Genomma Lab Internacional SAB de CV

BMV:LABB

Earnings Call Analysis

Strong Growth and Increased Market Presence

The company has demonstrated strong performance across various product categories. Their anti-gray hair care version and the introduction of new larger 950ml size variants have become notably successful, leading to substantial market share growth in countries like Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador. The launch of new products and size variants has shown the company's ability to identify and meet consumer demands, propelling them to rapid popularity and adoption in their respective markets.

Solid Increases in Specific Segments

Specific segments like Groomen, analgesics, cough and cold, gastro, and derma OTC categories all showed robust growth during fiscal year 2023. A standout performance by Novamil in the infant nutrition category was noted with a significant year-on-year growth of 44% for the fiscal year 2023. The skin care brand Cicatricure also experienced growth, signaling a positive trend. However, Asepxia struggled, with a decline of 17.1% in 2023. These insights into category-specific performances help investors understand where the company's strengths and challenges lie.

Marginal Impact from Currency Devaluation

The Argentine peso devaluation resulted in necessary adjustments due to IFRS accounting rules, impacting EBITDA negatively by MXN 477 million. However, despite the foreign exchange losses and rising interest rates affecting net income, the company achieved a net margin of 6.3% for the full year 2023. Revenue growth of 3.3% and an EBITDA increase of almost 13% were reported on a like-for-like basis, excluding hyperinflationary accounting effects, showcasing the company's underlying financial health.

Productivity Initiatives Driving Margin Expansion

The company has set a goal for productivity savings of MXN 1,800 million by 2027, with MXN 673 million already secured in fiscal year 2023, equivalent to a 3.9-point EBITDA margin increase. These productivity initiatives, particularly in the Mexico market, are significantly contributing to margin expansion. The company remains fully committed to reaching an EBITDA margin between 23% and 24% by the end of 2024, with expectations for further margin expansion beyond 2024. Part of the productivity savings are planned for reinvestment in the business to drive market expansion and accelerate top-line growth.

Substantial Free Cash Flow and Shareholder Returns

Genomma has generated an impressive MXN 2.2 billion in free cash flow and reduced net debt by MXN 353 million, successfully lowering their leverage ratio to 1.3x net debt to EBITDA. Additionally, the company announced dividends and share buybacks, signaling a strong commitment to shareholder value. With the strong business profile, diversified product portfolio, and robust cash flow generation, the company is well-positioned for sustainable growth and investor confidence.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q4

[Operator]

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining Genomma Lab's Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this meeting is being recorded and will be available for replay from the Investor Relations section of Genomma's website following the call.I'll now turn the call over to Barbara Cano of the InspIR Group. Please go ahead.

[Barbara Cano]

Welcome, everyone. On today's call are Marco Sparvieri, Chief Executive Officer; and Antonio Zamora, Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that the remarks today will include forward-looking statements such as the company's financial guidance and expectations, including long-term objectives and forecasts as well as expectations regarding Genomma's business, assets, products, strategies, demand and markets. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. They're also based on assumptions as of today and the company undertakes no obligation to update them as a result of new information or future events.Let me now turn the call over to Mr. Marco Sparvieri.

[Marco Sparvieri, executive]

Thank you, Barbara. Good morning, everybody. In essence, the sudden devaluation of the Argentine peso in late December necessitated the recording of a noncash negative impact on our fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings as dictated by accounting standards. However, it is crucial to emphasize that setting aside this exceptional accounting occurrence, the foundation of our core business remains robust with promising prospects for the future. We have proactively and transparently communicated this situation to our investors ensuring that they are fully aware that this is an isolated incident not reflective of any underlying operational challenges. Our commitment to deliver shareholder value is unwavering supported by the strength and continued growth of our business. This approach underscores our dedication to maintaining investors' confidence and tranquility even in the face of unforeseeable market dynamics.Let's now talk about the results. Overall, 2023 was a robust year for Genomma Lab. Top line grew plus 16.7% expressed in like-for-like constant currency excluding Argentina. When expressed in Mexican pesos, sales grew plus 10% despite of the strong revaluation of the Mexican peso and declined minus 2.1% when Argentina is included. Our EBITDA margin improved reaching 20.8% in Q4 and 21% for 2023, an increase of 50 basis points over 2022. The cash conversion cycle also saw a notable improvement ending at 83 days in 2023, which is minus 17 days shorter than the previous year. Achieving a monumental milestone for the company, our free cash flow soared to an unprecedented MXN 2.2 billion marking a remarkable increase of MXN 338 million year-over-year. This record setting performance underscores our financial prowess and operational excellence setting a new benchmark for our company's success.53% of our business grew share in 2023 and 80% grew ahead of inflation. Key market performances in 2023 included Mexico at plus 15%, the U.S.A at plus 19%, Colombia at plus 20% and Brazil at plus 10%. Our focus on core brands continued to pay off. In 2023, core brands like analgesics grew plus 24%; cough and cold, plus 19%; Suerox, plus 42%; Groomen, plus 36.5%; Tio Nacho, plus 23.2%; and Novamil, plus 44%, performed exceptionally well. Cicatricure showed promising signs of a turnaround in Q4 with a growth of plus 14.7%. However, Asepxia faced challenges declining by minus 17.1% in 2023. We remain on track with our productivity goals aiming for MXN 1,800 million by 2027. In Q4, the San Cayetano plant realized COGS savings of MXN 2.2 million contributing to a total of MXN 23.8 million for the year.Additionally, we completed 4 core productivity projects yielding MXN 196 million in total annual savings. These include raw material negotiations for annual savings of MXN 101 million, new CapEx for Tio Nacho bottles saving MXN 12 million and a Suerox packaging redesign saving MXN 83 million annually. In 2023 we executed a total of MXN 673 million, approximately 3.9 points of EBITDA margin, in annual productivity savings. These savings will impact the business in 2024. In conclusion, fiscal year 2023 excluding Argentina's impact demonstrated strong financial health, consistent growth in key markets and brands and a significant progress in our productivity initiatives. Our strategy moving forwards is to further enhance our core brands' strengths and continue executing productivity projects to reach our MXN 1,800 million target by 2027.In fiscal year 2023, our company achieved remarkable milestones underscoring our strategic excellence and robust market presence. We are proud to report a significant 16.7% increase in sales adjusted for currency fluctuations and excluding Argentina. This underscores the exceptional performance of our brands and markets, affirming the solid foundation of our business operation. Our EBITDA experienced a notable raise of 50 basis points year-over-year aligning us with our ambitious target of achieving a 23% to 24% margin by the end of 2024. Demonstrating the effectiveness of our strategic focus on core brands, we observed double-digit sales growth in 7 out of our 9 primary categories throughout each quarter of the year. This strategy has not only been effective, but also significantly contributed to our financial health with a record cash conversion cycle of 83 days reflecting our streamlined brand portfolio and intensified productivity initiatives.An impressive 80% of our business operations have outpaced inflations and 53% gained market share within their respective categories, illustrating the resilience and competitiveness of our operations. Our commitment to productivity in 2023 was unparalleled culminating in MXN 673 million in annual productivity savings. This significant figure represents close to 3.9 percentage points of EBITDA, setting a strong foundation for continued impact in 2024. We plan to elaborate on the specific projects contributing to this substantial saving figure in this presentation. Our dedication to fostering a dynamic and engaging work environment has positioned us as an industry benchmark for employee engagement with a commendable score of 79% as measured by Mercer. This achievement reflects the unparalleled quality of our leadership and the collective skills of what we confidentially call the best team in the industry.Capping off these achievements, we reached a record-setting free cash flow of MXN 2.2 billion, an increase of MXN 338 million over the previous year, a testament to our unwavering commitment to operational excellence. These accomplishments not only illustrate our strong performance in 2023, but also set a vibrant tone for continued success and investor confidence in the coming years. This chart vividly illustrates the success of our strategic focus on core brands. It represents a quarter-by-quarter and full fiscal year 2023 performance analysis of each core category. The data compellingly demonstrates robust growth across all categories with the singular exception of skincare. Highlighting the effectiveness of our strategy, the chart also reveals a significant shift in our business composition. Core categories now account for 90% of the company's sales, up from 73% just a year ago.This dramatic increase not only underscores the efficacy of our focused efforts, but also signals our core brands' increasing dominance and contribution to the company's overall success. I would like to now revisit our dual focus strategy. As we discussed back in February, we have outlined 2 main objectives for the forthcoming years. Firstly, our aim is to concentrate our efforts on our flagship brands with the goal of achieving an additional MXN 10 billion in sales. Concurrently, we'll be offloading or parting with brands that aren't central to our mission. By adopting this approach, we anticipate sharpening our managerial and operational focus as well as liberating working capital. Secondly, our emphasis is on productivity. We are embarking on a plan set to yield MXN 1.8 billion through specific productivity initiatives. These endeavors have been pinpointed and our dedicated team is actively working on bringing them to fruition.Let's pivot to a discussion about our portfolio's performance. Referring to the chart, it's evident that a majority of our primary brands have posted remarkable outcomes especially when we view it in like-for-like currency terms excluding Argentina. Our strategy of directing resources and emphasis on these primary brands is indeed paying dividends. Additionally, it is encouraging to note that Cicatricure is beginning to curb its downturn. With the rollout of recent innovations already introduced in the markets, I am optimistic that we'll see this negative trend reverse by the next quarter. However, Asepxia still requires our attention and efforts. Turning our attention to the market's performance, the news is encouraging. The chart illustrates that all our main markets have reported robust sales for Q4.It's worth emphasizing that each of our leading countries; Mexico, the U.S.A., Brazil, Colombia, Argentina; are experiencing growth in the high teens percentage range. Nonetheless, Chile continued to pose challenges. Let's now talk a little bit about our brands. We are delighted to announce another outstanding quarter for Suerox achieving a remarkable year-on-year growth of 87% in Q4 and 42.4% in fiscal year 2023. This success is driven by robust performance in Mexico and our expansion into Peru, Chile, Argentina, Central America, the U.S.A. and Brazil. Tio Nacho also demonstrated significant growth with year-on-year increase of 18% in Q4 and 23% for fiscal year 2023 expanding market share in all markets. This growth is largely through the successful launch of our innovation and the new 950ml size surpassing our target of reaching at least 60% of the market leader size in key markets like Chile, Colombia and Ecuador.Let's take a closer look at the chart on the screen, which showcases the success of our anti-gray hair care version. As you can see, this variant has become one of our top sellers for the brand rapidly gaining popularity among our customers. Now let's turn our attention to another achievement, the significant success of our 950ml size variant. As depicted in the chart, the 950ml size has experienced outstanding sales growth becoming a standout performer for our brand and the portfolio. This larger size has struck a chord with our consumers, providing them with added value and convenience leading to its rapid adopting in the market. Its success is a testament to our ability to identify and cater to our customers' preferences effectively. Groomen also reported strong growth with 34% year-on-year in Q4 and 36.5% for fiscal year 2023. The brand achieved positive share growth in both Mexico and Chile driven in Mexico by the launch of disposables and cartridge SKUs in Walmart.The analgesics category saw a robust year-on-year growth of plus 23% in Q4 and plus 24% for fiscal year 2023. This was propelled by the success of X-Ray [ andino ] in Colombia gaining a 9.7% market share and solidifying our position as the third leading brand in the category. In Mexico, Alliviax, particularly Allitriple, showed positive results. In Argentina, despite some challenges, Tafirol continues to hold plus 15 points versus pre-pandemic share. Let's take a closer look at the chart, which vividly illustrates the phenomenal growth of X-Ray in Colombia. In just a few years, X-Ray has achieved remarkable progress consolidating its position as the third player in the category. It's worth noting that a short while ago X-Ray barely existed in this market. This achievement reflects our brand's strong performance, effective strategies and the strong acceptance of X-Ray by Colombian consumers.We are proud of the team's dedication and the brand's rapid ascent to a prominent position in the market. Our cough and cold category experienced a growth of plus 4.2% in Q4 and 19% in fiscal year 2023. This success is due to gaining market share, particularly in Mexico with Tukol and our focus on value-added segments like Antiviral and Gel caps. We also implemented a comprehensive 360 plan targeting seasonality including prepacks, in-store programs, expert recommendations and expanding our presence in the traditional trade. The gastro category grew by 6.8% in Q4 and 12% in fiscal year 2023. Despite initial challenge, the Primo de un amigo campaign in Brazil and the relaunch of Genoprazol in Mexico have reversed the trend resulting in significant sell-out growth. The derma OTC category grew by 5.1% in Q4 and 4.6% in fiscal year 2023 with positive results in Silka plus 20%, plus 1.3 points of market share via the portfolio expansion of Silka Nail in the U.S.A. and Silka Spray.Mexico relaunched Silka Spray during the summer season of 2023 achieving leadership in the market with 29.3 points of market share, plus 5.7 points versus year ago. The innovation contributed with plus 3 points of market share. Medicasp continues to suffer from supply issues not related to the brand health. In the infant nutrition category, we continued our strong performance with a year-on-year growth of plus 46% in Q4 and 44% in fiscal year 2023. Novamil has seen robust growth across all core variants, capturing more market share in their respective segments. Finally, in skin care, Cicatricure is showing promising signs of a turnaround growing plus 15% in Q4 and 1.7% in fiscal year 2023. The introduction of new innovations like Porcelana across all markets is reflected in our impressive Q4 2023 results. Asepxia continues to struggle declining minus 17.1% in 2023.Let's now switch gears to productivity and margin improvement. We are delighted to highlight substantial strides in our productivity initiatives. Having set a goal in February 2023 of MXN 1,800 million in productivity savings by 2027, we have already secured MXN 673 million, approximately 3.9 points of EBITDA margin in annual savings in fiscal year 2023. Let me now get into the specific productivity projects that add up to the MXN 673 million in the chart I just showed. Our San Cayetano plant is progressing as expected delivering COGS savings year-to-date. In 2023, the plant has delivered a total of MXN 23.8 million. In the fourth quarter, we successfully completed a project aimed to redesigning the structure of our Suerox bottle. This initiative was carefully executed to ensure no impact on the consumer experience while optimizing the bottle cap and label for efficiency.This strategic optimization has yielded substantial financial benefits generating annual savings of MXN 82.7 million. The majority of these savings are expected to positively impact our business in 2024 reflecting our commitment to operational excellence and cost effectiveness. In December 2023 we reached a significant milestone with the completion of a project initiated a year prior aimed at in-house production of our Tio Nacho bottles. This strategic move culminated in December with the commissioning of a bottle blowing machine set to commence operations in January 2024. This forward-thinking implementation is projected to generate substantial annual savings of MXN 12 million underscoring our commitment to innovation, efficiency and cost reduction. In November 2023, we successfully completed a strategic initiative to renegotiate the procurement of raw material ingredients and active pharmaceutical ingredients, APIs.By leveraging our significant scale, we meticulously selected suppliers who met our stringent criteria for both quality and cost effectiveness. This strategic negotiation process culminated in achieving remarkable annual savings of MXN 101 million. This accomplishment reflects our proactive approach to cost management and our commitment to maximizing efficiency without compromising the quality of our customers -- that our customers expect. Throughout 2023, our commercial team embarked on a comprehensive mission to enhance productivity across all go to market expenses. This involved renegotiating terms with our customers, optimizing the cost associated with our programs including merchandisers and sales expenses, fully leveraging the acquisition of Frog, our own in-store display manufacturing facility and refining the cost efficiency of our in-store programs.The diligent efforts spread across all countries culminating in substantial total savings of MXN 207 million. This achievement underscore our team's dedication to operational excellence and our strategic commitment to improving profitability and efficiency on a global scale. Over the last 3 quarters, our team has undertaken a sophisticated project to refine the logistics cost related to customer shipments. This encompassed growth optimization, the establishment of stringent purchase order guidelines to streamline transportation cost, enhance truck loading mixing among other improvements. With this program now in action, we anticipate an annual saving of MXN 45 million. As a reminder from our last call, I am thrilled to share that during Q2 we achieved a significant milestone with the successful commissioning of a new Suerox line. This expansion has bolstered our manufacturing capacity by an additional plus 96 million bottles per year.Not only has the new Suerox line increased our production capacity, but it has also played a pivotal role in our cost optimization efforts. The expansion has led to a remarkable reduction of MXN 63 million in Suerox COGS resulting in substantial annual savings. Also in Q2, we successfully concluded a project aimed at optimizing our product labels and the results have been nothing short of remarkable. Through this initiative, we achieved a significant cost reduction of minus 55% translating to impressive annual savings of MXN 25 million. In Q1, we generated close to MXN 30 million in annual savings by reducing the number of packaging suppliers from 23 to 2 and the number of SKUs from 23 to 12. And finally, just a reminder of the vertical integration of Vanart's manufacturing that will deliver a total of MXN 93 million in annual saving.That's it from a business review point of view. Let me now pass it on to Tonio.

[Antonio Zamora Galland, executive]

Thank you, Marco, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. As we've discussed, the major 137% devaluation of the Argentine peso in late December required Genomma Lab to record a noncash negative impact on the fourth quarter and on the full year earnings as we have already presented. We decided to present this information in a proactive and transparent manner enabling our investors and the market to understand that this is an isolated event and not related to operating issues. Importantly, as Marco has presented, this extraordinary accounting effect is not a reflection of our underlying business performance, which is evident in our strong progress on Genomma's key goals and objectives as Marco described earlier.Let me highlight some areas of our performance for the full year and the fourth quarter 2023. Starting with our consolidated business results. Full year net sales reached MXN 16.5 billion, a 2.1% year-on-year decline compared to audited 2022 figures. As a result of the significant Argentine peso devaluation in Q4 of 2023, IFRS accounting rules required an adjustment to the cumulative results of Q1 to Q3 using the ForEx rate as of December 31, 2023. This resulted in a negative adjustment in our top line equal to MXN 944 million. Meanwhile, EBITDA reached MXN 3.5 billion with a 21% EBITDA margin. Operating leverage from increased sales, a favorable product mix and continued strong cost and expense controls throughout the year contributed to the 50 basis point year-on-year increase.However, due to the major Argentine peso devaluation in Q4, IFRS accounting rules required an adjustment again to the cumulative results of Q1 to Q3 using again the December 31 ForEx rate and this in the case of EBITDA resulted in a negative impact equal to MXN 477 million. Net income for the full year 2023 reached over MXN 1 billion. The full year 2023 net margin reached 6.3% and the adjustment again for the cumulative results of Q1 to Q3 using the ending ForEx rate resulted in MXN 776 million. That was the negative impact. And it's important to highlight that the increase in the comprehensive cost of financing resulting from FX losses and the higher TIIE interest rate which, as you know, is the Mexican leading rate during 2023, also impacted the company's net income for the full year 2023.This time, and this is new, we are providing a supplementary information with this table where we are showing an average income statement in million of Mexican pesos for the full year 2023 as compared with the same period in 2022. But as you can see here, we are excluding all of the hyperinflationary accounting effects both for 2023 and for 2022. As you may read in this chart, revenues grew 3.3% on an accounting like-for-like basis, that means without the hyperinflationary effects, and EBITDA increased by almost 13% in this scenario. We cannot control accounting rules, but we think that this information is going to be useful for the market to make their own decisions. Turning to Mexico, we ended the year with 21.7% EBITDA margin and MXN 8.1 billion in net sales. This is MXN 1.1 billion or 15% increase year-on-year primarily driven by a renewed focus on Genomma's core brands as Marco has described today and in previous quarters.Fourth quarter 2023 Mexico net sales increased by a substantial 13.5% to reach MXN 2.1 billion. This represents MXN 253 million year-on-year sales increase. Mexico EBITDA margin reached 25.2%. Let me repeat again because we love 25.2%. This is 370 basis point year-on-year expansion primarily attributable to savings related to all of the productivity initiatives that Marco has described earlier and more productivity is coming in the coming quarters. So we are very, very proud. I want to spend a little bit more time even if it's just a few seconds to highlight the strong performance of Mexico and the tremendous results of the productivity projects that Marco started. And as a result, let me say it once again, 25.2% EBITDA margin. Now before we move on to the U.S., we know that the strength of the Mexican super peso has continued.The Mexican super peso gained almost 11% in value appreciation versus the U.S. dollar and that's the reason why we're presenting figures for the U.S. both in U.S. dollars as well as in Mexican pesos. And as you can see here, net revenues increased by 9% in Mexican pesos reaching MXN 1.7 billion. Particularly we had a very strong cough and cold performance during the year as well as Suerox aggressive expansion in the Continental U.S. and in Puerto Rico during the year. The full year 2023 EBITDA for Genomma U.S. reached MXN 145 million. That is an almost 9% EBITDA margin. Full year EBITDA benefited from the increased operational leverage resulting from increased U.S. sales for the fourth quarter as well as positive product mix effect. EBITDA for Genomma U.S. was nevertheless impacted by FX headwinds, again the Mexican super peso, and a little bit of COGS inflation during the year.Meanwhile, fourth quarter 2023 EBITDA closed at MXN 33.5 million. That's a little bit over 9% EBITDA margin, which again represents 540 basis points margin expansion during the fourth quarter. Let's move on to Latin America and again when we talk about Latin America and even if we exclude Argentina, we need to see what happened with the local currencies there. And as you may see in this chart, the Mexican super peso continues to be very strong compared to almost all of the other currencies in Latin America with the only exception of Colombia. This time we're presenting Latin America excluding Argentina and if you look at this chart, net revenues increased by 3.4% year-on-year in Mexican pesos and this is comparing 2022 audited figures to reach MXN 4.8 billion with a 15.6% net revenue increase in local currency.Obviously if we want to look at performance, we should take into consideration the numbers that Marco provided earlier in what we call like-for-like or constant currency. Again this growth in the top line was driven by core brand expansions particularly Suerox that was launched in new markets; Brazil, Colombia and Peru; where we gained significant share during its initial launch phase. 2023 EBITDA for Latin America excluding Argentina reached MXN 798 million, a 3% year-on-year increase compared to 2022 audited figures. The EBITDA margin reached 16.7%. That's 160 basis points decrease when compared to Latin America excluding Argentina full year 2022 margin. This was offset by FX headwinds when translated into stronger Mexican pesos.Now we're also presenting Latin America including Argentina. The top line reached MXN 6.8 billion during 2023 and an EBITDA of MXN 1.6 billion representing an EBITDA margin of 23%. We understand that hyperinflationary accounting rules after a major devaluation may create noise. It is for this reason very important to highlight the solid performance of our business in Mexico and in the U.S. as well as positive growth of our core brands, again as Marco has described. But we all know that cash is king and, as Marco mentioned earlier, Genomma generated MXN 2.2 billion in free cash flow. But let us also review some of the key highlights of our cash flow performance even after having to record all of the accounting effects that resulted from the Argentine devaluation.Let's start with working capital. During the fourth quarter 2023, the cash conversion cycle ended at 83 days, a 17-day improvement since the end of December 2022. Days of consolidated accounts receivable amounted to 83 and again that's an 8 day year-on-year decrease. Also inventory levels were reduced as we're capturing additional efficiencies from our productivity initiatives in the plant. Another positive measure of our cash flow generation is that Genomma reduced our net debt by MXN 353 million and closed 2023 with a leverage ratio of just 1.3x net debt to EBITDA and almost MXN 1.7 billion in cash and equivalents, which is an 11.1% year-on-year increase. This again reflects a consistent improvement to our debt ratio over the past 4 sequential quarters. Further, Genomma's average debt maturity stands at 2.7 years and 31% of almost MXN 2 billion of our total debt matures this year.Also again talking about cash flow and rewarding our investors, we repurchased 6.5 million shares during the final 3 months of the year ended December 31, 2023 investing MXN 92 million during that period. Furthermore, in December we announced our sixth cash dividend to shareholders in the amount of MXN 0.196088 per share of our common stock, which represents a total of MXN 200 million each dividend that we pay in one of those quarters. And as we mentioned, Genomma intends to continue paying dividends on a quarterly basis reflecting our commitment to shareholder value. On December 15 and after the quarter's end on January 19, both rating agencies HR Ratings and Fitch reconfirmed Genomma's domestic long and short-term credit ratings maintaining a stable long-term perspective for the company.Again this reflects the company's solid business profile supported by a diversified pharmaceutical OTC and personal care product portfolio with well-positioned brands. The company's commercial and innovation strategies along with its geographical diversification have contributed to sustained and robust cash flow generation, which has gradually further strengthened our capital structure. In closing, our reported results excluding the hyperinflationary effect reflects that Genomma's business is strong, we demonstrated progress on our goal and objectives and consistent growth in key markets and of our core brands.With that, we are now ready for Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Luis Willard with GBM.

[Luis Willard Alonso, analyst]

Can you hear me?

[Marco Sparvieri, executive]

Yes.

[Luis Willard Alonso, analyst]

Perfect. So first of all, congratulations on your results, guys. Very impressive margin expansions across the board. So I wanted to touch a bit on that first. I mean the Mexico margin expansion is quite clear, but I would like to discuss in particular the 1 in Latin America excluding the IAS accounting and all that, using the table that you showed us. So we're seeing, if I'm not wrong, a very large margin expansion in LatAm from 22% to 28% in the quarter. Can you elaborate what's behind that and do you see this as being sustainable going forward excluding of course all the effects related to hyperinflation and the super peso? That will be the first. And then I might have a follow-up.

[Marco Sparvieri, executive]

Luis, most of the margin expansions that you guys are seeing are coming from the productivity projects that I presented that account for a substantial amount of margin. Most of those projects were executed this year, many of them towards the end of the year. So the figures that I presented are more reflected in an annual basis. So most of that will be impacting the business in 2024. To the question of if we see this margin expansion sustainable, the answer loud and clear is yes. We remain fully committed to reach anything between 23% and 24% by the end of 2024. We have solid plans very clearly identified to reach those targets and so the answer is yes.

[Luis Willard Alonso, analyst]

And if I may do a follow-up. So in an another graph you mentioned that you've so far reached over MXN 670 million in savings. So using the pro forma figures, that's 1/3 of the savings that you expect for 2027. So if I do my numbers correctly, you might be targeting a potential EBITDA margin of around 30% by 2027. Do you feel that there is a need to cut back prices or to reinvest in prices to trigger part of those -- to gain share and perhaps use those savings to increase share in other categories?

[Marco Sparvieri, executive]

Yes. So let me divide the question in 2. One is we do see further margin expansion beyond 2024. We are still not committing a specific target, but we will see some margin improvements beyond this year. Second, remember that part of the productivity savings that we will be achieving behind all these projects is going to go to margin, to EBITDA as you saw this quarter and you will see some of that in the following quarters and towards the end of this year, you will see a substantial amount of that money going into EBITDA. But also remember that the objective of productivity is not only margin improvement, but also market expansion. So we are going to be reinvesting part of that money in our business to accelerate top line.

[Luis Willard Alonso, analyst]

Right. So it's fair to assume let's say long term you achieve those MXN 1.8 billion in savings, but part of that is not going to be reflected fully on EBITDA margin, right? So something has got to go back to the market.

[Marco Sparvieri, executive]

That's a very good way to put it.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Camila Azevedo with UBS.

[Camila Villaça Azevedo, analyst]

Can you hear me?

[Marco Sparvieri, executive]

Yes, we can hear you.

[Camila Villaça Azevedo, analyst]

Thank you for including the disclosure of hyperinflationary accounting in the press release. It was really helpful. So my question is about the savings that you just mentioned. I was wondering if you could give us some color on how much of those savings were reinvested in pricing and marketing? That will be all.

[Marco Sparvieri, executive]

Instead of making a statement on percentages of those savings, let me reinforce that we are extremely committed, solidly committed on the 23%, 24% EBITDA margin by the end of this year and we'll continue to expand slightly the EBITDA margin beyond 2024. The rest of the money will be reinvested in the business. I don't want to make a statement on percentages because we don't have that clarity yet.

[Antonio Zamora Galland, executive]

Camila, this is Antonio. Just wanted to expand on Marco's comment and provide a little bit of color why you saw the EBITDA margin expansion in Mexico. It's been a lot of work for the team to deliver on these productivity savings throughout the year. And as we discussed in Q1, Q2, Q3; we were already getting the benefits of those productivity initiatives, but we also had to incur a number of onetimers because we're transitioning out from third-party contractors into the plant, et cetera. And the reason why we are so comfortable in saying that the EBITDA margin is going to be expanding in 2024 is that there would be -- those timers will not be there anymore of course and that's a little bit of what you've seen in Q4 of 2023. So as we said, the productivity initiatives sometimes require writing down some old inventories, doing some additional expenses, et cetera, that we disclosed in earlier quarters. But once those are gone, the EBITDA margin is going to be very solid and increasing and that's what Marco has mentioned many times.And now with the Q4 results where there were almost no onetimers in this transition, you see that the improvement is going to be there and hopefully the market will start recognizing that. And building also on Luis' comment in terms of how sustainable the EBITDA margins for Latin America are. Let's remember that a big portion of the products that Latin American subsidiaries get are manufactured in Mexico. However, we started commissioning the plant, ramping up the plant and basically focusing on the Mexico market first. That's what we've been doing. And eventually building more volume from our manufacturing facility and all of the productivity initiatives. So those savings will start arriving to the other countries this year 2024. So that's why we are so confident that the margin expansion is going to be there. That's something that the market has been waiting for quite a while. Thank you for the trust of our shareholders. Now the results will start to show in upcoming reports.

[Operator]

This concludes our fourth quarter's conference call. Thank you all very much for your attention.