So, as we look though, the outlook, we’re looking for a more normal season now. Of course, what’s normal is always a debatable question. But to be a share of some slides in the presentation that showed you look at the US environments getting back to kind of pre-COVID levels. We’re expect this to be a business that fluctuates plus or minus a half to a percent on a very extreme good or high season or low season. So overall I think that’s the difference. Nothing particularly in one-off or discrepancies in inventories or anything like that that I would highlight. On VMS, you’re right, we continue to see more normalization of that category. Tobias again shared in the presentation some market share slides. You see that Caltrate and Centrum have done quite well.
And frankly, Emergen-C has one share. Now, the one share at a declining market, and we’re seeing that stabilize as we get towards the end of the year. But we continue to be optimistic on this category. I’m not going to give any specific guidance for next year on it, but we think the category will overall get back to pre-COVID kind of growth levels. And honestly, this is also an area where I just highlight Centrum and what’s happening there. Really strong performance on Centrum last year driven by the clinical study, which now we have three different outputs of that clinical study that show that Centrum Silver increases cognitive function by 60% among the population of people 60 and older. We’re seeing that really drive differentiation in the marketplace.
So we’re excited about those kind of things where we can really make a difference in VMS.
Tobias Hestler: And maybe let me ask 1 thing here, going back to the cold and flu topic. So there’s another differentiator for us is in our product portfolio. So we have TheraFlu, NeoCitran, and some European marketing in Canada, which is a hot drink. And that tends to do better in season where you have more flu-like symptoms. So when you really feel under the weather, when you’re in bed, when you have a fever. So — and the type of bugs that went around, especially in Europe, in Q4, were more of this heavier nature. So I think that helps again. I think it shows you the strength of our geographic portfolio but also the strength of the diversity of our product portfolio which makes this business very resilient.
Guillaume Delmas: Very clear. Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Iain Simpson, Barclays. Please go ahead.
Iain Simpson: Thank you very much. A couple of questions from me if I may. Firstly just to go through that margin point again to make sure I understood you correctly. So you’ve quantified the headwind from portfolio and FX effects. That’s the 60, 70 basis point headwind. You’ve got some cost saves, but I assume that it sounds like a lot of those will be reinvested to further drive growth. So effectively in order to get margins flat for this year, we probably have to assume that organic margin expansion would be I know let’s call it 50 bps plus, which I guess is possible that also might be a bit of a stretch. So perhaps as we think about reported margin this year versus 2023, we should be thinking about it maybe flat to small down.
Would that be a fair characterization just to make sure I’ve understood you? And then secondly just getting on to that capital return that £500 million buyback, very welcome. Is that something that you will be doing through the year as a kind of everyday buyback program? Or is that £500 million buyback headroom something that you will hold in your back pocket to potentially allow you to participate in any future placings? Thank you so much.
Brian McNamara: Thanks, Iain. So on the margin, right? So I think first of all knock on to guide on the reported margin, because there’s two pieces in the reported margin, once the translational FX that’s going to move up and down. So we’re going to update you every quarter on what that is going to be. The numbers I’ve given you are now the dollar and the euro as I said earlier. M&A is also moving. We might acquire somewhat. You might have a another divestment. You might — the closing of the divest might be two months earlier, two months later. So that’s a moving piece. Again we’ll update you on that as part of our — as memoir. And then I think on the organic profit growth, I think you should I think take some comfort from us being able to deliver 10.8% organic profit growth against the sales growth — organic sales growth of 8%.
So that’s nearly three points ahead of that. And that was in a year where gross margin was actually down in percent of sales. And we didn’t have £100 million plus from a productivity program come through. So I think we have more room to reinvest. But, of course, I don’t know what’s in your model but I think Q4 should give you a bit of an indication that gross margin growing ahead of the rate of sales growth will help. Yes, we’ll have some inflation still but the inflation pressures are lower. We’ll have less pricing of course as well. But I think we’re getting back to a more normal. So I think in my view overall this growth algorithm is really working and it’s yielding result. And then I think that’s for me great segue to the share buyback, I think ultimately because that algorithm is working and the strong cash conversion is working, and we did a bit of the divestment we announced.
I think that gave us the option to do two things. One, to update our capital allocation priorities probably a year earlier than what we have committed two years ago. So you’ve seen the slide deck, the new capital allocation framework, and with that we’re able to announced both, an increase in the dividend, also the commitment that dividend going forward will grow at least in line with earnings. And then secondly, announcing a 500 million share buyback. Now specifically on the share buyback, we said we’re going to do it during 2024 and we’re going to do it either on the open market, or buying it back from GSK or Pfizer if and when they do a listing. I mean, clearly doing it in a placing would be preferred because you can get it at a discount.
