Okay. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the presentation of C&C plc's Full Year Results. I'm Ralph Findlay, the Chair, and I'm joined this morning by Patty McMahon, the Group CEO. Last week's announcement, including the board changes, was obviously not expected, but I am really delighted that Patty has been appointed as the CEO. Before Patty goes into the detail, I'm just going to summarize the FY 2023 highlights, progress against strategy and the FY 2024 outlook. In terms of FY 2023, the significant reduction in leverage to 1.3 times and the robust financial performance have enabled a return to dividend payments with a final declared dividend of EUR 0.0379 per share.
Looking at the progress against strategy, we made clear market share gains in all the key categories of cider and beer, and we achieved significant growth in achieved revenue per customer. Looking forward to FY 2024, the underlying business is strong despite the impact of the ERP upgrade, and our immediate priorities are therefore very clear. To continue to make progress against our strategic objectives to develop brands and to win distribution and to resolve systems issues to return to outstanding levels of customer service. With that introduction, I'm going to hand over to Patty. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Ralph. Turning to Slide four, given the disruption associated with our ERP system upgrade, I wanted to highlight the business rationale for the investment, which post FY 2024 remains firmly intact. The background to the ERP implementation was that our Matthew Clark and Bibendum businesses were operating on different platforms, that's a legacy from their acquisition. The first step of this transformation program is to harmonize our systems and ERP platform to address the weaknesses in our system security, remove old legacy systems, which as well as generating potential security concerns, are cumbersome, expensive, and complex to maintain. The current implementation we're undertaking will enable us to address these issues together with harmonizing some of our core processes, which in turn will drive greater efficiency for us in time.
Once we have stabilized the systems, and we will, we can then start to consider how we can exploit the significant efficiencies such platforms offer us. The more recently acquired businesses, in particular, haven't had the level of IT investment required to drive competitive advantage in today's market. That's the opportunity that we will undoubtedly be able to pursue, providing us with a clear route to sustainable margin enhancement. We will, of course, update you further in time on these plans. Turning to Slide six, and taking a step back for a moment, looking at the market as we see it. We previously spoke about spirits outperformance post-lockdown, with consumers looking to celebrate the return to on-trade with serves and experiences that they couldn't easily replicate at home. The most obvious one being cocktails.
Now we see this trend, I think, reversing and spirits volumes down 7.9% in the market as a whole. Wine, too, continues to lose volume and value share. The winners have been beer and cider, and to some extent, soft drinks also. Looking at consumer types or customer types rather, the trend around independent free trade, which is IFT, and lease closures continues. The GB and Ireland on-trade universe has contracted by a little bit more than 12% with over 1,500-1,600 net closures since FY 20. This is primarily in GB. 87% of site closures in GB during FY 23 were the independent free trade and some closures in that lease sector.
Independent free trade and leased combined to be over 100% of the net closures during last year as the national and regional groups made up centrally of managed sites, have been much more robust, growing their footprint during the year by about 1.5%. The growth in these managed groups is good news for C&C, as over 60% of our GB business is in that managed channel, where we enjoy strong relationships with stable businesses. We're the number one supplier to managed operators in GB. Turning now to Slide seven and our very good cider share results as Ralph has outlined. Core to our strategy is growing sales of our own brands, and I'm pleased to say that our investment is paying off. FY23 was a good year for our cider brands.
In Ireland, Bulmers grew volume by 9% and net revenue by 40% in the year, driven by the return of on-trade and somewhat aided by the introduction of minimum unit pricing and our brand positioning ahead of that change. In GB, Magners was 6.6% share of cider sold during the 12 weeks to the end of January. That's an important period because it encompasses Christmas, and Magners enjoyed its highest off-trade Christmas share in three years. Orchard Pig, our premium cider brand, also grew with volumes up 92% in that same 12-month period. Overall, the Always On brand activity on C&C Ciders throughout the year encouraged consumers to reappraise our brands, helping to increase penetration and allowing our brands to grow sales, like I said, particularly around that all-important Christmas time.
Turning to slide nine on our premium beer performance. Another one of our core brand objectives is growing in premium beer, where we have grown market share again in FY 2023 overall. In Ireland, we're the number two supplier of premium lager in the off-trade, and have continued to grow volume sales throughout the year. In the on-trade in Ireland, our partnership with the Licensed Vintners Association, the LVA, has also helped us grow distribution for our key partner brands such as San Miguel, whose distribution is up almost 300%. Meanwhile, in GB, both Heverlee and Menabrea continue to grow ahead of total beer across on-trade and off-trade. Our increased brand footprint in the on-trade has grown volume of both brands, Heverlee plus 23% and Menabrea plus 24% year-over-year.
Turning to slide 10, we can't really talk about beer without mentioning Tennent's. Tennent's total volume share of beer in Scotland is 29.3%, and that's well ahead of its nearest competitor. Among mainstream beer brands, Tennent's represents over two in every three pints poured in the on-trade. Across all beer, it represents one in every two pints poured in the on-trade. Despite its scale, it's still growing market share up 1.9 percentage points in the year. During FY 2023 in Scotland, we've grown our own Heverlee brand in the on-trade as well to be bigger than Amstel, Budweiser, and Andre as measured by CGA. At the same time, we've supported Innis & Gunn, a strategic partner of ours, and of course, an equity investment to a greater on-trade market share than Corona.
Turning to Slide 11, our all-important OTIF, which is on time in full, measures that serve as an indicator for us, our proxy for customer service. These stats are for MCB only, with the remainder of the business operating in an OTIF range of mid to high nineties. Points to call out here are pre-COVID, Matthew Clark averaged about 96% OTIF, a level that we consider good, but with some room for improvement. The cybersecurity incident in February 2021 reduced OTIF to 43%, and that's clearly a level that doesn't meet our expectations or indeed the expectations of our customers. Post that cybersecurity incident in February 2021, we were on a trajectory of improvement, building OTIFs back to 92.2% in January, and that was immediately prior to our new system implementation.
As we disclosed last week, our OTIFs at the moment aren't where we want them to be. We're supporting their gradual improvement with additional investment of people in our depot primarily. We have a track record of resilience in building back after adversity, and pleasingly, the last week continues to show an improving trend in OTIF. We're up to about 87%. Of course, it'll take time to rebuild trust, win back customers, but with some of our depots like Foss Lane, Wetherby, Bedford, they're already in excess of 90% in the last week. We're clearly seeing improvement, and we've done this before. We've built back in 2018, and we've built back post-cyber. Okay, turning to Slide 13 on a summary of the FY 23 results. Moving on to the financials now.
We reported a strong performance for the year, though Q4 was impacted by a number of factors, principally non-recurring. A number of rail strikes impacted particularly around the Christmas, the Christmas period, most noticeably. We experienced some system implementation disruption. That only came in February. FY 2023 was ultimately a year of further recovery, as Ralph Findlay has mentioned. Net revenue of EUR 1.7 billion was up 18% year-on-year as we lapped the last of the COVID restrictions in last year's comps. Operating profit of EUR 84 million continues to reflect our pricing actions offset by higher input costs and overheads, as well as increased brand investment of EUR 11 million in the year. Obviously, as mentioned a moment ago, it is also reflective of one-off non-structural disruption.
Operating profit margins of 5% represent significant year-on-year improvements. It's worth noting that EUR 11 million increased brand investment is contained within that 5% margin. That equates to about 60 basis points of overall margin. Free cash flow of almost EUR 75 million represents conversion of 65%, which is within our medium-term range. Our net debt was EUR 153 post IFRS. That's down from EUR 271 last year, equating to 1.3 times net debt to EBITDA ratio. Turning to slide 14 now, maybe a quick closer look at that +18 year-on-year growth on the net revenue line. Ireland's net revenue was +24. That's an outperformance versus GB at 17. However, I would point out that the trend in GB was better, clearly prior to those rail strikes, particularly around the Christmas period.
We see positive price mix driving the growth year on year, more so than volume, which is +3% higher than last year. It's been mostly price mix story. We lost some co-pack business during the year, which is the nature of that kind of business. The vast majority of it related to BBG brands, namely Stella. Turning to slide 15 now and looking at operating profit. Operating profits, as we said, EUR 84 million. The year's outcome represents 76% increase year on year, with GB Distribution providing the most significant element of that year-on-year improvement. As mentioned, we benefited from , minimum unit pricing being implemented in Ireland earlier last year, we continue to invest in our brands for the long term. As indicated earlier, some one-off disruption adversely impacted profitability for the year, most noticeably, again, those rail strikes.
Turning to slide 16, net debt of EUR 153 equates to net debt to EBITDA of 1.3, which is below our target range, meaning we're in a very strong balance sheet position. Cash generation was again good at 65% conversion. Contained within that, there's a working capital inflow of EUR 2 million, and that's reflective of an EUR 18 million tax deferral payment, which was an outflow. Higher stock levels owing to increased safety stock of EUR 12 million, and that's associated with the timing of our ERP implementation, where we decided to hold higher levels of buffer stock. That's offset partly by the increased use of our debtor securitization facility, which contributed EUR 14 million in the year.
As at the end of February, that debtor securitization facility was drawn to a value of EUR 94 million, and that compares with EUR 110 million at half year and EUR 84 million this time last year. Debt collection was good throughout the year. Of course, we remain vigilant of credit risk and extending credit to customers at the moment. CapEx was within our EUR 15 million-EUR 20 million guidance range in the year. Admiral disposal proceeds feed in here as well. You'll note the increase in lease liabilities, which is largely the timing of lease renewals. Finally, on this slide, we refinanced our senior bank debt in recent weeks, extending maturity out to 2028. At the moment, about, well, more than 80% of our senior debt is fixed. Turning now to slide 18. I'll conclude on this slide.
Ralph has started his remarks with the outlook, the expected impact of the ERP implementation FY 2024. I fully understand how disappointing and frustrating last week's announcements regarding those ERP disruptions will have been for both our own people and of course, investors. As I stated earlier, we're confident that we will fix the issue, and having done so, we'll be in a much more stable and secure position to grow the business. Let me finish the presentation by giving you my view on the inherent strengths and characteristics and opportunities that this business possesses, which clearly particularly excite me as the incoming CEO. Our business is underpinned by genuinely strong brands with excellent market positions, generating consistent cash flows over many, many years. The brands are principally Tennent's, Bulmers, Magners.
Not only are they number one and number two in their respective markets or categories that they serve, they act as an anchor for us to extend our fast-growing premium portfolio of brands. You saw earlier that our premium beer volume was up 44% last year. We know that brands are strong when they command pricing power, that's something we've certainly seen over the last 12 months. Price mix has been the key driver of our 21% growth in branded revenue. That hasn't come from volume, as I said earlier. That's come from price mix, that's a sign of strength. Within the brands, we have two very significant and world-class, well-invested and well-maintained production sites that serve directly the markets that we operate in.
These core brands, whilst well established, are benefiting from greater marketing investment and returning both volume and market share growth in the main. Our balance sheet strength and cash flow characteristics mean that despite the one-off impact of ERP, we can and will continue to invest in our brands and our business. The other part of our business is distribution, and we operate the largest independent distribution platform to the on-trade in the U.K. and Ireland. We have a steady-state margin target of 4% for this part of the business, which we achieved obviously in H1 of the year just ended, FY 2023.
It's challenged clearly by various disruption, in the second half of the year, and indeed, industry trends away from IFT towards managed operators all play its part in H2 being, you know, a lower number in terms of the margin derived from that distribution business. However, we remain of the view, firmly of the view, that with technology efficiencies delivered, that that 4% margin is sustainable and it's attractive to us. We see return on capital employed for the distribution part of our business in excess of 25%, and that's largely because that business is asset light. Clearly, the more we can grow that part of the business, the more beneficial it is to the overall group return on capital employed over a period of time.
What all this delivers is a business with fantastic sustainable free cash flow conversion, which in turn enables us to return to a strong progressive dividend, the first step of which we've already announced today. Of course, in time, we will consider further returns of capital to shareholders whilst always maintaining that prudent leverage ratio of 1.5 to 2 times EBITDA. There's no doubt that the next few months are gonna be very, very challenging in finally embedding and fixing our ERP implementation. As I've said, we're very confident that we will achieve that. As well as the strengths of the business that I've already outlined. What really excites me is the commitment and talent of our people within C&C. That's never been more evident to us than during the last few recent weeks, where people have worked tirelessly to support our business and our customers.
That talent and commitment will be a true strength for us as we seek to exploit the exciting opportunities this business has over the coming years, and I feel truly privileged to be supported by such a fantastic, committed, and talented team. Thank you for your time. I'll hand back to Ralph.
Patty, thank you very much for that. We'd now like to turn the meeting over to questions, please.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Once again, it is star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We'll now take our first question from Patrick Higgins at Goodbody. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks guys, good morning. A couple of questions on my side, if you don't mind. Firstly, just on Matthew Clark, Bibendum and I suppose GB Distribution, could you just give us a bit of a bridge on the weakness in the margins in the H2? Obviously it's down from 4 to 1.5%. You mentioned the rail strikes, weakness in the independent free trade, et cetera, obviously the ERP system, just a bridge would be great on that side. Secondly, just on the ERP system challenges, what system are you guys putting in place?
What exactly are the challenges occurring in some of the depots, and what are the fixes that you're putting in place to resolve the challenges?
All right. Thanks, Patty. Maybe I'll take both of them, actually. The first one, I suppose margin in H2, there's probably four aspects to it, and I'll rank them in order starting with the most significant, which is clearly the rail strikes. You know, they happened at exactly the wrong time for us. Canceled a lot of Christmas parties, clearly in the run up to December, which is our most lucrative time or one of our most lucrative times. To put a number on the rail strike disruption, it's always hard to quantify what you would've got, but we think it's somewhere between EUR 5 million and EUR 8 million of net profit that we lost as a direct consequence of those rail strikes. That's the most significant element. I think, look, there was ERP disruption clearly as well in February.
We went live with our ERP in the month of February. That probably cost us EUR a couple of million of profit in the month. It led to, you know, it led to us coming in at the lower end of range, so that's the next most significant impact. Again, both of those you'd like to think non-recurring. Hopefully rail strikes don't happen to the same extent again. Beyond that, you know, we talked about product mix and spirits declining, that does have a margin impact, and that did have a margin impact because spirits margins are quite attractive for us, and we benefited from that in H1.
There's an element to seasonality in there as well that we can't quite quantify because we haven't had a normal 12-month period really with Matthew Clark post-COVID to compare against, but it feels like there's going to be an element to seasonality that favors H1 in time anyway. Then maybe the last point to make, Patty, is around the customer mix, as you call out and as we called out in the presentation. Managed operators are winning at the expense of the independent free trade. Without going into the various economics associated with those customer groups, I think it's fair to say that, you know, our value extraction from managed groups is a little bit lower than independent free trade.
I think all of those things combine to put some downward pressure on H2. I think the latter two points around product mix and customer mix are probably likely to continue in the short term, whereas the other ones are non-recurring. Second question, the ERP system and a little bit more of the detail. We're upgrading the core ERP system in Matthew Clark and Bibendum to JD Edwards 9.2, which is the same system that we operate successfully across the rest of the business. Ireland, Scotland, we all use 9.2. Again, there's a high level of confidence that we can clearly work through this and harmonize. I think the big difference with Matthew Clark is its sheer scale.
I think it's been probably a couple of decades since it went through significant technological investment, and that brings its own complexities. The fixes, there's many of them. There's no silver bullet fix. It's not all technology, and technology certainly plays a part in it. What we're seeing is, you know, there's process, there's people just getting used to a new system, having not used a new process for so long. We see that learning curve element is pretty evident to us as we look across the eight new, the eight depots that we've got in England and Wales, and some depots already have OTIFs and customer service levels north of 90%. Some other larger, more complicated depots then are lagging behind that.
An interesting observation is some of those depots that are lagging have higher staff turnover, and I think that that's part of it as well. Patty, there's a lot of aspects to what we need to do to repair and sustainably repair our customer service levels on the ERP system. No silver bullet. We're working on a number of work streams right now. Happy to report that OTIFs are improving week on week gradually. As I say, with some depots already north of 90%, gives us an awful lot of confidence that we will get there.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question from Laurence Whyatt at Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning, Patty. A couple from me, if that's okay. Firstly, on the EUR 25 million that you've sort of indicated will be required for the ERP system, just could you give us some idea of why you're so confident that is the right number? Why in 12 months' time do we not find out it's a lower number perhaps, or it could even be a higher number. Why are you so sure that 25 is the right number? Secondly, in terms of one of the attractions of C&C to its customers, one of them was the fact that you offer decent balance sheet support. Given that we're now in a slightly higher interest rate environment, has that become more of a challenge for you to be able to do efficiently? Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Look, the, you know, the EUR 25 million is our, is our best estimate. You know, we could have gone with a range. I think the EUR 25 million would have been at the higher end of that range, Laurence. It's, it's our best estimate. I think we went through it last week and maybe it's worth me refreshing the component parts of that EUR 25 million right now. Some of it's already happened, so we have a high level of confidence that it's non-recurring. It basically breaks down into three elements. The first one is, about EUR 4 million, which relates to a delayed price increase. That meant for a period of time earlier this year, we were under recovering cost, that we experienced from our third party brand suppliers.
We just weren't able to pass on that price increase to customers in a timely manner. Now, the good news there is that we have subsequently taken the price action in mid-April, that underrecovery is hopefully one-off, historic, and we move on. That's GBP 4 million. The second element, there's about GBP 8 million-GBP 10 million of additional running costs that we're currently experiencing in our depots, and that's running at about, well, a little bit more than GBP 1 million a month. We're expecting that to continue probably tapering off in Q3. Again, that's very firmly based on what we're experiencing right now. As I say, it's encouraging that OTIFs are coming back, in some depots already above 90%.
We're giving ourselves, you know, like I said, until August, September time, to carry that cost before it tapers off a little bit. That's the second element of that EUR 25. The last element is another EUR 8 million-EUR 10 million of impact, and that's associated with lost business as a consequence of this disruption. Again, we're particularly seeing that in the independent free trade, which typically are the more promiscuous type customers. They're not contracted. And, you know, our estimates are informed by our current run rates and attrition in that sector. Again, what we're targeting is a H2 recovery on customers once service levels are back, that we will have every right to win business.
I think it's important to bear in mind when we bought Matthew Clark in 2018, we had a not dissimilar outlook where Matthew Clark was losing customers, but we successfully attracted them back, as we did post the cyber incident because of our range, because of our normal customer service levels, and because we're competitive on price. I think there's every reason to believe that we will win those customers back in the second half of the year because it won't be the first time. The second part of your question around.
Patty, sorry, just before we jump in on part two. Just if I, if I look back at the numbers you've given, the range, i f you were to give a range, then that would come up with something like EUR 20 million to EUR 24 million, if I take the bottom and the top end of the, those three sets of numbers that you gave. Is it fair to say then that the risk is probably to the upside, on that EUR 25 million?
Well, look, we went with EUR 25 and let's hope there's risk to the upside. Look, the number we've put out is EUR 25. Yeah, you can clearly see what comprises that. Yeah.
Gotcha. Thank you.
Okay. Your second one about extending credit to customers, we've redoubled efforts. I think we implemented additional procedures more than 12 months ago, frankly, around credit control. I think we've got a lot of pedigree and a lot of experience in the way we diligence customers. We get very, very close to customers. Often they share management information with us so that we can get comfortable. We remain with heightened vigilance around who we extend credit to. Happy to say, you know, we haven't had any material bad debts. We stay very close to customers. You know, I think the balance sheet strength. Balance sheet strength is only strength if you use it, and I think we're gonna continue to use it in a sensible way going forward.
It also helps, you know, our low leverage helps with credit insurance, and it helps with the credit terms that we enjoy from suppliers as well. I think it's, you know, it's an important aspect of our business, particularly as we look to recover and grow in distribution.
That's really helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question from Damian McNeela at Numis. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Okay. Thank you. Morning, Patty. Morning, Ralph. A couple from me, please. Firstly, I think you indicated that overall, marketing spend was up 72% in the year. I was just wondering whether you could give us a little bit more information on where that was distributed in terms of brands and what sort of marketing took place. Whether, given the sort of the recent ERP system issues that impacts on how you're thinking about marketing investment for the coming year. Secondly, a question around sort of either M&A or partnership opportunities. I was wondering if there's any update there on what you're seeing in the marketplace. Clearly, there's a couple of sort of brewers that have gone under recently.
I was wondering whether the sort of current environment is creating more opportunities and how you see those. Thank you.
Okay, cool. I'll definitely take the first one. Yeah, the marketing spend. We want to sustain marketing investment. You know, we've underinvested in our brands for a considerable period of time. I think what's been really encouraging, and it's in the appendix of the presentation that you'll see later, is not only have we grown volume for all of our key brands, you know, Tennent's up 4%, Bulmers up nine et c. We've also grown market share for those brands. I think that's really important at this point in time. You know, I think we're really pleased with how our brands are reacting. Mature brands and mature markets, but still demonstrating their ability to grow market share. That's something we hope to continue to do.
In terms of the composition of that spend, very much through the line, always on activity is how we described it. Favoring the premium brand parts of our business, the ones that I think need overinvestment, you know, a higher percentage of net revenue as invested back. That's where we've tried to, we've tried to disproportionately invest. Of course, Tennent's, Bulmers, Magners, they've all enjoyed their fair share. It's been very much a through the line campaign. Damian.
I think if I can just add a comment to that, Damian. It's the as you're aware, the increase in marketing spend followed quite a long period of relative underspend on marketing on brands in this business. One of the things that we know is that you don't just switch that tap on and see results instantaneously. I'd be confident that we'll continue to see improvements coming through as time goes on from the spend we've already put through and from maintaining that. Also from developing a sort of more informed view of what the right split is between above the line, below the line, and increasing our digital awareness and expertise into digital marketing. I think there's a lot for us to do in that respect.
You know, I think we're pretty confident that this is gonna pay off.
Well, I'll just address the second point around M&A and partnerships. Yeah, look, there seems to be a lot of bolt-on opportunities at the moment, particularly in the branded space, with, I think, a lot of craft brewers finding it difficult going right now, not having maybe secured route to market access, Damian. We've looked at a couple. I mean, we're in no big rush, frankly, to bail any of those companies out. There hasn't been anything that's been particularly compelling. You know, we like the kind of deals that Innis & Gunn represent for us, which is sweat equity, where you don't have to invest capital to enjoy, to enjoy some return. We like that.
Beyond that, you know, we'll stay silent, and we'll just say that we're looking at a lot of things and, you know, opportunities are definitely out there. However, we're pretty clear on what our priority is, which is fixing Matthew Clark right now, and that's gonna be our big, big focus for the next quarter.
Okay. Thank you very much, both.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question from Cathal Kenny at Davy Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning, Ralph. Morning, Patty. Couple of questions from my side. Firstly, can you speak to inventory management, to the ERP as we look to the months ahead? Secondly, can you help us on the relationship between cost inflation in FY 2024 and pricing actions that you anticipate taking? Third question is a more general question on branded margin. They were flat year and year in the current period, well below pre-COVID levels. How should we think about branded margins at a group level looking out over the next three to five years? Final question then relates to MUP in Ireland, just your experience of that since implementation. Thank you.
Okay. Packed in a fair bit there, Cathal, maybe I'll just take them in turn. Look, inventory management, I think, you know, we'll probably end up investing a little bit more in stock over the next couple of months, and that typically helps with customer service levels for a period of time. We'll invest in stock and then seek to remove it as we become more efficient with our new system and our new processes. Typically, yeah, investing in stock improves customer service levels, we'll do that. Actually, your second and your third might be kind of linked, actually. The second point around inflation, inflationary pressures that we're experiencing.
Again, particularly on input costs, I think we're looking at another year of 20% or north of 20% cost inflation in our manufacturing sites. That would be the third year in a row of 20-plus inflation there. Of course, our big lever is price increases. We do value engineer products. We do look to be as efficient as possible with our running costs. We've been, you know, I think, fortunate and skillful in some of the hedges we've taken out, but clearly pricing is the big action and the big lever.
That's very much, I think, linked to your third point, which is around branded margins, and you're probably trying to bridge to, you know, back to what branded margins overall used to be, kind of mid-20% margins and how, you know, 14 is arrived at. I would say, yeah, import cost is the single biggest driver of that delta. Again, two years of +20% inflation is probably worth about 15 or 16 percentage points in margin overall. We've got DBM investment then that's worth about 3 percentage points, and you've got other costs then that might be worth another two . Quite a lot of pricing pressure, which I suppose is good news when that comes off, because we won't be reversing, we won't be reversing price.
I think the value of the pricing actions that we've taken over the last couple of years, you could ascribe maybe 10 percentage points to that. Price mix now compared to three years ago, we're +10% on brands. Clearly, look, input cost is the big one, and we're under-recovering input costs on the brands. We've always said it's gonna be a multi-year recovery of those costs, and so it continues. We will recover, and I think then, you know, that's when we start bridging back to something like our historic highs of in the 20s. You know, really we're looking for input cost to soften for that to happen because there are limits to how far you can push the pricing button and remain competitive.
Your last point on minimum unit pricing in Ireland. Look, it went very much as we predicted it would and, in line with our models. I'll stay silent on the exact quantum and the benefit, to the bottom line other than to say what I've already said, which is it's more lucrative than it was in Scotland. Scotland, it was worth GBP two and a half million to our bottom line. In Ireland, it was worth a little bit more than that. I'll stay silent on the exact details. It has, you know, it had the predictable impact on market share and volumes as well.
Thank you.
There are no questions in queue. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. There are no questions coming through, I will now hand it back to your host for any closing remarks. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much for that. I'm just gonna take some questions from the web, the webcast service now. The first of those is to do with a question on rebuilding volumes as we get to resolve the various ERP issues that we've described, and I think this one's for you, Patty, which is do you envisage extending pricing or promotional incentives to customers to win back share?
Look, I don't think we're in a position to rule that out yet, but what I would draw on is the experience of the last few times that we've had to fight back and win market share and win customers back. We did that predominantly on customer service and range. Price is important, and I think we talked about price at the Capital Markets Day actually last year, or whenever that was. Was that two years ago? No, I think it was last year. We talked about price having a role, but actually range and customer service are every bit as important. Whilst we wouldn't rule it out, I wouldn't necessarily see it as the primary driver. Customer service levels and range are.
Okay, thank you very much. The second question is, or the next question is, do you prefer dividends rather than share buybacks given today's share price? I think the answer that we'd give to that is that we've reinstated the dividend today, so the intention is that we would return to a progressive dividend. As Patty's explained, the target is a 40% to 50% payout range. I think we've been pretty clear on that one. On the possibility of share buybacks, I think all I can say is, we remain alive to the potential for share buybacks and receptive to the attractions of them, particularly given low share prices.
That's something that capital allocation, and the consequences of that will remain on our agenda over the coming months is probably what I would say to that one. Okay. I think that those are all the questions answered that have come up and the ones on the call as well. I just want to close by thanking you for attending the call and really to summarize by just reminding you, I think the business is in good shape. We've got very clear priorities for FY 2024, as Patty has outlined. I think that concludes our call. Thank you very much.