EuroBusiness Media (EBM): BIC, the world’s best-known name in consumer goods, is reporting its annual results for 2021. I’m joined today by CEO, Gonzalve Bich. Hello, thank you for being with us.
Gonzalve Bich: Hi Nadia.
EBM: You have just published your full-year results. What were the key takeaways of 2021 according to you?
Gonzalve Bich: We had an extremely strong year last year, with growth in all three of our core businesses, improvements in margin and we delivered on our free cash flow target . In each of the three businesses we grew. In Stationery we had good strong back-to-schools, after the difficult pandemic 2020, with the exception of the United States, where I’m confident that in 2022 we’ll rebound and then grow. All that brings us almost back to 2019 levels, so really we’ve got the momentum, a second year of momentum, as we go into 2022. Now margins,the team did an incredible job, in the plants, sourcing, supply chain and putting it in stores to offset a lot of those pressures that we had on margin, so we were able to grow the top-line margin. And finally, to deliver the strong balance sheet that’s always been core to the BIC business model.
EBM: Can you tell us a bit about the progress you’ve been making in the execution of your Horizon Strategic plan? How is that transformation journey going?
Gonzalve Bich: On track, maybe even a little bit ahead of track. We launched over a year ago, we wanted to be consumer centric, we wanted to really drive innovation that breaks through, that moves some lines like the tattoo business that I’m sure will talk about in a second. In our stationary business today, those areas that we wanted to focus on, creativity in digital expression, today now represent 26% of all of our Human Expression sales. In our Flame for Life business EZ Reach, this product here did really well in the United States in its second year, supported with great TV advertising campaigns that I think a lot of people around the world saw and today added value lighters represent 36% of all the Flame for Life sales. And finally in our Blade Excellence business, the added value products continued to gain share, grow and do amazing things. And again,those represent 63% of the total portfolio.
EBM: And what about the future targets that you set three years’ ago now?
Gonzalve Bich: I’m really happy to report that we’ve achieved them a year ahead of schedule. The first one was to achieve €50 million of annualised savings across the business, Also, our e-commerce business is over 10% of our total sales, strong growth, helped by Rocketbook. Our brand support is fully digital today, we spend over 80% of our brand support through the digital platforms and over 20% of patent submissions, which translate into innovation that we can put to work in the years to come.
EBM: And of course, sustainability is a key issue for everyone today, I know you’ve been very active in this field also….?
Gonzalve Bich: We have. Not only did we launch our two big plastics commitments, the first of which is to reduce on packaging; 100% now recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025 and 50% of our non-virgin plastic in all of the products by 2030. Concretely this year we made progress on both of those and we launched some new, exciting, innovative products, like this one, the Bamboo shaver, in the Nordic countries which is doing quite well, and people understand that it’s BIC doing different things and we’ll continue to do that in the years to come.
EBM: You touched upon it a little earlier, you recently announced the landmark acquisition of a very special direct-to-consumer brand called Inkbox, tell us a bit more about that new adventure.
Gonzalve Bich I’m so excited, and hopefully you can see it. This is Inkbox. It’s temporary tattoos, so there’s these two founders in Canada, they found an incredible insight, which is people were afraid of the permanence of tattoos. Well they’ve solved that! So for 10 to 14 days you can put Keith Haring on your skin or you can put this beautiful Japanese glyph on your skin. This is a global company with about 2/3rds of their business today in North America, a third global, a tonne of runway in growth that we can get to. Sink safe, really designed to allow you to express yourself, with 10,000 different tattoos in catalog . If you don’t find in those 10,000 something that floats your boat, or that’s perfect for your occasion, the birthday, the beach holiday you are about to go on, we have a custom design engine so you can load whatever you want and we’ll make it for you. And if you don’t’ have that we have a free hand marker that you can do yourself if you’re so inclined and have the artistic ability.
EBM: And looking now at 2022, what are you most enthusiastic about? What are the main challenges and opportunities would you say?
Gonzalve Bich There are opportunities everywhere. You really have to approach the business that way, and with the momentum that we carry from 2021 into 2022, I see opportunities for growth in each of the three business units, both in the core legacy business as well as some of the newer acquisitions, like the tattoo business, the digital notebook business and the others. It’s all about being consumer centric and continuing to deliver, design, develop, innovate products that the consumer not only needs, but that they really want to buy and get super excited about tattooing themselves. But fundamentally also being cognizant of what we can’t control. Focus on those things that you can control, but then be reactive to external factors, supply chain challenges, raw materials, inflation and making sure that we are making smart, appropriate and timely decisions to mitigate them, so that we have a robust business to continue into the years. 2022 for me sets up continued growth in our horizon trajectory for the future years as well.
EBM: Gonzalve Bich, thank you very much.
Gonzalve Bich: Thank you Nadia.
