DKSH Holding AG (DKSH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you, Moira, and good morning, everyone. A big welcome. It's a pleasure to see so many of you here in person again. This time, we are back at the Metropol at the Lake of Zurich. And at the same time, I also like to extend a warm welcome to all of our participants joining us via our live webcast. It's great to have the opportunity to connect with an even broader audience real time. This year is particularly special for us as we celebrate 160 years of DKSH, a milestone that underscores our long-term commitment of enriching people's lives. I'm Till Leisner, the Head of Investor Relations at DKSH, and I'm delighted to be joined today by our CFO, Ido Wallach; and our CEO, Stefan Butz. Before we begin, please take a moment to review the disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements of today's presentation. For those who are attending virtually, you can find them on the Investor Relations segment at our web page, dksh.com. With that, I'm pleased to hand over to Stefan to get us started. Thank you very much.

Hello, everyone, and a very welcome to the presentation of our full year results 2024. And I really look forward to our session today here. As Till mentioned already, Investor Relations is present as well as Ido, our CFO. So today's agenda for see a short recap of our highlights of the past year. I will then continue with a review of the business units' performance in 2024. After that, Ido will follow up with the financial update in more detail. And to conclude, I will provide an outlook before we then open the Q&A session. We are very pleased to report that in 2024, DKSH further advanced on its consistent path of growth, margin expansion and cash conversion. All business units contributed both to net sales and Core EBIT growth in a challenging market environment. At the Capital Market Day in November in London, we outlined our midterm road map, which is based on the strategic priorities of growth, margin expansion and M&A. We have set the ambitions and are very confident to deliver above-GDP net sales growth, expand Core EBIT margins on average by at least 10 basis points per year, generate at least 90% cash conversion as well as accelerating impactful M&A. These ambitions combined will us to reach higher levels of Core EBIT midterm. In 2024, DKSH delivered on these midterm road map KPIs despite all geopolitical uncertainties and macroeconomic challenges. This achievement reaffirms our consistent track record of creating value in Asia and beyond on the back of our resilient and scalable business model. Let us please now look at the 2024 results in more detail. As in the previous years, I will primarily be commenting on our results using constant exchange rates as this better portrays the actual underlying operational performance and ensures better comparability of the results with previous years. So in a challenging market environment, net sales grew 4% at CER to CHF 11.1 billion. In terms of profitability, we report a Core EBIT increase of 8.4% at CER to CHF 343.1 million. This corresponds to a margin of 3.1% and thus an increase of more than 10 basis points. Our free cash flow remained high at CHF 256.5 million, and with the cash conversion of over 110%, above our target. As we remain committed to drive further value for our stakeholders, we propose an increased ordinary dividend of CHF 2.35 per share, which corresponds to a 4.4% increase. In short, delivering on all of the midterm road map KPIs underlines that DKSH continues its trajectory of sustainable and profitable growth. Let me now focus on the highlights of 2024, which underline DKSH purpose of helping business to deliver growth in Asia and beyond. In line with the business unit strategies, we entered new strategic partnerships with various clients like Alcon, dsm-firmenich and Ichitan in different markets. Additionally, we grew through M&A, having closed 4 acquisitions in 2024. Our digital business and operational excellence remain top priority. We established agile and efficient supply chains, achieving a case fill rate exceeding 90%, while also realizing cost savings. We advanced our digital sales and generated for the first time, more than CHF 500 million of digitally initiated and transacted net sales. This is 4x more than 2019. Our efforts to evolve our corporate culture have also proven successful as we were awarded with a Great Place to Work Certification in 11 markets, improved employee engagement survey results, increased the share of women in senior leadership positions to 36% and further strengthened our leadership team. We also remained firmly committed to sustainability. We continue to strengthen our social due diligence and reduced our Scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions. We are proud that our sustainability achievements are recognized with an A rating in the MSCI ESG assessment. With these achievements, we fulfilled our purpose of enriching people's life in Asia and beyond. Let me now please provide you with an update on the progress in our business units, starting with Healthcare. In our business unit, Healthcare, we continue to deliver high net sales growth due to a strong business development with existing and new clients in key markets. Net sales increased by 6% to EUR 5.7 billion. The Core EBIT grew strongly by 11% to EUR 167.3 million and Core EBIT margin increased to 2.9% accordingly. In 2024, we continue to focus on higher value-added segments and services. For the first time, Full Agency service contributed more than 50% of Core EBIT and will, therefore, remain a top priority. Other contributors are the continued focus on Own Brands business as well the achievement coming from the acquired companies Partizan Health in Australia and Medipharm. Let us now focus on Consumer Goods where we report net sales growth of 1.6% and a Core EBIT increase of 12.7% despite those challenging market environment. The business unit has recorded solid market share gains, especially in Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand as well as positive contributions from the Beauty Care acquisition and the Own Brands business. We also further improved margins and scale through our secondary growth engine, like our e-commerce business or field marketing. By achieving a Core EBIT margin of 2.6% in 2024, the business unit over-delivered on its midterm Core EBIT target of 2.5%. Moving on to performance -- to the business unit, Performance Materials, where we have increased net sales in a period where the chemical markets are severely challenged, as you all know. With a better momentum in second half of 2024, especially in Life Sciences and Industrials in Asia Pacific, net sales grew by 1.2% to CHF 1.4 billion. Driven by gross margin expansion, Core EBIT in 2024 was CHF 114 million and grew by 2.4%. Core EBITA was CHF 123.3 million and the Core EBITA margin expanded to 8.8%. We remain confident that this scalable and global business model, combined with further industry consolidation potential, provides strong future growth opportunities to the business unit and that this performance benchmarks also very well in the chemical distribution market. Last but not least, let us focus on our business unit, Technology. Following the record performance in 2023, I'm pleased to say that the business unit showed its continued resilience and strong strategy execution in a difficult macro environment. With a strong second half in 2024, net sales grew by 6.9% to CHF 449.3 million (sic) [CHF 549.3 million]. Core EBIT marginally increased by 0.6% to CHF 35.6 million, which is due to temporary mix shifts. Business unit Technology will continue to focus investments on scientific solution as well as high-tech segments. At the same time, the business unit will continue to capitalize on market consolidation opportunities as recently demonstrated with the acquisition of CLMO, which is progressing very well. Overall, the business unit is on track with its focused strategy to fostering its position in key industry and higher-margin segments and services, which go along with further market consolidation potential. To sum up, at CER, all 4 business units increased their net sales and Core EBIT compared to 2023, and we'll keep focusing on the growth strategies to strengthen their market position. Now I hand over to our CFO, Ido, who will guide you through the financials in more detail. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Stefan. Good morning, and very warm welcome to everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm very pleased to share more details about our 2024 results. Similarly to Stefan, and as usual, I will also focus on our results at constant exchange rates to ensure the best possible comparability to our operating performance. We are very delighted with what we have achieved in 2024. Our key financial metrics reflect this. With net sales growth of 4.0% at constant exchange rates, we once again outgrew the underlying GDP growth in our markets, which amounted to 3.4%. Core EBIT increased by more than twice the rate of net sales at 8.4%. As a result, Core EBIT margin increased by more than 10 basis points to 3.1%. This marks our fourth consecutive year of Core EBIT margin expansion. Core profit after tax stood at CHF 225.7 million, an increase of 13.9%. Supported by our asset-light business model, we generated CHF 256.5 million in free cash flow. This represents a cash conversion of 113.6%, above our objective of at least 90% and completing a fifth consecutive year of triple-digit cash conversion. In conclusion, in 2024, we have demonstrated once again our ability to create value through top and bottom line growth, margin expansion and substantial cash generation. Let us now focus on our net sales and Core EBIT development in more detail. Organic net sales grew 3.1%. Organic growth has accelerated from 2.3% in the first half of 2024 to 4.0% in the second half, driven especially by encouraging recovery in business unit Performance Materials and Technology. M&A contributed 0.9% to our growth. Combining organic and M&A, our net sales growth at constant exchange rates totaled 4.0% for 2024 and was therefore higher than weighted GDP growth in the markets where we compete. The appreciation of the Swiss franc negatively affected our net sales growth by 3.8%. This impact is smaller than the 7.5% negative impact recorded in 2023. Furthermore, many Asian currencies stabilized or even slightly appreciated against the Swiss franc in recent months. Let us now continue with development of our Core EBIT. We are very satisfied with our continued Core EBIT growth. We grew our Core EBIT organically by 5.9%, ahead of our organic net sales growth of 3.1%, driven by continued focus on high-margin businesses, cost efficiencies and the scalability of our business model. M&A added 2.5% to Core EBIT growth, also ahead of its contribution to top line growth and a validation of our strategy to acquire higher-margin businesses. Net sales growth, combined with continued strong focus on premium services, operational excellence and resource optimization, delivered an overall Core EBIT margin improvement of more than 10 basis points. Similar to net sales, the translation of foreign exchange effect had a meaningful but diminishing negative impact on our Core EBIT. It amounted to minus 4.4% compared to as much as minus 9.2% in 2023. As usual, the investor materials that we publish on our website today include details on the items that we consider nonoperational of a one-off nature or in short, non-core. There are 3 items that fall into this category in 2024. The first pertains to CHF 6.2 million impairment of the remaining non-recoverable assets in the Consumer Goods business we acquired in Indonesia back in 2017. I'm glad to say that the business is -- there is undergoing a transformation initiative launched late in 2024. It is off to a very good start, which will positively impact our results in 2025. The other 2 items have already been reported in the first half of the year, a fair value adjustment of CHF 1.2 million related to employee benefit expenses in one of our M&As and CHF 2.8 million settlement of a customs matter that is now over a decade old. To summarize, Core EBIT amounted to CHF 343.1 million. Let us now look at our results in a longer-term context. This allows us to ensure that our strategy execution measures up in consistently strong and sustainable performance. As we did before, taking a 5-year horizon, we exhibit continuous growth and improvement in all key financial metrics. Since 2020, at constant exchange rates, our net sales grew at compounded annual growth rate of 4.9%. At the same time, our core conversion margin, defined as Core EBIT as a percent of gross profit increased year after year. In 2024, it peaked above the 20% mark. Important drivers for this increase are continued focus on higher-margin businesses and ever more efficient supply chain and our intentional journey towards company digitalization. Our Core EBIT followed a very similar upwards path and in effect, even steeper, growing 13% year-on-year on average. Consequently, a similar sequential increase is evident in the Core EBIT margin, increasing overall by 70 basis points over 5 years and reaching 3.1% in 2024. As we have explained in the past, a key component of our strength and agility is our low-risk, asset-light business model. We typically we lease our offices, lease our distribution centers and even our transportation fleets. Our IT investments and infrastructure are also by now almost entirely based on a SaaS OpEx model and no longer CapEx. This is evident in our long-term capital expenditure, which has ranged between 0.3% to 0.5% of net sales over the past 5 years. In 2024, it maintained a low level of 0.3% of net sales. As we discussed with you in the past, we have also made significant and consistent improvements to our working capital over the past few years as a strategic choice. In the past 2 years, we've maintained it below 9% of annual net sales, a very lean and respectable level by any measure or benchmark. Consequently, over the same period, we delivered increasingly solid free cash flow, exceeding 100% conversion again in 2024 as we did in the preceding 4 years. Let us now move on to our balance sheet. It remains very solid and in many respects, even stronger than a year ago as evidenced by our higher return metrics, net cash flow and improving balance sheet ratios. Timely collection and just-in-time inventory management are the foundations of any successful distribution and market expansion business. In 2024, we remain diligent and focused on lean working capital. With Chinese New Year, New Lunar Year occurring early in January 2025 and strong pipeline for many new clients, a slight increase of the working capital metrics was not only anticipated, but also welcome. At 8.8% of 2024 sales, working capital remains at the low end of the past 5 years historical range. We operate a low-risk, asset-light business model that enables a high and consistent free cash flow. In 2024, we allocated capital to fund our 4 acquisitions as well as to distribute a higher ordinary dividend to our shareholders. 2024 marks the 12th consecutive year of progressively higher ordinary dividend. We also reduced our gross debt position by almost CHF 120 million, which resulted in approximately CHF 6 million lower interest expenses in 2024. With that, we further improved our return metrics. Core RONOC reached 19.7%, 100 basis points above 18.7% achieved last year. Maybe I should repeat that, 100 basis points above 18.7% achieved last year. Core return on equity reached 12.1% compared to 11.7% last year. With further improved equity ratio of 32.1%, we maintain a significant leverage headroom to grow our platform through industry consolidation. As we have laid out in detail in our Capital Markets Day in November, we continue to assess deals and acquire if we find them value-accretive, scalable and available for a reasonable price. To conclude my section, let me also provide you with some additional financial indications before we return to Stefan to elaborate on our future prospects. In terms of M&A, we estimate that our recent acquisition will contribute around 0.3% to net sales in 2025. This is based on acquisitions which we have closed until now. We expect more deals to materialize in 2025 and naturally to provide further growth upside. As mentioned before, after several years of appreciation of the Swiss franc, many Asian currencies have stabilized against the Swiss franc in recent months. While the situation remains volatile, assuming the current rates prevail for the remainder of the year, we expect a slightly positive FX translation impact. Tax rate. The 20.0% rate on core earnings in 2024 was at the upper end of our midterm range of 27% to 29%. We continue to guide this range, but expect effective tax rate to remain in the upper end of this 27% to 29% range in 2025. Capital expenditure is expected to remain between 0.3% to 0.5% of net sales for the full year. With that, I would like to thank you again for your attention and participation today and hand over back to Stefan.

Thank you very much, Ido. So DKSH has a strong track record in M&A. In the past 5 years, we have acquired 29 companies. More than 80% of these M&A transactions were spent in higher profitable businesses. In 2024, we successfully completed 4 acquisitions, which added value to our portfolio and enhanced our growth. Through these transactions, we extended our presence across the regions, broadened our supplier as well as customer base and enhanced our value-added services. Currently, we have a very strong M&A pipeline. We continue to follow on our bolt-on strategy to fill white spots and drive more meaningful acquisitions across all categories and especially in our business unit Performance Materials. With our strong balance sheet, we are confident that the number and impact of M&A deals will increase in 2025 and in the future. Our cash generation enables us to accelerate M&A and to continue with our progressive dividend policy. From 2012 to 2019, we completed 16 transactions, while from 2019 to 2025, the total rose to 29. In addition to these accelerated M&A activities, we significantly increased our M&A investment, reaching more than CHF 900 million. We follow an accelerated high-impact M&A strategy backed by leveraged headroom of approximately 2x net debt-to-EBITDA. At the same time, and for the 12th consecutive year, we proposed an increase of the ordinary dividend to CHF 2.35 per share. This is an equivalent to a growth of 4.4%. As DKSH has consistently dedicated itself to achieving a sustainable and profitable growth for the benefit of its shareholders, we will continue to pursue this progressive dividend policy in the future. Looking ahead, we remain very optimistic about the prospects for Asia Pacific. We expect growth in Asia Pacific to be ahead of the average world GDP, which is driven by robust domestic demand and export dynamics. Additionally, economists expect that inflation stays at a moderate level. As we did in the past year, we expect to deliver on our midterm road map in 2025. We expect Core EBIT to be higher compared to the previous year. As always, this outlook assumes economic growth in Asia Pacific exchange rates to prevail at current levels and exclude any unforeseen events. DKSH remains committed to advancing its business by leveraging its asset-light business model, implementing its focused growth strategy, maintaining a focus on digitization as well as operational excellence and accelerating M&A. To conclude, our performance reaffirms the robustness of our business model and our ability to navigate market complexities while delivering sustainable value to all stakeholders. With clear priorities and a strong financial foundation, we remain committed to achieving our midterm objectives and delivering long-term growth. With that, I thank you all very much for your attention and open the Q&A session. Thank you.

We'll move on with the Q&A session and take the first questions from the room. Gian-Marco, please go ahead and then Michael afterwards.

Gian-Marco, Kantonalbank. 3 questions from my side, if I may. The first 2 ones on Performance Materials. There, the second half in 2024 really showed a strong rebound in your organic growth, around 5%. Can you give us the split in volume and price growth and also a bit the outlook for the first 2 months that -- how you experience business? Then the second question is, you mentioned that this Performance Materials business is very strong in the APAC region. But how about the U.S. region, especially with Terra Firma? Do you also expect some rebound there? Do you see this? And maybe besides the tragedy that we saw in California, this business is strongly exposed to housing. So do you expect a little bit of tailwind now maybe with some rebuilding of houses in California? And third question is on overall costs. There, I saw one of your biggest operating cost is logistics costs. Those declined by 6% besides your overall growth. So I would just wonder why you could reduce your costs so meaningfully there.

Thank you very much, Gian-Marco, for your question. So in terms of the growth split in Performance Materials regarding volume and price, so volume is over-impacting the price impact. Smaller order quantities is what we have seen, but more volume in total in 2024. But what I would really like to point out that in Performance Materials over the last 8 quarters, every quarter, we have seen an improvement in the market, especially in terms of volume. And as you already pointed out, while H1 in 2024 was still slightly negative with 2.4%, in H2 we have seen an organic growth of almost 5%. So we are very optimistic looking into 2025 that the chemical markets continue to strongly recover. I think also if you look into chemical production, 2024 was higher than 2023. And I think the industry is optimistic that '25 will be better. So we expect that we will definitely have a solid, stronger 2025 than 2024. And we had a good start in January despite the fact that this year, Chinese New Year was in January. Normally, we always have to look at January, February combined. February is obviously still work in progress. In terms of Terra Firma or our Performance Materials business in North America, yes, Asia was the strongest region. We have seen also some good progress in life sciences, in particular, in Europe. In the U.S., for all of you to remember, the majority of the business is industrial. 2024 was still a challenging market environment in that respect. But we had a good November, December and have very good reasons to believe that in 2025, also the U.S. is going to rebound. In terms of the housing market, overall, yes, looking at the interest rates development, the housing market is slightly coming back. The fire in California, that was a very, very sad event, and we feel with all the people who were affected by that. I think the fires were so severe that the authorities, it will take some time to really rebuild all the underlying infrastructure. So I think the housing market there really only bounces back most likely in Q3, Q4. So -- and it's still for the overall U.S. size, it's a limited market. But yes, rather very, very small tailwinds than headwinds. And regarding supply chain, I would hand over to Ido, who is responsible for supply chain.

Thank you. Thank you, Gian-Marco, for noting the achievements we made there. I think it's not new, and we always -- with several years now that we said our strategy is to focus on more premium businesses and at the same time on operational excellence of serving them efficiently and scale the operations as we can. In this context, we already in the half 1 report talked about supply chain savings and the major advances we made there in digitalizing our supply chain from the warehouse to the transport fleet, and that is something which we achieved significant this year. Almost 50% of our business now is now shipped end-to-end in a digital matter. We've implemented the TMS, transport management system that allows us to better design and optimize the transport routes. And we're also working very close with our customers and suppliers on minimum order values. So we ship very economically viable trucks and shipments. And as you pointed out, it's significant savings in our P&L, which allow us to invest back in the business and in yourself.

Thank you, Gian-Marco. Let's move on with the next questions, Michael?

Mike Foeth, Vontobel. 2 questions. The first one on Healthcare. Could you make some comments on the push you're making into higher-margin businesses and more premium services there and what we can expect on that front and on the margin side in 2025 as you're rolling out your strategic plan? And the second question, and I'm not sure if you're seeing any effect, but are there any impacts from the whole tariff situation, the shifts in supply chains that would affect Southeast Asia or any of the regions you're doing business in and any caution that you would need to share with us?

Yes. Thank you very much for your question. So in terms of Healthcare, yes, the underlying business performance is very strong or continues to be very strong. We also have high expectations for 2025, and we are making indeed very good progress in moving or accelerating the shift into the higher-margin business. Normally, we expect that the shift to Full Agency business is jumping in 1% stages. In 2024, we advanced by 3%. So we accelerated Full Agency by 3%. And for the first time, Full Agency business is delivering more than 50% of the EBIT in Healthcare. We are also making very good progress with Own Brands across multiple countries. The only setback we have seen in 2024, again was Myanmar. Myanmar is a strong Own Brands market for us. But unfortunately, the situation in Myanmar is completely out of our control, what we can import and sell and don't. So we have to live with those headwinds there and feel with the people and hope it's better in 2025. Regarding the whole discussion around the tariffs around the world, I mean, obviously, we are observing this very much in detail. But honestly, the impact to DKSH is 0 or very, very, very limited, to be honest, because primarily, we source locally also in the U.S. primarily, there's a very small business coming from China through Canada into the U.S., but these are really peanuts in the overall scheme of things. And yes, indeed, we think that the whole tariff discussion with China is going to have the effect that more trading is happening with Southeast Asia, where we do 2/3 of our revenue overall and that we will also going to see for the years to come more investments into Southeast Asia. So at the end of the day, net-net, we believe that short to midterm, actually, DKSH will benefit from those discussions because we are not a big China play. Again, for everyone, we only have 2.5% of our revenues in Mainland China. Having said that, I mean, China is still a significant economy and a growing economy and is fully integrated into global value chains, we should never forget.

Thank you, Michael. Next question, please. Jon?

Jon Cox with Kepler. A couple of questions for you. You're talking about a very full pipeline and particularly alluding to Performance Materials. I'm just wondering how imminent that pipeline is. I think the market is quite frustrated that you're not doing more in Performance Materials that could support you. Second question, just on Performance Materials generally, you're talking about an acceleration through the year. So am I right in thinking that Q4, you were running at something like 7%, maybe 7%, 8% organically, and that has continued into 2025? Another question on Performance Materials. Your margin was lower in H2, but the growth was better, which doesn't seem to make sense because obviously, the market was anticipating more in terms of profitability for Performance Materials. And it's still hopeful you can eventually get back to 9% at some point. Just wondering what your thoughts are on that as well. And then just lastly, on that M&A part, you mentioned 2x net debt to EBITDA is where you would go to. So it's not additional to where you are. Now I know you're roughly flat. So it's 2x your EBITDA currently you have. And do you anticipate running up to that level sometime this year?

Okay. Yes, please. So first of all, I want to make sure that we lift your frustration that we are not delivering enough M&A short term. So on average, since 2020, if I'm not mistaken, we have delivered 4.8 acquisitions per year. If we only talk about quantity and not the underlying EBIT contribution, I'm sitting here, and I'm very confident that in the first half of this year, we can deliver more than the average for full years over the last years. As I was saying, we have a very strong pipeline. You never know, things can fall apart. But definitely, this year, we will deliver significantly more than the average over the last years. Regarding the margin, yes, there was a very unmaterial drop in margin in H2 versus H1. There's always a little bit of seasonal effect in there. It has to do with mix issues. I also mentioned before in Gian-Marco's question that in a few areas, prices are still moving a little bit. I would not read too much into it. We are very confident that we can deliver again a 9% margin short term. In terms of the leverage, yes, we always said that we and the Board feels very comfortable with 2x leverage. If any material opportunity is coming up short term, maybe even to 2.5x leverage. I don't expect that we are going to reach that this year because the majority of the deals in the pipeline are small to medium ones so that we don't have to go up to that level. Did I miss one thing?

I think there was a question on the leverage.

That was leverage.

He had one question on the sequential improvement. So we can confirm the fourth quarter was better than the third quarter in Performance Materials, Jon, and second half was plus 5%. So we can say single digit above 5% in the fourth quarter growth year-on-year.

January, as I was indicating already, we had a good start in January despite Chinese New Year. So we are very optimistic that definitely the worst is behind us in Performance Materials.

And maybe one -- another small point on the second half of Performance Materials. We generally see a lower business in absolute in August and December, especially in the European and U.S. business. That's structural. People tend to do less production in the August and December months. So it's very normal that you see this margin diversion between the half 1 and 2.

Next question, please.

[indiscernible] I stay with the margins, maybe on the other divisions. On consumer, you did pretty well, I have to say. So you mentioned that you have overachieved the 2.5% target. Where is now the future? So is that something which was particularly strong and will then drop again in '25? Or is there just more room to go? If you could indicate where it could potentially. And on the other side, I'm trying to understand the mix on Technology. What was the mix or what did badly or put pressure on margins? And where will it go in '25?

I can take the questions. Yes. Thank you. Yes, 2.6% is ahead of our own expectations. We have set at 2.5% when the business was performing at 1.7% margin. And we didn't know the exact way to get there. So that's something we're very pleased with. And of course, it builds our confidence that we can go further north with the margin expectations from ourselves and probably that you expect on CG. As we typically guide, and I think we underlined it in the Capital Markets Day, we typically target as a whole group and each business unit to improve 10 basis points per year. That's how we build our 2025 plan, and this is how we will build 2026 plan. It's too early now for us to define what is the midterm target for Consumer Goods. We're still working on the right mix between growth and margin now that we have a healthier cost structure of this business. But 10% -- 10 basis points, as I said, is something that you can expect for us. It's what we expect from the -- from ourselves. On the Technology, I think we said last year that we had a particularly strong pipe fill of projects because it was sort of the completion of projects that had been delayed during COVID, which lasted a year longer in Asia than here in Europe. And typically, when we complete the project, it's usually the more profitable part. It's the final servicing, final implementation. So we just had an unusual profitable invoicing in 2023 versus 2024. Structurally, again, the same 10 basis points per year. So we expect this business to grow, and we are very encouraged to see Technology doing a fantastic rebound, even stronger than PM in the second half of 2024. So we're optimistic that in 2025, we'll see better margins.

Thank you so much. Is there any more question in the room? Okay, in Zurich? Jon, please.

Can you -- just on consumer, the growth is not where we expect it to be, I think, in terms of -- it's below GDP, has been below GDP for a long time. You've got the margins sorted out now. Should we expect an acceleration of that growth? And then maybe as a second question, if I start adding up all the stuff you're talking about this morning, it's always hard not to think where you're going to do better than 10 basis points margin if your Performance Materials is accelerating and you want to get to 9% sooner rather than later. Healthcare is doing this, that and the other. What are your thoughts on that, particularly as the stock has fallen -- I think 7% or 8% this morning, which would indicate that everybody is assuming that consensus expectations are going to be cut 7% or 8%? Just what are your thoughts are on consensus at the moment?

Okay. Maybe -- yes, maybe let me take both questions. So on Consumer Goods, I mean, yes, Jon, you are right. The growth in CG is under GDP. But I think we have to look at the in-store numbers of Nielsen and also look at some large multinationals and their growth rate in the subdued economic environment on the consumer goods side in Asia Pacific. I think if you look at the large players, they all only deliver around 2% and 2.5% growth in this market. Asian consumers are much more inflation sensitive than we are here in Europe or in the U.S., and that is depressing overall the growth on the Consumer Goods side. So our numbers are a little bit on the soft end and definitely also not delivering up to our expectation. But I'm happy to share with you that we are very confident that in 2025, first of all, GDP will slightly accelerate according to our expectation in Asia Pacific, that should help. We have -- especially in Thailand, we have a stimulus program, which is being -- was launched and the second part is just in the process of being launched. And in Thailand, actually, we see already some acceleration. We also have a good BD pipeline going into 2025. So expectations are clearly higher for '25 than they were for 2024. In terms of the share price, I think people -- or the margin -- first of all, the margin enhancement overall. I think, look, if you look at the slide, which Ido was sharing since 2020, you see that we have a consistent track record of margin expansion, but also enhancing our conversion margin, and we will continue to work on this and deliver that. There's a clear commitment that we will deliver 10 basis points year after year. But I agree with you, if Performance Materials is coming back stronger and our M&A pipeline normally is also margin accretive, maybe we are able to deliver slightly north of that in 2025. So let's see where we end and to talk about when we sit here in 12 months' time. Look, I should not comment on the share price. The share price didn't do 15% up over the last 12 months, maybe there's some profit taking. I mean, I can't comment too much on the first initial reaction early in the morning. I think we are very confident that the best is yet to come, that we will continue to accelerate our growth over the years to come, enhance our margin and deliver more M&A contribution. And I'm very sure that the shareholders and the market is going to appreciate that midterm to long term.

Thank you, Jon. Any more questions in the room? If that's not the case, then I would kindly ask the operator to go ahead with the questions from the webcast. Can we please have the first question?

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Nicole Manion from UBS.

I think you've gone part way to answering my question just now actually, Stefan, as it was on the softer consumer organic growth and the building blocks there into 2025. But maybe I can just have one follow-up question digging into that detail a little bit more. So how should we think about the, I guess, the underlying market growth at the start of '25, maybe how that splits, volume, price and your expectation? And then can you just remind us, are there any ongoing initiatives that you have that will be a drag on that organic growth into next year? Or should we think of that as now being a clean base? Yes. Just any more numbers you can give around that would be great.

Okay. Nicole, it's great to have you on the call. If I followed you correctly, I think your question is about consumer growth -- Consumer Goods organic growth expectations and the actions we're taking to improve it. We expect, and I think that's backed also by the Nielsen data that we have to consumers to be more confident in 2025 than they were in 2024. Whether it's going to translate in a significantly higher growth than the low single-digits we have seen in the market in 2025, it's too early to tell. Probably yes, from 2% to 3% to 3%, 4%. What we're doing to change our faith in the organic growth is improving our sales floor productivity, improving our weighted distribution, so reaching new channels and new geographies, sub-geographies in the countries that we operate. So we are there where the market is. And as Stefan mentioned, we are quite confident that gradually, as now we fix the fundamentals of this business, we will also see stronger organic growth in consumer goods.

Got it. And maybe just a direct follow-up to that. I think you've clearly pointed out that growth there has been below GDP. But in your segments, does that mean you're losing share? Or is that not what you're seeing?

Yes, to some extent, perhaps, it becomes very sophisticated then because we operate in numerous categories. And then when we really try to wait versus our business, I think it's -- there's so much conclusions we can derive. Yes, we should do better. We are planning to do better and to grow a notch higher 1% or 2% than we did in 2024.

The next question from the phone is from Andy Grobler from BNP Paribas.

Most of my questions have been asked and answered. Just one left on Healthcare. In terms of the margin improvement through 2024, can you split some of that out between the benefits of Own Brands and also the shift in terms of Full Agency services? And just talk us through kind of where you are with Own Brands at this point and what that offers through the next year or 2.

Okay. Yes. Thank you very much for the question. Yes, we enhanced the margin from 2.8% to 2.9%, and we expect further margin enhancement moving forward. And yes, that's driven by shifting more business into Full Agency, where the margin is slightly ahead of 3%, and while we are building that business in bigger scale, we will also deliver on economies of scale then moving forward. The margin in our Own Brands is slightly over 20% and continue to deliver margins in that ballpark moving forward. As I mentioned before, there's a little bit of setback in Myanmar. So that would really help to deliver more EBIT contribution than if that market is bouncing back. So again, we are confident that over the midterm, consistently, we can deliver the 10 bps margin improvement in Healthcare.

And just on Own Brands, how much of revenues is Own Brand at this point?

It's around 2.3% to 2.5% in revenue.

Good. Operator, are there any more questions from the webcast?

There are no more questions, sir.

Then the last opportunity here in the room in Zurich to ask some questions. Gian-Marco?

Just a small housekeeping question on the tax rate. You mentioned the guidance range and that you expect it to be more on the upper end. Can you give us a bit more background there, why more on the upper end? Is it a mix effect, country effect?

Yes, with pleasure. Thank you for doing the housekeeping. Yes, part of the overall tax rate is influenced by withholding tax that we pay as we flow funds from the markets into here in Switzerland, the headquarters. In 2024, we have done it more than 2023 as part is that you see we reduced our gross debt by CHF 120 million, which then results in stronger income on less expenses of interest and strong income on our cash deposit, which is overall CHF 10 million gain. It does mean a few more Swiss francs that we have to pay for withholding taxes, and that's what increased the tax rate to the upper end. We expect to continue with this level in 2025 as we fund more acquisitions that are imminently coming. And therefore, we are guiding the upper end, as mentioned before.

Thank you, Gian-Marco. Jon? Please, go ahead.

Sorry, just a technical one as well. You talk about a small gain in currency. My model is flashing 3%. Is that what yours is as well if we maintain the currencies at the current rate?

Yes, it's something that I think we -- that's what we see in January. Whether this will stay for the rest of the year, it's -- I hope.

Okay. Good. Then thank you very much for your time and attention. We have a brief lunch prepared for all of you, and then we look forward going confidently into 2025 and continue to delivering on our promises and track records. Thank you very much.