Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the 2021 annual results presentation for Health and Happiness (H&H) International Holdings Limited. Joining us today is Mr. Luo Fei, Chairman, Ms. Laetitia Garnier, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Jason Wang, Chief Financial Officer, and 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 give some opening remarks, and then we'll open the presentation. After which, Ms. Garnier will present the group's business review and outlook. Following this, Mr. Wang will present the group's financial review for the 2021 full year. We will then take questions following the conclusion of the presentation. At any time you may submit a question by text by clicking the question mark symbol on the left-hand corner 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 corner of the webcast. I will now pass it over to Mr. Luo Fei for his opening remarks. Mr. Luo, please.
Good morning, shareholders, investors, and friends. Thanks for joining H&H Group's 2021 annual results conference call. 2021 was full of challenges, but we have not forgotten our mission and vision. We are still adhering to our strategic direction of increasing our penetration of the China market, expanding in overseas markets, and further developing our three pillars of family wellness and nutrition, which are BNC, ANC, and PNC. We continue to defend our market share in China's BNC market despite increased competition due to the declining birth rate. As a result of effective countermeasure, we have still achieved a sustainable level of profit and a double-digit EBITDA margin in 2021. Our ANC segment in China also saw double-digit growth alongside an EBITDA margin of more than 20%. Thanks to the heavy investments we have been making since acquiring Swisse brand five years ago.
Daily treats, we're very pleased to see the business in Australia and New Zealand return to growth in 2021 after two years decline due to the pandemic and also minimal legal activities. Furthermore, over the past two years, we have expanded our ANC business into 10 new international markets. We saw good growth momentum in those markets in 2021, despite the impact of COVID-19. The development of our BNC business in markets outside of China has also been extremely encouraging. This is especially the case in France, where Biostime brand is growing very strongly aend where it continues to be the number one organic infant formula brand in pharmacy channels in terms of market share. Our recent acquisition of Zesty Paws is another important milestone.
Despite increasing our debt ratio, it has greatly enriched our PNC product portfolio and has strengthened our position in the U.S., the largest pet nutrition market in the world. At the same time, in 2021, we started to invest in expanding our PNC business into China's fast-growing pet nutrition market. So far, the rapid growth we are seeing has been largely beyond our expectations. Today's ever-changing and inconstant market emphasizes even more the importance of having a purpose-driven business model. As we develop and grow our business in 2021, we also implement corresponding initiatives to improve our ESG practices. As we move forward, we continue to pursue a sustainable growth model that creates long-term value for our shareholders and stakeholders. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. This is Laetitia speaking. Thank you, Fei, for your opening remarks. From my end, I think I would like to highlight on the back of what Fei just mentioned, that, I guess for 2021, highlighting that H&H was able to deliver positive revenue growth on a reported basis for full year 2021, which has been again full of challenges, uncertainties, and very high volatility, as all of you can acknowledge. We thank you obviously for the support that you have given to us and the interest of the company throughout 2021. We of course know that you are very keen to understand the progress of the business as well as our 2022 prospects.
I will try going forward with Jason, more from a business and strategy standpoint, and Jason from a financial standpoint to give you a comprehensive overview, but also make sure we leave enough time for your questions. Well, we have obviously continued to grow our core business, and we have at the same time in 2021, despite all these industry headwinds, worked very hard on extending our global presence and pursuing sustainable growth. We have made progress in all of our business pillars in China and in other markets where we have further grown in 2021. We have made a transformational acquisition in the pet nutrition and care segments in August of last year. The Zesty Paws acquisition, which is really helping us to consolidate the third pillar of our business.
I am now referring to page five of the presentation, which is the first highlight I would like to make, is that this acquisition and the progress we have continued to make in 2021 is helping us to consolidate our positioning in strategic segments of Baby Nutrition and Care, Adult Nutrition and Care, and Pet Nutrition and Care to make us full family nutrition provider, nutrition and care provider, and enabling us to have what I believe is kind of a unique positioning of being able to service the full family in terms of nutrition and care needs. Through the extension of our Pet Nutrition and Care pillar, which you can see on the right, and we are really adding a nice complement to our business, quite strategic and also enabling synergies between the three pillars.
I'm now moving on to slide 6. Very quickly on our overall strategy, definitely through 2021, we have continued to focus in our core markets, China being of course the number one market but also Australia. Now having also a significant presence in the U.S., but also continued to work on globalizing and internationalizing the business and diversifying our product portfolio and our brand portfolio, while at the same time, keeping focus on investing for the future in terms of seeding new businesses, trying new digital models, but also enhancing product innovation through quite a few product launches that have been quite successful through 2021. If we move on to slide 7, on the performance itself of the business.
As mentioned earlier in China, plus 3.2% revenue growth at RMB 11.547 billion. From an EBITDA perspective, we have had a drop of 10.3%, which is mostly due to the unfavorable product mix change as a result of our decline in probiotics segment in China. We have seen on the other end quite some good developments on the EBITDA, particularly in the ANC segment, which I will come back to. Our adjusted net profits at RMB 952 million -12.4% is pretty much in line with that EBITDA development, that we are as a result of what we still call a profitable growth with our net profit margin.
We are able to pay a 30% dividend to our shareholders in 2021, which is in a continuous policy of dividend payouts and rewarding our shareholders, as Luo Fei just mentioned. We will, as we of course are focused on deleveraging the business and the balance sheet post Zesty Paws acquisition, carry forward this year's payout policy as we move forward. As a result of a well-managed balance sheet and very cash generative business, we've had a 30% increase on our cash balance.
I think at the end of 2021, we're still sitting on a very healthy balance sheet, which helps us to continue to invest in the business, invest in our brands, invest in innovation, and enable this dividend payout as we at the same time focus on deleveraging the business. On the next page 8, just a few key comments on the business performance itself. I'm sure you have already dug into the numbers themselves in the last few hours since the results announcement, so I will try to give a quick glance. Just mentioned the overall 3.2% reported growth. Obviously mixed performance in the three different segments with a decline of 9.4% in the BNC segment, primarily in China, while other markets have grown very nicely.
an acceleration of growth in the ANC and PNC segment, with ANC back to growth with 6.9% growth, and PNC 37% following the two recent acquisitions that we have made in 2020 and 2021. Being in China is still by far our largest market with a contribution of 78.7%. Obviously, as we have had some challenges in China in 2021, we continue to believe with the positioning of our group and the three pillars that we have established in that market. Despite the challenging industry and current pandemic dynamics, that this market is definitely a very important market for the group, of course, where we have potential to grow. We have enabled a lot of synergies between the businesses.
We have well-established brands, and we are in very good position to regain growth momentum in 2022 and going forward of course. I'll go back to the details, stated per categories within China. Important to highlight, as I mentioned previously, that Australia was back to growth with 3.8% year-over-year basis. Definitely one year ago when we were talking to you, we spoke about this turnaround in Australia after three-year cycle in the diaper decline, and we're very happy to see that we have delivered on our commitment to bring back the business on positive growth, which is the result of a shift of strategy, really focusing on domestic market, which has been really well executed by our team with the right channel and product strategy. We're quite happy about this result.
We have been speaking for, you know, several years about other territories, so our expansion into new geographies such as Southeast Asia, Europe, and now the U.S. We're very happy to report this 69%, almost 70% year-on-year growth of these other territories. You will see on the next page that the contribution of these other markets is becoming quite significant for the group, both in terms of revenue contribution, but also in terms of growth contribution. On to the next page, number 9, just segment by segment.
I think overall, again, as mentioned earlier, you know, throughout the pandemic, we have still been able to continue to extend our geographical and category footprint, which I think makes our business, where we stand today, much more diversified, and so in a sense, healthier business with different product categories which are balancing each other and providing different growth opportunities for the business, but also a lot of synergies from a product standpoint, from a supply chain and channel and also customer standpoint. Overall for BNC, I think very important to highlight that despite the challenges of last year, we've been able, through 2021 to practically expand our distribution network into lower tier cities in China to capture the alternative growth, versus top tier cities which are more saturated with lower birth rates.
We have really worked very diligently to extend this distribution network. That's one of the achievements that I wanted to highlight for BNC throughout 2021, which will pave the way for what we believe will be an opportunity for us to capture growth from our IMF and probiotic business going forward as we have this deeper distribution and penetration into lower-tier cities in the country. For ANC, as mentioned, our core markets have delivered solid revenue growth. Again, all of our markets have grown, main markets such as China, which has delivered double-digit growth, Australia back to growth, but also expanding into Southeast Asian markets and other markets has really enabled us to deliver the strong performance of the ANC segment.
Of course, PNC, which really we consider now as the new kind of growth engine of the group, has delivered strong double-digit growth. I'll come back to the detailed performance of this PNC segment, as I'm sure that some of you are particularly interested in how the recent acquisition of Zesty Paws is performing, as well as the PNC developments in mainland China since we have scaled the business. As Luo Fei mentioned in his opening remarks, beyond business performance, I think our business really stands out from an ESG practice standpoint.
We're really trying to keep best in class in terms of both the way we manage and govern our ESG, but also how we embed it in the business and how we create a virtuous circle where our ESG efforts are actually paying off and being perceived from all the stakeholders of the business, whether they are consumers, customers, employees, as well as investors, as very valuable and actually creating value and not just being a cost or a necessity, but actually creating value for every part of the value chain. We'll come back to the progresses we have made in the ESG area. If we move on to page 10 very quickly, just to give you a glance.
We are a consumer product organization, and our ability to continue to innovate and to adapt to consumer trends and also educate our consumers on our products with the right messages are key for us. We keep on refining this model. We have launched in 2021 a lot of new products, surfing on these new trends that are coming up on the back of a pandemic, of course, immunity, new formats, vegan and a lot of new innovations that we have captured all through the three pillars of our business. I think we come out of 2021 with a very solid portfolio upgrade as well as very strong innovation that are currently in the pipeline.
If we look on page 11 at the performance of the different areas of the business in terms of geographical footprint, as mentioned, the challenge has been mostly identified in mainland China, where we've had reported a revenue drop of 2.1%, while Australia and other territories have seen a strong growth. I'll come back to the performance of each region in a second. On the next page 12, we have a snapshot of our performance by category. As mentioned, BNC is definitely still our largest category, accounts for 57% of the business, with most of this business in China, but not only now, as we are growing in France and other territories.
ANC accounting for 36%, and PNC now at 6.3%, but that 6.3% only accounts for a few months of consolidation of Zesty Paws because the deal has been closed, the acquisition was closed in October, so only accounting for about two months as of now. If we reintegrate the full year of Zesty Paws, which will be the case in 2022, this contribution will be obviously materially more significant, especially as this part of the business, as you can see on the right end, is growing quite fast.
Being able, of course, to continue to consolidate BNC, continue to expand ANC into more geographies and growing the core markets and expanding PNC in the U.S., China and also scaling up in other markets should definitely give us opportunity to fulfill our growth strategy for 2022 and beyond. On the next slides, we started to disclose that for the first time last year, a bridge of the growth contribution by territory, just to give you a snapshot of where the growth is coming from different markets. You can see that obviously, from Asia, EU and ANZ, which are regions where we're already present, all of these regions have been delivering growth.
Obviously the U.S. market growth from a total growth contribution standpoint and absolute revenue standpoint is definitely becoming very important for H&H and is going to drive more focus from us going forward as we see a lot of growth potential in this market. I will now move on to slide 16. In the first slide that I commented on, I spoke about EBITDA developments. From an EBITDA standpoint and contribution, you can see that the spread between BNC, ANC, and PNC is actually quite even, lower for PNC because we are in the scale-up phase. We are in an investment phase where we want to invest in our brands. At this moment, of course, we're looking for profitable scale-up of PNC. We can see that our EBITDA margin is actually at 10%.
Again, that does not take into account the full year of Zesty Paws. With the Zesty Paws, EBITDA is around 20%. It's actually quite profitable. Definitely in 2021, we have been in a scale-up phase where we have invested in the brand, particularly for Solid Gold, to move faster into the Chinese market. We have still been able to maintain a 10% EBITDA, which was a deliberate way for us to balance profits but also growing the business and growing awareness. From a BNC standpoint, our EBITDA margin has dropped from 21% to 16%, which is mostly the result of product mix impact, as our probiotic has seen a double-digit decline, as mentioned earlier. Probiotics being our most profitable segment, this has impacted our overall profitability for the BNC segment.
Also important to highlight that on the other side, on ANC segment, our EBITDA margin has gone from 13.6% to 17.2%, which is in line with also what we've indicated in the high teens one year ago, as we knew that we were to improve again with the turnaround of the ANZ market, while in China actually, which where Swisse accounts for more than 60% of total contribution to ANC, the EBITDA margin is actually already above 20% as the business has now scaled up quite significantly. If we now move on to page 18, on the China side, which is obviously our largest market, and you can again see the split between the three pillars of our business in China.
Of course, PNC is still small, but growing fast. BNC being still very strong and ANC at 28%. From a BNC standpoint, we have actually recorded a negative growth of 2.7% for IMF. But if we reintegrate the bonus stock policy from a gross sales standpoint, which is actually the volume that we sell to our distributor in terms of which is actually quite representative, we have still seen a growth of 7% of that gross sales volume. This has been partially offset from the contribution from goat milk IMF. Now, goat milk accounts for 9% of our total IMF, and we have seen very strong growth of 42%. We'll come back to that when we look at market share.
Definitely, I mean, from an IMF standpoint, again, we'll come back to market share, but we are still happy to see a performance where in a market which is now quite challenged in terms of total value growth, we have still been able to keep our market share quite stable and actually grow gradually, especially in the super premium segment. The challenge in 2021 was mostly identified in the probiotic segment. Again, for those of you who follow us closely, you would know that in the first half of 2020, we have seen a huge peak of probiotic offtake by our customers and our consumer when COVID hit China in the first half of 2020.
There was a high base impact for the first half of 2020, which we have had to cycle out in 2021, and of course, an intensified competition on the back of that pandemic. Therefore, this segment has been challenged, and we'll come back to how we look at this segment for 2022 and beyond. In the ANC segment, again, we've been very happy to see double-digit growth for a brand that has become quite scaled already with cross-border e-commerce. We have definitely seen growth momentum, particularly coming from normal trades both online and offline, which is going to continue to fuel the growth for the years to come for Swisse in China.
Quickly on the next slide, 19, for PNC in China, we have spent the whole year 2021 post Solid Gold acquisition, ramping up the brand in the Chinese market, taking on from what was a distribution partnership to us marketing actively and directly to our customers, to Tmall, to JD, and increasing the awareness of the brand in the Chinese market, but also starting to roll out the brand offline. We have onboarded distributors, and we are now selling our Solid Gold portfolio offline in pet stores in China, chain pet stores as well as individual pet stores, with a very similar model than the way we run the baby store channel in China. Through a distributor, but where the stores themselves also need a lot of education.
We will keep on this progress as we're seeing this pet nutrition market being an omni-channel play, where consumers start to be aware about the brand online and perhaps make the first purchase online, but also want to make sure they can find the product available offline. We've seen very strong momentum for the Solid Gold brand in China. It's already the second top two brands number 2 brand for premium imported cat food after just a few years of presence. Number 4 for cat food for overall ranking all brands included. It's actually quite promising. We are seeing again good performance from the last Double Eleven and as we prepare for June eighteenth we already see a lot of growth potential for 2022 as we move on.
On the next two slides, 2020 and 2021, you have a snapshot of our IMF performance in China, so I just alluded to it. I think what's important to highlight here is, despite heavy competition, challenging birth rate and the decline, we have been able to keep a strong market position without having to overinvest versus previous years. We haven't been buying market shares at any cost. We've retained a healthy profitability by really focusing on consumer education, focusing on our Biostime brand positioning around immunity and protection, which is a message that has resonated quite well with the Chinese consumers and also leveraging the growth of our goat IMF segment. For the first time last year, Nielsen started to quantify the market, not just for cow IMF, but also for cow and goat.
The numbers you see here are not totally comparable to before when it was only cow IMF. Actually, if we put cow and goat together, which is now more representative, the cow IMF becomes an important segment. You can see that our market share has grown from 5.7 for the full year 2020 to 5.8, and in the super premium segment from 10.8 to actually 11.1, so a 0.3% gain. That's a deliberate focus for us to focus on the super premium segment where we still have a top three position, and Biostime brand has been present in this segment for about 15 years now. We'll continue to consolidate this segment, which is the most dynamic part of the market.
If you look on the next page also, you can see from an e-commerce standpoint on the right side, page 21, that our market share online keeps on growing. We are still at 3.4%, but we've grown from just a few years back at 1% to now 3.4%. As our online channel is a profitable channel, we're getting more awareness, more visibility, and we will continue to seek for growth in this channel as we of course continue to nurture the offline channels, including baby stores, pharmacies and supermarkets. But it's important for us that we are able to be more visible online at the same time, and we're not doing this through price competition, but really through the right marketing, the right content, the right education.
Back to Swisse China, because that's part of the business where a lot of investors ask questions are keen to know our progress. We have done a brand revamp. Actually the very beginning of this year, making the brand even more relevant for young consumers, and the preliminary feedback of this kind of brand revamp and upgrade is very good. We continue to focus on the young audience. We continue to see strong momentum from the online channel, both cross-border but also normal trades, and we'll continue to carry on this strategy in 2022. On page 23, very quick glance at our ANZ markets.
There's a lot of content on this slide, but just to highlight again the back to growth momentum in the ANZ region, which is really, and you can see from the pictures, the reflection of refocusing our strategy to local domestic consumers, launching premium, sustainable products, enhancing the message to local consumers and enhancing our presence in channels that are more targeting the local users such as, of course, online as well as community pharmacies and grocery, and not just rely on the, chain pharmacies, which was perhaps, the history, of Swisse like a few years ago. Making sure we develop further into more, distribution channel has been the winning strategy with the right product portfolio and the right brand positioning. We're quite happy about this performance.
As a result, our local domestic market share has improved from 11% to 11.7%, and we continue to see strong momentum as we move on to 2022. On page 24 and 25, you also have a snapshot of our performance in other markets. It's very hard to comment in 1 minute because there is so much to say about our different brands and the ramp up we have made in different markets. Again, perhaps Fei already highlighted at the very beginning, because we're all very proud of that, the success of Biostime in France with now 40%, over 40% market share, and a clear number one position in French pharmacies. We keep on building from strength to strength.
We have launched our goats organic IMF, which is performing really well in the niche segments, but we are creating new users, bringing new users to the category, and seeing very strong momentum of the brand in that market, which gives us confidence that we can continue to ramp up the brand in international markets, as we are seeking for this globalization of the Biostime brand. At the same time, on the next page, you can see from a Swisse standpoint, we have made also a lot of progress into ramping up in Southeast Asia. We are now present in 11 markets, total Swisse, and actively present in 8 markets in Asia, which is we think a better place to be than where we were 3 years ago, where we only had Hong Kong and Singapore.
The team has done a lot of work to register products, reference new products, and making sure we can have the right portfolio for these new markets with high potential. The PNC side of things, very quickly, 35% growth for the total category, which is our two brands, Solid Gold and Zesty Paws, so quite a strong momentum. Eighteen percent growth for Solid Gold, 43% growth for Zesty Paws, which continues to see very strong momentum, which is a nice transition to slide 27 on the Zesty Paws acquisition. Just to give you a little bit more color, we acquired the business in August of last year. We closed the transaction in October. We are now finalizing the refinancing of the acquisition, which Jason will talk to you about.
We have, since the acquisition, only seen the business going from strength to strength. I would say even outperforming our expectations in terms of both growth momentum increasing, the penetration of so the category itself, an increase of penetration in the category, but also the performance of the brands in this category, with market share growth. You can see, for the first time we are disclosing also our market shares on amazon.com and chewy.com, which is a pure player in the U.S. in the pet nutrition space. You see the brand momentum from a market share standpoint continues to grow despite new entrants coming to the category, because as a category leader and being the number one brand online, Zesty Paws is enjoying strong momentum, high awareness, and so continues to gain strong momentum.
From an integration perspective, we have obviously done a lot of efforts since the acquisition to make sure, first, that we have one team in the U.S. markets, which is now the case, running all of our different brands, servicing the same customers, also addressing the same e-commerce platform. We are starting to already see synergies happening from this integration. Our financial and systems operation and integration is now running well. We have found a balance of giving the U.S. market quite some autonomy, but making sure they have the support of the group so to grow the business going forward. Before I leave the floor to Jason, just, a few words on sustainability and the outlook for 2022. On sustainability, again, there is so much to say.
We're actually going to publish our ESG report on the twenty-sixth of March at the same time as we publish our annual reports. We are now having the discipline to publish both at the same time. I really invite you to have a deep and detailed look at our ESG report, which contains so much information and really reports and tracks the progress of all of our fields of expertise and fields of focus when it comes to sustainability. We have a few years back chosen three areas as part of the 17 areas of the UN Global Compact.
To name them, advance the story of good health, reducing our footprint on the planet, and honoring human rights and fairness are the ones that we have chosen because they are very much linked to our business. The fourth pillar, which is around supporting good governance and making sure we have the right governance system to manage our sustainability initiatives is equally important. We have made a lot of progress in all of these fields in 2021. Keeping consistency but enhancing each of those pillars. It is again challenging to talk about these in just a few minutes. We have set ESG goals, for example, for all of our senior managers, even top executives.
We have also set up ESG targets for our external partners, especially engaging more suppliers to embed more sustainability in their management strategies, et cetera. If we move on to the next slide 13. Again, a lot to see on this slide. Just want to mention here that we have two outstanding ratings of A for MSCI and also the Hang Seng Corporate Sustainability Index, which I think is a reward for a holistic sustainability strategy that we have carried forward for seven years. Of course, we'll continue to try and improve those ratings, go to A plus, and I think we are doing all the right steps to keep best in class ratings, which again is for me a reward of our strategy.
On the right side of this slide, you can see for example, if we focus on the people quadrant, 64% of women in our organization is for me a great highlight in bringing more female to every positions in the business, giving them a chance and promoting gender equality. Also we usually have more female representation in our management but also on our board. We have in our new ESG report for this year made the commitment to continue to bring the number of female board members to a higher number and 30% by 2023, and we will work towards this commitment. A focus on planet.
I just want to mention here that we have achieved one year in advance our commitment of 100% renewable electricity, which I think is a great progress. Another great progress that I want to highlight, 91% of our packaging is now recyclable, biodegradable, and compostable. This was, I think 85% last year, so we have further made progress towards 100%, which I am quite proud of because there's a lot of work put behind. Be assured that this is not done just at extra cost, that it's actually something that consumers are asking for. It's an effort that is paying off. We have also started to measure our community investments, 56% increase last year, $2.3 million.
For the first time we are actually measuring this investment, community investment in terms of not only the money that we give to charity, but also the amount of time that our team members are committing to, which for me is also a great move forward for an ingredient that is perceived as non-sustainable, but they actually are a sustainable source of palm oil. Palm oil is an important ingredient in infant formula. It's important from a nutrition standpoint, so we did not want to compromise on the formula, and we managed to find a responsible palm oil source. These are just examples of what H&H is trying to do in the field of sustainability and always trying to improve but also to track our progress.
On the next slide, on our journey to B Corp. Two years ago, we announced that we are aiming at getting the B Corp certification in 2025. Just one message, it seems it's still on track and we are actually providing some transparency to when all of our territories will be certified. There is an assessment phase and then there is a certification phase, which takes time, but we are on track to get the certification at the group level in 2025, as we make progress in the different geographies. Obviously for China, it's going to take longer because it's a large market where we have a big presence, but our team is working very diligently to achieve this target actually in 2024.
Just one last point on sustainability to the next page on path to low carbon and carbon neutral because we know this is a topic of interest for investors and stakeholders in general. We are contributing to the transition to a low carbon global economy. Definitely going forward, and it already has been the case, carbon and GHG emissions will be a major focus for the group, two important projects around for example, a robust GHG inventory screening for Scope 1 and Scope 2 that we have already done, and we are now performing a Scope 3 inventory screening at the whole group level. Obviously next step is also to measure at our suppliers level to get a comprehensive picture.
We're setting targets in line with the climate science, or what we call the Science Based Targets, and define the associated action plans. That's the task that we are going to complete in 2022. Definitely climate risk awareness is in our 2022 agenda. We will run different scenarios to analyze the impact of climate change on our business, both risks and opportunity. We are very serious with this topic, and making progress and really tracking this progress as we move ahead. I will now just finish on slide 35 to give you and obviously during Q&A, Jason and I can give you more color on again the guidance for our different business segments.
Just overall, obviously in 2022, we are looking at accelerating our revenue growth by continuing to invest in our brands, and bringing BNC back to growth, as we cycle this probiotics decline. Obviously, we're looking at continuing to stabilize our market position in the IMF business where we think there is a growth opportunity. As we gradually turn around the probiotic business, we definitely believe that BNC can go back to growth. For ANC, it will be about accelerating growth in China, ANZ and beyond the markets, we believe can keep on the growth momentum we have seen in 2021, and in some areas we actually see additional growth opportunities. We believe for ANC, this year will be another year of positive and actually accelerated growth. From a PNC standpoint, as you have seen, the momentum is quite strong.
We will keep on investing in this momentum, building on this momentum, making sure both in the U.S. and also in China, where we ramp up our brands, we continue to build on this tailwind as we see very strong, again, tailwinds and demographics of the pet category that is giving us a lot of confidence that our brands and our products have a strong appeal for the young consumers that we are targeting. On the back of these strong industry dynamics, we believe that we also have market share gains opportunities and will continue to build on this momentum.
That being said, obviously, all of you being aware of the current global challenges, post-pandemic, with war in Ukraine, all the supply chain challenges, we do obviously see and foresee potential margin pressure on our business due to these ongoing rising inflation. But we are definitely working on mitigating those with different measures in order to maintain our profitability and make sure we can continue to deliver the profitable growth that we have committed for. Thank you for listening. I will now pass on to Jason to give you more color on the financial performance and outlook. Thank you.
Thanks, Laetitia. Now let's turn to page 37 with this, PNL summary. As you can see from this summary, as Laetitia has mentioned, we have managed to maintain the continued positive revenue growth on total basis in 2021, and meanwhile also maintained a healthy adjusted EBITDA margin at 16% despite many external challenges encountered last year. In page 38, we can see a clear adjustment table for the EBITDA to adjust EBITDA. We have applied consistently the same adjustment principle around the previous years, i.e., to adjust only the non-cash and the non-recurring items which are not directly linked to our underlying business performance.
For example, as you can see from this table, for this RMB 146 million net FX loss, this is mainly due to the FX loss from the intra-group loans, i.e., it's not a cash loss to any external third party. For example, when the holding company lends to European entities in euro, then the holding company records a euro loan receivable in its book. Since the euro depreciated against RMB quite significantly last year, then the holding company has to book loss in terms of the loan receivable. This again, just an accounting treatment, and it's within the same group.
Second, regarding the RMB 139 million related to the net fair value loss on the financial instruments, this is mainly due to the fair value adjustment of the early redemption option of over $300 million US dollar senior notes. Last year, the trading price of senior notes declined, so that the fair value of the early redemption option also declined accordingly. Therefore, there is a fair value loss, but again, this is just a non-cash item. Also, we recorded last year a non-cash loss of the goodwill impairment of RMB 76 million. This is related to the impairment of this Changsha IMF manufacturing facility. This is because currently, the IMF portfolio of the group in China still primarily focus on the premium and super premium infant series, which have the higher gross margin than a domestic series.
Domestic series still just accounted for less than 2% of the total group's IMF sales. That's why we booked this non-cash impairment of the goodwill related to this domestic series manufacturing facility. For the non-recurring items, here there's a one-time impact on the COGS of RMB 48 million. This is because according to accounting standard, when we completed the Zesty acquisition at the beginning of the Q4, we did a mark-to-market adjustment of the inventory acquired from Zesty. With this higher inventory value, for the COGS incurred in Q4, also has to be higher. Again, this is just a kind of a one-time impact associated with the acquisition. Next page, 39, regarding the overview of the gross margin.
Actually, thanks to the effective cost management of the group, as you can see from this slide, for each product category of the group, we managed to maintain the stable gross margin last year. I just want to highlight here for ANC business, thanks to the strong control of the slow-moving stock, we even managed to improve the gross margin slightly. For the total group's weighted average gross margin, we saw a slight decline last year, and this is mainly due to the product mix impact since there is a lower contribution of the high-margin probiotics product category in this portfolio. Next page, 40, on the overview of the selling and distribution expense development. For the overall group's selling and distribution ratio increased slightly by 1.5 percentage points.
This is mainly due to the higher channel investment for BNC in China amid the declining birth rate and intensifying competition. We see this higher investment is necessary to secure our market position in the China market. Meanwhile, the effective spending control has been applied to all other business segments and markets. As you can see, like say for our ANC and the PNC business segments, we have seen the improvement from the previous years. In page 41, also, as you can see, the same strong spending control has been applied to our admin expenses as well. The admin expense ratio further improved from last year. In page 42, you can see we have maintained overall stable working capital.
On the receivable side, thanks to the effective control of credit risk and exposure in all markets where we are operating, we have reduced the receivable turnover days by 7 days. For inventory turnover days, there is an increase from last year. If we look into the breakdown, we can see for ANC, we have managed to significantly reduce the turnover days from over 100 days year ago to now only 156 days. This improvement is well in line with the plan and also the indication we give to capital market before, thanks to the effective inventory management. The BNC side, the inventory days went up to 186 days, mainly due to this lower than expected sales of probiotics. For payables, we have managed to maintain this overall stable payable turnover days.
Overall, the working capital has been kept at a stable level. Next page, 43. It gives a very fair overview of our equity and leverage status. As Laetitia just mentioned, we have maintained a healthy cash position of over RMB 2.4 billion. Regarding our total debt position, as you can see from the comparison in this slide. Due to the need to finance the acquisition of Zesty last year, we increased our total debt amount by $550 million to close to $1.5 billion now. Within this total $1.5 billion, we have $350 million as highlighted in green in this bar chart. This is related to a one-year bridge loan, which will mature at the end of September this year.
At this moment, the group is in the process of refinancing this bridge loan with a new syndicated term loan. As of today, we have obtained the internal credit approvals from the certain banks related to this new syndicated loan. Therefore, we believe we can meet all our financial obligations within the coming year, thanks to this timely refinancing efforts made. Related to the finance cost, despite the increase of the total debt balance, we have maintained the stable finance cost in terms of RMB, mainly due to the two factors. One is that due to the thanks to the appreciation of the RMB against U.S. dollars last year. The interest cost converted to RMB has been lowered.
Secondly, for the increase of the debt amount, it only incurred at the end of the Q3 and the beginning of Q4 last year, so that the impact is just for the last quarter of the year. Overall, we managed to maintain this stable finance cost last year. Finally, related to the leverage ratio. We understand some investors are concerned about the rising leverage ratio after the Zesty acquisition. This time, in this slide, we provided this overview of the leverage ratio development since September 2015, post the Swisse acquisition. As you can see, right, back to September 2015, our leverage ratio also went up to the level of about 3x post Swisse acquisition.
Thanks to the successful integration of the Swisse business afterwards, and also the overall high cash flow generation business model of the group, we managed to gradually reduce the leverage ratio to the level below 2x very quickly afterwards. Therefore, this time, based on the proven track record we have built in the past, and also thanks to this consistent high cash flow generation business model of the group, we are confident that we can bring down the leverage ratio again to the level below 2x within the coming three years. Therefore, overall, we see the company has maintained a quite healthy financial position, which we believe can lay out a solid foundation for the accelerated growth of the business in 2022 and beyond. Thanks.
Thank you. We are now ready to take some questions from the audience. As a reminder, you may submit a question by text by clicking a question mark symbol on the left-hand corner of the webcast panel. Kindly submit all questions in English. I will now pass it over to Miss Joy Tsai, Investor Relations Director, to commence the Q&A.
Good morning, everyone. Here's the first question from Anna Zhang, T. Rowe Price. The first question is about the refinancing plan of operational, which Jason has already answered. Her second question is about how much inflation pressure will impact EBITDA margin in 2022. Jason, please.
Sure. Yes. As Laetitia just mentioned, right, we are closely monitoring the development of the inflation as well as the COGS increase trend. At this moment, right, based on the factors we can already foresee, we expect this direct impact on our gross margin or EBITDA margin can be in the range of 1-2 percentage points. At the same time, also, we are proactively exploring various countermeasures to try to mitigate this impact. For example, we are looking into the product mix optimization, the selling price increase of certain SKUs based on the market benchmarking or the spending efficiency improvement or alternative sourcing. With all these measures, we will try to mitigate this impact. Of course, this inflation pressure will continue.
Definitely the management will be very agile to monitor this development and develop the countermeasures in a continuous way.
The next question is from Susan, CICC. She has three questions. The first question is: Could you share any color on dividend payout in the next 2-3 years during the deleverage process? Her second question is: How do you view the growth sustainability of goat infant formula in the coming years, considering the intensified competition with more players entering the market? Her last question is: Notice that the point of sales decreased in 2021, especially in baby store channel. Could you share any future focus or strategy BNC applies to strengthen its penetration? Thank you.
Thanks, Joy. Perhaps Jason, if you'd like to answer the first question, and I will address the next two questions.
Sure, yeah. Yes. Thank you. Regarding our dividend policy, for us, we want to maintain the continuous dividend payout in the years to come. But of course, also at the same time, also we want to reserve certain cash for our deleveraging needs. Therefore, in line with the decision made by the board this time, we will pay our dividend but at a slightly lower ratio at the 30%, which is also in line with what we did for the interim result announcement. This is a slightly lower level from 50% we made for payout in the past two years. For this 30% payout we see based on our cash position, it is still a reasonable level.
For example, like say for the second half dividend we are going to pay out based on 30% is only around RMB 90 million. In comparison with 2.4 billion RMB cash balance we have, this is a very quite affordable amount. Meanwhile, then we can still reserve the adequate level of cash resources for deleveraging purpose as well as the support to the further business growth in various markets.
Thank you, Jason. Susan, sorry, to your next question about the GB, right? And the growth, is it sustainable growth of GB IMF, I think, if we come back to reference the slide number page 20, where you can see actually our ranking in the GB IMF segment as well as the different players, you can see that actually we have moved from being number 6 to now being number 3, from 3.2% to 4.1%. You can see that there is actually one big player, and the rest of the players is quite fragmented. We have been able, sorry, in a very short time to increase our market share quite significantly and to increase our ranking to number 3. Now, there's still a very big path to becoming number 1.
That's the good news is that market share is increasing, and we still have a lot of room to play versus this number one and number two players. We're actually quite confident that we can continue to grow market share. We have a very strong brand. I think the Biostime brand is again quite renowned in China. Awareness is high, so we can leverage on this brand expertise, this overall branding of Biostime, becoming strong protects immunity to make sure our consumers you know get the overall message of the brand. It's not just a great IMF, it's a great infant formula with again immunity and protection with high-end ingredients and a well-formulated formula. I think we have all the ingredients to continue to grow in this segment.
The overall segment itself is still growing, not as fast as before because it's now already a very significant segment, but it is still growing. I think we have all the right, you know, ingredients to continue to grow in this segment. Of course, you know, it's hard to continue to deliver the same growth rate as the base has become bigger, which the growth rate as such will be lower, but the growth will continue to be here. I think leveraging on the brand, leveraging on our channel synergy, and again gaining on the momentum we have gained in the last two years to gain market share again from being nothing to being top ten to then top six and now top three in this segment.
We will continue this effort. Your last question was on the number of points of sale decreased in 2021. I guess that was for BNC and IMF also, right? This is correct in 2021. The total number of points of sale has decreased. It has been actually a deliberate move because the total number of points of sales in China has decreased, you know, birth rate is lower. Some stores have closed, some others obviously have opened, and we have also, you know, shifted some of our points of sales. The importance is not so much to be in, you know, it's not only just the number of stores that we address, but it's the quality of these stores and knowing where the growth is coming from.
From total number of stores standpoint, we were at 69,000 at the end of 2021, which is 4,000 less than in Q3. At the same time, we have expanded the number of our distributors, which is now reaching 1,119 in 2021. These distributors are helping us to penetrate into lower tier cities, which is really the target. It's more of a shift, you know, from higher tier cities where we perhaps have too many stores and then going to those stores in lower tier cities where we can capture more growth because there are more newborn babies in these cities. At the same time continuing to service our national key accounts, large chains, which are themselves expanding their store footprints and also expanding the size of their stores.
There is a consolidation happening in the baby store channel in China. I think this number of stores is just a reflection of trying to cover the right stores in the right cities. You should not see that as something negative for bad performance. It's a deliberate move for us to be present in the right stores, select them both from a quality and also geographical standpoint. Going forward, your ongoing question is, can you share a future focus strategy that we will apply to strengthen our penetration? I think having now expanded the number of our distributors to what was historically about 500-600 now on to almost 1,200 is a significant, I guess, strategy shift for the business, for the team who's on the ground.
By having more of these distributors working with these new partners, and, you know, working with new partnership takes time. It takes time to onboard new distributors, to get them to work with our systems, to follow our rules and cover the right stores, et cetera. Store replenishment also takes time. Building that extra network, it can sometimes, and we are now seeing some good progress of these existing distributors, but also new distributors who have come on board. This effort will continue to focus in 2022.
At the same time for national key accounts that are more managed from a headquarters perspective or locally with some key account managers we'll continue to make sure that we have the right presence, the right visibility in the large chains, because it's both a question of, you know, business opportunity, but also visibility for the brand to be present in these top chains.
That's something we'll continue to carry forward, and at the same time, I mentioned earlier in terms of distribution strategy that we continue to have this dual strategy of key accounts, individual stores, and also enhance our presence online, which again helps us to recruit new users that we can still then convert into buying online and offline because IMF is more than ever also an omni-channel play with consumers wanting to find the product online and offline. We'll continue this again channel strategy of multi-channel, making sure we manage our distributors well, that they select the right stores, that we're doing the right merchandising, the right displays in stores with quality points of sale and visibility and displays to make the brand visible in those stores.
Doing all this work and of course, enhance the consumer education work that we have done for so many years, explaining to consumers what we have in our formula, why we have superior formula, why this and that ingredients is better for the baby, et cetera. Continuing this work of education that we have been doing for so many years. I hope that answers your question. I don't know, Luo Fei, if you would like to add anything on this aspect of distribution strategy and how to enhance our BNC presence in China.
I think for overall our baby store channel, we expand to more retail in 2021. I know overall the industry, the numbers decline, but for Biostime our baby store, numbers increased because we increased our distributor to the lower city. Also for the Goldmilk, today we only present in the 10,000 stores, so we still have room to increase the sales points.
Thank you, Luo Fei.
Okay. The next question is from Vikas Sankaran, Templeton. Could you please guide to your inorganic strategy? Would you still be looking to acquire more businesses in the PNC or other segments? Separately, is divestment of any brands a possibility? Thank you.
Thanks, Joy, and thanks, Vikas, for the question. Obviously our strategy in the last few years has been a mix of growing our brands organically and doing acquisitions that we have, I think, proved to be able to integrate and to grow, both in their home markets, but also in China and other markets where we now have a platform. For example, now, if we take not just China, but for example, France as an example, we now have three brands that we run in France. We have Biostime, which is our organic brand. It's actually organic from two points of view. It is actually organic, and it's brands that we have grown by ourselves, and we call it an organic growth. We also have Good Goût and Dodie, which are two brands that we have acquired.
Now these brands have delivered synergies. Obviously, they target the same consumer, they target the same channels, and there is also a lot of ingredient and product synergies, obviously, as they address the same category. What I want to say here is having several brands as a result of an organic growth strategy and an acquisition strategy can actually do bring synergies to parts of the business and just enable the business to be stronger as a total business in a given territory. That being said, from this standpoint, I think our acquisitions have been quite successful, and we have been able to scale the brands that we have acquired back into the Chinese market. That being said, I think for the time being, we're quite happy with the portfolio we have.
You know, at the beginning of the presentation, I gave you a snapshot of our eight brands and our three pillars as we stand for now. I think we are now in a good position to capture the growth of PNC, to your point, precisely on PNC, with now one brand in food, with Solid Gold pet food, and one brand in pet supplements, so to be able to address the broader nutrition space portfolio, both from, again, food and supplements. I think we are in a good position. We are not seeking for further acquisitions in this space for the time being.
We can of course not see for the next three to five years, but for the time being, we're quite focused on enabling the synergies and the organic growth that can be delivered by these newly acquired businesses. For the timing for PNC, actually, both Solid Gold and Zesty Paws, the focus will be U.S. and scaling up the brand in China, but also seek for some international opportunities or business opportunities in countries where we do have a presence. For example, for Solid Gold, we have a presence in Asia. We do have some of our distributors that are already onboarding the brand and selling it, but it will be more of an export and kind of light asset model. Very much focused for the time being on delivering on this PNC acquisitions.
To the second part of your question, I think you had a question on disinvest, whether we would be disinvesting actually brands as part of our portfolio. The answer is no for the time being. I think we're very happy with the brand portfolio that we have, our eight brands that are quite complementary and enable us to focus on the different segments and sub-segments of our three pillars. We do not have any plans at the moment to disinvest in any of the brands that we have acquired in the past.
Okay. Due to the time constraints now, we have the final questions. This is a combination of several investors' questions on the guidance for 2022. Investors want to understand the revenue growth guidance of each segment in 2022 and the EBITDA margin outlook and what kinds of free cash flow generation and path to reduce debt going forward. Thank you.
Okay. I think these are for you, Jason.
Thank you. Thanks for the question. Yeah, if we look at the growth outlook for each segment. Within the PNC area, for IMF, as Laetitia just mentioned, right? Our primary focus is to maintain a stable market share in the IMF market so that we also expect stable IMF sales for this year. For probiotics category, we expect a gradual turnaround of our sales from this low base last year. For ANC, on total basis, we aim for high single-digit growth this year. For PNC, we expect continued double-digit growth on like-for-like basis for PNC in the core market of U.S. and also the new market.
For the selling and the distribution expense ratio of the PNC segment, as just mentioned, the higher channel investment made for last year was very necessary to secure and maintain our market share and a leading position in the China market. We see this kind of high investment is required also for this year, especially the new national standards for IMF will be officially implemented in early 2023. This year is a critical year for all IMF players to secure the market share and strengthen the market leading positions. This is also a necessary investment for the company to continue to make for this year.
Okay. That's the questions for the today. Max, could you close the meeting by the closing remarks, please? Thank you.
Certainly. Thank you everyone for joining us this morning. Please stay healthy and safe wherever you are in the world. I now have announced the end of today's presentation and webcast. Thank you very much for joining.
Thank you. Bye.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.