Commenting today on our Full Year Results 2020, Siobhán Talbot, Group Managing Director, said: “I am exceptionally proud of how our people responded to the many challenges of Covid-19. Throughout the pandemic, we lived our purpose and our values, delivering essential, nutritious food during the most challenging of circumstances and proving the resilience of our business. We delivered on our priorities of protecting our people, continuing the supply of food and maintaining our strong financial position. We kept our operations running safely with the aid of enhanced health and safety measures. Our business portfolio delivered a robust operating performance supported by our swift and decisive actions which resulted in improving trends across the Group in the second half of the year. Our focused approach to liquidity resulted in cash conversion of over 122% and our financial position has improved materially with net debt reducing by over €120 million during the course of 2020.
We also maintained delivery of our strategic agenda by making significant progress on GPN’s transformation programme; keeping all major projects on track, which included the completion of construction of two new large-scale JV plants; completing the Foodarom acquisition in GN; and launching a €50 million share buyback programme to enhance shareholder returns whilst maintaining our dividend level. This pandemic is by no means over and we remain vigilant in managing the risks associated with it but we are confident that earnings growth will be restored in 2021.
In 2020 like-for-like wholly-owned revenues grew by 1.8%, on a constant currency basis. GN delivered a good performance versus prior year as the majority of its end-market demand was sustained throughout 2020 and it continued to execute its strategic growth agenda. GPN was impacted by Covid-19 related restrictions which caused significant disruption to International markets and the North American specialty and distributor channels. However we maintained our focus on the key transformation programme with revenue and margin trends both improving in the second half of the year. Our full year adjusted EPS was down 14.9% on a constant currency basis versus prior year as a good start to 2020 was severely impacted by Covid-19 in the second quarter but improved market conditions and focused actions drove a sequential improvement in earnings in the second half of 2020.
Today we also outline the evolution of our sustainability strategy, “Pure Food + Pure Planet”. As part of this strategy, we are signing up to Science Based Targets and aiming to reduce manufacturing emissions by 30% and supply chain emission intensity by 25% by 2030, while achieving net zero carbon emissions no later than 2050. We also launched our diversity and inclusion strategy which will continue to foster a strong and inclusive culture in our organisation.
We expect the disruptive impact of Covid-19 will abate during the course of 2021 and based on this we expect adjusted EPS to increase by 6% to 12% on a constant currency basis in FY 2021 with growth driven by both wholly-owned businesses of GPN and GN. We anticipate that 2021 will see consumers continue to focus on health and wellbeing: prioritising functional nutrition including immunity enhancing products; maintaining a healthy weight; and supplementing protein-rich foods to support performance and healthy lifestyle goals. This positions Glanbia very well for the future given our core focus on nutrition, health and wellbeing.”
*As defined in the glossary on page 36, like-for like excludes the impact of acquisitions during year and the 53rd week of 2019 that was not present in 2020.