Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Duni Q4 interim report. Today, I am pleased to present President and CEO, Robert Dackeskog and CFO, Magnus Carlsson. For the first part of this call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. I will now hand over to Robert Dackeskog. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Yeah. Hi, everyone, and welcome to Duni Group year-end report for Q4. We'll start short here with the highlights, we'll come back to all of these things, of course. The highlights for the quarter was that we had a growth of 0.7% for the quarter. The operating income strengthened by 40% versus last year. The board of directors proposed a dividend of SEK 3 per share to be paid in two payments. The fourth, this is actually the fourth consecutive year that we will improve the score in EcoVadis, and we made it even better, 69 to 73, which is great.
In Q4 also, we divested 25% of the shares in the BioPak Pty Ltd to the Australian-based private equity firm, Five V Capital, in order to participate in the next phase of the group of the company. The agenda today is that we look a little bit on the outlook. We have a Q4 summary. We move into the business area a little bit more deeper and talk a little bit about our sustainability targets, the financials and then of course the Q&A in the end. If you look a little bit on the market outlook, despite there's a little bit lower purchase power out there, now. The demand is actually holding up very well in the HoReCa industry.
We can see that on the left side here, we have Germany as an example that bookings versus 2019 is around maybe 10%-20% better actually still. It's a decent amount out there still. Also all over, if you look at the right side, you can see the different countries also a lot of green numbers there versus 2019. It, it sure has recovery of the HoReCa market and really high interest in going out and to dinner and meet and greet and so on. A little bit to the numbers in Q4, we had an increase of 0.7%. The net sales ended up at SEK 1.9 billion for the quarter.
Operating income ended up at SEK 153 million, which is a 10.4% up versus last year. We ended up at the operating margin at 7.8%, which is versus then 7.1% last year. Strengthening that. A little bit more details then what happened in Q4. We got a broad and strong recovery in the business area Duni. Our napkins and table covers came back with of course, there were no restrictions in the market anymore. So people could go out and eat and meet. The Pack Australia continued strong demand there, while Europe for the BioPak was slightly behind versus last year. It feels like the consumer demand is holding up well in Q4, although there's been high inflation as well.
We initiated price increases in Q3, which will have effect from Q1 2023. If you look at the operating income, there was an increase of 40%. Actually the profit improvement in the quarter derived from improved sales. Of course, with the napkins and the table covers back, that generates a good recovery. The gross margin strengthened, but it's still a bit under pressure from general high inflation and the energy and gas prices. But also historically high inflation with the US dollar and the container cost show signs of evening now when we're looking forward. Now when look at the full year 2022, it was another volatile year, of course, where the pandemic still affected the market in the beginning of the year.
Also then the war started in Ukraine in February. It's been a bit another crazy year in that sense. If you look then at the full year with a net sales increase of, yeah, 8% almost. It's been a stable and accelerating growth throughout the year, and of course, that's connected with the restriction easing up over the year. The price increases initiated already in 2021 and also that we continuing in 2022 are compensating for the inflation. The same in Australia, we can also be considered Duni Europe with strong momentum as I said, yeah, for Q4 as well. Of course, operating income picking up 12 plus 60%. Profit back close to pre-pandemic levels. Business area Duni with strong recovery.
We have a continuous and accelerating cost increase, put a bit pressure on margin throughout the whole year. The effect Europe has been challenged and through a lot of disturbances in the supply chain, and causing now a bit high inventory levels. Yeah, I hand over to Magnus here to go into the EBIT.
Thank you, Robert, and good morning, everyone. we now go through our two business areas with more details. Starting off with the business area Duni that represents some products like napkins, table covers and candles.
The Q4 showed growth of almost SEK 300 million, and includes SEK 1.2 billion for the quarter. The margin strengthened and now about 10%, 10.7% to be exact, and equal to SEK 107 million for the business area. That is an improvement of around SEK 40 million for the quarter. 2022 ended with a confirmation that the HoReCa industry, and that means the hotels and restaurants, they have recovered well from the pandemic. There is a healthy demand thereby from a strong need to socialize and go with company as a free engagement. As I said, compared to the same period last year, sales are up 25%, and increase which is quite good and confirming the normal full market.
If you look on the retail segment, showed slightly lower growth, but I've also explained that, the restrictions that had a negative impact last year, mainly impacted the professional segment, and consequently, we see now a strong rebound in this area. Although the price increases, or complications are starting to be significant, explaining around 14%-15% of the growth, the margins are still challenged by the inflation in general, but in particularly high costs in energy and gas, raw materials and not least the logistics cost. The improvements on the profits of almost 4% in the quarter comes mainly from the improved volumes and higher cost efficiency in production, and through better profit share absorption in all our production units.
We do see a weakening of the dollar, which is the main currency determining the raw material prices that have led to a weakening of the cost pressure. However, the effect for Duni, bearing in mind the contractual lead times we have and the inventory, that will first be visible next year. We also in the course accelerated the launch of several new solutions, particularly compostable and fossil-free solutions for napkins and BioFoam. We think this is an important, easy agenda, but also for any customer, like a restaurant or hotel, that wants their product to become fossil-free in their businesses and processes. If you look on the business area, BioPak, serving totally like the everyday life, take-away, tray, cups, and other fiber products and food service. We also here see a healthy growth of around 12%.
Profit, same level as last year, while margin ended on 3.4%, slightly lower than the 4% we had in the same period last year. The fourth quarter for BioPak indicates similar pattern as we saw in the third quarter. The business outcome here, mainly in Australia, is solid. It grows clearly above the average for the whole business area, and thereby from some significant contracts that we secured early in 2022. We also see an underlying and broad demand for our products. Europe, it's important to note that is more dependent on the takeaway solutions like boxes and bowls, which now when we see the end of pandemic, it's slightly back versus a very strong demand in previous years. The fourth quarter experienced lower container costs from Asia to Europe on the stock market.
It has not yet been materialized in stronger margins for BioPak. I think primarily for two reasons. One is the lead time in our contracts that doesn't allow for immediate production. Second, our stock, which was filled up during the first half of 2022 to secure delivery to our customers, but they also had higher average prices for freight. This is naturally a challenge to BioPak, but we see it as a temporary one. I think in addition to the plastic shift that we have talked a lot about and driving other solutions like fiber, we see the legislation creates different conditions for different markets. Composting, for instance, can be a preferable solution in one market, while a reusable solution might work better in other markets or locations.
I think this dynamic is quite complex, but the group for BioPak is well positioned to take the lead and offer the best solutions through innovation and collaboration. We are very happy to welcome the Australian-based firm, Five V Capital, that bought 25% of the shares for around AUD 65 million. They will be a very important strategic partner for us locally that will contribute to further growth and value going forward.
All right. Yeah, if we move to next slide here, we have this new workflow that in 2021 we updated our strategy, and this is our Decade of Action, we call it. We have three sustainability initiatives with targets. We are measuring a different thing here. One thing that we have actually been fourth year now is the carbon intensity index on Scope 1 and 2, and that's a ton CO2 per ton sold product. I'm really happy to see that we are at an index of 37, which is outcome of 2022. Actually, we had a goal 2025 of 14, and we said, okay, that's already achieved. Fantastic. We've done a fantastic job, and the whole organization's done a fantastic job here.
The main reason is that we changed to fossil-free electricity in all our European factories. Also we're doing, yeah, small things as well as installing solar panels on all our factories and so on. Every bit counts. We have three targets, and it's becoming circular scale, it's going at zero and leading the change to become the trusted sustainability leader. If we move then a little bit short here, we have goals for 2030. We have interim targets for 2025, of course, we do activities in order to reach that end. We can take a couple of example on becoming circular scale.
We are reducing our use of virgin plastic and going down to our target in 2025 or 50% compared to 2029, and we are at 75 now. That's great. Moving towards that. We are working on new circular systems and so on, in cooperation with our minority investment in Relevo in Germany with a label and famous brand to leverage on the legal requirements that are coming in now. On the going at zero, as I said, the index is at 37. Really good progress there. Leading the change, which is then we want to become a trusted sustainability leader. Here, we actually, as I said at the beginning, we have an EcoVadis score that went from 69 to 73.
Gold level again, and we're reaching to get to more than 75 points and then moving up to platinum in the future. That's really good progress on our Decade of Action.
Okay. Yeah. Here's a move into the financials. Starting off with the income statement. The continued improvement demand that we see on our products together with the price increases is the main contributor for the operating income that increased to 40% in Q4 and more than 60% for the full year. The price compensation measures that we have taken, that were initiated in the third quarter, has not yet compensated for the time reach inflation but will do so in the beginning of 2023. The difference between operating income and EBIT for the fourth quarter, explained partly by cost to sell off the 10% in BioPak. Commenting on a little bit on the business area, we see again that the green is when the business system area with good growth.
The margin has also strengthened in about 10%, while BioPak still on levels being explained by the changing environment in Europe. Since the start of the pandemic, Duni Group have benefited from having these two business areas that complement each other, working as a different hedging versus the other and proceeded at the same pace going forward. Cash flow to look at that is positive in the quarter, and the difference is related to inventory as you can see, where previously we have seen a stock build up while the Q4 is the inventory mix. The focus on optimizing inventory, especially with BioPak continues, and as said in previous quarters, we are now seeing positive effects from this. As you can see, the net debt is very stable versus a year ago.
We do see higher inventory being the main reason for mitigating the effects from process improvements and explained also by the general high costs we have seen, but also the temporary higher cost position in BioPak Europe to secure the delivery after several years of challenges in the supply chain. Positive contribution is of course the sale of 25% of BioPak shares to Five V Capital as said earlier at the very end of 2022. Finally here, I think the total capital employed to individual continues to strengthen and now about on 17%. Finally, as you can see, and as mentioned several times, we now have a very strong growth at the same type, a strong rebound in the area and also a general solid market demand.
Unfortunately, we are not yet able to reach our market target of 10%, although the trend is positive and linked to the price compensation matching statement and with higher cost efficiency in production as well as our inventory costs are important contributors. Finally, our target is to pay out at least 40% of our net profit, and as Robert Dackeskog previously mentioned, the board of directors recommend a [Inaudible] per share as dividends. That will conclude the final project. With that, I hand over to Robert. Thanks for listening.
Thank you, Magnus. The short summary of 2022. We've had a positive trend in both net sales and operating income over the year. We are continuing to deliver on our long-term strategic objectives to become the trusted sustainability leader in our industry. We are really happy to welcome the new strategic partner in to accelerate the expansion of our business in Australia. We also believe that 2023 will hold a more higher world actually but favor recovery over time for the waste industry. With that, I think also take the opportunity to thank all IMP for a fantastic performance for the year and also the great trust from our customers. Thank you. We'll move it to Q&A.
Thank you very much. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. That's star one one if you would like to ask a question. Please stand by whilst we compile the Q&A queue. Okay. Our first question comes from Karri Rinta from Handelsbanken. Your line is now open. Please ask your question.
Thank you for taking my question. This is Karri from Handelsbanken. I have a few. I'll take them one by one. Firstly, it looks like table covers had the best quarter in three years in terms of revenues. Is there anything out of the ordinary in this number? Maybe one large delivery or something like that? Or is this sort of the new post-pandemic normal that we should expect going forward in terms of quarterly sales? Can you confirm that this product group is still a higher margin segment compared to a group average or compared to Duni divisions average? That's my first question.
Thank you so much for the question. Yes, that's correct. I think part of the general strong rebound in this business area, paper products, also benefits from conferences and moving back to people actually coming to catering and meeting up under those types of occasion. That is contributing to this good. As we have said earlier, if you look on the long-term trend, it has been quite challenging for this area. We do spend quite a lot on innovation to improve these products and also make them even more sustainable. We hope that will pay off also in the future.
The margin profile for this segment.
The margin is also we have said is good, that is, of course, ambition. We could continue to have a strong margin going forward.
All right, good. Thank you. BioPak and the inventories. Just a clarification. Is this, do you have high inventories, or is this that your customers have high inventories? As a container rates that you referred to, do you expect them to start effectively coming down for you already in the first quarter if we compare to the fourth quarter? Should we expect a more delayed decline in container rates for you?
Yes, starting to see the spot market of the containers going down. That is, of course, will be positive for us. It will be a gradual impact moving into 2023, depending on the contractual agreements we have with different stakeholders. The stock in itself is too high, and that is related to the difficulties we have seen in the supply chain over 10 years, actually. We are working hard to optimize that and that will also have a little bit of impact on how quickly we can benefit from the lower container costs that we are now starting to see in the market.
Just to clarify, so you doing this still has too high inventories in the BioPak division, and that's why it will continue to lower that inventory-?
Yeah.
As we go along.
Yeah.
All right. Good. Good. These price increase that you have implemented and are implementing, are you seeing any negative impact, any negative volume impact from that in any categories, i.e., maybe some customers switching to less sustainable, cheaper alternatives as everything is getting more expensive? Maybe more specifically, those few regions in BioPak where you saw a year-on-year decline, have you seen any of that there, or is it just purely a sort of a normalization after the pandemic?
Yeah, I think I can talk a bit on if you look at the market, if you take the business part, I think there is a bit of a change, of course, in consumption, where maybe people are moving into the restaurant, eating there. There is a bit of a thing there. Of course, we have had a quite high container cost over the years and competing with European products. I think in general, and for the company in Q4, we don't see any volume decline. We're still on an upward trend, especially the pulp woven actives and the baby candles and candies and all those products for restaurants. Of course, we will see what happens in the beginning of the year.
But in Q4 it's still— I think there's been no restrictions. People are out there. It's and as we see on the bookings, it's a high, high level of bookings there in Q4 and moving into the new year as well. I don't know if you want to add anything.
No, I just to comment that the price increase is of course, historically is significant and we try to do it in as responsible as possible for all stakeholders. The cost increase has been very dramatic, and we need to protect ourselves from that. At the same time, we do know, as you were pointing out, that there are some
[Inaudible], we need to be careful, when we do it in a responsible way and of course, true enough. It's a delicate balance between the volumes and the cost and the compensation measures taken. We feel that we are doing the right things and we are in good control, yeah.
Perfect. A detailed question on the income statement, the financial cost. These rising interest rates, how will those impact your effective interest rates for 2023? How should we think about financial costs for the full year? There's a lot of companies that have surprised with very significant increases in financial costs in the most recent quarter.
Yes, of course, we will also, as everybody else, have been impacted by the higher interest in general. We see that the net effect has been slightly down and we are in improved condition on the balance sheet, so that is mitigating the effects in that. We are quite confident that this will be manageable and significant for us.
Okay. Finally, maybe a more philosophical question and something that you also comment in the release, which is these regulations, especially around sustainability, that they're both getting stricter and at the same time there are quite significant local and regional variations. How should we think about that for your... Maybe the first question is that the, it's very obvious that BioPak is a long-term beneficiary of these trends, while it may be a bit of a more mixed bag for Duni. Can you maybe confirm that that's correct? For BioPak, this kind of trend typically favors larger players. How much scope do you see for further consolidation in the European market in BioPak?
You're referring to the Packaging Directive, the Packaging Waste Directive?
Yeah, that's correct.
Yeah. Yeah, correct, yeah. I think we have taken a position here that we, and we see that from research that we made, that there will be. If you take the packaging side for BioPak, there will be both a market for single-use and also for new model systems with reuse. I think that's something. I think we are well positioned in a way. We are looking into a lot of these new systems in one with reuse. We believe that we have a good position. We are thinking right here in terms of saying that there will be different needs for different types of patients. Of course, everything should be sustainable. That's important.
I think for the Duni side, the effect is more around the packaging outside our products. Actually, when you pack, you know, if you have plastic around the napkins or whatever. I don't see that that affect the Packaging Waste Directive doesn't affect that much actually on the product itself, the napkin. There, I think there's still a really big potential for yeah, paper napkins made out of fiber. I think fiber is definitely a really potential. Yeah, definitely. Do you want to add anything there?
No, I think we, in the last years, we've spent significant amount of time and energy to develop and adapt our single-use assortment to, towards a circular future that is driving and we are all for it. I think it brings a lot of opportunity fit to us. We are shifting away from, you know, very fossil-based virgin materials to reusable. We're looking into recyclable materials and other alternatives and reusable solutions. I think all of this will sort of fit together in the future, where there is no single answer on which one is the best for every occasion. We need to be complement offers to the customers. That's very important.
The consolidation opportunities, given that some of these regions for BioPak are still pretty small in terms of sales, is it that the market is not mature or not as mature as it is here in the North? Or is it that there are some local competitors that have stronger positions than BioPak has?
Yeah, I think in, if you take the South, maybe Europe, there are a lot of smaller, maybe especially on the packaging side with those. There, yeah, there is an opportunity, I think. Also with the new regulations and everything that you're into, I think there is. Of course, it will be easy if we consolidate systems, everything. I think that's philosophical, as you say, but that's maybe also arguing that it will be more consolidated in that sense because you need the system and everyone needs to engage in that. I think that's a lot of work. I think, I believe there's a lot of opportunities and it's a big transformation now. That also always creates a lot of opportunities in the market.
Yeah, definitely.
Great. That's very helpful. Those were all my questions. Thank you very much.
Yeah, thank you. Yeah.
Thank you. A reminder that if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Okay. At this time, we appear to have no further questions. Please continue.
Okay, great. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you from up here. Yeah, see you next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you very much. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.