4th March 2024 -IAM, News
Daniel Pfund, Senior Financial Analyst
Last week, Nestlé published its full results for 2023, which disappointed investors. Despite a return to volume growth in the fourth quarter (+0.4%), and significant price increases (+5.2%), organic growth (+5.6%) was below expectations (6.3%). In addition, Nestlé was heavily penalized by adverse exchange rates, which reduced sales in Swiss francs for the year (-1.5%).
As usual, the company’s management has issued a cautious guidance for the first quarter of 2024 and the full year. The multinational confirms that IT integration in its vitamins, minerals and supplements division is taking longer than expected, and that growth is being held back by production constraints in this segment, but these should be resolved by the end of the first half. For 2024 (and the medium term), the company expects organic sales of around 4%, a modest increase in operating margin, and earnings per share growth in the 6% to 10% range.
