Hey, I suggest we start, ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon. It's a privilege for us that you decided to attend this particular call. We know it's a very busy day for earnings calls today, so thank you for making time for Purcari Wineries. I want to start by introducing a new member of our team, Alex Filip. You've seen all the announcements. He started as Deputy Chief Executive of the group. I have to say, with the risk of maybe raising the expectations too high, that Alex has been somebody we very much were looking forward to have as part of our team. Before joining Purcari, he led, as a Managing Director, the McKinsey office in Romania. He was also the head of the digital growth platform in Central and Eastern Europe.
To be frank, Alex could have had any job, but he decided to join Purcari because he saw the potential, and he was somebody who was ready to roll up his sleeves and work towards the benefit of our group. So without further ado, I'm passing the word to Alex. We'll take you through today's presentation.
Thank you, Vasile, for the kind introduction. I think, what attracted me was both the track record and the ambition going forward. You know, I'm jumping on the ship, in a great momentum, as you can see here, you know, growth along all the key dimensions: revenues, EBITDA, net income, strong performance, along all the indicators. We'll go into more details later. If we move to the next slide, on the operational highlights, revenues up, more than 20%, a combination of higher volumes, of course, better mix of products, and also selected price increases, in line, top end of the guidance. The good thing is that also, not only the core revenues from wine sales grew, but also EcoSmart has contributed significantly, reflecting the turnaround that we have implemented.
We have sustained growth not only in Purcari, which has been our, you know, long-term champion, but also Crama Ceptura. We are pleased to say that we are by now number one in Romania, combined sales of Purcari Wineries Group, number one by value in Romania, and Crama Ceptura has contributed significantly. Angel's Estate has also started to contribute. You see now 3%, but we expect further growth as we complete the turnaround, starting from the operational turnaround to the commercial one that is underway now. Solid traction in Romania, growing consistently. Overall market weakness in China, and you know that there is a complex environment there. We still consider it as a strategic market for us, and we continue to invest, but the environment is difficult. EBITDA going up as well.
Net profit, you know, on a normalized basis, showing significant growth: 20% growth EBITDA roughly and 45% in net profit. You know, good margin performance, despite increase in financing cost, CapEx, and still expensive wine stock from previous vintages. You know, strong investor relation agenda and strong performance. If you look at the increase year to date on the share price, you know, significantly outgrowing the BET Index. The stock also has a high liquidity relative to the market capitalization. And, you know, in line with our dividend policy, we paid a 6% yield last year. You know, in terms of business, I mentioned successful turnaround at EcoSmart, significant growth, good profitability showing, you know, strong economic stewardship from our side. We believe that, you know, given the nature of the business, there is significant growth coming from a fixed cost basis.
You know, we have the platform, so additional revenues should generate higher than average marginal impact. Angel's, as we discussed, you know, transformation underway, significant investments in line with our commitments to turn around the operations and also to expand the commercial capabilities. You know, we are happy that we have doubled already the harvest yields on 2023 vintages of vintage. We are on the way to restructure the brand portfolio, and we have renegotiated the commercial terms with the key accounts. And one of the, you know, growth areas for us that we have already started exploring is to introduce Purcari SKUs in the Bulgarian market. Yeah, and I think this is the highlight. We'll go later on into details.
I'm passing the hand back to Vasile, who, as a local, can comment best on recent developments in Transnistria, which also affected our stock last week. Vasile, over to you.
Thank you. So we wanted to bring this issue in the most transparent way to bring it forward. It was an issue that I think has dominated the news last week, affected our stock price too, to be honest. We were surprised about the reaction, so the stock was down over 8%. So we thought it's helpful to share the company's perspective on this one. As I'm sharing this, I'm speaking from Kyiv, actually, Kyiv, Ukraine, where our fund is based. So I can tell you that here things are as much business as usual as it gets in terms of the business operating. And of course, maybe that adds some extra comfort to me in talking about this Transnistria so-called Transnistrian issue.
So first, the facts for those who missed the events of last week, the very obscure low-level politician in Transnistria has declared to a local press outlet that at the upcoming Congress of Deputies of All Levels, issue will be an agenda on agenda that Transnistria will ask to be united with Russia on February 28th. And then the speculation was on February 29th, the Russian president, in his address to the nation, will actually give course to that solicitation. So this is what has created the speculation, and this is what has created the sell-off. Now, I have to be fully transparent here. Of course, we don't know what's in the mind of those people in Transnistria and more so in Putin's mind.
But we can tell you some of the facts that give us comfort that this entire story is, in the words of a high-ranking diplomat, and Chișinău is a nothingburger. So first, as expected, nothing happened. So on February 28th, Transnistrian Congress has not sought any unification with Russia. And Putin, in his address yesterday, has not mentioned Transnistria, has not mentioned even Moldova at all. So that's which confirms again that, you know, our anticipation that this is a wild speculation and part of the hybrid war of disinformation; it was indeed, as that said bureaucrat said, a nothingburger. But more importantly than that, because the fact that nothing happened was not a surprise for us. More importantly than that, I think it's important for you to understand some of the important aspects of the Transnistrian daily life.
First, not a single shot was fired in this territory for over 30 years. So this has been a frozen conflict, and we believe it's somewhat similar to the conflict in northern Cyprus. Second, economically, Transnistria is very much integrated into the EU, even more so than Moldova as a percentage of their trade. Over two-thirds of their trade go to EU markets. The similar percentage for Moldova is around 60%. So they are more integrated into the EU than right bank Moldova. Third important aspect is that virtually all people living in Transnistria are Moldovan citizens, right? For example, unlike in the frozen regions of Georgia, you know, the two banks are very integrated. So people live in Transnistria, but work in Moldova, travel on a daily basis. So the two regions are very much integrated.
So at a personal level, there we cannot talk of a conflict. Moreover, about 40% of the people in that region are Romanian speakers, and still the largest ethnic group in that diverse region. Several more aspects that may be surprising to you is that the local elites, business elites in Transnistria are extremely careful in their messaging simply because they accept the reality on the ground. So Ukraine is fully controlling the border. Transnistria is fully landlocked. They know that the chance of a Russian insurgence are extremely low simply because, you know, there are six major water barriers between the closest Russian troops on the left bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson and the Transnistrian regions. And Russia itself doesn't have any troops in Transnistria.
There are so-called peacekeeping troops, about 1,500 people. But because since 2014, no rotation of those troops was possible, those troops kept leaving to Russia and were replaced by the local Transnistrian citizens who were given Russian passports. So they are only nominally Russian. So this may sound overly assertive on my side, of course, to give you, in my attempt to try to give you some mental comfort about this Transnistrian region. But what's important to maybe retain from all these details I shared is that Transnistria is even more integrated in EU commerce-wise than Moldova. The business elites there, they have a very strong vested interest in avoiding any possible conflict.
The region is completely landlocked and with a huge uphill battle for any Russian troops to ever make it to that region. All the speculations that you have seen, and you may keep seeing in the weeks to come, are part of a disinformation war. As we expected, you know, they have all effectively turned meritless and groundless, as the events of February 28th and February 29th have demonstrated. I'd be happy to address any questions you have on this topic in the Q&A part. But for now, again, I really like this phrase by the high-ranking, let's call it, foreign embassy, Western embassy diplomat. It has been a nothing burger, and it stays a nothing burger.
Maybe, we'll leave the question in this part, and here we'll go back to, say, our business of, the core business of wine. And I'll kindly ask Victor Arapan, our CFO, to take you through the numbers.
Thank you, Vasile. As mentioned earlier by my colleagues, the group recorded a strong performance during the fourth quarter and for the whole year with sales and financial performance above the top of the guidance range. So the group sales in Q4 continued to grow double digits. And as a result, the group recorded a great increase in revenue by +22% year-on-year for the reported period. Gross profit increased by 12% year-on-year, reaching RON 149 million . Gross margin is at 40%, decreasing compared to previous year with four percentage points. The main factors negatively impacted the gross margin are next. First, additional depreciation from CapEx and newly consolidated Angel's Estate amounting to RON 3 million , which means +37% compared to last year.
Second, increase in wages on inflationary pressure, as well as impact from implementing management incentive plan, as increase in share price generated additional expense of RON 1.5 million in stock options offered to employees. Third, the second business segment of waste recycling management services increased its share to 8% of total revenue or plus one percentage point, but generated 22% gross margin compared to 42% generated by the core wine business. Another factor is the inventories consumption as main part of manufacturing costs increased from RON 8.3 per liter to RON 9.66 per liter, meaning plus 16% year-on-year. SG&A expenses registered RON 85 million and remained flat at 23% share in sales compared to last year.
General administrative expenses grew by 25% or RON 7.7 million, out of which the most significant part lays on employees' benefits amounting to RON +4.4 million and taxes and fees with RON +1.2 million compared to 2022. Marketing and selling expenses increased by 17% year-on-year, which is current with sales increase. Other income expenses, other income and other expenses, stay flat year-on-year, but with absolutely different drivers in 2023 compared to 2022. So I will give here more, more, more details. Other trading income experienced a significant increase from RON 2.5 million- RON 2.8 million RON to RON 4.4 million, mainly due to increase in released amount of deferred income from RON 1.9 million- RON 2.7 million. This is the effect of business acquisition, I mean, Angel's Estate, and significant capital expenditures for which the group receives significant amounts of state subsidies.
There are also some one-off gains like RON 260,000 comes from write-off of trade payables due to expiration of prescription period, and RON 450,000 come from surpluses of auxiliary materials and chemicals as a result of stock counting. Other operating expenses had a positive impact of plus RON 4.3 million on the company's performance during this reported period compared to negative impact of minus RON 1.5 million in 2022. This comes from RON 2.9 million adjustment to fair value of harvested grapes, which is an accounting adjustment required by international accounting standards and reflects increase in operating efficiency of agricultural division of the company. But this is not a one-off gain or loss, as it directly impacts further the cost of production. RON 1.1 million is one-off gain from disposal of tangible assets.
Regarding the net finance, net finance cost, we have an absolutely different valuation situation in 2023 compared to 2022. While recording a net finance cost of RON 10 million last year, the group now records a net finance income of RON 0.4 million. The answer to explain such an evolution is found, if we look into separate items. So interest expenses increased by 64% year-on-year from RON 4.6 million- RON 7.5 million, mainly due to the increased cost of lending. At the same time, due to Moldovan leu appreciation against the euro, the group recorded a net forex gain of RON 5.3 million, while during the same period of last year, it recorded a net forex loss of RON 6.1 million.
So it's important to mention that the appreciation of Moldovan leu versus euro generated this forex gain from revaluation of balance sheet items. But on the other hand, this had a negative impact on revenues and gross margin for goods sold on export markets. Another positive impact has that improved the finance income gained from changing fair value of 10% of the group's 10% stake held in 8Wines, a Czech-based company specialized in advanced e-commerce with wine. So, as a result, normalized the EBITDA and net profit registered increases by +19% and +45%, respectively, compared to the previous year. And the margins for both indicators are on the top of guidance range. So next slide. Okay, on the previous one.
On this slide, you can see financial results from and performance by business segments. Almost 90% of the group business is represented by the sale of beverages. And the performance of this segment almost represents performance of the whole business, as I just described in the previous slide. So I will mainly comment on the second segment. The segment of waste recycling management services offered by EcoSmart in Romania is still insignificant in the reported period with RON 30 million revenue, which represents around 8% share in total group sales and 4% share in group's net profit. The gross margin for EcoSmart business declined by 2 percentage points year-on-year, mainly because of the increase in cost of recycling, as the national target for recycling of the waste and packages increased in average by 8%.
The cost of sales is also impacted by increased depreciation and amortization charges, resulted from valuation of the subsidiary at the acquisition date. Regarding SG&A expenses of the EcoSmart, we note a 16% decrease compared to last year. Due to the fact that after the successful legal and financial turnaround of the company, which allowed us to almost reduce the impairment on trade and other receivables that we registered at the acquisition date. On the next slide, you can assess that the group continues to have a very strong financial position over the years. The increasing business leads to an increase in net working capital with some pressure on liquidity. However, the company managed to maintain an optimal level of indebtedness and sufficient liquidity. We target a net debt to EBITDA indicator in the range of 1.5-2x.
So there is, there is room to sustain the continuous growth of our business. So, this being said, I give the floor to my colleague Alex for a short overview of sales evolution by markets and by brands.
Yeah, thank you, Victor. I mean, some of the points I already mentioned. Strong performance in Romania, Bulgaria. Now you'll see Ukraine, although from a small base, reflecting also the point that Vasile made that, despite the war, a large part of the country is business as usual, and it's also business as usual for us in Ukraine. But going from the largest market for us, Romania, as I mentioned, 59% of the sales. Accumulated sales of all our brands put us as number one winery in Romania. Significant growth in both Purcari and Crama Ceptura, but also we are growing nicely with Bardar. We're introducing Bardar in Romania and also some of the Bostavan brands. Nocturne, our HoReCa dedicated range, is performing very nicely.
Also, you know, relating to the point of the product mix, we are promoting and pushing quite nicely the sales of sparkling wine, Cuvée sparkling, performing very nicely. And of course, our well-known 1827 Series performing very strongly. Moldova, slightly more moderated sale, but a strong recovery in the fourth quarter, this after a weaker performance in the previous quarter. Purcari also performing very nicely in Moldova. For Bostavan, we are prioritizing margin in a very competitive market. Same thing for Bardar, where we have pushed through some price increases that have reflected in a slower growth. Duty-free regime cancellation, it's actually quite a big factor impacting negatively our Bardar sales. In Poland, we recovered nicely in the fourth quarter after two weaker quarters. Again, we are growing cautiously. We want to make sure that we have also sustainable profitability with our Bostavan product ranges for Poland.
Growing nicely with Purcari. We're trying to grow and create the segment that Purcari represents. A smaller base, but, you know, reflecting on our Romanian experience, we're trying to develop and kind of own this price and quality segment in the Polish market. Bulgaria, I already mentioned, expanding the commercial team, collaboration with local partners, trying to trim the portfolio and focus on the highest margin products and channels. Growing sales. So you see the weight of, you know, fourth quarter sales, much bigger than in the overall group, 40%, reflecting the acceleration of sales in the market. Czech Republic and Slovakia, ongoing recovery. Again, we're trying to prioritize the margins, investing in premiumization. Purcari also growing very, very nicely.
China, we mentioned, difficult macro environment affecting the overall appetite for wine, which is a premium product, beverage, alcoholic beverage in the country. Turkey growing nicely. We have.
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We have established a local entity to help us accelerate the commercial activity.
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Marius, if you don't mind muting. Okay. First deliveries to new countries within Middle East and Africa happening on the back of promotions in the previous year. If we move on, also to give you the perspective by brand. Eugeniu, okay. So, the point that I was making earlier, we have kind of two engines by now. Purcari and Crama Ceptura growing nicely, both of them. For Bostavan, we are prioritizing margins over volumes and both in Moldova and in the export markets. Bardar, weak fourth quarter in Moldova, reflecting you know continuing consumer behavior in the country. On the back also of an increase in excise duties that makes especially the lower end of the product range less accessible to consumers. We are growing nicely, as we said, in Romania, which is by now already the second largest market for Bardar.
And Angel's, you know, I won't repeat what, what I mentioned for Bulgaria because it's 95% the same story with the difference of Purcari. If we move on. Given the time of the year, I guess you are also interested in how our harvest has been. We're happy to report not only a good yield, but also high, high quality despite unfavorable weather conditions. Low levels or moderate levels of rain, heat waves just before harvest, which complicated our operations, but our teams perform superbly. We, as always, fulfill the required stocks from reliable third-party purchases. A good environment with overall overproduction in the country allowed us to have, you know, a good position in negotiating the price, which should be reflected in the price, you know, in the margins of our sales going forward.
You know, it was the first year that we could use fully, you know, throughout the year, the irrigation system at Purcari, which helped us sustain volumes and quality. And we are working on launching and rolling out a similar irrigation system at Cuza Vineyards in Bostavan in Etulia. It's going to be a multi-year program. We start this year, given the surface, and we will continue next year. Overall, the global wine market, the global wine production has gone down significantly. It's recorded to be the smallest in the last 60 years. Sharp decreases in some of the traditional export markets like Spain and Italy. Romania and Bulgaria growing significantly, the local production.
So I think we have a good prospect for export sales for us in this context, which should allow us to have a good profitability on these sales. If we move on. You know, bringing it all home. We delivered on the guidance that we issued this time last year. Strong revenue overall and the core business, wine, overdelivering on the guidance for wine. Overdelivering on, you know, slightly on the EBITDA margin and on the net income, you know, consistency also in the quarterly results. So net income margin reached every quarter. We, you know, managed to steer the business effectively despite all the challenges that we had.
You know, some of the underlying factors, inflation still high, but it's easing, packaging materials, acquired, you know, and the costlier wine stocks, we have been able to push through to a large extent. We still have, of course, due to the nature of the business, especially for the red range, some earlier vintages in stock, but it's moving on. You know, net income has managed to cope despite the higher financing cost and depreciation mentioned before. We can move on to probably the slide that interests many of you the most. What is the guidance for 2024? We remain, you know, to my earlier point, we remain ambitious. We remain confident that we can deliver growth going forward. You know, 16%-20% revenue growth, 20-24 in the core business.
EBITDA margin, building on the underlying trends, you know, good harvest, decrease in inflation. So, of the raw materials, so also going higher versus what we delivered. And the net income as well. We believe that we are well positioned with our affordable luxury position to deliver in the current environment, despite all the, you know, uncertainty and the challenges. One reason for caution, I would say, is the turnover development for our waste recycling division in Romania for EcoSmart, which we expect to be affected by the newly implemented legislation on Guarantee-Return System in Romania, which was implemented as of, in fact, you know, December 1st, 2023. One of the anomalies of the system versus other markets where this was introduced is that it covers also wine bottles, not just, you know, soft drinks and beer.
There is, I'm saying, caution because there is quite some uncertainty as to whether the scheme will remain in force as implemented initially. There is a law amendment being discussed and should be approved by the parliament to actually remove wine bottles from the system, which is a big part of what we generated in 2023. So depending on whether this happens and when it happens and how manufacturers, you know, adjust to this, our revenue, our turnover in EcoSmart will be affected. We're, of course, working to expand the customer base with also other types of customers who are not in the beverages industry affected by the Guarantee-Return System . And our ability to do this will be reflected in the results.
On the, you know, profitability indicators, we expect further disinflation on the back of the negotiations that we have had for packaging and energy. We have, as we, discussed earlier, passed on, most of the, more expensive wine vintages from the past. We expect further easing on the financing cost on the back of a reduction in interest rates in the second half of the year. On the other side, we need to account also for the additional depreciation that would come from CapEx that we executed last year, both in Angel's and in the other, entities in Moldova and Romania. I think this is what we wanted to share before we go into a Q&A session. So I think now we can open the floor. Eugeniu.
Sure. Hello everyone. You can address all the questions by either writing it in the chat segment or addressing directly by turning on the microphone and camera.
Hi, good afternoon. This is Iuliana Ciopraga from WOOD & Company. If you, if you could tell us a bit about the gross margin evolution that you expect for 2024. I mean, you did comment slightly on this, but if you could provide a bit more color. To be honest, I was a bit surprised about the fourth quarter. We, I thought that the improvement would be, would be, somewhat faster. But it's not really what we're seeing in the fourth quarter results. So what, what would be the main triggers from, from, from a positive evolution here? And actually, I'm not really seeing it in the guidance either. I mean, there's not such a strong improvement in EBITDA margin. If I'm, if I'm, maybe I'm mistaken. Let me double-check. Yeah, even in the guidance, I don't think you're really expecting a strong improvement in gross margins, right?
EBITDA margin 26.28% versus 27% delivered for this year. There's not really a strong improvement. So what should we expect regarding gross margins?
Okay. So the question is what we expect going forward, or you want also more details on the Q4?
Both.
Okay. So Victor, do you want to comment on the Q4? Just bring back the arguments and I can comment on the forward-looking.
Yeah. Okay. I explained in my speech what mainly impacted gross margin for the Q4. And I will repeat again that the company is making a lot of CapEx in order to sustain its growth plan. So we have a significant increase in additional depreciation from this and also from newly consolidated Angel's Estate. So this is impacting significantly the cost of sales. So our margin gets lower. And of course we have to take into consideration a lot of the big impact of the management incentive plan in place, mainly options offered to employees, which could impact and impacted in Q4, but also could impact for next year if the price of the share will increase significantly; this will have a direct impact on the company's P&L.
So, what I have to mention also is that inventory consumption was still impacted by inflation. Even this year, inflation got down. The effect of increasing prices from suppliers continues a little bit later. So, salaries, requests for higher salaries and so on require our suppliers to increase some prices. And, of course, we used in this year a big part of wine, of bulk wine that was produced in 2022, 2021 with high cost, as you remember from our other calls, we mentioned that the years were with high cost of production for grapes due to weather conditions that we had in Moldova and in Romania. So this is on my side for Q4.
Okay. Now for 2024, I think, Iuliana, if you follow our, our company and our guidance, you know that we like to be ambitious and optimistic, but we also want to be conservative so that we don't disappoint investors and analysts. So this, you know, behavior remains. And we are, what we put on paper, we are confident that we can deliver. And as you know, also we strive to overdeliver constantly. We have a strategic priority for us to maintain and improve profitability as we grow volumes. And you know from other businesses that this is not an easy task for us. You can also understand that the, the what comes out at the end is a combination of multiple brands present in multiple geographies that are affected by different dynamics. So that's why, while we remain confident, we want to be also conservative. Yeah. And, and that's why.
No, I guess my question referred more to the impact from the 2020 harvest. And then we had high inflation. And now that these seem to normalize and the 2020 vintage impact seems to go away, I think I was kind of expecting margins to improve. And that's the point I was trying to get more color on.
Okay. I mean, we are working on that. And without going into details, I can tell you that we are selectively trying to, first of all, inflation is easing, but inflation is still there. And it's higher than what we used to have overall. Yeah. And we are working selectively with different distribution partners to pass on those increases so that we protect profitability. But this is not something that happens overnight. And it's something that we, you know, it takes its time. And that's why, while the direction is clearly towards improving this, we are, you know, just a bit cautious on how much we can achieve, on a, you know, if you think about it, a 20% increase in volumes. So we're trying to find the right balance between growth and profitability.
But I thought that that would be impacted in the SG&A, not necessarily in gross margin.
Which part? Sorry.
The geographic sales, basically, the expansion of sales.
No, no, no. Yes, of course. If you're looking at, looking at the sales team or team of sales support, yes. But if you're looking at what are the, you know, marketing activities, be it brand investments or trade marketing investments that are needed to drive the 20% growth, you can imagine that, you know, especially if you're opening new markets, you first need to invest. And this might have an impact on the, you know, initial profitability. We're now reaping benefits of investments that we've done over years in some of these markets. But we also need to make new investments in new markets.
Regarding this impact from CapEx, can you comment a bit here? I mean, CapEx, I guess, was all through 2023, right? I mean, you acquired Angel's Estate 2022. So impact on CapEx should have already been from there. It's not something necessarily related to the fourth quarter, or is it?
Well, if you think about it, there are two elements. There is the base, and there's the addition. So base of, you know, additional, the assets that we brought on the balance sheet already at the beginning of 2023. But there's also the reflection of the significant investments that we made throughout Q2 and Q3 in Angel's, yeah, as we expanded and improved the production facilities with Angel's. And this, of course, comes in, in Q4.
Okay. Thank you. And if you could comment just briefly on the Moldovan leu appreciation and what you expect going forward. I mean, we are seeing the appreciation. I was wondering more what you expect going forward on this point, especially with these discussions about the EU accession. I was wondering what we should expect.
Okay. Victor, do you want to comment on this one, please?
It's,
Bring out the crystal ball.
It's a little bit not fair to comment on such things, that should the national bank comment on it or other official bodies. But, we expect that Moldovan Leu will stay quite stable without any. There are no signs for its depreciation nor appreciation. So, we I suppose it will stay around here now.
Thank you. I'll let the other participants ask questions. And yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
Anyone else?
Sorry to interrupt. Yeah. Alex, we have a few questions in the chat. I think Vasile was answering in the background to the questions. And I think we are giving the floor to Daniela. Daniela, I propose you to address the question directly. It will be more smoothly to, to answer that.
Sure. Please, can you please confirm if you hear me?
If you speak a bit louder. If possible. If not, we read the questions.
So do you hear me now better? I hope.
Yes, slightly better. Thank you.
Perfect. Thanks a lot. So my first question is if you can provide an outlook for Angel's Estate, especially in terms of proportion of sales that you are targeting there in short and long term, and, how much CapEx will be redirection to Angel's Estate given the turnaround process?
Okay. Good. So, we believe that we are on, you know, at the beginning of our commercial transformation in Angel's Estate. So we expect significant growth going forward. Now, mid- to long-term, we aim to have a similar position as the one in Romania. So top three, top five wineries in the country. That's our ambition. The CapEx that will be required is in line with the volume projections and also in line with the commitments that we made when we signed the transaction. And this is, you know, we don't expect further investment needed than what we committed.
Do you have a specific target in terms of the percent in total revenue?
No, I mean, it's a commitment that we made when we signed the transaction, which reflects what we believe is needed to turn around the operation. This is, you know, a three-year program that started last year and will continue this year and next year. We're talking, you know, I think we're left a few EUR million need to be invested this year and a few more next year. So we don't expect major CapEx beyond this in Bulgaria.
Yeah, but.
At the moment.
In terms of brand evolution, in terms of revenue as in Bulgaria, as a percent of total revenues?
Yeah. I mean, we look more from a market potential perspective. I think if you want me to give you a number, if our ambition is to be a top five, top three, winery in Bulgaria, then our revenue ambition needs to be around EUR 10 million.
Good. Thank you. And my next question is regarding SG&A expenses. I know that you have a guidance of 22% of sales. And, this year, we can notice that, we just surpassed this guidance. But what should we expect going forward in terms of SG&A expenses?
I mean, Vasile already answered the question in the chat. I would actually stick to that. We try to reap the scale benefits as the company grows while making targeted investments in new capabilities that are needed for our next stage of development. So I would not go beyond this.
So, should you keep the range of 22%-23% as previously or return to 22%?
I would not comment further on this. I don't know. Victor, do you want to add anything?
Okay. I can just comment here that we plan to stay here around 23%, 22%-23%.
Good. Thanks a lot. For my third questions, I have the answer in chat.
Super. Thank you, Daniela. Anyone else?
From me again, can you tell us briefly what underpins your growth assumptions for 2024? I mean, where do you expect the growth in sales to come from? Just briefly. I mean, we know what happened in 2023. I was more wondering what you expect for 2024. Do you still see Romania remaining super strong? What do you expect about the rest? Poland, the performance of 2023 wasn't very straightforward when it comes to these markets. So that's why I'm wondering what do you expect? And also, if you can comment a bit about the quota for Turkey, I guess you have a bit more clarity right now. And I guess you already know exactly what's happening with Turkey right now. So yeah, if you can comment on this. Thank you.
Maybe before Alex is thinking about the answer, I'll just congratulate you, Iuliana, on being very spot on in the good forecast for the quarter. So I think you, you nailed it almost like to 1 percentage point margin of error. So well, well done. So Alex, whatever you say now, you understand that Iuliana will write in her analyst model to make sure some make sure you help her with that.
Okay. I'll try. So first of all, one thing that we may none of us may get right is what is the actual quota in Turkey, to start with from the end. So the quota in Turkey is a reflection of a trade agreement between Moldova and Turkey, which is actually being discussed as we speak. And there are discussions. And of course, the desire on the Moldavian side is to increase the quota. So I cannot really tell you what the quota will be because no one knows yet. These are discussions that are happening now. But for us, I think Turkey, first of all, we had been in Turkey, present through local distributors for some time. Local entity that we established is just to ease our commercial operation there and also, to help us manage the quota more effectively.
We will continue to develop the market, within the quota, of course, and also beyond. So, you know, quota is just one element of the strategy for Turkey. Of course, it's an important one because it has a big impact in terms of cost. To your question of where the growth comes from, first of all, let me say it outright. And I know that I'm putting pressure on my Romanian colleagues. But as a Romanian looking, you know, being on the market, I can say that there is still significant potential for Purcari, Crama Ceptura, Domeniile Cuza to grow in the market. And we are confident on our ability to execute even better. And we know specific opportunities that we are working on. And we hope to, you know, we're confident it will deliver great results.
That being said, in line with our ambition where we, we want to grow everywhere. We, we see Poland to be an important market. We are, you know, specifically looking at how to, how to improve, and, you know, have a long-term growth plan for, for Poland. We are also, of course, looking at Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, also Moldova. We believe we can do better. Bulgaria, you know, as I said, we're at the beginning of the journey. I think our growth, underlying growth assumptions come from multiple sources in terms of geographies and brands. Okay. I know you would want a more precise answer, but this is the best I can give you now.
Are you seeing in Poland the Czech, I mean, what are you seeing right now in Poland, the Czech Republic, Moldova? I think.
So I can tell you in Poland, for example, I was there. We were there, a few of us, a few weeks back. We see significant appetite from distributors to take our products. And we are working with, you know, consumer research agencies. We're testing, you know, our products, improvement in our product range that should deliver growth. So we are actually confident that Poland can, can deliver. It's a competitive market because all exporting countries want to be in Poland since there are no local competitors of significance. So it is competitive, but we believe that we have the right product at the right price to deliver. And we see mid to long term as a country that we want to we want to deliver. Same thing for Czech Republic and Slovakia. We have, you know, multi-year track record.
We are working on improving our presence in the market. So, you know, Moldova, of course, it's a, you know, part of our sales. It's still, you know, a significant part. We see potential, you know, in line with the EU accession and the increase in welfare levels. We are confident that we can do even, you know, grow even there faster than we've done this year. Sorry. Okay. Any other questions?
If I may, here, regarding the management incentive scheme, I think Mr. Arapan mentioned an impact in 2024 as well. If you could clarify exactly how that works, that would be very helpful.
Okay. Victor, do you want to comment on how this works and how it impacts our financial statement?
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Our management incentive plan consists of two parts. We have share grants, and we have stock options. So the share grants will, the plan will be the last part of the share. And the smallest part will be vested in June this year. So this will be this part of the incentive plan will finalize. But we have stock options. And we have stock options with strike price of RON 10, strike price of RON 15, and strike price of RON 20. So we ended 2022 with the share price below RON 10. So all options had a zero cost, zero value. And this year we ended with 14.2. I don't remember exactly the price of the share. So meaning that each option of RON 10 strike price increased in value with RON 4.
So this is directly impacting the company in G&A, so our commercial part or production, depending on to whom this options were offered. So this is how it works.
Can you comment on the overall figure booked in the fourth quarter? I guess it's somewhere in the financials in any case. I don't know. I haven't looked at that.
In the fourth quarter, the impact from MSOP was around RON 500,000.
I see. It was not that high. Thank you.
Welcome.
Okay. Thank you.
Further questions?
Okay. Maybe with this, Iuliana , sorry.
Sorry. I'm reading through my notes. I've seen your comments regarding the Guarantee-Return System . I was wondering, the outlook, what does it estimate for that? I mean, what did you take into account regarding the outlook when it comes to this, return system, Guarantee-Return System ?
So we're working on the—I mean, when we built the budget in this current state—is that wine bottles are part of the return system. Hence, the revenues from all wine bottles that we processed in the past are not included in the forecast. We will see, depending on if this amendment gets passed, you know, approved. So it was approved by the commission. It needs to be approved by the plenary of the—I don't know which of the chambers has the decision, right, for this one. And then depending on the implementation timeline, if it goes through, we will see what is the impact, you know, how quickly we can restart the contract with the clients that we had on this line, on this business line.
At the moment, I would say that it's not included because we have no certainty that this will be the case.
Okay. So basically, it would come as good news if it's removed?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes. But then, how much of a good news, it very much depends on the timeline.
Sure. Sure. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Okay. I think on this note, maybe it's a good opportunity to conclude this call. Thank you all for your attention and for your trust in our company. As we'll stay, you know we like saying that, we don't take your trust and the stock in our story and your commitment to us as a given. So we have to work far hard to justify your trust in us. And that's what we plan to do in 2024. So look forward to seeing on the next calls. And we on our side, we hope to keep updating you and sharing good news with you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye.
Thanks for.