Nestlé made a profit of 11.2 billion francs in 2023. That is 20.9 percent more than last year, as the food company announced on Thursday.
Nestlé has achieved a turnaround in sales volume in the final spurt of 2023: in the last quarter of the year, the food giant sold more products again after volume had previously shrunk for five quarters in a row.
The so-called real internal growth (RIG), which consists of sales volume and mix effects, amounted to +0.4 percent in the final quarter, as the company announced on Thursday. For the year as a whole, however, after the three negative previous quarters, there is a negative RIG of -0.3 percent.
Legend: Huge profit: The large Nestlé corporation recorded an increase in profits of almost a fifth for 2023. Keystone/LAURENT GILLIERON
Nevertheless, Nestlé recorded organic growth of 7.2 percent. This was due to price increases of 7.5 percent, as can be seen from the announcement.
Sales are shrinking slightly
Sales of the world‘s largest food company amounted to 93 billion francs. That is 1.5 percent less than in 2022. However, this was primarily due to the strong Swiss franc, which reduced sales by 7.8 percent.
Nestlé became slightly more profitable in 2023. Although operating profit (EBIT) fell by 0.3 percent to 16.1 billion francs, the corresponding margin was 17.3 percent, slightly higher than in the previous year (17.1 percent).
Nestlé proposes Geraldine Matchett for board of directors
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Matchett is a Swiss, British and French citizen and has “extensive knowledge and a strong track record” in the areas of corporate management, strategy and finance, the French-speaking Swiss group announced on Thursday along with the figures.
The election will take place at the ordinary general meeting on April 18, 2024.
Matchett served as co-CEO and CFO of DSM-Firmenich, the newly created Dutch-Swiss nutrition, health and beauty company a few years ago, until September 2023. Before that, she was, among other things, Global Chief Financial Officer and member of the Operations Council of the Geneva-based goods testing group SGS.
The bottom line is that the group earned 11.2 billion francs. That’s an increase of 20.9 percent. In 2022, however, value adjustments of 2.7 billion had severely depressed the net result.
29 dividend increases in a row
The company now wants to pay its shareholders 3 francs per share as a dividend, after 2.95 francs the year before. This means that Nestlé remains true to its policy of constantly increasing dividends: it is the 29th dividend increase in a row.
For the current year, Nestlé has set itself the goal of achieving organic sales growth of “around 4 percent”. In addition, the underlying operating profit margin is expected to increase “slightly”. Nestlé confirms its medium-term goals for 2025.