Henkel AG & Co. KGaA (HENKY) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

2025-03-11 16:17:04 ET

Henkel AG & Co. KGaA (HENKY)

Q4 2024 Results Conference Call

March 11, 2025 4:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Leslie Iltgen - Head, IR

Carsten Knobel - CEO

Marco Swoboda - CFO

Conference Call Participants

David Hayes - Jefferies

Christian Faitz - Kepler Cheuvreux

Iain Simpson - Barclays

Victoria Petrova - Bank of America

Celine Pannuti - JPMorgan

Presentation

Leslie Iltgen

Good morning to everyone on the call. A warm welcome to everybody today joining the Henkel Full Year 2024 Results Conference Call. I'm Leslie Iltgen, Head of Investor Relations at Henkel. Today, I'm joined by our CEO, Carsten Knobel; and our CFO, Marco Swoboda. Carsten will begin with an overview of 2024, including key achievements and highlights and a first glance at the guidance for full year 2025. Marco will then follow with a review of the full year 2024 financial results in more detail and also elaborate on the key assumptions around the 2025 guidance. As always, following the presentation, we will open up the lines, and Carsten and Marco will be happy to take your questions.

Before handing over to Carsten, please let me remind you that this call will be recorded, and a replay will be made available on our Investor Relations website shortly after this call. By asking a question during the Q&A session, you agree to both the live broadcasting as well as the recording of your question, including salutation, to be published on our website.

Also, please be reminded that this presentation contains the usual formal disclaimer in regard to forward-looking statements within the meaning of relevant U.S. legislation. It can also be accessed via our website at henkel.com. As always, the presentation and discussion are conducted subject to this disclaimer.

With this, it is my pleasure to hand over to our CEO, Carsten Knobel. Carsten, please go ahead.

Carsten Knobel

Thanks, Leslie, and also from my side, a warm welcome to everyone joining our call today. After highlighting the key developments of the full year, we'll walk you through our business performance and the outlook for the full year 2025 in more detail. And of course, we are looking always forward to taking your questions following the presentation. So let's get started with the major topics and the achievements in 2024.

In 2024, Henkel delivered an overall strong top and bottom line performance. On the group level, Henkel recorded organic sales growth of 2.6%. Adhesive Technologies delivered 2.4% OSG, which is best-in-class among our peers, and our Consumer Brands business delivered 3% OSG, certainly driven, to a large part, by continued strong pricing in the course of our valorization strategy. And as expected, volumes were in slight positive territory when adjusting for the portfolio optimization measures.

Turning to our margins. Henkel recorded the highest gross margin in more than 30 years of 50.6%, representing an increase of almost 500 basis points versus the prior year. We also saw an all-time high in gross profit margins of our Consumer Brands business and an absolute EBIT record high in our Adhesive Technologies business. Thus, both businesses contributed to the excellent full year results while keeping up with elevated investment levels to fuel further growth....

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