Full year results for the year 2021. Joining me today, first of all, my name is Benedetta Mastrolia. I'm the investor relations in Newlat. Joining me today to discuss our results are Angelo Mastrolia, our Chairman.
Hello.
Giuseppe Mastrolia, Deputy CEO and Chief Commercial Officer, Rocco Sergi, CFO, and Fabio Fazzari, Group Financial Director. Today we also have Fabrizio Carrara, who's our sustainability manager. Before commenting on our results, I would like to remind you that this presentation may contain certain forward-looking statements that reflect the company's management's current views with respect to future events and financial and operational performance of the company and its subsidiaries. These forward-looking statements are based on Newlat Food SpA's current expectations and projections about future events. Any reference to past performance of Newlat Food should not be taken as a representation or indication that this performance will continue in the future. This is not an offer or solicitation to sell any of the Newlat's securities.
We're moving on to the presentation on the 2021 overview. We've just gathered some of the key facts of 2021. The first one being the acquisition of Symingtons, which happened in August this in 2021. This acquisition is extremely important for the group because it allowed us to have a greater international presence, especially in the U.K., which has become our second-largest core market after Italy. With this acquisition, not only did we gain international presence, but we were also able to diversify our product portfolio by adding different and new product categories such as instant hot snacks, home baking kits, traditional cooking sauces, croutons, flavored couscous and more. All of these categories are first of all new, but also very complementary to the what.
I'm receiving some feedback that someone doesn't hear me. Do people hear me?
Hello. Yes.
Okay. Yeah, 'cause someone said they can't hear my voice, but I think maybe it's their.
Perfect. Okay. I'll keep going. I hope the person that can't hear me will hear me later. As I said, the better product diversification that came with Symingtons also offers a high growth prospect for the company, because all of these categories are new and very interesting, especially for our core markets. Thanks to the acquisition of Symingtons, we also had an opportunity to gain a U.K.-based distribution and sales channel and sales managers and team. This is a clear competitive advantage towards other Italian producers, because of course, especially after Brexit, but in general, having a local distribution channel is essential to gain market share.
In the last month, we've been able to actually work with our team to increase our exposure to U.K. retailers. We've been working on different opportunities with buyers which we didn't have before. Extremely important to have presence there. Another key factor of 2021 is the issue of a EUR 200 million bond that was issued in February. This allowed us to further strengthen our financial flexibility with over EUR 300 million of cash available for M&A deals. Moving on to a different topic, which is sustainability. We in 2021 were able to build a big dedicated green team with a sustainability committee. As I said, we have the sustainability manager here today as well to present with us.
This allowed us to help set and also pursue those sustainability goals and plans that the company has for the future. In 2021, we were also ranked among the top 100 most environmentally conscious companies in Italy. The ranking was listed by Statista and published on Corriere della Sera in Italy. Another important topic is investment in people, especially in young people. In the last year, we really made an improvement in this sense. We set up a new hiring scheme, and also we put in place different incentivization plans which we didn't have before. We've also been working sort of upskilling people within the organization. Lastly, the last point is more investment in own brands.
You will see later on that we've been working on social media, TV advertising, et cetera. That is something that we really want to focus more on in the future. Moving on to the next slide. We have the key financial highlights for 2021. Before commenting on these, I would like to highlight that all of these numbers are pro forma numbers. They include both CLI and Symingtons from the first of January of 2020. The pro forma revenues were EUR 625.2 million, which was down 2.6% versus 2020. Of course, this slight decrease was natural because of the way that the market, let's say, reacted and changed following 2020 and the sort of panic buying that happened in 2020.
We went to more normal levels of consumer spending. In terms of different categories, we actually had some very good growth in dairy, which grew almost 19%, especially abroad. Pasta also grew 1%, bakery also grew 1%, and special products grew 2.3%. One thing to highlight is that actually Germany grew again this year. Last year, it was the market that grew the most within our core market. This year, we still recorded an organic growth of 4%, especially in the pasta segment, but also a very good performance there. EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA was EUR 58 million versus EUR 60.2 million in 2020. The EBITDA margin was 9.3% versus 9.4%.
We, although of course, there was a decrease in Adjusted EBITDA following the decrease in sales, we still had very good EBITDA margin with quite in line with last year's EBITDA margin. We had, as always, a double-digit margin in bakery, dairy, and special products. Free cash flow was almost EUR 42 million, and we had an Adjusted EBITDA free cash flow conversion of 72.2%, which confirms the company's ability to generate cash on free cash flow once more. Looking at normalized EBIT, it was EUR 11.1 million versus EUR 10.1 million in 2020. Net financial position, pro forma, net debt was EUR 52.9 million versus EUR 83.5 million in 2020.
If we look at the figure, by excluding IFRS 16 liabilities, net debt is EUR 13.8 million versus EUR 38.8 million in 2020. Now just showing you some very quick highlights on what we did in terms of marketing. As I said, we increased our exposure to marketing and we've done a lot of different types of marketing. Some of them, you know, one of the most important one was TV advertising for Granfetta, but we also worked on other types of advertising, such as billboards. For example, in U.K., we had pop-up shops for Naked, bus advertising, social media. We opened different social media accounts which we didn't have before. We've done in-store promotions and more marketing.
These are of course just a few of those. Moving on to the next slide, which is slide seven. We have sort of an overview of the products that were launched in 2021 and what's more to come in 2022. Some of these we already showed last year, which some of these were not yet launched in the last presentation we did last year. This is to confirm that we've successfully launched all the products that we mentioned previously. We've also added some more products that were launched under Symingtons. For example, the Mug Shot 100% recyclable sachets, the Naked five-minute noodle sachets. A different type of format instead of the cups and mugs.
Also, the Chicken Tonight roast chicken kit, dinner kit was particularly interesting for the U.K. market, of course. All of the other products, for example, Delverde and Santo Poco Toscana, we already showed. This is just an overview. On the bottom half of the page, we can see just three main product launches that will happen in the next few months. First one is Naked. As I said, Naked is a very important brand for Newlat right now, and we've been working on launching it in Italy and Germany by the end of the first half of 2022. We're also working on Crostino Dorato, so on the range extension of Crostino Dorato, which right now has a very good market share with just one type of product.
We're sort of extending the range by adding two more types of products. One being the croutons for soups, which will be produced at Symingtons, and the other one is more like a snack, Crostino that can be just enjoyed as a snack, within a small packaging. Last one, in Germany, we'll be launching the Birkel no egg pasta, with also a refresh and very new packaging. Birkel is mainly an egg pasta, so we will be launching a different type of product, which will enlarge the pre-existing range of Birkel. Moving on to the sort of commercial and marketing strategy for 2022. We have identified five pillars, which are. First one is the Naked international launch.
As I said, it will be listed in three major Italian retailers in 2020, at least in the next months in 2022, and also in some German retailers. We will also be working on the export side of sales for Naked. By leveraging on the Newlat's existing export department, we will be able to sell and present Naked to more of an international audience in different countries. The next point is the premiumization of the bakery category in Italy. As I said, Crostino Dorato will enlarge its range by adding two further SKUs.
Also, you will see in the next months, we will launch a redesign of the Granfetta cedrafs products in order to reposition and premiumize the category, which is already quite premium compared to our other products. Then more focus on brand. As I said, we will be investing more on TV advertising, social media, and billboards. This won't affect our investments in general because we've done a lot of investments in facilities in the last year, so this will sort of balance out what we did in the previous years. We will also focus more and more on R&D. We've been really focused on R&D in the last years, and we intend to continue doing so by adding new products and new recipes under existing brands.
Another key point is the penetration of U.K. retailers. Of course, Newlat, now that it has a sort of a base in the U.K., it will be extremely important for us to penetrate top U.K. retailers. As I said, we already have some very good discussions with U.K. retailers, thanks to the Symington's commercial team. That's definitely one of the top priorities for our commercial team this year. Another important step is the sort of range extension of U.K. brands. We've been working on launching new products under existing U.K. brands.
By leveraging on the Newlat's existing production, but also by introducing some third-party producers for some different recipes that we would like to add, and it's sort of to increase our market shares in the U.K. with these some of these brands like Ragù, Mug Shot, and Chicken Tonight, and more. Moving on to the next slide, which is sort of an explanation of why we think Naked is a great product, and we think that this year will be the year of growth for Naked. You can see on the top half of the page, the instant noodle market in Italy. The instant noodle market in Italy is pretty young. It's not mature at all, and as you can see how that's been growing in the last years.
In the last year, both by volume and by value, by more than 50%. By almost 50%. This market, the Italian market, noodle market is extremely young, as I said, and only has basically one market leader, which is Saikebon, which has over 70% of market share. Then we also have a second player, which is a bit smaller, which is Maggi, Nestlé's Maggi, which has around 21% of market share. These two producers alone cover almost more than 90% of the market. Therefore, we see that there is a lot of potential for growth in this market. It is a market that's very interesting, that's been appealing to retailers.
We've seen in the last months very good reception of the Naked products by Italian retailers. That is because it's the right moment to introduce products in these markets because it's very young. Also, it's not as there's not as much innovation as there is in the U.K. Definitely having the Naked expertise and the Symington's expertise and recipes will be a good value to add to this market. We've been having very good reception in this market. Also, if we look at the size of the market, it's basically 10 times smaller than the German market, for example, which is already which is still growing. It's not as young as the Italian the the Italian noodle market, but it's still growing around 10% both in value and in volume.
This market, in particular, also has a market leader, which is the Nestlé's Maggi product, which has around 40% of market share. What's interesting about this market is not only there is growth in the last years, but also that Asian-inspired recipes have been driving growth in the last year. That falls perfectly into the Naked picture, because Naked, of course, as some of you may know, produces Asian inspired recipes. That will be exactly what we will be doing. Also, we will be driving innovation even in this market. Having a U.K. brand is extremely important because the U.K. market is much more advanced in terms of instant noodle market than the German and the Italian ones.
Everything that comes in the U.K. first will come in Germany and Italy after a few years. Having sort of the innovation and the drive before anyone else is a great addition for us. Moving on to the next slide, it's just one more point to add in terms of why we think Naked is very good for these two markets. We've just compared this to our two main competitors, so Saikebon in Italy and Maggi in Germany. As you can see, these are all the nutritional values per 100 g of product as consumed. They're all sort of on the same level.
As we can see, calories are a lot lower than both Saikebon and even Maggi, which is even higher than the Saikebon calories. We have very good sort of nutritional values compared to other products. Almost zero fat compared to 10 g of fat for Saikebon and 18 for Maggi. Even salt is a lot lower. In general, we think that this product, which is also vegetarian compared to other products which are not vegetarian, is a great addition because not only it will appeal to people that really like this kind of product, but also to people that are more health-conscious and that we wouldn't usually eat, you know, pot noodles or something like that.
Definitely a great value that the Naked product has towards the others. Then the last slide for this part of the presentation is the ESG milestones that we've recorded in the last year or two. As I mentioned, Newlat Food was recognized as one of the top 100 most environmentally conscious companies in Italy. We've also been implementing a workplace travel plan to encourage efficient and more environmentally friendly methods for traveling to work. Encouraging trains and bikes and different types of transport modes instead of cars and things. Packaging, as we already said in previous conversations, we have been switching from classic Tetra Rex plant.
From classic Tetra Rex to plant-based and Art-Fed packaging, which has much lower emissions compared to the normal packaging. From 2021, the plant-based packaging that we're using are certified as a Carbon Trust zero emission. In terms of logistics, this year also we were awarded with DB Cargo for transporting cargo from Italy to Germany via train instead of trucks. We saved more than 500 tons of CO2 emissions this year. In the last two years, we saved around 1,072 tons of CO2 emissions. In terms of social, we have had a lot of innovation, and we've been working with universities and research institutes to work on different products.
For example, on the digestibility of milk, with A2 milk, and also by developing unique plant-based formulas for baby food. In terms of service, which falls into the social side, we've been working with Banco Alimentare. We've also been supplying Pastina, so baby food to families in need through which is almost more than one ton of Pastina. We also were partnered, for example, with Rete Centro Supermercati Campania for supplying recycled paper and cardboard packaging for Pezzullo. In terms of governance, we mentioned this many times already, but we have three independent members. Eric Sandrin, who is the General Counsel of Kering. Valentina Montanari, who is the CFO for Reale Mutua Nord Milano.
Maria Cristina Zoppo, the director and member of control committee of Intesa Sanpaolo. We have three women in the board of directors, which is composed of seven members in total. Four out of seven board members in the board are not related to the Mastrolia family. Lastly, as we mentioned, we have an ESG committee as of 2021 to work on pursuing the sustainability plan for the future. Moving on to the next slide on operational overview. In this slide, you can see a few charts which sort of underline the fact that we've been able to successfully deliver in all the pillars that we have in our strategy. The first one being organic growth.
As you can see, in the last five years, we've achieved an organic CAGR of 2%. Despite the slight decrease this year in sales, we actually have a very good CAGR of 2%. Also in terms of EBITDA margin, as it's one of our main pillars in terms of profitability, we've been able to increase EBITDA margin. This year it's slightly lower than last year, but that was sort of expected from the market situations. We've been able to increase EBITDA margin over time. Our cash conversion is also very important for our strategy, and we've been able to have a cash conversion of over 70% for the last 3 years-4 years a very healthy and flexible financial structure, where we haven't exceeded a net debt to EBITDA ratio of more than 1.6.
Always having sort of a balanced financial structure, which shows you the ability of our company to deleverage over time. Now we move on to the next slide on operational highlights, where we have sort of an overview of the CapEx investments. We've been able to keep investment around 2% of revenues in the last years. There was only a peak in 2020 because of some pre-planned CapEx investments made by Centrale del Latte d'Italia. Apart from that, we've always kept it around 2%, no more than 2%.
Return on capital employed is also very important to look at. We've been able to have a very good return on capital employed, despite also the recent acquisitions. Especially in 2020, we had a very good return on capital employed of 18% or 18.4%, and this year was 16.5% because of the difference between the 2021 acquisition and 2020 acquisition, apologies, is that, for CLI, we had very quick integrations because of logistics and more, and also better timing than Symingtons. We will see more of the effects of the acquisition of Symingtons in the next year. Our capacity is also quite high still, despite the fact that we've increased our sales in general in the last years.
We have a lot more room for improvement for including new organic revenues. The very last chart is the sort of relationship between variable cost, fixed cost, and operating margin and utilization rates. We can see that by keeping sort of similar variable cost and fixed costs and by increasing utilization rate, we can drive margins up to around 12%. Operating margin, apologies, up to 11.7%-12%. Now we move on to the full year 2021 sales breakdown and analysis to slide 16. As mentioned, there was a slight decrease this year compared to last year.
The two main factors that contributed to this decrease were the normalization of sales across the entire food industry because of a change in consumer buying behavior versus 2020. Also a rationalization of sales in order to keep margins stable following two main points. One is the higher promotional pressure that we had in the first half of the year, and two is the increase in raw material prices, which was quite material in the second half of the year. However, despite this decrease, we have had some very positive feedback from the first two months of 2022. We've recorded a very good positive organic growth in almost all of our categories.
Milk, dairy, pasta, bakery, instant noodles have all grown 5%-8% on average. This is especially good result if we take into consideration that the first two months of the year are usually the, I would say, quietest months for the food industry, where there's usually less sales. Very good improvement there. Again, as I said, we want to highlight again that we had a five-year CAGR of +2%. Now we move on to slide 17, where we have the revenue breakdown by business unit. Pasta sales increased by 1%, thanks to new volumes in private label and B2B.
We had milk products, which decreased 6.6%, following a decrease in sales volumes, especially considering the very high increase that we experienced in 2020. There was also more promotional pressure, which impacted on the overall sales figure of milk products. The instant noodle market also saw a contraction that was sort of natural because of the results of a return to pre-COVID demand in the U.K.. As for milk, there was an increase in promotional activity in this segment. Bakery products instead actually grew by 1%, because of higher sales volumes.
Dairy products especially grew by almost 19%, so we had an increase, especially in abroad, but also in the local markets. We had an increase of the mascarpone sales. Once again, this product has been growing for the past five years very exponentially. We also made more investments in our plant in Lodi to be able to increase sales in this volumes and sales in this category. Special products also increased by 2%, so the main driver of the growth was also the initiation of some contracts in baby food that happened in the second half of 2021. The other product segments recorded a decrease because of the
Other products are usually commercialized products that we don't produce, and those products saw a decrease because of the effects of the food service in our retail channels decreased in 2021. Moving on to the next slide, we have the revenue breakdown by channel. Large retailers went down, mainly due to the lower sales volume of the milk sector. B2B partners sales also decreased slightly. Traditional trade remained pretty much in line. There was a slight decrease of 1%. Private label is worth mentioning because it increased by almost 2%. That is because we had more sales volumes in the dairy sector, also some new contracts in pasta and other types of products.
It's worth mentioning that there is a much larger contribution of private label this year compared to last year's results because of the Symington's acquisition, because of the Symington's business, as it's very. It has a big portion of private label sales in the U.K. It's actually one of the biggest private label producers in its categories in the U.K. Food service instead decreased once again. I mean, in terms of percentage, it looks pretty big because of the very small size of the business, so there's not a huge impact on sales in this one. Moving on to the revenue breakdown by country. We have Italy, which decreased by 5.6%, 5.8% because of course very difficult comparison to 2020. Germany increased by 4%.
As I said, Germany has been one of the best markets for us in the last few years, and we had higher sales volumes both in pasta and dairy. The United Kingdom sales decreased. This is again related to the sort of back to normalcy lifestyle in the U.K., which has been widely widespread compared to, for example, continental Europe. It affected, of course, the overall food market in the U.K. Sales in other countries actually increased by 19%, and that was because of the increase, especially in dairy and pasta sectors. Now we move on to the next slide on Adjusted EBITDA, on the Adjusted EBITDA breakdown. Adjusted EBITDA, as I said, was EUR 58 million in 2021 compared to EUR 60.2 million in 2020.
That of course is a slight decrease, which is natural following the decrease in sales, but we were able to keep EBITDA margin pretty stable at 9.3% versus 9.4% last year. In particular, we would like to highlight a few things. The first one is that the pasta EBITDA margin increased from 8.2% - 8.5% despite the extremely high increase and spike in durum wheat prices in the second half of the year, which increased by over 50%. Despite that, we were able to keep margins very high, and that shows also our ability to sort of pass costs on to retailers.
The instant noodles category also saw a huge increase in EBITDA margin, which went from 7.3% - 9.5%. That is especially thanks to the strong focus that we had on the Naked brand, which is a more value-added brand, compared to other products. In general, we kept very high margin in the bakery segment, which had around 18% of EBITDA margin. Dairy had almost 12% of EBITDA margin and special products almost 11%. This confirms like once again the ability to sort of optimize costs and increase prices, thanks to our product offering. Moving on to the next slide on net trade working capital and net working capital. Here we can see that there was an improvement in net trade working capital versus 2020.
That is because of higher trade payables. One thing worth mentioning here is the fact that there was an increase in inventory versus 2020, and that is the result of the Symingtons more capital-intensive structure compared to the Newlat one. Of course, producing sort of dried products, it's important for Symingtons to sort of have a stock of products in certain situations, especially for some spices that come from Asia, for example, which have very long delivery times. Therefore, there was an increase because of more having to stock up on raw materials. Net working capital in general increased. I mean, improved again. It went from -EUR 49.55 million to -EUR 55.8 million.
That is also because of an effect of the very good trade payables that we had. We had an increase or decrease in trade payables that benefited the net working capital numbers. Now we move on to page 22 of the presentation, where we have the free cash flow and cash flow segment of the company. Newlat was able to convert around more than 70% of Adjusted EBITDA in free cash flow in 2020, despite the increase in interest costs related to the issue of the bond in February. All the divisions of the company, which also includes Centrale, were able to give a positive contribution in terms of net working capital in this year.
We would also like to mention that in 2020, Newlat bought back around 2.6 million of own shares with an implicit return of 6% for each shareholder. Now we move on to the next slide, which is the CLI deleveraging process, which we put in place after the acquisition in 2020. After less than two years from the acquisition, we were able to materially reduce the net debt of CLI, which went from over EUR 70 million to around EUR 42 million at the end of 2021, with a net debt to EBITDA ratio that went from 12.5 - 2.4.
That was a material decrease that we of course expect to even improve more in the next year. Now we move on to the very last slide, which is the outlook on 2022. Of course, as we all know, 2022 has been characterized by many different types of factors that produce uncertainty. One being the inflationary wave and the war in Ukraine, which of course come hand in hand. The situation is very difficult to predict. Despite that, we have more or less the flexibility to confirm and our aim to achieve by the end of 2022 a good organic growth of around low- to mid-single-digit growth, a stable profitability, and a good cash flow generation.
Enough cash generation to drive the group back to a net cash position in 2022. Of course, excluding any M&A that may come, but going back to sort of a net cash position. We also have some negotiations in place at the moment, which put us in the position to confirm, to reiterate our aim to get to EUR 1 billion consolidated revenues by the end of the year. Of course, that would include the pro forma revenues, including the 12 months of the target. But for 2022, we are very hopeful that we will reach all of these milestones, and we've been working really hard on all of these factors, and we definitely are very hopeful for the future. That was the end of the presentation.
Now we can move on to the Q&A. I would like to ask you to ask any questions by unmuting yourself or writing them in the chat, and then we can answer them. Thank you.
Hello, it's Victoria from Sopra. Can you hear me okay?
Yeah.
Cool. Thank you for the presentation. I just wondered if you could give us an indication of the level of pricing in 2021 and how much of the growth in the first two months of the year that you mentioned in the presentation is being driven by pricing, and then also within that, what's assumed within the outlook. I guess also associated to that, can you detail the situation in the milk division and the promotional pressure that you're seeing there. Is this easing now?
Yes, thank you, Victoria. Obviously, most of the contribution for the first two months of the week is linked to the price increase, but we have also planned other step, especially, for example, for Symington starting in the next month. We have to consider that, giving you a sort of guidance as we try to do with the last slide that Benedetta show, we need to be a bit careful to consider that the scenario worldwide is still full of uncertainty due to the war, due to the inflation wave.
This is the reason why we prefer to show in this slide what we are substantially really confident to achieve, not to get maybe positions that could be hit going forward by further deterioration of the general geopolitical inflationary scenario.
The situation in the milk division?
Situation of?
Sorry, the milk division and the promotional pressure.
Division? Benedetta, if you
The, uh
Milk division.
Milk division. The situation in the milk division is reacting well in the first months of the year also because we have easier comparison base versus the performance that we got in the first three months, in the first quarter of last year. We are obviously also, in this case, planning several price increases and several activities to try to benefit, to get the benefits from the mix in this kind of division with new launches, new products, more focus on products in which we have a more interesting markup.
Obviously also in this case, the market is really volatile and the situation generally speaking for the inflation, also considering the packaging, not only the raw material, is still obviously full of uncertainty. At the moment, and considering the trend that we could receive for the first half of the year, we are confident that we can maintain this increase in revenues together with also improvement on the profitability side.
Okay. Thank you. My second question is just that, in the presentation you mentioned slower progress on the synergy capture with Symington versus CLI. I just wondered what's driving that, and can you sort of indicate broadly your progress so far, please?
Yeah. The difference substantially is that, after the acquisition of the CLI, we got substantially immediately synergies because we entered in a business that we already managed with the aggregation of several different divisions, but inside a business that we already manage. It was in Italy, no particular difficulties also in terms of logistics. Also on the supply chain, we spoke substantially with the same supplier that we have for Newlat for renegotiation. It was a process that was very, very quick.
In this case, for Symington, we recognize in Symington a lot of opportunities, but we need to put in place this, preparing the field for the actions in the sense that, on the commercial side, we needed months to speak with the retailer, introduce the product, getting the listing in Germany and in Italy, preparing the packaging. For example, we are ready to introduce the product in terms of production of the products to Italy and Germany, but we need also to be ready in terms of the new packaging. There are a lot of internal part of the process that take times.
Apart from that, on the commercial side, we are really, really excited about the strong opportunity that we recognize in Symingtons and the launch of Naked in Italy and in Germany is just the first step. We already plan other important initiatives for the next semester and also for the next year. About the synergies on the cost side, for example, we are planning this month several initiatives for investment in the efficiency automation for the three plants we have in U.K.
We have a specific plan to reorganize the plan we have in Consett with a lot of new business that we got just during these weeks, and that will be for 2022 and going forward, a strong support, not only for Consett alone, but also for the profitability, the general profitability of Symingtons. We start to substantially make several prototypes to be sure that we can give to Symingtons the right raw material on the pasta side. In 2022, we will start to produce internally the raw material, pasta raw material that Symingtons is using. This just to explain to you that the difference is just that to implement these initiatives in U.K. and in a new business, we take time. We start in September. I think that is a reasonable time.
This is the only difference versus the integration of CLI, but we are very, very excited for Symington because it's a company that every day in this company, we discover a new opportunity that we could implement for the future.
Thank you so much.
Maybe Doriana want to ask a question. Please go ahead, Doriana. Doriana? Probably there is. Okay. Paola, once you can, you can go ahead with your question.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon, everybody. Yes. I have a couple of questions. The first one is on the input cost environment and your pricing strategy. As you said, the first couple of months this year already embed some price movement, let's say. I'm wondering whether your indication in terms of guidance or the stable profitability already factors in further actions during the year or, let's say, what I mean, what kind of input cost environment are you considering just the spot situation as it is now? And then if there is a further. So I'm just wondering that stable profitability guidance, at what frame of input cost refers to and whether it implies or not if other price hikes.
Just to get the idea if we have more flexibility in case it is needed going forward. Another question on Symingtons. It seems that probably the EUR 10 million cost synergies you were envisaging won't be achieved all this year. They will be probably offset by the input cost increase. I'm wondering whether this target remains valid of EUR 10 million cost synergies, and we can have more upside maybe in 2023. Or is there any reason which brought you to somehow reduce this EUR 10 million target? The last question instead, sorry, is about working capital. You mentioned a lengthening of payment times to your suppliers.
I'm wondering whether this was just a timing issue or a more structural and sustainable achievement which we can consider also for full year 2022. Thanks.
Thank you, Paola . Starting from the input cost side. The view that we share is substantially based on different things. First of all, we already plan and we already execute several price increase, and obviously, we cannot exclude to go on with additional increase during the year if the situations could be worsened than expected. This is obviously on the table. But I can explain to you the fact that our visibility is coming from the fact that, on the energy side, we are probably lucky that in the past year we signed contract that today maintain, fix the cost of energy until mid-2023.
This allows us to be enough visibility on this side, not to consider any material increase on this side. In terms of raw material, we made several contracts with the key supplier that include a range of fluctuations considering the effective increase of the raw material or an effective increase of the cost of the processing of this raw material. But substantially, this contract and this fluctuation range allow us to be materially below the spot rate of the raw material that you can see in the market. This is another point that could allow us, especially in this first half of the year. In the second half, also considering that, especially for wheat and durum wheat, the other season will come.
The new year, we need to see what happen for the second half of the year. The third point is that we are working hard also on the mix side, because we explained in the slide that show you the spare capacity that we had, that an increase in volumes give us an important contribution in terms of operating leverage. We already got new contract on the B2B, on the private label side. Probably we still work on that to try to get new volumes and to try to get a mitigation and a margin improvement also coming from additional volumes that we can have this year.
All this thing together, considering the new initiatives on the commercial side that will start from April 1 this year, especially the ones related to Symingtons, allow us to be this kind of comfort to be substantially able to maintain this level of stability on the margin side. About the cost synergies of Symingtons, we gave this target to be able in the midterm, in a couple of year to realize EUR 10 million of synergies. The target is still valid because as explained before, we needed a bit more time to implement the actions. Most of the actions already started. The other will start during the first half of this year.
What we believe is achievable in terms of cost synergies remain substantially intact versus the communications that we gave at the time of the acquisition. Obviously, what we plan is also to try to reinvest part of this benefit in new initiatives, because as I said before, for us, Symingtons is really a source of ideas and business opportunities. We want to get, especially in these particular situations, all the opportunities that we see inside this company. Probably, part of this benefit coming from the synergies will be immediately reinvested in new initiatives, new industrial initiatives to get additional efficiency and to also increase the capacity of this plant, capacity in terms also of the diversification of production.
Also in new marketing initiatives to support the brands, to support the new commercial initiatives that we could have in all the countries. The view that we have about the synergies is still valid, and we are absolutely sure that we can get this target. The last question was on working capital. In this side, I try to just explain to you that most of the contributions came from the fact that, as we announced, during the presentation of the nine months result, we were already trying to implement several initiatives in Symingtons to align the working capital policy of Symingtons versus the policy that we have in Newlat.
Most of the contribution is coming from this reorganization and this efficiency that we got from the working capital management in Symingtons. Obviously, this means that the benefit is recurring, because this is something that we implement, not just for this year, but for the future.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you very much.
Can I try now to speak?
Yes.
I can hear you. Yes. Hi. Thank you very much, and apologies again, 'cause I was struggling with my computer. Just a couple of questions for me, if I may. The first one is, if you could. Again, I joined later, so I think Paola was also asking about the same thing. You went through a set of action that you're planning to implement this year, and it sounds like there's confidence from your side that you will be able to hold your margin, you know, stable despite the inflation in raw materials. Aside from the price, I mean, what are you seeing on your side? Are you suffering from any disruption in the supply chain? Are you suffering from
Is there a possibility that some of your suppliers might actually not honor your contracts that you've already locked in in lieu of force majeure or anything like that that might actually put your price already locked into at risk? That's my first question. The second question comes back to some of the other things that I'd like to get an update on. First of all, Germany did very well past year. Can you give us an update in terms of what's going on with the Buitoni co-branding and whether you know that has been already done or still should be completed this year?
The last aspect is the new contract on special product. I noticed that the spare capacity in special product is pretty high. Have you been increasing capacity or I was surprised that the number in the presentation was actually quite high.
Yeah. We are. About the contract with the supplier and the risk not to receive the products or not to receive the products at the price that we negotiate is something on which we are not worried for a reason that is important to highlight because it's something that is really important in our group. As we already said also in the past year at the time of the IPO explaining our supply chain structure, we have implemented and we still are implementing stronger relationship with the most important key supplier that we have.
This means that also in this particular difficult period, we have contracts with a fluctuation range that substantially should recognize, in case there is a material increase and an effective increase of the energy cost of the raw material, a price increase from our supplier. At the same time, protect us from, first of all, an important spike in raw material following maybe the spot price. Also on the other side, allow us to be sure to receive and to have substantially raw material during the year. This is really important because it's a protection on which we invest.
We invested in this relationship in this fair substantially negotiation of contract that we try to put in place to protect our side and also to recognize to the other side the improvement they need because the situation in the market is really becoming difficult. It is important because it is also something that allows us to have visibility about at least 4 months-6 months especially for this year. In this sense, we don't think that from this side we could have a material issue. Obviously, when we speak about inflation, we have to consider the fact that it's not just a matter of raw material. It's not just a matter of wheat or milk. It's a matter of logistics, of packaging, of everything.
For this reason, we are reacting not only on the price increase and using this important contract that we have with the supplier, but also to try to develop business, to try to get volume, to close the spare capacity, and to get also from this side, an important help in terms of operating leverage. In this sense, speaking specifically about the baby food business, obviously, as we explained several times, 2021 was a year of development of the contract that we got with the multinational corporation for baby food in 37 countries. We started the delivery only in Q4 for one country, for Mexico. We believe that in 2022, with the implementation of this delivery, obviously also the spare capacity will decrease.
From this side, we could get some help to protect our margin. This is part of the equation from which we derive the guidance to maintain stable the profitability this year.
Thank you. Just wanted to sort of clarify the help that you expect from the baby food volume that should build up through 2022, and also the synergies that you expect to extract from Symingtons in 2022 are part of the guidance for flat margin, correct?
Yes. The part of the synergies that we expect to get, yes. Also part of the guidance is the fact that we have also a plan to reinvest part of the synergies in new initiatives, in new investments, on the industrial side in U.K., etc. . Everything is part of the guidance.
Okay. If I were to ask in terms of a medium-term outlook, I know it's difficult to answer. If things normalize, then is it reasonable to expect that your margin should go in line with the volume growth that you expect to generate?
Obviously, we are working to create value and to improve margins. On this point, I take the opportunity to highlight a different point of view. If we need to show you a margin improvement, we probably don't need to wait next year. We can do this immediately this year. You have to take into account that we have no policy of cost capitalizations, nothing. The fact that the conversion rate is so high is because our Adjusted EBITDA substantially respects all the costs that the company had during the year. If we start capitalized cost or apply other accounting policy, we can deliver a profitability improvement already this year despite the environment on which we discuss about.
The most interesting point of view, in my opinion, is to consider what the group made, not only in the past years, but also this year in terms of cash flow generations from the recurring free cash flow. Because I think that, when we speak about value creation for the shareholder, the value creation is not a matter of profitability, is not a matter of earnings, is a matter of cash. I think that, despite also the difficult scenarios that we had during 2021 and the difficult scenario that we are facing this year, the capability of Newlat to generate cash remain very, very high.
The fact that we expect next year to close, excluding the M&A contributions, the year with already a net cash position, this, in my opinion, is the most important message when we speak about value creation. It's important to highlight this point because sometimes I heard comment with a comparison between the profitability of Newlat and the profitability of other peers in the sector. You need to take into account also this. The CapEx spending that you see is related only to grow CapEx. We put in our P&L as a cost, the maintenance CapEx every year. We don't have other source of profitability linked to capitalization, accounting policy, etc. .
On this side, I think that is very, very important to highlight once again the cash generation profile that, I repeat, is in my opinion, the first source of value creation for our shareholders.
Thank you.
Paola, if you have the question.
Yes. Thanks. Couple of follow-up. As you were speaking about the baby food segment, can you provide us an update also about the first few months of the year for this segment? I think probably it was not mentioned in the slide in this respect. Also, maybe just a qualitative comment on the discussions with the trade about price hikes. I'm wondering, also based on the comments you have made for the promotional pressure in the meat segment, where are you finding maybe a less favorable context, less favorable situation to pass through your price hikes? Or maybe you pass your price hike, but then we should be careful about the promotional attitude that this price hike might trigger afterwards.
Is there maybe country like maybe Germany or like China or like category where we should be more careful about this possible cannibalization of price hikes via little promotions?
No. On the promotional side, I can tell you that especially last year, and especially in the first half of last year, the market was really aggressive. With the promotional activity also because we were coming out from a year that was materially impacted by a strange trend linked to the COVID-19 pandemic situation. One of the reason why we reported also this negative revenues trend in Centrale del Latte d'Italia was because we avoided last year to follow in several times the promotions that we saw in the market.
Penalizing volumes, this is true, but as you could see, we try to maintain a very good level of profitability despite this volume decrease, and despite the pressure that we mentioned on this particular segment. Going forward, we are ready to react very quickly considering what could be the scenario that we are going to face. It's difficult to say today what could happen in this market after one month or two months because the situation is really volatile.
We are ready to react and to substantially manage our production, our commercial activity, with the first focus that we always have, to protect the profitability and our capability to generate cash substantially. Volumes is important, but it's not the primary focus that we have. We are strictly focused on the value equation. In this case, as happened also last year, we are ready maybe to stop promotions or not to follow a promotional trend, if this is something that is going to have a material negative impact on our profitability.
In this particular context is really difficult to show you what we are going to do in two months, three months, because the only thing that I can tell you is that once again, last year in this first months of the year, one of the benefit that we got is to have a really flexible structure that could really react very quickly to the market condition. This is something that we are sure could help us in the coming months. The first question was on baby food. On baby food, we started with the Mexican delivery the end of last year.
We will continue this year with this country, and in the first half of this year, we should start the delivery in at least two other countries. We will give you more precise details during the first quarter and the first half release of results. The project is going on very well, and we believe that we could substantially get the numbers that we already shared with you about 2023 and 2024 for contribution to our Adjusted EBITDA.
We should assume special segment was growing as well in the January and February period?
Yes.
Thank you.
I've got a follow-up question, if I may.
Yes.
I just want to ask you from a strategic point of view, where is the focus now? You normally give us an update in terms of your target for acquisition, and I was wondering if you can give us also a sense whether you are more prone to develop your private label business versus the branded business. If there is anything from a strategic point of view which would lead you to push more one versus the other.
Maybe I can answer to the question. Concerning the private label, for sure, one of the main objectives that we are facing now is the U.K. market, in which the market is done 70% on private label. Of course, we will add on even the offer of our branded product. I think on pasta in the U.K., the great opportunity is on the private label market. We are talking about potential. Ideally, private label market is around 100,000 tons of pasta immediately in the next two years that we will tender as a private label. This will be a great opportunity.
In general, we are focusing, of course, as we already said, as Fabio already said, a lot on the ready-meal products produced by Symingtons, both in the U.K., in Italy and in Germany, but even increasing the products in the category in the U.K. as well. We are launching four new products called the Naked Ultimate.
That will be the first 100% paper recyclable noodles in pot on the U.K. market. The launch is in the next two months. So if I have to give a range of which are our priorities, of course, first of all is the ready meals product because the portfolio of Symingtons is so it is such a big assortment that first we started with the ready meals on the Asian flavor. Then we will pass on other products like the ready-to-bake powders or to make brownies or pancakes other products or mashed potatoes. We will try to get into other markets.
First, ready meals, then secondly, the pasta business and the private label in the U.K., of course, developing our brand in the other countries, making in Germany, and thinking about the dairy, the potential in the U.K. as well, because, through our sales team, we are getting into tendering, on mascarpone private label and ricotta private label in the U.K. as well. In Italy, we are trying to focus, of course, on brand, in the milk business or, with our main brands that are Optimus, Mukki, Polenghi and the others. Of course, continuing the export with the brand Delverde from Italy to other countries.
Is there a big difference in the profit margin that you make in your branded versus your private labels?
Now concerning the marginality that we have, there is a slight difference. Of course, in terms of percentage, but if we think about how big the market is, of course, the total value could be really high. If we talk about the U.K. business private label, in general, yes, the margin is lower by 4%-6% than a blended or maybe even higher. The difference could be even higher until 10% of difference in terms of margin. On a market like the U.K. is the only way to get into this kind of market.
The good thing compared with others in which we can get more margin than similar competitors that we can guarantee having a base in the U.K., a warehouse in the U.K., we can guarantee them a service level that is higher. We have two kinds of prices. One is the prices ex works, and they have to pick the products from Italy and deliver by themselves in the U.K. The second one is with the service done in the U.K., in which we have a wider margin. Most of the retailers are oriented to take the second opportunity because of service level that can be more efficient compared with the buying from an Italian company that doesn't have warehousing in the U.K., and nobody have the same.
I remember there was a plan to use one of the factories from Symingtons as a dedicated pasta factory. Is that planned as well?
Yes. Warehousing. We will use the Leeds, the headquarters where we have a warehouse that is up to 25,000 pallets that we will use as a stock area for the pallet to serve the U.K. market.
Just to clarify two things, Dorian, about this option, how we are using the warehouse, because what we explained last time in terms of to have a single plant dedicated to pasta is only in case the Brexit will become so hard that we will be substantially in difficulties to send pasta from Italy to U.K. In this case, we have flexibility to try to convert a plant and to produce directly in the U.K. This is only in case we will have material pressure coming from hard Brexit or whatever could create pressure on this. It's not on the table for tomorrow, so this is just in case. The second point, just in avoidance of doubt and confusion. Giuseppe was speaking about the industrial margin of the products, not EBITDA or EBIT.
Speaking about private label, you have to consider that sometimes you will have a lower industrial margin, but compensated on the P&L of the company by the fact that you don't have to invest into the brands. Because at the operating level, considering also the investments that you have to do into the brand, and considering our situation in terms of spare capacity, the difference is not so material.
Okay. Just so I have a sense, in terms of your aggregate portfolio, how much is private labels? Would that be just the segment that is shown in your channel split, right?
Yeah. How much is that for the private label today on total revenue?
Around 10%.
10%.
Okay. The update on M&A in terms of what sort of business you are going after? In which area you think you might create more value?
Yeah. On M&A, we are always active because this is an important part of our strategy. We gave this guidance, this view today. We shared this because we are going on very well with an important deal that we already described even if high-level in the past conference call. It is related to the deal for the new category in Italy, Germany and France. We are going on well because our counterpart approves us as a unique counterpart to go on with this in the negotiation of this deal. We already shared timetable. For this reason, substantially, we are sure that we could get an important deal by the end of the year.
Obviously, we are starting now all the activity in terms of structure of the contract, due diligence, etc. . Everything could happen but honestly, we are in a very good position, and we are well in advance to close this deal that we are working on starting from January last year. It's not something that happened two weeks ago and so for this reason, our confidence increased also after the latest development, also in terms of negotiation and interaction with the counterpart.
We already follow also other deals, but at the moment this is the one on which we are very, very focused because it's really a transformational deal for us for several reasons that I hope to be in the positions to share and explain to you very soon.
Thank you.
On this point on the M&A, I got the opportunity because we receive also question on this from investors or other analysts. This is the deal that despite the size that allow us to at least to get, but probably to surpass EUR 1 billion revenues. We can do this deal without any kind of capital increase or other extraordinary situations. We have enough money in our pocket to complete this deal without any kind of extraordinary activity to raise funds for this deal.
Thank you.
If there are no more questions, we can end the call. Is there anyone who wants to ask a question? No. Great. I guess not. Thank you so much for joining the call today. Of course, we're available for any follow-up questions that you might have. If you want to send us an email or give us a call, we're available to answer all of your questions. Thank you so much and have a nice evening, everyone. Thank you.
Thank you.
Have a good weekend. Bye.
Grazie. Thank you. Grazie mille.
Ciao, Sara.