(new: statements from the press conference, share price)

HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) - Good demand drove consumer goods group Beiersdorf last year. According to a statement on Wednesday, the DAX-listed group was able to significantly increase sales and profits. For the current year, the Hamburg-based company is targeting further growth. Despite the good business development in the past year, the company only wants to keep the dividend stable at 70 cents. Analysts had expected a slightly higher average of 72 cents.

This was not initially well received on the stock market. The share price fell by more than two percent in early trading, but later turned positive, rising by around 0.4 percent. Beiersdorf has now left the dividend unchanged for several years, criticized analyst Celine Pannuti from the US bank JPMorgan. The Hamburg-based company itself had previously held out the prospect of a possible increase. In general, there were no further statements on future distributions to shareholders, for example in the form of dividends and share buybacks, added expert Bruno Monteyne of U.S. analyst firm Bernstein Research.

At present, Beiersdorf is focusing on acquisitions and mergers, said Vincent Warnery, the company's CEO. The company is looking for acquisitions, especially in the premium facial care segment. In addition, profitability is to be further improved. Only then would dividends be on the agenda.

Meanwhile, business is going well for Beiersdorf. "For the first time in two decades, we are recording double-digit organic sales growth," said company CEO Warnery. In the process, he said, the Eucerin and Aquaphor skin care brands achieved nominal sales of more than one billion euros for the first time three years earlier than expected.

2022 had been challenging in many respects, the Beiersdorf CEO wrote in the annual report. The war in Ukraine, geopolitical upheaval, high inflation rates, and dramatic cost increases, as well as numerous bottlenecks in the supply chain, had characterized the past year. There will also be numerous upheavals on the markets and uncertainties in 2023.

For the current year, the DAX-listed group expects sales to increase by its own efforts in the mid-single-digit percentage range, as Beiersdorf announced in Hamburg. This figure excludes currency and portfolio effects. The adjusted operating margin (Ebit margin) is expected to be slightly above the prior-year figure. While the margin in the cosmetics business with brands such as Nivea, Eucerin, Hansaplast and La Prairie is expected to improve by 0.50 percentage points to 12.8 percent, the company expects the margin for the smaller adhesives business Tesa to be slightly below the prior-year figure of 16.7 percent due to planned investments in digitization, for example.

2022 revenues increased by 15.4 percent to 8.8 billion euros, also thanks to price increases. On the basis of organic growth, the increase was 10.2 percent. Growth thus declined slightly in the fourth quarter, following organic growth of 11.1 percent in the first nine months.

Beiersdorf can look back on a sustained strong performance by Derma products such as Eucerin and Aquaphor, and Nivea also recorded robust growth. The company achieved strong growth in North and South America. The luxury care brand La Prairie, on the other hand, was again negatively impacted by the partial shutdowns in China in the fourth quarter, it said. For the year as a whole, the company was able to increase sales of the luxury care brand by just under two percent.

Tesa's business benefited last year from, among other things, a good electronics business in Asia and a significant recovery in its business with automakers.

Adjusted operating profit (Ebit) increased by almost 17 percent to 1.16 billion euros. The corresponding margin was 13.2 percent. The bottom line was a profit of 771 million euros, compared with 655 million a year earlier. The figures were roughly in line with analysts' expectations.

Beiersdorf is sticking to its Russian business. "We have left some products in the country so that no one can steal the Nivea brand from Beiersdorf," Warnery said. While Nivea products for basic skin and body care, such as shower gel, deodorant and shampoo, remain on Russian shelves, the group has stopped selling Tesa and La Parairie. Russia has never been a significant market for Beiersdorf, the manager stressed. Before the Ukraine war, the country had contributed two percent to Group sales; currently, the share is around 0.7 percent. Beiersdorf currently employs 200 people in the country./mne/knd/jha/