Good day and welcome to the Grupo Bimbo Results Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 conference call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on a touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Daniel Servitje, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Connected on the line today is our CFO, Diego Gaxiola, our COO, our new COO, Rafael Tamez, BBU's President, Fred Penny, Mark Bendix, Executive Vice President, Lou Minella, BBU Senior Vice President, and several members of our finance team. 2022 was a remarkable year with historic financial performance, reaching $19.8 billion in net sales and $2.7 billion in EBITDA, posting 10% and 12% ten-year compounded annual growth rates respectively. We saw market share gains in most categories, made record CapEx investments of $1.2 billion, fine-tuned our strategic focus on grain-based foods after selling Ricolino, invested in and grew our brands, successfully turned around Argentina and Brazil. We launched our sustainability strategy.
I am very proud of the dedication and hard work of our associates who have worked tirelessly on the headwinds of this challenging global environment. The demand for our products during the year was historic. Our volumes grew across all regions despite price increases to offset inflation. We continued market share gains, the snacks, buns, and rolls and tortilla categories outperformed. We continue to experience a challenging environment in Canada and China, the latter starting to show positive signs after the drastic COVID restrictions were lifted recently. We continue to make progress on our ESG initiatives, reaching milestones such as ending the year with 85% renewable electricity globally, and 20 countries are now operating with 100% green energy. I believe we are the most advanced food company in the world in terms of renewable electricity consumption.
We were also included for the first time in the Bloomberg 2023 Gender-Equality Index. We were recognized by the Carbon Disclosure Project for our actions globally to mitigate the effects of climate change, making it to be to the very selective A list. As disclosed in our press release, we are making also important changes to our senior leadership team. We have named Rafael Tamez, our Chief Operating Officer. Rafael will be leading our four global regions and will continue to be our Chief Sustainability Officer as well. Throughout his six years at Grupo Bimbo, Rafael has had great success with ever-increasing responsibilities, leading high impact projects such as the turnaround of two challenging operations, Brazil and Argentina. He also led, as we mentioned, the launch of our sustainability strategy. Fred Penny, who you know well, he's retiring at the end of March.
I'd like him to say a few words. Please, Fred, go ahead.
Thank you, Daniel. You know, it is hard to believe that it is been 11 years now that I have been president of BBU. It has been a real privilege to have this opportunity in the industry that I spent my entire career in 42 years now. It is certainly not what I envisioned coming out of grad school that I would do, but it has been terrific. I am grateful for what this industry and Grupo Bimbo have meant to me and to my family. I cannot go without saying that we have accomplished a lot since the Sara Lee Baking Company acquisition in late 2011, and I took over right after that. With the commitment and passion of our leaders and associates, both current and former, we have built an industry-leading national baking company through integration, transformation, and a growth focus.
I'm confident that with the current BBU leadership in place and grounded in our core beliefs of safety, diversity, equity and belonging, and respect for the person, that we'll be successful growing and continuing to transform the baking industry. Lastly, I wanna thank the analysts, past and present, for your interest in and your support of Grupo Bimbo. Over 44 calls now, which is an amazing number to me, I've enjoyed our interactions as well as our occasional challenges, and I expect we'll get some of those today. With that, Daniel, thank you, and I'll turn it back to you.
Thank you very much, Fred. Well, I really want to thank you for your many enormous contributions to the Grupo Bimbo family and for your friendship. Following Fred's retirement, Tony Gavin will be taking on his role, and he will report to Mark Bendix, who has joined us on this call today. Mark will add BBU to his existing responsibilities of Bimbo QSR and Bimbo Canada. Tony, Mark, and Rafael will take on these challenges, I'm sure, with passion, and their leadership will help us become a more sustainable, highly productive, and digitally main company.
Looking into 2023 and beyond, we will implement step change initiatives to leverage the next wave of growth in sales and EBITDA expansion through initiatives such as superior quality always, accelerating our brand growth, continuing strategic CapEx investments, even greater presence in our household penetration and at the points of sale, revenue growth management, and digital transformation, among others. Now, looking into the results by region for the quarter, North America delivered very strong top line performance, growing nearly 22% in dollar terms, mainly due to the implementation of price increases. We are happy to see continued momentum in our share performance as we grew it across almost all categories. Net sales performance was also benefited by an extra week of sales when compared to the prior year. Despite the challenging operating environment, the margin only contracted a slight 10 basis points.
This reflects an outstanding effort from our teams, which were able to successfully navigate unprecedented inflation and a critical labor and operating environment. Bimbo delivered better than expected results. Inflation pressures were partially offset by a favorable portfolio mix and strong investments in our brands. We will continue to innovate, invest in our brands, and remain confident that the breadth of our portfolio positions us favorably to navigate through the many macroeconomic uncertainties. Our focus remains to offset inflationary pressures through productivity, pricing, and revenue growth management strategies while working hard to win share in our branded categories. I am happy to share that BBU was recognized by IRI as the fourth fastest growing CPG company in 2022, and the fastest growing food company, in that universe. This is the second time BBU has earned this recognition since 2020.
In Mexico, sales improved by over 70% attributable to favorable price product mix and price increases. Every channel posted double-digit growth. Most notably the convenience, retail, and traditional, as did the snacks, sweet baked goods, snack cakes, cookies, and bread categories. Adjusted EBITDA margin contracted 370 basis points, reflecting a one-time write-off related to a prepayment to our suppliers. The high inflation environment in raw materials and the effect of higher volume and lower margin intercompany sales between Mexico and the U.S. also affected that margin. This was partially offset by the strong sales performance and efficiencies in distribution and administrative expenses. Moving on to EAA, excluding the FX effect, sales increased more than 24%.
This was mainly due to the implementation of price increases as well as volume growth across most countries in the region, coupled with the acquisition of St. Pierre. The adjusted EBITDA margin contraction of 60 basis points resulted from FX headwinds, high inflation and a negative product mix effect in Nigeria, arising from an increase in private label as well as weak results in China. In January, we completed the acquisition of Vel Pitar, the leader in the baking industry in Romania. Vel Pitar has a diversified portfolio within the bread category and distributes its products through 10 plants in the country. This acquisition, which was closed at 8 times enterprise value EBITDA, reinforces our global strategy by expanding our presence now to 34 countries, allowing us to continue strengthening our presence in the EAA region and adding new brands with superior quality to our portfolio.
Finally, moving on to Latin America, excluding the FX effect, net sales increased over 33% as a result of double-digit growth in almost every country, most notably Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Chile. We reached a record EBITDA margin fourth quarter and for the full year. This was attributable to several factors, including the operational leverage from incremental sales, the productivity benefits across the value chain, and the strong results in Brazil and Argentina from the successful implementation of turnaround initiatives. We also inaugurated a new plant in the southern end of Chile as we continue to see a strong demand in that country. I would now like to turn over the call to Diego, who will walk you through our financials. Please, Diego, go ahead.
Thank you, Daniel Servitje. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I would like to start with a summary of our financial results for the full year, which were outstanding, especially when we consider the challenging comparison from the record levels achieved in 2021: a high inflationary environment, a complex operating environment in some markets, and a negative effect from FX rate. Net sales reached nearly MXN 400 billion for the first time in the history of our company. Our adjusted EBITDA reached MXN 53 billion, which was mainly due to the strong sales performance, efficiencies in distribution and administrative expenses. Our adjusted EBITDA margin contracted, as expected, by 60 basis points, mainly due to higher commodity prices, a high overall inflationary environment in all our operations, and a challenging labor market in some countries.
The $734 million MEPs non-cash benefit we saw during the quarter is due to the reversal of a provision for the expected liability that is no longer needed because of special financial assistance that will be received by critical and declining MEPs according to the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 in the U.S. It is important to note that this is a one-time non-cash benefit. Our full year financing cost increased by over 33% because of a higher exchange loss and higher interest expense. Our effective tax rate stood at 31.3%, which reflects the mix of countries with a lower effective tax rate, as well as the benefit from our turnaround businesses that have been performing substantially better than previous years.
These factors yielded an important improvement in net minority income of nearly 200% and a significant margin expansion of 710 basis points, reaching 11.8%. Our return on equity, without considering the profit of the sale of Ricolino and the MEPs effect, closed at 15.1%. Turning to the balance sheet, thanks to our strong operating results, we closed the year with a record level of net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 1.5 x, and our total debt closed at MXN 84 billion. The decrease was primarily due to the prepayment of debt using the proceeds from Ricolino as well as the FX rate effect.
Our net operating working capital, which mainly considers accounts receivables, inventories, and suppliers, has continued to improve significantly by nearly three days over the fourth quarter of 2021, which is the equivalent of close to MXN 3.2 billion, mostly due to the improvements in accounts payables. Lastly, I would like to mention that we are very pleased to have exceeded the guidance provided over a year ago, which, by the way, we increased two times in a row because results were outstanding given the high demand we experienced and continue to see across our operations. Now, I would like to provide some visibility on what we are expecting for 2023. In terms of revenues, we expect to see a growth of mid to high single digits.
Even considering the tough comparison of 2022, we are still expecting adjusted EBITDA to grow at a high single digit rate, which will translate into a slight margin expansion. More specifically, we are expecting an impact on our results from inflation during the first half of the year, which will gradually lessen, and we will see tailwinds during the second half of the year. This, coupled with the operating leverage coming from the sales growth and productivity benefits from past investments in CapEx and OpEx, as well as a positive effect coming from the FX rates, will result in the slight margin expansion. We expect the effective tax rate to be between low to mid thirties, which is slightly higher to the rate as compared to 2022. Lastly, we expect our CapEx investments to be in the range of $1.7 billion-$2 billion.
This higher CapEx is partly due to the carryover effect of 2022, and also because of the opportunity we are seeing to increase our capacity given the demand of our products in the marketplace. We can now proceed with the Q&A session.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the key. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Benjamin Theurer with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. This is Benjamin Theurer. Hello?
Hi, Ben. Yes, we can hear you. We lost you.
Yeah, we lost Ben's line. Can I take the next question?
Yes, please.
All right. The next question comes from Luis Willard with GBM. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question and congratulations on what has been an outstanding year. I'd like to speak about first, when thinking beyond 2023, how do you think about your current price structure in the marketplace? Is it fair to assume that retailers, especially in the U.S., start to be growing a bit more reluctant to sustaining these price levels beyond 2023, as we start to see some commodity prices coming down? That would be the first, I have a follow-up.
Well, if I may first, on the global scene, Luis, I think we've been finding that there is consumer resiliency and our volumes have been all in all, being strong and it will remain so, for a period, but we don't, we don't have a necessarily the sort of the vision for un-understanding what's happening after 2023.
For 2023, I think that what we're sensing is that the market is responding well in most of the regions, and we're very close to our frontline to really address well, the issues that they're facing.
Thank you. Perhaps, I mean, the ideal way to put this question is you've been increasing prices to follow up commodities pressures. In a more normalized environment, do you see retailers pushing you a bit to be more promotional to entice consumption, I don't know if commodities start relaxing? That would be perhaps a better way to put that question. Thank you.
I mean, we don't have that visibility as to what will happen, I would say the next year or at the end of this year. At this point, what we're sensing is that we're mostly covered in many of our categories and countries. We hope that will allow us to have some stability at least in the near term.
All right. Got it. Thank you.
The next question comes from Alan Alanis with Santander. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much. Thanks for taking the question. Daniel, Diego, congratulations. Excellent results. Best wishes for Fred. You will be missed. I think he will miss, after 44 calls, he'll miss our questions as well. My question has to do with the U.S. and what kind of elasticity are you seeing right now? I mean specifically, are you seeing any kind of down trading already or volumes continue to be pretty robust, in line with what we're seeing in terms of the economic environment? If you start seeing some down trading, how do you prepare? How do you anticipate that? What kind of innovation and what the role of innovation in order to deliver on this guidance?
Daniel, I'd be happy to take that if you want.
Sure, sure. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, Alan, thank you. Yeah, I'm gonna miss these calls. To start there, I'm gonna miss these calls mostly, but not always. Let's say this, I think, this shouldn't be a surprise in the fourth quarter, as multiple food categories, have experienced, we did start to see some softening in tonnage.
Okay. Mm-hmm
... from the impact of pricing and inflation, which has been significant, as you all know.
Mm-hmm
the good news from our standpoint is we've held or grown share, in almost every category that we're in, even if the category softened a bit. I think Daniel mentioned this, we're gonna see more significant inflation, at least for the first half of next year, 2023. We have to navigate that. There are two things that we'll do. One will be some, I'm gonna call it surgical, promotional activity if needed. Two, and even more importantly, is more investment in our brands, from a marketing standpoint and innovation.
I'm not gonna get into the details of the products, but we are definitely putting innovation as well as a way to buffer the impacts of pricing and inflation to the category overall.
Yeah. That's very useful. I mean, just anecdotally, I've noticed also a huge increase in the coverage of your product throughout the United States, so congratulations on that as well. I'm sure that some of the results are also because of the increased availability of the product. If I may, a last question maybe for you, Daniel. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Fred. Daniel, could you remind us how do you think strategically about salty snacks? I mean, Grupo Bimbo has been extremely successful both in baked goods and salty snacks. I mean, how do you think about salty snacks currently and strategically in the future? That's a question more globally. I know you're having a lot of success in Mexico and in the United States, but remind us your strategic thinking behind salty snacks, please.
Yes. Well, what we did last year, as you recall, was basically focus ourselves on becoming a more relevant grain-based foods company. That includes all the categories in baking as well as the categories of salted snacks that we're in. Salted snack it's gonna be, it is and it's gonna be a part of our company's portfolio. We're investing whenever and however, we find opportunities for growth in that category as well as in all the sweet baked goods, cookies and other sweet categories, sweet snack categories in the bake field.
It's another one of our categories and we try to take good care of that one as well as all the others.
Great. Thank you so much. Again, congrats on the results.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Sergio Matsumoto with Citi. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good evening, Daniel and Diego. Congratulations to Mark, Rafael, and Tony. We look forward to working with you. Fred, best wishes on your new endeavors. My question is on the CapEx with the step up to the record amount. Would you say those investments are intended for top line growth acceleration or for cost efficiency? Help us understand the effects and the timeframe, please. Thank you.
Daniel, do you want me to take that one?
Yeah. Please take it, Diego.
Yes. Thank you, Sergio. As you have seen, we have been increasing our CapEx plan every year. During 2021 we did for the first time in the history of the company, more than $1 billion. 2022, although we believe we were gonna be slightly below the plan, we ended with $1.4 billion. As you heard on the guidance, we're expecting a higher number for 2023. The reason for the increase, I would say it's several ones. The most important is the increase in our capacity.
This is 100% related to top line growth. It's not only on a specific geography, it's across the different markets and the different categories in which we continue to see opportunities, and we continue to see the need to invest and to increase our capacities. That's in one hand. On the other, we have also been a little bit more aggressive on investing on some profitability projects that will not help the top line, but will help us to be more efficient and have an expansion on our margins. Lastly, also important to have in your mind is the inflation that we have seen in CapEx in the last three years. It's not only on commodities and food, also we have been seeing some pressure on inflation on the CapEx side.
Being the less important of the three, we have an important amount for 2023 of carryover projects that we already started last year, and also many other projects in the pipeline that we will start to invest in 2023, and of course, we'll have some carryover effect for 2024.
Understood. If I could add, maybe my last question to Fred. Could you comment on the private labels position in the U.S. today? Has it changed in the last three years? Like, has it, you know, kinda lost its role, or Do you think it still plays a role in the industry volume perspective?
Yes, sure. I'd be happy to comment on that. First, let me say that it clearly has a very important role in the category as it does in multiple food categories. I would say, however, that with the significant inflation that we've seen in the market and we've all experienced in at least in the last quarter, we've begun to see a more, I'd call it a more positive trend in private label, where it was trending negative for the last couple of years. It's either now trending less negative or maybe slightly positive. It's an important part of the category, and it's an important part, frankly, of our portfolio as a supplier.
I wouldn't characterize it as some, you know, radical change in private label over the last few years. That's definitely not the case.
All right. Thank you, and congratulations.
The next question comes from Lucas Ferreira with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Hello, everybody. Once again, congrats for Fred, for the career. Good luck for all the managers in the new position. Thanks for the time. For the questions, my first one is on your guidance. You're saying that in the second half, you expect it to have a sort of a more cost tailwinds, so your margin's probably better in the second half. Just wanted to understand how much visibility you have on this already, considering your hedges. If you can give us some more details on how much you hedged for the second half of the year, and how comfortable you are with this visibility into the second half.
I know you don't give much breakdown by region, but if this guidance considers some sort of a normalization in the profitability, especially outside the U.S.. The second question is a follow-up on the previous questions on the CapEx guidance. If you can give us a sense of what's Bimbo's sort of normalized CapEx from here. What's the maintenance CapEx we should include in the model, and what's the sort of a recurring expansion CapEx you've been doing? If some more details you can provide on in terms of which are the regions receiving most of this cash, that would be helpful. Thank you very much.
Yes. Hi, Lucas. Let me give you a little more color on why we believe that in the second half we will start to see some tailwinds regarding inflation. It's not necessarily because we're fully hedged already, although we have already taken some hedges, so we have already some visibility. The thing is that in the second half, and particularly in the fourth quarter of last year, we had the biggest pressure in commodities. Remember that we have a lag. You know, you have to take into account that although commodities during the fourth quarter came down, we're seeing the effect or the cost of commodities probably around six months before. Let's say around half of 2022, were still commodities were at a record levels. You know?
That is the pressure that we believe we're not going to have, so we have an easy comparison for the 2nd half. Still in the 1st quarter, we had many hedges that were taken before the commodity started to ease. In the 2nd quarter, and probably more in the 3rd quarter, we will start to see this slight benefit, you know, that will help us. You know. This is important, for you to have it in your model, know that on a quarterly basis, don't be surprised to see some continuous pressure on our cost of sales during the 1st two quarters of the year. In terms of the normalized CapEx, it's a little hard to come with any specific number.
I will probably answer more directionally telling you that on one hand, our CapEx used to be before the inflation, before COVID, maintenance CapEx between $400 million-$500 million. We have increased our capacity, and we're seeing inflation. Just from these two things, I would probably say that our maintenance CapEx is gonna be more in the range of $600 million-$700 million. We have always been investing and reinvesting in the company, investing in growth, investing in productivity initiatives. I don't think it's gonna be the exception in the long run after 2024, 2025. In 10 years we will continue to invest in the company.
It's hard to know right now, we do not have the visibility to say, okay, we will continue to invest this additional $1 billion on growth and productivity as we plan to do in 2023.
That's great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Alvaro Garcia with BTG. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for the call. Firstly, absolute pleasure interacting with you, Fred, over the years. All the best going forward. A couple of questions. The first one on MEPS for Diego. This is obviously a different type of adjustment relative to what we've seen over the last couple years, and I wonder if this implies if there's some sort of change with what might run through your P&L. Does eliminating this liability or this provision, you know, impact what expenses you might have through your P&L? That's my first question.
Yes. We will continue to have some volatility because of MEPS related to the interest rate because we still have some liability. It's a little bit more than $100 million. It's a fraction of what we had in the past. If you remember, before the increase on rates, we were close to $1 billion, you know. Any movement on rates was very high and created a very high volatility for our results. The mark-to-market from the interest rates, but it's not gonna be material. It's gonna be a fraction as compared to the past time.
Yeah. I guess the question is on contributions. The contributions to the plans themselves, whether this changes the contributions.
No. No. It, it doesn't change the contributions. Basically what we're having is that the potential obligation of having to form the MEPS now with the resources that will be received, the probability is very, very low, so we do not need to have the liability on our balance sheet. I mean, here, Lou is here with us, senior VP in people for BBU. If you want to complement anything, Lou, please, feel free.
Diego, thanks. You said it perfectly. Our responsibility to make contributions continues. You actually said it extremely well. This is just a provision because we had the possibility or actually the probability of a significant fund that we belong to, going insolvent. This was a provision to protect ourselves against the liability that would flow from that insolvency. That has now been solved, and that's why the provision has been reversed. Our regular contribution obligations continue.
Great. Great. Super, super clear. My second question is for Daniel on the new organizational structure. I might be wrong, but I feel like it's the first time you have a global COO. I guess sort of asking strategically, sort of the new roles for Rafael and Mark, are these new roles and sort of what's the rationale behind them? Thank you.
Yes, yes, Alvaro. This is a significant change, as you mentioned, and it's related to the size and the complexity of our group, of our company. What we're doing is trying to arrange ourselves in a structure that allow us to manage the growth that we have had and that hopefully we'll continue to have in the future. That's the reason for these changes.
Great. Thank you, and congrats again.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Felipe Ucros with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good evening, Daniel and Diego. Congrats on another good set of results, and congrats to Fred on his retirement. Thanks for your help on all these calls over the years. I hope we didn't drive you too crazy. I'll go to my first one on supply chain constraints. We've seen a lot of commentary for, specifically in the U.S. from a lot of companies, discussing that most of the supply chain constraints have declined enough that actually logistic prices are starting to decline. Freight, for example, is one that I've seen mentioned quite often throughout transcripts. Just wondering what you're seeing there and if you expect any benefits from that in the U.S. division. And also wanted to ask about working capital.
You know, you've delivered a very impressive set of improvements on working capital. Last one was by three days, but before that you reported four days, and we've had similar improvements quarter to quarter for several quarters. Just wondering, you know, how long you think you can deliver those improvements or if you think you're basically at a point where working capital will be stable in terms of number of days. Any commentary that you can give us on that in terms of how we should be thinking about that in our models. Thank you.
Felipe, I'll take the first one. Yes, the freight rates have started to fall in some lanes, and obviously if we can take advantage of that changing in price, we're doing it. As you know, most of our business is done locally and our... I mean, we don't have as much impact on that regard, comparing to other CPGs. Yes, it's one of the changes from the past.
On the other side, I think that we're having other significant increases, particularly, for example, in the past year and recently, we have a high surging cost on eggs and that's something that goes against the P&L. You know, just to put one example on the other side. Felipe, this is Diego. Regarding the working capital position, I would say, I mean, yes, we have been continuously improving the working capital of the company on the different accounts. I would say that we're close to the optimal working capital position, although I don't believe we're completely done with the program.
There are still some opportunities, not as big as the moves that we have taken in the past, because that we will go down to a negative number. I'm sure that we will continue to have a very controlled working capital, a lot of focus and potentially see some marginal improvement for the future.
Great. Maybe if I could do a follow-up, Diego, on price carryover for next year. Do you expect to already have your prices in place? In one of the questions I think I heard Daniel say that you're fairly covered for the next year. Initially, I thought you were talking about hedges, it became clear that you're probably not as far advanced on hedging. Does that mean that you're fairly set on prices and you have enough carryover for what you see coming next year?
Felipe, sorry, the line was not very clear. Can you repeat the question please?
Yes, sorry about that. My question was about price carryover. In one of the comments, you mentioned that you were fairly set when it came through next year. I thought you were talking about hedges, but I think your other comments make me think that you were probably not talking about hedges, that you were probably talking about pricing. Are you all set with pricing for next year?
If I was able to get your question correct, I would say yes. We do expect to have an effect of the carryover from price increases of 2022, in some regions a little bit more than others. Like for example, in the U.S., the last round of price increases happened in the fall. As we continue to see the coming months, it will have this benefit on the price increase. In some other markets, the increases took place before that, so it's probably gonna be six months. If you were talking about the carryover effect of price increases, yes, it is included in the guidance. It is part of our expectation on top line growth for 2023.
Great. That was very clear. That was what I was looking for. six months to nine months of carryover sounds like. Thank you.
The next question comes from Antonio Hernández with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. It's Antonio on behalf of OPM. My congrats on your results and Fred and best of luck. My question is regarding volume performance. Can you give me a little bit more details on volume performance in North America and Mexico? Also, what are your expectations for this year? Thanks.
Fred, why don't you take the one in the U.S. and I'll share my views on Mexico.
Sure, Daniel. Thanks, Antonio.
I think I mentioned it earlier. You know, our volume performance for the most part for 2022 was very good. Positive generally. We did see softening in the fourth quarter, as I mentioned earlier, related to the categories starting to contract from the significant amount of pricing and in-inflation that I think consumers are feeling. I think our expectation is that we're gonna grow our business in 2023 behind marketing investments, innovation, et cetera. We are cycling in Q1 in particular, we're gonna be cycling some significant volumes from a year ago when there was a Omicron COVID spike. We'll have to see how the year plays out.
I think the important point I would leave you with is that our share performance is solid, across most categories, either flat or up. You know, we'll have to see. At the end of the day, I think part of this is where the category goes. I would say we're optimistic about our ability to regain momentum to grow volume.
Yes, Antonio. On the Mexican side, I would say that we had all in all, a very good year. In the fourth quarter, we experienced some softness in some categories. I would say that we're starting the year on a good note. We believe that this was more a temporary end of the year situation in some categories. All in all, very good. In some channels, doing 2022 was very good even at the last quarter.
Okay, thanks. Appreciate the call.
The next question comes from Eugenia Cavalheiro with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to ask you about your net leverage and where do you feel comfortable with it? You had a significant decrease expected with the asset sale. wanted to see where, understand from you where do you see that by the end of next year, and where do you feel comfortable getting? Thank you.
Yes. Hi, Daniel. Again, we do not provide any specific guidance on where we think we're gonna land by the end of the year in terms of the leverage ratio for Grupo Bimbo. What I can tell you, and I'm sure you guys will start to do the math with the guidance, including the CapEx, plus some M&A activity. We already did the transaction of Vel Pitar in Romania. I'm sure it's gonna be a year in which we're gonna be demanding some cash flow, and this will put some increase in the leverage of the company. Now, philosophically speaking, where we feel comfortable is between 2- 2.5 times net debt to EBITDA. Remember that the ratio, the way we measure it, is without the IFRS 16.
It's a little bit more asset than taking just the EBITDA with the effect of IFRS 16. It's not necessarily that because we're below, we're uncomfortable. Basically we see the financials of the company, and we're very well positioned to be able to execute our organic and inorganic plans and capture the opportunities that we have in front of us.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Federico Galassi with DRC. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thank you for the call and congrats, Rafael, for the new position. One question or two questions, if I may. The first one is in the guidance, and in particular for the weight of U.S. in the breakdowns in revenues on EBITDA. How are you thinking or how do you take the effects the Mexican peso, U.S. dollar for the building the budgets?
Yes, Federico. Hi. Of course, we do not have a crystal ball, and we do not necessarily know where it is. We do have an assumption. It's more in the mid-19s, 19.5, around that for the average of the year. With that exchange rate is how we convert the operations outside of Mexico in order to arrive at the consolidated level of Grupo Bimbo, be able to provide you guidance and also to have a budget.
Okay, very clear. The second question, more related with the capital allocation. I understand that you can call the perpetual bond this year. Do you think that is in the table?
Yes. The hybrid bond has its first call in April 2023. It will lose its treatment as equity. As you remember, this financial instrument was issued five years ago in 2018 when the company was in a completely different financial position, so it made a lot of sense at that time to have this kind of instrument as part of our debt structure. Today we're analyzing different alternatives and the options. What I can tell you in advance is that we will exercise the option to call it and really look to have a more suitable instrument according to the financial position of the company that we have today.
Okay, thank you so much.
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Daniel Servitje for any closing remarks. Daniel, is your line muted?
Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Thank you all for your time today, and please do not hesitate to contact us with any further comments or questions you might have.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may all now disconnect.