B&S Group S.A. ("B&S" or the "Company"), a company in the consumer goods industry, today publishes its full year 2023 results ("FY 2023").
Highlights
• During 2023, the governance procedures were strengthened, guided by a new Supervisory Board and Executive Board;
• Overall turnover increased by 3.3% to € 2,219.8 million (4.3% on a constant currency basis);
• Gross profit grew with 13.1% to € 343.6 million;
• Reported EBITDA came in at € 110.9 million (2022: € 90.9 million), with EBITDA margin of 5.0% (2022: 4.2%);
• Net debt decreased from € 334.9 million to € 306.5 million;
• Net debt / EBITDA leverage improved to 2.8 (2022: 3.7), well within our bank covenants;
• Dividend proposal: € 0.16 per share (2022: € 0.12 per share);
• Strong performance Personal Care due to clear private label strategy;
• Beauty continued to benefit from B2C strategy especially in the US, in spite of difficult market circumstances;
• In 2023 inflation impacted operational expenses which increased by € 20 million, of which € 2.9 million was realised in the second half year;
• Our newly onboarded external auditor KPMG issued an unqualified audit opinion;
• Financing arrangements have been secured to the end of 2026.
Message from the Executive Board
We are pleased with the performance of the B&S Group S.A. (the "Company") over 2023: reporting a EBITDA just below € 111 million and yet with room for further improvement in different parts of the business. Additionally, there have been positive developments of other financial indicators such as leverage, Return on Invested Working Capital and dividend payout, all in the range of 20% - 30%.
It must be noted that especially the segment Personal Care outperformed in 2023, whereas Beauty, Food and Health showed steady results. Liquors and Travel Retail struggled with the market circumstances and inflation in 2023. We would like to thank our management and staff across the globe who have been resilient throughout the year and contributed so much to the success of the Company in 2023. At the same time the Company has progressed in the field of governance, working capital management and risk management.
We have been working on the onboarding procedures of new stakeholders, communicating our way of working at B&S, our related party policies and on policies as regards incentivising our senior management. Furthermore, we have sharpened our Code of Business Ethics. We believe all these steps contribute to a healthy and responsible business environment within the group.
As per the end of 2023 as well as early 2024 we have executed on the planned buy out of minority shareholders. We have increased our direct majority shareholdings in FragranceNet (from 75% to 87.5%) in November 2023 and in Topbrands in the beginning of 2024 (from 70.83% to 95%).
All in all, we had a financially stable year on a consolidated level, with a turnover increase of 3.3% to € 2.2 billion and EBITDA increasing by € 20 million to € 110.9 million. Together with balance sheet management, this resulted in a leverage ratio of 2.8 per year end.
A New Strategy
As Supervisory Board and Executive Board we defined, together with the segment leadership, a new strategy centred around our six segments. Our segments are united in branded consumer goods and operate in different markets. They create synergies through optimisation of distribution costs and solving marketing and supply chain challenges. At the same time, to understand the potential of the Company, one has to obtain a good understanding of each segment since they are all different in growth potential, M&A potential and risk profile.
Our segments operate close to their markets, have unique global networks, and hold all together over 20 independent brands in their respective markets.
The strategy is centred around building autonomous and accountable segments. To support this strategy all segments will focus on operational excellence and as such further improve on cost control, working capital management, business control, and sustainability.
Focus on digitisation remains important in all internal and external processes. All segments will be working on our corporate culture, will continue to focus on governance, sustainability and people engagement through data driven HR policies while maintaining our entrepreneurial spirit.
Next to operational excellence at Company level we will remain focused on strategic options around M&A opportunities to strengthen any of the six segments and improving the logistical backbone of the Company.
Outlook
For 2024, we project topline growth across our segments in line with our Financial objectives 2024-2026 albeit at the lower end of the range, resulting in a consolidated growth of approximately 5%. We expect to continue growth in our Personal Care, Beauty and Travel Retail segments. Our segment Food is expected to grow on the back of market developments. Travel Retail will grow in 2024 partly as a result of the full year effects of new stores and the further recovery of travellers. Global liquor markets are expected to bottom out in the second half of 2024. We project staff cost and other operating expenses to normalise, yet inflation is expected to remain a factor. With stable gross profit margins we project EBITDA margin in the range of 5 to 6%.
Download full press release:
https://www.bs-group-sa.com/data/uploads/2024/04/Press-release-FY-2023.pdf
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