Coca-Cola Europacific Partners - Q4 2020

Transcript

Sarah Willett (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

Thank you, and good afternoon, Europe, or good morning in the U.S. Thank you all for joining us today. I'm here with Damian Gammell, our CEO, and Nik Jhangiani, our CFO. Before we begin with our opening remarks and our preliminary results for the fourth quarter and full year 2020, a reminder of our cautionary statement. This call will contain forward-looking management comments and other statements reflecting our outlook. These comments should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary language contained in this morning's release, as well as the detailed cautionary statements found in reports filed with the U.K., U.S., Dutch, and Spanish authorities. A copy of this information is available on our website at www.cocacolaep.com. Prepared remarks will be made by Damian and Nik and accompanied by a slide deck. We will then turn the call over to your questions.

Following the call, a full transcript will be made available as soon as possible on our website. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Damian.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Thank you, Sarah, and many thanks to everyone joining us today. 2020 was clearly an unprecedented and challenging year for all of us, so let me start by saying a huge thank you to everyone at CCEP for their incredible commitment and agility, as well as their support they provided to our customers, consumers, and communities throughout the year. We entered 2020 with good momentum, building on a solid performance in 2019 and a strong track record. Then the pandemic hit our markets and communities. Our response was rapid, and we clearly demonstrated resilience of our business, evidenced by another year of market share gains. I'll talk more about our actions, but I am proud of our ability to protect our performance in the short term without compromising the longer term.

We over-delivered on our cost mitigation plans, of which a significant amount will not return, and we launched our Accelerate Competitiveness efficiency program on our journey to an even leaner future. And even after our continued investments behind our portfolio, digital, and sustainability, we were able to deliver over EUR 900 million in free cash flow, a standout performance given the year we have had. This foundation gives us confidence in the future, and our fantastic portfolio of brands provides an exciting platform for growth, a future that no doubt will be digital and green-led. And of course, we've also have the exciting opportunity to acquire Coca-Cola Amatil. While there remains some uncertainty about the duration and impact of the pandemic, the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines brings new optimism.

Our decisive actions during the year have put us in a stronger position to react to the renewed restrictions we are facing in 2021. We remain confident that we will emerge from this crisis an even more efficient and sustainable business. You will have seen this before, and the message remains the same. We do come from a position of strength. We operate in an attractive and valuable category. We enjoy scale and a market-leading position across all our geographies. We have an exciting portfolio of brands, products, and packaging, with a strong future pipeline of innovation. We continue to create a lot of value for our customers too, through this great service we offer. We have a solid balance sheet, and despite a challenging year, we continue to generate a lot of cash.

We continue to be strongly aligned with our largest franchise partner, The Coca-Cola Company, and all our other brand partners. As you know, sustainability is a key priority for us, and the pandemic has strengthened our determination to go further and faster in decarbonizing our business. I am privileged to be leading a strong team of such dedicated, talented, and engaged colleagues. In addition to thanking our employees, I'd also like to extend my gratitude to all of those who worked hard to keep us safe and well last year. Safeguarding our people has been our number one priority. The majority of our office-based colleagues continue to work remotely, utilizing the digital workplace tools in place across our markets. We increased our internal communications and emotional and mental health support, including the rollout of online well-being training modules.

We've worked closely with all our partners to support our communities. Together with The Coca-Cola Company, we provided substantial aid, and where possible, we made our logistics and transportation services available to support emergency relief work. Securing business continuity has been a big focus, and the pandemic has really reinforced the power of the relationship we have with The Coca-Cola Company and our other brand partners. We share a collective belief in driving our core brands through our joint investment plans. We were able to react quickly to the sharp changes in consumer behavior. The widespread closure of away-from-home outlets and low demand for immediate consumption meant we needed to quickly optimize our pack price architecture in the home channel, with greater emphasis on our core brands and larger pack sizes.

Reducing our SKUs, which at the height of the pandemic were down by over a third, helped us to ensure product availability and visibility for our customers, as well as driving further efficiencies in our supply chain. This meant we were able to maintain great customer service levels at close to 100%, despite the challenging backdrop. Some of these SKUs have, of course, been reintroduced based on our stringent criteria, but we continue to aim for a permanent 10% reduction with a focus on our core brands and key innovation.... We reallocated resources across the business, especially within field away-from-home to home, to increase coverage and capture revenue opportunities.

We pushed extra adjacencies in the home channel, such as meal deals, and introduced more premium packs, both in-store and online, to capture some away-from-home dining occasions that have moved to the home, and we successfully leveraged our digital capabilities with strong growth in both our B2B Home and B2B Business segments. Importantly, the focus and close collaboration with our customers and brand partners allowed us to gain overall market share, a fantastic achievement, and finally, we took bold actions to protect our performance, both in the short and long term. We have been, and continue to be, extremely disciplined from a cost perspective, ensuring all our OpEx and CapEx was limited to what was essential. We also took actions to protect our cash and managing our working capital requirements.

All of this enabled us to generate strong free cash flow and maintain our solid balance sheet. Finally, we took an important step in our sustainability journey by setting a bold ambition to become carbon neutral, which I will come on to next. The pandemic has strengthened the determination to go further and faster on our integrated sustainability plan. This is Forward. In December, we announced our ambition to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. Our focus will be on reducing emissions across our entire value chain, from the raw ingredients we source and the packaging we use to the drinks we sell. To support this ambition, we have set an interim target to reduce absolute greenhouse gas emissions across our entire value chain by 30% by 2030. Our sustainability initiatives are at the core of everything we do at CCEP.

This was reflected in a decision to integrate a carbon reduction metric into our long-term incentive plan for the first time in 2020, making CCEP an early adopter in this space. Packaging is, of course, central to our carbon reduction targets, and I'm pleased that despite the pandemic, we continue to move closer to our 50% recycled plastic target, progressing from 30% to 41% since this time last year. But the journey will not stop there. Sweden became the first 100% recycled PET market and the first in the Coca-Cola system, with the Netherlands, Norway, and Iceland to follow this year. We are proud that we continue to be recognized for our sustainability efforts.

We are one of just four beverage companies to be included on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, and recently had our position on the CDP A List for climate and water reaffirmed for a fifth consecutive year. We also retained our AAA MSCI ESG rating. I would now like to hand over to Nik to talk in more detail to the financials. Nik?

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Thank you, Damian, and good afternoon and good morning to all of you joining us today. Let me start with our 2020 financial summary. Our revenue declined by 11% on an FX-neutral basis, driven by a 10% comparable volume decline, reflecting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, of course, I'll come back to in a moment. The combination of the adverse channel mix and geographic mix resulted in a 1.5% decline in revenue per unit case. You'll find our revenue performance by geography in the appendices of this presentation, with detailed commentary in the release.

On our costs per unit case, that increased 2.5% on a comparable and FX neutral basis, mainly driven by an under recovery of our fixed costs, given the lower volumes, combined with adverse mix, mainly due to the higher demand for cans. As a reminder, approximately 15% of our COGS relates to fixed costs, mainly manufacturing costs and D&A. Commodities, which accounts for a further 25%, were mainly favorable in 2020, with lower PET and aluminum prices, partially offset by an increase in sugar prices. In addition, we benefited from the lower concentrate costs driven by the decline in revenue per unit case in line with our incidence model. A full breakdown of our COGS is included in the appendices.

While we're not providing 2021 COGS guidance today, please note that our commodities exposure is largely hedged for this year as per our multi-year hedging policy. Given this current level of coverage, we currently anticipate commodities inflation of approximately 1%, and we will keep you updated as the year progresses. Our comparable gross profit declined by 17%, reflecting the decline in revenue and adverse costs per unit case. Combined with an 11% reduction in comparable operating costs, driven by discretionary OpEx savings of approximately EUR 260 million, this led to a comparable operating profit of EUR 1.2 billion, down 28.5% on a comparable and FX neutral basis. I'll talk about OpEx and the discretionary savings in more detail shortly.

Our comparable effective tax rate declined to 24%, mainly due to lower corporate tax rates in France and Belgium, as well as a change in profit mix. This resulted in comparable diluted earnings per share of EUR 1.80, down 28.5% on a comparable and FX neutral basis, so as you're aware, free cash flow has been and continues to be a core priority for us here at CCEP. Despite the challenging backdrop, we delivered strong free cash flow generation of EUR 925 million, close to our medium-term annual objective of generating at least EUR 1 billion a year. This highlights the strength of our free cash flow generation, supported by our CapEx and working capital initiatives, which I'll also cover in more detail shortly.

And finally, on shareholder returns, we returned approximately EUR 130 million to shareholders via share buybacks before the suspension of our EUR 1 billion program in March last year. We also paid a full-year dividend of EUR 0.85 per share in December, maintaining our dividend payout ratio of circa 50%, in line with our dividend policy, to which we remain fully committed. Now to some revenue highlights. Joint value creation with our customers remains a key priority, so it is great to see that we were the largest creator of retail value in the NARTD category in 2020, adding an additional EUR 500 million versus 2019. In fact, we delivered nearly twice as much value as our nearest competitor, and at a brand level, we had three of the leading five brands for absolute value growth in our portfolio.

This was driven by smart revenue growth management initiatives, such as optimizing our promotional efficiency, SKU rationalization, and the reallocation of field sales reps into the home channel. These initiatives also helped us to take value share in the markets during the year, both in-store and online. These share gains would not have been possible without the resilient performance of our core brands. Coca-Cola Zero Sugar was the number one NARTD brand for absolute value growth during the year. And as we pushed additional adjacencies and ensured the supply of larger packs in store, we saw solid volume growth in multipack cans for both Fanta and Sprite. Energy has also been very resilient, with volume growth of 13%, so we are well on track to meet our goal of doubling the size of our energy business.

Monster was the standout performer, with volume growth of 15%, supported by new flavors such as Pacific Punch and a broader multipack offering in markets such as GB. Impressively, Monster is now the number one energy brand ahead of Red Bull in both Spain and Portugal. We've embraced the opportunity digital represents for our consumers and customers. In fact, our online grocery revenue grew 44%, resulting in value share gains of 140 basis points. In GB, our market share online has actually surpassed that of what's in store, reflecting our dedicated efforts to drive e-commerce sales together with our customers. And as restrictions have limited away-from-home socializing, we have continued to see strong growth in online food delivery, with revenue growth of around 50% during the year. But our digital momentum goes much further than just online grocery.

We have a winning B2B portal with myCCEP.com, now with around thirty-five thousand customers using the platform, four times more than that at the beginning of the year, and this number continues to grow. We also launched our first-ever direct-to-consumer sales platform in GB as a pilot, Your Coca-Cola. And finally, despite the pandemic, we continue to invest behind our core innovation and future revenue streams as we continue to diversify to become a total beverage company aligned with our brand partners. So now to the impact of COVID-19. You can see on this chart, clearly the monthly volatilities in volumes, mirroring the varying extent of lockdowns, outlet closures, and restrictions. Unsurprisingly, the most significant impact has been on our away-from-home channel, where volumes declined by circa 28%.

While we saw a marked improvement in volumes during quarter three, reflecting the easing of initial lockdown measures and favorable weather, volumes in the fourth quarter again deteriorated, impacted by the renewed restrictions, particularly during November and December. On the whole, trading in the home channel has been more stable, with full-year volume growth of circa 2%, benefiting from our RGM initiatives as well as the growth in online, as I mentioned earlier. The resolution of the customer dispute also supported home volumes in the second half, particularly in France and Germany. From a pack perspective, on-the-go and immediate consumption was negatively impacted across both channels, with volumes down nearly 25%. Future consumption packs, such as large PET and multipack cans, performed better, particularly in the home channel.

As a reminder, the away-from-home channel and immediate consumption typically account for around 40% and 35% of our volumes, respectively. You'll find more color on the volume breakdowns in the appendices of this deck. The start to 2021 continues to be challenged by the pandemic, with January volumes weaker than Q4, impacted by tougher restrictions in most of our markets. While considerable uncertainty remains over the depth and duration of these restrictions, we anticipate they will remain in place throughout most of the first quarter. That said, our learnings from 2020 and the way we have adapted our business gives us confidence that we will navigate through any short-term challenges effectively. Moving now to costs.

Importantly, we came into the crisis with a solid understanding of our cost base, given the closeout of the merger synergy program in 2019, alongside ongoing work around our Accelerate Competitiveness initiatives... This enabled us to react even more quickly when the pandemic hit our markets. The decline in operating profit was therefore moderated by robust action on discretionary spend. In total, we delivered OpEx savings of EUR 260 million, ahead of our guided range of EUR 200 million-EUR 250 million. Some costs declined naturally, such as seasonal labor, given lower volumes, as well as incentives, travel, and meetings and other services like consultancy. We were also able to reduce our trade marketing expenses as we worked closely with The Coca-Cola Company to become more targeted and efficient with our spend.

Keep in mind, though, that this is, of course, an area where we will continue to invest as restrictions begin to lift and volumes return. And as a reminder, we would see roughly two-thirds of our total OpEx as fixed and a third as variable. These variable volume-related savings are the key bridging item between the EUR 260 million of savings and the 315 million reduction in total OpEx that you see on this chart. This was partially offset by some one-off costs coming into the business, such as bad debts, inventory write-offs, and protective equipment for our colleagues, and, of course, inflation. We anticipate OpEx savings of approximately EUR 150 million in 2021 when compared to 2019.

This includes some permanent benefits from the 2020 mitigation program, such as less travel and more efficient DME spend, as well as the initial benefits from our Accelerate Competitiveness program, which we launched in October. This program will result in some structural headcount changes as well as the closure of three plants to address duplication, increase efficiency and scale, and simplify how we work. We anticipate that around 1,200 roles will be impacted across central supply chain, finance, and support functions. These are, of course, difficult decisions to make, but are the right ones for our business in the longer term, enabling us to meet the changing needs of our customers. Importantly, these initial initiatives will have multi-year benefits from a runway perspective, and as always, we will continue to manage our cost base as we look to become a more structurally efficient business.

I said it before, but I'll say it again, we will not return to our pre-pandemic cost base, and as a result, we expect our OpEx in 2021 to be lower than that of full year 2019, despite the inflationary pressures, given the actions we are taking to become a permanently leaner business for the future. This continued focus gives us the confidence in our ability to return to sustainable growth in 2021 and beyond, so turning back to free cash flow in more detail, a hugely important metric for us. Despite the challenging backdrop, we generated EUR 925 million of free cash flow. This slide lays out the key components. When the pandemic first hit our markets, we moved at speed to reduce all sources and uses of cash to preserve maximum flexibility.

This included reducing CapEx by around a third by deferring non-critical projects. Recognizing the importance of continued but targeted investments, we still spent circa EUR 360 million, excluding leases on supply chain, digital and other technologies, as well as cold drink equipment. We will continue to be disciplined with our CapEx spend in 2021 to ensure that we have the right portfolio and distribution capabilities to sell our products to all our customers across all channels. At this stage, we expect to maintain CapEx at 2020 levels, but cannot provide any specific guidance today, recognizing the current uncertain environment. We will, however, continue scaling up our digital investments and anticipate that this budget will account for about 30% of our spend this year, which compares to about 10% in 2019 and 20% in 2020.

Despite the pandemic, we delivered a working capital inflow of EUR 185 million in 2020. Some of this is down to timing, so will reverse, but reflecting on new multi-year focus on driving working capital improvements, we do expect to retain approximately EUR 100 million, taking our cumulative improvements to approximately 750 million since 2017. This strong performance has all been driven through strong cross-functional collaboration, as well as solid routines to track and drive results across trade payables, receivables, and our inventories. Finally, on the balance sheet. As you know, we entered this crisis from a position of strength, having delevered quickly post-merger, driven by a strong free cash flow generation.

We ended 2020 with a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 3.2x, reflecting the decline in profit owing to the pandemic, more than offsetting the reduction in net debt. We remain fully committed to our strong investment-grade rating. We have a balanced profile of long-term debt maturities, as the chart shows, and we're very pleased to secure an additional EUR 1.6 billion of funding in the debt markets last year, taking advantage of favorable market conditions. These proceeds continue to provide us with additional liquidity and flexibility, including the repayment of maturing debts. We also continue to have access to other sources of liquidity, including currently holding around EUR 1.2 billion of cash and EUR 1.5 billion sustainability-linked RCF. Additionally, we have access to the commercial paper market via our EUR 1.5 billion multicurrency program.

That said, we currently do not have any RCF utilization or commercial paper outstanding. So we have ample liquidity providing us with financial flexibility in the continued uncertain environment. And importantly, there are no covenants on either our long-term debt or our facilities. So with that, I'm going to hand back to Damian. Damian?

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Thank you, Nik. Our future will be green and digitally led. We have and continue to increase our investments in digital right across the business. The pandemic has shown the important role digital platforms are playing for our customers, consumers, and colleagues, an opportunity we will continue to harness. We continue to invest in sustainability with our now overarching commitment to Net Zero by 2040. This, alongside continuing to make portfolio investments skew to the core, but also to seed future revenue streams like Costa, Tropico, and Topo Chico, all supported and aligned with our brand partners. We want to continue growing and sparkling, and double our already strong energy business. We are also now building a platform for growth in coffee with Costa. So we are rightly confident about the future of our business, built upon three pillars: great people, great service, and great beverages.

We will strengthen a workplace culture that embraces well-being, inclusion, diversity, and equality, and to support our growth platform, we've also launched a new efficiency program with the first savings due to land in 2021 as we move forward to becoming an even leaner business, and with that in mind, here are some key highlights to look out for in 2021. On the core, watch out for the What The Fanta campaign, lending itself to the playful nature of the brand. New Coke packaging and a new greater taste in Coke Zero is on its way to be sold, supported by a major advertising campaign. In the energy space, Coke Energy's relaunch in 2020 is on the way, including the launch of Coke Energy Cherry.

Monster will drive more innovation, including new flavors, especially across the alcoholic and juice ranges, including Monster Mule, a mix between ginger brew and energy. There will be new flavors for Fuze Tea, like elderberry peach and raspberry mint, new larger pack sizes for the home channel, alongside variants launching without sugar. Tropico enters Portugal for the first time this year, and with new flavors like clementine, orange, and tropical, and of course, the exciting launch of the new low-calorie hard seltzer, Topo Chico brand, is on the way with three flavors. Early days, but customers are enthusiastic and the early feedback is encouraging. Now on to Costa. Building a platform for growth in coffee is indeed an exciting opportunity. It's a large and growing category. We have a new dedicated team in place to manage Costa within CCEP.

We are busy building our plans with a focus on Proud to Serve, the wonderful Express machines, and Ready-to-Drink, with new variants landing this year, like the flat white and vanilla latte. Outside of GB, Costa will be launching Proud to Serve and Express in all our markets, starting with Germany, Belux, and Norway in 2021. We look forward to sharing more in due course. We are progressing with the acquisition of Coca-Cola Amatil. You will no doubt understand the sensitivity, given this is a live transaction, so we are limited as to what we can say at this time. In the meantime, as you'll have seen recently, we announced receiving approval for the transaction from the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board.

In terms of next steps, we are now waiting for Amatil to receive the Independent Expert's Reports commissioned by them, and then publish the Scheme Booklet ahead of the scheme vote. The scheme naturally remains subject to other customary conditions, including Amatil shareholder approval, court approval, and the New Zealand foreign investment regulatory approval. We look forward to moving ahead in the process and sharing more with you as soon as we can. So our key takeaways from 2020. 2020 was a challenging year like no other, but I am proud of how well we managed through such a rapidly changing environment. The crisis reinforced the power of our relationship with the Coca-Cola Company and all of our brand partners. Our collective belief in continuing to invest in our core brands has served us well.

The crisis did not stop us continuing to do the right thing to position the business for the long term. We continued to invest, particularly in sustainability, digital, and of course, in our portfolio. We have adjusted our cost base to a new reality and launched a wider efficiency program, so more to come. And the strength of the free cash flow generation of this business was a real standout. And as I started by thanking my engaged and committed colleagues, I wish to end on the same note as we look to the future. While our business continues to face significant restrictions, which we confidently continue to navigate, we face the future with optimism and confidence. We are ambitious in our ability to grow, but done sustainably for a better shared future, as we believe more sustainable businesses will ultimately win longer term.

Now, I'm very happy that we would like to open for questions. Thank you, operator.

Operator (participant)

... Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. Again, that's star one to come into the question queue. And our first question comes from the line of Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs.

Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director)

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Hope you're all doing well.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Hey, Bonnie.

Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director)

I guess I was hoping to hear just a little bit more details on the permanent discretionary expense reductions, you know, you discussed, and specifically your thoughts on marketing spend this year. You know, I guess I'm wondering if there are any examples that you could share with us that, you know, give you the confidence that the pullback or reductions, you know, won't necessarily have a negative impact on your top line, for instance. And then I know you're not in a position to provide guidance right now, but, you know, maybe on a high level, when thinking about margins, you know, would it be fair then to expect margins to expand this year, you know, given the expense reductions and certainly your new savings program? Thanks.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Thanks, Bonnie, and good morning. Maybe I'll cover your question around the marketing investment, and then I'll hand over to Nik. So we feel really confident with the plan for 2021 in terms of the level of investments against the programs, both on our side and with The Coca-Cola Company. You know, throughout the crisis last year, you know, we continued to fully invest behind the business that was really opening and winning, which was retail and online. We maintained our consumer promotion pricing programs because we felt that was critically important, and we saw that impact on our share. That will flow through to 2021.

So I think from a top-line growth perspective, the only thing that, you know, is gonna hold us back in the near term will just be the away-from-home. you know, we continue to see strong growth across our brands online and in retail, and away-from-home is open and takeaway or food to go, we're also growing nicely. So, we feel pretty confident about our investment levels. And clearly, we have taken the opportunity throughout 2020 to just be more choiceful around where we spend our TME, and that has released some savings to our bottom line, and we feel good about that. So, very much looking forward to our markets fully reopening, and we're well placed to fully fund that as we move forward.

Over to you, Nik, if you want to just cover the broader question on cost.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Yeah, sure. So Bonnie, you know, if you look at what we did in 2020, the EUR 260 million, you know, there's largely four buckets there. You've got the DME spend, you've got things on incentives, you've got travel, meetings, et cetera, and then you've got other discretionary spend. As I've communicated, the EUR 150 million that we believe we can definitely retain versus 2019, it's really back to that point that Damian just made. We are actually looking to reinvest back in TME, and hence you see that number coming down. But that's also then supported by the fact that we've got some new programs that we've initiated that will deliver savings in 2021 and in the years beyond.

So I think combined with what we're looking at, you know, we feel confident that this is, you know, what's gonna definitely be saved in the P&L. And if there's more investment that needs to happen in TME, that's already what we've accounted for. It's almost like this is the base for 2021, and then for the outgoing years, we actually have some of the continuing benefits of the programs that we've announced in late 2020. Clearly, if you look at that mathematically, you know, we would expect, despite consumer and shopper investments that are deduction against revenue, you know, we'd expect to see rate improvement as well as mix improvement coming in on the top line. You can see I've talked about COGS from a commodity perspective.

Clearly, obviously, if you look at the elements around volume coming back, which we clearly expect it will, that will have a positive impact versus 2020 in terms of our overhead recovery. So, you know, both at the growth margin level and then supported by what I just described in terms of the OpEx savings, at the operating profit margin level, we would expect to see expansion. Can't give you a number, but clearly there will be expansion versus the numbers that you see for 2020. Hopefully that helps.

Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director)

Yes, I really appreciate that. That was, that was helpful. Thank you both.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is going to come from the line of Lauren Lieberman with Barclays.

Lauren Lieberman (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks. Good morning. I was curious if you can talk a little bit about, should recovery come faster than expected, how do you make sure you are prepared for that outcome as well? And then secondly, I was curious about the cooler placement conversation you shared, Nik, how much of your CapEx budget was allocated to coolers or cold drink equipment in 2020? And I was curious how you're thinking about that for 2021, and again, particularly as mobility hopefully increases sooner rather than later. Thanks.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Hi. Hi, Lauren, thank you. Yeah, I mean, we are fully prepared for a faster recovery and obviously very much look forward to that outcome. I think what Nik kind of highlighted in our financials from 2020 and something that I think we managed well, was that while we based our cost base, including TME, to Bonnie's earlier question, we also were conscious to continue to spend money against the opportunity in the future. So we continued, as Nik called out, to invest in digital. We obviously continued to invest in sustainability, but we also closed out a number of supply chain projects that, you know, particularly on some packaging like cans, that we know is gonna be a key driver of our future growth. So certainly from a capacity perspective, we're well placed to recover.

You know, clearly, we've protected the muscle of the business. So, you know, when we talked about restructuring, which was necessary, we did retain, you know, the muscle of the business, the frontline. We redirected that asset to home market, given the circumstances, but, you know, we've retained our away-from-home and our frontline capabilities. So yeah, we're well-placed and, you know, we'll continue to make the right decisions as we see that recovery hopefully moving forward. And that gives us confidence that we can capture more than our fair share of that recovery. Because clearly one of our goals is to beat the market, and we've done that. And I think we continue to generate a lot of cash and profit for our customers.

So, you know, we've come into 2021 in a good place with our customers, both on pricing and rate. And that was something we were conscious of as well, to give us a solid foundation, and that's in place. So really, the variable that we're managing against is, you know, as these restrictions lift and the market reopens, we're ready to go with speed, and that's what we'll do.

Lauren Lieberman (Managing Director)

That's great. Thank you. And then the cooler question, that was the follow-up.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

So on the cooler, if you look at our-

Sure. Hey, Lauren.

Lauren Lieberman (Managing Director)

Hey.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

On coolers, if you look at our CapEx, we spent, like we said, around EUR 360 million in 2020, but it was a little more weighted towards both digital as well as some of the supply chain projects that we were kind of midstream on. If we look at 2021, we feel our base level will be about the same, but we have definitely upped our cooler investment there. And clearly, if the business is recovering and coming back faster, Damian and I would have no issue, you know, putting more into coolers and moving with speed on that. So clearly committed to continue to invest in the market and be focused around faster recovery.

Lauren Lieberman (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks so much.

Operator (participant)

And as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw a question, press the pound key. Once again, star one to queue. And our next question is going to come from the line of Richard Withagen with Kepler Cheuvreux.

Richard Withagen (Analyst)

Yeah, good. Good afternoon, all. Thanks for the question. On sustainability, you, you have a EUR 250 million investment in the 2020-2022 period, which partially will go through the P&L and part through CapEx. So I was wondering, how much of this investment will be incremental to your cost base, and how much has already gone through the P&L in 2020?

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

So, just to give you a quick down on the P&L piece in particular, the biggest elements are really what we're doing from a perspective of investing in areas such as rPET, what's gone in from an angle of shrink to board conversion, et cetera. So that's included in our COGS number in our P&L. That's included in the 2.5% COGS per unit case. We don't break out that number separately. And then as we look forward, I mean, obviously, there's a fair amount in our base. You will continue to see the investments going in there. In the commodities number that I've given you of circa 1% inflation, that includes additional on-cost for our sustainability investments, again, linked to those same elements that I've talked to you about.

So you can see, despite our investments in sustainability, we're managing to keep our commodities inflation very much in check and in line, and it's the right thing to do longer term for our business and our brand equities.

Richard Withagen (Analyst)

Yeah, thanks, Nik.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

And maybe-

Richard Withagen (Analyst)

And maybe-

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Sorry. Sorry, Richard.

Richard Withagen (Analyst)

Sorry.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Just to follow up to Nik's comments. I mean, yeah, I think. You know, actually, this morning, I had a look at a new campaign that we'll be rolling out with the Coca-Cola Company around our sustainability investments, because clearly, you know, we see that as an investment rather than a cost, and it's fair to say that we probably haven't leveraged that as much as we could, but I was, you know, happy to see a new direction around how we're gonna get that message even closer to our consumer and to our shopper, and, you know, compared to two, three years ago, even in Europe, I'm continually surprised at how much our customers are now leaning into the sustainability debate and really valuing what we're doing.

So yes, it's a cost, but it's only a cost if we don't turn it into an investment, and that's really what we're focused on. Sorry, Richard.

Richard Withagen (Analyst)

Yeah. Yeah, no, that's very good. Thanks, Damian. Maybe as a quick follow-up, you gained market share overall in 2020. Can you perhaps give some color on the markets where you did really well and the ones where you lagged behind in terms of market share?

Damian Gammell (CEO)

... Yeah, we did really well across all of our markets. I have to say, you know, we definitely had some challenges with customer groups. So I think when we look at market share, I think it's probably easier to look at specific challenges that lasted a bit longer. We talked about it during 2020, particularly with some of the buying groups. So that impacted markets like Germany and Belgium, but that was more a function of the customer universe rather than the market. Outside of our buying group challenge, we gained share across all of our countries and across our customers. So really was more of a customer group challenge rather than any specific market. But obviously, the markets that were affected by the longer than expected negotiations with AgeCore were, from a scale perspective, definitely Germany and Belgium.

But overall, you know, and we saw our share recover very nicely in the latter part of 2020, as we reached an agreement with that particular buying group. So, yeah, very positive move on share, both on NARTD. Sparkling was slightly impacted by our buying group negotiations, but overall, all our markets did pretty well, I have to say.

Richard Withagen (Analyst)

All right, great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is going to come from the line of Edward Mundy with Jefferies.

Edward Mundy (Managing Director)

Hi. Hi, Damian. Hi, Nik. Two for me, please. I appreciate there's not an awful lot you can say on Coca-Cola Amatil, at this stage, but you probably noticed they printed some quite good results recently. Does that change the opportunity, and is there any update you can give at this stage on the cost of financing you think you might be able to achieve on that deal? And then the second, again, probably not an awful lot you can, so I'm going to try and ask it anyway. Growth, I think, in 2021 is going to depend to a large extent on how quickly the reopening takes place within Europe. I appreciate you don't have a crystal ball, and the environment is still quite volatile.

But I was wondering whether you're able to share what you think or how much of the lost revenue in 2020 you think you might be able to get back on a good reopening scenario, relative to, let's say, a bad reopening or late reopening scenario?

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Great. So, in relation to... Let me take that second one first in terms of the reopenings. Clearly, when we look at our business, we're expecting Q1 to probably be the most challenged, and I think you'll probably see restrictions as we hear in the market starting to ease towards hopefully the end of Q1 as the vaccine rollout happens, et cetera. So, you know, I mean, I think if we look at the recovery, think about it from an angle that Q2 was our worst hit quarter last year. So clearly you'll be seeing a strong recovery in that quarter, regardless, because you're not going to have that severe level of lockdown that we saw.

And in the second half of the year, you've seen the results where those are strong results, but clearly we believe that that side, particularly given the fact that in away-from-home was clearly challenged again because of those numbers. So, I mean, I think in a downside scenario, if you look at it in terms of that going longer, you're looking at maybe some period into Q2, but clearly we see, you know, second half should be a lot stronger, and if not Q2, you know, relatively even in a weaker or more lockdown situation, we're going to see that stronger. So we feel good about everything that we're doing that's within our control to be focused on what we can do from a better execution perspective, brand, you know, focus.

We've got great supply chain capabilities to be able to ramp up very quickly. So we feel good about that from an angle of, you know, really, the recovery should hopefully come fast and sharp as soon as things start opening up. From a perspective on the transaction, I think a couple of things to say. Firstly, if I start with your first question around the better share trading, the better trading update from Amatil. Clearly, we were expecting that, you know, as you can see them in our results. So we've seen that. So, you know, as Damian said, we're now waiting for Amatil to receive the Independent Expert Report, which they've commissioned, and then publishing of the Scheme Booklet ahead of the scheme vote. So we'll update you on that going forward.

In terms of cost of financing, I mean, again, you saw we were able to raise some great money towards the end of last year, both in terms of the recap for EUR 250 million, where we had an effective coupon of about 60 basis points. And then we did a EUR 750 million eight-year deal where we had a coupon of 20 basis points. Now, clearly, the magnitude of what we would be looking at going forward for the transaction would be significantly higher. But, you know, I think if we look at it from an angle of where we are, I would view those as benchmarks.

If you look at particularly the recap, we should be very comfortably able to do that within that quantum that I just referred to in terms of the deal size. So hopefully that helps a little bit, Ed.

Edward Mundy (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks, Nik.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is going to come from the line of Robert Ottenstein with Evercore ISI.

Robert Ottenstein (Senior Managing Director and Partner)

Great. Thank you very much, and congratulations on a very strong performance in most challenging times. One of the things that I was wondering, you mentioned that you were going to reduce 1,200 roles to meet the changing needs of customers, if I recall that correctly. Can you talk about sort of the ongoing changes? I mean, are these changing needs given COVID or changing needs as you see them developing in the post-COVID world? So that'd be my first question. And then the second question, just if you can, you know, talk to us a little bit about what you've learned about Costa Ready-to-Drink and how that's been received in 2020. Thank you.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Thank you, Robert. The changes that we made are really focused on the future. So, I mean, they obviously support our journey through COVID, but they're very much anchored in our view of a post-COVID consumer and customer environment in Europe. And they're quite broad, those roles. Some of them come from our SKU rationalization and the efficiency that that's driving. Some of them come from, you know, businesses that we're exiting, so a number of water brands that we felt, you know, were not going to contribute to our shareholder value story going forward. Obviously, we've been investing a lot in technology since we created CCEP, and there was always, you know, going to be the opportunity to become more efficient and productive through that.

So some of those changes become on the back of our technology investment. So it's quite broad, sets us up very well for the future, and clearly, you know, is on the back of decisions we made pre-COVID. But, you know, and I'm sure you hear a lot of CEOs saying this, but, you know, it has allowed us to accelerate some of the changes that we were going to do anyway. So very much, you know, future based. On, you know, Costa, we're seeing our Ready-to-Drink portfolio in the U.K. do very well. The brand is well known. We're excited about rolling that out across Europe. I think Nik highlighted that in his comments.

We're going to do it on a holistic level with some of our other propositions around Proud to Serve and also the Costa Express machines, which are fantastic. So, you know, we're very excited about that. It's a growing category, and clearly, the Costa brand gives us a great platform to win in Ready-to-Drink outside of the U.K. So, that's how we're looking at Costa. And, you know, to echo what Nik said, you know, some of the decisions we made in 2020 were to continue to invest in our capital program for Costa as well.

Robert Ottenstein (Senior Managing Director and Partner)

What share-

Damian Gammell (CEO)

To get us ready.

Robert Ottenstein (Senior Managing Director and Partner)

Which share did you get for Ready-to-Drink in the U.K.?

Damian Gammell (CEO)

I think we're just over 4% now, Robert. So just over 4%-4.5% share. So, you know, from a quick start, so we're pleased with that as well.

Robert Ottenstein (Senior Managing Director and Partner)

Terrific. Thank you very much.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Sorry, just one last point to build on the comment around Costa. As Damian said, you know, clearly we accelerated that. So the 150 that I've talked about factors in, for 2021, elements of those savings as well as the mitigation continuing. But then if we look forward, because of those announced programs, if you look out the next three years, 2022 to 2024, there's, you know, at least another 50 to 75, just based on the programs that announced and the run rate. So, you know, clearly strongly focused on our cost base.

Robert Ottenstein (Senior Managing Director and Partner)

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Our next question will come from the line of Simon Hales with Citi.

Simon Hales (Managing Director)

Brilliant. Thanks for the question, and hi, Nik. Hi, Damian. Nik, maybe just following up on your last comment there around the one hundred and fifty million of savings this year and ongoing. Can I just sort of clarify that in the one fifty this year, that includes some of the ongoing savings you'll be getting, particularly in Q1, given the tough backdrop that you're certainly facing at the moment in Europe, or are they separate and on top of the one fifty?

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Sorry, I didn't get your question. In Q1 of 2021?

Simon Hales (Managing Director)

2021.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

amounts to?

Simon Hales (Managing Director)

Yeah, I'm just trying to make sure that there aren't two separate buckets here, Nik. There's the 150 of savings, and part of that's retention, you know, of last year's savings. But as we've come into 2021, clearly, the trading backdrop is still very challenged. You know, people still aren't traveling in the way that we perhaps hoped they might have been six or nine months ago. Is the 150 encompassing all of the OpEx savings in sort of 2021, or is there still some ongoing cost mitigation in the short term, given the second wave of lockdowns on top of that? Does that make sense to you?

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Got it. So I think if you look at the €150 that I've talked about, clearly it is more weighted towards the first half of the year. And keep in mind, as we talked about earlier, I think with Lauren's question, you know, would we be able to move and invest faster in the business? We have planned for a recovery and are investing. Clearly, that's not coming. I'd almost say this EUR 150 is our baseline savings, and we will guide more. But that EUR 150 is definitely more half one weighted than half two weighted, and I would say more Q1 weighted than within half one. So that's the way I would look at it. And then, as I just said to Robert's question, this is obviously what we have for-...

2021, you will see some of those ongoing programs that we've announced deliver savings in 2022 to 2024 as well, in the 50 million-75 million range, in addition to that 150, that'll be in our base versus 2019. So hopefully that helps.

Simon Hales (Managing Director)

Yeah, that's very clear. Thank you ever so much.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is going to come from the line of Charlie Higgs with Redburn.

Charlie Higgs (Director)

Hi, Damian. Hi, Nik. Thanks for the question. The first one is just on kind of a new way of working, maybe post-pandemic. If people are working from home more, and there is just a sustained shift to, you know, the at-home channel, are there things that you can do in retail to improve, you know, pack mix and price mix? Or will that essentially be an ongoing price mix headwind? And then the second question is, you know, very strong digital growth. Are you able to maybe give a bit more color on what that means for the business? I mean, is that, you know, positive for margins, maybe better for working capital cycle? Just any more color on that would be useful, please.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Thank you, Charlie. Yeah, I mean, we see price mix improving going forward. We have adapted quickly to some of the new dynamics around working from home. We've had exponential growth with food aggregators. I mean, we were doing well with them pre-crisis because they were winning anyway. So we had a good platform, but as their business has accelerated, we've accelerated with them, and we've been changing pack formats with them as we see, you know, transaction sizes growing, as obviously, you know, people are having family meals and maybe meals that they were celebrating out of home, at home. So that's working very well. We are also continuing to look at, you know, driving profitability even faster in retail.

We changed a lot of our pack formats based on the first experience of lockdown, where we saw obviously people shopping slightly less frequently or using more home delivery, and obviously that points to being able to, you know, offer larger pack sizes or special packs in and outs, which we really enjoyed success in in the second half of last year, so yeah we expect a lot of those trends will remain. We're obviously prepared for the eventuality of also restaurants, bars, and travel reopening when that happens, and clearly as people go back to restaurants and bars, even if it's slightly less than previously, that's gonna be a price mix gain for us, and so we're excited about seeing that happening.

There's a lot of speculation about whether people will have, you know, blowouts, and their eating out will become even bigger or not. You know, we're prepared for both eventualities, but you know, I'd say, even in the current restrictions, which, you know, we believe are getting closer to an end across Europe, our investments with food aggregators, our platform for takeaway is really helping us. Our online business, to your last point, you know, clearly, our online business is predominantly through our retailers, and therefore, you know, is basically something that doesn't drain our margins because we work with our retailers through their home delivery platforms, and again, that has served us well.

So we have got a small trial of Direct-to-Consumer in the U.K., and clearly, that's something we're excited about, but obviously very conscious that that's got to be, you know, a good initiative for our margins as well going forward. So that's how we're looking at it at the moment.

Charlie Higgs (Director)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is going to come from the line of Fintan Ryan with JP Morgan.

Fintan Ryan (Equity Research Analyst)

Good afternoon, Nik. Good afternoon, Damian. Thanks for the questions. Just two for me, please, and they're mostly around your portfolio. Following on from your commentary earlier around the Costa expansion, rollout, and the opportunities you see there. I wonder, could you quantify in terms of your OpEx and CapEx over the next few years, what sort of incremental should we see, particularly in regards to the actual capital rollout of the Costa Express vending machines? Because... Should these become a sort of a meaningful line item on your cash flow statement as you're seeing with the cold drink equipment? And then secondly, just refer to your sort of long-term targets to double the energy business.

I wonder, could you give a bit more color around how you see that evolving in terms of category growth, market share, opportunities for you to take, specifically, knowing what you've done already in Spain and Portugal? And again, do you see any risk that further growth within the energy portfolio could, in many ways, cannibalize, say, your sparkling flavors like Fanta or Sprite? So any thoughts around that would be great, please.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Yeah. Thank you, Fintan. I'll maybe deal with the second part of your question, and then Nik can comment on capital and Costa. We've had you know, a great success story in energy, particularly led by Monster over the last number of years, and we've got Coke Energy coming in. It's been the best performing category throughout 2020. And you know, we've been able to enjoy the growth of the category a little bit more. Our absolute category share, depending on the market you look at, is still in the twenties. When we look at you know, that doubling of the business, if you compare that share to what we enjoy in our other mainstream categories like cola or flavors, it's still well below what we enjoy.

So we believe we can, you know, participate in the market growth and take some share. And I think we've demonstrated that, as you call them, Spain, Portugal, we have a great business across Europe. Clearly, GB has been a strong market for a while. So, you know, we're excited about that being, you know, quality growth for us that doesn't impact the rest of our portfolio. And I think the pipeline of innovation from both The Coca-Cola Company and Monster in this space, combined with what we've already done, gives us confidence in doubling the business. And clearly, we're challenging ourselves to do it as quick as we can. But in effect, it's what we've done over the last three or four years, and we still see a lot of headroom for growth. It's profitable.

You know, it's a great category, and I think we're well settled for taking our more than fair share of it. So, yeah, excited about that. And, Nik, do you want to comment on the CapEx?

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Yeah. So, I mean, I think as Damian said, it's a great category, it's a growing category, and it's a profitable category as we choose to play in it. So, you know, we've talked about the Ready-to-Drink, which clearly, you know, we will continue to bring back and do that in-house at the right time. So there'll be some investments there. But, you know, it's a good revenue per case and good margin product for us. And then you've got the Proud to Serve and the Costa Express that we continue to be excited about.

So in the numbers that I've indicated for you for 2021, as I indicated to Lauren, with the Costa piece, we've included in that, obviously, our rollout of machines as we look at the priority markets, really being Germany and Belgium and Norway, as we're rolling out with Costa. What we would plan to do is we're laying out a five-year plan with the Costa team and our senior leadership team that Damian referred to. At the appropriate time, we'll actually share with you a separate business view on Costa, including margins, CapEx investments, et cetera. But for 2021, that's included in our number. If recovery is faster and we want to go faster on that, again, that will not be a limiting factor for us.

Charlie Higgs (Director)

Great, very clear. Appreciate the color. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our last question for this morning will come from the line of Sean King with UBS.

Sean King (Senior U.S. Consumer Analyst)

Hi, thanks for the question. We've been hearing a lot, more and more about, sustainable packaging, which is coming at a cost. You mentioned that, your customers are getting behind these initiatives. Any evidence of consumers being willing to pay more, for sustainable packaging, or is this just really the, the price to play in the industry? Thank you.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Thank you, Sean. Great question. Currently, you know, we haven't seen the consumer preparing to pay more. I think that's a function of a number of factors. You know, clearly, our brands are, you know, pretty well premium priced already. It is something that, you know, we haven't factored into our modeling, but obviously, it's something that we'd love to be able to extract more value on. So certainly getting back to a comment I made earlier, we are working on, you know, a function of, you know, the willingness to pay is to understand the value. And I think we have now built a platform that going into 2021 and 2022, we can talk, you know, more directly to consumers about the benefit of sustainability, the benefit of our packaging, and how we're managing it.

And over time, you know, that could translate into certainly more brand love. We can see that. And over time, that may translate into more pricing power in the market. So that's something we're excited about. You know, we haven't factored that in, so we clearly see that as being upside to our investment case. It's logical, I think, that brands that are seen genuinely to be more sustainable will be more valuable. I think that's definitely true. The ability to translate that into shelf pricing, I think, is something we're going to keep exploring and testing. It's certainly giving us more engagement with our customers around space in store, aligning to their green agenda, and partnering with them around, you know, reducing carbon footprint. So definitely a win on the engagement side with customers, definitely increasing brand value.

Great opportunity as you raise to see if we can extract a higher price on the back of that, and more to come on that.

Sean King (Senior U.S. Consumer Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. I will now turn today's conference over to Damian Gammell for closing comments.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

So, first of all, again, a big thank you to everybody for joining us today. As you will have heard, we've had a very resilient performance, and we realize that, you know, certainly in Q1, we still face restrictions, and we're dealing with that, as we move forward. We are continuing to invest in our business right across innovation, sustainability, and our digital agenda. We're also delivering on costs. We've adjusted our cost base strategically, to a new reality, and there is more to come. The strength of our free cash flow continues to be a standout, and we're very, very excited about 2021, both from a core innovation and some new news coming on our Coca-Cola brand, Topo Chico, Costa, and of course, Amatil.

This action is progressing, and we look forward to moving forward in the process and sharing more with you as soon as we can. So with that, I'd like to thank you again and close our call, and I hope everybody continues to stay safe and well. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for participating in today's conference call. Once again, we appreciate your participation and ask that you please disconnect.