Ladies and gentlemen, it is 1:00 P.M. The 2024 Annual Shareholders Meetings of Becton, Dickinson and Company is called to order. I am Tom Polen, BD's Chairman and CEO and President, and I am pleased to welcome you on behalf of our directors and officers. To my left, I would like to introduce Gary DeFazio, BD's Senior Vice President and Corporate Secretary, and Alisa Zagare of Computershare Trust Company, our Inspector of the Elections. Next, I would like to introduce the Board of Directors members who are standing for election at this meeting. Biographical information for each director appears in our proxy statement. I'd like to introduce Bill Brown, Kathy Burzik, Carrie Byington, Andy Eckert, Claire Fraser, Jeff Henderson, Chris Jones, Tim Ring, Bert Scott, and Joanne Waldstreicher
We're also pleased to have here with us today our Director Emeritus, Henry Becton, and our former Chairman and CEO, Vincent Forlenza. Finally, I would like to acknowledge Marshall Larsen, who is retiring from the board following this annual meeting. I want to thank him for his many years of service and extend to him our best wishes on behalf of BD and our shareholders. I would like to now introduce the executive officers of BD who are here today. Christopher DelOrefice, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Michelle Quinn, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, and Shanna Neal, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer.
As a reminder, we will not address any questions or permit any commentary that are irrelevant to the business of the company, derogatory to individuals, or that are otherwise in bad taste, or that are related to personal grievances, or a matter of individual concern that is not a matter of interest to shareholders generally. Additionally, we will defer any questions about the company's current business results or full fiscal year guidance outlook until our upcoming first quarter earnings call. The corporate secretary of the company will now report on matters related to the meeting. Thank you, Gary. The minutes of the 2023 annual meeting are available for inspection. I recommend that we dispense with the readings of the minutes. Hearing no objection, we'll move to the proposals included in the proxy statement. Each item will be discussed after it has been moved and seconded.
Please hold all comments and questions that do not relate to the proposal under consideration until later in the meeting. If you wish to speak, please move to the closest microphone, give your name and the number of shares you own or represent. To ensure enough time for all those who wish to speak, please limit your question and comments to three minutes. The first proposal is the election of the nominees for director, listed in the proxy statement, to serve for a term of one year. I will entertain a motion and a second to put this proposal to a vote. Is there any discussion of the nominees? If there is no further discussion, we'll move to our next item of business.
Proposal two: The second proposal is to ratify the selection of Ernst & Young as the independent registered public accounting firm of the company for fiscal 2024. I will entertain a motion and a second to put this proposal to a vote. Ms. Molly John and Mr. Gary Santisi of Ernst & Young are here to respond to questions. Are there any questions for them or any discussions of this proposal? If there is no discussion, we'll move to our item of business. 3 is an advisory vote to approve named executive officer compensation, also known as Say on Pay. I will entertain a motion and a second to put this proposal to a vote. Is there any discussion of this proposal? If there's no discussion, I will now declare the polls open for voting.
While voting is being tallied, we will have a presentation on the operations of BD. I'd like to take the next few minutes to recap BD's execution in fiscal 2023 and the progress against our BD 2025 strategy. Before I get started, I want to remind you that I will be making forward-looking statements. I encourage you to read the disclaimer in today's presentation slides and the disclosures in our SEC filings, which are both available on the investor relations website. For over 125 years, BD has been advancing healthcare across the care continuum. Our solutions are concentrated in medical discovery and the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
As an innovative med tech leader, the diversification of our portfolio creates a stable and resilient business that delivers durable growth through our leading positions and consistent demand for our core products that are the backbone to delivering much of healthcare. Through a purposeful shift into higher growth spaces in the three irreversible forces that are reshaping healthcare today: connected care, new care settings, and chronic disease management. Our BD 2025 strategy is built around three pillars: grow, simplify, and empower, which are driving consistent performance and an outsized growth profile. At our Investor Day in 2021, we shared our BD 2025 strategic framework for sustained value creation through five key actions. I'm very proud of our associates who are focused on executing our strategy and who delivered strong, differentiated performance in 2023.
In fiscal 2023, we delivered 7% base revenue growth, with base organic growth of 5.8%, and our team drove strong margin expansion and delivered $12.21 in adjusted EPS, or 11.5% base EPS growth. These results reflect our strategy in action. First, we strengthened our long-term targeted growth profile, 5.5%+, by advancing our innovation pipeline, launching 27 key new products to benefit researchers, providers, and patients, integrating AI, robotics, and other advanced technologies. And in July, we delivered on our number 1 priority, receiving 510(k) clearance of the updated Alaris infusion system. We're excited to deliver the benefits of the updated system to our customers and their patients, and we're making strong progress bringing our fleet up to the newly cleared device.
The clearance of the BD Alaris infusion system gives us further confidence in our ability to achieve our 2025 strategy and financial targets. Second, we continue to advance our portfolio through a tuck-in M&A strategy, which is focused towards higher growth markets. In fiscal 2023, M&A continued to complement the plus side of our 5.5%+ growth profile, and also contributed approximately 40 basis points to organic growth as we anniversary those assets. Third, we continued our simplification initiatives and actively managed our portfolio. This includes divesting our surgical instruments platform and executing a program of strategic portfolio exits, as well as progressing our Project Recode network and SKU rationalization program, exiting more than 2,000 incremental SKUs in 2023.
We're pleased that we've now streamlined our portfolio by more than 20% compared to 2019, achieving our goal laid out at Investor Day two years early. Fourth, we continue to strengthen our balance sheet, inclusive of executing on our inventory reductions and maintaining a disciplined and balanced capital deployment framework, which allows us to support organic and inorganic investments in growth, while also returning $1.1 billion in capital to shareholders through dividends. Finally, we created a more agile and focused organization. This is delivering on our financial targets while continuing our disciplined capital allocation strategy and ultimately delivering shareholder value. When we look at our progress since we introduced our BD 2025 strategy, we believe we are well on track to deliver on our financial targets.
These results are enabled by a disciplined capital allocation strategy that is categorized into four main buckets. First, we're investing approximately 6% of sales, or over $1 billion in R&D, to drive organic growth. Second, we will invest in capital expenditures to acquire key technologies and capability-building assets to support growth. As a result of productivity gains, we're able to drive CapEx savings and spending less than $1 billion in fiscal 2023, with the goal of sustaining CapEx spend at this lower level again in fiscal 2024. Third, return value in the form of a dividend. In November, we announced our 52nd consecutive year of dividend increases, continuing our recognition as a member of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, a distinction that reflects the consistency and reliability of our dividend policy. Fourth, the remaining capital will support both tuck-in acquisitions and share repurchases.
We ended the year with a cash balance of $1.4 billion and a net leverage ratio of 2.6 times. This is our strongest net leverage position since FY 2021, which positions us well to capitalize on opportunities to accelerate our investments in higher growth categories through our tuck-in M&A strategy. Additionally, in November 2021, the board authorized a share repurchase plan of 10 million shares. Through the end of fiscal 2023, 8.8 million shares are remaining from that authorization, and subsequent to our fiscal year-end in November 2023, we executed an accelerated share repurchase agreement to purchase $500 million of our common stock. As a company, we know that our purpose extends beyond the products that we manufacture.
Our company's impact on health, communities, and the planet is at the forefront of every decision we make. In July, we published our 2022 ESG report, which details progress against our 30 ESG goals, including in health, equity, and diversity, improving our environmental footprint, including a reduction of Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 10%, and having generated 34% of our electric power from renewable energy. In 2023, we submitted our GHG emissions reduction targets to the Science Based Targets Initiative for verification, and I'm pleased that our innovative circular economy pilots in 2023 were the first of their kind in our industry, recycling medical waste like used syringes and Vacutainers, and converting these materials back into usable resins.
We also continue to pioneer products and solutions that address health inequities, like our efforts to detect HPV infections and diagnose cervical cancer through at-home sample self-collection. We're proud that our progress continues to be recognized externally. For example, BD was recently named one of the 100 best corporate citizens by 3BL and in the top two within the healthcare equipment and services industry. In summary, I'm pleased with our strategic progress and operational for the past year. Momentum in our durable and strong portfolio, along with our track record of executing and delivering against our commitments, gives us confidence in our ability to continue our momentum into FY 2024 and create long-term value for all of our stakeholders. At this time, I declare the polls closed. We will now take questions from the floor. Please give your name and the number of shares you own or represent.
And again, as a reminder, please also limit your question and comments to three minutes to allow sufficient time for all those who would like to participate. Any questions? We appreciate current associates and alumni attending. There are no further questions. I will ask the inspectors to report the preliminary voting results.
Director nominee received the affirmative vote of the majority of the votes cast. Proposal three: The advisory vote to approve named executive the affirmative vote of 92% of the vote.
Based on the report of the inspectors, I declare that the nominees for director named in the company's proxy statement have been elected to serve for a term of one year.
The selection of Ernst & Young as the independent registered public accounting firm of the company for fiscal 2024 has been ratified, and the advisory vote on named executive officer compensation has been approved. These are preliminary voting results, and final results will be available after the votes have been certified by the inspectors. With that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Hearing no objection, the meeting is now ended, and thank you for coming.