Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ARYZTA Full Year Results 2022. The call will be hosted by Urs Jordi, Chairman and Interim CEO, and Martin Huber, CFO. There will be a presentation followed by Q&A. This call is being recorded today. Now I'd like to hand over to Paul Meade, Head of Investor Relations, to open the call. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Hadi, and good morning, everybody, and welcome to today's call. I would just like to briefly draw your attention to the forward-looking statements on page two of the presentation, which details the risks and uncertainties relating to our business, and it covers all of today's discussions. I will now hand over the call to Urs Jordi, Chairman and Interim CEO of ARYZTA. Thank you.
Thank you, Paul. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are fine. Thank you for taking time to be with us this morning. I'm here with our CFO, Martin Huber, and we are pleased to report a strong financial performance resulting in a first underlying net profit for many years. This reflects the benefits of the significant business performance improvement. This despite all the various business challenges facing our sector in these days. Please turn now to page three of the presentation, the overview of the performance for the fiscal year 2022. ARYZTA achieved a revenue of EUR 1.756 billion, and an organic revenue growth was supporting this by 17.9%. An underlying EBITDA increased to EUR 218.8 million. Underlying EBITDA margin increased by 110 basis points to 12.5%.
The operating free cash flow reached EUR 109.7 million. A repayment of a EUR 50 million hybrid part was done in the year 2022. The underlying net profit amounts to EUR 45.6 million. Please turn now to page four, the organic growth performance. Meanwhile, 60% of group revenue is ahead of pre-COVID levels. Both segments, Asia and Europe, are performing strongly. We have outpaced European retail markets. Food service recovery in Europe continued. QSR in Europe and Asia delivered strong growth. ARYZTA is investing selectively in capacity for growth. Please turn to page 5. Significant inflation challenges remain. War and supply chain disruptions are still in our world. Little respite expected in the near term as we know.
Further cost and price increases are expected, but nevertheless, bakery products have competitive calorific value advantages versus other food products. We are in a good place with our products. Markets with resilient consumer spending and robust social supports are in our portfolio. Please turn to page number six. Energy availability and costs are and will remain key challenge. Energy represents 3.8% of revenue in fiscal year 2022. This was 3.8% in fiscal year 2021. Contingency plans are in progress to diversify energy sources. Reducing dependency on gas is in progress with modifications of heating systems. We are investing in renewable energy on some sites, such as photovoltaics. Procurement risk management and pricing is in place to address energy volatility. Please turn to page number seven in our mid-term targets fiscal year 2023 to 2025, which we confirm.
Organic growth between 4.5% and 5.5% is based on constant pricing. This will lead into revenue bigger than EUR 2 billion, again, based on constant currency and pricing. An EBITDA margin 14%, 14.5% minimum will be achieved. CapEx will amount between 3.5% and 4% of revenue. The ROIC will 11% or higher in this period and the total net debt leverage, including hybrid, will be 3x. This driven by operational results. Please turn to page eight, which is the guidance for fiscal year 2023. The current trading terms remain unchanged despite challenging macro environment as we all know. Further improvements are expected for the actual year for the fiscal year 2023. We herein confirm our midterm targets for fiscal year 2025.
I will now hand over to our CFO, Martin Huber. Martin, please.
Thank you, Urs. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'll ask you now to turn page 10. ARYZTA has delivered a strong set of figures and further consolidated the turnaround time. Revenue grew by 15.1% to EUR 1,766 million, and EBITDA margin improved by 110 basis points to 12.5%. Our finance costs decreased to EUR 17.1 million due to lower average bank borrowing and lease liabilities. Hybrid dividends remained stable. Our income tax charge reduced versus previous year, mainly due to the recognition of a deferred tax asset in our Swiss business. This resulted in an underlying net profit of EUR 45.3 million for continuing operations compared to a loss in previous year.
Important to highlight that the results are delivered in FY 2022, an IFRS profit of EUR 1.9 million for continuing operation and EUR 0.9 million for the group. I'll now ask you to turn to page 11. In the fiscal year 2022, we have delivered a strong double-digit organic revenue growth of 17.9% with a contribution of 12% from volume. Our businesses in France, Fornetti, Hiestand, as well as food service APAC, delivered double-digit volume growth. A clear standout here with a volume growth of over 40% is our business in France. The four highlighted businesses generated more than 50% of the absolute revenue volume growth in the year. Pricing has consistently accelerated to 5.2% for the full year and contributed over EUR 78 million to mitigate input cost headwinds.
The disposal of our Brazilian business as well as the Swiss sandwich business reduced revenues by 3.4%. Currency added 0.6% to our revenues, mainly due to the strengthening of the Swiss franc and the Australian dollar. With this, we have increased our revenue by 15.1% to EUR 1,756 million. The absolute revenue growth of EUR 230 million in FY 2022 is about equivalent to the size of our current Swiss business. I'll ask you now to turn to page 12. Europe was our growth locomotive in fiscal year 2022, with an organic revenue growth of 19.3%. Key highlights for this strong performance are all businesses, with the exception of Switzerland and Germany, are now ahead of pre-COVID revenue levels of FY 2019, measured at constant currency.
The businesses ahead of pre-COVID level represent 65% of our European revenues. France continued its strong recovery through the year and posted an outstanding revenue growth, organic revenue growth of 48.8%. This result was supported by important volume growth as mentioned previously. Germany, our biggest business, we have been able to deliver an organic revenue growth of 10.1% despite very strict COVID measures during the fourth wave. Important to mention that in retail, ARYZTA Germany outperformed the market both in value as well as in volume. In addition, our food service business in this market rebounded nicely and delivered a strong double-digit organic revenue growth. Rest of the world had a strong Q4 organic revenue growth of 18.9% and increased the full year growth to 10.5%.
Important call-outs for this region are businesses representing almost 80% of revenue in rest of the world are now ahead of pre-COVID levels. Our food service business in APAC delivered strongly to the region's growth with an organic revenue growth of over 20%. The newly acquired bakery in Malaysia allowed us to capitalize on the market potential and contributed significantly to this growth. After a record year in 2021, our QSR business in APAC added another record year and generated high single-digit organic revenue growth. I'll now ask you to turn to page 13. All our three channels achieved double-digit organic revenue growth. Both QSR and retail are now ahead of pre-COVID levels. Despite the strong organic revenue growth of 31.5%, the food service channel is still behind.
This is due to food service revenues in Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and Japan. The growth in our QSR channel of 16.5% is driven by our European bun bakeries. This business delivered an organic revenue growth of over 20%. As indicated earlier, APAC QSR contributed with another record sales year as well. This was achieved despite flooding and strict COVID measures in Australia and New Zealand, which impacted restaurant footfall. I'll now ask you to page fourteen. In 2022, our business had to manage a strong total purchase price variance, including energy of circa 20% versus the previous year. This corresponds to a cost increase of circa EUR 100 million. Through adequate pricing, we have been able to mitigate a good part of this input cost inflation.
Several pricing negotiation rounds as well as energy surcharges have allowed us to increase the pricing contribution quarter by quarter. In Q4, pricing contributed to revenues. Apart from pricing, we have applied other measures to mitigate these input cost headwinds. Procurement cost optimization and commodity risk management. The launch of our project Simplex to simplify our recipe structures has also started to contribute in 2022, and our continuous efficiency program in the bakeries addressing conversion cost and line efficiency delivered additional mitigating impacts against input cost headwinds. I'll now ask you to turn to page 15. Disciplined cost management, addressing all our cost pools, combined with pricing and strong growth are the contributors to our EBITDA margin progression of 110 basis points to 12.5%.
Contribution from pricing and efficiency program helped to offset input cost increases and slightly improved our gross margin by 10 basis points. Good progress was achieved in our bakeries through the continuous efficiency program. Increased the line efficiency from 73.2% to 74.4% and reduced our conversion cost as a percentage of revenue from almost 35% to slightly above 33%. The efficient management of our distribution infrastructure allowed us to limit the cost increase to 9.5% in absolute terms. This was achieved despite fuel and labor cost impacts and the effect of transport capacity availability. Distribution costs contributed an operational leverage of 70 basis points to profit margin. Our sales and marketing as well as administration costs increased by EUR 7 million to EUR 209.9 million.
The resulting 140 basis points leverage benefit was an important contributor to the overall EBITDA margin improvement. Depreciation reduced slightly to EUR 107.5 million, therefore, its impact on total sales reduced versus previous year. I'll ask you now to turn to page 16. Both regions improved their EBITDA margin while Europe increased the profit by 80 basis points. Rest of the world generated a strong progression of 390 basis points to 17.5%. Europe, France and Switzerland were the key contributors to the improved profit result. Ireland, Pré Pain and the bun business, bun bakeries as well improved their profitability. These businesses more than offset the negative evolution in the other businesses. Rest of the world benefited from the strong recovery of the food service business and the strong contribution from the Malaysian business, the newly acquired bakery.
Food service in APAC achieved an EBITDA margin well above 10% after a loss in previous year. I'll now ask you to page 17. Our operating cash flow more than doubled for continuing operation to EUR 109.7 million. This result is ahead of our guidance of EUR 80-90 million. Key contributors to this strong performance are the acceleration of our absolute EBITDA, supported by our strong business result. Despite the strong revenue growth of 15.1%, we have been able to further reduce working capital. The increase in our supplier financing program contributed almost EUR 25 million, and the extension of our securitization program added EUR 23 million. This helped to more than offset the increase in inventory and receivables.
The reduction of our non-recurring cash expenses from EUR 44.8 - 11.9 million was another contributor to this strong result. Cash flow from activities, for continuing operations, increased from EUR 10.8 million in FY 2021 to EUR 44 million, an increase by four. I'll now ask you to turn to page 18. Our strong business result and disciplined working capital management accelerated our return on invested capital to 6.8%. The acceleration of the return on sales delivered the majority of this ROIC improvement, which was also supported by the lower tax charge. The improvement in our asset turn ratio, mainly with the contribution from our working capital, increased the ratio from 1.1 to 1.4 times, which also accelerated our return on invested capital.
This significant improvement in our capital efficiency in full year 2022 builds the strong foundation to enter into value creation territory in the next fiscal. I'll now ask you to turn to page 19. In full year 2022, we have made important progress in addressing our hybrid funding structure. As announced in October 2021, we have repaid EUR 172 million of compounded and deferred hybrid dividends. In addition, during fiscal year 2022, we paid EUR 43 million in current year dividends. This adds up to the total EUR 215 million euro dividends paid. The total dividend charge for full year 2022 corresponds to EUR 45.2 million euro. During the Capital Markets Day, we have announced that we will repay the principal of our euro hybrid over the period of the midterm plan.
In July 2022, we started with this program and repaid the first EUR 50 million. This was achieved at a discount of 4%. FX impact increased the balance of our hybrid funding to EUR 814.1 million. This includes EUR 7 million of accrued dividends. We now move to page 20. Our total weighted average interest cost, including hybrid instrument for FY 2022, was 4.2%, which is stable compared to the 4.3% in fiscal year 2021. The current economic context with rising interest rates. We are well set up within our capital structure. The basis of this is the EUR 500 million RCF, which was refinanced at competitive margins last year.
Any interest rate increase that could impact the RCF will be partially offset by the result of the first partial repayment of the EUR hybrid in July. The announced program to repurchase the EUR 250 million hybrid during the period in the midterm plan also limits our exposure to an interest resetting in March 2024, but will also help us to manage interest cost increases related to our RCF. The remaining CHF 590 million Swiss franc hybrid funding is currently at lower rates compared to the euro hybrid. The floating rate element on these instruments resets quarterly on the basis of a three-month SARON rate. We are currently evaluating an interest rate risk management strategy to ensure that we have clear visibility on our total interest charges moving forward. I'll ask you now to move to page 21. Throughout 20
Fiscal year 2022, we have made important progress to improve our capital structure. The setting up of the new EUR 500 million RCF in September 2021, the repayment of EUR 160.8 million of short-term notes in December 2021, and the repayment of EUR 21.9 million in state-sponsored COVID loans increased debt maturity profile from slightly below one year to 4.1 years. In addition, we have addressed our euro hybrid funding as detailed in the slide before. Total net debt level, including hybrids, decreased by EUR 89 million to EUR 1.104 billion, and the leverage ratio reduced from 6.9x to 5x. From a bank covenant point of view, we are well within our limits.
Leverage ratio of 1.01 times is well below the limit of 3.5 times, and for the interest cover, we are at 3.17 times, which is above the two times limit. In summary, ARYZTA delivered a strong set of figures in the fiscal year 2022 and has further consolidated the turnaround plan. I'll now hand back to Urs. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Martin. I would ask you now to turn to page 23 with our ambition and our value proposition. Our ambition is to be the best partner for bake-off solutions across all our channels and markets, with the value proposition to deliver the gold standard for bake-off, the business we are in. On page 24, the four key value drivers for the gold standard. You can see on the right side the innovation power we brought back into the business, the category know-how being close to the business, to the market, to customers. Excellence in channel solution is in place following channel trends and new food service needs in retail, in quick-service restaurant. On the left side, excellence in customer development, supporting customers' needs and plans, and an excellence in quality and efficiency is in place.
These four drivers are key for us in order to defend the gold standard for bake-off in our business. Turning on page 25, you can see the ARYZTA value creating business model, again from a value destructive acquisition driven model into a value creating organic growth model. With the providing of the gold standard for bake-off solution being a capital category captain offering innovation, differentiation of products, providing a multi local European and Asian business with our bake-off partners together being focused on channel and category solutions and having highly dedicated, well-structured and focused organizations. Coming back again on the next page 26 to the guidance for the fiscal year 2023. Let me repeat this again. The current trading trends remain unchanged despite again the challenging macro environment. We all know this.
We are heading towards future improvements we expect in fiscal year 2023, and we confirm our midterm targets we laid out for fiscal year 2025. Thank you for listening. We would then now open the Q&A round.
Ladies and gentlemen, your question and answer session will now begin. If you wish to ask the questions from the conference call, please press star one on your phone. If you change your mind and decide to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. You will be advised when your line is open to ask your question. The first question comes from Jon Cox from Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line now is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Just a question a little bit on what you think the pricing environment will be for you guys in FY 2023. It seems that you subtly changed your guidance. This 4.5%-5.5% organic sales growth over the next few years is in constant pricing from 2022. It looks like you're exiting Q4 at double-digit pricing. Should we expect pricing based on what you know today and all of the, you know, where we are in terms of input costs, where do you see that? Is it gonna be somewhere around 10%? Would you say that's an accurate assessment? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Jon. I would hand over this question to Martin.
Morning, Jon. Based on your question, if that 10% is a reasonable estimate for 2023, I think you can take that as a base assumption, certainly.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Patrik Schwendimann from ZKB. Your line now has been opened. Please go ahead.
Yo. Patrik Schwendimann, Zürcher Kantonalbank. Hi, Urs. Hi, Martin. Hi, Paul. Congrats from my side. I'm very happy to see that it's going into the right direction after many years of uncertainty. I have several questions. First question, we have seen a strong food service recovery and you also have a strong foothold in France. What is your best guess growth assumption in terms of volumes for the food service channel for the current year? Second question, can you expect another repayment of the euro hybrid in the current year? And if yes, what is your best guess here in terms of the amount? Last question, you had an increase in the gross margin of 10 basis points. What's your best guess here for the current year in terms of the gross margin?
Also any comments on expectations for the EBITDA margin for the current year? Many thanks.
Thank you, Patrik. Let me just write down the questions. Food service had a good recovery in fiscal year 2023 and a decent start in the year 2023, in the actual year. We do our utmost to continue like this. It's difficult to do a guidance around this. We just confirmed fiscal year 2025 guidance. This is the basis we are working on. The second question, the euro hybrid. These repayments are based on the prudent view we take on the development of the business we have, on the performance of the business we have. At the moment we feel safe to address the next part of a hybrid repayment. We will bring this up, but there is nothing fixed so far for the moment. Gross margin, Martin.
Thank you. Maybe just one additional comment on the repayment of the euro hybrid. Patrik, I think what you can take as the guidance what we have said, that during the midterm, the period of the midterm target, we will repay the full euro hybrid. The timing is based on what Urs has said and what we also have said in June during the Capital Markets Day, that this will be financed from the operation. These two things in June, you can rest assured that there will be further repayment coming as laid out during the Capital Markets Day. In terms of the margin comment, I would really re-emphasize
Our guidance for 2023. We have said that there will be further improvement expected in full year 2023. That is for the overall business. We do not, for the time being, give any additional color on a particular line in the P&L.
All right. Thanks a lot, Urs. Talk to you soon.
Thank you for your understanding.
Thank you for the questions. We will take our next questions from our participant, from Mr. Andreas von Arx. Your line now has been open.
Some questions from my side. You mentioned energy costs of 3.8% for this year. I mean, since you give the specific number, can you give an indication what to expect for this year? Is this like the 20% increase you indicated, or is this year more doubling or also that we should expect this year? Just would like to get a bit of magnitude of the pressure from the energy costs that you're facing in 2023. Second question is, are there any significant parts of your business with the price discussions that you now abandoned because your profitability is not achievable anymore? I mean, have there been significant contracts where you have walked away? Or basically, have you been able to pass on the pricing on all key contracts? That will be the second question.
Third question would be, if you maybe can give a bit an indication on your discussions with, especially the German government as to what would happen if there would be a shortage of energy. Would you be among the businesses who still can expect to get energy, or could there be outages on your side? The last question, compared to the Capital Markets Day, we are now in—Let's say the expectation is for a more severe recession going forward. Your strategy is based on more premiumization to increase your margin in the midterm. Has there been any changes here? Why do you still think that even in a recessionary market, it will be basically possible to premiumize your customers going to higher margin businesses? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Andreas. Let me walk through step by step. Energy costs are unpredictable at the moment, so the approach we have is to follow this, to try to anticipate this and to price this in a correct way. This is the only way we can manage this. To do a prognosis, how this will look like at the end of this fiscal year, what the share of energy will be on our turnover is not doable for us at the moment. There is no significant walk away from a big contract. There are some volume shifts. There are some minor changes, gain and loss. As you have seen, there is a volume growth we achieved in fiscal year 2022. This will continue in fiscal year 2023.
Besides all the hassles and all the issues, energy price up and down, the same way like the commodities is for everybody the same. Most of the energy contracts are ending end of a calendar year, so everybody will be in the same boat with this. About the potential shortage, we quite thoroughly follow the developments in this market. As we laid out in the presentation, we changed heating systems with, for example, hybrid burners being able to use normal gas and liquid gas. We, for example, changed a burner in Switzerland. We walked away from gas. We switched to oil for the heating center we have there. We installed in Malaysia and in Spain these photovoltaics on the roof. This is the way we try to manage this gas situation. It's different with power.
A breakdown or a shortage of power would create for us bigger problems, obviously, as for everybody else as well. Based on the view we have today, this will not be the case. Let's hope that this arrives like this. Concerning recession and premiumization of product, as you know, still a big share of our assortment, our product mix are normal products, commodity products. We try to increase our premiumization part. It's a bit like with chocolate, with the premium product. If the big luxury is not affordable anymore, people are going for the small daily luxury. The good bread, a good artisan roll is a good thing to have in difficult days. Did I answer with this your questions, Andreas?
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is from Gary Martin. Line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, all. Just congratulations first of all for a really, really good set of results. Just a couple of very, very quick ones from me. First question will be just on the hedging strategy. Are there any contracts in place for rate movements, wheat, butter, since commodity prices, et cetera? Just a better color on that would be really, really helpful. Just second, just on elasticity, I mean, it's pretty clear from strong volumes in Q4. There's limited elasticity. Could I just get a breakdown of just any elasticity seen just by channels in terms of QSR, food, QSR, retail, et cetera? Thank you so much.
The first question regarding hedging strategy, I understand that that question is on commodity and the input costs. We have, with our procurement, a hedging strategy in place which applies for all material. We have taken actions as we have been taking in the past. This allows us to create the necessary visibility on our input cost and obviously also manage our margin and future negotiations with the trade. That's a common practice that we have set in the company, and we continue to do so. In terms of elasticity, as you could see from the quarterly profit split, pricing is increasing, volume is getting a bit softer.
I think that's not only a question of elasticity, that's also a question of the comparables. When you look at the last two quarters last year, we had quite a strong recovery already. On top of that, we continue to recover. I think part of that 12% volume growth that you see in fiscal year 2022 is a rebound from the COVID levels. As Urs also mentioned, in Europe, we have beaten the market in the market where we can measure that. We have beaten the market both in volume and value versus competition.
You can see that the price, let's say, is not only what you see on our reported figure, but also when we look at the market, we have been able to outperform both in value and volume.
Sorry, a quick follow-up question just on top there. Just given the headwinds, just call it some, you know, energy, just the entire bucket, would we expect to see an increase in EBITDA in FY 2023?
I would again refer you back to our guidance that we have given, that we expect further improvement for 2023 in our business. For the time being, we don't reiterate any particularities or details further to that guidance. As well, we have confirmed the midterm targets for 2025.
Excellent. Thank you so much for that color.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no more questions in the queue. Now I will hand back over the call to closing the conference call. Please go ahead.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for being with us this morning in these interesting days and times. I wish you a good morning and a good day. Bye.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. This concludes the session for today. Participants can now disconnect.