuel for our 150 owned trucks. HVO 100 diesel reduces CO2 emissions up to 90% compared to regular diesel. We have also started a pilot with 4 electric trucks, replenishing stores from our DCs in The Netherlands and Germany. Last year, we disconnected 300 existing stores from gas and are on track to have no more stores on gas by the end of 2024. 90% of the electricity consumption comes from green sources. Also, by the end of this year, all our stores will have LED lighting. Finally, 74 stores have solar panels installed. As we are renting and not owning the property, we are very much depending on our landlords. In most cases, the installation is paid for and owned by them. In the future, we will continue having conversations with property owners to explore opportunities around solar panels. I will now move on to Slide 12. In 2023, we calculated our Scope 3 emissions for the first time. As Scope 3 determines to a large extent our total carbon footprint, similar to other retailers, understanding the impact is a crucial element in our climate strategy. In line with our earlier decision for Scope 1 and 2, the year 2021 will be the baseline year for setting our Scope 3 emission reduction targets. Our Scope 3 calculation for 2021 resulted in 5.5 million tons of CO2 equivalence, representing 99% of our total carbon footprint. 75% of our Scope 3 emissions originate from the raw materials, manufacturing and transport of the products we buy. These insights will be used to further develop our climate road map and strategy, where we will work with our suppliers and supply chain partners to reduce emissions in the future. As a first step, we have officially committed to SBTi and are currently in the process of setting near-term science-based targets. We aim to submit our targets in 2024. In the meantime, we have started to take intermediate actions to cut emissions from our Scope 3 upstream transport. We now have agreements in place with ocean freight carriers to use ecofuels when shipping Action products from Asia to Europe. With these agreements, more than 25,000 tons of CO2 were saved in 2023. Hereby, I've come to an end for my part of the presentation. Now handing over to Karl Knight for the product part.

Thank you, Tjeerd and good afternoon, everyone. There are 4 areas within the sustainable product domain that I will provide an update on. Our first priority in product is to deliver a transparent supply base, which is critical to support our sustainable product commitments and we are making progress towards delivering this. For our direct import and private label operations, Action holds 100% transparency of the Tier 1 final factory, including the social compliance performance. Over the last 3 years, we have been working to deliver the same level of transparency for the remainder of our business, which has taken our total level of Tier 1 transparency to 88%. By the end of 2024, we will have 100% transparency up to the Tier 1 final factory of production for our entire assortment. It is a mandatory requirement for all suppliers to accept and commit to our ethical sourcing policy, which details Action's expectations in this domain. This policy was further enhanced last year with the introduction of a dedicated child labor policy and a human rights and environmental due diligence policy. Additionally, we require all factories in risk countries to have an annual social compliance audit. And as part of our due diligence, we also have a continual spot check program, where on an unannounced basis, we perform spot checks to ensure factories maintain the agreed level of compliance. This commitment covers 15% of the factories manufacturing our direct and private label business on an annual basis. Each year, we will look to expand this commitment further. In case of discovering any noncompliances through these programs, Action has a critical escalation policy which details the approach to noncompliances and remediation. Our preferred approach to noncompliances is to collaborate with the supplier and the factory to remediate and make improvements for the people in our supply base. Action has a long-term commitment for supply-based transparency, which is to deliver transparency to all tiers of production by 2030, which we will prioritize on a risk-based approach. This would extend our transparency commitment to raw materials as well as the Tier 1 final factory. It is fundamental to understand where our products and materials come from, not only to ensure human rights and safety in the factories are respected but also to deliver on future commitments, such as our Scope 3 climate calculations and future reduction ambitions. This commitment is embedded into our commercial sourcing strategy, where we also commit to strategically shape the country of origin of our product. Last year, despite our volume growth, we maintained the total volume sourced from Europe at 45%. Sourcing closer to home reduces our risk exposure to global supply chain challenges. This year, we will continue with our strategy of increasing the diversity of our manufacturing countries by continuing to grow Poland and Turkey whilst also expanding further in India. Moving on to sustainable raw material management. Our current approach is prioritize our most impactful raw materials and to partner with globally recognized partners to provide certification support to our programs and deliver the first level of compliance. Once we reach 100% sustainably sourced certification, as we have with our cotton program where we achieved 100% sustainably sourced cotton in 2023, we will then look to map exact material sourcing locations and further work with our partners to identify how we can drive further positive impact. By taking these steps, we also see the positive impact of Action's scale, where 6 years after making a commitment in cotton, Action is now amongst the top 25 global procurers of sustainable cotton. In timber, we will reach the 100% sustainably sourced landmark by the end of 2024. And we are making timely progress with being fully compliant with the EU deforestation regulation, which amongst other commodities, timber and cocoa is in scope of. Currently, all of our private label chocolate is 100% Fairtrade, a commitment which already sees Action delivering positive support towards farmers and cooperatives from the Fairtrade farmer premium payment. Last year, we contributed more than EUR 0.5 million of Fairtrade farmer premium, which equates to 15% of the total Dutch premium paid and nearly 1.5% of the global premium after only 2 years of collaboration. We have a strong approach towards managing our sustainable raw material sourcing ambitions. We will continue to launch new raw material policies as we see appropriate. In 2023, we also published our sustainable raw material policy to better manage our sourcing of palm oil. This year, we will set commitments towards coffee, soy, rubber and beef. Finally, plastic is a widely use material. And where possible, we want to ensure that we minimize any negative impact from sourcing it. As such, we have committed to ensure that at least 7 -- pardon me, at least 35% by weight of our annual plastic products sourced is from recycled material. We are also trialing new innovations in the plastic domain to try to further improve our plastic footprint in the future. Moving to circularity. Action started to focus on this topic in 2019 by conducting a business-wide circle scan of our entire operations. From this study, we learned that the main hotspot in our business was the product domain. With this knowledge, we made the strategic commitment towards embedding circularity into all buying categories, such as household, DIY and garden and outdoor. This included a step-by-step approach to collecting product data to enable circular scoring. Good control of data is a priority for circularity to monitor circular scoring, KPIs and progress. Here, we work with the circular transition indicator, which was developed by KPMG and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. This tool allows us to score the circularity performance of selected products from a material inflow and recyclability outflow perspective. Across 2022 and 2023, we have gathered data and calculated CTI scoring for our top 1,000 most impactful articles. These 1,000 articles form the scope of the improvement targets we then set. Our ambition is to bring all articles in scope of CTI scoring but this will be delivered in a phased approach over the coming years. Once data collection and scoring are made, we then set new targets for all buying categories each year to stimulate product improvement. In 2023, we delivered a 4.85% CTI circularity improvement of the 1,000 products that were in scope. Better sourcing practices as defined by our raw material policies helped to improve these scores. Whilst we are making progress, circularity is an incredibly diverse and complex topic that still requires much learning from our side in terms of how best to embed this into our business, considering our constantly changing assortment. Material inflow and outflow are only a part of the required approach of circularity. We still have much to do in the domains of reusability, repairability and recyclability but we are committed to making pragmatic improvements. This started in 2023 with the launch of our first circular product, which you can now see with this short video. [Presentation]

Finally, on packaging, Action has had a strong focus on packaging for years. And we are making progress towards delivering our strategic priorities, where we focus on 3 key drivers. The first is an overall weight reduction of packaging used. We have committed to reducing the weight of primary packaging for our fixed assortment by 25% compared to a baseline year of 2019. We are making progress and have already achieved 80% of this commitment. Whilst reducing packaging use is important, it is critical that the buying and quality teams continue to ensure that product packaging serves its primary purpose, which is to protect our products through the supply chain, hence, minimizing damaged goods. Next, we are prioritizing recyclability of our packaging. We have already converted all our direct import and private label articles to be made from recyclable packaging. By the end of 2025, we have committed to ensuring all packaging is recyclable. Finally, we want to ensure that all our cardboard packaging is sustainably sourced. Here, we want to prioritize converting all cardboard packaging to be FSC-certified. And next to that, we will then turn our focus to more sustainable plastic packaging. That concludes the product update and I will now hand back to Hajir for the closing of the presentation.

Thank you very much, Karl and Tjeerd, for explaining the Action Sustainability Program in more detail. Finally, I want to highlight that when I started as a CEO 2 years ago, sustainability became one of my key priorities for Action. I'm proud of what we have achieved in the 2 past years. It is clear that we are on a journey and we are confident about our future. Thank you and we'll open up for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Bruce Hamilton from Morgan Stanley.

I just have one question on the -- really on Slide 80, looking at the sort of sourcing and the trend towards near-shoring, et cetera. Could you give a sense of what the -- in terms of product origin, what those numbers look like 5 years ago and what maybe they could look like in 5 years' time?

Yes. It's a topic that clearly we monitor. We have seen, as mentioned, large volume increases last year, which still meant that we maintained our European overall volume percentage. I won't go into further details, of course, of all the countries that we are looking at, all the countries that we are looking to minimize. We are, in the future, looking to continue, where possible, to bring more products closer to home, including Europe. In terms of what that percentage figure looked like 5 years ago, we would have seen more product coming from the China region. So I believe 5 years ago, we were closer to 54% China sourcing.

Your next question comes from the line of Manjari Dhar from RBC.

I just had one on sustainable products. I was just wondering how much traction do you get with the consumers for sustainable products? And how much importance do they put on these sustainable products? And does it really -- does it vary by market? Is this more important in some markets compared to others?

So what we in general can see in our customer survey is that sustainability is becoming a more important topic, which customers are taking into account in their buying decision. Having said that, it also depends a little bit -- I think you see it more with the younger generation than with the older generation. So that is something which we have seen slowly changing over time.

I'm showing no further questions, so I will hand over to Silvia Santoro, 3i's Group Investor Relations Director, to address the written questions submitted via the webcast page.

We have a question from a private investor. How do you make sure that you will be able to hire the right people going forward while you keep growing strongly? Any bottlenecks visible already?

Well, I think, in general, we have seen over the last years that as we were growing in multiple countries, we were able to recruit and train people. So we're investing a lot in our people. So all our people are getting quite an extensive induction program. We invest a lot in the trainings and we also see that a lot of our people are making steps in the business, which is then the next generation for management roles or other countries.

The next question is from Peter Michaelis from Liontrust. Are offsets part of the potential decarbonization strategy in the future?

At this stage, no, they are not. No. So we're not looking at offset strategies.

Thank you. It looks like we have no further questions on the webcast but it looks like there might be another question from the phone lines.

There are no questions from the phone lines.

Okay. Well, can I say thank you to everyone and particularly to Karl and Tjeerd and Hajir for that presentation on sustainability. Action has obviously got an ambitious program here and is making real progress on this important subject. And I hope you've heard some interesting things today. Thank you for your time.