Sales grew by 2% organically and by 1% in DKK, primarily driven by Agriculture & Feed and Technical & Pharma. The EBIT margin improved by 0.2 percentage points to 27.9%, and EBIT grew by 2%. Net profit increased by 8%. In Q4, sales grew by 6% organically and by 8% in DKK compared with Q4 2015. The proposed dividend payout of DKK 4.0 per share is equivalent to dividend growth of 14% and a payout ratio of 39%.
In 2017, Novozymes expects to deliver organic sales growth of 2-5%, with contributions from all five business areas. We expect an EBIT margin of around 28% and a ROIC incl. goodwill of 24-25%. A new stock buyback program worth up to DKK 2 billion is planned.
Strategy: Novozymes sees long-term opportunities within industrial biotechnology and will continue to invest in innovation to realize the potential of its pipeline. Successful commercialization of the pipeline makes a return to historical organic sales growth rates achievable. Novozymes now allocates additional resources to high-growth opportunities, primarily in emerging markets, while safeguarding profitability. Unfortunately, this means that across the organization and geographies, we will lay off 198 employees on January 18-19, 2017, 62 of them in Denmark.
Peder Holk Nielsen, President & CEO of Novozymes, comments:
“Q4 came in as expected at 6% organic sales growth, marking a positive end to an otherwise challenging year. 2017 will be a year with sustained investments in new innovation. The divisions have reviewed their strategies and made significant changes to accelerate growth, for example shifting more resources to the emerging markets. As a consequence, we unfortunately need to lay off 198 employees to enable investments in market opportunities in both 2017 and 2018.”
