Good afternoon everybody and warm welcome to Anora's Capital Markets Day. Great to see that we have so many people here joining us live and also online we have some 80 viewers, so welcome. I am Milena Hæggström. I'm the head of IR here at Anora and I will be your moderator today. Today we present our updated Fit, Fix and Focus strategy as well as our updated financial targets until the end of 2028 that were published yesterday and a more detailed agenda. The main speakers you can see here on the screen. There will be two Q&As during the show, the first one will be before the coffee break and one after the CFO presentation. For those of you online, you can also post questions through the chat.
Please also note that this meeting will be recorded, including the Q and A, and the recording will be made available on our website later. Before we close the day, we would also like to have some feedback. There will be a feedback form in your presentations. There will be a sort of QR code where you can post some feedback to us. In addition to main speakers, you will also have the opportunity to meet the rest of our executive management team who are present here with us today. That is not all. After the presentations, there will be a dedicated breakout session hosted here on site by Imre and Janne with their teams. Now, let the show begin.
Dear investors, analysts, colleagues and everyone joining on the webcast, I'm very excited to welcome you all to Anora's capital markets day. It's been now eight months since I started as CEO and I'm sure everyone is eager to hear how Anora is going to turn around its performance. Because let's face it, that's what we now need to do. As I said on my first day, sometimes you need to pause before you speed. What we've done during the pausing was to analyze thoroughly our performance, identify where we must improve and redefine our priorities. All along we've had our eye on the ball, looking for a solution to strengthen profitability and to return to sustainable growth. Today, it's then time to speed. We are ready to share with you our updated strategy, one that can be summarized in three simple but powerful Fit, Fix and Focus.
In today's presentation, I will show you how we are adapting to changes around us and building on our strengths. I will then walk you through the FFF pillars to restore performance and put Anora back on a growth track, which as a result will then create strong value for our current and future shareholders. This is not a story of bold promises, it's a story of pragmatic ambition. Perhaps even somewhat boring and simple. Because at Anora, we believe that consistency and focus are what create long-term shareholder trust. Without further ado, let's move on to our new financial targets. They now replace our previous 2030 goals which were announced in our previous CMD in 2022. Clearly, our priority is comparable EBITDA. We are confident in achieving 6%-7% annual bottom line growth reaching EUR 85-90 million by the end of 2028.
Right now we will not set a specific net sales target apart from wanting to outgrow the market, because our focus is profitability. First, our leverage remains at as net debt EBITDA ratio target being below 2.5. Finally, our dividend policy remains also unchanged. A payout ratio of 50% - 70% of the result of the period. Together these actions are expected to deliver around EUR 50 million in EBITDA uplift by 2028, partly offset by possible external headwinds. Strengthening cash flow, improving leverage and increasing our capacity to reward shareholders. That is what we want. Stein will soon go through the details of the EBITDA bridge. As far as the guidance for the current fiscal goals, we still believe to hit the window of EUR 70-75 million.
Let's first put things into perspective, have a deep look at the mirror, acknowledge the past, but also remind you of our current strengths. We are very transparent about where we are coming from. Our comparable EBITDA has declined to EUR 68.9 million last year, which is significantly down from the previous CMD. There are, of course, many reasons for this development, both external and internal. If you think about the market in general, we are no more immune to the changes than any of our competitors. Consumers are moderating, they are choosing healthier, lower alcohol options. Monopoly channels are being pressured, especially in Finland, since the introduction of 8% wines in grocery stores. Innovation cycles are accelerating, demanding faster, trend-driven product development. We are not just blaming the market here. Internally, we are now addressing our own challenges.
Tackling production overcapacity, adjusting cost structures, unlocking the very final merger synergies, and filling portfolio gaps in key growth markets. Yes, the market is tough and potentially likely to soften even further. That is exactly why we are acting decisively now. This is a backdrop we are up against. We are now taking drastic measures to beat these headwinds and making our own operations fit for the future with our updated strategy. What brings me the confidence to say all this is because we have a very strong backbone to build on. Let me briefly go through these areas in more detail and let's start with our strongest asset, the brands. On the left side of this page you see a handful of our own brands that I'm sure many of you have tasted before.
On the right side you see a variety of world famous international brands. It is this dual model that is our competitive edge. I'm often asked these days whether our plan is to continue building both own and partner brands. The answer is yes, we will continue to build both, strengthening our own local brands while remaining the preferred partner for global icons. Some partners leave, new ones arrive. That is the nature of the partner distribution business. Our portfolio and category mastery keep us relevant. To any great international brand out there looking north, our door is open. We value our strategic partnerships and I dare to say we will be even stronger on that front moving forward. How do we then respond to the ever changing consumer trends?
Because at the end of the day, it is all about consumers and their needs. We at Anora, we know the Nordic consumer. We know it because we study and research utilizing both our own and Nordic market data as well as global consumer trends. One of the trends that we all can witness is moderation. Consumers, especially younger ones, are choosing mindful enjoyment and we respond to that trend with the lower alcohol variants, ready to drink options and 8% wines for grocery in Finland. Another trend is accessible premium. People want quality and authenticity but at a fair price. We are meeting that demand with small batch additions, new bag formats like the examples of Kung Fu Girl here, and innovations such as Amp, our recently launched Aquavit- based spirit drink. The third trend that we follow is sustainability and responsibility.
Anora offers one of the broadest sustainable packaging portfolios. Whether it is plastic bottles, the PETs or carton cartons, cans, pouches or packing boxes. We have it all, let alone our heart. The Koskenkorva distillery with regeneratively farmed barley. The fourth trend is experience of a product. Consumers want connection through events, digital communities and shared moments. Our brands live where those moments happen. We have now covered brands and consumers. Our distribution network is another major strength of ours. Did you know that one in four wine or spirit drinks consumed in the Nordics comes from Anora? One in four. Here on the right side you see the value of the total Nordic wine and spirits market. The total Nordic market is worth EUR 14 billion. There is definitely still some low and even higher hanging fruits up there to be captured.
Already now we are a truly multi-channel operator with wide distribution and channel access in the Nordics and the Baltics. Sweden as an example is the biggest market in volume. In fact, Sweden is four times bigger than Finland and almost double the size of Norway. Here you can see our market positions by country. In Spirits, we are number one in Finland, Sweden, and Norway and number two in Denmark. Compared to the Spirits market, the wines are more fragmented as there are several smaller producers, importers, and distributors. In wine as well, we are number one in Norway and Denmark. If you combine a total of trade with Alko and grocery in Finland, that makes us number one here as well.
Something that we are very proud of is our achievement of becoming now the fastest growing wine company in Sweden, which has put us firmly into number two position. Let's talk about our people because ultimately our strategy is only as good as the people who execute it. As of next year our organization will be leaner, faster and fit for the purpose. Together with the streamlined organization and our committed experts, we can turn our strategic goals into reality and the future will be demonstrated even stronger by our values of courage to explore, energy to inspire and empowerment to win. The fifth strength of the wheel is our best in class manufacturing footprint. I'll let Hannu soon elaborate more on that. Next is the beef of my section.
What exactly are we going to do in the next three years to improve the profitability and to start winning again? Here is our strategy on a very simple one pager. I will soon go through every and each one of these areas of the circle. The key areas of turning around our company are on the top part of the wheel and that's the Fit, Fix and Focus. Powered by three enablers on the lower part of the wheel which are sustainability, innovation and technologies. Our strong purpose let's drink better is something that we want to keep and guide us into the future. Let's then go into the details and pause here for a while. What you see on this page is the approximate EBITDA impacts and timing of each of the topics. Fit, Fix and Focus.
As said, the strategy focuses on profitability improvement through immediate cost reductions and structural profitability improvements as you see here on the timeline. This is something that we are already in full execution mode today. The purple box, the Fit, that includes reviewing our organization and optimizing our sourcing. Here we are targeting EUR 20 million in EBITDA improvement. If we then look at the blue bar, that's the Fix phase starting now and ending towards the end of 2027. Both Fit & Fix are actions that are very much in our own hands. It is basically everything to do with internal operational excellence. Fix is unlocking another EUR 20 million through projects such as value management, portfolios, pricing, inventory reduction, and supply chain optimization. After successful implementation of the first two phases, funding the growth, Anora will move to the Focus phase of its strategy, the green bar.
The focus is adding further EUR 10 million EBITDA improvement through organic revenue and the thinking is that three-quarters of our savings will be visible for margin improvements, dividends and debt payout. Then one-quarter will go to funding the growth initiatives through investing more into brands. What then happens after the magical year 2028? We will get back to you in due course, but now our priority is immediate and midterm future. Now let me next give you a bit more flesh around the bones on what is included in our FFF work streams. Hannu, Imre and Janne will then elaborate on how we will get all that work done and Stein obviously will show us the money. Let's start with the immediate cost reduction elements in the Fit phase. Fit for us means simplifying, it means cutting costs and complexities.
We announced in mid September that we would go for a new organization structure with the aim of reducing the cost base, increasing efficiencies, and improving collaboration in local teams to better serve our customers. The three segments model that Anora currently has, that is Industrial, spirits, and wine, that remains, so reporting wise you as investors you will not see a change. However, what will change is everything underneath the segments. We're combining spirits and wine commercial teams into one strong Anora, breaking silos and having stronger portfolios. The other element under the Fit phase is sourcing. We have identified a number of opportunities in synchronizing the systems and processes, which Hannu and Stein will talk more about in a while. Then the stuff that is probably taking most of our people's time right now is the fix.
This is something that I like to call us taking control of our own destiny. As you recently saw and heard in our Q3 presentation, these are actions that are already showing impact. We are streamlining our portfolios and reducing inventories and with that exercise we will be improving our networking capital. Believe it or not we have over 5,000 beverage SKUs in our portfolio at the moment and around 500 of those 5,000 are bringing us 80% of the net sales. Clearly not all of them are equally profitable and are rather creating complexity than bringing us healthy business and the same goes for value management. There is plenty to do. Improving our price modeling, looking at different bottle sizes and best alcohol percentage ratios, to name a few examples.
We are also ramping up the third party bottling and unlocking new efficiencies in our supply chain. Anora's future cannot only be just fitting and fixing. What we really need now is, of course, Focus—a real growth engine for the future. In the beginning I said that this strategy may sound boring and simple, but what we believe in now is that the following three simple focus areas can bring us necessary profitable growth. The home base for our growth is our core. Nearly half of our net sales is still coming from the three monopolies. As much as yes, we are putting emphasis on other channels, we cannot let our bread and butter go. We do this by creating and acquiring a winning portfolio.
In concrete terms, there's still a lot to be gained in different wine segments where we are not present, for example. We can definitely further spread our current spirits brands into new markets and new segments and launch new innovations here. Our ambition is to grow share like we've now started to do with our wines in Sweden. That is not enough. We are now increasing our presence in the new categories and new channels, especially grocery here in Finland. Despite the fact that grocery is of course requiring investments, it is providing quite an exciting framework for new brands and especially ready to drink products. What we've done already is to hire more talents with experience from open markets and grocery channel. We have also improved our offering to meet the increased demand for non alcoholic and low alcohol products.
The so-called no low category, which as I said means no and low alcohol beverages, is growing and represents already 6% of Anora's net sales. We also continue our structured journey towards growing internationally. We already now export to over 30 countries, mostly with Koskenkorva vodka and liqueurs, but also Linie Aquavit. We have started very well with the Baltics, including our new office in Lithuania, and selectively expanding into nearby European markets. Now you're asking how is this all different from what we have seen last time around in 2022? This strategy is simpler, it is sharper, and is much more execution driven. It is also bringing us results here and now. 75% of our expected growth is coming from the core, whilst 15% from new channels and categories, and 10% from focused international expansion.
There are less promises in transformational expansion and more focus on the basics. Another element that is different is the fact that all that you have heard of now is going to be organic. However, disclaimer, we are simultaneously organized, oiling our machine to support disciplined M&A. We do want to eventually become more active in focusing on opportunities that strengthen the areas that we have chosen, the growth areas that I just talked about. Number one, when the time is right, we are looking into opportunities to buy brands that are filling the gaps in our current portfolios. That means supporting the core. We are exploring if there would be other established brands that could help us expand to adjacent categories and new channels.
The number two and number three we do eventually want to acquire distribution or route to market access in Europe to support our international growth. If you look at the industry landscape and how much there are transactions going on, this is in fact quite an interesting area to explore. Again, being disciplined and well planned and only when the time is right. Okay, the final section of my presentation is quickly walking through the enablers that will power our success and they are sustainability, innovations, and modern technologies. One thing that remains and will be the same as in the previous strategy is sustainability roadmap, which still is industry leading, anchored in people, product, and planet. I'll jump straight to some of the exciting results that are supporting our growth agenda in the people part.
One example is our improved safety culture with a 58% increase in safety observations compared to the base year of 2021. From the product section, I'd like to mention that our target of growing the share of no and low alk products has already reached 6% of our products, and 91% of our own brand packaging is already recyclable. By 2030, that number will be 100. In the planet area, one has to mention the investment on our Koskenkorva bio boiler earlier in the year and the increasing amount of regeneratively farmed barley in our system. Overall, we are striving towards net zero emissions across our value chain by 2050. The science-based targets have been officially validated, and our work on the scope three emission work continues. The role of innovations and smaller product novelties will increase in importance moving forward.
We at Anora, we have the capacity and we have the competencies in building new categories and concepts and pushing them through the channels. Thanks to the earlier mentioned understanding of our consumers, we launch over 200 new innovations and smaller novelties in wine and spirits yearly. I think 200 is a pretty big number. Finally, the technologies. Being on top of the technologies is not only a mandatory vehicle for us and our success, but it's also a key motivator for our people and sets us apart from the competition. For us, the technologies are about having sufficient and right systems, tools and processes, of course, but also using those tools for more efficient marketing and innovation initiatives. We want to lead with data. For example, AI is already now analyzing a massive amount of consumer data, trends and consumer behaviors for us.
We use IT for consumer testing and optimizing the campaigns and pricing for much faster decision making. Okay, to wrap up my part, I want to look at the shareholder perspective. What does Fit, Fix and Focus give us? Fit cuts costs and complexities. Right now, aiming at improved profitability. Fix restores margins and cash with structural improvements. Focus gives us profitable growth. IT funds share, gaining growth in our core selective new channels and disciplined international expansion. Together they add about EUR 50 million to comparable EBITDA by the end of 2028, keep leverage below 2.5 and support a 50%-70% dividend payout. That is, my friends, disciplined investable growth. With all that I am pleased to hand over to the segments. To explain how is this all going to be done then?
Before I let Hannu loose, let's quickly look at the size and structure of our segments. Wine is the largest of our three segments in net sales with its share of 46% of group sales. The Spirits segment is about a third and Industrials just above 20% of group sales. From the profitability perspective, Spirits is leading with about 17% EBITDA margin, followed by Wine with 7% and Industrial with about 6% of EBITDA margin. Now, Hannu, take it.
Thank you. Courtesy. Hello everyone. What an inspiring start. Anora is on a transformation journey towards stronger growth and profitability. We at Industrial, we are in the center of this effort. We have a clear two-part strategy to make this happen. First, we are enhancing our sourcing. We are harmonizing our materials and improving our sourcing process. This will unlock substantial savings. Second, we are optimizing our supply chain. We will make our assets work smarter and increase our manufacturing volumes. This will improve our operational efficiency. In short, we are building a leaner and more profitable foundation to fuel Anora's future growth. I will walk you through this in my presentation. Before that, let's look at Anora Industrial segment. This map shows you the Industrial segment, the foundation of it, our integrated supply chain.
This is a unique asset and the engine for our future growth. We drive EUR 142 million external net sales with over 6% EBITDA margin. This comes through three business industrial products selling ethanol and side products, starch, feed, and carbon dioxide from our Koskenkorva distillery, industrial services selling contract manufacturing services, and our logistics company Vectura in Norway. Our uniqueness comes from three capabilities, vertical integration, and our Nordic scale. If you look at the map, it all begins at our world-class Koskenkorva distillery in Finland. We also have specialized aquavit distilleries in Sweden and Norway. From there we move to our four bottling plants across Nordics and Baltics. Finally, distribution is done through our own logistics centers in four countries while others are being handled by our logistics partners. This footprint is a strong industrial backbone.
A seamless integration of distillation, bottling, and logistics is a unique end-to-end capability and a significant competitive advantage. Let's see how we got here and how we are going to optimize this asset base. Further, our supply chain has been on a transformation journey. If you look at the timeline after the merger in 2021, we implemented the planned synergies mainly coming from logistics and procurement. Following that, after the acquisition of Globus Wine, we integrated them into our supply chain and we have completed our Centers of Excellence program. This specialized our production plants: Rajamäki for spirits, Koskenkorva for wines, and Gjelleråsen for aquavits and bitters. On the way, we had some operational issues and we have ended up with lower than planned bottling volumes in our plants. Now, to address this and unlock the next efficiency improvements, we will now focus on the following.
We want to maximize the benefits of our new centralized sourcing team that was established in the beginning of the year and our sourcing process. Also, we want to reduce operational complexity and optimize our capacity. Let's now look how we have structured this under Fit & Fix. We have structured our execution into two parts that directly correspond to the Fit & Fix strategy. The Fit part is how we are enhancing our sourcing. This provides short-term efficiency gains through product harmonization and sourcing optimization. Savings are expected to materialize starting next year. The Fix part is how we will optimize our supply chain. This addresses our capacity utilization and therefore the time window is longer. We are building a leaner supply chain and creating scale in contract manufacturing. Let's first look at the Fit part.
We will unlock significant and sustainable cost savings during the Fit phase and our approach is twofold. The first and the most significant driver is product harmonization and sourcing savings. This is a major cross functional effort. We are working closely with the spirits and wines teams to ensure that the new standard we create is a win win. This is about simplifying what we buy and consolidating who we buy from. We are reducing raw material SKUs and suppliers. This will directly reduce the complexity in the supply chain and increase our purchasing power. For example, less bottle types means that we can consolidate more volume per bottle type and therefore have a better purchasing power in production. It means less changeovers. With less changeovers, we can run our lines with better efficiency. We have already identified a 30% reduction potential in our class wine bottles.
Overall, our target is a 10% reduction in raw material SKUs through harmonization in indirect spending. Our goal is to reduce suppliers by 30% by the end of 2026 and by 70% by 2028. Our second pillar is sourcing process and digitalization. Now this is what makes these gains sustainable. We are professionalizing our entire sourcing process and ensuring that our sourcing experts are involved in that process from the very beginning. This means streamlining the workflows, improving our data and strengthening governance. The key part here is the digitalization to give us full transparency into our spending. For example, we will significantly reduce off contract buying. We will increase the spend going through preferred vendors. Our goal is that we manage 80% of our indirect spend through preferred vendors by the end of 2028. We will also simplify our financial operations by harmonizing our payment terms.
Our goal is to reduce different payment term types by 20%. You can see how these two pillars work perfectly together. Harmonization gives us short term cost savings and operational efficiency improvements. A modern digital sourcing process locks those gains, adds transparency and strengthens our supply chain. This is how we are planning to deliver the sourcing synergies needed for the Fit part. Let's see how this impacts our working capital. We can release cash through some specific actions on inventory and payables. The sourcing improvements I just went through will simplify our portfolio with less SKUs, less suppliers, stronger process. Finished goods are going through similar exercise with the focus on tail cut. We have around 5,000 SKUs in our wines and spirits portfolio. Combined, around 10% of those brings more than 80% of the gross profit. We have a long tail.
We are also improving our forecasting process for better accuracy and optimizing our service levels. These actions will help us to reduce our total inventory. On the payable side, improved purchasing power will give us better leverage to negotiate better commercial terms. Focusing on fewer suppliers, we can build stronger supplier relationships. We are also looking to introduce supply chain financing during the coming year. Now, how do we improve our supply chain? We will deliver a leaner, more cost efficient supply chain during the fix. Supply chain footprint optimization has started with a comprehensive end to end analysis of our entire network from distilleries to logistics centers, and we have already identified improvement opportunities that are now being evaluated. Our goal is to optimize asset utilization and ensure that our supply chain is fit for purpose and structured right to meet our needs now and in the future.
In addition to this broad strategic initiative, our second initiative is a targeted action increasing contract manufacturing volume. This is a focused effort on our bottling plants. With higher volume, we can run our bottling lines with better efficiency. In addition to internal volume, we are building also the current and new partnerships for future collaboration. The goal is simple. We want to run our bottling lines at optimal capacity to improve utilization and cost efficiency and without adding capital investments. This is how we plan to deliver the efficiency improvements for the Fixed part. To conclude the industrial part, I would like you to take away these two key points from my presentation. We are going to spend smarter by simplifying our products and optimizing our sourcing.
We will deliver significant and sustainable cost savings and we are going to operate smarter by improving our asset utilization and running a leaner supply chain. We will boost the bottom line contribution. These two are the concrete steps that Anora Industrial is taking to deliver on our mission and to fuel Anora's future growth. I hope you enjoyed the industrial part and with these words I will hand over the stage now to Imre.
That is a cool video. Hello. Are you ready to talk about spirits? We are the market leader in the spirits and today I will explain how we will build on our strengths. I will take you through five key growth initiatives that we are executing to improve our performance, strengthen our portfolio, respond to the market headwinds and deliver the growth. To set the stage, let's check the key facts of Spirits. Spirits is generating around $227 million in revenue with a profit margin of 16.7%. It is roughly one third of the company's net sales and an impressive 55% of EBITDA. We have a wide portfolio of owner and partner brands and we are very strong in vodkas, liqueurs and aquavits. Koskenkorva is leading the way. It was already accounting 18% of our spirits net sales in the last quarter.
As you can see on the map, we have now completed own route to market setup in all the Nordic and Baltic countries and we are the market leader in the biggest spirit markets in the region. It is true that recent years we have faced some challenges. These post COVID market headwinds, changes in our portfolio and also very tricky conditions in Finland have resulted in a market share decline and also adding additional pressure for spirit performance. We do have strong plans and great ideas in categories like aquavit, rum, whisk and gin. Today I will focus on the initiatives that will deliver most of the growth and address the current challenges. Continuing what Kirsi was sharing earlier. The Focus strategy for the spirits is based on three growth areas.
The most important is to grow in our core, which means we will continue to build our leading portfolio. Portfolio white spots will be closed by own or partner brands and improve the market share and drive the growth by focusing on our home markets. The obvious question is can you build a strong brand in mature markets? The answer is yes. Koskenkorva is a good example of that. Later in my presentation and also in the breakout session, we share a couple of more exciting examples. The second is increasing exposure in growing categories and sales channels. This means for us that we will continue to develop our grocery business, especially in Finland. We will continue to develop our RTD portfolio and growing internationally. We will continue to grow Anora's business outside of the home markets. Let's now double click on these growth initiatives.
Our first growth case in core is pretty straightforward. Finland is our biggest and by far most important market for spirits. The biggest sales channel, Alko, is declining and it is expected to decline also in upcoming years. We have identified very strong growth pockets to respond to the market headwinds. To explain this idea, let's follow this illustrated bridge where the market headwinds are marked with yellow. Last five, six months we have been investing and working very actively to improve our value management process and also sharpen our pricing strategy. We are confident that we will see positive results here and we can back the lost market shares. There will be more focus in developing our portfolio. The portfolio white spots will be closed by strengthening our own brands, investing behind innovations and also growing the partner portfolio.
Now we have a dedicated grocery team in Finland and the portfolio, what we are selling is growing as we speak. We will continue to support this channel and we will continue to grow in grocery. What is important here? This is strong focus and a clear strategy to grow our share in our biggest and most important spirit market, Finland. Our next growth initiative, growing our biggest category, vodka. I'm sure that you have seen all our well known brands like Vikingfjord, Explorer, Lin ie and Leona, and obviously you know Kosken kor va. The portfolio optimization and the clear brand positioning will improve our performance in all price segments. With a good execution, there is a lot to win. We have something unique. It has been fantastic to see Koskenkorva growth in the last five years.
We will increase the investments behind the Koskenkorva brand to continue to grow in our home markets in the Nordics and the Baltics. Of course we will continue to develop the category by introducing innovations. There will be different alcohol options available, new bottle shapes, and when it comes to flavored vodkas, there will be very interesting flavors to meet the latest trends. These initiatives will improve our vodka market share in monopolies at least from 54% - 55%. One could say it's a small number. Let's remember, vodka as a category is by far the biggest category in our home markets. Even this 1 percentage point in monopolies means that we need to sell at least 250,000 half a litre of vodka bottles more.
Optimized portfolio, clear brand positioning and more investments behind Koskenkorva will drive the growth in our biggest category, vodka. This is very exciting. I have a fantastic news to share. Our launches in the liquor category have outperformed the market and generated an additional $13 million in revenue in last five years. Guys, we are very good in liquors. The strategy is built on two things. As you can see behind me, we have a super strong and diverse portfolio in place. We will continue to invest and build these brands and we have a very exciting pipeline of new concepts. These 16 new ideas will bring definitely additional excitement and deliver the growth in the category. As we are in Finland today, there is one bottle behind me a little bit bigger than others.
Did you know that Jaloviina Kerma or the Cream is one of the best launches in Alko this year? It has already gained 16% of the market share in the cream liqueurs in a very short time. Hey, Anora is very good in liqueurs. Growing the winning portfolio and investing behind innovations will continue to grow in this important and very profitable category. Moving on, the world is changing and new trends are growing and the new generation is looking always for something new. That is the reason why the RTD is growing. In fact, we see this at Anora as well. We have never sold as many RTDs as today. For example, in Finland we have sold almost 3.5 million cans. At Anora, we want to be as close as possible to the consumers and the grocery channel is an excellent tool for that.
It is very exciting to build this channel, but it's fair to say it's not completely new for us. It is the dominant sales channel in open markets like Denmark and Baltics. It is a very interesting addition for the monopoly markets. To grow the business in grocery, you need to understand and follow the trends. Of course you need to have a competitive offer, but you need to deliver excellent on taste. First, as you can see behind me, we have a beautiful range of own brands already in place. There are at least 13 new interesting ideas that we will launch and support with investments. For us, the RTD strategy has driven three main things. Active pipeline of new products and concepts to grow our existing portfolio at the same time growing also the partner portfolio.
There is a very good example on this slide. You see San pellegrino and Thomas Henry. The business of these two brands has been growing two and a half times in the last five years. Of course, in the grocery channel you must invest to build a brand and advertise to boost the sales and deliver the growth. What is important here, RTD is the fastest growing category. With these initiatives we will stay on the wave. We will grow our share in our RTDs and strengthen our offer in groceries. Growing internationally, I have personally been involved in this business unit the last couple of years and I can confirm what a remarkable momentum we have built to grow internationally. For us it means clear market focus. Obviously you need to have a relevant brand. Then you need to have strong partners who can build your brand.
Together with our partners, we have been advertising Koskenkorva in different events and activating the brand in different sales channels all over Europe. We have organically doubled Koskenkorva sales in the last three years, and now it is available in 32 countries. For future growth, we need to first continue organic growth by having a clear focus on Europe, especially in Germany, where we see the highest growth potential. Koskenkorva as a brand has a lot to offer. The wide portfolio range is meeting different consumer groups and different occasions. It is important to keep this growth profitable. By having clear investment guidelines in place, we will secure the profitable organic growth. Secondly, like Kirsi was mentioning at Anora, we are looking into the inorganic growth opportunities to accelerate our international sales in the future.
To sum it up, we as a market leader, we have a strong plan how to respond to the market headwinds and grow in Finland. Our position plans and growth initiatives will deliver growth in liquors, RTDs and vodka. With a clear focus, we will strengthen our portfolio, regain back the lost market shares and continue to grow the business internationally. Thank you so much for listening.
Very, very good. Still hanging in there? Yes. It is going to be the last session before the break, so bear with me. Thank you, Imre. Very, very exciting plans for our spirits. For the next 10 minutes, then my role is to walk you through hopefully equally exciting plans for our wine. The structure for my presentation will be the same. I will be first walking you through the plans on our core and then I will very shortly touch on the plans for the growing segments in wine. However, before getting into the plans, like Imre, I want to briefly present you the key facts of our wine business. On top of that, talk a little bit of the current footprint we have in wine that we believe is unique and especially at this moment of time, very meaningful.
We start with the key facts of the wine business as mentioned already a couple of times. EUR 323 million. That represents about half of full Anora's net sales. Again, I guess something that you, many in the room are aware of, that 2023 definitely was not the proudest year of the wine division. Again, good news that ever since we managed to improve our profitability significantly, ever since we are the market leader, as my colleagues pointed out already earlier today in Denmark, Norway, and Finland, and a proud number two in Sweden, and year to date, after the first nine months, by far the fastest growing wine company in the country. Sweden, as large as the country is, it is the largest of our wine countries.
That would also mean that Systembolaget is the largest single customer to our wine business. 60% there means that our key agency brands, these would be brands like Kung Fu Girl, Laroche, Castia, Degrados, Codorniu, to name a few, they stand for more than 60% of all of the wine sales we have. Moving on to what we believe is very unique and what we believe is very valuable. Valuable for us. At the moment, we work actively with more than 400 wine partners and more than 60 bulk wine suppliers across all of our markets. As you see there, it's a long value chain. The collaboration starts already from the careful selection of wines and wine producers that we believe are best suited for the Nordic consumer preferences, both for the customers and consumers.
Most of our wine filling, like Hannu rightly pointed out, currently takes place in our plant in Denmark. On top of that, especially on the Finland 8% wine, and of all of our glöggs, all of the filling and product development takes place here in Finland, in our Rajamäki plants. Our wines, as you see up there, are being sold to all key customers on and off trade in all the Nordics, all the Baltics. On top of that we are selling or helping the sale of the products to our customers directly with our consumer platforms. In here the platform is called Viinimaa. In Sweden, our own digital platform is called folk o folk.
Of all of this, what we believe, what makes it so competitive, again, with the scale we have covering all of those elements of the value chain, the strength comes that we can combine wine sourcing, transportation, bottling, product development, and distribution. It's only us here in the Nordics who can combine all of that and take the economical benefits of that. This is not just the most cost-effective way to operate, but especially now when all of our key customers, being it Alko, being it S Group, being it ICA, are really seeking and striving to get their own CO2 emissions down. This is where we can help them most. Because by far the lowest emissions in all, the wine business today can only be achieved by bulk wine shipments. Nobody wants to ship heavy glass bottles from the other side of the planet anymore.
Near market filling again, filling the potholes here at Rajamäki or in Denmark and by using sustainable packaging, where again we are the leaders here in Nordic sustainable packaging, as Kirsi was referring, bag-in-boxes, PETs, Tetras, pouches. This is what is driving the lower emissions. This is what our key customers want from us to produce and offer for our consumers. That is why we believe that in this environment, in this business environment, our operative model today is by far the most complete in the Nordics. I move on following my colleague's example. First, talking about the core and Kirsi already explained to you in the beginning, what do we mean by the core?
Our plans to grow our business in the CORE is based on further expanding our key wine brands and partners to more markets and to do all of that in the most cost efficient way. We are very proud that we can already demonstrate some very, very significant successes starting from Denmark. I know that you guys maybe already had a few comments on Denmark in your past quarterly reports, but we still are very, very proud. I mean, we keep on growing our market share month by month and currently stand at 23% of the market. I think last quarter we did a more than 1.5% share growth in the Danish market. Another key milestone that we are very proud of.
Last summer, I think most of us here being Finns, I think it was in June, overnight again we managed to take over the leadership of the Finland 8% wine. I am again happy to say for everybody here that in the breakout session you will get, if you already haven't, you will get the opportunity to taste some of the 8% wine. We also have people who then explain a little bit further on what is the production method that only we use in order to squeeze out the best taste that can be done in those products. As already mentioned by my colleagues, something that we are very proud of this year, this year we are by far the fastest growing wine company in Sweden after very focused and conscious investments to our brands and to the market.
How do we take this further? Our plans for the future growth of our core are very, very straightforward. We plan to significantly increase the number of new product launches. Scale is very, very key in our fragmented wine market. Just as an example, each of the Nordic monopolies carry thousands of products in their assortments. Our primary target now moving forward will be the high volume segments, which in our case then would be bag-in-boxes, bottles, and obviously we would be targeting then the most popular countries of origin, and this would be Italy, Spain, Germany, Chile. Very, very clear target for us as well. Imre, we aim to grow 1 percentage points every year on a Nordic level.
With this target we would be moving from our current Nordic level to market share of about 16% to about 20% by the end of this planning period. That was about the core. Very straightforward launches scale, focusing on the most selling category segments and then the countries of origin that the consumers want to buy. Next I will briefly talk to you about the growing categories and sales channels that we have in wine. In wine, like in all the other alcoholic beverages categories, we see that consumers are increasingly moving into lighter, fresher, lower alcoholic products. Heavier and higher alcoholic red wines are in decline globally in the world and also here in the Nordics. Our in-house de-alkalization and new product capability last year helped us succeed in the 8% wine markets last year.
As you see, there will be more of that in the pipeline. Despite the quite respectable market share of 40% of all of these products, the good news is that these are also very appealing to non-wine drinkers and surprisingly often provide us with better margins than traditional wines. Many of these wines then will be available upstairs as well for a trying in the breakout session. To conclude my section, which I believe was a rather focused, straightforward session, I would summarize the message in two parts. Firstly, you understood in the core that our business, we will be focusing to utilize even more the scale and attractiveness of our own and our very strong partner portfolio. This the consumers, and hopefully you as well, will be seeing in terms of number of new launches, growing volumes in each of the Nordic and Baltic markets.
Secondly, we will be putting even more resources in the growing categories of low alcohol wine that we see that is picking up, especially aromatized wine and glöggs, where historically we already have a very, very, very strong foothold in our markets. Then, as the season of glöggs officially got started at least in Sweden, I guess here as well last weekend, I would like to conclude my section by introducing you to the latest season Blossa with the taste of the Alps. I have a small clip to conclude my talk. Please take it away. At least you would if you were in Sweden anyway. I think now it's back to Milena Hæggström.
Thank you, Kirsi. Thank you, segment heads. Could I please invite you all back on stage for the Q and A session. Let's now open up for questions before the coffee break, and let's start here with the live audience. Please raise your hand to Mark if you have a question.
Thank you for exciting presentation. This is Maria Wikström from SaaB. had few questions. I mean, first of all, on your EBITDA targets, what kind of market growth assumption do you have inbuilt in your guidance or targets.
I think we can maybe park some of the sort of financial questions to the second part of the Q and A when also Stein is here. I mean, as we said that our net sales target, there is no top line target at the moment, but the net sales target is that we outgrow the market and it's. I'll park that then to the second part of the Q and A. Okay.
Yeah. Okay. My follow up then to the next session, maybe giving a little bit more time for Stein to think about, is that I mean if the market, I mean if the market growth will be negative, are you still able to reach this targeted EUR 85-90 million? But let's.
Yeah, I think you will see, I mean Stein will show the EBITDA breakdown. You will see that there's some headwinds obviously included in the 50 million that we are now targeting. We will talk about that later.
My second question is maybe this is directly more to Janne and getting a little bit your, your view that I mean how much of the weakness in wine is related to people's health consciousness. And how much is related to very weak, I mean, global consumer.
I guess global consumer, especially in the heavier styles. I mean, this is a global phenomena. I think health consciousness. People, when they go out on Thursday evening, I think they'd rather have something low alcohol or at least something that is not a heavy alcohol red. This is something we see everywhere. Even if you go Spain, France, it is the whites, it is the roses that are picking it up. The first part of your question was whether it's the global thing or.
No, it was more that. I mean, how much is. Because now we have very weak global consumer. People have less money to spend. How much of the people are saving on?
That's what we have seen definitely for the past three years. If you look at all of our markets, even Norway, I mean, Norway I think started a bit later, but for the past two years we've been seeing consumers really drifting down to bag-in-boxes to EUR 2.69, EUR 2.67, EUR 2.90. This was never the case in Norway before. I mean, I've been here for 15 years and Norway was always the market where people were rather uptrading than downtrading. This is really the strongest trend in Norway for the past 18 months. I think Sweden is a bit different case because I think us, together with another big competitor, have been really fueling the market of really affordable bag-in-boxes, really affordable bottles. I think we are partly to blame that we've been giving consumers amazing options at amazing prices.
That is why we have been seeing down trading in Sweden as well. Finland, I think, is more stable. As we discussed in the break, I think Denmark is just stuck there. You know, a bag-in-box has been costing DKK 99. A bottle has been costing DKK 39 or DKK 45 for the past 15 years. The industry has not just been able to pull up those prices with the retailers yet, but we still want to believe that one day that will happen.
If I may take one more, which is that given that Sweden is so much bigger market compared to the other Nordic markets, wouldn't it make sense to put all the financial resources to Sweden? Because if you win there, you win big.
I think that's over. You're talking wine, I guess, but you still.
Wine.
Mainly wine.
Yeah. Okay. I mean, and we've been doing that. I mean, if you've been seeing our Q1, Q2, Q3 reports, again, Sweden being 220 million liters compared to about 50 here, about 70 Norway definitely makes sense. That's what you've been reading in every quarter. You'll be reading that in Q4 as well. I think where we are super happy that actually this investment that we consciously made on the biggest market, Sweden, has been now paying off for us. This is what you've been seeing this year and most likely now in the new strategy as well. Sweden will definitely be at the core of it.
Perfect. Thank you.
Excuse me, we have some difficulties to hear. Can you please change the mic? Thank you.
Right. Hi, thank you. Sanna Perela from Nordea. I have a couple of questions, perhaps first targeted to Kirsi. In your last CMD presentation, you expected the markets to grow, if I remember correctly, by 2% on average by 2025. Now you predict the declines of 2-3%. Can you just a little bit elaborate more, like what has changed since? Is it the consumer trends or.
I think it's many things. As I mentioned in the beginning of my presentation, the external and internal situation and the fact back then, although I'd rather not use too much time on looking back, but rather forward. Of course the world was very different back then and the COVID, I think Imre mentioned it in his presentation, that obviously the backdrop was very, very different from what it is now. Still, I think this strategy is focusing about taking share of the market, that it's not collapsing. I mean, we very often focus on the situation of the monopoly channels. It's not like the beverage business is dead or people have completely stopped drinking altogether. On the contrary, I would say that it's an interesting marketplace which is much wider than it has ever been before.
I don't think any of us can imagine going back to the 1990s when Finns bought only vodkas and Norwegians only aquavits and the rest beer. Now the variety is much wider. Therefore, very often compared to the, when we look at the declines, we talk about the declines in the monopolies, but there's still a lot of opportunities for us to get in this marketplace as well. The world was quite different, I think that is fair to say. What we believe now is that we can take a lot of share from the big categories in our current operating markets.
Right, thank you. Then I'll follow up with you. The selected acquisitions you mentioned, what do you prefer, if I could put it that way, is brands or complete companies, new product groups, markets?
This is a wish list. I don't know any of you who've done any sort of transactions in your careers earlier. It's not like you go and pick and choose. There are a list of opportunities we may or may not materialize. This strategy is very simple and sharp and execution of the core and organic growth. I think it would be fool to say that we wouldn't obviously look around with the time when the time is right that will be based on those three chosen growth areas that I mentioned. Whether it is building our core, whether it is building our adjacent channels or categories or whether it is boosting our international expansion. Those are the very sort of controlled areas. We will not go crazy and go to the marijuana business.
Looking at opportunities within those three growth areas, when or how it happens, the thing that we had definitely learned from that four years ago, I mean I think a couple of us happen to be in that CMD as well. The world has changed and what we have learned is that when you have any sort of transactions or acquisitions, you need to be really well prepared. Your due diligence needs to be done properly. You have to have a very strong execution plan and also the post merger plans. We will not get into anything before all of those elements are ready and are supporting one of the three growth areas.
Thanks, that's clear. Moving on to Imre, perhaps Koskenkorva is your leading export brand. Could you give us some more light? How well exactly is it doing in the export markets? I'm perhaps talking more about outside Nordics and perhaps outside Europe even. What is its best market and what would be like an ideal next expansion move.
I don't know it's ideal, but the next expansion move definitely is Netherlands. We just signed the contract, so actually 32, 33 countries globally. We are not measuring the market shares, but the growth ratio has been double digit in every market, and we have many good markets, you know, Switzerland being one of them, Poland as well, and Ukraine as well.
Thanks. You talked about RTDs being an important part in your growth going forward and they were an important part previously as well. We haven't heard like that much about RTDs recently. What will you change as of.
Now when it comes to RTDs, I guess it was this spring we had Ildes Aromat front page. I think as a company like us, it's the biggest thing you can do to kind of introduce what has been happening. We have grown a lot the distribution and we have activated the RTDs throughout the year. That's the name of the game.
All right, thank you. That's all for me now.
Hi, Rauli from Inderes. A few questions for me. Firstly, on the changes in the go to market model, can you just very simply explain what that is in concrete terms? Is it combining the sales teams of wine and spirit or something more?
Yes.
It's that.
That's it.
Great.
You said it. Next.
Is that already included in the ongoing negotiations and the EUR 7 million savings? Yes. Great.
As I said, as of 1st of January next year we have a leaner and faster organization. That is exactly that. This is mostly to do now with the wines and spirits organizations where we are combining the sales teams to have sort of a bigger portfolios and stronger teams towards our customers. That is a big theme.
Great. The second question to Janne on Denmark. The profitability there has been weak, I guess, although you have not been talking about it too much recently. The question is, is there something structural in Denmark in your view that profitability should be below the average of the wine segment or could it be lifted to the average level?
There is definitely something structural. I mean, it's a totally different market. I would rather start from the positives, which is that we are very competitive, we are gaining market share as it comes month by month. We are entering different categories. I mean, you will be seeing a lot of those aromatized drinks and aromatized wines which have a much higher profitability than the traditional 99 and 39 wines. I think then I'm working together with my best colleague, Hannu here, to get the factory obviously even more efficient and working at full capacity, because that will help my profitability. Our profitability, right, Hannu?
I guess from the nature of the market and your comments, you can conclude that the price pressure is there. Definitely harder.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, Denmark is a very different market compared to Norway, Sweden, and Finland, where then there's sort of a monopolistic situation, the way, let's say, monopolies search new products, you know, how they want to cover all price points, all styles, all regions. Whereas in a very cutthroat commercial market that is not the case. They just want to run big volumes, the cheapest price points, maybe a bit black and white, but obviously Denmark, the wine market is very different in nature than in the rest of the Nordics.
Great, thank you.
Do we still have time for one more question?
Yes, please, go ahead.
Yeah, I'm from opmarkets. First question to Hannu, like it was very interesting, the classical whale chart in which you show kind of the, which are the profitable products and which are then kind of the less profitable part. But then maybe a combined question to all the segment leaders. You are willing to cut the SKUs quite significantly, I understood. At the same time you're bringing some new products which are obviously the most profitable ones probably. To gain the market share, I think you need to trim down the portfolio quite significantly. Are the new launches enough to offset the lost volumes or could you elaborate that?
Maybe if I start from wine. I mean I think we are the ones standing by far. Most of those 5,000 and I think we've done the classification. We have A products, B products, and C products. C products are then mostly small products for on trade purposes. I think that's where the cuts will start. First, A products are then the big monopoly listings, the big listings in Denmark. We definitely want to have more of those A products in all of the countries because then they really drive the volumes, the business, the efficiencies in all of our logistics operations, warehouse.
I think we want to have a shift from having a big tail of especially on-trade products between the, especially the three monopoly countries, and then move a little bit less of the SKUs but to As and Bs where then the volumes and efficiencies are much higher than on the Cs.
Maybe if I continue a little bit, the harmonization with what we are doing with Imre's and Janne's team is focused on the building blocks. The components, how we build those. That is reducing the number of raw materials. That is helping us then on the production side.
All right then one more question to Hannu actually. So regarding the sourcing excellence and other efficiency measures you're taking. It's been a while since the merger was and also the most recent acquisition to Globus Wine. Why only now, like what has happened during the previous years? I mean now it's clear plan, but like what is different this time, so to say?
Of course we have been working on the efficiencies all the way and like I said we had some operational issues that we had to tackle on the way. That took our resources to get away those. It was inventory related stability in the operations and so forth. In the centers of excellence we made a lot of product transfers between the plants, optimizing the locations and that kind of things. We have been working and building kind of constantly towards the more efficient supply chain and now we are taking the next step, taking that even further.
Is that okay if I build on that? Obviously the FFF program, it's not a one off exercise and maybe up until now there's been more of a sort of squeezing, slicing and one off exercises. This is a transformation program that takes for three years. Within these three years we are investigating and have been investigating every single part of the company. Many of the things after the merger obviously took time and then obviously some things we didn't succeed with. Now this is a clear transformation program with very detailed work streams as to how do we improve the profitability and get back to the growth path. I would say that I've not seen the program of this scale during my eleven and a half years in the company before.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have a schedule here to keep. We can take one more chat question. Sorry, there was a—please go ahead.
Thank you for the really insightful presentations. As wine represents half your sales, I'll drill down only on that. Can you comment? Of course there's business secrets and so forth, but on your new product development pipeline because you say that okay, whether the market grows or not, you're going to grow faster. Just very briefly on that and we can of course discuss in more detail after hours.
You mean on wine?
Wine, exactly, wine.
I think that the bestest example, what again maybe we should have done a bit earlier, but better late than never. I mean the big growth that we currently are experiencing in Sweden, I mean that is now based on the Danish portfolio. You will be seeing more and more of the very, very successful consumer tested, market winning portfolio that we've been developing in Denmark.
Taking that, now we are taking that to Sweden. You will be seeing that taking to Finland, taking to Norway, taking to the Baltics because of its already consumer tested, very commercial wines, big volume wines. This will be the key part of us not working on the smaller S or C items but really moving into the A and B items. Denmark will be the main source of ready made products that we can very, very quick launch to the monopoly markets.
Thank you. Let's have one chat question before going to the coffee break. Please be reminded that you can also keep on posting these comments and questions to the chat. We will handle those later in the second Q&A session. One question coming from Kevin Rosario: can you comment on your approach to the travel retail market?
I can obviously start if you want to. I mean, travel retail continues to be a very important channel for us because that's in the monopoly markets in particular. That's the channel where we can actually promote and showcase our brands. I mean, we are number one in the travel retail channel in this area. I mean, all the ferry lines and airports and the likes in each of our countries are very important for us in showcasing our brands, especially the spirits brands. Of course, we have the Blossa and lovely wines of this world as well. Travel retail continues to be a very important channel for us and we are obviously looking for growth there as well, even growing the share which is already quite high in this channel.
Anything you want to add?
Maybe this year has been exceptional. GTR has been growing quite nicely. We are on a good track.
Great. Thank you for excellent question. This completes the first session of our CMD before the coffee break and we are a bit behind schedule. I would like to invite you back in 15 minutes. That would be 1:45 Finnish time or 12:45 CET. Let's get back then. The link is the same one. Thank you. Thank you.
Very good.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes. Welcome back everyone. This morning, Kirsi laid out our strategic direction. How Anora will rebuild strength and restore value creation through the Fit, Fix and Focus framework. Hannu then showed what that means operationally, how we're simplifying, cutting complexity and improving efficiency across our production and supply footprint. Imre took us into the commercial engine, showing how value management, innovation and pricing discipline will strengthen margins and create growth in spirits. Janne demonstrated how we will translate that commercial discipline into growth, expanding our wine business, building stronger partnerships and taking share in key categories. Together, they've shown that the operational and commercial actions that underpin the transformation. My job is now to connect all of this back to the numbers to show you what it means financially. In this section, I will take you through where we stand today.
How the Fit & Fix phases will restore profitability and how the Focus phase will create sustainable growth. How all of this translates into stronger cash generation and returns for our shareholders. Let me be clear. Fit, Fix and Focus is not just the framework. It's our roadmap to restore Anora's competitiveness, our cash flow and ultimately shareholder returns. Let me start by summarizing what our Fit, Fix and Focus transformation means in financial terms. Over the next three years, we are targeting 6%-7% annual growth in comparable EBITDA, taking us from around EUR 70 million-EUR 75 million in 2025, up to EUR 85 million-EUR 90 million by 2028. The Fit phase, which we are currently executing, will deliver the first step, about EUR 20 million in improvement as we address cost inefficiencies, simplifying the organization, improve operational disciplines, as well as savings in sourcing.
The Fixed phase will build on this, adding another EUR 20 million primarily through value management as well as supply chain optimization and portfolio and inventory reduction. In Focus, we unlock the next EUR 10 million in profitable growth by channeling most of our resources toward our core and our strongest brands and most attractive markets. At the same time, we do recognize the external environment impact, inflationary pressures, category shift and slower consumer demand, and that we need to offset. As a CFO, that's what I like about this strategy, that even in a negative volume environment, this trajectory is achievable. This is not a theoretical strategy because it reflects productivity, discipline and focus, not volume dependency. That's the essence of becoming financially fit again. Before moving into the different phases, I wanted to show you one important slide.
Today our operations are supported by several legacy systems which adds cost and complexity. One of our most important enablers will be to simplify our systems and processes. This is where we build the foundation for efficiency and scalability. As you can see on the left hand side of this slide, our IT and analytics landscape is fragmented. We currently have two ERP systems across the group. We have different templates, we have inconsistent master data and a variety of support tools across supply chain, HR and finance. The same applies to analytics. We currently have more than six tools in use and until very recently with decentralized teams and inconsistent reporting. I think it's needless to say that this drives complexity, it drives cost, slow decision making, and it also makes integration across the group unnecessarily difficult.
However, this is the good news and maybe some of you are skeptic, but I'm very positive. By the beginning of 2026 we will move to one unified ERP platform across Anora and this will reduce the complexity, it will strengthen the collaboration and improve visibility and control. We will also implement common support tools. We will have one HR platform, one treasury and cash management tool, and a single BI and analytics environment that delivers one source of truth and provide faster insights across the business. Together this standardization will reduce manual work, it will improve transparency and shorten decision making cycles. We can move over to the different phases of the Fit, Fix and Focus part of the program.
Both Kirsi and Hannu already touched upon this. A key objective of the Fit phase is to structurally reduce our cost base to make Anora efficient, scalable, and resilient. Our Fit program targets EUR 20 million in OpEx and spend savings by 2028. I also want to highlight that this is not across-the-board cost cutting. It is, as Kirsi mentioned, targeted simplification of the organization as well as fewer systems, fewer overlapping roles, and more scalable processes. We will attack all cost elements in our organization. As you can see on the left-hand side, our OpEx base in 2024 was around EUR 231 million. Hence, we have something to address. On the right-hand side of the chart, you can see where the spend sits: roughly half in liquids, one third in indirect cost, and a remainder across packaging material and grain.
Here we are doing measurable actions where we have centralized sourcing under one global team. This team, under Hannu's responsibility, will secure that we are streamlining the product portfolio to reduce complexity, harmonizing packaging formats, and renegotiating supply contracts with focus on both input cost and payment terms. These initiatives will make each EUR of spend more productive. It will free up resources for investment in growth. Once we move into the Fix and Focus phases, the Fix phase is about restoring gross margin that especially during the years from 2021 to 2023 had a very weak development. I think it's fair to say it was mainly due to increased input cost, but also fairly weak revenue management. However, value management changes that. We are building pricing governance, we are building tools and capabilities to protect and grow margin.
We are optimizing ABV levels, we're doing margin accretive innovations as well as to secure good mix and promotions. In parallel, we will implement a much more structured revenue management framework. This also includes then clear governance, defined pricing responsibility and maybe what I'm most excited about, we're building a very strong analytical price tool, probably the best in the industry, hopefully that we will roll out in Q1 next year. Together these measures will drive a step change in pricing discipline and margin recovery, creating a stronger base for the profitable growth than planned in the Focus phase. Let's move then into the Focus phase. As we move from Fixed to Focus, the emphasis shifts from restoring margins to driving profitable growth. Our ambition is to generate around EUR 10 million in incremental EBITDA during the Focus phase.
As you can see here, the majority of that will come from focusing on our core business. That is also what I like about this strategy, about 75% of the top line impact will come from strengthening our core brands and core markets by improving brand equity, optimizing route to market, and capturing share in segments where we already have strong positions. Around 15% will come from increasing exposure in growing categories and channels, e.g. RTD's, low alcohol innovations, and grocery sales channels where consumer demand is growing. The remaining 10% will come from international growth, building on the early success that we have seen with selected brands outside the Nordics, like Koskenkorva, but in a disciplined, capital light way. Together these levers will position us to deliver sustained, profitable growth once we enter the focus phase. Growth that is margin accretive and cash generative.
As I said, the Focus phase is about growth, but it's on new terms. As I said, we will focus on the core mainly. Let me take a moment where I show you where Anora stands today in our core categories and, more importantly, where the opportunities lie. This table is maybe somewhat CFO friendly, but I like it because it summarizes our market share across the Nordic and Baltic markets, both in a monopoly and in the grocery channels. As you can see marked in green and white, we currently hold leading positions in several spirits and wine categories, but there are still significant white spots, areas where our market share remains well below potential.
For example, as you can see in spirits outside the monopolies, particularly in Denmark and the Baltics, Anora's market share is still below 20% and these markets represent a major growth headroom given a strong brand portfolio and route to market capabilities. Maybe even more exciting, in markets where we already have a strong and solid position, like in Finland, like in Sweden, there is still opportunity to grow by attacking open white spots like red wine that I will comment on the next slide. What I'm trying to say is that we are prioritizing growth investments and partnerships in categories and geographies where you can capture the most value. Just to remind you, and this is an important number for some of you, 1 percentage point gain market share is around EUR 20 million in incremental sales.
While Anora already has a strong foundation, this clearly shows that our next growth wave will come from focusing on core from targeted expansion in underpenetrated categories and channels. I could have shown you hundreds of examples. I restrict myself to show you two examples, but I think this is quite exciting. Here are two very clear examples on how we see untapped potential in our core categories and, more importantly, how we're acting on it. On the left-hand side, you see Italian red wine bag-in-box segment in Sweden. This is a market that represents more than 40% of the total bag-in-box red wine market in Sweden. Yet our market share in 2024 was only around 1%.
That means in the beginning of this year we were dramatically underrepresented despite we're having the scale, we're having the production capabilities, we're having the brands, and we're having the route to market to compete much stronger here. This is what Janne talked about, that we need to attack the big volume segments in the market. On the right-hand side you see the same type of opportunities in whiskies in Sweden. The whiskey category in Sweden is huge and well segmented across price tiers. As you can see here, Anora's market share is heavily skewed towards the low end and the opportunity zone is in the middle and upper price tiers where 80% of the market volume sits. This is an example where we need to focus our efforts.
I think these are two good examples of Focus initiatives that would drive future top line recovery. Strengthening our core brand portfolio, sharpening our pricing and value management, and building strong partnerships. In short, this is about winning back relevance in a Nordic core and translating that into sustainable growth. As you know, creating shareholder value is not only about delivering profit, it is also about capital. Driving higher return on capital is not only about one initiative, it is about pulling every lever with discipline. These levers are, first of all, we are going to deliver 6-7% yearly annual EBITDA growth. I already explained that in detail.
The other levers are, first of all, when it comes to CapEx, Anora has historically had low CapEx levels and as you can see, during the last three years we have been pretty stable at around 1.8% of net sales during the last three years. That being said, we do expect a temporary increase to around 2.5-3% between 2026 and 2028. That is mainly because of the already announced bio investment in the biomass boiler in Koskenkorva and possibly, but not certainly, the ERP modernization program. I think it is important to say that longer term, however, we do expect CapEx to normalize at around 2% of net sales, ensuring efficient capital deployment and solid returns. Arno, I think you had an excellent presentation when it came to working capital. Glad to see that we are on the same boat.
We also need to improve our working capital. Our working capital in % of net sales has improved during the last years and is mainly due to the disposal of Larsen. Also, we increased factoring, as some of you know, factoring all the receivables. Going forward, we also aim to continue to reduce working capital. Here is how we are going to do it. First of all, we need to cut SKUs. 5,000 SKUs contributing. With 5,000 SKUs, only 500 of them contributing with 10% of our gross profit. We have certainly a potential to reduce the number of SKUs. Secondly, payables, we are consolidating suppliers and introducing supply chain financing. Very relevant. On receivables, we will tighten credit control and also use better data for risk management. Finally, on M and A, I just want to highlight our approach will be highly disciplined.
Every opportunity must demonstrate a clear strategic fit and a return profile with IRR above our work. These four levers together define how Anora restores return on invested capital and increases shareholder value. Moving over to cash flow and cash generation. It is and will remain a top financial priority for Anora. On the left you see our operational cash flow before changes in working capital. After a weak 2023, we already see clear improvement in 2024 and the run rate in 2025 is even better. On the right hand side you see the development of net debt and leverage following once again the divestment of Larsen in 2023. Increased factoring and a strong focus on cash discipline has resulted in our leverage ratio improving significantly and we keep the target below 2.5 for the rest of the period throughout the year.
To sum up, cash generation is improving, leverage is under control and we have the financial capacity to support both growth and shareholder returns as we move into the execution of our strategy. Maintaining capital discipline is key and this slide summarizes how we allocate capital, balancing investment for growth with attractive shareholder returns and a strong balance sheet. This is the prioritization. First, organic growth will continue to be our main focus. We will direct investments in AMP towards our core and top performing brands to support new product launches and particularly in categories and channels with clear headroom for growth. Second, we will continue to deliver an attractive dividend in the range of 50-70% on net results, ensuring that shareholders participate in our progress. This balance between reinvestment and distribution is key to maintaining financial discipline while at the same time rewarding owners.
Third, we remain committed to a strong balance sheet. Our leverage target stays below 2.5 times net debt to EBITDA. This gives us flexibility to invest in growth and still preserve resilience in a volatile environment. Finally, selective M and A will continue to play a role, but with a much more focused scope. We will pursue opportunities to strengthen our portfolio and market reach, like Kirsi already mentioned, in adjacent categories, channels or geographic markets, but only when there is a clear strategic and financial fit. Together these four principles define how we will allocate capital, strengthening our balance sheet, safeguarding dividends and investing in the future, all while maintaining strict return discipline. To wrap it up, as you have seen today, you see how the Fit, Fix and Focus work together as one coherent plan.
We have a clear line in sight from operational actions to financial outcomes, from savings to structural improvements, and from improvements to sustainable growth. Let us end this section with once again reminding you about our financial targets until the end of 2028. Annual comparable EBITDA growth of 6-7%, organic growth above or to exceed market growth, leverage below 2.5, and dividend payout ratio between 50-70% on net profit. Anora is still in transformation, but the direction is clear. We are rebuilding performance, we are strengthening our balance sheet, and restoring value creation. Fix is about getting the basics right and cutting costs. Fix restores profitability and competitiveness, and focus will deliver sustainable growth. This transformation will not happen overnight, but it is fully within our control. We know what to do. We have the means to do it.
As we heard from the team today, the execution is already underway and we are resilient no matter what the market does or behaves. With that, Milena.
Thank you, Stein. Could I please also invite Kirsi back on stage? Now let's open up for questions among the live audience. We have the microphones here. Please go ahead there in the back.
Thank you. Tom Melamoney from DNB Carnegie. You provided us an illustration of EUR 50 million EBITDA improvement. Yes, but the net impact is only EUR 15 million. So EUR 35 million, two-thirds, disappear. Can you say a few words about what's happening there? Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, it's a little bit related to also what Maria asked for. First of all, I think you can call it a buffer because we still expect the volume development in the Nordics to be negative and not positive. I think also Kirsi had it on her slide. We expect -3% volume decline, yearly volume decline in spirits, more than 2% in wine. And then also we have a buffer related to inflationary pressure and unexpected events. Like I also said, that's what I like about this plan, especially the two first phases, Fit & Fix. It's really up to the management to deliver.
I think we, on Q3 we said that the market decline was 3.4%. Obviously we can't predict what the future is. We wanted to take that into the consideration equation to our. That this happens regardless of any headwinds that we will face.
Thank you. Do we have any more questions in the live audience? Marias.
Maybe continuing on that subject, I think, I mean, I think you alluded that you have built in quite a lot of buffers, I mean, for the current guidance. Besides the declining alcohol consumption, is there like some risk factors, I mean that you currently are considering in your business for the next upcoming three to five years?
If I start, I mean obviously people speculate about the role of monopolies, for example, but we basically, we've said it before as well that we will operate regardless of the risk scenarios. I think we are. I think you mentioned it in one of your last sentences that I think Anora is a very stable operator. As we hopefully demonstrated to you today, we're also very agile in moving depending on how the market behaves. No other major risks in our sight, but we are flexible to change, of course, our operations according to the changes in the marketplace.
Just to open up a bit on the, you showed the composition of your OpEx and I was quite surprised to see that the distribution cost was quite, I mean, a tiny part out of everything. Is there a meaningful impact? I mean, if more, or thinking about like now, I mean, you are quite agile, I mean, moved these 8% wines to the grocery stores, which is a different distribution channel than the monopolies. Did that have a significant impact on the cost base or the profitability? Would it make sense, I mean, if you get more products into the grocery channel, would that improve your margins?
The 8%? Yeah, sure. I mean, there's obviously different profitability structure in the grocery. There is. Sometimes you have to take short-term losses for the longer-term gains. That's exactly what, for example, the 8% wines for us have been, that, okay, our market share is very, very impressive in the Finnish grocery. In other monopoly markets, we don't obviously see the similar phenomenon happening in the next three years. As far as the other markets are concerned, whether it is the Baltics or Denmark, we obviously are already operating in an open market environment. Once you get more volume, then of course the profitability also improves. We have taken all that into the calculations. I don't know if you want to elaborate.
Yeah, I can. I mean the logistics cost is fairly, fairly similar delivering to grocery chains or alcohol in this case. I also think it's fair to say that margins into the grocery is not, is not worse than what we have towards the monopoly channel. It is actually margin accretive and not dilutive.
Finally, still the status update of your ERP integration process that I mean should we basically, I mean, take our wines now or do you expect it to run smoothly?
I got the same question, Maria from Uber, in the Q3 presentation. I feel very confident that the ERP integration of all Arcus into the Altia Anora SAP platform will be a success, at least right now. I mean, and this is not a full new ERP implementation. Basically, we're taking the older into the Anora platform. This is not a big transformation or revolution. It's just doing maybe what we should have done some years ago because this will also give us much more insight into, for example, procurement. Currently, we see that we have different payment terms towards the same suppliers in the two different systems. We get much better overview of our total spend and also our payment terms. This is what I said initially. This is enabler also for taking out cost synergies
But I guess it's safe to say technical go live mid November, right?
Yes, in a couple of weeks.
Exactly. I think obviously everything can go still wrong, but I mean we choose to believe positive and, and looking really, really good.
Yeah.
And it was more the comments of the Norwegian suit actually. I mean, stack day wines now. I mean, before the next one and a half weeks.
Thank you. Do we have any more live questions here among the audience? They're in the back.
Hi, Victor Janssen from Selenium. Thank you for a good presentation. I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit on the role of sold receivables and supply chain finance going forward. Thank you.
Yes, I can take that. That question. As you know, on our, we expanded our sales of receivable program. I believe it was back in April 2023 when we then also included Sustainable Ag and Vinmonopolet. There has been no changes lately in the sales of receivable. We did also sell our receivables to Globus Wine for the, sorry, the old Danish operation and that we cut out. I believe it was almost a year ago. No changes in that sense. When it comes to supply chain financing, as I said, we will consider to use it if we find it reasonable and of course the supplier finds it reasonable, but yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you. Do we have—yes, we have here in the front have a question.
Matti from the OP, one question regarding timeline. Your new organization will be in place around New Year, right? Then probably some layoff course coming at the beginning of the year. Like, when we can expect, like, if we think about the first half of next year, what we could expect as this improvement to kind of deliver already back then, or let's say the whole next year taking into account is one of course.
We decided you will answer that question. Yes, as far as the, when the organization is fully in place that will be officially 1st of January next next year depending on the negotiations which are progressing as planned.
When it comes to one off cost, we did in Q3, we had no one off costs because we are still in negotiations with the unions. I think it's fair to say we do expect some one off cost in Q4 and also during next year. I don't know if I should reveal a number, but there will be definitely some one off cost both this year and next year.
How should we assume about the savings coming visible, the p. And also is it then the second half of next year probably or yeah.
That's the thinking.
Yeah. The savings from especially the OpEx reductions you will see already from January. Yeah.
Thank you.
One more question from the live audience. If we have no more questions, then I will move over to the chat. Please also remember that you can ask questions throughout the chat. Still, we have two questions at the moment, and the first one is from them at SEB. It is about cost saving measures. How will you ensure that the cost saving measures in the different strategy phases do not compromise the growth of your core brands and investments in innovation?
We have a very robust plan overall. As alluding to the organization chains, for example, this has been calculated so that it would not sacrifice the growth ambition. The growth ambition especially from the core and core, let alone the adjacent channels. We have already made some investments earlier so that we do not foresee any cuts in the areas where we are growing. Therefore the thinking of course is that this will not sacrifice the growth.
I'm sorry if I can't comment because it's a very good question. I think the point here is to channelize the resources to the core and the big segments. I think Janne already mentioned it. If you look at the biggest segments, for example in Sustainable Lager, I believe the 20 biggest segments, that's related to countries and related to packaging format. That's 80% of all the total revenue in Sustainable Lager. It's really about those 100 yearly innovations that Janne showed. It's really about concentrating those innovations towards the core and not towards the tail. If we secure that, then we also secure that we are putting enough AMP behind the launches.
I think also what Rauli was asking before about what does exactly mean? We have actually had duplications earlier. Now we're sort of having one solid core team delivering on the big portfolios or the core portfolios that we have. It is rather getting rid of the complexities that we've had previously than anything else.
Thank you. There is a question from Antti Snellman about the industrial business. The industrial business area has primarily served as an enabler of the beverage business for Anora. Have you considered the growth opportunities of the industrial segment beyond the application areas of the beverage industry? Anora possesses unique expertise and strong capabilities in refining and commercializing Finnish barley for new application areas, for example.
It's a very good question.
Greetings to Antti. Hannu, do you want to maybe elaborate?
Microphone here in the front, please.
Yes, thank you Anthe for the question. Very good question. Industrial products of course is constantly looking to commercialize more and taking the older fractions out of the grain that we are using in Koskenkorva and that is actually part of our supply chain optimization where we are looking the full value chain. Industrial products is belonging into that analyst.
I think it's fair to say, Hannu, that we are currently working on some exciting stuff but we won't reveal anything. Right, but we are looking into it. That's correct, yes.
Thank you so much. Unfortunately the time is ticking so we have to start to wrap things up. Thank you Stein and Kirsi. Kirsi, I am now handing over to you for closing remarks.
Thank you for excellent questions and hopefully there will be more during the breaks. Why did we want to organize the CMD at this time? One of the key objectives was to really help you understand what we are doing to restore your confidence in us. Fit, Fix and Focus is our solution to beat the recent challenges. What we got here is a pragmatic, executable plan. It is not a one-off exercise, as I have said a couple of times, but it is a transformation program. We cannot promise you massive market growth in the Nordics, but despite the market headwinds, we believe our plan is robust and something that carries us through the tough times to a brighter future. We feel very confident about it, but we of course need now you, the market, to follow that confidence.
We know the beverage business in this region, we have the portfolio and we have the business model that continue to perform in the Nordics and the Baltics. Thank you to all of you for taking the time to listen to our story and finally turning around the company is not a one woman show. There is an excellent team behind today's work. I want to thank our entire executive management team and all the presenters today and also want to thank our EIR and communication team for their hard work behind the scenes and then our passionate marketing and salespeople who have prepared us some lovely cocktails and fun in the breakout rooms. Thank you all for your interest and support and hopefully strengthened belief in Anora's future. Cheers.
Just one thing before closing, I would like to remind you of our short and simple feedback questionnaire. You can see the link and the QR code here and it is also in your slide deck. Basically, if you can have a moment, please just do it quickly. As Kirsi said, thank you all for joining Anora CMD2025. Excellent questions and look forward to your further discussion.