Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Glanbia 2023 Q3 results call. My name is Seb, and I'll be the operator for your call today. If you would like to ask a question on today's call, you can do so by pressing star one on your telephone keypad, or press star two to withdraw your question. I'll now hand the floor over to Liam Hennigan to begin. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to the Glanbia Q3 2023 Interim Management Statement call. During today's call, the directors may make forward-looking statements. These statements have been made by the directors in good faith, based on the information available to them up to the time of their approval of the Glanbia PLC Q3 2023 Interim Management Statement. Due to the inherent uncertainties, including both economic and business risk factors underlying such forward-looking information, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. The directors undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made on today's call, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. I'm now handing the call over to Siobhán Talbot, Group Managing Director of Glanbia PLC.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Glanbia Q3 2023 results call and presentation. On today's call, I'm going to provide a summary of our performance for the first nine months of 2023. I'm joined by my colleagues, Mark Garvey, who will cover the financial results and outlook for the remainder of the year, and Hugh McGuire, who will be succeeding me as CEO in January of 2024. So at the end of the presentation, we'll turn the call over and be happy to take your questions. Overall, I'm pleased to report that the third quarter has progressed as expected, with volume growth accelerating across the business, as Glanbia's portfolio of better nutrition, brands, and ingredients continues to resonate strongly with consumers who are seeking health and wellness.
In GPN, strong Optimum Nutrition brand trends continue to deliver volume growth in the quarter and year to date, despite significant price increases implemented through Q4 of 2022. ON continued its growth momentum, both internationally and in the U.S., with U.S. consumption growth in the 12 weeks to mid-September of 9.5%, building on a strong comp of the prior year. In Nutritional Solutions, as expected, overall volume trends have stabilized, with volume growth again in the third quarter, driven by Protein Solutions, as trends in custom premix solutions have continued to stabilize. Overall, the group's financial position and ongoing cash conversion remain strong.
In terms of capital allocation, we have, during the period, completed the 100 million share buyback program announced earlier in the year and acquired the B2B Bioactive Ingredients business of PanTheryx for $46 million, further complementing the capabilities in Glanbia Nutritionals, Nutritional Solutions. So as a result of the delivery year to date, and our confidence at this point of the year in the outlook for the remainder of the year, particularly in GPN, we're upgrading our full-year adjusted earnings per share guidance from the prior 12%-15% growth, now to 17%-20% growth, all constant currency numbers. Turning then to the revenue for the first nine months. From a group perspective, as I said, very much in line with expectations. In terms of volume within GPN, ON, our largest brand, continued its volume positive momentum in the period.
In fact, volume accelerated for ON in the third quarter, bringing the year-to-date volume growth to mid-single digits, as well as sustaining double-digit pricing in the brand. Pricing overall continued to be the key driver of growth in GPN, with the pricing sustained in the period as a result of the annualization of those strategic price increases we executed in 2022. Across GN, we continue to see a significantly improving volume trajectory in Nutritional Solutions. As I referenced, volume growth delivered in the third quarter, which I'll speak more to later. We also had volume growth in U.S. Cheese year-to-date, reflecting robust end market demand and very good customer relationships in that space. The pricing decline that you see in Glanbia Nutritionals, in both Nutritional Solutions and Cheese, was all a function of lower dairy market pricing.
In terms of GPN, year to date has delivered branded lifestyle revenue growth of 3%. This was driven by growth in international of 12.3% and a decline of 1.8% in Americas as a result of the expected decline in the SlimFast brands. That same SlimFast performance impacted branded volume decline to -5.9%, but we had good demand trends across ON and the healthy lifestyle portfolio, and that trend continued with volume growth, as I referenced, accelerating in both those two areas in the third quarter. We expect this trend to continue into Q4, with the protein category currently resonating very strongly with active lifestyle consumers. I'll speak more to the brands shortly. Again, as I referenced earlier, pricing was a key driver of growth.
We have sustained the pricing benefit of those 22 actions and delivered overall pricing growth of almost 9% year-to-date. We've increased our brand investment in the period, and this has supported volume progression of the key brands in the face of that pricing action. So for full year 2023, GPN expects revenue growth of approximately 5% on a constant currency basis, as the year-to-date's revenue growth will be significantly augmented by strong year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter, that we've good visibility on at this point in time. On margins, the positive trajectory referenced in the first half results in August continues to improve the structural margin in GPN, and that is underpinned by a continued focus on revenue growth management initiatives, operating efficiencies, and margin optimization.
We are achieving improved margins while also increasing our year-on-year brand investment across all our key markets. As a result of our continuing confidence in sustaining margin progression, we are today upgrading our GPN margin guidance for full year 2023 to between 14% and 14.5%. That will represent an increase of between 280 and 330 BPS on full year 2022. Looking then at the brands, as I referenced, ON is our flagship global brand and the number one brand in sports nutrition. As you would expect, given its scale and most importantly, its potential, Optimum Nutrition is our clear priority brand. It is the brand that has and will receive the greatest proportion of resources and investment, and is now over 60% of our portfolio.
As a global brand, it has continued to experience good volume momentum across both Americas and International, and hd a strong third quarter. In the U.S., our consumption continues to be strong, and as referenced earlier, in the 12 weeks to September, almost 10% growth. In international, the growth of 12.3% was largely driven by ON, excuse me, which was supported by higher investment levels as the brand continues to gain traction with new consumers across all our key priority international markets. We expect strong momentum for ON in Q4 and continue to progress all aspects of the brand playbook with strong brand activation planned into Q1 2024. Anchored in delivering consumer protein and energy needs, the ON powder format has a really strong value proposition, and no doubt it is resonating with consumers and will continue to drive our brand momentum.
Given the continuing momentum of the brand, and despite the scale of the strategic price increases implemented last year, we're confident that the brand will deliver mid-single-digit volume growth for full year 2023. Looking to healthy lifestyle, it's 18% of our GPN portfolio. It includes the brands of Isopure, think!, and Amazing Grass, and it continues to gain momentum. Here, our recent consumption was 12.3%. Q3 was another strong quarter for the Isopure brand, where the continual rollout of the Isopure Add Less, Do More campaign, distribution growth, and new visual identity, driving good consumption. We've launched a number of innovative flavors across the healthy lifestyle brands, and again here, expect good momentum to continue for the rest of 2023. SlimFast is now 10% of our GPN portfolio.
That has continued to decline as expected, as ongoing challenges within the diet and weight management category have resulted in reduced shelf space for the brands. Our consumption here was down 35.8%. As we've discussed previously, it's fair to say that the weight management landscape has changed dramatically in recent years. However, one of the things that remains constant is the very strong need of many consumers for support in their weight management journey. And SlimFast continues to have very strong awareness and recognition by consumers as a brand that has a long heritage in this space. Our strategy for SlimFast is now very aligned with this trend, whereas we outlined early in the year, we are now refocusing our efforts and rebasing our investments back to the core brand meal replacement, ready to drink shakes and powders. Turning then to Glanbia Nutritionals.
In Nutritional Solutions, I'm pleased to report that the business delivered volume growth in the third quarter, continuing the sequential growth trajectory that we spoke to at the half-year results. This growth was underpinned by good demand in Protein Solutions, while customer offtakes on the Premix side continued to stabilize. The overall volume decline of 6.4% was driven largely by those supply chain rebalancing trends that we saw in the first half of the year. Again, as previously referenced, largely in Premix. Pricing was down 7.6%, with positive price in Premix offset by the declining dairy protein market pricing. We expect demand for Protein Solutions to continue to be well into the fourth quarter, and for Nutritional Solutions to deliver an overall mid-single-digit decline in volumes for the full year.
Full-year EBITA margins for Nutritional Solutions are expected to be between 12%-13%, representing again an increase of between 60-160 basis points versus 2022. This is being driven by operating efficiencies and the accretive impact of the lower dairy pricing. As I referenced in September, we completed the acquisition of a bioactive ingredients business, PanTheryx. This business will complement the existing ingredient technology portfolio of Nutritional Solutions, particularly in the areas of immunity and gut health, providing a wider breadth of technical capabilities in the Nutritional Solutions space to support our customers. So now I'll hand to Mark.
Thank you, Siobhán, and good morning to everyone on the call. At the end of the quarter, the group's net debt was $335 million, compared to $731 million at the end of Q3 last year. The lower net debt is primarily due to strong operating cash flow during the period, with significantly reduced working capital outflows, as inventories returned to a more normalized level compared to the post-COVID supply chain challenges of last year. In addition, the group received proceeds of approximately EUR 179 million in April for the sale of the Glanbia Cheese U.K. and Ireland joint ventures and the repayment of associated shareholder loans. The group has committed financing facilities of over $1.3 billion.
As Siobhán has mentioned, post-quarter end, we closed on the acquisition of the B2B Bioactives Ingredients business of PanTheryx for $46 million, and we continue to look at acquisition opportunities, primarily in the nutritional solutions space. Year-to-date strategic capital expenditure has been primarily focused on further manufacturing automation in GPN, protein extrusion capacity in Nutritional Solutions, and IT implementations across the group. For the full year, we expect strategic and maintenance capital expenditure to be between $75 million and $85 million. The group completed the most recent share buyback program in mid-September. The EUR 100 million buyback resulted in the purchase and cancellation of 7.2 million shares at an average price of EUR 13.86. We will continue to look at share buyback programs as a vehicle to return capital to shareholders.
At the end of the year, we expect the group's net debt/EBITDA ratio to be below 0.7x. Now, I would like to update you on elements of guidance for the full year. Firstly, for GPN, we now expect like-for-like revenue growth to be approximately 5% for the year, augmented by strong year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter. While we expect good revenue growth for the year in sports, nutrition, and lifestyle, we expect this to be somewhat offset by lower revenues in weight management. In Nutritional Solutions, we have discussed the supply chain rebalancing trends we have seen during the year, as well as the sequential improvement in trends as the year has progressed, with volumes down 6.4% year to date. For the full year, volumes are expected to be mid-single digit lower than prior year.
Turning to GPN EBITA margins, we now have good visibility for the remainder of the year, and the positive trajectory we discussed as part of our half-year results in August continues to improve with a structural margin in GPN underpinned by continued focus on revenue growth management initiatives, operating efficiencies, and margin optimization. We have also said previously that second-half margins are benefiting from price increases taken last year, as well as lower whey costs in the second half, somewhat offset by inflation and other cost of goods sold and enhanced brand investment. We are now able to update our GPN EBITA margin expectations for the full year to be between 14% and 14.5%, representing an increase over the prior year of between 280 and 330 basis points.
Looking to next year, we will provide a detailed update on 2024 margin expectations during our 2023 full year-end results call. At this point, we would expect 2024 GPN EBITA margins to be broadly in line with this year's. Turning to GN Nutritional Solutions, our EBITA margin guidance is unchanged, and we expect margins to be between 12 and 13% for the full year, an increase of between 60 and 160 basis points over prior year. As we announced in August, we have, with our U.S. joint venture partners, decided to amend our commercial agreements, which will simplify group reporting from 2024. As a result of this change from 2024, Glanbia Nutritionals will act as an agent for the joint ventures and consequently will recognize only the commissions earned on the sale of joint venture products.
We will no longer gross up revenues and corresponding cost of sales of the joint venture products. There will be no change in day-to-day operations, and there will be no material change in the group or Glanbia Nutritionals' EBITA. Detailed pro forma information for 2023 will be provided with the 2023 results, but for illustrative purposes, depending on dairy markets, this change will result in group and Glanbia Nutritionals revenues being lower by approximately $2 billion, and group EBITA margins will be higher by over 300 basis points from current levels. There will be no material change to Glanbia Nutritionals' dollar EBITA, with again, subject to dairy market pricing, Nutritional Solutions' EBITA margins expected to be 150-200 basis points higher, and U.S. Cheese EBITA margins expected to be 200-300 basis points higher than currently reported.
We believe this change will be effective from 2024, will simplify the presentation of underlying performance of the group, and facilitate easier comparisons with our peers. Now, turning to cash. Based on the performance year to date, we expect to have strong cash flow for the year, and operating cash flow conversion is expected to be between 80% and 90% for the full year. Return on capital employed is expected to be between 12% and 13% for the year, at the top end of our capital markets stated target range. And as Siobhán has mentioned, we are pleased to upgrade our adjusted earnings per share growth guidance from 12%-15% to 17%-20% for the full year, primarily based on GPN expected performance. And with that, I would like to hand it back to Siobhán.
Thank you, Mark. So to close, as Mark has just outlined, we're upgrading our guidance today to that 17%-20% growth based on that year-to-date delivery and strong momentum in GPN and across the group for Q4. This builds on a strong performance of 2021 and 2022, and I'm pleased to say that those 2023-2025 strategic targets outlined at our capital markets event last year are very much on track, and we're well on our way to achieving the financial ambition that we outlined at that event. As I reflect today, Glanbia has evolved enormously and now has very clear and unique positions in nutrition at a time when consumers truly recognize and value the benefits of better nutrition. These global consumers give Glanbia a strong runway for growth.
Growth we will deliver by driving forward across the complementary areas in the group that we have built and invested in. The growing global billion-dollar ON brands, the growing portfolio of U.S. healthy lifestyle brands, the protein powerhouse capability in Nutritional Solutions, and the global leadership position in the blending of vitamins and mineral premixes. Glanbia is in growing categories, has incredibly passionate and innovative teams, has a highly efficient supply chain, strong routes to market, and strong distribution capabilities. We have, as Mark has outlined, the financial capability to continue to invest for growth. Maybe most importantly, what I hope our recent performance has shown you all is that culturally, Glanbia is resilient and agile and always testing itself to be better.
... We have category-leading brands across multiple growing regions and a transformed business capable of executing growth effectively and efficiently and for the long term. So it's been an enormous privilege and honor for me to be part of this incredible Glanbia team for over 30 years. CEO for the last 10. It's been a very exciting journey, and I believe the group is in great shape. So as we close out 2023, I am really, really delighted that we have incredibly strong successor in Hugh, who will take over in January, and who, with a super team, I know will drive Glanbia on to just more and more future success. So for now, as always, many thanks for all your time over all the years, and we now pass to Q&A, where I'm joined with Mark and indeed by Hugh, who will happily take all your hard questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star two. Our first question comes from Cathal Kenny at Davy Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning, all, and thanks for taking the questions. A few questions all on GPN. Firstly, your full year guidance implies a pretty significant step-up in Q4. Just wondering, could you provide some added color on the moving parts for the Q4 expectation? Secondly, general comment in terms of what you're seeing in terms of pricing within the category for ON and associated promotional activity. And final question is just on inventory. Any color or comment in terms of the inventory position within the core channels within GPN? Thank you.
Hugh?
Yeah. Morning, Cathal. Thanks very much. The line was a little faint there, but I think I got the three questions. I think, in terms of quarter four and guidance, there is a number of things driving that. Firstly, comps, we're up against a weaker quarter four last year, driven by a degree of customer destocking. Secondly, marketing upweight. We've spoken about that before. You know, we have a significant upweighted marketing spend this year, and we'll see a significant amount of that go through in quarter four as well, supporting our brands. New Year, New You, which always quarter four is always strong as we prepare for a strong quarter one next year, New Year, New You. And lastly, innovation.
We have a number of new flavors on the Gold Standard Whey, which are going into different retail channels as well, which are launching in quarter four. So all of that gives us confidence around strong volume demand for GPN, and particularly ON in quarter four. Second question, pricing. Yeah, it's something we always watch. We'd be investing a little in price in quarter four, but all planned all around support in quarter one, New Year, New You. Certainly, you know, we had significantly high COGS in half one. As we came through that with the oil industry, we're watching carefully. We're not seeing anything dramatic right now. We are seeing a little bit of increased spend, let's say, around Amazon's second Prime Day, but it's something we're watching carefully.
But everything at this point in time is carefully planned for quarter four and quarter one. Lastly, inventory. No major change in inventory. It's something we track all of the time. There's obviously going to be a little bit of puts and takes across different channels, but as of now, comfortable with our inventory levels. And in fact, big driver of our working capital and cash conversion has been a reduction in inventory in GPN over the course of the last 12 months.
Very good. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Patrick Higgins at Goodbody. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Morning, everyone. A couple of questions from me, one GPN and one Nutritional Solutions. So on GPN, could you maybe just give us a comment on the whey cost backdrop? Is it still trending lower? Have you seen some stabilization, I guess, particularly for the higher grade stuff? And how should we think about your visibility on whey costs into next year? How forward hedged are you at this stage? And then the second question, just on Nutritional Solutions and the pickup you've seen in the Protein Solutions business. How much is that just, you know, kind of returning to normalized, kind of underlying demand and growth in that business, or is there an element of restocking in there, or how should we think about that pickup in volumes as seen in that business in Q3? Thank you.
Hey, Patrick. In terms of whey cost, we, you know, we have, as you know, in the second half, we probably have the lowest whey pricing we've seen for a while going through our PNL. Whereas the first half, actually, with some of the highest whey costs going through our PNL. So we've seen, I think, the whey market trough at this point, so it is turning somewhat, but not excessively so, I would say. So from our perspective, it's more of a normalized turn, as you would see when prices get quite low. In terms of visibility, you know, we're pretty much procured through the beginning of the second quarter at this point into next year, so we have some reasonable visibility into the first half.
But again, I think our expectations would be that this turn in Whey will be more of a normalized turn, as opposed to some of the significant peaks we saw over a year ago. In terms of Nutritional Solutions, we're very, very happy that we're seeing, you know, the volume growth return, for the business. And on the dairy side, I would say this is not... No, I wouldn't say it's restocking. I would say it's more normalized consumer demand just being met right now, and our customers seem to be in pretty good shape from that perspective. On the non-dairy side, albeit we're still at a negative volume comp, it is much, much, much reduced from where it was at the beginning of the year.
So we are seeing that supply chain rebalancing begin to sort of phase, I would say, into more of a normalized phase. So by the time we get into the beginning of next year, we would hope that we are back to a normal level there.
That's great. Thank you.
... Our next question comes from Pinar Ergun from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Hi, morning, and, thanks for taking my question. My first question would be on NS margins. I know you narrowed the guidance for GPN, but the margin guide for NS at 12%-13% remains pretty wide. What is keeping you cautious on the margin guidance for that division? And what levers could you pull other than commodity prices, to deliver margins maybe at the upper end of the range? And then my second question would be on the GPN, sales acceleration for the fourth quarter. Could you maybe comment what you're expecting by brand? I would imagine still strong ON performance, but, for SlimFast specifically, are you still expecting negative sales, albeit, you know, including the comp, the easier comp in the quarter? Thank you.
Hi, good morning. In terms of NS margins, we're very pleased actually, where we're going to end this year in NS margins compared to where we were last year. I would say there can be some moving pieces around dairy. I'd say we're reasonably confident we'll be in the midpoint of that range at this point, in terms of where we stand. So again, very comfortable where we're going to end up in NS margins for the year.
Yes, good morning. And you kind of answered the question yourself, really, in terms of quarter four, and in terms of the guidance of 5%. ON, our sports nutrition brands, particularly Optimum Nutrition and Isopure, will drive that growth. And yes, we will continue to see some deceleration in SlimFast, as we saw in quarter three, primarily driven by reduced SKUs in major retailers. So, primarily quarter four, driven by Optimum Nutrition.
Thank you.
Our next question is from Alex Sheridan at Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, morning, all. Firstly, just wanted to say congrats, Siobhán, on leaving the business in such good shape, and good luck in your retirement. I've got three questions, if that's all right. Just firstly, in terms of the GPN growth and ON specifically, are there any material differences in terms of, you know, channel growth, that might mean the ON growth is not fully captured in some of the scanner data that we see? And then secondly, just in terms of kind of a longer term thematic, but obviously GLP-1 has been making a lot of noise.
You know, there's been some anecdotal comments from the likes of Walmart around, users having more demand for, for protein, and indeed, doctors kind of recommending more protein to prevent, muscle loss associated with weight loss. So it's early days, obviously, but be interested in terms of how you're thinking about that potential opportunity for Glanbia, across GPN and NS. And then finally, just for Mark, I mean, another very strong year on cash. I think you said that you were gonna be, below 0.7x net debt to EBITDA at year-end. So I guess that's below your sort of optimal leverage. So be interested in the priorities in terms of use of cash, from here. Thanks.
Just to thank you, Alex, for your note, and Hugh and Mark will take on the specifics.
Morning, Alex. Yeah, so in terms of channel... Look, firstly, and we'll have said this at our Investor and Capital Markets Day, we're an omni-channel business. Our largest channels are e-commerce and club, followed by food, drug, mass. So we'll be looking across different drivers of growth, across different channels at different points in time. I think in terms of scanner data, you know, when we spoke at our Investor Day in May, we broke out our food, drug, mass business. About 23% of our business in North America remains in and around that today as well, so it's a key channel for us.
But when I look at some of the external scanner data, we will see, we're trading large comps in terms of, new listings last year, and significant secondary displays in quarter three last year, which we didn't lap this year as we focused on New Year, New You, and quarter one particularly. So, you know, from our perspective, we'll be looking across all our channels and all our markets, and seeing where the best opportunity to drive growth is at any one particular time. In terms of GLP-1, look, it's really interesting. It's certainly a mega trend in terms of weight loss. We're tracking consumer behavior.
We recently commissioned a piece of research, actually, on it, and what we can clearly see is interest and awareness is growing as a solution for quick weight loss, and we're watching how that materializes. We clearly see as well, that consumers are worried about the side effects. We can see they're scaling back on high-calorie foods. But I think, you know, really interesting for us, and in terms of opportunity, they're continuing to look for ways to stay healthy. They're worrying about nutritional deficiencies, so that plays into our strengths. You know, as they travel that weight loss journey, they want to make sure they're taking the right nutritious foods. And our portfolio of brands and ingredients play into that, whether it's high protein, they're looking for fortified products, high energy, or ideal calorific content.
We're watching it carefully, we're tracking it, but from our perspective, we would see it as a potential opportunity, given our range of brands and ingredients that really will benefit consumers in that weight loss journey.
Good morning, Alex. Just for your question on cash and capital allocation, yeah, absolutely very pleased with the progress we've made this year. You can even see at the end of the quarter, we had a low enough net debt level, and the PanTheryx acquisition was made just after the quarter end. You're right, I did say, assuming no major activity between now and the end of the year, we will be below 0.7 x at the end of the year. That, of course, gives us tremendous optionality, and that's something, as you can imagine, we're working on. We do have an active acquisition pipeline that we're looking at right now, primarily focused on Nutritional Solutions.
What I would expect is by the time we get to the beginning of next year, we have the opportunity to talk about capital allocation further with the markets. And obviously, we will... You'd expect us to increase our dividend next year. We'll look at share buyback as well, to the extent that makes sense, because we have been very successful at doing that over the last number of years. So, you're absolutely right. We have optionality on the capital allocation side, both on the M&A side and hoping to return to shareholders, which we will use appropriately.
Thanks very much.
Thanks, Alex.
Our next question comes from Karel Zoete from Kepler. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I have two questions. One is on the innovation agenda. In the introductory remarks, you spoke about good innovations in the fourth quarter, and I'm curious to see what the agenda looks like, because the success of powders seems to be supporting the business, but at the same time, there's always this ambition to grow ready to drink, ready to eat formats. So how do you look at the latter? And then is that going to be an active push still in 2024? And the other thing is on the acquisition in Nutritional Solutions. What does the acquired business really add to the platform in the U.S.? Thank you.
Good morning, Karel. Yeah, so what I spoke about in terms of quarter four is new flavor innovation on our largest brand, Gold Standard Whey, which is launching with exclusive flavors launching across multiple different sectors. So that's been an area of increased focus in 2023, as we came out of the massive challenges around inflation in 2021, 2022. We will always have a flavor agenda in terms of innovation on our ready-to-eat bars, our Think brand. We just launched two new flavors, Boston Cream Pie and Chocolate Mint. So both of those went in quarter three, and looking forward to see how they do.
In ready-to-drink as well, you know, when we look even across our SlimFast portfolio, we'll be launching new RTD flavors next year, and continue to invest behind our Gold Standard Whey RTD. So while they're small innovations, they're still strategically important to us. So it will be an area, you know, as we, as the industry and the sector, as our business normalizes post significant price increase strategy over the last two years, innovation will be upweighted as we go into 2024 and 2025. So, but, look, it should quarter four, again, it's an underpin of quarter four and quarter one growth, and look forward to more innovation as we go forward.
A slight build on that, Carol, just to reference it very briefly, would be a trend that we are seeing in Nutritional Solutions as well, where a little bit to the earlier point Hugh was making in response to Alex is a lot of the customers of Nutritional Solutions looking for hooks for their brands across that whole area of health, nutrition, fortification. So again, seeing that accelerate in recent times, which will, of course, be positive for the group overall.
Yeah, and good morning, Carol. To your question on the acquisition, again, very pleased with, with the acquisition of PanTheryx. Gives us, you know, complementary, I would say, capabilities, similar to the Sterling Technologies acquisition in gut health and immunity. Very much seeing, you know, growth there in the U.S. and Asian markets, actually. And again, very pleased that we could do this acquisition on a bilateral negotiation process, which, you know, keeps the multiple lower than you might expect. So from that perspective, very, very happy with that add-on to Nutritional Solutions.
Thank you.
As a reminder, for any further questions, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. We have no further questions on the call, so I'll hand back to the team at Glanbia to conclude.
Again, as always, thank you very much for your time and interest, and, the team will speak with you soon. Take care from me. Bye-bye.