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

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Royal Unibrew's full year webcast. My name is Lars Jensen, and I'm the CEO of Royal Unibrew. With me today, I have our CFO, Lars Vestergaard. We have been through a couple of very volatile years with big changes in and around the company, and we have therefore decided for this call to put an extra focus on the transformational journey of Royal Unibrew and the opportunities lying in front of us and a little less focus on last year, as Q4 was in line with what we expected. We have seen limited changes to the business environment we are in and we deliver in the mid of the outlook guidance range. Our prepared remarks will therefore be a bit longer than normal, but we will make sure that we have enough time to answer your questions. And now if you can please turn to Slide #3. Our business was off to a difficult start of 2023 as the cost base was negatively impacted by very high inflation from the beginning of the year. We managed to close the gap between cost inflation and price increases during the second quarter of '23, while the FX gap in Norway and Sweden remained a drag throughout the year. In the second half of the year, we achieved growth in both volume, net revenue and EBIT. For the full year, net revenue increased organically by 4% and EBIT increased organically by 7% and to DKK 1.638 billion, meeting our expectations within the guided EBIT range. We managed to reach the guided EBIT range despite the challenging cost environment and historical poor summer and we ended the year with a satisfactory 29% EBIT growth in Q4, as Vestergaard will go deeper into the numbers later in the call. Our business scope has significantly expanded during the past years. And with the acquisition of Vrumona in Holland and San Giorgio in Italy in '23, our run rate net revenue has almost doubled over the past 3 years. Royal Unibrew is now a business with strong multi-beverage platforms in the Nordic region and a footprint in Western Europe with solid growth perspectives. This string of acquisitions include some dilutive companies that give access to new geographies, new market segments, production capacity and/or attractive customer and consumer bases. We are confident that from where we are right now, we have a lot of earnings potential to realize in the coming years from integration, consolidating and growing these businesses, while at the same time, our mature markets continue their solid and steady growth path. In a challenging market environment in Finland, we delivered a solid performance with market share gains in ready-to-drink, carbonated soft drink and water, thanks to our strong and wide beverage portfolio. In Denmark, our multi-beverage strategy resulted in higher market shares within carbonated soft drink, water, craft beer and snacks. In the Baltic countries, we have seen very impressive results in a very challenging market. And despite volume declines in the Baltic beer market because of significant price increases, we realized significant growth in net revenue and EBIT in the beer category. And in energy drinks, we significantly outgrew the fast-growing market. If we look at these 3 old Royal Unibrew markets, they in total organically grew EBIT by more than 20% in '23, expanding the EBIT margin by more than 1 percentage point. This is a clear proof of the multi-beverage strategy strength and potential. The momentum building throughout the year, the business scope expansion and the solid performance in multi-beverage market, have all benefited from successful innovation and a continued expansion of our partnership business. In 2023, we expanded our original Long Drink portfolio with a very successful pineapple edition, which not only increased our share of the RTD category in Finland, but also increased the total RTD category in Finland. In Denmark, we expanded the Faxe Kondi portfolio with an orange edition that was very well received by customers and consumers and immediately became a top brand in the important orange segment. In '23, we expanded our partnership business significantly. We started selling the PepsiCo beverage portfolio on the border between Denmark and Germany, and we're expanding the snacks partnership to also include Norway, Sweden and Finland. In Norway, we have also started distributing the entire Diageo spirits portfolio, and we have extended scope with other main wine partners. These partnerships are important in making our multi-beverage portfolio stronger, wider and deeper, resulting in very strong value proposition for our customers and consumers and in the end, supporting more sales of our own brands. Shifting to another important topic in Royal Unibrew, '23 was another milestone year in our sustainability journey. For the second year in a row, we were recognized as the ESG industry top-rated company by Morningstar Sustainalytics. We started electricity production from our solar park in Denmark and aggregated a biogas plant in Finland. And very importantly, we received validation of our emission reductions targets from Science Based Targets initiative. The SBTi validation is a testament of our persistent effort to mitigate our climate impact. But there's still much to be done on the ESG agenda, and we remain committed to advancing our efforts to achieve our sustainability targets. Now please move to Slide #4. Here, we look a bit more on the sustainability achievements in '23. And besides the milestones already mentioned, I would like to turn your attention to the following highlights. We continue to drive our market-leading no/low portfolios and volume growth of products with no/low sugar categories or no/low alcohol content significantly outperform regular products. We are well underway to achieve our 100% CO2 emission-free target by '25 in our production, and we have plans to place -- in place for reaching 92% of our target at present. In '23, 44% of our energy consumption was based on renewable energy for Scope 1 and 2. We achieved 96% recycled, recyclable or reusable packaging in '23 and therefore, we are on track towards our target of 100% recyclable or reusable packaging by '25. We're investing in more filling lines, where cardboard will replace consumption of plastic-based shrink film. We continue to see an important -- an improvement for the underrepresented agenda in our international management teams as the share has improved from 28% in '22 to 32% in '23. And please note that the acquired units during the last 3 years have diluted the baseline, meaning that the underlying organic development is more impressive. Finally, according to our recent employee engagement survey, our sustainability culture remains strong, as more employees believe that Royal Unibrew is a sustainable company compared to our previous survey. Now please move to Slide #5. This slide shows how our focused growth categories have developed during '23. Low/no sugar beverage did particularly well in '23, with net revenue up 32% on an organic basis. All markets performed well in this category and on top of the organic figure. It was supported by the expansion of our partnership with PepsiCo on the border between Denmark and Germany. Energy net revenue was organically up by 5% in '23, driven by strong growth in Denmark on the border trade between Denmark and Germany and the Baltic countries. Due to price increases in the category, the growth was far lower in '23 than in previous years. No/low alcohol continued to grow with net revenue increasing 4% organically, whereas enhanced waters grew by 3%. Premium and cider RTD had a harder time in '23, as weather was bad during the high season, high-end cocktails in off-trade suffered after a very strong growth during COVID, and there was a destocking in Italy until April that also diluted the performance. And that means that the underlying growth, the sales out is positive and we gained share in most of the markets in this category. And with that, I will hand over the word to Lars Vestergaard.

Thank you, Lars, and good morning to everyone. Let's start with a look at the financial results for 2023. As Lars has already mentioned, 2023 was a challenging year. Rising costs led to further price increases for our customers, and it was topped off by historically bad weather during the summer period. These circumstances resulted in an organic volume decline of 3 percentage points in 2023. Strong in-market execution and price increases across the group supported a positive price/mix impact, resulted in organic net revenue increase of 4% for the year 2023. In this number is a negative effect from the weaker Norwegian and Swedish krona of around DKK 240 million, corresponding to around 2 percentage points of organic growth. EBIT increased organically by 7% to DKK 1.638 billion. The reported EBIT margin declined by 0.5 percentage points compared to 2022 to 12.7%, diluted by almost 1 percentage point by acquisitions. That means that the organic EBIT margin expanded by more than 40 basis points. Free cash flow increased significantly to DKK 1.143 billion, but that was admittedly also from a low level in 2022. The acquisition of Vrumona and San Giorgio have led to an increase in net interest-bearing debt to DKK 6.4 billion, resulting in our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, as expected, ending the year at 2.9, up from 2.2 at the end of 2022. If we please turn to Slide #7, please. Looking at the reported numbers. Our total volumes increased by 4 percentage points to 14.1 million hectoliters in 2023, driving an increase in net revenue of 12% to DKK 12.9 billion. In 2023, the gross margin was slightly under pressure due to inflation and declined by around 70 basis points to 41.7%. OpEx increased less than the net revenue, resulted in an EBITDA that increased 11% to DKK 2.208 billion. This meant that the EBITDA margin only declined by around 30 basis points. Depreciation and amortization increased by DKK 89 million to DKK 570 million, resulted in an EBIT growing by 8 percentage points to DKK 1.638 billion. Net financial expenses increased to a negative DKK 232 million as a result of higher financial debt, but also a higher average interest rate compared to 2022. The positive net financial expenses of DKK 269 million in 2022 was driven by a noncash revaluation of DKK 360 million from the 20% we already owned of Hansa Borg when we acquired the full company. Taxes increased by DKK 17 million, resulted in an effective tax rate of around 22%. This means that the net profit for the year declined by 27% to DKK 1.95 billion. Adjusted net profit in 2022 for the aforementioned noncash revaluation of DKK 360 million then adjusted net profit in 2023 declined by 3%. Reported earnings per share declined by 28%, whereas the adjusted earnings per share declined by 5%. Please turn to Slide #8. And this slide shows the M&A impact on the reported number in '23. Net revenue increased by 13%, of which 8.5% came from the acquisitions, primarily Hansa Borg and Vrumona, but also from Amsterdam Brewery, San Giorgio and Nørrebro Bryghus. The organic net revenue growth was 4 percentage points in '23, but as I said earlier, this figure is impacted by a weak Norwegian and Swedish krona and adjusted for currency, the organic growth was 6%. EBIT contributions from M&A was subdued in 2023. Investments in integration in the future-proofing of the acquired businesses and setting up for future growth, weak currencies in Norway and Sweden, lack of price increases in some markets and lower starting points meant that acquisitions contributed 1% to the reported EBIT growth, whereas the organic EBIT growth was 7%. The overall margin was negatively impacted by almost 1 percentage point by the acquisitions, which drove a reported margin decline of around 50 basis points. If we can go to Slide #10, please. And back to you, Lars.

Thank you, Lars. I will now take you through a couple of slides that should provide you with some insights into where and how Royal Unibrew can deliver shareholder value in the future. We are on a transformational journey. Before our acquisition of Hartwall in Finland back in 2013, Royal Unibrew was a Danish company with a small but highly profitable beer business in Italy and a larger but not particularly profitable business in the Baltics. With the acquisition of Hartwall, we expanded our business with another strong platform in the Nordics and laid the foundation for a long period of continuous improvements of the market position and earnings where year-on-year, [ Nova ] added to the bottom line. But our business was also based on a few markets where market shares were high and the growth opportunities in settled categories are hard to and often expensive to conquer. On top of this, we saw our margins at levels that was hard to improve and with a capacity utilization that was already very high and some would say underinvested. So we kind of like had 2 choices, either accepting a lower EBIT growth rate than what we experienced in the years before, or make -- try to make the cake bigger and aim for a continued EBIT growth beyond our peers. And we have gone with option #2. With the acquisitions closed in the past 3 years, we have nearly doubled our net revenue, and the majority of this business comes from what we refer to as platform acquisitions. Platform acquisitions require a longer period to realize synergies compared to other types of acquisitions as they require investments in equipments, brands, organizational capability as well as a cultural shift before synergies start to unlock. As we have said before, historically, platform acquisitions have been the ones that provide the most significant value creation accumulated over a long period of time. And to sum this up, Royal Unibrew has doubled in size over the past 3 years. From being a business with operations in Denmark, Finland, Italy and the Baltic countries, Royal Unibrew is now a business with a strong multi-beverage platform in the Nordic region and a footprint in Western Europe with significant growth perspectives. And with that, please turn to Slide #11. Our new platform poses significant growth opportunities through exposure to more categories, thus evolving over time into multi-beverage market. By rolling out our business model, we will over time reap the benefits of having strong market positions, broad high-quality brand portfolio as well as scale in production, distribution and sales. In the short term, it requires investment, and that is what is actually impacting the earnings in our new markets. Investments are needed in both assets and organization to ensure maximum value creation in the long run. In other words, the investments are necessary to achieve the expected synergies and the anticipated improvement in earnings from the acquisitions we have made. And we are not only talking about investments locally in the new markets with the step change we have made, it is also necessary to upgrade the backbone of Royal Unibrew. And over the past approximately 5 years, we have more than doubled the number of employees in the central finance functions and central procurement functions, while the number of employees in our central IT function has more than tripled. In other words, we have more muscle to manage growth and integrate companies. In the coming period, we will focus on the ongoing integration processes, including the mentioned investments and therefore not actively seek new acquisitions. We will consolidate our business and ensure that we harvest the expected synergies. Please go to Slide #12. Our commercial success is built on a strong combination of our own local power brands combined with strong global partner brands, which strengthens and widens our brand portfolio to the benefit of our customers and at the end to our consumers. We have significantly expanded our partnership business in the recent years. We have taken over the sales of PepsiCo snacks business in Norway, Sweden and Finland as well as spirits business on the border between Denmark and Germany. We have extended our collaboration agreement with Diageo to include the Norwegian market, along with several additional new and extended partnerships in other ambient beverage categories. The profitability of these partnership varies depending on whether they are solely based on distribution or also involve production, sales and marketing. As a starting point, partnerships are dilutive to the margin. On an average, however, the capital employed is low, making the return on invested capital very attractive. Additionally, it enhances our product portfolio with strong brands that further support the sales of our own brands. And in other words, strong partner brands help sell more of our own local brands. And it is important to understand that the new platforms we have acquired are unlocking new growth opportunities for us. We have become a much more attractive partner in our geographical footprint. Now please turn to Slide #13. Our world has significantly changed since we originally set our long-term EBIT margin target of 20% to 21%. We have substantially increased our business scope through acquisitions and partnerships, which in the short term dilute margins. However, our current footprint now includes several new platforms, each with significantly or significantly higher future growth opportunities. In other words, we are now in a position where we have the opportunity to drive significantly organic earnings growth by optimizing our current business, expanding in the new markets and growing our partnerships. We will continue to build new capacity to make sure that we will continue to be able to reap the benefits of our multi-beverage growth strategy but we will, at the same time, make sure that we materialize the synergies from the acquisitions we have done through stronger market position and efficiency improvements over the coming years. We have strong confidence in our multi-beverage strategy with focus on categories that are growing faster than the overall beverage market and with higher margins. A focus on organic earnings growth ensure that we make the right decisions in our efforts to achieve our goal of maximizing value creation in the long run, and we believe that organic growth in EBIT will deliver higher returns that focus on EBIT than focusing on EBIT margin alone. We want this to be reflected in our long-term financial targets. Therefore, our new long-term financial target is to grow EBIT organically by 6% to 8% per year. That means after '24, '24 is a higher guidance because of baseline effects that would help us in '24. So the 6% to 8% is considered after '24. It remains our ambition to increase the EBIT margin and give the current business composition and prevailing input prices, we expect to organically grow the EBIT margin in the same period. The change of long-term financial target metrics from margin to organic growth does not change our capital structure and distribution policy. The objective of our capital structure policy is secure flexibility to develop the business in line with our strategic priorities. It therefore remains our target to have a net interest-bearing debt below 2.5x EBITDA and to distribute 40% to 60% of consolidated net profit for the year. Lars, now would you please take us through the outlook guidance for '24?

Thank you, Lars, and please turn to Slide #14. For '24, we expect organic EBIT growth of 5% to 15%, which corresponds to a reported EBIT of DKK 1.8 billion to DKK 1.95 billion. This is including acquisitions and based on net revenue of around DKK 15 billion. Due to the overall uncertainty on the macroeconomic development and consumer behavior, we have based our net revenue expectations on a flat volume development and a positive price mix leading to low to mid-single-digit organic revenue growth as M&A contributions from Vrumona and San Giorgio is expected to be around DKK 1.5 billion. We do see deflation in some input price categories, whereas inflation in other categories is increasing in 2024. We continue to expect that the total cost per hectoliter will not organically decrease significantly in 2024. Vrumona is expected to contribute inorganically to EBIT by around DKK 80 million for the first 3 quarters of '24, and the fourth quarter we already had in the base for -- in '23. So that is not inorganic, whereas the EBIT impact from San Giorgio will be nonmaterial. Other financial assumptions include net financial expenses, including currency-related losses or gains of around DKK 350 million, an effective tax rate of around 21% and CapEx in the range of DKK 850 million to DKK 1 billion. The acquisitions of Vrumona and San Giorgio means that our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio has increased to 2.9, which exceeds our target of 2.5. Therefore, it is proposed to the AGM not to pay ordinary dividend, but to provide a mandate to the Board to pay out a dividend of up to DKK 14.5 per share later in the year when financial leverage is lower. This approach enables us to uphold our dividend policy of distributing 40% to 60% of net profit for the year, while simultaneously reducing our net debt and interest payments more rapidly than if we proceed with the payout in April. The same mechanism was used during COVID to prevent payout while we were building working capital. Before we take your questions, I will let Lars wrap up the prepared remarks with our agenda for '24.

Thank you, Lars, and I'll do that relatively short. Please go to Slide #15. We have a busy agenda for '24. First and foremost, we'll continue to prioritize the ongoing integration in Norway, the Netherlands and Italy, as it should hopefully be clear after today's presentation that it is crucial for achieving the expected synergies. With an expected production setup, new production lines have strengthened backbone and significantly growth in recent years, efficiency improvements across all businesses are high on the agenda. In the coming year, we will continue to expand production capacity, which naturally means that it's a significant and important task ahead of us in terms of implementing the new capacity and optimizing the overall production footprint. With the overall macroeconomic uncertainty, we must continue to be vigilant and monitor potential changes in consumer behaviors so that we are ready to react quickly to whatever happens. We will also continue to invest in the future top line growth, not only in new capacity as already mentioned, but also in innovations and people as the right products and talent and people will be important for our future earnings growth. And with that, we are ready to take your questions. So back to the operator.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Thomas Lind Petersen from Nordea.

Two questions here. The first one is regarding your guidance, where you're saying here that you expect a flattish volume development for 2024. So I'm just wondering here because it sounds a little bit conservative maybe to me, given the easy comparables you have over the summer. Your investments in growth from these new platforms and then real income growth from consumers that I think we expect at least in some time in 2024. So can you maybe please elaborate a little bit on that? And then my second question would be regarding your costs because you're saying here that total costs per hectoliter at least in your report, they will not organically decline significantly in 2024. But then maybe last, I heard you say that you don't expect them to organically decrease at all. Can you maybe please elaborate on that also?

Thank you. On the flattish volume, it is a combination, meaning that what we would expect the market to slightly decline what we have seen over the last 3, 4 months, and that includes the market share data that we have so far for January and February, and that is that the market is down generally by a couple of percent. And within that, we expect that we will gain share because that we have a good growth momentum. You can see that going out of Q4, and that has also continued into January and February. Yes, the summer might be better than it is -- than it was last year. But of course, that is something that moves in the -- within the span of around 0 growth. If it's a good summer, yes, it is likely that our volume will be higher. If it's as bad as it was last year, then we are probably closer to being on a 0 volume growth. But I would say that's thematic in terms of the guidance that we give. And then Lars, if you can comment on the costs.

Yes. So on the cost picture, there is, of course, many different lines that impact this number. So if you take the commodity piece, you can see that a number of categories are declining. On the other hand, you have areas like sugar and other places where costs have come up. There is, of course, some categories where you can see the impact on cost levels are lagging a little bit, and that's, in particular, on the salary levels where the salary costs in our business is coming up more rapidly than what it has done in the past, but also our suppliers have increasing salary cost levels. You also have interest costs that are coming up. And of course, it all is part of the cost per hectoliter where we can see that, of course, there are some commodity categories that are declining, but there are other lines that are pulling up in a different direction. So overall, we do not see a significant decline, which of course, have been a theme that some analysts have been suggesting that we should see dramatic drops in cost per liter, but that is not when you look at the total P&L, the case.

Okay. So just to confirm here, not a significant decline, but a decline?

That is -- yes, there is a small fall in cost per hectoliter on the reliable part, yes.

We will now take the next question from the line of Søren Samsøe from SEB.

So first question is regarding your guidance, just to clarify completely, you say 6% to 8%. But if you, let's say, for the sake of argument that you high end of your guidance this year and above 8% next year. Should we understand that you then do, for example, low single digit in the following years, then you comply with your long-term target? Or do you think that you can do 6% to 8% from your base business every year?

Neither. We can do 6% to 8% after '24. So if you look at our guidance for this year, that is an organic growth of between 5% and 15%. That's, as said, your assumption of saying that we do in the top end of that 15%. And we expect that we, in '25 and the years afterwards, will deliver an average of 6% to 8% growth. So that will come on top.

Okay, great. Then regarding the M&A effect, you say DKK 80 million from inorganic effect, i.e., I understand that's the first 3 quarters. But if you take the full year effect from the 2 acquisitions, what would that be?

If you look at the full year effect on the Dutch acquisition, then it is in line with what we have said earlier. So when you put the Q4 plus what we have guided for this year, then we are exactly on the level that we guided last year. So that's DKK 100 million. For San Giorgio, it's a capacity investment and we need to put some additional CapEx into San Giorgio. And before that, we have done that, we will not be able to harvest the synergies of having a platform in Italy. And that's the reason why that we have said that we shouldn't expect anything material for this year. We are trying to work hard to get the equipment in as fast as possible, but delivery time is still elevated, and that's the reason why. So when we get into next year '25, you should start to see synergies from San Giorgio as well, and we will come back to that when we have clearance on when we will get the equipment installed.

Okay, that's clear. And then on your cash flow, you had a very strong cash flow in both Q4 and 2023. Is there any extraordinary effect in the 2023 numbers? Or is this sort of the run rate level also in 2024?

Yes. I think the tricky part that you do not have in the lines that we have guided for is, of course, working capital where we do not see any structural changes that should make a big in or outflow in the coming years. So I think if you plan with around 0 in working capital effect, then you should end up in line with what you've had or a little bit higher than what you had in '23.

Okay. And then the last question goes to your increased CapEx investments. Looking from the outside, you've done quite a lot of M&A where I would assume you've got more capacity. Is this a picture of you having really underinvested in the past? Or why do you see this step up? And in the answer maybe you also can include whether this CapEx is to accommodate growth in your own brands or in partnership brands mainly?

It's a relatively long list of effects. So we still have a lagging effect from going out of COVID, where we were not able to put the CapEx into place as it was planned at that time. Our growth, the underlying growth in our business with our own brands is higher than it was before, yes, back to 2019. The partnership expansions, yes, that is driving some of the CapEx as well, but with a very high return on invested capital. We do also put more money into ESG investments. So that is, of course, also putting an extra layer in, but makes us at the end of the day, less vulnerable on commodities as an example. So now where we have a biogas plant in Finland, we have a lot of solar panels up and running in Denmark, the Baltics, Italy and so on, we are less dependent on the fluctuations in the energy prices because we have a share of it, which is produced by ourselves. So most of these will drive higher predictability on our costs, but it will also drive efficiencies when they are fully up and running. So that should pay itself back, so to speak. So the -- if you look at the math here, you would see when we are guiding the 6% to 8% on a longer-term EBIT, must go up a bit more as we are investing. And that means that the underlying business is actually stronger than what you see in the 6% to 8% because depreciation will go up.

And remember what we said when we bought Vrumona was that there, we had not invested enough or Vrumona had not invested enough in packaging capabilities. So if you look at the offering, they have to the trade, that can be significantly improved in terms of price/mix if they have the right capabilities in terms of packaging formats for the Dutch market. So there is investment going into new lines in Vrumona, which is a very significant contributor to the business case on Vrumona.

We will now take the next question from the line of Peter Sehested from ABG SC.

I have two. The first one pertains to the notion of creating shareholder value, which I believe you view as what the -- what you can achieve in terms of the churn on invested capital. So could you perhaps give us your thoughts about what you can achieve when your recent strategic actions, acquisitions, et cetera, et cetera, with the platforms, they are sort of up and running? I know you can't give the sort of details on margins, et cetera, but at least your view on what are attractive returns for this business in a normal run rate case? That is the first question. I'll take the second after this.

I think when you look at the way that we spend our money, so to speak, and that is also relating to the acquisition strategy, on a ROIC basis for CapEx, standard CapEx ongoingly, we would say, payback of 3 to 4 years is a reasonable payback for whatever is of smaller CapEx. The larger CapEx, capacity expansions, ESG investments and so on and so forth, we need to have a longer horizon. So that would be anything between 6 and 10 years, depending on the type. When you look at the smaller acquisitions, the bolt-ons, we would try to aim for a similar ROIC as we would have on CapEx. When you're looking at the platform acquisitions, then they would start with a -- normally, they would start with a relatively low return on invested capital, which was also the case when we bought the Hartwall business back in 2013, and then we will try as fast as possible to get them into double-digit territory. But that, of course, depends on the amount of synergies that we will be able to extract. And in reality to get into double-digit territory, we are 3, 4 years down the road realistically. So there's a pretty wide span in terms of what to expect from our usage of capital.

Okay. So I guess you cannot sort of disclose, let's say, a hard figure from where you should be in, let's say, 3 to 4 years?

If we thought that, that would be a very important measure, then we would have prioritized to put it into our new long-term financial targets. We feel that it's much, much easier to use the organic growth target as the measure for now.

Then I would just like a sort of short run-through of, let's say, pricing. I know you've commented on this before, just get some fresh view on that. The pricing initiatives across the markets, excluding Denmark as we know what that is, so the most important ones.

Yes. I think the general picture of pricing and there's very different windows for each of the countries. And that is, as we have stated that we have closed the gap between the COGS increases and the price increases. Apart from Norway and Sweden, where we have closed a part of the gap and have an extra round for the next window to close the gap because of the FX devaluation that happened over the last 16, 18 months. So we are now back in the territory where we were before COVID and before the inflation kicked in, and that is that we need to relentlessly to work on trying to optimize our price pack strategies to drive and promotion strategies to drive the top line. And that is back to our growth formula. What does that mean? That means that we would try to work on an enhancement of our portfolio in general of about 1.5% to 2% a year on pricing, and that is also the case for our ambitions for '24.

So I guess that is the number that is baked into your organic EBIT growth guidance?

That's correct.

We will now take the next question comes from the line of André Thormann from Danske Bank.

Yes. I have two. First of all, in terms of the long-term growth guidance on the 6% to 8%. I wonder if you can help me with some further building blocks. Just some comments on what you expect gross margins will do over this period. And also, how you see profitability develop in your acquisitions, especially of Hansa Borg one and Vrumona. I can read what you state around Solera, and that's a different business case. So any of that would be very helpful. That's the first thing. The second thing is in terms of top line growth, and I realize you don't guide on it on the long term, but you did previously, and I just want to make sure, do you see top line growth be above or below your old long-term guidance of 3% to 5%. That's it.

We haven't -- if I take the last one first, and then Lars can comment on the building blocks. So when we have given a frame for our growth formula in the past, the idea around it hasn't changed. So we would like to grow our volume a bit every year. We have said between 1.5% to 2%. Could that be 2.5%? Yes, maybe it could if we are successful to the same extent as we are right now. When you look at the price pack premiumization, we will also continue, as I just said to Peter, that we will continue to see if we can get a 1.5% to 2%. If we are performing well on the growth categories, then yes, that could be more than 2%. But it is all kind of like within the frame of what we have done previously. I think where we see a difference in opportunity today compared to some years ago, and that is that we do feel that for now, there's a lot that can be done on efficiencies. So that is weighing a little bit higher when you look at, call it, the near term of our long term in terms of the building block. But our growth formula, that has not changed. But the opportunity in totality, we feel that, that has changed because of the acquired units where we see higher growth opportunities than in the more developed markets.

And if we just jump into what are the building blocks behind the 6% to 8%. If you look at what we really believe is the fundamental driver for value creation and how we grow the business, it is to implement the multi-beverage business and approach the market with a broad portfolio for customers. So if you take our older markets where we have strong own brands and strong partner brands, here, we could probably give you a guidance that we would manage gross margin in a certain way. But I would say, when we look at the catalog of opportunities we have to expand our business in the coming years, first of all, we do not have a time line for when they will materialize. But we feel that the list is quite long. In terms of partnerships, Lars have thoughts on that, that we have a very strong platform in the Nordics to be like the strongest platform if you want to enter the Nordics and approach customers where you have a strong portfolio. So if it's partner brands, some partner brands would be traded, which would mean that the gross margin would be relatively low. On the other hand, it is a low risk, low capital employed. And therefore, it will come with a different margin composition than if we took, let's say, a licensed brand where we would invest in CapEx, but where we produce it ourselves, that the capital employed would be slightly higher, but the EBIT margin would also be significantly higher. So in terms of the partnership, they come with very different dynamics depending on whether it's something we produce or it's something we sell on behalf of partners. Then, of course, we have the organic growth drivers across our business. And these will, of course, come with accretive numbers in terms of gross margin development. And we feel that there's -- with the new acquisitions we have, with the existing platform we have, the opportunity to do organic growth in the coming years is quite strong. And then the other elements that will help us in driving forward our business is the efficiency agenda, where if you look at what we can do at this point in time, the footprint we have in terms of capacity is not ideal. So if you look at some of our sites, Denmark as an example, here we are -- we have way too high utilization of the lines. So we are moving products to the Netherlands that they will produce for us. Finland is producing for Denmark and so on. So we have inefficiencies in our current network where we're spending too much money on logistics, and there are customers who do not get the products we have. So there is an upside in terms of getting the capacity right for the footprint we have. And then, of course, we have a number of efficiency initiatives that will help us in the coming years. So it's a host of different things. And the way you should think about how we run the business, it is really to make certain that we grow the bottom line every year. And there is a long catalog of opportunities that will drive this. But we don't drive the business through revenue. It is all about how much bottom line can we generate, and how do we make certain that we use our CapEx or our capital in a constructive way? So unfortunately, I cannot give you a guidance on gross profit or other of these lines.

So just to be sure, you don't -- you won't give any estimate of how gross margins will develop in the next 3 to 5 years, whether they should be restored where they have been diluted or not?

I think as I said, that's not how we run the business. For us, it's more about making certain that we drive a higher profitability. And sometimes it comes with low-margin products that have low capital employed and sometimes it comes with high-margin products that really improve our gross profit. So I think we want to stick to guiding the market on how we actually run the business. And I think if you look at the organic profit growth we have, I think that is a very respectable number in a flattish European setting where we have the majority of our business. And I think one of the strengths of Royal Unibrew is that we are able to chase opportunities in many different areas where if we started to restrict ourselves to only own brands or only partner brands or only something we produce, only something where somebody else produce it, it would restrict our ability to capture the opportunities in the market. And I think that's what has done, Royal Unibrew, a lot of -- given Royal Unibrew a lot of benefits over the last 10 years, that is really to capitalize on the opportunities when they present themselves and follow the consumers with the opportunities that we see.

We will now take the next question from the line of Richard Withagen from Kepler Cheuvreux.

I have two questions as well. I want to dig a bit further into what you Lars, Lars Vestergaard was just talking about, the production setup on the efficiencies in the next couple of years. Obviously, you added capacity in Italy, Canada and the Netherlands. So where are you now in trying to capture those efficiencies? And can you maybe give a bit more detail about the potential benefits? Is that more '25? Is it more '26, 2025, 2026? So a bit more detail about that, that would be helpful. And then the second question is also on the long-term EBIT growth rate. So 6% to 8% at group level. If I think about Denmark or Finland where you already have these multi-beverage platforms, what is probably a more reasonable rate for these kind of markets?

So if we start with the production setup in Canada, we're likely to see majority of the benefit in '24. Italy, it is really the start-up of utilizing the Italian assets. So that will not contribute a lot to start the efficiency in '24 as we need to do some CapEx projects to really make certain that they have the capabilities to do the products we need. And then some of the projects are coming online towards the end of the year. So the majority of the upsides from CapEx investments are coming after '24.

Further on that, Richard? Okay. On the question on the group growth on EBIT level and the more developed markets, so where do they lie on this? They lie lower than the 6% rate. And I would say that the thinking around those markets are not different from what it was 4, 5 years ago. So this is the, call it, the old growth formula, which would end up with a 4% to 6% EBIT growth in its totality. So where we see the extra layer that brings it to 6% to 8%, that comes from the new opportunities based on the platform that we have created.

We will now take the next question from the line of Andrei Andon from Jefferies.

I was wondering on dividends, how do you think about them longer term beyond the possible distribution following the high season?

I think we -- our view on dividend is that we would really like to have a steady increase in dividend over time. And that is why we prioritize to make certain that we paid or the Board was given an opportunity to pay out a dividend in '24 once we have the cash flow in. And then in the years to come, I think we will try to -- our ambition is that we have an increasing dividend over time where we continue to pay out the 40% to 60%. And then we will adjust the capital with further share buybacks if we go -- once our balance sheet is restored.

And just to follow up on that, if I may. On the share buyback, do you have a point, a specific point at this moment that you might start considering that? Or it's too early to tell?

I think the first step is definitely to go back in our own target range, which is to go below 2.5x net debt to EBITDA. And then we will evaluate after that where we are in terms of share buybacks. So I think I can, with high certainty say, it's not going to be in '24. And then we will reassess once we are -- we have repaid and restored our balance sheet.

We will now take the next question from the line of Søren Samsøe from SEB.

Just got a follow-up question. Regarding your organic top line growth, you don't guide on that for the long term. But I recall you had a Capital Markets Day, I think it was '21 or something or '22, where you talked about 3% to 5% long-term organic revenue growth. Do you feel that you are in a weaker position or a stronger position for doing organic top line growth than at that time?

I think from an underlying perspective, we feel that we are in a stronger position. When you look at the market, the market is slightly weaker than it was at that time because of the increased pricing and the consumer spending power has declined for, I would say, the low end of the income group. So I think if you take those 2 together, they are more or less around the same thinking as when we did the Capital Markets Day 3 years ago.

Okay. That's fair. But the market is the market and your guidance, the long-term guidance or you can say, if you look at the long term, at least, then structurally, you feel that you are then, the way I read you at least, you're in a strong composition than you were in 2021.

That's a yes.

We will now take the next question from the line of Peter Sehested from ABG SC.

I have one, and it might not even be a question, but just a collection of quick thoughts. I hope you could get me straight on that. But looking a few years into the future, you're getting Europe closer in shape, but then you also have international business. You have 2 small islands far from home, 1 in Africa and another 1 now in Canada. And focusing on Canada and sort of M&A and what you want to do when you let balance sheet is down, how should we think about investments in particularly the -- in Canada? And also, we're looking at that ahead, you might also see natural that you would add some bolt-ons in Europe as well. So I sort of find it difficult to see any opportunity for share buybacks, even the period '25 to whatever it may be, as you will need to further bolster some -- these 2 growth platforms that you might have done more mature, but you need to be even higher in terms of growth potential. So just your thoughts on my thoughts, and I might get a bit wiser.

If you start with the Canadian piece, so first of all, we had a big export of Faxe beer to Canada, which have done well. And our view was we need to buy a -- we would like to get the production to Canada. I think what we're seeing with our Canadian business right now is that it is a very, very nice asset that we bought. Amsterdam's portfolio is really doing well in a very difficult market. The organization is good so that we have a lot of good colleagues in Canada. So if you look at the business we have today, it is very strong in the Toronto area, and it's growing nicely. That doesn't mean that we have an ambition to conquer all of Canada. So I think with the footprint we have today, we don't need to do a lot more in Canada because actually, it's growing quite nicely organically.

Yes. So on the long-term here and share buybacks and capital allocation, let's see what happens. For now, we are very focused around the organic growth opportunities that we have, harvesting the synergies on the acquisitions that we have made. If you look at it in the past, we have actually been able to do both acquisitions, share buybacks, dividend payments during the same years, if we can get to a scenario around that. But we are -- as Lars said, we are in '25 or later. Then, of course, that's a fantastic scenario and that highly depends on our ability to deliver organic growth so that the business expands year-on-year. And that is what you read into our guidance. That is where we want to go.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand back over to the speakers for closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you very much for participating. It was a bit longer than normal, but I think it was a good discussion. So thanks for your question. You know where you are if you need us, and then enjoy your day and thanks for participating.