Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the United Spirits Limited Quarter Four Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Shweta Arora, Head of Investor Relations from United Spirits Limited. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thanks, Aman. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to United Spirits Quarter Four and full year ended FY 2023 earnings call. Today on the call, we have with us our Managing Director and CEO, Hina Nagarajan, who is joined by our CFO and Executive Director, Pradeep Jain. Hina will provide you with an update on business performance, while Pradeep will be running through financial performance during the period. For which we will open the call for Q&A. With this, I hand over the call to Hina for her opening remarks. Over to you, Hina.
Thank you, Shweta. Good afternoon, all, and welcome to our call. It's a real privilege to speak with you again and provide a comprehensive update on our operations, financial performance, and growth prospects. This is the second full year since we launched our new strategy. Our team has been working tirelessly to deliver on our strategic objectives. We are really excited to share updates of our recent performance and ongoing initiatives with you. As Shweta mentioned, I will cover progress on the three pillars and Pradeep will provide a deeper analysis on our growth and financial performance. And our prestige performance better, and you will find this reflected in the presentation. After the presentation, we will open up for Q&A to go deeper into areas you want to understand further. Jumping straight into itself, our mission is to be top-
Sorry, ma'am. There is a break in the audio.
Can you hear me clearly now?
Yes, please proceed, ma'am.
Okay. Everybody, our mission is to be top-performing CPG company in India, delivering sustained double-digit profitable top-line growth, staying true to our margin guidance of mid-to-high teens, delivering long-term value to all our stakeholders. Next chart, please. As I mentioned earlier, during the call, I will walk you through the business update for the year, post which PJ will run you through the financial highlights of the year-ended March 23. Finally, I will talk about how we see the future. Business update. Next chart, please. to deliver mission that now know is built on three pillars: reshape of our portfolio, creating an organization of the future that will win in the future that is getting radically redefined by big societal and/or cultural shifts. Last but not the least, defining and executing an even more ambitious role for Diageo in society.
Jumping to the first pillar, let's talk about portfolio reshape. Our portfolio reshape had called out a number of transformative consumer trends that decided what we should do for our business and portfolio. The mandates we had set were to deliver breakout growth on prestige and above, create new growth engines, and last but not the least, value chain efficiency extraction to fund growth and mitigate inflation. Our portfolio activations and new product offerings during the year were fully aligned with this strategy, and let me walk you through some details. Firstly, strengthening our play in upper prestige, with our three brands, Signature, Antiquity, and Royal Challenge American Pride. Royal Challenge American Pride is available now in 75% + salience, upper prestige markets. It's the fastest-growing brand and adding absolute incremental market share gains for Diageo India quarter -on -quarter.
It is recruiting consumers beyond upper prestige segment and delivering exceptionally well across all key consumer metrics. We've received excellent feedback on the liquid. The top box liking is 79%. That's quite high compared to any benchmark. We are getting very strong repeats from consumers who have tried it. Secondly, Signature to become the greenest whiskey for a aspiring young India. Last year, Signature had the highest growth delivered in the past five years and momentum well ahead of the category. It has the second-highest equity amongst prestige brands. Signature has associated itself with some of the most eco-friendly, sustainable festivals in the country, like the Ziro Festival of Music, Hills Festival, Spoken Festival. Our own Signature-owned festival of music called the Signature Green Vibes, with four city editions across India. We've seen a lot of consumer love for that.
In an effort to sort of serve diverse consumer needs, we are expanding our variant footprint, Signature Rare has been launched in the East. Actually, Signature Premier has now in CSD, which is a big milestone. We are closing the year on a high note on Signature and excited to kick off the next year with bold and ambitious X. We are really proud to present to you the reimagined, contemporary Antiquity Blue. You can see on the picture on the chart. What the new bottle looks like with that beautiful bird. It is currently launched across West Bengal, Assam, and UP, we are looking at a national rollout completion by July 2024. If I can now stop, let's see a video on Signature.
Coming now to the next category, our mid Prestige and Royal Challenge brand. What you see on the screen is the new Royal Challenge bundle, which has been, which is now available in 85%+ salient markets nationally. The brand has experienced national volume growth in very, very high double digits. Pradeep will talk a bit more about this. Actually, this brand has grown by 40%+. The new brand positioning was brought alive through the song Naya Shuruaat, which is sung by Divine, Jonita Gandhi. It features Virat Kohli. It has over 45 million views on YouTube and is available across all leading audio streaming platforms. Can we have Naya Shuruaat, please? Coming next to our flagship brand, McDowell's. As I had mentioned last quarter, there is inflation pressure in this category.
We have definitely seen that the level of upgrade from popular is slower than previous years, a direct impact of inflation on the consumer. Number one, McDowell's used to grow ahead of the category for three years in a row. It has owned key calendar moments to embed the brand in culture. This year, we started partnering with six IPL teams as the official celebrations partner to create a new language to express yaari under the number one yaari cheer in 2022. During Friendship Day, McDowell's created the anthem of the yaari song, Yaaron, as a tribute to KK. The 360-degree campaign reached 65 million people across key states. No.1 Yaari Jam has given a further powerful musical voice to our brand purpose. The Yaari Jam came back post-COVID.
It's basically a congregation, a celebration of music where consumers are looking for a real reason to connect. There were nine big festivals across five states with a reach of 150 million-plus across multiple media channels. Can we please have the yaari video? After the exciting performance update on Prestige and above, let me now talk about Luxury and Premium portfolio. Johnnie Walker. This year we brought a brand new offering from the house of Johnnie Walker called Johnnie Walker Blonde. It is our biggest ever innovation launch in the Premium portfolio. It's now available in Maharashtra, Goa, HP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Chandigarh, and Telangana. Blonde is actually positioned between Johnnie Walker Red and Johnnie Walker Black and plays the strategic role of recruiting the next generation non-scotch consumer because of a really accessible liquid.
The focus in coming quarters will be to enter other geographies and continue to scale up the distribution and visibility in our launched markets. The video on Johnnie Walker. What you saw just now, Anthem, which other than John Legend, has sung with Raja Kumari, a very, very popular rapper. I will talk a little bit more about this in the next chart. Coming now to Black & White. In the financial year 2022, 2023, Black & White growth story has continued. India is now the large NSV market globally for Black & White, and this brand is set to cross 1 million cases this year. It is gaining share in all the BII Scotch category and international whiskeys. We launched Table For Everyone, which is our big play in culture, integrated activation and communications platform.
We brought diversity and inclusion at this table with our very first diversity, equity, and inclusion campaign called Cards for Sharing, with Black & White. The hipster format for Black & White is also driving distribution, share, and profitability for the brand. Let's look at the video on Black & White.
If your best friend were to make your dating profile, what would it say? Oh my God! Oh my God! Who is someone who changed your life? Wow. I would say that it's me who changed my life. Hmm. What would it mean to you? As a queer person versus just have it in my heart and not a thing that the world would need to know anything about? The world would need to know anything about?
Coming now to the powerful USL brand Black Dog. Black Dog is continuing its growth journey post renovation. We've seen significant improvement in our business and brand metrics on the brand. The brand now leads the Scotch category with the highest brand equity driven by strong meaningfulness and distinctivity. Our collaboration with global icon, Keira Knightley, saw an impactful activation throughout the year across digital and out of home, along with the launch of Keira Knightley limited edition offer, credentials and provenance. Let's see the video on Black Dog.
Life can sometimes feel like an endless pursuit to perfection. When you find it, pause to savor. Black Dog. Keira Knightley limited edition. Pause to savor the moments in life.
The Walker & Cie platform to celebrate and enable a community of bold. With Keep Walking at the heart of all we do, our vision is to inspire collaborators to take bold strides towards collective progress. We brought together two iconic creators who championed this narrative, John Legend, the second youngest and the first Black man to win all the four big awards, Emmy, Grammy, Oscars, and Tony, and renowned South Asian female songwriter and rapper Raja Kumari. They co-created this inspiring anthem titled Keep Walking.
On the 4th and 5th of March, we hosted the first ever Walker's India Tour at Mumbai and Gurgaon, an experiential concert 4,000-plus core consumers across the spectrum of culture, art, and entertainment to witness this collaboration come alive on stage while experiencing our brand Johnnie Walker in a very immersive format. Coming now next to Godawan, our exciting new launch in the Indian single malt category. Godawan continues to be rolled out. It has, in fact, last week been launched in New York in the U.S. Very proud to say that Godawan awards during the year.
It has won the Grand Gold and Gold awards at the Monde Selection World Quality Awards at Brussels, the Silver at World Spirits Awards Austria, Superior Taste Award at the International Taste Institute, Brussels, Brand Innovator of the Year for Alwar Distillery at Icons of Whisky, London. Also very pleased to say that our Alwar Distillery, where Godawan is made, is the first spirits distillery in Asia to receive the prestigious Alliance for Water Stewardship certification. We have tied up with Source Global, a technology that helps us extract water from air. We are building a 200 panel water farm expected to generate 9,000 liters of water from air in the first six months, and Godawan will be the first beverage alcohol brand to use source water. I can't leave a little bit about.
Nao Spirits have grown very strong double digits in the financial year gone by. Their innovation called Broken Bat, which was launched in quite exciting. It's an invite-only launch, was hosted along with the screening of the World Cup finals, because this limited edition is dedicated to the 1992 Cricket World Cup. Super exciting and Nao Spirits continues to power ahead with both their brands Greater Than and Hapusa. I can't skip the Women's Premier League acquisition, you know, as part of RCB. The four pillars behind this investment are women as a cohort becoming increasingly influential in India, our narrative on diversity and inclusion, in India cricket, and also creating another profitable business growth stream for the future.
You know, RCB is one of the most followed and loved T-twenty teams and is recognized as one of the most engaged sports teams on social media platforms. RCB has adopted the philosophy of Play Bold, which resonates both on and off the field. India's tennis icon Sania Mirza has been appointed as the mentor of Royal Challengers Bangalore women's team in the Women's Premier League. The pioneer in Indian sports for women, a youth icon, someone who has played bold and broken barriers throughout her career, and a real champion on and off the field. We are proud to welcome Sania Mirza as the mentor of the RCB women's cricket team. In addition to the Godawan award that I talked about, we have other awards during the year for our brands.
If you look at the left, multiple awards for our marketing initiative for Johnnie Walker Drone Show, Signatures, our Augmented Reality campaign. You know, Johnnie Walker Revive bring consumers back to the on-trade after a long shutdown, and also a Design Excellence award for Black Dog renovation. To the right, more awards for our whiskey and scotch brands. You see Black Dog featured very, very prominently there, along with Johnnie Walker Blonde. Very pleased with all the awards and recognition for our innovations and renovations.
Coming now to two pillars, before I go there, I just wanna say our profitable growth is based on the virtuous cycle of driving top-line growth through sustained A&P investments and, you know, driving improved price and mix and driving productivity to fund those A&P investments, which in turn drive top-line growth and give us further ability to invest in our brands. We think this is a very virtuous cycle. It's working for us, and we want to continue to sustain momentum behind this model. Of the multi-year supply. Next chart, please. Going to unlock numerous benefits across the value chain. A few of the many benefits include conversion cost, enhanced capacity utilization, optimized footprint by state, enhanced return on capital employed, ESG benefits, and co-location with ENA distillation.
This program is on track, as per our plan, and going to plod on with it. As you know, it's a multi-year program, so over the next three years, we will make sure that we achieve and implement all the measures that we have taken under this program. All right. Coming now to the second pillar of our organization of the future. I'm going to give a very brief narrative on this. We've done a lot during the year, right? A few things, right? We are continuing to focus on and talents development, many coaching programs, career programs.
One particular one that I'm super excited about is launching the Diageo Digital Now, which is partnered with Circus Street to create a customized learning plan for each employee in the company to transform our digital capabilities in this very fast-changing and, you know, environment of digital. Side, we continue to do many wellness sessions and also, which help new people who join our organization to learn more and more about our business. On the culture side, launch market leading policies. We launched pregnancy loss guidelines. You know, for those who may unfortunately experience pregnancy loss, we now provide expecting mothers up to 26 weeks, and their partners 10 days of paid leave support in case of the unfortunate event of a pregnancy loss.
Gender identity, sexual orientation and gender expression guidelines, which strengthen our commitment to LGBTQ+. Disability inclusion guidelines. We launched our Spirited Women's Network and the Rainbow Network to reenergize our employee resource groups. On the simplification side, radical liberation, where we cut 150,000 hours of wasteful work last year, is in phase two and is being used to continue to liberate our teams to focus on growth. Of course, the other big area for us is footprint and legal entity optimization. On the digital side, next chart, please.
We continue to build thebar.com, which is our platform for all things social celebration. We continue to use technology across the length and breadth of our organization, Salesforce automation, blockchain-based track and trace, artificial intelligence for image recognition to help strengthen our market presence and reach, predictive analysis for sourcing, and also the Diageo Bar Academy, which is our portal for our customers and bartenders who learn a lot and get education through the year on various aspects of bartending. Coming now to the last pillar. Society. Since the acquisition, we've had a strong track record in sustainability, and we wanted to go much, much further. The three goals that we have built in our Society 2030 Spirit of Progress goals is driving ESG from grain to glass, moving India towards drink better, not more, and leading inclusion and diversity.
I will give you a few highlights of these during the year. On Learning for Life, which is our program for giving people business and hospitality skills, we have enrolled 1,400 students against a target of 1,100, 59% women have completed the program and 868 placed with an average salary of INR 12,000 per month. On the water stewardship side, we continue to replenish, our target is to replenish more water than we consume by 2024. We have launched collective actions in Maharashtra and Rajasthan and we are targeting to replenish 225,000 cubic meters of water this year. Our water use efficiency metrics are well on track as per the targets of this year.
Our carbon footprint, we continue to drive down greenhouse gas emissions. It has reduced from 27,000 tons to 2,800 tons, an 80% reduction over the F20 emissions. We are sustaining zero fossil fuel use across our distilleries. On the positive drinking side. Next chart, please. All right, just stay with this. On the drinking side, we have educated 104,000 young people against a target of 70,000. We've created awareness amongst 172,000 consumers on the risks of drink driving against a target of 110. We've developed partnerships with 25 regional transport office across India to make drink-drive a module before licenses are issued. We continue to spread the message of moderation. Next chart, please. On the inclusion diversity side.
Can we go to the next slide, please? Yeah. On the inclusion diversity side, 50% of our India executive committee remain women. 35% of our women. Our company has 26% female employee representation now, which is a 2% increase from the last year. 50% of our new hires during this period have been women. We've also hired 60 workers and full-time employees who are differently abled working across... I'm very proud to share that Diageo India was recognized as a silver employer by Pride Circle on their India Workplace Equality Index. This index really measures the level of inclusion and diversity in Indian workplaces. We are very proud to see the recognition for our ongoing initiatives on being a progressive company. One very proud for us is our Your Voice with Us. Next chart, please.
Overall employee engagement survey results, we do every year. Score, which is 2% above last year. This is four points higher than Diageo overall and 14 points higher than any external benchmark. It's a very strong result. We've improved all our engagement scores with 95% of our people saying they are proud to work for Diageo. Is about the score you see to the right on top, 85%, which is our psychological safety score, where 85% of our employees say they are able to raise ideas, concerns, and opinions without fear. This is four points higher than 2022 and nine points higher than Diageo overall, really shows us that our initiatives to make people comfortable to express themselves is working. Our biggest opportunity area lies in adaptability and agility, is the point.
the 79% score that you see to the right. Radical liberation is one of the initiatives, amongst others, for us to continue to make our company more agile, more adaptable, and keep up with the fast-paced environment we are facing. Next chart. Just to share with you a couple of recognitions on ESG. Sustainalytics has rated us a top-rated ESG company in the list of 2023. Spoke about is now AWS certified. We have progressed significantly on our ESG journey from now a double B rating to an A-rated organization, which I'm very pleased about, but good milestones to have achieved. Keep going, please. Next chart. With this, I will hand you over to Pradeep to take us through the financial performance.
Sorry, sir. Before we just proceed, may I, may I take a minute to reconnect Ms. Hina? There was some, slight audio break in the line. I'll just quickly reconnect her, then you may proceed, sir.
I'll wait for your prompt.
Yes, sir. Yes. Sure. Mr. Jain, you may please proceed. We have Mr. Nagarajan reconnected.
Well, thank you. Thanks, Hina. A very good afternoon to all of you. As always, it's a joy and a privilege to interact with this with this audience. Okay, Gaurav, next chart. Yeah. What I wanted to share was if you clearly look at our annual growth metrics, you see a ramped up growth momentum. I will cover this in a little more detail in the subsequent slides. Our margins have remained resilient in an extremely inflationary environment. We have improved our performance on the key levers of pricing, productivity, and mix management.
To round off, right, there are three or four things that we are extremely proud of during 2022, 2023. Progressing the portfolio reshape in line with our strategy and vision. Closing out the plum sale and the franchising transaction. Launching the multi-year supply chain agility program. At the end of March 31, 2023, we are almost on the verge of wiping out our accumulation losses and therefore, looking forward to get back to dividend distribution for our esteemed shareholders in the coming financial year. Next chart, please. What you see on the slide on the left hand is our reported NSV growth, less the strategically reviewed portfolio, we have removed it from the base, and the decision that we took of exiting Andhra Pradesh about four years ago, right?
Those are the numbers that would be our reported NSV growth. What we have done on the right-hand side is we've also eliminated the COVID impact, right? The COVID impact on the numbers. Therefore, what presents on the right-hand side is the right organic growth of the business like to like, right. This gives the true picture of the accelerated momentum. We can focus on the two right-hand side charts that clearly reflect the momentum, you know, in our business. The prestige and above for five years from 2016-2021 was at 8%. In 2021-2022, it moved up to a 13%, and in 2022-2023, it has given us 17% growth. Similarly, if you look at the overall portfolio from 2016-2021, we are at 5%.
In 2022, we went to 9%, and in the just concluded financial year, we are at 15%. Next chart, please. Okay, this one is critical. This one is on an annual basis, this plays to the feedback that we have received from this audience on multiple occasions that you do not have visibility to our growth construct in the prestige and above segment. This lays out 2022-2023 financial year, the annual growth construct achieved during the years, right? On our rebased portfolio. It reflects the premiumization of the category and how we are feeding into it. It also kind of substantiates the point that Hina and I have consistently made over the last 4-6 calls of sequential momentum in our mid-prestige and upper prestige performance. That will reflect, right?
Let me just get you focused on the chart. On the left-hand side, you will see each of our sub-segments of the prestige and above segment broken up individually and the growth that we have recorded in each of these sub-segments during the financial year. As we have always said, the popular and the low prestige segments are under pressure, driven by the huge consumer inflation impacting that lower SCC consumer, right? From there onwards, you look at our performance. Mid-prestige has grown 43% during the year. Upper prestige has grown 32% during the year. Luxury and premium have grown at 37% during the year, giving us a combined portfolio growth of 20% for the financial year 2022-2023. Right?
If you focus on the right-hand side, right, I would request the audience to focus on the column in the middle of those three columns. That gives us that out of the INR 1,600 crores of growth that we have recorded in our rebased portfolio, how much has each of these segments contributed? Right? Therefore, we do want to share that almost a third of our growth, actually a little higher than a third of our growth, almost 35%, has come from the upper prestige and the mid-prestige segments, where our innovation and renovations have been put in the market over the last four to six quarters, and where we have been traditionally weak over the years. Right? Next chart, please.
Building further on what I shared on the first slide, right, have already shared the growth construct and how mid prestige, upper prestige are improving their contribution into the growth construct. I think this chart now is focused on the value chain efficiencies. Pricing and revenue growth management on the top right, enterprise productivity on the left, and overall working capital efficiencies to extract free cash flow from the business bottom, the bottom right. Okay. Hina spoke about the virtuous cycles, right. Our proven productivity muscle is a big enabler of the virtuous growth cycle. Next chart, please. Hina has already talked about A&P being such a critical component of the virtuous growth cycle. I mean, I prefer to loosely refer to it as the, as the only good cost in the P&L. Right.
The point we wanted to make was that we will continue to make A&P investments to drive sustained profitable growth and build brands that are iconic. Looking at the chart, you will see that as we kind of step up A&P investments, it reflects in the NSV realization per cases on the right. Next chart, please. This is a directionally visual depiction of our portfolio on the two key financial metrics of EBITDA margins and return on invested capital. I think what we want to convey through this is not only is our portfolio complementary in terms of offerings and price ladder. Hugely complementary on these two financial metrics, which makes it almost an all-weather portfolio. Next chart, please. To round it up, right, just wanted to finish with the return on capital employed. Now, the number is showing a dip.
As all of you are aware that we are sitting on surplus cash on our balance sheet right now, and hopefully we shall address that as well in the current financial year. Just wanted to take the opportunity to reassure that we remain committed to create value for our esteemed stakeholders as we reset the portfolio for a sustainable and successful future. With this, I hand over back to Hina to conclude the management presentation for today, post which we will open up the floor for Q&A. Hina, back to you.
Thank you, Pradeep. Just looking ahead, we'd like to conclude by saying, look, the environment remains challenging. We are seeing continued inflation headwinds, lower end of prestige. You know, both of us have reiterated that popular and lower prestige is seeing the impact of inflation for our consumers. The inflation on our key commodities is not abating yet, right? We expect volatility to continue. We've also seen during the year that quantum of route to market changes has been, you know, reasonably high. Every time that happens, you know, business does get adapted to the route to market changes, and we have to look elsewhere for growth. That is business as usual for us. In our industry, headline pricing trails inflation. We feel extremely confident that our strategy is working.
We feel very buoyant about, you know, the future. Future backed strategy that is focused on buoyant macroeconomic outlook for India, lifestyle changes, premiumization, million new consumers coming into alcohol and India becoming one of the most affluent the next few years. We have a very resilient and complementary portfolio across the price PJ said, also on the financial metrics. productivity muscle. We have strong sustainability agenda, something that's only going to be even more important as we go along and a license to operate, actually, and we feel in this. Last but not the least, our competitive advantage of our people and culture. We feel very optimistic about the future, about our strategy and that strategy is working and we will continue to press on.
With that, we would like to now, move on to, questions and answers.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, before we go ahead with the Q&A, since there is still a break in the audio line from Ms. Hina Nagarajan, we would like to reconnect in a different method. We request all participants to please bear with us for another minute while we reconnect Hina ma'am. Participants are requested to please remain connected. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for patiently waiting. We have the line for the management reconnected. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles.
Participants connected on the webcast may click on the audio question button to ask a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Congrats on very strong PND growth. My first question is on PND only. If you could give us some clarity on how upper prestige has done within this. In FY 2024, would you expect a good double digit growth trend to continue here, given BIO is also back and big fat weddings and a lot of the office MICE events, travel, et cetera, is back. On the other hand, when I see other discretionary segments like QSR apparel, they are seeing challenging times on, in terms of demand. Wanted to get clarity on FY 2024, how do you see in terms of growth trend?
Sure. Hi, Abneesh. Good to see you on the call again. I would say that, Avnish, overall, the trend we are seeing is that, you know, the upper middle and the high income consumers remain resilient. Consumption and demand remains resilient in those segments. You know, the category growths are pretty robust in upper prestige and mid prestige. We do expect consumption demands to remain so going into FY 2024 for the reasons that, A, you know, socializing is back with a bang. All the bars, hotels, everything is full, right? We are seeing more and more new consumers come straight into the upper end of prestige also. You know, also travel is revitalized. We are seeing a lot of tourist traffic.
Our outlook for FY 2024 remains buoyant for the prestige categories. As Pradeep had shown, upper prestige has done, you know, very robust 24% growth, and that is coming on the back of, you know, the renovation of Signature, the launch of Royal Challenge American Pride. Now we are, you know, rolling out the renovated Antiquity. We feel confident that our innovations, renovations, will continue to fire in the market, and we will continue to see very good growths on this category.
Sure. Thanks. My second question is on the cost side. In terms of advertising spend, I understand this quarter was high because BIO came to normalcy. You also mentioned that ad spend is the only good cost in PNL. Wanted to understand for FY 2024, you think it will be in the overall 8%-9% as a percentage of sales? And specifically in first half, because BIO is still coming back to normalcy, are there higher ad spends done? In first half, could there be higher ad spend? Because last year, in fact, it was very low in the first half. Wanted more sense on that.
I would say, Avnish, and Pradeep, feel free to add after I've spoken. I would say, Avnish, I think, you know, as we said, it's a good spend, and we do want to create brands for the long term, and continue to actually scale up, you know, both the prestige renovations, innovations and BIO, which is largely now normalized in the market, right? We will look at, you know, a normalized spend of the range of about 9%-10% on an annualized basis. Clearly, yes, you are right. I mean, normally the first half tends to be a bit stronger because of season, right? Because we have the festive season, especially in Q2.
We do expect to, you know, do a business as usual in a normal year, what we would, you know, we do equate AMP in the second quarter particularly, I mean, in the third quarter, which is the festive quarter. I would say that I think you expect an annualized spend now of about 9%-10%. Pradeep, feel please add if you want to add any other comments.
No, nothing really major to add, Avnish. Hina has covered everything, 9%-10%. If you see this, that's by and large the earlier reinvestment rates grokked up for the divested portfolio, right? Just clarified, which Hina has clarified in the latter part of the response. On the Indian fiscal year, our peak AMP typically happens from July to December, right? As we build into the season, et cetera, right? This time was a bit of a blip, right? Therefore, hopefully that'll get corrected as we progress.
Sure. One follow-up on the cost was, what is the outlook on, say, glass and ENA? We are seeing deflation generally in most commodities. You will also benefit because of the packaging cost and the distribution cost becoming lower. Apart from these, and the Telangana price hike, is there anything more which can help us in terms of EBITDA margin improvement in FY 2024?
Let me take that, Hina, if you're okay. Avnish, again, you know, it's a, it's a running set of initiatives, right? As you're aware, our mono cartel removal program started sometime in January/February. That will reach its full realization as we get into the financial year 2023/2024, right? Similarly, our supply agility program will also start ramping up on improvements. Having said that, to your core question that have the commodities really scaled back, on neutral alcohol spirits, I'm afraid probably no, right? If you look at it's an election year approaching. The minimum support prices will see higher price increases. We are hearing El Niño, et cetera. The buffer commodities remain the agri commodities, et cetera. Therefore, in our senses will probably remain inflationary. Glass, there has been some green shoots, right?
The natural gas pricing intervention made by the governments has provided some support. We are in discussion with suppliers if we can get some rollbacks on account of that.
One last quick question on the talks with the regulators. We have seen Haryana, for example, allow corporate offices are allowing beer and wine at workplace. Wanted to understand for spirits, how is the advocacy talks going on with government? I know these things take a lot of time, but is it that now beer and wine are getting a bit more flexibility from regulators, and could this be replicated in more states? Do you see that? Because then it will become a challenge for the spirits business.
I mean, our advocacy, Avnish, continues. It's a regular ongoing initiative for us. It's not that we stop or start, you know, every now and then, right? I think there are many big areas of advocacy related to pricing, you know, can we get sort of inflation indexed pricing route to market discussions, et cetera. I mean, Haryana has been relatively a more progressive state. You know, they've started with beer and wine. I mean, we are in discussions with them to see whether we can, you know, get spirits included. I mean, as of now, we don't see that this will become something across states. Every state has its own policy. We are watching and working through this space.
Sure. Thanks. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you, Abneesh.
Thanks, Abneesh.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Avi Mehta from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I just want to first understand this Telangana price change. If you could help us understand, you know, what is the expected benefit and how should we look at that?
Yeah. Let me take that, Avi. Avi, the price increase is effective, right? And, you know, it's about a 6%-7% price increase, right? It should give us hopefully about, you know, INR 40-50 crores annualized number. The only thing I would want to caution is, like, I don't think we should look at it as one state, right? There is always a portfolio, right? We are always trying to balance our margins as well as our growth, right? My only guidance will be don't look at it as one state and layer that on incrementally in your modeling. Multiple things happen, right, in the entire pricing cycle.
Sorry, it will be even positively. I'm sorry. This INR 40 crore-INR 50 crore is a given, right? I mean.
Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Okay. Okay, okay. You know, in this context that you've got, like, a benefit that has come in, you know, and hopefully it continues in the other states. You know, you're kind of focusing on investments. There's also the input cost headwinds that you highlight. If you could help us understand, you know, within the quarters, just from a trajectory perspective, if you could give us some sense on how do you internally see this?
I think we did spend some time on this in the last quarter. If you look at the two broad one-off impacts, right, we've called that out very, very transparently in our financials, right? There is a one-off credit that we have in that 13 and a half. Then there is this, you know, inflated A&P for the quarter, right? Neutralized for these two, I think right now the business is sitting at about a 14% EBITDA margin, right? As mentioned in the last quarter, our first milestone is to get to about 15%, right? That is what we will target to achieve on our financial year 2023/2024 basis.
Once we achieve that, we would want to move on from there, right, back to probably the 16.5, 17 that we were operating at during the 2019/2020 period. Does that help?
Sorry, it's 15% in FY 2024 and not by end FY 2024. Just wanted to clarify that.
Yeah. That will be our aspiration, right? Obviously, subject to many things happening, but yes, that will be our aspiration.
Okay. Perfect. Just, you know, a large bit, this gross margin impact is because of a timing impact? That is it was during the year only or was it? I mean, how much was the quantum that it was just an earlier prior year period that has come in? Is that what you were signaling by the last, you know, clarification that you mentioned?
I didn't get the question, Avi.
You said, Pradeep, that there is a one-time gross margin benefit in the year, which means that I thought it was a 4Q impact was just from during the year provisions. It's not. It's something that has been there from earlier years.
It's for the prior years also, right? It's in the quarter. The quarter impact is. We've called it out in our.
Okay.
As well as in our financials. That'll give you a good sense.
No, no. Perfect. I just wanted to thank you for this additional disclosure on the portfolio. It's really, really helpful. Thanks a lot for this.
Thanks, Avi.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Alok Shah from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity and thanks for sharing this portfolio construct. Helps a lot. My first question was, if I look at this year's volume growth of 12% and Hina's commentary on the buoyancy in terms of the group fit, especially in the mid and upper prestige and onwards. When we try to reconcile that with our old transcripts where you guided for about 4%-5% volume growth. You know, I don't know, but there seems to be a disconnect. Is it more a function of skewness in terms of volume towards the lower prestige, et cetera? Or do you want to revise that guidance of 4%-5% volume growth?
I mean, PJ, do you want to take that? Yeah.
So, Alok, I mean, we are sitting in different places today, right? Do pardon us for the lag, right? If I get your question, your question is that we had deconstructed the broad 10%-12% growth earlier, and the volume growth has coming in, you know, come much higher there, much higher than that. Therefore, would we want to revise our guidance? Is that the question, Alok?
Yes, yes, absolutely. There's lot happening mid-prestige, et cetera, showing strong double-digit growth in terms of value terms. Thought I'll just get a sense on that.
Right. Look, you know, I said, are we completely out of the volatile period? I would probably say no, right? The commodities remain on a boil. It's still a fairly inflationary environment, right? Therefore, I would not want to say. Probably on the demand side, we are back to steady state, but on the cost side, we are still not, right? Therefore, we would want to wait a little more. Our aspiration will be to continue to, you know, continue to deliver on the momentum that we have generated in the last two years, right? There is no reason why we would not want to deliver the growth that we have delivered in 2022, 2023, and maybe a couple of quarters down the line, we should, you know, we should be able to talk about guidance as well.
I don't know, Hina, whether you want to add to that or...
I would just say that, I mean, as we've started rolling out our renovations, innovations, I mean, we do get that volume uplift, which is, you know, a little bit higher than, you know, our business as usual situation, right? I can't say that's the norm. Absolutely, I think we are in a very volatile period. Route to market changes, we don't know what will happen during the year, so there are so many factors. I don't think we can give you a guidance on volume. I mean, we will stick to our guidance of, you know, double-digit top-line growth in terms of value. At the appropriate moment, we will review this guidance.
Sure, sure. My second question was for this quarter, if we see, within COGS, the purchase of finished goods has jumped. This probably means that the sales of BI or BII, because it's also resumed, has been quite good. Anything to call out over here or, you know, going ahead, we should expect this kind of bumped up run rate in that? Would that have also lifted gross margin to some extent?
Yeah. So let me take that. Look, our normalization started sometime in mid-November to late November, right? When we say that this is full normalization, this is the first quarter of 90 days which was fully normalized, right? Therefore, obviously a little bit of pent-up demand for our brands, et cetera, leading to higher rotations also during the quarter. Very difficult to quantify. We don't believe there is any pipeline filling impact during this quarter, right? I would say now it's pretty much, you know, normal, and it'll pretty much continue like that.
Got it. My last was a bit on the theoretical front, but just wanted to get a sense if it's possible. Usually when a renovation or an innovation happens, that typically leads to what percent of the volume in the first 18 months? Any sense that you can give in terms of percentage of overall volumes or something of that sort just to understand this pace of new launches and renovations a little better going ahead.
Sorry, I don't quite understand the question. What do you mean by percentage of volume?
Basically what I'm saying, trying to get is, for example, RC American Pride is something that could be, you know, relaunched or launched this year.
Yeah.
Going ahead also there will be new renovations, innovations.
Yeah.
That would initially help because, you know, gradually you go pan-India. Of course, every brand will have a different saliency. Anything just to get a theoretical understanding, what is the bump up that we can expect going ahead with the slew of launches that you are planning?
I mean, you can, like, let me give you an example. McDowell's Number One was relaunched three years ago, we're continuing to see market share, you know, competitive performance, right, even after three years.
Mm-hmm.
It's difficult for us to say that, you know, it'll grow up to 1.5 years and not grow after that. It really depends on how the proposition is addressing consumer need, right? It can be a permanent growth phenomenon. I mean, as you see, even the regular brands in the market, some of them just grow consistently year after year, even though they don't have renovations. I would say that it depends on the strength of the proposition and the connect with the consumer need. Actually, our products are performing really well against that, right? The Signature renovation, the Royal Challenge American Pride, they are really addressing untapped needs in the markets. I don't expect that the result will peter off in 18 months or, you know, whatever. We'll just see.
We expect this to remain powerful over the next couple of years.
Okay, perfect. I have four more questions. I'll get back in the queue. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Alok.
Thank you. The next question is from Harit Kapoor from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, Harit.
Yeah. Hi. Hi. Good evening.
Hi, Harit.
I just had two quick ones. One was, yeah. One was on pricing growth. I think last year you mentioned FY 2023 that you'd be happy to be at about 1.5%, 2% at an overall portfolio level. Given that you're already 0.5% in the Telangana, I just wanted to get your sense about, you know, how you look at pricing growth and what your aspiration for that is for FY 2024.
Yeah. Again, I will provide a slightly theoretical construct, right? I mean, I've already shared the numbers in the document this time, right? We are clocking about between a combination of headline pricing and our revenue growth management interventions. We are clocking close to INR 200 crores, right, in the financial year, which on a rebased NFV base of about, let's say INR 8,100 crores, that comes to almost 2.5%, right? Clearly it's one of the best years we have had. Now, to your question, Harit, see, on a steady state, broadly, if you've taken inflation of 4%, we have always tasked ourselves that we should try and neutralize 50% of that 4% inflation through management productivity, right?
The balance 2%, right, should ideally be neutralized through a combination of headline pricing, revenue growth management, and your mix management intervention. Right. That's the broad construct that we try and aim for. In reality, you know, it varies, right? I mean, on pricing, if you look at our five year trend that we have shared in the document, you will see that probably for the last three years, we hardly realized any pricing, right? Therefore, you have to press some of these levers a little extra, right? Despite all that, at times you end up diluting margins as we have done over the last two years, right? In this extreme inflationary environment. Does that help?
Got it. Yeah. Yeah. This is helpful. The second question was on the innovation and renovation plan. I mean, you've done quite a few things over the last 12 months and specifically over the last, I would say 3-4 months as well. I just wanted to get your sense about over the next, say, 6-12 months, is it, you know, gonna be about, you know, making sure you execute some of these plans which you've already put out in terms of Royal Challenge blend or American Pride, the base Royal Challenge as well as Antiquity Blue? Or we should expect more from, you know, more from your high streets table even in the next 12 months on innovation and innovation.
Harit, I always say we have an and strategy, not an or strategy. I mean, clearly the first priority is to scale up and build, you know, what we have launched as renovations and innovations. Because, you know, in our category, I mean, like Royal Challenge is a big renovation, we are going to, you know, build the full muscle behind it, right? That, you know, our innovation pipeline continues, and you will see more, right? Whether in the existing categories or we are watching momentum, you know, in newer categories, and we'll see, right? When the momentum is right, when the categories are mature, we will bring in more. It will be an ongoing sort of innovation launch plan. The pipeline is developed, and my team is working on that.
We will see more excitement as we go along.
Great. The last question was on on market share. You have three categories: mid-price to upper price point, luxury and premium. All three have done extremely well for you in fiscal year 2023. Would it be safe to assume that broadly across these three categories you would have seen, you know, holding or gaining share?
Yes, you can assume that, yes, we have performed extremely, competitively across these categories.
Great. Wish you all the best and great presentation again with the data points. Thanks.
Thank you so much, Harit.
Thank you. The next question is from Prakash Kapadia from Anived Portfolio Managers. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity.
Hi, Prakash.
I have two questions. Hi. I have two questions. You know, if I look at, you know, historical data, since 2014, last decade, our excise duty was 60% to, I think, 69.5%. Now post the divestment of the portfolio, it is around 57%-58%, last I think two quarters. Will this stabilize from year on? Will it improve? You know, if you could give us some sense, how much of state impact does it have on overall excise duty?
Yeah, sure. Prakash, we don't even make an attempt to try and get into this kind of a reconciliation, right? Unfortunately, you know, there are 29 states and seven union territories with very, very different excise structures which run into thousands and thousands of slabs, right? Directionally, I think the data that you have shared seems to be passing the sanity check, right? Because as you go up the pricing ladder, excise duty as a percentage continues to come down, right? As a divesture of the portfolio, right, and as our mix is gravitating towards the higher end of the consumer ladder, et cetera, excise duty as a percentage will come down, right? That's all that I would want to say.
Understood. Understood. You know, pre-COVID to now, will it be fair to say Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu would be our top three states in terms of value sale?
No, we've never given those kind of breakups. What I can say is Tamil Nadu, we have a very small business. It's a franchise business. Tamil Nadu is certainly not. Yeah, and on others, we've never given the salience. Maharashtra is a big state for us, if that provides you any comfort.
Okay. Lastly, you know, Pradeep, if I look at employee cost, is the current quarterly run rate a good base to start with for building FY 2024 and beyond? Because that has, you know, seen a decline post the divestment portfolio even on a sequential basis. There could be some further decline as we move forward from this base.
Yeah. No, Prakash, again, I think we did guide in the last quarter also. The good run rate is take a 4-quarter rolling run rate, that's pretty much, right, indicative of the right run rate. If you look at our rebase number, I think we're in that INR 590, INR 595 to INR 600 crore kind of a range, right?
Right.
That INR 145 crores-INR 150 crores per quarter is a good range, right?
Could be, yeah.
Now, depending on accounting, there are some pluses and minuses, right? When the actuarial valuations happen, you know, et cetera, et cetera, and all that, right? Don't get too bothered by that.
Sure. Sure. Fine. Fine. That was it. Congrats, Pradeep, on the elevation to the ED role. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Himanshu Shah from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello.
Hi, Himanshu.
Yeah, Himanshu.
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for increased disclosure. Just one clarification. The luxury and premium portfolio, does the entire portfolio, the revenue mix that is sitting in that portfolio, have a distribution arrangement? The 31%, 32% revenue contribution which is there from the luxury and premium portfolio.
No, Himanshu, no. That also contains Black Dog. It contains the new kid in the block, Godawan, which we expect to become quite big in the next eight to 10 years. It also includes Smirnoff, which is a royalty model and not a, you know, and not the transfer pricing model. There is quite a bit fitting in that also, right?
Can you provide some color, like what could be your distribution arrangement out of this portfolio?
We don't do that, Himanshu. I think we've made a progress towards addressing your core concern about investor's concerns about the prestige breakup. This is something that we don't want to disclose in that level of granularity.
Second thing, sir, in one of the slides, slide 36, we have outlined RTM changes as one of the key constraints, basically phase and quantum of route to market changes. Is there any RTM changes which has already happened or it is something that we are envisaging because of the election year, some talks or discussions undergoing on?
No. I think Pradeep, you can answer that. Yeah. Okay.
No, no. I was just starting, Hina, and I would have anyway kind of, you know, leaned on you to kind of complete the answer. I think we were reflecting the year gone by, yeah, Himanshu and kind of crystal ball gazing a little into the next financial year. I think 2022, 2023 has been quite volatile, right? The Delhi RTM, which was... We had put in so much of, you know, heart, mind, body and soul into that transition, et cetera, and that being unwinded and then between the Jharkhand and the Chhattisgarh, et cetera, right? A lot of RTM back-to-back changes, et cetera. I think that's what was probably reflecting in our minds when we put that comment. Maybe if Hina wants to add anything to it.
No, that's it. I think, basically the year gone by was volatile, and we are saying that, look, you know, route to market changes will happen and, but we have the muscle to, sort of when one state goes down to look at other avenues of growth and, in general, you know, expand our shares across states. As you rightly said, PJ, it's a reflection of the year gone by, saying that this is also an element of volatility that we faced and it could continue. We don't know. We have seen route to market changes every year. You know, it's one dimension of volatility along with inflation and everything else. That's it.
Sure. Can you squeeze in one more question, last?
Yeah, yeah. Go ahead.
Yeah. Lastly, sir, on A&P spend, the 10% guidance. Earlier it was 8-9% when Popular was part of base. Now that 15% across revenue contribution has gone away and the luxury portfolio is growing at a much faster pace. In that backdrop, is there any kind of risk element to the 9%-10% A&P spend guidance which we are guiding for FY 2024? Could it overshoot that?
Yeah. Himanshu, you know, a lot depends on, you know, as our P&L roll up, et cetera, we do continue to make some calibrated calls of investments as well as at times, you know, a little bit of holding back, et cetera. I think the range is reasonably safe. To your point only, I think our guidance was 8%-9% earlier. Gross it up for the 15% divestiture and the franchising, et cetera, it automatically comes into the 9%-10% range, right? Therefore, we are pretty much staying with the same guidance. Yeah, I think you make a right point that the top end of the segment is growing at a much faster, and we will continue to calibrate that, right? I don't see a fundamental risk to the 2023-2024 guidance at least.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Highly appreciate the. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Akshay Bhor from Citadel. Please go ahead.
Hi, Akshay.
Hi. Hi, Pradeep and Hina. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Pradeep, my first question is for you. The margin target for FY 2025 is 16.5%-17%. I just want to understand, Pradeep, if you can either qualitatively or, you know, quantitatively comment around what the internal initiatives that you are taking to get there. If you can also talk about, you know, how much of this could come from supply chain initiatives that you've talked about last quarter, and then mono carton and if there are other things that we should watch out for.
Yeah. Look, you know, what I have called out is our first milestone is about 15%, right. What we've also called out is that, you know, normalizing for the one or two outlier shifts in the current quarter that has just gone for which we are discussing, our steady state margin of the business is roughly around 14%. Clearly our first milestone is to get back to 15, right. That's something that we will really kind of, you know, go after. Once we reach that, right, we will have to figure out the next set of alternate, you know, next set of initiatives to reach that back to the 16.5%-17% margin. In that, some are long-term initiatives that have already started being rolled out.
For example, the supply agility program. Clearly, we have shared the number that we intend achieving out of it, et cetera. That should, on a very broad basis, give us about 1 to 1.5 percentage points of margin, right? Once it's completely executed, right, you know, and it kind of stays in the P&L, right? Then we will figure out it's pretty much the same construct. If we can manage to negate inflation through a combination of productivity and headline pricing stroke revenue growth management on a sustained basis, then your mix management and as we premiumize the category, will provide us the margin kicker. In some years, hopefully, the commodities, et cetera, will unwind to some extent, et cetera. That will provide us some additional kicker to grow the margin faster. That's broadly the construct.
I think we have also demonstrated a fairly reliable track record of being extremely disciplined on our organizational overheads cost on our organization as well as our overheads cost.
Pradeep, I just want to clarify to Akshay. I heard him say that you've set a target of, you know, 16.5%, 17% for FY 2025. I just want to clarify that, you didn't say that. You didn't say that.
Yeah, yeah.
FY 2025 was 16.5, 17. Akshay, we said our aspiration is to get to 15 first. After that, you know, get to 16.5, 17. We are not giving a time, you know, FY 2025 for that. We are saying we look at the initiatives to get there. Yeah.
Absolutely. Sorry, I didn't pick up the FY 20 25, you know. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah. That's why I sort of.
That's okay. Thank you. Thank you. That's helpful clarification. My second question was just around pricing. I wanna understand, you know, what are the efforts as an organization you're doing to get, you know, better pricing from the states? This time around it's quite straightforward in a way that your margins show the cost pressure for the cost items are quite clearly headroom. Just wanna understand as an organization or I guess it's industry, what are the efforts that you're taking?
Yeah. I mean, I think this is an ongoing advocacy that we do, right? It's done both at the state levels and also at the central level. You know, both individually as companies, all the companies in industry, as well as through the industry associations. You know, we will continue that advocacy. I mean, at the state levels we talk to them, and we always showcase the inflation levels and request for price increases, and have ongoing dialogue on that. On the central level, like I had mentioned earlier, you know, we are trying to do, see if we can work with the government on policy interventions. You know, for example, you know, can we have an indexed model to inflation for pricing?
Our teams are working on how do we get, you know, something like that through. These are, you know, long lead time exercises. Conversations are on, and we will continue to do that. In the meanwhile, we will press the levers of productivity, mix premiumization, revenue growth management, and whatever pricing we can get, right, to manage year to year.
All right. Thank you and all the very best.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Akshen Thakkar from Fidelity. Please go ahead.
Hi. Hi, Akshay.
Hi, team. Thank you for the, you know, added disclosures this quarter. Really appreciate this and will help us track the business a lot better. Pradeep, just on the margin commentary that you had for next year. If I just look through the margin waterfall that you've shared for Q4 and full year, there is some operating deleverage, you know, because obviously the business was sold. Does this continue in H1 as well, or you know the 23 number that we are now seeing, that's a clean one, and we shouldn't see an incremental one? I'm just trying to understand in the 14% guidance for next year, is there still a small drag from the transaction or 14 is, 24 is like a clean number now?
Yeah. Akshay, here is my perspective on it. Look, we have to be transparent about the impact of the strategically reviewed portfolio, therefore, we share those EBITDA bridges. See, in our minds, what we now have is the business we have, right? Therefore, multiple things will get mixed up in it, right? I mean, the 19%-20% growth that we have announced this quarter, et cetera, that starts giving us operating leverage, right? Yes, strictly speaking, the operating deleverage will continue for four quarters, right? Therefore, very, very theoretically speaking, up till September 30th, the operating deleverage will continue, right? What we are simultaneously also getting is the leverage driven by the growth of the retained portfolio now, right? It's very...
If you look at it in one way, if you knock off what we have lost in top line, I think the additional NSV that we have added in the last two quarters is significantly higher than what we have lost. In a manner of speaking, that operating deleverage, while theoretically correct, has already been subsumed, has already been recouped, right? That's the way I would want you to look at it now, right? We have what we have, which is the retained portfolio, and we have to build the margin from here onwards.
Sure. I was just looking at, you know, the full year bridge, six months to FY 2023, I think you've called out some INR 61 crores as deleverage impact. If I assume that that sort of goes away next year, then that's about 70-80 basis points on margins. You're already at, you know, 14%. From 14% to 15%, then effectively it looks like a large part of it is coming from the deleverage going away. Gross margins, one would assume from here, move up a little bit, and even if A&P on a full year basis goes up. I was just trying to, you know, triangulate if the, you know, margin guidance for next year is conservative or way things stand, you think it's a fair, you know, ask from the company.
No, I think it's fair. You know, 100 basis points of improvement is a fairly, you know, it's a fairly stretch, but again, achievable task, right? You're absolutely right. Our growth gives us operating leverage, and operating leverage is a clear component of our margin progression, right? We do factor that in, right? I think you're thinking of it the right way. My only recommendation would be don't get too bogged down by the operating deleverage now, right?
Yes. Yes.
That transaction is done. It's out, right? We have our retained portfolio and that's what we need to run with.
Okay, fantastic. One more follow-up question, please. You know, there was a very nice slide that you had on ROIC versus EBITDA margins on how you think about that. I think you've looked, you know, classified the business as premium, mid prestige, upper prestige, popular and luxury over there. How would the sort of Diageo brands sit over there? Based on the last few calls you had, you know, on earnings, you sort of spoke about transfer pricing margins over there, so I'm guessing 10%, 12% versus company average of 14. I don't know. You know, from an ROIC metrics, is it sort of asset turns are better comparable? How does that sit?
Yeah, yeah. I think I will again call out what I've been probably saying now for at least my eight investor calls. The global brands sit in two segments. There is a luxury segment, which is almost 100% the Diageo global brands, and then they also fit in the premium category, right? Black & White and VAT 69, these are global brands, right? All the global brands are margin capped at roughly about 10% right now. Obviously they rotate because we don't spend any fixed capital on it, right? They rotate at a much faster pace, right? Broadly, my sense is that they rotate at about 3x to 3.5 x, close to 4x a year, right?
Therefore, the pre-tax ROIC is close to 35%-40%, and the post-tax ROIC will be in the range of about 30%, right? That's broadly the construct.
Excellent.
Visually, that's what we apply to depict on the slides.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I just wanted to double confirm. Great. Thanks. A very last one, if I may, just on the difference between the standalone and the consolidated financials on the EBITDA, there seemed to be a sharp drop off on the subsidiary numbers. Would it be largely due to the women IPL sort of?
Yes. Yes, absolutely. The Women's Premier League, since it happened in March, that loss is incorporated, right? Whereas the kicker of the Men's Premier League will come in the subsequent quarters.
Perfect. Perfect. Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jay Doshi from Kotak. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jay.
Hi, Pradeep. Hi, team. Thanks for the disclosures and presentation. My first question is, you know, very impressive that 52% of your incremental revenues in FY 2023 have come from luxury premium. Now, when I think about the base, the base was COVID impacted FY 2022, but at the same time, you know, FY 2023, you had curtailed supply of Diageo in many states. Going forward, will we see a similar mix where almost 40%, 50% of your incremental revenues will come from luxury and premium in a normal environment?
Yeah. Jay, let me take a shot and maybe Hina can build on it, right? First of all, this is a value mix, right? Clearly the NSV per case realizations are very different, right? Therefore, they add a very, very different kicker to the growth salience. Having said that, you're absolutely right. The momentum that we have generated on the three sub-segments of luxury premium, upper prestige and mid prestige, we would want to continue, right? Whether we are able to or not, that time will tell, but we would absolutely want to continue. What we would also want to see at some point of time is, right, the one which is popular and lower prestige, right?
That also starts contributing a slightly higher, in fact, much higher in the force of growth mix, right? Once that punches its weight, right, I think the salience of the other three segments will marginally come down. That will make it well distributed across our retained portfolio ladder, right? That's the only thing. I don't think it'll materially change, right? Maybe I'll turn to Hina to add her viewpoint.
Yeah. Yeah, I think it will change somewhat. My only thought is that it's not in steady state yet, so it's difficult for us to say, you know, where it's going to end out. I think there will be pushes and pulls, and, we are going to try and, you know, see that all parts of our portfolio grow. I think it'll take us a year or two to kind of reach steady state and, you know, feel that, it is now at a ratio where we are pretty certain that growth will continue to be this way year after year, right? It really depends also on renovations and innovations coming in different categories in different years. I'm not sure that we'll see a steady pattern year after year either, right?
Wonderful. My question, associated follow-up question there was as analysts, should we also start focusing more on EBITDA per case? You know, how do you track internally? Do you target EBITDA margin or do you target a certain EBITDA per case? Given that Diageo portfolio grows much faster and there is a distribution arrangement, so EBITDA per case will be very high, but percentage terms it optically looks lower.
It's a combination of both, Jay, right? We can't track only one metric, right? All of you actually keep us honest on the percentage. Therefore, we have no option.
You have a number in mind, just the way you have 16, 17% margin aspiration, do you have a aspiration of 300 INR per case or 350 INR per case EBITDA, you know, on your drawing board as well?
Jay, it's a little dynamic now because, see, the NSV per case also continues to go up, right? I think what keeps us honest is the NSV growth is one number, right? As we have mentioned many times, we are value obsessed, more value obsessed than volume obsessed, right? Therefore, NSV value growth is something that we are clearly obsessed. We are obsessed with market share, et cetera. Then I think right now we gravitate a little towards percentage margin, right? And managing the multiple metrics, right? That kind of allow us to land the, you know, to balance the number, et cetera. EBITDA per case is also something, right, that we keep a close watch on. I don't know, Hina, whether you want to add something to it.
No, nothing to add. Nothing to add.
Sure. One more on your pricing strategy. When I look at this quarter's numbers, there's a significant increase in realization in the popular segment. When I, sort of, you know, look at Maharashtra as a state, you've reduced prices for V.S.P Black, Mc D No. 1, and even Royal Challenge by INR 10-20 in an inflationary environment. Could you please explain, you know, how you're thinking about, you know, essentially, is this specific to Maharashtra as a state and what has prompted you to drop prices?
Yeah. Let me take that. I mean, basically, look, we don't, as a, you know, as a company, we would ideally never let go of any headline pricing opportunity, and that's the philosophy we follow. I must say that we also have statewide strategies for remaining competitive and, you know, managing the dynamics of every state. You know, our competition has been taking some, you know, sort of measures on value erosion in some states. In order to protect growth and to protect segment growth, I would say, we have taken these calls. Yes, you're right. To that extent, it's state specific in response to, you know, competitor-created dynamics, but not a philosophy that, you know, we want to follow proactively.
Thank you. Jay, may I request you to join the queue for any follow-up, as we have several participants waiting for their turn.
I think we are done. We'll just have to probably.
We'll meet next.
We are past the time, and Hina has to go for an external appointment. We may have to close the call now.
All right. Sure. Ladies and gentlemen, that would be our last question for today. I would now hand the conference over to Ms. Hina Nagarajan for closing comments. Thank you. Over to you, ma'am.
Yeah, thank you. I would really like to thank all our investors for joining the call, for your questions. I'm glad that we've been able to, you know, come back and respond to your feedback. Thank you for your trust in our company, and we look forward to our next call. Have a nice day.
Thank you. Thank you all.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of United Spirits, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.