Good morning. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, dear shareholders, board of directors, dear colleagues. I'm extremely happy to be here today and to present to you our annual report 2024, and also give you some insights about how we are planning to proceed in the future with this company. I'd like to start by thanking the board for the trust and the confidence in me and our team here, and we are very sure that we can drive this company forward in a profitable way. I'd like to first of all introduce my team to you. Many of them are known to you, but still I think it's worth having a look and introducing themselves very briefly. Let me start with Ann O’Hara, our North America President. She's with us since four years. Thank you, Ann.
Then we have a new President for our Flexible Packaging business, Axel Glade. He will join us not later than January 1, 2026. But we are very fortunate to have an interim President for our Flexible business, Hans-Peter Edelbluth, who is here. Hans-Peter is doing an excellent job in flexibles. He's with the company since a couple of years, and thanks for helping us in the interim. I'd like to introduce you next to Fredrik Davidsson. Fredrik is the President of our Foodservice Packaging business. Then we have Sara, Sara Engberg. He just-- she just started on April 1, and she's President of our Fiber Packaging business, with the company since a long time, and now President of our Fiber Packaging business. Thanks, Sara. Also, brand new on the team is Changsheng Wu, started on April 1. He's our CPO.
Thomas Geust, CFO since 2013, 12 years already with the company and CFO. Thank you, Thomas. Ingolf Thom is our Executive Vice President, Human Resources and Safety, and with the company since 3 years. Sami Pauni, longest Huhtamäki-serving executive. He's with the company since 2006, on the GET since 2015. Johan, Johan Rabe is our Executive Vice President, Digital and Process Performance, with the company since 2 years. Thank you, Johan. Look, before we get started, I'd like to give an overview about our ambition, an ambition which was described 2 years back, and which is really our North Star in guiding us in what we need to achieve for you, the shareholders. It's ambitious about 4 points. Number one is our growth. We need to accelerate our growth. We have an ambition to grow 5%-6%.
We did not grow 5%-6% in the past, but we are clear that this is a very important subject for us. So we give ourselves not a tick on that one, because still work to be done on that ambition. Second ambition which we have is an adjusted EBIT margin of 10%-12%. Last year was the first time in our history, and we have 105 years of history, where we achieved 10.1% EBIT margin. So we are extremely proud of the delivery of that number, and this team really deserves a compliment for achieving that number last year. On the return on investment side, we have an ambition to be somewhat between 13%-15%. We are currently tracking just over 12%, so not yet there.
Still work to be done, and we are confident that we will get that one as well. Pardon me. Then finally, as the chairman presented before, we have our leverage. We want to be in the range of 2-3 times net debt to EBITDA. We are now at the lower range of 2. Also, after the first quarter, still at that lower range at 2, which is extremely important. Then we want to pay out dividends to you. We want to pay out dividends with a payout ratio of 40%-50% every year, and if approved today, we will show the 16th consecutive year in a row, dividend improvement with a yield of 3.2%. Now, our strategy, which was presented a couple of years back, is intact. It's a very strong strategy, and we are all standing behind that strategy.
We want to further drive that strategy, as the chairman said, with three points. Three really important points to us are: accelerating profitable growth, number one, disciplined capital allocation, number two, and accountability, which will help us to speed up execution in our businesses as number three. The accelerating profitable growth will be driven by two levers. One is the organic side, getting closer to our customers, increasing intimacy with our customers. And then most, and that's really important in our industry, deliver on time, in full, in spec, all the time. Make it hassle-free for our customers so that they can focus on what they are there to do, which is delivering the consumers. Inorganic. We have described also inorganic growth, bolt-on acquisitions, as a lever to help us grow this company.
When I talk about bolt-ons, we really want to focus on the segments and the areas where we have higher yields. We want to focus on technology and products which we know well, in areas where we have management teams who know their businesses well, have strong teams, and of course, projects where we have sound financial returns and good synergy opportunities. When we think about capital allocation, it's really important for us to use the capital in a very smart and wise way. We decided last year already to bring the total capital we are spending down from EUR 320 million average to something like EUR 250 million. Last year, we ended up with EUR 248 million.
That's important because we still need to fuel our engine of growth, so one of the buckets we want to invest in is growth. Another bucket we want to invest behind is productivity, efficiency, and the third bucket, with 100 or so locations around the world, we of course want to also invest behind the maintenance. Underlined is then the license to operate, so whenever we invest in safety, in sustainability to fulfill regulations, we call this license to operate. It's a smaller portion, but an important portion as well. With that, we are able to continuously grow our company. Now, accountability and speed of execution. It's really important that we give the businesses, our segments, they are really driving that business.
We give them the accountability to drive it, to have the power and be at the market and with the customers all the time, so that they can drive our performance. So with that regard, we had made a number of decisions which are really important. Already on my first day, we announced the split of the management of Fiber and Foodservice. Two very distinct markets, very different production lines, so we split it, and as I introduced you before, colleagues Fredrik for Foodservice and Sara for Fiber are now running these distinct businesses. It's extremely important to us. We also then announced that we are going to take sustainability when it comes to product, and when it comes to operation sustainability, that we take this back into the segments to increase the speed.
It will make us even stronger on the sustainability side and enable us to be a sustainable packaging provider to our customers. We now, with the appointment of Changsheng Wu, enabled us to have a global procurement and to have the leverage of all our products which we buy, all our input costs, and make us even more competitive going forward, which will enable us to drive growth as well. Now we are planning to go to the next step, which is taking human resources operations, as well as our IT local services, also back to the segments and giving them that access to again increase speed of execution. So a number of really important things are happening, but we should not forget that there's the other side to it, which is the headquarter, the center.
There are certain functions which we believe need to stay there, other than just the governance, the reporting side of it, the coordination side of it. There are also very important things where we can drive value. Treasury, we do it together, we can save money for the company. Tax, we do it together, we can save money. And as I mentioned before, of course, procurement, buying together for the whole company will enable us to save money. So it's a good combination of where we have the expertise on the one side and where we have the market and the business knowledge on the other side. That will enable us, with a clear focus on accountability, to drive us forward. Now, it is important to us to also present to you our value creation model.
And it's important because we always need to understand why we are doing what we are doing, because we want to create value for you, our shareholders. And we want to use the cash which this business is generating, and we want to use it in twofold. One is to give it back to the business in high-yielding projects, where we can make money and create even more cash. I showed you our ambition before. We want to grow profitably this business. That will create even more cash. We will manage our working capital, which will create even more cash. And then we give this back into the business, into the CapEx, which we need to continuously grow that business, or we give it back to the business for our bolt-on acquisitions.
The second part to all of that, of course, is then the return for you, the shareholders. We look at that in twofold. One is every year we want to pay back 40%-50% of our earnings as dividend. As I mentioned before, if approved today, it will be the 18th year in a row with increased dividends, with a CAGR of 8%, compounded annual growth of 8% of our dividends. If there's surplus, there's surplus cash where we don't have good ways to invest it in a profitable way, we will find other means to give it back to shareholders. Now, let me now go to the review of 2024, and it's extremely important to see that our bottom line, our EBIT, is at the highest level ever.
It's a 10.1% margin, strong increase from the year before, driven not by the top line, you see the top line was not growing, but really driven by our cost efficiency program. Our chairman reported before that we delivered, that we delivered EUR 76 million of cost savings last year, which of course, helped us to increase our EBIT, because a big part of that we were able to maintain in-house. Three of our four business segments had a great year and improved their profits, both in absolute as well as in relative terms. North America, Flexible Packaging and Fiber, all of them had improved years in both those terms, and our Foodservice Packaging will deliver in the future as well. Our leverage...
is coming down year after year, and we are now at a leverage of 2x, supported by our very strong cash flows. And the way we are measuring is net debt to EBITDA. So it's in the range. It allows us to invest the money behind the markets and the segments where we see profits coming from. A really impressive chart. I learned that this is the Finnish company with the longest track record of payout, increasing payout of dividends, so extremely proud. Hopefully, this will be approved today. We announced our first quarter earlier on, and we are happy to report that in a very volatile market with geopolitical issues, now tariffs, of course, also giving us insecurity and uncertainty, we were able to deliver spot on on last year.
Top line and EBIT on last year, with reduced use of CapEx, as we are much more disciplined now, and again, delivering net debt to EBITDA at the lower end of our range at 2. Last night, at 9:15 P.M., we were able to sign and close our first bolt-on acquisition, and it's spot on to what I'd mentioned to you before. It's in a segment where we have a very strong team. It's in a segment where we have also clear understanding of the products and the technology, and it's also happened to be in our North American business, where we have invested already behind our egg packaging a year or so ago, and we see that ramping up nicely during 2025.
So Zellwin Farms, a small bolt-on acquisition, but really ticking the box of what we want to do, growing and accelerating our growth, both organically and inorganically. So we are looking forward to welcoming our 70 new coworkers in Orlando over these days. Look, this company is about creating shareholder value. We have delivered dividends over 18 years in a row, if approved today. We are growing our business. We are very strong on our bottom line, so there are many opportunities for us to continue the good progress which we have made over the last year. Our strategy, 2030, is intact. We are standing behind this, and we have 3 focus areas which will help us to drive that. Number 1 is accelerating profitable growth through organic and inorganic levers. Number 2 is very disciplined capital allocation, and Number 3 is very clear accountability.
This very strong management team will support us delivering those results to you. Look, thank you so much for listening, and I look forward to your questions.