Okay, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of the first quarter of 2022 of the financial unaudited results of Purcari Wineries. We'll start with a quick intro slides, some of them that you know. These are the presenters of today. Myself, Eugen Comendant, Chief Operating Officer. We have Victor Bostan, Chief Executive Officer, Victor Arapan, Chief Financial Officer, Eugeniu Baltag, Investor Relations Manager, and Vasile Țofan, Chairman of the Board. The agenda for today is the following. First we'll go through. I'll try to go quick through the section which shows an overview of our group, the vision and the strategy. Then we'll move to the first quarter operational results, after which, we'll open, and in fact, we'll try to give more time for the Q&A session.
Just a quick overview on Purcari Wineries. It's obvious from this slide that we are a leader in the industry in the region. We are the world's most awarded winery in 2021. We are the most awarded winery in Central and Eastern Europe at Decanter between the years of 2015 and 2021. We are the best premium wine brand in Romania. We are the fastest growing in CEE, largest exporter of bottled wine from Moldova, and we are backed by top tier investors such as yourselves and other ones listed in this slide. Our vision, of course, is to become the undisputed champion in the wine business in Central and Eastern Europe. We mention this later in the presentation.
Of course, for us to achieve that, we believe that we started in the right place, which is Romania and Moldova, because these two combined hold the largest area of vineyards in Central and Eastern Europe and the fourth in Europe after the three big ones, which are Spain, France and Italy. Looking a bit at the results in the last five years, because we believe it's important, we as Purcari IPO'd at the beginning of 2018, in February 2018. Of course, back then, there was a story, a vision that was portrayed to the investors, and we believe that we fulfilled that vision in the four years that Purcari has been listed.
Basically from the moment that Purcari IPO'd, we managed to increase the revenues by 75%, and we maintain a solid operating margins, gross profit margin, EBITDA margin and net profit margin. Gross profit around 50%, EBITDA in the 30s% and net profit margin in the 20s%. This is solid. It proves again that the business model is a sustainable one and we see that in the long term we're able to sustain such a business model. Overall we see ourselves both, you know, towards our investors, both as a growth company and as a value company. Now we're proving growth through the fact that we grow double digits, we'll say CAGR of double digits, over the last four years.
In fact, over the last eight years or so, even before the IPO. We also want to be a value company, and that's why we want to be quite disciplined in giving away dividends. For that, we need to generate a good earnings per share and then pay out the dividends which we've done in 2018, the year of IPO. For 2020, 2021, that we've approved in the last AGM. For 2019 we missed it, but we all know why because of the pandemic was beginning and we decided to be prudent and stay on cash. Of course our group has, w e believe that the strategy that we are following is correct. We're in the right market. We see that the overall wine market is growing, specifically the segment that we're in, which is medium to high, so more the premium side.
We have the competitive advantage to dominate this industry and specifically this segment. As you can see, we have a strong brand. We are very appreciated by the juries at different international wine competitions. We've proven a growth over the years. Our business model is a simple but something that works. For us it's important that we remain a cost competitive wine making business. We are prudent on cost.
We make sure that our CapEx investments have a high return on that investment. We are in the region that allows us to have lower operating costs compared to other wine producing regions. We're trying to give that affordable luxury to our consumers and you can imagine that we are succeeding in doing that. If you were to think of a bottle of Purcari being on the shelf between, let's say, an entry-level between EUR 8-12 or GBP 8-12, a wine that also comes from a winery that's the most awarded in the world and wins various medals at a renowned international wine competitions, then obviously we're able to provide that affordable luxury. We believe that we're good at marketing.
We are honest, we speak in a human language, so to speak, yeah. We don't only sell wine, but we also stand by protecting certain values and by certain things that we believe are important. So with that, this combination, we see that this business model of providing this affordable luxury to our consumer works and will work. Our mission is to bring joy in people's lives by offering them high quality, inspiring ethical wines and excellent value for the money. As I mentioned, our vision is to become the undisputed champion in the Central and Eastern Europe in the wine business, but also through consolidating a fairly fragmented industry. Of course, we have the values that will support us in doing this.
Again, just this combination of operational excellence on one side and clever marketing on the other side creates that low cost with a high perception on brand and quality, which allows for having that combination of being able to price high and to produce at low cost, delivering those solid margins that you've seen before. This just shows that approach of you know, we are in the industry, wine industry, which is fairly consolidated when we compare to beer and spirits. There's obviously room for consolidation in the wine industry. Quality in wine is very important, so it's very important not only to reach consumers, but also to retain them.
We're able to do that through the very high quality of the wines that we produce. From the business perspective, it's important that as a business is growing and as the volumes grow, that the business is not only growing that volume and revenues, but is also maintaining that quality and that promise to the consumer. We always see that every time a consumer chooses a bottle of wine from the shelf, we have a promise to maintain to that consumer. That has been also one of the key success factors for Purcari. We spoke about quality. This is a bit about brand and quality. On the left side, we show that Purcari is a trendy brand. We're not just one of those older, maybe, grandfathered brand.
We are very, i t's an old company, but a very trendy brand, and you can see that through the mentions on Instagram. Vivino, it's a very important platform also for us to track or to have a pulse on the perception with customers, not with the juries at competitions. On Vivino, we have, for example, if we take Romania, which is our key market, we have the most votes with the highest average score. We dominate on quality when it comes to the vote of the consumer. Again, on Vivino, we see that, you know, we being the dominant in the premium segment. You can see here 13 out of the first 25 on Vivino. Again, it shows the strength of Purcari in the premium segment.
Speaking about the premium segment, we just keep speaking about the same thing. Here in Romania, we see that we are dominating the premium segment, if you look on the right. We are above 22%. We're above 20% for Purcari, but as a group, we have 25% of the premium segment in Romania. Overall, if you look on the left, we are the company that keeps growing and gaining market share in the overall market. I guess the combination of the two slides, the one on the left and the one on the right, shows that overall, we have a bit of tailwinds, where the premium segment keeps growing while the lower segments, they are suffering more from, I guess, macroeconomic environment.
Now we speak about Romania. It's important that we keep growing in Romania. It's a key market. For us, what's also important is to see the presence of our wines worldwide. Here with Vivino is that app again that gives us this visibility into how consumers perceive us, but also where they rank our wines. We see that Purcari wines are scanned pretty much across all of the northern hemisphere, with an average score of 4.24 and overall increasing in terms of, you know, number of scans, and you can see here even 96 countries across the world.
Good. I try to be fairly fast in going through the overview slides. Now and then we skip them, but sometimes I think it's important to just remind the investor community of the formula that makes Purcari successful, that made Purcari successful until now, and also that we believe will make Purcari, will continue making Purcari successful in the future. On the operational results, we are happy to report growth in revenues, EBITDA and net income. Revenue grew from RON 49.8 million in the first quarter of 2021 to RON 56.2 million in the first quarter of this year. This is a 13% growth on the group level. EBITDA, solid EBITDA to RON 20.5 million, that's a 4% increase. Net income is a solid 12 million RON.
That's a 16.5-17% increase versus last year. If you look at margins, we are looking at a very solid 36% EBITDA margin and a 21% net income margin. I'll cover this quickly. Perhaps the first two sections, I will leave them for the slides that follow. You know, not only on the financial side, we are posting good results, but also, let's say, on the operational side, we've been quite busy. We've launched some new fantastic wines, Academia Purcari. These are some wines. First wine in Moldova, by the way, vinified in amphoras, in clay amphoras.
They are have minimal implication from the oenologist, which make them very attractive to the wine connoisseurs. They've been launched two weeks ago, and already the perception of these wines is very high. They are quite premium, so let's say shelf price or consumer price, we're looking to be somewhere between EUR 40 and EUR 50 . You know, we are quite active in terms of being appreciated by or being recognized by the international wine critic community. Again, we're starting the year well with strong results at various international wine contests. Now, you've probably seen also some of the media coverage. We've been very active in supporting refugees.
We believe that this is something that we had to do as, you know, being in the region and just being providing this humanitarian support from human to human, but also as a company which is a leader of the industry that, you know, with its position of, you know, largest exporter, one of the largest companies, in the region, most awarded winery in the world. We had to also step in and do our share of supporting the Ukraine refugees, and we've done that. We've done that very, very well. We've helped over 5,000 refugees in terms of providing shelter for them, and in fact, over 12,000 refugees in general helped also at our other helping centers.
This has gotten some media coverage, and we were featured on various channels and publications such as CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, Le Monde, Washington Post, New York Post, and some others. With this, we also had some high-profile visits from Samantha Power, Charles Michel from the European Council, and Orlando Bloom. Now, the numbers of course, I've mentioned the, let's say, high-level revenue growth. Overall, you see that the margin is very strong, so gross profit margin is at 52%. Overall, we had some positive effects when it comes to margin from the sales mix. Purcari and Bardar were the ones that showed the strongest growth comparing to Bostavan and Crama Ceptura.
With this, of course, the more premium product sales generated a strong 52% margin. It's one of the highest that we recorded in the quarter. We've managed to maintain our marketing and selling expenses at 9% of revenue, so in decline of 2% versus last year, for the same period of last year. G&A grew at 9%. Overall, the SG&A grew at 4% slower than revenues, which of course had also a positive impact further down on the bottom line. We did record some provisions for loss on trade receivables. These are of course because of the Ukrainian situation. Well, the war in Ukraine, let's say what it is.
For that, we just had to record those provisions. Again, as always, we've always been prudent in recording these provisions. We of course, as management, are optimistic and we're looking to recover those receivables in due time. Of course, we reach a net profit of RON 12 million, which is a 21% net profit margin. We have a solid balance sheet. You can see here that, you know, the cash position, the net debt, and all the other ratios, they are solid ratios. Net debt to EBITDA at one. We have sort of this internal limit of 1.5. You can see here that we did reach it in end of 2019.
Overall, you know, if you look at our balance sheet, it's a very solid balance sheet. You know, with the macroeconomic environment at the moment, whichever way the situation will progress, we believe that we are in a very solid position to weather through any adverse effects or any crisis, if I can call it this. Okay. If you look on the figures per country, Romania grew 7%, so now it's 55% of our sales. The brands that showed the good results in Romania are Purcari and Bardar. Nocturne, which is a series or a collection of wines that was launched particularly for HoReCa, is doing very well, and that's also supporting that growth.
Moldova, you can see very strong result, 36% growth. Here we have a few effects. Again, we have Bardar, which is the premium brandy, showing a strong growth here in Moldova, but also Purcari and Bostavan. They in fact, all the brands showed a positive growth, very strong growth. One of the effect was the reopening of HoReCa. Now the weather is good and the consumers are okay, enjoying their time in the HoReCa channel. The duty-free, it has been reopened. Well, it had a bit of a closing again due to the Russian aggression against Ukraine, but the sales are starting to pick up in that channel.
Poland we see -1% and there's some. Well, overall, -1% is not necessarily a bad result because here we are, we have incorporated the negative effects of our cooperation with Lidl, which we're very close to reestablishing. We're basically comparing to a higher quarter of 2021. We are comparing to a quarter in the first quarter of 2021, where Biedronka was still there. Now, as you know, we have re-entered Biedronka, but we are recovering those sales. Overall, -1%, we see it as a relatively good number. What's good to see there is that in Poland, the Purcari sales are picking up very well.
We grew Purcari by 250% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year in Poland. Overall, we are positive. We have a positive outlook about Poland. Asia grew 20%, even though we had a bit of logistical frictions when it comes to logistics because the logistics moved from the Odessa port to Constanța. We had some of the deliveries, some of the orders moved for the second quarter. Overall, still +20% in China or Asia overall. Czech Republic and Slovakia, -7%. Over there, we do see a bit of effect from the markets. Overall, the Moldovan segment has slightly shrunk a bit.
We look at the inflation rates and it seems that Czech Republic has already seen some inflation happening there. There are some general effects when it comes to the market. Still Tesco, the restructuring of Tesco is still a part of the negative effect in Czech and Slovakia. Baltic States are not here, but they overall also showed a bit of a decrease year-on-year.
That was due to the fact that it seems that in the first quarter, when the war in Ukraine started, the population in that region, well, their most important purchases were basic food items such as wheat, rice and flour, and these kind of things, and other hygiene products. We saw a bit of a slowdown in the sell-out of wine, but that's similar to what we saw early in the pandemic of 2020, when the pandemic was starting in 2020, but then sales recovered. We are looking at how the Baltics will progress in the second quarter. Ukraine, of course, minus 48%, but that's, of course, to be understood.
Overall, the sales stopped for a majority of time since the war started in Ukraine. However, the demand seems to start again. There is demand for deliveries in the western part of Ukraine. We will be looking at potentially some sales recovery there. When it comes to brands, it was Purcari and Bardar that showed the growth. They showed growth in Romania, in Moldova, and in Poland. For example, even Bardar in Poland has shown strong growth figures. Both Bostavan and Crama Ceptura show a decline with primary effects from, for Crama Ceptura, that's the effect of Lidl.
We are comparing a year or a quarter in 2021 with sales in Lidl and now in 2022 without those portion of sales. This is the effect of that when it comes to Château Purcari. Both Bostavan, it's all those effects of, you know, flat Poland and the declines in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Moldova growth, so the growth of sales of Bostavan in Moldova has offset a bit the decline in those markets. This is just to put on the, you know, to visualize the Academia Purcari. You can see it's an interesting label. A nice, attractive bottle. It's a different bottle with a wax cap.
Overall positioned, you know, for the higher end price and higher end consumer. Again, we are, you know, using another opportunity to mention that in 2021, Purcari became the most awarded winery in the world. I was mentioning that, you know, that media coverage and the attention that we've received, due to, you know, to our efforts to support the Ukrainian refugees. Of course, we didn't ask for, you know, we were clear from the start that we, you know, everything that we do for the refugees is unconditional. We do not want to derive any commercial gains from this crisis and from the suffering of Ukrainian people.
Some media started picking up, and then it became a sort of a rolling ball, and then we got more and more of this request to appear in media. This gives us this high rank visit at Château Purcari. Overall, look, you know, my personal opinion is that, of course it's horrible what's happening in Ukraine. It's horrible that there's human lives lost. You know, as difficult as this may be, we are optimistic. I am personally optimistic in Ukraine winning this war, you know, regaining the control of their country and their territory. In fact, I believe that in time, this region, Ukraine and Moldova, will actually come out stronger than they were.
Somewhere, you know, as bad as it may be now, it's something that will make you stronger. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Something that will make this region strong. Good. I think now we can open it for questions and answers. Let me just stop sharing.
Hi, sorry. By my side.
Hi, Juliana.
Hi. A couple of questions on the sales side. First, overall, wine sales were relatively weak in the first quarter. Growth was around 4%, just 7% in Romania, and some significant drops in other regions. Can you comment a bit more on this? What is the outlook? I mean, I know the guidance for this year is 10%-15%. Do you keep that? How do you plan to recover in the following quarters if you plan to the outlook?
Indeed. Look, 4% is the growth of the core segment, which is the wine segment for us. There was the contribution of Ecosmart. Ecosmart had another RON 4 million added to the revenue. Overall, the group grew this 13%. When it comes to the wine business, now we are yet to perform certain price increases. We see that overall the prices are going up. In fact, we are slightly delayed with certain price increases when it comes to, you know, when comparing to our competitors.
We see that in the markets where we are, let's say, present and strong, such as Romania and Moldova, we are yet to be able to gain from those, from that price increase. In markets which are a bit more difficult, that is Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and the Baltics. Now, first of all here, primarily the sales are from Bostavan. In fact, some of the declines in sales is also due to the fact that we have already, to some extent, put forward some certain price increases.
Overall, for example, Lidl to us the recovery of Lidl can create certain benefits in Romania, but also in Poland and Czech Republic and even the Baltics. The recovery of that partnership will, let's say, it's one factor that can create that the growth. Overall, we're also very active in let's say, let's call it business development. We're very active in making our wines available in other markets such as the U.K., such as Japan and even Africa. It's a combination of various factors that we believe will create growth that we mentioned in our guidance.
Look, overall, the guidance that we've provided is something that we put forward at the beginning of this war in Ukraine. We were thinking of revising it, but we're yet to see how the situation will progress. Hopefully, you know, depending on how long the situation in Ukraine will continue, there'll be some positive sentiment coming back to countries such as Baltic States, such as Czechia, and Slovakia and perhaps even Ukraine.
Basically, for a recovery, kind of, you're kind of expecting. I mean, you would have revised the outlook, but you still have hopes that the partnership with Lidl will be resumed, and that the end of the war in Ukraine could possibly revive the sentiment somehow. I mean, compared with the guidance that you've offered some months ago.
Yeah. Look, overall, we are maintaining the guidance. We for example, right now we have been comparing with a fairly, relatively strong first quarter of 2021. That's why, for example, we see that the wine has only grown by 4%. We have China, which many orders have moved to the second quarter. We have okay, this situation with Lidl, which we are looking to regain. Overall, it's just the beginning of the year, the start of the year, so the first quarter. We have this targets, 10%-15% growth of the core business. As you know us always, we'll be looking to even overperform over this guidance.
Regarding the China, I also want to ask, because you've mentioned something in the presentation. You said that some deliveries were delayed into the second quarter, but then y ou also say the second presentation that there is a lockdown. Did I read that correct?
Yes, indeed. There's also the situation now with the lockdown in China. But nonetheless, we still see orders, and we have. There was the situation where we moved some of the orders from the first quarter to the second quarter.
Overall you're positive on China, although there is a lockdown. 'Cause I don't remember if you had a lockdown in the second quarter of last year. I'm not really comparing, this might be. Okay.
No, look, China indeed. China overall has been. I think I've mentioned this a few times, that the sales in China, it's not something. It's something that we are constantly working for. Yes, we have some stable partners in China, but overall, you know, you do see, so if you were to look at the seasonalities and the variabilities between the quarters, you will see that variability. Very often, for example, because of the cost of transportation, many orders will be bulked into, let's say, you know, because you send one container. You know, if you have multiple partners, they sort of tend to how would you say to condense their orders which normally would be spread over certain periods, they tend to condense them in one period. This is a situation that sometimes we can see in China.
Okay. Okay.
Hi. It's Peter Grgurevic from InterCapital, Croatia. Can you comment on how come China sales increased by 20% despite China lockdown? Can you give me more details on that, please?
I'm afraid I cannot give, let's say, a consumer or end market insight because we have multiple partners that sell to multiple channels.
Mm-hmm.
We have some partners that are selling primarily B2B. Some are in the, you know, in the specialized stores. We have some other partners which are more in the gift segment. I don't think I'm able to give you some, let's say, local insights in terms of the orders, in terms of why there's 20% increase in the sale.
Okay. Thank you. The next question would be, how close are Purcari's assets to Ukrainian border, or how close are your operation from Transnistria?
Purcari is situated in the southeastern part of Moldova. We are a few kilometers away from the border. Indeed from the vineyards, if you go up in the vineyards, you'll be able to see on the right side, you'll see Ukraine, on the other side you will see Transnistria. Nonetheless, we are, I should say, on the, let me call mainland or the mainland Moldova, which is, you know, not part of the Transnistria region. If there's, of course, from your side a concern whether we are very close to the war, I don't think it matters whether we are close to the border or not. Yes, we are fairly close to the border with Ukraine.
Okay, thank you. On that side of question, just two more follow-ups. Are you able to work so far and produce without any interruptions? The second one, what is currently the scale of your operation in Ukraine and Russia?
On the question regarding interruptions, we are operating completely without any interruptions. In fact, on operational level, we do not see any blockages or any bottlenecks. When it comes to sales and exposure on sales, our sales exposure to Ukraine was around 3.6% and to Belarus around 1%, I think, another 1.6% of our group sales. Pretty much zero exposure, sales exposure to Russia. There is no effect there. It's only these two, Ukraine and Belarus, the sales to these two markets were impacted by this war. As I said, in Ukraine, we see positive signs. We see demand, so we see orders. We'll have to monitor how the situation progresses.
Thank you very much. That was all from my side.
[Victor] and colleagues, if I may add to this, with your permission, as somebody who moved from Kyiv to Chișinău, you know, I kind of was on the frontline of this attack. At the moment, I think that at least our subjective perception is that the risk of the conflict spilling over to Moldova is overblown. We have a strong indication of that from all the official messages from the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. military intelligence has been that Moldova is not at risk at the moment. If you compare to the Ukrainian situation, the U.S. Embassy moved out of Kyiv, first to Lviv, then to Poland, four weeks before the onset of the invasion.
As far as Moldova is concerned, which is a very small country, you know, all embassies are here, U.S. embassy is here, U.S. ambassador is here, E.U. embassies are all the embassies are here and they never considered leaving as far as we know. That's the algorithm we have, you know, as long as the U.S. ambassador is here, and I think we are all safe. We cannot guess what Putin's mind, but we have to trust the U.S. intelligence. Again, all the messages we've been getting have been very reassuring. That's why, for example, my fund, you know, we have part of our employees, you know, we're an American fund. We have an option to move them from Kyiv to Chișinău.
You know, our families are here on the ground, so we're kind of also, you know, voting with our feet. It's not that we're sending reassuring messages, and at the same time, we keep our kids in Switzerland, you know, we're in London. No, our kids are here at school, you know. I think, so far we're quite confident things are going to be calm here on the ground.
Thank you very much.
Hi, I'm Justin Tertio from BP Capital Partners. Earlier you mentioned that Purcari made some price augmentation last quarter. Can you detail how much the prices were raised in the first quarter? Also, what can we expect in the future related to pricing?
Yes. We've increased certain prices for certain products in certain markets. It's a bit of a complicated answer, but for example, in Romania, we have made already an increase for most of the brands, and that started on the first of March. The level of increase is somewhere between 5%-7% for the various brands, for example, that's in Romania. In Moldova, we've already pushed certain price increases as well, and that's the same level. It's always single digits. We speak about average per brands. Okay, we have certain products that it's more than single digits, it's double digits.
Overall, I'd say in Romania and Moldova, we've pushed already through some of the price increases. In Moldova as of first of April, there was another, let's say, price increase, which on a separate set of products, not two times. Let's say Romania and Moldova, the price increases have been pushed forward. We have other markets that are yet to have the price increases. That is Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Baltics. They're happening. There's a set of them that already happened on the first of April, so they'll take effect in the second quarter, and then the other ones will be somewhere around June.
As a follow-up question, we know that the wine market overall remains a very competitive market. How much can Purcari raise prices in the future without affecting its volumes?
Well, look, now I think somewhere we need to understand that there's this overall inflationary effect that allows for prices to be increased without necessarily an effect when it comes to our pricing versus competitors. Sure, they may be maybe in the consumer's basket, the consumer may choose perhaps less wine or and more you know basic necessities. Even though that's debatable, because overall the various crises have shown that in fact the sale of wine is in fact increasing during the crisis. The coronavirus has shown that at least in the Northern Hemisphere.
When it comes to our price increases versus competitors, you know, because of these inflationary pressures, price increases in fact will not detach us from competitors. Overall we are always pursuing this premiumization approach, premiumization direction. We believe that Purcari can still sustain price increases because Purcari, you know, it's obvious now the level of the wines, the quality level of the wines is extremely high. Consumers appreciate it. At one point we'll need to balance to get the maximization of profits, and sort of net present value from this combination of allowing volume to increase versus price to increase.
Overall in the past, if we look at the share of price versus volume contribution to our growth, it would be around one-third of the growth percentage would be from a price increase and two-thirds from volume increase. We've sort of swapped it a bit in the last year and this quarter where it's half-half or maybe even a bit more price and less volume. That's on Purcari. Bostavan, the prices of Bostavan I can tell you are far below where the quality of Bostavan wines are and the same goes for Crama Ceptura.
here we see a premiumization, one being through price increases, but the other one is through the launch of new products, new brands. We're launching new brands. In fact, we're trying to detach them from Bostavan, which may have a perception of a, you know, sort of a value wines in the value segment. If for Bostavan and Crama Ceptura will be a combination of price increase and also launching new brands that do not have the price stickiness. They straightaway enter at a certain price point. But the quality of those wines is extremely high. We can see it through, you know, awards at various international contests, wine contests, but also through the perception of customers through, you know, and other ways that we capture the perception of the customers. Yeah, for now, we see that there's still space for price increase.
Thank you.
Of course, we are doing this in calculated steps. Of course, we do not want to break anything that works.
Thank you. I have just one more question. Also as a follow-up, you mentioned that the company keep launching new products and brands. We saw that last year you launched Domeniile Cuza. Right now you launched a new product, Academia Purcari. I'm wondering what value they add or they are expected to add in the future. Maybe you can give some guidance regarding to what they mean in terms of sales.
You can imagine that at the moment, Domeniile Cuza has a small share of sales simply because Purcari is so big, Crama Ceptura is so big, Bardar is already accelerating in Romania. If you think from the perspective of our companies, what we sell. We have five companies in the group. We have Purcari, Bardar, Bostavan, Domeniile Cuza and Crama Ceptura. Now, in Romania, if you were to look at what we sell in Romania, we're successfully selling Purcari, we are successfully selling Crama Ceptura, we are successfully selling Bardar because it's accelerating. Now what we are doing, we are just creating. We're generating sales for our other companies. Now, Bostavan, again, as I mentioned, it's a brand that has a certain perception.
The Bostavan products are still available on the Romanian market. Based on, you know, on the segment where they are positioned, we do not expect them to, you know, to just outshine and then have this stellar performance in the future. Domeniile Cuza, they are very, very good wines, very well-positioned, very good brand. We are planning to invest in this brand. You're remaining where you probably will see us in the second half of the year being fairly aggressive when it comes to communicating and building these brands. Creating awareness and already giving, you know, creating certain perception on positioning. It has to be a new lane of growth.
Purcari is growing Crama Ceptura, Bardar, and Domeniile Cuza. It's a new lane for growth. You asked me about the share of sales. It's hard to say what the share of sales will be. What we know is that we are aiming to sell in the hundreds of thousands fairly quickly, when I speak about bottles, and then to reach, you know, to cross 1 million bottles in the near term with Domeniile Cuza.
Okay. Thank you. That was all from my side.
Thank you.
Any chance that we'll be seeing the contract with Lidl resumed in the short term?
Sorry, Diana, I missed what. Can you?
Any chances that we would be seeing the contract with Lidl resumed in the short term?
Yes, there is a chance. Of course. Not any chance, but there's a chance. There's a high chance. You can imagine that, look, we could have not had the issue with Lidl straight away from the start, but that doesn't mean that would have been the correct way to maintain a certain policy and a certain positioning that you have in the market. Do not break other relationships with other big accounts such as Carrefour and Metro and others. We could have already saved it back then, but the correct way to do it is to say no to the demands of Lidl and to maintain our position.
This way, protect the market and protect our positioning overall as a brand and as a company on the Romanian market. Now that we are in discussions to re-enter again, we are doing it at terms which are favorable to us and okay, probably to Lidl to some extent, but overall it needs to be in a win-win, and so something that doesn't, it doesn't come in the detriment of our overall sales and our relationships with other partners. But if there's a chance, yes, there's a high chance.
It wasn't resumed yet. I mean.
We are finalizing. We are finalizing this. Soon, I would imagine fairly soon, you'll be seeing the products on the shelves again.
Okay.
Hi. This is Charles from [audio distortion] I was wondering if you could possibly comment on the evolution of gross margin in 2022 on the back of the cost of the harvest of 2021.
Yeah. A good question, Charles. The cost effect comes from two years, in fact. It comes from 2020 and 2021. In 2020, if you remember, we had a fairly, you know, poor year when it comes to precipitation. It was a very dry year, so our yield, the yield from our vineyards, was low. In 2021, we had good yield, but then some of our partner farmers had issues and overall in the region, the supply for grapes was fairly low. That created higher cost of acquisition. First 2020, cost of production, then cost of acquisition. Of course, there was an effect.
I cannot tell you the exact percentage when it comes to the exact component of the cost of grapes. As you can see, that we managed to offset it with the fact that we had a positive change in the sales mix. Purcari sold well, Bardar sold well, and then with Bostavan decreasing and Ceptura being kind of flat, we see that, you know, we managed to maintain this strong gross profit margin. For this year, we are continuing the investment in the irrigation system at Purcari. This year we'll be finalizing.
In fact, already in a few months, the Purcari vineyards will be irrigated. Next year we're planning to do this for Bostavan. What does it mean? What it means is that we are already starting to hedge against this climate impact. For example, we know that in 2022, the cost of our grapes will be the yield will be very strong. In fact, the average cost per ton will be lower than the previous year. We'll have that benefit. Next year we're planning to do that for Bostavan. Overall, the 2020 reds are now fading. The cost from the 2020 reds is now fading away. We still have now some effects from the whites from 2021.
That again, as you can imagine, these costs, as we sell that inventory, the impact of this cost starts to fade away in the years to come. Even though this year, because our guidance was 20%-25% EBITDA margin, I think 10%-15% net income margin for this year, again, the prudence was from that perspective. As you can see, we hope that during the year we'll be able to beat those numbers.
Thank you. I had another question. It seems to me that the brand Ceptura is starting to borrow quite a lot of the imagery of Purcari. This is like a premiumization of the look of Ceptura. Are you worried that this might actually cheapen the image of Purcari brand?
Well, no. In fact, we separate very clearly our brands. Ceptura will never communicate on the same visual or at the same time with Purcari. We are trying to have every of our brands to look premium. That's irrespective, be it Purcari, Ceptura, Cuza, or Bardar or any other brand or sub-brand that we are creating. Of course, you always want to have that component of premium look and feel to drive the consumer buying decision. We are never communicating at the same time or together. We're not amalgamating the brands in any way. For now, we see that we do not see any risk of one brand affecting the other or this cheapening effect.
Thank you.
Coming back to the question regarding margins, so you're quite positive that on margins in the following quarters as well? Because the 52% in the first quarter is above the guidance for this year, definitely. Are you optimistic that you can keep that?
Well, look, how can I put it in a correct form? We're always looking to perform in the best way that we can. We still need to be wary of two things. We need to be wary of the situation, the macroeconomic situation when it comes to, well, let's say the geopolitical situation when it comes to the war. You know, I mentioned that, for example, in the Baltics. When the war started and when, you know, those, like, first month or so, you know, people rushed to the stores buying, basically something similar to what was happening in the pandemic. There was that effect. We still need to see how the situation with the war will go. That's number one.
Number two is we cannot ignore the, you know, the inflationary effects that we're seeing both on the cost side, on the, you know, the diminishing purchasing power of the customers, of the consumers. On one perspective, we are optimistic and we'll do everything we can. At the same time, we want to be prudent. It's a combination of two, I'm afraid, Juliana. We'll keep the guidance to what it is for now. Depending on how we end in the second quarter, we will look to revise it or not. Then, of course, we'll probably have more stats when it comes to inflations, you know, to the sellouts or the sales of wines in different countries.
We'll see what's happening with the war. Then we'll be able to perhaps revise our guidance.
I understand. Basically, the better performance in the first quarter came from the mix, right?
To some extent, yes. To some extent it came from the mix, yes.
Actually that's not going to change, that soon in the following quarters, most likely, right? That's why-
We see you know strong demand for Purcari and Bardar. Of course we're looking to recover and keep selling wines from Bostavan by all means. At the same time we do see a high demand for Purcari and Bardar. You know all of these brands are growing. For example, Poland, Purcari is doing very well. Romania, Purcari keeps growing. Now with this media presence you know with Richard Quest on CNN you know he was very kind in describing Purcari and the wines you know giving all sorts of I don't wanna say superlatives but you know commenting very positively on our wines and other coverage. We're yet to see whether and how Purcari sales will continue to grow or not. I want to be.
Look, you know, I want to be optimistic, but not, by any means, I don't know, to misguide. Yeah.
Could you update us regarding investments? I've seen some comments in the media that investments for this year will be delayed in 2023. Is that true?
Well, look, we had some misquotes in a few articles, in fact, in the media. One was Bloomberg, where, you know, the title was a bit pessimistic. I do not subscribe to any of those quotes or to that quote specifically, but okay. It's [a bad ship for sale.] We had another quote when it comes to investments, which mentioned that all the investments are postponed, and that's not true. In fact, that's not what I said. What we said is that we had at the beginning of the year a relatively aggressive investment plan for this year, CapEx investment. Of course, with the situation in Ukraine, we decided to temporarily down a bit.
We postponed some of the investments for next year. Some of the investments that were not critical, and we do not see them as very important to be done this year, we postponed them for next year. We keep investing. One of them is, for example, the irrigation system at Purcari. That's one of the CapEx investment that we keep doing it this year, and there are others. It's not that we are postponing any, like, all CapEx investments. We're postponing some which we believe that we can wait until next year, and I think it's prudent.
Can you update us on the CapEx plan for this year?
The initial CapEx was relatively high, but now we'll be looking to have a CapEx investment of around maybe, you know, I would say somewhere between RON 10 million and RON 15 million .
Thank you. And M&A?
M&A. Look, it's always the M&A situation is, at the surface, you do not see all the work that's done in the background because we are still not doing one of these large transactions that is more meaningful, and we can present it as, "Hey, look, we've done a proper transaction." Sure, we've done some acquisitions, but those are not what we would call a traditional or classical M&A. The answer is that we are working in the background. We have multiple discussions in various markets, and those markets range from Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechia, Slovakia, and even Hungary. Don't think that we are totally unfocused. No, we have certain areas that are more focused. Even we have some targets which we are very warm with.
As I have mentioned probably even before, doing the deal in the wine business is relatively difficult because usually the people that have grown a business in wine and have difficulties and want to sell, usually they've invested a lot of money. They do not have the return on the business that they could have or should have had. They are emotionally tied to the business, and they're emotionally tied to what they have invested in the business. You know, the concept of sunk costs is not, let's say, not fully embraced by usually by businessmen in the wine business. That's why for us to have negotiations, we made our evaluations of the business based on numbers, mathematics. So we know what a business is worth.
Well, let's say based on the numbers, it's difficult to portray and to pass this message to the seller. That's why negotiations are difficult. We see that we're making progress and we want to have a transaction by the end of the year.
This wasn't put on hold because that was actually.
Oh, by all means, not. No, no. By far not. Look, we totally understand. You know, it's nice to see that. You saw on the second, let's say, content slide of our presentation, the track record of the last five years. You know, what the revenues of Purcari have progressed, 2017 to 2021. It's great to see that we organically can generate that growth of a CAGR above 20%. That is fantastic. From one perspective, you're saying, look, just keep investing in your organic growth. Keep investing in marketing, keep investing in, you know, your production facilities. If your brands can generate that growth, you know, just keep going. That could be, you know, one way to approach it.
Of course, we also understand that, you know, we have retained earnings. Close to half, we are issuing dividends with them because we want to do that. We believe it's correct. The other ones we're using for CapEx investment, and we need to also use for M&A to accelerate this growth. We're happy with our organic growth, but of course, we want to accelerate the growth of the group overall, and that has to be done through M&A. By all means, we have not postponed our efforts.
Thank you.
Good. Well, look, if there are no other questions, you can always write to us, by the way, investor.relations@purcari.wine. Always feel free to ask any questions. We'll answer, of course, within the limits of what we're allowed to answer. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for being here. I hope to actually see you live sometime soon. We'll see whether, you know, maybe you have some. You know, as you can see, Vasile also mentioned, and I also mentioned that we are quite confident that we are safe here, families here and. We can understand that maybe some other people that are not in Moldova, that do not feel the situation as we feel it here, may have some other reservations.
What I was going to or hinting towards is to have a investor event at Purcari. We would have liked to do that this year to see most of you live at our Château. We're hoping that the situation in the region will calm relatively soon, and then we'll look forward to organize an investor event at the Château. For sure, you'll be able to taste that new Academia Purcari. Unless you decide to purchase it before that. Look, thank you again for being here and I wish you all a very nice day.
Thank you.
Thank you.