Thank you very much, Graziella. We didn't hear the conf call, but we are online now. Good afternoon, everybody. It's my pleasure to welcome you here to the 2019 results of DKSH. My name is Till. I'm Head of Investor Relations, and I'm very happy to have with me Bernhard Schmitt, our CFO, and Stefan Butz, our CEO. Before we start, I kindly ask you to have a look at the disclaimer of the presentation regarding forward-looking statements. For those who do not have the presentation right now in front of them, please download them on our webpage at www.dksh.com/investors. Let me give you a quick overview of what is going to happen today. First, Stefan will present to you the highlights of 2019 and the developments of our four business units.
Afterwards, Bernhard will walk you through the financials in more detail, and then at the end, Stefan will close with some final remarks and the outlook statements. With that, I would like to hand over to Stefan. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the full year results 2019. Let me please start by saying that we have made good progress last year. We improved across all four business units and achieved higher results overall. This was possible despite the falling consumer confidence in Thailand and the political protests in Hong Kong. Due to the resilience of our business model, our evolving strategy, and our operational improvements, we mastered these challenges and look ahead to the future with confidence. Let's take a look at our key figures for 2019. Group wide, we increased net sales by 2.1% to CHF 11.6 billion. As you know, we withdrew from the Healthcare business in China in 2018. Excluding this effect, net sales increased by 6.7%. Especially in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, and in Indonesia, we recorded good growth. At CHF 279.9 million, the adjusted EBIT was 10.1% higher than the year before.
This is mainly due to an improved performance in all four business units. I'm particularly pleased that the transformation in Consumer Goods has progressed well, and we now report higher profits again. The adjusted profit after tax rose 3.1% to CHF 188 million. I'm pleased to say that with four deals closed, 2019 was the most successful year in terms of acquisitions in the DKSH history. We continue our progressive dividend policy. Taking into consideration our financial results as well as investment opportunities, we propose a 2.7% higher ordinary dividend of CHF 1.90 per share. To continue growing in the future, we continuously involve our strategy and focus on its diligent implementation. In doing so, we made progress in all three areas of our strategy. First, we focused on our existing business units. Second, we strengthened our service offering.
Third, we increased our operational efficiency. Let me elaborate on the first aspect, the existing business units. Our priority in 2019 was organic growth, which we topped up with acquisitions. In Healthcare, we expanded our partnerships and are now distributing Cavotec's products in Thailand and over-the-counter products from Bayer in Cambodia. We have recently sealed a partnership with Eli Lilly and are now distributing their diabetes product in Singapore. This demonstrates the ongoing trend towards outsourcing. These are just a few examples. In Consumer Goods, we strengthened our business by collaborating with leading clients. These include Upfield, a leader in plant-based nutrition, Tipco, a Thai producer of fruit juices, and Mondelēz, one of the world's largest snack companies. In Indonesia, we started to work for well-known international clients such as Mars and Signify.
In 2019, we expanded our business development activities, and you will hear more about some well-known Consumer Goods names in the next weeks and months to come. In Performance Materials, we signed, among others, a distribution agreement with Huntsman. We now offer the product of the American Chemical Group in India. We also expanded our partnership with Evonik in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. In Technology, we now cooperate with Vertiv, helping them to expand their data center system in Indonesia. We extended our cooperation with Thermo Fisher in Indonesia and the Philippines as well. Now we supply these markets with tests for food quality and safety. We also develop partnership relating to Industry 4.0 or 3D printing, like with HP. Acquisitions are an important element of our growth strategy. They give us access to attractive business segments and expand our market position. In 2019, we made four value-accretive acquisitions.
In Consumer Goods, we entered the food service sector with the acquisition of Auric Pacific in Malaysia and Singapore to sell products in restaurants, hotels, and cafes. In 2019, the food service market in Malaysia increased in the high single digits at 7.6%. With the acquisition of Consumer Goods distributor CTD in Australia, we expanded in the Pacific region. With the acquisition of SPC, we became the market leader for scientific instrumentation in Thailand. In Performance Materials, we complemented our market coverage in Western Europe by acquiring Dols International in the Netherlands. In total, our acquisitions added around CHF 300 million of high-margin sales and strengthened our market position across Asia Pacific. In 2020 and in the following years, we will consistently pursue our value-enhancing acquisition strategy. Let us now move on to our service portfolio, which we specifically developed last year.
We expanded our global network of innovation centers in the specialty chemical sector to 44 locations. In these centers, we develop new formulations. Those reduce time to market and offer our clients competitive advantages. Another service that differentiates us is field marketing. In addition to product demonstrations and consultings, this service also includes stock management, promotions, and event management. Field marketing increases product demand right at the point of sale and offers attractive growth opportunities for our clients. We have been active in this field together with our joint venture partner, Smollan, for 10 years, and we are the leading provider in Asia Pacific today. With the announced acquisition of Crossmark, we will be active in 12 markets moving forward. For the first time, we now generate more than CHF 100 million sales online. Our digital services are well-received by our clients.
With more than 120 specialists, we sell over 800 brands online. Examples are LEGO and Levi's in Thailand, Mars Petcare in Singapore, GlaxoSmithKline in Malaysia, or Lindt in Hong Kong. We also invest in data analytics. A good example is our new recommendation algorithm for our sales teams. To generate product recommendations for individual point of sale, large amounts of data are automatically analyzed. Our sales teams now sell additional products that would otherwise not be offered. For data analytics and recommendations, we see great potential, especially for our capillary distribution across Asia. Operational efficiency is the third pillar of our strategy for sustainable, profitable growth. I'm pleased to say that after many years, our adjusted EBIT margin increased slightly again. Let me explain to you the different initiatives responsible for this. In consumer goods, we successfully pursued our restructuring program and stabilized the fast-moving consumer goods business.
Six months ago, I told you that we had launched efficiency programs in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Thailand with a focus on three things. First, on sales. Here we made good progress in renewing our client and product portfolio. We streamlined our product offering and optimized individual client contracts. These measures will reduce inventory levels and complexity at the same time. Second, we optimized our core processes in logistics. In this context, I want to highlight our transportation management system. In 2019, we successfully optimized routes, reduced resources, and minimized our environmental impact. In the third quarter of 2019, we expanded the regional coverage of the system to Vietnam and Taiwan and reduced transportation costs in those markets. Third, we continuously streamlined our organizational structure. We focused our sales teams even more on product marketing and standardized key performance indicators across individual markets. Simultaneously, we reduced personnel costs.
Under the leadership of Terry Seremetis, our new head of the business unit, we have further strengthened our culture and increased employee engagement. By adapting our regional structures, we are better positioned to attract international clients who consider their business in Asia for outsourcing. Overall, we now steer the Consumer Goods business in a faster, more efficient, and at the same time, more controlled way to become more effective and leaner. Maurice Lacroix, on the other hand, reached another milestone. As you might remember, we have repositioned the watch brand by revising product, price, marketing, and distribution. In sum, we reduced the portfolio size and launched more modern watches, such as the AIKON collection. This positions the brand more clearly in the price category of affordable luxury. In addition, we focused on core markets and exited smaller ones.
With the digital marketing campaigns such as Timecode, Maurice Lacroix now appeals to younger fans and brings them closer to the brand. With this much more focused watch portfolio, we increased sales and reduced production costs as well as delivery times. I'm therefore pleased to inform you that after many years, Maurice Lacroix has again delivered a profit. Operational efficiency is also essential for our acquisitions. We do not simply acquire additional sales, but focus on providing added value for our customers and clients and on generating economies of scale. This in turn generates a good profitability for us as well. We also generated better margins in Performance Materials and Technology. In Performance Materials, we achieved economies of scale, and in Technology, we expanded attractive business areas such as scientific instrumentation. More about this later on.
Overall, the adjusted EBIT margin of the DKSH Group increased, albeit only slightly, compared to the previous years. Let me now give you an overview of our four business units, starting with Healthcare. As part of the strategic focus, we withdrew from the healthcare business in China in 2018, as most of you will remember. Adjusted for this exit, net sales grew by 7.7% in 2019. We expanded the relationship with existing manufacturers and gained new clients. We are now, for example, offering LifeScan's diagnostic systems in seven Asian markets or Astellas products in Myanmar. Exactly two years ago, I talked to you about our partnership with Cheplapharm. This is one of the fastest-growing pharmaceutical companies in Germany. Since 2016, DKSH has been offering Cheplapharm's oncology, cardiology, and metabolism products, as well as anti-infectives in numerous markets in Asia.
I'm more than pleased that we have recently expanded this partnership to Taiwan. In the business unit Healthcare, the adjusted operating profit in 2019 was CHF 134.5 million or 4.6% higher than the year before. The weak market environment in Thailand and Hong Kong required some additional expenses for product marketing in the second half of 2019, as well as increased distribution costs. Due to the increasing demand for Healthcare services in Asia, we remain confident for this business unit. Let us now move on to Consumer Goods. It has surely not escaped your attention that the GDP forecast for the largest market, Thailand, has been revised downwards several times last year. Consumer confidence is at its lowest level since May 2016. In Hong Kong, too, the economic outlook deteriorated in the second half of last year. Despite these challenges, we increased net sales by 6.8% to CHF 4.1 billion.
We gained market share in some Southeast Asian markets such as Vietnam, Cambodia, but also in Indonesia. In addition, we successfully completed the integration of Auric Pacific business in Malaysia and Singapore. As mentioned earlier, the transformation developed well in 2019. This is also evident from the fact that we only recorded restructuring costs of CHF 1.2 million in the second half of last year. As a result, the adjusted EBIT rose 9.8% to CHF 82.9 million, and the adjusted margin increased again slightly. Overall, we look back on a successful year. With strong leadership, we will continue to position the business for the future. This brings me to the business unit Performance Materials. Here we achieved record numbers. In concrete terms, net sales increased 5.3% and exceeded the CHF 1 billion mark for the first time. The operating profit grew over 19% to CHF 89.7 million.
This was in part thanks to the strong existing client portfolio, as well as to the onboarding of several new clients. We performed well in markets such as Japan, Philippines, and India. Additionally, we strengthened our leadership position in the industry, particularly in the pharma, food, and beverage sector, as well as in the personal care industry. In these less cyclical sectors, we are well-positioned for future growth. In 2019, we differentiated ourselves even more by expanding our global network of innovation centers to 44. We will continue to create added value for our existing clients by bringing new formulations and products to the markets even faster. We also intensified our M&A activities in the business unit Performance Materials.
By acquiring Dols International in the Netherlands, we strengthened the market presence in Western Europe. Through the announced acquisition of Axieo, we will expand our footprint in Asia Pacific as well. Finally, I want to say a few words about the business unit Technology. At CHF 431.9 million, net sales were 4.8% higher than in the previous year. The scientific instrumentation business line grew strongly, also due to the SPC acquisition in Thailand. The operating profit of CHF 26.8 million increased 11.7%. Supplementing our project business, we strengthened the recurring service business in 2019. Here, we will sell consumer goods and are responsible for maintaining machines and instruments. With this overview, I now hand over to our CFO, Bernhard Schmitt, who will explain our annual figures for 2019 in more detail. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Stefan. Dear ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to welcome you today. I'm pleased to further explain DKSH 2019 results, and let me start with an overview of our key figures. In the previous year, our net sales grew by 2.1% to CHF 11.6 billion. The operating profit, in short, EBIT, of CHF 265.4 million, was 0.7% above last year's level. Adjusted for the exit of the Healthcare business in China and one-time restructuring costs, EBIT even grew by 10.1% to CHF 279.9 million. Profit after tax in 2018 included a gain on the sales from the Healthcare business in China of CHF 75.2 million after taxes. To enable a like-for-like comparison of our profits, we additionally disclose an adjusted profit after tax. This excludes the Healthcare business in China and restructuring costs in the last two years.
In 2019, the adjusted profit after tax was CHF 188 million, with that, 3.1% higher than 2018. Our free cash flow of CHF 156.7 million was above last year's too, the RONOC of 19.7% was slightly below last year's level. More about that in a minute. Let's take a more detailed look at the development of our net sales. As already communicated, we exited the Healthcare business in China in 2018. Because of this, CHF 529.1 million or 4.7% of net sales were missing compared to the last year's period. The organic growth rate in 2019 was 3.1%. In the second and third quarter, we consolidated the acquisition of Auric Pacific, SPC, Dols, and CTD for the first time. Combined, these three acquisitions added 1.8% to net sales growth. Exchange rate effect added an additional 1.8% to sales. In sum, net sales of CHF 11.6 billion were 2.1% above last year.
Due to several one-time effects, we have adjusted our operating profit or EBIT. In 2018, we deducted the effect from China and added back the one-time cost in the business unit, Consumer Goods and Healthcare from the EBIT of CHF 263.6 million. The China effect amounted to CHF 27.5 million, and the one-time cost added up to CHF 18.2 million. This results in an adjusted EBIT of CHF 254.3 for 2018. In 2019, we adjusted the EBIT for the restructuring costs in the business unit, Consumer Goods. Organizational changes, impairments, and the closing of unprofitable business resulted in one-time costs of CHF 14.5 million. As predicted at the beginning of last year, we only recorded one-time cost of CHF 1.2 million in the second half of 2019. The adjusted EBIT of CHF 279.9 million was therefore 10.1% higher than last year. Sorry.
For the profit after tax, we use the same logic for the adjustments. We adjusted the profit after tax for 2018 by the China effect and the restructuring. This includes the one-time gain on sales of CHF 75.2 million and the missing operating profits of CHF 20.6 million from China. At the third adjustment, we added back the CHF 17.9 million after-tax charges from the restructuring Consumer Goods and Healthcare. As a result, the adjusted profit after tax for 2018 was CHF 182.4 million. The profit after tax in 2019 was adjusted for the previously mentioned restructuring cost in Consumer Goods of CHF 11.9 million. We are pleased that the adjusted profit after tax of CHF 188 million was above previous year, despite currency effects and financing costs for the acquisitions. Apart from our operating performance, three events impacted our balance sheet. Firstly, unlike in the past years, we distributed our dividend in March.
This reduced our cash position by CHF 120.3 million. Secondly, we accelerated our acquisition strategy and made 2019 the year with the highest transaction volume in our company's history. We paid CHF 191.1 million for the acquisitions of Auric Pacific, SPC, Dols, and CTD, and financed these with a combination of cash and debt. Thirdly, the application of IFRS 16 extended the balance sheet by CHF 226.6 million. We capitalized our operating leases, which resulted in the creation of right of use assets under lease liability. In sum, our balance sheet grew by 9.3% to CHF 5.4 billion. Our equity ratio still stands at a solid 34.2%, and our net cash position of CHF 312.9 million allows us to further pursue our M&A strategy. The free cash flow increased compared to 2018 and amounted to CHF 156.7 million. This was a result of the positive profit development and collection of delayed receivables from some hospitals.
The RONOC, the return on net operating capital, decreased slightly from 21.3% to 19.7% due to several effects. Generally, our Healthcare business has a significantly higher RONOC than the rest of our business because we don't take inventory risk. Instead, we work with a consignment model. In 2018, the RONOC still included the Healthcare business in China. Without this business, the RONOC would've been 2.3 percentage points lower in 2018. The restructuring impact on RONOC was similar in both years. In 2019, the acquisition had a reducing effect. Net assets increased with the takeover, but the corresponding profits from the new units were only booked for six or nine months. Auric Pacific, SPC, Dols, and CTD were fully consolidated for the first time in the second and third quarter. This corresponded to a 0.7% point impact on RONOC. Without these effects, RONOC would've been above last year at 21.4%.
For the fiscal year 2020, our priorities for DKSH are a good balance of investments in our business, value-adding acquisitions, a healthy capital structure, and attractive shareholder returns. In 2020, we will continue to invest in our business, such as in e-commerce and the buildup in Indonesia. We have a good acquisition pipeline, and our strong balance sheet enables us to play an active role in that field. We will also continue to pursue our dividend policy. As you can see, DKSH has continuously increased its dividend in recent years. For this year, the board of directors proposes an ordinary dividend of CHF 1.90 at the annual general meeting. This corresponds to a 2.7% increase, and we continue our progressive dividend policy. With that, I hand over back to Stefan.
Thank you very much for your explanations, Bernhard. The company's purpose, values, and culture are important because ultimately, it's always about people. DKSH has supported clients to expand in Asia for more than 150 years. Over this time, we have developed from a traditional trading house into the leading market expansion service provider in Asia. Together with our employees, we have now widely implemented this vision. It was therefore time to launch a new identity, which represents our ambition for future growth, as well as highlights our corporate purpose to enrich people's lives. As a company, our services give people in Asia access to important daily products, create sustainable value for our partners, and we do create jobs across the region. As part of our new identity, we have also refined our corporate values, which we define as integrity, empowerment, collaboration, entrepreneurship, and sustainability.
These values ensure that DKSH will continue a journey to become ever better, and that we keep our employees at the heart of our culture and empower them to drive value for our clients and customers. Key objective is to deliver growth for the clients and customers. Our new tagline, which you see here on the slide, Delivering Growth – in Asia and Beyond, clearly reflects this promise. Sustainability is another key element of our new identity, and in 2019, we have increased our efforts in this field. With our new partnership with Plant-for-the-Planet, we achieved climate neutrality in our founding markets. We also have been a proud partner of Right To Play in Thailand for over 13 years and are currently expanding this partnership with the Liverpool Football Club Foundation.
Together, we will improve life skills, social cohesion, as well as the learning environment of children, young people, and communities in Thailand. We are convinced that the new identity clearly defines what we stand for and will give our organization an additional boost and to attract young talent. That brings me to the outlook. You will certainly agree with me that if you look at all the economies in the world, we are present in the right markets. This century is widely referred to as the Asian Century. At the beginning of the 21st century, Asia accounted for one third of global GDP. By 2040, it is projected to reach as much as 50%. By 2040, Asia is also expected to make up roughly 40% of global consumption. In addition, we see that many clients continue to increase their distribution in Asia, and we will benefit from this outsourcing trend.
You see that the group drivers of our business are intact. In line with this, our potential in Asia Pacific is large. We also have a resilient and scalable business model. In Healthcare and Consumer Goods, we sell daily consumption items that are needed even in times of increased volatility. In Performance Materials, we are well-positioned in less cyclical, growing sectors such as pharma, food, beverage, and personal care. In Technology, we are further expanding our recurring business services. Organic growth will continue to be our top priority in the future. With our focused acquisition strategy and strong balance sheet, we will further consolidate the market. Assuming stable markets and currency conditions, we expect an adjusted operating profit above previous year. Before we move on to the Q&A session, I'm pleased to announce that in 2020, we will hold our second capital market day, this time in London.
Please mark your calendars for May 14th and 15th already. A formal invitation and agenda will follow in due course. That being said, I conclude my speech. Thank you for attention. Look forward to seeing most of you on the road show, and Bernhard and myself are now available for questions. Thank you.
Good. Thank you very much. We start with the questions in the room, and later on, we move then to the call. Alain, please.
Alain Oberhuber, MainFirst. I have a question regarding the economic environment in your biggest market, how it currently looks like Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia. The second question is regarding the working capital. Obviously, you worked very well on that. Could you give an indication, in particular for this year on working capital?
Okay. Oops. Sorry. Maybe I start with the environment in our key markets. Clearly, the environment in Thailand and Hong Kong was not favorable in the year 2019. The GDP forecasts in Thailand were reduced a couple of times. As I said in my speech, consumer confidence in Thailand is on the lowest level since May 2016. For the year 2020, we do not expect a significant improvement in Thailand. We believe that Thailand will stay where they are in terms of GDP development as well as consumption. Hong Kong clearly is going through some very troubled times. In Q3 and Q4, there was even a contradiction. Also, the four GDP forecasts for Hong Kong in 2020 is less favorable. In Malaysia, we had some good results in 2019. We expect that the economic development will improve slightly, as so in Singapore.
At the end, please let me also point to the strong growth markets in Indochina and the opportunities we have in Indonesia. I can share with you that in Vietnam and Cambodia, in particular, growth is significant. Now I turn over to Bernhard for working capital.
I guess your question was more in direction of cash flow at the end. If you want to calculate our cash flow roughly, typically you can take profit after tax on, take the expected sales growth and multiply the working capital because depreciation and CapEx are pretty much the same. That would be a rough formula to get to our cash flow. Now, those who are longer with us or following us, as you also know that we have year-end or period-end effects, which are also during the year. We are collecting more than CHF 1 billion a month. If that moves by one or two or three%, has quite a strong effect on the cash flow on a temporary basis, just one or two days, but you only see the final numbers.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Maybe quickly-
Just mic on.
Sorry. Maintenance CapEx in 2019?
CapEx in 2019 was around CHF 50 million. Depreciation, similar range. Without IFRS 16, please. CHF 35 million-CHF 45 million.
Maintenance?
Maintenance is very minor on our side because we don't own our assets typically. The only thing we own typically is the build-out of the offices and the racking systems in the warehouses.
Which means it would be what? CHF 20 million out of this CHF 50 or CHF 25?
No.
Less than that.
Single digit.
Okay.
Very low.
Okay. Thank you.
CapEx is up slightly because.
It was maintained.
We are investing into new automation and distribution centers.
Okay.
Pascal Furrer from Vontobel. Three questions from my side. Maybe starting with Thailand, when looking at your results. Basically, I find a rebound in the second half in terms of organic growth in high single digit, growth range. Can you explain where it is coming from? Second question on Healthcare. Here you mentioned higher cost to market and distribute, which you had to report in the second half. Can you quantify this and, do you expect this to continue also in 2020? Last question on the EBIT bridge. You provided a bridge on sales level. Could you also help us basically to share the details? What was the contribution from M&A on the EBIT line? In particular, I'm interested here on Auric Pacific and the impact on Consumer Goods. Thank you.
Sales in Thailand second half, I think it's in effect. We had a relatively weak first half, so some kind of rebound there. Also we onboarded a bigger client in Thailand, which helped us to grow there despite the weak Consumer Goods environment.
A small effect from currency as well.
Currency rate as well. Yes. You refer to logistics cost and route to market. In Thailand we had a weak environment, so we had to spend a little bit more on the advertisement and promotion side to get our Healthcare products to the market. That is more on the OTC side. Obviously, we are not allowed to do advertisement and promotion on classical pharma products. It's clear. We moved into a new DC, where we had initial startup costs, which added to those costs as well. That was in Singapore. Single digit. The third question was EBIT, organic. The impact on M&A was about.
12.
12 million.
12 million.
On CG.
Total. All acquisitions, CHF 12 million for the full year.
Sorry, yes, I had the wrong figure.
The majority was in CG with Auric and CTD. There was another question?
No, that was the three.
No. All right.
Marco Gadola from ZKB. We have to talk about the coronavirus, I think. Are you seeing anything in the last maybe two or three weeks? I know it's very early, but I imagine one quarter of all tourists in Thailand is Chinese, and probably the travel flow will be disrupted at some point in time. What is your best guess of the situation there?
Okay. I think, overall, let me say first, most important for us is the safety and the health of our employees. We are implementing all the guidelines from the WHO to really make sure that all our employees are safe. I'm very happy to share with you that as of today, none of our 33,000 people is infected. Secondly, regarding the coronavirus, please let me point out that only 1.5% of our sales are coming from mainland China. Our direct exposure to the virus is there somehow limited. Only 400 cases are reported outside of mainland China. Secondly, if you look at the products we distribute, these are products primarily for daily usage, and people will continue to need those products. You need your medicine, no matter if there is a virus out there or not, and you also need your nutrition and your food.
Yes, you are right. We have some segments which are affected by lower Chinese travel, especially in China. Again, this is just in a few segments, right? On the other hand, in some of our core business right now, people are even buying more than usual at this point of time. We believe that, as Chinese government was saying, this week the officials are coming back to work. They also launched a stimulus of CHF 170 billion within China. If the number of cases outside of China is not exploding in the years to come, the effect will be controllable. This is as of today, and we also don't have the glass ball what is probably going to happen over the next two weeks. Next question, please.
Any more questions in the room? Marco? Another one. Yeah.
In the Performance Materials business, your margin was very high, 8.9%. All of the last four years, it was more or less above 8%, one case was slightly below it. Compared with earlier, it used to be 7%, about that. Is there a shift in the business? Is this the new normal now, above 8%? Is this chance?
I think, first of all, we are very pleased with the results. We have a very strong position in specialty chemicals, in Performance Materials across the whole region, and are making very good progress in implementing our highly focused strategy. I think I did share with you that over the last two years, the numbers were slightly depressed because some Healthcare cost changes in Japan, and now we see the effect of our adjustments and the Japanese market also bounded back. The second driver is you clearly see here some economies of scale. We feel very comfortable with the margin we currently see, and are very optimistic looking forward in Performance Materials. There are also some good M&A opportunities still out there for us to expand our footprint in the region as well as in Europe.
Any more question in the room? Alain, another one? Yep.
Yes. Maybe on the other side, on Technology, could you give us a little bit more light what happened and what we could expect this year?
I think in Technology, first of all, with the highly focused strategy, where we also did exit some sub business lines like agriculture, which worked against the numbers. We delivered some good underlying organic growth. The high focus on scientific instrumentation with the acquisition of SPC further strengthened our market position in this market in Thailand in particular. We had a few cancellations of projects in Hong Kong in the second half of the year, which unfortunately depressed the numbers slightly. Looking forward, we are very optimistic that we can deliver some good organic growth and also some margin enhancement in Technology. There are also a few more M&A opportunities out there.
Good. I think that we can move to the call. Are there any questions?
Yes. Let me remind how to do. First, dear participants on the call, you have now the opportunity to ask questions by dialing star 14, star 14. Thank you.
Seems to be all clear.
No requests until now.
Do we have more questions in the room?
Yes. Please.
Thank you. Chris Wolf, MainFirst. Just two add-ons regarding Alain's, I guess, question from Mr. Bunglinger. The consolidation effect from the EBIT M&A was CHF 12 million last year. Is it around the half we can expect of the same amount again for this year?
No. Two of the acquisitions were consolidated as of April.
Yeah.
Those were the big ones.
Okay.
The smaller ones came later.
So-
We don't see the full effect. The addition will not be the full CHF 12 million. It will be less.
Okay. Can you give us an indication about the currency impact we see now? The Thai baht was a support. Now it's minus two, any kind of feeling, how does this influence?
I gave up on speculating on currency.
No. Just in those parts.
I mean, Thailand is 30% of our business.
Yeah.
That translates directly, basically.
Okay. Right.
Pierre, please, another question?
Maybe. Is there any restructuring costs still for 2020 or nothing?
No.
So that's-
Nothing.
Mirco, please.
Regarding the Healthcare margin, it seems to be just slightly down in general. Is this here to stay, or do you think that's a temporary effect and it will pick up again?
I think as Bernhard elaborated already, in the second half of the year, we had some additional A&P measures in place to balance out the slightly weaker demand in Thailand as well as Hong Kong, plus some additional distribution costs, which lowered the margin slightly. We are quite optimistic that looking forward, we can enhance the margin again step by step. Marco?
Yeah. Sorry, once again. Just to be perfectly clear, your guidance says in words, the EBIT this year should be above CHF 280 million.
That is correct.
Yeah.
279.9.
Yeah. The current consensus stands at CHF 293. How do you feel about this number?
I think it reflects with the guidance we are giving. It's higher than CHF 279.9.
Any more questions on the call, operator?
No questions. Thank you.
Okay, good.
If there are no further questions, we'd like to thank you for your attention. After the call, we are ready for your questions if you want to have a little snack with us. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.