Piet Sanders, CEO of What's Cooking? said, "2024 was a very special year in the history of our Group. We managed to make remarkable strategic progress and complete the disposal of the Savoury business unit early January 2025. We also made significant progress in our operational and commercial performance. All of this resulted in a solid EUR 21 million net earnings after taxes or EUR 11,12 earnings per share – a result and team performance I am truly proud of. I am looking forward to 2025 with confidence. Our continued focus on investments is paying off and we are already starting to write the next ‘growth’ chapter with the expansion project in Poland and the intended acquisition in France.”
Key headlines & events
As we have assessed the assets and liabilities of our SBU Savoury as held for sale, the entire segment is reported as 'discontinued' in our full year 2024 figures. We therefore only have one continuing segment being our ready meals business including the central overheads of the group.
Underlying EBITDA including both continued and discontinued operations (so like for like with previous presentation of U-EBITDA) increased from EUR 50 million in 2023 to EUR 65 million in 2024.
Revenues from continued operations (Continued figures include Ready Meals and Continuing Group Services) increased by 9% to EUR 404 million. This organic growth was driven by a volume growth of 10% compared to previous year. Our continued focus on quality products, solid service as well as new products allowed us to grow with new and existing customers. Our brand Come a casa ® also continued to grow significantly in Central & Eastern Europe as we launched a new range and new packaging, supported by our first TV commercials in Poland.
Our costs were well controlled and despite the ongoing investments in innovations, sustainability and improved digital processes as well as persistent salary inflation, we managed to control expenses overall in order to ensure a solid drop-through of incremental volumes to EBITDA.
Underlying EBITDA from continued operations increased from EUR 23 million in 2023 to EUR 33 million in 2024. Non-underlying expenses amounted to EUR 1 million EUR and were mainly related to the strategic divestment & acquisition project expenses.
Net Financing expenses increased from EUR 3.2 million in 2023 to EUR 4.5 million in 2024, reflecting the increase in EURIBOR and the fact we no longer had interest rate hedges from mid-2023 onwards.
The Result of discontinued operations net of tax including in particular the SBU Savoury result, improved from a loss of EUR 2 million in 2023 to a profit of EUR 5 million in 2024. The impact of dis-synergies on the continuing business amounts to almost EUR 7 million in 2024 and EUR 4 million in 2023 net of tax. This brings the total discontinued operations net result after tax to EUR 11 million in 2024.
The net group earnings after taxes increased from EUR 7.7 million last year to EUR 20.6 million in 2024.
Net financial debt at year-end 2024 amounted to EUR 47 million (excluding discontinued operations) and remains very comfortable even after the acquisition of the land and building related to the expansion project in Poland.
Dividend Proposal
The Board of Directors will propose the General Meeting to approve a total gross dividend of EUR 10 per share consisting of a EUR 5.5 ‘special’ dividend payable in June 2025 and a ‘normal’ dividend payable early July 2025 of EUR 4.5 per share. The Board believes the special dividend is justified given the successful completion of the Savoury business unit disposal early 2025 that is putting the company back in a positive net cash position after disposal.
The dividends also leave the Group with sufficient resources to execute its long term strategy including the organic growth projects and focus on well-chosen M&A projects.
Events after balance sheet date
The Group completed the sale of its Savoury SBU after year-end, resulting in net cash proceeds after expenses of approximately EUR 100 million and also announced the intended acquisition of 100% of the share capital of Sveltic, a French ready-meal manufacturer, currently part of the Intermarché group of companies.
Following the disposal of the Savoury business unit which includes the Lievegem location, the Group also will relocate its headquarters to a new state of the art leased building in Ghent. This relocation will give the Group the opportunity to bring the different teams and departments even closer together in a new setting – developing the collaborative organization even further to boost the growth plans. The new headquarters address will be
