Good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to this webcast, which will provide an overview of Genus PLC's financial performance and strategic progress in the year to 30th June 2023. My name is Ian Ferguson, and it's my privilege to be the company chairman. In a moment, I'll hand over to Jorgen Kokke, who will begin today's presentation. Before doing so, I'd like to say a few words about our CEO transition. As I'm sure you all know, Stephen will be retiring from the company at the end of this month. He stepped down as Chief Executive on the 30th of June, handing the reins over to Jorgen, who joined us as CEO designate in May. Stephen has played an important role for Genus over the last decade, initially as group finance director and for the last four years as our Chief Executive.
He has remained with us since July as an executive director to help us close out the financial year, and he will be leading our report on the year today. I'd like to formally thank Stephen for everything he has contributed during his time with Genus. I'm sure you will join me in wishing him a fulfilling and a very well-deserved retirement. Stephen gave us plenty of notice of his plans to retire, which enabled us to conduct a thorough and a global search for his replacement. Following this exercise, we were delighted to appoint Jorgen to the role. Jorgen has spent his entire 30-year career in the food and agricultural sectors. He joined us from Ingredion Incorporated, where he spent 14 years in increasingly senior leadership roles across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, and the Americas.
Before that, he was vice president of food and nutrition at Corbion and spent a decade in leadership roles at Loders Croklaan, then part of Unilever, now part of Bunge. We are very pleased that he is going to be leading Genus through the next stage of its development. That concludes my role in introducing today's webcast. Thank you for joining us. I will now hand over to Jorgen, who I know is keen to meet you all in the weeks and months which lie ahead. Thank you.
Thank you, Ian, for your kind words. Good morning. Let me start by saying that I am delighted to be at Genus and look forward to meeting you during our investor roadshow. I joined the business on May second, as Ian mentioned, and took over as chief executive from Stephen on July the 1st. I'm very pleased to say that we had a very productive transition period. As for my background, I have worked in the food and agricultural industries for about 30 years, having started my career with Unilever in the Netherlands after graduating with an economics degree from the University of Amsterdam. During my career, I've worked with companies that are active in converting agricultural raw materials into high added value ingredients for food, including meat and dairy, beverages, pharma, and industrial applications.
These businesses operated in business-to-business markets, and typically, their value propositions were underpinned by research and development and application know-how, but also supported by good risk management, just like Genus. I joined Genus from Ingredion, a New York Stock Exchange-listed ingredient solutions provider, where I held executive leadership roles for more than 14 years, most recently running the $6 billion Americas business, successfully growing top and bottom line by leveraging innovation, executing strategic M&A transactions, and driving commercial and operational excellence. You may wonder why I joined Genus. Well, firstly, Genus' vision of pioneering animal genetic improvement to nourish the world really resonates with me. There are two aspects in the Genus vision that I'd like to highlight in this context. Pioneering reflects the strong commitment to innovation and R&D as a means to create competitive advantage..
The second, nourishing the world, speaks to genetics helping to make the food system more sustainable and more affordable. Secondly, Genus has a track record of growth, is gaining market share, and as a result of investments in innovation, the PRRS-Resistant Pig is a case in point. In supply chain, Genus is well-positioned for more growth going forward. In my first couple of months, I've been on the road meeting many of our customers around the world. It is clear to me that our customers very much value our product and our service offering. I have also learned that Genus is a very special company with passionate and professional team members caring deeply about animals, progressing science, and creating value for customers.
Before I hand over to Stephen to cover the business and strategic update, I'd like to highlight my immediate priorities for the business: the successful commercialization of the PRRS-Resistant Pig and strengthening our business in China, continued growth in porcine and drive more value from bovine, and leveraging our R&D platform for value creation. I am very much looking forward to an exciting future at Genus. Over to you, Stephen.
Well, good morning, and thank you, Ian, for your kind words. And Jorgen, I've really enjoyed working with you over the last few months to ensure a smooth transition. I have a lot of confidence in how you're gonna lead the company in its next chapter. For, for me, it's been a great honor to have had the opportunity of leading Genus over the last four years and serving as CFO prior to that.
What makes Genus so special is the tremendous people we have in the company, who really live out our pioneering vision with customers and with our animals day to day. So as I take you through some of the strategic and business highlights for fiscal 2023, I want to recognize and thank the 3,500 Genus employees who made it all happen through their dedication, ability, and teamwork. After that, Alison is going to conclude this pre-recorded webcast with an overview of our financial performance and outlook, and there's gonna be a live Q&A held later today. Details of that are all in our results release. Before we get to that, let me just say a brief word about this picture.
I'm really honored to have had one of the very best young bulls in the world with polled genetics named after me, as a kind of going-away present by the ABS team. If you look closely, you'll notice that the ear tag of this very cute young bull has my name on it, along with the letters PP. That means it's homozygous polled. None of his offspring will grow horns, and this is an area where ABS has clear industry leadership on a global basis. Well, on then to the headlines for the year. We had solid results and good strategic progress in what were quite challenging markets. In actual currency, revenue grew 16%, adjusted operating profit grew 10%, and adjusted profit before tax was stable at GBP 71.5 million. Our dividend remains unchanged, also at 32p for the full year.
While we did get some help from currency, this was significantly outweighed by both the impact of rising global interest rates and our increased investment in gene editing, as we made very good progress with our PRRSv-Resistant Pig, completing our submissions to the FDA ahead of schedule. Alison will share more on our results, but at the operating profit level, excluding our gene editing investment, we achieved 9% profit growth on 10% revenue growth in constant currency. I think that's a good performance. We've achieved this through market share growth in both businesses as a result of our leading genetics, supply chain, and teams. The investments we've made position us well for growth. In addition, we were able to report good progress on our sustainability metrics. I will give more detail on all of these themes in the course of the presentation.
First, though, let's set the scene by looking at the market backdrop for our customers. This is always quite a dynamic picture. So in porcine, we're seeing an industry downturn right now in North America with low producer profitability. While in Latin America, conditions for producers are actually quite positive. In Europe, we've had a really long, deep contraction, and that's now led to tight pork supplies, much higher prices for farmers, and perhaps heralds a possibility of stabilization. In the second half of FY 2023, the China porcine market was once again very weak due to both soft demand and ample supply. I think after the experience of the last two years, it'd be a brave person to predict the China market. However, there are a number of commentators that expect somewhat better conditions, at least through the rest of this calendar year.
Turning to bovine, in our dairy markets, we've seen declining milk prices in North America, EMEA, and China, and that decline has been outpacing the fall in input costs. Beef prices have been variable. They've been strong in North America, but continue to be weak in Brazil. So in summary, there are challenges for our customers in many markets. Our global diversification helps us, but more fundamentally, our job is to keep providing value to our customers so that our business can grow and be resilient throughout market cycles, as we've demonstrated we've been able to do in the past. In PIC, we have an exceptionally strong growth platform. Our genetics are market-leading, and we continue to drive improvement at an accelerated pace, giving very tangible benefits to our customers. That has helped us drive increasing volumes through long-term royalty contracts.
Notice here, 7% compound annual growth rate over the last several years. Because we're confident in the ability of PIC to continue to grow, we've made a significant investment in expanding our global supply over the last few years. While these investments carry a cost in the short term, they position us well for growth for the next decade and more. We continue to lead the industry in the deployment of technology, and I'm gonna talk more about the PRRSv program in a couple of slides. What underpins it all is the very best team in the industry. I want to pay tribute to Dr. Bill Christensen, who retired this year as the Chief Operating Officer of PIC, for the tremendous part he played in building the business over a 30-year period, including hiring many of the team. We were very pleased to promote Dr.
Matt Culbertson, who's pictured here on this chart, to succeed Bill. Matt is someone who's globally recognized in the pig industry as a highly talented leader, and we're delighted to have him leading the business. Well, it doesn't matter which region you look at. In PIC, we've grown volumes over the last few years, and that's in an industry which, on a global basis, has basically flat volumes. So we're clearly consistently gaining market share. PIC has a strategy which is very much customer-by-customer focused: grow our existing accounts, win new customers. Brenneman Pork is a really good example of growth in an existing account, where the strength of our genetics and technical support have enabled us to make significant gains in FY 2023. On the other hand, Cranswick, which I'm sure is well known to many of you here in the U.K., is a new customer.
As they sought to grow their pig production, they asked PIC to come in and create a new maternal genetic program. As a result, we've stocked a GGP nucleus farm for them, and this will start to generate GPs and Camborough sows that will populate their production systems over time, again, growing our royalty base. So having the best genetics is fundamental to this success, and that means making them better every year and driving that pace of improvement. We measure the improvement in an economic index that shows the incremental value being created for our customers every year. This added value cumulates over time. So you can see that just over the last three years, that's around $11 of benefit. But genetic improvement also drives a sustainability benefit.
Our genetic improvement over the last three years translates into 6.5 kg less carbon per slaughter pig. Multiplied by our volumes, that's about 1.2 million tons less carbon per annum. We've also been ensuring that we put specific focus on creating the best pig in China for China. Our genetics already perform very well there, as you can see from the data we've collected from our customers, compared with industry averages. To further build on this, we've created a specific index for China, weighting the traits that are most valuable for customers there and driving selection of our local genetics against that index. In addition, we're working with a major processor there to benchmark and validate the PIC carcass value against other genetics in the market. Early results look very promising. Well, let's talk a bit more about China.
As I said earlier, the market was tough in the second half of our fiscal year, and we also experienced disease in two of our farms, leading to a disappointing financial result in the second half. The market's likely to continue to be volatile. To build a business that is resilient and grows predictably despite this volatility, it's essential we grow our royalty base in China. You can see that over the last four years, we've had compound growth of 50% in royalty and grown our presence with the top 50 producers, and in fact, we're doing some business in parts of four of the top five. The case studies illustrate how we grow with existing customers and win with new customers.
However, we need to go even faster in driving the growth of our royalty business so that China looks more like our PIC business in other global markets. To do that, we're introducing a number of changes to our royalty pricing models in China this autumn, and we're also increasing the global support we give to our team there now that we're once again able to travel to China. Finally, on PIC, I want to update you on the PRRSv program. I'm very pleased to be able to confirm that we've now completed our submissions to the U.S. FDA ahead of schedule. I want to pay tribute to the R&D and PIC teams who've worked together in making this really huge accomplishment.
These submissions have all been pre-reviewed by the FDA, giving us confidence we will achieve approval in the first half of calendar year 2024. In parallel, we've advanced the regulatory process in several other markets. Approval packages have been submitted in Brazil and Colombia, and we expect to file regulatory submissions in Japan and Canada this year. The regulatory environment in China is also developing positively. The Ministry of Agriculture has published regulations on gene editing in animals, opening up the regulatory path. In addition, we've been granted consent to import gene-edited animals for testing in China, the first such approval ever given. So we're encouraged by the progress we see. All this brings into focus the next step of bringing the PRRS-Resistant Pig successfully to market. You should already be aware that we'll hold a capital markets day in November specifically devoted to this topic.
However, to whet your appetite, let me share a few thoughts now. First, we're actively engaging across a broad range of industry and value chain participants to demonstrate the benefits of the PRRS-Resistant Pig. We're also conducting independent lifecycle assessments of their sustainability benefits. Secondly, we're planning the optimal way to disseminate the genetics. Now, this inevitably will take quite a few generations of pigs in our customer systems, and to go as fast as possible, we'll be using boar semen as the primary transmission mechanism. To go through this process, customers will need to make a long-term commitment.... Our pricing strategy is going to be geared to maximize rapid, widespread adoption. And we anticipate that we will be charging an incremental trait fee above our existing royalties.
However, recognizing the time it takes to disseminate the genetics, there'll be a mechanism to progressively work up to the full trait fee as dissemination progresses within the context of a committed multi-year contract with our customers. So watch this space for, for a fuller discussion and more information on this topic before the end of the year. I've covered a lot of ground on PIC. It's time to turn to ABS. The platform for growth that you see here in ABS follows some similar themes to the chart I showed on PIC. Strong genetics. Here I'm focusing on our NuEra beef genetics, great team, our customers, our supply chain and technology. We've made major investments in the last few years in our supply chain to replace a number of very old facilities with world-class new facilities.
That investment is now behind us, and it puts us in a great position for many years to come. Our sexed semen technology continues to grow rapidly, winning new customers and delivering great performance in the field. ABS has also been moving towards long-term contracts with customers, similar to PIC, and while there's still a good way to go, we're making some encouraging progress. The global bovine genetics market contracted in FY 2023, due largely to the industry challenges in Brazil. However, in this tough environment, we grew volumes globally and gained market share in key markets such as the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, France, China, to name a few. Our business is increasingly shifting to sexed and beef, including beef on dairy, and we strongly encourage our customers to pursue this strategy, in contrast to many of our competitors who lack sexed technology and proprietary beef genetics.
Winning new customers continues to demand that we demonstrate the value of our products and services in the customer's operation. There are two great examples here. Both show the power of our products and services in action. I had the pleasure, actually, of visiting this Italian dairy in February of this year. It's the most technologically advanced dairy I've ever visited anywhere in the world. They made a huge investment in sustainability and automation, but all the technology in the world won't compensate for poor genetics and service, and that's where the customer was really delighted with the major contribution we were making to improving their performance. Our genetics, you know, continue to be very competitive in dairy, and we have a unique program in beef. Once again, the economic indices of genetic progress are closely correlated with improvements in sustainability.
While the measures are somewhat different between dairy and beef animals, due to the lactation of the dairy animals, the message is really the same: genetic progress provides a valuable contribution to making the production of animal protein more sustainable, and the gains cumulate over time. As we review the progress we've been making at Genus, I'm particularly pleased with the strength, depth, and talent of the R&D team we've built over the past four years. We've been talking already about the work we do in genomic selection to breed better animals. In biosystems engineering, we're also making very good progress in developing further improvements to our sexing technology, which I feel bodes very well for the future. In gene editing, you've heard about PRRSv, and we continue with discovery efforts on a number of other porcine diseases.
We're also making very good progress in our reproductive biology effort, which we launched just a couple of years ago. That holds the promise of being able to shorten generation interval and change the way genetics are disseminated. Finally, underpinning all of these efforts is a strong capability in genome science, data analytics, and scientific computing. Ultimately, it all needs to deliver better products for our customers. I'm really excited by the potential I see and will be watching with interest over the years ahead to see how the projects underway today are commercialized in the future. Finally, when I became CEO, we mapped out an ambitious plan to improve our carbon footprint and become a leader in sustainability. I'm pleased to say that we've made great progress ahead of the plan we set out.
We've made some remarkable strides in reducing our Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions at the same time as growing our business, resulting in a 36% reduction in our primary intensity ratio since 2019. We have many plans in place which are gonna drive and deliver further improvements in the coming years. In addition, as we seek to reduce the impact of animal protein production globally, it's encouraging to have started work on selecting cattle with lower methane, with the support of Innovate UK In addition, we're working with the Gates Foundation and other partners to improve dairy genetics in East Africa. Well, I've covered a lot. I think you can see there's been great strategic progress. Now it's time for me to hand over to Alison to take you through the numbers.
Before I say anything else, I wanted to thank Stephen for his guidance and leadership during our partnership, and wish him a very happy retirement. On this cover page, I'm sharing with you a picture of the Nelore breed, originally brought from India to Brazil. They're favored for their resistance to the heat and diseases in a tropical environment, and they represent approximately 70% of ABS Brazil's beef sales. This year, our board visited Brazil, where we saw these interesting animals firsthand. It's been tough down there right now, but we came away feeling very positive about the strength of our business and the passion of our team. Now, let's get into the numbers. So overall, we delivered solid results for the year.
In actual currency, adjusted operating profit of GBP 85.8 million was up 10%, and as shown on the graph to the right, we weren't far off the peak results we had in FY 2021. PIC delivered a record performance and ABS had a better second half. Together, they achieved healthy 17% growth in operating profit. This funded significant planned growth in R&D, part of which was a 66% increase in gene editing costs as we head towards PRRS's regulatory approval and prepare for commercialization. This also weighed on the operating profit margin, as shown in the graph, down on prior year at 12.4%, while comparable to prior year at 14.5% when excluding the growth in the gene editing costs.
Central costs were 1% up on prior year, reflecting prudent cost management, and our finance costs were GBP 14.3 million, more than double in the prior year, and that's predominantly due to rising interest rates. So consequently, Adjusted Profit Before Tax was flat to prior year at GBP 71.5 million in actual currency. This year, there was a GBP 5.4 million exchange rate benefit on the translation of overseas profits, most of which occurred from sterling weakening against Latin American currencies in the first half of the year. In recent months, we have seen considerable strengthening of the pound against certain currencies, and at today's spot rates, we estimate we will experience a currency headwind of between GBP 5 million and GBP 6 million in FY 2024. Further information about this is in the appendix of this presentation.
Looking at performance in constant currency, adjusted operating profit, excluding gene editing costs, was up 9%, and we achieved our target of 10% CAGR growth over a five-year period. Looking forwards, we remain committed to achieving this medium-term target. Now, before I talk about the performances of our operations, I wanted to go under the covers a little and share insights into the key drivers of our profit performance. The graph on the left shows how consistent the growth of the Company's operations has been, with adjusted operating profit, excluding gene editing and PIC China, growing 13% in the past year. The margin of 13.8% was down on prior year due to the increased investments in other areas of R&D and a lower margin in our ABS business in the first half of the year, which I'll talk more about later.
You can also see PIC China's profit for the year was GBP 9.4 million, up against the prior year of GBP 5.6 million, which, if you recall, did include a one-time customer credit of GBP 4 million. Good growth in royalty revenue of 26% was achieved in the year, which, as Stephen said, is the way we are building a more predictable business in China. On the right-hand side of this slide, you can see a bridge of what's happened to our adjusted profit before tax. Our cash profits were strong, with growth in adjusted EBITDA, excluding gene editing costs, being GBP 17.1 million. Gene editing costs themselves increased GBP 6.4 million as planned, and our depreciation and amortization costs increased GBP 4.9 million, reflecting the high investment program we've had.
As I mentioned previously, we bore higher finance costs, up GBP 8.1 million. As we look forward, we are past the peak of our investment program, and therefore, depreciation and amortization growth will be lower. Gene editing costs and finance costs will continue to be significant in FY 2024. However, we see this as a near-term situation, which should reduce as we move into commercialization of the PRRS-Resistant Pig and borrowings reduce in subsequent years. As Stephen said, we're taking market share, and that's illustrated by the growth you can see in the volumes on this chart. Porcine volumes grew 5%, with North America a key driver at 9% growth, part of which was growth in sales to Olymel. Europe also contributed strong growth of 8%. In bovine, we achieved 3% volume growth.
This was due to continued growth in sexed genetics, and from a regional perspective, North America led the way with 25% growth in sexed volumes. Beef volumes were flat, with Latin America a key driver of growth in prior years. Latin America finished the year with flat volumes and gained market share in Brazil, even though economic conditions continued to impact consumer spend. Now on to PIC. PIC delivered a strong performance, hitting a new record for operating profit of GBP 145 million for the year. Royalty revenue was up 10% and grew in all regions. Adjusted operating profit margin improved to 38.6%, nearly back to the level in FY 2021. The changes in operating profit shown here are in constant currency, as I think they give a better indicator of underlying performance across the regions.
As you can see, there was good growth in all regions. North America continued to deliver strong growth, with operating profit up 9% on prior year as they continued to take market share and benefit from sales to Olymel. Royalty revenue growth was also strong at 8%. Latin America's profit was up 12%, with growth achieved by all countries in the region. Our joint venture with Agroceres in Brazil saw profit up 14% on prior year. Europe's profit was 6% up, achieving a stronger performance in the second half, and saw some improvement in Germany and the U.K. We've continued to achieve growth in Spain, up 10% on a strong prior year comparison. Lastly, high growth in Asia's results, up 32%. In addition to China, Philippines is making a steady recovery from ASF, with growth of 12%.
ABS delivered a stronger second half to end the year with adjusted operating profit growing to GBP 43.6 million. Margin was down at 13.7%, which reflects the impact of no growth in Latam and one-time production variance related to the first half of the year of almost GBP 1 million. Further details of ABS's profit statement are provided in the appendix. But moving now to the regional performances, which are shown in constant currency, North America continued to achieve profit growth of 17%. Sexed volumes grew very strongly at 25%, while beef volumes were down 4%, but that was against a very high prior year compare. This, together with robust price increases and growth in IntelliGen third-party business, meant revenue was up 15%.
EMEA's revenue was up 8% and profit was up 7%, while volumes were up 1%, and that's due to robust price increases to offset inflation. Sexcel continued to grow at 15%, and beef volumes were up 5%, particularly across France, Northern Ireland and Italy. IntelliGen third-party business also grew in the region. Asia achieved solid growth in operating profit, up 4%. India and Australia experienced double-digit growth in volumes and profits. But we saw a slowdown in the China milk market in the second half, which gave rise to lower volume demand. However, the business grew Sexcel volumes by 24.4% in the year. Overall, R&D increased in actual currency, GBP 19 million to GBP 86.3 million. And it's important to note, GBP 6.5 million of this growth reflects the impact of FX translation.
The growth in spend was as planned, with the largest drivers being expansion of PIC supply chain and the PRRS program as we progress the regulatory submissions. Porcine product development was up 24% in constant currency, reflecting investment in customer-centric support programs, genomic testing, and the increase of costs associated with Atlas Farm since becoming operational. As you heard from Stephen, we have expanded our activities in relation to obtaining regulatory approval for the PRRS pig, including increasing our population of gene-edited pigs. As mentioned previously, our gene editing spend was up 66%, which is what we expected. Bovine product development spend was stable, reflecting continued investment in intelligent production enhancements and our dairy and beef development programs. Other research increased 13%, supporting the R&D pipeline, particularly in the field of reproductive biology.
In FY 2024, what I expect is that R&D will remain broadly stable in actual currency. We consistently measure and report adjusted results as we think these give a better view of the business's underlying performance. Our statutory results are affected by a number of non-cash items, and I will talk you through these. Statutory profit before tax decreased to GBP 39.4 million, and profit after tax on a statutory basis was GBP 31.8 million. The adjusted tax rate was 22.2%, down 210 basis points compared with the prior year, and that's due to the recognition of deferred tax assets for brought-forward losses, offsetting a rate rise in the U.K. that took effect in April, and increase in overseas taxes due to share of profits in higher tax jurisdictions.
Our guidance for FY 2024 is a range of 24%-27%, reflecting the ongoing impact of these factors. Now, those of you that are familiar with our accounts will know that we are required in our statutory accounts to apply IAS 41, Accounting for Biological Assets. The effect was a GBP 16.9 million decrease, which principally reflects the timing of the depopulation of PIC's Elite Aurora Farm to complete a health upgrade, which will put both Atlas Farm and Elite Aurora Farm at industry-leading health status. As those of you who follow the company know, these fair value calculations can fluctuate and are non-cash movements.
Exceptional expenses of GBP 3.5 million are principally in relation to the legal costs for the ongoing litigation with STgenetics, but this number does include a credit of GBP 1.7 million, being the sale of our Canadian ABS facilities following the completion of our Leeds facilities in Wisconsin. Now, before we take a look at the movements in our net debt position, I wanted to talk about free cash flow. You can see on the table on the left, our cash generated by operations was GBP 78.7 million, which reflects cash conversion of 105%, exceeding our annual target of at least 90%, as we anticipated. Free cash flow of GBP 18.2 million was a significant improvement on the prior year, when it was an outflow of GBP 13.5 million.
The drivers of change in the cash flows are shown in the chart to the right. As I mentioned previously, we had a strong adjusted EBITDA growth in the year, reaching a record high of GBP 110.6 million. In addition, working capital outflows were lower by GBP 10 million, reflecting focus on improvements in receivables and inventory management. We had lower spend on biological assets after a peak year in FY 2022, when we were expanding our beef herd. Spend on CapEx of GBP 35.2 million was GBP 18.1 million lower as planned. If you recall, FY 2022 was a peak year of investments in our porcine and bovine facilities.
I expect CapEx to be around GBP 30 million in FY 2024, when the main investments will be in relation to IntelliGen capacity, the continuation of Genus One ERP rollout in LATAM and Asia, ABS's U.K. facilities upgrade, and sustainability initiatives. If you recall, our cash flow is typically stronger in the second half of the year, primarily due to the phasing of certain expenses and payables. I expect this pattern in FY 2024, and a higher proportion of gene editing costs in the first half, which will give rise to lower cash conversion in the first half of the year, improving in the second half to meet our annual target of at least 90%. You can see on this chart, we ended the year with net debt of GBP 195.8 million.
Our leverage decreased to 1.6x EBITDA, as expected, and remains within our targeted range of 1x-2x. At 30 June, the headroom on our credit facilities was GBP 118.7 million, and I expect finance costs will be up by around GBP 2 million in FY 2024, reflecting higher interest rates. Our leverage should be around a similar level by the end of next fiscal year and well within our targeted range. Given our solid financial position, we are pleased to propose our full-year dividend is maintained in line with prior year, which is 2.7x adjusted earnings cover, within our targeted range of 2.5x-3x. Now, I want to remind you of Genus' four medium-term financial objectives, which, as you can see, have all been met.
When referring to our five-year profit CAGR performances, you can see we have consistently delivered against our target of 10% for operating profit, excluding gene editing costs in the past five years. There are a few ups and downs in annual cash conversion, but our five-year average is comfortably over 100%, which compares with our target of 90%. Our leverage target is 1x-2x EBITDA, and our dividends cover is 2.5x-3x earnings. Again, we have consistently managed to these targets. Despite the various macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges in the world, our stated financial objectives remain the same. We will continue to manage the company with our focus on the medium and long-term growth opportunities.
So to conclude, a lot of good strategic progress has been made in the past four years that will set us up for the next period of growth, and we fully intend to continue to meet our medium-term targets. The China porcine market is likely to continue to be volatile, but we're focused on building PIC China's royalty-based business and capturing market share, just as PIC does elsewhere in the world. In FY 2024, we expect to achieve our medium-term profit growth target in constant currency, but we have currency and interest rate headwinds that mean PBT growth and actual currency will be modest. Nevertheless, it's going to be an exciting year with FDA approval of our PRRS-Resistant Pig not far away, and we look forward to sharing our commercialization plans with you in November.
Thank you for listening, and we look forward to meeting you for our results Q&A session at 10:30 A.M. today.