Royal Unibrew A/S (RBREW) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this presentation of Royal Unibrew's Annual Report for 2022. My name is Lars Jensen, and I'm the CEO of Royal Unibrew. With me this morning I have our CFO, Lars Vestergaard, and we will present the results before taking your questions. Now please turn to Slide #3. 2022 was a year characterized by unprecedented circumstances and uncertainty. We have had to deal with the consequences of high and unexpected inflation and historically high energy prices resulting from the war in Ukraine. Clearly, the high inflation has impacted our earnings negatively as there has been a time lag from the inflation came in and hit us and until we could pass on via price increases. We are confident that we are on the right path with the right strategy of becoming the preferred choice and the right business model and being a multi-beverage and multi-niche in our main markets. Our strong business momentum continues owing to our solid brand portfolio and we continue to consolidate our market shares across geographies despite the headwind experienced during 2022. Actually it has been 3 years of unprecedented events since COVID-19 broke out, but I'm convinced that Royal Unibrew today is a much stronger company than when we entered this period because of our strategy, our strong brand portfolio and our people. And let me at this point direct an appreciation towards all of the colleagues throughout the organization for their commitment and extraordinary efforts in some challenging years. Thank you all. During 2022 we agreed to expand our partnership with PepsiCo on both snacks and beverages as well as our partnership with Diageo on ready-to-drink to also cover Norway. We are proud to be a trusted partner and look forward to live up to their expectations and the expectations that they obviously have to us. We met our short-term ESG targets on decarbonization and recycled content of our packaging and by the end of the year, we also submitted our ambitious emission reduction targets to the Science Based Targets initiative for official validation. We also continue to support the UN Global Compact. Please turn to Slide #4. We reached our short-term ESG targets in 2022. This includes that we spend more than 40% of our marketing budget on brands and campaigns with a sustainability position. We also succeeded in lowering the carbon intensity of our production year-on-year and from 2015 to 2022, we had a decrease of 42% kilo per CO2 measured on a CO2 per hectoliter while at the same time the volume increased by 20%. This is a combination of our focus on energy efficiency projects and change in product mix, which has continued into 2022. The target on recycled content of our packaging material were reached as well and we believe that we are well equipped to reach our goal of 100% recycled, recyclable or reusable packaging in 2025. Our environmental agenda in 2022 has been very busy, in particular, regarding the construction of our solar park in Denmark and the biogas plant in Finland. The first solar panel was installed in the solar park by the end of last year and shortly after, the solar panel produced the first kilowatt hour and will be in full operation very shortly. As for the biogas plant in Finland, we expect to inaugurate the plant during the first quarter of 2023. From this point, Royal Unibrew will be independent of fossil fuels in our production in Finland and hence, 2023 marks an important milestone in our pursuit of a fossil free future. By the end of the year we also submitted our ambitious emission reduction targets to the Science Based Target initiative for official validation, which is expected during 2023. And of course we continue to support the UN Global Compact throughout the year and will continue to do so. We reviewed our materiality assessment during 2022 to make sure it matches the views and concerns of our stakeholders. We have added biodiversity and regenerative agriculture as well as the ESG risk management and mitigation. We're on track to deliver on our 2025 and 2030 targets. Now please go to Slide #5. 3 years ago we identified 6 focus categories for our long-term strategy of being the preferred choice. These focus categories are energy drinks, enhanced waters, RTD/cider so the broader space in that category, no/low sugar products and no/low alcohol products and finally, the premiumization journey. All these areas are expected to structurally grow faster than the average beverage market. In addition, most of the areas are also expected to generate higher margins than our average EBIT margin. Energy drinks continued its strong growth in 2022 where organic growth reached 34%. The category share of total net revenue is 5%. We invest behind the fastest growing brands, categories and channels while we at the same time focus on premiumization -- on premiumizing our portfolio of beverages to drive value growth. In 2022 our premium products grew organically by 12%. No/low products are an important part of our strategy and we wish to provide choices for the consumers and the consumer is increasingly demanding no/low products. Both no/low sugar and no/low alcohol products grew organically by 10% in 2022. Both our RTD/cider and enhanced water categories grew by 9% organically in 2022. If you can now turn to Slide #6. And before I hand over the words to Lars, I will comment on input price inflation and price increases. COGS inflation has continued into 2023 as significant cost increases are seen in especially glass, but also raw materials like sugar and malt. We expect our COGS to increase organically by around 25% for the total period of '22 and '23 combined. With an average gross margin just below 50% in 2021, we need a price increase in totality of between 12% and 15% to close the gap between the cost inflation and the price increases and thereby secure the same hectoliter earnings as in '21. We managed to reduce the gap in both Q3 and Q4 in 2022 and we are convinced that we will be able to close the gap during the first half of '23 in Europe while international will still be slightly behind from the higher transatlantic freight costs. It is evident that we must continue to work on implementing price increases to neutralize the consequences of inflation and find new price points that the consumers accept. This also means that we must prepare to deal with changing consumer behaviors. We expect to see further changes in consumer preferences in 2023. Thus we must continue to be agile and brave in the way we do our business, agile and brave enough to change course from 1 day to the other if the consumers' patterns changed. At the same time, we have to learn on [indiscernible] to have the right products in the right packaging size at the right price in the right location and at the right time to meet the needs of the consumers. We need to step up on our efficiency improvements, which has been a part of Royal Unibrew's core DNA for many, many years. As part of our efficiency improvement agenda, we will cut the tail of SKUs with no or low growth potential. And with this, I will pass it on to you, Lars.

Thank you, Lars, and good morning to you all. So if we turn to Slide #7, please. Looking at the financial results for 2022. We accomplished to generate organic volume growth of 1% while primary pricing initiatives drove a positive mix of 10 percentage points resulting in an organic net revenue growth of 11%. Revenue of around DKK 1.8 billion from acquisitions were added during 2022. EBIT declined organically by 14% in 2022 resulted in a reported EBIT margin decline of 5.7 percentage point compared to 2021. Acquisitions diluted the margin by 1.4% compared to the year before as they contributed around DKK 100 million in EBIT with a margin of roughly 5.5%. We will explain the EBIT fall more in the coming pages. But just to explain the main items. We entered 2022 with a relatively low level of hedging of energy cost and some of our packaging materials is unhedged. As cost went up fairly quickly after the war, we started -- we were unable to take immediate price increases and consequently had to carry the cost for many months. Also, we experienced destocking in Italy during Q4 and this impacted our profitability significantly. Free cash flow amounted to DKK 577 million compared to DKK 1.3 billion in 2021. The development is negatively impacted by the increase in working capital of DKK 585 million driven by higher inventories and an increase in receivables that is bigger than the decline in payables. Net debt by the end of 2022 amounted to DKK 4.46 billion, which is an increase of DKK 924 million compared to year-end 2021. Net interest-bearing debt to EBITDA increased from 1.7x to 2.2x over the same period mainly explained by share buybacks, dividends and acquisitions. For 2023, we expect revenue in the range of DKK 13 billion to DKK 14 billion and EBIT in the range of DKK 1.550 billion to DKK 1.750 billion. We will come back with the assumptions behind these later. Please turn to Slide #8. This slide gives a view on the development within the business segments. Starting with Northern Europe, total volume showed an increase of 7% to 10.4 million hectoliters in 2022. Organically, volume declined by 1%. Net revenue increased by 35% to DKK 8.9 billion, of which 25% was contributed through M&A activities resulting in a 10% organic net revenue growth in 2022. Price increases taken throughout the year positively impacted the top line whereas volume did experience a slight negative impact. Earnings before interest tax for 2022 decreased to DKK 1.247 million and was DKK 2 million below the 2021 figure. The EBIT margin declined from 18.9% to 13.9% in 2022. Time lag between when input price inflation happened and our price increases to customers did impact earnings and at the EBIT margin significantly. Northern Europe performed strongly towards the end of the year with an open On-Trade and as price increases started to mitigate the effect of inflation. In Western Europe, volume showed a 21% increase in 2022 while net revenue increased by 16%. Organic volume increased by 15% and net revenue by 10%. The lower growth in net revenue compared to volume is caused by a higher growth in carbonated soft drinks with lower net revenue per hectoliter than in beer. Western Europe performed below expectations in the fourth quarter as our business was significantly impacted by destocking of beer in Italy amongst our wholesalers. All market data are showing growth on the Ceres brand and therefore, the destocking is of temporary nature. But clearly, the extent of the destocking was bigger than anticipated in Q4. EBIT amounted to DKK 157 million in 2022, which was DKK 85 million lower than in 2021. The EBIT margin went down by 9.1 percentage point from 20.7% to 11.6%. The weak development in earnings was caused by input price inflation and the time lag until we increased our prices towards consumers and the destocking at wholesalers in Italy from the end of Q3 until the end of the year. Finally, in International, total volume showed a 7% increase in 2022 to 1.4 million hectoliters corresponding to a 6% organic volume increase. The inorganic development is explained by the acquisition of Amsterdam Brewery in Toronto. Net revenue was 22% higher than in 2021 and reached DKK 1.191 billion in 2022 corresponding to a 17% organic growth. Implementation of price increases throughout the year supported the strong net revenue growth. EBIT showed a DKK 55 million decline negatively impacted by the input price inflation, including significant increases in transportation cost to our overseas markets. Consequently, EBIT margin declined by 8.1 percentage point. If we now turn to Slide #9, please, and now a short comment on the development in net revenue and EBIT margin in 2022. Net revenue increased by 31% from DKK 8.749 billion (sic) [ DKK 8.746 billion ] to DKK 11.487 billion. A significant part of this was driven by acquisitions whereas organic revenue growth amounted to 11%. As said earlier, EBIT margin declined by 5.7% from 18.9% to 13.2%. Around 1.4% of this decline is attributable to M&A. The input price inflation, which we have seen in the last couple of years, is also significantly diluting the EBIT margin as we aim to pass on the inflation defending the absolute earnings per volume unit and not the margin. This means that we aim to raise our revenue through price increases and mix effects by the same amount as our cost base have inflated. Same earnings on a higher revenue base has in total and purely mathematically diluted our EBIT margin by 2.2 percentage points over the past couple of years. In 2022 the dilution amounted to 1.5%, which means that organically the EBIT margin is showing around 2.8 percentage points compared to 1 year ago. And a look at the free cash flow. Our free cash flow changes in working capital decreased by DKK 27 million to DKK 1.997 billion, which was driven by lower profit when adjusted for the noncash gain on the shareholding we had in Hansa Borg already when we acquired the business. Changes in working capital was negatively impacted with DKK 408 million, which was DKK 584 million lower than in 2021. The negative development is, as said earlier, the result of higher inventories and an increase in receivables that is bigger than the decline in payables. We made the choice to increase inventory late in 2022 as cost for a number of purchase categories went in the beginning of the year. Our CapEx was higher in 2022 than in 2021 leading to a free cash flow before M&A and financing, which is DKK 719 million lower than in 2021 at DKK 577 million. I will now turn to the outlook for 2023. We expect an EBIT in the range of DKK 1.550 billion to DKK 1.750 billion in 2023 based on a net revenue of DKK 13 billion to DKK 14 billion. The guided net revenue comes from acquisitions, extended partnerships and positive price/mix from primary price increases and we will continue to safeguard our profitability in a per hectoliter basis. The implied profitability is impacted by commodity price developments as well as the supply situation, the consumer and customers' behavior and the impact on channel mix as a result of price increases. We assume that acquisitions will add around DKK 500 million in net revenue with single-digit EBIT margin and a normal summer weather and travel activities. We expect CapEx to be around 5% to 6% of net revenue as we will invest in production capacity to become fossil fuel in the near future. The corporate tax rate is expected to be around 21%. Now let's turn to Slide 12, please. Before I hand over to Lars again, I would like to address our long-term EBIT margin target of 20% to 21%. We want to drive organic EBIT growth as this is the base for shareholder value creation. On top of this, acquisitions have added to the value creation of Royal Unibrew over many years. There should be no doubt that our decisions are based on maximizing long-term EBIT. Royal Unibrew had for a long period a very strong development up until 2021 with strong EBIT margin development. This period underlined that the Royal Unibrew business model and strategy is solid. Our ambition is to replicate the strategy in new markets and we are confident that this will materialize over the coming years. Since 2021, we have expanded our platform into Norway and Sweden and we are in the process of building platforms with the same capabilities in Norway and Sweden as we have in Denmark, Finland and the Baltics. It is still early days, but we see great opportunity to create new platforms that can grow organic revenue and profit for many years to come. The margin in these new businesses are single digit and dilutable margins. In 2023 we are hopeful that we will start to see commodity price stabilize and we can start to rebuild our profitability across the group whilst delivering solid growth from our growth framework and new platforms. And with that, I would like to hand the word back to you, Lars.

Thank you, Lars. Please turn to Slide #13, which shows the overall targets on ESG. I will talk about a few selected points on this slide and we have already been around some of the targets. Our no/low products are growing faster than the average portfolio and faster than the market. We do actually expect the greatest growth potential across geographies within the no/low sugar categories across our portfolio. As mentioned earlier, we are well on track on delivering on our emission reduction targets for 2025 and 2030 and we will convert our energy consumption to renewable energy in the entire value chain and we will work with our partners on reducing CO2 emissions and reducing our resources by enhancing our circularity mindset. We need to focus on our safety culture where we can do better. We are committed to maintaining and continuously improving our employees' safety at work. Our employees' safety at work is of highest priority. We recognize that 1 accident is 1 too many and we will continue to focus on mitigating risk by allocating more resources and sharing best practices across the group. Please turn to Slide 14. Before we'll take your questions, I would like to give you a few words on our current priorities. The inflationary development continues to be the top of our agenda. This means that our top priority continues to be to make sure that we close the gap between input pricing inflation and price increases, re-establishing our per hectoliter profitability. The price increases we and competition have pushed through clearly have the potential risk of changing consumer behaviors and we will continuously and thoroughly monitor consumer behaviors in our markets to act immediately if required. In our current uncertain macroeconomic environment, we also need to look into our own spending. We want to continue to support and invest behind the growth opportunities that we see in our markets, but at the same time, we need to reduce our discretionary spending. This means that our marketing spending will be scrutinized making sure that we get a satisfactory return on our investments. 2023 is also a year of integration, a very important integration of Solera Norway and Hansa Borg is on the table in '23 and it's very important that we succeed on this integration to make sure that we can capture the planned synergies. In Canada, we will move production to Amsterdam Brewery for the Canadian market starting in Q1 2023. At the same time, we need to focus on the top line expansion we will face in '23. We have a full year impact of acquisitions and expansion of partnerships and this will put stress on our supply chain and production, but we are fit and will deliver on the challenges. This also underlines the continued need of securing production capacity to which we will direct CapEx as well as we will fulfill our ambitious ESG plans. And with those words, I will send it back to the operator and we are now ready to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Andrea Pistacchi from Bank of America.

I have a couple of questions, please. The first one is on your guidance range. Stripping out M&A, it implies I think something around flat to about 12% organic EBIT growth. So I just wanted to understand a bit more about the moving parts there. I mean it looks quite -- given your 100% exposure to Europe, given the COGS inflation you're flagging comparing this guidance to peers; at the high end of that guidance, it looks quite high. But at the same time obviously on COGS, you were less hedged last year. So just if you could frame that a bit. And then if you could be a little more specific, please, on COGS. COGS per hectoliter you said I think increased 25% over '22 and '23. Are you able to split that into the 2 years, please? And my last question, if I may, on the price increases which you said you started to put through in some markets, I think Denmark since the beginning of January. Could you quantify a bit what you're doing on pricing and what you're seeing? It's very early days, but what you're seeing so far in terms of consumer reaction?

If I start on the price increases and also relating to the questions around COGS. So the totality of the 2 years is around these 25% and we are not there yet in terms of having the full coverage. But with the price increases that we have already put through and correctly we have put price increases like in Denmark from the 1st of January and the price increases that we are implementing right now so in Italy retail is up by the 1st of March as an example, wholesalers was up by 1st of January again; and France will be up from the 1st of April. And when we put all of that together, we have some few percentage points that we need to close to be on par with the totality of the COGS inflation that we have seen throughout the period of '22 and '23. So at this moment of time, we are pretty confident in making sure that our hectoliter profitability will be established during the first half of the year. When it comes to the consumers, I think we have seen the last couple of months so I would say from very late December so the last week of December and until now that consumers are starting to buy a bit more private label and discount also in the supermarkets. So we have seen -- I would say until late '22, we saw that it was mostly a traffic change from consumers. So consumers were shopping more in retail, in discount outlets and less in supermarkets. But in supermarkets, they didn't trade down, but we start to see some trading down in some categories and in some markets. So it's not something that is all markets, all categories, but we see it in some countries. And then I think to the positive side, we fear a bit that On-Trade would have a tough start to the year given that consumer spending power because of the energy prices was expected to go down. But as we have seen, there has been I would say a reduction of energy prices on households from the beginning of the year in principle both on gas and electricity, we have actually seen that On-Trade has delivered quite steadily until now in Q1, which is of course also something that from an overall point of view is helping us on the mix on establishing the hectoliter profitability per channel.

And if we look at the organic EBIT growth, I think you gave half the answer yourself that if you look at our profitability in 2022, we are probably higher impacted in terms of COGS inflation than competition is. So that's 1 element, we are building on a base that is highly impacted compared to some of the competitors. The other thing is in 2022 we saw the destocking in Italy, which of course is in 2022 and something that impacts the beginning of 2023. So the base that we are building from is probably a little bit, what to say, lower than what some of our peers have. But when you look into next year, I think what we see is that our Nordic markets we are probably a little bit ahead of competition in terms of increasing prices. So I think our organization have worked really strongly with reestablishing profitability. So that of course helps us throughout 2023. And then of course we've added some partnerships, which of course also adds to the 2023 numbers. But of course it's a broad guidance that we've given and there are many moving parts. So I would say these are just the headlines that I think clearly we should grow organically in 2023.

And then, Andrea, you asked a question if we can split the COGS between the 2 years. I think if you look at the graph that we made illustratively when we came out with the Q3 result, that is the best answer that you can get. It is pretty close to the picture that you see there.

Can I just have 1 clarification on 1 of the things you said. You said that you're quite confident that you can effectively restore the gross profit per hectoliter and get that flat in H1 this year. Do you mean is that an average H1 or sort of by the end of H1 you think you could -- you can brought that to flat year-on-year so H1 on average will still be maybe not quite there year-on-year?

I think the way that you should look at it is that Q1 will of course be a bit lower because we are not getting all the price increases from the 1st of January, but we get the COGS increases from the 1st of January. And then when we get into the second quarter, we probably from a numbers point of view need another couple of percent to close the gap in totality and then we will have reestablished during Q2, we will get back. So there will be a little bit of a time lag during the first 4 to 5 months.

The next question from André Thormann from Danske Bank.

I'll just take them 1 by 1. First of all, I'd just like to follow up on Andrea's question. Can you or will you give a number on how much do you expect COGS per hectoliter to increase in 2023? I'm not sure I understand this. That's my first one.

No, we're not going to give you a specific answer on what is specifically per hectoliter. I don't think that's the point. The point is that the inflation curve is now starting to fade out because of energy prices being more predictable at least within the last couple of months and that we are ahead of the curve, have been ahead of the curve with competition in terms of pushing on price increases and we are pretty confident in terms of being sure that we close the gap and thereby reestablish the profitability per hectoliter throughout Q2 as we just answered Andrea's questions. So that's the key takeaway that you should have around this.

Okay. And then my next question because I didn't got this. You said something around price increases in your presentation and the number was not on the slide. So can you please repeat what will prices do in 2023? I heard something around 12%.

I think what we have talked about here and what I mentioned is that overall COGS through '22 and '23 has gone up by about 25%. So that's the totality of what we expect for both years in combination. We have an average margin. If you look at the 2021 numbers, we have like an average margin of just below 50%. If you do the pure math on that, that indicates that we need a price increase depending on categories of between 12% and 15% to reestablish the per hectoliter profitability. And those are the price increases that we have made throughout last year, it's the price increase we have made or we are in the making of depending on the markets in Q2. And then we need a couple of percent more to close the gap to cover up for the full 25% of COGS increases and those we expect to get through during the second quarter.

So the 12% to 15%, that's both for '22 and '23, right?

That's correct.

Okay. And then just 1 last question that's in terms of your M&A contribution on EBIT in 2023. I wonder if you can comment any closer than a single-digit EBIT margin on DKK 500 million revenue basis because that indicates DKK 0 million to DKK 50 million in EBIT, which sounds quite low in my view. Can you give any comments around how you get to that number?

I think Andre, you know that this is not 1% or 2%. So if we want to make it closer than it is, high single digit.

The next question is from Yubo Mao from Morgan Stanley.

The first one is on market share. You've mentioned that you're taking more price increases than competition. I wonder if you would be able to comment on how your market share has progressed in Q4 and so far this year. And related to that, the business does have a strong presence in premium and do you expect private label and discount brands to gain share? So how would you expect overall market share dynamics to evolve over the coming quarters? And secondly on Italy, the duration and the impact of destocking have been a bit worse than estimated. So what's the current stock level at wholesalers relative to what you would call a normal level?

I think if I start with Italy first. So stocks because of our underlying growth rates have been really solid for the last 2, 2.5 years after COVID and the reopening came in. They have been stocking up and they have been stocking up more than what is a normal level of stock because they want to kind of like be prepared for the growth and the demand from the final point of sales, which is easily about 200,000 outlets that is buying Ceres. And then when we start to work out prices, then there becomes this instability in the market where people or wholesalers will buy from each other until that there is nothing left in the market that is cheaper than the price that we offer. And that is where the destocking or the total stock in the markets have been higher than what we thought it was and you also have moving pieces between retail so what we call redistributors that both work in retail and in On-Trade. So it's really difficult to get a fully transparent view on it. Then we have started to cut relatively hard on discount so that was the first step that we did towards the end of the year and then we have increased prices as of 1st of January. So the underlying price increase that the wholesalers have seen is pretty high on a per bottle level and then they would destock, destock, destock. They would try to push us in trying to give discount so that they can buy cheaper than what is in the market right now. So what we are seeing at this point in time is that the wholesaler stock levels are actually lower is our sentiment, actually lower than what they would normally have at this time of the year being pretty close to Easter where the summer places are starting to open up if the weather allows. What we would expect is that they will be relatively reluctant to do normal order sizes. So what we have seen towards the end of February that is that they are putting orders in, but where a customer would normally buy half a truck, they buy 3 pallets because they want to make sure that they are not making any mistakes in buying too much stock at a too high price. And that's the reason why that we will probably see that there will be a soft rebuilding of stock until the season really starts, which is the real season starts from the 1st of May. When we look at our sales out data so that means that the retailer sales out at the point of stores and the data that we have in the On-Trade side so that is from the 200,000 bars and the consumption at the bar level, those numbers are still solid and they are beating the market. So we are outgrowing the market and that is the reason why that we are comfortable that this is a one-off. This is something that will fix itself with time. And if you look at the retail side of the business, we have seen a bit of destocking in Q4, but we have seen absolutely no destocking in the beginning of the year. So the retailers is holding up and again with growth rates that consistently are between 5% and 10% higher than the total market in terms of growth rates. So that's the situation around the Italian business. When it comes to the market shares in Q4, we lost a bit of market share in a few categories and that's mostly through losses of promotion pressure because we pushed through price increases, that's our analysis, that has been higher than competition and thereby some of these positions didn't go to us, but went to competition. We have then in the beginning of the year, we have seen that we are getting more back to what we would expect our levels to be in terms of promotional pressure and market shares. So that seems to be reestablishing itself so call it like a small dip in Q4, but getting back to where we want it to be. And when it comes to premium, a lot of the growth in premium sits in On-Trade and it sits in the export business so the multi-beverage -- sorry, the multi-niche parts of our business and that is still growing healthy. And we do believe that there's still a premiumization opportunity in On-Trade, which we will try relentlessly to capture. And then we would expect that we would see a slight decline in the premium market in general. That doesn't mean that we will lose sales, but in premium in general in the retail area. So that is kind of like the expectation that we have at this moment of time.

Very clear. Can I just squeeze in 1 more just on the '23 guidance. You mentioned the contribution of partnership extensions with Pepsi and Diageo. Would you be able to give some color on the magnitude of that?

Yes. So the Diageo piece in Norway is Diageo in, Bacardi out. So that's give and take the same. So the add-on is the Pepsi business on the border trade and it's the snacks business in Norway, Sweden and Finland. And as this is growth cases, we want to see where we land in totality on this before we start commenting on specific expectations. We believe that we can perform a better business than what was before, but it is kind of like a total growth case for the Pepsi business. So little bit too early days to give you any expectations on that.

[Operator Instructions] The next question from Søren Samsøe from SEB.

Just a few questions from my side. First of all on the margin development in 2023 as you see it now, sort of when do you see the inflection point on the margin development happening if the scenario plays out as you assume in your guidance, what quarter? And then France, you don't mention anything about France in the statement yesterday in Q4. It would be nice to hear if the growth continues in the market there or if you see some challenges happening. And then finally, on the M&A contribution of DKK 0.5 billion in 2023, I don't get that. When I made the calculations from what you announced when you made the Hansa Borg acquisition and the Amsterdam acquisition, that would more point to like DKK 650 million or DKK 700 million contributed in 2023. What has happened? Especially if you include the price increases that you're doing in Norway so what is happening here? Are you just being cautious or do you see significantly lower revenues from those acquisitions now than you did when you made them?

If we start with the margin question, Soren. I think with the inflation level and the uncertainty on where does price level go, I think for us it's not really margin that we run the business according to in this period of time. For us, it's really about safeguarding the absolute profit. And I think if you look at the commodity market, it is really uncertain out there. So for us, it's really about being agile so if cost goes up, we increase prices which of course dilutes margin. If costs come down, then it could have a positive impact on our profitability as both you get the mathematical effect and hopefully we can keep our hands on some of the cost savings. So I would say it's too early to talk about margin expansions. For us, it's really about safeguarding the profitability until we get out of this, what I can say, quite uncertain times in terms of volatility. And that's also a little bit why we are reluctant to give too many comments on absolute level of price increases and COGS inflation. For us, it's much more about the gap between cost and price increases. And as Lars mentioned, we need another couple of percentage points improvements during the year to close the gap between cost and price. So it's too early to talk about margin yet. It's more about getting the absolute profitability back on track.

And on your M&A question on the DKK 0.5 billion, which of course is kind of like a little bit of a rounding there why we're talk in billions. You need to consider that the NOK has deteriorated a bit since we gave this guidance so that is of course in Danish kroner changing it. And then you need to understand that on the Amsterdam piece and then you can call it organic or M&A or what, but when we are moving it from being produced in Europe, shipped, we lose a couple of months of sales because there's a destocking. So the moment when we move to local production, we will lose the sales from what is in transit and the local customers, the liquor boards, they operate with lower stocks on locally produced and with higher stocks on international. So we do expect that we will lose a bit of revenue and of course also a bit of earnings, but that's a onetime thing. And then we will reach an earnings, which is of course higher because of the lack of or the savings on transportation cost. So there's a little bit of technicalities in this. And then finally on the Norwegian piece, you need to understand that the more north you go and you also see that in the Finnish numbers, the bigger the number are during the high season. So the first 4 months of the year, they are really, really small in the Norwegian business and that also goes from an earnings point of view, you said why is that single digit. Most of the earnings lies in the months between April and September and that means that we are taking over a couple of months where we would actually probably have a bit of loss in the beginning of the year that we will then recapture getting closer to the spring time.

And France?

France, so I think we had sales out numbers towards the end of the year was actually pretty solid. And as we have said also in Q3, we start to see that we are growing our business again after having 4, 5 months of a more uncertain environment for us. So from a commercial point of view, we are progressing on our French plan. I think the biggest challenge we have had in France and I think that's not just for us when I read through peers' material and it has been really, really difficult to pass on price increases in France, which has also been the case for us. And I think what we're looking at right now is that we will get some price increases in France, but other territories, other countries need to cover up a bit on mix and on cost savings and whatever to cover up for the profitability gap that we will suffer because we cannot pass on the price increases to cope for the COGS increases. And that is I would say the only area where it has been difficult to do so both because of the customers and the way that they look at it, but also because of certain price points. So the glass bottle of Lorina, there are certain price points that we need to find. And if we get up to a too high price, the volume consequences are too big and then it's better not to push very high price increases through and then lose too much and so on, so forth. But those are the everyday discussions that we are sitting in. But commercially, I think we are progressing well with the team down there.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at the moment. I will hand back for closing remarks.

Thank you very much for your participation. You know where you can find us if you have additional questions throughout the coming days as you read our Annual Report. I wish you all a nice day.