Swire Pacific Limited Class A

Swire Pacific Limited Class A

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Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptMarch 12, 2026

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Swire Pacific 2025 annual results analyst briefing.

Joining us at the briefing today are: Mr. Guy Bradley, Chairman of Swire Pacific; Mr.

Martin Murray, Finance Director of Swire Pacific; and Ms. Karen So, Chief Executive Officer of Swire Coca-Cola.

Before we take a detailed look at our annual results for 2025, we'd like to show you a short video highlighting Swire Pacific's key developments and achievements of the year. Enjoy the video.

May we now invite Guy, Martin, and Karen to take us through the details of the annual results of 2025?

Guy Bradley

Good evening, everybody, and thank you for joining us. Let's get straight in, and I'll start with the strategic highlights.

I think you can see that we've basically been delivering across the business on our growth strategy in each of the different core businesses under the Swire Pacific name. On property, we've got a very healthy pipeline of new projects on the way.

We continue to do effective capital recycling of non-core assets. Importantly for us, we're continuing to invest in the Greater Bay Area, which is a stated objective of the property team.

We're very pleased last year to launch our first residential project successfully, I would say, in Shanghai in the Chinese mainland. Property is very much on strategy and continuing to deliver good growth.

Beverages, it's been a tough year in 2025 in terms of the environment, but I think you can see the resilience of the beverage business for us. We continue to invest through the cycle here, and that investment has been in new plants, new equipment in both the Chinese mainland and in Vietnam so far.

We continue to try to integrate the new Southeast Asian franchises that we've successfully acquired over the last few years, specifically Vietnam and Thailand. On the aviation front, the story has been very good.

HAECO completed the sale in November last year of its USA business, now the strategy is to focus the business on Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland, and future opportunities in Southeast Asia. We're very focused at HAECO.

As you heard yesterday, the Cathay Group is investing in more than a hundred new-generation aircraft and improving its product with a capital program there. Very good results on the aviation side.

Talking numbers briefly here, the underlying profit was up 9% to 11.4 billion, driven mostly by capital recycling and as I mentioned, strong recurring profit in aviation. That translates for us into a 13% increase in the ordinary dividend, which I think is very healthy.

You can see our financial health is strong with a good deal of available liquidity and a gearing ratio of 20.6%. Just looking at the recurring underlying profit of 9.8 billion, it's 5% up on last year, driven by high demand for air travel and very resilient performance as you've seen from both the property and beverages divisions.

The Hong Kong office market, which has been a very core component of the property business, saw a very steady occupancy in 2025. I think what we've seen in the soft cycle that it's at is a continued flight to quality, and the new buildings that Swire Properties has been investing in are benefiting from that flight-to-quality trend.

I think we can see signs of a retail pickup both in Hong Kong and in the Chinese mainland. Residential projects, obviously in Shanghai is nearly fully sold, but I think the sentiment in the Hong Kong residential market is also starting to pick up.

On the beverage side, 2025 was a solid performance, fairly flat delivery of recurring underlying profit, but we do feel conditions are set to improve. Aviation up 19% at the RUP level.

HAECO Group achieved a 73% growth in recurring profit due to demand for base maintenance and engine overhaul services. Cathay, as has a third consecutive year of profit driven by very robust demand for travel and strong cargo performance.

I think I'll pass over to Martin now for a little detailed look at the financials. Martin.

Martin Murray

Thank you. Thanks, Chairman.

Again, just highlight what I think they are very strong, good results. Strong underlying profit driven by the underlying profit growth in Swire Properties.

In the aviation side, it's more on the recurring profit level. Continued 3 years of really strong recurring profit from aviation, and solid beverage results.

The statutory profit adjusts for the revaluation losses of the investment properties, of the fair value. You can see the strong cash generated from operations, which comes from particularly the sale in Miami and also the full year of the Thailand subsidiary.

These strong results have enabled us to continue our progressive dividend, which the dividend up 13%. This slide basically highlights the strong underlying profit per division.

You can see there the two blues are the things that are driving that. The big one is the 27% increase in Swire Properties underlying profit.

Aviation has been driven, as I said, by strong recurring profit. The two red boxes are really the offset, which is the absence of revaluation gains that we talked about last year in Beverages and T&I.

This slide is the same, but it breaks it down by category. In terms of the non-recurring items, we had the gain on disposals of the investment properties, which was driving the strong underlying profit from Swire Properties, which was the sale of the Brickell City Centre in Miami, the Tsing Yi industrial estate, the 43rd floor of One Island East, and more Taikoo Shing car parks that have been ongoing for a number of years now.

We have the gain and losses on disposal of property, plant, and equipment. This, again, driven by the loss on disposal of HAECO America, partly offset by a gain in the sale of the ITM business.

We've got exchange losses in Thailand, and the fair value loss of Cadeler, and the reversal of some impairments in the CX subsidiaries. Then you've got the fair value loss in the Hong Kong offices getting you back to this statutory profit.

This slide, I've just shown you the 5 years of underlying profit because it really kind of highlights, one, the post-COVID 3 strong years of recurring profit driven by the good results from aviation. Over that 5-year period, it really sort of highlights the strategy of recycling non-core assets and exiting businesses.

Back in 2021, we exit the marine side of things. You can see over the period, we've focused our strategy on Greater China and Southeast Asia, we've exited our non-core US businesses, which in 2023 was Coca-Cola USA, and then of course HAECO Americas this year.

We've tidied up some of the underperforming assets over that period. We really have three very strong divisions currently.

To liquidity and maturity profile are very healthy. Liquidity at end of December 2025, group liquidity at 64 billion and bank balances at 23 billion, and a healthy maturity profile with the average term of debt at 3.5 years.

In terms of financial position, our net debt is 65 billion, which is down 8%. Weighted average cost of debt, 3.6%, down from 4%.

The 73% of our debt is fixed, and the gearing is down to 20.6%. This slide really looks about how we do our capital allocation, which again, we take a medium-term view on that piece, we can ride economic cycles.

Our strong balance sheet is the core of our ability to have our capital allocation. Healthy gearing, low cost of debt, and fixed borrowings on that side.

Our first priority is looking at long-term strategic investments in our core markets, whether they be assets within the 100 billion plan within Swire Properties, the new franchise as we roll out in Southeast Asia in Swire Beverages, and HAECO moving its Xiamen investment. Then we look at trying to improve the return on investments from each of the operating companies.

Each of the operating companies target efficiencies and improved margins. Swire Properties are doing more residential trading than they had previously, as part of the portfolio to improve their returns.

Then finally, that drives the ability to have a sustainable dividend policy. As we've done in the past, we have the possibility of share buybacks as part of the armory that we have.

Again, another like the Swire Properties one, they've had 9 years of consecutive increasing in dividend. We changed our dividend policy 5 years ago, we pay out not less than half our recurring underlying profit, excluding our share in Cathay, but pass-through of all dividends received from Cathay over time.

That's allowed us to also have a progressive dividend policy, which as you see was up 13% from last year. We're very proud of our sustainability progress throughout the group.

We've rebranded it SD2050. Again, it's under the pillars, but mainly following what the regulatory is going.

Under Climate, Nature, which is water and waste, and Social, people and communities. We're doing really well towards our 2030 targets that are on the left there.

Already at 46% reducing our Scope 1 and 2 to our 50% target by 2030. 64% waste is diverted from the 65% target for 2030.

27% reduction in water withdrawal compared to the 30% reduction. We've achieved our 30% females on the board.

Again, we make a positive impact to the communities, and we've made over 120 million of donations from Swire Trust.

Guy Bradley

Thanks, Martin. On the property side, I'll just do a quick review of that given the fact that Swire Properties have just spent an hour talking about that in detail.

At an overview level, the underlying profit increased by 27%, which as you know is primarily driven by the gains of the disposal of non-core assets. At the recurring underlying profit level, there's a small decrease, which is mainly due to the loss of rental income from the sale of Brickell City Centre retail mall and lower office rental income in Hong Kong.

Very good story on the Chinese mainland. Over 10 years, attributable gross rental income has grown at a CAGR of 10%.

We anticipate with all the new construction projects that are underway that we will double our GFA in the near term. That's an incredible performance, I think, when you take a look at the last few years.

Very happy about the direction that we're heading in the Chinese mainland. In Hong Kong, where we've had a tough time with the cycle, we have a very strong defensive position, I think, here.

In Hong Kong office, the occupancy levels are very high, and we look very well positioned, I think, to capture the recovery in demand when it does come. On the retail side, our malls are 100% let, and the retail sales are outperforming the market at the moment.

Small signs of retail recovery, I think, in Hong Kong. We've talked a lot about the 100 billion commitments for Swire Properties that was set in 2022.

As you heard Tim say a few minutes ago, we're now about two-thirds committed on that, and most of the Chinese mainland commitments has already been made. Very good progress along that investment plan.

Finally, on strategic updates, the focus remains the disciplined execution of that 100 billion investment plan across the core markets of Swire Properties. In the Chinese mainland, five new developments will start to open from later this year.

I think I'd just like to highlight the very successful sale of 6 Deep Water Bay Road, which was completed early this year. The sale was booked this year, but made at the end of last year, at a very, very attractive price.

That is not only a good example of the way that we're able to fetch those sort of very high levels of residential pricing, but also the way that we're able to turn our capital around. I think that's been really successful and reflects the upturn, I think, in the level of interest in Hong Kong residential.

We're very pleased about that. Finally, just in terms of the new projects, you can see from this chart that there's very balanced geographical mix, a very balanced sectoral mix.

Overall, we're hoping to add 12.4 million square feet to the portfolio over the next sort of 3 or 4 years, which I think is a great story. It reflects the pipeline that we've got.

I can sit here and say there's more to come on that. Very encouraging performance, I think, for Swire Properties in what's quite a tough consumer market both in Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, but we do see signs of that improving.

Switch over to Coca-Cola now and ask Karen to take us through where that business is. Thanks.

Karen So

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.

I will walk through Swire Coca-Cola's performance in 2025 and our strategic update. It was a challenging year.

Our priorities were clear: deliver sustainable earnings, maintain cost discipline, and continue to invest where we see long-term values. Let me turn to our financial results for the years.

In 2025, Swire Coca-Cola delivered a recurring attributable profit of 1.39 billion, broadly in line with our performance last year. This result was achieved against a very challenging operating environment across the region.

The impact of those factors on underlying performance was offset by the full-year contribution from ThaiNamthip, which has become a subsidiary on 30th September 2024, and also by our continued discipline in central cost control. Let me walk you through performance by market.

In the Chinese mainland, performance remained resilient. Recurring profit increased by 1%, with revenue also up by 1% in local currency, despite a very significant disruption to the ready-to-drink beverage industry driven by the aggressive subsidy from the food delivery platform over the summer months.

Our management has responded swiftly, rolling out targeted commercial initiative to strengthen the route-to-market model and enhancing our execution across the emerging online channel. In Hong Kong, the performance strengthened, with recurring profit up by 14%, supported by higher revenue.

This reflect our strong commercial execution, effective marketing campaigns, and a favorable product mix, with sparkling, juice, and coffee all delivering year-on-year revenue growth. The recurring profit for Taiwan has decreased by 6%.

Revenue in local currency terms was flat compared to last year. The results were mainly affected by a higher cost associated with the capacity enhancement project at our Taoyuan plant.

The attributable recurring profit from Vietnam and Cambodia in 2025 was 152 million, which is a decrease of 35% from last year, being principally due to the very difficult operating environment. Revenue decreased by 11% in Hong Kong dollar terms, which is mainly impacted by the unfavorable exchange rate with the depreciation of the Vietnamese dong and the intense competition amid an overall contraction across the beverage industry.

Against this backdrop, our sparkling category saw a decline in revenue and volume term. The results were also adversely affected by a one-time expenses related to the relocation of our Ho Chi Minh plant to a new plant in Tay Ninh Province.

In Thailand, performance was affected by the economic softness, primarily driven by the significant decline in the tourism industry. I've mentioned the recurring profit of each region, and now I would like to cover our volume performance.

In the Chinese mainland, despite the market disruption, our overall volume remained flat, with sparkling category also stable. Meanwhile, I would like to mention our energy category is the star performer, which continue to show strong momentum, increasing by 53% year on year.

For Hong Kong, although the volume declined by 3%, our overall revenue increased by 2%, reflecting the favorable mix and the effective pricing management. For Vietnam and Cambodia, total volume decreased by 7%, which is in line with the overall industry competition.

Our EBITDA margin performance remained resilient overall. In the Chinese mainland, EBITDA margin improved to 11.7% despite the very challenging market condition noted across the peak summer seasons.

The strong revenue growth and supply chain optimization initiative in Hong Kong translate to an uplift of its EBITDA margin from 16.6% to 18%. Taiwan was adversely affected by the additional operating cost incurred for the one-time Taoyuan plant redevelopment project.

Our Southeast Asia market were affected by the intensive competition in the very difficult operating environment. Turning to the strategy, we continue to invest decisively to support our long-term growth in the Chinese mainland.

As announced in 2023, Swire Coca-Cola plans to invest over 12 billion RMB over the next decade in production facility and logistics infrastructure. This has included the new production facility in Zhengzhou, Kunshan, which is near Shanghai, Guangzhou, and most recently in Hainan.

The Zhengzhou facility commenced operation in October last year. New plants in Kunshan, Guangzhou are expected to begin operation in May this year, while construction of our Hainan facility is underway and scheduled to be in operational by 2028.

Beyond capacity expansion, all these new facility are designed to set new benchmark for scale, sustainability, and innovation, supported by unified digital foundation that enhance safety, efficiency, and operational resilience across our manufacturing network. Taken as a whole, this investment will further strengthen our manufacturing footprint, enhancing our supply chain resilience, and further support our business growth in our market.

In Southeast Asia, in July last year, Swire Coca-Cola inaugurated a new $136 million flagship manufacturing plant, which is the largest of our three production sites in Vietnam. This is the first food and beverage plant in Vietnam to achieve LEED Gold green building certification, and reflecting Swire Coca-Cola's commitment to innovation and sustainability.

This investment underscore our commitment to the market and support job creation, and also strengthen our foundation for sustainable development. In February this year, we also completed the sale of 30% interest in the Vietnam franchise to ThaiNamthip, further strengthening the regional alignment.

At the headquarters level, we have moved to a simplified regional management structure, and the appointment of the chief operating officer in December last year will further accelerate our decision-making and response to the market changes. Overall, this reinforce our focus on disciplined execution in the near term, and our continued investment behind our long-term growth drivers, and steadily progress in our building of a sustainable value.

Now I would like to turn to Martin for Cathay Pacific update.

Martin Murray

Thank you. Onto aviation, which really has been the driver of the improvement of our recurring profit over the last few years post-COVID.

Obviously, the Cathay Pacific Group has been an outstanding performer. Also HAECO this year, it's great to see you can see on the up there the recurring profit of 1 point nearly 1.2 billion from HAECO.

Now they've exited the US and ITM, that recurring profit should be a solid number going forward. Again, outstanding results from Cathay Pacific, 3 years in a row.

In HAECO, the pleasing bit is across all three of the core businesses, as you see on the left-hand side there. The improvement in aviation post-COVID is finally coming through in HAECO as it's cleaned up its non-core assets.

Again, it's exciting times in HAECO with the opening of the new Xiamen facility, which is best-in-class and looks outstanding, creating a lot of excitement. We've exited the US, as I mentioned, and the focus is also growing the business in Southeast Asia and Vietnam.

Cathay, again, they had their announcements yesterday, another set of great results. On the passenger side, driven by the ASK growth, which is up 26%, had record revenue.

Yields comes down as you increase your ASKs, but the load factor remained positive, which is a great sign. Cathay Cargo continued to remain strong as well, again with an increase, nearly double digit, 8.3% increase in freight tonne kilometres, flattish load factor, and then similarly the yield comes down with the higher capacity.

It's very exciting times. They've got 100 billion investment plans announced last year.

They've cleaned up their balance sheet by buying back the 50% of the preference shares, repurchasing 68% of the convertible bond, buying back the Qatar share of 9.56%, leaving our share up at 47.6%. In healthcare, we've sort of stepped back a little bit as we wait for the valuation of healthcare investments to come off highs.

At the same time, we're learning a lot with the investments we've made. DeltaHealth has become the first foreign-owned and got its Class 3 status for cardiovascular hospital in the Chinese mainland.

We've got a new professor in cardiology, we expect that business to improve over the next few months. In Indonesia, that's our investment minority shareholder in there, which is a profitable investment that we made back in '24.

With that, I'll pass back to Chairman for the outlook.

Guy Bradley

Thank you. Final slide here on the outlook.

Global uncertainty notwithstanding, we do think our core divisions will continue to perform well this year. On the property side, we have an exciting pipeline of new developments across all our markets.

The consumer sentiment, as I mentioned earlier, we do think will continue to pick up in both the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. Early signs of new momentum in the Hong Kong office market, and we do think that there'll be a positive contribution going forward from our residential projects that are being built.

Beverages, that same consumer sentiments pick up in the Chinese mainland should impact our biggest territory for Coca-Cola. I would say that the challenging competitive situation in Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand, and the economic weakness in that region is expected to remain in the near term.

On the aviation side, we're very excited to open a new Xiamen facility later in 2026, this year, which will enhance the HAECO Xiamen operational efficiency, and they continue to explore investment opportunities in Southeast Asia. On the Cathay side, both the passenger and the cargo capacity are expected to grow in 2026, although the situation in the Middle East is obviously introducing quite a bit of uncertainty for the global economy, and that may impact Cathay at some point.

The strategy, though, is to continue adding frequency and destinations to take advantage of the new runway at Hong Kong International Airport. With that, I'll leave the presentation, and we'd be very happy to take questions.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, Guy, Martin, and Karen. Let's take questions.

Thank you so much. We'll take questions in English.

Please state your name and organization, with no more than two questions at a time. Gentleman in front, please.

Kenneth, [unclear]. Thank you.

Raymond Liu

Thank you. Congratulations with the good result.

This is Raymond Liu from HSBC. I've got two questions.

The first question is related to shareholders' return, the slide on slide 15. It's mentioned investors are very pleased to have 13% DPS growth.

Just wonder how should we think of the progressive dividend policy down the road? Should we think of the growing free cash flow, payout ratio, or how should we think of the growth down the road?

At the same slide mentioned about the share buyback. Can management share about any color about a potential new share buyback program?

That's the first questions. The second question is about beverage business.

The management mentioned that the 2026 business is set to improve. Can management provide some more color at the key drivers for the improvement in 2026?

Would there be any update about the spinoff of the Southeast Asia business? Thank you.

Martin Murray

Thank you. On the dividend front, as I said, we changed the dividend policy 5 years ago to make it a bit more certain, given the uncertainty of being in aviation.

We have a slightly different policy from Swire Properties. Swire Properties pay out approximately 50% of the underlying profit.

We pay out at least 50% of our recurring profit. Because the successful strategy of Swire Properties and doing that underlying profit, and part of their strategy to keep recycling non-core pieces, and with the strength of the aviation business and the way that the whole cost side has been addressed during COVID, then we're very confident that the progressive dividend policy will be in place for some time to come, barring another COVID-type event.

That bit. Then probably the easiest way to look at it is, again, similar to properties, expect a mid-single-digit constant improvement.

In terms of share buyback, we always say look, we're a very simple strategy. We have, where we operate, chances to get places like Xi'an and Sanya take a long time.

Strategic investments for a medium-term strategy is always key. Franchises in Southeast Asia come up only at those point in time.

They're always the priority. Then in terms of improving the operating companies' returns, as the slide showed, then it's all about the dividend first.

The share buyback is something that's up our sleeve on that bit. We know that the market likes it.

We can't do a very very big one in any event given the liquidity of the stock. It's always available to us.

We can't, we can't exercise a share buyback program while we may have price-sensitive information on that bit, it's not going to be there all the time, but it's certainly part of our strategy.

Karen So

Thank you, Raymond, for your question. I'd like to answer your question by the perspective in Chinese mainland market and also our Southeast Asia.

What we have seen is the consumer sentiment and the overall economic situation has shown a improvement and pickup in particularly in quarter four of last year, and we're expecting this improvement in the consumer sentiment and overall economic situation will continue into 2026. What we have also seen in China last year is that there is a structural change in the purchasing channel from moving from traditional channel to a convenient online channel.

With that, we have invested and we have pivot our route-to-market model and invest on our commercial strategy to capture the growth in those channel. We believe we are much more equipped in capture the fast-growing channel in those emerging online channel.

Plus the digitization will help us in capturing more operating efficiency and also capturing consumer consumption. I think we're very optimistic about our prospect in Chinese mainland.

Moving to Southeast Asia, there are a number of short-term factors that has impacted our business performance last year, like in Vietnam, we're facing extreme weather, and the government tax policy that has short-term impact on our business. We believe those factors will be moderate as we move in 2026, and overall expecting the GDP to have an improvement on this.

Plus the Southeast Asia market is young, vibrant, low per capita consumption, we're very confident on the long-term prospect of this market. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Gentleman in the middle?

John Lam

Sure. Thank you.

This is John Lam from UBS. Two questions here.

One is regarding on probably a follow-up question regarding on the dividend. We are glad to see about 13% dividend growth, and I'm not sure if we could interpret it because last year the group, including Swire Properties and also Swire Pacific, has been successfully recycled some of the capital and therefore the dividend growth is partly driven by more capital recycled.

Not sure if we could think about this way. Or maybe if let's say in 2026, we have another similar size of capital recycling, then we could expect another 13% dividend growth for 2026?

Not sure if we could think about this way. Second one is about the NAV discount questions.

Actually, I just come back from the Swire Properties analyst briefing, and I think the CFO also mentioned about to narrow the NAV discount. I think this is also a similar question apply to Swire Pacific.

Not sure how the group think about NAV discount for property business, and also for Swire Pacific. Thank you.

Martin Murray

Thank you. Look, on the dividend front, yes, always helps when Swire Properties are paying underlying on that front.

Our payout ratio is 50% on that piece, and our policy is at least that. The strong growth of aviation and the dividend pass-through that we get from them makes me very confident that we can continue the progressive dividend policy on the basis that we know the sort of strategies that the operating companies are following.

Again, I'd go back to my earlier point, I think, and of course we can always pay out special dividends if there was an exceptional underlying profit piece. The second question was relating to the

Guy Bradley

on

Martin Murray

the NAV, that was Fanny. Done, Fanny.

Look, similar to Fanny. Swire Pac's at a double discount on that bit.

If Swire Properties at a discount, we're at that bit there. It is improving.

It's something that we do focus on. I think that a lot of the, as property companies are now doing more recycling of assets, you'll seen that narrow.

That's just the part of the Hong Kong property cycle.

Operator

All right. Gentleman in the third row, please.

Thank you.

Simon Chong

Thanks, Guy, Martin, and Karen for the presentation. I got three questions.

Just one on the Middle East disruptions, oil price, heightened oil price. I think that obvious impact would be on the Cathay Pacific.

Would you be able to share with us, other than Cathay Pacific, anything else that you think would have a bit of a disruption on your group business? That's the first one.

Then the second one, just on the investments. Over the last couple of years, a lot of capital recycled, and one of the things that you've been talking about is the healthcare business.

Wondering whether you can give us some more updates. I hear that the valuation remained to be quite high.

What are you waiting for over there? Do you have any hurdle rate that you are thinking of?

Then the last one is the slide on the beverage EBITDA margins across country was very helpful. We can visualize how the margins differences among the markets.

Would you be able to share with us, Vietnam market obviously, or ASEAN market is lower. How should we think in the medium or longer run the margin profile of in each individual market?

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Can we have your name and organization as well?

Thank you.

Simon Chong

Sorry, it's Simon Chong from Goldman Sachs. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you.

Guy Bradley

Thanks, I'll take the first question, which was on the Middle East. As you heard, the impact for us is primarily through Cathay Pacific initially in the fuel price.

It's very early to tell where else there might be some impact, but we're not expecting too much impact at this point, this early stage, in other parts of the group. Martin, do you want to cover the healthcare questions?

Martin Murray

We've made a almost $3 billion investment so far in healthcare, and obviously COVID came along and it had its challenges. We like the fundamentals of it, and we're learning a lot.

We managed to get DeltaHealth as a subsidiary, we now run that. Even though we have a minority in Indonesia, we run those, we have the management contract, but we're learning all the time on that piece.

We're a long-term holder in what we think is a fantastic business. Obviously, with wellness and sustainability, a lot of the venture capital companies went in and they've got a different model, they want to exit on that piece.

We have a different valuation. We have to look at, operating that company for the long term and making sure that our discounted cash flows and our investment models make sense to us, because we can't just tell a story and sell it at a high price.

We've been watching it now for a while, and the longer you watch it, the more you can see that the companies are underperforming to what they were trying to sell you at in the first place. I think patience is the right strategy, but we do like the fundamentals of that industry.

Karen So

Thank you for your question. I will take the question on the EBITDA margin.

Okay. Yes, we certainly see there is a potential to improve our EBITDA margin by market, especially in the Chinese mainland.

As I mentioned just now, the Chinese mainland last year was disrupted by the structural channel shift, and also a very aggressive pricing subsidy from the food delivery platform, which has impacted the beverage industry. We don't see that is sustainable, and we're expecting the market will be returning more to the normal.

We will endeavor to improve our EBITDA margin by our revenue growth management initiative, channel-specific packaging, and also our pricing management strategy. In the Southeast Asia market as well, we'll endeavor to improve our margin, and we see a huge potential by further growing our sparkling category, which is the most profitable category that we're having, and also continues our effort in revenue growth management and launching specific packaging in capturing consumer occasions.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. I think we have time for one more question.

Everybody happy? Wonderful.

Then that's a wrap for today's session. Thank you so much for joining us.

Have a great evening.