Good afternoon and welcome to Sphera Franchise Group's Q1 2024 results call. My name is Zuzanna Kurek, and I am Investor Relations Officer at Sphera Franchise Group, and I will moderate today's call. Today morning we have published our Q1 2024 results, which you can find on our website in the Investor Relations section as well as on BVB's website, Sphera Invest Sphera Franchise Group Investor Profile. Before we begin, I would like to mention that this call is being recorded and that the recording of this call will be updated on our website tomorrow, the latest. As stated in the call invite, by joining the video conference you automatically and implicitly consented to being recorded. If you do not consent to being recorded, please leave the call.
In terms of organizational aspects, we'll follow the standard call setup, which means the management will deliver a presentation outlining the Q1 2024 results, and later we'll have a Q&A session. Please note that all the participants should be on mute. If you would like to ask a question, please type it in the chat box. Feel free to do so during our call, and we will answer all the questions in chronological order as soon as the presentation of the management is over. Last but not least, as always, I would like to mention that we might be making forward-looking statements today during this call regarding the future performance of Sphera Franchise Group and that the actual results might differ materially.
We encourage you to review the disclaimer that we have included on the screen in the presentation, which is available also on our website, spheragroup.com, Investor Relations section, as well as on BVB's website. This disclaimer applies equally to all statements made in today's call. Now let's kick off the call. I would like to introduce the management that is here with me today and will present our Q1 2024 results. I am joined today by Călin Ionescu, Chief Executive Officer, Valentin Budeş, Chief Financial Officer, and Monica Eftimie, Chief Marketing Officer. I will pass now the floor to our CEO, Mr. Călin Ionescu, who will share with you some insights about our performance from the first three months of 2024. Călin?
Thank you, Zuzanna. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the call presenting the first result of 2024. It's been a good start to the year. The more stable economic condition and the team's hard work to pursue our consistent strategy allow us now to reap the fruits, and it's a great, great reward. We are registering the best first quarter of the year in history in terms of sales, EBITDA, and net profit. Profitability reached the previously recorded high of 10.9%. These figures are based on the strong fundamentals underlying our business: a steady growth of consolidated sales of 9%, a 4 percentage point decrease in the shares of restaurant expenses in total sales, and the lowest net debt-to-EBITDA ratio in the past three years. We believe these are indicative of the robustness of our business, creating proper premises for further sustainable growth for Sphera Group.
I want to dwell on the first three months of the year as we're all aware of the challenges we are facing. The price of the inputs keeps rising, albeit at a slower pace. Let's not forget inflation in Romania is double the EU average. Labor market is still tight, and we're putting in a considerable effort to recruit and retain. However, good news comes from the consumer side. The economic sentiment indicator calculated by the European Commission is at its highest for the past years. Data published by the National Institute of Statistics show consumption is picking up. This confirms the signals we've seen in the first months of the year and our estimates on which we have based our 2024 budget forecast. They support our prediction for solid growth throughout this year for Sphera.
We have estimated double-digit increases for both top line and bottom line, and we are confident we'll achieve these targets. Nevertheless, we remain prudent as uncertainty is not yet a thing of the past. While locally we do not expect major changes due to the upcoming round of elections, which could make things more predictable on the regulatory side, the geopolitical context remains turbulent. Plus, we have a long-term approach to our business, and our extensive previous experience has shown us that calmer periods are sustainable for preparing the surf of agitated waters. That's why we use this time to consolidate our financial health, secure our consumer base, and invest in our teams. We are increasing our reach and diversifying our portfolio, having added to it in March a sub-brand, WingStreet by Pizza Hut.
We are also seeking to reward the trust our shareholders have placed in us. As you all probably know, we'll be distributing a gross dividend amounting to RON 1.05 per share in June, and we intend to distribute an additional dividend in 2024 if certain conditions are met. We are happy that our ever-improving results enable us to follow through with our dividend policy and that our ability to create value for our shareholders is recognized by the market as reflected in the evolution of the share price. We continue to surpass the market growth, offer among the best yield of BET Index companies, and then we are the highest since January 2018. On this high note, I invite Valentin Budeş, Sphera's Chief Financial Officer, to offer more details on the great performance of this year's first quarter.
Thank you, Călin. And, thanks to the audience behind the screen for joining our call today. I must confess it was difficult for me to write the introduction to my speech today, you know, I tried to be original with each earnings call, but this proved to be increasingly difficult as we continue to register record after record. But facts are facts, plus it gives me great satisfaction to say it. We have a new record high in our history for the first quarter, both in terms of top line and bottom line. Yes, we have outdone ourselves once again, and this proves we have a strong team with a visionary plan, committed, and able to deliver top performance.
We have continued to be alert on cost side, expand in a sustainable manner, digitalize for both internal efficiency and improve customer experience, innovate on the product side, and be careful of our clients' strained budgets. It paid off, and please allow me to dive into what lies behind the outstanding figures of this first quarter. Higher sales across all geographies led to a 9% year-on-year increase in total sales. The figure is fully in line with our previous estimates of high single-digit growth rates following the termination of the post-pandemic catch-up phase and the start of the consolidation period for Sphera's businesses. The sustained growth of the group persists within a backdrop where the first quarter typically witnessed a deceleration in the food service industry post-holiday season. This sets a solid foundation for a robust performance in 2024.
Moreover, Romania, which is the biggest contributor to the sales, with 86.7%, managed to attain a double-digit growth rate of 10% due to the excellent performance of the KFC brand. Moldova keeps on giving, with a 12% increase in sales, and as you'll see on the following slides, with impressive profitability rates. Looking at the brand contribution, KFC is the indisputable star, achieving a double-digit increase of 12%, out of which more than half is associated with same-store sales. Taco Bell had a reasonable growth of 5% year-on-year and remained profitable. Pizza Hut continued its reorganization process, with five restaurants closing in January, which set lower sales compared to the first quarter of 2023. However, its performance improved as the restaurant operating loss decreased to RON 0.1 million in quarter one, 22% lower than the similar period of 2023.
We are continuing with our turnaround plan, and this improvement is a good indicator that we are on the right path. While paying attention to cost side, we are also seeking to strengthen the base of the business, and one action that has already yielded good results is the addition of the WingStreet sub-brand under the Pizza Hut umbrella. It's a new concept for the local market: baked chicken wings. If you haven't tried them yet, I highly recommend it. The Garlic Parmesan are my favorites, but I won't want to influence you. Moving on the next slide, it's a glimpse of what drove the great performance of this quarter. Expenses grew below inflation, restaurant-operating profits surged by 63%, and normalized EBITDA by an impressive 69%. But what are the reasons behind these numbers? I will take them one by one.
Restaurant expenses increased at a significantly smaller pace than sales, by only 4.7% year-on-year, resulting in an approximately four percentage points drop of their weight in the total sales, from 91.8% in Q1 2023 to 88% in Q1 2024. As usual, the largest contributor to the expenses were food and material costs. Due to our diligent approach in this area, they only increased by 2.8%, lower than the inflation for food products at national level. As a result, we were able to reduce its share in sales by two percentage points, bringing it down to 31.8%. On a less bright note, the local labor market continues to experience a high level of competition and scarcity, in both skilled and unskilled workers, which compels us to up our efforts to motivate and secure our employee base.
Combined with the new increase in the minimum wage in 2023, this results in a 5.9% increase in payroll and employee benefits, if you are looking to Q1 2024 versus Q1 2023. Other operating expenses amounted to RON 47.6 million, recording a moderate 3.1% increase, primarily fueled by the volume activity boost. However, the weight in sales decreased with 0.8 percentage points versus last year's similar period, reaching 13% in Q1 2024. What is worth mentioning here is that starting with this year, in Romania, in other operating expenses, it was added the excise duty, representing the tax on beverages containing added sugar above 5 g/100 ml, in Q1 2024, this amounting to RON 0.4 million. However, the moderate increase across all cost categories, coupled with the good top line growth, led to a significant boost in the restaurant operating profit of 63.1% to RON 44.6 million.
We are also witnessing a very favorable development regarding EBITDA, with a 69% increase year-on-year, following our effective cost control measures across the group. The G&A expenses had a positive impact, with a reduction in proportion to sales of 0.2 percentage points year-on-year to 4.3%. The bottom line, it's a net normalized profit of RON 21.4 million for the period, almost triple than Q1 2023. Moving to the balance sheet, even with our attention directed towards opening new stores, remodeling existing ones, and investing in kiosks and other digital projects, our cash flow remains very robust, reaching a liquidity level of RON 89.5 million by the end of March 2024. Before we move to the next slide, I want to highlight two indicators reflective of Sphera's robust results. EBITDA margins stand at a healthy, comfortable 10.9%.
It is a record high for the first quarter, which we have reached only once, since listing in Q1 2018. The EBITDA margin varied per brand, and I must mention KFC Moldova, with a stellar 23.8%, but also the excellent level of 13.2% for KFC Romania. The second indicator, as Călin mentioned, is the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, which reached a minimum level of 0.3, signaling the soundness of a cash-rich business. Now, going forward, in this section, there are some business updates. In the first quarter, we have opened one KFC drive-thru restaurant in Sibiu, and in April, an additional food court restaurant in Pitești. The pace is consistent with previous experience, with most openings taking place in the second part of the year. As already mentioned, we went through with our plan to organize the Pizza Hut business, which includes restaurant closings.
As a result, we now operate a leaner, more efficient network of 29 units. In this first quarter, we published the budget for 2024, which was later approved by the GSM. We have considered a normal course of business, a yearly average inflation of around 6%, and an increase in the minimum wage announced by the authorities. Based on this assumption, we target to continue our steady growth in terms of top line and improvement in the bottom line. The restaurant sales are estimated to go up by a comfortable 12% compared to 2023, on the back of contributions from both same-store and new store. We are confident our effective cost control management will trigger an increase in the food and material costs in 2024 below the increase in sales.
The evolution of the cost of labor will be in line with the growth of the sales throughout the year, similar to how the group managed it in 2023. We expect the weight of the normalized G&A expenses in total sales to be lower this year than in 2023, due to the inelasticity of this cost in relation to activity volume increase. As a result, we are targeting a more than satisfying increase in the normalized net profit of 20% year-on-year. In terms of development, the total estimated capital expenditure for 2024 is around RON 69 million, allocated towards six KFC openings in Romania, store remodeling, and implementation of digital solutions as part of our digital strategy. Last but not least, good news in terms of the share price evolution.
We continue to outperform the BET Index, with a 14% increase in the first three months of 2024 versus a 10.8% increase in the BET Index for the similar period. Liquidity tripled, with almost 0.6 million Sphera shares traded in Q1 2024. Our shareholders approve a 1.05% gross dividend per share to be paid in June, and we intend to distribute a supplementary dividend in the second part of the year, in line with our dividend policy. To conclude, we have wrapped up another outstanding quarter. Our meticulously crafted strategy, unwavering cost control, carefully designed marketing tactics, and the tireless effort of our team have yielded good results once again, making us confident of the prospects for this year. We look forward to continuing to deliver exceptional results in the future. And now, Monica, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Valentin.
In case you were wondering, when it comes to WingStreet, I'm a barbecue fan myself. Good afternoon, everyone. As you may know, consumer spending behavior is more conservative in the first quarter of the year, typical for the post-holiday season. For marketing, this usually means more work to counteract this trend. And we did have some busy three months for all the brands. At KFC, our approach was to drive sales growth through transactions, reinforcing the value-for-money perception, for which we have run three campaigns: a large promotional campaign with daily and weekly prizes consisting of KFC products and a big prize of EUR 100,000. While the mechanic set us apart in the category, it also resulted in a significant transaction boost. We reintroduced, for a limited period, Tuesday Buckets, driving traffic in stores, and we offered coupons through our mobile app.
We also successfully relaunched Smart Menu, a full meal for only RON 19.9 , which resulted in same-store sales increases. We have also kept our consumers close through social media engagement on a variety of platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. All marketing campaigns were supported through dedicated content, but we have also run real-time marketing tactics, with influencers and content creators, to ensure a constant conversation with the page's fans. Pizza Hut, moving on. Pizza Hut continued its path to business turnaround, not only in terms of reorganization, a process which continued in the first quarter, but also by unlocking new growth layers, by addressing new usage occasions to support sales building. Thus, in March, we launched WingStreet, a sub-brand internationally renowned, proposing to consumers a new concept: baked glazed wings with six different flavors and other American-inspired products.
The launch was strongly supported through communication, a digital campaign, premium exposure in aggregator's platforms, an offline event with 30 influencers, and a media gathering with 10 journalists. At the same time, we continue to pursue our objective of improving transactions. Therefore, two of the campaigns this year revolved around strengthening the value-for-money perception. We offered clients a small pizza for only RON 1 with any medium pizza bought, which attracted price-conscious consumers and increased trial. We also brought into focus our Wednesday offer, any pasta for RON 21.9, to remind consumers about our varied menu items, with affordable price points. Now, Taco Bell. Reinforcing the value-for-money perception is an objective for Taco Bell as well. However, marketing actions aim at the same time at increasing trial to expand consumer base. Three campaigns sought these outcomes.
Two of them focused on affordability: Más Menu, a complete meal at an attractive price, and Taco Tuesday, a buy-one, get-one-free fan favorite. The third one represented a value innovation. Cheesy Gordita Crunch is a new product at an affordable price that differentiated us in the category. All three campaigns resulted in boosted sales. We also continue to communicate the mobile app with a rewards program on top so that consumers can only come to us for certain exclusive offers. Before moving on to the next section, which I know you are particularly looking forward to, the individual performance of the brands, please allow me a few words on pricing. In the current economic climate, we increased the prices in February for the three brands in order to protect the bottom line and absorb the increased cost of inputs.
However, as I have previously mentioned, we focused on value offerings, to customers to ensure continued traffic, visits, and transactions. Regarding the figures, all brands have experienced an increase in sales except for Pizza Hut, which has already been discussed by Valentin and will be addressed again. We see more, moderate growth for some of the brands in line with the post-pandemic reality, but we also have some nice surprises. One of them is KFC Romania, our star brand, which continues to shine quite bright with a double-digit growth rate of all stores of all store sales. Given the magnitude of the business and the fact that we entered a business-as-usual course, the 12.8% increase is a notable achievement. Main indicators registered good performance. Restaurant operating profit increased by 58.3%, EBITDA surged by 64.8%, while the net profit doubled.
Moreover, KFC Romania ended the first quarter with an excellent EBITDA margin of 13.2%. A contributor to the brand's performance was also the new KFC restaurant, a new drive-thru opened in February in Sibiu. KFC Moldova also had a good first quarter. Sales were higher by 12.4%, and the restaurant operating profit doubled. The two Chișinău units continued to record extraordinary profitability with an EBITDA margin of 23.8%. During the first quarter, KFC Italy saw an increase in sales as well by 5.7% and ended the period profitable in terms of EBITDA. Sales also increased for Taco Bell by 5.4%, and after breaking even last year, the brand continues to remain profitable in the first quarter of 2024.
Pizza Hut contributed RON 27.4 million to total sales in Q1 2024, down compared to the first quarter of 2023, amid the reorganization of the rest of the restaurant network, which continued in the first months of the year. However, the results of these actions are already visible, with the operating loss at the restaurant level decreasing by 22% in Q1 2024 compared to Q1 2023. Now, a few words on delivery. As delivery plays an important part in our cost structure, we continue to bring in front of you the evolution of orders for this channel. In the first quarter of 2024, there was a 1% point rise in delivery sales compared to the fourth quarter of last year, but the 19% level across all group entities is identical to the one of Q1 of 2023.
Given the larger overall sales, the total value of delivery sales in the first quarter of 2024 reached RON 70.4 million, marking a 9.4% year-on-year. I would also like to mention that we decided to gradually outsource our own delivery fleets to existing partners to optimize costs, of course, while securing sales and remaining in close contact with customers. In Q1 2024, own delivery sales channel represented 7.8% versus 11.4% in Q1 2023. I will now wrap up our presentation, and we will take your questions.
Thank you very much, Monica. This concludes the presentation of the management. We will now open the floor for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please type it in the chat box. We will then read them out loud in a chronological order and address them. I saw we already have three of the first questions.
The first one is, "Hi, and congratulations for the results. Can you provide us how much from the 9% year-on-year increase is due to higher average ticket prices, and how much is aided by higher volumes? Thank you." I will invite Valentin Budeș to answer this question.
So, the 9.2% increase, of the Q1, it's fueled for both, volume impact and price impact. We can see more than 40%, triggered by volume in this 9% increase. So, both elements with significant influence coming from volume as well.
Thank you, Valentin. The second question: "Based on that good Q1, is it that the 2024 budget is conservative?" For this answer, I will invite Călin to address the question.
From my point of view and probably from all the it's the point of view of the management, it's too early to say whether the budget for this year is conservatively constructed. But if we record equally good results in the second quarter, we will communicate a new guideline to the market.
Perfect. Thank you very much, Călin. The third question: "Congratulations for the results and for the presentation. Please indicate the impact of salaries in the OPEX and the comparative to Q1 2023." Here, I will bring it back again to Valentin to address the question.
So, yeah, if we are looking to the payroll expense line, there are different ways to judge it.
In absolute value, definitely the payroll increased with 5.9%, which is normal because it's a different scale of the business with a higher number of restaurants added and a different volume increase. If we are looking to the weight of the payroll and employee benefits in the sales, we can see a decrease. They have a weight of 22.5% in Q1 2024 versus 23.2% in Q1 2023. Obviously, if we are looking at the weight in the total expenses in total OPEX, there is a different logic there as well. If we are commenting on why the weight of the payroll and employee benefits decreased as related to revenue, then definitely there are two factors. On one hand, is the dilution of this expense line because of the effect of the price increases.
On the other hand, it's a temporary difference because we run Q1 2024 with a lower average FTE per restaurant compared with the one recorded in Q1 2023. So I hope I addressed from multiple angles the question.
Thank you, Valentin. The next question: "Can we expect new Taco Bell restaurants in Romania or new openings in Moldova or Italy this year?" For this question, I would like to ask Călin to address it.
Yes. We are not sure. Regarding Taco Bell, we are not sure if it will be this year or next year, but we work on this. In Moldova, probably it will be another one, and Italy also with a few projects on the way.
Thank you very much, Călin. And now we have a set of three questions. We are going to address them one by one.
The first one is: "What was the comparable year-on-year sales performance of Pizza Hut, meaning if you only look at the stores that remain open and exclude the closed 13 stores?" This is a question for Valentin.
So, yeah, if we are isolating the effect, then it's a positive variance. It's a high single-digit percentage increase. Thank you.
The next question is: "Could you elaborate on a bit on the weak NWC performance, the drag-down operating cash flows in Q1 2024?"
So, in Q1 2024, there is a timing difference, which is related to the last quarter of the previous year. So, in the last period, there was a shift of the payments due to the holiday season from December to January. So we can classify it in one order like a short period payments delay that affected the Q1 2024.
Thank you, Valentin. We hope this answers your question. Before I read the next question, I would like to kindly invite you, if you have any remaining questions for the management, please type them, please type them now. If there will be no further questions, we will conclude this call and this presentation after the answer to the next one. Thank you. So, the following question we have: "Are the 250 employees from Sri Lanka actually on Sphera Payroll, or are they employed via third party?" And here, I bring it back to Călin now.
They are employed via the third party because there is high turnover on this part. And, in this way, we can secure the cost.
If we are looking to the entire experience with this solution of workforce, in the beginning, we started with the internal hiring. So still a proportion of this category of employees are on our direct payroll. But then it was shifted to the solution that Călin mentioned, and this is a solution with which we are working, as of now.
Thank you. We have addressed all of the questions that we've received so far. If there are no further questions, we are going to conclude this call. Thank you all very much for joining us. Just a few announcements at the end, as usual. Tomorrow, we have an Ex-date for the dividend payment that Călin mentioned. The Record date is 17th of May.
The payment of the dividends in the gross amount of RON 1.05 for 2022-2023 profits is going to be on June 6th. In terms of the next call, next time we're going to hear each other is going to be on August 30th after we publish the results for the first half of this year. We thank you all for your participation today, and we wish you a great day.