聯合利華 (UL) 2019 Q4 法說會逐字稿

We are about to hand over to Unilever to begin the conference call. (Operator Instructions) We will now hand over to Richard Williams.

我們即將把電話會議交給聯合利華。（操作說明）現在我們將把控制權交給理查威廉斯。

Good morning and welcome to Unilever's Full Year Results Call. Alan will begin with an overview of 2019 before passing to Graeme to cover the divisions and regions in more detail. Alan will wrap-up with some comments on the 2020 priorities and our outlook for the year. We'll keep the prepared remarks around 30 minutes, leaving plenty of time for Q&A. All of today's webcast is available live, transcribed on the screen as part of our accessibility program.

早安，歡迎參加聯合利華全年業績電話會議。艾倫將首先概述 2019 年的情況，然後由格雷姆更詳細地介紹各個部門和地區的情況。最後，Alan 將就 2020 年的工作重點和我們對這一年的展望發表一些評論。我們將發言時間控制在 30 分鐘左右，留出充足的時間進行問答環節。今天的所有網路直播內容均可即時觀看，並顯示在螢幕上，這是我們無障礙服務計劃的一部分。

So first, let me draw your attention to the disclaimer to forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures.

首先，請容許我提請大家注意關於前瞻性陳述和非GAAP指標的免責聲明。

And with that, let me hand over to you, Alan.

那麼，接下來就交給你了，艾倫。

Well, thanks, Richard, and good morning. In December, we issued a sales update, and we made it clear there that quarter 4 was going to be a weak quarter of growth. And in the event, as you'll have seen from this morning's announcement, we delivered underlying sales growth of 1.5% in the quarter, which brings the full year growth to 2.9%, frustratingly just below our guiding range. Given the benefit that we've had from portfolio change, we do see 2.9% as an unsatisfactory result. Graeme will share with you the drivers of that weak quarter in a few minutes.

謝謝你，理查德，早安。12 月，我們發布了銷售更新報告，並在報告中明確指出，第四季將是一個成長疲軟的季度。而正如您從今天早上的公告中看到的那樣，我們本季度的基本銷售額增長了 1.5%，使全年增長率達到 2.9%，令人沮喪的是，略低於我們預期的範圍。考慮到我們從投資組合調整中獲益，我們認為 2.9% 的結果並不令人滿意。格雷姆將在幾分鐘後與大家分享本季業績疲軟的原因。

Now I say frustratingly because on our other key measures of performance, 2019 was a good year. The balance of volume and price was good. We continued to deliver high-quality margin improvement, and that took us to 19.1% underlying operating margin. The 50 basis points improvement came mainly from 30 bps of increased gross margin and was delivered whilst accelerating the absolute investment that we were making in our brands. Underlying EPS increased by 8.1%, and we delivered a record year of free cash flow at EUR 6.1 billion with conversion -- cash conversion well above 100%. So Unilever remains a tightly run organization.

令人沮喪的是，就我們其他關鍵的績效指標而言，2019 年是表現良好的一年。銷售和價格平衡良好。我們持續實現高品質的利潤率提升，使我們的基本營業利潤率達到 19.1%。這 50 個基點的改善主要來自於毛利率提高 30 個基點，同時我們加快了對旗下品牌的絕對投資。基本每股盈餘成長了 8.1%，我們實現了創紀錄的 61 億歐元自由現金流，現金轉換率遠高於 100%。因此，聯合利華仍然是一家管理嚴格的公司。

There were several good full year performances in emerging markets and Home Care, which both grew over 5%; and in e-commerce, where we saw 30% growth in a market that's growing at around 20%. E-commerce is now about 6% of Unilever. However, our disappointing quarter 4 is certainly a catalyst to our entire organization that we need to improve our growth performance, which remains, of course, our overarching priority.

新興市場和家庭護理領域全年業績表現良好，均成長超過 5%；電子商務領域也取得了 30% 的成長，而該市場整體成長率約為 20%。電子商務目前約佔聯合利華總業務的6%。然而，令人失望的第四季業績無疑促使我們整個組織意識到，我們需要改善成長表現，這當然仍然是我們的首要任務。

Now I'll talk more about 2020 after Graeme has gone through the 2019 results in more detail, and we will share how we plan to accelerate through the year. One thing we do want to provide an update on, though, is the performance in some hot spots that we called out with the Q3 results, and we've made some good progress. Dressings in the U.S. has now been gaining value share for the last 2 12-weeks period, so that's 6 months. There's a -- this is a result of continued strong investment like in the Hellmann's brand and some on-trend innovation like vegan meals. I should say that the strong growth of Sir Kensington's is also helping contribute to this good recovery in dressings.

在格雷姆更詳細地回顧了 2019 年的業績之後，我將更多地談談 2020 年，我們將分享我們計劃如何在今年加速發展。不過，我們確實想就第三季業績報告中提到的一些熱點地區的表現提供一些最新進展，我們已經取得了一些不錯的進展。在美國，敷料的市佔率在過去 2 個 12 週內持續成長，也就是 6 個月。這是由於像 Hellmann's 品牌這樣的持續大力投資，以及像素食餐這樣的一些順應潮流的創新。我應該說，肯辛頓爵士公司的強勁成長也對敷料產業的良好復甦起到了促進作用。

In U.S. ice cream, we're now solidly gaining share, and this has been led by our premium portfolio. In U.S. hair care, while the share numbers that you see here are still negative, we're pleased to see a recovery starting to come through. And in fact, in the most recent monthly share reads, we're back in positive territory. But we need a few more quarters to ensure that our marketing and innovation plans behind TRESemmé and Suave are the best they can be before we show sustained share improvement and declare victory. Overall, the extra investment that we put into these areas is paying off, and our marketing actions are having the desired impact. In tea and developed markets, it's a slower recovery, and there's still work to do. I'm obviously going to come back to tea later.

在美國冰淇淋市場，我們的市場份額正在穩步成長，這主要得益於我們的高端產品組合。在美國護髮市場，雖然您在這裡看到的市場份額數字仍然是負值，但我們很高興看到復甦的跡象開始顯現。事實上，根據最新的月度市佔率數據，我們已經重回正成長區間。但我們需要再花幾個季度時間來確保 TRESemmé 和 Suave 背後的營銷和創新計劃達到最佳狀態，然後才能展現出持續的市場份額增長並宣布勝利。總的來說，我們對這些領域的額外投入正在取得成效，我們的行銷活動也正在產生預期的效果。在茶葉和已開發市場，復甦速度較慢，還有很多工作要做。我顯然晚點會回來喝茶的。

Now 2019 was a year of significant internal change for the company. We've taken steps to make sure that Unilever is organized and focused to seize the opportunities of this fast-changing consumer products world. And first, we have a new leadership team. There's been several moves on the exec. We brought in, unusually, 3 leaders from the outside: Richard Slater in R&D, Sunny Jain to lead Beauty & Personal Care and most recently welcomed Fabian Garcia to run our North American business.

2019年是公司內部發生重大變革的一年。我們已採取措施，確保聯合利華組織有序、目標明確，並能抓住瞬息萬變的消費品產業所帶來的機會。首先，我們迎來了新的領導團隊。這位高階主管的人事變動已經發生好幾次了。我們不尋常地從外部引進了 3 位領導者：研發部的 Richard Slater、美容及個人護理部門的 Sunny Jain，以及最近加入的負責北美業務的 Fabian Garcia。

We've also promoted 3 Unilever executives to the top table: Peter ter Kulve running Home Care, Sanjiv Mehta in South Asia and Conny Braams as our Chief Digital and Marketing Officer; Nitin and Hanneke are in new roles, and we're delighted to have the continuity that Graeme, Leena, Marc and Ritva bring.

我們也提拔了 3 位聯合利華高管進入最高管理層：Peter ter Kulve 負責家庭護理業務，Sanjiv Mehta 負責南亞業務，Conny Braams 擔任首席數位和營銷官；Nitin 和 Hanneke 擔任了新的職務，我們很高興 Graeme、Leena、Marc 和 Ritva 的加入能夠保持團隊的連續性。

We've also flattened our market structure under our newly created position of Chief Operating Officer, which Nitin took up in May. We've now got 15 performance managed units directly under Nitin's leadership. And by removing most of our regional layers, we believe we're building a faster, more execution-focused, more connected markets organization to deliver the strategic agendas of the divisions. So that's on people and organization.

我們也根據新設立的營運長一職，簡化了市場結構。 Nitin 於 5 月就任該職位。現在，在Nitin的直接領導下，我們有15個績效管理部門。我們相信，透過移除大部分區域層級，我們正在建立一個速度更快、更注重執行、更緊密聯繫的市場組織，以實現各部門的策略目標。所以，這取決於人和組織。

A third piece of major work that we completed last year has been to update and integrate our business and sustainability strategies into one, single, unified growth strategy. Our vision of sustainable business driving superior performance is one that has inspired the entire Unilever organization. The task ahead of us, of course, is to continue our multiyear track record, ensuring that Unilever's leading position on environmental and social sustainability as well as our highest standards of corporate governance translate into superior stakeholder returns.

去年我們完成的第三項重大工作是將我們的業務和永續發展策略更新並整合到單一的統一成長策略中。我們以永續發展為驅動卓越績效的願景，激勵了整個聯合利華組織。當然，我們面前的任務是延續我們多年來的良好記錄，確保聯合利華在環境和社會永續發展方面的領先地位以及我們最高的公司治理標準轉化為卓越的利害關係人回報。

Over the last few years, we've made quite significant changes to our portfolio, acquiring businesses in new segments and disposing of parts of the company, such as Spreads. And at our investor event in 2019, we said we would carry an uncompromising evaluation of our current categories and brands with a very open mind. And today, we've announced that we've initiated a full strategic review of our tea business, and I'll tell you more about that when we talk about the 2020 plans.

過去幾年，我們對業務組合進行了相當大的調整，收購了新領域的企業，並出售了公司的部分業務，例如 Spreads 業務。在 2019 年的投資人活動上，我們表示將以非常開放的心態，對我們目前的類別和品牌進行毫不妥協的評估。今天，我們宣布已啟動對茶葉業務的全面策略評估，稍後在談到 2020 年計劃時，我會詳細介紹。

So before we jump to 2020, Graeme, maybe you could cover some more detail on last year's results.

格雷姆，在我們展望 2020 年之前，或許你可以更詳細地介紹去年的業績。

Sure thing. Thanks, Alan. Good morning, everybody, and well, happy new year if it's not too late to wish you that.

當然可以。謝謝你，艾倫。各位早安，如果還不算太晚的話，祝大家新年快樂。

So looking at 2019. 2.9% is broadly in line with our 3% run rate over the last few years. But with the greater contribution that's come from portfolio change, as Alan said, we view it as a disappointing figure. Growth has been consistent, though, in emerging markets over the last 4 years with emerging markets delivering between 5% and 6% of growth. Now of course, there's always some bumpiness in between the quarters as we saw in Q4. We gave you the headlines on the quarter back in December, and we said we'd give you a little bit more color in the new year, so let's do that.

展望2019年。2.9% 與我們過去幾年 3% 的運行率基本一致。但正如艾倫所說，由於投資組合的變化帶來了更大的貢獻，我們認為這是一個令人失望的數字。不過，過去 4 年新興市場一直保持著穩定的成長，成長率在 5% 到 6% 之間。當然，季度之間總是會有些波動，就像我們在第四季看到的那樣。我們在去年 12 月向大家介紹了本季的主要新聞，並說過在新的一年裡會為大家帶來更多細節，那麼讓我們開始吧。

Our run rate in Q4 slowed from a little over 3% in the last few quarters prior to that to only 1.5% in Q4. And there were essentially 4 factors behind this slowdown. There have been challenges in West Africa. We have 2 very important businesses, one in Ghana and one in Nigeria, which have grown by double digits over the last 5 years, but both experienced a very tough second half in 2019. Now Ghana and Nigeria have recently reported a very poor quarter 4 on top of a weak quarter 3. And when we look at Q4 versus the run rate of the few quarters before that, we estimate the impact of that to be about a 40 basis point drag. And this was a result of slowing market conditions, liquidity issues and a subsequent management decision that we should reduce the high levels of stock that had built up across the trade landscape.

第四季度，我們的成長率從先前幾季的略高於 3% 放緩至第四季的僅 1.5%。造成經濟放緩的原因主要有 4 個。西非地區面臨許多挑戰。我們有兩項非常重要的業務，一項在加納，一項在尼日利亞，過去 5 年都實現了兩位數的成長，但 2019 年下半年都經歷了非常艱難的時期。加納和奈及利亞最近公佈的第四季經濟數據非常糟糕，而第三季經濟表現也十分疲軟。如果我們把第四季度與之前幾季的正常水準進行比較，我們估計這將導致經濟下滑約 40 個基點。這是由於市場狀況放緩、流動性問題以及隨後管理層決定減少整個貿易領域累積的高庫存水準所致。

Secondly, coming to India, market growth has slowed throughout the year in line with the GDP slowdown, but our growth had held up well even into Q3 when we were at 7% USG year-to-date. In Q4, however, the market slowdown was sharper than expected, and that, coupled with some pricing actions of our own, has impacted our performance in the quarter. And I won't say more about that now because Hindustan Unilever are only going to report their results tomorrow, but we can talk more about that after they've done that.

其次，就印度市場而言，由於GDP成長放緩，全年市場成長放緩，但我們的成長動能依然良好，即使到了第三季度，年初至今的美國市場成長率也達到了7%。然而，第四季市場放緩的程度比預期更為嚴重，再加上我們自身的一些定價措施，影響了我們本季的業績。我現在就不多說了，因為印度聯合利華公司明天才會公佈業績，但我們可以在他們公佈之後再詳細討論。

In North America, as Alan has already explained, we are pleased to begin to see a recovery in some of the hot spot cells, but we, to be honest, hoped for a little bit more in quarter 4. The main reasons for the shortfall versus our expectations in the region were that our foodservice business had a poor quarter 4, and our hair business, as Alan said, is taking a little longer to get back on a winning track, although we are obviously encouraged by the more recent share trends.

正如艾倫之前解釋的那樣，在北美，我們很高興看到一些熱點開始復甦，但坦白說，我們原本希望第四季能有更好的表現。該地區業績未達預期的主要原因是，我們的餐飲服務業務在第四季度表現不佳，正如艾倫所說，我們的美髮業務需要更長時間才能重回正軌，儘管我們顯然對近期市場份額的增長趨勢感到鼓舞。

Finally, in North Africa, Middle East and Turkey, NAMET as we call it, we saw a significant slowdown, much of which was expected as inflation dropped, particularly in Turkey, and volumes were weaker across the region. Now we expect these factors, 4 of them, to continue into the early part of 2020 and, hence, our guidance of a first half growth of below 3%. However, all of these countries remain good long-term prospects. And as always, we won't let a few quarters or a quarter of bumpiness put us off investing and doing the right things for the long term.

最後，在北非、中東和土耳其（我們稱之為 NAMET）地區，我們看到經濟明顯放緩，這在很大程度上是可以預期的，因為通貨膨脹下降，尤其是在土耳其，而且整個地區的銷售量都在走弱。現在我們預計這四個因素將持續到 2020 年年初，因此，我們預計上半年的成長將低於 3%。然而，所有這些國家都具有良好的長期發展前景。和以往一樣，我們不會因為幾季或第一季的波動就放棄投資，也不會因為第一季的波動就放棄做對長遠發展有利的事。

Now let's take a look at the divisions. Beauty & Personal Care grew by 2.6% with 1.7% from volume. In Q4, growth of 0.5% for Beauty & Personal Care was impacted by the slower performance in the geographies that I just mentioned. Deodorants and skin care delivered good growth. Prestige, again, delivered double-digit growth with most brands contributing and reached over EUR 600 million of turnover in 2019. Both Garancia and Tatcha, which we acquired this year, have delivered well.

現在我們來看看各部門的狀況。美容及個人護理用品成長2.6%，其中銷量成長1.7%。第四季度，美容及個人護理業務成長0.5%，這主要是由於我剛才提到的地區業績成長放緩所致。除臭劑和護膚品業務成長良好。2019 年，Prestige 再次實現了兩位數的成長，大多數品牌都做出了貢獻，營業額超過 6 億歐元。我們今年收購的 Garancia 和 Tatcha 都表現出色。

In deodorants, we saw strong growth in Brazil as we regained the consumer who had been trading down during the recession. And in Southeast Asia, the dry serum innovation has offered consumers a different way to enjoy the benefits of deodorant in humid countries. Aluminium-free deodorant under our Dove brand has performed very well across Europe and North America.

在除臭劑領域，我們在巴西實現了強勁成長，因為我們重新贏得了那些在經濟衰退期間轉向購買低端產品的消費者的青睞。在東南亞，乾爽精華液的創新為消費者提供了一種在潮濕國家享受除臭劑益處的不同方式。我們旗下多芬品牌的無鋁止汗香體產品在歐洲和北美市場表現非常優異。

Skin cleansing in India has been impacted by both a declining market and pricing actions which we have taken in order to increase competitiveness. Growth was weak in hair care, impacted by North America, with more work to do here. And whilst we are seeing green shoots, we're not yet happy with our performance. However, as Alan said, the investment we've made during the second half and particularly in quarter 4 has contributed to an improved performance, and our investment will remain strong behind this business.

印度的皮膚清潔市場受到市場下滑和我們為提高競爭力而採取的價格措施的雙重影響。頭髮護理業務成長乏力，受到北美市場的影響，因此還有很多工作要做。雖然我們看到了一些好轉的跡象，但我們對目前的表現還不滿意。然而，正如艾倫所說，我們在下半年，特別是第四季度進行的投資，促進了業績的提升，我們將繼續大力投資這項業務。

Foods & Refreshment delivered 1.5% growth with 1.7% coming from price. Volume declined in ice cream due to a strong comparator from hot weather back in 2018. And despite this, ice cream grew 2% in the full year with good growth in Turkey and in Southeast Asia. Magnum and the Heartbrand, which we know as Wall's in the U.K. or, indeed, Algida in Turkey, et cetera, delivered above-average growth with premium innovations like white chocolate and cookies supporting the category.

食品和飲料行業增長了 1.5%，其中 1.7% 的增長來自價格上漲。由於 2018 年高溫天氣導致冰淇淋銷量大幅下滑，因此冰淇淋銷量下降。儘管如此，冰淇淋全年仍成長了 2%，其中土耳其和東南亞市場成長良好。Magnum 和 Heartbrand（在英國被稱為 Wall's，在土耳其被稱為 Algida 等）憑藉白巧克力和餅乾等高端創新產品，實現了高於平均水平的增長。

In Foods, the on-trend segments of snacking and scratch cooking continue to grow above average, and the AAR region delivered good growth, although the second half was impacted by the challenges in West Africa. The Philippines and Indonesia, we would call out as particularly strong. In fact, our sweet soy sauce brand, Bango, continues to be very popular in Indonesia and is driving strong volume growth.

在食品領域，零食和自製食品等流行細分市場繼續保持高於平均水平的成長，AAR 地區也實現了良好的成長，儘管下半年受到了西非挑戰的影響。菲律賓和印尼尤其強勁。事實上，我們的甜醬油品牌 Bango 在印尼仍然非常受歡迎，銷量成長強勁。

It has been another tough year in Europe where Foods declined slightly, led by Germany and the U.K. The launch of The Vegetarian Butcher into Burger King across 25 countries in Europe is a significant win for us and offers a strong growth opportunity. As Alan mentioned, we're pleased with the recovery in Hellmann's in the U.S.A., where the overall dressings category has started to grow again as a result. Tea had a challenging year in developed markets, but strong growth continued in the tea business in India.

歐洲今年又是艱難的一年，食品業略有下滑，其中德國和英國的下滑最為嚴重。素食屠夫品牌在歐洲25個國家的漢堡王門市推出，對我們來說是一項重大勝利，並帶來了強勁的成長機會。正如艾倫所提到的，我們對 Hellmann's 在美國的復甦感到滿意，因此整個調味品類別也開始再次成長。已開發市場的茶葉市場經歷了充滿挑戰的一年，但印度的茶葉市場仍保持強勁成長。

Turning to Home Care. Home Care grew by 6.1%, balanced between volume and price. The strong performance was broad-based with fabric solutions, fabric sensations and home and hygiene all growing by mid- to high-single digits. Growth in Brazil, India and China has led to strong performance with successful market development across all of our brands. Format trade-up success is very evident in our above-average growth rates in capsules and liquids across China, India, Vietnam, South Africa and, indeed, beyond. Concentration has been on winning initiatives in 2019, particularly in Brazil, and we're seeing good results both in terms of growth and in margin.

轉而尋求居家護理。家庭護理業務成長了 6.1%，銷售量和價格保持平衡。強勁的成長勢頭體現在各個方面，織物解決方案、織物觸感以及家居和衛生用品均實現了中高個位數的成長。在巴西、印度和中國市場的成長帶動了我們所有品牌的強勁業績，並成功拓展了市場。從我們在中國、印度、越南、南非以及其他國家和地區的膠囊和液體產品高於平均水平的成長率來看，產品形式的升級換代取得了非常明顯的成功。2019 年，我們一直專注於贏得市場，尤其是在巴西，我們在成長和利潤率方面都看到了良好的成果。

The use of recycled plastic and less plastic is a strong focus for Home Care, with 2019 being the year of many launches across the major brands of Cif, Sunlight and Omo. Seventh Generation, which is our plant-based laundry detergent, continues to grow at strong double-digit rates in the United States.

使用再生塑膠和減少塑膠用量是家庭護理的重點，2019 年 Cif、Sunlight 和 Omo 等主要品牌推出了許多新產品。我們的植物性洗衣液 Seventh Generation 在美國持續保持強勁的兩位數成長速度。

Before moving on, I'd just like to cover some of the successful examples of innovation that we've had in 2019. These were successful both from a product performance point of view but also in the way we communicated the innovations to the consumer. It is these examples that we will look to replicate across the whole business in 2020 and beyond.

在繼續之前，我想先介紹一下我們在 2019 年取得的一些成功的創新案例。從產品性能的角度來看，這些舉措都取得了成功，而且在向消費者傳達創新理念方面也取得了成功。2020 年及以後，我們將努力在整個業務中複製這些成功經驗。

We employ leading technology to create innovations, such as the Dove microbiome body wash, which is now in 36 countries and driving microbiome awareness; or indeed, Rexona Clinical, which has strongly contributed to the growth of the deo category this year, doubling penetration of the clinical segment in Brazil and Australia.

我們運用領先的技術創造創新產品，例如多芬微生物組沐浴露，該產品目前已銷往 36 個國家，並提高了人們對微生物組的認識；又如 Rexona Clinical，該產品今年極大地促進了除臭劑品類的增長，使巴西和澳大利亞臨床領域的滲透率翻了一番。

Insights from the plant-based vegan trends in Food & Refreshment have resulted in on-trend innovations across the division. And in Home Care, our capsules and liquids innovations are driving market development. Omo capsules in China have contributed to double-digit growth in Home Care with Surf Excel doing the same in India. Market development remains a core driver of growth in Home Care, and our emerging market footprint means that we're well placed to lead the change. We're fully focused on achieving more innovation success in 2020, and Alan is going to talk a little bit more about that in a minute or 2.

從食品飲料行業的植物性純素食趨勢中獲得的洞察，促成了該部門的創新發展。在家庭護理領域，我們的膠囊和液體創新正在推動市場發展。在中國，Omo膠囊為家庭護理業務帶來了兩位數的成長，而Surf Excel在印度也取得了同樣的成績。市場發展仍然是家庭護理產業成長的核心驅動力，而我們新興的市場佈局意味著我們有能力引領變革。我們正全力以赴，力爭在 2020 年取得更大的創新成功，Alan 將在一兩分鐘內對此進行更詳細的闡述。

Moving on to the regional performance. Performance in Asia/AMET/RUB was overall strong at 5%, balanced between price and volume. There have been many strong performances across this region. Southeast Asia delivered mid-single-digit growth in the full year with the large countries of India -- sorry, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines growing consistently, backed up by high growth in the nascent markets of Myanmar and Cambodia.

接下來是區域賽的表現。亞洲/AMET/RUB市場整體表現強勁，達到5%，價格和銷售量均保持平衡。該地區湧現了許多優秀的表演。東南亞全年實現了中等個位數的成長，其中印度（抱歉，是印尼）、越南和菲律賓等大國持續成長，緬甸和柬埔寨等新興市場也實現了高速成長。

China grew high single digit ahead of the market with our premium-priced portfolio across BPC and Home Care delivering well. However, in AAR, Q4 USG was only 2.1% impacted by the factors that I explained earlier, in particular, price slowing down driven by India skin cleansing, Turkey and other countries in the Middle East such as Egypt.

中國市場實現了接近兩位數的成長，這主要得益於我們在個人護理和家居護理領域的高端產品組合的良好表現。然而，在 AAR 中，第四季度 USG 僅受到我之前解釋過的因素的影響 2.1%，特別是受印度皮膚清潔、土耳其和中東其他國家（如埃及）價格放緩的影響。

Latin America grew by 5.1%, which is the strongest growth since 2016. In quarter 4, volume would have been positive had it not been for lapping the impact of the trucker strike restock from last year. For the full year, Brazil grew by mid-single digits, ahead of the market with a return to strong price growth. Deodorants and Home Care performed strongly, helped by innovation in both categories, which is beginning to attract consumers back towards the mid-tier brands. We're investing behind concentration initiatives in Home Care in Brazil in both powders and liquids, and that has supported our growth.

拉丁美洲經濟成長了5.1%，這是自2016年以來最強勁的成長。如果不是因為去年卡車司機罷工造成的庫存積壓，第四季的銷售量本應為正值。全年來看，巴西經濟成長率為個位數中段，領先市場，價格也恢復了強勁成長。除臭劑和居家護理產品表現強勁，這得益於這兩個品類的創新，而創新也開始吸引消費者重新青睞中階品牌。我們正在加大對巴西家庭護理領域粉劑和液體產品的集中投入，這促進了我們的成長。

Mexico also grew by mid-single digits with good growth in ice cream, driven by Magnum; and in Foods, driven by gains in the traditional trade across our Savoury portfolio. In Argentina, conditions remain tough, but our business has strengthened throughout the year and, importantly, has outperformed the market on volume.

墨西哥市場也實現了中等個位數的成長，其中冰淇淋業務成長良好，主要得益於夢龍品牌；食品業務成長也得益於我們鹹味食品組合中傳統貿易的成長。儘管阿根廷的情況依然嚴峻，但我們的業務在過去一年中不斷增強，更重要的是，銷量超過了市場平均水平。

North America grew by only 0.3% with positive price growth and negative volume. Q4 delivered 0.6%. This was a step-up from Q3, helped by the recovery in the hot spots, as Alan explained, but we still have more to do. Deodorants continue to grow well with Dove and Degree maintaining their #1 and #2 brand positions. Our clean and green Home Care brand, Seventh Generation, has also contributed to North American growth, and we've launched Love Home & Planet during the year. Dressings accelerated throughout the year, and the second half showed positive sales and share growth. These good performances were offset, as already mentioned, by continued challenges in the North American hair business and a poor quarter in the foodservice business.

北美地區僅成長了0.3%，價格上漲但銷量下降。第四季實現0.6%的成長率。正如艾倫解釋的那樣，這比第三季度有所進步，這要歸功於熱點地區的復甦，但我們還有更多工作要做。除臭劑市場持續成長，多芬和迪佳分別維持了第一和第二的品牌地位。我們旗下清潔環保的家居護理品牌 Seventh Generation 也為北美市場的成長做出了貢獻，並且我們在今年推出了 Love Home & Planet 品牌。全年敷料銷量持續成長，下半年銷售額和市佔率均實現正成長。如前所述，這些良好的業績被北美美髮業務的持續挑戰以及餐飲服務業務的糟糕季度業績所抵消。

In Europe, underlying sales declined 0.6% with volume growth of 0.3%. Ice cream was the key driver of this decline following 2 years of hot weather. Pricing stepped down in quarter 4, a result of higher promotional spend within a deflationary environment. Home Care delivered growth, led by fabric sensations and home and hygiene, with some strong naturals innovations from Cif. Deodorants and skin care also grew in Europe. We saw strong gains across Central and Eastern Europe and Italy, whilst France, Germany and the U.K. all had a tough year for growth in difficult trading environments. In the U.K., Brexit-related retailer destocking impacted Q4.

在歐洲，基礎銷售額下降了 0.6%，但銷量成長了 0.3%。連續兩年高溫天氣後，冰淇淋銷售下滑是導致這一趨勢的主要原因。第四季價格下降，這是由於在通貨緊縮環境下促銷支出增加所致。家居護理實現了成長，這主要得益於織物護理、家居護理和個人衛生用品，以及 Cif 的一些強有力的天然產品創新。除臭劑和護膚品在歐洲也實現了成長。我們看到中歐、東歐和義大利實現了強勁成長，而法國、德國和英國在艱難的貿易環境下，成長都經歷了艱難的一年。在英國，與脫歐相關的零售商去庫存對第四季度造成了影響。

Turnover was EUR 52 billion in 2019. Underlying sales growth added 2.9%. Acquisitions and disposals decreased turnover by 2.3% following the disposal of the Spreads back in July 2018, although in the second half, acquisitions and disposals actually increased turnover by 0.5%. Currencies increased turnover by 1.5%, mainly due to the strength of the U.S. dollar versus the euro, plus appreciation in some Asian countries such as Indonesia and India. And looking forward, based just on the latest spot rates, we expect currency to have quite a limited impact on both turnover and EPS in 2020.

2019年營業額為520億歐元。基礎銷售額成長2.9%。收購和處置導致營業額下降了 2.3%，這是由於 2018 年 7 月出售了 Spreads 業務，儘管在下半年，收購和處置實際上使營業額增加了 0.5%。貨幣交易量成長了 1.5%，主要原因是美元對歐元走強，以及印尼和印度等一些亞洲國家的貨幣升值。展望未來，僅根據最新的即期匯率，我們預期匯率對 2020 年的營業額和每股盈餘的影響將相當有限。

Turning to our margins. We made strong progress, delivering a 50 basis points increase in the underlying operating margin, and that takes us to 19.1%. Our gross margin increased by 30 basis points, helped, of course, by our net revenue management program and continued efficiencies from supply chain programs such as 5S.

轉向我們的邊緣地帶。我們取得了顯著進展，基本營業利潤率提高了 50 個基點，達到 19.1%。我們的毛利率提高了 30 個基點，這當然得益於我們的淨收入管理計劃以及 5S 等供應鏈計劃帶來的持續效率提升。

Our brand and marketing investment increased by EUR 70 million in constant currencies in the full year with all of the increase coming in the second half, and it was flat as a percentage of turnover. We continue to find efficiencies in our marketing spend through investment in new digital tools and capabilities and rigorous tracking of our spend effectiveness. These measures ensure that we can remain strongly invested behind our core brands whilst also delivering productivity gains. Our overheads decreased by 20 basis points through a zero-based budgeting and change programs, and the stranded costs from the Spreads disposal have now been fully addressed, in line with our original plans.

以固定匯率計算，我們全年的品牌和行銷投入增加了 7,000 萬歐元，所有成長都發生在下半年，佔營業額的百分比保持不變。我們透過投資新的數位工具和功能，並嚴格追蹤支出效果，不斷提高行銷支出的效率。這些措施確保我們能夠繼續大力投資我們的核心品牌，同時提高生產效率。透過零基預算和變革計劃，我們的管理費用減少了 20 個基點，根據我們最初的計劃，已完全解決了利差處置造成的擱淺成本。

Overall, underlying earnings per share increased by 8.1% in current rates and 5.8% in constant rates. Turnover and operational performance, which, of course, is the combination of growth and margin, contributed 6.5% to earnings. The earnings dilution from the Spreads disposal was mitigated by the 2018 share buyback which had a 2.6% impact. Minorities and pensions made up the 0.6%. Minorities increased as a percentage of net profit back to more normalized levels following the Spreads disposal in the prior year. Our underlying tax rate was 25.5%, and we expect our tax rate over the medium term to continue to be around 26%. And we expect the interest rate on net debt to be around 3 percentage points in 2020. Currency movements increased EPS by 2.3%.

總體而言，以當前匯率計算，每股基本收益成長了 8.1%，以固定匯率計算成長了 5.8%。營業額和營運績效（當然，這是成長和利潤率的結合）對收益貢獻了 6.5%。出售 Spreads 業務帶來的收益稀釋被 2018 年的股票回購所抵消，股票回購對收益的影響為 2.6%。少數族裔和退休金佔0.6%。在前一年出售 Spreads 業務後，少數股東權益佔淨利的比例回升至較正常的水平。我們的基本稅率為 25.5%，我們預計中期內稅率將繼續維持在 26% 左右。我們預計 2020 年淨債務利率將在 3 個百分點點左右。匯率波動使每股收益成長了 2.3%。

Turning now to the cash flow and our balance sheet. We delivered our highest-ever free cash flow of EUR 6.1 billion in 2019. This is an increase of EUR 700 million over the prior year, driven by higher underlying operating profit and working capital improvements, which had been adversely impacted in 2018 by the disposal of Spreads. Our cash conversion increased to 110%, also the highest since we began measuring it. Our net debt sits at 1.9x EBITDA, in line with our long-term leverage target of around 2x. We expect to continue to maintain leverage at around this level.

現在來看現金流和資產負債表。2019年，我們實現了有史以來最高的自由現金流，達到61億歐元。與前一年相比，成長了 7 億歐元，主要得益於更高的基本營業利潤和營運資本改善，而 2018 年由於出售 Spreads 業務，營運資本受到了不利影響。我們的現金轉換率提高到 110%，這也是我們開始衡量該指標以來的最高值。我們的淨債務為 EBITDA 的 1.9 倍，符合我們約 2 倍的長期槓桿目標。我們預計將繼續維持在這一水平左右的槓桿率。

Our return on invested capital has improved to 19.2% versus the prior year of 18.1%, following gains from operational performance, offset by increases in goodwill and intangibles, very much meeting a ROIC target of high teens. Our pension deficit has reduced by EUR 0.7 billion to EUR 0.2 billion, which is the lowest in over 15 years. That's a result of good investment returns, partially offset by higher liabilities. This is a strong performance in cash, on financing and return on invested capital, reflecting the strong financial discipline that we have throughout the business.

由於營運績效的提升，我們的投資資本回報率從去年的 18.1% 提高到 19.2%，但被商譽和無形資產的增加所抵消，基本上達到了 15% 以上的投資資本回報率目標。我們的退休金缺口減少了 7 億歐元，降至 2 億歐元，這是 15 年多來的最低水準。這是良好的投資回報帶來的結果，但部分被較高的負債所抵消。本公司在現金流量、融資和投資資本回報率方面均表現出色，反映了我們在整個業務中秉持的嚴格財務紀律。

And with that, let me hand you back to Alan to talk more about the 2020 priorities.

那麼，接下來就交給艾倫，讓他繼續談2020年的工作重點。

Thanks, Graeme. Before I actually talk about 2020 and as we near the completion of our 3-year strategic plan, I did want to make a few comments about the overall progress on a slightly longer-term frame. We set out a multiyear growth range of 3% to 5%. And yes, we've been around the low end of that consistently for 4 years. We are becoming a simpler, faster organization. We've continued the journey that started with Connected 4 Growth by now delayering the business, getting closer to the markets and putting in place a Chief Operating Officer, as I mentioned.

謝謝你，格雷姆。在正式談論 2020 年以及我們即將完成三年戰略計劃之前，我想就稍長一些的總體進展情況發表一些評論。我們設定了多年成長目標，成長率為 3% 至 5%。是的，過去四年我們一直處於這個水準的低端。我們正在成為一個更精簡、更有效率的組織。正如我之前提到的，我們延續了從 Connected 4 Growth 開始的旅程，現在透過精簡業務層級、更貼近市場以及設立營運長等方式實現了這一目標。

Margin is probably the big story. We've improved from 16.4% at the end of 2016 to 19.1% last year. And we've delivered fully on our fuel for growth plans of EUR 6 billion of savings across 3 years. Although, as I said before, we intend to -- and need to continue with the savings at least at this level to allow us to keep on investing in our business.

利潤率可能是最大的看點。我們從 2016 年底的 16.4% 提高到去年的 19.1%。我們已全面實現了在 3 年內節省 60 億歐元以促進成長的燃料計劃。雖然正如我之前所說，我們打算——而且需要——至少繼續保持目前的儲蓄水平，以便我們可以繼續投資於我們的業務。

We've evolved our portfolio through disposals, notably our spreads. And as everyone knows, we completed a significant number of acquisitions. And yes, portfolio evolution will continue to form an important part of our strategy, though with a more focused acquisition agenda. Our capital and legal structure, we have improved by buying back and canceling the preference shares, and measures to close the trust office have been completed. But as you know, the proposal to simplify our historic dual structure was withdrawn.

我們透過出售資產（尤其是利差）來改進我們的投資組合。眾所周知，我們完成了大量的收購。是的，投資組合的演變仍將是我們策略的重要組成部分，儘管收購議程會更加集中。我們透過回購和註銷優先股改善了資本和法律結構，關閉信託辦公室的措施也已完成。但如您所知，簡化我們歷史悠久的雙重結構的提議已被撤回。

On leverage and returns, we've returned 8 -- EUR 11 billion in share buybacks. And Graeme has just demonstrated, I think, how disciplined we are in our approach to return on invested capital and net debt. So it's crystal clear that the metric to improve upon is growth, and I'm absolutely determined that we will meet our ambitions in this space. So let me say a little bit more about growth.

在槓桿和回報方面，我們透過股票回購返還了 80 億至 110 億歐元。我認為，格雷姆剛才的表現充分說明了我們在投資資本回報率和淨債務方面是多麼嚴謹。因此，很明顯，需要改進的指標是成長，我絕對決心要實現我們在這一領域的目標。那麼，讓我再多談談成長方面的問題。

Now we are focusing on a framework that you should get used to seeing from us from now on. We're calling it the 5 growth fundamentals. They're shown here on the left-hand side of the chart. They've been built from a deep and empirical analysis of the factors that drive growth in the types of consumer goods categories that we compete in. And I'm just going to rattle through them all quickly.

現在我們將重點放在一個框架上，從現在開始，您應該會經常看到我們採用這個框架。我們稱之為五個成長基本要素。它們顯示在圖表的左側。這些策略是基於對我們所競爭的消費品類別中推動成長的因素進行深入的實證分析而製定的。我這就快速地把它們都過一遍。

So first, penetration. This is a measure of how many households have bought our brands in a given period. And there's an absolute direct correlation between household penetration, market share and growth. This is built on the premise of addressing the long tail of buyers in consumer goods and not overfocusing on your core of loyal users. And what we're focused here on is building mental and physical availability of our brands through improvement in things like the quality of advertising and the strength of distribution. This work, of course, is focused on key cells and is the methodology by which we've recently turned around a number of the hot spots that we covered earlier.

首先，是滲透。這是衡量在特定時期內有多少家庭購買了我們品牌產品的指標。家庭滲透率、市場佔有率和成長之間存在絕對的直接相關性。這是基於這樣一個前提：關註消費品領域的長尾買家，而不是過度關注核心忠實用戶。我們在這裡關注的是透過提高廣告品質和增強分銷能力等方式，來提升我們品牌在消費者心目中和實際生活中的可及性。當然，這項工作的重點是關鍵細胞，也是我們最近扭轉先前報導的一些熱門議題的方法。

Secondly, innovation. We have a -- despite -- we have a proud history of innovation, and Graeme has showed some great examples a minute ago, but there's more that we can do to step up the impact from our current innovation program, including positive impact to the total category level for our customer partners. Specifically, we are investing to deliver a higher proportion of functionally superior products with more leading technology and more benefits. We're being more decisive on our choices of which innovations to prioritize, and we're actively cutting the tail of small projects. We're also making faster decisions post-launch on whether to accelerate, pivot or kill projects. We really know after about 100 days with a high level of certainty what are the winners that we should back and where we should cut our losses quicker on something that's not working.

其次是創新。儘管我們擁有引以為傲的創新歷史，格雷姆剛才也展示了一些很好的例子，但我們還可以做更多的事情來提升我們當前創新計劃的影響，包括對我們的客戶合作夥伴的整體品類水平產生積極影響。具體而言，我們正在加大投資，以提供更高比例的功能卓越、技術領先、效益顯著的產品。我們對優先考慮哪些創新項目更加果斷，並且正在積極削減小型項目的尾部。在專案發布後，我們也會更快做出決定，決定是否加速推進、調整方向或終止專案。大約 100 天后，我們就能非常有把握地知道哪些是值得支持的贏家，以及哪些不成功的專案應該盡快停損。

Thirdly, we are designing more deliberately for specific growth channels. We're clear on the channels that are growing the fastest, and we're organizing behind them with focused channel teams who will ensure we're in the right portfolio and the executional muscle to win.

第三，我們正在更有針對性地設計特定的成長管道。我們清楚哪些管道成長最快，並為此組建了專注的通路團隊，以確保我們擁有正確的通路組合和強大的執行力，從而贏得市場。

Turning to purpose. You know that we're seeing stronger growth from our purposeful brands. And we're now measuring how brand purpose is perceived by the consumer, whether she truly understands that our brands authentically stand for something more when she makes the choice to buy. This is important for the short term but also to ensure that our brands remain relevant for generations to come. And we are investing more of our marketing spend on communication, which is explicitly purposeful as we got extremely strong data on the link between purposeful communication and both short- and long-term growth.

轉向目標。您知道，我們旗下那些具有明確目標的品牌正在實現更強勁的成長。我們現在正在衡量消費者對品牌宗旨的感知，以及當她做出購買選擇時，她是否真正理解我們的品牌所代表的不僅僅是品牌宗旨。這不僅對短期至關重要，而且對確保我們的品牌在未來幾代人中保持相關性也至關重要。我們將更多的行銷支出投入溝通中，這是有目的的，因為我們獲得了非常強大的數據，證明有目的的溝通與短期和長期成長之間存在著關聯。

And fifthly, but by no means last, is the fuel for growth. And we're continuing to invest very competitively in our brands. And we're able to do this because we unlock savings through existing programs like 5S, ZBB and organizational change, but as well as through new initiatives like our grow, power, run model that we previewed at the Investor Day. This is the model that optimizes both global scale and focused expertise in the more transactional parts of the business.

第五點，但絕非最後一點，是成長的動力。我們將繼續以極具競爭力的價格投資於我們的品牌。我們之所以能夠做到這一點，是因為我們透過現有的專案（如 5S、零基預算和組織變革）以及新的舉措（如我們在投資者日上預覽的「成長、賦能、營運」模式）釋放了節省成本的能力。這種模式既能優化全球規模，又能兼顧業務中更具交易性的部分的專業知識。

So these 5 growth fundamentals will unlock progressive acceleration of growth in 2020. And as shown on the chart, in parallel, we continue to evaluate our portfolio against a number of criteria. Those criteria include, for example, are the categories high growth? Are they of sufficient size? Are they unconsolidated? We should be looking for future-facing markets with strong emerging market growth potential, which are sensitive to Unilever's marketing and technology capabilities. They should also be categories where Unilever has the right to play in, by that, I mean, we've proven some existing success.

因此，這 5 個成長基本要素將釋放 2020 年成長的逐步加速潛力。如圖所示，同時，我們繼續根據一系列標準評估我們的投資組合。這些標準包括，例如，這些類別是否具有高成長性？它們的尺寸夠大嗎？它們是否尚未合併？我們應該尋找具有強勁新興市場成長潛力、面向未來的市場，這些市場對聯合利華的營銷和技術能力較為敏感。這些也應該是聯合利華有權涉足的領域，我的意思是，我們已經證明了一些現有的成功案例。

Let me highlight a couple. These criteria help us to identify focus areas for the future such as luxury beauty and, in particular, skin care. We've been successful in building up Prestige portfolio, and it's on track for its EUR 1 billion year ambition. But there's much more opportunity and we are raising our ambition, particularly in the high-growth area of Asian skin care.

讓我重點介紹其中幾個例子。這些標準有助於我們確定未來的重點領域，例如奢華美容，尤其是在護膚領域。我們已成功打造了 Prestige 投資組合，並正朝著 10 億歐元的年度目標穩步邁進。但機會還有很多，我們正在提高目標，尤其是在亞洲護膚品這個高成長領域。

The second area which we haven't said much about until now is this overlap that's emerging between personal care and health, wellness and personalized nutrition. In this case, we are focusing on vitamins, minerals and supplements, or VMS. We started this journey with the acquisition of Equilibra in June 2018, followed by OLLY in April of last year, and both brands are growing strongly. We have significant international potential. And you should think about VMS as -- in the same way that we described our commitment to Prestige beauty a few years ago.

第二個我們之前很少提及的領域是個人護理與健康、保健與個人化營養之間正在出現的重疊。在這種情況下，我們主要關注維生素、礦物質和補充劑，或稱為 VMS。我們於 2018 年 6 月收購了 Equilibra，開啟了這段旅程；隨後於去年 4 月收購了 OLLY，這兩個品牌都發展勢頭強勁。我們擁有巨大的國際潛力。你應該把 VMS 看作——就像我們幾年前描述我們對高端美容的承諾一樣。

Now in contrast, we have parts of the portfolio which are more mature. They're consolidated. They're structurally slower growing and which are less sensitive to technology and marketing capability. And Spreads fell into this category, and we ended up making that disposal in 2018. Our tea business also falls into this camp. It has a disproportionate large footprint in black tea, which is slower growing and also in developed markets. Tea now has a long track record of being dilutive to growth and margin over the long term. So this strategic review announcement means that we want to investigate how we can best create value for stakeholders. We've not reached a conclusion, and all options remain on the table.

與之形成鮮明對比的是，我們的投資組合中也有一些較成熟的部分。它們已經合併了。它們的結構性成長速度較慢，對技術和行銷能力的敏感度也較低。塗抹醬也屬於這一類，我們最終在 2018 年將其處置。我們的茶葉生意也屬於這一類。它在生長速度較慢的紅茶市場以及已開發市場佔據了不成比例的大份額。從長遠來看，茶葉一直以來都會稀釋企業的成長和利潤。因此，此次策略評估公告意味著我們希望探討如何才能最好地為利害關係人創造價值。我們尚未得出結論，所有選項都仍在考慮之中。

So to wrap up, let me reconfirm our guidance for 2020. As we communicated in December, we expect the first half of 2020 to be a step-up from quarter 4, but below 3%, and we expect the full year to be in the lower half of our 3% to 5% multiyear range. We do see the challenges that we saw in quarter 4 continuing, as Graeme said, and that will have some impact in the first half of 2020.

最後，讓我再次確認我們2020年的指導方針。正如我們在 12 月所溝通的那樣，我們預計 2020 年上半年將比第四季度有所增長，但低於 3%，我們預計全年將處於我們多年 3% 至 5% 增長區間的下半部分。正如格雷姆所說，我們看到第四季出現的挑戰仍在繼續，這將對 2020 年上半年產生一定影響。

We're monitoring the effects of coronavirus, most importantly, on our people, but we're also mindful that it's likely to affect our businesses. It's too early to quantify, but we already know, for example, that it will have a commercial impact, about 1/5 of our business in China's professional foodservice, and that's likely to be significantly impacted by a drop in out-of-home consumption.

我們正在密切關注冠狀病毒的影響，最重要的是對員工的影響，但我們也意​​識到它可能會對我們的業務產生影響。現在量化還為時過早，但我們已經知道，例如，這將對我們在中國專業餐飲服務領域的業務產生商業影響，約占我們業務的五分之一，而外出就餐消費的下降可能會對該業務產生重大影響。

We expect continued improvement in underlying operating margin, remaining on track for our 2020 goals. And that, of course, will be delivered through our focus on waste and inefficiencies and through restructuring investment that takes out cost. But this will, of course, be done whilst ensuring that our brands are competitively supported, so that there's absolutely no tax on growth. And if it does come to a trade-off between margin and growth, we will certainly prioritize growth. We see another year of strong cash flow.

我們預計基本營業利潤率將持續改善，並有望實現 2020 年的目標。當然，這將透過我們專注於消除浪費和低效，並透過重組投資來降低成本來實現。當然，這一切都將在確保我們的品牌獲得競爭支持的同時進行，這樣成長就不會受到任何阻礙。如果要在利潤率和成長之間做出取捨，我們肯定會優先考慮成長。我們預計今年現金流將持續強勁。

And with that, let me thank you for your attention. That's actually the end of our prepared remarks, and we're going to take questions now. Richard?

最後，感謝各位的聆聽。我們的發言稿到此結束，現在我們將接受提問。理查德？

Thanks, Alan. Thanks, Graeme.

謝謝你，艾倫。謝謝你，格雷姆。

(Operator Instructions) So our first question will be from Alain Oberhuber from MainFirst.

（操作員說明）那麼我們的第一個問題將來自 MainFirst 的 Alain Oberhuber。

Two questions. Just regarding the tea business and the strategic review, does the strategic review also include the premium tea, like T2 and coca?

兩個問題。僅就茶葉業務和策略評估而言，策略評估是否也包括T2和古柯等高端茶葉？

And the second question is regarding the strategic review and the dressings business. Isn't that the dressings business also fall into the same category as Spreads and tea?

第二個問題是關於策略評估和敷料業務的。調味品業不也屬於抹醬和茶飲的範疇嗎？

Yes, let me take that. So Alain, first of all, this is a review of our global tea business. And to give you a blunt answer, yes, it does include premium tea.

好的，我來拿。阿蘭，首先，這是我們全球茶葉業務的回顧。直截了當地回答，是的，它確實包含優質茶葉。

As far as dressings is concerned, actually, we believe it's got some quite different characteristics to tea. It's more technology and marketing sensitive. And although growth has been impacted by the competitor battle in the U.S., we do see brighter prospects of growth in dressings as we bring that business on to trends like vegan. So at the moment, the strategic review that we've announced is focused on our worldwide tea business.

就調味料而言，我們認為它與茶有一些截然不同的特性。它對技術和行銷更為敏感。儘管美國的競爭影響了成長，但隨著我們將調味品業務拓展到素食等趨勢，我們看到調味品業務的成長前景更加光明。因此，目前我們宣布的策略評估主要集中在我們的全球茶葉業務。

Our next call will be from Richard Taylor at Morgan Stanley.

下一個電話將來自摩根士丹利的理查德泰勒。

My first question is reflecting on your first year in the job, Alan. What's the biggest change that you've made? And what impact has that had?

艾倫，我的第一個問題是請你回顧你上任第一年的工作狀況。你做出的最大改變是什麼？那又產生了什麼影響呢？

And the second one, I suppose I'm just reflecting on the warning in December. I was pretty perplexed by the warning at the time because, in effect, it was about 30 basis points -- 20 to 30 basis points of full year expectations. And looking at the results today, I suppose I'm even more perplexed by the warning, particularly given the comments around margins, or kind of earlier in the year, were more material for earnings than the December statement in terms of like-for-like growth. So I'd love to get a bit of your insight in terms of why you chose to update the market in December because it didn't seem to be particularly material on analysts' expectations.

至於第二個問題，我想我只是在反思去年十二月的警告。當時我對這個警告感到非常困惑，因為實際上，它相當於全年預期值的 30 個基點——20 到 30 個基點。而從今天的業績來看，我對這個警告更加困惑了，特別是考慮到年初關於利潤率的評論，這些評論對盈利的影響比 12 月份的同店增長聲明更大。所以我很想了解一下您為什麼選擇在 12 月更新市場報告，因為這似乎並沒有對分析師的預期產生特別大的影響。

Okay. I'll take the first question, Richard. And Graeme, why don't you take the second one? Well, it's been a busy year in 2019, and I think I would put it under the headline of preparing the business for faster growth. When you look that we've changed 7 members of the Unilever leadership team. We've completely reorganized our market's organization. We've developed a multiyear integrated growth strategy, which has really now landed across the organization. And most importantly, we've thoroughly analyzed our business, developed the 5 growth fundamentals that we think will unlock growth, shared those across the business so that we are fully aligned and poised for a sequential step-up through 2020. And then towards the end of the year, getting busy with a portfolio review where you see very significant announcement today on tea. I think all of that I would put under the heading of a burning desire to get evenly prepared for faster growth in the future, putting the pieces in place.

好的。理查德，我來回答第一個問題。格雷姆，你為什麼不選第二個呢？2019 年是忙碌的一年，我認為可以將其歸結為讓企業為更快的成長做好準備。你看，我們已經更換了聯合利華領導團隊的7名成員。我們已經徹底重組了市場的組織結構。我們制定了一項多年期綜合成長策略，目前已在整個組織內得到切實落實。最重要的是，我們徹底分析了我們的業務，制定了我們認為能夠釋放成長潛力的 5 個成長基本要素，並在整個公司範圍內分享了這些要素，以便我們能夠完全協調一致，並為 2020 年的逐步發展做好準備。然後到了年底，我們忙於進行投資組合審查，今天我們將發布一項關於茶葉的非常重要的公告。我認為所有這些都可以歸結為一種強烈的願望，即為未來更快的成長做好充分準備，把各個環節都安排妥當。

I also don't want to understate the proud achievements that Graeme rattled off on the discipline that we continue to have in the business around delivering bottom line and balance sheet performance. So those are -- that's kind of how I would characterize year 1, a busy, exciting year, very much focused on future growth.

我也不想低估格雷姆所列舉的我們在業務中持續保持的紀律性所取得的令人自豪的成就，這種紀律性體現在實現盈利和資產負債表業績方面。所以，這就是我對第一年的概括——忙碌而激動人心的一年，非常注重未來的發展。

Yes. Richard, thanks for your second question because I think we owe it to everybody to explain a little bit the choreography around these things. But let me preface the comment in response to you by saying, overall, we find the fact that we're only growing at around 3%, as Alan said, both disappointing and frustrating, particularly when it's clear that with the actions that Alan's lined out, we can improve our executional success rate in the business, get us back up to growing -- winning share in our business beyond the roughly 50% of our business that is currently winning share. So we know what the objective is and we know what we have to do, that's why 3% is disappointing and it's frustrating.

是的。理查德，謝謝你的第二個問題，因為我覺得我們有義務向大家解釋這些事情的來龍去脈。但我想先說明一下，正如艾倫所說，我們目前僅增長了3%左右，這既令人失望又令人沮喪，尤其是在艾倫提出的措施能夠提高我們業務的執行成功率，使我們重回增長軌道，並在業務中贏得更多份額的情況下——目前我們大約有50%的業務正在贏得份額。所以我們知道目標是什麼，也知道我們要做什麼，這就是為什麼 3% 的成績令人失望和沮喪。

Now the reason I say that is because what I'm about to say -- I don't want it to be perceived as not with a reasonable degree of humility. But I would agree with you that in the way of the world now, it is a little bit crazy that we are obliged and compelled to come out with a warning, which ultimately is, I think you alluded to in your question, was a 10 basis point miss outside of a long-term growth range of 3% to 5%, or put another way, EUR 50 million on a EUR 52 billion business. But let me assure you, it would have been our choice. But of course, we are obliged by the markets to do that by the regulations to which we're all bound. And you saw the reaction to the announcement on the day. And of course, that reaction would support the regulatory view that we should have come out and explained it.

我之所以這麼說，是因為我接下來要說的話——我不想讓別人覺得我缺乏應有的謙遜。但我同意你的看法，在當今世界局勢下，我們不得不發出警告，這有點瘋狂。最終，正如你在問題中提到的，這僅僅是因為業績比 3% 到 5% 的長期增長範圍低了 10 個基點，或者換句話說，在一個 520 億歐元的業務中損失了 5000 萬歐元。但我可以向你保證，那將是我們自己的選擇。當然，根據市場規律和我們都必須遵守的規則制度，我們有義務這樣做。當天大家也看到了公告發布後的反應。當然，這種反應會支持監管機構的觀點，即我們應該出來解釋清楚。

And do I think that, personally, that reaction warrants a tiny miss on a pinhead on a business of this scale and size and future volume significance in the way we manage the business? Of course, I don't. But having said that, and as I began the answer, it doesn't excuse the fact that we're frustrated that we're only growing at the bottom of our range right now. And we've got a job to do to deliver a step-up in that growth range going forward by a combination of better execution and faster and more focused portfolio change. So we take accountability for that. But in terms of the management around that announcement, it was 100% down to the obligations that we face from regulation.

我個人認為，對於如此規模龐大、未來業務量意義重大的企業而言，這種反應是否足以彌補我們在企業管理方式上所犯下的微小錯誤呢？當然，我沒有。但話雖如此，正如我在回答開頭所說，這並不能掩蓋我們目前只能在增長範圍的底部而感到沮喪的事實。我們還有一項任務，那就是透過更好的執行力以及更快、更有針對性的投資組合調整，在未來實現成長範圍的提升。所以我們會對此負責。但就該公告的管理而言，這完全是出於我們面臨的監管義務。

Thanks, Graeme. Next question from Charles Eden at UBS.

謝謝你，格雷姆。下一個問題是來自瑞銀集團的查爾斯·伊登。

So just a quick question on your 2020 outlook slide where you gave guidance for continued progress towards a 20% underlying operating profit margin. Just wanted to pick up on the wording progress towards, does that suggest you may well come in light of that 20% number?

關於您在 2020 年展望幻燈片中給出的「持續朝著 20% 的基礎營業利潤率邁進」的指導意見，我有一個簡短的問題。我只是想確認一下「進展到」這個措辭，這是否意味著你可能會考慮到那 20% 的數字？

And then my second question is on the commentary around improvement in Brazil. Could you just give some color in terms of what is the improvement you're seeing?

我的第二個問題是關於巴西足球進步的評論。能否具體說明一下您所看到的改進之處？

Thanks, Charles. We -- when I say that we'll progress towards 20%, I think what it says is we're very confident that at 19.1%, it's relatively straightforward for us to continue to show margin improvement. And getting 50 basis points or so of margin to a number that would round to 20%, we are talking about a couple of hundred million of bottom line improvement in the context where we deliver EUR 2 billion of savings a year and I've got the flexibility on where we reinvest that. So we remain quite confident that we can properly invest in the business and continue to show bottom line evolution. But I do want to underscore that we're not fixated on that 20% operating margin nor are we fixated on exactly when we deliver it. And if push comes to shove, we will release extra funding to support our growth agenda, as, in fact, we did in the second half of last year. The turnaround in the North American hotspots did involve Volvo's dynamically redeploying resource into North America, and we wouldn't hesitate to do that again. So take the 20% margin as a destination, but with a management team that's not fixated on exactly when we get there.

謝謝你，查爾斯。當我們說我們將朝著 20% 的目標邁進時，我認為這意味著我們非常有信心，在 19.1% 的水平上，我們能夠相對輕鬆地繼續提高利潤率。如果利潤率提高 50 個基點左右，達到 20% 左右，那麼在每年節省 20 億歐元的情況下，我們就能獲得數億歐元的利潤增長，而且我可以靈活地決定如何再投資這些資金。因此，我們仍然相當有信心能夠對業務進行適當的投資，並繼續實現獲利成長。但我確實想強調，我們並沒有執著於 20% 的營業利益率，也沒有執著於何時達成目標。如果情況發展到緊要關頭，我們將追加資金以支持我們的成長計劃，事實上，我們在去年下半年就是這麼做的。北美熱點地區的扭轉局面確實得益於沃爾沃動態地將資源重新部署到北美，我們毫不猶豫地會再次這樣做。所以，把 20% 的利潤率當作目標，但管理團隊不會執著於何時才能達到這個目標。

Do you want me to take the Brazil point?

你想讓我拿下巴西那一分嗎？

Yes. You take the Brazil, Graeme.

是的。格雷姆，你去巴西吧。

Yes. Charles, thanks for the opportunity to talk about Brazil and Latin America more generally. As we said in the prepared words, we expect to see an acceleration in growth during the course of 2020 and that's a result of several things, that's a result of the growth fundamentals, better execution, it's a result of our innovation program coming through, most of which is a lot of good stuff landing in the second half of the year. It's a consequence of lapping, but it's also a consequence of recovery in some markets. And there's 2 in particular I'd like to call out. We think the slowdown in India, it's hard to call it. But we think it's more likely that the Indian government may take economic actions to support the growth rate of GDP in India towards the second half of the year.

是的。查爾斯，謝謝你給我這個機會，讓我能更廣泛地談談巴西和拉丁美洲。正如我們在準備好的稿件中所說，我們預計 2020 年的增長速度將會加快，這是多種因素共同作用的結果，包括增長基本面的改善、執行力的提高以及創新計劃的順利實施，其中大部分成果將在下半年陸續推出。這是市場輪動的結果，但也是某些市場復甦的結果。其中有兩點我特別想提。我們認為印度的經濟放緩很難說。但我們認為，印度政府更有可能在今年下半年採取經濟措施來支持印度GDP的成長率。

And the second one is that we're expecting that Latin America, which has been bumping along at really historical lows of market growth following the crisis in Brazil and the ongoing crisis in Argentina, that will begin to recover and we're seeing that now in Brazil. And I think we will see Brazil recover over the course of 2020. It's a very important market for us. As you know, it's 40% of our sales in Latin America. We delivered above mid-single-digit growth in 2019. It's ahead of market growth, which is only 2% to 3%, and we made some very strong share gains in the second half of 2019. So the business has managed the crisis extremely well. And as usual, we're coming out of the crisis in really good shape. A lot of the comments I made on innovation, a lot of the comments I made on market development previously were addressed around Home Care and Brazil, in particular. A lot of the innovation we've done around concentration. We had a complete relaunch of the Omo laundry brand in Brazil last year. As many of you will know, that is the biggest brand in Unilever. It is better than most of our countries. The #1 SKU in Unilever is Omo 1 kg Brazil. The #2 SKU in Unilever is Omo 2 kg Brazil. So it's a relaunch the totality of the brand architecture and do that really successfully, I think, gives us a great platform there. So...

第二點是，我們預計拉丁美洲市場在經歷了巴西危機和阿根廷持續危機之後，一直處於歷史低位，但該地區將開始復蘇，而我們現在在巴西已經看到了這種復甦的跡象。我認為我們將看到巴西在2020年逐步復甦。這是一個對我們來說非常重要的市場。如您所知，這占我們在拉丁美洲銷售額的 40%。2019年，我們實現了高於中等個位數的成長。它的成長速度超過了市場平均（僅為 2% 至 3%），而且我們在 2019 年下半年取得了非常強勁的市佔率成長。所以這家企業對危機的處理非常出色。像往常一樣，我們以非常好的狀態走出了危機。我之前就創新和市場發展發表的許多評論，尤其都圍繞著家庭護理和巴西。我們在專注力方面做了很多創新。去年，我們對 Omo 洗衣品牌在巴西進行了全面重新推出。正如許多人所知，這是聯合利華旗下最大的品牌。它比我們大多數國家都好。聯合利華銷售第一的 SKU 是 Omo 1 公斤裝巴西版。聯合利華銷售排名第二的 SKU 是 Omo 2 公斤裝（巴西）。所以，這是對整個品牌架構的重新推出，如果能夠真正成功地做到這一點，我認為，就能為我們提供一個非常好的平台。所以...

And the #1 most-loved brand in all of Brazil.

而且是巴西最受歡迎的品牌。

In all of Brazil. So we've got great assets there. We need to cherish them. And sometimes, you need to refresh them. And I think we've done that very well. Now if we start to get the market recovery that we are starting to see, and we're much more optimistic about it now, then I think we'll get back to stronger market growth. And of course, to be totally candid, a big piece of the move from the bottom of our range to the upper half of our range has to be through a step-up in market growth, and we believe that Latin America and Brazil, in particular, can be a big component of that.

在整個巴西。所以我們在那裡擁有非常寶貴的資產。我們應該珍惜他們。有時候，你需要刷新它們。我認為我們在這方面做得非常好。現在，如果我們開始看到市場復甦的跡象（我們現在對此更加樂觀），那麼我認為市場成長將會恢復強勁。當然，坦白說，從我們產品系列的底部到產品系列的頂部，很大程度上要靠市場成長的加速，我們相信拉丁美洲，特別是巴西，可以成為其中的重要組成部分。

Okay. Quickly to next question. We got large number of questions still on the line. Martin Deboo at Jefferies.

好的。快速進入下一題。我們還有很多問題尚未解答。Martin Deboo，傑富瑞集團員工。

Okay. I'll try and keep it brief. Graeme, just on the first question, I want to push you a bit harder on what you've just said. I think the question in my mind is what -- I understand what you're saying about the lay down of the year on the top line, but what does get better in H1 that raises it above Q4 performance? Are you -- it feels like you still got the headwinds from West Africa, from Turkey, probably India in H1. So what's getting better? Is it just Brazil? Or is it something else?

好的。我會盡量長話短說。格雷姆，關於第一個問題，我想就你剛才說的內容再追問你。我心中的問題是──我理解你說的年度營收下滑，但是上半年有哪些方面有所改善，使其業績超過第四季呢？感覺上半年你仍然受到來自西非、土耳其，可能還有印度的逆風影響。那麼，哪些方面有所改善呢？只有巴西嗎？還是另有隱情？

And the second question is moving parts of margin. Again, I heard what you were saying in response to Charles' question, but just -- I'm not looking for a number from you, I just want to make sure I'm understanding it. You've got -- good news is there's further cost savings, but I think there's only EUR 0.5 billion left now of the original EUR 6.5 billion. It feels to me like BMI goes up because Alan said in Englewood that you got a big innovation pipeline. So there's a question I don't have the answer to is what did commodities do in 2020? So those are the questions. Is there H1 growth and FY '20 moving parts of margin?

第二個問題是邊際效益的變動。我再次聽到了你對查爾斯問題的回答，但是——我不是要你給我一個數字，我只是想確認我理解對了。好消息是，成本還有進一步的節省，但我認為最初的 65 億歐元現在只剩下 5 億歐元了。我覺得 BMI 上升是因為艾倫在恩格爾伍德說你們擁有龐大的創新管道。所以有一個問題我無法回答，那就是 2020 年大宗商品市場表現如何？以上就是所有問題。上半年是否有成長以及2020財年利潤率的變動因素？

Yes. You're going to take H1?

是的。你要考H1嗎？

I'll do margin. You take H1.

我會留出利潤空間。你選擇 H1。

Okay. Okay. Okay. Right, Martin, we're debating up the -- up your question here. So let me take H1, and let me deconstruct, first of all, the -- what happened with the momentum growth rate of around 3% dropping to 1.5% in Q4. Ghana, Nigeria was about a 40 basis points impact. The impact of the deflation in the NAMET region was more than that. India was roughly similar to Ghana, Nigeria, and it was a smaller contribution from the U.S. Now that will -- that adds up to somewhere north of about 150 basis points and bridges you from the 1.5% to the 3%. So your question wasn't what will happen to step-up in H2, because I think that's clear. The question is what will cause the acceleration of that through from -- into H1. And we do expect, although Ghana, Nigeria will continue, we're working through what is a very significant and focused problem in 2 countries there and we're working through the trade stocks. I mean to be honest, when we say we're working through the trade stocks that are too high, it's a little bit deeper than that. We're obviously exposed with a bunch of receivables from distributors and we simply want to make sure that we can recover that money. We're through the bulk of that now. And so whilst it will continue, it will mitigate over that first half period.

好的。好的。好的。好的，馬丁，我們正在討論──討論你提出的問題。那麼，讓我以 H1 為例，首先讓我來分析一下——為什麼動量成長率從大約 3% 下降到 4 月的 1.5%。加納和奈及利亞的匯率波動造成了約 40 個基點的影響。北美和中東地區通貨緊縮的影響遠不止於此。印度的情況與加納、奈及利亞大致相同，而美國的貢獻較小。現在，這將——加起來大約超過 150 個基點，使利率從 1.5% 升至 3%。所以你的問題不是H2階段會發生什麼，因為我認為這一點很清楚。問題是，是什麼因素會導致這種加速從－－進入H1。我們預計，儘管加納和奈及利亞的情況將繼續惡化，但我們正在努力解決這兩個國家面臨的非常重大且集中的問題，我們正在努力解決貿易積壓問題。說實話，當我們說我們正在處理那些過高的交易股票時，實際情況比這要複雜一些。我們顯然面臨來自分銷商的大量應收帳款，我們只是想確保能夠收回這些錢。大部分工作已經完成了。因此，雖然這種情況還會持續，但在前半年內會有所緩解。

The second thing that you can expect to see, and we're going back here to the progress on the hotspots that Alan set out on the charts earlier, 3 of which are in North America, we fully expect that the actions we're taking in dressings, the actions we're taking in ice cream and the actions we're taking in hair care will bear fruit as we come through into that period.

第二件你可以期待看到的事情，我們再回到艾倫之前在圖表上列出的熱點地區的進展情況，其中 3 個位於北美，我們完全相信，我們在調味品領域、冰淇淋領域和護髮領域採取的行動，在我們度過這段時期後將會取得成果。

And the final one is there was some back year impact from the trucker strike relapping in Brazil in Q4 of 2018 and that doesn't persist into the first half. So just on your question of first half sequential growth, we can get growth from that. That leaves aside all the things around execution or innovation in the normal workings of the business as we go forward. The only counter to that, there's always a caveat, but as we said, coronavirus, we'll just have to park that for now because it could have an impact, it will have an impact, and we just don't know how much that is yet.

最後一點是，2018 年第四季巴西卡車司機罷工的再次爆發對上半年經濟產生了一定影響，但這種影響並沒有持續到上半年。所以，就你提出的上半年持續成長的問題而言，我們可以從中獲得成長數據。這暫且不談企業未來正常營運中與執行或創新相關的所有事項。對此唯一的反駁是，總是會有一些例外情況，但正如我們所說，關於冠狀病毒，我們現在只能暫時擱置這個問題，因為它可能會產生影響，而且肯定會產生影響，只是我們還不知道影響有多大。

Right. On margin, let me just talk a little bit about some of the drivers. First of all, you asked specifically about commodities. What we see is mid-single-digit increases in commodities. A lot of that is in our agricultural inputs. And therefore, we think that our F&R business, Foods & Refreshment, will possibly be more exposed to commodity increases through the first half of 2020 than the other parts of the business.

正確的。關於保證金，讓我簡單談談其中的一些驅動因素。首先，你問的是關於大宗商品的問題。我們看到大宗商品價格出現了中等個位數的成長。很多都存在於我們的農業投入品中。因此，我們認為，與公司其他業務部門相比，我們的食品和飲料業務在 2020 年上半年可能會更容易受到大宗商品價格上漲的影響。

But let me clarify one thing. When you said, Martin, there's only about EUR 0.5 billion of savings left, I really want to triple underscore that our model relies on well over EUR 2 billion of savings coming out every year. And whilst we don't really have a crystal ball on what the markets are going to do and, therefore, what our top line is going to be, we have an extremely strong window into our likely savings programs for the year. And whether it's the remaining opportunities in ZBB, continued work on product and conversion cost, whether it's the overhead's transformation program or the big savings that we outlined in our IT infrastructure, then in the Capital Markets Day, we are very, very confident that there's a couple of billion of real savings for us to deliver this year. And that gives us the choice and flexibility on where we want to reinvest.

但我想澄清一點。馬丁，你說只剩下大約 5 億歐元的節省額度了，我真的要三重強調，我們的模式依賴於每年超過 20 億歐元的節省額度。雖然我們無法預知市場走向，也無法預測我們的營收，但我們對今年可能的儲蓄計畫有著非常清晰的認識。無論是零基預算 (ZBB) 中剩餘的機會、產品和轉換成本的持續改進、管理費用轉型計劃，還是我們在 IT 基礎設施方面概述的大幅節省，我們都非常有信心在資本市場日實現數十億美元的實際節省。這讓我們在投資方向上擁有了選擇權和彈性。

It might be in -- I think it will be in a -- a step-up in number of FTEs and marketing to drive the new future marketing model. I think it will be a step-up in BMI, definitely in the absolute and probably as a percent of turnover. And there might be other areas where we choose to invest, one of which will be some of the environmental commitments that we've made. So for instance, accelerating our use of recycled plastic, which we know makes our brands more relevant for the consumer. So think -- literally think of it as we need to improve profit by a couple of hundred million, and we've got a couple of billion to redeploy in choosing how we get to that goal.

我認為，增加全職員工人數和加強行銷，以推動未來新的行銷模式，或許會起到這樣的作用。我認為BMI將會上升，絕對值肯定會上升，而且可能佔營業額的百分比也會上升。我們也可能會選擇在其他領域進行投資，其中之一就是我們所做的一些環境承諾。例如，加快使用再生塑料，我們知道這能讓我們的品牌與消費者更相關。所以，不妨這樣想——真的，想想我們需要將利潤提高幾億美元，而我們有幾十億美元可以重新部署，用於選擇如何實現這個目標。

Alan, can I just -- can I spend a second. I don't want to take too long, but it's a good opportunity to talk about the mix of the savings delivery and also restructuring investment, just to round out the totality of it. Because what's happened, Martin, in broad-brush terms, our 5S supply chain savings program delivers consistent levels of savings at the elevated levels that we foresaw at the time of the 2007 -- '17 strategic review when we upped our run rate of savings from EUR 4 billion to EUR 6 billion over the period from '17 to '20, and we fully, indeed, overdelivered against that.

艾倫，我可以──我能佔用你一秒鐘嗎？我不想佔用太多時間，但這是一個很好的機會，可以談論儲蓄發放和重組投資的組合，以完善整體情況。馬丁，總的來說，我們的 5S 供應鏈節約計畫實現了持續的節約，達到了我們在 2007 年至 2017 年策略評估時所預見的較高水準。當時，我們將 2017 年至 2020 年期間的年度節約額從 40 億歐元提高到 60 億歐元，而且我們實際上完全超額完成了目標。

ZBB, because of the nature of the beast, you get declining returns on it. So that has started to fade off as a proportion of the contributor because we've reached the benchmark levels that we feel are appropriate for the business, but that has been backfilled by the change programs. And it's a really important point that we asked permission to spend about EUR 3.5 billion plus of restructuring funds in 2017. And we've been doing that, and it sits below our underlying operating margin. So really, it doesn't often get a lot of attention, but I would like to draw attention to it because it's real money and it's money that we're investing in changing Unilever. Most of that money has gone into the supply chain in Europe, the supply chain in Latin America. A lot of it went into taking out the stranded costs on spreads, which were EUR 250 million a year, and we've fully taken out those stranded costs. And the rest of it is going into build capability for the future, as Alan said, particularly in our back-office systems, run, power, grow, powering up our global business services organization, using technology and getting on the technology curve properly, and that gives us the confidence that we can continue at the elevated savings rates going forward.

由於零基預算的固有特性，其收益會遞減。因此，由於我們已經達到了我們認為適合業務的基準水平，所以這部分貢獻者的比例開始下降，但變革計劃彌補了這一缺口。非常重要的一點是，我們請求允許在 2017 年動用約 35 億歐元的重組資金。我們一直都在這樣做，但這仍然低於我們的基本營業利潤率。所以，這件事其實不常引起人們的關注，但我希望引起大家的關注，因為這是真金白銀，是我們正在投資改變聯合利華的資金。大部分的資金流入了歐洲供應鏈和拉丁美洲的供應鏈。其中很大一部分用於消除利差上的擱淺成本，每年高達 2.5 億歐元，我們已經完全消除了這些擱淺成本。其餘部分將用於建立面向未來的能力，正如艾倫所說，尤其是在我們的後台系統、運作、發展和壯大方面，以增強我們的全球業務服務組織，利用技術並正確地走上技術發展之路，這讓我們有信心在未來繼續保持較高的節約率。

Okay. We've still got a lot of questions on the line. So we'll probably run over by 5 or 10 minutes. Alan, Graeme, if you can run over a little bit, so try to get to as many as possible. So the next question from Celine Pannuti at JPMorgan.

好的。我們還有很多問題亟待解答。所以我們可能會超時5到10分鐘。艾倫、格雷姆，如果可以的話，請稍微跑遠一點，盡量多跑幾趟。接下來是摩根大通的Celine Pannuti提出的問題。

My first question is on pricing. I was quite surprised by the deceleration in pricing, which you explained by the AMET region. But I think, as well, Europe was very weak. So could you maybe talk about Europe? And then as I look into 2020, would it be fair to say that the pricing covenant would remain quite weak as we've seen in Q4?

我的第一個問題是關於價格的。價格增速放緩讓我相當驚訝，您用 AMET 地區來解釋這一現象。但我認為，歐洲當時也很弱。那麼，您能否談談歐洲呢？展望 2020 年，是否可以說定價契約仍將像我們在第四季看到的那樣相當疲軟？

And then my second question is on Latin America. I heard your commentary on Brazil. Can you share with us how much Argentina grew in 2019? And what about the rest of Latin America, excluding Mexico and Brazil?

我的第二個問題是關於拉丁美洲的。我聽了你對巴西的評論。能和我們分享一下阿根廷2019年的經濟成長率嗎？那麼，除墨西哥和巴西以外，拉丁美洲其他國家的情況又如何呢？

Thanks, Celine. Well, I think you've sort of answered your own question on pricing. It was very much driven by the lower inflation rates in particularly Turkey and Arabia. But I do want to call out the continued deflation in Europe. The deflationary trade environment where we have consistent negative UPG in Europe is something that we're addressing. It will -- the only solution to that is a strengthened innovation program. And because it's when you innovate that you're able to pass along more added value and, therefore, take price in Europe. So those are the 2 big drivers.

謝謝你，席琳。嗯，我覺得你已經自己回答了關於定價的問題。這主要是由於土耳其和阿拉伯國家通貨膨脹率較低。但我確實想指出歐洲持續的通貨緊縮問題。歐洲持續負成長的通貨緊縮貿易環境是我們正在努力解決的問題。確實如此——唯一的解決方案是加強創新計劃。因為只有創新才能創造更多附加價值，從而在歐洲獲得更高的價格。所以，以上就是兩大驅動因素。

I think as we look forward to 2020, we definitely don't guide on price. But what I've said on commodity inflation would suggest that it will be, if there's such a thing as a normal year of price increases in Unilever, then that's how we're characterizing 2020. Our model is that we want to see a good balance between volume and price. And so far, we -- although we see movements quarter-to-quarter, for the last few years, we've continued to see that good balance between volume and price.

展望2020年，我認為我們絕對不會對價格做出指導。但我之前對大宗商品通膨的分析表明，如果聯合利華的價格上漲年份也有正常水平的話，那麼2020年就是正常的一年。我們的模式是，我們希望看到銷售量和價格之間取得良好的平衡。到目前為止，儘管我們看到季度間存在波動，但在過去幾年裡，我們一直看到成交量和價格之間保持著良好的平衡。

The LATAM question, Graeme, why don't you expand on that a little bit?

格雷姆，關於拉丁美洲的問題，你能不能再詳細說？

Yes. Celine, so Argentina -- I said earlier, Brazil is about 40%, I think, of the Latin American region, for us Argentina is about 15%. And year-after-year, it gets smaller because, obviously, the value of the business in euros drops down. First thing to say, I mean, a few years back, our Argentinian business was a EUR 2 billion business. It was EUR 900 million last year. And as we reset the exchange rates for this year, it's only a EUR 600 million business for Unilever. So we had growth in Argentina of almost 20% last year, and that, of course, includes 26% of pricing, the 2% per month nonhyperinflationary component of pricing in a hyperinflationary environment, if that makes sense.

是的。Celine，所以阿根廷——我之前說過，巴西約佔拉丁美洲地區的 40%，我認為，阿根廷約佔 15%。而且一年又一年，它的規模越來越小，因為很明顯，以歐元計價的企業價值下降了。首先要說的是，幾年前，我們在阿根廷的業務規模為 20 億歐元。去年是9億歐元。如果以今年的匯率重新計算，這對聯合利華來說只是一筆價值 6 億歐元的業務。所以去年阿根廷的經濟成長率接近 20%，當然，這其中包含了 26% 的價格上漲，以及在惡性通貨膨脹環境下每月 2% 的非惡性通貨膨脹價格上漲部分，如果這樣說你能理解的話。

And -- but the important thing, of course, is what's happening to volume, what's happening to share, what's happening to margin. So let me deconstruct that. Volume declines in Argentina have slowed sequentially during the course of the year. It's obviously still slightly negative given the scale of the economic challenges and the levels of inflation, et cetera. But we did have, in Q4, marginally positive volume growth in Argentina, which I think is a real turning point both for the economy and also for the business there. Markets still decline, by the way, double-digit volumes, so we've got down to flat volumes in a market where volumes are declining double digit. And that for us is the acid test of managing through a crisis. It means we are gobbling up share. People are staying with our brands. We've shifted our portfolio to be relative to a crisis-stricken consumer as we do many times, and we know that we're being competitive and profitable. We also look at our gross margin and our gross margin is moving forward there. So we're doing the right things, pulling the right levers. And one day, Argentina will be back and will be ever stronger, I imagine.

當然，最重要的是銷售量、市場佔有率和利潤率的變化。讓我來分析一下。今年以來，阿根廷的銷量下滑速度已逐年放緩。考慮到經濟挑戰的規模和通貨膨脹水準等等，顯然仍然略微偏向負面。但是，我們在第四季度在阿根廷的銷售略有正成長，我認為這對當地經濟和業務來說都是一個真正的轉折點。順便說一句，市場成交量仍在下降，跌幅達兩位數，所以在一個成交量跌幅達兩位數的市場中，我們最終成交量持平了。對我們來說，這才是應對危機的真正考驗。這意味著我們正在迅速搶佔市場份額。人們依然信賴我們的品牌。我們像以往一樣，調整了產品組合以適應受危機影響的消費者的需求，我們知道這樣做既有競爭力又能獲利。我們也關注了毛利率，目前毛利率正在穩定提升。所以我們正在做正確的事情，採取正確的措施。我相信，總有一天阿根廷會重新崛起，而且會越來越強大。

Okay. Thank you. Straight to James Targett at Berenberg.

好的。謝謝。直接聯絡貝倫貝格銀行的詹姆斯·塔吉特。

Two questions. Firstly, could you talk a bit about how you might prioritize use of any capital released from the tea review, especially in terms of M&A versus -- or acquisitions versus buybacks? And on potential acquisitions, it sounds like Asian skincare and VMS is a #1 priority.

兩個問題。首先，您能否談談您會如何優先使用從茶葉審查中釋放出來的任何資金，尤其是在併購與收購或股票回購方面？至於潛在的收購目標，亞洲護膚品和維生素、礦物質和礦物質補充劑（VMS）似乎是首要考慮因素。

And then secondly, just coming back on the impactful innovation, you mentioned as part of your 5 pillars for organic growth acceleration. Could you give us some color on the sort of the kill rate of the 30-or-so new brands you've launched internally over the last couple of years?

其次，回到您提到的具有影響力的創新，這是您實現有機成長加速的五大支柱之一。能否簡單介紹一下過去幾年貴公司內部推出的約 30 個新品牌的淘汰率？

Okay. Thanks, James. Look, on capital allocation, our first priority is always going to be to support the operating capital investments that we need to make to grow the business. Second call on that will be value-creating acquisitions, and you've called out a couple of spaces that we are definitely interested in. Beyond that, we have obviously used buybacks in an episodic way when we've had an influx of capital. At the moment, I don't want to speculate on the outcome of the review because it might end up in something that generates a lot of cash, but it might well not. And so at this moment, I don't want to be lured into a false assumption that this is necessarily a sale transaction that generates a load of cash that we have to figure out what to do with. So our capital allocation algorithm remains very similar going forward as it has been in the past.

好的。謝謝你，詹姆斯。在資本配置方面，我們的首要任務始終是支持我們為發展業務所需的營運資本投資。其次，我們將討論創造價值的收購，您提到的幾個領域正是我們非常感興趣的。除此之外，當資金充裕時，我們顯然也會偶爾進行股票回購。目前，我不想對審查結果進行猜測，因為它最終可能會帶來很多收益，但也可能不會。因此，此時此刻，我不想被誤導，以為這必然是一筆會產生大量現金的銷售交易，而我們需要想辦法處理這些現金。因此，我們未來的資本配置演算法將與過去非常相似。

The second -- your second question was on innovation, yes, kill rate. So let me just say, underscore, the type of innovation that's doing well for us right now. And I'll illustrate with 3 examples that sort of grim into that, but I want to pull them into more strategic themes. The first is, if you take our food business, anything in the vegan space is doing very well at the moment. And vegan mayonnaise, vegan ice cream, we really see that we're beating our business case on those types of innovations. Then Beauty & Personal Care, we see how important advanced technology is. And so a Dove product that works with your natural biome, that's the bug colonies that are on your body, to actually promote skin health, that's using some pretty advanced technology. And maybe even higher levels of technology is our -- we talk about our Rexona Clinicals range, it' truly a breakthrough in antiperspirant efficacy. And then the third area is the whole issue of sustainability. I think Home Care have moved fastest with things like our concentration agenda where we'll use much less plastic and really very quickly moving into high levels of use of our -- of recycled plastic. And whilst I can't obviously talk right now about what's coming up specifically, expect those themes of on-trend, advanced technology and eco-innovation to pervade the innovation agenda going forward.

第二個問題－你的第二個問題是關於創新，是的，淘汰率。所以，我想強調一下，目前對我們有利的創新類型。我將舉三個有點陰暗的例子來說明這一點，但我希望將它們引申到更具策略性的主題中。首先，以我們的食品業務為例，目前素食領域的任何產品都發展得非常好。純素蛋黃醬、純素冰淇淋，我們確實看到，在這些類型的創新中，我們的商業目標正在取得顯著的實現。然後，在美容及個人護理領域，我們看到了先進技術的重要性。因此，多芬的一款產品利用人體自然微生物群（即人體上的微生物群落）來促進皮膚健康，這運用了一些非常先進的技術。或許更高層次的技術就是我們的——我們談到我們的 Rexona Clinicals 系列，它在止汗功效方面確實取得了突破性進展。第三個領域是整個永續性問題。我認為家庭護理行業在諸如集中化議程等方面進展最快，我們將大大減少塑膠的使用，並迅速提高再生塑膠的使用水準。雖然我現在顯然不能具體談論即將發生的事情，但可以預見的是，引領潮流的先進技術和生態創新等主題將貫穿未來的創新議程。

Now as far as our new brand kill rate, I think we would declare right now about 1/3 of them as successful and sustainable, 1/3 of them where we will end up walking away and about 1/3 of them are -- where we need to pivot and adjust the mix and see how they do. We're quite happy with that ratio with a couple of standouts that are really doing very well, and we speak often about Love Beauty and Planet, which is now Love Home & Planet, over EUR 100 million business, all incremental, taking us into new channels and addressing a younger group. So I would say, think of it as 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 for the time being.

至於我們新品牌的淘汰率，我認為目前我們可以宣布其中大約 1/3 是成功且可持續的，1/3 是我們最終會放棄的，還有大約 1/3 是我們需要調整策略和組合，看看效果如何的。我們對這個比例相當滿意，其中有幾個表現非常出色的品牌，我們經常談到 Love Beauty and Planet，它現在更名為 Love Home & Planet，業務額超過 1 億歐元，全部都是增量業務，帶領我們進入新的渠道，並吸引更年輕的群體。所以我覺得，暫時可以把它看成是 1/3、1/3、1/3。

As I said, we'll let the call run on a little bit longer to try and get through as many questions as we can. So next question is from Warren Ackerman at Barclays.

正如我所說，我們會讓通話再延長一點時間，以便盡可能回答問題。下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的沃倫·阿克曼。

Alan, Graeme, Richard. It's Warren here at Barclays. Two from me as well. The first one is just coming back on Beauty & Personal Care growth, it was only 0.5% in the fourth quarter, the lowest I think in about a decade. You gave a lot of reasons on the call as to why it was weak. Could you maybe sort of spell out for us what the growth was in the quarter between the 4 subcategories of skin cleansing, deos, hair and oral? And just your expectation for 2020? Because when I look at the margin of the division, it was up 70 bps to almost 23% in the year, which is well ahead of Estee and L'Oreal. I'm just wondering whether you and, particularly, Sunny Jain are comfortable with that balance between the margin and the top line? Because when I listen to what you're saying, you kind of -- it sounds like you're saying it's mainly macro. But is there just a competitiveness issue as well in Beauty and Personal Care, your biggest division?

艾倫、格雷姆、理查。我是巴克萊銀行的沃倫。我也有兩份。第一個成長點是美容及個人護理行業的成長，第四季僅為 0.5%，我認為這是近十年來的最低水準。你在電話會議上列舉了很多理由來說明為什麼它很弱。能否請您詳細說明本季皮膚清潔、除臭、頭髮護理和口腔護理這四個子類別之間的增長情況？您對2020年有什麼期望？因為當我查看該部門的利潤率時，它在這一年中增長了 70 個基點，接近 23%，遠遠領先雅詩蘭黛和歐萊雅。我只是想知道您，特別是 Sunny Jain，是否對利潤率和營收之間的平衡感到滿意？因為聽你這麼說，感覺你好像在說這主要是宏觀層面的問題。但是，在你們最大的部門──美容和個人護理領域，是否有競爭問題？

And then secondly, just on tea. Graeme, could you just tell us what the sales and EBIT are of that division, please?

其次，就茶而言。格雷姆，請問您能否告知我們該部門的銷售額和息稅前利潤是多少？

Do you want me -- I'll take the first part on BPC, and then you do the middle part and then we'll maybe come back on tea. Warren, so first thing maybe I can do for you is just bridge across and give you the particular BPC impact mix of the 4 factors that caught us in the fourth quarter. So West Africa had a big impact in BPC in 2 categories, oral care and skin cleansing in particular. North American hair, we've talked an awful lot about it, but that obviously rolled into BPC. And also -- and this links a little bit to Celine's question on pricing in the fourth quarter is that we've strongly adjusted our pricing in the business in skin cleansing in India in the fourth quarter. Now all of that rolls up into BPC. And if you put all of that together, Warren, that's about 180 basis points of impact from just those factors on the BPC business, which bridges you across from the 0.5% much closer to the full year rate.

你要我——我先講BPC的第一部分，然後你講中間部分，之後我們也許會再回來喝茶。沃倫，那麼我首先能為你做的就是為你梳理一下，並向你解釋一下在第四季度給我們帶來影響的 4 個因素的具體 BPC 影響組合。因此，西非對個人護理產品（BPC）產生了重大影響，尤其是在口腔護理和皮膚清潔這兩個類別中。我們已經對北美頭髮進行了很多討論，但這顯然也涉及了 BPC。另外——這與Celine提出的關於第四季度定價的問題有點關係——我們在第四季度大幅調整了印度護膚品業務的定價。現在所有這些都歸結為BPC。沃倫，如果你把所有這些因素加在一起，你會發現這些因素對 BPC 業務的影響約為 180 個基點，這將使利率從 0.5% 更接近全年利率。

Now I'm not going to, and I probably couldn't anyway, look at the impact of all of that on the quarterly subcategories of BPC. But I will give you the makeup for the full year, recognizing that Q4 was kind of exceptional and the full year was the full year. But our skin care business grew at sort of mid-single digits was about by 3%. Skin cleansing, a little bit below that, a couple of percentage points. Deo had a very strong year, as I said before, at 6%. Prestige continues to crack out double-digit performance in Prestige beauty. Oral care, which had a big impact of Ghana, Nigeria at the end of the year, was just 1% for the year. And hair care overall was a couple of percentage points for the year. So that's the sort of mix of the subcategories in BPC.

現在我不會，而且可能也無法，去查看所有這些對 BPC 季度子類別的影響。但我會為你提供全年的補償，承認第四季的情況比較特殊，但全年的情況就是全年。但我們的護膚品業務成長了中等個位數，大約成長了 3%。皮膚清潔方面，略遜一籌，大概低幾個百分點。正如我之前所說，Deo 今年表現非常出色，漲幅達 6%。Prestige品牌在高端美妝領域持續取得兩位數的成長。口腔護理在年底對加納和奈及利亞產生了很大的影響，但全年僅佔1%。而頭髮護理產業全年整體成長率僅為幾個百分點。這就是 BPC 中各個子類別的組合情況。

Graeme, you're being unusually transparent on that. But I think it's important that we're explicit on just how well Prestige and deos are doing. Skin care coming in nicely, and the impact that some of the specific challenges that we've called out have had on things like hair and oral and skin cleansing.

格雷姆，你在這件事上異常坦誠。但我認為，明確說明 Prestige 和除臭劑的銷售情況到底有多好非常重要。護膚品方面進展順利，我們指出的一些具體挑戰對頭髮、口腔和皮膚清潔等方面產生了影響。

As far as tea is concerned, Warren, let me say that it's a EUR 2.9 billion business. It has been significantly dilutive on growth for Unilever for 10 years as best we can see. And the truth is we don't know the full EBIT margin until we do the strategic review, but as best I can tell, it is slightly dilutive to Unilever.

華倫，就茶葉而言，我可以告訴你，這是一個價值 29 億歐元的產業。據我們所知，在過去 10 年裡，它對聯合利華的成長產生了顯著的稀釋作用。事實上，在進行策略評估之前，我們無法得知完整的息稅前利潤率，但據我所知，這對聯合利華來說略有稀釋作用。

Because of -- it's exactly...

因為——正是如此…

Shared costs.

分攤成本。

Because of shared costs and allocations and spreads and parameters and however the strategy of what it is we're looking at comes together, that's the reason for that.

因為成本分攤、分配、價差、參數以及我們正在研究的策略是如何組合在一起的，這就是原因。

Okay. Thanks. Now to David Hayes at SocGen. Go on David. David, are you still there? Are you on mute?

好的。謝謝。現在請法國興業銀行的David Hayes發言。繼續，大衛。大衛，你還在嗎？你開啟了靜音模式嗎？

Okay. Let's try Chris Pitcher at Redburn.

好的。讓我們來試試克里斯·皮徹在雷德伯恩的表現。

A quick question just on the timing of the tea strategic review and your broader M&A strategy. And the reason for saying that is, obviously, tea is a big business in India and the Middle East and it appears to be sort of at the low point in the cycle there. And can you give us evidence of how you've tried to make it grow as the category leader in terms of incremental investment over that 10 years that means you think it isn't achievable? The reason I say that is that you talk about keeping dressings because of its vegan potential. And if I look at Upfield's website, they're making a big thing about the growth from vegan and plant-based food and I just worry slightly that the timing of disposals isn't perhaps creating maximum value.

關於茶葉戰略評估的時間安排以及您更廣泛的併購策略，我有一個簡短的問題。之所以這麼說，很顯然是因為茶葉在印度和中東是一個大產業，而現在那裡的茶葉市場似乎正處於低谷。你能給我們證據，證明你在過去 10 年裡是如何透過增量投資來努力使其成為品類領導者的，以至於你認為這是無法實現的嗎？我這麼說的原因是，你談到保留沙拉醬是因為它的純素潛力。如果我查看 Upfield 的網站，他們大肆宣傳素食和植物性食品的增長，我有點擔心他們處理廢棄物的時機可能沒有創造最大價值。

And secondly, on that, have you discussed this, obviously, with Hindustan Unilever because in terms of unrecovered costs, that would have quite a significant impact on that business.

其次，關於這一點，您是否與印度聯合利華公司討論過？因為就未收回的成本而言，這將對該公司的業務產生相當大的影響。

Okay. First, let me say that in the tea market, and you're really talking here about sort of consumer trends, there's a really quite dramatic shift from black tea to initially green tea, and now we're seeing more and more herbal teas and infusions. And we've done a lot of work to add that leg to the portfolio, both inorganically within the brands that we had, but also by building in some new brands that we've acquired. But the harsh reality is that 2/3 of our tea business remains core black tea, which is declining. And we have really seen this trend play out. It's not a short-term thing, it's a long-term trend, over a decade.

好的。首先，我想說的是，在茶葉市場，也就是我們這裡所說的消費趨勢，出現了一個非常顯著的轉變，從紅茶到綠茶，而現在我們看到越來越多的草本茶和花草茶。我們做了很多工作來為產品組合增加這一支柱，既包括在我們原有品牌內部進行非有機成長，也包括透過收購一些新品牌來建立這一支柱。但殘酷的現實是，我們茶葉業務的 2/3 仍然是核心紅茶，而紅茶的銷售正在下降。我們已經親眼目睹了這股趨勢的發生。這不是短期現象，而是持續十多年的長期趨勢。

We've had a lot of good effort at getting the core black tea back to growth, but we just don't see it happening. And you've referred back to our Spreads business and Upfield. We stay closely involved with Upfield partly through the transition service agreements that we built with them and they're very open with how that business is doing. And suffice to say, they've pulled various levers to get the growth improved from where it was, but it would still be massively dilutive to Unilever even with the good efforts that they're putting in.

我們已經付出了很多努力，希望核心紅茶市場能夠恢復成長，但我們看不到任何復甦的跡象。您又提到了我們的抹醬業務和 Upfield。我們與 Upfield 保持著密切的聯繫，部分原因是我們與他們簽訂了過渡服務協議，而且他們對公司的營運情況非常坦誠。毋庸置疑，他們已經採取了各種措施來改善成長狀況，但即便他們做出如此努力，這對聯合利華來說仍然會造成巨大的股權稀釋。

Secondarily, we believe we got outstanding value from that transaction. We more than covered the retention value. And we think it was a very, very good thing for our shareholders, both top line and earnings impact. And in many ways, tea falls into a similar camp. And so we're going to do a full review to see if there are ways to unlock value that would include different ways of organizing the business partnerships, different ownership structures. I don't want to presuppose that the outcome will be an exact mirror image of our Spreads business.

其次，我們認為我們從那筆交易中獲得了極高的價值。我們超額完成了客戶留存目標。我們認為這對我們的股東來說是一件非常好的事情，無論從營收或獲利方面來看都是如此。從很多方面來看，茶也屬於類似的範疇。因此，我們將進行全面審查，看看是否有辦法釋放價值，包括不同的商業夥伴組織方式、不同的所有權結構。我並不想預設結果會與我們的價差業務完全一致。

Okay. I think we have David Hayes back on the line. Do we David? Do you want to go with your question?

好的。我認為大衛·海耶斯已經回歸賽場了。我們是大衛嗎？你想繼續問這個問題嗎？

I'm trying again. There was a technical issue. Can you hear me now?

我再試一次。出現了技術問題。現在能聽到我說話嗎？

Yes, we can.

是的，我們可以。

Yes.

是的。

So 2 for me. Firstly, just back to tea. I mean in November, this was obviously speculated on as a review process. I think you, Alan, and couple of the [execs] were on record saying, "We've got no interest in selling these brands and that we can -- we're the best owners and we can make it work better." I guess the questions are, one, why did that change? And when did that change? And secondly, what is it that another owner from bringing to those brands at Unilever as the owner cannot achieve, which means they can get more value and cover tax leakage and so forth.

所以我選2。首先，我們還是回到喝茶的話題。我的意思是，在11月份，這顯然被認為是一個審查過程。我認為你、艾倫，還有幾位高管都曾公開表示：「我們對出售這些品牌沒有興趣，而且我們能做到——我們是最好的所有者，我們能讓它們運作得更好。」我想問題是，第一，為什麼情況發生了變化？這種情況是什麼時候改變的？其次，其他擁有者從聯合利華旗下這些品牌帶來的哪些東西是現有所有者無法實現的？這意味著他們可以獲得更多價值，彌補稅收漏洞等等。

And the second question is just on innovation. You talked about being heightened brand awareness, availability being heightened purposefulness as well. But that all sounds more expensive to achieve. I guess the 2 questions are related to that. What you're -- one, is it more expensive to compete than it was? Than you thought it was going to be maybe 2 or 3 years ago? And then if that is the case, where is it that you're seeing that offset, which means the margin commitment is still there. I know you've kind of addressed it in pieces through the call. But just trying to understand it, it feels more expensive to be effective and to get the growth, so why is that margin commitment not having this year?

第二個問題是關於創新的。你提到提高品牌知名度，提高產品可近性也是提高目標導向的一種方式。但這聽起來要實現成本更高。我想這兩個問題都與此有關。你想知道的是──第一，現在的競爭成本是否比以前更高了？比你兩三年前預想的早？如果真是這種情況，那麼你在哪裡看到了這種抵消，這意味著保證金承諾仍然存在。我知道你在通話中已經斷斷續續地談到了這個問題。但光是試著理解這一點，感覺要取得成效和成長的成本更高，那麼為什麼今年沒有做出利潤承諾呢？

Thanks for the question. So first of all, we initiated the tea -- sorry, the strategic review of our portfolio in November. And at the time, there were immediately quite public speculation on multiple different parts of the business, including tea. And what we said at the time was we have no plans to sell tea. And we didn't go as far as you indicate in terms of declaring our eternal undying love for the category. So we just, basically -- we get these speculative rumors all the time. We quash them. And now that we are initiating a strategic review, we have been very open about it. So please count that when we're doing -- when we're thinking about these things, we'll communicate transparently.

謝謝你的提問。首先，我們在 11 月啟動了——抱歉，是策略評估——我們的投資組合。當時，公眾立即對該業務的多個不同方面進行了相當多的猜測，包括茶葉業務。當時我們說過，我們沒有賣茶的計畫。我們並沒有像你所說的那樣，公開表達我們對這類別永恆不變的熱愛。所以基本上，我們總是會收到這些猜測性的謠言。我們鎮壓了他們。現在我們正在啟動戰略評估，我們對此一直保持著非常開放的態度。所以請記住，當我們做這些事情的時候——當我們思考這些事情的時候，我們會坦誠溝通。

Secondly, in describing the 5 growth fundamentals, what I was trying to do is lay out a very important growth lever for us, which is just execution on getting the basics operating at a very, very high level. We often spend a lot of time talking about portfolio change as the unlock for everything. But actually, the easiest growth for us to unlock is just a step-up in executing on things like product quality, availability, quality of advertising, distribution and so on. And that's what the 5 growth fundamentals are all about.

其次，在描述 5 個成長基本要素時，我試圖為我們闡明一個非常重要的成長槓桿，那就是將基本要素有效率地執行到非常非常高的水平。我們經常花很多時間討論投資組合調整，認為它是解決一切問題的鑰匙。但實際上，我們最容易實現的成長，就是在產品品質、供應情況、廣告品質、分銷等方面提升執行力。這就是五大成長基本要素的全部意義。

Finally, on your point around, is it going to be more expensive to compete. There are pockets in the world where we run into a stepped-up cost to compete. So we ran into -- simultaneously in 3 places in North America in the middle of last year where the heat went up in dressings, the heat went up in hair and the heat went up in ice cream, and we reinvested back immediately. I think at an aggregate level, high -- in fact, we know for a fact, high-quality innovation is a more efficient thing to spend against. The 2 areas where we get the biggest bang for our buck is really motivating, purpose-led brand communication. And when we have genuine product news in the form of innovation, actually, those are a multiplier on the effectiveness of our spend and don't require an increment in our spending.

最後，關於你提到的問題，競爭是否會更昂貴？在世界某些地區，我們面臨更高的競爭成本。所以，去年年中，我們在北美三個地方同時遇到了調味品價格上漲、美髮產品價格上漲和冰淇淋價格上漲的問題，我們立即進行了再投資。我認為從整體來看，高品質的創新——事實上，我們確切地知道，高品質的創新是一種更有效的支出方式。我們在兩方面投入資金能獲得最大回報，那就是真正具有激勵性和目標導向的品牌傳播。而當我們有真正的產品創新消息時，實際上，這些消息會倍增我們的支出效率，而無需增加我們的支出。

Can I choose the opportunity to drill in a wee bit to this? The change in the cost to compete. Because it's the nature of the competition that's really changing much more so than the cost. And I think we need to appreciate the extent to which the overall cost base of the company is changing. Now there's obvious stuff here. If you go back to Unilever of decades ago, like all large companies, a bit fat and happy, and the sort of ZBB opportunity comes in just to get normal productivity and cost discipline in place and that continues to go forward. If you take things like 5S and the ability to run technology through the supply chain, the ability to run e-auctions on raw materials, that starts to provide pools of cost shift around the business. And then you think about ERP, you think about the application of analytics and [RPA] across the business, it's really important that we invest to get ourselves on the technology curve, a simple platform, so that we can continue to get the technology cost dividend going forward.

我可以藉此機會稍微深入探討一下這個問題嗎？競爭成本的變化。因為真正改變的是競爭的本質，而不是成本。我認為我們需要認識到公司整體成本結構的變化程度。這裡面有些東西顯而易見。如果你回顧幾十年前的聯合利華，你會發現它像所有的大公司一樣，有點臃腫且安於現狀，而零基預算的機會恰恰是為了建立正常的生產力和成本紀律，並且這種趨勢一直在持續。如果採用 5S 等措施，並利用技術貫穿整個供應鏈，以及對原料進行電子競價，就能為企業帶來成本轉移。然後，當你想到企業資源計劃 (ERP)，想到分析和 [RPA] 在整個業務中的應用，我們就必須投資讓自己走在技術前沿，擁有一個簡單的平台，這樣我們才能繼續獲得技術成本紅利。

And then most fundamentally, and there's always the vexed question of percentage BMI or absolute BMI. But if you go within that, we've built 38 digital hubs and 38 U-Studios in Unilever at huge cost sitting in the overheads line, but at total cost, which is 30% cheaper than buying in that service outside. We bought 30 people, data centers. Again, we staffed those up, and that sits in overheads. There are many areas, David, where just looking line-by-line on the traditional consumer P&L, below the surface lots and lots has changed. And I think the message is that there's lots and lots of opportunity to be able to generate the fuel to continue to invest in making sure that you are successful in growing your business, but the mix of doing that is quite dynamic.

最後，最根本的問題始終是：應該採用百分比 BMI 還是絕對 BMI？但如果你仔細分析，你會發現我們在聯合利華內部建造了 38 個數位中心和 38 個 U-Studio，雖然這些設施都計入了營運成本，但總成本卻比從外部購買這項服務便宜 30%。我們收購了30名員工和資料中心。我們再次增加了人員配備，這部分費用計入了營運成本。戴維，在許多領域，即使只是逐行查看傳統的消費者損益表，也會發現表面之下已經發生了翻天覆地的變化。我認為，這傳遞的訊息是，有很多機會可以產生資金，從而繼續投資，確保你的業務成功發展，但實現這一目標的組合方式是相當動態的。

Okay. We will take one last question. I know we've run over even an extended time. But we'll take one last question. We still haven't got through everybody. So Alan Erskine at Crédit Suisse.

好的。我們最後一個問題。我知道我們已經超時很久了。但我們再回答最後一個問題。我們還沒聯絡上所有人。瑞士信貸銀行的艾倫·厄斯金就是這樣。

Guys, I mean, just 2 very quick ones. One, you mentioned that Prestige beauty grew double digit, I think, in the year. Could you broaden that [item], and tell us what your -- the acquisitions that you've made since 2015? As in aggregate, what the like-for-like sales growth for those were in the year?

各位，我的意思是，就兩個很簡短的問題。第一，你提到高端美妝市場在這一年實現了兩位數的成長，我想是這樣的。您能否詳細說明一下，告訴我們您自 2015 年以來都進行了哪些收購？整體而言，這些產品的同店銷售成長率在這一年是多少？

And then my second question is going back to an earlier question. At the Capital Markets Day, you -- I got the impression that share buybacks were going forward would be a sort of recurring part of your earning's algorithm. Your net debt-EBITDA year-end was below 2. So I guess I was a little surprised you didn't announce a buyback this morning. Could you talk through maybe where I've got that wrong?

我的第二個問題其實是回到之前的問題。在資本市場日上，我感覺股票回購將會成為你們獲利演算法中一個反覆出現的部分。你們的淨負債與 EBITDA 年末比率低於 2。所以，我有點驚訝你們今天早上沒有宣布股票回購計畫。你能幫我分析一下我哪裡理解錯了嗎？

Why don't I take that first question, Graeme, and you can talk about the capital allocation.

格雷姆，不如我來回答第一個問題，你來談談資本配置問題。

Yes. Sure.

是的。當然。

So I'm going to give you an uncharacteristic level of transparency on our Prestige business. The biggest brand that we've bought there is Dermalogica, and we've seen really an extraordinary -- had not grown for 4 years when we acquired it, and it's now growing high single digits. It's really been an extraordinary step up. Then we've got some brands that are delivering super growth, which are things like Hourglass, Living Proof and REN, and where we acquired 2 brands last year, Garancia and Tatcha, both growing well into double digits. Murad has been more of a struggle. But actually, when you put it all together, it's a very strong picture. And remember, we're getting 10% growth plus out of Prestige that has largely a North American, European footprint. So this is not like-for-like with businesses that have got a strong Asian footprint for Prestige. And that remains really a big opportunity to strengthen our luxury beauty in Asia and in travel retail, notwithstanding the current coronavirus.

因此，我將以不同尋常的透明度向大家介紹我們的尊貴業務。我們在當地收購的最大品牌是 Dermalogica，我們看到了它非凡的進步——在我們收購它的時候，它已經 4 年沒有成長了，而現在它的成長率達到了接近兩位數。這真是一次非凡的飛躍。然後我們還有一些品牌實現了超高速成長，例如 Hourglass、Living Proof 和 REN，以及我們去年收購的兩個品牌 Garancia 和 Tatcha，這兩個品牌都實現了兩位數的成長。穆拉德的情況比較棘手。但實際上，當你把所有因素綜合起來看時，你會發現這是一幅非常有力的畫面。別忘了，Prestige 的業務主要集中在北美和歐洲，但我們仍然實現了 10% 以上的成長。所以這與那些在亞洲擁有強大影響力的 Prestige 企業的情況並不相同。儘管目前受到冠狀病毒的影響，但這仍然是加強我們在亞洲和旅遊零售領域的奢侈美妝業務的巨大機會。

But I know your question really was around the total impact of M&A and we've been seeing that we get about a total of 70 basis points accretion from a combination of acquisition and disposals. And I think I'd be -- being less than honest if I didn't say that when you look beyond Prestige skin and when you look beyond our vitamins, minerals and supplements, we've got several of the acquired businesses where we're falling short of the business case and we're having to make interventions to step up the performance there. So it's kind of a balanced picture. The bright spot is definitely Prestige and the vitamin, minerals and supplements businesses. Several of the others on plan and a couple that come off plan. Graeme, do you want to talk about capital?

但我知道你的問題實際上是關於併購的整體影響，我們看到，收購和處置加在一起，總共能帶來大約 70 個基點的成長。如果我不說，當你把目光投向 Prestige 護膚品之外，當你把目光投向我們的維生素、礦物質和補充劑之外，你會發現我們收購的幾項業務都未能達到預期的商業目標，我們不得不採取乾預措施來提高這些業務的業績，那我就太不誠實了。所以，這算是一幅比較平衡的圖景。亮點無疑是 Prestige 品牌以及維生素、礦物質和營養補充劑業務。其他一些人按計劃行事，還有幾個人偏離了計劃。格雷姆，你想談談資本嗎？

Yes. Sure. I mean, Alan, I think what we're hoping at the Capital Markets Day is to be really clear on the kind of capital allocation priorities and framework in the company, which we think is very tight. And we just wanted to be clear on that. Alan said earlier, philosophically, perhaps in the past, we'd been episodic with regard to share buybacks. We wanted to be clear that we view it as a part of our capital allocation framework and a perfectly valid method of shareholder return, et cetera. I hope we didn't create the impression, though, that we were going to come forward in the first quarter with a plan. Obviously, the biggest factor, because our cash flow is good and strong and we're confident in the delivery of the shape of the P&L, et cetera, the biggest determinant is the balance of acquisition and disposal.

是的。當然。我的意思是，艾倫，我認為我們希望在資本市場日上真正明確公司資本配置的優先事項和框架，我們認為這非常嚴格。我們只是想把這一點說清楚。艾倫之前說過，從哲學角度來看，或許過去我們在股票回購方面是斷斷續續的。我們想明確表示，我們將其視為資本配置框架的一部分，也是一種完全有效的股東回報方法等等。但我希望我們沒有給人造成這樣的印象，即我們會在第一季拿出一個計劃。顯然，最大的因素是收購和處置之間的平衡，因為我們的現金流良好且強勁，我們對損益表的實現充滿信心等等。

Obviously, the announcement today, we think there might be more of a bias towards disposal. And as Alan said, acquisitions are likely to be more focused than they have been in the past and perhaps a slower rate of maybe slightly larger transactions, if we can do that. But it's assessing that balance of acquisition and disposal that's important. Typically, at this point in the year, we don't have that same degree of visibility over the year. So it's really just too early to say. And obviously, we don't want to do something that is frequent and small. We'd rather do something that was more important. Please remember that we still got Horlicks to close out in the first quarter this year. So that's in our acquisition and disposal pipeline funnel as well.

顯然，我們認為今天的公告可能更傾向於處置。正如艾倫所說，收購可能會比過去更加集中，交易速度可能會放慢，但規模可能會略大一些，如果我們能做到這一點的話。但重要的是評估收購和處置之間的平衡。通常情況下，在每年的這個時候，我們對全年的走勢沒有那麼高的可見度。所以現在下結論還太早。顯然，我們不想做頻繁且規模小的事情。我們寧願去做更重要的事。請記住，我們今年第一季還有好立克（Horlicks）的收尾工作要做。所以，這也是在我們的收購和處置流程中。

Okay. Thank you, Alan. Thank you, Graeme. We're going to have to close there. Thanks, everybody, for staying with us over time. We tried to get to as many questions as we could. We still have a few questions we haven't answered. So sorry about that. But please call us in the IR team, and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. So thanks, everybody. And let's close the call. Thank you.

好的。謝謝你，艾倫。謝謝你，格雷姆。我們只好關門了。感謝大家一直以來的支持。我們盡力回答了盡可能多的問題。我們還有一些問題尚未解答。對此我深感抱歉。但請您致電投資人關係團隊，我們會盡快回覆您。謝謝大家。通話到此結束。謝謝。

Thank you. Buh-bye.

謝謝。再見。

Thank you. And Alan, in particular, bad luck in the rugby this weekend.

謝謝。尤其是艾倫，這個週末的橄欖球比賽運氣很差。

This conference call has been recorded. Details of the replay can be found on Unilever's website and will be available shortly. Thank you.

本次電話會議已錄音。重播詳情可在聯合利華網站上找到，很快就會發布。謝謝。