Good day, and welcome to ForFarmers Annual Results 2023 conference call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I'll now turn the call over to Pieter Wolleswinkel, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, and a welcome from Lochem. I'm sitting here with Hans Kerkhoven, our CFO, and Rob Kiers, our COO, to present our 2023 results. This slide will be known by you, so let's move to our agenda for today. I will be starting out, mentioning our key events in 2023, then we'll move to Hans, who will present our financial results. I'll close the presentation looking at our 2024 agenda, and there should be sufficient time for questions left. We announced end of 2022 our revision of the strategy. Therefore, 2023 was fully focused on the execution. We've changed the organization from a central orientation to a setup with a strong local responsibility. With this step, we can be even closer to our customers, but also lower our cost base. This has led to a smaller employee base with a reduction of 130 full-time equivalent.
It was a major change in the organization in which we've asked a lot from our employees, yet we're very pleased on how we can work now and strengthen our market position. We have defined in which markets we have the opportunity to grow, but also where to say goodbye. We sold our Belgian compound feed business in October as the market perspective did not show sufficient attractiveness. Also, we could announce the acquisition of Piast in Poland, a market where we recognize opportunities to grow in a growing market. Looking at our results, we're positive on the second half of 2023 after a difficult first six months. We could recover our market position and did achieve a clear improvement of our underlying profitability. Before I summarize our results, it is important to mention that we see all through Europe discussions on the future of agriculture.
We've taken the opportunity to sharpen our mission for the future of farming based on roundtable discussions with approximately 200 employees and farmers. The outcome is a fundamental belief that livestock farming plays a crucial role to ensure sustainable and affordable food, more relevant than in the last 40-50 years, in my opinion. ForFarmers plays an essential role to support farmers combining the sustainability journey with good economic returns. I'll explain further later on in this presentation. Our volumes landed at 8.4 million tons of total feed. We expressed during the year, the half-year presentation that volumes are higher on our agenda. To me, this means we're strengthening our position.
Also, gross profit improved in the second half, and our underlying net profit results came at EUR 22.7 million. Our dividend proposal for the shareholders' meeting will be EUR 0.15 per share based on 60% of the underlying net profit. The reported result came at a loss of EUR 1 million, and Hans will explain later this in detail. So let me summarize 2023. We're pleased with the strategic progression and satisfied on the improvement of the results in the second half of 2023. If we then take a closer look at our clusters, we'll start in the Netherlands and Belgium. Obviously, the divestment of our Belgian compound feed business has affected our volumes strongly. It is good to recognize that we could strengthen our position in the swine sector in the Netherlands in the second half. Our dairy and poultry volumes were somewhat lower due to market circumstances.
The good roughage quality, grass, and maize silage enabled, at the farmers' level, to work with less compound feed and still have good technical results at our dairy customers. The broiler volumes came down with the start of the Better Life Welfare Program, as communicated before. The gross profit and the underlying results improved in the second half with a better procurement and sales alignment coming from our more local approach. An important strategic principle are cooperations in the agri-food chain. We recognize good steps forward in the Netherlands. As example, we could start as one of the three feed suppliers in a beef concept with Vion, the meat processor. A final comment, it will be clear to all that farmers are under strong pressure due to the uncertainty on laws and regulations. The Dutch government started a farmer buyout program.
At this point of time, the long-term impact on our company is not clear yet. We do recognize that we can help farmers with our know-how on their strategic decisions, especially coming from our consultancy company, Farm Consult. I would like to share an example of how we are convinced that animal nutrition plays a vital role in improving the carbon footprint of food. We use in our feeds more and more co-products, leftover products from the food industry, products that cannot be used for human consumption. This year, we improved the usage from 67%-69%, and we have the ambition to increase this level year by year. Many of these products are shipped directly by us from the processor to the farmer. These activities are now bundled within the ForFarmers Group under the brand CirQlar to emphasize on the opportunities in this field to our stakeholders.
Also, in our compound feed factories, we have the ambition to increase the levels of co-products. We've therefore expanded the number of tanks in our factory in Lochem to apply more liquid products. If we move eastward to Germany and Poland, we recognize a strong performance in 2023. In both countries, we could strengthen our poultry position, which nearly compensated the decline of the pig volumes due to a shrinking market. Especially in these markets, we recognize the strength of a strong local approach leading to a significant improvement of our profitability. The organizations are well in shape to either increase volumes or deal with lower volumes at particular points in time. This flexibility is crucial in the coming years. Let's zoom in on one of the success factors in Germany.
We invested in the factories to be able to apply a co-product, PAP, derived from the meat industry. It is a high-quality protein source that supports the replacement of, for example, soybean meal. This is how business and sustainability comes together. It lowers the carbon footprint, and it lowers the feed cost, increasing our competitiveness. This has clearly supported our market position in the poultry industry. Then looking at the UK. It's been a year with two phases. First of all, we're pleased with the development of our ruminant business. Looking at competition, we outperformed them both on volume development as on profit. Our market approach is paying off. Looking at the pig and poultry business, it's a different picture. The market is moving strongly towards an integrated model, leaving limited space for independent feed millers like ForFarmers.
The ceasing of the merger with the feed company of Poultry Integrator 2 Sisters has been a strong setback and even led to higher costs last year. We've used 2022-2023 to define our Plan B. It means a reorganization to structurally lower our cost base. This plan includes the divestment of two plants. Our customers will be served from our other feed mills. Also, less management roles will be available towards the future. In total, approximately 80 roles will become redundant. It is a big but necessary step to get the profitability to our aspired level. As indicated, we're pleased looking at our dairy business results. We're successfully serving both farmers looking for low feed costs to get good economic returns, but also farmers aiming for high technical results to achieve solid returns.
Especially in a more complex environment, like farmers starting up with milk robots, we can make a difference. It's very satisfying to see our market share growth at different market segments. With that, I would like to hand over to Hans.
Thank you, Pieter, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our results call today. I will go through the financial results of 2023, the comparison with the 2022 results, and later in the presentation, also comparison between the second and the first half of the year. On this slide, we see the development of the underlying results as we have always shown them in the past. The autonomous change is also presented in order to make the results as comparable as possible. In doing so, we have corrected for the effects of the sale of our compound feed business in Belgium as of 1st October 2023, as well as for foreign exchange effects. The autonomous volume has dropped by 5.1%, and we see that the percentage decrease of compound feed is approximately equal to the volume development of the other feed flows.
If we look at the species, we see that more than 50% of the total volume decline is related to the pig sector as a result of a decrease in the number of animals and strong price competition, especially in the first half of the year. We have also seen a decrease in poultry due to Avian influenza in the first half of the year, but we have seen an increase in the volume in ruminants. The turnover reduced a bit more than the volume as prices decreased during the year in line with the development of raw material prices. Gross profit developed positively. Gross margin, as percentage of revenue, increased from 15% in 2022 to 16% in 2023, and it reflects the more effective buying and selling as a result of operating closer to the markets.
Underlying operating expenses decreased by 0.9%, which is a reflection of lower production volumes, increased salary costs due to wage indexation, combined with a decrease in the number of employees in the organization. The number of employees fell by just under 200, of which about a third was due to the sale of the Belgian activities, and the remainder was caused by reductions in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands. The effect of the reduction of the number of employees has only partially been realized in the 2023 results as most of the reductions were back-loaded later in the year. Underlying EBITDA decreased by EUR 6.1 million, mainly driven by a decline in volumes, partly offset by better gross margins, and by a decrease in underlying operating expenses. Depreciation and amortization was in line with 2022, and the amount is roughly equal to our investments.
Underlying EBITDA, as a percentage of gross profit, decreased to 14.7%, caused by a decrease in volume and the fact that our cost base is only partially flexible. We see this mainly in the Dutch and UK clusters. On the next page, you see an overview of a graphical comparison of the development of EBITDA in 2022 versus 2023. Pieter has already spoken through the key developments of the country clusters. There was a decrease in the Netherlands, Belgium, and in the United Kingdom, but a nice improvement in the result in the cluster Germany and Poland, whereby the businesses in both countries showed an improvement in EBITDA. On the next page, as reported after the first half-year results, the performance in the second half of the year was expected to improve.
Indeed, the underlying EBITDA in the second half improved substantially over the first half by more than 60% and has been broad-based across all clusters. In the first half of the year, the gross margin was under pressure, mainly as a result of the decrease in raw material costs, especially in fertilizer. We think that the results in the second half of the year is a somewhat better representation of the current performance than those in the first half of the year. We also want to clarify that these results in the second half cannot simply be extrapolated to 2024 and that market conditions may negatively affect the results. In this overview, you can see the developments between the first half and the second half of the year.
The gross profit of EUR 242.5 million in the second half of 2023 increased indeed compared to the first half of 2023, but also increased compared to the second half of 2022. The local and elite strategy contributed to this as well as a better margin management. We also see an improvement of EUR 7.5 million in the underlying operating expenses in the second half of the year compared to the first half of the year. This improvement relates to the already mentioned reduction of number of employees as well as cost savings, partly offset by wage indexation on salaries. The underlying EBITDA in the second half of the year amounted to EUR 43.5 million. On slide 13, we have already explained the underlying EBIT development. On this slide, we explain the developments below EBIT.
Underlying net finance costs increased mainly as a result of higher market interest rates during 2023, and finance costs were also affected by the higher debt position, particularly in the first half of the year. The share of profit of equity-accounted investments increased to EUR 5.2 million, which was mainly due to a better result of HaBeMa in Germany. This relates to our share of the net profit after tax in this company. The underlying income tax is lower than last year due to a lower profit overall, but also as a result of a lower effective tax rate. Tax rate decreased due to a lower tax on the related R&D activities in Poland. Underlying gross profit sorry, underlying profit amounted to EUR 22.7 million or EUR 0.25 a share. An amount of EUR 23.7 million has materialized for incidental costs and benefits, which I will explain further on the next page.
The net result attributable to shareholders, therefore, comes in at a loss of EUR 1 million. However, I'd like to mention that if we would just look at the second half of 2023, this net result attributable to shareholders was EUR 13.4 million in the second half of the year, and that was an increase of 94% over the comparable period in 2022. The profit for minority interests has risen to EUR 2.9 million in 2023, and this is the part of our profit that's attributable to other shareholders. At the bottom of the table, you see the return on average capital employed calculation. It ended at 7.1%, slightly below 2022. There is, however, a strong improvement in the second half, which gives us confidence that the 10% return on capital average capital employed target should be achievable by the end of 2025.
On this slide, we give an overview of the alternative performance measures, basically the adjustments between the reported profit and the underlying profit. I would like to go through these items one by one. The restructuring cost mainly relates to the reorganization, involving a shift of responsibilities to the operating companies, as Pieter explained. It also includes costs related to the closure of our location in Oosterhout in the Netherlands. Business combinations and investments are costs mainly related to acquisitions, such as the cost incurred for our acquisition of Piast. We also reported an incidental income from the sale of our Belgian company. Other income and expenses relate to the net result of claims of provisions and net gain of EUR 0.2 million in 2023. The next items on the page have been realized at EBIT level and are all non-cash in nature.
An amount of EUR 13.8 million has been recorded for impairment charges. This includes an amount of EUR 4.7 million relating to the impairment in Belgium, which has already been communicated during our first half-year call. It also includes a EUR 9.1 million impairment charge in the UK on fixed assets. As you remember, ForFarmers announced at the beginning of 2023 that the proposed merger with 2Agriculture would not happen. The recent calculations of the net present value in the UK have led to a write-down of the value of our fixed assets in the UK. Amortization of intangible assets of EUR 7 million relates to amortization of intangible assets acquired in the past on acquisitions in the Netherlands, the UK, and Poland.
At the level of net financing result, you see an amount of EUR 2.4 million cost, again non-cash, which relates to the annual interest and revaluation of the put option obligation related to Tasomix in Poland. In the first half of 2023, we already reported the one-off cost of EUR 5.2 million for this put option, and we have now recorded the positive result of this put option in the second half of the year. This has been based on a later expected exercise date of this put option. At the level of taxes, we have realized the tax reduction in Poland, which relates to the deductibility of R&D cost. The tax impact for 2023 is included in the underlying results. The impact that you see here on the page relates to the years before 2023, basically 2018 to 2023, and is included here indeed as an income related to previous years.
The gain of EUR 5 million concerns the positive tax effect on the aforementioned items. The amount of EUR 23.7 million cost is considerably higher than in 2022. However, I think we have made the right strategic decisions to improve the health of the company, and that is what we need to do considering the developments in the market and in the company. The value of total assets decreased as a result of the reduction in working capital, mainly due to lower raw material costs and the sale of Belgian compound feed activities. Shareholders' equity decreased by EUR 23.8 million, mainly as a result of the dividend payments of EUR 21 million, including EUR 3 million dividend payments to minority shareholders, as well as share buybacks and other comprehensive income recognized directly in equity. Our solvency ratio improved to 38.1%, mainly due to the decrease in total assets.
Net working capital showed a nice improvement due to the decrease in raw material prices, but also due to reduction in overdue receivables. This and the proceeds on the Belgian operations led to a decrease in net debt to EUR 21.4 million. The net debt EBITDA ratio, according to the definitions agreed in our financing governance, has therefore ended at 0.35. Net cash flow from operating activities increased to EUR 86.5 million, mainly due to the lower net working capital. The net cash flow from investing activities related to investments in fixed assets and intangible assets is a value of EUR 34.4 million, and it relates to the cash that we received for the sale of the Belgian business of about EUR 25 million. Cash flow related to financing activities mainly concerns dividends paid and lease payments.
On this page, you can also see the net debt, but now explained from the perspective of the net cash flows. I would now like to hand back to Pieter. Thank you.
Thank you, Hans. We have determined our management agenda 2024 to support our customers and strengthen our market position. We'll continue to work on our sustainability agenda. We're making progress on three themes that are in the heart of our operations. We're reducing the carbon footprint. We're increasing the inclusion of co-products, as explained today, and we're protecting the biodiversity by making choices in the raw materials we use and in advising our farmers. We've clearly defined our ambition to win market share. Part of this success will be our focus on cost control. Given the hyperinflation, which we've taken a big step in 2023 with continuous attention, is required. Much emphasis will be on the Plan B execution in the U.K. and the integration of Piast in Poland.
We announced recently that we've acquired Thunderbrook, a horse business, to strengthen Pavo, our horse business and supplement company, and also their integration is high on the agenda. As a final comment, we will accelerate our chain cooperations to enhance the sustainability progress and improve the efficiency of the agri-food chain. It will be an intensive year again for sure that will require much effort from our employees. Yet, I'm convinced we can achieve progress like in 2023. With that, I would like to open the floor for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and wish to withdraw your question, please press star two. Please ensure your lines are unmuted locally as you'll be advised when to ask your question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, please press star one on your telephone keypad to ask for a question. We will take our first question from Henk Slotboom, The IDEA!. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. It's on the UK. You already said you're in the midst of a reorganization there. If I understood it correctly, around 80 FTEs will be slashed will be reduced in 2024. 2 factories that will close. Will that be enough to pull the 2024 figures back into the black at an underlying EBIT basis? Or otherwise, if you don't want to say something about that, what are the kinds of cost savings I should expect for the UK in 2024, and will it once again lead to further restructuring charges? That was my question. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. Maybe on this one, Hans can pick this one up also with the guidance we give on this market.
Yeah, Henk, thank you for the question. Let me start to say that we target all of our companies, all of our clusters to achieve the 10% return on average capital employed by the end of 2025, and that is for everybody the same, for the total company and for the clusters. We think we have now taken the right actions. You've seen already that in the 2023 results, we saw a reduction of the number of employees in the UK, and now we have taken this next step. So there's a clear profit improvement program now in place in the UK by which we think we can achieve in 2025 that overall target of the 10% return on average capital employed. Thank you.
Okay, but you can't say anything about 2024?
No, we don't give specific guidance, neither for the total nor for the individual companies. But the key thing for us is that whatever is happening in the market or in the companies, we need to take the right actions to get to that 10% target, and that's what we do.
Yeah. How about the one-offs? Have you already made a provision for what you're going to do here in 2024, or is that something that will still follow in this year?
That will still follow in this year because we only announced it today also in the UK.
Okay. Thank you.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, please press star one on your telephone keypad to ask for a question. We'll take our next question from Fernand de Boer, Degroof Petercam. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Fernand de Boer from Degroof Petercam. Couple of questions on my side. One, did I read it correctly that there was a release of a bad debtor provision? That's the first question. The second one, the overhead expenses were up substantially in the second half, as you also showed in the bridge chart. What's behind that, and how should we look at that going forward? Maybe you can give some indication there, or do you move some cost from, let's say, the clusters to the overhead? And then the last question I had, if I look quick and dirty, it looks like the gross profit per ton in Germany, Poland was down if you compare the second half to the first half. And could you maybe elaborate a little bit on what's behind that, or do I make the wrong calculation?
Yeah, thank you, Fernand. Maybe start on the bad debt. Compared to 2022, indeed, we released an amount of EUR 3.7 million as improvement in bad debts, and that was basically primarily in the reduction of overdue, yeah, payments where we thought we would not collect them. So EUR 3.7 million is the first answer.
Sorry to interrupt. That is included in the underlying result. So without this release, you should have a EUR 3.7 million lower underlying result. And then the second question on that, is that done in the second half or I thought part in the first half already?
It was the second half, yeah.
It was supportive to the underlying adjusted EBITDA?
Yeah.
Oh, I am.
Correct. Let me quickly check what exactly the amount was in this first half, but I'll come back to you on that in a second.
Maybe as an elaboration of that, it mainly came from the big industry. We've seen that the economics at the big farmers were much better than in 2022. So based on that, it was good to see that the farmers were able to pay earlier, and that gave the improvement indeed. Maybe in between, I can already pick up the question on the gross profit, the difference in Germany and Poland between the first half and the second half. At the end of the day, we've indicated before there's always volatility in the market, and at the end of the day, we have to do with competition. So that will give differences that I would not see as significant differences, but within the range that is acceptable given the volatility that we face at this point in time.
Maybe, Hans, you can pick up the question on the overhead allocation that came also back in the bridge that you showed.
Yeah. You see, indeed, that we have, of course, we had the reorganization where we had the shift in responsibilities and the shifting costs, and it also has impacted the way we allocate costs between the entities. So it is not an overall cost increase or decrease, but it's just a change in how we allocate the costs between the entities.
Okay. Maybe to come back on this release provision, that comes back in gross profit or not?
Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
We will take our next question from Patrick Roquas from Patrick Roquas . Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Patrick Roquas from Patrick Roquas . The question is that, yeah, I understand you're not giving guidance for the current fiscal year, but any comment on how you consider market development so far and for the rest of the first half in both the Netherlands and Poland, and especially in relation to, let's say, the comparison base, the relatively easy comparison base, it seems, last year? Thank you.
Shall I maybe do the first part of the?
That is a very good idea, Hans.
Yeah. I think the two things as guidance, what we can say. First of all, we said the results in the second half of 2023 are a better indication of the underlying trend than in the first half. That is one. And secondly, we communicated already that we want to achieve the 10% return on average capital employed by the end of 2025, and we feel we are on track to achieve that. So that is the overall guidance we can give. And maybe, Pieter, you want to explain a bit about the market developments?
Yes. All in all, I think Poland, the outlook remains positive, obviously, for us. We closed Piast early January, so now there's full focus on making sure the integration goes according to plan. And looking at the Netherlands, we recognize that we are in a more stable period. In general, we foresee that over the longer term, there will be some decline. Difficult to indicate how much, but for now, we see that also there, and that's also what we express that we have the ambition to work from a more stable volume perspective, and that is what we're aiming for.
All right. Thank you. Perhaps any update on how you consider your balance sheet and, let's say, the debt cash position?
I think 2023, second half of the year, was extremely good in terms of net working capital. We had big drops indeed in material costs, and we did really well. We don't give guidance going forward, but I think 2023 was really very well, and you're never sure if you can maintain that. In practice, we showed the working capital at the end of EUR 1.9 million. That is really low, and probably in practice, we need a little bit more. So it will not go down. Maybe it goes a bit up. And the other thing, of course, that comes on top is the Piast business that we now add to the results that will also give a bit of change to the total picture. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you very much.
If you would like to come back quickly to the question from Fernand on bad debt, we just checked quickly, but the release of the bad debt was, let's say, split over both parts, although the largest part was in the second half of the year, and it was part of the underlying EBITDA. Then also quick reflection on the question on the decline of gross profit in Germany and Poland. I'm not sure where you got that from, but the gross profit did not decline in the second half of the year in Germany and Poland. I think there was a strong effort in both countries to improve profitability, especially in Germany, even saying goodbye to some customers where we just could not make enough money.
The trend, and also if you look at the total result and the total results in the cluster, the second half year is especially driven by the improvement in gross profit percentage. Total year, we improved gross profit from 15%-16% for the group, but also in Germany and Poland, you see an improvement in the second half of the year in profitability on gross profit. Thank you.
Last reminder, ladies and gentlemen, please press star one on your telephone keypad to ask for a question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow an opportunity to signal for last question. We have no further question, and I would like to turn the call back over to Pieter Wolleswinkel for closing remarks.
Thank you. I would like to thank you all for your attention and the good questions. Thank you once again, and I wish you all a good day.
Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.