We'll get started now. Dear analysts and investors, good afternoon. Welcome to 2023 annual announcement of our results by WH Group. We will talk about financial summary, business review, strategies, and outlook. We have with us from the management, Mr. Wan Long, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director; Mr. Guo Lijun, Executive Director and CEO, Executive Director and President of Shuanghui; Mr. Ma Xiangjie... President of Shuanghui... Mr. Charles Shane Smith, CEO , Ms. Yau Kam Yin, Vice President, Mr. Zhou Xiaoming. I am Wan Hongwei, Deputy Chairman of the Board and Executive Director, and also today's moderator. Mr. Guo will take us through the financial summary.
Dear investors and analysts, good afternoon. I'm going to report to you the performance highlights of 2023. Packaged meat sold 3.2 million tons, a drop of 4.4%.
Pork sold 3.9 million tons, down by 1.5%. Revenue, $26 billion, down 6.8%. EBITDA, $1.9 billion, down by 37%. Operating profit, $1.47 billion, down 29%. Profit before tax, $1.024 billion, down 53%. Profit attributable to owners of the company, $606 million, down 56%. All such profit figures are before biological asset fair value adjustments. Basic earnings per share, $0.0472, down by 56.8%. Based on the operation and financial performance, we are proposing interim dividend per share, HKD 0.05, and proposed final dividend, HKD 0.25. So the combined dividend is 0.3, which is the same as last year.
It will be issued after the conclusion of the shareholders' meeting. We will share the incentive of $490 million in total. Packaged meat contributes 51.1% of revenue and 139.4% of profit. For the pork and others business, 41.2% contribution in terms of revenue and a loss of $480 million. For others segment, 7.3% contribution and loss of $99 million. Revenue by region, China contribution, one-third of revenue and 64% of profit. U.S. and Mexico, 54% contribution for revenue and 22% for profit. Europe, 12.7% contribution in terms of revenue and 13.2% in terms of profit. So the contribution mainly comes from China in terms of profit. Cash flow and capital structure.
During the period, we have robust operating cash flow of $1.6 billion, a drop of $186 million. CapEx dropped by $160 million, at $812 million. Dividend payout is the same as the previous year, $490 million payout. Interest-bearing borrowing, $3.228 billion, a drop of $140 million. Debt, total debt to equity ratio, 30.5%, a drop of two percentage points. So our debt to equity structure is optimizing, and we have very strong cash flow. Reviewing the macro global economic recovery, it was rather slow due to the impact of the pandemic, geopolitical tension, and high inflation. Uncertain economic outlook and tight monetary policies in Europe and the US impacted consumer confidence and purchasing power, resulting in sluggish demand.
Hog prices in China hovered at low levels because of sufficient hog supplies. US hog raising costs remain high. Oversupply of meat protein caused prolonged low hog and pork prices, resulting in operating difficulties for the pork industry. Hog supply declined due to high costs and African swine fever in Europe, driving a sharp increase in hog prices. WH Group leveraged its global platform and vertically integrated business model, promoted efficiency improvement and cost control, optimized our business structure to mitigate the impact of unfavorable market dynamics and strengthen long-term competitiveness. Number of slaughter hogs in China increased by 3.8% to 727 million heads in 2023. By the end of the year, hog inventory reached 434 million heads, a decrease of 4.1% over the end of 2022.
Number of slaughter hogs in the U.S. increased by 2.1% to 127 million heads. In 2023, the average hog price was RMB 15.4 per kilo, a decrease of 19%. In the U.S., average hog price, $1.36 per kilo, down by 17%. In Europe, the average hog price was €1.73 per kilo, up 22%. For China and U.S., main pork producers and consumer countries, last year, slaughtered hog number went up and hog prices went down. In Europe, the trends were reversed, driving up the hog price. Average pork cutout value in the U.S. was $1.98 per kilo in 2023, a decrease of 13.5% from 2022. Hog price decline outpaced declines in meat value. Market spread rebounded from low levels.
That is beneficial to our fresh meat business. In 2023, there was a depreciation of renminbi against the US dollar by 5.3%, affecting our Chinese business performance. Operating profit and margin in China, $948 million, a drop of 8.8%. Packaged meat, $879 million, a drop of 3.4%. Pork, $54 million, down by 42%. Because of operational-related factors and also depreciation factors driving down the level. China business review, we adhere to the principle of adjust price, improve mix, and control cost. We adapted to changes in the consumer landscape, expanded market through innovation, maintained stable performance. Packaged meat business continued to optimize the product mix, realized brand value with unit profitability hitting record highs.
Pork business proactively participated in competition, achieved a double-digit increase in slaughtering volume, yet segment profit decreased due to low hog and meat prices. The scale of poultry business expanded as we continued to diversify our business. We raised 200 million poultry, an increase of 68%, processed 170 million poultry, increased by 61%. US operating profit dropped by 64% to $330 million. Packaged meats, $1.072 billion, up 1.3%. Pork, a loss of $624 million, an increase of $580 million in terms of losses. So we have been seriously affected by the performance in the US. Hog production business booked severe loss due to unfavorable market dynamics. We actively optimized business structure. Operating results recovered from the trough in second half of 2023.
Packaged meat business continued to adjust price, improve mix, and control cost. We fulfill its role as our core business, with profitability hitting a record high. Operating profit of fresh meat business increased significantly because of sales channel and product mix optimization. We continue to reform hog production, cut production volume, and enhance long-term competitiveness. We have reduced the size of hog production. With hog price going up in the future, there will be much obvious improvement to hog production business. Operating profit in Europe, $193 million, up 70%. Packaged meat, $899 million, up 2.1%. Pork, $90 million, an increase of $110 million. In Europe, we seized favorable market conditions and implemented cost-cutting and efficiency-enhancing measures. Revenues and profits achieved record highs.
Earnings of pork business increased significantly as the segment benefited from substantial increase in hog and meat prices. Packaged meat proactively adjusted to prices. To absorb cost inflation, profits remained stable. We strengthened business footprint through M&As. We completed acquisition of 100% equity interest of Romanian packaged meat producer, Goodies. And we entered into an agreement to purchase 50.1% equity interest of Spanish packaged meat producer, Argal. In the next few days, we will complete the approval procedure and complete the transaction. Now, looking into 2024, we believe the external operating environment will carry more opportunities than challenges. Global economy will stabilize, but growth prospects diverge across regions. Inflation will fall substantially, relieving cost pressures for corporates and laying foundation for easing monetary policy. Geopolitical situation remain complex and volatile, impacting the landscape of global industrial and supply chain.
Animal protein industry is gradually rebalancing supply and demand. We will continue to consolidate our global resources, adhere to the adjust price, improve mix, and control cost business philosophy. Leverage our strength in industrialization, scale, and diversification. We will create intelligent manufacturing, automation, and digitalization, and maximize internal synergies to maintain our leading market position and achieve sustainable development. Fresh business will leverage on its strength, and we will expand the volume. We will improve management capability of hog production and poultry business, lay solid foundation for meat diversification. We will adapt to structural changes in consumption behavior and channels, accelerate doubling sales network initiative, expand the market network, and achieve breakthrough in sales volume. In the U.S., we will optimize business structure, reduce hog production capacity, and improve hog production performance, focus on developing packaged meats business, further optimize product mix, drive volume growth, maintain strong profit.
We will improve profit of fresh meat business through sales channels and product mix optimization. We will optimize supply chain management, continuously enhance automation, cut cost, and increase efficiency. In Europe, we'll strengthen price management for packaged meat business, optimize product mix, and promote channel innovation to enhance profitability. Fresh pork business will optimize capacity, increase by-product yield and value. We'll leverage integrated business model, accelerate the development of poultry business. We will also integrate newly acquired businesses and identify investment opportunities to further strengthen our business footprint. That's the end of my report. Thank you.
[Foreign language]
So my first question is regarding for Smithfield. The management has mentioned about that 2024, we can see the decent improvement, for the profit, especially for the hog production.
Mm-hmm.
So can you give us some of the color, how much we can expect it from the unit profit? And, how is there any strategy you can just try to smooth, your U.S. business? Because the last two to three years is very volatile. So that's the first one. The [Foreign language]
The second question relates to Shuanghui, asking about the people talking about consumption downgrade, and how will that impact their volume and profit per ton?
Mm-hmm. Okay, so I'll start with the first question. And that question relates to volatility that we've seen in the last 2-3 years. The reality is that volatility has really been generated from our hog production operations. We are in a cycle, Smithfield and the industry are in a cycle that actually began back in 2022, where we saw elevated raw material inputs and inputs such as corn and soybean meal. And through 2023, that was coupled with a fall in price. And so that led to one of the worst years in hog production that we've had in the history of Smithfield.
So as we look forward, I think, to the second part of your question about 2024, both Smithfield and the industry are, we are expecting this cycle that we've been in to come to an end at the end of the first quarter. We do see in the modeling that, we will see a return to profitability, as we get to the midpoint and back half of the year. So we are seeing that prices are coming up while grain costs are now coming down. So we do expect that to help with some of the volatility.
[Foreign language].
So if you contrast that to our packaged meats business, we've seen some real, really strong, stable business in our packaged meats. We hit over $1 billion of profit in 2022, again, hit over $1 billion of profit in 2023, and our expectation is that business will remain stable as we go forward. And so that goes back to your question of volatility. In 2024, again, what we expect is to see a return of profitability in hog production, but some of the things we've been doing since 2022 is reducing our exposure. And so we in 2022 we killed or we grew about 17.5 million pigs. This year, 2023, that number was about 15.8, and we expect to be below 15 million as we finish 2024. We've done that by removing poor-performing farms and poor geographic areas to grow farms, places like Arizona and Utah. Some parts taking sales out of our operations in Missouri, and reforming our East Coast operations. I'll let you translate then I'll.
[Foreign language]
Our goal for the future as it relates to hog production, is to continue to decrease that exposure. Ideally, we would get to 10 million hogs or possibly lower, and that will be done through a number of mechanisms, whether that's sales, divestitures, partnerships, a number of different vehicles that we can use to continue to decrease that exposure. And I think what you'll find as that exposure decreases, the level of volatility we see in our earnings will decrease with it.
[Foreign language]
Thank you。
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]
So for the question relates to Shuanghui's profit per ton, packaged meat profit per ton. When people talk about consumption downgrades, what we saw in 2023 is more sort of divergence of the consumption behavior. We see consumption upgrades, there are some high income consumers who continue to purchase high-end products, and obviously there are also downgrades, where lower end or less affluent consumers may purchasing lower end products. We don't think this will have a significant impact to our business. Obviously, it will make our life more difficult when we try to expand the scale of our packaged meat, of packaged meat business, but the impact should not be significant. In relation to packaged profit per metric ton, we think in 2023, it's achieved good growth, and we think in 2024 will continue to achieve stable growth. Profit per ton is primarily driven by the cost as well as the mix. In terms of mix, we are doing a lot of work with new products, new channels to continue to optimize and improve the mix. And in terms of the cost, we don't see significant increase in pork prices this year, and the poultry, which is also important raw material for us, remains at a low level. So we think the profit per ton for packaged meat will continue to grow in 2024, and will continue to be higher than 4,000 RMB per metric ton.
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]
Uh-
[Foreign language]
So the two questions first is for Chairman Wan about the company's global strategy. Chairman has mentioned before that we will continue to downsize the hog production business in the U.S., and in 2023, we noticed a pretty good results from Europe, and we have been active in M&A in Europe as well. So does that mean we will be allocating more capital into Europe business to get more growth from Europe? And how about the capital expenditures or investment in the U.S.? And the second question relates to China's 4Q packaged meat volume, which seems to be a declining, probably that's because of timing of Chinese New Year. So she wants to understand how is the Chinese New Year holiday sales in 2024 and the outlook for 2024.
[Foreign language] 。
We have learned, we have learned a very unforgettable lesson in hog production this year. In China, we had very poor performance in hog production. In the U.S., we had even worse performance. In Europe, the performance in hog production is relatively strong. But overall the hog production has been the driver of the significant drop in profit for WH Group. So in the future, we will continue to be rebalancing our business mix.
[Foreign language
So our strategy in the future is really to downsize the hog production, particularly in the U.S., where we'll be downsizing from 18 million to less than 15 million in 2024, and we'll continue to find opportunities to downsize another 3-4 million, and with the target to have a production volume of less than 10 million eventually.
[Foreign language]
Given the market environment, the conditions is not mature for a complete exit. In that case, we will have a very significant loss, so which is not good for the company. The conditions are not mature for complete exits, but we will continue to look for opportunities to continue to downsize the hog production in the US.
[Foreign language]
And we will need to continue to monitor the market and various external factors to have a definitive timeline of when we will completely exit from hog production.
[Foreign language]
But the strategy is very clear.
[Foreign language]
As you can see, our volume this year has already dropped.
[Foreign language]
In China, the hog production business is much smaller. The production volume is only 300,000 heads per year. So, in China, the strategy is also very clear, we cannot grow. We're not going to grow the hog production in China. And, we will only consider expanding that business when the performance has improved meaningfully.
Europe's hog production is going to be good, it profited RMB 100 million this year, it profits RMB 30+ per hog, the United States loses $40+ per hog.
The hog production business in Europe performs very well and achieved $100 million of operating profit. On a per head basis, it's more than $30. In comparison, in the U.S., the per head loss is around $40.
[Foreign language]
But we do not plan to aggressively expand the hog production in Europe. We will reasonably support the growth of hog production in Europe.
[Foreign language]
Our growth focus or priority in the future is fresh pork in China, U.S., and Europe, as well as packaged meat.
Uh-
In particular, the packaged meat. We will continue to expand and grow the packaged meat.
In 2023, our packaged meat processing was relatively good, whether in China or the United States. The profitability in the United States created a historical new high, it was $407 million profit. In China, the unit profit level also created a historical new high, it profited $870 million plus, these are all US dollars. Europe was relatively average, its profit level was also down $90 million plus, $99 million, close to $100 million, but its unit profitability is relatively low, we are improving the management of packaged meats in Europe, to raise its profitability. So our future development's focus is to increase the effort in developing packaged meats.
We had a pretty good year in 2023 for the packaged meats in China as well as in U.S. In U.S., we delivered record profit, operating profit of $1.07 billion. In China, the per unit per ton profit also hit record high, and China delivered $870 million of profit. In Europe, the profit from packaged meat is around $100 million. On a per ton basis, it's relatively low, so we are working to improve the per unit profitability in Europe.
[Foreign language]
今后对于屠宰业和肉制品业，我们都是要坚持两条一控，肉制品要想下游发展，向进入家庭上餐桌转变。
For fresh pork and packaged meat, we will both adhere to the our business strategy of optimizing the price, improving the mix as well as control the cost. And in packaged meat, we will further expand the consumption scenarios to promote more consumption in the household and in the dining tables.
[Foreign language]
As you can see from the display outside, in China, Shuanghui's products are diversifying into a combination of meat, egg, dairy, vegetables and grains, so that we can provide a holistic solution meals, holistic meals to the consumers, daily needs.
[Foreign language]
In the future, we'll continue to promote the exchange of products, management as well as technologies in packaged meat for China, U.S., and Europe, so that we can aggregate great ideas for packaged meat products to further expand this business.
[Foreign language]
For fresh pork business, we'll continue to expand the scale. For the packaged meat business, we'll continue to improve the mix, and by doing that, we hope to continue to strengthen our competitiveness.
[Foreign language]。
So in summary, our strategy in the future is to resolutely downsize the hog production and expand and grow the fresh pork and packaged meat.
完了。
Lillian, let me answer your question about the basic expenses just now. For the United States, in terms of the normal basic expenses, generally it's about $450 million per year, but in 2022 and 2023, because we saw that the US operations were relatively difficult, so we deliberately limited its basic expenses a bit, so it was only about $350 million. We expect in 2024, we may recover to a normalized level. At the same time in response to what Mr. Wan just said, for our Europe we will still increase the investment, so in 2024, we expect this basic expense will still increase 20%-30% compared to 2023. But no matter in China, US, Europe each region, our basic expenses mainly the largest part is still used in meat products our core industry.
In relation to CapEx in the US, historically, the CapEx is around $450 million a year. In 2022 and 2023, because of the challenges in the operation, we sort of limit the amount of CapEx to $340 million. In 2024, we will normalize the capital expenditure amount in the US. In Europe, we expect to increase the capital expenditure by 20%-30% this year. But overall, our capital expenditure is very focused on the packaged meat side.
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]
In relation to the 4Q packaged meat volume sales decrease in China. There are two one-off factors: one is, the timing of Chinese New Year. In 2023, the Chinese New Year is early, so, a lot of the inventory build up took place in the fourth quarter, whereas in, 2024, the Chinese New Year is late. So a lot of the inventory built up by the customers happened in, January. The other factor, one-off factor, is that in 2023, the sales in the, the sales through in during the, after the National Day holiday and the Mid-Autumn Festival was not as good as expected.
So, there's the distribution network continued to digest the inventories in the fourth quarter. But both these factors are one-off, and we should see strong recovery on a month-over-month basis in the first quarter of 2024. And for the full year outlook, we think the volume will grow by single digits, because from external standpoint, China's consumption and economy will continue to stably recover. And from our company's standpoint, we are doing a lot of work on the new product, on marketing innovation, on employees incentives, on the channel innovation, as well as new products. So we believe, based on our work, we will have single digit growth in 2024 for packaged meat.
[Foreign language]
We're doing a number of things in packaged meat to drive the growth. One is to continue to execute on the Double the Network p roject. In 2023, we increased the packaged meat points of sale by 190,000. In 2024, based on the current trend line, we expect to add 250,000 points of sale.
[Foreign language]
The second thing in packaged meat is to continuous improvement in the product mix. As chairman mentioned, this is a very important lever for us to strengthen our competitiveness. Based on what we have seen in 2023, we have noticed some new products with high potentials that can help us to further upgrade our product mix.
{Foreign language]
Third is, we will continue to invest in targeted marketing to help the product sales.
[Foreign la
We expect the raw material cost for or the cost for the packaged meat business will decrease this year. For these reduce the cost, some of them will be retained as our profit, but some of them will be reinvested into the channels, into the marketing.
谢谢。
[Foreign language].
So, can you share us the outlook of volume growth and also the operating profit per ton of the packaged meat business in 2024? Thank you.
The first question on Shuanghui's outlook on pork prices in China in 2024. Also the fresh pork strategy and the risk of inventory write-downs in 2024. For WH Group, the second question, we noticed a drop in profit. Despite the drop in profit in 2023, the company maintained a stable amount of dividend. What's the company's dividend policy in the future? Is it focused on the payout ratio or focused on the absolute amount? And also, any updates on the potential spin-off of Smithfield? And the third question is, I think, the question on China, first, on the outlook for pork prices, there are two...
The outlook is that, number one, we think the price will be relatively low in the first half, but increase in the second half of the year. And on average, the price would be similar to last year. On fresh pork strategy, the idea is that we will continue to expand the scale. The strategy for this year is that we'll control the cost, stabilize the profit, and expand the scale. So the focus is on the scale, because there are a lot of new players into this business and a lot of competition, so we will be actively participate in the market competition. Last year, we had double-digit growth in fresh pork volume, and this year we are also expecting double-digit growth.
In relation to inventory write-downs, there should not be such risk because our inventory is at relatively low cost, and also we perform the impairment test every month according to the accounting standards. As you have noticed, this year, despite the challenging profit, the lower profit, we had strong cash flow, and our free cash flow is relatively stable compared to last year. So that's the basis for us to maintain the same amount of dividend payout. It also demonstrated our focus on shareholder return. Our policy is to distribute not less than 30% of our net income, or payout ratio.
But in the past, you probably noticed that we have been quite active in the shareholder return. So, from a capital strategy standpoint, we'll continue to be focused on delivering good return to all shareholders.
[Foreign language]
As relates to the Smithfield spin-off, it's still being discussed internally, but we don't have a timetable, and it will depends on various conditions, including the external conditions.
From a packaged meats business perspective in the U.S., that business again continues to perform extremely well. As we look forward to 2024, we expect to see profit margins stay in that 11%-14% range. In 2023, that's where we finished about 13%. That equated to about a little over $800 a metric ton. As we continue to improve that business and grow that business, we'll be remain focused on pricing discipline on our mix, both from a channel perspective and a product perspective, and also cost control. So as I look forward to 2024, I'm really excited about what I see in the packaged meats business and the opportunities we see there, to continue maintaining that $1 billion plus, plus in profit that we've seen over the last two years.
[Foreign language]
{Foreign language]
Foreign language]
The first question around the WH dividend payout, because we noticed, WH has relatively low leverage and Smithfield has some debt, but overall, the WH should have quite strong cash flows. So can we give a dividend policy guidance like some of the other players in the market, for example, that in three years we will be looking at 50% or 70% of payout ratio, or are we reserving some capital for potential capital expenditure? The second question on the U.S. on hog production, we noticed that in 2023, there are some one-off impairments, one-off charges in relation to hog production, reformation and downsizing. What’s our sort of expectation or projections for these, this type of one-off charges going forward?
Okay, just now the question touched on three aspects, one is the debt aspect. By the end of 2023, our debt was $3.2 billion. Of this, mainly $1.9 billion was from the U.S. issuing a medium- to long-term bond. Additionally, our Group headquarters side has approximately $150 million in debt, which we expect to fully repay this year. Shuanghui side has approximately $1 billion in debt, mainly from operating its internal financial institution, this finance company. So, from the total amount and structure of this debt, our debt pressure is relatively light, the cost is also controllable, and in the short term, we do not have debt repayment pressure.
In terms of leverage, WH Group at the end of 2023 has consolidated debt of $3.2 billion, including $1.9 billion dollars of bonds in Smithfield. These are relatively long term debt. WH Group holding company has around $150 million of debt, we should be able to repay this year. In Shuanghui, there's around $1 billion dollars of debt to support the operation of its finance company. So overall, we have a relatively low leverage, and the cost of our financing is also manageable.
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]
In terms of the dividend payout, our stated policy since IPO is not less than 30% of the year's net profit, but if you look at the historical numbers, you should be able to tell that we were very focused on shareholder return. And given our improving operations, our strong cash flow and our low leverage, we have the resources and capability to increase shareholder return in the future.
So, as mentioned earlier, this capital expenditure, our capital expenditures in China, the US, and Europe are relatively fixed. The US is approximately $400 million, over $400 million, Europe over $100 million, Shuanghui, under normal circumstances, also $200 million capital expenditure. Recently, we have some investments in a new capital project. So next, in 2023, in Europe, we have two acquisitions, one has already been completed, the other one, in Spain, we hope to also be able to complete it in the next few days. ...
[Foreign language]
From a capital expenditure perspective, our CapEx is also stable in the US, roughly $400 million a year, in Europe, around $100 million a year, and in China around $200 million a year. In 2023, we have 2 acquisitions, 1 already closed, and the other 1 we hope to close in the next few days. We obviously will continue to monitor potential M&A opportunities, but at this point, we don't have any targets.
Next, I will respond to your question about this one-time expense. Indeed, in 2023, because of this US hog production reduction, there was a relatively large one-time expense, reaching $1.76 billion. But this expense has already covered it, that is, in 2023 we reduced our live hog marketing volume to less than 16 million heads, and our target for 2024 is to reduce to within 15 million heads.
[Foreign language]
In relation to the one-off charges for the hog production reduction in 2023, we had indeed have a very substantial amount of $176 million impairment, but these one-off charges will allow us to reduce our capacity or reduce our production volume to less than 50 million in 2024. And we believe the majority of these impairment has taken place in 2023. There should not be impairment of such scale in 2024. We still may have some in the first quarter in 2024, but should be below $30 million.
[Foreign language]