Good afternoon. This is the Costco Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Campari Group full year 2022 results conference call and audio webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. For those connected in the audio webcast before 12:30, please refresh the page. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Bob Kunze-Concewitz, CEO of the Campari Group. Please go ahead, sir.
Our full year 2022 call. As you can see, 2022 was quite a challenging and intense year, but brought us quite a bit of success, satisfaction as we continued our successful execution of our long-term growth strategy. Clearly we have four key pillars here. Continued focus on sustainable long-term growth and brand building, which we've been doing consistently. That is demonstrated by a strong organic top-line performance, notwithstanding the quite challenging macro environment, as well as significant logistical and supply chain headwinds. We've been able to take effective pricing across all brand market combinations, particularly in the core aperitif business. We continued our engagement across all channels for our core brand building as well as occasion ownership.
It's also, I think, important to underline the fact that our 3-year cumulative organic sales growth reached 40% with quite an outperformance of our aperitifs and tequila. We have continued sustained double-digit organic sales growth of Aperol in its 19th year after acquisition, but more on that a little bit later on, particularly, I think, with one very important chart, which states that we're only at the very beginning of the runway on this key brand. Our second building block for the year was M&A. We continued to add some very nice additions to our portfolio. We've strengthened our leadership position in aperitifs, the acquisitions both of Picon, a leading bitter aperitif brand in France, as well as Del Professore, a super premium vermouth brand seen in the best bars in the world.
We've enriched our bourbon portfolio and are priming it to become a major leg of growth through the acquisition of the Wilderness Trail Distillery in Kentucky, as well as adding the global distribution rights and investment in Howler Head Kentucky flavored bourbon. Last but not least, we've enhanced our focus on digital and e-commerce via our investment step-up in Tanico, which is a leading Italian e-commerce platform for wines and spirits, and we reach full ownership via a 50/50 JV with Moet Hennessy . Our digital journey and capacity expansion journey also was quite robust. We further developed our digital capabilities across the whole organization by accelerating our digital transformation programs. Our production capacity expansion meant to support the expected brand growth trajectory in core markets, which obviously are driven by consumer demand.
We're upgrading distilling capacity in Mexico for tequila and further investments both for Wild Turkey Bourbon as well as the aperitif production for the coming years. We've enhanced our route to market with particular focus on Asia with an in-market company set up in India, which is progressing very, very nicely. Last but not least, we're also quite proud to report solid progress on our sustainability agenda. We've been recognized as a B rating to the CDP Climate Change questionnaire and have issued our first time disclosure of greenhouse gas Scope 3 emissions. Our core environmental targets were achieved ahead of time. Our GHG emissions from direct operations, Scope 1 and 2, were reduced by 47% versus 2019. I'll remind you that this target was originally set for 2030, so we've achieved it.
Water usage was reduced by 48%, again versus the same time benchmark. Again, we've achieved the 2030 objective. Moving on to the more quantitative financial part of it, net sales came in at EUR 2,697.6 million, quite a robust organic sales growth of 16.4%, or actually almost 40% versus 2019. We have very good and robust brand momentum, boosted also by price increases. Obviously, we've seen normalizing trends in Q4, where we grew in the high single digits, 9.6%, where we also benefited from strong pricing whilst reflecting at the same time the expected supply chain constraints and headwinds. Our adjusted EBIT came in at EUR 569.9 million.
A very strong growth on an organic basis, up 19.1%, up 33.4% versus 2019. Delivering also, and this is quite positive, a 50 basis points margin expansion. Unfortunately, our gross margin dilution came in at 120 basis points negative in the fiscal year, reflecting obviously the expected COGS inflation, which were partially mitigated by pricing and came in at -20 basis points in Q4, thanks to strong pricing which kicked in in the second half of the year. We've maintained sustained investments behind A&P and SG&A and we're able to deliver at the same time margin accretion thanks to strong top-line scale effects. Foreign effects were quite positive. They directed a EUR 50 million boost on the EBIT line, and this was mainly driven by a strong U.S. dollar.
Our parameter was also positive, this is negligible at EUR 1.6 million on the EBIT adjusted basis. Net debt on adjusted EBITDA came in at the end of the year 2.4 times. Clearly, it increased, as one would expect, from 1.6 times at the end of the previous year, due mostly to the net debt level incurred via the acquisitions. Net on net, quite a successful year, and we propose to maintain full year dividend of EUR 0.60 per change, unchanged versus last year. I think what is really important is to really see the quality of the results. We've grown our top line by overall 47% since 2019. 40 of that organic and seven perimeter in Forex.
You really do see the quality when you look at the 3-year cumulative net sales organic growth by both top markets as well as brands. I mean, all our top markets grew in a significant double digits. France, for instance, reaching 133%. You know, if you look at our brands, we see exactly the same results over the three years with quite an over-performance of our aperitifs, in particular, Espolòn, in the very hot tequila category in the U.S., growing by 134%. If we look at this performance on the annual basis, again, we see very strong double-digit growth rates across all of our regions and across all of our priority brands clusters.
Net in that, you know, the Americas remain our largest cluster with 46%, clearly led by the U.S., reaching 28%. Our global priorities at 57%, where, you know, the aperitifs and the brown spirits, where we're able to grow significantly and help make up, I think, for some lack of growth on Skyy Vodka. Moving on onto the performance by our regions. Our largest region, the Americas, grew by 16.6% on an organic basis. The U.S. grew a very robust 14%, and this despite quite a tough comp base. You'll remember that in 2021, we grew our U.S. business by 18.9%. We're continuing to see positive momentum both on the on-premise as well as resilient home consumption.
This positive full year performance was mainly driven by Espolòn, which continues to go from strength to strength, up 35.1%. Hadn't the brand been constrained, it would have grown much faster than that. Same holds true for the Wild Turkey Bourbon, which was up 22.6%. The higher end of our Bourbons, Russell's Reserve, growing even faster at 37.7%. Aperol almost growing by 50%, 49.8%. Campari also accelerating in the second half of the year to finish at 33.1%, thanks to very strong consumer demand. Clearly, all of these brands also benefited from price increases. The shipments of Grand Marnier were slightly down, unfortunately, due to continuing glass supply constraints and a very tough comp base in the previous year, where the brand was up by 44.6%.
If we look at the SKYY portfolio, it declined slightly. We have sustained brand momentum in Q4, where we're up 12.5%, again, thanks to the strong performance of Espolòn, which accelerated to 40.4%. Wild Turkey, double digit, up 11.9%. Russell's up 37.6%, as well as continued strong performance of our Aperitivi as well as Amari. On a three-year basis, our U.S. business grew by 39.3% or a three-year CAG of 11.7%, double digit. Jamaica continues to perform very nicely, up 29.8% with strong double-digit growth. Again, an acceleration in Q4, where we were up 38.5%. Here, the key drivers are Wray & Nephew Overproof as well as the Campari brand. The rest of the region was up 17%.
We have quite a positive performance in Canada, driven by the same usual suspects, and very strong growth across the rest of the region, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, again, driven by Campari Aperol. Here, one difference is that the SKYY portfolio is performing very, very well in helping mitigate softness in the U.S. Moving to our second-largest region, Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa, up 18.2%. Italy, our second-largest country, up 15.4%. Very satisfactory full year performance with, again, the aperitifs delivering very solid results. Aperol, in its 19th year since the acquisition, was up 20.5% in its largest market. Campari was up 26.4%. Non-alcoholic Crodino up 15.7%, and Campari Soda up 6.2%.
Clearly, we have very good strength in the on-premise and have been able to also introduce very successful price increases. That, but not least, the good weather was also a help. We had a slight positive-- negative, sorry, performance in Q4, down 1.5%, mainly due to glass availability, and that particularly on the Cinzano sparkling wine in their peak season. I would also like to underline the fact that in Q4 2021, Italy had grown by 60%, so that's quite a, you know, tough comp pace. Notwithstanding that, Aperol and Campari continued again to perform very well, both from the volume as well as the pricing standpoint.
Our three-year cumulative organic growth in Italy was up 30.1% or a three-year CAG of 9.2%. which is quite good and impressive in such a mature market for our portfolio. France was at 12.1%. very positive underlying trends, thanks to particularly our core Aperol and Riccadonna. The Aperol Spritz occasion continuing to grow double digits. Champagne and Rhum Agricole portfolio also had nice growth. The rest of the region was up a very strong 38.3% as we continue to gain market share across many markets, particularly Spain with our aperitifs, Nigeria and South Africa with our whiskey cognac. Global travel retail was up very strongly 80% as consumers return to travel, particularly via airlines.
Again, the key drivers are our Aperitivi as well as Glen Grant and Beaumont wines. Moving on to North Central and Eastern Europe, our third-largest cluster, up a very strong 14.9% despite the effects of the war on the Ukrainian and the Russian market. Germany, our largest market, up a very, very strong 18.6%, clearly outperforming the market. This strong overall performance is linked to both resilient home consumption as well as strong on-premise, which was at the end, also boosted by pricing. Aperol continuing to go from strength to strength, up 31.9%. The convenience Aperol spritz ready to enjoy up almost 100%, 91.9%. Doing very well on non-alcoholic aperitifs with Crodino at 32.3%.
Campari, and we're quite proud of this, also grew mid-single digit following a very, very strong price repositioning. Our Q4 performance was also quite positive, up 7.2%, again, driven by the aperitifs. Here, clearly, we were also impacted negatively by the glass availability issue on the Cinzano sparkling wine business. In Germany, our three-year cumulative organic growth reached 37.6% or a three-year CAG of 11.2%. UK continued to grow double digit up 13.7%, and this despite a very tough comp base. In 2021, we were up by 39.1%, and here we continue to be propelled forward with Aperol as well as Magnum Tonic. Again, here on Magnum Tonic, we could have done significantly better had we had product availability constraints.
Crodino, Campari, and Wild Turkey Bourbon also performed well and gave us satisfaction. The rest of the region, up double digit as well, 12.4%, and this is largely led by the aperitifs, including Crodino, which is starting to become important on an international basis as well. Last but not least, APAC up 12.4%, Australia 9.6%, making a very strong comeback in Q4, up 31.1%, thanks to the strong shipments recovery in the Wild Turkey RTD business, which is really our largest business by far there, which was up by 35.7%, where we were able to recover from the persistent ocean freight challenges we had during the year.
We've also had very nice growth on the Wild Turkey Bourbon business, up 16.9%, Aperol up 27.8%, and Campari up 52.4%. In Australia, we have a 3-year cumulative organic growth rate of 31.9% or a 3-year CAG of 9.7%. We look at the rest of Asia, developing very, very nicely, up 17.6%, despite clearly the very unimpressive results in China linked to the lockdown. Very strong performance in South Korea, becoming clearly one of our main markets over time and a very premium market as well, up 84.1%, thanks to the high-end Wild Turkey offerings, high-end Glen Grant X-Rated, as well as SKYY. Japan was positive after a strong Q4, driven by Wild Turkey Bourbon, the Glen Grant, and SKYY again.
China, as I said earlier, was negative due to the COVID lockdowns. We've seen continued good momentum elsewhere, including New Zealand. This particularly thanks to the group's enhanced investments across all levers. We're very happy to see our India becoming meaningful for us, delivering very positive performance off a small base, but more and more over time. Really appreciate that. Going into the details of the brands, you know, Aperol, in its nineteenth year, is going from strength to strength, up 28.2% on an organic basis last year to reach 22% of group sales. And this data clearly exclude the ready-to-enjoy, which is another 1.5% of group sales.
Very strong double-digit growth, as I said, in its 19th year after the acquisition, across all of our markets with very healthy brand momentum and the successful execution of our growth model, which was further boosted by price increases. Very nice performance in Italy, up 20.5%, Germany 31.9%, the U.S. almost 50%, France 35.5%, and the U.K. 20.9%. Clearly, beyond these core markets, we have also very strong momentum across the rest. Spain up 84.6%, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Czech Republic, all growing double digits, as well as newer markets such as Brazil up 40%, Argentina 75%, Mexico 64%, Canada 21%, and so on and so forth. The brands on a 3-year cumulative organic net sales basis grew by 69.1% or a 3-year CAG of 19.1%.
Beyond, all these nice statistics, I think the most important part to underline here is the figures summarized in the chart on the bottom right. That clearly demonstrates that we're only at the very beginning of a very long Aperol runway. First of all, you know that we first launched in Italy and developed the growth model in Italy. The second thing is that over the years, we've seen in market after market that roughly two-thirds of the volume of Aperol come from beer. Now, if we look at the per capita consumption of Aperol in Italy at 0.42 liters of Aperol, that's roughly 1 liter of Aperol Spritzes or 8 Aperol Spritzes, so it's really nothing. That only represents 1.27% of the beer per capita consumption.
We clearly have a long, long way to go with, Aperol at 1 liter and beer over 30 liters. In the main market, we see good runway forward. You can draw the contrast versus all the other markets. The second-largest one, Germany, has less than half the per capita consumption of Italy. If we look at our third largest market on a value basis, the U.S. has 1/42, so 2% of Italy's penetration, and so on and so forth. Clearly, this is something which is a major focus for all of our subsidiaries going forward. We're looking at amplifying our brand-building activities, particularly de-seasonalization and continuing to enter other usage occasions, such as meal occasions. This will continue to give us very nice satisfaction in the years ahead.
Campari also is benefiting significantly from this, you know, bitters boom. Campari up 23.8% organically, reaching 11% of sales. More than, you know, 162 years in the market in Italy, growing by 26.4%. The U.S. up 33.1%, Brazil 81.6%, Jamaica 37.6%. Clearly, we're seeing quite resilient off-premise momentum due to at-home mixology, as well as a continued health in the on-premise, combined with the success of the consumer-driven Campari Spritz and other cocktails. Campari has a very nice constellation of the classic cocktails like the Negroni, Boulevardier, Americano, et cetera, providing strong premiumization and halo in the on-premise, and the Campari Spritz, clearly, attracting also from the beer and wine bases and turbo boosting the growth prospects of the brand going forward.
Very positive momentum in Q4, up 7.2%, with Jamaica also double-digit in the U.S. In the U.S. particularly, we have the Negroni Sbagliato craze. If you really want to think about it, the Negroni Sbagliato is a sweeter, Campari Spritz. At the end of the day, the Spritz formula for Campari is gonna become a major growth driver, and we can see that the per capita consumption of Campari is quite low compared to Aperol, where even in Italy, we're only at one-third of Aperol, and it gets even lower on the market cluster. Watch that space. Our third largest cluster, which is Wild Turkey.
Wild Turkey doing very nicely, continuing to take market share and grow and premiumize in the very exciting bourbon category, particularly in the U.S. and in Asia. We're up 21.4% on an organic basis, reaching 8% of group sales. Core bourbon grew by 26.2%, which is fantastic. In the U.S., we were up by 22.6%. South Korea, more than 145%. Australia, 23.7%. Here we have a combination of classic cocktail revival in the on-premise as well as at-home mixology, which also enables us to put into the market some strong pricing. The higher end of our bourbon portfolio growing even faster. Russell's Reserve up 36.4% in the full year. Thanks to the core U.S. and South Korea.
Clearly, again, here, if the volumes weren't constrained, we would be able to sell really a multiple of that number. We're continuing to drive our premiumization. We've been able to significantly reposition the Russell's Reserve 13, which retails now for almost $300. You can find it actually in stores at about $700. There's huge demand for that. We're seeing very nice three-year KPIs on a cumulative basis, up 48.9%, on a cash basis, up 14.2%. Again, this is another key part of our portfolio, which is constrained by current capacity issues, and we'll be tackling these and sharing with you some good news later on. Moving on to Grand Marnier.
Grand Marnier, out of the global priority brands, is the only one that's, say, disappointing, flattish at 1.3%. Here we were impacted by glass supply issues as well as a very tough comp base. In the previous year, we grew by 44.6%, so clearly, we'll be able to accelerate momentum this year. Moving on to our rum portfolio, also growing double digits, 15.5%. Where Appleton Estate was positive, only up 3.2%. Bear in mind, there's a tough comp base of 31% in the previous year, as well as the fact that we had a major price repositioning of Appleton in its largest market, Canada. Jamaica, the U.K., New Zealand and Mexico all performing very nicely.
Gray Goose and Overproof, where we have less capacity constraints as well, grew 23.2% thanks to Jamaica and the U.S. SKYY, Smirnoff, only down 1.8%. Clearly, negative results in the U.S. due to the competitivity of the category. China as the on-premise was shut for most of the year. We were able to mitigate this by very strong growth in the rest of the world, growing by 50.7%. This is, I think, something which will be very positive this year as we'd expect the rest of the world to more than compensate any potential softness in the U.S.. Moving on to our regional priorities. Clearly Espolòn going from strength to strength.
By the way, this is our third largest brand in the whole overall portfolio. Volumes again constrained for capacity reasons, which also impacted international rollouts, but still growing 33.5%, accelerating in Q4. I think as capacity will come on stream in the years to come, this is clearly destined to be one of our key global priority brands. The Italian specialties up double digits, 13.9%. Again, very nice performance internationally, particularly in the U.S. and Austria. Whilst Braulio is continuing to premiumize the Amaro occasion in Italy. Frangelico grew double digits, thanks to the U.S., thanks to the Espresso Martini, and that's spilling over into Spain and Germany as well. Cynar growing double digits, thanks to Italy and its core markets, Argentina, the U.S. and Brazil.
Moving on to our sparkling wines, Finestra and The Other Ones, a positive performance thanks to France. overall, we're up 13.5%. Mexico and Argentina helped as well as offset declines in Germany and Italy, Spain and Australia, where we had the grass constraint issues. It's nice to see that actually the Vermouth is continuing to grow very nicely, particularly premiumizing as we go forward, both via the repositioning of the core, let's say, brand, as well as the high end. Glen Grant continuing to respond very nicely to premiumization, growing 20%. Again, key drivers here, Asia, South Korea and the GTR. Aperol Spritz Ready to Enjoy, up only 35.1%. Clearly here it is us actually constraining it.
We're only allowing it to be launched in markets where we already have a satisfactory penetration of the Aperol Spritz cocktail, and this is only a convenience item. Magnum, which is flattish at 0.5%, could have actually grown really, really well this year. There's a lot of demand for the brand. Unfortunately, it was impacted by significant product availability issues during the year. Our other brands, again, performed quite nicely, particularly Moussin Du Bouchet, Montelobos, Sant'Oreze, Maison La Mauny. Moving on to local priorities. Campari Soda performing very nicely at 6.1%. Our Wild Turkey RTDs finishing the year positively 8%. You'll remember that most of the year, the first three quarters, it was significantly in negative territory due to logistical issues which were hampering production, local bottling in Australia.
Now, X-Rated down 11.8%, and this is mostly due to the lockdowns in China, whilst South Korea continued to grow double digits. Despite availability constraints, SKYY RTD, SKYY Blue, also in Mexico, was impacted and only grew by 3.8%. We could have easily have had double-digit growth on this. To close on our local priorities, Cabo, which is a local premium tequila in the U.S., up a very nice 21%. Moving on to business development initiatives. I'm not gonna go into the details, but just to say that our RARE initiatives are proving very, very interesting. Whilst we kicked it off in the U.S., now they're spreading around the world and are particularly very impactful in Asia.
We're trying very different things and are able to really develop an interesting business with high net worth individuals across markets and push the Opulent range of our key brands. Last but not least, before handing on to Paolo and the financial review, a few words on digital transformation, where we're delivering significant business value through simplicity, innovation, as well as technical leadership across our core functions. In marketing commercial, clearly the focus is on social listening, consumer engagement and influence. We have a very performing digital asset management platform, which also includes multi-access brand websites, consumer relationship management, ICM, CBM systems for consumer relations, customer business management, and bartender relations. Clearly, we're continuing to make a leapfrog in this area. In finance, we're proud to say that we had a very successful move to SAP S/4HANA.
We're one of the few, I think, multinational companies that have done that so far. The integration went quite well, and it's boosting our ability and the speed in business decision making, as well as harmonizing all our financial processes. Our global business services processes were optimized and automized automation via AI technology is really ramping up nicely. We're also leveraging statistical algorithms as well as external data for integrated forecasting. Talking about integrated on the supply chain, digitalization is very positively impacted by integrated business planning as part of our finance transformation and the harmonization and the flexible planning. We're optimizing data collection and KPI monitoring, which is clearly helping efficiency in our plans, and have done a very good job in traceability, overhauling our abilities in this area via both stock visibility, as well as from a quality tracking perspective.
We have enhanced significantly self-service capabilities as well as vendor collaboration. On IT, cyber security and HR, again here we're making very, very good and strong progress. We're a fully global and scalable IT support service model and have development of capabilities to speed up processes and enable remote connection, which is more and more important in the modern workplace. We've been deploying very well endpoint protection across all our devices and as well as the acceptable use policy enforcement. Cyber security is a big area of focus for our team. We have an internal talent acquisition team at both now global and regional levels, and a new HR operating model, which is levering to the hilt digitalization. This is it for the first part, and I'll pass on gladly to Paolo.
Thank you, Bob. If you follow me to page 18, as you can see, the group delivering fiscal year 2022 an EBIT adjusted organic growth in value of 19.1% with 50 basis point margin accretion, which was, you know, ahead of the flat margin guidance that we gave at the beginning of the year. You know, such performance was driven by a gross margin dilution, which has been contained to 120 basis points due to the strong cost inflation, particularly in glass and logistics, which was partly mitigated by the price increases.
Actually, if you look at Q4, the gross margin dilution, accounted to just 20 basis points, driven by positive pricing initiatives, particularly those at the back end of Q3, which almost offset the cost inflation in the fourth quarter of the year. The MP was up in value double-digit, 12.7%, reflecting the sustained investments behind our brands, but deliver an operating leverage of 60 basis points, thanks to a very robust top-line growth of, as you saw before, 16.4% in existing business.
The SG&A were up 10.6% in value, reflecting the continuous investments in the business infrastructure, as well as the expansion of our route to market, and generated 110 basis point margin accretion, again, thanks to the strong organic top line growth. EBIT adjusted on a reported basis, grew in value by 30.9%, including a tiny perimeter effect of 0.4%. Basically, the first time consolidation of Picon was almost offset by the termination of low margin agency brands in Italy.
On the other end, the overall result was positively impacted by the Forex effect, which accounted for 11.5% or EUR 50 million, with an interesting 50 basis point margin accretion, driven by the strengthening of the U.S. dollar versus the euro in last year. On a reported basis, the EBIT adjusted grew by 28.2%, of which 17.3% coming from existing business, 10.6% from Forex and 0.3% from perimeter. If you follow me to the following page where we have the segment analysis, we can focus on the EBIT adjusted organic margin performance. Starting with the largest region, Americas, where Group generates 46.2% of the overall Group EBIT.
The organically, the EBIT grew by 19.7% in value with a margin accretion of 50 basis point coming from a gross margin dilution of 150 basis points, mainly due to unfavorable geographic and product mix, the outperformance of both South America and Poland, which, as we know at this stage is dilutive, as well as the cost inflation, which were only partly offset by pricing. On the other hand, both A&P and SG&A were accretive by 90 and 110 basis points respectively, thanks to the sustained top line growth of the Americas region.
If you move on to EMEA, where the group generates 70.8% of the overall group EBIT in value, the EBIT grew by 43%, showing a quite healthy margin improvement of 230 basis points, coming from a gross margin expansion of 20 basis points, driven by very favorable mix with the outperformance of aperitifs as well as very robust pricing actions, which more than offset the cost inflation in the region. Actually both the A&P as well as the G&A were accretive by 20 and 180 basis points, due to the strong top line growth, which drove operational leverage in the CEE region. Moving on to Northern and Central Eastern Europe, where group generates 33.5% of the overall EBIT.
The EBIT performance was quite strong in value, a +11%, with a margin dilution of 130 basis points, which was, you know, driven by gross margin dilution of 190 basis points impacted by COGS inflation, as well as by unfavorable product and market mix, which were, you know, partly offset by pricing. The A&P was slightly diluted by 10 basis points, reflecting the accelerated investments behind our key brands. The SG&A, on the contrary, were accretive by 8 basis points, driven by significant efficiencies on the back of the stock, you know, the strong top line growth.
In the smallest region, APAC, which accounts for 2.6% of the overall group EBIT, the performance in value was negative by 9.7%, with a margin dilution of 200 basis points, coming from a gross margin dilution of 270 basis points, driven by COGS inflation as well as logistics, which, you know, badly negatively impacted the regional P&L. The A&P spend was accretive by 200 basis points, mainly driven by the A&P phasing in China, due to the COVID restrictions, which really prevented us from spending the A&P budget in China.
You know, the SG&A were dilutive by 130 basis points, reflecting our continued investment in the route to market expansion in the region. If we move on to page 20, we can see that the operating adjustments came in at EUR 58 million and were mainly attributable to transaction fees linked to acquisitions, provision linked to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, you know, restructuring initiatives as well as long-term retention schemes. Net financial expenses and adjustments came in at EUR 30.7 million, with an increase of EUR 18.3 million versus a year ago, coming from non-recurring, two non-recurring factors. The first one, we accounted for EUR 4.6 million of exchange losses. Basically, this is, you know, the impact of Argentina devaluation.
On the other hand, a negative financial adjustment of EUR 4.6 million that are tied to, you know, liability management initiatives that we took last year. Excluding those one-off, the net financial expenses came in at EUR 21.4 million versus EUR 25 million of last year, recording a reduction of EUR 3.6 million versus a year ago. The average cost of net debt came in at 2.2%, showing an improvement of 30 basis points versus last year, thanks to higher interest income generated by the existing excess cash. The loss related to associates and joint venture was EUR 6.6 million and was a non-cash impairment of group assets.
Profit before tax came in at EUR 475 million, up 22.2% in value, and on a profit before tax adjusted, i.e., excluding non-recurring effect of EUR 58.3 million in the operating camp and EUR 4.6 million in the financial camp, came in at EUR 538 million, up 29.5% in value versus a year ago. Moving on to page 21, we can see that the taxation in fiscal year 2022 totaled EUR 143.5 million on a reported basis, with recurring income taxes equal to EUR 151.6 million.
Group net profit adjusted came in at EUR 387.8 million, up 26% in value versus a year ago, with the recurring tax rate at 28.2% in fiscal year 2022, up 190 basis point versus a year ago due to unfavorable country mix. On the other hand, deferred taxes related to the amortization of goodwill and brands for tax purposes, you know, show a step up of EUR 2.1 million versus a year ago, and came in at EUR 17.2 million in 2022, on the back of the, you know, of the effects of the first time consolidation of the Picon acquisition.
Worth noting that in 2023 we will have, you know, a further positive effect due to the first time consolidation of deferred taxes relating to Wilderness Trail Distillery. If we exclude the impact on non-cash component, i.e., the deferred taxes, the recurring cash tax rate came in at 25%, higher than fiscal year 2021, but due to, you know, I said before the, you know, the adverse country mix.
On a pro forma basis, the cash tax rate would have been 23.7% if we include the estimated full year deferred tax and P&L effect of both the Wilderness Trail Distillery acquisition as well as the Picon acquisition. The group net profit reported came in at EUR 333 million, up in value 16.9% versus a year ago. The basic earnings per share on an adjusted basis came in at EUR 0.34 per share, up 26% versus a year ago. If you follow me to page 22, we can see that on a recurring basis, the free cash flow came in at EUR 360.5 million, down EUR 47 million versus a year ago, down 11.5%.
You know, the key, you know, the big movers of that, you know, free cash flow reduction can be seen in an increase in EBITDA adjusted year-on-year of EUR 145 million, from EUR 514.9 million to EUR 660 million. You know, an increase in taxes paid of EUR 46.3 million from 74 to 120, reflecting both the stronger business performance as well as the adverse phasing of tax payments with, you know, the settlement of, you know, prior year increasing taxes in fiscal year 2022. And then we have, you know, an adverse change in working capital of EUR 89 million year-on-year, positive EUR 5 million in 2021 and negative EUR 84 million in 2022.
We have, you know, the, the negative effect of, sorry, the positive effect of, because they are non-cash of the hyperinflation accounting in Argentina for €6.7 million. We have accruals and other changes from operating activities, which had, you know, a positive €16.6 million effect this year. Interest paid, you know, is being contained by €4.3 million and accounted for €11.4 million in fiscal year 2022. Maintenance CapEx came in at €107.5 million, up €25.6 million versus a year ago. You know, as we will comment in a second, we also had extraordinary CapEx of €105.8 million, mainly related to production capacity expansion on the three fronts of Aperitif, Bourbon, and Tequila.
Looking at the free cash flow on EBITDA ratio, on EBITDA adjusted ratio, we have, you know, a ratio of 54.6% in fiscal year 2022. If you move on to page 2023, where we have, you know, the analysis of our CapEx for fiscal year 2022, as well as the guidance for the upcoming three years. In 2022, total CapEx accounted for €213.3 million, with, you know, as seen before, maintenance CapEx of 107.5% at about 4% on net sales. In 2022, which, you know, looking forward, we expect to remain, you know, at the same level in terms of, you know, as a percentage of sales, 4%, you know, going forward.
On top of that, we have, you know, extraordinary CapEx of EUR 105.8 million in 2022. We're guiding how the markets was, you know, a further, you know, extraordinary CapEx investment, that is, between, you know, EUR 550 million and EUR 600 million in years 2023 to 2025. You know, this, you know, estimated overall, you know, extraordinary CapEx investment is clearly aimed at doubling the overall production capacity on our three growth pillars of Aperitif, Bourbon, and Tequila. Actually, as you can see, you know, below, you know, we're extremely confident with the future prospects of these three pillars. You know, retrospectively, Aperitifs on a three-year basis deliver a cumulative organic growth in net sales of 63% or, you know, 17.7% CAGR.
The Bourbons, again, on a three-year cumulative organic growth were up 49% with a CAGR of 14%. Our, you know, rising star, Espolón, in the Tequila space, deliver a cumulative three-year organic growth staggering of 134% with a CAGR of almost 33% year after year. If you look at page 24, you know, a few comments on the operating working capital. As a percentage of sales, operating working capital came in at 28.6% with an interesting improvement of 90 basis points versus a year ago. Organically, the overall increase in value was €129 million, driven by €83.9 million organic increase in operating working capital, €29 million in perimeter, and €16 million from Forex.
If you focus on the organic performance, the EUR 84 million increase in organic working capital was, you know, primarily driven by step up in an inventory, which accounted for EUR 108 million in absolute terms, of which, you know, EUR 60 million aging liquid step up to support the future development of Bourbon, Cognac, and Rums. That was topped up with the step up of other inventory, non-aging liquid inventory, which is driven on one end by the positive business performance, you know, and the blended inventory build-out to support a strong customer demand in a context of a possible supply constraint. You know, we're creating. There is a bit of stock to make our life easier in 2023.
We then had an increase in receivable for EUR 14.4 million and a significant increase in payable of EUR 138.7 million, which was due to different factors. On one end, we have, you know, a higher level of purchase in connection with inventory build-up that I just commented. Of course, there is the inflation effect, you know, has an impact on operating working capital too. Thirdly, we have, you know, CapEx payment phasing. You know, given the step-up on CapEx, we normally have an increase in payables. On a pro forma basis, operating working capital on net sales ratio came in at 28%, adjusted for the pro forma effects of the recent acquisitions.
We move on to page 25, on the group indebtedness, the net financial indebtedness came in at EUR 1,552 million. This is the back end of last year, up EUR 721 million, on the back of, you know, positive, robust, recurring, free cash flow of EUR 360 million, EUR 188.7 million on a reported basis, which, you know, on the other end, was more than offset by acquisitions and asset deals amounting to EUR 732.9 million.
You know, worth, you know, highlighting in the footnote, you know, the two key, you know, components of that EUR 732 million acquisition outlay, which were, you know, the Wilderness Trail, which has been, you know, fully factored in our balance sheet. total EUR 565 million, including the cash outlay of EUR 394, plus the put option on the minority stake, the 30% of EUR 171 million. And the second, you know, component is the acquisition of Picon for EUR 124 million. On top of that, in terms of, you know, cash outlays, net purchase of own shares, EUR 421 million. Of course, you know, the dividend payment at EUR 67.6 million.
Looking at our long-term EUR bonds and term loan, overall, including the term loan completed to finance the Wilderness Trail Distillery acquisition, the size of the long-term exposure is EUR 1.494 billion with an average nominal coupon on such indebtedness of 2.5%. The ratio of net debt to EBITDA adjusted stood at 2.4 times at the back end of last year. On a pro forma basis, including the effect of the recent acquisition would be 2.2 times with clear an increase from 1.6 times as at the back end of last year due to, you know, higher net debt and the acquisition sector we've finalized. I think, you know, I'm done with the numbers. I would happily hand back to you, Bob, to give us some color on the very positive, you know, achievements in the sustainability camp.
Thank you, Paolo. Indeed, we'd like to spend some time really underlining the key highlights of our achievements in 2022. We have three pillars on which we focus: the environment, responsible practices, and people and community. Starting on with the environment, we're very proud to underline the fact that the Carbon Disclosure Project gave us a score of B for climate change. That is very, very good. We've also disclosed our Scope 3 emissions, working this year on the plan to actually reduce these significantly and reach our long-term commitments, obviously with the help of our supplier partners. If you look at specific data, our greenhouse gas emissions were down by 47%. These were reduced, you know, on a CO2 per liter produced, and this is from direct operations.
We'd set these targets. They were ambitious targets for 2030, clearly our teams are working very focused on that as we're moving to, you know, both in Europe and in the U.S., we've moved to renewable energy. Our GHG absolute emissions were also reduced by 20 on an absolute basis, taking into account all the big production increase by 20% versus 2019. Like for like water usage has come down by 48%. Again, here we were able to achieve seven years ahead of time our 2030 targets. Importantly, also waste to landfills is down by 45%, and we're on track to deliver the 2025 target, which is basically 0 waste to landfill.
On responsible practices, we're doing quite a bit in terms of mandatory training on our new revised code on commercial communication. We're expanding digital brand campaigns on responsible drinking, highly targeted, obviously, to younger groups. A specific section on our Campari Group about info is dedicated to provide consumers with nutritional information, ingredients, and messages on responsible drinking. Last but not least, we're working very intensively with the bartenders community via a specific program called Bartender Hero, which is launched in partnership with International Bartenders Association. On people and community, I would like to highlight the fact that we have a significant increase in learning activities, so more than doubling, up 109%. Very satisfactory participation rate to our biannual employee survey.
91% participation, that clearly shows very high engagement by our Campari staff. We're also very proud to have been included by Refinitiv into the top 60 out of, I think, 12,000 international companies. We're in the top 60 companies when it comes to diversity and inclusion. We have a strong commitment to work, education, and culture, we have many projects across different geographies. Last but not least, we're providing strong support to business partners for activations and events. At this stage, last but not least, conclusion and outlook. I think, you know, these extensive full-year results presentation shows what strong organic performance was achieved in a very challenging 2022, thanks to very healthy brand momentum, which enabled us to generate price increases, which helped mitigate the heightened COGS inflation over the year.
Clearly, the overall performance benefited from a strong FX effect, thanks to the U.S. dollar, and we would expect this to be different this year. Looking at 2023, we remain quite confident about the very positive business momentum across our key brands and markets, which will continue to benefit from strong brand equity. Here, clearly, what differentiates us from many of our peers is our highly attractive aperitifs portfolio. We expect to continue leveraging adequate price increase opportunities, and we'll take clearly more price on our aperitifs, as well as continue driving our portfolio premiumization, and this mostly around our brown spirits brands. The overall macro environment for inflation, we think, will remain challenging despite some signs of easing at the beginning of this year.
Nonetheless, though, we remain quite confident to be able to preserve the current operating margin on sales at the organic level throughout this year. However, in the medium term, looking beyond 2023, we aim to accelerate our medium-term CapEx across the supply chain to overall double capacity for aperitifs, bourbon, and tequila. Clearly, this underlines our confidence in our future prospects. We remain confident to continue delivering strong organic top line growth as well as mix improvement, which will lead to margin expansion over time. This is it from us, and I'm sure you've got tons of questions. Happy to take them.
Excuse me, this is the Costco conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. We kindly ask you to use handsets when asking questions. Anyone with a question may press star and one at this time. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question is from Andrea Pistacchi of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Bob. Hi, Paolo. Three questions, please. The first one on Italy. I mean, Q4 was strong across the board, but Italy was a little softer, more slightly negative. You called out the glass supply issue affecting Cinzano and the comps. Will the supply constraint issue continue to impact in 2023? Leaving that aside, how do you see the health of the various channels in Italy, including the day bars? Second question on, still on top line but broader. You've delivered 40% organic sales over three years, as you're saying, well above any consumer staples company in Europe.
Strong momentum of your brands, but how are you feeling as we go into 2023 with a more difficult environment, the comps you face about top line momentum and the very high single digit growth that you delivered in Q4? Do you see this as a normalized or a kind of new normal rate of growth, or was Q4 still affected, would you say, by comp effects or phasing? The last one for Paolo. If you, Paolo, could you say please what you're anticipating for COGS this year, giving maybe a bit of color on what you're expecting on logistics costs and glass sort of as the year progresses? Thank you.
Andrea, now let me kick off with Italy Q4 softer. Clearly it was impacted by the glass impact. Also some of our aperitif brands were on allocation as there was strong demand globally. You also need to understand that we took a second significant price increase in August. There's a little bit of a phasing effect which impacted Q4. Overall, we're seeing, you know, very good trading across all of our channels in Italy. The on-premise remains quite vibrant, and you know that it's, you know, about 60% of our sales in this country. We've had a very good start of the year, and we expect that to continue for the rest of the year.
Clearly, the one incognita will be is the weather gonna be as good as last year, but they're in the hands of somebody more, let's say, important than me. Moving on the 40% organic sales growth in three years now, how do we feel about 2014? We actually feel very, very good about our portfolio and the growth prospects and the momentum behind our brands. Clearly, markets are normalizing, but we expect to outperform with our brands in all of our key markets.
We expect very good momentum to go forward. Will it be, you know, the figure we had in Q4, which as I explained earlier, was impacted, but could it be better? We will do our best. I think the environment is what it is. The most important thing is that, you know, our three key clusters, which is Aperitifs, Bourbon and Tequila, are in very much high demand, and we're continuing to take very nice market share across all those categories and markets.
Yes, with regards to the costs, you know, that for us, you know, as a percentage of sales, they account for about, you know, and also 40%-1%, about, you know, the, you know, the total cost, you know, as a percentage of the total cost, 55%-60% linked to raw packaging materials. Within this, you know, 55%-60% of total costs bucket, you know, a good 17% is represented by the cost of glass. You know, a significant portion of our overall cost. Of course, you know, logistic is the other area which has been, you know, highly impacted, is about 15% of the overall total costs. Of course, you have production costs that account for 25%.
Then, you know, a minute portion of costs is represented by agency. Clearly, you know, the components that are, you know, the most exposed to oil and gas prices are, you know, glass logistics, but also, you know, alcohol and utilities. You know, for this year, you know, clearly we're expecting, you know, inflation to persist, to remain. This is why, you know, we're quite aggressive on pricing at this stage, as we clearly we intend to at least, you know, offsetting value the cost inflation and potentially to do better.
You know, clearly, you know, the guidance that we're giving at this stage, you know, beginning of the year, given the fact that there's some volatility on both fronts, you know, inflation and the, you know, trade negotiation. We're guiding for a flat EBIT margin as we did last year. We would intend to leave you that guidance, you know, halfway through, you know, in July as we disclose, you know, the first half results.
Can I fa-?
Yeah.
Thanks, Paolo. Can I just two quick follow-ups on this. On glass, is it right that your glass contracts have a partial sort of indexation every, I think every three months or something to energy? Also on logistics costs, are you starting to see any easing there, or is that what you'd expect later in the year?
Yes, you know we believe. I think it's more a matter of when than a matter of if, in terms of, you know, cost easing, you know. As you see in our medium to long-term guidance, we're quite confident vis-à-vis, you know, 2024 onwards, in terms of, you know, benefiting from retrenching of inflation, given also, you know, the price increase that we're taking, what is it, took last year, that we will take this year. You know, the phasing is a little bit in 2023, you know, a little bit more uncertain, if you will.
As you correctly mentioned, the contract on glass by, you know, at least 30% of it, they are indexed to, to oil and gas prices. You know, clearly there are, you know, hedging contracts in place which, you know, might be a little bit more slowed down, the reduction of the cost, but nothing, you know, meaningful. I think, you know, perspectively we feel quite confident. We just need to navigate, you know, quarter by quarter through the 2023 year. I think, you know, at this stage, this is what we can say.
Thank you very much.
A little bit more positive on the midterm.
Thank you.
Sure.
The next question is from Simon Hales of Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hi, Bob. Hi, Paolo. Can I just follow up, Paolo, really on that margin debate we were just sort of having? How do I think about the margin evolution overall for 2023 in terms of, you know, sort of H1 versus H2? Obviously, you're guiding to flat margins for the year. It sounds like clearly, given the way some of your hedging's working, given the supply constraints you have, H1's clearly gonna be tougher than H2. At the same time, looking at the Q4 gross margin delivery that you called out, clearly only down 20 basis points. The pricing's really starting to kick in that you took in August into early September now.
I'm just sort of trying to piece together all the moving parts that drives you just to sort of, only guide to flat margins, at this point. Secondly, can I just ask you a little bit more about the CapEx plans, sort of going forward? Obviously, clearly a big step up coming over the next, sort of 2-3 years in expansionary CapEx. How will that phase? Should we broadly assume we're going to move to EUR 150 million-EUR 200 million a year of expansionary CapEx, or is it a bit more back end or front end loaded? What sort of programs specifically, will you be investing in really in 2023?
Yeah. With regards to flat EBIT margin, you know, at the moment, you know, we believe, you know, at full year, you know, full year, you know, the landing for the full year, you know, no major drift in, you know, in the, as a % of sales. Basically, you know, the
The robust, you know, operating leverage that we have achieved in, you know, in 2022 probably, you know, will not, you know, in SG&A will not be, you know, any longer there. Again, you know, given also the investment in infrastructures and automatic expansion that we have, you know, launched, you know, we think that the SG&A will increase in value at, you know, at the mid-single-digit rates. You know, we're not expecting, you know, any meaningful swing, you know, across the different, you know, profit, you know, levels, you know, gross margin comp and EBIT at this stage.
You know, clearly, you know, quarter, you know, the phasing of it, you know, as we saw last year, the area of the portfolio where we are most exposed to inflation is the aperitifs. Due to the fact that, you know, the vast majority of the bit of material of aperitifs is due to, you know, glass and alcohol that has been, you know, bought in current year, as opposed to, you know, the brown spirits that have a skew clearly in Q4, where basically most of the bit of the material is composed of aging liquid that has been laid down, distilled then laid down, you know, three, four, 10, 12 years ago.
So this is why you see in Q4, you know, a bounce back of dilution that is, you know, that the reflect the different, you know, sales mix of Q4 versus the Q2 and Q3. S o for next year, you know, again, we expect probably, you know , that the same pattern will be will be reflected in next year. You know, clearly that also depends on the trajectory of inflation. So that's the area where we're living more, you know, in terms of phasing, living more cautious and prudent. W ith regards to the CapEx, yeah. N o, I think it would be a little bit more front loaded. It would not be, you know, 2023, we will have, probably, you know, EUR 100 million, about EUR 200 million CapEx sitting in 2023.
Got it. That's really helpful. Can I just sort of just follow up and just check one thing on the whole pricing issue? Obviously, you took pricing end of Q3 out of Q4. Have you taken any more pricing as yet as we move into 2023 or announced any price increases to the trade or are we still waiting for those?
Well, currently we're in discussions with the trade. We're in commercial negotiations. The price increases, depending on the market, will be between Q1 and Q2. Of our major markets, most of them will be in Q1. In Q2, we'll have Italy and the U.K. We obviously cannot go into detail as we're having discussions as we speak.
All right, Bob. Thank you.
The next question is from Laurence Whyatt of Barclays. Please go ahead.
Morning, Bob. Morning, Paolo. Thanks very much for the questions. A few from me, please. Firstly, just following on these questions on pricing, it does seem like many of the staples companies and beverages in particular are increasing prices quite materially over the next few months. Are you seeing any impact from the consumer with regard to any elasticity or any volume weakness or any trading down? I'd just be very interested on your thoughts there, particularly for the European consumer. Secondly, it does seem we've seen a lot of success in your Aperitif brands and in the tequila, but SKYY does seem to have taken a bit of a back seat in your portfolio. It used to be one of the largest brands there. Now it's only about 5% of sales. Where do you see the future of your vodka brand?
Is it something that you can return to growth at some stage? Do you see it more as a sort of bastion brand in the portfolio that's almost done its job in yesterday year? Finally, just in terms of the phasing of the quarters as we're thinking about our modeling, do you anticipate any major changes or any extreme events or any strange factors that might impact sort of quarterly volatility, anything to call out this year? How do you see the phasing of the quarters this year? Thank you very much.
Hi, Lawrence. I'll take the first two questions. I mean, have we seen any impact from pricing on our brands? Well, frankly, not really majorly. I mean, you've seen the full year results, and how the brands are trending in 2022. You know, particularly we're very pleased on how the Campari brands reacted to its major price repositioning in Europe. If I look at the beginning of this year, again, we're not seeing any impact. We're not seeing any, you know, consumers switching to less premium brands or switching channels. I mean, for the time being, touch wood, things are looking pretty good. Moving on to SKYY and what is the future of SKYY Vodka.
I mean, clearly vodka is a very large category globally, so we expect to continue to be a major player in that area. I think what you'll see over time is clearly helped by very strong growth internationally, Skyy returning to growth overall. We think the U.S. will remain a challenge because it's a very challenging category. Having said that, you know, we're quite happy that, you know, in 2022 is the first time in 15 years that we took pricing on Skyy and it stuck. That's a good sign, I think, on the health of the brand equity and the impact of the relaunch and the premiumization of the brand. Skyy will continue to remain important, but we're gonna have to be more patient.
The, the bigger impact is gonna come in the short to mid term from international markets as opposed to U.S. market. Yes, with the, vis-a-vis, you know, the phasing of results, you know, we think, you know, the start to the year has been, you know, positive. We'll have, you know, robust top line growth. You know, it's, you know, I would say, you know, fairly plain sailing, you know, the beginning of the year. You know, as the input cost, the pressure would ease, in the second part of the year. We'll see, you know, the benefit in gross margin as a percentage of sales at the back end of the year. You know, the two things move, you know, in opposite, you know, potentially in opposite. They're actually, you know, the start of the year is positive.
That's really helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from Mitchell Collett of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Mr. Collet, your line is open.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hello.
Sorry. Hello. Couple of questions from me, please. Firstly, on pricing, I know you said at Q3 that some of the price increases you'd been taking hadn't been passed on by retailers. Are you starting to see that now? Secondly, you obviously had some supply constraints this year. Can you maybe comment on where inventories are versus normal at the end of 2022? Just to come back to the CapEx plans, I guess doubling your capacity for those key products across three years would imply 20%-30% growth, is your expectation? I mean, is there anything wrong with that as an assumption? Can you maybe comment on when the new capacity will actually come on stream? Thank you.
Yeah, let me take the first two questions. I mean, to clarify on pricing, actually retailers passed on the price to consumers already at the beginning of Q4, and we haven't seen much of an impact from it, to be honest. Now, with supply constraints and inventories, clearly on brown spirits and in tequila we continue to be constrained. The situation on tequila will improve in the second half of the year. On brown spirits, you'll have to wait, I think, you know, 5 to 10 years for the additional capacity to come on stream. Having said that, on brown spirits we're clearly premiumizing our offerings and accelerating growth that way.
On Aperitifs, this year we're able to go for a short-term fix via third party contractors, and then next year, you know, the full-on capacity will kick in. Both this year and next year we won't face much constraints on the core aperitifs categories. With regards to inventories, I mean, our inventories still remain pretty low. I mean, the one thing we're happy about is, you know, at a certain point last year in the U.S., mid-year, we only seven days of inventory cover on tequila in the U.S. Clearly we've brought that to a more normal and healthy level. Having said that, inventories continue to remain low across the globe.
Got it. One follow-up item.
Just wanted to go-
Sorry, carry on.
Sorry, Mitch. Yeah, go ahead.
I was just gonna say, you've already commented, Paolo, on freight rates coming down. I think at one point last year you were using air freight. Can you confirm that you're not using air freight anymore and that that should potentially be a tailwind?
Yes. That's, that's a tailwind. Confirmed, yes. You know, with regards to your last question is, you know, doubling capacity. Basically, you know, we've, you know, assumed, you know, that the current, you know, brand trajectory, you know, is confirmed in the future because, you know, we're not seeing any slowdown in business momentum. This is why, you know, we've, you know, highlighted the three accumulative, you know, organic growth, and it's, and the cake, you know, category by category. That's, you know, the base case assumption, sitting behind, you know, the CapEx plan.
Thank you both.
The next question is from Edward Mundy of Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, guys. I'd love to drill into slide 8 where you show the per capita consumption of Aperol and the long runway still to go. Clearly we probably don't want to, you know, benchmark to Italy, but if we do, you know, benchmark to Germany, per caps adds about EUR 1 billion to supplier sales for Aperol versus your current about EUR 600 million or so. The U.S. is the biggest driver of upside, so I'd love to sort of really drill into the U.S. opportunity and sort of, you know, when do you expect to see a tipping point, you know, within the U.S., I guess is the first question?
Second of all, I guess one of the things about the U.S. that is slightly different to the European markets is that I guess not as many, you know, American consumers go to Italy on holiday, compared to Austria and Germany, and also there isn't such a prevalence of cheap Prosecco, or cheap sparkling wine, you know, relative to the U.S. Could you perhaps sort of touch on those points, I guess as a, as a first question. Second question is a quick technicality one just on the finance costs, which had some one-off items on exchange gains and financial adjustments. Paolo, you'll be able to sort of comment on how those might look for 2023.
Hi, Ed. Clearly you highlighted one of our largest opportunities, which is Aperol in the U.S. I mean, the U.S. on a value basis is our third largest market. It's growing at 50%, but the PCC is still at 0.01. Now, you know, we expect to maintain a very robust growth rate in the U.S., and actually this year we're gonna high up our marketing and activation spending, taking it to a much, much larger scale via two significant events, which I'd rather share in the second half of the year with you guys. Clearly it's an area of focus, and we really don't see any issue in terms of availability of cheap Prosecco. As for, you know, the...
When our American tourists are going to a holiday, yes, clearly, I mean, Italy was full of American tourists last year. Beyond that, you know, what is happening is that Italy is being brought to the U.S. I mean, if you look at White Lotus, which is a key Netflix TV series, you'll see so many orange glasses, you know, the Aperol Perfect Serve throughout every single, you know, show, that clearly that is having an impact. We feel very good, and we expect to see a very nice acceleration in the U.S. this year. We're gonna continue on this because clearly it's highly profitable. We will do it following our growth model and focusing on specific areas and making sure that brand is deeply penetrated there before moving on to other areas.
With regards to the, you know, financial expenses for 2023, clearly, you know, at this stage we do not have any visibility of any, you know, not recurring, call it, you know, one-off being it positive or negative, you know. As we showed, you know, in 2021, we had, you know, a positive EUR 12.6 million in, you know, financial one-offs, and this time around in 2022, we had, you know, a negative, accumulated negative EUR 9.2 million. So this is, you know, fairly unpredictable. So our base case for the time being is zero on that line. Whilst on the, on the, you know, true and pure net financial expenses, we're currently expecting about EUR 45 million in 2023.
You know, given the increase in the indebtedness following the acquisitions and all the cash outlays that we've, you know, you know, explained during the call. EUR 45 is the target on net financial expenses for this year.
Very clear. Bob, could I just perhaps just follow up on, the point that, you know, you're a much bigger company today. You're 40% bigger than where you were pre-pandemic, and that's, you know, given much more, I guess, oxygen for, you know, marketing investment. You're obviously spending more on CapEx. What are some of the other things that, this much bigger base is allowing you to do? Perhaps, you know, accelerate some of your digital transformation programs. You know, what, what sort of optionality has been opened up by being so much bigger than what, where you were, I guess, pre-pandemic?
Well, clearly our digital agenda has accelerated, and that is giving us much faster and deeper insights into the business, which also enables us then to put all sorts of AI to help accelerate things. Clearly, you know, we're accelerating also, we've built quite a bit of go-to-market capacity in Asia, which I think is gonna become very meaningful in the years to come. There's a few more opportunities in Europe, and clearly we're a talent magnet and that is reflected in the results.
Great. Thank you.
The next question is from Trevor Stirling of Bernstein . Please go ahead.
Hi, Bob and Paolo. three questions from my side, please. First one, Q4, you highlighted quite a few supply constraints on sparkling wine and aperitifs. I wondered, Paolo, maybe if you could estimate what would Q4 organic sales growth have been if you'd had no supply constraints? second one, as you're talking through the puts and takes of next year, you know, it sounds like top line and operating leverage on SG&A is one of the big variables. You know, if you grew at high single digits, if you kept growing at high single digits, would you expect to have operating leverage? Is that your guidance of or your expectation of flat based on mid-single digit growth? maybe a little bit around the sensitivities there.
Finally, on tax, another technical one, Paolo, you highlighted that cash tax on a pro forma basis is quite a lot lower next year because of Wilderness Trail, Picon, et cetera. If you look at the headline tax rate of 28%, is that also gonna be lower on a pro forma basis next year?
I'm gonna do some guessing here, Trevor, but I mean, in Q4, hadn't we had the constraints across the business as well as some logistics issues, et cetera, our growth rate on a quarterly basis would have been probably somewhere between 15% and 20% greater than what it was.
Yeah. With regards to-
Sorry, Trevor.
No, no, that's okay. That's implying 1 to 2... 1.5 to 2 percentage points greater.
Yeah.
As opposed to 9.6.
Yeah.
Yeah. Super. Thank you.
Yes. With regards to the operating margin guidance, this is clearly, you know, based on the assumption that, you know, we deliver, you know, a mid to high single digit top line growth. If we manage to accelerate the top line, clearly, you know, as we saw last year, we would capture, you know, operating margin expansion, driven by, you know, we still believe, you know, primarily sitting in the SG&A line, more than in terms of cost of goods given, you know, the still the current volatility of the inflation environment. With regards to the cash tax rate, yes, it is correct. We're guiding towards about 24%, you know, cash tax rate for next year. Whilst, you know, the, you know, the
The recurring tax rate is definitely to remain at, you know, 28% because what is really increasing is the amount of deferred taxes. This is to the fact that, you know, the first time consolidation of wisdom and trade distilleries is leading to an increase of the deferred tax, you know, rate effect.
Okay. Understood. Thank you very much, Paolo and Bob.
Thanks, Trevor.
The next question is from Paola Carboni of Equita SIM. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Hi. Good afternoon, everybody. Ciao Bob and Paolo.
Ciao, Paola.
I have a few questions. First of all, if you can comment, you already did it extensively about Europe, but if you can comment also on the final demand, on the trend and final demand you are seeing for the U.S. market. Secondly, in terms of cost of goods sold, if you can elaborate a bit on the cost of glass. If you can give us a sense of how much of delta you would suffer compared to the Q4 level, so compared to what you saw in Q4 and what's the spot you are paying now for the cost of glass. If, I mean, to what extent are you expecting an inflation compared to your Q4 cost of glass?
Also if you can mention something about agave, we have been talking about that for a while. I assume it has stabilized or, maybe, it's finally the moment of having a little bit of a deflation here at some point in the year. Last question, sorry, is about the non-recurring charges you posted on 2022. You mentioned also some restructuring initiatives. I would appreciate if you can elaborate a bit on that and if you expect this to continue with some project, specifically, in 2023. Thank you.
Let me quickly take the first one, Paola. I mean, the final demand in the U.S. market in Q4, I think it's fair to say that September and part of October, the market was a little bit soft, but December was definitely quite robust. If you look at, you know, our portfolio and our core brands, which are more skewed towards, on the one hand, the on-premise, which is very vibrant in the U.S., as well as if you look at the off-premise channel, we're more skewed towards liquor stores, which Nielsen doesn't read or reads, but most analysts and banks do not actually buy that data. We're actually doing quite nicely across the portfolio with clearly key drivers being, you know, bourbon, aperitifs, and tequila.
With regards to the, to the cost of glass, yes, you know, we can confirm, you know, Paola can confirm that, you know, the context is a context where, you know, the cost of glass is still on a rising mode. Clearly, you know, you're comparing, you know, the average cost of glass for 2022 versus, you know, the increased cost of glass from the beginning of 2023. It's still growing. You know, and we believe, you know, as the time goes by, you know, this, you know, cost component is highly linked to energy costs as they seem to come down. We'll be, you know, more cyclic second half of 2023 and then beginning of 2024.
While, you know, on the agave, we're becoming, you know, a notch more positive than before, because, you know, we're seeing, you know, the, you know, the liquid inventory sitting in Mexico and the amount of plants coming to market growing and growing. We believe, you know, this is an area where potentially in the second part of the year we might have, you know, opportunities. You know, clearly at this stage, you know, it is stable.
For example, we start having access to incremental amount of agave plants, which, you know, bodes well for the development of Espolòn, which, you know, last year has been, you know, constrained due to capacity, production capacity, which, you know, is now being fixed, but also access to agave plants. This is a positive on two fronts, you know. Potentially, you know, back end of the year, some minor improvement on the agave. Secondly, you know, incremental available products for the U.S. market on Espolòn. On the restructuring initiatives, you know, we keep on doing, you know, the diligent work of finding any potential efficiency within the group. You know, at this stage for 2023, we're not envisaging any meaningful, you know, costs sitting in restructuring, you know, initiatives.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Yeah. Welcome.
The next question is from Alessandro Tortora of Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi. Good afternoon, everybody. I have two questions for me. The first one is on the let's say the last acquisition, okay, you made. If you can comment a little bit on the change per unit effect.
I'm sorry, but we didn't hear. We didn't hear the question. It's not very clear.
Yes. Can you hear me now?
Yeah.
Okay, thanks. The first question is on the, let's say, the last acquisition, okay, you made. If you can comment a little bit on the Wilderness Trail contribution. Let's say, if you see, let's say, certain guidance on the EBIT margin side of the change perimeter here, including the Wilderness Trail Distillery. The second question is on the, let's say, trade working capital or, let's say, net working capital. If you can give us any idea of the ongoing trend also for this metric, considering that now you should have an increasing level of, let's say, aging liquidity and therefore some indication of where you see these indicators. Thanks.
Yes. With regards to the contribution of the perimeter for 2023, which is basically, you know, Wilderness Trail or LED, Picon, you know, the Del Professore, you know, acquisition. You know, in total, we're expecting about EUR 70 million contribution to the top line. An EBIT contribution, EBIT margin of about 35%-40% of that, you know, EUR 70 million contribution to the top line.
Clearly, you know, the Wilderness Trail contribution has been, in terms of revenues and EBIT, has been, you know, partially reduced vis-à-vis, you know, pre-acquisition because, you know, we're putting aside, we're laying down, you know, aging liquid to support the development, you know, of our own bourbon brands, you know, American Honey and the like, in view of the, you know, increase of the business in future years. You know, we're not actually selling, you know, entirely, you know, the distillate to third party, and we're keeping, you know, a portion of it for ourselves to support the development of our own bourbons in the future. This is clearly, you know, reducing, you know, the short-term contribution of the acquisition.
Of course, you know, given the huge arbitrage between an internal cost of production of bourbon and the cost of buying that liquid from third party, it's, you know, it's wise, you know, from a cash flow perspective, it's wise to lay down stocks for our own portfolio.
Okay, got it.
Yeah. The second one on operating working capital. You know, the landing on last year was, you know, at 28% on revenues. Clearly, if you look at, you know, the average for the period 20-22.
Mm-hmm.
it was, you know, at 31%. clearly, you know, given pressure on availability of raw materials, you know, we've run down stocks to the bare minimum, you know, excluding aging liquid where we are, we're backing up our aging liquid inventory levels. you know, for future years, we think we should, you know, get back to the 31% on net sales. That is, you know, the level where, you know, you maximize your chances of having a very good service level to the market, so with all deliveries in full and on time.
You know, when you work with tiny stock levels in a context of constrained logistic environment, it is when you create, you know, low level of service and potentially out of stock, as we had, you know, in 2022 in certain geographies, selectively on certain brands.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
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