Hello, and welcome to the BIC First Quarter 2023 Results Presentation Call. My name is Priscilla, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this call is being recorded, and your lines will be on listen only. However, at the end, during the Q&A session, you will need to press star one to ask a question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero, and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Kimberly Stewart, to begin today's conference. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Priscilla, welcome everyone to our First Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. With me today are Gonzalve Bich, CEO, as well as Chad Spooner, our CFO. This call will be available on our website, bic.com, along with today's presentation and press release for the first quarter 2023. On this call, we won't make statements about our expectations of BIC's future plans and performance. These forward-looking statements, which reflect our current views, are based on reasonable assumptions at the time of publishing our results. They are, by nature, subject to risk and contingencies liable to translate into a difference between actual data and the forecast made or inferred by these statements.
A description of the risk borne by BIC appears in the section Risk Management in BIC's 2022 Universal Registration Document filed with the French Financial Markets Authority, the AMF, on March 30th, 2023. We also invite you to refer to our glossary in our press release and presentation for alternative performance measures. With that, I hand you over to Gonzalve.
Thanks, Kimberly. Welcome everybody, and thank you for joining us today to discuss our Q1 results call. Kicking off first quarter 2023 results presentation today, I'm excited to tell you about how several of our recent strategic investments have delivered strong results this quarter that are helping BIC win where it counts. Our Horizon Plan guides our focus on driving consumer-centric growth. Amongst our objectives is to leverage the strong emotional connections consumers have with our brand. Our key achievements in the first quarter closely reflected what we told you at the start of the year. We delivered top-line growth that was slightly lower than our full year guidance, as expected.
We're continuously exploring opportunities to add value to our consumers' daily life with meaningful new product solutions, exemplary omni-channel execution, and compelling consumer marketing across traditional and emerging platforms, which I'll go into in a little bit more detail shortly. Our commitments have paid off with new consumer-centric products resulting in market share gains, global product rollouts, and a new BIC brand campaigns with wit and humor that add to our legacy of impactful and recognizable advertising. We've made choiceful investments in our operations and brand support in line with our Horizon strategic priorities of delivering long-term profitable growth. These long-term growth and innovation investments, as foreseen, impacted our adjusted EBIT. OPEX investments for the first quarter were higher than our initial forecast. We need to, and will, do better on this for the balance of the year. Other than that, we are on track right where we wanna be.
We remain aware of the macroeconomic challenges facing the global consumer goods industry, challenges to which we are not immune. The weakening of the U.S. dollar against the Mexican peso negatively impacted our P&L. Chad will go into more detail on this later. Inflation on our input costs had significant impact on our margins as a result of inventories made in the second half of 2022 and are selling through now. For the elements that we can control, I'm confident that our action plans in place will reduce our inventory and improve our mix. During the first quarter of 2023, we continued to focus on our Horizon strategic plan to drive growth, here's what stands out for me is our achievements thus far this year. Our newly owned semi-permanent tattoo business, Inkbox, is now in stores.
As a first for the brand, Inkbox is now available at a major U.S. retailer in the U.S. across 1,500 stores nationwide. This important collaboration expands Inkbox's in-store presence in the beauty aisle through standalone, impactful displays. We have strong plans to roll out further in 2023, supported by a communication campaign. I'm excited for this great initiative that our teams have achieved ahead of schedule. Initial results are promising. In the first quarter, we also launched online Inkbox's new premium salon-style fingernail art with durable tattoo-inspired designs. We have made improvements within our printing and supply chains towards our consumers. We continue to drive top-line growth for focusing on improved price and mix, thanks to added value and innovations that meet the needs of both our customers and our consumers. Our Revenue Growth Management strategy is bearing fruit.
In the first quarter, we delivered good results in all categories. Net sales per SKU grew 10%, we further simplified our portfolio with a net SKU reduction improvement of 6%, always with the same objective of improving our in-store shopper experience. Some additional achievements during the first quarter include our exemplary omni-channel execution from our worldwide teams. Their relentless focus on solid commercial execution permitted market share gains in almost all key regions. In Human Expression, we gained market share in the marking and coloring segments across key countries in France, the U.K. and Mexico. This is a nice example of our Horizon Plan bringing strategic value as we pivot our portfolio towards a more consumer desire for increased creativity, especially in added value segments.
Furthermore, our performance in the coloring felt pens segment with the addition of our new Intensity range, was robust, with net sales growing close to 50% across Brazil, Mexico, and the U.S. The Intensity coloring range enjoyed double-digit growth in Europe during the first quarter, which is also very encouraging. In Flame for Life, we outpaced our markets in the U.S. with a 1.5 point expansion in value share. In Brazil, we gained 90 basis points increase in value, fueled by continued growth of our added value lighters such as Djeep and utility lighters, combined with a 2-fold increase in demand for decorated lighters. Demonstrating once again that BIC is the consumer brand of choice for consumers when it comes to flames and other flame occasions.
While in Blade Excellence, I'm particularly pleased as we continued to gain market share in all key countries with a star performance in France, up 3.3 points, an increase of 1.3 points in Italy, closely followed by Brazil and in the US, where we had a 60 basis point increase. This solid execution reflects the success of our impactful advertising campaign in offline and digital spaces. A proof point of this success is the 40% jump in net sales during the quarter for our premium Hybrid segment. We also doubled down in e-commerce, reinforcing our presence online with successful results in the first quarter. BIC gained market share in the Human Expression category in Europe and the US despite declining value growth in the overall category in each of those countries.
We achieved impressive share gain in the U.K. and France, where both increased by 3.4 points, in addition to share increase of 1.7 points in Germany and a boost of 1.5 points in the U.S. During the first quarter, I'm delighted with the performance of our consumer-centric product launches and compelling new marketing campaigns. In the U.S., BIC Soleil Escape maintained considerable growth in the region, achieving 3.3 market share and value in the U.S. women's disposable segment up 2.1 points. This unique sensorial razor we debuted last year continues to be our most successful introduction in the segment and is being rolled out internationally in Europe and Latin America to promising results.
In the first quarter, we expanded the rollout of our new breakthrough anti-clog innovation, the BIC EasyRinse Razor, both online and in-store, contributing to market share reaching 0.6 points in value year to date. The supporting 360-degree marketing campaign featuring comedian Eric Andre and actress Annie Murphy also launched in March to much fanfare, garnering 80 million paid impressions and 2.4 billion earned impressions in the first two weeks alone, a tremendous indication of how well the campaign is resonating with consumers. In the U.S., we introduced our new break-resistant mechanical pencil, which is proving to fulfill an unmet need with more than 4-star ratings and reviews contributing to promising sales.
As we continue to pursue our goal towards a more value-driven model in lighters, our EZ Reach utility pocket lighter contributed successfully to net sales growth with a 6% increase in Q1 year-over-year. We launched a new media campaign in the U.S. with the legendary musician Willie Nelson, joining our iconic duo of Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart. A particular note is the rollout of EZ Reach in Europe, supported by Snoop and Martha campaign in March with a high focus on digital channels with social media and streaming platforms. We also prepared B2B advertising, press activities, and in-store campaigns to support the launch. The campaign is currently being rolled out across all European markets this spring. I'm excited about the results that this will bring to our brand and the Flame for Life division as it gathers momentum.
In the second quarter, EZ Reach will also be rolled out in Latin America. The momentum gained during the first quarter reinforces our confidence going forward. We have a determined and engaged management team in place that is looking at a strong pipeline of potential opportunities to accelerate our expansion in adjacent markets, strengthen our existing divisions, and building on our new capabilities. Although we have more progress to make with our external growth goals, I'm confident about our performance for the balance of the year, and that we will achieve sustainable and profitable mid-single-digit growth. Accordingly, we confirm our outlook for 2023. I'll now turn it over to Chad, who'll review the first quarter financials with you. Chad?
Thanks, Gonzalve. Let's begin with an overview of our consolidated results for the first quarter of 2023. Key financial figures on slide six. Net sales for the full year were EUR 538.7 million, up 4.3% at constant currencies. This growth was driven by solid commercial execution, both online and in stores, in our Human Expression and Blade Excellence divisions, notably in developing markets such as Latin America, India, and Middle East Africa. Our adjusted EBIT was EUR 70 million with a 13% margin driven by gross profit decline, increased OpEx and brand support investments. As a reminder, in Q1 of 2022, margin benefited from exceptional net sales performance in U.S. lighters related to positive phasing. Adjusted earnings per share were EUR 1.7, a decline of 26.9% versus last year.
I'll go into more detail shortly on our free cash flow before acquisitions and disposals, which was a - EUR 33.8 million, primarily due to 2023 back-to-school stock building. At the end of March 2023, net cash position was EUR 297.1 million, with EUR 27.6 million in share buybacks. Turning to slide seven, you'll see a snapshot of our divisions, starting with our performance in Human Expression. Net sales were EUR 177.5 million, up 8.5 at constant currencies. We saw strong performance with double-digit growth across Latin America, the Middle East and Africa regions, and mid-single digit growth in India.
In Europe and North America, we gained market share in our key countries, driven by both added value segments and core stationery products, despite an unfavorable comparison base. This was arising from early back-to-school season orders last year. On top of that, our new semi-permanent tattoo business, Inkbox, grew double digit, notably led by the successful launch in store at a major U.S. retailer. In Brazil, our teams delivered solid commercial execution, notably during the back-to-school season, with a strong execution both in store and online, and the success of our core segments like ball pen and added value products such as the Intensity range. Human Expression adjusted EBIT was EUR 2.4 million with a 1.4% margin compared to 6.8% in Q1 of 2022.
The decrease was driven by unfavorable Forex, mainly the U.S. dollar and Mexican peso exchange rate, manufacturing costs, and as well as higher OPEX. Note that input cost inflation was more than offset by our manufacturing efficiencies. On the center of slide six, we have our Flame for Life division, with net sales of EUR 228.5 million, down 1.3% at constant currencies. We saw high single- to double-digit net sales growth in all key regions except in the U.S. that was impacted by the negative phasing versus Q1 of 2022.
As you may remember, Q1 of 2022 net sales performance in the U.S. was exceptionally high as it benefited from delayed shipments from the fourth quarter of 2021 when U.S. customers in the fourth quarter of 2021. Excluding this impact, the net sales for the division would have grown 8.2% at constant currencies. Nonetheless, we maintained our leadership position, gaining share in both volume and value in total U.S. lighters market. In Europe, net sales performance was driven by price increases, further distribution in Eastern Europe and favorable mix with success of our premium products such as Djeep and decorated lighters, in line with our Horizon strategy to move towards a more value-driven model. In Brazil, all categories from classic pocket lighters to decorated and utility lighters contributed to double-digit net sales performance.
This supports our Flame for Life strategy that addresses further consumer needs for all flame occasions. Flame for Life adjusted EBIT was EUR 83.9 million, with a 36.7% margin compared to 38.5% in Q1 of 2022. This decrease was due to unfavorable fixed cost absorption and higher operating OpEx investments. Brand support investments were also higher as we launched a new EZ Reach advertising campaign in Europe. This was partially offset by favorable price and foreign exchange, the U.S. Euro-U.S. dollar hedging. Note that input cost inflation was offset by manufacturing efficiencies. Lastly, in our Blade Excellence division, net sales were EUR 124.7 million, up 9% at constant currencies, driven by added value segments and new products with strong results in Europe and Latin America.
In Europe, performance was driven by market share gains in both female and male three-to-five blade segments, and we outperformed the U.S. one-piece market thanks to our Flex range. Our breakthrough innovation, the BIC EasyRinse shaver, showed promising results as the product reached 0.6% market share in value, boosted by the launch of our advertising campaign. In Latin America, net sales grew double digits, driven by added value products such as the BIC Comfort 3, the Hybrid and Soleil ranges as well. These successes are proof points that our trade-up strategy in this region. Blade Excellence division adjusted EBIT margin was 4.5% compared to 22.4% in Q1 of 2022.
This was caused by significant input cost inflation, such as raw materials and electricity, coming from the inventory in the second half of 2022, and that were sold this quarter. As well as unfavorable Forex from the current period, which our manufacturing efficiencies were not able to completely offset. The margin was also impacted by higher OpEx and brand support investments, mostly related to the launch of our BIC EasyRinse advertising campaign in the U.S. Turning to slide eight, let's now review our consolidated financial results for the first quarter of 2023 net sales evolution. On an as-reported basis, net sales for Q1 of 2023 totaled EUR 538.7 million, up 4.5% versus last year. On a comparative basis, our net sales were up 0.9%.
Currency fluctuations had a positive impact of 2.4 points. That was mainly due to the increase of the U.S. dollar and the Brazilian real against the euro, respectively 1.8 points and 0.5 points. The perimeter impact adjustment includes the acquisitions of which there's one, one month of Inkbox as well as Tattly and AMI. Argentina contributed 0.8 points. Let's now take a closer look at BIC's adjusted EBIT margin change versus the prior year for the first quarter of 2023 on slide nine. Q1 gross profit margin decreased by 2 points, negatively impacted by input cost inflation on raw materials and electricity costs, fixed cost absorption in Forex, which was mainly due to the U.S. dollar and Mexican peso exchange rate, as well as U.S dollar Euro-U.S. dollar hedging was favorable.
This was partially offset by favorable pricing and mix in manufacturing efficiencies. Brand support was 1.2 points higher, with media campaigns for EasyRinse in North America and EZ Reach launch in Europe. OPEX and other expenses increased by 3.6 points as we continue to invest to support our Horizon growth strategy. On slide 10, we have the key P&L elements summarized. adjusted EBIT for Q1 of 2023 was EUR 70 million compared to EUR 101.9 million last year. Q1 of 2023, income before tax was EUR 70.7 million with a 28.1% tax rate.
That's compared to 95.2 million EUR in Q1 2022, reflecting the strong performance of the U.S. lighter business last year, as I mentioned earlier. Net income group share was 50.8 million EUR, compared to 67.6 million EUR for Q1 2022. Our adjusted EPS group share was 1.17 EUR compared to 1.6 EUR last year. Moving on to slide 11, we see the main elements of working capital. Inventories increased by 50.2 million EUR compared to December 2022, primarily due to 2023 back-to-school stock building. Trade and other receivables increased 48.9 million EUR, driven by increased sales.
On slide 12, we have our net cash position evolution from December 2022 to March 2023. You'll see that our operating cash flow was EUR 105.4 million. As we described in the prior slide, we had negative working capital and others of EUR 117.6 million. Net cash was also impacted by investments in CapEx of EUR 21.6 million. This resulted in a free cash flow of - EUR 33.8 million. During the first quarter, we bought back EUR 27.5 million in shares. Our net cash position at the end of March 2023 was EUR 297.1 million. In closing, as Gonzalve stated earlier, we confirm our full year 2023 outlook.
We expect our net sales to grow between 5% and 7% at constant currencies, driven by price, mix, and volumes. We expect to improve our 2023 adjusted EBIT and adjusted EBIT margin with a growing gross profit margin, partially offset by continued investments in our operations and brand support aimed at driving our Horizon ambition of delivering long-term profitable growth. We remain confident in our ability to generate a free cash flow before acquisitions and disposals above EUR 200 million in 2023 for the fifth year in a row. With that, Gonzalve and I are happy to take your questions. Operator?
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause just for a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. We will take our first questions from Mourad Lahmidi from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, good morning, gentlemen. I have two questions on my side. The first one is on the nature of the growth that you recorded in the first quarter. I look at your comparative growth of 4.9%. What was driven by price mix and what was driven by volumes? When I look at the slide number one, I appreciate the details of the bridge. Could you give us an idea of how this bridge will look like over the next three quarters into the full year? Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Mourad. First question you had was on Q1 price volume mix, et cetera. When we look at Q1 growth from a price mix perspective, you know, that was really the drivers on that 0.9% was a price mix combination. We also had volumes, you know, that are slightly declining, but essentially be flat if you exclude the 1-time phasing in lighter. On a full year basis, you know, we think that there's slight volume increase, as we said before. Someone has a typewriter that's really loud.
Morad.
Mourad, can you please mute?
Yeah. Sorry, sorry.
Can you mute?
We can hear you typing.
Yep. For the rest of the year, you know, we'll have slight volume increases, as we had said before, for the full year on the full year conference call. As we said in February, our full year, we expect, you know, really will be driven by price mix, but we will have some extent some volume in the year as well, but not nearly as much as last year.
Next slide. To slide one bridge.
In slide 1 bridge. Mourad, you're on. When you say slide one, the net sales evolution bridge?
Sorry, it's slide nine. I was just wondering how the main moving parts will look like over the rest of the year.
Slide nine is the adjusted EBIT you're speaking about?
Exactly.
Okay. For the full year, you know, we don't give full guidance, but the gross profit will be a positive impact. In Q1, you see there's 200 basis points, and we talked about what the drivers were there. You're gonna see a growth for full year from several things. You're gonna see a favorable impact in Foreign exchange, which is gonna impact our gross profit. Overall, we're gonna see rate increase in gross profit, and we've talked about that, right? You're gonna see a rate increase from the Foreign exchange. Our U.S. dollar-E uro hedges will become more favorable in the second half of the year, so we'll see benefit from that in the second half of the year. We're also gonna see less inflation.
We've talked about, you know, at the end of the year, EUR 45 million of cost inflation on the balance sheet, which impacts our first half margins. You're gonna see favorability in the second half of the year, an increase in the gross margins as we get less inflation impact, and positive FX impact. We've talked about our manufacturing efficiencies. Those are really going across the year, consistency, so we're gonna have benefit of that across the entire year. Lighter, yeah. Also you'll have the lighter mix in Q1 obviously had an impact from the margin last year at 19.8% because of how much lighter we had in the U.S. business. That was a big impact for Q1 that you'll see balancing out throughout the year.
Okay. I guess, the brand support intensity will continue to go in the same direction.
Well, you're seeing a bigger, the biggest impact obviously in the first quarter as you do the launches for EasyRinse, et cetera. We will continue to have brand support impact throughout on a full year basis, as we said, but you're gonna see most of the intensity in the first half of the year.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Mourad.
Thank you. We will move on to our next participant, Kate Rusanova from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Hello, Gonzalve Bich, Chad Spooner, and Kimberly Stewart. Thank you for taking my questions. First of all, I wanted to ask about your full year top-line guidance. I just wanted to check whether the guidance for 5%-7% growth at constant currencies also applies to your growth on a comparative basis. If it doesn't, where does your 5% to 7% guidance apply on a comparative basis for the year? Considering a softer start to the year, can you please provide us with the key growth levers that give you confidence in the ability to meet that full year top-line guidance? Maybe you can share some insight on the current trading and whether you have seen an uptick in March and April. My second question is a follow-up to your gross margin comments.
Extrapolating Q1 margin of 49.8% into Q2 could already yield nearly 200 basis points of gross margin improvement year-on-year. I was just wondering if that level of improvement is reasonable and whether, with some potential deflation, we could see gross margin crossing the 50% mark relatively soon. My last question is more a big picture one. As much as Horizon seems to bring some new impetus from an innovation standpoint, for now it seems to have a knock-on impact on profits in Human Expression and Blade Excellence. My question is: Do you have good visibility on when we should see an inflection point for your profits in these two businesses? Are you really getting satisfactory levels of return on investments in these two businesses? Thank you.
Thanks, Kate. Let me take a first stab at some of these, and I'll let Gonzalve add in if. I think a lot of these have financial nature to them. First I'll start on the top line. If you take out the, I'll call exceptional lighter performance from last year, our Q1 growth would be in line or actually above guidance. If you say, okay, if that's what your business is without that exceptional comp, I think that our Q1 shows that we're online with our full year guidance. We see honestly, I don't see risk at all to where we're at from a 5%-7%. Current performance, taking market share, all of those things are evidence and give us confidence for why top line. That's not something that we are concerned about at all.
I think the first quarter shows that when you normalize it. The second question was about the 200 basis points of improvement in gross profit. Could we see getting back to what, you know, we normally have a 50% gross profit rate? We don't give specific gross profit guidance, but I'll say that you're in the right direction in terms of obviously us increasing from where we're at an increased rate. You can see some of the math in terms of where we'll be getting to from that year. It doesn't take much to get us over 50%, so not a bad assumption. I'll leave it at that. From a Horizon standpoint, you talk about stationery and Blade Excellence.
I wanna point out what we saw in Q1 and what we're gonna see, you know, throughout the year, because we'll start with stationery. I made a comment at year-end about the 3% was an inflection point, and stationery will be well above that for 2023 full year. We don't give quarterly guidance. What we did have is a significant impact, more in stationery than anything else from the Mexican peso, given the amount of products that we sell from Mexico to the U.S., in the U.S. dollar peso impact there, right with our stationery factory in Mexico. You saw that impact more in stationery than anywhere else.
What you're also gonna see in stationery, though, what you saw in shaver in Q1 that you didn't see as much in the other categories, is the impact of electricity and the raw material that was in our inventory from the end of last year that specifically impacts shaver. Why? Because it's in Greece, the Greek electricity rates last year were the highest of all the different countries that we operate in. In the second half of the year, you're gonna see benefits in both of their margin rates from less input cost inflation across the board, as we're seeing a easing of input costs in the second half of the year, because we're already purchasing those materials now.
You're gonna see the benefit on both of those with the exchange with our U.S. dollar- Euro hedge rate. Our second half favorability will be even more than our first half favorability on the Euro U.S.- dollar hedging. Both of those will benefit from that as well. I think you'll see the rates, the margin rates improve. I also wanna point out on stationery, you know, Horizon, we did an investment with Inkbox. We've told the market that, you know, last year it had 80 bits of negative impact on our EBIT margin. We said that it's moving towards a break-even business in 2024, and beyond we'll see favorable impacts 'cause it is a very good gross margin business.
That's a investment that we did in the Human Expression business that you're seeing the impacts today on the margin rate, right? It is a drag on the margin rate, but it's going the right direction. We talked about double-digit growth. The execution of what we do in the business is in line with what we expected. When you do these kind of investments, this is what we're looking for the long term, not for the quarter. We feel good about both of those categories and where they're going for the full year. You know, the current quarter had certain period impacts, which didn't, you know, the surprise, we call it the Mexican peso on the stationery.
On shaver, the investments that we did with the brand support for EasyRinse was expected and what we wanna do to drive growth. We're right where we wanna be, to be honest, besides unpredictable foreign exchange. Anything else, Kate, on those?
No, thank you so much. I guess, just to follow up in terms of the guidance, so the 5%-7% range, does it apply to the growth on a comparative basis?
We give guidance on constant currencies, right?
Okay.
We don't give guidance on a comparative basis.
Okay. Thank you.
Yep.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. We'll move on to our next participant, Marie Fort from Société Générale. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, good morning. I've just several questions. For Gonzal, if I well understood, you mentioned at the start of the call that OPEX was above the budget. I'm just curious to understand if the reason is, well, that you were expecting at the start of the year higher organic growth, or is it just a question of phasing? The second question is about your phasing. I'm sorry to come back on that, on margins. Just to better understand, do you think that you could see an improvement in margin in Q2? Is it something that would be gradual over the year, or shall we see also some volatile impact in Q2, Q3, Q4, excluding the Forex impact? I've got questions about BIC Blade Tech.
I would like to come back on Q1 and to see how evolved the deliveries to your clients. What is your current order book? Do you gain other clients? Do you, could you share with us the level of sales that you could achieve in 2023 compared to EUR 40 million last year? Also to know if you are still confident that BIC Blade Tech will account for more than 20% of your sales for shaver division?
Mary, this is Chad.
It's for me.
Yeah, let me take the first question on OpEx. I heard what Gonzalo said, the first thing I wanna point out is if you look at our OpEx versus Q3, Q4 last year, there wasn't really a substantial change in the operating expense. I think internally, we always wanna drive, you know, the negative leverage, I think, is one of the things that, you know, is, you know, not where we want it to be, we're driving towards more favorable leverage. You'll start to see, I'll say in the second half of the year, you won't see as much negative leverage as what you're seeing in the first half. I think that's kind of what we're referring to. From an overall.
Cost, you know, expense on OPEX, you haven't really seen much change in the last few quarters.
Mm-hmm.
That's there. Your second question was about phasing and margin improvement. For sure, you will see margin improvement at the EBIT level, and the gross profit level, in the subsequent quarters. I'll say the second half of the year, you'll be happy with a different level of performance of EBIT margin than what you've seen in the last few years. Then I'll let Gonzalve talk about BDT.
No problem. BIC Blade Tech, we are still happy with the growth. We started shipping one new client in January. We also have one client that we're exiting out of the portfolio at the same time. Why I think that's important is it shows that we rotate, and we'll stay true to the strategy that we set out for ourselves, which is powering new, nascent, and dynamic customers. We chose to exit one contract, but we have a good pipeline. Actually, a better than good pipeline of potentials for the balance of the year and want to continue to invest in this. It continues to be highly margin accretive to both the category and the company totally. Yes, this year we'll be growing-
Double digits.
Double digits, yeah. I don't wanna give the exact number.
Yeah.
Double digits. I still believe that this can be more than 20% of the total Blade Excellence business in the midterm. Absolutely.
Okay. I've just one last questions about stationery. How do you see the deliveries for Q2, Q3? Last year we see a big impact in Q2 and not so much in Q3. Just to give us some indication about that. Thank you.
Yeah, no. Thank you for asking the question. Actually, this year we had less deliveries in Q1 than we did last year, although we did have some customers ask us to build the inventory that we're gonna be shipping in April and May. You should see a slow return to more historical delivery schedules. When I look at the total order book for back to school, it has the strength to support the guidance that we've given you on a full year basis.
Okay, we'd be more in Q2, if I understood.
Q2, yes.
Q2, Q3.
Yeah. Q2, Q3. This year we didn't do that big glut of Q1 that we had last year, remember?
Okay. Thank you very much.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. All right, we have one question from Othman Bricher from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hello. Hi, I just have 1 follow-up question on pricing. Can you maybe comment on how your negotiations with retailers have gone so far? I believe that you've now have finished all of your negotiations. Can you provide us with the levels of price that you've that you are taking, starting from Q1 or Q2 this year by division? Thank you.
Good morning, Othman. Yes, we're done with all the major pricing negotiations with our customers and have locked in the level of price and mix that we wanted for the balance of the year that supports our full year guidance. Well, you have in the current numbers the back half of 2022 pricing locked in, and then you have all of 2023 locked in for our full year. Now we wanna make sure that we're always protecting our value for money positioning. You know, this is something that is very, very important, especially in the difficult economic times for certain shoppers around the world. We wanna make sure that the BIC brand remains synonymous with both value for money, and valued from a brand perspective.
If I think about, you know, the different mid-single digit increases that we did across the three categories, geographically, it flexes from one to the other depending on competitive set, foreign exchange rates and other effects. You should think about mid-single to mid-high for some of the important segments around the world.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take a follow-up question from Marie Fort from Société Générale. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, thanks. Sorry. I would like to know what is the amount of inventory in Q1 2023? You were at - EUR 26 million in Q4 2023. Does it deteriorate further in Q1? Just to have that evolution in mind.
Yeah. I would say, you know, we talked about the EUR 45 million at year-end. A good estimate is roughly half and half between Q1 and Q2.
Yeah, around 2025 Q1.
Yeah. Have roughly half of 20, 45.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Just because it appears there is no further questions at this time, I'd like to turn the conference back to the host for any additional closing remarks. Thank you.
Thank you everyone for your time. Our next event is our annual shareholder meeting on the 16th of May. We will have our half year results on the 26th of July. In the meantime, if you have any questions, Michelle, Kenny, and myself would be delighted to speak with you. With that, we wish you an excellent day.
Thank you.
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.