Good morning and welcome to our annual result presentation. Thanks for joining us here in Zurich or online. We appreciate your interest in our company very much and look forward to an exciting two hours. Before I start with the presentation, I would like to share my deep appreciation and thanks to our organization, the 33,000 employees, which I have the privilege to lead. I also stand here on behalf of all of them presenting our joint collaborative achievements in 2023. I believe it's a strong statement of the power of the organization, what we can do, and we go into the detail as we go. But it's not me. It's all of us in the company. Some of them are here in the room, also here. A big thank you for organizing just a perfect setting to guide us through the next hours here.
It's a people company, and our people have made tremendous achievements possible in the last 12 months and also going forward. Now, going into 2023, I think on a high level, the highlights on the top line we shared on January 10th already: 14.5% growth in the local currency, 7.1% growth in Swiss francs. A lot of appreciation of the Swiss francs, of course, in here. Adrian, we'll go into all the details in regards to those numbers. The EBIT reported slightly below last year. I think here we stay with our reported EBIT as a guiding principle. But at the same time, we know that here quite substantial one-time costs through the acquisitions are included. If we take those out, we have raised our EBIT performance by 80 basis points in 2023, reaching a level of 15%.
We are especially proud of the strong cash generation that has led to a record in operating free cash flow of CHF 1.37 billion, a plus of almost 60%. I think this is a clear manifestation of the power of the company to generate cash to the benefits of all. The key investment in 2023 clearly is the closing of our transaction, the MBCC, which I will come to in more detail. We talk a lot about the cost of the transaction, but I believe it's significant to see that already in eight months, we have been able to generate CHF 41 million of synergies and more to come. Our innovation and sustainability drive, a key aspect of Sika's in the past and in the future, also here accelerating with the power that we gain by growing organically and through acquisition.
108 new patents, 188 new inventions, these are just signals of the power of this combined organization going forward. At the same time, we have done our homework and continue to do our own, let's say, improvements on the CO2 reduction, talking Scope 1 and 2, with a reduction of 4.4% overall per tonne sold. This picture is a picture that I don't know how, but magically, all the regions are at 15% growth. So Adrian, thank you for balancing that so well. But of course, it's clear here this 15% growth in the region is fueled by the acquisition, which obviously then also has helped all the regions to reach new heights.
The Global Business region, which is the last time that we report independent without acquisition, reached double-digit growth, a clear sign also of the recovery of the automotive business overall, as well as our traction in gaining new applications, especially on the e-mobility side in that business. It's not just the numbers that matter. We also have high emphasis on the non-financial areas. I talked about the CO2 reduction, Scope 1 and 2, but also safety is a topic that we consider a key element to make sure we have a safe work environment. We reduced the accident rate by almost 24%. Waste is bad. Waste is something in multiple ways that we want to reduce also here. Good progress. Water consumption reduction. I think here all the arrows show in the right direction, but we can't stand still. We have to go further also on that journey.
And I come back to that when I talk about the Strategy 2028. As always, Sika is investing in the future, investing inorganically as well as organically. And mentioned MBCC, the biggest investment, but we also did two other acquisitions, Thiessen in the U.S. and Chema in Peru. And we also explore new ways of, let's say, tapping into interesting startup companies here. A company in Finland that has an excellent cementitious flooring system that we can leverage. We took a share in that or a stake in that company that is going to fuel some exciting specialty floors in Sika. The investments organically are expansion of the footprint, reinforcing of strong hubs like the U.S. U.S. is a strong hub, more than 40 factories in the U.S. alone. And here we invest also into future growth.
The expansion in Sealy, Texas, the expansion in Chattanooga are also a manifestation of our strong belief that North America is a place to be and a place to further invest. But that's not only there. India is mentioned here with a new factory in India. India is a booming market. I will show later on a bit more details on that. And innovation. Innovation, the opening of the technology center in Suzhou in China. It's the second largest technology center of Sika. Behind Zurich, it's a clear statement that Asia, Asia-Pacific with this hub, building a strong competence level that influences the rest of the world as much as the rest of the world influences Asia-Pacific. I think this is a slide just showing the base of our business in a way we talk more and more the vertical aspects of our business.
You see a strong balance. The infrastructure and the commercial are two very important segments for us, vertical markets. The residential, growing, not, let's say, being dominant, but clearly visible and relevant and a great opportunity for more. And then the automotive and the industry segment that is also an excellent addition to the three others. This is the base where we come from, and this is the base where we also build the future. And it's a very strong mix of vertical markets that we focus on. Another angle to look at our business, the base business, is emerging and mature markets. We have always shared this view, but you see how the emerging markets are catching up, 41%, while also mature markets are growing. So this is not the one nor the other. Both of them can grow, and that's what we're aiming at.
The same is with the new build versus refurbishment. Here you see the ratio as well. Our refurbishment is dominant. That comes from our strong position in Europe and in North America, where a lot of refurbishment of infrastructure and building is a core business, while the new build also is, of course, in emerging markets, the majority and our priority to grow. So it's also here. This is an excellent balance, also hedging, let's say, besides the vertical through the geographical balance, the company. We are very proud of our historical performance data. We stand for market share gain. We stand for overproportional profitability improvement, and we have delivered that over the past six years, starting 2018, as an indicator, growing in Swiss francs 9.7% annually and growing the EBIT 12.2% year-over-year.
Here we took the liberty in 2022 and 2023 to show the EBIT evolution, excluding the one-timers, which Adrian will go into details. It's the underlying strong operational performance of the company over these six years. We intend to continue that, of course, also in the next years ahead of us. Many questions in this wild 2020s came up. How do we explain this? How is that? And how are you doing and the markets are doing? I think we tried here to bring some clarity what happened in 2020 when we had a standstill of the economy worldwide. We had a negative organic growth. We compare us, let's say, to our peers in the industry. This is about a dozen of players that are listed that we have data to that we can compare.
We all went into this COVID, let's say, incident, and we had to preserve our companies. And I think we did well, but everybody had to adapt. And you see our peer organic growth, our organic growth almost at the same level. But then the year 2021 was the year where things came back, volumes came back. And in a volume-positive market, we excel. We have clearly surpassed our peers in this race for the volume, and we delivered very well. 2022, the year where pricing was an absolute mandatory topic to offset the ever-rising input cost. And here looking for margin, looking for pricing has been clearly a main focus in that environment.
While also we have to consider that our split is a little bit different than others, where the price increase in Asia has been a fraction of the price increase in Europe and in North America, even also the lower input cost variations there. So it's a strong performance there as well. And then we come into 2023, last year, a year again with a lot of challenges, negative volumes to start into the year. Some of them have improved. Some have more or less stayed flat. But you see we grew by acquisition, obviously, no secret. But then we compare our 1.2% organic growth with the -3.5% of our peers. I think a substantial overachievement in a tougher market where less is available, but we succeeded to gain market share in a profitable way. Now, talking about MBCC, my favorite topic anyhow for quite a while.
Now it's real. Now we are in execution mode, 6,000 employees onboarded on the 2nd of May, CHF 2.1 billion. That's the number we communicated at the beginning of the journey. Converting it into today's Swiss franc, it's probably less than CHF 2 billion, but still significant. And it's a major boost to the organization. But it comes from the, let's say, complementarity that we have in the field, the portfolios, the strengths of combining two major players, offering to our customers a full range. The strongest range in the industry has shown huge potential, which leads to the next slide, an important slide, of course, the synergies that we are generating through this transaction. And as I mentioned, we already collected CHF 41 million in 2023, and we have a clear, let's say, pace up to CHF 180 million-CHF 200 million in the years to come.
Here outlining also how this segmentation goes in 2024 and 2025. Wonderful. But these numbers are the result of all the complementarity that we see, complementarity on the commercial side, on the sales side, as well as on the cost side, where we have a tremendous synergy potential, and we go after it, and we are doing very well on that journey. It's the people that make such a transaction work. We have invested a lot, and we still invest a lot, into staying close to the organization, the new joiners as well as the Sika organization. We measure this constantly. We call it the pulse check to see how the organization is going along with the strategic direction. Is it understood? Is it positively perceived? Here we see a picture that overall is very encouraging.
But of course, you also see points where we have to go and dial in and help the organization to improve. So it's an excellent tool for us to safeguard that the main asset of this transaction, the people on our side, on the new joiner side, are fully engaged in executing the initiatives that we have outlined for the future. Let's talk a little bit about our midterm aspiration. I think it was presented at the Capital Market Day, where we said, "Okay, yes, we are here in 2023." This slide is updated with the 2023 figures. Aspiration-wise, we are very clear. We want to continue to grow, grow profitable. Ultimately, we want to be in the 20%-23% EBITDA range going forward and 6%-9% CAGR in local currency growth going forward. I think we are well on track into this journey.
A few aspects I would like to just remind us why we are so confident, why we have such a great opportunity ahead of us. The market is huge. CHF 110 billion is our addressable market. We have 11% market share. As you can see, it's quite fragmented. Half of it is probably covered by the top 30, and the other half is then individually in local players or regional players. There's a lot to gain for us. 89% are still up for us to go for. And we intend also to raise our market share going forward, organically and inorganically.
I think the strategy, Sika-like, is quite simple: four pillars that are the engine of driving the right-hand side, the financial results, the non-financial results, which we have clearly also brought in line with our expectation, what we as a company are committing ourselves to, say, on the SBTi targets to reduce the greenhouse gas emission, but also on the people side, the column that is driving everything we do, making sure that we maintain and build on the strong engagement of our employees, but also then the natural resources to do our own homework in helping to preserve the natural resources going forward. Now, this is a slide that shows how the 6%-9% are built up and not so much on the underlying market or the acquisition. It's the core element, the key lever of the growth. It's the market penetration.
And here for us, the leveraging of our strong position, which has been a key contributor in the past six years, as outlined, still a lot more that we can expect there. If we just bring all the countries to a similar level like the average, we have magnificent growth potential. Cross-selling on the buildings, on the structures. We have so much more we can do, and we want to tap into that as well. Much more. The vertical markets are a signal for how we are addressing, as an additional dimension, also the potential that comes with the nature of the construction. Multi-channel, indirect, direct retail, which then, of course, goes more into the residential area. Huge opportunities. Our brand is the strongest brand in the industry. Let's leverage it. Let's bring it also more and more into the distribution, the retail.
We can definitely take great advantage of there. Then Christoph's preferred slogan, "Go where the money is," I think, yes, absolutely right. We invest in key markets where we know there are activities, and we want to tackle them and not waste our energy on things that are irrelevant. Key geographies, I will show another slide in this regard. That goes hand in hand with "Go where the money is." It's also focusing on not neglecting, but at the same time being aware where the key geographies of our company are. And then we have high-potential markets, specialty markets where we can also excel. And here, I would say our adhesive business is a business that has, I'd say, outstanding opportunities going forward, our cementitious business, outstanding opportunities. So I think we want here also to leverage furthermore.
The key geographies, as I mentioned, look at the map, not too much yellow, but the yellow represents 75% of the CHF 110 billion. We are in Europe. We are in the U.S. We are in China, very strong. Not to forget, the U.S. is our largest single market. 20% of our revenue is generated in the U.S. China is 10% of our revenue. It's the second largest single country. Europe, okay, 27 countries. So we aggregate that. Of course, the biggest single market by itself, but India, an emerging market. Japan, I would say, an underestimated market for many Western companies, but we have the footprint in China, sorry, in Japan. And Japan is a significant market with very interesting, specific, let's say, requirements.
I will show that in a moment, how we tap into that and benefit from all these key markets leveraging our competencies across the globe. Looking into the U.S., I think everybody is aware that the U.S. is in a change mode. The outsourcing of manufacturing, which was the theme of the past 20 years, has come to a stop. It is coming back. The industry is coming home to the homeland. And it is called reshoring and with significant projects. It's taking place. I mean, you see it in the statistics. This is an example of the Samsung factory in Austin, Texas. I was there in September. It's huge, 557,000 square meter plant. This factory has 1,250 acre size. For those that don't understand acres, this is five square kilometers, is this factory. It will generate 50,000 jobs. And the jobs generate cities around and infrastructure around.
So this is not just investment that happens, let's say, on-site. For those that live in Zurich, Zurich, the city has a size of 88 square kilometer. 5 square kilometer. It's huge. I've never seen anything like that. And they are building the first plant of 10 factories on this location. This is when America goes big, they go big. And there are multiple projects like that taking place, say, the semiconductors, say, the battery drive, say, the data centers. We see a lot of very positive momentum. And this is new build. And traditionally, the U.S. is a market where refurbishment is a dominant theme, like in Europe. But this is fascinating to see that this reshoring takes place. And we are part of that, and we benefit a lot of those activities. But talking about Japan, it's a CHF 5 billion market potential.
We all know Japan is not the growth engine. It's very stable, but it's very specific in competencies. Here, we show the high-rise building that we have helped to build in an environment that is super challenging. They always have a different approach to challenges. Those approaches make us a stronger company, contributing in Japan and taking those elements out. Our footprint in Japan has substantially increased with the three acquisitions we did in the past, starting with Dyflex, Hamatite adhesives, and lately then MBCC adding. We are a powerhouse in Japan. We want to share that then also in April when we do an, let's say, investor event in Tokyo showing how we capture the Japanese, but also Asian Pacific as a key geographic for the company. India, another key geography that is on the move.
I think for me, most fascinating is India has always been, let's say, a continent of hope. But ultimately, what makes me confident that it is different this time is the investments go into infrastructure, infrastructure first. The country is investing in building up the infrastructure in transportation, energy. That's the foundation of any development in any country. We see it in China. China invested heavily 20 years ago in an infrastructure that is well advanced to probably mature markets like Europe or the U.S. But India is now on that move. And that gives me confidence. We all know still, there's election year, and this may change. But we are optimistic that the current government will continue. And so also the continuation of that investment into meaningful infrastructure is going to be very beneficial for the country, but also for our business.
This is the famous slide that I like so much. We have the privilege to be active in a market that can only grow, that can only grow because of the megatrends surrounding. We need more construction. We are loving mobility. We have to change the way we build. We have to change. We move around. And for this, the world gets more, let's say, challenging. It's more difficult. And to navigate through that, we are the enabler. We have the solutions for sustainable construction. We have solutions to tackle raw material scarcity. We have a lot of additional, let's say, accelerating elements besides the megatrends themselves, population growth, and so on to benefit from. That's fueling our confidence in our forward-looking 6%-9% growth ambition.
If I look into some of those megatrends, the population growth, and back here to India, it's the largest single country with the largest population. This population has huge demands in infrastructure. This example here is one of them that I compare with China, a 508-kilometer-long high-speed train system. This is helping India a lot to connect while it is almost impossible to travel. If you have been to India in the last years, that's the most painful thing. This is tackling this challenge. More roads, train ports, airports are in the buildup. That's required to have a sustainable long-term growth for the economy in India. Here, we benefit immediately on these big projects, for instance, where we are at 20 different locations along the 500 km, helping to create the required concrete with the admixtures that we provide, making this fast, sweet, and efficient.
Another population growth, Africa is a growing continent or exploding continent. Some of the countries have average age of the population of 20 years. I would say in Switzerland, we are a bit above that. So that's something that will trigger, of course, future needs and demands. And here, this is an example out of Ethiopia, where this is a hydropower dam that is built to provide infrastructure, energy to this growing population. We will see more of that in Africa because it's absolutely connected to the growth of the population in this area. The urbanization, Tokyo has always been a crowded place, and it had limitations in going upwards. But here, the sky is the limit. Go further, go beyond. I was very proud to be on the Tokyo Skytree several years back, tallest building in Japan, 634 meters, I believe. That's a landmark building.
But now it goes more commercial. This building here, Azabudai Hills building, where we also will have then our investor event in, is a great example of how Japanese engineering is stretching, let's say, the limits, goes beyond. And we are part of that. We enable that. Our solution developed in Japan for Japan are enabling this. For us, of course, this is a possibility then to leverage this, bring it to the west coast of the U.S., bring it to Turkey. Of course, not the same solution, but we have the competencies coming from, let's say, the most challenging environment and leveraging this across the globe.
So here, fantastic activities that just show we benefit, first of all, of course, quite nicely on that building, but the competence that comes with our reputation as being the best source when it comes to the most challenging aspects of building, waterproofing, structural, you name it. I mean, we are clearly here a leader and building further on our leadership position. We also have, not to forget, we have built infrastructure, commercial buildings that are retuned. This famous icon in London, the Battersea Power Station, has completely been repositioned. It's now a commercial center. It's a beautiful center, I believe. Haven't been there, but I'm here. So kind of, yes, we are retuning, not tearing down and rebuilding. We maintain. There's a lot of activity going on to make this a suitable place for the new usage of that building.
You see here some examples of what goes in there, hidden, of course, because what you see, that's the surface, that's the floors, that's the high-rise ceilings, and so on. But behind, this structure needs to be from ground up re-engineered. For this, our solutions are first choice. I talked about scarcity of raw material. Here, one example is sand. I think it's clear that the old days where sand out of the river was available in excess at no cost are over. Here, we have the means to make also secondary, less-quality sources usable and still have high-performing solutions for our customers, but also for our own consumption of sand in our products that we sell. Here, we have great competencies. Again, we leverage that. It is one that is located in Lyon in France.
It is fantastic to see how this center, together with the other centers that we have worldwide, is tapping into new alternatives and make them, let's say, compatible for the future with the chemistry that we add to those sand alternatives. Labor shortages, skilled labor shortages, is an element that is, let's say, mind-boggling, holding things back. When I was in the U.S. early in the year, talking to contractors, they said to me, "I could hire 300 people immediately. I have the projects. I don't have the people." It is a major limiting factor for contractors to find. It gets worse and worse. It happens not only in Europe and in the U.S. It's a topic in China as well as in Japan anyhow. What is the remedy to that? We need a more simple solution, easy to apply.
We need robustness that you also can work with less skilled labor and still do a performing job. Technological process. I think here, the transformation of the mobility, the car industry, is, I think, evident. This opens up new opportunities for us. It started with the battery. But the batteries will also become more and more a means to level out demand peaks and become part of the grid structuring. So it may be at home. It may be in larger scale also for the energy provider, a mean to offset those peaks and level. So this is just, let's say, in an evolution. And it's not yet foreseeable where it will end. But we are part of this. And we are together with those battery producers, with those energy producers. We are working on the next generation, innovating the next generation of battery efficiency, battery reliability, and so on.
Another hot topic that I push very much is digital is the future. Construction will always be with something that is tangible. But how we construct will have a lot of digital elements in there. And here, you see some example on the upper left side. Our digital tools help to characterize the input materials, sand aggregates that go into concrete. With that, we can then fine-tune faster. We don't need, let's say, endless trial and error. We can immediately shortcut the definition of the optimal mix design through these digital tools. Then we are following, let's say, our products in the pre-cured stage until it is in place, making sure that there is no change in performance over the time until it is set in place.
The third step is then that we want to see our cured material, how it is performing over lifetime. Sensors on the roof that detect early on that there might be some leakages help to prevent major renovation costs because it's too late in detection. When it comes through the ceiling, it's too late. When it's on top and you see there is a monitor that says, "Here is some humidity," you can go spot-wise, fix it, and you save a lot of cost going forward. The same with infrastructure, bridges. Bridges are over the 50-80 years of lifespan, aging, of course. If we wait too long, the cost to remedy are outrageous, sometimes even not even possible to repair but rebuild. Sensors in the bridges can and will tell us going forward when things are starting to occur that we can selectively, spot-wise, repair.
I call it small invest in the beginning, saving big over lifespan. That's the theme. Digitalization will help us to bring this to the market and say, "Look, with us, we fix it in the beginning so that we over time have much less cost." This is the future in digitalization that we are driving. People, our 33,000 people, it is, to me, absolutely the core of everything. And I don't want to make nice statements. It's just very simple. Our people are all equal. My statement on day one with MBCC was very clear. You are as much Sika as I am. There is no difference. This is day one for you. This is day, I don't know, many days. It doesn't matter. It's not we don't look back. We are together. We are equal. And I don't want any differentiation by any characterization in our organization.
We are absolutely equal in all aspects. Discrimination or exclusion on any aspect is absolutely not allowed. It is also against our performance drive. How could we exclude a certain, let's say, group of individuals? This group of individuals represent diversity that makes us stronger. Very simple. My drive for equal opportunity, my drive for bringing this across is also performance-related. We are stronger in our diversity. That's my message to my organization. That's my message to everybody. This is very clear. We have to live this every day. A slide that we shared multiple times. It's, to me, the accumulation of everything. We had nice evolutions, performance requirements. We were growing in the years from the 1990s into the 2000s and so on. Very clear. We went higher. We had more density.
But with these megatrends challenging us, the way we are building, the way we are moving is making life more difficult, more challenging. We are the remedy for that. We have solutions, smart solutions that help to tackle those and turn those challenges into opportunities for our customer, but of course, also for our company. Great opportunities. This acceleration on this penetration curve is going up every year, going into the next 20-30 years. I'm fully convinced, and I call it a fantastic growth opportunity besides the growing need for construction overall. And with that, I would then hand over to Adrian for the financial aspects.
Very good. Thank you, Thomas, here for giving us the highlights of the very successful year 2023, but also showing here the opportunities and the initiatives going forward.
A warm welcome also from my side to all of you here in the room and the ones joining online. I will now go into a bit more granularity on the financial result in 2023. We have heard it. We have been operating in a rather challenging environment. But Sika, again, has delivered a record set of numbers in terms of sales, cash flow, and underlying profitability. Here again, the highlights. We posted a record sales level of CHF 11.24 billion in sales, passing here the CHF 11 billion mark for the first time, representing a 14.5% growth in local currency, 7.1% in Swiss francs. We significantly improved underlying profitability on various levels, particularly strong material margin expansion from 49.4% to 53.6%, an improvement of 420 basis points. But also on EBITDA level, an absolute record, CHF 2.045 billion, an increase of 4.1% in spite here of significant M&A-related one-offs.
Also, record EBIT if you exclude M&A-related one-offs at CHF 1.68 billion or 15% of net sales on a reported basis, as already heard, CHF 1.55 billion, a 1.9% decline compared to the previous year. On net profit as well, CHF 1.0626 billion, a decline of 8.6%. Record operating free cash flow. This is an all-time record, CHF 1.373 billion, almost 60% up from the previous year. Very strong cash generation overall throughout the year. ROCE was impacted by the acquisition of MBCC, 16.3% down from 21.6% in the previous year. But we have, again, as part of this strong cash generation, also showed a very significant deleveraging from, let's say, the peak upon first-time consolidation at that EBITDA level at the end of the year, already down to 2.6x EBITDA. Then lastly, as you have also seen, a continued increase of the dividend.
Here, our board of directors, again, proposes a dividend increase of 3.1% to CHF 10.30 compared to CHF 9.80 in the previous year. I will now talk about some of the elements here more specifically, starting again here on the top line, where overall sales growth of 14.5% in local currencies was clearly very heavily driven by acquisitions, predominantly MBCC, here with 13.3% adding a clear double-digit contribution to top-line growth. But also organically, 1.2% growth in a negative market and also with an improving volume trend, a clear improving volume trend throughout the year 2023. On the negative, currency effects, translation effects, very significant, -7.4%. And sometimes it's also good to see this in absolute terms, almost CHF 780 million of translation impact given the strong Swiss franc depreciation against basically all currency across the world.
But also putting this a bit in context here of the last three years, again, a double-digit growth as the two preceding years with a three-year average of more than 15% of growth, different driver and elements. But I think very clearly here also showing the resilience of our business model, the ability to grow strongly also in challenging environments. And this is due to a strong balance, be it geographically, but also in terms of maturity of the markets and many different aspects as well. Here, looking at organic growth throughout the three years, close to 10% organic growth per annum, while acquisition on average contributed 6% of additional growth. If we look at the P&L and move down here from the sales line, as mentioned, very strong delivery here on material margin, 53.6%, 420 basis points improvement over previous year.
If you look quarter-on-quarter, continued improvement also here in Q4, which marked a further expansion of the material margin, 55.1% in Q4. Overall across the year, solid pricing in combination with a gradual decline of material cost, but also ongoing structural initiatives here supporting and expanding material margin overall. As a small negative, there was a small PPA-related effect. We'll come to this a bit later. But also here, procurement synergies in relation with the MBCC acquisition supporting, all contributing here to this strong material margin expansion in 2023. On the operating cost side, and here I'm referring to both personnel costs as well as other operating expenses, these costs overall developed overproportionally, but include, as mentioned, significant one-offs related to the transaction and integration of MBCC. These one-time costs, I will then detail a bit later on when we look at the EBIT bridge.
Specifically on personnel cost, here we had an increase of 17.3% with the acquisition of MBCC, including here related one-off severance cost as the main contributor. At the same time, organic headcount development was slightly negative. However, wage inflation accounted for about 5% here of personnel cost increase on a like-for-like basis, leading to a negative cost leverage. Other operating expenses here increasing significantly by 31%. But here, the lion's share of the extraordinary one-time costs are included also in the previous year. One-time gain on our corrosion protection business sale also affecting here. And obviously, the integration and acquisition cost of MBCC, CHF 131.5 million lion's share here included in other operating expenses. If we exclude these items, these costs increase by 17%, largely here driven by the addition of MBCC.
But also due to the general inflation environment, higher energy costs, but particularly also the fact that we didn't reduce here marketing and travel costs. We maintained here a very strong customer engagement in all market-facing activities. As a result, and including all these items, EBITDA still grew, as mentioned, 4.1% to CHF 2.045 billion. On the depreciation and amortization line, here a growth of 28.9% here, primarily related to the additional intangible amortization relating to MBCC, while the overall increase in depreciation was largely in line with sales growth. Consequently, EBIT on a reported basis, CHF 1.55 billion, declined by 1.9% from CHF 1.58 billion. However, excluding these M&A-related one-timers, EBIT increased by 80 basis points, 12.7% to CHF 1.68 billion. The various elements here of the EBIT bridge from 2022 to 2023 are illustrated on that side.
Given, let's say, all the impacts, it probably warrants here a bit of a closer look and some more granularity behind it. Again, if we start here on the left-hand side with reported EBIT 2022 at 15.1% net sales and eliminating both here the one-time gain and also in 2022 acquisition costs relating to MBCC, we arrive at an adjusted 2022 EBIT of CHF 1.49 billion or 14.2% of net sales. Doing the same in 2023 on the other side of the chart, here, reported EBIT of CHF 1.5 billion, adding back here the one-time impact of CHF 131.5 million, arriving here at an adjusted EBIT of 15%, CHF 1.68 billion. Here it is 80 basis points in improvement.
But if we unpack here this M&A cost-adjusted performance further, we see a significant organic like-for-like increase in EBIT margin from 14.2% to 15.8%, strongly driven here by organic material margin, while inflationary-driven cost leverage was negative, as already alluded to. Then we have the MBCC contribution, which overall in absolute terms was significant, but is coming, obviously as expected, with an incoming lower profitability and additional purchase price allocation effects, particularly on intangible amortization in here with a certain dilution. Here, the incoming dilution effect, 50 basis points on the PPA, both the short-term as well as the ongoing amortization, 70 basis points. We can also see here the already strong impact of synergies. Here, CHF 41 million, we have heard the number very well on track and already starting to reverse here part of the initial dilution.
If you go back to the P&L and looking below the EBIT line, also here, significant impact of MBCC-related elements. Net interest cost increased by CHF 135 million, which are CHF 135 million. This represents a CHF 95 million increase, largely related to additional debt and higher interest cost in connection with MBCC, but also on the other financial expense side here, CHF 78 million. This is an increase of CHF 41 million up from CHF 37 million. Here, the main drivers are hyperinflation accounting, Argentina and Turkey, but also higher hedging cost, particularly related to an increased interest differential as well as valuation effects. As a result, net financial expenses in total increased by CHF 131 million to CHF 212.7 million overall. On the income tax side, here, effective group tax rate did see a decrease from 22.4% to 20.5% overall.
We are seeing a slightly decreasing expected group tax rate, but the effect was compounded by a positive one-time impact related to a change in estimate in deferred taxes relating to the former Parex China business and the planned here legal restructuring. This has essentially then led to a tax rate of 20.5% and overall a net profit of CHF 1.62 billion, a decrease of 8.6%. Turning to the balance sheet, obviously also here, MBCC with an impact with balance sheet total increasing by 33% to roughly CHF 15 billion. The decrease in current assets, primarily due to a reduced, but still very solid cash position that was used as a partial financing of the MBCC transaction, while working capital balances with accounts receivable and inventories decreased the ratios, albeit underproportionately due to disciplined net working capital management and also to inventory valuation effects here.
On the non-current asset side, also here, biggest contributor, MBCC, additional fixed assets, goodwill, and amortizable intangible assets, non-current assets going up from CHF 6.3 billion to CHF 10.85 billion. But given ongoing amortization, but also currency effects already reducing this balance since the initial consolidation in June by more than CHF 500 million. Looking at the passive side here of the balance sheet, the current liabilities development mirroring accounts receivable. And here, obviously also a big change, financial liabilities did increase due to a CHF 2.9 billion of Swiss franc and eurobond offering in 2023 to finance the MBCC transaction, as well as the utilization of our RCF facilities, partially offset by the early conversion of our remaining convertible bond, CHF 1.24 billion reduction.
Total financial liabilities at the end of 2023 stood at CHF 5.86 billion, an increase of CHF 1.9 billion overall compared to the end of 2022, a net debt at CHF 5.2 billion, up from CHF 2.1 billion a year earlier. Equity, as a result of solid profit generation net of dividends, as well as the early conversion of the convertible bond, increased by close to CHF 1 billion or 19%, representing an equity ratio of close to 40%. And then lastly, as mentioned, ROCE decreased to 16.3% from 21.6%. But if you adjust this for acquisition, the increase was about 200 basis points to 23.5% overall.
Turning to cash flow, one of the very strong elements of 2023, and here we see the strong increase and the components, obviously strong profitability as the basis, but also increased depreciation and amortization, which is about CHF 102 million higher than in the previous year, adding roughly CHF 500 million. But particularly also here net working capital, very disciplined management here, adding CHF 82 million of cash generation compared to about CHF 326 million of buildup in the previous year. So I think a very strong and important focus on this area generating significant upside here on the cash flow side. And then capital expenditure with CHF 273 million on a net basis, about CHF 40 million higher than in the previous year.
As a result of the strong cash generation, we have already strongly delevered here from the peak in June 2023, when we showed here the initial consolidation of MBCC, where our leverage momentarily stood at 4.1 net debt EBITDA, of course without any profitability from MBCC against it. Another key contributor, obviously, of this strong deleveraging here in the second half of 2023 was the convertible bond conversion with overall a debt reduction in the last six months from a net debt reduction from CHF 7.3 billion in mid-2023 to CHF 5.2 billion at the end of 2023, and with our net debt EBITDA ratio at 2.6x on a reported basis. Lastly, this brings me to the dividend proposal. As mentioned earlier, the board of directors of Sika proposes again a higher dividend compared to the previous year, which marks the 12th consecutive year of dividend increases.
It is proposed to increase the dividend by CHF 0.10 to CHF 3.30 per share, or an increase of 3.1%. 50% of this proposed payout will come out of retained earnings, and the other 50% out of the capital contribution reserve. The overall payout ratio here corresponds to roughly 50% of net profit attributable to shareholders. With this, I conclude here the financial part, and we will now come to the outlook for 2024.
Oh, good morning, everyone. Pleasure for me to present to you for the first time on Europe, Middle East, and Africa. I'm running the region now for four months, so I'm still a bit in the learning phase. But it's a real pleasure to get to know the new colleagues and to see also the opportunities that also EMEA has.
You know, often it's been forgotten a bit and it's standing a bit in the shadow of Americas, but there is a lot going on. I'm amazed. We just have to align now the organization to get to these opportunities here as well. So last year, the focus, you heard it also from Thomas and Adrian, the focus was on margin and pricing. I think EMEA has been doing quite a good job there. This year, the clear focus is on growth and on volume. You heard about this famous concept of go where the money is, which created a lot of growth in the Americas.
I'm bringing this now to EMEA, and we're doing a lot of workshops now with the companies trying to find out where these opportunities are, where is the money in the next two years, and then accordingly align the organization towards, you know, these opportunities that that are around. It's interesting. EMEA is a very heterogeneous region. So you've got the growth engines, Africa, Middle East, Europe East, and there it's very clear we will continue seeing very good, strong double-digit growth also this year. There is a lot going on. And then, you know, we have the DACH region. We have also a bit Europe North, for example, where I tell my guys, look, we got it. This is where we have to create growth. Growth is not falling from heaven. We have to create it.
It's maybe a little bit more challenging in these areas, but it is absolutely also possible. And there is a lot of money. I'm amazed. So infrastructure pops up all over the place. Also in Germany, I'm really impressed, you know, how much money European Union, for example, also the Deutsche Bahn, you know, they're going to invest in Germany this year and of course in the months or in the years to come to renew their infrastructure system. There is investment into nuclear plants in France. They have six projects that are ready to be built, and they're talking about eight additional nuclear plants that they want to build. In the U.K., they talk about a second one. These are huge projects for us. This is really where the money is.
Well, I mean, you've seen hydro plants projects, not only in Africa, but also in Europe. Of course, you know what's going on in Saudi Arabia. This is really unbelievable. Even for an American, this is seeing what's going on there. You know, this is really impressive. And then, for example, data centers. Interesting for me to learn, you know, what has started in the U.S., would say three, four, five years ago, is now just starting in Europe because companies want to have their data in the local company. They don't want to have their data somewhere sitting in a US data center. And it's really impressive how many data centers are going to be built by U.S. companies, actually. It's interesting. Are going to be built all over Europe.
Semiconductors, what you've seen from Thomas in Texas, you know, these are now U.S. companies going to build also semiconductors in Europe, in Germany, for example, Intel. I'm sure you heard about that, but it's not the only one. There are other semiconductors, and these are big businesses for Sika because we contribute all over these projects. So there is money to win in EMEA, no doubt. And of course, we're ambitious people. We will try to get as much as possible to participate here. Then the whole distribution topic, retail and e-commerce in particular. Here we want to make a big step forward. I must say MBCC is a very good completion of what we're doing. So in Germany, for example, we're not really strong in retail. Now these guys come with a strong brand, for example, PCI.
You might have heard of it. Check yourself in when you have a little job site at home. I'm sure you're going to see PCI branded tile adhesives, leveling mortars, tile grouts. It's a real strong brand. And these guys will help us now to build further our footprint in retail in Germany or in the DACH region here, for example. Then the whole CO2 or sustainability topic. It's on one side, of course, we're trying to reduce our own footprint. On the other side, we are pushing very strongly to turn this trend into business for us. And there is on the one side the newly integrated automotive and industry business. So the EMEA part is now run by us or by me here also. And here, of course, I think we presented this before. It's e-mobility
It's a battery assembly. There are a lot of battery plants being built in Europe, also by non-European company or car manufacturers or battery manufacturers. And of course, the whole topic of renewable energy, wind, solar. Wind is an absolute fantastic business for Sika because we help building the blades with our industry technologies. We also help to build the molds for producing these blades. But of course, we're also heavily involved in building the tower. There's a lot of concrete involved. There's a lot of grouting mortars involved, anchoring adhesives involved. And here, Sika now together with MBCC, we have an absolute fantastic footprint. On the construction side, we have a very strong initiative. So we go now and visit all these companies and institutions, universities, cities that make net zero pledges. And we present them our technologies, helping them to bring their CO2 footprint down.
So we have, for example, we're a leader in green roofs or of course also in thermal insulation of buildings, houses, etc. And we have many other technologies helping these companies and institutions to reduce their CO2 footprint. Digital lead generation, it's something where I think Europe has a bit of a backlog. This is, of course, this I bring with me from Americas where we started this very early. And I mean, really unbelievable or very good success we have here, you know, winning projects through digital channels where our customers contact us digitally. It's not the Sika salesperson going there anymore. It's a request coming through these channels. And we turn that then into business for us. And this is something we're going to push now very strongly also in EMEA.
People, I think I said this also many times before, you heard it from Thomas, this is not just a saying or a blah blah, this is key. And Sika is a fantastic place to work at for talented people, but sometimes we are maybe a bit too humble, too Swiss, and do forget to talk about it also towards a bit the outside in social media. And this is something we want to do a bit more strongly. Here now in EMEA, we have a project which we call Cool Sika. So we want to really position Sika as the coolest place to work for in the industry among, let's say, talents coming from universities, etc. And last but not least, MBCC integration is progressing very, very well. It's a pleasure to work with these guys.
It's a, you know, originally we thought they had come with a different culture than our culture, but it's totally wrong. I think they were just waiting for being part of a company like Sika, you know, where they can live their their entrepreneurial culture, their professional culture much stronger than before being part of a huge conglomerate, never really knowing what what's going on. It's super professional people. They know what they're doing. They have very good products, actually. And the combination now, Sika and and and MBCC, and that was always our target, is making this one plus one three, no doubt. So very well progressed and pleasure to see how this is now further developing. And I think now we go to Asia. Americas, I'm sorry. Hey, Mike.
Okay, friends, good morning. Good morning. Best regards from here in Boston, Massachusetts.
It's really my pleasure to briefly discuss with you our outlook for the region of Americas. Maybe beginning with North America in 2024, we expect a slightly negative organic market development overall while maintaining a really stable development in both our infrastructure and commercial construction activities. In manufacturing activities, we'll remain solid. Development in residential construction will begin a bit negative due to continuing high interest rates, but certainly will be improving in the second half of the year here in North America, particularly. For Latin America, on the other hand, we'll continue to deliver a very positive organic development across all sectors of our business. We've had a fantastic year previous year and we see that to continue now for us in Latin America.
Now looking at the surge in manufacturing facility investment, driven initially by the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies. We see here continuing huge opportunities as you've already heard about from Thomas on this fantastic Samsung project in Texas where the phase two of that project is now already underway and many projects, many phases still to come and we're active in all of those. So now here in the top image on the right side, you see a picture of our data center. This is one of over 2,500 data centers in the United States. These data centers play a crucial role in supporting our digital infrastructure, enabling connectivity and powering various online services and applications. Data centers are just one of the many targeted markets in our vertical market approach.
You heard a little bit from Christoph in this vertical market approach. This approach utilizes our unique cross-selling potential to maximize the turnover and return on each and every available project. So we pull as much turnover from those projects as possible while simplifying the construction process for our customers. Also on sustainable energy, you also heard this from Christoph. It's similar. We have these projects are really gaining steam now in the Americas with various onshore and offshore wind applications. Also hydropower projects underway in the U.S., in Mexico, in Colombia. We really have here on these facilities numerous applications for green roofing, for façade insulation, solar and EV battery plants. In these EV battery plants, of course, we not only build the factories, but we put products into the finished goods coming from those factories. We see these applications continuing to gain momentum really throughout the region.
With our acquisition now of MBCC and Thiessen in the U.S. market, we see excellent opportunities in the underground business with mining activities in Canada where we really see a big boom now in underground mining activities in Chile and Peru. And while we also see tunneling activities offer huge cross-selling opportunities across the region. Again, we're really uniquely positioned to benefit from these underground applications due to our diverse range and the experienced people. In the automotive business, here once again, we've reached the pre-COVID levels for the car build rates. This we can combine with our transformational activities in e-mobility and we'll continue to provide higher content potential for each and every vehicle that's coming off, particularly in these EV vehicles with the batteries.
So here we would like to help in the construction of the facilities and then also what goes in them, making them lighter, stronger, and of course, more sustainable. You also heard briefly about the MBCC integration activities. Here we're well on track. The synergies are coming. You heard from Adrian, these synergies continue to expand and we're really excited by the strength of the people that we picked up from MBCC. You heard from Christoph already, these people really like us and in our culture. So we were able to put these two teams together and we drove many, many synergies, particularly in the commercial side to continue to grow this business. So we're really excited where we are now with the steam. So briefly, I guess that the region is well prepared. We're ready for another great year in 2024.
Of course, I would be negligent to also mention, of course, the best people in the construction industry. I'm really, really proud of our Sika team and what we've been able to accomplish. And I'm very confident that we'll continue this great performance now to lead the industry in 2024.
And we have Philippe.
Good morning, Thomas. Good morning, Adrian. Good morning, everybody in Zurich. I'm joining remotely as well. And take the opportunity to present the future in Asia-Pacific. I think we've seen over the last past years that Asia-Pacific has been always a strong contributor to organic growth and we see that trend to continue in the years to come. I know it's a very young region from a population point of view. Over 50% of the world population lives in Asia.
And the continuation of urbanization and also the strong trend of those mega cities continuing to grow really gives us a lot of opportunities in the construction market in Asia. We see a continuing underlying market trend. We also from a market share point of view, Asia-Pacific is probably the region with the lowest market share and therefore plenty of growth opportunities. And we also see a lot of increasing building standards in the years to come. And as those mega projects, whether it's tunnels, subways, wastewater treatment plants emerged, the need for higher-end products where our products come into play are really increasing. So we see in essence, we see opportunities on all areas, whether it's infrastructure projects, whether it's commercial projects, but also in the residential market. You know, as my colleagues from three two other regions presented as well, MBCC integration is really going well.
You know, we were lucky to have a very strong team join us in May of last year. And so we start to see combined opportunities mainly in the infrastructure projects that I mentioned earlier, but also in concrete production and also in the flooring application for commercial projects. If I go into a little bit of more detail of the countries we see in China, for especially the continuous growth, this is driven especially by our distribution business, but also flooring projects in the commercial area are adding to this to this growth opportunities. And we see another strong year in these particular areas also coming up this year. Thomas already mentioned the infrastructure needs of this growing region. You know, Thomas specifically highlighted India, which the airport projects, infrastructure projects in in bridges, roads, tunnels, the high-speed trains, you know, these are all being unblocked. You see funding.
You know, when I last visited Mumbai, it was a tremendous change from three-four years ago. With all those roads being built around the city, that eased transportation. And we see continuous projects coming up, lining up. We're adding also, you know, as you see in the one plant that we built last year, we're adding capacities to be able to deliver those projects across the country that has huge needs in infrastructure. And also in Southeast Asia, another similar trend. And the success that we've had in distribution business in China the last few years, we also see that as a model to roll that out into other countries in the region.
We see India, as I mentioned, but also many countries in Southeast Asia, whether it's Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, that are a few years behind in a trend and where we're taking the learnings out of China and bringing this retail leadership journey, as we call it within the region, to other countries. And we see tremendous, you know, results already now by opening new points of sales, really copying the success that we had the last four or five years in the Chinese markets. Then the other opportunities that I would like to highlight is you see for many, you know, whether it's tariffs or other geopolitical reasons, you see many manufacturing companies, they have a China Plus One strategy, meaning that they want to build outside of China at least one other manufacturing hub.
Often you see plants being built in Vietnam or other Southeast Asian countries, but also India profiting from here. These are EV production. These are battery production, semiconductors, other light manufacturing. They all need special flooring products. And here we're extremely well positioned to work with these investors, to work with these projects, to supply our products into those projects and really enabling and profiting from this trend of additional manufacturing hubs being built in the region. The other area, Mike mentioned it as well, is in the car production rates that are going back up to pre-COVID levels. We see also our take in e -vehicles is higher than in traditional combustion engine vehicles.
And the context that we have with Japanese, Chinese, Korean, or even in Vietnam, producers of such e -vehicles really allows us to sell products into these markets in a higher growth rate. So overall, very positive outlook for the years to come for Asia-Pacific. And also, you know, we have a strong team that I inherited from Mike that was built over the years, as I mentioned, joined in May by the MBCC team, unique in the markets. And therefore we're really well positioned to profit from growing underlying markets. And would like to take the opportunity to thank all team members in Asia-Pacific that contributed to the results of last year and already started working full speed on the results of this year.
So back to Zurich now, Thomas, I think you're up next.
Thank you, Philippe. This brings me to the last slide and combining all the regions together, our guidance for this year. Early in the year, still a lot of uncertainty around us. So we have concluded 6%-9% in local currency all in is the guidance on the top line and on the bottom line. We stay a bit boring with our statement, but meaningful. Overproportional EBITDA growth is our aspiration and that's what we are going to deliver in 2024 again. The strategic targets outlined in our 2028, which are midterm targets, are clearly a focus for us to deliver in 2024. The first set of directive results, which will then over time lead into the range that we have indicated in the strategy.
With that, I would now open up for the Q&A for the next half an hour. Good. Do we have microphones?
Is it working? Oh, super. John Revill, Reuters. I've got a couple of questions, if I may. MBCC was the biggest acquisition, I think, in Sika's history. And now that's been completed. So I was just wondering, are big acquisitions possible moving forward now, or what's going to be the acquisition strategy moving forward? Is it going to be like lots of little things, or could you do something big? That's my first question. And then the second question is, a lot of Swiss industrial companies have raised concerns about the franc in recent months and the problems it's causing for them. Now, I know you guys do local for local, so it probably doesn't affect you directly that much.
But I mean, what's your views on the franc at the moment, and is it a concern? Thank you.
Okay, I think I'll work on the first one and Adrian's on the second. Well, I think the acquisition strategy hasn't changed. We are doing a bolt-on transaction as the fragmentation of the market is offering these opportunities across the globe. Big transactions are absolutely part of our midterm strategy. We will, of course, balance those, not going ballistic in our leveraging. We want to maintain our A- rating as a very solid foundation of the company. But as you can see on the chart from Adrian, our leverage is now at 2.6. It will come down in the years ahead of us, which then will open up also possibility to finance another big transaction. So we are clearly also spotting and looking out and evaluating a large transaction.
But given our current, let's say, debt level and also the deleveraging, I would say it is not something which we come tomorrow forward with a big transaction. But within our period that we have guided, I certainly see opportunities for that.
On the Swiss on the franc, I don't want to sort of evade this question, but at the same time, it's probably the most difficult question you can ask. What is the forecast on you know currency movements? I think for us, obviously, as a Swiss-based group with the largest part of the business outside of Switzerland, this is a topic. This being said, as in previous year, we continue you know to believe that obviously the direction will not change. If anything, Swiss franc will rather continue to strengthen. I think in our case, very clearly, you know the challenge is the translation.
We have a very strong natural hedge due to the, let's say, decentralized nature of both revenue and cost with, let's say, relatively little Swiss franc cost overhang. So it is here a question of, let's say, managing this year more from a translation perspective overall. And that's just what we have to live with. This is not changing anything, but we don't have big impacts on, let's say, more the transactional side given the very strong natural hedge.
Good. Chris.
Hello, thank you for taking my question. I have two, if I may. The first one is about your material margin assumption on your guidance. And the second one is about the, maybe if you can answer this question, the market share of Sika in the U.S., especially on the infrastructure business.
Okay.
Shall I take the material margin?
Yes, I mean, if you sort of look at overall, let's say, margin progression here, sort of the material margin element is obviously one of the pillars, one of the buckets we have here also guided and will continue to do that. That you know where we see the business sit overall is you know 54%-55% year material margin. We had 53.6% for the whole year. Clearly here, the ambition is to push that further here to 54% or slightly above. Obviously, there are several elements. We continue also to see here volatility on the input cost side, although there has been a gradual reduction, more of a plateauing here now with some of the materials, for example, cement, you know increasing here and there.
We have obviously topics such as the Red Sea, which is currently not having a big impact. But obviously this does infuse here you know some uncertainty on the progression. But our assumption today is probably more sort of a flat-ish development going forward, which should also with, let's say, continued pricing here, support that journey going forward with all, let's say, the other elements playing into the material margin.
Okay, and on the U.S. infrastructure market share, that's a loaded question. It's a very granular. I can say there are probably three, four main players in that field. We are one of them. I wouldn't now rate them. I think it's a healthy market for us where we have room to grow. So we are taking advantage of that.
But it would be wrong to say, you know, we are by far the largest or, you know, it is a particular market, a few players, strong players, and we are one of them. Good?
Yeah.
Yeah, thank you. Benjamin Triebe from NZZ. Also two points regarding North America, if I may. The first one, you talked about the growth potential due to the infrastructure programs. How much of this support and how much of the potential for Sika would be at risk in case of a return of Donald Trump into the White House? That would be the first one.
Okay, that's a very speculative. But short term, I don't think that we would see a stop for this already in execution. There might be shifts. There might be different priorities.
It might be that other areas would benefit. Biden as well as Trump have a very clear focus on the U.S. economy. Maybe they have a different approach how to stimulate the economy. But I'm not at all afraid and I don't take any part in this. But I would say many of these infrastructure activities have been, let's say, planned and are in execution. It would be very, let's say, cumbersome to stop them in mid execution. So I'm not concerned about that.
Thank you. And secondly, if I may, Holcim is splitting off its U.S. business. It's separating it completely and saying that would be the best way to serve the market. Would that be an option for Sika as well? And why not?
Okay. I would say let the I don't want to comment on those strategic moves.
This is a different company. This is a different business. It's a heavy material business. We are in the construction chemicals. I think when we presented our numbers of the past, you know, this company, our company has benefited a lot of our global diversity. The markets are different, you know. We leverage that across the board. Our tremendous growth and also profitability gain is based on our diversity that we have not one or two pillars. We have multiples. And it's not just the three regions. You heard it also. You know, the Middle East is a powerhouse. We benefit. Japan is different. China is, of course, a huge market. India, I think we benefit from diversity. We are local. Of course, our products are locally produced and locally adapted to the needs. But behind that, we have a great leverage.
So if we would spin off one of that, you know, we would weaken our company. And as we say, when we acquire one plus one equals three, we believe three divided by two is less than 1.5. So this is not something that we would consider. Okay. Yep. Remo.
Thank you. Remo Rosenau, Helvetische Bank. Looking at your guidance of 6%-9% growth in local currencies, including acquisitions, of course. MBCC should add 4%-5% alone. You had also a few other smaller acquisitions, so let's say five. So at the lower end of this guidance, you only expect 1% growth or basically not nothing. In 2024, I mean, that contradicts to all you said the last one and a half hours, basically. I mean, listening to all this presentation, it doesn't sound like 0% growth, you know, aside of the acquisition.
So could you elaborate on this lower end of the and even the higher end is not that high?
Sure. And that's, I think, we have to you know, we cannot change the world to the liking that we have. Our midterm strategy shows nicely what is the evolution of our growth. It has base growth from the market. It has the market penetration and acquisition. But we are at the moment in a world where we have -4% market evolution. We delivered 1.2% on top. So we have a gap of 4%. And this we cannot neglect and say 2024, everything is at zero. Now the market will give us one or 2%, and then we add, and then we add. We have to be cautious that the market hasn't overnight changed into a neutral or positive.
We still have this -4% that we are going into the year. And we just have to be a bit cautious that we don't expect that this is now in the next six months going crazy, and we have, let's say, a boost from the market. So this is guiding us to say, let's not be ignorant. You know, the market is still overall, besides all the fantastic elements that are there, we do have impacts that are holding back, let's say, our industry, and we cannot neglect that. So this 4% that the market is down when we compare to our peers is also going into 2024, let's say, the starting base. Yes, I believe that the markets will pick up. Markets like EMEA and Christoph mentioned, you know, we are hopeful at the same time.
Shall we now and at in the second month of the year bet on a huge recovery of Germany? I don't think so. China is for us a solid contributor, but it is running below its potential. The Chinese government is doing a lot to go back to, let's say, growth rates like in the past, but it is not that easy. It's more complex. Also, let's say, the geopolitical differences are not helping. I think we are just, let's say, well advised to not neglect where we come from and how fast things can change. But that doesn't change my midterm view. You know, these are wild 2020s where things go a little bit crazy, but the demand is there. The need to transformation is there. So I'm very optimistic in this regard. But you know this guidance is a guidance.
You're right. 4%-5% is probably coming. That's fair. There's organic growth in it. But one thing I can assure you, when we go on the field, we don't go on the field to tie. We go to the field to win. That's Sika. We this is our spirit. We did it last year. We outperformed. We will outperform this year. But we can't make the world, let's say, a growing environment just like that.
Okay, fair enough. Thank you. My second question on the targeted margin improvement. Let's assume you get to 54% gross margin, which would be 40 basis points more. However, is it fair to assume that a bigger positive element should come from OpEx and from personnel costs, which have increased quite a lot last year due to the known factors of MBCC?
So there is, I mean, the bigger part of the margin improvement should stem from OpEx and personnel, right?
I mean, probably here also in looking at sort of the margin progression, yes, the material margin part is one thing. There is the, let's say, call it OpEx or the leverage or the efficiency improvements. I mean, we continue to work here on many aspects, you know, throughout the value chain with very, let's say, good projects on the way. I mean, you have the leverage element relating to, let's say, the overall cost. I think we have seen a bit of a step up, although inflation has not gone away. It will also depend a bit on the overall growth driving here leverage. So that is one element where I think there is obviously upside.
And then we have, let's say, the MBCC or acquisitions where on the one hand, we will still see a certain element of additional dilution given, let's say, four more months, particularly from a seasonality perspective. And not a strong quarter, the first one, but at the same time, increasing, you know, synergy contribution overall. And we'll obviously not have most of these one-time costs in 2024. So I think there is a clear progression, but also here, I think we want to be sort of clear and simple and not take one or the other out. But similarly as to, let's say, the top line early in the year, I think we'll drive all the initiatives, but we will then be later in the year also to be a bit more specific what that means.
Thank you.
Morning, it's Jon Bell at Deutsche Bank. Could you just broaden your comments slightly on raw material costs? What would be your base case, admittedly at this early stage, for the year-on-year movement, or perhaps give us some kind of indicative range? Thank you.
Yeah, maybe here we have seen a huge increase, of course, but we also noticed that we have a flattening of the raw material cost. Last year, we had some, let's say, support from decreasing input cost, but this has leveled out. So I would say going into 2024 here, we have rather a new plateau that has been established over these three years. And we see also some commodities like cement, for instance, still going up. So the trend to, let's say, reduce slightly has stopped, and it's rather something where we have to be agile in adjusting as it comes.
Certain price adjustments are, of course, mandated. We also have a non-material inflation cost that also needs to be translated into the pricing strategy. So I would just say, yeah, it is on a higher level, and it is rather flattish. But always there are exemptions that we need to address and not to underestimate the non-material inflation cost that we also have to address.
Christian Arnold, Stifel, maybe just following that, personnel expenses. I mean, we had an increase of 150 basis points. And you also talked about a one-off. Maybe you can quantify the one-off and what do you expect for 2024? Are we going to see a further increase in personnel expenses in relation to sales? Yeah.
In terms of the personnel cost, I commented on, let's say, the underlying, let's say, inflation, wage inflation in 2023, which was around 5% on a like-for-like basis. The one-off that is included is to do with severance cost on the integration. Here the level is about CHF 20 million. That is included in the one-off cost here. For 2024, the expectation is that, let's say, wage inflation to some extent will continue, probably not quite at the level of 5%, but it will also not be back to, let's say, more normal levels, what we typically have across the group, 2%-3%.
I would still think that's going to be a bit more elevated given the fact that, obviously, there is a certain lag, particularly in some of the European countries in terms of wage inflation.
Okay, thank you. And the second question would be on operating free cash flow generation, which was great last year. Big swing factor here was working capital, plus CHF 80 million. Last year was a minus 320, so CHF 400 million swing factor, so to say. For 2024, do we have to assume normal development of working capital in line with sales, or what do you expect?
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Working capital has in the last few years been a big swing factor, as you call it. I would see clearly here continued, let's say, potential in terms of, you know, optimizing on the inventory level, for example.
Big focus is always on receivables also from a risk point of view. I think also here continue the effort. The payable side, I think an area where, again, there is some improvement. So I would rather see continued improvements of the ratio, the, let's say, overall absolute impact. I don't think it will be, again, let's say, an absolute positive contribution. But as you say, this will depend on growth going forward.
Thanks, Martin Flückiger from Kepler Cheuvreux. I have two questions, please. First one is an additional question, clarification question on your guidance for organic growth or sales growth in local currencies. I'm just wondering, based on your comments, or Thomas's comments regarding raw material prices, what is your expectation for the selling price development in 2024?
You know, I'm just trying to figure out what kind of, what the implications are for expected volume growth going forward. Because if I remember correctly, in Q1 2022, sorry, 2023, you had -8% volume growth. So the comps are getting rather easy now. And I'm, if I remember correctly as well, volume turned positive in Q4, slightly positive. So is that a trajectory that we're going to continue to see? That's my first question.
Yeah, and here, I mean, it's clear we won't have a 2022 situation where pricing will be the main contributor. We will see here a minor contribution from pricing. It is also very clear to us that our, let's say, smart pricing approach needs to stimulate that we can grow on the volume side, safeguarding our material margin, of course.
So here we don't want to go excessive. We have launched price increases, selected price increases, but the magnitude is rather minor in the overall assumption for the 6%-9%, as here we have to take a balanced approach. And that's a clearly volume-driven, not price-driven, if we exclude the acquisition part for the 6%-9%.
Okay, and historically, your pricing has been at around 1%. Is that a ballpark number that we should reckon with for 2024? That's a good ballpark number, yeah. Okay, thanks. That's helpful. My second question is on the synergies. Seems to me like the synergies you've achieved with the integration of MBCC, of the number that pops up in my head is CHF 41 million, seems a little bit larger than what you had anticipated. I thought the guidance was around CHF 25 million or somewhere around there.
So could you elaborate a little bit on the delta, why you were able to achieve the CHF 41 million instead of the CHF 25 million, and what you're expecting for 2024? Thanks.
Maybe here it's quite simple. I think we have quite significant one-time costs, and as alluded to one of them. You know, with the start of the integration in May, and then, let's say, working together with the organization over 100 days, we saw, you know, this we can move faster. You know, the CHF 25 million were our original plan to execute. We saw, why should we delay? You know, and yes, we'll rather take the hit and are blamed this year that the reported EBIT is lower than last year, while we spent that, let's say, on making sure that the synergies and the acceleration of the integration are a top priority.
That led then also to, well, let's say, significant achievements already this year, which we, of course, expect then also to deliver in the following years, and that's beneficial. To your question, you know, we have front-loaded, I would say, the integration purposefully because we saw we can do it. We have the alignment, and we have the meaningful actions, and some of them are really, let's say, high contributor. And that changed a bit the view on the aggregation of the synergies. The guidance? On the synergies.
Yeah, please.
Yeah, what do we have?
CHF 80 million-100 million run rate, which is basically CHF 40 million-CHF 60 million incremental in 2024.
Thanks.
Okay, Alessandro.
Yes, good morning, everybody. Alessandro Foletti, Octavian, thank you for taking my question.
You mentioned the interest rates being a bit of a headwind, I think, in America. I wonder if there's a way for you to quantify how big this headwind is, and if there is nothing like that similar also in Europe, or maybe not in Asia, because maybe that's not relevant, but Europe and the U.S.
That's a very difficult question, and I wonder how I can answer that, how to quantify how much it would be if we would have, let's say, the interest of before. It's not as simple. I mean, we see, of course, that some businesses are super strongly impacted by the rise of the interest.
Others may be underlying trends like the commercial, let's say, the office building construction has probably nothing to do with the interest rate that is weak because of a change in pattern that you don't need these buildings. These buildings are turned into apartments. So I think it's more complex than that, but it's clear it is headwind. And we see immediately when the interests are, let's say, talked down, that then there comes immediately to the surface activities that could then be, let's say, unleashed. So it has an impact, but I cannot quantify how much that would be.
And then a second one on the automotive side of the business. Kind of surprised to hear a lot of optimism for your side, at least that's my interpretation.
Definitely for Europe, I personally am not very positive this year, but also in general for EVs, particularly the Europeans and Americans are big troubles there. So why are you so much more optimistic?
Look, we had a terrible time in automotive. The industry was down to 75 million units. But of course, this is an industry that runs on capacity. We are back at 90 million units globally. That's positive. You know, that's kind of healthy. That's what the industry needs. And you also can see it in our numbers, that our numbers recovered very nicely in that segment, because it is back to, let's say, pre-COVID build rates. That is positive.
The transformation and, let's say, the different region, or let's say, the different accounts taking advantage of that, pushing for electrification, that's maybe a little bit less positive, especially when we look at, let's say, the German car industry that is losing momentum, and the Chinese are gaining a lot of momentum on the e-vehicle side. This is very well noticed, and this is also impacting our automotive business in Europe going forward. At the same time, we have a very strong organization in China, and in China we work heavily on the battery side with the Chinese OEMs, and we want to expand that furthermore. So but the industry itself is super challenged. And I would say, yes, some of the traditional OEMs are having not yet found the magic key to pass the way into the future.
Besides that, we have a lot of incentives that are distributed around the electrification. If that stops, you know, the pure cost of the vehicles come to the forefront, and this can also be, let's say, a delay in the expected buildup of the e-fleet in Europe, in North America. In China, not so much. China has a very clear strategy to drive the e-vehicle one way or the other. They will make it. They will push it. But it's a different environment. It's clearly a strategic target of the government to drive that as a leading technology in China.
And -
Good?
Question here. Thank you for taking my question. I have two, please. The first one, can I go back to a U.S. end market 101? So could you please remind us, what is the U.S. end market exposure?
So, for example, commercial, infra, residential manufacturing. And I think, did I hear correct that Mike started his section by saying infrastructure, he expected to be slightly negative or maintain stable. So can I get a bit more color on that? And then within that end market for residential, could you please remind us, what are the main products you sell in residential? Is that more directly to home builders for new build, or is that for via distribution channel for remodeling? So that's the first question. Thank you.
Question. Many questions in one question. I try my best. So maybe I'll start at the end. The 20% residential that I have shown as a group average is far lower in the U.S. than in the rest of the world. It's far less than 10% in the U.S.
It is, let's say, business that has built up with the big box players. So it is clearly, let's say, family, single-family home oriented, multifamily home oriented business. It has a good growth traction. But compared to infrastructure, which is a strong leg in the U.S, roofing is a very strong leg in the U.S. Commercial is a very strong. And then not to forget, the U.S. market is a market with a lot of refurbishment. 70% of our business in the U.S. is refurbishment, 30% is new build. So that's a bit to characterize our U.S. organization. The automotive business that is now also, let's say, back in the region is, of course, a substantial part here, also of the U.S. contribution.
But this would be the, you know, number one is roofing, then infrastructure, commercial, automotive, and then residential probably being the smallest contributor on that scale.
Okay, understood. And can you just clarify, did Mike say that he expected infrastructure to be negative or maintain stable, or he meant commercial?
I don't think so, because it is positive.
I'll clarify. Okay, thank you. The second question is a follow-up on the EV-related question. I think even if we believe there will be strong EV growth globally next year or this year, particularly driven by China, I think there's very little doubt that there will be a price war in order to stimulate that demand. And I think that put a lot of pressure on the automotive, the EV supply chain, particularly actually on the battery side.
So can you tell us, what are the conversations you're having with your EV battery customers? Are you already feeling the pinch, or you know, you notice anything in the way they place order and take inventory? Thank you.
Our automotive business is a profitable business. You know, that's like where we are, we have to be profitable. It's one of the most toughest businesses. My personal experience, if you come in with nothing relevant for the future, you will be pushed down in your margins, probably even below zero. They don't care, you know. So it is very clear. The push on the, let's say, efficiency on the batteries, the next generation, it's all driven by how can we together as a key supplier with the OEMs bring cost down out of the batteries, bring efficiency in.
That conversation is super key to preserve that what we deliver today is not knocked down to a level where you are no longer happy with your business. So it is a business where you have constantly demonstrate that as a prime supplier, as a preferred supplier, you are working with them on their challenge in a very competitive market. You mentioned it. The price war is out there, not only on the e- side. It's in every vehicle. It's this efficiency and this drive for leanness. I would say we stand the steam in the kitchen, and with this, this is what we have done. It's no different in the e-mobility. But the e-mobility has a bit faster cycle. This is not a five to 10 year cycle. This goes in three to five year cycles.
And we have to stay relevant, and therefore we invest into innovation. That's why we stay close to those OEMs, so that we are a preferred source also going for ward.
Okay, thank you very much. Sorry to interrupt. There are still about 100 people joining online, and we have several questions as well from the online people. And I'd like to ask here, first one, Cedar Ekblom from Morgan Stanley to come up with her question, please, and wait until you're on screen before you shoot your question. Thank you. Perfect. We see you.
We can't hear you yet.
The sound is not yet here.
It's on our side.
Cedar, can you check the sound? Is the sound all right with you? Yeah. Okay. Basically, Martin tells me here from the back that the sound is turned on.
Probably in between, we just go with Elodie as well that is ready. Sorry for letting you waiting for a moment from JP Morgan. So we try with this, and Cedar, we come back to you as far as soon as we have the sound ready.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
So my first question would be on the U.S., if you don't mind that we come back on this on the performance there. I think it was a big disappointment last year, and I think you're still a bit cautious in the near term, but we haven't really talked about the near-term trends.
So it'd be helpful if you could develop a little bit on what has caused the weakness, really, what has been the impact of the stocking cycles on your like -for -like performance in the U.S., if it was a headwind in 2023, it will be more of a tailwind this year. And how long do you think this weak performance will last? Like, is it a H1? Do you see a scope for that to stabilize at the end of Q2? What's the timeframe there, please?
Okay, that's maybe the first one. You know, the Q4 performance has quite a strong impact from MBCC. MBCC had difficulties in 2022 during the year to overcome delivery problems and had a very strong Q4 to catch up. Also, increased prices in Q1 this year, which was accelerating, let's say, buildup of sales in Q4. This has quite a substantial impact.
It's roughly 1.5%-2% of the total U.S. growth that has been negatively impacted by this organic comparison based on the MBCC. Underlying that, Q4 has been kind of similar to Q3. So no significant improvement, but also no deterioration in the volume side. Going into this year, yes, we expect that we will have some uplift as we had in the roofing business, quite a significant destocking element in the first half of 2023. At the same time, we just must also notice that the roofing business had outstanding results in 2022. 2023 has normalized. We saw it also in the second half of the year that the business hasn't, let's say, picked up so much.
So I would say underlying, we expect in roofing a normal year, so to say, with some uplift from the destocking side, but not a major boom like we have seen in 2022. We should also not be misled by the construction volume in the U.S., which is quite high. And this is, of course, driven as more new build goes into construction, you have a much higher volume in construction than when you traditionally have more on the refurbishment side. We participate on that new build, but the ratio on a new build compared to the total volume that the building or the structure builds is, of course, lower than on a refurbishment shop where not the whole structure is built, but rather, you know, the roof is replaced, the waterproofing is upgraded. This is deteriorating a little bit.
The ratio, when you look how much has the construction business grown in the U.S., there is a shift in going into reshoring, going into infrastructure, new build. That is a bit misleading. Nevertheless, you know we expect the U.S. to improve. So this stagnation in Q3, Q4, we don't take as a baseline for the full year 2024.
Thank you. Can I just push a little bit on H1? Would you expect to see a positive like an improvement as soon as H1? Would you should we expect positive performance on a like -for -like basis in H1?
Positive in volumes.
Okay.
Yeah. I mean, it will not be positive in volumes because we still have a negative volume there. I expect that to improve, but it will still be negative.
So we have roughly a, let's say, 3%-4% negative volume. This will not turn into positive in H1. But it will improve.
Okay, that's clear. And then can I just have a follow-up on MBCC, just a little bit of housekeeping? I think on the synergies, you were quite clear. On integration costs, you had guided, I think, at the CMD about CHF 230 million, and you did already CHF 200 million. So is it ballpark okay to think CHF 30 million for 2024?
Yes. Yeah. I mean, this I don't see this to go higher. Thomas mentioned it. I mean, this has been sort of heavily sort of front-loaded in terms of the activity. So yes, that I would see CHF 20 million-CHF 30 million in 2024.
Okay, great. Thanks very much.
You're welcome. So are we back to Cedar, or?
Let's try it once again.
Yes, Cedar. We just take you up, and then let's check whether we have now some sound. Same good way to see you. We hear you. We don't hear you, so. Otherwise, you text us, and then.
Can you hear me now?
Oh, yeah.
Yes.
Good. Perfect.
Okay.
Magic.
Okay. Sorry. Sorry. You would have thought after the pandemic, I'd know how to use Zoom. But anyway, I just have a question on your margin comments. I'm surprised that you're not more ambitious on gross margins for 2024. And the reason I think that is, ultimately, in the fourth quarter, you did 55% gross margin.
You're telling us that there's a little bit of tailwind from pricing to think about into 2024, that your raw material costs are no longer going down, but I don't think you're giving us an impression that there is a lot of raw material cost inflation coming through. So what are we missing in terms of why your gross margin is not closer to the top end of the 54%-55% range that you'd set rather than at the bottom end? So that's the one question on gross margins. And then just on your EBITDA margin, if we think about the moving parts into next year, you've probably got a 90 basis point tailwind on the fact that your MBCC costs will be a lot lower.
You've probably got at least 60 basis points on gross margin, then potentially a little bit of operating leverage if we get volume growth into the second half of the year. So the question is, is the 20% EBITDA low end of the range really something that we need to wait for for the full MBCC synergies to be realized, which is where the current guidance is? Or is that something that we could actually potentially realize in 2024 if we get operating leverage, which clearly is an open debate at the moment? Thank you.
Yeah. Well, thanks for that challenge, Cedar. I was kind of expecting that. If obviously, you look at the progression and I was talking about this, there is these different elements. We also said, as you pointed out, that the 20%-23% target range is the target once MBCC synergies have realized.
I don't think you should expect for 2024 that we're at the 20% already, although we're making good progress on the synergy side. But there is, as I was pointing out, let's say, these let's say moving parts. There will be an additional incoming dilution due to sort of the full consolidation of the 12 months. On the material margin side, this is probably a bit a cautious guidance here, understood. But I think, again, here, there is a level of volatility. Uncertainty will certainly progress in that direction. But early in the year, many, let's say, different factors, also foreign exchange plays a role, and so on. But I think we're making clear progress, but I would, at the same time, also defer a more, let's say, clearer guidance then to later on in the year.
Okay. You're pleased, Cedar.
Let's go on and have another question from HSBC, Brijesh, please.
Hi. Can you hear us?
Yes. Super. Thank you.
Great. Thank you. So firstly, just to understand your strategy for emerging markets, it's great that you're talking about there is a significant potential in India, and we do see that in China already. But when you look at the penetrations, can you give us an idea how the business kind of evolves? For example, you have put in a plant in east of India. If you were to put five, 10 plants in probably one year, two years, is that something, a possibility you could do it? Because I'm just understanding if there is significant growth, what is stopping you to put four, five plants just or just putting one plant may take I mean, the cost-wise, it's not high.
I just wanted to understand how you're thinking behind getting into a market and growing that. And the second question is more about China. We do see that things have not kind of improved much. So distribution, you had growth. If you could give us a little more color about 2024, what you expect in terms of distribution and project segment. Sorry if this question is not already answered. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. And in India, I think we do have a footprint with 12 factories at the moment. We have significantly increased our footprint with the MBCC transaction. We want to move fast. It's an economy on the move. And you are right. Go little one by one is probably not the right recipe. So here, it's very clear we want to cover more of the market organically, but also inorganically.
That would be an exciting, let's say, bolt-on to further tap into that market potential. But we have a solid footprint in India. And yes, we make further investments, organic and inorganic, as we see that here, let's say, time is of essence. This is fast-moving. There are local competitors that are also ready to take advantage. So we are up to that. And we will use all the means that we can, let's say, mobilize to get ahead and win market shares in India. In China, our distribution business in China, which has been very resilient despite the residential downturn, we expect also to deliver strong growth in 2024. We expect double-digit growth ± from that unit alone.
But we also expect that the more traditional Sika business will benefit from a clear drive towards more qualitative construction, given the five-year plan of the government addressing, let's say, some of the weak spots of the past buildup of infrastructure with, let's say, with specifications which are not up to what they should be. So I think we will benefit as a clear leader in influencing the GB standards in China for new construction. And this gives me also confidence as one of the only global players being active in China that we can influence and benefit from, let's say, the upgrading of the standards and construction quality overall. So both the distribution as well as the more direct business, I see good opportunities. But China is in, let's say, in different mood at the moment. The government tries to stimulate.
It hasn't yet found the magic key to unlock former growth patents. So that is probably still something which will prevail in 2024. But in the longer run, we are also in China for China. And we contribute with our means, with our R&D center that we have built, with our connections to the specifiers in creating here also a business base for future growth.
Can I ask a supplementary on China, please? Would you be able to help us to split between distribution and the project segment business there? Distribution business, with its great growth traction, has clearly surpassed the direct business.
So it is quite sizable, and it is dominant in our aggregation.
Understood. Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you very much.
And thank you very much for everybody for waiting. We still have more than 180 people now joining online.
And we have a lot of questions. We can't take all the questions. Sorry for that. But Arnaud Lehmann from Bank of America, please as well join us with your question.
Very good. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Hear and see you. Yes.
Excellent. Good morning to everybody. Or good afternoon, actually, now. Three questions, if I may. Hopefully, they're quite brief. Just coming back on your margins in Asia-Pacific and the Global Business in the second half, very strong delivery, much higher than in the first half of both divisions. Was there any one-offs, or do you think if that was the underlying business, do you think that's sustainable into the first half and 2024? My second question is on wage inflation. Can you discuss I think you discussed your view up to 5%.
But in the Q4 and the second half, what was the underlying wage inflation, and what was the integration of MBCC? And lastly, can you give us an indication of the tax rate for 2024? I think it came down quite a bit in 2023, but there was effect from the various moving parts. So guidance for 2024 would be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah. Yes. Thanks, Arnaud, for the question. Let me try to address them one by one here on the performance of Asia-Pacific Global Business. No, there is no one-offs included here in the second half here.
It's an ongoing, let's say, improvement progression here as we have seen sort of across the board of the business, particularly in Global Business, having been challenged in the two years before on various fronts, let's say, volumes, margin, also taking a bit longer to establish the pricing level again, also taken here the opportunity to improve and optimize. So that's an ongoing improvement of the business. And also in Asia-Pacific, there is no one-offs included. On the wage inflation, I commented on the effect on the full year 2023. Second half of Q4 was not marginally different to the 5% going forward. As said, I would still assume a certain elevation of that level, but most likely a bit lower than the 5% overall. And then on the tax rate, yes, there was this one-off effect.
If you look at underlying expected tax rate without any one-offs for 2024, we're sort of looking at 23%-24%.
Very good. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Arnaud.
Good.
Further questions here in the room? Cassandra?
[audio distortion] can you provide, before Q1 [audio distortion]
Yes. We will do that.
Okay. Dominik, so we are at the end. Thank you a lot for joining us for this discussion here, the presentation of our results 2023, but also our expectation for 2024. I sense you get the feeling that we are always optimistic, but we are also cautious that we can't make the world the way we would like it to be. It is still a very volatile environment, good trends offset by not-so-good trends. Overall, we believe, we in Sika, we have the luxury, and we have the future in our hands, the destinies in our hands we can create.
And we will also in 2024 drive towards the goal, delivering top-line growth and delivering overproportional bottom-line growth. That's our DNA. That's where we go up for. And I look forward to our next interaction then in summer when we will share then again the full set of numbers. In between, we will have our Q1 top-line communication, and we can then further elaborate. I look forward for those that are sitting here to have a quick bite together. And for the others, I might see you next week in London or somewhere else on this planet in the near future in Japan. You are all invited to come to Japan, of course. It will be exciting to spend some moments there, understanding better the nation and especially the Japanese markets. So thanks for joining us today, and looking forward to the next time to interact. Thank you.
Yeah.