Good morning, and welcome to the presentation of the Lindt & Sprüngli full year results 2020. Martin Hug, CFO of the group, and me are very pleased to provide you, in the next 30-40 minutes, with a detailed insight into our business activities in the highly challenging past year. First of all, I'm happy to present to you our group management members that have been, again, highly instrumental in achieving the presented results. In years as 2020, it becomes even more important to count on the insights and fast actions of a very strong and highly experienced management team that is unchanged to previous years. I'm very happy to count on Jennifer as General Counsel, the three country market responsibles, Adalbert, Alain, and Rolf, Guido in operations, and of course, Martin as CFO at my side today. Today's agenda. We will give you an overview of the results. We follow on in the details of individual markets, the financials, sustainability as a big theme nowadays, and of course, the outlook into the next two, three years. The key figures and achievements in 2020 is the next chart. The sales performance was a total of CHF 4 billion sales and an organic achievement of -6% already has been published in January. I am very pleased to report that thanks to measures, initiatives, quick reaction in place, we achieved an EBIT of CHF 420 million with a margin of 10.5%. Net income is CHF 320 million with a margin of 8%. Those results are fully in line with the forecasts we have given in July. Very positive in our view is the development in operating cash flow and mainly in the free cash flow, where we reach CHF 470 million or 11.8%. Equity ratio suffered somewhat from the U.S. dollar development. That declined strongly by roughly 10%. The ratio still is very positive with a 57%. Further achievements during the year include strong gains in market shares in most countries, improvement in the U.S. organizational set up and performance, the doubling of our e-commerce business, and the acquisition of our minority partner in Brazil, as well as the franchise partner in Italy. Another very important fact for me is the reach of the target to supply 100% traceable, verified cocoa beans. Last but not least, not to neglect an increase of the ordinary dividend by 4.8% or CHF 50 to a total of CHF 1,100. Let's get to the most important one that accompanied us last year. That is, how did we respond to the pandemic? If we look at what happened last year, then the fact of the pandemic closures Easter just hit us some weeks of the last year's press conference. First of all, we had to make sure at that time to apply all protecting measures for our employees, what is definitely a big challenge in our factories. Making sure that we can maintain the supply chain without disruptions, that we can supply raw material, pack material, and as well to control the logistics in and out of the factories. That was a huge challenge. Fortunately, we are well-stocked. We were well-stocked last year, and we had processes in place that needed quick decisions for adjustments, what we finally well achieved. First reaction in finance was clearly to make sure we minimized costs in all areas and optimized cash management. Net free cash, for example. Important to know, we did not save in R&D, we did not save in marketing nor advertising in order to make sure we can assure continuous future growth. In all those efforts, our frontline employees in factory, logistics, purchasing have been key to make sure our product get to the consumers. My great thanks go to them all. Let's move to the next part of our presentation. That is to give you some market insights into the individual geographies. First, I show you the overall split of sales. Europe last year performing best with only a - 2.9% versus previous year. North America, - 6.8%, and therefore, it is dropping below 40% of the total share of sales. The rest of the world area was heavily hit. Duty free was the main reason, as well, developments in emerging markets as Brazil and South Africa that were weak. Before we go now into the individual markets, I would like to give you a overview of where we were hit and what happened indeed due to the COVID-19 impact in the individual businesses. Now, if we go into the channels and, let's go for the channels then, of course, the positive part was we were clearly increasing in our online sales channels. Online was doubling last year to a total of roughly 5% of our sales. At the same time as well, we were doing very well in wholesale. We were growing in most of our markets, heavily in market shares. If we look at the negative side on the channels, then of course, we were clearly hit by the fact that we have roughly 500 stores. Those 500 stores, depending on the country, depending on the market, were closed. They were closed during the most important Easter season. As well during the rest of the year, it was a little bit on and off, depending on the lockdowns in each individual market. You can imagine that was hitting us quite heavily. If we go into the categories, the product categories, the most positive one is that we were growing with our clear focus products, that is Lindor and mainly as well Excellence, and Excellence was growing close to double digit. Where we were hit in products was Easter and Christmas, and with that, the whole business in seasonal, where Lindt is as a premium producer, very strong. Going finally to geographies. In geographies, the positive part is that we were growing in markets, in big markets in Europe, like Germany. We were growing in the U.K., we are growing in Nordics. You see it on the chart. We have a lot of products and markets where we had good growth. Ghirardelli Baking was as well a very exceptional performance. On the negative side of the geographies, we have emerging markets that were hit heavily in the whole economy. We had as well, on top of all that, we had clearly duty free because as you can imagine in duty free, no traffic at the airports, and duty free is a big business for Lindt & Sprüngli. That gives you an overview what generally happened. You can say stores were hit, duty free was hit, and last but not least as well, I didn't mention Lindt Italy, that is heavily dependent as well on the so-called traditional stores that are little independent shop owners that of course as well were unfortunately hit very much last year. Let's go to the individual markets. We have the market split Europe, and, if we look at Europe, the single biggest market is clearly Germany by France, and then followed by U.K. U.K. overtook Italy in 2020 for the first time. Switzerland is ranking number five in this European group and included in the rest of Europe are Spain and Austria taking rank number six and seven, and as well, performing quite well last year. If we go to the highlights in Europe, the good news are market shares. We made good progress across all markets, gaining in the universe of Nielsen in grocery. The COVID impact is seen via closures of own stores, missing tourism, and lockdowns during the seasonal business. As I said, the biggest hit we had in Italy due to the very big Easter business we have in that country. On the product side, we last year successfully launched HELLO Vegan in Germany and Lindt Squares in Switzerland are just hitting now the market. Both products are doing very well according to the first reading of sellout results. Other achievements to mention include the opening of the biggest Lindt stores here in Kilchberg at the Home of Chocolate, and as well, the acquisition of the Lindt store network of Select Trade, our franchise partner in Italy. To lighten a little bit the presentation, I am pleased to show you a TV spot that is actually just aired in Switzerland for the launch of our Lindt Squares. [Non-English content] Let's get to North America in the market split. In combination, there are three countries. It is Canada, U.S.A. and Mexico. This geographic segment reached a total of 1.5 billion CHF. Clearly, leading market is the U.S. with the three companies, Lindt, Ghirardelli and Russell Stover, followed by Lindt Canada and Mexico. The three U.S. brands are complementary with the Lindt product or the Lindt company being a European specialties brand, highly premium. We have second, Ghirardelli, with a San Francisco domestic U.S. heritage. Last but not least, Russell Stover, covering assorted and seasonal pralines, mainly as well during the main seasons. They are very strong in Valentine's. They are very strong in Easter, last but not least as well, in the assorted products during the Christmas period. All three companies, they reach a weight of roughly 1/3 of global Lindt sales. Let's get to the highlights in North America. As in other markets, as I said before in Europe, the store closures, seasonal gifting, Easter, Christmas, and the Ghirardelli Food Service were impacted most. The good news again are that the market share gains we achieved are very substantial with all brands in all three North American markets. To be mentioned on the positive side is as well that the Ghirardelli baking division benefited from the fact that the in-home food preparation, including baking, increased strongly in the market. The last two, three years, we reported on needed streamlining of our operations in North America. I'm very proud that I can further report now positive news from our ongoing projects for improvements of the U.S. business, be it in structure and as well processes. Number one, logistics. Combining logistics among the three companies. That project, in the meantime, has been completed successfully. If we talk about production, we unfortunately had to close one of our Russell Stover factories. That as well is completed. The project started in June 2020. The next one is that we as well streamlined our retail store network among the three companies. Last but not least as well, we outsourced our merchandising force. In combination, all those measures clearly will strengthen our U.S. network among the organization. Let's get to the rest of the world segment. As I already told you, the duty free and emerging markets sales with own Lindt units and distributors suffered economically. The duty free business came after a good start in the first two months in 2020, practically to a halt. On the positive side, we have two markets doing very well. It is China and Japan with over 10%, respectively 7% of sales increases. Despite the short-term complex business environment, we look definitely forward via a unchanged strengthening of the store network in Japan and Brazil. In Brazil, we in addition last year could acquire the minority share of our joint venture partner. Again, to give you a little bit an insight into our activities in China, a huge market in chocolate and as well, clearly with a lot of potential. I show you the TV spot that was broadcast via digital channels on the occasion of the Chinese New Year 2020. The TV spot is starring the well-known Chinese actress, Xin Zhilei, who supports our advertising activities in China. Last but not least, in my presentation of the actual 2020, I would like to look at the e-commerce and digital performance last year. We started in 2018 actively to strengthen our e-sales by developing and afterwards implementing a OCR omni-channel retailing strategy. This includes the sectors, the own e-commerce, our stores, global platforms like, for instance, Amazon and the so-called click-to-mortar customers. That is our customers like Coop Pronto or Tesco.com, where as well they are strengthening their efforts in that area. We are happy to have reached 5% of our sales in 2020. We gained further experience to strengthen business even more in the future. We expect increasing our sales via the newly launched Lindt e-com websites, where we already started in five, six countries in the meantime, and will be rolled out to all our countries during 2021. Among the many creative initiatives, I want to mention our online Maître courses in South Africa and the U.K. Now, how did it work? I think you can inscribe yourself in advance for a Maître Chocolatier course. You get a full box of ingredients, and then afterwards, you can participate via the web with a digital Maître giving instructions on how you have to cook, on how you have to bake, and at the end, of course, on how you can enjoy your delicious meals. With that, you see what we had to do last year is in a lot of countries, a little bit out of the extraordinary. We were forced, we were as well pushed to become creative, and I think that will stay in our organization for the next years. With that, I conclude my part of the overview of the result 2020, and I would like to hand over to Martin that will give you more insight and details into the financial performance. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome you to this year's Lindt & Sprüngli Financial Results conference. As usual, I will give you on the next few slides an overview of the most important financial numbers. I start with a summary of the key figures, which demonstrate our ability to limit the impact of COVID-19 on our business to the extent of even improving the free cash flow margin as a percent to sales to 11.8%. Organic growth was -6%, which is in line with our full-year guidance that we gave out in July 2020 of -5% to -7%. EBIT margin came in at 10.5%, which is even slightly better than our guidance, which was around 10%. Net income coming in at CHF 320 million, which is 8% of net sales. Free cash flow, as I mentioned, I think a really great number here with CHF 470 million or 11.8%. That leads us to our net debt position of CHF 200 million. If you exclude the lease accounting, we even have a net cash positive of CHF 250 million. Looking at the dividend and at the shareholder return, we have increased our dividend each year, and for this year, we are proposing CHF 1,100 for the registered share and CHF 110 for the participation certificate, which is higher than last year. Last year, we also had a special dividend for the 175-year anniversary of Lindt & Sprüngli. Dividend yield at 1.2%, which is more or less in line with the last year's. Payout ratio is 82.5%, which is actually at the same level roughly as last year, but higher than in the years 2016-2018. This shows the extraordinary impacts we had in 2020 on our business. In terms of the market capitalization, we are coming in at CHF 21 billion, which is for the first time above CHF 20 billion. It's actually roughly CHF 1 billion higher than at the end of 2019. Let's move on with organic sales growth. I've already mentioned this, -6.1%. When we gave you the guidance of -5% to -7% during the half-year conference in July, we said that we assume that there will be no further lockdowns. As you also know, in November, December, we had quite major lockdowns, and despite that, we have been able to achieve this -6%. I think it's also great to see, as Dieter Weisskopf already mentioned, that we have been able to increase our market shares in most important chocolate markets. It shows us that we are really well-positioned for the future. Sales growth in CHF was -10.9%. Once more, CHF strengthened against the major currencies. We had a negative impact here of 4.8 percentage points compared with the organic sales growth. Let's break down now the sales numbers in price mix and volume. The -6%, you can really see here roughly -2% is coming from volume, -4% coming from price mix. I think the good news here is within the price mix element, price was actually slightly positive, thanks to some price increases we implemented in some important strategic markets like Germany and Australia. As I mentioned before, ForEx had a negative impact of 4.8%. Dieter has already talked about the segment, so I'm just going to be very brief here. Europe was more resilient, thanks to the very good performances in Germany and in the U.K., where we saw small growth, and also Scandinavia and Spain, where we saw also the business growing. On the flip side, wherever we have a big Easter business, such as in Italy, in Austria, or in Switzerland, we had a bigger impact. In Italy, we had even closed traditional retail stores during the important Easter months of March and April. In Switzerland, we basically had a complete absence of tourists. North America at -6.8%. I think these numbers actually don't show us some of the very positive underlying trends. In Lindt and in Ghirardelli in the U.S., we grew in wholesale. Of course, we had a impact in our retail business. We declined actually double-digit because of the fact that a lot of our retail stores are in touristic locations in the U.S. The important food service business of Ghirardelli also suffered because of closed restaurants and cafes. Russell Stover is really focusing on the important sharing and gifting segment. For Russell Stover, we had a good start with Valentine's, then, of course, during the pandemic, we had an impact in the Easter season and also in the Christmas business. On the other side, the sugar-free range of Russell Stover had a very good performance and grew actually double-digit. Let's move on to rest of the world. We had here a decline of 16.1% and we actually report the entire travel retail division in rest of the world. We had a good start into 2020 with travel retail. Of course, after the pandemic, the 10 months from March to December, the travel retail business basically came almost to a complete standstill. China had a good performance, was severely hit in the beginning as the first country that was hit by the pandemic, but could recover well, and we could actually show double-digit growth in China. Japan being quite resilient with mid-single digit growth. I have no doubt that going forward after the pandemic, rest of the world with big chocolate markets in there and a lot of premiumization potential for Lindt, we'll see again double-digit growth in the midterm. Let's move on now to the cost side. I start with the material costs. Material costs came in at 35.3%, about 170 basis points higher than 2019. We have a couple of effects in here. First, sales per ton declined because of the mix impact. The costs of cocoa beans increased slightly because of Living Income Differential that was implemented in the second half of 2020 in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, relevant for us Ghana. Hazelnut prices also increased. Let's move on now to the topic of cocoa, and I'm showing you a separate chart here on the cocoa bean futures. If you are looking at the current market, we are roughly trading at GBP 1,700 per ton. When we go back one year, it was roughly at GBP 1,800 per ton. We should bear in mind that the Living Income Differential is not part of this future price. As I said before, it was implemented in October in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, USD 400 per ton, which equates to roughly GBP 300 per ton. If you add this back to the futures, including the living income differential, we are currently actually at about GBP 2,000 per ton compared to the GBP 1,800 one year ago. You can see that the underlying cocoa bean price is slightly increasing. We have different trends in here. We have a supply which is slightly bigger than the demand. We have an overproduction currently for the crop 2021 of about 200,000 tons. That's the reason why the future market itself came down. As I said, including living income differential, we have slightly higher costs for cocoa beans. At the same time, actually, cocoa butter ratios came down from about 260% to 230%. If you combine those two effects of futures, Living Income Differential on the one side for the beans and cocoa butter ratios, our cost for 2021 on cocoa as a total will be roughly at the same level as in 2020. Personnel expenses coming down by about CHF 100 million. I think this shows that we have been able to offset a lot of the volume impact. Stores are closed, so we needed less temporary staff. As you have seen in the beginning, we have had slower or lower volumes in our factories, which also meant that we didn't need all the temporary staff in our factories. CHF 100 million less here at 22%. I think going forward past the pandemic, this number will be again below 22%. Number of employees came down by 1,000 from 14,600 to 13,500. We announced one year ago the streamlining for growth initiatives in the U.S. We closed actually the Colorado factory of Russell Stover in August, which was even earlier than planned. That was one element that led to this reduction in full-time equivalents. The second one is also the outsourcing of our merchandising team in the U.S., which we also announced one year ago in January. Those effects coupled, of course, with what I said before with the temporary store closure, where we needed less temporary staff and also less volume in the factory. All those elements led to this reduction of 1,000 full-time equivalents. Let's move on now with operating expenses. Within the category of operating expenses, we have a few elements. On the one side we have advertising, we also have some fixed costs of the sales force and logistics. As Dieter Weisskopf already mentioned, advertising is not a cost element that we reduced. We actually increased advertising even slightly compared to 2019. Logistics, on the other side, benefited a little bit as well from, first and foremost, as well from the U.S. project, which has brought cost savings, but we also had less volume that we had to transport, so we have some variable costs in there. This led to a reduction of roughly CHF 80 million in operating costs overall, and the ratio going slightly up from 24.7%-25.9%. Depreciation impairments. In here we have two things. We have impairments from the IFRS 16 standards, which is about CHF 70 million, and then we have the underlying depreciation, which is comparable as well with the numbers 2016-2018. In 2019, we had the extraordinary impairments in the U.S., so this number is not comparable. This was more than CHF 50 million. If you take the underlying depreciation in 2020, it was CHF 206 million. If you compare it with 2018, it was CHF 180 million, so you can see an increase of CHF 26 million. The key driver of that are really the CapEx programs, which I will talk about a bit later. In the U.S., CapEx is higher than our overall depreciation, so that has led to this increase in depreciation and impairments. Operating profit came in at CHF 420 million or 10.5%. As I mentioned at the beginning, this is in line with our guidance that we gave in July of around 10%. The ratio came down from 13.2%, and also overall, the number came down by about CHF 170 million. The reason for that are really all the factors I talked about in my previous slides, COVID-19-related. When we break down EBIT by segment, let's focus here on the middle column, North America. North America, before restructuring in 2019, was actually at 9.0%, so we had a small decline here of 320 basis points in North America, which is smaller than the decline in Europe and in rest of the world. This shows us that the measures we are implementing in the U.S. with the streamlining initiatives, but also all the other projects and cost savings programs we have in North America, they're paying dividends with this smaller decline than in Europe and in rest of the world. I'm convinced that in North America, going forward, all these projects will lead to a quite nice increase of the EBIT margin in the years to come. In Europe and in rest of the world, the reason for the decline are COVID-related. They're really driven by all the reasons I talked about in the last few slides. Post-COVID, Europe will come back to a EBIT ratio of 19%-20%, and rest of the world to 17%-18%. EBITDA was more or less resilient as well, with CHF 700 million or 17.4%. We had a lower EBIT, of course, EBITDA also came down. We had special effects in 2019 with the restructuring, the impairments. Overall, I think no big surprise here with the EBITDA, which is as well on target. Free cash flow is really the positive news. Free cash flow came in at CHF 473 million. Last year, or 2019, we had a record free cash flow with CHF 530 million or 11.7%. Now, we came in even slightly higher as a percent of net sales with 11.8%. We had really a good net working capital management. We have been able to reduce inventory, we have been able to reduce accounts receivable, which led to this positive free cash flow. It's higher than in the years 2016-2018, as well as an absolute number, which I think is really a very good result. CapEx coming in at CHF 249 million, as well as in the guidance. I gave you a guidance of CHF 230 million-CHF 250 million in July. We came in at CHF 249 million. Lower than we anticipated one year ago, when we thought we will be rather around CHF 300 million, driven mainly by the New Hampshire build-out. New Hampshire factory, the Lindt factory in the U.S., which is above CHF 200 million, and we have been able to rephase some of these investments because of the volume drop. Especially in the retail division, we have been able to manage that and to push this project a little bit out, to rephase it. That also means that going forward, we expect CapEx to be back to about CHF 300 million in 2021 and in 2022. I think also some good news on the tax rate. It's below 20%, even below 19% at 18.8%. We had some special effects in 2019 because of some special effects we had in tax and this number, we shouldn't compare this number actually, the 2019 number, with 2020. In 2020, we had also some positive effects from the Swiss tax reform. The underlying tax rate is actually rather below, around 21%-22%. I think that's the tax rate we have to look at when we think about 2021 and 2022, somewhere between 21%-22%. Net income coming in at CHF 320 million. If we exclude the extraordinary impact in 2019, net income was actually more resilient than EBIT. There are two factors. The one we have just talked about now, which is the tax rate, which was at 18.8%. Secondly, we also had lower financial expenses because of lower U.S. dollar interest rates. We've been able to save quite a lot of money in the hedge costs for the U.S. business, leading to this better performance of the net income at CHF 320 million. Let's now look at the net financial position. The very positive free cash flow of CHF 473 million, which I've already talked about, has really driven this improvement of more than CHF 200 million- CHF 209 million. Let's also bear in mind that we have paid out a special dividend in 2019 because of the 175 years anniversary of the Lindt & Sprüngli Group. We paid out a total dividend of about CHF 420 million last year. Despite this special dividend, we have been able to improve the net financial position to CHF 209 million. This net financial position also includes the lease accounting of 400 Lease liability, actually, of CHF 460 million. Excluding that, and on a pure cash basis, we would be on a net cash position of CHF 250 million+. We have a liquidity on the one side of CHF 1.25 billion at year-end, and we have CHF 1 billion bonds outstanding. Those two lead to this CHF 250 million net cash position, excluding the lease liability. That brings me to my last chart, the equity ratio. We have a very strong balance sheet, with high liquidity, as I've just talked about. Dieter Weisskopf already talked about the impact from the U.S. dollar here. We have still a equity ratio of 57%, total equity of CHF 4.6 billion. The strong liquidity and the strong equity ratio led us to decide to launch a share buyback program that Dieter Weisskopf will talk about in detail now. Thanks a lot for your attention. I hand over now to Dieter Weisskopf. Thank you, Martin. I would like now to get to an overview of our activities in sustainability, or you can say environment, social, and governance. The topic of environment and social as an integrated part of our business model is and has been taken seriously already long ago, and it is even more so today, top urgent. The theme is at the top of the list by me as CEO, and already was in my former role when I was initiating the Farming Program back in 2007 and 2008. It has to be part of our premium business. Any consumer is expecting from Lindt highest standards, which we clearly are committed to fulfill, and we have plans in place. The goals we have achieved in 2020 makes us very proud. First of all, we have achieved our first goal we have set already back in 2008. We wanted to have 100% of our cocoa beans traceable and verified in our own Lindt Farming Program. Just to give you an idea, from a total of 80,000 farmers in five origin countries, we have now full traceability of cocoa beans. The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is probably the most urgent task of our and future generations. Lindt, as company, is ready to contribute its fair share to it. In Scope 1, that means our own production process, we could reduce emissions per ton by 10% since the benchmark year 2015. Another goal we achieved in 2020 is to set target to reduce our water usage in the production process by 10%. This is not all. I think now we have to look ahead and say, what are we going to do in the future? Past and future efforts to support our sustainable business model, they have been defined in our strategy we have set some years ago. We call it the Sustainability Wheel. This Sustainability Wheel consists of four main segments. They are, number one, improvement of livelihood in the supply chain, mainly, of course, looking at raw materials and packaging materials. The second area of that wheel is the environment. The third area is our business conduct, and last but not least, we have the consumer focus. I will go now quickly into the different segments of our Sustainability Wheel. Let's start with the livelihoods. When you look at livelihoods, sourcing raw material, pack material, we have to address first two big issues in our supply chain related with raw and pack. Goals we have set include that we have already achieved 100% traceability on beans 2020, we will extend this program now to cocoa butter and powder, where we want to be as well 100% traceable and verified by 2025. As well, we extend it to the rest of all other raw materials, where we want to achieve a rate of 80% traceable verified by 2025. Now, the next part of our sustainability strategy is looking at the environment. Environment including, of course, carbon emissions. Includes as well water usage, waste, and biodiversity. We will set our new targets for the continuous reduction of water, as well as the targets for greenhouse gas emissions in the next months. Already decided now by our board of directors is that we will move in regards of the carbon reduction to a science-based target. The waste reduction in production as well should be achieved by 2025, by reducing 50% of our total waste. Okay. The next part in our sustainability strategy is looking at, we call it performing together. As you know, addressing topics of diversity, inclusion in our workforce, and of course, as well, health and safety have a very big part in our strategy. Respective programs are in place in health and safety to work towards zero lost time accidents. Of course, we have as well programs in place that are looking to foster the whole area of diversity and inclusion. Needless to mention as well, that we apply highest standards of compliance with the laws and regulation of each country in which we operate. Now the last part of the sustainability wheel is looking at our consumers. Looking at our consumers, they are in the focus of our daily efforts. Highest quality in ingredients, highest quality in recipes, and final products are key. Marketing communication and food safety fully comply with highest standards in the respective countries. With that, I hand over to Martin again that will give you now some more insights of the status of our Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program for the sourcing of our cocoa beans. Lindt & Sprüngli is one of the few chocolate producers that produce from bean to bar. Most of our competitors actually buy chocolate. The fact that we are producing from bean to bar has led us to decide in 2008 to launch our Lindt & Sprüngli Sustainability Plan, focusing on the sourcing of cocoa beans, because we really want to know from where cocoa beans are coming from. I will give you now an overview of this Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program. What are really the objectives here? One, we want to increase the productivity of the farms, because that's a win-win for the farmer and for us. Farmer can increase their income, and we can source high-quality beans in higher volumes. We want to help the farmers to diversify their income by launching additional income streams. Child labor for sure is always an important topic, and we want to reduce that. Finally, we want to improve the infrastructure of the communities. We have launched the Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program in all our five cocoa bean origins. In Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Papua New Guinea, and Madagascar. The most important origins for us are Ghana for consumer cocoa and Ecuador for fine grade cocoa. I will give you now an overview of what we have achieved with the Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program in the last years. We are working with more than 400 trainers on the ground that train more than 80,000 cocoa farmers in those five origins. We have been able to train more than 20,000 farmers on diversifying their living income with programs such as honey production or also livestock farming. This really enables the farmers to diversify their income from cocoa. Also, we have distributed more than 6 million seedlings to improve and recultivate the farms of our cocoa suppliers. Also, we have distributed close to 2 million seedlings for shade trees that actually increase the biodiversity in the farms. I've already talked about child labor. Of course, the best thing for the children is to be in the schools. Therefore, we are working on renovating schools, we are building schools. We have already worked on more than 30 schools renovation programs, affecting, in a positive way, more than 5,000 children. Also, infrastructure is very important. Access to water is a real issue in many of those countries. People have to walk for a long time to get fresh water. Therefore, we are working on water supplies. We have improved and built more than 200 boreholes and water supply systems, which are impacting, in a positive way, about 130,000 community members. That's an overview of the sustainability achievements since 2008. With that, I now hand over back to Dieter Weisskopf, who will talk about the outlook 2021 and beyond. Thanks a lot for your attention. Thank you, Martin. With that, I get to the last part of our presentation. It is the outlook. With number one, I have good information for all shareholders. That is, we will initiate a share buyback program by June 2021. Why can we do that? It is clear the background is our liquidity situation. The balance sheet is not leveraged at all. We have a net to cash position of CHF 250 million by end of 2020. We expect a further high free cash flow in the coming years. We have an equity ratio of close to 60%. That's the reason that the board of director has decided to start a buyback program for both share classes over a maximum amount of CHF 750 million. The program is expected to start in June 2021 until maximum the end of 2022. Looking into the performance expectation in the near future. What can you expect from Lindt & Sprüngli in the next years? The good first news is that we have our business model well-positioned in a worldwide growing market for premium chocolate, as we have seen the last year. This allows us to focus on our given strategy around innovation, premiumization, and the growth markets. We will clearly continue to invest behind the brand. We will clearly roll out our initiatives in the online channels. Of course, we have ongoing initiatives to further improve profitability and growth in the U.S.. Efficiency and cost is clearly a focus that will help us as well to perform well over the next years. Let's get to the strategic direction. That means not the next one or two years, but looking a little bit more further into 2025 and 2030. Of course, we have made our thoughts and said, "How is the environment impacting our targets and as well goals for the longer term?" We have looked at that, we have defined a total of six pillars, these six pillars are looked at in a way that we can put clear objectives and clear projects into each of those six ones. The first one of that six areas is organization. Why do we put organization in there? The point is that the group has grown over the last years into, in the meantime, 26 legal units, roughly 13,500 employees. The big issue is: How can we guarantee that in a decentralized organization, we are fast, we have employees with entrepreneurship, and we make sure that we are going quicker than the market? If you look around, markets and the whole environment is changing. Now, if we go into the products and consumers, clearly, we have to look what is the digitalization doing in the area of products, in the area of channels, and as well in the area of how to get to the consumer with our message and as well with our advertising. It has changed. It will change further. We have to be prepared. The next area are the channels. If we look at the channel change, one thing we already mentioned is the omni-channel retailing strategy we have started three years ago. We will move forward with that project. At the end of the day, we see a further increase of online sales in the area of the channels. As well, our own stores adaptation, depending on the country, our chances we have with own stores, with omni-channel, and clearly as well, working together in a better way and more efficiently with our big estimated partners in grocery. Next is cost and efficiency. If we look at cost efficiency, there must be projects. There are projects in place where we are improving, year by year, the cost base, and as well, becoming more efficient in all areas of our processes. Sustainability, we talked about. ESG is a theme. We take it seriously. Achieving the goals we will set for 25 and 30 years need big efforts on our side, and as well, clear projects. Last but not least, we have the sixth pillar, that is geographic expansion. There are still countries where we are underdeveloped. There are countries where we have growing markets and a bigger consumer group that is looking for our premium products. As well here, we have a project and as well, openings of new countries in place. Let's get to the outlook summary for the short and medium term. We are absolutely convinced that we are well-placed for future growth. We have laid, in 2020, the base for continued success in the coming years. Giving short and midterm targets today is, of course, not an easy task in that environment we are in. We therefore give today our outlook under the assumption of a continuously improving pandemic situation over the next months. Having said that, we expect for 2021 sales growth of 6%-8%, what is higher than our midterm outlook, thanks to the expectation of some catch-up effect from last year. We as well expect for 2021 an EBIT margin of between 13% and 14%. Looking into 2022, our sales should be back to a mid-long-term growth target of 5%- 7%, and the EBIT margin should reach around 15%. With that, I conclude here our formal presentation, I hand over to the organizer for the question and answer session. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions. The first question comes from the line of Jörn Eifert, UBS. Please go ahead. Good morning, Dieter. Good morning, Martin. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one would be, please, on your next 5- 10 years and strategic roadmap. Can you give us some more clarity, what kind of investments, how fast investments will materialize in emerging markets, and what do you expect could be the sales contribution over the next five, six, seven years? The second question would be, please, on North America. Can you give us an update regarding product pricing, gross profit margins? Is this similar already to Europe? And by when would you expect North America, supported by your S&A savings, to reach a margin average on group levels, for example? Many thanks. Jörn, thank you very much for the question. First, 5- 10 years and the investments in markets. If you look back the last six, seven years, you will realize we have started Brazil, we have started South Africa, we have started as well, Japan. I think we did that all without any dilution of the overall margin in general. I think that shows you that we are able to open the one or the other additional market as well without any further dilution. Investments will be made. Clearly, at the beginning, we have a higher investment of advertising per sales, but that is needed in order to make some awareness and to create some awareness. For that reason as well, there will be one country after the other. We have identified four or five regions where we still have some chances. I think there should be going business as in the past with opening these additional markets. Now, as regards North America, we don't give details by company or, let's say, by EBIT margin and as well by category. I think you just can be assured that after the reorganization we did last year, as well, you know our provisions we made end of 2019, we are right on track to increase the margins step by step in this American market, while at the same time guaranteeing that we can continue high growth levels. If you look at our market shares, there is still great potential to gain. Many thanks for this. If I just may follow up on North America. Dieter, can you confirm that the average selling price of the product and the gross profit is similar to Europe and it's more S&A difference and operating leverage difference, or is this a wrong assumption? I think if you look at the U.S. and if you look at other competitors, and if you look at U.S. markets, the chance that at the end the market will be even more profitable in the U.S. is definitely given. At least I can tell you we will get to the level we have as well in the rest of the world, mainly in Europe. Thanks a lot. The next question comes from the line of John Ennis, Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. My first is on market share. Premium chocolate obviously continues to gain market share from mainstream chocolate, but within the premium part of the market, do you think you're gaining share? Or is it more driven by premium taking share from overall mainstream? What price do you tend to consider premium internally? My second question is on e-commerce. I guess as more of your sales migrate online, I just wanted to get an update on your strategy to try and grow market share and promote what is still often an impulse purchase. Will it require a bigger shift of marketing spend to that channel to help promote and grow the category? Interested in your comments there. Thanks. Thanks. The share, of course, usually we don't give any details on shares. I think, in the meantime, you have as well access, all of you as analysts looking at shares. Now talking about the premium market or the overall market, I think we measure the overall market because there is no Nielsen for premium. I think saying that, we have clear gains in, as we say in our publication, in main markets, basically all markets, and we have great share gains. Now, coming to the premium, I think it indicates us indirectly that in times as we are now in, the consumer staying at home, the consumer in an area where you have somewhat restricted possibilities as well to enjoy yourself, you are in the home office. Clearly, premium is the product to be. We have more and more consumers going into the store saying, "I indulge myself, and if I indulge myself, I deserve the best. I deserve the best quality. I deserve as well the best ingredients," and I think that's where we benefit from. We are clearly of the opinion we gain not only in the overall share, we gain as well mainly in the premium share, and premium is growing overall. Now definition of premium, there are different benchmarks. That is the price per kilo, but I don't go into that detail now because it is a little bit different country by country. Now, as regards to e-commerce, now e-commerce is consisting of different areas, and if you look at us, we are absolutely committed to make sure that in the future we even push more sales in that region. Impulse definitely is important. On the other hand, the easiness as well to access the product via e-commerce, that is something that, I don't say it is same as impulse, but I think it makes it definitely very easy to enjoy via computer and to put it on your daily or weekly shopping list. I think that is a change behavior that we see as well compared to two, three years ago. That's great. Thank you very much. The next question comes from the line of Patrik Schwendimann, Zürcher Kantonalbank. Please go ahead. Ciao, Dieter. Ciao, Martin. You are expecting 6%-8% organic growth for 2021. What is your best guess per region for 2021 and also for the longer term per region? That's my first question. Second question, Lindt Squares launch in Switzerland, which I think is a great product. What about the rollout in other markets? Thank you. Can I expect what was the second one? The squares. Oh, yeah, sorry. I get it. Lindt Squares, yes. Yeah. Okay. I get into that. The region and the growth per region, I have to tell you that is still a very difficult one. I think we are happy that we can give you a indication for the overall growth of the markets, and that is our given 6%-8% in 2021. I wouldn't like to go into the details by region. The Squares. Longer term? Sorry? For the longer term, it's still the same, assuming 5%-7% is still the same assumption per region for the longer term? For the longer term, definitely. If you look at the European markets, where we have already a higher share, where we have some good pickup, awareness is high. Reaching overall in Europe in the existing markets a somewhat lower growth. If we look into the rest of the world and as well the U.S., our expectations are a little bit higher. It will be a mix. How that mix will evolve over the longer or mid-term, of course, that is difficult to say. Depends on economic developments country by country, and as well, competition is not to be forgotten. Squares rollout. We do a Squares rollout now, you can say two test markets with Lindt. One is in Australia and the other one is in Switzerland. Depending on the results, we then as well will decide how and when and in which markets we will roll it out as well in the future. Thank you, Dieter. The next question comes from the line of Silke Koltrowitz from Reuters. Please go ahead. Yes. Hello, good morning. I was wondering whether you could already say anything at all about the upcoming Easter season. I know it was difficult last year, so I'm wondering if you expect an improvement this year for Easter sales. Maybe you already have some indications from retail partners, et cetera. What do you think, what are the key issues this year to win the Easter business? Is that technology, maybe new partnerships? I know you do some things with Shopify, for example. Having the right products. Are there different products this year in any way, different formats, maybe? Anything you can say on that will be helpful. Thank you. I start with the last one. That is formats, products, innovations, new products. You can be sure that here again, we have done our best with colors, with products, with ideas that are new to make sure that the consumer will be absolutely enthusiastic when looking at our products. Sales teams are doing the best. If you go out now in the stores, you will see our huge efforts to make sure that we get as well the consumer's attention. Your question on how it will develop. I may make a joke here. If you have a direct line to Mrs Merkel, finding out whether she is opening the stores for Easter or not, then we know better. I think it depends still a lot on decisions by local governments on how they will treat the opening of stores. Of course, we hope that not the same happens like last year, and as well we can in Europe and as well the rest of the world, we can open up again the stores, and we get an Easter fest that is as in the past. If that is the case, you can be sure that we will perform very well again. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Tina Tuor, AWP. Please go ahead. My question. I'd like to ask, how much share do vegan products take up by now, and what kind of growth are you expecting here? The vegan product has been launched in Germany just about three months ago. I think the pickup and as well the sell-out is very good. We are very pleased, and I even have to tell you that we have some issues in producing. I think the capacities are there, but as well, the need is big. A lot of people just would like to try out the product and have it at first tasting. Depending on the results we will have, we are looking at expanding over the next months, depending as well on how we can get up in capacity. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Johannes Ritter, F.A.Z.. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning. I have two questions. The first one is on sustainability. You said that 100% of your cocoa beans are traceable now and verified. If I understood you right, this does not mean that all of your beans are now coming from sustainable sources. In spite of the traceability, you can still not be sure that there's no child labor in your supply chain, right? That's the first question. The second one is around your new product, which uses the fruit of the cocoa as a sweetener instead of sugar. Can you talk about this a little? What are your sales expectations, and could this way of sweetening be also used in other chocolates in addition, maybe also to sugar or not only as a substitute? Okay, thank you. I would like to hand over the first question on sustainability to Martin and come back then with the sugar one. Sure. Your question on traceability was about if we can be sure from where the cocoa is coming from. That's exactly what we are trying to do, right? We actually have identified all the 80,000 farmers from which we source cocoa. We even have a GPS tracking of all the farms. We even know how big the farms are, how many trees are on the farm, et cetera. We have really a full tracking back to the farms of the cocoa beans out of our Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program. Not only that, we are actually also verifying this by a third party. So third party is checking all the processes, all the systems, and has double-checked basically in 2020. Yes, we exactly know where the cocoa beans are coming from. With regard to child labor, we are talking, of course, about 80,000 farmers. We are doing our utmost. We are building schools, as I talked about as well, to make sure the kids are actually in the school and not on the farms. We have put in place all the processes and procedures and even invest a lot of money to make sure we can really limit child labor. Other companies like Barry Callebaut, they have a target saying that by 2025 they want to eradicate their child labor. Do you have a target like this as well? That's the whole purpose of our Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program, that that's one of the targets, one of the key targets, to eliminate child labor, and that's absolutely the target. Can you guarantee that there is absolutely no child on the farm? That's very difficult, of course, for Barry Callebaut, for everybody else, but it's definitely our target to bring it down to zero. Absolutely. You don't have a certain year in which you want to reach this? We already want it now, of course. That's why we are investing all the money, and that's why we are building the schools. It's definitely one of our targets, yes. I think, Dieter, you will take over the other question, right? On Pure. I come in with the second one that is sugar is definitely a topic that the whole industry, as well in Lindt, is highly interested in to see ways and means on how can you as well reduce, replace, and as well change crystal sugar called sucrose with some other sugar or sweetener. I think, this is just in order as well to satisfy the needs of the consumer that would like to try out the one or the other alternative. You mentioned this fruit sugar from cocoa, the fruit sugar from cocoa we use now in our product, as well, I have to really recommend it as well to you. Try it out. It is a very fruity taste, it is 82% cocoa. That mixture gives a new taste, and as well, we are very happy that we went into that direction. Now, to what extent can it be used in other products? Definitely it can be used. I think what it still needs is that we can build up the supply chain because that is a raw material that so far hasn't been used in the whole supply chain and the production. Over time, there will be more of that raw material available, and we definitely will use what is available and try out on how we can surprise again the consumers. Okay. The problem which came up in Switzerland and Germany, that you're not allowed to call this product chocolate, is this a problem for you or it doesn't really matter? That's absolutely no problem. If you look at the packaging and you look at the brand Lindt, then you know what it is. How it is called at the end doesn't matter so much. I think that is not an issue for us. It's just the regulations say it has to be crystal sugar and cocoa. Now it is fruit sugar and cocoa. At the end, it is clear to everyone what it is. Okay, thank you. The next question comes from the line of Bruno Monteyne, Bernstein. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. As my first question, I would like to come back on the sustainability topic, because indeed 100% certification doesn't mean that the livelihoods are better. I understand it's hard to have targets on livelihoods, but I noticed that Unilever guarantees a living income for small farmers in the cocoa supply chain by 2030. Some people have targets for reduction in child labor. Can you actually comment how much child labor has reduced by in the last five years? So give more quantitative kind of certainty or targets about really targeting that rather than the inputs like certification. My second question is on the growth target for 2021. It's basically 1% faster than your normal medium-term growth rate. That would suggest that there's very little rebound of the very difficult time in 2020. Given the normalization, given the vaccination programs, is there really only 1% boost from the recovery? Thank you. I take the first one, and then, now the growth one, and then I hand over to Martin for sustainability again. I think if you look at the growth target we have given for 2021, now we are already in February, and the big question is on how markets will open up again, on how tourism is back. There are different opinions as regards whether that happens the second half, whether that half happens in the third quarter, fourth quarter. That is all open questions. There will be a rebound, no doubt about that, and the degree depends a lot on things we just don't know yet. I think if you look at the 6%-8%, that is the best guess we have today. There will be, hopefully for us as well, a surprise to the upside. It's today standing here and saying, "That's where we are going into 2021." It's still a little bit risky. For that reason, we might be a little bit on the side that we say six, eight is okay. We are confident we can get there, hopefully higher. Sustainability, Martin, please. Yeah. Bruno, I heard you saying something about certified cocoa. I think it is important to stress here, we are not buying certified cocoa. We actually have our own Lindt Farming Program. You can also check our website, farmingprogram.com. That's very different, right? We work locally with 80,000 farmers, around 60,000 in Ghana alone. We know exactly for each farmer where the farm is. We visit those farms. Third parties visit those farms to make sure there is no child labor. I think with regards to the income that we want to guarantee, I think there are different measures. First of all, as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, we are working on diversifying the income streams for the farmers. The farmers don't only depend on cocoa, so that they also have other things, other crops, livestock farming and things like that. That's another important point. Certainly, I should mention, Living Income Differential of CHF 400 per ton has been implemented by the West African countries, and Lindt is paying that, of course. That's CHF 400 additional for each ton of cocoa. Compared to the future price of CHF 1,700, that's another 20% on top of that. These are really the measures we are implementing, and I think it's very important that we bear in mind, it's the Lindt Farming Program. It's not a certified cocoa that we buy. I didn't mean to mislead there, Martin. I understand that. Surely there is probably an element of child labor still there. All the international statistics suggest it's hard to eradicate. My worry is obviously, are you measuring it? I presume you do. What is the level of child labor? Is it getting better? Why not try to be more explicit, targeting the most visible and painful element of deprivation rather than focusing on the 100% sustainability. Do you have the measure internally of the level of child labor on those farms that work with closely? Look, the problem to put this as a KPI is that it's really difficult to measure, right? You cannot supervise at once what happens on 60,000 farms, let's say. That's why it's very difficult to measure. Yes, we have, of course, reports where we check if there are children on the farms, and it has been lower in the last years. To know certainly if there are children on the farms, that's very difficult. That's why we don't want to put it out as a KPI. It's certainly one of the underlying targets we have. That's why we build schools. That's why we really try to improve the livelihoods on the site. You are internally measuring, obviously on a sampling basis, that people do go around. Obviously there are international standards to define what child labor is and what it is not. If there's an international standard, are you actively sampling and measuring as some other companies do, and therefore you can see if on those individual visits, are things getting better or not over time? Do I understand that correctly? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Jean-Philippe Bertschy from Vontobel. Please go ahead. Good morning, gentlemen. The first one will be on your strategic direction, especially the channel part in the longer term perspective, as you said, 2025- 2030. How do you expect the own retail to evolve, especially when you think that online is probably here to stick to consumer behavior? That's the first one. Related to that, my second one, if you can share with us the penetration of the online in different markets. Probably China is the biggest one, obviously with such a strong growth. The third question is related to ESG. Thanks for sharing some of the targets. Probably more to come in spring. Question is whether you expect or if you intend, sorry, to include some of the ESG targets in your long-term incentive plan. Thanks a lot. I think the own retail has definitely its place. It has definitely its place in our whole group. Yes, online sales are increasing, but if you look at the shoppers as well in the future, they will be in shopping malls, they will be in high street. I don't think that it will be overtaken by online only. It will be a mix. How that mix is looking like, it's difficult to say today. If we look at own retail, we see mainly as well big chances in countries. I mentioned them. Countries we will open up in the future, or we did already, where we believe that the shopping malls, the shopping centers in those countries, I mentioned, for instance, Brazil, they have a role to play, number one, in order to build our brand awareness. Number two, to show to the consumers we are there, we have a huge assortment. Please come in and pick up the product. I think there will be a role for new markets where we see chances that we start small, branding awareness, as well, at the same time, we have existing markets where we are in and as well here, be it in shopping malls, be it in standalones, or be it as well in some special outlets, we have a role to play. On how that develops, mainly as well after we have now hopefully past over the COVID crisis, that is still to be defined. As well, if you look at 2030, just to repeat again, stores will have a role. How big the role is, it will be shown over the next years on how competitive environment and as well, shopping environment will develop. Penetration by market, I only can tell you that we have three, four big markets, as well, others to come up. U.S. is definitely a big market. Germany is a big market. Japan is one. I think, those are three that definitely as well benefited from closures last year. We could make up part of what we lost in sales in the stores, we could make up in the online. If you talk about ESG, looking into the future, setting targets, I think that is my personal opinion, that the climate action is definitely the biggest one we have in there. We talked before about sustainability, climate is, for the whole world and as well for the existing and the second and next generations, it's definitely something we have to tackle. Lindt will definitely as well here contribute what is needed in order to improve the situation. Clear targets will come out in the next two months. The next question comes from the line of Graham Hunt, Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Good morning, Dieter. Good morning, Martin. Thanks for the questions. Just two from me, please. I wondered if you could talk a little bit more about the partnership agreements that you called out in Italy and Brazil. I just wanted to understand what drove that decision, and maybe it brings any new opportunities for Lindt in those markets. Coming back to digital, I wondered if you could give some color around how you're making sure that Lindt has the right expertise in that channel to support future growth or whether you're looking to build that capability internally or if you're engaging with external partners. Thanks. Now talking about Italy and Brazil, I think you refer to the purchase of the franchise operation in Italy and as well, the joint venture partner in Brazil. I think if you look short term, definitely you can ask yourself, "Why are they doing that?" We are talking shops. If you talk long term, we clearly have to say that be it Italy as well Brazil, we see still, not today, not tomorrow, but over the next foreseeable future, we see big potential. For that reason, there was an opportunity to get in and as well to purchase and to acquire those two operations. Definitely fits into our strategy. Now, as regards to digital, we are definitely using the one or the other partner outside because we don't have all the know-how inside today. We build it up, number one. We trust we can do that as well internally. At the second time, wherever needed, we get in experts from the outside. That's basically the situation in e-sales. As you know, e-sales are not just our own e-commerce. We are talking here click-to-mortar via our partners, grocery partners. We are talking about platforms, that is Amazon and others. Last but not least, it is our own e-commerce. I think this is a group of activities we bundle together. We call it omni-channel retailing. We definitely will do as well big progress in 2021. Thanks very much. The next question comes from the line of Philippe Rey from L'Agefi. Please go ahead. Hello, good morning. You are confident to increase the free cash flow in the next years, but can you keep on one margin around 10% or a double-digit margin of net total sales? The second question is about this franchise operation in Italy and partnership in Brazil acquisition. Do you see some other possibilities to do such transactions? Thank you. Martin, can you comment on cash flow? Sure. I understood your question that you ask about free cash flow going forward. Yes, we believe as I've presented, we had really good performance in the last two years. With close to 12% free cash flow as a percent to net sales. We anticipate our revenue to grow by 6%-8%, that alone will have a positive impact as well on the profit. I think we will have less impact from the pandemic in general. That's why we also say 13%-14% EBIT margin going forward in 2021. That will obviously also have a positive impact on our free cash flow. I think it's important to bear in mind, 12% is a very important and good milestone to achieve. We have achieved it also thanks to good net working capital management. We have been able to reduce inventories and accounts receivable. With the growing business, hopefully going forward, inventories will probably not decline this year, so we have to see where net working capital will shape out. Yeah. Look, I would say free cash flow margin as a percent to sales will probably be around 10% plus. We try to be double-digit, of course. Will we be every year 12%? We have to see. Definitely a goal is to be double-digit going forward. Thank you. The other question was. The second question, are we open, be it franchise or joint venture? Depending on country, depending on the plan, depending on our goals, definitely. It's a clear answer, yes. Thank you much. The next question comes from the line of Faham Baig, Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. I also have two. Can I start off with China to begin with? I believe it's around 1% of your sales, so relatively low compared to the size of the economy. What options do you have to potentially accelerate or increase your exposure in China and thereby accelerate growth? Would you be willing to look out for potential acquisitions? Are you willing to accelerate your number of stores? What's the strategy behind increasing exposure over the next two to three years in that key potential growth market? My second question is just going back to your top line guidance for FY 2021 of 6%-8%. Within that, just so we can sort of track how you're potentially progressing this year, what are you assuming in terms of when stores open this year? What are you assuming for duty-free recovery, if anything, this year? Just any of the key moving parts that we should sort of bear in mind or back of our heads that you're including within that guidance. Thank you very much. I take the second one first. I or we can give you more details once Easter is over. Easter still is the big question as regards openings. We are getting closer now. It looks so far so good, it's really too early to say. Basically, the first question I can answer, as regards Easter, once it is over, let's talk again in May. The duty-free question, that is another one. Is it third quarter or is it fourth quarter? We definitely have in our plans already an improvement of duty-free for the third and the fourth quarter. Whether it happens or not, we will know later in the year. Again, I cannot say something different as we did before. The 2021 forecast definitely depends a lot on the progress the whole world is making in containing the pandemic. As regards the China question, when we get to China, if you look at size of the country, if you look at population, and if you look as well at chocolate consumption, this is a market that takes definitely time, and we need some time. We started four, five years ago. You mentioned 1%, so I don't comment that one, but it's probably not that far away. Now if we look into the future, how can you accelerate? It is gaining brand awareness. Gaining brand awareness in a country with 1.3 billion, it's not that easy, and it's not that fast as we can imagine. We have a lot of expectations for growth in that country. One thing I can assure is there is no target around where we could be tempted to make an acquisition. We will do it on our own. Do have stores, some space in there. There could be an opportunity. If we look at it, then it is probably more in the area of so-called flagship stores. That means by big city, the one or the other bigger store. That's still in the making, and it depends on the progress we make in the next years. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Alain Oberhuber, Stifel. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning, Alain Oberhuber, MainFirst. Good morning, Dieter. Good morning, Martin. I have two questions. The first is regarding the potential of the Asian market. Could you elaborate a little bit on the potential of the specific markets, and could you give us an insight which segments Lindt expects to improve, in particular in the Asian markets? The second question is about the U.S. Could you be more specific regarding the organic growth development of the three brands you have in the U.S. and what you expect, obviously, to come through? How much of the restructuring in the U.S. has now been done? Are we already at 90%, or have you fully restructured and the business looks clean now? Thank you. I think I take the first two. Asian markets, if you look at Asia, and if you look at population, the single biggest is China, and that we just tackled before. I think we are now looking at other opportunities, other markets in there. Absolutely clear there is a big potential, but I think it's too early to give you now an indication what after China is following. If you look at the U.S. and the three brands, only an indication that is basically clear, we hope for a rebound of the seasonal business. That means all three will benefit from that. If you look at the mid long-term growth targets, then clearly we are talking about Lindt & Ghirardelli with highest expectation, and we will then talk about Russell Stover in the neighborhood of 3%-5% over the next three to five years. I think that's a little bit the outlook we can give there. For the third question, that is, U.S. reorganization, I hand over to Martin. Yes. As we announced last year, we actually kicked that off in 2020, and we have even closed the Colorado factory for Russell Stover a bit earlier. We closed it in August. Originally, we had planned to close it now in April. That's done, basically, 100% done. We have already outsourced the merchandising force. That's also something we did in the beginning of 2020. The piece that is not totally finished is the retail store closure for the stores that we don't want to renew the rent agreements. There, we have closed about 15 stores last year. We closed another 15 stores, more or less this year. There will be also big store closures or let's say no renewals of rents where we don't want to continue in 2022. I would say on retail, it's probably somewhere around two-thirds done, and on the others, basically 100% done. Overall, yes, 78% is done. Given the advanced timing we have here as well, already in the question and answer session, I propose we have one last question before we conclude the session. The next question comes from the line of Jon Cox, Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Thanks very much for taking my questions, Dieter and Martin. Hope you're well. A couple of questions from me. Just on this algorithm, growth algorithm going forward, I seem to remember a year or so ago when Russell Stover was really slowing down, you were saying maybe the Americas overall would be, including Russell Stover, would be growing slightly lower rate than Europe, as you would say, and the rest of the world would be growing even faster. You seem to be changing your message a little bit there. I'm wondering what you're seeing maybe at Russell Stover or elsewhere in the North America market, which gives you the confidence that maybe that market will grow faster than Europe. Second question, just on the retail business and the store network. I heard J.P.'s question basically, just on that whole, you're around 500 stores now. Just wondering what your expansion targets are over the next few years. You talk about it as a marketing tool, but clearly, I guess you've seen that with e-commerce now 5% of group revenue, you probably don't need to open up stores as much as you've done historically. In the longer term, potentially some of the footfall on the high street will continue to come under pressure from e-commerce, maybe just outside of the main tourist areas, of course. Just to come back to what one of my colleagues was saying on the free cash flow, obviously, we saw what happened this year, and there's some big movements in working capital to make quite a big impression on that free cash flow. Just wondering what your best guess would be for this year, 2021, because I'd imagine a lot of that working capital will unwind, and you're probably going to see, I don't know, like CHF 100 million outflow this year, whereas this, 2020, I think you had more than CHF 100 million inflow. I just wonder what your thoughts are on that working capital and free cash flow for 2021. Then, to come back to what you were saying, thanks for giving us that margin guidance on free cash flow. We're just wondering what you thought on trade net working capital has typically been around 30%-35%. Wonder what your thoughts are on the percentage of net working capital of sales going forward. Thank you. I think I go first into the first two questions, I hand over then to Martin for the cash flow. I think the U.S., if you look at the U.S. and compare it with other regions of the world, then you always have to start, number one, with what kind of market share have we achieved in that market. The second one, what is the penetration we have, daily consumption or weekly consumption of our products in the respective market, and clearly as well, brand awareness. Now, if you look at these three elements, and there are, of course, a dozen more, then there is definitely an opportunity in the U.S. to grow slightly more than growth we see in long-term established markets in Europe. If you look at the U.S., all three brands, they have about 11% market share, but each of those brands has a different positioning, allowing them from their level where they are to grow still well into the future. We have the Russell Stover in gifting, in seasonal, in Valentine's, Easter, and Christmas, very strong. That is as well the reason why we purchased the company. We have Lindt, you can say the European specialty positioning with Lindor, with high-end, absolutely high-end product in recipe and quality. We have finally the U.S. heritage, California and San Francisco Ghirardelli. All three are really complementary one to the other, and all three have still great potential for growth if you look at their existing market share and the potential that is to come. That is the reason we are positive on the U.S. market. If we look at the second question, that is retail marketing tool, it is different things. It is marketing tool in the one or the other country. Mainly when we talk about starting in a new country, it is definitely as well a sales tool and profit tool in existing countries where we just cover areas of retailing, and we cover that area with a huge assortment that would never be seen in grocery because we are there limited maybe to 10- 20 products. Bringing the consumer into our stores definitely has marketing and sales aspects. How the split between stores and e-sales will be in the next two, three, five years, I definitely will be in a position to give you more details on that one once we get over 2021 and we see a little bit clearer on how the whole landscape between retail and e-sale has developed. With that, I ask Martin to get in here with cash flow. Yes, your question was about free cash flow guidance and the challenges we get, of course, from the net working capital, which we have improved in 2020. That will have a positive impact as well to the free cash flow ratio to the sales. I think from net working capital, there may be some pressure, but we have also projects in place where we really try very hard to improve our planning processes that will also have a positive impact on inventories. We are really actively working our net working capital. As I said, going forward, we want to stay double-digit as a percentage to sales. Net working capital is key figure. What we, of course, try to do, you know that we don't grow net working capital in line with sales, but we have some leverage there. We have to see if we can achieve that in 2021. Going forward, if you think long term, that's definitely what we target. If you can grow sales by 6%, we try to grow net working capital less than the 6%, so we should have some positive leverage there. Overall, assume roughly around 10% for 2021. Ladies and gentlemen. Right. Thank you very much for your time, your attention, and mainly your interest in Lindt & Sprüngli. With that, I conclude our presentation of the 2020 results, and as well the Q&A session. Thank you very much, and we will be back with news on our performance in July, talking about the first half year 2021. Thank you.