Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the 2023 interim results presentation for Health and Happiness International Holdings Limited. We're sorry for the slight delay because of the technical or error, it is our pleasure to join us today with Mr. Luo Fei, Chairman; Mr. Akash Bedi, Interim CEO and Chief Strategy and Operations Officer; Mr. Jason Wang, Chief Financial Officer; Ms. Joy Tsai, Investor Relations Director. Kindly note that the webcast is audio only and there is no video. During today's presentation, Mr. Luo will first provide some opening remarks, after which Mr. Bedi will present the group's business review and outlook. Following this, Mr. Wang will present the group's financial review for the first half of 2023. Following this, we will open the floor to questions. We will then take questions following the conclusions of the presentation.
At any time, you may submit a question by text by clicking the question mark symbol on the left-hand side of the webcast panel. Kindly submit all questions in English. Once again, you may submit a question at any time in English only by clicking the question mark symbol on the left-hand side of the webcast panel. I will now pass it over to Mr. Luo Fei for his opening remarks. Mr. Luo, please.
Good morning to all our friends in the investment community. Thank you for joining H&H Group's 2023 interim result webinar. In the first half of 2023, we mostly realized our goal of double-digit top line and bottom line growth, despite the challenging external environment. At the same time, we successfully issued a new three-year, $200 million bond with the support of our long-term banking partners, ensuring that we maintain a healthy capital structure to support our future business development. During the first half of the year, it was precious to see that we achieved several milestones. Number one, our nutrition supplements business spanning three business units, accounting for more than 60% of our overall revenue.
Number 2, Swisse surpassed the AUD 1 billion global sales milestone in the 12 months to the end of June, 3 x of global sales level at the time of our acquisition. Number 3, Zesty Paws has become the number 1 pet supplements brand in the U.S., both online and offline, with the U.S. market now accounting for a double-digit proportion of our total sales. Number 4, 6 of our IMF series has passed the new national GB standards, ensuring the smooth transition of IMF business in mainland China under the new regulatory regime. We continue to strive towards becoming a mission-driven, sustainable, and fast-growing company.
As a result of the tremendous work of the management team in the first half of the year, we have gradually reduced our net gearing ratio to 3.4x while still maintain sufficient cash for our business development and paying our interim dividend to thank you, our shareholders, for your continuous support. I would now like to invite our Interim CEO, Akash, to present our business review. Thank you.
Thank you, Fei, for the introduction and apologies for the delay in starting of the call. As we are moving to the digital world, we still can face challenges. That's a message that how we need to be ready for the disruption and be acting on that one. Good morning and welcome, everyone. I'm very pleased to announce. Sorry, operator, if you can go to the presentation, page 7. Sorry, bit of a lag here. I hope everybody can see page 7 of the presentation. We are very pleased to announce that for the first half, we have delivered a very positive set of results across all the key operational and financial metrics that will go through it. It is demonstrating our continued path to accelerate both the growth and profitability across our three strategic business segments.
On an overall basis, we have reported double-digit revenue growth of 17.2% revenue growth, reaching a revenue of RMB 6.98 billion. In terms of our operation performance, we are very pleased to say a 24% growth on adjusted EBITDA, reaching RMB 1.31 billion. We are pleased to say that our EBITDA margins have improved from 17.7% last year to 18.8%. This is a constant effort by the whole organization to improve our product mix and efficiency to reach these profitability metrics. Our adjusted net profit was increased by 6.3%, a tad lower to the underlying EBITDA growth rate, which is very well we communicated and has been impacted by higher finance cost. On a reported basis, our net profit increased by 28% compared to last year.
We are very pleased, as Fei mentioned, to announce a dividend payout of 50%, which remains stable and consistent with our historical benchmark. We also reported-- happy to please that our overall liquidity position remains strong and with a cash balance of RMB 2.1 billion RMB. Moving to the next page, page 8. This encouraging performance that we have reported of double-digit growth is thanks to our effort, where our strategy is finally paying off, achieving a revenue of RMB 17.2 on a reported basis, with both healthy profitability and cash flow. From a business perspective, very pleased to say, ANC is now our largest growth contributor, delivering 43.2% revenue growth rate on like-for-like basis, wherein Swisse celebrated AUD 1 billion sales for the period June 30, 2023.
BNC, we managed to confine the decline to -2.1% on a like-for-like basis. This decline was very much anticipated due to the strong headwinds that we are currently facing, primarily for the China IMF market. However, our performance for our pediatric, probiotic, and supplements remains robust, with a double-digit growth rate, which we'll speak in the coming section. PNC, our newly created vertical, continues to grow from strength to strength, with a revenue growth rate of 21.4% on like-for-like basis, with now Zesty Paws officially being recognized as the number one brand of pet supplements in the U.S. As everyone will recall, we will be celebrating our second-year anniversary of Zesty Paws acquisition in the Q4 of this year. This landmark is a great testimony to our integration and growth efforts.
From geographical perspective, mainland China continued remains our largest market, accounting for 72.7% of group revenue, with a very strong double-digit growth rate of 15.4% on like-for-like basis. This growth has been underpinned by ANC business, which grew by 55.9% in mainland China and continues to account 2/3 of the overall revenue contribution. IMF re-reported a revenue decline of 10% due to market headwinds with declining birth and intensifying competition, but the overall growth rate is in line with the category decline. Sorry, overall decline is in line with the year-to-date IMF market contraction. On the positive side, we continue to build our nutritional supplements business in the BNC segment with Biostime probiotics and supplement, which increased by 48.7% growth rate, driven by growth both in the core and our new NPDs, including the gummy range.
As we had outlined in our Q1 update, this robust growth rate for both ANC and BNC in China is also driven by the increased demand at the start of the year when China eased its COVID control measures. We expect this trend to normalize in the second half of 2023. BNC business in China delivered a double-digit growth rate of 21.9, backed by the stabilization of the supply chain, which we expect to further normalize in the second half of 2023. Outside of China, ANZ deliver reported a revenue growth of 19.4% on like-for-like, with Swisse growing across all the key channels. North America, for the first time, contributed double-digit revenue contribution and increased the revenue by 20.9% on like-for-like basis, with a very strong growth momentum on Zesty Paws in the offline and the online channel.
Other territories continues to underpin our growth, primarily led by Asian markets, which increased by 58.6% on like-for-like basis. We do expect overall contribution from this segment to increase in the coming years. Moving to the next page. We are very happy to share that we delivered another financial period of strong growth, with now nutrition supplements, which represent 60% of sales, including Swisse, Biostime, and Zesty Paws, and Solid Gold Supplements. In terms of specific business units, ANC, the biggest win we have as we reported, Swisse surpassed AUD 1 billion LTM sales milestone, which is exactly 3.3 times increase in our revenue since our acquisition in 2015, shows the strong effort of our integration track record.
In China, we retained our number one position and have been increasing our market share on the online channel with a very positive growth momentum in the normal trade. In ANZ, we are happy to report that on a YTD basis, we are already achieved number one market position. In terms of BNC, as we mentioned, IMF business continues to face pressure, but we managed to narrow now the decline in Q2 versus Q1, with positive growth rate coming from the e-commerce channel. Biostime remains an undisputable number one pediatric nutrition supplement brand in China, thanks to the implementation of our strategy in terms of expanding our distribution and strengthening the product portfolio to increase our addressable market. For the PNC in North America, Zesty Paws, as we mentioned, is officially recognized as the number one pet supplement in the U.S., delivered a very strong double-digit growth rate.
We continue to drive Solid Gold premiumization to create the right foundation for the long-term, high-profit growth rate. Moving to the next page. In H&H, consumer-led innovation has always been a key driver for our growth and business success, especially as we move our business in bringing great product to our consumers. In first half, we had number of exciting launches across our three business segments. In ANC, we continue to expand our Swisse Plus range to drive the growth of this promising sub-brand, targeting at the high-income consumers looking for high-strength supplement products. We've also strengthened our beauty in and out portfolio with the new launch to enhance our leadership in this category. In the BNC, we continue to expand our probiotics and supplements product range, including kids gummy range, to support our growth ambition in this domain.
In addition, thanks to our investment in research and product development, Biostime saw six of its series pass through the new national GB standards for IMF in China, which probably covers super majority of our sales. In the PNC, we launched further premiumized SKUs under the NutrientBoost for Solid Gold to support its premiumization strategy. Next page. Here, for the first time, we would like to present the snapshot of our performance by product category. As we mentioned, you can clearly see nutritional supplements is now the largest product category for H&H, accounting for 61, 60.1% of our group sales, followed by IMF and other products. In addition, nutritional supplements is also our fastest growing category with the higher margins, as we had explained in the previous meeting. Next page.
A quick snapshot of our performance by geography, where you can see that we have further continued our efforts of globalization in growth outside of mainland China, with every region contributing in double-digit revenue growth rate. Next page. As you can see, we have further diversified business, reducing our reliance on the BNC business, where we have seen a strong growth coming from both ANC and PNC. ANC now accounts for 42% of our revenue growth rate, very close to the BNC of 44.6% for the first half. Next page. Where do we see this growth coming from? Our core markets contributed significantly to our business growth, as you can see from mainland China, contributing 11.4% and ANZ 2.8.
The most pleasing performance that we have said, that every market has now reached a stabilization, including the Europe market, which we have successfully turned it around in the first half of 2023. Next page. In terms of our geographic contribution, as we have said, every business segment has its own area of strength. For our ANC business, China represents 2/3 of the business, we continue to see increasing revenue contribution in the coming years to come from other territories, primarily led by Asia, including India and Middle East. In terms of BNC, we are very happy to see that while China represents a majority, France continues to be in a positive growth trajectory for us.
For the PNC, we are still in the early stage of globalization, and we will put more efforts to bring a more diversified revenue contribution in the next 24-36 months. Next page. We have delivered very robust 44.3% growth rate for our nutrition supplements. This is the first time we have reported revenue on this basis, and this is gonna be the key growth focus for us in the coming years. Next page. From an operating profit perspective, ANC is now the largest contributor, thanks to its high growth and improved profitability and our ability to reduce the one-off impact of product write-offs, etc. We do expect ANC EBITDA margins to remain stable, thanks to the favorable product mix, etc.
While the PNC profitability is still below our threshold, we are continuing to invest for the growth to make sure that the business can achieve its growth momentum while we try to improve our profitability in the coming years. Next page. Moving on to specific market performance. China supplement market outlook remains positive. For the first half of on MAT basis, the overall VMS market increased by 15.9%. Swisse was a key beneficiary, where we were able to increase our market share close to 8% on the overall e-commerce perspective. This is underpinning our growth quite dramatically. If you look at it for our mainland China business, we delivered 55.9% like-for-like growth rate.
This growth in the normal trade was much more higher, reporting a 98.2% growth rate and now accounting for 23% of sales, compared to 9.2% into 2018. We will continue to increase our penetration in this channel through launch of new products. CBEC continues to grow at 47.1% growth rate with a very clear number one position. Next page. For the BNC segment, we continue to face systemic challenges across China IMF, with the overall decline of 10.2%. China IMF market was down 12.7% for the first half of 2023, a trend that we expect to continue for the second half of 2023 as well.
We are now focusing on stabilizing our market share amid very strong competitive pressure, especially in the MBS channel, while delivering growth in the online, while continuing to focus on driving S&D efficiencies. We continue to see the premiumization trend in China IMF to grow, with the super premium plus category still showing a positive growth rate on a MAT basis for 2023. Our probiotics business continue remains on strong, with a growth rate of 48.7, driven by strong consumer demand and our ability to push further distribution into the mainland China market. Next page. China pet food market growth rate remains stable, with an overall positive growth rate for the first half of 2023, with the dry cat still remaining the largest category.
One of the key reasons for the slower growth in the category was driven by the import ban that were implemented from the U.S. Sorry, North American market into China. With supply chain getting stabilized, Solid Gold is on track and has been able to recover its growth momentum and delivering 21.9% growth rate on like-for-like basis. We have managed to get increased product registration. Today, for the first half of, we have 36 domestic product licenses compared to 30 for the same period last year, while we have been able to increase our distribution penetration, now covering close to 8,200 pet stores across mainland China. We are committed to building scale and market leadership through targeted marketing and innovative product launches in the coming next 12-18 months. Next page.
ANZ delivered very robust double-digit growth rate of 19.4% on like-for-like basis. This was supported by our strategic focus on the domestic market and new product launches. We are now the number 1 VMS brand in Australia on a YTD unit sale basis, and we remain on track to become the undisputable number 1 brand in the coming months. We have built very clear leadership in our core categories, including multivitamins, detox, beauty, and other categories. Swisse gummies contributed very positively, and this is a new trend which is gonna underpin our growth. We are happy to report today we are number 2 brand in the Australian market, with close to 12.6% market share. Next page.
North America, as we mentioned, for the first time, reported double-digit revenue contribution to the H&H Group growth. This was driven by the strong growth rate of Zesty Paws, which grew by close to 30.1% growth rate for the first half of 2023. We did witness a decline in the Solid Gold business of -2.6%. This was primarily as a result of the channel mix optimization, which we expect to get completed, by the end of 2023. U.S. supplement market continues to remain on a positive growth rate, growing at 15% for the first half of 2023, where e-commerce market increased by 18% and the offline market increased by 5 percentage point. Next page.
In terms of other territories, very positive growth momentum in Asian markets, while also achieving a sales turnaround in the Europe market. Overall, revenue was up 13.7% on like-for-like basis, but Asia increased by 58.6% growth rate, where Hong Kong, Singapore contributed positively to both the growth, and EBITDA margins remains at par with the overall ANC segment. Our overall momentum in Asia market is driven by increasing penetration in Southeast Asia, India and Middle East. Next page. We delivered significant concrete milestones in our sustainability strategy during the first half. Across all our four sustainability pillars, these achievements have not only allowed us to build stronger sustainability foundation, but have also contributed to our economic performance.
In terms of our health pillar, we were very happy to say that we have launched Biostime probiotics and Health Can Ship gummies in China to tap into growing market opportunities in line with the consumer trends as well. We will continue to grow our strategic initiatives on sustainability across planet, human rights and governance in 2023. Next page. We are very happy to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of our H&H Foundation, a decade of increasing community investment to drive positive change and supporting our nutrition, movement and mind wellness pillar. Our positive impact since the creation of foundation in contributing over $10 million of donation across the 13 countries of H&H operation. Next page. In terms of outlook, we want to maintain our positive growth that we have started over the last two years.
We want to ensure that this growth, momentum of both growth and profitability remains, and this will be continued by focusing and pursuing our organic growth strategies in our strong foothold markets, China, North America, ANZ, and increasing penetration into new markets. Nutritional supplements will be underpinning this growth rate and driving our growth and profitability. In terms of specific guidance, we want to retain our market leadership position for our ANC business across China and ANZ, and continue to grow ahead of the market. This will be achieved through increased penetration in China through normal trade and developing our product portfolio, such as Swisse Plus, on the CBEC market. In the ANZ, we look to maintain domestic leadership and gain share through innovative products such as Swisse gummies and beauty.
For BNC segment, despite ongoing market challenges, we will build on its success in the Biostime probiotics and nutritional supplements while rolling out our newly GB approved IMF products in the Q4 of 2023. For the PNC segment, we will leverage Zesty Paws leadership in North American market to grow the segment globally and focus on super premium category for Solid Gold to strengthen its leadership in mainland China and drive growth. International expansion remains a key priority, but will be selective and choiceful where our brands have the right to win. We will look to increase Zesty Paws and Solid Gold penetration in mainland China, U.K. and Singapore in the second half of 2023. In terms of our balance sheet, we remain laser focused in terms of deleveraging our balance sheet.
Very happy to report that we have made significant strides in reducing our leverage, which was 3.58 for the period ending 2022 and ending at close to 3.4 for the June. We are on track to go reach our historical level of close to 2 x leverage by the end of 2024 without making any impact to our overall group performance. With that, I'll pass the floor to Jason to go and talk about the financial performance.
Thanks, Akash. Let's go to the page 31 for the P&L summary. As you can see, other than the strong double digit revenue growth, we also achieved the 24% adjusted EBITDA growth, with 1 percentage point margin improvement from last year, mainly driven by the favorable product mix towards the higher revenue contribution from the high margin nutritional supplements, and also the continuous efforts made by all the teams together to drive the spending efficiency improvement. The group achieved the RMB 513 million adjusted net profit with a healthy growth of 6.3% from last year. This net profit growth is a little bit lower than that of the EBITDA growth, mainly due to the higher finance cost, which I will provide a bit more details in a moment.
Let's go to next page, 32. We have been taking a very consistent approach over the years to adjust the net cash, net recurring items in our P&L, in order to show you the like for like profitability comparison. The adjustments we made this time are mainly related to the non-cash FX gains from our intra-group loans. The fair value gains from the hedge instruments we have placed due to the RMB depreciation, and also the gain from the tender offer for part of our 2024 senior notes at a discount. They are all non-cash, non-recurring by nature, and not linked to our underlying business performance. Next page, 33. We have been maintaining overall healthy growth margin, thanks to the favorable product mix change, with higher contribution from high margin nutritional supplements in adult, pediatric, and pet categories.
Even though at the same time, we are still facing the inflation pressure, and also the big impact of the stock write-off and provision for certain raw and packaging materials, mainly related to the goat IMF following the GB transition. Next page, 34. The S&D ratio improved from 39.2% last year to 36.4% this year. Really, thanks to the continuous efforts to drive the spending efficiency improvement, especially in ANC and BNC segments, where we are enjoying the benefit of larger scale. The S&D investment in our new PNC segment is necessary at the current stage in order to capture the growth momentum, both online and offline in U.S., China, and other markets where we operate. Next page, 35.
The admin expense ratio increased slightly due to the increase in performance-related bonuses, and also the increased traveling expenses post-COVID, but overall, it is still at high, healthy level. Next page, 36, about our working capital. As you can see, our receivable and payable days more or less remained stable. The inventory days are still at a high level, mainly due to the IMF stock buildup for GB transition, and also certain safety stock buildup to meet the surging demand in ANC and PNC. We expect with the safety stock to be depleted in the second half, the inventory days should go down to around 150 days as we have targeted. Next page, 37. We have maintained healthy liquidity position of over RMB 2.1 billion at the end of June, even after paying the scheduled loan amortization of $56 million.
The outstanding gross debt balance was $1.4 billion. Based on the term loan amortization schedule for the second half, we will further repay $84 million under the term loan, and we have reserved sufficient liquidity for that purpose. In addition, as a part of the ongoing liability management exercise, we will continue to explore suitable market windows to repurchase, prepay, or redeem part of our outstanding debt instruments in order to further optimize our capital structure and lower the weighted average cost of debt. The reported finance cost for the first half is RMB 350 million, but the implied annualized interest expense, including the benefit of hedge, which we have already placed, is only RMB 314 million. Which means that the total blended interest margin, including this benefit of hedge, is below 6.5%.
What I want to highlight, 82% of the currency exposure and 51% of the interest rate exposure under our term loan, have already been hedged by cross-currency or interest rate swaps, and the same for the predominant part of the exposure under our senior notes as well. Regarding net leverage, as Akash just mentioned, we have achieved the further improvement to 3.4 times at the end of June, which is very well in line with our overall deleveraging plan. Going forward, we aim for the continuous deleveraging of our balance sheet based on the healthy profitability and cash flow to be generated. Thanks.
We are now ready to take some questions from the audience. As a reminder, you may submit a question by text by clicking the question mark symbol on the left-hand side of the webcast panel. Kindly submit all question in English. I will now pass it to Ms. Joy Tsai, Investor Relations Director, to commence the Q&A.
We have the first question from Matthew Lee, from Maple-Brown Abbott. The first question is: Can you explain the reason behind the strong growth of the ANC, both in mainland China and in the market? Especially, we saw the growth from different channels like normal trade and the feedback. Since the level of the growth is much higher than the industry, how can we maintain this kind of growth going forward? His second question is, he wants to understand more about our interest rate swap and the forex hedging tools.
Thank you, Joy. I'll take the first question on the ANC. I think as we have explained in our Q1 results performance as well, that our ANC business has seen a very positive uplift that was partially coming from the end of 2022. If you recall, for the Q1 of this year, we reported for China- mainland China business, 96.1% like-for-like growth rate for our ANC business. For the first half, it is 55%. That increase, strong result, was given by demand shift from the three months ending of 2022, where when the China uplifted its COVID restrictions, there was an increased search for immunity-led products, and we had moved away the demand from the December quarter to the January and the February.
The second thing, we see continuously increasing penetration or usage demand from the consumers for health and products. We saw overall volume growth rate for the first half, increasing by close to 25% as per the Kantar analysis. The third reason is that we had taken a very selective price increase across our portfolio at the start of the year. That also contributed to overall growth rate. Having said that, we expect this upsurge demand in the first half to normalize in the second half. Overall, we expect the VMS industry to grow between 10%-15% for the second half of it. Our growth should be almost in line with that, with a positive bias. In addition, we have been seeing an increasing contribution of NPD products, primarily the Swisse Plus range, launched into China.
Overall, that Swisse Plus range is now contributing high single-digit growth rate. On a like-to-like basis, we saw an increase from low single-digit of less than 2% to high single-digit for the first half. We continue to make efforts that while we grow our existing portfolio of share, but innovation becomes the underlying driver for our China ANC business as well.
Second question regarding the interest rate swaps. As just mentioned, right? In our capital structure right now, we have two largest debt instruments. One is the term loan, and the other is the newly issued 2026 senior notes. Under the term loan, as just mentioned, we have already hedged the 52% of the total loan exposure for interest part. After this swap, i.e., from floating rate to fixed rate, at this moment, of the all-in interest margin for our term loan is 5.6%. 5.6%. This is a really quite beneficial under this floating to fixed interest rate swap. On the 2026 senior notes part, as also just mentioned, we have hedged predominant exposure of these senior notes.
Given the current U.S. dollar and CNH interest rate differential, then we can enjoy a beneficial rate under this cross-currency swap. Which means, let's say, under the U.S. dollar term, we are paying the coupon rate of 13.5%, while after switching over to the CNH, the actual interest coupon rate we are paying is 11.1%. There is a kind of beneficial of 2.4 percentage points we can enjoy from this swap. This is a consistent approach which the company has been taking since 2016, when we arranged the term loan and senior notes for the first time, so that then we can protect our majority part of our currency exposure and also the interest exposure.
Take around by for H1 of 2013. Okay.
Yeah. I just want to reiterate again, right? Just now, I also already, in the financial slide, I emphasized that. After taking into consideration of the benefit of all those hedges we have placed, then for the first half, the implied annualized interest expense margin is 6.46%, i.e., below 6.5%. Just want to emphasize that, okay? All right. Thank you.
The next question is from MBK Partners. I've combined several questions together. Can you walk us through the working capital status of the company? Please provide the inventory receivable and payable changes and the reasons behind it. The second question is, the dividend payout is quite sizable at 50% in first half of this year, despite upcoming maturities and increasing interest expenses. What's the reason behind that? Company right now has a cash of RMB 2.1 billion at the end of the first half. How do you plan to pay off the interest bearing bank loans due in the next 12 months of RMB 1.4 billion?
We understand the company have, has received, RMB 500 million loan from CCB in May 2023, and, was, planning to get another one, of a similar size. Can we confirm if the company eventually received the second onshore bank loan or, any other, fundraising plan onshore? Thank you.
Yeah. Since that all three are related to finance-
Yeah.
I can provide the answers first, and Akash can also add here.
Sure.
Yeah. The first is regarding the working capital development. As you may already seen from our ending balance sheet for June. Basically, as we mentioned, we already built up a stock in PNC for the GB transition, and also we built up the safety stock for ANC and PNC to meet the growing consumer demand. At the end of June, our total inventory balance is still above RMB 2.6 billion. Meanwhile, for our payable amount, based on our normal payment terms of 70-90 days, the payables got reduced by RMB 400 million. This is more like, say, the timing difference, so that as we just mentioned, right?
In the second half, after we deplete the safety stock build up, then on the full year base, we expect this whole cash flow conversion still to reach the target level of 90%, i.e., 90% of EBITDA can be converted to operating cash flow. The second question regarding the dividend. This is also in line with the dividend payout policy we indicated already a year ago, that we want to maintain the consistent, stable dividend payout ratio. Also, by taking into consideration of this dividend payout needs, we can still achieve our deleveraging path as we have already planned. Also just to emphasize, when we look at the absolute amount to be paid out, right? Based on this 50% payout ratio, it's just slightly above RMB 250 million.
Based on the RMB 2.1 billion liquidity we have built up, actually, it will not cause any kind of a cash flow burden to our overall liquidity position.
I just want to add here, right? Our-
Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah. I just want to add here is that our dividend policy hasn't changed. It remains consistent in line with our historical.
Yeah.
We want to make sure that we are incentivizing both our equity investors and everybody in line with our turnaround, strong growth in the business. As you can see, that we continuously have been deleveraging our balance sheet without at the risk of impacting the growth.
Yeah.
We want to assure everybody that this dividend increase is a kind of a confidence that we see, there should be no any disruptions to the business, and we are able to meet all our debt finance obligation as required to that.
Yeah.
This is very much demonstrated in the last year, when we saw the peak of a leverage was close to 3.87, and now it's now down to 3.4 basis points.
Mm.
When we have announced this dividend, we have taken into consideration of all our CapEx, working capital, business growth, financial liabilities.
Mm.
to successfully meet that. We remain continuously on track and laser-like focused to deleverage our balance sheet as we have re-written, close to two times by end of next year. This will be achieved through a combination of refinancing initiatives that we started implementing, and also putting focus on increasing operational cash flows through various efficiency measures as well. We have reached the peaks of investments.
Mm.
In terms of our expansion, we believe the growth and the profitability will help us to achieve our growth metrics as well.
Yeah. Also to add here, right? Based on this payout ratio, then the implied dividend yield is just slightly above 5%. For, i t is more like comparable with underlying U.S. dollar benchmark rate. This is really to help to ensure the steady return of the investment to the long-term investors on the equity side. Meanwhile, as Akash mentioned, we can still have the sufficient liquidity available for deleveraging purpose. We see it's a very good arrangement to meet the needs from the both the equity and the debt side. The last thing about our term loan repayment plan.
For the coming 12 months, as just mentioned, in the second half this year, we will repay $84 million, and then for June next year, we'll repay $113 million, according to the loan amortization schedule. Based on this RMB 2.1 billion cash position we have, plus also the continuous cash flow generation to be achieved in the coming 12 months. We don't see any issue or concern to fulfill this amortization repayment needs. Regarding the CCB loan you just mentioned, yes, this is part of our ongoing liability management exercise to optimize our capital structure. With now this CCB loan, we are quite happy. On one hand, we can enjoy much lower interest rate, and secondly, it can match better with our operating cash flow in RMB, a better currency match.
We are quite happy also to announce, actually, as you've already seen from our interim report, that just earlier this week, we secured another RMB 300 million long-term working capital loan from one Chinese bank. We are happy. This is another step taken to further optimize our capital structure and also to lower the weighted average cost of debt.
The next question is from Haitong International. Could management share the guidance on revenue EBITDA for different business segments, and also the capital expenditure for 2023? If you could, please give us some guidance on the cash flow. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Joy. I think we as a management team, want to make sure that whatever we promise, that we have delivered. As you can see, that we have a very successful track record in terms of, you know, the guidance that we have offered. In terms of 2023, our overall guidance for both revenue and EBITDA does not change. We still expect overall revenue growth rate to grow in high single digits and EBITDA margins around mid-teens level. However, because of the underlying performance across the three business segments, we now expect our PNC IMF performance to have the NSR growth rate in line to the first half, compared to a stable performance compared to 2022. This is a reflection of the current market environment, given the current headwinds related to declining birthrate and intensifying price competitive intensity.
However, we expect partially of this trend to be mitigated by the continuous double-digit growth rate for our Provitex business. In terms of ANC, we are now expecting for the full year of 2023 to have a revenue growth rate of at least 20% compared to our initial guidance of high single-digit growth rate of this. This is underpinned as we see the consumer demand and the overall market health remains stronger to that. In terms of PNC, our overall guidance remains consistent, that we want this business to grow at least 20%, not only for 2023, for the, for the next, at least two to three years, as we continue to increase penetration across the various markets.
In terms of EBITDA, as we said, we still even though for the first half, we have reported a margin of close to 18.8%. As you can recall, that there is a bit of a spending level difference between the two periods of first half to the second half. It's consistent with our historical performance. As you can appreciate, in the second half, across our key markets like China and North America, there are a lot of promotional events like Amazon Prime Day, Cyber Monday in Q3 and Q4. For China, the major event of Double 11 and other promotional cycles. In summary, we expect overall EBITDA to trend to mid-teens. In terms of the specific business units, we expect BNC business to mid to high teens, in line with our current operating performance.
For the ANC, while the overall segment has reported 23% EBITDA margin, but we want to make sure that we are keeping a sufficient buffer for us to have increased investment to drive further market share, not only in our existing markets like China and Australia, but also the new markets, which will be the future growth drivers. We want to make sure that while this business is meeting our expectation of above 20% EBITDA margin, we want to retain some flexibility to invest and drive share towards that. In terms of PNC, while it is slightly below our guidance of mid-single digit of 5%, close to about 3.8, this is in fact in line, and we have compensated this decline through our increased operational performance in the ANC and slightly in the BNC.
This strategic decision has been taken that we want to find a very good balance between the growth and the profitability in our existing markets, primarily for Solid Gold into China, where we see continued demand. Given supply chain stabilization, we want to regain the growth momentum that we started building last year, but due to the disruption, we couldn't do that. We want to look to reinvest some of this increased efficiency to drive further growth into this. Overall, we are not changing our long-term guidance that we want PNC business to achieve, at the start, a double, low double-digit EBITDA margins, while longer term, we want to trend it to mid to high teens level. At the start onset, we want to make sure we are driving more growth and then finding profitability balance. Jimmy?
Thanks, Akash. Regarding your second question about the CapEx guidance. Thanks to the high cash generative business model we have, which requires modest CapEx investment, we have indicated before to the market that on an annual base, we expect to incur CapEx of around RMB 100 million. If you look at the first half of this year, we actually incurred RMB 47 million for CapEx purpose. This implies the annual total requirement to be still around RMB 100 million. This is quite well on track, and we expect the similar pattern to continue for the coming years. Your third question about the cash flow outlook.
Also, as we just indicated, we expect the overall inventory turnover days to normalize towards the level of 150 days for rest of the year, which can enable us to keep our target to achieve this operational cash flow conversion rate of 90%, i.e., 90% of the EBITDA can be converted to the operational cash flow. This can provide us the sufficient liquidity resource to meet both the debt obligation and also the dividend payout needs. By the way, also, we just want to highlight here, is that after the successful offering of $200 million senior notes in June, we are quite happy to see the secondary trading price has been very strong, very close to our primary offering price, despite the very challenging market environment.
This really shows the market confidence in the company's capability to continuously generate healthy profitability and also cash flow.
Okay, we have two questions on China, so I'll combine them together. These are questions from LNR Property and Rabobank. The first question is: Can management share some updates on the progress of the registration of new recognition for, from key new products ? The second question is from Rabobank. Mainland China is a major revenue contribution region of the company. Still, with the challenging economic environment in China, what is the company's view and strategy in this market? How the company ensure sustainable growth going forward?
Thank you, Joy. I'll, I'll take the registration one. I think as we have disclosed in our quarter one and first half, that we were confident in achieving our objective of getting majority of our portfolio reregistered. We are happy to report that out of eight series, six of the series has been successfully registered by the SAMR. There are two series which are pending, and we expect that one of them to be approved in the coming months to be there. As we have outlined, we don't see any delay or impact, delay of this impacting our sales, because we have built up sufficient inventory in anticipation of this timing impact to that. We are well in track in getting all the registration without any detrimental impact to the overall business to us.
In terms of China, as you can see, for the first half, we reported like-for-like growth rate of 15%. This growth rate was underpinned by our nutrition supplements, which is support the ANC and the PNC business. For the ANC business, our CBEC market grew by close to 48%. We do expect that these growth rates will probably moderate in line with the industry average. As we have guided for ANC for the second half, we're expecting the overall market to grow between 10%-15%, and the pet food market to grow at, you know, cat, cat market to grow into low double digit market. Our growth momentum should be in line with the industry there as well. We do see some headwinds on the IMF, but our nutrition supplements, which is our key primary focus to offset this pressure going forward.
As a reminder, you may submit a question by text, clicking the question mark symbol on the left-hand side of the webcast panel. Kindly submit all question in English. We have another question from Brian Tsai, from Goldman Sachs. The 20% EBITDA margin guidance for ANC is for 2023, or the future years. Could you share the long-term growth of the ANC business going forward? The EBITDA margin is higher than the past two years in the first half this year. Why we are guiding people that we are, we will have the highest EBITDA margin for ANC for entire 2023?
In terms of the specific growth rate for our ANC business, as you can have seen, not only in 2023 but for the last few years, this business, nutritional supplements in particular, is our growth driver for that. We are successfully made our strategic implementation through new product channel expansion, both in China and ANZ market, in terms of contributing to the growth. Overall, post-COVID, we have seen increased usage and penetration of health and wellness products, even in a mature market like ANZ, where the vitamins penetration was close to 72%. What we are witnessing is an increased usage rate for all the VMS products. In terms of longer-term industry growth rate, we do expect some normalization, because this year the growth rates are in high 30% in China, and in Australia, it's close to about 12%.
We expect longer-term China market to grow into high single digit to low double digit, between 9%-12% growth rate through a combination blended average of CBEC market growth rate and the normal trade. In terms of the ANZ market, we expect the industry to grow into mid-single digit between 6%-7%. Regarding Swisse, we have always have an ambition to be a leader in our core markets of ANZ and China, and trying to outperform these industry growth rates. While we don't provide specific long-term guidance, but we expect that our growth rate for in the next two years, will probably be exceeding the industry growth rate expectation, where we achieve and solidify our number 1 market position across the China and the ANZ market.
In terms of EBITDA margins, as we have outlined at the start of the year, for our core markets, China and ANZ, our profitability was always above 20%. The reason it was lower, it was driven by 2 factors. 1, increased investment of expansion into new markets, primarily Asia, Europe and Middle East. We have reached the peak of those investment, and even our historical markets that we have been expanding, like Hong Kong and Singapore, are now meeting our EBITDA margins on the above the ANC average. However, we still see a significant gap in our portfolio, primarily in the Asia and Middle East, where we see significant opportunity. We will look to see how we can use some of the increased operational efficiencies to invest into the brand marketing and increasing consumer share for that.
Overall, we expect ANC profitability to be near about mid-teens to 20% in the longer term for that.
Yeah, Brian, also to add here, right? Just specifically for the second half, why you have the question, say, hey, for the first half of our EBITDA margin for ANC is above 20%, why we are now still guiding on the full year base is the high teen level. Mainly put two reasons, right? One is about the seasonality. We already seen from the previous year, this is a quite consistent pattern that we have higher investment in the second half due to the peak sales seasons like Double 11. This is quite, quite consistent over the years for seasonality. The second is just due to the change of the channel mix, right?
Because we already indicated, like, for the first half of our normal trade channel increased, in China, increased by 102%, while the CBEC channel grew by 45%. This is quite in line with our overall omnichannel strategy to cover, to broaden our customer and consumer base. Now, you can see our normal trade channel contribution in the total ANC China sales already reached over 24% in the first half. Going forward, we will expect this percentage to go up, so therefore there will be a certain channel mix impact on our blended ANC margin. We see this good strategic move to broaden this user base. Going forward, with the buildup of the scale for normal trade, we will also expect the profitability improvement for normal trade and also ANC as a total.
Okay, last questions on the our leverage, I'll combine them together. Management gave the guidance about the leverage around 3 x at the end of 2023, and around 2x at the end of 2024. Can the management share the progress and roadmap for our deleveraging plan in the future? Any plan to tender the rest of the the overall 2024?
Maybe I'll take the first time, Jason, you can probably add to that, right? I think the leverage, our reduction target is not gonna change, right? We want to be going back to our historical average of close to 2x net debt to EBITDA. When we say this net debt, 2x to EBITDA, this will be driven by several factors. One, operational cash flow improvements. We are continuously working as to how do we drive efficiency for our business, both in terms of spending on the P&L and at the balance sheet level, in terms of optimizing our working capital spend, in terms of looking at our CapEx. As you know, as a business, we are asset-light business, and our overall CapEx requirement is close to about RMB 120 million on an annualized basis, so it's not a biggest significant factor.
We do expect that through various measures that we have started working on, we can further drive efficiencies and look to optimize our cash flow. That should contribute positively. Second factor, we are also working very progressively to optimize our financial cost because this is one of the other significant factor that will help us. We manage, as Jason mentioned, to raise two onshore financing at a very healthy rate, right, which was below our average cost of debt as well. We will continue to explore other instruments that will positively accrete to our net income profitability, but also will help us to manage our overall cash flow improvement. The third factor, which is linked to more underlying business performance, as you could have seen, that across our 3 business verticals, we continue to see a positive halo growth impact and a positive trend as well.
We do expect this increased cash flow, revenue growth rate driven, will also underpin our leverage reduction in terms of that, Jason?
Regarding the plan for this 2024 notes. On one hand, after the successful offering of the new $200 million senior notes in June, we do have sufficient liquidity, plus also the cash flow from the operation, to cover the need for this remaining $98 million of the 2024 notes, right? Which will mature in October next year. On the other hand, regarding when and how we will reduce this remaining 2024 notes, as I just mentioned, we will continue to explore the optimal market windows to repurchase or redeem part of our outstanding debt, including these 2024 notes. This is as part of the overall our capital structure improvement exercise, and we will keep the market posted on the progress going forward.
Thank you, management. Thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. Please stay healthy and safe. I now announce the end of today's presentation and webcast. Have a good day, everyone. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone, for joining.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.