Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the SGS Financial Results and Strategic Update. It's a pleasure to connect with all of you today. My name is Ariel Bauer. I'm the Group Vice President of Investor Relations, Communications and Sustainability. This event will be presented by our CEO, Frankie Ng, and by our CEO-designate, Géraldine Picaud, who will cover the Strategy 2027. We also welcome the presence of our chairman, Calvin Grieder. A few housekeeping rules before we start. First, kindly put your mobile devices to silent, as this event is webcast. We will open the floor to your questions at the end of the presentation, and as usual, we will take two questions per participants. We aim to finish by 12 noon. With this, I'm very happy to welcome Calvin Grieder, Géraldine Picaud, and Frankie Ng to the stage.
Thank you, Ariel. Well, I would like to welcome you all here, and we'll present to you our results of the last year and the strategic update. So thank you very much for your attendance. It will be a new chapter for SGS, and it's exciting chapter, and at this moment, we will look forward to the future of the company but also talk about our achievements up to this date. As you heard this morning, today, also, Frankie will step down as CEO from the date of our AGM in March, and Frankie informed me of his desire to step down some time ago, at which point we started a planning process for the succession. With this rigorous process, we considered both internal and external candidates, and Géraldine emerged as the best candidate.
As of today, Géraldine will assume the role of CEO-designate, alongside her existing responsibilities as CFO and strategic transformation. We will make a separate announcement concerning the CFO in due course. The board of directors is proud to appoint Géraldine as the new CEO, and with her experience and track record, she's perfectly placed to lead SGS into the future. We now start the transition period with Frankie will contribute his intimate knowledge of SGS, built over impressive 30 years, 30 years journey with the company. This is why Frankie and Géraldine stand up here together and will run you through the results 2023 and the plan for the future. So enjoy the day, and with that, I will hand over to Géraldine, which will give a few introductory words. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Calvin, and good morning, everyone. I would like to start by saying that I feel extremely honored to be named as the next CEO of SGS. SGS is a fantastic company with both a wonderful heritage, 145 years of history, and also huge potential for future growth. We have an unrivaled network of laboratory. We are present everywhere, in all geographies, and we are covering almost all industries, so we are the true partner for our clients. But above all, SGS is its people. It is their commitment, their expertise, their passion, their personal values. This constitute an invaluable asset, and it positions us exactly well to capture all the exciting growth opportunities of the testing, inspection, and certification industry, and I will detail this in a few moment in the Strategy 2027.
In the meantime, I look forward to continuing to work with Frankie and closely with him for the next two months in order to ensure the smoothest possible transition. On this note, I hand over to you, Frankie.
Thank you, Géraldine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Calvin. An exciting journey for 30 years in the company and 9 years as the, the CEO. So Géraldine mentioned about some things about people. We are a people business. I just wanted to take this couple of minutes to thank all my 99,000 colleagues in the network. I think without them, we would not be as we are, a company of a lot of expertise, a large network, a lot of passion and dedications to the quality, the safety, and the supply chain management of our customers. So over the next 2 months, I will be working with Géraldine. I think we are in safe hand with her expertise, her leadership, with the board, with Calvin leading the board and supporting the team and Géraldine.
I think as a company, we'll be moving to a next chapter of our growth, and I hope we are sure that the team and the rest of our network will support these new transitions. And on that, thank you, Géraldine. Thank you, Calvin, for your kind words.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good.
Thank you.
SGS is the world's leading testing, inspection, and certification company. We're trusted by companies across a huge range of industries all around the world. They know that SGS is who you turn to when you need to be sure. Our global network means that we can respond to their needs with agility and flexibility….
Four global mega trends are driving our growth. We help customers achieve their ambitions for a sustainable future. One way is by enabling the supply of clean energy. We support customers in the safe transition to a digital future, enabling the safety and security of their data. We help make our customers' complex supply chains transparent and secure, enabling traceability throughout the supply chain. Finally, customers trust us to enable their businesses in the face of increasing regulation and public awareness, enabling a better quality of life.
Our new strategy positions us perfectly for the four mega trends. Combining this with our unique strengths, we expect to deliver a strong performance through 2027, in line with our new targets. Whether it's helping our customers, society, or bettering ourselves, we are there when you need to be sure.
So thank you very much. So I will start with an overview of the business highlights for 2023. Géraldine will do a presentation of the financial details and also an update of the new strategy 27. Next slide, please. So I'm pleased to report strong organic growth of 8.1% for 2023. All our business lines and all the regions contribute to this performance, which represent a powerful platform to build upon. Adjusted income was at 971 million CHF, growing at 6.2% at constant currency. Géraldine will give a little more details during her presentation of the results as well. Next slide, please. 2023, we concluded our 21-23 strategic cycle, and I'm proud to say that we have achieved most of our key objectives.
We consolidated our industry leadership by achieving number one positions in Natural Resources, Connectivity and Product, and Business Assurance. For those of you who have been following us, Business Assurance is the new name that we're giving to knowledge, which will reflect better the kind of portfolio services they're offering. So we'll probably see that from now on, being Business Assurance instead of knowledge. So moving to the next cycle of development, we're well positioned to strengthen our position in our chosen sectors. We also continued our journey in becoming the most digital company in the TIC industry. With the digital addition of over 350 laboratories carried out across 2023, we actually exceeded our goal of 30% revenue, moving into a new laboratory management systems. This accomplishment has been the active participation of all the regions in over 60 countries.
Of course, the digital journey will continue for us, and we'll continue to strengthen our processes in the coming years and to commit to our continuous innovations and collaborations. Next slide, please. I mentioned that the growth was driven by all business lines. Let me give a little bit of highlight. Industries and Environment saw accelerating growth for sustainability, in particular links to waste management, renewable and greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, sustainability-related services will become increasingly prominent within our portfolio. We also have leading expertise in emerging pollutants, such as PFAS, that you probably know as the forever chemicals. Now, Natural Resources successfully reinforced its leadership in minerals and saw accelerating growth for technical consultancy, energy transitions, and net zero supply chain services.
Connectivity and Product, prime position in the growing cybersecurity market, was further strengthened by our unique value proposition with our Brightsight unit in Netherlands, which is specialized in security evaluation and microchip testing. Within Health and Nutrition, strong momentum in the food sector, leading to market share gain, thanks to recent expansions in the network, particularly in Latin America. Last but not least, record performances in Business Assurance was driven by ESG assurance, management system certifications, customized audit, as well as consulting in which is becoming an important new growth driver for our portfolio. Next slide, please. So let me give you little more details per business line. The strong 9.5 organic growth in Industries and Environment was driven by field services and inspection, safety, supply chain management, and government mandate.
High single-digit organic growth in our environmental testing was driven by significant increase of sample volume in Europe and North America. Margin improvement of close to 100 basis points was supported by volume and pricing increase, new contract, and good performances from acquisitions that are transitioning into our organic portfolio. In addition, cost optimizations and collection improvement also contributed to these performances. We expect the continued development of safety services and increasing complexity of trade flow and supply chain to drive growth further. Next slide, please. Another resource is deliver close to 10% organic growth, a market-leading performance. High single-digit organic growth in trade and inspections was driven by increased capacity at key locations, solid demand for underlying commodities, and increased global trade flow. Laboratory testing organic growth was strong, driven by critical minerals and sustainability services, including biofuels.
Margin improvement was driven by improved efficiency, the adoption of new automated solutions, and strategic pricing across all operations. We expect demand for critical minerals and sustainability services to continue to be powerful drivers for the future. Next slide, please. Connectivity and Product growth, organic growth was close to 5%. Connectivity grew high single-digit, particularly driven by double-digit growth at Brightsight, our leading cybersecurity unit in the Netherlands. We didn't meet single-digit growth in softlines, which were driven by market share gain in Northeast Asia and Eastern Europe, Middle East, as well as the successful rollout of our new sustainability solutions. We expect sustainability to drive more opportunities in textile, hard good, and E&E product, as public awareness put increasing pressure on organizations to reduce the environmental and social impact on their products.
Margin decline was mainly due to soft activities in the wireless testing, a positive one-off in the prior year. Next slide, please. Health and nutrition sustained organic growth despite the challenging environment. High single-digit organic growth, sorry, in food testing, was driven by regulations, network expansions, including a new lab in Brazil and pricing. Health solutions enjoyed positive underlying growth for bioanalytics services and the clinical research, which was largely offset by the end of our COVID testing program. Overall, market fundamentals and global demand for the TIC core services remained strong across the food and the well-being verticals. Next slide. Business assurance delivered record performance in 2023, with double-digit growth in all businesses and regions. This was driven by ESG assurance, management system certifications, and customized audits.
Consulting activity grew very strongly, benefiting from significant demand in the supply chain in North America, increased demand from division sectors, and our expansion of capabilities in Europe and Asia. The market is expected to remain strong in 2024, driven by high demand in medical device, information security, ESG assurance, and customized audit. Next slide, please. Our portfolio management activities in 2023 was focused on driving additional returns. We made two acquisitions, Nutrasource in Canada and Seafood Testing in Spain, and we acquired the remaining minority stake of Leansis and Maine Pointe , the two consulting companies that we have in the U.S. and in Europe. In the same period, we closed two disposals, including powertrain testing operation in the U.S. We also announced the divestment of our crop science operations.
The transaction will be effective in the course of 2024 and does not impact the 2023 consolidated financial result. It's clear that while the pace of our M&A has slowed down in 2023, it remain an important priority in our capital allocation approach, and we expect more activities in 2024. Géraldine would give a little bit of the color during her part of presentations. Next slide. So for me to conclude, a topic that is really key and important to me and to the company is sustainability. Sustainability is one of our six business pillars, and it's truly embedded in our culture and the way we do business. From the board of director, to our affiliate, our strong governance structures ensure that this is heart of all our activities.
We are proud to celebrate a decade of sustainability leadership at the top of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. As true leadership also means having a consistent top position in the majority of the other ESG indexes. Some of them they can see on the slide here. But I think leadership in sustainability is, above all, about impact to society. So thanks to our value and the commitment of all our colleagues around the world, we achieve our sustainability goal for 2023. Being a non-politic company, fostering diversity, keeping our people safe, are just a few of those key examples of how we add value to society. So then, in conclusion, I'm proud to, again, to dedicate the dedication and the hard work and resilience of all our colleagues across the network, and I'm confident that we are building a thriving future for SGS.
Thank you, and on that, I'm passing over to Géraldine for the financial part and the strategic update.
Thank you, Frankie. I'm very pleased to comment the full year results, 2023. Our net sales increased above 8% organically, as you can see, to reach CHF 6,622 million. Our margin amounted to CHF 971 million, a bit lower than in 2022 in terms of value, also in terms of percentage of revenue, mainly due to Forex. If the translation rates had been the same as this year in 2022, the margin rate would have been almost stable. Earnings per share were impacted by the same Forex effect and stood at 3 CHF per share. We now report free cash flow after interest and leases, and this year it exceeded CHF 600 million, which is a strong increase versus last year.
This slide here indicates how the 2023 sales compared to last year. 2023 sales amounted to CHF 6,622 million, very close to 2022 level. This is a result of a strong organic growth of 8.1%, actually totally offset by the Forex translation effect. This is mainly due to the Chinese renminbi, the euro, and the US dollar.... This slide here provide the breakdown of the 8.1% organic growth by business lines. So as Frankie already commented, I'm gonna go fast on here, but here you can see Connectivity and Product has registered a solid organic growth of 4.7%, coming from the positive momentum in connectivity and especially on regulatory testing on cybersecurity. Health and Nutrition, food here did very well, actually.
Food testing demand benefited from a good growth, a good growth momentum supported by safety requirements, identification of the impact of newly identified contaminants in food. Health Science, on the opposite, has experienced some headwinds in a post-pandemic world. Industries and Environment now, if we look at that, you can see that we have experienced a very strong organic growth across the entire portfolio, actually driven by demand that is increasing for safety, environment and energy. Strong organic growth of our Natural Resources business lines, primarily driven by continued demand for commodities and strategic commercial initiative. Business Assurance, previously known as Knowledge, it's now Business Assurance, has delivered its best year benefiting from a strong demand in some strategic segments, such as medical devices, IT, security, and sustainability. Looking at the sales per region now.
All regions have contributed to growth, with Asia and North America reaching a very high single-digit organic growth. On smaller markets, Latin America and Middle East, Africa, we also grew double digit, as you can see. Let's move to the adjusted operating income. It amounted to CHF 971 million, and the major impact, as we already mentioned, is coming from the Forex. The impact on the AOI margin on sales amounted to 0.5 percentage point. In addition, the turnaround for Health Science, which was planned for H2, did not materialize. Let's now look at the full P&L. The net income attributable to group shareholders has declined by CHF 35 million, and this is in line with the decline of the adjusted operating income.
Between AOI or adjusted operating income and the operating income, the amount of adjusted items are, have actually declined from CHF 125 million in 2022 to CHF 114 million in 2023. In 2023, if you look at the table, we have recorded CHF 91 million of non-cash, non-cash amortization and impairment. Financial expenses, as well as the effective tax rate, are broadly stable, and as a result, the earnings per share stood at CHF 3 per share. Let's turn to the free cash flow, and we're pretty happy to have exceeded CHF 600 million of free cash flow this year. I remind you here that we now calculate the free cash flow with the interest paid inside.
So the improvement that you see is largely due to better management of the net working capital, which was very high last year, and this will remain a point of focus in the future. I will end with our return on invested capital, which is strong. It's industry-leading ROIC at 22%. We will now move to the Strategy 2027. So after the review of the accounts, please let me now share with you some views on the company and on the industry. From there, I will give you an overview of our roadmap for the next 4 years. At this stage, I will mainly provide key principles. We are working on numbers for now, and we will be able to share more numbers at our Capital Market Day in November. Let's start with the market. We operate in a healthy, growing industry driven by 4 megatrends.
Firstly, there is a strong demand for sustainability. As you know, our clients must comply with several new regulations, but beyond the law, they're also pushed to adopt even more sustainable practices by their own customers and stakeholders. The second megatrend is the continuous growth of digital technology, which creates a strong demand for the TIC industry in data integrity and in digital trust. Thirdly, people always demand more manufactured products, and this is true for emerging market, where the middle class is strongly growing, but also for maturer geographies, which see the development of local production with the nearshoring. So finally, companies are more and more subject to various regulation, which are typically set by local authorities. Our market benefits from the mega trends we just went through. It is commonly assessed that the TIC market grows about two percentage points above GDP.
So over the next 4 years, we see the market growing overall from 4%-5% to reach the size of $190 billion in 2027. This is our addressable market. This 4%-5% annual growth rate is a combination of regional and verticals, or end markets, which we will detail now. Here is our market split by geographies and with the main growth drivers by geography. You can see here that Asia Pacific accounts for one-third of the total TIC market. In this region, growth has been historically driven by consumer products. But consumer products will remain a strong engine in the coming years, supported by demographic trends, especially urbanization and the development of upper middle classes. Asia Pacific contains other significant end markets, such as environmental, and we expect the region to be a major contributor to also digital services.
Europe is the second-largest market of the industry. It was, it is, and it still is the most regulated, with authorities requiring quick adoption of fairly complex rules. About North America, we believe that the reindustrialization of the U.S. has just started. This trend benefits from state and federal incentives. Latin America and Middle East Africa remain smaller markets with growth opportunities in minerals, for instance, and environmental. So now that we have an overview of the market and the market drivers, let's move to how SGS is positioned to capture these huge opportunities. As you know, we are the global market leader, well-established with all positions in all geographies. We have a strong network, especially in Asia, which positions us ideally to respond to the domestic market demand.
More generally, our implementation allows us to follow any change in any supply chains of our clients. We have also the largest number of accreditations to support compliance requirements. In particular, we have, and we develop the adequate offer to address the sustainability needs of our clients. We are also the leaders in the solution which guarantee data integrity, which is, of course, a key point for tomorrow, and we will detail this in a few minutes. As I said, we believe we have great strengths, and we operate in a market with fantastic opportunities. We have, therefore, defined three levels on which we will build our near future. Firstly, we will capture the growth coming from the market megatrends: sustainability, digital, supply chain. All of this on the back of a heavily regulated environment. These are definitely the fast-growing areas where we have everything to succeed.
Secondly, we are fundamentally a people business. We work through a unique network of highly qualified professionals. So it is key that the group put its people in the best mindset and in the right organization to allow them to succeed. We will promote performance and accountability across the group. This will go with some reorganization of the Executive Committee and of the corporate and support functions, and we will review this shortly. Last but not least, we will define a strong financial profile with clear targets and a disciplined cash allocation. So let's start with our growth opportunities. As I said, we will offer a large range of services associated with sustainability, one of the mega trend, and our growth focus here is organized around four major pillars to address sustainability demand. Carbon, where we address the compliance needs of our customers for regulation and national policies.
For instance, we do gap assessments in the context of the net zero pledge of our clients. We assist them on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, measure and validate their ESG emission reporting. Biodiversity, where we are actually revolutionizing biodiversity services with environmental DNA surveys, and we have also state-of-the-art global bioscience centers in Europe. With regards to plastic, we offer a proprietary microplastic testing solutions that leads, you know, chemical, recycling, and plastic services. On ESG assurance, we are a leading provider of social audits with largest numbers of certified auditors globally. We carry out a large range of ESG certification, assessment, and training services in Europe and globally. We currently have the only prior proprietary ESG specific certification scheme, and also provide advisory training services on the new CSRD legislation in Europe.
We are also seeing rapid digital growth, with swift technological advancements and widespread adoption of new technologies across all industries. While technology like artificial intelligence, for instance, offer incredible opportunities, also bring risk with it. Our focus is on building trust in this technology through rigorous digital trust and data integrity services. We do cybersecurity evaluation for the full range of IT products, such as payment terminals, hardware, systems on chips, automotive solutions, and so on. We perform security evaluations to support compliance and risk management across all sectors. Let's move to supply chain. We have a presence almost everywhere in the world, as I said. This gives us the capacity to adapt to our clients and to serve them with the same quality wherever they need. In Asia, as you know, we have a leading position.
In addition to the industry of consumer products, there is a strong increase, as I said, of the local demand, supported by the development of the middle class there. This represents a significant growth opportunity for us. North America presents also a great source of growth, mainly coming from the local industry in the U.S. This is a region where we have a strong ambition, as you can see. We want the regions to represent a much more significant share of the group sales by 2027. This will, of course, require investment, and I will come back to this later. After the growth opportunities, I want to focus on the people. When I joined two months ago, I have been impressed by the high level of skills and expertise of the professionals who work in our labs and in our certification.
This is by far our most valuable asset for the company, and we place talent development and retention at the heart of our strategy. In the meantime, we will work on accountability. Each manager has to lead their P&L. We will promote a performance and a cash culture across the group. We have also decided to simplify the organization, and we will start with the operation council. We have here organized the business. Well, let's start with certification. It was formerly called Knowledge. This business is mainly global, and it will be represented by one ExCo members. The rest of the business that we regroup, in other words, testing and inspection, is managed by the network and at local level. The majority of the contracts is negotiated locally, and of course, the regulatory environment also depends on the location.
Therefore, we have, and we will have, a regional approach here, so that there will be one ExCo member by region for testing and inspection, each of them fully accountable for his own regional P&L. We plan to have five regions and to keep two ExCo members in support position for the global contracts, the business development, and the technical expertise. The purpose of this reorganization is to gain efficiency in the decision-making process and to have one and only one ExCo member responsible for each part of the group P&L. Of course, we will continue to use the technical expertise of our business line specialist, and the detailed organization chart will be announced end of March. In the same spirit of focusing on the network, we will eliminate some functions which currently participate to the duplication of responsibilities between business lines and regions.
We are talking about support functions here, not about expert positions, of course. So together with the continuous effort of process optimization, we expect to realize CHF 100 million of cost savings at current scope. The restructuring will be achieved before the end of 2025. This slide here summarize where the strategic priorities lead us. In terms of growth, we believe we will overperform the market, thanks to the trends I went through.... We're targeting to deliver an organic growth of 5%-7%, which we expect to combine with M&A growth. We won't take any quantified commitment on this, obviously, because the priority is to execute the right targets at the right time and for the right price.
On the margin, we believe it's not at the right level yet, and we are ready to target at least an additional 1.5 percentage point in 2027. However, the review of the operations is ongoing, and we will be able to provide further information in November at our Capital Markets Day. Finally, the cash generation, which we measure as free cash flow after lease, divided by ABDA after lease, will exceed 50%. To complete the overview of the targets we want to achieve, let me emphasize some principles here. So let's be clear, our growth ambition, especially on the portfolio, we will need, will require some financing. However, the key priority will be to maintain a strong credit rating, to ensure that the group keeps all necessary latitude in the future.
We can also count on solid cash flows in the coming years, but to start our investment program, we want to have all possible flexibility. Therefore, we will propose a scrip dividend, optional shares or cash, at our next AGM, with detailed modalities to be communicated at that time. We also have ambitions on our 2027 corporate ESG targets. We really reflect what SGS is about. So firstly, on the environment, we are an environmental leader because we are fundamentally a non-polluting business. Starting from the fact that we are already successfully addressing our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, the natural movement that we need to target is Scope 3, so we want to achieve a material improvement on our Scope 3 emissions.
Secondly, if you look at the S of ESG's, on the social, we are, as I said several times, a people business, and as such, we contribute to the satisfaction and well-being and trust of all our stakeholders. On diversity, equity, and inclusion, our goal is to foster diverse representation in our workforce and leadership with a dedicated aim of achieving one-third leadership position held by women. On education, our strong know-how is the most valuable asset of SGS, and we are proud to share it with our employees. Our customer and the wider community, we want—we have chosen here to adopt million hours of training. So to make this really more visible, we have set ourselves the official target to reach the 7 million total training hours per year by 2027. Finally, on governance, we believe in doing things right.
It's not just for us, but also for our clients. So we have set a high goal of customer satisfaction, aiming for a score of 93% customer satisfaction. This target benefits in terms of positive employee engagement and responsible business practices. So all these goals are not just about numbers, they represent our commitment to creating a sustainable, inclusive and responsible future. Our vision is to create not just, not just for our shareholders, but also for our employees, our customer, and the broader society. Let's move to the outlook for 2024. So on the shorter term, some colors here for the year. We expect organic growth to be above 5%, consistent with the 2027 targets. The work on the portfolio will be started, which doesn't mean that we will go for a big strategic move already this year.
We really want rather to relaunch the bolt-on programs. In terms of margin, we will fix the one-off issues we have incurred in 2023, and we will add a few basis points to the margin rate. The saving plan will be implemented, but there will be likely no material impact in 2024. We build, we will build the basis, of course, of a strong cash flow generation. As I said, performance and cash culture. With this, I thank you for the attention.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're now opening the Q&A session. We kindly ask you to limit yourself to two questions per participant. There are microphones in the room, so please wait, raise your hand, and wait for the microphone, as this event is webcast. Thank you.
Hi, good morning, Frankie and Geraldine. It's Harry Martin from Bernstein. I wondered if you could spend some time on your strategy in China. So within the 5%-7% organic growth, would you expect China to grow faster than that? And then could you reflect a little bit on the positioning that you have in the domestic market, in the export market, and the competitive advantages that you have versus the other global players and versus the local competition as well? So that's the first strategic question. And then, just a question for you, Géraldine, your position as CFO, before you quickly move up.
On the dividend, I wondered if you had considered cutting the dividend today, and if you had, what, you know, what were the kind of rationales for and against, and how did you come to the decision that you did? Thanks.
Okay. So, Géraldine, I'll go through the first question for China. You know, I think I mentioned in the past that if you look at our Chinese activities now, 60% of our revenue in China is linked to the already to domestic market, more or less 60/40. A lot of disturbance on the international supply chain market, for sure. We talk a lot about the migration of the Chinese supply chain to all the other countries. I also mentioned in the past that SGS has a clear footprint to ensure that we capture this migration of the value to other countries like Vietnam, Turkey, and so on.
In China itself, our strategy really focus on the local market, including consumer goods, because there are regulatory framework this, this specific to China, for example, the CCC mark for the electrical product or the GB standard for general consumer goods and other product. So we have one of the largest, amount of accreditation from all the international players. There are some local Chinese company that has more accreditation than us. They specialize because they're coming from the, some of the ex economy institute, but in terms of international company, we have the largest amount of accreditations there. We're also focusing on the oriental market, the construction sectors, the industrial sectors. So there are a lot of different, aspect, calibration, for example, different aspect of also focusing on.
What is interesting for us in term of the Chinese market is that at least the market is keep opening up. So, the recent opening up of the regulation is that the Chinese customer now recognize international, company certification or inspection certificate, what is done and accredited. So this is also an evolution of the, the market for us. So in term of, growth toward 2027, I would say you look at, the current economic situation, I would say it's a bit lower than the 5%-7%. But as the market evolve, as we evolve our positions there, this may actually start to strengthen again. You look at what we've done in, in 2023, the, the growth in China was not bad at all, but we're just adapting to the new market conditions.
It's still a strong market for us, and there's a lot of opportunities.
What was the growth in China?
I'm sorry?
What was the China growth?
I don't think Geraldine will give it to you, but
No.
You can ask her during another time. But it was a good growth.
It was a good growth, I confirm. A higher growth. On your question, no, we never envisage to cut the dividend, because shareholder remuneration is our priority. Now, we expect our shareholders to support our strategy 2027 by adopting the shares.
Hi, good morning. Suhasini from Goldman Sachs. Couple of questions, please. On the CHF 100 million of restructuring, what are the costs associated with it, and will you be taking it below the line? And I think we already got the answer on phasing. The second one, on the margin expansion, which I understand it's going to be on a reported basis going forward, are you implementing any changes on the pricing strategies that can limit FX drag on margins, which unfortunately, I think companies have suffered from, in the last four, five, seven years? Or are you planning for the disposals or portfolio management to get you there? Thank you.
Well, maybe I start with the restructuring. So the costs of restructuring have not been completely finalized and calculated at this stage. I think it's fair to say that obviously, the payback will be between 12-18 months, to give you an idea. And I think, what else? You had a question on pricing after, right? And it will be below the line. Yes, of course, as well. On the pricing, maybe Frankie-
On the pricing, I mean, we continue our pricing strategy across the network. Obviously, different jurisdictions, different regions has different pricing structure, depending on the inflations, as well as the fact that, each one of the verticals on each of the geography has slightly different, market conditions for that. So we'll continue to optimize the pricing structure and strategy across that. You'll probably see more pricing drive in Europe, Latin, Middle East, less in China, Asia, Asia Pacific, because of the inflation, structures there. But over on the long term, it is clear, as mentioned in Géraldine's strategy highlight, rebalancing of a portfolio also is a key aspect for us. And, she highlighted on the North American evolutions and the opportunities there.
You look at our footprint, we're certainly more dominant on Asia Pacific, in general, in term of growth and in term of positioning. There's certainly also a structural evolution of a portfolio to ensure that we have a strong position in some of the other geographies, such as North America, where proportionally we're a little bit less represented than some of our peers or the market opportunities. This will also help us to balance these issues of the Forex in the longer term.
But maybe to complete, pricing is key for us. We want pricing to offset inflation.
Sure.
Good morning, Simon Schipp, Stifel. First of all, on the 2024 outlook, could you give us some color on the cadence of the margin improvement? Do you expect margin to improve in H1 and in H2? And secondly, on the CNP division, I mean, do you expect the margin to return to the previous level of around 25%? And, I mean, what does it take to get there? Thank you.
So I'll answer part of the question first. So there are a couple of businesses that we're more looking at the second half of the year to improve because of the current market conditions. For example, you look at the life sciences sectors because of the current market structure, we're more expecting a positive momentum on the second half of this year. On the CNP, we are, to a certain extent, under pressure on some of the traditional product, but there are also a lot of new opportunities into sustainability as well as to chemical testing. You look at, for example, the PFAS that we're talking about is linked to environmental issues.
But now, now there are also a lot of regulatory framework that dictate that they have to be tested for consumer good as well. So I would say, without saying they will be back to the 25%, as you mentioned earlier, I think the, the progression of the margin will be there because we'll have, a better growth drivers for the wireless connectivity product, sectors that we've seen a, a slowdown in 2023. This will also come back in the second half of this year.
So maybe on the margin improvement, we said that there will be a margin improvement. That means higher than the 2023 baseline on a reported basis. And that's what, at this stage, we want to communicate. You know, now we're going to communicate more often. We are gonna have quarterly sales update, so that will give us opportunity to precise as we go during the year, the guidance.
Hi there. Arthur Truslove from Citi. So just a couple from me, please. So firstly, on the CHF 100 million of cost savings, obviously about 150 basis points of 2023 revenues, have you precisely identified what those are gonna be? And within that, what confidence can you have that it won't disrupt your expert professionals in delivering growth? Second question, I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about lab utilization, and I guess specifically, are there a significant amount of your labs that are not utilized fully around the world? And ultimately, how significantly has that impacted your margins?
If you could talk to specific verticals there, I mean, I guess, CNP and Health and Nutrition would both be part of that, but just wonder if you could talk around that a little bit. Thank you.
Maybe I... you want to go first one?
Maybe I can go to the first one. Yes, obviously, we don't want to... As I said, we want to target the duplicate function on the administrative part. We don't touch at all, you know, the experts and what's needed to grow and to support our growth. And we've identified already the buckets or where we want to do these savings. Yes. Even though we are still in process of refining it completely, but we have identified where. So we're fairly confident in achieving the 1.5 basis points that you mentioned.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
If I go to your first question—no, first or second question, I forgot about the utilization rate. For sure. You look at the performance of our life sciences activities, the volume was down in our laboratory facilities, so there are excess capacities there, and we expect that to be utilized once the market picks up again. There's a lot of delay of project as well as cancellation project, but we see the market, as I said, more on the second half of this year to come back.
So on this one, wireless connectivity has a drop of volumes in laboratories, clearly because of the fact that the consumer sectors as well as some of the technological product has a soft year this year, last year, so end of last year, and we're seeing that starting to wrap up as well. So the utilization rate will come back up to the former level. The China operations, which is always often questions, is been rediverted to the local domestic market. So some of the migration of the supply chains to other countries is filled up by the domestic market growth that we see. And you see that in China, we have a stronger domestic market growth than the international.
The rest of our network continues to capitalize on some of the expansion we're doing, so asset utilization rate is pretty strong. Maybe on the front row.
Hi, good morning. Annelies Vermeulen from Morgan Stanley. So my first question was on Business Assurance, previously known as Knowledge. You've called out ESG regulation as a big part of that. I'm just wondering how much benefit you're already seeing from regulations such as CSRD coming through in Europe. You mentioned consulting revenues. I expect... Or do you expect those to accelerate this year, and can, will we see more of a shift also towards verification revenues there as companies seek to comply with, with CSRD? If you could talk about the developments of, of that. And then secondly, just on North America, if you think about, you know, the you want to expand your footprint there, which segments and which business lines do you specifically want to gain exposure to in the US?
What are the main drivers of that? You've obviously talked extensively about nearshoring, IT, and also, and some of the government spend going into the U.S., but what else are you seeing? Do you think that there's more regulation to come in the U.S. to follow Europe's example, or, you know, and where are the areas that you're targeting there? Thank you.
Sure. Uh-
Maybe I'm gonna take the first one on the certification. So certification business is doing fantastically well, and yes, we are seeing more and more demand for what you mentioned. So CR, CSRD is one of them, but also is a CBAM, where we are developing offers. I want to insist we have a strong double-digit growth on all of this, so the management certification, which is the classic part, the ISO, but also on customers, customized audits and as well on consulting and pure advisory. This is really a strong double-digit growth. So we want to continue to have the offering and capture that growth. And on North America, I will let Frankie complete, but basically, we see strong drivers in constructions, in renewables, in food as well.
There's a lot of verticals or end markets where we can capture growth here, as I said.
Yeah, absolutely. In fact, you look at the U.S. market, I would say environmental sectors are strong sectors. In fact, one of the strictest regulations in terms of PFAS, which is a key pollutant, is the U.S. So, a lot of the government department is pushing very hard for that, and the liabilities is there, so there is a drive for the U.S. market to push on that. So this is just one aspect of the evolution of the environmental side, which you probably see more regulations, more enforcement and less. Likewise, infrastructure is an important sectors for the U.S., especially that we talk about some of those manufacturing moving back to the domestic market, and that there will be a construction and the need for that. This is something we're also looking at.
Connectivity and products, surprisingly, we're not talking about textile product, we're not talking about hard goods, but in the U.S. market, there's a lot of demand for more high-end, automotive, aerospace, electronics, in general, microchips, so on. So there's a market for the high-end testing of a unique product, wireless connectivity, and so on. Cybersecurity included. So these are areas, food, Géraldine mentioned already. So there are quite a lot of areas that we're to come back, certainly in November, with a more detailed roadmap, I would say.
Good morning, it's Rory McKenzie from UBS. And Frankie, firstly, to say congratulations on your career at SGS. Know you're very highly respected in the industry, so thank you for putting up with specifically my questions over the years—which often are below your level, perhaps. But then turning to these results, H2 margins were down 80 pips year-over-year, even excluding FX. Can you just clarify if there were any specific drags within that? You know, any notable movements in bad debts, your H2 provisioning, anything else that could be a bit volatile that we should be aware of as we look ahead?
And then secondly, you outlined the mega trends and the positive drivers, which I think are apparent, but often what's going against SGS in its broad portfolio are what drive the disappointments in the performance overall. We've seen several portfolio reviews in the past, I think it's fair to say, but maybe Frankie, could you look back on some of those reviews and reflect on what either didn't work about identifying the challenges, or whether you wish you'd been bolder with some changes? And then, Géraldine, can you say more about how you're undertaking this portfolio review this year? How you think that's different to what SGS has done in the past. And for example, the disposal of Crop Science, for example, should we be expecting more of those portfolio pieces to move out of the group as well?
Mm-hmm.
Do you want to start, or do you want me to start?
I can start maybe with the margin question, and then on the-
Sure, sure, sure.
... the past portfolio, please, Frankie, yeah, help me. But on the margins, so the biggest impact being the Forex, and we commented, that's clear, 0.5 percentage points. I think it's fair to say, as we mentioned, that there was no recovery on health science at all. Frankie mentioned also a soft market on wireless. That's part of the CNP, the Connectivity and Product business line, and mainly that's from Asia. So the wireless was not also there. Quite soft. And yeah, that's basically the main drivers of this margin decline.
Yeah. You know, when, when I talk about nine years ago, when I, the first session when I spoke to, to the market, someone asked me whether, why don't I sell my mineral business? Nine years down the road, somebody's gonna tell me, lucky we didn't sell the mineral business, for sure. But I... What I'm trying to say is, the markets evolves, and there are strategic decisions we're taking at each one of the evolution of the market, and we try always to keep a balanced portfolio. There are long-term drivers that we believe is not there anymore, that, that we decide to, to get out of the market. For example, for some of the powertrain businesses that started in the U.S. that we disposed last year, that we don't fit, think fit into, into this, long-term vision.
I would say if you look at the driving force, it's less about portfolio management. For me, it's more about the efficiency of the network. This is the key drivers for margins in the longer term. So because market changes will always happen, and we need to adapt to have this agility to adapt ourselves to the next growth potentials. But how we work closely to ensure that in the migration of the network, to optimize the use of the asset, to be able to redirect ourselves to the next portfolio, this is more the key challenges of the future of the SGS. We've done a lot of background work over the past few years that need to be completed. We talk about the 30% of the revenue moving to the new digital system.
This is not just to have a newer system. The background of this system allow us to use the data into different ways that allow us to move into a new generation of services. So this is more the part of the challenges we're to see in the next couple of years, rather than the migration of portfolio, because market conditions, the geopolitical situation, the volatility of the market these days, makes that we have to be our job. We continue to trim this portfolio moving into the future.
... Yeah, and I think, look, we are in a fragmented market, right? Fragmented and growing market. So we have, as a leader, a role to play in the consolidation. So we will, as put, you know, in the comments, we will relaunch our M&A program. I'm more seeing bolt-ons to be back on, because these are good deals. They are synergistic, they are accretive to our margins, and this will also play a significant role. But we will review the full portfolio of business lines for one, and you will be fully informed at the Capital Market Day in November.
Hi, it's James Rose from Barclays. Firstly, on M&A, you've talked about sort of relaunching that process. What type of businesses would you like to buy? Not just next year, but on a medium-term view. And also, to come back on margins again, I mean, SGS has laid out bold margin aspirations numerous times now, and there's always something which comes along to detract from that process. Why do you think the new margin targets now are more credible than the ones in the past? What has changed within the organization to deliver them?
Okay, so first, the first question on M&A, again, we are putting ourselves in motion to relaunch it, and we are going to do on a local basis. The bolt-ons are about local, identify local targets and consolidating where we're strong and where we have synergies. And past bolt-ons have been proven very accretive and successful deals. So that's the first machine we will launch, and we have a roadmap. And when it comes to the restructuring, we have also a roadmap. So we know where to target or where are the costs that we need to cut. So let us execute. We communicate now on a quarterly basis, and we'll do delivery, change, communication. Delivery, communication, delivery, communication.
Yes, thank you. Michael Foeth, Vontobel. Two questions. If you could make a few comments on your capital allocation priorities for the group, and eventually some thoughts, you know, on targets in terms of value generation, return on invested capital for those different businesses. And the second question would be, you mentioned the organizational structure shifting to a regional management approach. Are you considering then also to align the reporting structure to that regional management organization, or will you stick to the current reporting by business? Thank you.
Yeah. Look, in terms of capital allocation, we want to finance our growth. So priority is given to growth and, and the expansion that we have mentioned in North America, the bolt-on program, so it's about growth. On your second point, the reporting structure, we don't aim to change it for now.
Hi, both. Carl Raynsford here from Berenberg. Probably a question for... Well, one question for each of you, really. But, firstly, on the Digital Lab program, could you give us some color on what that actually achieved on a margin basis? I mean, there was a lot of excitement at the time, but where margins are now, I'm not quite sure what's happened there. And the second question on the margin improvement. So is it 1.5% on top of the adjusted margin? I mean, if my math is correct, that's basically achieved with CHF 100 million of cost savings. So we get to about 16.2%, and that's pretty much in line with 2019.
So that's quite far below where expectations were not very long ago, which were kind of in the high 16s. So my question is, do you think you can go further than that, or is this mix effect basically a permanent drag?
No, I think we have put... If I may start with your last question, we've put at least. I think this is important two words. But we want to deliver as well, and rather overpromise than the opposite.
So, for the Digital Lab, we're progressing with the deployment. As I said, there's 2 factors in there. One is indeed efficiency gain, so we are working on across this, this opportunity. Each one of the lab that has the new LIMS system has some efficiency gains. So obviously, we're not disclosing per laboratories, but we also need to, at the initial stage of any implementation, there's always the cost versus the benefit, and it's going to be optimized as the labs move to 100% of their revenue, and the process become more mature. So where we are at this phase of the processes, I said we're only 30% of revenue. The next target is 2025, where we migrate to 70% of revenue. And we will see an acceleration of the efficiency gain that we're seeing.
This new LIMS system is also a question about being able to optimize their network and not having each one of the lab working as a single entity. It allow us to communicate better across the network so that we can start to do more hub and spoke and allocation of samples across different laboratories. So you'll probably see over time, our, our reorganization, the way we see laboratories as network laboratories versus individual laboratories. So this is also part of that. The fifth, third part is about data structure. So this is also an important aspect of the evolution of the, the processes for the future.
Sorry. Tobias Schultz, UBS. My question is going a bit in the direction of the colleague, because if you look at your target of the margin, there's no further. It's just coming from the costs at the end, which are taking out. There's no further improvement from the lab digitalization or from what we have learned also before, that there is more growth and there should be operating leverage coming through. So a little bit, how should we connect it? Is it just a conservative guidance, or i-
... is part of this CHF 100 million, maybe not completely visible because you need to do some other investments, maybe in some other regions, like North America, to expand the network there.
Mm-hmm.
For sure to get to our target margin in 2027, there is a cost restructuring, there is a portfolio adjustment we're working on, and there are several more efficiencies and so on. So there are several things to get to a higher... This is why we've put at least 1.5 points. And we're working on this, and we will present that to you at the Capital Market Day in November.
Hi, thanks. Tom Belton here from BNP Paribas Exane. Just a follow-up question on pricing, if I can. Just to check, I caught you correctly, Géraldine, when you talked about that you should be passing through all of your cost inflation in price. That's a different and sort of a firmer message than we hear from elsewhere in the industry, sometimes where, where companies are passing through only a proportion of their cost inflation. Are you able to reflect on sort of what you've seen so far, where you think maybe what went wrong in the past in terms of pricing? Was it an absence of accountability, a lack of preparedness? Why should pricing be better going forward than maybe we saw over the last couple of years?
And then tying that back to the, the margin bridge, if we're passing through most of the cost inflation, if lab utilization is ramping up, and there is operating leverage in this business, it feels like one could be a lot more ambitious with kind of where we're thinking about that, that longer-term margin. I appreciate you've said the, the midterm target is just at minimum, but just maybe expand on that, please.
Yeah. I think the, the accountability that you mentioned is going to help effectively to drive, you know, profitability, growth and cash generation, for sure. That's, that's the objective of this, of this organization, which to give really people their P&L and more accountability on the performance. So that will definitely help. Now, you have to realize there's also sometimes some contracts that are signed for two years or for a certain period, and then, you know, the price is there, and this sometimes impair a bit the ability to completely cover in certain business, certain business lines. But the... I mean, the focus should be on passing on inflation to the customer with the pricing. And a pricing excellence, we will develop that and reinforce it to help our P&L leaders to succeed.
Hi, it's Pablo Cuadrado from Kepler. Two questions. The first maybe is more for Frankie. I think, in the capital markets day in Turkey, there was a very interesting presentation on de-globalization risk in the industry and et cetera. My take, at least, at that moment, was that SGS were not expecting to see a major trend there, and still the APAC in terms of consumption, it was very relevant. So I was a little bit surprised now that in the, let's say, the new levels of growth for the next few years, we are talking about onshoring, because it changed a little bit the spectrum, in my point of view, what it was said two years ago. So what has changed, you think, basically?
Because that was the end of 2022, so the war in Ukraine, geopolitical risks were already there. So have you seen really in the market, a movement, that is implying that there is much more onshoring than you were expecting in the past?
Mm.
The second question will be, just, sustainability is the one of the other drivers for the next few years. I was wondering whether if you can update us, you know, the level of revenues at the end of last year linked to sustainability. I think in the past, you were putting a target there, and if any, I mean, if you can also share, how do you see the revenues, let's say, going through the end of this plan in 2027, if that's possible?
Sure. Maybe I'll start with the first question. In fact, the target hasn't changed compared to what we set in Turkey. We talk about de-globalizations, the migration of the supply chains across many from the Asian production base toward some other jurisdictions, whether it is China toward Vietnam, toward Bangladesh, India, and so on, or that there are some more proximity strategy, Mexico for the U.S. and so on. This is continuing, so we see these evolutions, and we mentioned that we have gained market share in the Middle East. In fact, for us, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Turkey is one specific example of this evolution. So we see share increase where there because the market is continuing to evolve. This is the shifting supply chain.
At the same time, on the top of that, we're also seeing an evolution of some of the domestic market. So there are additional regulatory framework in China, in Korea for the food sector as well. So we're also trying to create a strategy that allows us to capitalize on both aspects. So one is not simply replacing the others, I would say. This one is just in addition of the others, because the two will go in parallel. So we're just trying to adapt our network to the market conditions.
The strength of the global footprint is this: we're able to have agilities to adapt to different geographic geopolitical evolutions, where supply chains move, where they can recapture some of the international supply chain migrations and can recapture some of the domestic evolution of the market, and this is the strength of the network that we're trying to build.
Yes, and you mentioned this sustainability-related revenue that was communicated in the past, which was consisting of identifying out of our sales, the one that can relate the most with some sustainability development goals. We still have that, and we're still performing on it, but I don't wish we report on that, because I think at the end, what is most of interest for all of us is the incremental revenue that we are going to generate out of pure sustainability services, such as the one that was mentioned by your colleagues on, you know, certification with CSRD, certification with CBAM. All these new offering, which is how well we are positioned to capture this growth, is what is of interest. But don't worry, we are doing a lot in compliance with the sustainability development goals.
Hi, Hello? Hi, Suhasini from Goldman Sachs again. Just one follow-up question, please. As you implement scrip dividends, I just wanted to check what your plans are to limit EPS dilution. Because I can see you have revenue targets for the medium term, EBITDA targets, margin targets for the medium term. But do you also think about EPS growth and, yeah, any color there? Thank you.
Yes, absolutely. Look, if we do—we've done simulation. If there is a 50% take up, half shares, half cash, the dilution would be really minimum, around 2%.
Hi, I thought I'd ask a follow-up on the slide that you have about industry growth. So 4%-5%. If I take the weightings that you have in your business, a third Asia, another 10% or so in emerging markets, and then you have Europe and North America, is 4%-5% really ahead of nominal GDP growth? You know, something that comes up in terms of the industry and the maturity level of the industry. So I wondered if you could just comment about, you know, where that sort of penetration gain is coming from, or if that is really ahead of the nominal GDP in those markets.
No, it's about the... You know, it's commonly assessed that the TIC industry grows two percentage points above global GDP, and it's 2%, so that's why we get to the 4%-5% of the TIC industry growth, which is commonly shared with all market players. And look, we are the leader, so we want to overperform the market growth, and that's what all the plan is about.
Yeah, I think, this is the average of the whole market. Géraldine mentioned several times, it is a fragmented market, which touches, a lot of industries, a lot of geographies. And certainly, our chosen market, our chosen geographies, has an incidence on how fast can we grow, because there are different growth drivers and different speed of growth per industrial sectors, per geographies, and this is part of the mix that we need to work on.
Just to follow up from me, Arthur from Citi again. I don't think you've sort of said it so far, but how are you expecting CapEx to sales to evolve? I guess historically, it's been sort of 4.5%-5%. I just wondered how you were expecting that to change as we look forward. Thank you.
Well, we'll continue to be focused, more and more focused on the payback of all our CapEx. But at this stage, I, you know, let's say it's gonna be around the level of 4%. Yeah? At this stage. Maybe the last question, Ariel, because...
Okay, so just one from Geoffroy Michalet , from ODDO BHF. You are asking for the support of your shareholder by proposing a scrip dividend this year, if I understand. And you are going to develop your M&A strategy through bolt-on, if I understand. Is there a maximum leverage that you have in mind that you don't want to reach or stay below, or that would trigger another scrip dividend option for the coming years? Thank you.
I said we want to keep strong credit metrics. We have an excellent credit rating with Moody's, and we really value this, because again, it gives us flexibility for the future to do potentially, you know, a move, a bolder move than bolt-on. So that's key to us. And look, we are where we are. We do scrip this year, and we will, as I said, value the remuneration to our shareholders, always. Thank you.
So thank you everyone for joining our event. I want to remind you that our next touchpoint will now be our Q1 sales, since SGS reports quarterly on the 26th of April, 2024. As you leave the room, please follow the hostesses, and looking forward to seeing you all very soon. Thank you.
Thank you.