Good afternoon and welcome to the 2023 full-year results. I'm Stanislas de Gramont, the General Director of the group. I'm going to be handing over the next 45 minutes to share with you the next results for 2023 with Olivier Casanova, who's on my left, and General Director, Deputy Director in charge of finances for the group. We will be speaking in French. We'll be answering questions in French, but there's a simultaneous translation in the room. I think everybody speaks French in the room and on the webcast to accompany our listeners who are online and who we greet. After the presentation, there'll be a Q&A session where you can ask questions directly from the floor or live using this tablet, which is supposed to be sending us the questions you have submitted for our attention.
2023, I'm going to be covering it's a classic financials, major key highlights of 2023. There's the acquisition of Sofilac, CSR, and we're going to talk about outlooks. 2023 was a very good year for the subgroup. We have a very profitable growth over the year. You've seen the results of sales, EUR 8.606 billion in sales. We broke that barrier of EUR 8 billion. We are up 5.3% like for like compared to 2022. This translates or can be converted in operating net profit of EUR 726 million in ORfA compared to EUR 620 million last year, though that's 17% additional with an operating margin of 9.1%. That's 129 basis points better than last year. In net profit, this is translated into EUR 386 million, up EUR 70 million or 22% compared to 2022.
The last factor relating to performance is net financial debt, which stands at EUR 1.769 billion up EUR 204 million compared to the end of 2022, which generates a leverage of 1.8x EBITDA. The board of directors that met yesterday is proposing to the general assembly on the 23rd of May a dividend of EUR 2.62 per share, depending on premiums and so forth. I'm going to hand over now to Olivier Casanova, who's going to go into the financial highlights over the year.
Thank you, Stanislas. Hello, everyone. I'm going to start with comments on sales, as we've already heard and commented on at the end of January. I'm going to move over that quite quickly. Here you have, as Stanislas just explained, you have sales that went past EUR 8 billion and slightly up like-for-like, but which in fact, if you break it down, it was built thanks to organic growth, which came back up at 5.3%, a negative currency effect of roughly the same amount as expected. I'll get back to that effect in a moment.
The scope effect, which is a contribution of one part of the year of some acquisitions that were for San Marco, Pacojet, and Forge Adour. So just a word about the significant currency effect in 2023, especially in the second half-year compared to EUR 420 million. This was marketed in the second half-year. You could see right there there's almost EUR 300 million. It's almost three times greater than the first half-year. So there's an acceleration in that second half-year.
We can see that the main impact was a devaluation or the change in renminbi compared to euro. So it's not a very marked. We're talking about a discrepancy of an average of 8%, but it's applied to sales figures of EUR 8 billion. So that makes a big amount. If we look at the three other currencies of emerging nations, we have Russia, Turkey, and Egyptian pound. We can see that the sales figures in these variations that are applied are much lower than in China. But the changes and devaluation of these currencies is significant, which gives an important impact. If we look now at the organic growth since Q2 2023, after four quarters of negative growth, we got back in the second half year, the second quarter to their like-for-like growth of 6.8%.
That dynamic continued throughout the rest of the year with a Q4 at 8.5%. If we look division-wise, we're going to talk about professional. We had excellent performance over the year in professional with a growth throughout the year of TCPC of 26.5% like for like and almost EUR 1 billion in sales. In consumer, we have EUR 7.04 5 billion. We can see that in 2023, we got back to positive growth like for like in consumer of 3.2%. This growth is accelerated, in fact, in that fourth quarter because we have a growth of 7.7% in the fourth quarter. Now I'm going to go over the factors having to do with sales because we spoke about them already. Here you see the growth in Q4 of 16.2% compared to 2022. It was a bit more demanding.
That's why this is slightly lower than the average for the year. But we benefited from a market which was still growing, as you know, and additionally in very good commercial performance thanks to successes with major clients and thanks as well to robust business with independent clients. We also benefited from a certain number of product launches of new products. And Stanislas will get back to that in his part. And lastly, we made progress in our strategic plan in 2023 with the acquisition of La San Marco, which is an iconic Italian brand of traditional coffee machines, which adds to our product offering after the acquisition of WMF and Schaerer on the one hand and Wilbur Curtis on the other. Now let's move on to consumer with a panorama both geographical. Let's start with the EMEA.
So two regions with different dynamics in Western Europe, progressively we're back to growth, but it's flat over the year, but with an improvement in the second half year. We can see this notably in France. We got back to growth. In Germany, it was more difficult. The economic environment in Germany, as you know, is not very good, not very sustained, but we had good dynamic growth in T4 with a good Black Friday. And in Western Europe, we have some markets that have good dynamic growth. We've enjoyed good performance and good dynamics in Spain, Belgium, and the Nordic countries. So very contrasted situation, which is good by the end of the year. And in Central and Eastern Europe, in these very excellent markets, we've had very strong growth above 20% both throughout the year and in the fourth quarter.
This has been led by good performance and good commercial performance both online and offline and with market share gains in key categories such as oil-free and laundry care and also deployment of certain product successes in this region, notably Optigrill, Cookeo, and Ingenio. And lastly, in one part of this region, we're also led by our ability to get price increases across in certain markets who add significant inflation. If we move on to the Americas, here again, you can see there's an acceleration of growth in the second half year with +11% in H2. In the United States, we're back to organic growth in the second half year. The group is still number one in the favorite in cookware where we have a leadership position in the U.S., e're number one with Tefal.
We're also number one in premium segments with All-Clad and number one in ethnic brands with IMUSA. We have reinforced that number one position in 2023. In Mexico now, we have a market which is even better and it's growing, double-digit organic growth. We have succeeded in gaining market share in all categories, notably in laundry and blenders and in fans, which was led by the El Niño effect and the climate. If you go move on to South America, a very reinforced market position greater than 10% throughout the year with the dynamics that were varying. In Colombia, the market was a bit more difficult, but the group comes out okay because they won market share.
In Brazil, the dynamics were a bit more positive in the second half of the year, thanks notably to the strong demand for fans due to El Niño and thanks to launching new products such as oil-free fryers. To conclude geographical coverage, a word about China, about Asia. We've outperformed in China. It's not doing as well as in the previous decade, but the market is more difficult. But in this market, we're super overperforming, a very positive growth throughout the year and an accelerated growth in the fourth quarter that Q4 of +3.3% like for like. Three reasons for that, as we had the opportunity to underline. The first is the fact that Supor is less exposed to discretionary categories, notably due to the fact of its market position, strong position in products that are symptomatic or emblematic of traditional Chinese cookware. We're talking about woks.
The second is a dynamic of innovation, which is very strong. Stanislas, we'll get back to that in terms of rice cookers, which is obviously a big one. And thirdly, the group has a resilient product mix. We have a new innovation engine with excellent we have a lot of online sales, but we're also strongly developing social commerce, notably with TikTok and Douyin. And the group has taken that tangent very well. And we've won market share from competition in these new distribution channels. So the group is ultimately doing very well in a globally difficult market. About the rest of Asia, it's a bit different, but globally, I'd say the environment is unfavorable. This is marked notably in 2023 by reduction in inventory in our distributors.
But we did note a positive aspect is that in the fourth quarter, finished better than the rest of the year with some signs of improvement that we were aware there was renewed sales growth. Now let's move on to the fourth quarter. It was very strong. There were 46% of ORfA over the year, which gave us EUR 726 million for a full year, up 17% compared to 2022. The group set the objective of doing at least 10% growth of ORfA over the year, and we lined up +17%. The operating margin stands at 9.1%, which is getting back to the historical standards, up 130 basis points compared to 100 basis points the previous year. Now, if we look at how this compares to group standards, we took 2015 to 2021. You have the median, which is the left hand in dark blue.
You can see in the first quarter, we stood below, clearly below the median for 2015-2021. But starting in the second quarter, we came back to comparable figures, and we're winding up at the end of the year at 13.6% in Q4 compared to an average of 12.6%. So how is this operating performance in this scope of EUR 726 million? It was comprised of what? We're going to be going over the usual bridge chart with the ORfA bridge in 2023. Now we start with factors of sales figures that impact ORfA. The first is we got back to a positive dynamic in volume terms. This is true in professional, which really led things with a very strong sales. But it's good news as well in consumer where we're also back to growth.
This is also the case with a positive price mix effect, which translates, first of all, to the continuing enrichment of the product mix. Stanislas, we'll get back to some new product launches and events in 2023, which fed into that positive price mix effect. Also the cost. As you know, we increased prices in 2022, and we did that on a full-year basis in 2023. Also the ability to get price rises across in countries that are subjected to significant levels of inflation. Now about costs, you can see a very significant cost effect in sales. We had a cumulative effect throughout the year, both in reduction and decline in purchasing costs for raw materials, components, and finished products, and obviously the significant decrease in the cost of shipping, which gives a very important effect of EUR 102 million positive. Now, what about the growth drivers?
They're slightly down, notably in terms of innovation, but there's also a big effect in currency. But other than that, there's a slight growth in more important factors that we're going to get into in the next slide, which are there and serve to support the launching and development enrichment of our product offering. Commercial expenses and administrative expenses were up. That was expected in our budget. There was an inflationary environment, and there was also a reflection of a more intensive activity in online sales and retail sales. And we also set up our own stores. Now, looking and focusing on growth drivers, here you have the growth rates, which were clearly up, especially in innovation, in order to support new product launches and R&D. Advertising and marketing grew in a much more limited fashion and reflects a good budgetary discipline throughout the year.
We will conclude by the impact of currency effects. There are two major effects. The first is the negative forex impact, as expected, reflecting a certain number of emerging countries and depreciation of some currencies in emerging countries. We are able to get price rises at costs in these countries because they have high inflation. We have a positive effect in terms of price, which counterbalances the negative effect that we see in the ORfA. The second effect is a favorable impact of hedging results. We do hedging in the short term in CNY and U.S. dollars. Here we had a positive impact in 2023, but we had a very positive effect in 2022. Therefore, from one year to the next, it gave a negative offset of the result in that hedging activity. So here's the rest of the P&L. Stanislas has already mentioned this.
It translates into a profit up 22%, reaching EUR 386 million. So as regards other expenses, particularly restructuring ones, for example, this was a rather weak year, which is below the group's historical standards. Second, in terms of tax, our tax burden stands at 25%, which is more or less the group's regular tax rate. It's fair to say that last year we benefited from the carry forward of deficits, which allowed us in Germany to reduce our tax burden. We could not benefit from this this year. And we have a country mix effect, which is slightly adverse because the tax rate is different in China. So overall, the tax burden stands at 25%. And I think that in the coming years we'll be hovering around 23%-24%, which compares with a lower tax rate in the previous years. Right. Now let's move on to the WCR.
Let's look at the balance sheet and cash flow. As you can see, our WCR is down at 14.6%. It mainly reflects the decline, the continuous decline in inventories. We had already reduced them in 2022, and we continue this in 2023. The level of receivables is back to historical levels. That means we have a positive impact in terms of cash flow relative to a rather unusual situation last year. At the end of 2022, we slowed down the production of our factories. Receivables were payables, rather, were fairly low. We now have a positive effect. As you can see on this slide, we end up at 14.6%, which is slightly below the levels we had in 2018 and 2019. I think we already said that the usual level of WCR is between 15%-17%, around 16%.
So these were the levels for 2018 and 2019. Now we can see that with the seasonality of production, we are slightly below in 2023. Now onto the cash flow, we have an adjusted EBITDA, as you've seen, which is very close to EUR 1 billion. I've already mentioned the changes and the operating WCR. CAPEX is slightly below our depreciation. It's fair to say that 2023 is a transitional year. In 2022, we had substantial investments, particularly the announcement of this logistics hub, the construction of this hub in Écully. In 2023, we announced substantial investments, but that will have an effect as from 2024 onwards. So particularly, we had the investment in Til-Châtel into a new logistics hub for cookware. And of course, the investment in Shaoxing into a new plant to support the development of our professional business in China.
Stanislas will address this later in the second part. At the end of the day here, we have a lot of free cash flow, EUR 805 million for the year. Thanks to this, of course, we can pay our shareholders. We can also further develop our strategy or further develop or deliver on our strategy with the acquisition of new businesses in our portfolio package yet for food preparation, La San Marco, which I already mentioned, for traditional coffee machines, and Forge Adour for planchas. Despite these investments, we have managed to deleverage by EUR 104 million. Let me now wrap up with the balance sheet. We have a very strong financial, very strong and healthy financial structure. It's very sturdy when you look at the available cash, approximately EUR 1.5 billion added to this undrawn IFRS 16 debt. This gives us a lot of financial security.
Second, I have just said a healthy financial structure because in 2023, we continued operations that help us diversify our operations, particularly with the Schuldschein issue for EUR 650 million, but also better staggering or spread of our debt and an average debt maturity of 3.7% for debt above one year. We have 87% in terms of fixed-rate debt. So very, very strong financial structure, as you can see, and a net debt to EBITDA ratio, which is now below 2%. It stands at 1.8%.
If you look at things excluding IFRS impact and excluding acquisitions, we even stand at 1.4%. Now, in conclusion, as you know, the board will recommend to the general meeting the approval of a EUR 2.62 dividend per share, so up 7% after no increase last year. We are back to levels that were similar to those we had over the last 15 years. So much for financials, over to Stanislas.
Thank you very much, Olivier. Now I'm going to take you on a journey into the main operational achievements in 2023. Let's start with consumers. So I'll be dealing with consumer first and then with professional. So this is a slide that was presented on the 14th of December on our Capital Market Dates where we explained the value creation drivers of our group. So we start from a situation of global leadership in consumer for small domestic appliances. And it's based on six pillars. First, strong brands combined with a global presence, with continuous innovation across all our product categories, combined with a very large product portfolio with more than 50 product families, go-to-market excellence, and a very competitive industrial footprint. And all of this is fueled by approved know-how and external growth.
I was going to say 25 in the last 25, but actually over the last 50 years, also fueled by a pioneering role in terms of corporate and environmental and social responsibility. We will see later that this formula, this equation, also applies to the business segment, although we entered it quite recently. Now let me give you some examples of this in 2023 where how have we delivered on this formula, this equation?
Let me start with something quite important for the group, upright vacuum cleaners, something that we started in the group about 10 years ago, where in the last years, over the years, we have developed wide ranges. We have a continuous innovation policy. All the products you can see here were launched between 2022 and 2023. We have very wide price ranges between less than EUR 159 and more than EUR 500. We also have leading positions.
We are now the number one company in Western Europe. We are number one and number two in five countries in Eastern Europe. We have a 10% annual growth rate of our sales. So you can see here some in one of our most important categories, an illustration of what the group can deliver. Similarly, in Linen Care, and this is a very different starting point, well, Linen Care is one of our strongholds. We are one of the global we've been a global leader, one of the global leaders in the last 50, 60, 70 years. And in Linen Care, of course, this leadership means that we cover all market segments, not only traditional legacy or historical segments, irons, etc., steam irons, etc., but also developing segments, for example, portable steamers or even the Care4U models, for example. It's the second picture that you can see.
We also have the ability as a group to identify on each existing segment elements we can revamp or where we can renew our offer, for example, new irons, also the ability to identify new consumer needs and how we can meet these needs in a relevant fashion, PurePop, Care4U, etc., or even our innovation capability in eco-designed ranges, which are much more effective, environmentally efficient in terms of design, just like the last two irons and steam generators, steam generator irons. So it really shows the best we can do in the development of these categories. So at the end of the day, we have a double-digit organic sales growth, and we have, again, a global leadership with a market share of 30%.
So continuing this journey into our flagship categories in the group, cookware, of course, it's a business segment where we have stainless steel pots and pans, where we are a leader in many regions. And we continue to innovate with the Renew range with ceramic coating, where we've really pushed the envelope in the last five to seven years. We have some of the most effective products on the market, a lot of launches in Europe in the last years with outstanding results. We are already the leading brand in this market segment in France and in the Netherlands. And we are continuing to develop these ranges in Europe and North America. Again, speaking of innovation and a geographic rollout, you are all familiar with Ingenio pots and pans with removable handles, a very smart concept. You can stack your pots and pans. You could put them in the drawer.
You can put them or store them in the fridge or in the oven. Well, Ingenio is a brand with two very strong countries, France and Japan. But we are also developing this brand in other countries. So even in traditional categories for which you may think that there's no more room for growth, we actually managed to generate innovation and to develop our footprint in new countries. Now, some of them might come as a surprise, but let's talk about kettles. Why on earth should we talk about kettles? Well, it's a business of about EUR 300 million in sales. EUR 300 million. That's not bad, isn't it? So in kettles, we are a leader. We have very strong positions in China, also because we have a very strong position in Japan. Japan is a country that uses a lot of kettles.
The consumption of kettles, obviously, is closely correlated with tea consumption. We are number one in France and number two depending on markets. When you look at the drivers of this leadership, we are the leading producer, the leading world producer of kettles. That's quite important here. A very first element. We have a critical size, but also these are segments where we managed to innovate through design, through functionality. We're at different temperature ranges. You can, with our equipment, you can heat one, two, three cups. Of course, we have more futuristic innovations. For example, in the last two years in Japan and China, and it's coming to Europe, we have developed S-Mark lid.
When you knock over, if you knock over the kettle - I'm not going to do it because my glass is full - but when you knock over your kettle, at most 10 milliliters of hot, steamy liquid will spill. So it's really safe for consumers. So we are a global leader. We have innovation, which that means a double-digit growth in 2023. This was all you've got about our oil-free cookers, deep fryers. In 2006, we launched Actifry. That was a category that developed more towards air fryers.
We've added to that product range and by covering the market very quickly in 2023 to reach almost number one in sales in Europe other than Great Britain, to have products that are available in more than 50 countries, including in China, where we are a major player in this product segment. And talking about China, let's talk about something else. Rice cookers in China.
As the number one article sold, we sell more than 15 million per year of rice cookers. They eat rice one or two times a day. When you look at the very healthy categories and stable categories, there's also room for innovation. There's room for innovation because the structure of families is changing. We have increasing numbers of single-parent families. There are many more families with one person. So the question of size is different. We're looking for healthier cooking as well based on satisfying a certain number, certain types of cooking, a certain types of rice. We're using leading-edge technology where we use science in order to respond to these new needs. Obviously, we consume more than 100 tons of rice internally just to test the products. There are people that spend their time and their day eating rice.
But that's the only way you can have a good degree of perception we are looking for and what we're manufacturing. So what kinds of innovation does that result in? We have rice cookers of small capacity. You can also get infra-red cooking, which gives a better regularity in cooking, and ACRE, which spreads out the heat throughout the container. So the consequences of all of that is that in all categories, end consumer are on the rise and for smaller meals. And that is the last category to suffer from the counter effect of overconsumption during COVID, which was moderate now. And there's a bubble over the little bubbles.
The acceleration of all of our categories in the fourth quarter compared to the average for the year is this whole dynamic recovery of the activity in the second half year of last year was accelerated in the third and fourth quarters, in which it was made concrete in almost all categories. For people who are saying it was the end of laundry, well, no, it's very strongly in the second half year last year. And I'm sure you noticed. Let's move on to another aspect, outstanding commercial execution in malls. Perhaps three factors of note on this slide. The first is that one of the keys for success of the group is that we are multi-channel. We do business with all possible distribution circuits.
Now, our consumers in the average middle market use all of those: online, traditional pure players, internet and brands, and electro specialists in major mass market, and so forth. The second factor is that the share of sales online is strongly up. It's more than 40% of our sales are online in China. We stood at 25% in 2019. Why is that? Well, the offer online is perceived as being more attractive by increasing numbers of consumers from one year to the next. It's not necessarily that in specialized stores or markets that can also be there can be specialists that have their own offers as well. The other thing that we wanted to draw your attention to is that we're often asked why in China is support better than in the market. Well, these figures are an illustration of that.
We respond often because the support has a unique capacity to getting these trends in distribution and activating distribution networks as a function of their needs. These supports, we've got 300 influencers that do more than 25,000 live streams every year. We also have 400 e-stores online for five different platforms in the major platforms. TikTok has entered in the top 10 of online stores in the group, which didn't exist three or four years ago. We have more than 2,000 weekly live stream sessions where people are doing ads online 24/7. It's not exactly 24/7. It's from 6:00 A.M., seven days a week. And we have 310,000 videos generated by us that generates 2.6 billion views. So the intensity of activity is extremely strong and very, very developed. We are working as well on our supply chain with continued investment. We are continuing two initiatives.
We're talking about strategic insourcing. We're bringing back when a product is mature, when it's reached the critical mass, we bring it back into our factories. We have examples in China and France of that, in Colombia. We are developing strategic production for electronic cards. That's kind of the name of the game for some products. We have a manufacturing unit in Saint-Lô who has increased capacity. They've gone from 5 million to 7 million. And the scope covered goes from small electronic cards and also now covers WMF and electronic coffee machines. We are optimizing our logistics by opening up these logistics platforms for small at Bully-les-Mines. And in the fourth quarter, we opened up a new logistics platform, a new logistics hub in Til-Châtel in the same geographic area.
One of the keys of success of the group is our ability to identify new categories in consumer and to develop them. There are things that are more innovative than that in nomadic living. You have isothermic, which is sometimes sophisticated, the changing in materials and in performance. They're on the go. Food storage, containers. You can see a coffee machine that is portable, which works on batteries. You've got food storage containers so that you can have several parts, several salads in the same box.
And given that we're interested in these promising outdoor sectors, we can see developing in the concept of outdoor living various opportunities around that. That's really the reason behind the fact that we acquired Forge Adour, which is now the European leader in premium planchas in Europe. Often in these areas, you ask me, "What new products are there this year?" Well, I have a scoop.
We are launching at the end of March a pizza oven that works indoors and outdoors. It's a gas product, which is an obsessional item. You can do a pizza in three or four minutes. We tested it a few days ago with you guys. It's an extraordinary device, which will be sold in France at the end of March. So the teams have been talking about it, but I'm the boss. So it's a pizza oven, which corresponds to that huge trend of developing products in outdoor living. After this little advertising, I'm going to hand over to Professional, which was extremely enriching. Same equation for value creation. Our key success factors: strong brands, global presence, continuous innovation, and extensive product offering. Obviously, we're at the beginning of the story in some areas. We are building our product portfolio, so there's more acquisitions than there are in consumer.
These are the current events that show that. We have the same demand, but the same ambition as well in terms of corporate social responsibility for an ambition to become a player of reference in Professional for CSR. Now, basically, initially, we were working on professional coffee machines, and they have a series of new products for the year. We're developing various product ranges with two very interesting products. So one in the middle, a WMF Espresso NEXT, which combines the gesture and the feeling of a barista with the regularity and predictability of an automatic machine. So that's a really successful machine. Or on the right, you've got the Curtis Skyline, which combines the taste of American filtered coffee with the performance and the capacity of an automatic machine for even broader coverage and more complete coverage for a lot of different customer .
So we're going to get back to sourcing. Now, this reinforced leadership in Professional Coffee is also built by adding to our technology offering. In Professional Coffee, we have automatic machines with the purchasing of Schaerer. We added to it in 2019 by buying Wilbur Curtis in the U.S.. And by 2023, we're adding to this San Marco purchase, which produces traditional Italian coffee machines, which are superb, which is added to our technological offering in coffee machines for the professional market. Now, leadership in Professional Coffee has a lot to do with the way we've constructed in our ambitions to have a broad geographical footprint. We are a multilocal leader. It means that we're leaders in many countries, including 12 major countries, including the three biggest ones: China, U.S.A., and Germany. It means that we've been able to diversify our geographical portfolio.
It was less than 30% in Europe in 2016, and more than 50% is outside of Europe six years later. We have more than 65,000 customers worldwide. Some of you were wondering about our dependency on big contracts or a small number of customers. We have 65,000 customers in the world. We're number one in the full automatic technologies with 30% market share in 2023. And we've had resounding successes with key accounts, but also a very strong growth in our core business with independent consumers or customers. With increased appeal of our product offering, we have the ability of offering new digital solutions in order to facilitate payment means, to handle loyalty programs, and to offer the possibility of offering personalized recipes and secured network access.
You can imagine that when you're connecting to 15,000 machines by internet with means of payment, that can be tempting for hackers to get going in there to see what's going on and remote control and maintenance to improve the productivity of our customers. Today, we have more than 140,000 connected machines in 2023. We had 30,000 in 2023 for a 450,000 installed base. So that's 30% of sales is our services correspond to 30% of sales. We announced a few days ago the investment to support our strategic ambitions in coffee in China in Shaoxing. This is an R&D center. It's a procurement and production hub as well, which will be operational by 2025. This represents an investment of EUR 60 million in Shaoxing. It was a city we know well because that's where we located the biggest plant that we have, that's Supor.
There are two meanings to that investment, two reasons for that investment. It's number one, market for professional full auto machines. The market is developing in China in various machines in various price ranges. This investment will make it possible for us to access the low end, not necessarily the cheapest. We've never targeted the cheapest thing in consumer or in professional or in auto. We need to broaden the product offering, first of all, in China, but not only in China. Coffee, a history that we've developed over the time where we've made progress. We're quite advanced in terms of maturation, where we still have a lot to deliver with, for example, San Marco, with our geographic development, but also simply by driving up consumption. We also said that we had an appetite to develop the group in new categories in professional.
So we can see that's the way we actually see the professional market today. We have developed the market, which is approximately worth EUR 15 billion. We have beverages, so beverages in professional culinary. In beverages, you have full auto coffee, filtered traditional coffee, and cold beverages where we entered about 24 months ago. And in professional culinary, a number of categories: cookware, hotel equipment, everything for buffets, services, food preparation. So we'll come back to this, and cooking. So in the last months, we've really worked flat out to increase our footprint and our coverage. At the end of last year, we announced the acquisition of Pacojet. It's probably actually not probably. It certainly is the best professional emulsifier recognized by chefs the world around. It's a company with a very effective product, which is very profitable, with a core business around France, Germany, and Switzerland.
And we believe in Pacojet. We can see it has a lot of development potential by going above our historical borders. And another feather in our cap, I would say. And it's about the Sofilat Group. It's a group which is mainly in professional. It develops cooking equipment, professional and semi-professional equipment, with two main brands, professional brands: Charvet and Ambassade, and also Lacanche, a consumer brand, which is a household name. So a company with a unique know-how, which is really part of our industrial heritage, which has four production sites in France, and which has an enameling plant in Alsace, L'Émaillerie Rhénane . So we are absolutely delighted to welcome this company into the fold of SEB, 350 employees. We believe that this company will be a complementary addition and a real accelerator for our ambitions in professional culinary.
Now, when you look at this jigsaw, well, in beverages, we have these three categories, these brands. So three categories: WMF, Schaerer in full automatic coffee, Curtis and La San Marco in filtered and traditional coffee, and Zummo for cold beverages, juice extractors. And in professional culinary, we know that our consumer products are available in the professional segment, but we want to develop this with All-Clad, WMF, Tefal. All-Clad is a major partner of the Bocuse d'Or cooking contest. We want to step up the development of All-Clad in professional. We also have some hotel equipment with two premium brands: WMF and an absolutely sublime brand HEPP, which is really for palaces and five-star hotels, food preparation with Pacojet, and cooking with Krups, Charvet, and Ambassade. So this is all very, very exciting. And we are continuing, actually accelerating this adventure into the professional segment.
Now, in my opening remarks, I said that social and environmental responsibility is a pillar of our group. We were a pioneer in this for many years. In 2018, we set ourselves ambitions for the period from 2018 to 2023. So four pillars, four themes: a significant carbon footprint reduction of the group's activities, increasingly circular solutions by making our products more repairable, being more exemplary in terms of social practices, and products designed for a healthier and more sustainable living. The great news is that five years down the line, most of these objectives, these were ambitious objectives, where most of them have been achieved, whether cutting our carbon footprint, whether using recyclable materials in our packaging and products, also the proportion of female managers and reducing the injury or accident rate. We had defined an ambitious roadmap.
Today, we are delighted to say that we have delivered on this roadmap. We are continuing. We are convinced that it's not going to stop here. We are working on our roadmap for 2030 to 2050. We are continuing and stepping up our investment to reduce our carbon footprint with a more energy-efficient industrial system, with specific plastic presses in France, but also in Latin America. Also, the use of biomass in our largest iron factory in Pont-Évêque. Of course, when we start sites like Bully-les-Mines, we do this with the best certifications and the best consumption standards to reduce energy losses. These efforts have been recognized by the organizations that follow us and audit us. In 2023, EcoVadis ranked us at the platinum level, which means that we are part of the top 1% of platinum-rated companies.
So businesses that are particularly well rated in terms of environment and human rights. We are all very satisfied, but we know that it's still a very long journey. There's always something to be done in ESG, and we are actively working on this. And here, I would like to thank all of the group's staff and teams for their involvement. It's not something that you just do with PowerPoints and in the office. It is all thanks to the contribution of thousands of people across the group. Now, I'd like to wrap up with our prospects, the outlook for 2024. Let me start with a reminder of the prospects that we shared with you in December during the Capital Market Days. We said a few weeks back that we expected a CAGR of at least 5% on a like-for-like basis.
I said at the time medium- to long-term would be three to five years. We said that our operating margin would be near 11%. We said that we wanted to continue to generate substantial cash flows. So in order to turn growth and profit into cash flow for 2024, and that's at the bottom of the slide, we said that our operating margin would be close, would be nearing 10%. And well, today, I'm not going to issue any guidance or tell you any or give you any information about sales. I'm smiling because it's the same story every year. It's been like this for 20 years. You know it. We don't issue guidances or issue any guidance on sales at the start of the year because it's the start of the year.
I knew that 35%-40% of our sales and profit is generated at the end of the year. So it's a bit ambitious to try to predict what will happen for the year in February. So we really try to stay; we want to stay the course, 10% in operating margin on a fuller year basis. Now, in terms of sales, maybe just a few qualitative elements. First, when you look at the macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, it is still very uncertain. People still hesitate as to how we can describe, but it's not all rosy in the garden. However, we are expecting a recovery in China. We believe that the consumer market will remain resilient.
I'm not going to repeat what I've said already, but we are watching and we are convinced that the structural growth drivers of the market are not linked with actually linked with the consumer targets. We believe that the professional market will further develop thanks to changes in customers' behaviors. Now, as regards our sales, we believe that there's going to be a return, an overall return to growth in mature countries. We believe that there will be a recovery in China.
Also, we see a good dynamic in emerging markets amidst still a penalizing harmful and adverse currency environment. But we still see continued growth in professional. Now, if the question is, what is the comparison with 2023, which was very good in professional? Well, it doesn't mean that 2024 cannot be as good, even better. Now we can—I'm done with this presentation. We can take your questions. We've got a question there. A question there. Sorry.
[Foreign language] . Hello, Marie-Line Fort Société Générale. Could you give us a figure for your CapEx for 2024 following what you've just announced? Could you tell us about the acquisition you've announced that will happen in April? Could you tell us what's the expected profitability? Should we expect any impact on margins? Also, I wanted to address your strategy in business and in the professional business and also the idea of replicating consumer brands in the professional segment. How can your acquisitions help you innovate in the professional segment and also convert or replicate or adapt some of your consumer brands to the professional segments? I'll let you deal with the CapEx question.
Right. Right. As we've said, in terms of CapEx, we had EUR 247 million. It was a bit low, which was EUR 40 million under depreciation because 2023 was a transitional year. So we do believe that in 2024 we'll have similar depreciation levels. Actually, it might be slightly higher because, as you've understood, we are planning some investments which are quite structural: an investment into Til-Châtel, the logistics hub for cookware in Western Europe, and also the professional investment in Shaoxing.
But Shaoxing is an investment that will last some time. So, of course, we won't have all of the investment in 2024 ready. Sofilat, it will be relative in terms of margin, 15%. It's the standards of the professional market. So it will be accretive, accretive. Now, as regards brand synergies between the consumer and professional markets, I'm not sure it can apply to all brands, but there's a market that we could describe as semi-professional in the next months and years.
It's really, you know, the performance and skills of professionals applied to premium brands and recognized as such by consumers. A very, very good example is what Charvet does with Lacanche. These are ranges that are professional grade. But it's the same with the other brands that chefs really love to use. It's really up to the expectations in terms of cooking performance, in terms of sustainability, durability, cleanability, anything that a chef can expect. So, of course, not all consumer brands can enter the professional segment. But we do believe that we have in our portfolio a number of consumer brands that can really deliver what we would call super premium, but what we, I suppose, will call semi-professional brands in the next year, that is, higher-end products for the consumer segment. Does it answer your question?
All right. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Charles-Louis Scotti, Kepler Cheuvreux. I have four questions, if I may. First, a lot of players in the consumer segment will have their organic growth decline because the price effect is going to wane. Could you maybe quantify the price mix effect for 2023 and maybe give us an idea of the potential of this impact for 2024? My second question, I do understand that you don't have any visibility here on volumes and sales, but could you maybe give us a modeling of commodity prices, freight, etc.?
And my third question is about China. It's the Chinese New Year, and it seems that Chinese consumers are really looking for travel and leisure activities. So could you give us (and maybe this could be at the expense of your products) do you have any visibility on this? Last, as regards the professional project in Shaoxing, will this plant only address the Chinese and Asian markets, or will it help you compete in the European and American markets? And are you also considering developing the semi-professional segment outside Europe, which is your main market?
Okay. Well, actually, we'll start from the last question. But I'll share my opinion on this as well. The Shaoxing Professional Hub. What's really at stake here is to be able to cover the coffee machine segments in China where we do not have any access. Now, the Chinese market is developing, and we do believe that the need for all these products will also develop outside China. So today, we are doing this mainly focusing on China and professional coffee. We're doing it this way because you've got to start somewhere.
We don't see this as professional production in China and consumer in Europe. We are perfectly aware that anything that can be produced in China will have to be produced in China, and the same for Europe. I'm sure it will be the same 10 years down the line for professional. We see China as a development basis, as a production site to meet local needs, but also when the market reaches a certain size going forward to meet a number of needs. I suppose we might exit China or coffee. Right now, we are working on Professional Coffee for China.
About the Chinese New Year, there's not a big effect on consumption in China, but statistics are interesting for a simple reason: that conventional events are getting closer, and the relationship is diminishing. So the impact of this kind of event for two or three days on sales is less interesting with respect to the progress in the activity of consumer goods in China in the quarter and more about the Chinese New Year because it's kind of irrelevant. I'm going to let Olivier respond in detail about cost and perhaps to just pose the question. We've looked very closely at the P&L per cost line item and expenditures because the discrepancies were huge in 2021 and 2022. We had to explain EUR 150 million of cost per year of maritime freight.
Now, this has gotten back to normal in P&L with the growth in profitability and an increase in profit, which is on a virtuous cycle. With a moderate volume, there was a continuing improvement in price and in mix. Also, we're investing in means of production and operating costs are contained. So I'll let Olivier answer. We've seen where the profits have been coming from, and it's been normalized. There's more of an amplitude effect than there has been in the last three or four years, and it's generating absolutely huge effects.
I think you'd answered very well. Seems perfect to me. Maybe to just indicate one or two points insofar as the volume and price mix are concerned. The volume effect in 2023, as you saw, we had a very strong growth in professional. And that represents a significant portion of that volume effect.
We were more in recovering certain markets or recovering in certain consumer markets. But in 2024, as Stanislas explained, we are expecting a radical transformation. We're about a recovery in certain markets, a gradual return to year-long growth. This should have a volume effect that may be more significant in consumer. So we always have, we're still expecting growth in professional, but maybe not 26% year-on-year, but it will be positive in professional. So maybe rebalancing on different bases. In terms of the price mix, the traditional dynamics in this industry is to enrich every year the product mix and to have on an ongoing basis a positive effect of price and price mix. There's a price effect, obviously, with adaptation to inflation in some emerging countries. We'll always have that.
But we always have at the heart of this the core of the sector is enriching products with products. There are many innovations in 2023 in many segments, as Stanislas so clearly outlined. All of that will provide profits and benefits in 2024. In terms of cost, we have known a very significant impact in 2023, which followed the degradation and cost hikes and the inflation in 2023. Now, this catch-up effect or corrective effect is kind of behind us. So there will be an effect like the tail of a comet kind of thing in 2024, but essential catch-up of costs and pricing is, for example, in freight, in maritime freight and so forth. But there are others. Most of that was accomplished and met in 2023. But there will be a positive effect in volume terms. Part of those volumes are produced, I would say, in group plants.
That will contribute a positive effect in terms of volume on cost. So that's what we can say in terms of the underlying engine. I'll say what Stanislas did. We are accompanying the commercial development of the group. And thus translates into a few increases, but they'll be moderate in terms of in the production engines as well.
Hi, Francis Prêtre from CIC Market Solutions. First question, the emerging nations, you said in 2023 that they were kind of boosted in terms of their activity by some El Niño. And that's kind of a one-shot thing. But starting from that, what are you expecting? What performance are you expecting? Is that going to be high? Could you talk to us a little bit about that, what the drivers are that would lead you?
In terms of activity in Europe, you can see that France gained back some colors in January in terms of agri-food. There's some contraction, which was not negligible. So how does that stand in other sectors? Could you also talk about Europe and Germany as well that has known some difficulties? And maybe did they gain some ground thanks to Black Friday? So what's going to be kicked off in that area so we can understand the strategy and the induced costs that one could imagine in line with that? You talked about the pipeline in terms of innovations that were high in 2023. And so if I've understood you properly, the pipeline in 2024 might be a bit less big than 2023, which might make sense. No? Oh, good. Well, that's so much the better.
No, we don't want to do less well in 2024 than in 2023.
So at this point, could you tell us why the pipeline in 2024 would be as high as 2023? Thank you.
Very well. I'm going to start with the last question. I think that the pipeline for innovation is continuous, it said. And we've given you that in detail for 2023. We were wondering a lot, what are we going to do in terms of innovation in 2024? The activity is going to continue. We're going to keep that rhythm up and maybe accelerate because this is the way our industry works. And I think it's something that we need to integrate. Innovation, it said, is an engine that works on a continuing basis. It's a booster. There's a lot of groundwork. It's a lot of mass efforts in various families.
Concerning Europe, France and Germany, we can see the statistics, which are favorable in industry, but industry as defined in France is industry dedicated to the GIFAM, which is the Interprofessional Organization. Two-thirds of business from the GIFAM are ASM, whether they're big devices or small. They're very different markets. On the one hand, you have objects that are between EUR 400 and EUR 3,000. The other ones are EUR 60. And the activity of small articles is positive in Europe and France because these are fundamental elements of consumers for consumers are accessible in terms of price that provide services on a daily basis and that are sold as is without. And who are seeking more functions, more delegation, more practical, more quality in the results. And they find that in our products. So we're impacted, obviously, by changes in the market.
But when you read the market and this type of product in ASM, it's very different in terms of the dynamics of consumption, in terms of our performance. We know that Germany was difficult for us in the first half year last year. We didn't hide that. But is the business better or worse in the first half year this year than it was last year? I think it's roughly similar. Germany is in a growth phase. But Germany, as is France, we have consumers that appreciate our categories of products. They buy Optigrill, and they buy vacuum cleaners, and so forth. We see markets that are structurally sound in Europe, and we see in France and in Germany, even if the growth is not explosive, it is a positive growth. Now, in France, things balance back and forth over the year.
In the first semester, in the first half year, you have loyalty effects. Then the second half year, that will so I'll respond to the question right away, why is France negative in the first half year this year? Well, it's sales phasing. Usually, we'll get back what we lost in the first half year in the second year. Now, in emerging nations, when you talked about El Niño to put forward well, El Niño is a phenomenon that impacts sales in Brazil and Colombia, to keep it short. In emerging nations, Brazil and Colombia are a part of the whole thing. But there's Egypt, there's Turkey, there's Africa, there's Middle East. All of these are not impacted at all by El Niño. Which leads us to say that we're going to succeed in maintaining interesting progression in sales in emerging nations.
That's precisely the fact that it doesn't depend on El Niño. El Niño explains maybe three or four or five different points about Latin America, but not more. And the fundamentals in our businesses that are innovation of products and extending categories and extending product ranges and intensification of our sales are there. Did I answer your question?
Great. On the right here, France Connect. Just three points. The first, I saw a figure of EUR 80 million of a share buyback. I didn't see the slide, but I heard it, I think. Maybe you could speak to us a bit more about where that stands in terms of strategy. Is it opportunistic, or what was the reason? The second question, is a product mix, which is kind of unusual that you don't talk much about, is a product mix between professional and consumer? I think it was an important factor for improving the margins in 2023. That should be the case in 2024 still? That's a question. The last question is a stupid one. Don't you want to do refrigerators, or you could do those washing machines? Because you're up to your arms and ears in cooking, what about an oven?
I think that behind this, we say that cooking is an area that we feel at ease. We've got grills. We have lots of things in cooking. We have pots and pans. We've got multicookers. Cooking is something that is really in our business. We have our business unit, electrical cooking, and a sub-business unit. One is called electrical cooking. So cooking is our area, and we're quite at ease with cooking as to the rest: refrigerators and dishwashers and clotheswashers. There are different scales and different industrial tools.
So we're not interested in those. We're more interested because we don't know that, and it's a very heavy market. There's a lot of people there, and not as much future in it. What about share buyback? We had an amount of EUR 80 million. So this is roughly three-quarters, a quarter of SEB. So that's the usual buyback to manage the cash and the shares to be delivered to staff and management. Insofar as support, we have an authorization for buyback, which is because it's listed on the stock market, it's 1% authorization of capital. So that's what we bought back last year, which made it possible to participate in the capital of Supor. It's Supor by Supor. Three-quarters. Okay.
Ensuite, votre deuxième question. About your second question, the product mix. So we do have margins in professional that are structurally higher, an extra 15% compared with margins in consumer that are rather in the region of 10%. So the more we well, we develop professional either because it grows organically or because we add other things to our segment with acquisition. So, of course, it has an accretive effect. And as Stanislas has said, it's really the bedrock of our ambition in the medium term.
We want to near 11%. We want to get closer to our historical standards, 10%. So, of course, the more we develop our business in professional, the higher the accretive effect in terms of margins. So we had this effect in 2023. And again, it will happen in 2024 a bit more because professional is developing faster than consumer. Well, there's no rule. There's no rule. We make the decision every year. But it's in that order of magnitude.
Hello, I have two questions, please. You've shared some figures in terms of cash. Currently, it's possible to invest with fairly interesting rates. In your acquisition policy, how do you factor in the rise in interest rates? Because one can easily have a profitability of 3%, so that can raise question marks about potential acquisitions. Now, CSR, you have a very virtuous policy. You sell a lot of appliances. So in innovation and replacement, have you introduced any policy to reclaim devices and appliances? And also, do you innovate to use less materials for the same use?
I'll let you answer the first one on the technical aspect.
We've never looked really at interest rates when we do an acquisition. We don't embark upon an acquisition to say we're going to have we do this to either develop a business in a new category or in a new geographical area. Of course, we look at the cost of money at rates, but it's not a decisive factor as to whether we are going to do an acquisition or not. Yes. So, of course, we invest our cash as much as possible. It does generate a yield.
And actually, because of that, we managed to protect ourselves against the rise in interest rates. Now, one should expect a slight rise in the financial income in 2024 because as we refinance, last year, we generated EUR 650 million. So I suppose we will refinance this year. So I suppose there will be a rise by 200-300 basis points. But part of this rise is indeed offset by our investments.
As regards our refinancing strategy, we want to diversify further. Of course, we want to optimize the cost of each investment, but we are also working to diversify our investments. We try to spread our repayments, and we try to have a fairly long average maturity, which is what we did last year and what we will be doing this year. As regards the recovery of products, I think it's a hallmark of our group. More than 90% of electrical appliances are repairable. Every three months, with the whole of the executive committee, I receive a report on the number of products that have been carted, about hundreds, thousands every quarter. I do a personal monitoring of all this. All our products are released with instructions to disassemble and reassemble. We have a warehouse in Faucogney, which has inventories of spare parts for 15 years.
We have a network of repairers the world over that can repair our products. They have the instructions for disassembly or reassembly. They have spare parts, which are available between three and five days. So this is very important for electrical appliances. For cookware, we are a pioneer in collection and recycling operations for aluminum pans, frying pans in our markets. We want to develop further. We want to develop this further in the coming years.
Question from the floor. I'm sorry. I suppose I wasn't clear enough in my question. Let me ask again. If you want to change your appliance or if the appliance cannot be repaired and if it's thrown away, people don't necessarily think of recycling them. So my question was, how do you encourage people, whether professional or consumers, but how do you encourage them to be more virtuous? How do you encourage them to have their appliances collected?
Right. The products you throw away are increasingly collected by organizations such as Ecosystem. Yes. Cathy has sent me a technical sheet. So Ecosystem is a professional organization that brings together all industrial companies and distributors. When the product is landfilled or put in a dump site or thrown in the bin, they check what can be recovered in the product. This is something which is growing in Europe with collecting organizations. And of course, we are a major contributor to Ecosystem. And actually, they're quite fond of our products because they are easy to disassemble. Well, we are also a virtuous company. But it's not happening everywhere in the world yet. This is more of a European approach. And Europe is more advanced, is more of a pioneer than other regions in the world. I'm sorry. Have I answered your question?
Oh, yes.
Excuse me. I forgot that point. Innovation. When you put on the kettle, usually, well, kettles, you cannot see what's inside. Now, if you write on the kettle the number of cups, you can actually encourage people to save water. People will not fully fill up their kettle. They will only fill them to two-thirds, for example. If you want to boil 10 centiliters of water, it will require twice as much energy as for 5 centiliters. It's quite linear. It's basic physics. So there are many examples.
For example, with ironing or vacuuming, we have energy-efficient modes. For example, today, we can design vacuum cleaners which, with 300 or 400 watts, have vacuuming power, vacuuming qualities that are equivalent to what we had 10 or 15 years ago with twice the power. So this is all thanks to research and development into steam irons, vacuum cleaners, water boiling. Because, of course, whenever you boil water, you use energy and calories. So we are constantly working on this.
I can see we have two questions online. Maybe we can switch to online questions for a few seconds. One question by Jan Erik Schmidt. Could you tell us what was the factoring level of receivables and payables? Well, I think it's EUR 145 million of factoring in 2023, which is about EUR 40 million below the 2022 level. So we have a strategy to reduce gradually factoring. The second question, yeah, that would be for me. How do you envisage the future for flagging consumer activities such as home care or personal care? Well, for consumer, for example, for personal hold on. Have we answered the second question? I think you've deleted it. There was another.
Can you please display the question that's just disappeared? Well, there's no category which is currently in the doldrums. There are just categories where we are less effective at the moment. So, for example, we do hair dryers, hair straighteners, a bit of shaving, and hair removal. These are categories where we haven't really delivered in the last two to three years. But we're not giving up. In Spain and I think in Romania, we have just launched a new hairbrush, Hair Therapist, which has received raving reviews by influencers. So we're not giving up. I suppose your question was a bit provocative, but we understand. It's duly noted. We'll try to do better in terms of personal care. Now, in terms of cooking appliances, we're not losing momentum. The fact is that there's a short-term trend in that there's a rise in air fryers worldwide.
These are usually trends that last 18, 24, 36 months. Now, we've jumped on the bandwagon. We are trying to catch up. We are number one in grilling in Europe. I think we're number one for multi-cookers in Europe. So today, we depend more on the evolution of subfamilies of products. And if you see some figures that are not as good as the others, it's probably linked with the development of product families. But actually, that's the beauty of covering several product families. You can dampen shocks or trends. But we are convinced that electrical cooking has a bright future ahead of itself. It's one of the main characteristics of the group and will continue to work and develop our position in this across all geographical areas. Oh, the question that has just disappeared. But there's another one now. A question about paying cash dividend.
Would you consider the payment of dividends in euros or in shares? I'm not aware of the group's policies to pay in shares going forward. The group's position at this point is to pay in cash. Well, but then with cash, you can perfectly buy shares, can't you? Are there any other questions here in Paris? Well, I think we're done with online questions. Any question here in Paris? Very well. It's close to 4:00 P.M. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you for your continuous support. I just wanted to seize this occasion to thank members of staff for our results. We are here the spokespersons of the 30,000 staff of the group. So thank you for them. Thank you also to our colleagues who are here and who've helped us prepare this. And this is France. We have traditions. Let's have a drink together and a little snack. Thank you.