But, of course, that’s outside of my control because that’s the Pfizer and GSK decision but of course the best value and the highest shareholder value creation you’re going to get if we can go through placings. But if the placings wouldn’t happen then, of course, we would go and do this and execute this on the open market. So we’re ready for both of those things and we’re going to do it during 2024. So again in summary, I think the new capital allocation framework really shows you the value creation we’re driving and also I think the optionality we have in that is returning now cash back to shareholders. And also then don’t forget that’s on top of us having reduced debt by over £2 billion within 18 months. And with the dividend we announced that’s €800 million of dividend going back to shareholders plus another €500 million.
So you’re in the high €three billion of debt reduction and returning money to shareholders as a result of that again proving the model in my view that’s really coming through.
Iain Simpson: Very clear on the margin and congratulations on cranking the cash machine. Thanks.
Operator: The next question is from Chris Pitcher, Redburn. Please go ahead.
Chris Pitcher: Hi. Good morning everyone. A couple of questions for me. So following on from the cash question. Clearly, you’ve done some divestments, you’re under no pressure to do divestments, but you’re talking in the statement about sort of active portfolio management. On the acquisition side, there hasn’t been much on that front. Are you now in a position? Do you have greater capacity to pursue deals? Was it just an issue of availability and price that was perhaps we haven’t seen as much on that side of the equation? And then on India, could we just have a bit more detail on that? I mean India sales were up high single digit, but Sensodyne was up double digit implying the rest of the portfolio was quite a bit slower. Can you give us a share of how the business now splits between Sensodyne, Centrum et cetera for the launch?
And was there any disruption from the transition from Hindustan Unilever that maybe affected some of those brands? I see you’re going to ramp up marketing. Clearly we should expect an acceleration in India. I just wanted to check that was right. Thanks.
Brian McNamara: Thanks, Chris. Let me take the first question. So on active portfolio management which we said, we want to do in a year ago we said divest in bolt-on acquisition, expect divestment first, feel good about the two divestments we’ve made, both [indiscernible] in both cases, fantastic brand, just not strategic for us and not growth drivers for us and in both cases, I think we have really good value for those businesses. So value accretive to shareholders and we’ll continue to look for opportunities to simplify the portfolio and strengthen the portfolio. But we’re under no pressure to do that. We only do that if it makes sense and we create value to create the company we want to create. As far as, we do have capacity to do bolt-on M&A and if we find something that is attractive and strategically makes sense to bring the value in, we would have the capacity and ability to do that.
But I probably would make any more comments beyond that. Tobias, do you want to talk Indian?
Tobias Hestler: Yes. So look on India, I think first of all, I think the shift and the change in the business model building up our own sales forces and getting out of the distribution deal with Unilever worked very well. Of course this is a heavy, heavy undertaking and you always have a small bubble here or there, but I think the team has landed that very, very well. As a result, shifting all that over probably sales growth and sales growth into the distribution channel was a little bit lower in Q4 than what you would normally would see. But from a sell-out perspective, the business is doing really, really well and the numbers for the year where I think we’re close to double digit. So I think overall they performed well. And also they started the year with very strong momentum, yes.
So I think overall, I think as we always said, this is a market for us that should grow in the double-digit in the teens for us. And I think we’re also very heavily investing into the market, right? So I think we both in ’23, but also into ’24, we continue to support that market, not just with the investment in the sales forces and in building the machine do it ourselves, but also in terms of A&P and was launching further brands in the market like taking Centrum into brick-and-mortar and other things. So overall, the big switch was done, executed successfully and I think now really see that as a growth driver for us in the future as well.
Chris Pitcher: Thanks, very much.
Operator: The next question is from David Hayes, Jefferies. Please go ahead.
