Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to today's annual press and analyst conference of METRO AG. My name is Gerd Koslowski, and I would like to welcome you with Sabrina Ley, the head of investor relations. Together, we'd like to take you through this event. I would also like to welcome you. As last year, we're also welcoming participants here in the room, as also virtually on the screen. So welcome. And our CEO, Dr. Steffen Greubel, will explain to you the most important developments and key figures of the past annual business year 2022, 2023. We're also in a new location.
We used to be in the large room, Deutschland, and now we're at METRO Properties, our subsidiary, and you can see a lot of pallets here, and that takes us very close to our core business, and this is what we also want to share with you today. METRO Properties premises also stand for the conversions we're doing at the bridges, at the administrative buildings here, at the One METRO Campus in the next year. As we shared before, EUR 18 million will be invested in the modernization and the redesign of this property. We're also opening it for new gastronomy concepts and also the integration into the quarter, the district. There are some models in the room, and you can have a look at them later. On this event, a few housekeeping items.
A press release and presentation are available in German and English. This event itself will be held in German, and for English participants, we have a simultaneous translation for the entire event, so please select the right channel for yourself. As last year, after the presentation, we're looking forward to a Q&A session, and you'll have the possibility to ask questions live here in the room, and there's also an online tool where you can type in your questions during the presentations already. We will read out the questions, and we'll answer them in the question, in the language they were asked in. We have Mr. Greubel here with us. These were our introductory words, and we'd like to hand over to our CEO, Dr. Steffen Greubel, now.
Thank you, Sabrina. Thank you, Gerd.
I'm delighted to be here and be able to share the results of the last financial year. Welcome to all of you here on site and online. As announced, I won't be alone here on stage. Michael Bouscheljong will be with me when we have the Q&A session later. You know that we found our new CFO, who will begin to work with us on the first of February, and further communication events will be held in a couple with Eric in the future. So he'll be here on the first of February, and it looks good. He'll be here on time from America. So what do we want to do? We want to look back over our shoulder. We'd like to see what we promised on the Capital Markets Day. That has been two years now.
Let's look at what were the ideas, what were the goals, what's the strategy? And secondly, we'd like to look at what we did, what kind of actions, what kind of achievements have we achieved with regards to our goals, and how is transformation progressing? And I'm the interim CFO now, and in this role, I will also comment what we have achieved in figures in 2022, 2023. You'll get an impression of where we stand. We're on track, and we'll also have time for a Q&A session and see whether you think we succeeded. And we'll also give you an outlook on the next year. We'll look at our forecast and what to expect. So these are the four parts of our agenda, and in this hour now, roughly, we will look at all these topics. Let's start by looking over our shoulder.
What was our idea? What did we promise? We had two main elements that described the transformation and one main goal. We wanted to consistently focus on wholesale, so METRO, with the conglomerate, now needs to focus. We have a portfolio which we clarified. There's no retail, there's wholesale in the portfolio, but there are many different retail elements that do not really fill the strategy of wholesale. So we need to make our business less complex, decomplexify it. So more on pallets, as Gerd said. So this is why you see the pallets here all over the place. So a consistent orientation towards wholesale in the entire world of METRO. And second is, cash and carry alone is not enough. Based on cash and carry, we'd like to extend other channels. So multi and omni-channel is what we're looking at.
That's the right strategy for us, and we want to combine the existing business with the delivery business and the digital world. And with these two elements, so with the consistent wholesale orientation, back to the roots of what METRO AG always has been, and the modern multi-channel approach, will be combined so that we can really start to grow again.... So the growth profile was not perfect in recent years, but we really like to return to growth, go into this direction, a growth that we haven't seen in the recent past. And to depict that, you can see the three elements that are intertwined. On the one hand, we have our stores, our wholesale stores, we have the delivery business and the digital world. So this is the multi-channel model for our future. Why is this good?
It's more efficient for us, but also for our customers, because we can be omnipresent. We'll deliver to the customer wherever they want. When they want to come to the store, they can come to the store, and there is a large, variety of digital tools that we can add to that, so that processes become leaner and better for them. And secondly, we also want to do that in a way that saves resources and capital. So we're using the 630 stores that all have perfect locations, and based on their location, they are sometimes a bit too large, and you can reduce the space. We free up space that we can then use in a capital efficient manner, a delivery business from those stores.
Let's not forget, 70% of these gastro stores are always in a delivery area, and only 30% were cash and carry. So the largest share was delivery customers, and we can now use our existing infrastructure, convert it slightly, and organize the delivery business based from that location. So in a very capital efficient manner and a resource efficient approach. We will have a significant benefit from that, because no one can do that. With our multi-channel approach, what we can do, no other competitor can do that. Switching digital channels, digital solutions for restaurants, but a digital marketplace on top of the existing business in a wholesale environment, all that is intertwined, and this is the central element of our strategy. That's a USP that is unequaled in the European wholesale business. Why do we believe in this?
Because we know that customers do purchase through different channels. So there are synergies and sales go up. So just to give you an impression, if customers do not only go to the Cash and Carry location, but also buy something digital, then they have 10 times the sales volume. In some countries, it is even 13 times higher. And our responsibility is now to build up these channels, to intertwine them, and make sure that customers do use these channels. And we know that these customers do become much more potent, and it's not cannibalization. So as soon as you deliver it to customers, and it has statistically proven that sales in the stores actually also increase. So in the end of the day, it's a self-reinforcement process that takes place, and it's a huge synergy and a competitive advantage.
So this is where we know that multi-channel is the future of Metro. So this is why we also communicated large figures, EUR 40 million in wholesale in 2030. So there's a sign saying it can also be above that. So, in the past two decades, the figures weren't like that, but we know that based on the experience in some Metro countries, multi-channel and wholesale have to be developed, and these growth figures are realistic. We were able to show that it really works, that a business like Metro can gain growth again. It's like a restart-up, as I'd like to call it. So this is what we're planning to do with Metro.
More than EUR 40 billion and profitability has to go up to a billion, a million EBITDA, and we are also generating a free cash flow of EUR 600 million plus. So these are our goals, two billion EBITDA, more than EUR 40 billion in sales, and EUR 600 million cash flow per year, free cash flow per year. So breaking it down to the individual channels, and this has all been planned, let's look at the FSD, delivery of the growth engine. 3 times more FSD sales until 2050. In the future, we really want to grow more than 20%. We want to grow in the wholesale markets, and digitally, we also want to grow the METRO Digital markets at around EUR 3 billion for 2030.
We really want to do more than just writing down our goals. We really have to have measures that we base everything on. We have a cash-and-carry pull model, and we want to have a multi-channel push model. We really need to proactive sell, and for that, we need sales people, sales forces, and people seeing the customers every day. We have 6,500 sales reps already going to see restaurants and traders, and they visit them every day, and we want to double the number of the sales force to have more sales pressure in the market, so that by 2030, we'll have 13,000 sales force representatives and become one of the largest sales forces in the wholesale market.
Strategic customers are hotels, restaurants, and caterers, and traders that are particularly relevant in Eastern Europe. Two-thirds are going up to more than 80% in 2030. These are our strategic customers. If we have our FSD share, we want to increase that from 17% to 33%, going up to EUR 40 billion, and you can see that these are billions being added in that part of sales. We want to become more digital, so more share of digital offers, and we need to develop and extend those so that we become more efficient and have a very efficient sales share of those. Own brands, you can see them here, like METRO Chef, our core own brand, but so METRO Professional and others need to increase.
They promise loyalty, better calculations for our customers from 17%-35% in own brands is what we achieve or want to achieve. This is good for customers. Yeah, customers really use our products in their recipes, and they need to be able to rely on a high quality. So all these products have been developed for the gastronomy, and with that, they promise to be returning customers and very loyal customers because you don't want to exchange it quickly. So it really means a lot for our professional customers that they become more loyal. And we also want to invest, because growth doesn't come from itself, but our stores need to become more and more Multi-Channel Fulfillment Centers. It's a very long term, but at the end of the day, we share one roof and use the space available.
We'll simplify our assortment and develop our OOS, our out-of-store offers, and we're investing in the development of this network. These are the things we promise to do to be able to grow. Now, these were our goals. We said this is what we wanted to do. What have we actually done? So after two years of sCore, and I'm very happy to be able to report a lot of successes. When we looked at the portfolio first, and in the existing portfolio, we want to have an opportunity to be the number one. And in some areas, we have a pent-up demand where we then invest. So we left Belgium and India. All these markets were not successful for us, and in order to become successful, we would have had a lot of capital investment.
After two years of the pandemic, we really needed to focus on countries where we see a chance to be successful. The last was India, and at the same time, we also added a strategic acquisition. I think AGM, Günther, and Bergfalk are relevant companies in the field of catering, which are a very important complementation to our daily business. It's not about buying in additional turnover or consolidate, because our strategy, to say that clearly again, is an organic strategy. We do not want just to consolidate by hiring additional companies by acquisitions, but rather on the basis of organic growth. But yet there are still companies which are in the medium segment, which could be a good opportunity which makes sense to also complement our strategy and our portfolio.
Like, for example, Eijsink is an example. Eijsink is the leading technology provider for cashier systems in Holland. And we said we would like to take the technology, neutralize it, by the Dutch factor, and sell it then in the whole of Europe, into the entire METRO infrastructure, in order to make sure, that we have the central element and be able to also combine this with the traditional elements of cash and carry. And I'm happy to provide more details to you, but, it, it would be far too complex for us to, program this, and we'd rather use the existing, infrastructure, and, use this Dutch, provider and turn it into a European company. So all these,
... strategies, all these acquisitions were strategic. Last year, we concentrated very much on the digital topic and wholesale. So what did we do? On the one hand side, we elaborated or we extended these channels, because if you want to be multi-channel, you have to have multi-channel possibilities. We invested into FSD. We have cash and carry, but we invested more into digital for FSD, and we have DISH, which is the application software to for restaurants. We used this and looked into that, and to make it possible to make sure that the till system, the cash register system, is worked out in order to be able to provide a software for the whole restaurant, which is called DISH. Then METRO Markets, catering market.
This is something we also concentrated on, and we have two new countries, and M-Shop is the ordering tool for our customers, and we improved the customer application and rolled it out. The second focus was wholesale. We wanted to make, to foster, to make wholesale bigger and retail smaller. And we also worked on FSD and concentrated on the multi-channel fulfillment centers. Unfortunately, there is not a good German word for it, but these structures which are cash and carry, but on the other side, also FSD. We did a lot in that regard and rolled it out to 14 different European markets, and stores. And I would like to elaborate a little bit on these topics because I think it's important for you to understand what we're doing and what direction we are heading for and how we will go on.
Let us start with DISH. DISH Digital, 2021, we founded DISH as a separate company, and we also started with different website tools and reservation systems, and we first of all concentrated on the technology and added also the till system, the cash register system, then also till, so that we are able now to entirely cater to the needs of a restaurant and down to from the very start to the till system and transported this and grow this out in various countries. Of course, we started with Holland because that is we bought the biggest Dutch provider, so of course, we started in Holland. Last year, we rolled it out in France and in Germany, and we were able to grow by 90%. So we can also see that the customers accept the product.
Yesterday, I asked how many people will leave, left us. Less than 2%, left. So the software is really worth something, and the customer like it, they appreciate it. Usually, you have higher turn rates with software. With our POS software, we have a turn rate of less than 2%, which is really very good. We started in Italy and will soon start in Spain so that we will have about approximately 60% of the catering market where we can sell our cash register system. So first of all, the till, and then also a very good cloud-based system, which, and what that is the decisive, we can also combine it with the existing business.
So, if you want to buy such a system in Germany, you have the possibility to get subsidies for the hardware, and then you actually pay back with your purchases with additional turnover. So you have to pay a fee for the POS system, but you pay EUR 50,000-EUR 60,000 more for items you buy, like which you need at the end of the day. In any case, the caterers appreciate that very much because you know that investments are limited in catering, so that this really helps our customers. They can pay it back by buying additional items. So our additional turnover is something they will need in any case. So this is really a very good combination, and the DISH POS is, I think, quite a good example for that.
We will also roll the system out in the stores and communicate this to our customers and combine it with our existing business. That's the idea behind it. METRO Markets, the biggest catering market in Europe. We started with Germany. It's really a marketplace. So we are the dealers on the one hand side in it, so we sell just normal with our own product range, our goods, non-food, non-food focused, by the way. Anything you need for a restaurant, you can buy it. All the non-food things you see here in the background are also available in METRO Markets, Metro.de . This is really very good for us because it opens up the possibility to be like a extended shelf, so that we do not have to have everything on stock in the stores.
When something is out of stock, people have the possibility also to order it and have it sent to their homes or restaurant. That's the idea, and it's a real marketplace because in the meantime, we have 2,000+ external partners which also sell products via us, and we, of course, get a commission for that. But from the customer perspective, it has a huge value because we have a selection of 1,000,000 products. In Germany, we have 850,000 products listed in this marketplace. Okay, everything for cash-and-carry and relevant for catering and restaurants. So, the customer always have the possibility to find the brands they want and need, and we still continue to elaborate on it.
We promise that on the Capital Markets Day, we are going to increase the rollout pace to two countries per year. We promised that in the beginning of 2022, and we see that with Portugal and Italy, France and Holland, and this year again, two more Metro units, we were able to fulfill this promise. Just like with DISH, with METRO Markets, we're now only also able to address 60% of the market. So we are really very happy with the rollout pace. Again, we can also combine it wonderfully with the existing business. To give you an example...... You want to buy a pot which is not in the store. There is a QR code on the shelf, you scan it, and you can buy it online and have it sent to you.
So this is how it's going to work in order to combine these channels. Last topic, digital, is the ordering system. We would like to make sure that the sales force we have is as productive as possible. We don't want to just, you know, write orders. Writing orders, we don't want that at all. We want them to sell, and we want the customers to write their orders online themselves in an ordering tool so that we get it in an unmanipulated way in order to be ready for dispatch next day. So 50% of our FSD turnover we make is already digital today, and we want to achieve a rate of 100%. We would like the customers to do it on their own, and they get a lot, get a lot of functionalities.
You know, they can also compare what they ordered last week, for example, and do cost center management, et cetera. So everything that is important for restaurant can be done with this software. It's fully mobile, which is important because the chefs can also do their orders themselves. And the app will help us also to get into interaction with the customer and to give an added value to the customer. Because with the app, for example, you can also scan the products in the store to make a quick checkout to be more efficient. So because for us, it's important that we are quick. Different from retail, you know, we want the customers to stay in the store and give them a lot of impulses, but for us, we wanna be quick.
They shall come in, find everything they need, good price, and leave the store quickly again. That's the idea behind wholesale, because people come to us to work during their working hours and not to have an experience. So, wholesale stores, there are two possibilities. First of all, you can simplify the assortment, the range. You massify the range because availability and stability of supply is important, and also the quality of the product range. And therefore, now we work towards simplification. 250 items, every fourth item in Europe now was excluded, and we're going to continue with that with another 100,000 items and focus fully on articles or items which are extremely relevant. Slow turners have to be done away with.
We need the space in order to reinforce out-of-store deliveries and, in a capital-saving manner. That's one thing. The second aspect is we as a whole... Sorry. We as a wholesaler have to be price leaders so that the customers know that when they come to Metro, they will get all the best articles at the best price any time they come in. They don't have to go anywhere. And this is why we reduced our, we rolled out our BMPL strategy. We have 75,000 articles in the BMPL range. So if you buy one unit versus the box, you get a discount on the box, say 50%-20%. This is good for us, because if we sell more and have a higher turnaround, then we can put it on pallets.
And if we can put it on pallets, it's easier to get it down from the high shelf. It's easier than just filling back in individual bottles. It has shown good effects because the growth rate was 25% of the BMPL articles, and the non-BMPL only just 2%. So you see the growth rate is good, and we will have to continue to roll it out. It's important to do it slowly because it means some margin investment. The manufacturers also have to support it in order to participate in that. But we see, like in countries like Romania, for instance, that we have achieved already more, a rate of more than 80% in BMPL and more than 95% of the total turnover.
BMPL is something that we have to foster more and also roll it out to other article categories in order to achieve price leadership and maintain it. But of course, there are also smaller companies, which buy something for a summer feast or for the sports club, and they may be only one bottle, but they will still get it at a good price, you know? We don't want to exclude anyone just because they have a small company. We rather want to make sure that we are a market leader and cater for both needs, for both customer groups, and make sure that we do not lose any customers. FSD and sales force, we said that before we want to create capacities, we founded 20 new sites, two new warehouses in Dordrecht and Barcelona.
Because once you have a certain size and potency, then of course it's also worthwhile having it at as a separate FSD point. But of course you need a certain basis, first of all, and that's what we've done. Out of the 6,500 more sales force staff, last year 750 new staff, FTEs, were hired. You might remember, we started with 6,500 euros, 6,500 people last year, sales force people. After two years, now we have reached 8,500. We hired 2,000 new people, 750 of which last year, in order to increase the sales pressure, more or less. Which is good for digital, for METRO Markets, for POS, for FSD, because sales force is multi-channel sales force. They sell everything.
Not just one thing, but everything, which is an extremely important. They are the drivers of multi-channel growth. I could go on, telling you a lot, on PowerPoint, but we thought it might be a good idea to also show you something, a video, which we are going to show to you in a minute. Which shows you some live pictures from Italy, Spain, and Poland. To show you how our multi-channel fulfillment concept works with pallets and big, FSD technology in the store, which we have to use in order to make it as efficient as possible, and we are very proud that we have this video. Let's see if it works, and off we go.
... The sCore ambition of 2030 to have EUR 40 billion of sales and tripling the FSD sales as a key contributor. This, at the beginning, was an impossible mission, and it made us rethink our network and the role of our stores as multi-channel fulfillment centers, and the key enabler to this. Our multi-channel fulfillment centers are characterized by space management, stock management, and specific in-store logistics. Space management, which deals with the perfect presentation of our goods in a wholesale principle, like it can be perfectly observed in our store in Moncalieri.
So what we did first was to identify the high rotation products. For our customer, they can find it faster, and for us, it's easy to replace all the pallets with the new stock. The massification of the products in pallets allow us to display more, buy more, pay less products. For example, here we have the first tier with the regular price and the second tier with the price with the discount, and the third tier, they can just take all the box.
The clear focus on which elements of the assortment redundancies can be streamlined. There is space created.
For example, here, we used to have the pet food category, but now by eliminating it, we had the chance to increase of high rotation products in the non-food area.
Stock management is about the digitalization of our processes and the movement of goods, like our flagship store in Warsaw. The element that comes new to this is our software solutions, because the system solutions will have to be able to manage the processes from a multi-channel perspective.
We are in the goods receiving, and now we are preparing our pallets, which came directly from our suppliers, to be ready to locate on the high rack. So when the pallet is ready, we are able to allocate this pallet on the high rack. To the digital object, based on the SSCC code , we can assign, based on the row number and bay number, individual address for every each pallet. The SLS, the stock location system, is a very powerful tool, which give us a possibility to react very quickly to the gaps which are existing on the shelf.
Another impressive example, for sure, is our Multi-Channel Fulfillment Center in Leganés. It was literally in creating the delivery part and breaking down the walls between the cash-and-carry area and what is now the delivery area, in order to ensure the perfect use of the stocks that we have for both channels.
This is a busy area. We have 40 docks and 40 trucks ready to deliver the order to the customers. But before, we have to consolidate all the parts of the order. I'm going to open the order in the device, and then we have to go to the store to do the rest of the picking. The articles are not here. With this solution, we are routing all the articles and going to the final consolidation and load the trucks. With this MFC transformation, for sure, we can handle the high volumes in FSD orders.
If we look at the logistics infrastructure of Madrid, we can see the location advantage of our stores as multi-channel fulfillment center. Our stores are perfectly located along the inner ring road, and from here, we have the perfect access to deliver the high-density downtown areas.
After implementation of MFC, I see that everyday store is really prepared very well for the customers. FSD customers as well see lots of benefits because we are giving them better service. We are better in case of the fulfillment of the whole order, and we are better in on-time delivery. That is exactly a very good proof of how is MFC working in reality.
It's a hell of a job, but I believe that we can do it, and not because of the steering from a central point of view, but because of the excitement and the motivation and the passion that you see, that you feel when you're in touch with our people in the newly opened multi-channel fulfillment centers. With this, I'm sure, yes, we can, and we are able to deliver this mission.
Ciao. Ciao. We have done a lot until now.
It's still a lot to do, but we are on track.
It's the right way to look to the future. Yeah.
As you can see, it was very impressive. What I particularly liked... Well, two things when I watch such a video, these are not actors, these are our employees. And can you see the enthusiasm, how they talk about their work, and how consistent that is? Well, it's not completely spontaneous because it's on video, but you can see that people really stand behind the idea. They're all sitting in the same boat, and at the same time, when I see the stores, there are 10,000 things you can improve. So we're already building an airplane while flying in it. It's not perfect yet, but we're moving on. We want to make progress, and every time I see, well, is it necessary to have this single product there? It could be on a pallet.
There are a few things that you can improve, but we're making progress. And I'm really happy that people are really standing behind the idea, and they all really want to drive things ahead, want to be part of the transformation of Metro AG. Now, let's look at the figures. What have we achieved last year? Well, first of all, let's look at the overall situation first. And you need to put everything into perspective. If you look at the financial year, 2021, 2022, well, we have increased our-
... EBITDA. That was a very specific situation. We had more than 10% inflation now, and cost inflation is not advancing at the same speed. So in 2021, 2022, we can say it was a special situation that cannot be replicated as easily, and we knew that, and that is why in the forecast last year or the year before the financial year, we said that we'll continue to grow between 5%-10%. We knew that we were successful with the sCore, but it couldn't be the same as in the pandemic yet. It's not the same situation, and the cost inflation also has an impact. Personnel costs, energy costs, and many other costs will automatically somehow follow up on the inflation trend, and that cannot be compensated fully by the sales figure.
A few technical items as well, that some of the transactions are now post-transaction effects from China, for example. So sales from China, and we knew that there was a certain support that was not there for the bottom line anymore. So this is why we said in the guidance that we expect a lower EBITDA adjusted in comparison to the previous year. And this also happens. We ended up at the upper half and inflation is decreasing. Also, this year, we have the first deflationary scenarios in some countries, and with 9%, we're quite satisfied for the past year, and that's at the higher end of the guidance corridor. And with the EBITDA, we're somewhere in the middle of our forecast, and it's really roughly in the corridor of our guidance, in the lower mid.
And the EPS, you can see that we have an EPS of EUR 1.21, and we'll pay out a dividend. And that is due to the operative improvement and mainly also of one-time effects, like the sale of METRO India and also the sale, if you look out there, all people out there on the right, that was also sold, sold as a real estate transaction. And that is also found in the balance sheet and in the profit and loss account. And this is where we also let our shareholders participate. So there were quite a lot of one-time gains, and we also let our shareholders participate. And also, the impact in Ukraine was part of this and slightly negative. So these are just the elements of explaining these figures.
If you look at the different segments now, that's the segment reporting of Metro. I'll explain the full year figures for you. In Germany, we had 3% growth and a decrease in EBITDA of EUR 32 million, and that's not where we want to be. All the cost inflation on the personnel and energy side hit hard in Germany. And if you look at the transformation need, it's probably the second largest country, kind of biggest. So transformation, conversions, things that we need to do to prepare for the future are reflected in this result. The West, in total, driven by France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, these strong HoReCa countries, was strong, with 4% growth and a plus of EUR 68 million in the EBITDA.
But in the past quarter—in the last quarter, so the summer quarter, that was very good, and we're very satisfied with that. In Russia, as expected, we had a challenge to face, -8% of the top line and also cost inflation. As expected, we have a -EUR 65 million, so deterioration compared to the previous year, but it's a profitable business. So a year ago, compared to that, we had some effects in Russia. Some categories, for example, did not sell at all. So the cyberattack was the cause for that, and in Russia, that had a very large impact, stronger than in other countries. East, we're very happy about the 11%, our strongest region regarding growth. Ukraine returned, and we're very happy about that.
With a two-digit growth, they contributed to that, so that with fewer stores and the war situation, we still were growing, so they're positive and the EBITDA adjusted was around EUR 7 million. There are a lot of different effects, but the sales increase was mainly due to METRO Markets, with the 1 or 2 acquisitions of Eijsink and AGM in part, and the EBITDA adjusted also was more negative to these post-transaction impacts.
... and had to be booked accordingly. So this much on the segment reporting. The world is very volatile. There's hard to predict developments, different expectations of economic cycles, and we always need to think about how we make progress compared to the overall market. We've looked at that in our HoReCa of the core monopolies of the gastronomy sector, and we compare ourselves to that, and we're growing. We are winning market shares. At the end, it seems to be successful, because in the past three years, we have gained significant market share. The distance in the long term has also expanded. So this is not a proof, but maybe an indication that the multi-channel strategy sCore does offer a competitive advantage to the overall market.
So it's a good proxy to test it this way, and we are really happy if we make some headway over our competition. And you need to know that we do not two or three competitors, as in retail. We have hundreds, if not thousand competitors, and there's not a country where Metro is not among the top two. But there's no market either, where the top one has more than 30% market share. So we have competitors like fish stores, family businesses, local suppliers. These are our competitors. So mid-size and small companies that are 70% of the total market. Like in Spain, they have a huge share, and there's very little consolidation.
So this market share relation is very important to look at, and you can only focus on one or two competitors, and you need to look at their figures and your own figures. Particularly in Germany, you have very little to grab. Our competition is a bit, yeah, invisible, small. So this is a good proxy to always look at the market share, that is based on statistical data. So how have we proceeded in the field of multi-channel customers? The customer who are not only just in cash and carry, but in FSD and digital, to make their-- to buy their goods. This number of clients has doubled, and we only just started, which is a very good signal. We've grown by 0.2% in cash and carry in the...
We have to accelerate this, of course, but there are also a lot of effects from the cyberattack and also the Russian business, which contracted. FSD was the growth driver with 11.2%, and we've come to a sales share now, 23%. And METRO Markets, one initiative only grew by 60%. And I keep telling people also internally, because if you want to become more multi-channel, then of course, all the new channels have to grow faster than the older ones, for sure, but all of them have to grow at the same time. And, we've been able to succeed there, and this composition is very good. FSD has to grow faster than cash and carry, and digital faster than FSD. This is our rule of thumb, which, I also communicate to our staff.
DISH, with 370,000 active customers, the biggest digital provider in catering in Europe, with 56,000 new subscribers that we've won over last year, so that this digital, digital offer is really very successful. Now, and this is what we show also to our employees in order to illustrate the journey in a consistent manner, to show where we are going. The digital KPIs with which we describe transformation, and a lot of these KPIs are on a record high. If you look at the FSD share, we're at 23%. Also, in the course of the year, this year, in the moment, we see it continues to even grow up to 25%. We have EUR 700 million additional turnover, and the growth investments are worthwhile and pay back.
So you see 15% started in 2020, and now we're at a rate of 23%, and we are very confident to achieve a 33%, one-third turnover share by the year 2030. Digital sales share, we started to measure this in the first place, because for 2020, there are no values as of yet, but from 6%-10%, 12%, so it almost doubled. And, now we already achieved 13%. So we see a very nice dynamic development. We also have joint activities now and to make sure that we increase the digital share in METRO in the first two months. And all this requires a little bit of, say, start-up time, because 40% is really quite a goal, right?
But this year we achieved 500 million additional digital turnover, half a billion, which is quite an achievement. And towards 40%, it's going to be hard and tough, but we are really confident because we pushed this very much to increase the digital turnover step by step. Strategic customer share turnover, we talked about that in the beginning. Now, we reached eighty-four, seventy-five percent-ish, EUR 1.5 billion in HoReCa last year, and EUR 1.5 billion is really a whole company. What we've achieved in with professional customers, if METRO grows in certain areas by making sure that we are big, that we have a scale, it does have a relevance, and that's quite good if you also look at the absolute figures here.
We are very confident that we are going to achieve more than 80% at the end of the day, and we will probably also exceed the 80% and achieve this faster than we would have thought. Our own brands, METRO Chef, METRO Professional, in the first place, went up to 22%. Yesterday, I looked into it again, and we have already reached even 24%, so that we do assume that the trajectory will develop so that we will definitely achieve our percentage goal. This is quite an advantage, as I explained in the beginning. Also, the HoReCa customers have to save money.
With METRO Chef, they can achieve something like 20% or so, which is, of course, highly relevant for HoReCa customers, because 20% of their entire P&L is just the use of goods. So, that means that if you divide these 25%, it's... And switch it over to a professional application of own brands, which were created by chefs for chefs, it's good for them, too. It's high quality. They save 20% of their costs, and so all the own brand topic becomes more and more relevant. We're very happy, and we'll manage it. Now, let us go on. I would like to now show you the P&L.
You see adjusted EBITDA for the whole year, EUR 1,300-EUR 1,174, which is in consistency with the -EUR 170 that we saw in the very beginning. Two effects play in there, which are important for the adjusted EBITDA-unadjusted EBITDA. That's the transformation cost. Last year, we had a negative value, -EUR 123. That was because of the sale of Belgium. So that was a cost topic, which has now turned around. We sold India, and there we received a positive value, which is also an impact on the EBITDA of EUR 153 in the first place. And in this data, we also see a big improvement between the unadjusted and the adjusted EBITDA. And real estate gains, last year, we had, or the day before, EUR 137.
And, owing to the campus sale, we went up to 280, so that the EBITDA, after these, two extraordinary effects, came from EUR 1,403 to EUR 1,534. So you see depreciation and amortization, which will lead us to the EBIT, which is still EBIT, positive in its development. And the remainder of the table, nothing important there. The other financial result, well, this is, has something to do with currency effect and the ruble and other financial income, which is not, has, doesn't have a cash impact, but is, of course, included in here. Most, and it is relevant, of course, in a way.
So we went up from -134 to +609 EBT, and a net income of EUR 439 million. So that's more or less it, the voice over, the explanation on the P&L, which you see here. Now let's look at the EPS. When you take the net income and make this calculation, you see improvement of the operative EPS, and this is again our setup, it also. We had the one-off effects, first of all, the currency effects, exchange rate effects, which were due to a weak ruble, which had, of course, a positive impact by, for on us, but which was of not cash important.
The campus sale, yes, was EUR 0.50 per share, and METRO India, EUR 0.30. What you saw before, we had to make some depreciations last year, and that was mainly impairments on our Russian business, amounting to approximately EUR 75 million, so that this is another EUR 0.50 of reduction, so that we end up with 1.21 EPS. The dividend suggestion, which we will give to the AGM, will be EUR 0.55 per share, which is in the framework of our dividend policy. We pay between 45%-55% of the EPS. In this context, this is our suggestion: EUR 0.55 will be our proposal for the AGM. So that will hopefully be the dividend that we will distribute to our shareholders. Now, let us look at FCF.
You see the EBITDA of EUR 1,534, the EBITDA, which has developed in a positive manner, 1,534. We have a positive development, also net working capital, which has to do with active, operative improvement of our stock. And when you look at the technical one-off effects and deduct those, then you get the operating cash flow. So without the transaction effects, you will see that here, that we have an operating cash flow of EUR 721 thousand, which is a minus of EUR 210 thousand. A big part of that was, of course, investment. Growth costs something. It's capital efficient, but with all the restructuring, which it entails deals for the multi-channel fulfillment centers. We increased investments, corrected it up, and we are talking about 1.8% of the turnover.
In the previous year, it was 1.1 or something, 1.4, now it's 1.8. Hang on, 1.4 was in the prior year. So that overall, we added something here because we also want to build it up for the future to make sure that in these very-- in this very important FSD business, we have the capacities available to be able to cater to our customers' needs in an efficient manner. Now, the others, other items, lead us to a slightly negative cash flow of EUR 447. Net indebtedness has gone down, though, because the, we see the- So that we have been able to reduce net debt by EUR 230 million. So the balance sheet is very good. It was good before, but it's still good today.
Looking into the future, I think we may say that individual leasing portfolios can be extended, so that, according to IFRS 16, we will also have an increase of net debt in the future. But I'm going to talk about that in a minute. Well, ESG. We focused a lot of our ESG targets and, which we have to in the food industry, and we have three important commitments, which are an integral part of our ESG strategy, two of which are also reflected in the bonus system of the executive board and all the other employees, because we really want to concentrate on ESG. Carbon neutrality by 2040 versus 2011, so Scope 1, 2, 50% of Scope 3, so we are doing well.
Up until now, we've been able to save 40% and reduce CO2 emissions by 40%. We have a lot of photovoltaics also in the cooling systems. The investments, which you see, sustainability investments, have mainly to do with that to make sure that the cooling devices are exchanged. So the CFC devices will be exchanged to get more modern ones to save carbon. Helps the environment, but also helps us because the energy efficiency of new devices are is better. 2,000 tons of plastic, 2023 versus 2028. Now we've already achieved 3,800 tons, so we overachieved the target almost doubled the target. And we are also very proud of that because it's mainly fostering our own brands, where we reduce plastics in our own brands in order to achieve this target, and thus also overachieve.
Food waste, minus 50% was our target in the framework of the consumer forum we are a member of, so we said we would like to reduce 50%, 25 versus 2017. We achieved 23% minus up until now. But overall, we are very optimistic that we will also achieve the target by 25. It's a very important topic for us. It has also relevance for the executive board. We have clear targets. We measure the targets, report on those, and we are proceeding well. Maybe not for all of it, but most of it. That's the way it is with targets, you know, some are better, some not, but we are really definitely heading for the right direction, in particular in the field of carbon neutrality, which is one of the most important goals.
Now, capital allocation. Let us look at this. Those 1.8% of which I just talked, we are in. We invest this into growth. Capital market, we need, we need 2.5%. That's what we communicated to the capital market, but we learn now that the store retrofitting is more capital efficient, and our overall investment will be 2% of the turnover, and that will suffice in the future. Because we learned also to make sure that the stores can be retrofitted in a capital-saving manner, so we can make a lot more out of the existing structure than we would have thought. It's a learning curve. It's like just normal when you develop a new technology.
We did some retrofitting and, renovations, and, we've seen that we can save a lot of capital by using the existing resources. To net debt versus EBITDA, we are doing well with two times, and we believe that we will have a good return for the shareholders with a dividend of EUR 0.55. Within our, dividend policy, I think we've been able to, to achieve this. Now, let's look, ahead, into the future in the next few minutes. What can you expect next year? We expect 3%-7% sales growth. We expect that inflation will noticeably decline. We're already feeling that now.
The individual countries where there is a deflation in our sales prices in the first two months of the current financial year, and all segments will grow, except for Russia. We don't expect growth there. Adjusted EBITDA -100 to +50 forecast. Cost inflation effects will still be felt. Additionally, we will have to use some money to improve our cybersecurity. We already invested, but we'll continue to do that. So we're setting up a cybersecurity team, including all the software for that, at a mid-2-digit million EUR amount that we're spending here, because we want to prevent that from happening again, and we're really doing everything in our power to defend ourselves against attacks that possibly might have an impact on us. We expect that the business in Russia will continue to be difficult.
It is a very wide bandwidth because there's a lot of volatility in the market at the end of the day, and we'd like to reflect on that, like to get some leeway and maneuver through the situation. We're doing everything to get a positive impact on the EBITDA, but we cannot predict that with certainty.
... So some of these extraordinary impacts will be felt. There are also a few smaller transactions, post transactions impact that we won't feel next year. But all this taken together will lead to the EBITDA to be somewhere in the range between EUR -100 and EUR +50. The EPS was marked by many of these one-time gains, and we will invest in the future and expect a normalization and an EPS that is stable. We continue to invest. We need to transform, become a better wholesaler, and that does cost some money, so we'll continue to invest in growth. This is where we expect to have a slight negative free cash flow next year as planned.
I already pointed out that due to the larger rental portfolio we have, one in Germany, for example, we also will have a higher net financial debt. That's also due to IFRS. Well, leasing liability is very large in the beginning and going down. It has a technical effect. It doesn't really have a real impact. But if you look at the net financial debt, that's included here. Growth 5%-10% is our long-term growth. We stick to that, and a 5%-7% increase of EBITDA, so that 2030, we will have more than EUR 40 billion in sales, EUR 2 billion in EBITDA, and a free cash flow of EUR 600 million. So it takes a while. We're transforming the company.
We do turn towards more growth, are building a better wholesaler, and, Metro was never as digital, never as professional, had never as many own brands, had never so many multi-channel efforts. Every single month shows us improvements. I keep comparing that, and sometimes you think, "Well, why does it not have an immediate impact into the figures?" A lot of things happen in the world, and they're unreliable, and we need to face them. We're really building muscle. We're fighting, like someone on a bicycle with headwind. But, if you stop, or if the situation improves, we have the muscle, and we're really building everything up with a good business model, with comparison to, our competitors also. Now, in conclusion, I'd like to go to our fundamentals.
The fundamentals are something you saw, saw in the video, and this is our way of looking at the company. These are our guidelines, our principles for our employees. Basics and basics. We promised that at the Capital Markets Day. We want to go back to our roots. We want to be more professional in wholesale. And what did we do? Well, we were never as wholesale as we are now. This is what we also implemented. And you could see the employees that streamlined the assortment, that switched to pallets and digitized. So we really have a very strong focus and have really improved to a very high level. So we're measuring our progress, and we're growing again. We're picking up speed. There's a big tanker ship was steered into new waters. We've seen good results.
You can see that the strategic KPIs are all turning in the right direction, and we really do wholesale. We are one Metro. We do it all together, and it's not different countries working together. You can go to any country. They all have the strategy. It has different features, but we are all pulling in the same direction, and we do that as a joint wholesaler. And, with that motto, I would like to go to Wer will, der kann. No, never stop, no fear, and our motivation is very high. We really want to be successful, and I hope I was able to show you that, that we're all really enthusiastic, that all employees are really participating, and we made this Metro one of the best wholesalers in the world. Thank you.
With that, that was the presentation, and now we'll go to the Q&A session. So, Michael, you can join me here. We're standing up. We don't need chairs. And, yeah, please go ahead with the questions.
Thank you, Steffen, and thank you, Michael, for being available. We're now turning to your questions. Let me explain quickly. We will answer questions from the room, and if you are dialing in online, you can ask questions through the tool. And we'll read out the questions, and we'll answer the questions in the language you're asking the question in. But it's only English and German. Let me specify that. Yeah, true. Yeah, we did assume that it was only German and English. Chinese would be difficult. Okay, with that, we can ask the first questions. Let's start. Mrs. Becker?... Yeah, ich habe eine ganze Reihe von Fragen.
I have a whole range of questions. You described in the brightest colors what is taking place. If we look at the bare figures, and I refer to your page 30, we can see that in the adjusted EBITDA, Metro is just not making any progress. 2022-2023, 5%-7% growth is what you achieve, try to achieve, and you will have no growth in the EBITDA next year. When will there be the big push so that you get the 5%-7%? And what does it, you know, mean for the EPS?
If that's the basis for the dividend, I'd like to know how this is going to develop, and what's the book value of the Russian business? The book value of the Russian business. And does that include real estate? One explanation, to really understand that better, you say EUR 170 million EBITDA less than in the previous year. If we calculate right, it's 215. Are these currency effects, or why is that so?
Let me start answering the first question, and you do the other two questions. So on making progress in the bottom line, there's no parallel development as the top line. There's some external impacts. If you look at the Russian business, that is under a lot of strain. When we set up the budget and the plan, we, we're not able to forecast all this. So in the past year, that we have a minus of EUR 165 million. And a cyberattack is something that's external, too, even though we got some payback from the insurance company.
But this is that has an impact, and there's a whole range of one-time effects. So post-transactions, Russia and cyber, well, you can see that we're making advances. Do we like that something like that happens? No. Is that trying to explain things away? No, not either. Do we have to face the world? Yes. What's the answer to these questions? Well, try to growth. If we did not have the strategy, we would be standing here in a different position. We were able to improve in an accumulated way in the two-year period, not much, but a little bit. We're trying to turn the situation around and start to grow again. So I think we can say that this is a success, and there's a lot of investment. We have, for example, 2,000 people more in the sales force.
Growth doesn't happen by itself, so we really have to see it through. We really look ahead into the future and hope that the EBITDA in the years after this one will increase also. Cost inflation will also not happen at the same level as now and will improve, so that will have a positive impact. But as you say, it is true, but it can be explained well, and does not undermine or question the strategy. Would you like to say something on the book value of Russia? I understood two questions. What's the difference between the EUR 210 million and the EUR 170 million that we're showing? Well, yes, it's true. These are the currency effects of EUR 40 million, the Russian and the Turkish currency.
And the book value in Russia, I have not learned the annual report by heart, but I can give you a directional answer. Between EUR 500 million and EUR 600 million are the asset values for Russia. We have an exchange rate of 98, if you look at it today. So via the assets that we've recalculated in the local currency, there's a decrease. So last year, there were EUR 900 million now, and that's currency related only. And the impairment, we have EUR 75 million for Russia this year. And EPS? Yeah. So the dividend strategy is 55%-65%, and if you multiply, do the math in this logical approach... And then it's zero.
And we continue with the question from online. Martin Schmid from Oddo BHF would like to know, the VAT in Germany is set to rise in January again. Any comment from your side on how much this has affected your guidance for the segment Germany in fiscal year 2024?
I've expected the question, to be honest. I answer now in English, right?
Yes. Thank you.
So Martin Schmid, who is apparently German. Okay, good. Marco. Thank you. So, let me take it, because it's a, it's a topic that, that is, very relevant for us because we did a lot, actually, to help the, the Association of Gastronomy, DEHOGA, here in Germany, to actually avoid that, and which was not successful.... Overall, when you look at it from a METRO perspective, we do 17% of our revenue in Germany. Half of that is roughly with the HoReCa sector. So we are talking from a METRO perspective on roughly 7-8% of, of the overall revenue that is expected.
Even if we will see 10,000 restaurants going out of business, which is an estimation from the HoReCa, we will actually be resilient enough, because at the end, the meaning for us is not going to be so significant, so that we will see a major impact in the business. We will have possibilities to compensate. Our market share in gastronomy in Germany is still sitting in the mid one-digit numbers. So there is going to be enough possibilities with our store strategy and the knowledge of business to compensate for that. To be honest, why did we voluntarily invest so much to avoid that for our customers? It's not so much because it's a selfish thing and we are, you know, somehow risking to lose a lot of business, and we cannot survive that.
It's rather that I'm really looking with sorrows on this entire gastronomy landscape, and that's not so much in the metropolitan regions, in Düsseldorf or Berlin or Munich, because here people can afford, even if the prices are going up 10%. When I'm looking at the rural areas and smaller cities and so on, the city centers and the villages most probably will see an impact on social life, which is actually hard to stand. And therefore, we also opted so much, and we invested so much in communication and support for the gastronomy sector, to be honest.
Mr. Radi, the floor is yours.
Quick question: the segment Germany will see a growth below the forecast. So what will happen in Germany, so that Germany can grow better? That's my question. And net 2022, 2023, the net result last year, there were a lot of extraordinary effects which helped you to get good gains, good profits, but this year, probably not. This year you will probably write a loss. Is that right? Let me, first of all, answer the first question, and Michael, you can answer the second part. Germany, indeed, is one of the largest transformation cases which we have in our portfolio. We, as we expected, are doing well, but it's going to take a little bit of time, by the time Germany is again in the top part in all the performance indicators of METRO. Why?
Well, the reason is mainly that a lot of things in Germany are still on a level which is not fully wholesale. So we have to make changes in the stores, retrofitting, investments, product range, FSD changes. All this is a little bit lagging behind in Germany, to be honest, and we have to make sure that we accelerate the process. And in order to do that, we need a little more time. We have to make the product range leaner, we become more productive, et cetera. And it take a little bit of time till all the effects play into one, so that this will have a impact on the transformation which we need, because, it'll take a little longer in Germany. It'll take a little longer till we will come back to, to the, to a top performing range.
The second question on net earnings is comparable to Ms. Becker's questions on the EPS. Well, in the last year, past business year, we've had very positive effects, sale of the real estate here on the campus, divestment of India, positive impacts in the financial results because of, yeah, the work we talked about earlier on, and therefore we expect a result, you know, around zero.
Let me continue with another question from online. It comes from Valérie Gahr , from Groupama Asset Management. And she would like to know what is the status of our delivery teams, are they outsourced or in-house? And we understand that specifically with regards to the truck drivers and the people actually going to the customer.
So let me take this one. We have a mix. We have a roughly 50/50 mix of own employed drivers and drivers working exclusively for us. You can assume that in the west, it's more Western Europe, Germany, the share of internal delivery drivers is more internally, and the more you go east, as more it is outsourced. From a customer perspective, you will not see a big difference, because at the end, they are all working, so to say, for Metro, and even in most instances, they are driving Metro labeled vans and so on. So you will not recognize a big difference, but it's roughly 50/50.
Thank you very much.
We have a question here.
I have a couple of questions on Russia. In the last quarter, the turnover went down by 40%. Do you expect a similar effect in the next quarter of the year? And then there was a special agreement with the Russian Ministry of Finance that dividends will be transferred from Russia to Germany. Can you tell us what the amount was of the dividends transferred? And then there was an obligation or a promise in the catalog of criteria for the special promise to stay in the country. What does that, what does that mean? Is there a... Is that linked to a certain deadline, an eight-year? And you said that the cyberattack had some major impacts in Russia. What exactly do you mean? Where did it come from, the cyberattack?
Let me start with the last question, cyberattack.
We can't really say where the cyberattack came from. We know that Black Basta is the name of a hacker group, and that's all we know, to be honest, because at the end of the day, those groups are virtual. They can actually come from any country. Associated with Black Basta , you always associate Russia, but where it exactly comes from, we do not know. We do not know why. Why did it have this high impact in Russia? You have to fiscalize alcohol straight away. So, when you book a sale of alcohol over the POS, then you also have to pay the taxes directly to the government.
As we couldn't do that any longer because of the breakdown of the system, we were not able to sell alcohol and that had this severe impact. This is not that bad in other countries because they don't have this direct withholding tax, and that the consumption of alcohol is lower in other countries, and that's why. Well, dividends and approvals. Yeah, we have an extraordinary approval from the Ministry of Finance to distribute dividends. The logic behind it is that it's a cash flow positive company, right? And you can never distribute the dividends 100%, but it always have it comes with a time lapse because the Russians somehow also want to make sure that they that not all the cash leaves the country at the same time.
This is, of course, not explicitly linked to some kind of retention obligation, but it's more implicit. We saw that companies like Danone or Heineken, who or which, had a discussion on stay or not, keep or not or sell, that we, in a way that we always said, and we keep saying this till today. We said that once for many reasons, which we already explained, why we believe that we should stay in the country, and this is still the rationale we apply. It's this. Also, we haven't communicated anything else, but we didn't say we are going to stay there forever, you know? We made the decision to stay there for the time being, but not forever, you know, because things might change, and maybe we might have to readjust our decision.
But for the time being, we said we want to stay there. But it was nothing in writing, and we didn't give our signature that we will stay there for the rest of our existence, but for the time being, yes. So in the current business, we see that the decline of turnover seems to be stabilizing. Turnover, our sales in the Q1 , well, we are running into these non-alcoholic sales possibility in Russia, which is gone, so that we now see a growth, again in the first two months because we are now able again to sell alcohol in Russia. But without this, we believe that the Russian business will go down slightly, but I think we reached the bottom.
There are a lot of brands, a lot of Western brands also, which are no longer available, which will be replaced by Russian brands, and partially, by the way, the same manufacturers. But anyway, and this, of course, is also contained in this, these projected losses of turnover. We have a little less employees, 9,000, approximately.
Okay. Then we have some questions here from Stephen Wynne-Jones, European Supermarket Magazine. One question about the turnaround in Germany that was already answered. There's another one: You mentioned that the Buy More Pay Less range has seen a 25% growth rate compared to a 2% growth rate for other products. What are your expectations for the growth of this range as inflation, energy costs, et cetera, reduce for businesses?
Okay. So thanks for the question. BMPL is a growth factor, independent, basically, of inflation or external factors. Of course, inflation, external factors are kicking in, but at the end, the strategy is not set to, to do, to have anything to do with inflation, but it's independent from that. We are growing in BMPL articles even after inflation in real terms. So volumes in BMPL, that's what we are observing, are growing. And we will, of course, continue with further optimization, because not in every country, the level of BMPL is at the same height, but we are keep on investing to roll out the BMPL further on, because we not only see it as a value driver, we also see it as a volume driver and as an efficiency driver for our operations.
Do you have...
Are there any further questions here? Otherwise, we'll take questions from the online tool. We will continue with the question of Christian Bruns of Montega AG, about the own brands. Christian says: "The own brand share, you're doing well with 22% turnover share. Can you give us a feeling of how high the difference is in the growth margin compared to other products, roughly?"
Y es, I may. Thank you very much, Mr. Bruns, for your questions and greetings. It's about a one digit, middle one percent, one digit percentage.
Five percent.
It depends on the product, but it's, this is the relative margin difference.
... and we continue with a question from Valerie Gardon, from Groupama Asset Management on real estate. She would like to know going forward if we have more to sell in the coming years?
Yes, yes, I can take this one. So, of course, we keep continuing developing our real estate. There will be some projects that we are already working on, for example, the Belgian real estate, where we have sold the business already. But the financial impact for the new year will be limited. So, don't expect amounts that we have seen the last year in that magnitude.
Okay, shall we-
Let me look around. If there are no further questions here, we have one more, by Marco Schmid .
... March 2025, could you please explain your refinancing strategy, and if you intend to stay in the bond market, and at what point in time you want to come to market? Thank you.
Yes, I take this one as well, Marcus. So, I think, first of all, I would like to mention that we have already successfully reduced our net debt by a bit more than EUR 200 million. We have, in the last year, we have repaid one of the bonds worth EUR 500 million. Now, this one is a bond that will expire in March 2025, that you mentioned, is a one that has been running for the last 10 years, with a very nice coupon. We will be looking at the markets then in due course. So we will, of course, then validate what is the best option. I think there's no urgency on that. We are continuously monitoring the market on that one.
We continue with questions from online. The next one is from Andrew Gwynn, from BNP Paribas, with regards to our EBITDA development, and he would like to know, with a potential dip in EBITDA in 2023, 2024, after a large drop in 2022, 2023, should we expect pronounced earnings growth in 2024, 2025, as a way to catch up and get back towards the midterm guidance?
Absolutely.
Or is the plan back-end loaded?
Yeah, thanks very much for the question. It's a little bit going in your direction, Mrs. Becker. We are currently in an investment phase, we have to say and conclude, and we see that sCore, our stretch, is well accepted by the customers, so sCore works. And we continue our wholesale transformation to make every month a better company than the, than the year before, in terms of efficiency and also in terms of productivity. sCore generally expects a EBITDA growth, of course. Already we see it operationally, but overshadowed by the externalities I just mentioned, name it, Russia, post-transactional effects, and also some of the cost inflations that we do not see that it's continuing, forever. Yeah. So we do not give a guidance for 2024, 2025 today, but we expect a significant progress on EBITDA to achieve our long-term ambitions.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, another question here. In Deutsch, this time Christian Bruns.
Christian Bruns, Montega AG. Are there any post-transaction effects, which you already talked about from past exits in 2023, 2024? And approximately how much? Will it be, how high will it be?
Well, Steffen mentioned that before, the brand rights in China. This is something that in the past business year, till April, we had these revenues, and after that, they no longer. So if we compare this to the previous year half-year, a low double-digit EUR 2 million amount, which will disappear more or less. And we will not have these big transactions in the future any longer, so it's not going to be a problem then, and the reporting will be easier as well, and more straightforward.
So then, Christian Bruns from Montega. Christian is very motivated. Thank you for your many questions. In which countries will you extend the rental contracts? This is the effect we just talked about before with net debt.
Portfolios in Deutschland.
The biggest portfolios are in Germany and but also in France. Of course, we see the impact on net debt. I don't know how high it'll be. It's a 10-99 million EUR amount, I think. But those are clustered prolongations we will have to make because we're talking about a term of 10 years of the contracts. That's it, more or less. The sites which are profitable, we will keep them, of course. We're not going to extend any negative ones.
And then we continue with a question from Andrew Gwynn , from BNP Paribas, which fits the topic, and he's asking specifically on the lease liability extension, why is it a big feature? So why is it bulky and not more evenly spread out? And secondly, as a result, is there a material change in the lease payments expected?
That's a bit the same question in English now, right? So-
It's building on it, yeah.
It's building on it. Okay. So we do not expect a major change in the overall lease portfolio. It's just now that sort of a block of profitable locations are due to be prolonged, and that's what we are doing right now. And then we are looking at a technical effect, because then at the end, you need to activate those liabilities again because of IFRS 16, and it's influencing the net debt. That's the logic at the end. So it's more technical logic and not so much a commercial one.
... Thank you so much. Volker Bosse of Baader Bank on CapEx. So his question is, the CapEx for 2023, 2024, what exactly are we expecting?
We are expecting up to 2% of sales, which is in line with our midterm guidance. There would be lease obligations, what Steffen just explained, that would come on top because that's not cash investments. I was talking about cash investments, 2%.
Now we have a question of Anna Schumacher, Exane.
Some retailers are commenting that they are experiencing some high pricing pressure coming through from suppliers. What are you experiencing in the market? How are your relationships with these suppliers?
Number one, we are not a retailer, we are wholesaler, and it also is a different relation to supplier. We don't purchase in a retail-like way, because the retail-like way of purchasing is you have tough negotiations. If you are not getting it done, so to say, you at the end stop ordering to put pressure on suppliers. We don't do that because customers are coming to us for replenishment. Imagine you have a Trader shop, you're coming there for a product that you have in your shelf, and we cannot just list it out. So we do have a different, more partnership-based relation with suppliers, and maybe that's a differentiation to retailer. Then our ultra-fresh and our own brand share is usually also higher than in retail.
So it's a very different way of negotiating with our 35%-40% almost in ultra-fresh, so in fish, fruit, veg, and so on, that with retailers. So our dependency to those typical FMCG negotiations is also less, yeah. So when you're always reading in the papers that one of the bigger retailers, they have conflict with some of the big FMCG companies, the relevance is just smaller in our case. And of course, they are asking for higher prices, and of course, we are negotiating and trying to actually bring that down. Right now, I have to say, also for when you look at Germany, we are rather looking at, in our selling prices, deflationary tendencies. So I guess the time for, you know, increasing prices now, also from a supplier side, is definitely over.
We continue with another question from Anna Schumacher, from BNP Paribas, on the external environment, and she's asking: How is your market positioning shaping up in the markets that you operate in? What pressures are you facing from competitors, if any? And, how is the cash-and-carry sector positioned? Is there particular pressure?
I mean, that's a very broad question, and I could most probably talk a long time about it because it's also very different country by country. In general, and let me just reemphasize what I said in my speech, we are usually, or almost everywhere, number one or two in the wholesale market in every country we are operating in. There is no country where the top three have more than 30%, so we are looking at a very scattered, non-consolidated competition landscape. And then, of course, when we are doing activities like BMPL, when we are increasing the sales force, you see locally, country by country, that also competition is reacting. They are trying to imitate the BMPL concept so far, right? Not very successfully, but they're trying to.
We see competitors, they're trying to hire our sales force and things like that, but I think that's normal operational movements, but we just need to be faster and better than them, and then we cannot, we will not be influenced so much, right? Because, again, it's hundreds of competitors that are all reacting individually, but and then we need to actually fight competition always also on a local level.
We have a question by Mrs. Müller, Lebensmittel Zeitung. The value-added tax will in be increased again in Germany, and the question has already been answered. Do you also want to have new customers in the system gastronomy? Mrs. Müller's question.
Thank you very much. We do actually like our current customer segmentation. The segmentation is typically in Germany, if you look at the gastronomy sector, we have the independent gastronomy, so the classic independent caterer. And some of them will have several outlets or restaurants, and that's okay for us. And in the future, it could possibly happen that large caterers, large system gastronomists are being added. But our home, if you look at the core target group, it's the classic independent restaurant, the small chains, maybe. And we also have larger chains, but it's rather optimistic and not strategic. And in other countries, it is different. In Kazakhstan, the largest customer, for example, is a different category, so it differs by country.
Online, we also have a few other questions with regards to EPS, dividend, and development in Germany. They were entered in the Q&A tool.
... Thank you for understanding. We will not repeat those a second or, or third time. I hope it has been sufficiently answered. We continue with Marco Schmid from Oddo BHF, and he would like to know whether AGM, so the delivery acquisition in Scandinavia we made this year, whether AGM was adjusted in the adjusted EBITDA, or if it's included in FY 2023, but not included on a pro forma basis in FY 2022.
Yes, I think answer is, AGM was one of the smaller acquisitions. Let's say high double-digit million EUR sales amount, and very low single-digit million EUR amount in terms of net income. So due to materiality reasons, we did not adjust that. So it's a part of the adjusted EBITDA, so we did not exclude it.
Thank you very much. We continue with another, numbers-driven question, from Valerie Gardon, from Groupama Asset Management. What is the value of your property assets in 2023?
I can share the book values that we have for land and building in the balance sheet. It's approximately EUR 2.2 billion. So that's excluding leases, it's what we have in ownership. Market values, we are not commenting on this, but you have seen from the past that we, as a company, we're quite able to develop real estate successfully.
Yeah, there's a question by Volker Bosse on Russia. How would you describe the situation for Metro AG in Russia? The question has been answered. Profitability in Russia is deteriorating. Where do you expect to be the floor? Now, we expect that on the sales side this year, we will have the same level as in the last year, and a slight deterioration in profitability. So, after this year, we can probably expect to stabilize on a low level, probably this year already.
Continuing with another question from Andrew, from BNP Paribas, with regards to our midterm guidance. He's asking: It seems to be that we are moving targets for 2030 rather than 2024, 2025. Is that correct, or is that a misunderstanding?
Mrs. Dauer is asking a similar question. Are the targets for 2025 still applicable? Are they just updated until 2030? Well, our goals are always for 2030. It's a transformation. We're within a transformation process, and that is what we also have focused. And now we have many inflationary tendencies, and this is why we'd like to have a more flexibility in the trajectory. We are more efficient in CapEx because we're building our plane while flying. So, this is why we try to explain everything here. So we try to look at the next year from a larger height and really have our goals for 2030 to, yeah, come to that level.
I think it's been translated-
Sorry, I was answering the question in German, but I hope the translation was proper so that you could understand the answer.
Yeah. Otherwise, Andrew, just re-enter the question, and then we know we need more detail. We're now coming to the final questions that we have in the system. So we have two more from Marco Schmid , from Oddo. The first one is on detailing out, what's going on in EBITDA this year, and he's asking: Could you please clarify what adjustments are excluded from your EBITDA, and may provide a clear number without FX, without restructuring, and M&A? Is this all considered in the adjusted EBITDA, or are there elements which need to be taken into account?
Yeah. First of all, the adjustments that we do, we do for transparency reasons. Number one, so we do three big buckets. Number one, big transactions, so portfolio transactions. When we sell Belgium last year or the year before, and India this year, this is something we adjust, and, it's, it's part of the, transaction-related, adjustments that we do. Then the second thing we do adjust is if we dispose of real estate, like this year, we sold the campus, this, big transaction. And that is also not part, of the operational wholesale business in the sense that we would like to show it separately for transparency reason. And the third bucket that we do adjust is, currency effects.
From translation, currency translation, as I mentioned before, roughly EUR 40 million for mostly devaluation of Russian ruble and Turkish lira. If you take those adjustments, which we made transparent, the adjusted EBITDA comes to 1,174, and that would be exactly EUR 170 million below previous year.
... Thank you very much, Michael. That was quite comprehensive. And we now have the final question from Marco Schmid , from Oddo BHF, on free cash flow expectations for next year, and he's asking if we can give more details. Specifically, can we tell him our expectation for cash taxes, cash adjustments, change in working capital, and CapEx for next year? I think the CapEx part we already answered, but in general, where do we see free cash flow-
Yeah.
- in FY 2024?
Yeah, thanks for the question, Marco. So we see the free cash flow next year slightly negative, or, and also for 2024. We do not specify at this very moment the individual components of the free cash flow, but you can expect the EBITDA between -100 to +50, as proposed in the guidance. You see a drop in real estate income, so that's gonna be lower than before. But also we are more effective in two senses. We are working constantly on net working capital, namely on the inventory levels that we can, or that we foresee to be improved, and the capital effectiveness, the capital efficiency is gonna be better because I think up to 2% of sales, we are limiting now the cash investments than also the next year.
Yeah. And then we can close with the feedback from Andrew, because he just confirmed that the translation-
Ah!
Was perfect, and he understood everything. So thank you, Andrew.
So thank you, everybody. Those were the questions for today. We don't have any further questions, but if you have any more questions for analysts or investors, you can get in touch with me, the investor relations team, anytime. And the journalists can get in touch with Martin Laib and his team. I would like to thank everybody for your participation today, and also for the past business year, a year in which you supported us, everybody, very intensively, and I hope we've been able to help you with the information, and we will also do this next year. And we wish you all a wonderful Christmas time, good start into the new year, and we all hope that it's going to be a peaceful twenty twenty-four. Goodbye, and thank you.