Wonderful. Good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the AGRANA Results for the full year 2023-24 conference call. My name is Francie, the call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Hannes Haider, responsible for investor relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AGRANA's conference call presenting our annual results 2023-24 financial year. You already got some insights in our figures when we published in our talk announcement on the 16th of April. Today, we will provide you with more details on all segments and on the audited financial statements. As announced in our invitation, a presentation is available in reference to our call, and you can find this presentation in the IR section of our website. With us today are two out of three members of our management board. Stephan Büttner, our CEO, will start the presentation with an overview on the highlights of the last financial year. Afterwards, Chief Technology Officer Norbert Harringer will tell you what is going on in the group regarding raw materials, production, and investment. He will also report on the ESG news.
In the third part of the call, CEO Büttner will comment on the market environment. He will report on the consolidated audited financial statements in detail. Afterwards, he will conclude with an outlook for the new financial year 2024-25. The presentation will take about 30 minutes. After the presentation, the lines will be opened, and the CEO and CTO will be glad to answer your questions. Now I may pass over to our CEO, Stephan.
Yeah. Thank you very much, Hannes. So welcome from our side. So let's start with a quick overview of our financial year 2023-24. So the business environment was still very volatile. Despite that fact, we were able to record an operating profit EBIT of EUR 151 million. This is a significant increase versus prior year where we had EUR 88.3 million. So we were able to deliver our guidance. What moves us forward? Of course, we still are focusing on our sustainability strategy on the execution of, of course, also of our SBTi targets, that were validated in the last financial year. Shaping the future. So at our annual general meeting, which took place on the 7th of July 2023, so we presented the cornerstones of the AGRANA growth strategy.
So we are currently working with high intensity on sharpening our corporate level strategy, and we hope that we will be able to report on that in the coming months. The financial outlook for 2024-25. So, of course, we are currently still facing a difficult market environment in starch, especially in the ethanol prices, which are highly under pressure due to imports from Brazil on one hand and the United States on the other hand. And also, we see declining sugar prices in the European Union. The key numbers of the financial year. So we had a revenue of nearly EUR 3.8 billion, an increase of 4.1% versus prior year. EBITDA with EUR 291.1 million, also an increase of 5.1%. The operating profit, a significant increase of 11.6% up to EUR 176.7 million.
The EBIT after special effects with EUR 151 million also is a very significant increase versus prior year. Earnings per share, EUR 1.04. We want to highlight that we have a new management board in place since 1st March 2024. Norbert Harringer is our CTO. Stephan Meeder, the CFO of Südzucker Group, will be our Chief Audit Officer. I'm currently holding the CEO position. Let me hand over now to Norbert, who will cover raw materials and CapEx.
Thank you, Stephan. Ladies and gentlemen, also from AGRANA, a very warm welcome to our today's conference call. After the highlight, overview by our CEO, Stephan, let's start with the front stage in our supply chain. What happened in fiscal year 2023-24 regarding raw materials and production? As you know, one of AGRANA's essential core competencies is the large-scale processing of agricultural raw materials into all our different industrial products. And also in the last financial year, our three segments, fruit, starch, and sugar, processed a huge amount of agricultural raw materials. It was a worldwide total of approximately 9 million tons, around 400,000 tons more than in the previous fiscal year. 5.7 million tons of beets and around 300,000 tons of raw cane sugar were processed as raw materials in the sugar segment.
In the starch segment, our five plants processed about 2 million tons of corn and wheat and around 200,000 tons of potatoes. Of the 800,000 tons of fruit processed in the fruit segments, a very large proportion is apple, which is the main input material for fruit juice concentrates production, while strawberry accounts for the majority of fruit preparation production, with a total of around 70 different fruits being processed in this business line. After this general volume overview, I would like to highlight now what moved us in the segments in detail. In the last fiscal year, about 336,000 tons of raw materials were purchased for the fruit preparation activities compared to 340,000 tons in the prior year. The lower consumption of raw materials is explained mostly by reduced demand in China's plants as a result of the declining yogurt market in China.
The average raw material prices for fruits and ingredients were down slightly overall from the prior year. Higher sugar prices were offset by price reductions on fruits and stabilizers. The 2023 apple crop in the fruit juice concentrate business was slightly reduced from the previous year as there was less availability of raw material in Poland and in China. At the Ukrainian side, the apple processing volume reached an average level despite the difficult circumstances. Due to the high processing volumes of red berries from the 2022 crop, demand for berry juice concentrates in the last fiscal year was significantly lower than in an average year. Accordingly, about 30% less red berries were processed in the last campaign. In 2023-24, AGRANA Stärke GmbH processed approximately 26% less corn at the Austrian sites in Aschach and Pischelsdorf than in the year before. The share of specialty corn was about 24%.
Wheat milling volume at the Pischelsdorf facility for the production of wheat starch and bioethanol was up slightly in 2023-2024 from the previous year. Through delivery contracts, concluded with growers in advance, AGRANA also secured ethanol wheat. At the two Austrian locations, a total of about 1.33 million tons of corn and other cereals was processed in the financial year. Regarding the decreasing trend on the spot markets for starch raw materials, I will elaborate shortly going on with the next slide. Coming finally to the sugar segment, I have to state that the beet processing in the last campaign went well, with significantly better capacity utilization and a higher sugar production volume than in the previous year. AGRANA's seven beet sugar factories processed a combined daily average of slightly more than 48,200 tons of beet during the campaign. Compared with the prior year, there was 47,800 tons.
Thanks to the higher total beet quantity, the factories produced a total of 806,000 tons of conventional sugar. Compared with the prior year, there was 717,000 tons in a campaign averaging 119 days in length. Looking to the next campaign, we would like to inform you that a further increase in beet planting acreage was achieved in the negotiations with our growers for the contract production of beet in 2024. As mentioned before, we see on slide number eight some remarks on the price developments of wheat and corn. Since the beginning of the fiscal year 2023-2024, grain commodities prices have moved downward, with the exception of two counter movements for wheat in summer and autumn 2023, with prices falling significantly by the end of the last fiscal year.
These prices' declines on commodity exchanges were caused by lower demand and absence of further escalations of the war in Ukraine, agreed export corridors from Ukraine, large harvests in important production regions, and the competition for export volumes. At the balance sheet date of the last of February 2024 on Euronext Paris, wheat quoted at EUR 191 per ton and corn was at EUR 178 per ton, compared with the year earlier, EUR 274 per ton for wheat and EUR 279 per ton for corn. Ladies and gentlemen, as always, I would like to provide you now with a short ESG update. With the future in mind, our commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility remains one of our guiding principles.
In this context, we are pleased that in autumn of the last year, the Science Based Targets initiative, SBTi, the globally recognized non-governmental organization, completed its review of the AGRANA Group's ambitious climate targets and officially confirmed that they are in line with the 1.5-degree centigrade goal of the Paris Climate Agreement. At the beginning of September 2023, this made us the first food company in Austria with validated emission reduction targets. By 2030-2031, under these targets, AGRANA plans to cut emissions from its own production operations, that means Scope I and Scope II, by 50% and reduce those in its upstream and downstream value chain, that means Scope III, by about 34%. We continue to invest in initiatives aimed at reducing our environmental impact, improving resource efficiency, and promoting sustainable agricultural practices.
Thus, in the third quarter of the last business year, another regular round of verification of the farm sustainability assessments was successfully completed at AGRANA's contract growers of beet, potatoes, and corn in Austria and of apples in Hungary as well. The ISO 50001, the energy efficiency certification, of sugar and starch factories were also renewed. Ladies and gentlemen, at the last point in my part, I will conclude with an overview on our investment activities in the last fiscal year and what we plan for the new, the current fiscal year. In the last year, AGRANA invested a total of EUR 127.3 million or EUR 24.4 million more than in the prior year. Purchases of property, plant, and equipment and intangibles were thus above operating depreciation and amortization, with the distribution by business segment you can see on slide 12.
The main focus of capital expenditures in all segments was on energy efficiency projects and product quality improvement. The following individual investments were made in our fruit segment: the expansion of raw material storage in Jacona in Mexico, an expansion of the food service section in our factory in Centerville in Tennessee, a new wastewater treatment plant in Ostrołęka in Poland, and the installation of energy-saving mechanical vapor compression technology in two of our fruit juice concentrate factories in Poland. The following projects were carried out, among others, in the starch segment: measures to increase specialty corn processing in Aschach here in Austria, the expansion of the company wastewater treatment plants in Aschach and in Gmünd in Austria, and the upgrading of our cooling performance in Pischelsdorf.
In the sugar segment, AGRANA invested EUR 34.4 million primarily for the following projects: the modernization of the control systems in Leopoldsdorf here in Austria, the production process optimization through replacement of the filter presses in Sereď in Slovakia, and the optimization of the evaporator station in our sugar factory in Kaposvár in Hungary. The total investment across the three business segments in the current financial year at approximately EUR 120 million euro is expected to be moderately below the last year's value and thus only in line with the budgeted depreciation of about EUR 120 million euro. Around 12% of this capital expenditure will be for emission reduction measures in the group's own production operations as part of the AGRANA climate strategy. Investment in the fruit segment this year is budgeted at approximately EUR 56 million, which is about 25% above the expected level of depreciation.
The plant's main focus is on asset replacement, maintenance investment, as well as production optimization. The budgeted investment volume for the starch segment this year is about EUR 34 million. It will thus be approximately 30% below the level of depreciation. Most of the capital expenditure will go to product optimization and plant modernization projects. The capital expenditure for about EUR 30 million euro planned in the sugar segments for this business year are expected to slightly exceed depreciation. Besides asset replacement and maintenance investments, the spending is being directed especially to energy savings, productivity gains, and yield improvement. So, ladies and gentlemen, let me now hand it back to Stephan Büttner.
Yeah, thank you, Norbert. So, let us have a look at the market environment in the financial year 2023-24. So, we were quite happy with the developments in our fruit segment, in the fruit preparations business. So, we had stable sales volumes for the dairy customers. Markets in Europe, the USA, Mexico, and Australia were quite strong. Also, we had significant growth in our strategic growth areas: food service and ice cream.
In the fruit juice concentrate business, yeah, the situation also remains stable and to our satisfactory. So we had improved contribution margins in the apple juice concentrate, especially from the crop 2022. Starch segment, we already had some headwinds, so we saw lower sales volumes as well as lower sales prices. So, we know that the overall market environment is still challenging, especially in the construction and paper industry, but also in the food industry. We see declining raw material prices. On one end, it helps us for a lower cost basis. On the other hand, we also have to reduce sales prices at our customers. Ethanol was very challenging last year.
So, we had a shortfall in our profit of more than EUR 20 million versus prior year. This still is under pressure. The Platts quotations are still under pressure. Main reason for that are high import volumes from Brazil and the United States. Sugar segment, yeah, a big challenge, were the increasing import volumes from Ukraine, especially in our core markets: Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria. So, overall, we nearly lost 15% of our total sales volume, which, of course, in the commodity business is a very significant negative impact. So, let's have a look at the revenue by segment. So, the EUR 3.8 billion in total, thereof EUR 1.56 billion were made in the fruit segment. So, this is an increase of 5.7%, mainly driven by higher sales prices and some volume growth, in the food service and ice cream channel.
In starch, of course, due to the lower sales volumes and the declining sales prices, we had a reduction in our revenue of 11.2%. In sugar, despite the lower sales volumes, we could increase our revenue by 24.3% up to more than EUR 1 billion euro revenue. The profitability, EBIT by segment, so a significant improvement in our fruit segment. So, we were negative last business year with -EUR 38.5 million, but there was also included an asset or a goodwill impairment of nearly EUR 90 million. Also, this year, we had extraordinary negative effects of EUR 20-25 million euro in the fruit segment, but overall, the operative profit of EUR 85 million was a solid result. In starch, the reduction of nearly EUR 30 million, mainly due to two factors. On one hand, we are missing EUR 20 million euro profit from the ethanol business.
On the other hand, also, our joint venture in Hungary, Hungrana, had a nearly zero result, whereas the profit was nearly EUR 10 million in prior year. So, in total, we are missing here the EUR 30 million. And, in sugar, of course, declining sales volumes. On the other hand, higher prices overall, including also the holding costs, a decline of 13.3% down to EUR 40.4 million EBIT. The financials, consolidated income statement are already reported, on the main KPIs. So, revenue EUR 3.8 billion, EBIT EUR 151 million, significant increase.
The EBIT margin with 4%, yeah, it's, it's, it's not where we want to be in the future. Of course, I mean, with the with the total, amount of EUR 151 million, also taking into consideration that we had nearly a zero result from our equity, consolidated joint ventures, where the profit in the prior year was EUR 20 million in total.
We also are missing the EUR 20 million from our ethanol business. I would say that the 4% EBIT margin is okay for the time being, but here, of course, we need a further improvement. The profit for the end of the period, of course, also highly affected by our financial results, which is more than minus EUR 15 million, of course, due to the very high interest rates compared with prior year and also our higher net financial debts in average. Exceptional items, yeah. I already mentioned it, fruit segment EUR 20.8 million. Also in the fruit juice concentrate business where we will close one factory producing carrot juice concentrate and also an asset impairment on our operations in China. In the fruit preparations business also, we impaired our assets in China or, let's say, Asia with around EUR 17.8 million.
And then also we had to make some provisions for restructuring in Europe, mainly for the future reduction of our FTEs in Europe. And these are provisions that we have to pay to the employees who are leaving AGRANA. The energy costs in the mix. So we see, of course, a decline of nearly 16% in our energy costs, of course, mainly driven by lower prices for electricity and gas. So it goes in the right direction, I, I would say. Net financial items, I already mentioned that we had a very high net interest expense of EUR 32.3 million, total net financial items minus EUR 53.3 million. Here we need to work on that. So we need to decrease our working capital significantly to decrease also our negative net financial result. And tax rates, there's nothing special to report with the 29%. The consolidated cash flow statement, yeah.
Operating cash flow before changes in working capital EUR 316.3 million, changes in working capital minus EUR 46.1 million. Yeah, result of a net cash from operating activities EUR 240.2 million. And we also had a positive free cash flow of EUR 125 million in the financial year 2023-2024. Balance sheet, there is nothing special to report on. Current assets are still quite high, of course, mainly driven by our working capital, still influenced by high raw material prices, especially, and high inventories. Equity ratio with 43.2% is solid. Net debt decreased to EUR 636.1 million. This is a decrease of 7.1% versus prior year. Gearing with 51% is, yeah, acceptable, I would say. So then let me come to the dividend proposal.
So we will propose to the annual general meeting, which takes place on the 5th of July 2024, a dividend of EUR 0.90 per share for the 2023-2024 financial year. There is no change in the dividend payout versus the financial year 2022-2023. So this then would mean, based on the closing share price at the last balance sheet date, a dividend yield of 6.7%. The financial outlook, yeah, here we must, we have to report that we expect a significantly lower EBIT in 2024-2025 than in 2023-2024. So, as already mentioned, we see challenges ahead, especially in the sugar and in the starch business. And our revenues for the full financial year 2024-2025 are expected to decrease slightly. Outlook for 2024-2025, by segment. So in fruit, revenue should be stable, EBIT with a significant increase, starch a slight decrease in revenue and a significant decrease in EBIT.
And sugar, we here expect a moderate decrease in revenue and a very significant decrease on EBIT level. The outlook for the first quarter, yeah, will be in line with our total outlook for the full financial year. So for the first quarter, we expect a significant decrease on EBIT level. Thank you very much. And let me hand over to Hannes for the financial calendar.
Thanks. Before we go on with the Q&A session, I just wanted to remind you that our integrated annual report, 2023-2024 was published today in the morning. And we would like also to invite you to visit our digital annual report on reports.agrana.com. And having a quick look on our financial calendar, I just wanted to highlight that our AGM will take place on the 5th of July. We will now go on with the Q&A session.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. Our first question today comes from Baptiste de Leudeville. What was your question?
Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone. Thank you all for the presentation. I have a question on sugar. It's my question is simple. It's regarding the situation with the Ukrainian imports in some of your key markets. How do you expect some developments? I imagine that developments it's at the EU Commission level, I guess.
But do you expect some new developments that would be in favor or positive developments, compared to Q4? And also, in link with this, is it possible to imagine that the operating profit or operate at the operating level, you make some losses this year in the sugar business? Thank you very much. And the second question is about, can you remind us of the portion of variable interest rates, your exposure to variable interest rates and fixed interest rates, at the debt level? Thank you very much.
Yeah, thank you very much for the question. So, let me answer first the sugar-related question. So, yeah, Ukrainian imports increased significantly up to 500,000 tons duty-free into the European Union in the year 2023.
There was a decision made by the European Parliament that duty-free import volumes will be limited for the calendar year, sorry, in 2024 to 265,000 tons. This is the average of the second half of 2021, the year 2023, 2022, and the year 2023, of imports coming into the European Union from Ukraine. So, this regulation will become effective from June 2024 onwards, which, on the other hand, means that till this date, volumes will still come into the European Union. For the calendar year 2025, this means duty-free import volume of 110,000 tons till the 5th of June, 2025. And then, yeah, a new, a new policy, yeah, must be decided, let's say, or we will fall back to a duty-free import volume of 20,000 tons as it was before June 2022. Or 2022, yeah, sorry.
This is the actual development on the imports of Ukrainian sugar. Our profitability for the business year 2024-2025 is quite difficult. Visibility is quite low currently, but what we can already see is that the market prices for sugar are, yeah, let's say, under pressure. So, we cannot, yeah, let's say, exclude that we also make operative losses in the financial year 2024-2025, but all depends on the future price developments, yeah. We will see what impact these regulations on import volumes of the Ukrainian sugar will have on the markets, as we also saw, the world market prices fell down significantly in the last weeks. So, yeah, the industry in Europe is again under pressure. The last question was the split of interest rates, fixed and variable. I think it's a 60/40 split, yeah. 60% is variable and 40% fixed interest rates.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Thomas Unger from Erste Group. Please go ahead.
Yes. Well, thank you very much, Elsa, for taking my question and for the presentation. I'd like to ask you, coming back to the FY outlook, 2024-2025, you talked about sugar. Maybe you could talk about what you expect for the starch segment for the full year and then also how you arrive at the pressure on profitability in Q1. What developments have you seen or what do you expect for the first quarter 2024-2025? Thank you.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So in the for the starch segment, our current expectation is a decrease, I would say, around on EBIT level of around, yeah, maybe somewhere between 15%-20%, potentially for the full financial year. The first quarter in total, we had a very good first quarter in 2023-2024. We must say we reported an EBIT of more than EUR 63 million. So when we say that we expect a significant decrease, this means a range between -10% and -50%. I would go rather in the direction of -50% than in the direction of -10%.
Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one. And our next question comes from Teresa Schinwald from Raiffeisen Bank International. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning. Thanks for the presentation. But I also have a guidance question, and this time regarding the fruit segment, where you see the EBITs up. But am I right to assume that this is based on the EBIT that has been impaired, that that has been suffering from impairment? That's the first one.
The second one is, there has been some talk that, due to rising other commodity prices, especially also fruit juice, the sugar content in some beverages might increase. What's your take and potential impact regarding these, this conversation? And the last one is on, some regulations have been lifted following the farmer protests. Do you already see any impact on your business from that? Thank you.
Well, so, yeah, so first answer is yes for the first question. Second question, fruit juice.
I think you are referring to the situation in the orange juice concentrate and orange juice not from concentrate area. So this is yeah, this is a huge issue for the juice industry. I mean, I also saw the recent discussion about from Eckes-Granini, for example, where they are selling now nectar instead of juice, which means, of course, nectar the difference between a nectar and the juice is that nectar also consists of sugar, yeah, up to 50%. And I think this is yeah, this is something which has to be done because there is not enough availability of pure or, let's say, 100% juice in the orange juice sales. So, yeah, there might be added sugar, but then it's not the juice anymore. It's a nectar.
So the consumers must be educated in that direction so that they have clear visibility what they are buying. What this means is there a big impact to the sugar sales volume? I would say no. And the third question
The third question was, what, was the result of the farmers' protests and and regulation, which, didn't come, into place? Yes. This, we understand, the protests of the farmers, which we had, in the last month. And, one of the results was that the new Sustainable Use Regulation was not, taken in place. And, this will lead, the European, environment that we will be able also in the future to have a safe supply with, food here in Europe.
Thank you very much.
That was our last question. And I would like to turn the conference back to Hannes Haider for any closing comments. Yep.
As there are no further questions, thank you for your interest in AGRANA and your participation in the call. Have a nice remaining day. Goodbye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the.