Givaudan Aktie

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Givaudan 2025 Full Year Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Valentina, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Gilles Andrier, CEO of Givaudan. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Valentina. Dear, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our 2025 full year-end results conference call. Actually, my first one was in 2006, which makes this one my 21st conference call as well as my last year-end conference call as CEO. Stewart Harris, our CFO, joins me today. All presentation documents are available on our website.

So before moving into the performance discussion, let's take a moment to look at the leadership transition. So as announced end of last August, Christian Stammkoetter will succeed me as CEO as of March 1, 2026. But today, we also announced two changes to our Executive Committee team. The first one, Christina Yeo, will become Head of Business Solutions and IT, and that will be effective May 1, 2026. She succeeds Anne Tayac, who after more than 30 years at Givaudan, will retire.

Fanny Iglesias will take over as Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, replacing our current Legal and Compliance Head, Roberto Garavagno, effective April 1, 2026. Roberto will also retire after close to 30 years. Fanny will join the Executive Committee as an additional member to the EC team. For sure, I would like to thank Anne Tayac and Roberto Garavagno for their many contributions in leadership over the many years.

And I would like to turn to Slide 4. On the Board composition side, as announced late August 2025, we have Calvin Grieder, who will step down. And I will stand for election as Chairman at the upcoming AGM in March. All Board members except Tom Knutzen will stand for reelection. And furthermore, Ester Baiget, CEO of Novonesis, is proposed as a new member to the Board, bringing strong innovation and sustainability expertise.

Now let's turn to the business performance review, starting on Slide 5. 2025 marks another year of very strong results. On top of record prior years and in a continuous volatile external environment, it also marks the successful completion of our 5-year strategic cycle, which started in 2021, for which we delivered on all financial and nonfinancial ambitions, confirming the strength and resilience of Givaudan's business model.

Moving to Slide 6. I'd like to take you through the key financial highlights for 2025. So sales amounted to close to CHF 7.5 billion, representing an increase of 5.1% on a like-for-like basis and 0.8% in Swiss francs. This is a very solid result achieved against a very high comparable base of more than 12% growth in 2024. Growth was again achieved across all markets with sustained strong growth of 8% in high-growth markets. This means growing close to 4x the rate of the growth in mature markets. And as well, we grew with local and regional clients close as well to 4x faster than global.

On a comparable basis, the EBITDA margin stood at 24.2%, slightly below 24.5% in 2024, yet still the second highest margin in the past 15 years. Net income reached CHF 1,071 million, corresponding to a net profit margin of 14.3% of sales. Finally, we generated a free cash flow of CHF 1,053 million, so basically more than CHF 1 billion, representing 14.1% of sales. This is the second consecutive year being above CHF 1 billion in free cash flow.

Finally, the Board of Directors will propose a dividend of CHF 72 per share at the AGM on March 19, 2026, marking the 25th consecutive dividend increase for our shareholders since the spinoff of Givaudan. Stewart will provide more details on the operational performance shortly.

On Slide 7, let's look in more detail at the divisional sales growth. The sales growth in 2025 was broad-based across markets, segments and customer groups against, again, very high comparables across the board. On a group level, we achieved a good like-for-like sales growth of 5.1% against the comparable of 12.3%. The growth was mainly volume driven with less than 1% contribution from real pricing or FX pricing.

Our local and regional customers continue to be an important growth driver in both divisions. Like the prior year, we continue, as I said, to grow with them close to 4x the rate we grew with global. Today, L&R clients represent now 60% of our total sales. To put this performance into context, the past 5-year strategic cycle has been more volatile than any before, marked by the COVID-19, then the supply chain disruptions, which turned into inflation, in the background geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic challenges.

We have managed, though, through this period particularly well, thanks to the strategic choices made and the natural hedges we have built in our business across -- I mean, natural hedges across geographies, customer groups and segments along with our strong execution capabilities. In this environment, our 5.1% like-for-like growth confirms the resilience and the structural strength of Givaudan, fully in line with our long-term growth algorithm.

The nature of our business and the singularity of Givaudan allows to deliver consistent results year-on-year. This is why I always remind, and probably this is the last time I repeat it, but maybe I did not repeat it enough, CAGR is your best friend when judging Givaudan's performance as opposed to looking at the last quarter or a given year. If we look at the last 5 years, our CAGR was 6.8%, so not only consistent results but also significantly higher paces than the two last 5-year cycle.

Fragrance & Beauty sales amounted to CHF 3,830 million, up 7.9% on a like-for-like basis on top of a 14% increase in prior year. I'd like to emphasize the strength and depth of our Fragrance & Beauty portfolio, which truly differentiates us from our peers. We have built a balanced and resilient business, combining scale and innovation across multiple categories. And we have invested in our future growth by expanding beyond our core and with our capabilities, from the development of Active Beauty over the past decade to our recent entry into makeup through b.kolor. This diversity gives us a unique competitive position to ensure sustainable growth.

In Taste & Wellbeing, sales amounted to CHF 3,642 million, up 2.4% on a like-for-like basis, a solid achievement in a more volatile market against a very high comparison base of more than 10% for the full year of 2024. Our diversified geographic presence, broad customer base and balanced portfolio continue to provide this resilience and position us well to capture future opportunities as market conditions evolve. While our peers have not yet reported, looking at the 9-month sales comparisons to peers, we remain confident that our performance will once again be industry-leading.

Let's take a closer look now at the geographic performance on Slide 8. High-growth markets grew by 8% and continued to be a key driver of our overall growth as they make up today 49% of total sales, almost on par with the mature markets. Our broad-based presence and the depth of our footprint in these markets provides resilience, with key markets such as the Middle East, China, India and Brazil which continued to grow at the high single to double-digit pace.

Mature markets grew by 2.4%, very much in line with the historic average of the past 10 years. In 2025, this growth was supported by the resilience of both Europe and North America. This strong geographic balance once again demonstrates the strength and diversification of Givaudan's global footprint, enabling us to deliver consistent growth even in a complex environment.

On Slide 9, we can have an even more granular look at the regional performance. Our largest region, EAME, delivered the highest growth in 2025 at 7% on top of a very strong prior year. This performance was driven by the continued strength of high-growth markets, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, which now represents around 27% of the EAME sales. We also saw solid contribution from mature markets including France and Iberia.

In Asia Pacific, like-for-like sales growth reached 5% in 2025 with China, India and Japan contributing strongly, particularly in Fragrance & Beauty, whilst Southeast Asia was slightly negative in Taste & Wellbeing, though showing an improved momentum towards the end of the year.

In Latin America, last year's like-for-like growth was driven by FX-related pricing in Argentina, but the underlying growth was also positive in the mid-single-digit range. In 2025, growth that we have in LatAm is 3.6%, which reflects the lower FX pricing and some specific challenges in Mexico, while Brazil continued to deliver strong underlying growth, confirming the region's solid fundamentals.

North America sales grew by 2.6% on a like-for-like basis. The region remains more volatile, but as a large mature market, mid-single-digit growth is what one could typically expect. Towards the end of 2025, we also observed good brief inflows linked to MAHA, Make America Healthy Again, and reformulation trends, in particular around better-for-you snacks and hydration.

Turning now on the divisional view on Slide 10, starting with Fragrance & Beauty. As mentioned, the division delivered continued strong growth of 7.9% on top of the 14% comparable last year. Fine Fragrances continued its record excellent growth at 18.3%, virtually matching last year's other record at 18.4%, a performance we should truly celebrate. Since the pre-COVID baseline of 2019, we more than doubled our Fine Fragrance business on a like-for-like basis.

This sustained success reflects not only a healthy underlying market but, even more so, our own strength with a broad geographic exposure, particularly in the SAMEA region, which today is as large as North America and Latin America combined. And our strong relationships with local and regional customers, another key growth driver for Fine Fragrances. These strengths have allowed us to gain market share, reinforcing our leadership position in this segment.

At the same time, I'd like to emphasize that the division's performance is broader based than just Fine Fragrances. Fine Fragrances represents 21% of our sales. So the strong continuous performance of the Fragrance & Beauty division is not just about Fine Fragrances. We have a strong core in Consumer Products, which represents close to 2/3 of the division, where we sustain very solid growth across all categories, building on a very strong prior year. Actually, the 5 years' average growth for Consumer Products has been 6.2%, and the combined Active Beauty plus Fragrance Ingredients, an average of 7% for the last 5 years. So this is actually close to the division's average.

We have also deliberately strengthened our natural hedges and invested in our future growth capabilities by developing Active Beauty, a business reaching now CHF 300 million of sales, which have been built over the last 8 years and now expanding into another adjacent space of beauty, which are color cosmetics through the acquisition of b.kolor. The only soft area this year was Fragrance Ingredients, where sales declined due to an increased competition from Chinese players on a specific ingredient. However, these segments represent less than 10% of the Fragrance & Beauty sales. And with the portfolio strongly geared towards specialties, our exposure to market volatility is actually limited. Overall, Fragrance & Beauty continues to demonstrate strong broad-based performance, confirming its industry-leading position and the solid foundation for future growth.

Turning now to Slide 11. Let's look at the Taste & Wellbeing division. The Taste & Wellbeing division delivered a solid growth of 2.4%, which was volume-led and achieved against a very high comparison base of more than 10% like-for-like growth in 2024. Europe showed great resilience with 2.6% like-for-like growth, while SAMEA continued its very strong momentum, growing 7.8% on top of the 21% growth in 2024. North America remained solid at 3% growth.

And in Latin America, growth of 0.7% was temporarily impacted by a weaker performance in Mexico, as we also saw at the group level. In Asia Pacific, the division was broadly stable at minus 0.8% with continued good performance in key markets such as China and Japan. But we also saw a clear improvement in Southeast Asia towards the end of the year, where we were facing a particularly high comparison base and some specific challenges since the past year.

Now from a product segment perspective, growth was broad-based across snacks, dairy and sweets. Overall, the Taste & Wellbeing division delivered a solid performance on the challenging conditions, further proving the resilience of our business model and positioning us well for future growth. While our peers have not yet reported, we remain very confident that our performance will once again be the industry-leading one.

I will share a detailed review of the 2025 strategic cycle, including our key innovations and achievements against nonfinancial targets after Stewart has walked you through the operating performance. Stewart, over to you.

Thank you very much, Gilles. I would like to add my warm welcome to all of the participants on the call. And on the following slides, I would like to give you an overview of the group's operating and financial performance as well as the operating performance of the two divisions.

Please turn to Slide 13. As Gilles mentioned, group sales in 2025 increased to CHF 7.472 billion, an increase of 5.1% on a like-for-like basis and an increase of 0.8% in Swiss francs. The reported Swiss franc sales also includes the sales of Vollmens from the date of acquisition in September 2025 and the sales of Belle Aire Creations from the date of acquisition in December '25.

The reported EBITDA was CHF 1,751 million compared to CHF 1,765 million in 2024, a decrease of 0.8%, mainly due to foreign exchange impacts. When measured in local currency, the EBITDA increased by 4.5%. On a comparable EBITDA basis, the underlying EBITDA margin was 24.2% compared to 24.5% in the prior year, a very strong result when considering the volatile external environment that we have been operating in, and maintaining the margin close to historically high levels.

Driven by the solid operating profitability, the net income was CHF 1,071 million and the net income margin was 14.3% of sales. The group achieved a free cash flow of CHF 1,053 million or 14.1% of sales, surpassing CHF 1 billion of free cash flow generation for the second consecutive year. As a result of the strong cash generation and operating performance, the net debt-to-EBITDA improved further to 2.1x at the end of the year compared to 2.3x in December 2024.

Please turn to Slide 14, which shows the overview of exchange rate developments in 2025. This slide shows the comparison of the exchange rates in '25 versus 2024. In the current year, as we've become used to, the Swiss franc has continued to strengthen against most of the major currencies in which the group operates with the corresponding impact on the reported results in Swiss francs. However, when one looks at the group margins, the foreign exchange impact is limited as a result of our operational and geographical balance, which continues to provide good natural hedges. And our EBITDA margin remains well protected against currency fluctuations.

Please turn to Slide 15 for an overview of the operating performance of the group. The gross margin decreased from 44.1% in 2024 to 43.5% in '25, with the decrease resulting from the mechanical margin dilution related to higher input costs, including tariffs, as well as some impact from the softer market conditions in part of our Fragrance Ingredients business. With increased input costs, the company continued to successfully implement price increases in collaboration with its customers to fully offset these higher input costs including tariffs.

On the EBITDA level, the EBITDA was CHF 1,751 million in 2025 compared to CHF 1,765 million in '24. As noted previously, the slight decrease is mainly due to foreign exchange rate impacts. And when measured in local currency, the EBITDA increased by 4.5%. The published EBITDA margin was 23.4% versus 23.8% in 2024. After adjustment for nonrecurring costs of CHF 39 million as well as CHF 17 million of expenses related to the Louisville accident, the comparable EBITDA margin was 24.2% compared to 24.5% in 2024, maintaining the margin at close to historically high levels and partially compensating for the decrease in the gross margin.

On the following two slides, I will spend a few minutes on the operating performance of the two divisions. And if you turn to Slide 16, we will start with Fragrance & Beauty. The EBITDA of the division in 2025 was CHF 985 million, flat compared to 2024. However, when measured in local currency, the EBITDA of the Fragrance & Beauty division increased by 4.2%.

The division incurred acquisition, restructuring and project-related costs of CHF 31 million compared to CHF 32 million in 2024, with those costs being mainly due to those incurred in relation to the ongoing competition authorities' investigations.

The comparable EBITDA margin of the division was 26.5% in 2025 compared to 27.8% in 2024, with higher input costs, the Fragrance Ingredients impact and targeted investments in growth impacting slightly the EBITDA margin. The continued strength of the financial performance of Fragrance & Beauty illustrates their market-leading position across all areas of their business.

If you would like to turn now to Page 17, I will take you through the operating performance of Taste & Wellbeing. The Taste & Wellbeing division recorded an EBITDA of CHF 766 million compared to CHF 780 million in the prior year, a decrease of 1.8%. However, again, this is mostly due to foreign exchange impacts. As when measured in local currency, the EBITDA increased by 4.8%. On a comparable basis, after restructuring costs of CHF 8 million as well as CHF 17 million of expenses related to the Louisville accident, the comparable EBITDA margin improved to 21.7% compared to 21.3% in 2024, showing continued positive sequential margin progression over the past 3 years.

Please turn to Slide 18 on the net income of the group. The net income before tax was CHF 1,305 million in 2025 compared to CHF 1,313 million in 2024. The effective tax rate increased to 18% compared to 17% in 2024 as the OECD minimum tax project continues to be implemented. The net income was CHF 1,071 million in 2025 and the net income margin was 14.3% compared to 14.7% in 2024. Basic earnings per share were CHF 116.08 in 2025 compared to CHF 118.17 in 2024.

Please now turn to Slide 19, which highlights the free cash flow performance. In 2025, the group generated for the second consecutive year over CHF 1 billion in free cash flow. Free cash flow was CHF 1,053 million or 14.1% of sales compared to 15.6% of sales in 2024. Total net investments were CHF 285 million in 2025, representing 3.8% of sales, a similar level to investments as in the prior year as the group continues to invest in its growth and also in capturing exciting opportunities in the digital space. Net working capital was 22% of sales in 2025 compared to 23.4% in 2024 with the group continuing to have a strong focus on the effective management of all aspects of working capital.

Please turn to Slide 20. Since Givaudan became a public company in 2000, the company has generated a cumulative CHF 13.9 billion of free cash flow. Including the proposed dividend for 2025, the 25th consecutive increase, Givaudan has returned over CHF 9 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends or share buybacks, clearly underlining the strong commitment of Givaudan to shareholder returns. The Board of Directors will propose to the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders a further increase of the dividend to CHF 72 per share from CHF 70 per share in 2024, an increase of 2.9%.

Please turn to Slide 21 to look at the debt and leverage profile of the group. The group continues to have a well-balanced and stable debt profile as shown on this slide with interest rates, which have been locked in at attractive rates. At the end of 2025, the net debt was CHF 3.7 billion with a weighted average interest rate of 1.94% compared to 1.75% in 2024. The net debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 2.1x at the end of '25, representing continued improvement compared to the 2.3x of December 2024.

The strong improvement in leverage over recent years is a result of our sustained focus on the balance sheet, whilst continuing to invest in the growth of our business and in shareholder returns. We are very pleased to enter the new strategic cycle with a strong balance sheet, which will support us in pursuing our strategic priorities both in the established business and also in M&A.

This concludes my section of the presentation. I would like to thank you for your attention and hand it back to Gilles.

Thank you, Stewart. So this year also marks the successful completion of our 2025 strategic cycle, during which we have delivered on all our financial and nonfinancial ambitions. So let's have a look back at the last 5 years before we move into the next 5 years with our 2030 strategy and outlook for this year.

So we have created value over the past 5 years by building on our commitment to grow with purpose. We have proven that strong financial performance can go hand-in-hand with responsible purposeful action. We have further built resilience, delivered innovation and created value that endures well beyond 2025.

Let's have a look on our key achievements on Slide 24. The first one. We have strengthened our natural hedges. Our balance across geographies, customer segments and product categories has further strengthened. We have continued to focus on our core fragrance and flavors business while expanding decisively into adjacent spaces.

Our exposure to high-growth markets has increased significantly. In absolute terms, these markets are now almost at par with mature markets, but they are growing faster. And importantly, we have further diversified our customer base. Local and regional customers now represent 60% of our sales, up from 46% just 4 years ago. And this shift has been a major growth driver to our resilience and growth overall.

Second, we have obtained consistent industry-leading results. The strategic relevance of the before-mentioned choices is clearly reflected in our outperformance vis-a-vis the market and peers in general, seen not only in sustained growth but also in significantly higher margins and free cash flow generation compared to our peers. These results reaffirm our position as a market leader and the strength of our long-term approach.

Third, we have leveraged M&A to support our strategy and expand our reach. We have made targeted acquisitions that strengthen our position in fast-growing segments and deepen relationships with local and regional champions.

Fourth, we have realized a major digital transformation. We have built advanced digital capabilities across the business from customer engagement and market insights to operations, supply chain and innovation. Digitalization is embedded end-to-end, enabling smarter decisions, faster execution and more connected collaboration. This transformation is making us more agile, more efficient and fully future-ready.

And finally, through all this progress, we have remained focused on our purpose-related commitments. Everything we do continues to be guided by our ambition to create for happier and healthier lives with love for nature at the heart of our business. Together, these achievements demonstrate not only just strong performance, but the power of a strategy that is balanced, forward-looking and deeply aligned with our purpose.

On Slide 25, you can see the strong delivery against our 2025 financial targets. We have achieved an average like-for-like growth of 6.8% in the period '21 to '25, exceeding our target of 4% to 5% growth, a further increase compared to the previous 2 cycles. Also on the comparable EBITDA, with 22.9% average over the period, we have continued the steady increase cycle over cycle, further distancing our peers. And also against the ambitious free cash flow target of over 12%, which is, by the way, the highest in the industry, we delivered, again, over the last 5 years an average of 12.5%.

To even better show the strength of the cycle in past year, let me give you some historic context on the following two slides. Let's look at our sales growth achievements over the last 3 strategic cycles. Our 5.1% like-for-like growth in 2025 is a very strong result. While some may see it's a slowdown compared to recent highs, it's essential to view it in context. The '21-'25 period was one of the most volatile in our history, which I personally experienced, shaped by COVID, destocking, supply chain disruptions, inflation and geopolitical tensions. Delivering solid growth through that environment is a clear sign of resilience.

When we take a longer-term perspective, the picture becomes clear, Givaudan's growth has steadily increased across cycles. The '25 result is not a step down, but the continuation of our consistent upward path, proves that our strategy continues to deliver sustainable performance and of my usual saying, I will repeat it again, CAGR does matter. And there's another important point to highlight. Despite persistent headwinds from the strong Swiss franc, we have doubled the size of our business in absolute Swiss franc terms over the last 15 years. Both divisions, Fragrance & Beauty and Taste & Wellbeing, now contribute almost equally reflecting a well-balanced, resilient business model. So the key message is simple. Our '25 growth demonstrates the enduring strength of Givaudan, consistent, balanced and built for long-term success.

Turning to profitability. This slide shows the steady improvement of our comparable EBITDA margin over the last 3 strategic cycles. For many years, both divisions delivered very similar margins. In the most recent cycle, the margins have, though, diverged slightly. Fragrance & Beauty saw significant improvement, supported by the exceptional growth and a more favorable raw material environment and benefits from the performance improvement program that we introduced in 2024.

Taste & Wellbeing maintained solid margins in a more challenging context with more volume volatility and raw material inflation, partially compensated by recent improvement initiatives, as you see it from this chart when you look at the improving EBITDA margin of Taste & Wellbeing. Nevertheless, the operating strength of Taste & Wellbeing stands out clearly against peers with margins typically 300 to 500 basis points higher than the industry average.

In absolute terms, the progress has been remarkable. Our comparable EBITDA in Swiss francs has more than doubled over the past 15 years. And while back in 2011, the entire group delivered CHF 790 million comparable EBITDA. Today, our Fragrance & Beauty division alone contributes to more than CHF 1 billion of EBITDA.

We are proud that over the past 5 years, we made strong progress against our ambitious nonfinancial targets as well, fully aligned with our purpose, to create for happier, healthier lives with love for nature. Starting with our nature ambition. We reached a major milestone with the validation of our net zero targets by the Science Based Targets Initiative. Aligned with the SBTI net zero standard covering forest, land and agriculture emissions, our goal is to achieve a net zero greenhouse gas emissions across our value chain by 2045, a key step towards becoming climate positive.

By the end of 2025 and compared to 2015 baseline, we achieved an absolute 50% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, and we successfully stabilized Scope 3 emissions despite, obviously, the continued business volume growth that we have seen over the last 10 years. We also reached our goal to purchase 100% of electricity from renewable sources, 1 year ahead of plan in 2024.

Turning to responsible sourcing. In 2020, only 20% of our natural ingredients were sourced according to our demanding responsible sourcing program called Sourcing for Good. At the end of 2025, that figure stands at 87%, showing an unwavering commitment to ethical and sustainable supply chains, protecting the biodiversity.

Finally, under our people ambition, we've continued to advance diversity and inclusion. At the start of the cycle, 25% of senior leadership positions were held by women. Today, that number has risen to 34%, reflecting steady and meaningful progress towards a more inclusive organization. Together, this achievement demonstrates how we combine purpose with performance, creating growth that is responsible, resilient and built to last.

Let's turn now to Slide 29, which highlights some of our key innovations from the past strategic cycle. Innovation, as you know, is the life blood of our business. This is what makes us relevant to our customers. It's what enables us to create unique, high-value solutions that drive consumers' preferences and shape the future of fragrance, beauty, health, wellness and nutrition segments.

Each year, we invest close to 8% of our sales, which means CHF 600 million, in research and development. This is an industry level of investment and what sets it apart is our focus. While peers may spread similar amounts across multiple ingredients portfolios, we concentrate our R&D on two divisions. Our R&D efforts bring together science, creativity and technology, advancing in biotechnology, green chemistry and digitalization. To take some examples.

In Taste & Wellbeing, we are developing natural and functional ingredients like our new range of natural colors and green banana powder that meet growing demand for healthier, more natural products.

In Fragrance & Beauty, Evernityl is a great example of innovation rooted in sustainable biotechnology, a marine-active developed through an upcycling process that transforms ocean algae into a high-precision ingredient for healthier, youthful-looking skin. And there are many examples that I'll let you read on this slide.

Finally, on the digital side, platforms like Myromi and Guardians of Memories show how we are connecting creativity with technology, bringing scent into immersive digital world. I'm sure all parents here know about Roblox, where Gen Z and Alpha spend much of their time. So yes, even there, we are shaping the future of scent experiences for the next generation of consumers. Together, these examples show how we transform insight into action, into products, tackle real customer challenges, embrace consumer preferences and make our business truly future-proof through innovation.

Having looked back at our '25 strategy achievements, let's now focus ahead on our 2030 strategy and outlook. As outlined at the summer investor conference end of August at the Widder Hotel in Zurich, our 2030 strategy is about purposeful evolution, building on the strong foundation of our proven model, combining innovation, customer partnership and disciplined execution to deliver sustainable growth while preparing for what's next.

We keep extending our customer reach to capture the fastest-growing opportunities. We continue to deepen our geographic presence, and we are expanding our categories and portfolios into high value-added adjacencies. How we will make it happen? By innovating for differentiating solutions that set us and our customers apart, by delivering value with excellence and agility, ensuring speed, quality and impact in everything we do and by caring for our people, nature and communities.

Financially, we are setting ambitious new targets for the next 5-year cycle. We aim for a 4% to 6% like-for-like average sales growth, slightly higher than our previous 4% to 5% guidance in the past cycle. This confidence reflects the continued strength of our business, rooted in expanding base of local and regional customers and our growing exposure to high-growth markets, which will continue to be key growth drivers for the future. We also reaffirm our industry-leading ambition of achieving over 12% free cash flow as a percentage of sales, maintaining a disciplined focus on profitability and cash generation. And beyond financial, we remain fully committed to our purpose targets for 2030.

Following our financial ambition, let's also remind ourselves on our purpose. Our purpose, creating for happier, healthier lives with love for nature. Let's imagine together, it's our lighthouse. It defines why we do, what we do and guides the choices we make every day, including acquisitions. Our purpose is fully integrated in our business strategy. With our 2025 strategy, we introduced for the first time a series of ambitious nonfinancial targets, reflecting our commitment to long-term value creation beyond the financial performance. We report our progress against these targets each year in our integrated report, covering both economic and ESG performance.

As we developed our 2030 strategic framework, we reviewed and evolved hose targets to ensure they remain strongly connected to our business performance objectives and aligned with the changing external environment. Our purpose continues to anchor us, inspiring innovation, driving sustainable growth and creating a positive impact for people, nature and communities.

Let me finish now with the 2026 outlook on Slide 34. We have successfully concluded the 2025 strategic cycle, confirming the strength and relevance of our current strategy. Building on this solid foundation, we are now initiating a new 5-year strategic cycle that will set the stage for sustainable growth and continued innovation. We remain confident in the strength of our portfolio and our leading market position across our businesses.

Looking ahead into 2026, we expect to navigate a continuous volatile geopolitical landscape and uncertain market conditions. Nothing new. But our strong natural hedges across product segments, geographies and customer groups will continue to provide resilience. We anticipate only limited impact from input costs at the group level, meaning raw materials, while tariffs-related effects remain uncertain, but we will manage through pricing actions with our customers. In addition, we expect some ongoing nonrecurring costs in 2026 to reflect specific one-off items related to costs for the investigation and further performance optimization.

With that, we are at the end of our 2025 full year results presentation, and I'd like to hand back to the operator for the instructions to open the Q&A session. We look, with Stewart, forward to taking your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Celine Pannuti from JPMorgan.

First of all, Gilles, well, I wanted to give you my congratulations for those impressive achievements that you showed us just now as you have led Givaudan over the past 2 decades. And of course, I wish you much continued success as the new role of Chair of the company. I have not followed 21 years of Givaudan, but a few of those, and I hear you when you say CAGR is your best friend.

So my first question, on trying to understand a bit how to look at 2026 in what you said is a volatile environment, and there's been as well volatility that you guys have experienced in the second half of the year. So if I look at CAGR in volume over the past, I think, 5 or even 10 years, it's around 3.5 to 4. Do you think that's a good proxy as we look into 2026? And how should we think about the pricing element in an environment where you mentioned limited cost inflation?

And then my second question would be on gross margin bridge. I would like to understand a bit the moving parts for 2026. There seem to have been some tariff impact in the second half that hit gross margin as well as extra investment, and I would like to understand how this will phase out in '26 and whether there will be any offset.

Thank you, Celine, for your kind words and supporting Givaudan always for many years, analyzing accurately our company. I'll answer your question. So yes, CAGR is your best friend. But especially, what I mean is really when we look at the quarter, you can actually look at the CAGR of the same quarter for many years and in a given year. So that's basically what I mean. It's always helpful to look at the CAGR, looking and projecting the way forward.

Now obviously, 2026, as you know, we don't commit on the number, on an actual number. We commit on the 5 years of the plan. What I can say though is basically looking ahead, so essentially, we have the Fragrance & Beauty, as you've seen for 2025 but also towards the end of the year, continues to be on a very good momentum. Probably, Taste & Wellbeing will take a few months to come back, given the softness of some of the multinationals, which are our clients and so forth.

Though I would like to remind again because this is a read across, which sometimes people are a bit too fast at doing, looking at the results of a multinational and reading across is what it means for Givaudan. Today, 60% of our sales are with L&R, and nobody has any visibility on their growth because they are usually sort of companies which are not public. So that means the relative exposure to multinational is lower. So essentially, if we look at comparables on Taste & Wellbeing, they will continue to be a bit tough in the first half, but easing out in the second half, and that's true for the group as well. There is a 2 or 3 points difference between the 2 halves, if you really want to dissect quarters and half. But again, the perspective is for full year.

We remain confident basically on one side to have a continued good performance on the Fragrance & Beauty and basically, good recovery on the Taste & Wellbeing on the back of lower comparables. That's maybe the way to look at and interpret my CAGR is your friend. And CAGR is your friend as long as you take 3 years, 2 years is not enough.

Then I would like also to give because that's what we usually give. It's basically the tonality on how active our plants are in terms of innovation because that's also the leading indicator on how the year is going to turn out because, as you know, we have a certain amount of erosion of our business every year, which is compensated by new wins and so forth. So if we look at those, we feel very good about the amount of new wins that we have accumulated in '25, which will roll over in '26. So that's the first very good positive indicator on all sides of the business, two divisions.

And the inflow that we have in terms of briefs and so forth going into '26 is also very good, which basically is a testament also to the way our clients view us, again, thanks to the strategic choices we made. So all of those things are positives going forward. So that's basically what I can say about the growth going forward.

I will reiterate because maybe I was not so clear enough. When you look at the chart, when we talk about the volatility of the 5 years, again, this really stands out as a cycle. And I think people don't realize that. COVID was the baseline creating a ripple effect, where that has created a lot of yo-yos in our own growth year-on-year. And so this is probably going to normalize and reduce this volatility going forward. But as you see, the average is still 6.8%, which is again one of the best, if not the best average we have had.

Then on the GPM -- sorry, on the pricing, so yes, there probably would be very mild pricing given the raw materials which are quite stable. And on the tariffs, well, it's going to depend on how it's going to evolve. But again, this is really -- the tariff pricing translation in ourselves is quite minimal, below the 1%. Let's see how it effects pricing. But again, I would like to reiterate something which is sometimes again misunderstood.

Pricing, which is my legacy. Pricing is not a growth strategy. It's not a growth strategy like our clients would have a growth strategy and it's not a growth strategy like some of companies selling standard or commodities ingredients when the market goes up. Our pricing strategy is just to reflect the increased cost that we incur, whether they are raw mats, tariffs and whatever.

And basically, one additional pricing is compensating one on the cost side. So 1 minus 1 equals 0. That means on the EBITDA level, it has no effect. On the margin side percent, it does because of the mechanical dilution. So I don't think we should look at pricing with such a myopic view because it doesn't drive real value growth.

And then the GPM bridge, maybe Stewart?

Yes, I can take that, Celine. So maybe we -- thanks for the question on the margin bridge. Maybe we back up to 2025 and then we take it forward from there. So I think the gross margin, as I mentioned, had come off about 43.5% versus 44.1%. And although we don't get gross margin information by the division, I think we have been clear that in this year, we had raw material inflation, which was more slanted towards Fragrance & Beauty than Taste & Wellbeing. And because of inventory cycles, the raw material effect tends to come through not evenly throughout the year, so a little bit more in second half.

As Gilles mentioned, we've got also tariffs coming through more consistently in second half than first. So we've got the mechanical dilution of those two effects. And then both of us mentioned in our narrative that the margin of Fragrance & Beauty being slightly impacted by the competitive situation around some specific ingredients in the Fragrance Ingredients portfolio. So that's a little bit at a high level the kind of two topics, the margin bridge in '25 and the split between H1 and H2 because I know there's been some questions about that.

Looking forward, we don't have a crystal ball particularly around tariffs. I think Gilles has mentioned on input costs, we see minimal impact, and we are relatively well covered at least for the first half. So we know relatively well where the input costs are going in H1. On tariffs, we need to see, of course. And as always, we will reflect any tariff impact with continuing pricing action with our clients. But that gives you a bit of a sense for, I think, what the key building blocks are of the margin bridge and how we would see that going forward.

And would you still expect an impact from the ingredients portfolio to last until we count that in the second half of the year?

Yes, I think that's fair to assume that from the second half, we would see a more level playing field year-over-year in relation to the Fragrance Ingredients effect.

The next question comes from Alex Sloane from Barclays.

The first one on Fragrance Ingredients. Do you think there's any risk that sustained deflation there could spill over to your larger fragrance compounding businesses or customer negotiations elsewhere? Or are you confident that the pressures can be fully contained? And I guess, do you think we're kind of near the peak of those pressures on Fragrance Ingredients? That would be the first one.

And the second one on Taste & Wellbeing. I appreciate you don't manage it on a quarterly basis. There were some impacts that were temporary like Mexico. But obviously, like-for-like decline in Q4, not consistent with your medium-term aspirations for the business. Just thinking about how we get back there and the pathway. I mean, is it realistic to assume a pathway back to mid-single-digit growth for this business? Or do you think there could be any structural challenges to any specific end markets that could prevent that recovery?

Okay. Thank you for your question. So yes, so again, maybe it's worth explaining the Fragrance Ingredients business because, yes, Givaudan has a different strategy than maybe some of our peers or the ingredients industry at large. We have a long time ago, made a very conscious decision to, yes, make fragrance ingredients. We have chemical plants. So we are basically in-sourcing a number of chemical ingredients and the -- which most of them come out actually of our research. So it's a way to leverage innovation, to leverage research and to keep the IP on our ingredients and to make those ingredients so that they enrich the palette of our perfumers and then that gives a competitive advantage when you create a new compound, a new fragrances.

So that's why fragrance -- researching new fragrance ingredients, making them is absolutely key and essential to be competitive on the fragrance side. So that means -- what does it mean? It means that by construction, we are -- we don't have a fragrance ingredient business just to have a fragrance ingredient business. It's basically because, obviously, when you find a new ingredient, you develop a new one, you have -- you need to be cost effective, and that means large volumes. So at some point, whenever we have what we call a captive fragrance ingredient, we decide to sell it to the outside market, and that turns into a third-party sales, which becomes the FIB. So you see it's not that we are looking to have a very large FIB business and then figure out how to use that internally. It's exactly the reverse.

So that means that some of those ingredients at some point become attacked by pricing and so forth. So that's the case, one of which last year and clearly some Chinese competition, which dented a bit the performance on the FIB business, but this is not reflecting, I would say, the weakness of the portfolio because actually, we have a very large percentage of our FIB business, which are specialties, which are uniquely made and so forth. The second reason why though -- even though, despite this sort of weakness on one ingredient, we have seen a softness. Well, it's almost a bit ironic, but for me, it's a good signal because those ingredients are sold to competition. So the more we gain market share on the compound side, the less we do on the fragrance ingredients. So that's one way to look at it. That's why this weakness comes from the fact that maybe some of our clients in this industry are not growing as fast.

So then back to your question on does it reflect a deflation environment? Not -- no, it doesn't because we said that raw materials have become -- have been stable. And therefore, it doesn't have, I would say, a read across or an effect on the compounds business where clients would ask for. So basically, that's what we can say. It's quite isolated. And again, it's a very different portfolio mix that we have vis-a-vis competitors. So that means we are less exposed to those -- to this volatile environment that you have in Ingredients.

On Taste & Wellbeing, on the quarterly basis, essentially, again, back to the CAGR story. So actually, the average volume for Givaudan, if you take out price, is still strong over the last 5 years. But we can say about Taste & Wellbeing, so over the last 5 years, we actually grew 5.4%. So obviously, this is greater than the 4% we had from 2016 to 2020. So you see an acceleration. Yes, there was a bit more pricing, but volume continued to grow. If you go back to your question on the quarter, yes, we don't like to have a minus 1.1% quarter 4 in Taste & Wellbeing.

But again, CAGR is your best friend. We were at plus 10% in 2024. And if I even -- if I look at '23, 3 years CAGR, we're actually in the mid of 5% to 6%. So that basically, again, CAGR is your best friend to understand Givaudan. So going forward, we remain confident on the core business on flavors. We see the strength that we have, and we remain confident that we can grow in Taste & Wellbeing. Obviously, a big reminder that it's pretty obvious. We don't have Fine Fragrances in Taste & Wellbeing. So even if Fine Fragrances accounts for 20% of the division, but when growing at 18% every year, it has a big influence, obviously, on the average. So we don't have something called Fine Flavors. I think that's it with the questions.

The next question comes from Nicola Tang from BNP Paribas.

I just wanted to sort of reiterate Celine's best wishes to Gilles. In terms of questions, coming back on the topic of margins, I hear your comments on pricing -- or inputs and tariffs. Looking more specifically at the divisions, Taste & Wellbeing is still slightly below your sort of 22% to 25% EBITDA margin sweet spot. Do you expect to get that into the sweet spot range in 2026? And can you explain a little bit what some of the division-specific drivers are?

And then a similar question on the Fragrance & Beauty side. I think you've been increasing targeted investments. So do you expect that to step up again in 2026? And can you explain a little bit some of the moving parts on margins for that division? And then I try a bit on Fine Fragrance. Could you give us any more detail in terms of regional performance? And any color in terms of your forward-looking indicators, so your briefing activity in your own pipeline for 2026.

Thank you, Nicola. Thank you for your kind words and questions. Okay. So basically, you want to get a bit more color in terms of the margin evolution between the two divisions. It's true that when you look at what we showed in terms of the average by division, the difference between the two divisions has increased because over the last cycle, you have 3 points of difference between the two divisions when it was 1 point of difference in the -- from '16 to 2020.

I would say some reasons to that. Well, obviously, you have Fragrance, which has grown faster than Taste. So obviously, you have the operational leverage, which is probably the biggest EBITDA margin driver to explain the difference. The second point is, yes, the Fine Fragrance has a bit of mix effect, but let's not overstate it or overestimate it. Then I would say that in terms of evolution, what we are giving is a very clear target on the free cash flow, as you know, greater than 12%. And because we are very nice, we also gave a sort of a sweet spot brand with -- on the EBITDA margin, which is 22% to 25% EBITDA margin for the group without giving a specific target for the two divisions.

Though what I can say is that on the Taste & Wellbeing division, you can see the climbing up the mountain from 20% in 2022 to 21.7% in '25. So we are making progress. We are making progress, and that will continue to be. So thanks to efforts on the product portfolio margin improvement that we have, some of the ingredients that we have outside taste, on colors or on preservatives or other segments. So this is in works, and we are continuing to deploy some efforts at doing that, thanks to Antoine and his team.

I would say that efforts also on gaining efficiencies in the divisions, in operations. So I'm quite, let's say, confident and optimistic to continue the green line that you see on this chart, improving Taste & Wellbeing. We will not give a guidance for Taste & Wellbeing. But actually, the average for the last 15 years has been 21.5% more or less. So can we do better than this? Maybe. Can we be at the level of Fragrance & Beauty? Maybe not. On the other hand, it doesn't mean that Fragrance & Beauty, we'll stand down. There is no reason for this to happen going forward. And we remain confident that we can continue on a good profitable growth for Fragrance & Beauty as well. But again, bandwidth 22% to 25%, and you remember that we always commit on things that we can deliver.

So Fine Fragrances, to give a bit of color on Fine Fragrances. So there are many ways to look at it. Today, we broke really something I would never have expected, I said it. SAMEA for Fine is bigger than North America and LatAm combined. So first, that gives you an idea about the breadth of the portfolio in Fine that we have. But the second element of color, which I think is important because I've seen too many read across, again, of results of some of the lead beauty clients that we have and translated that into projection on the Fine Fragrance business of Givaudan.

Just to give you an idea, just rough numbers because I won't disclose them, but more or less, you have 1/3 of our Fine Fragrance business, which are driven by what we call prestige, which are really brands that you see in multinationals and the ones which are really visible and so forth. This has been growing for us mid-single digits, reflecting the market, but also gaining market share because we are doing very well with that. But that's only in a way 1/3.

The other 1/3 has to do with specialty retail and direct selling, which is a business model itself that you see a lot in the U.S. and that you see a lot in LatAm. This part has also grown mid-single digit. The third-third, if I may say so, has to do all with local and regional clients across SAMEA, across LatAm, across Asia, plus what we call the Haute Parfumerie, the Parfumerie, the niche, where Givaudan is clearly a leader. Many of you who attend the December Fine Fragrance hosting in Kléber in Paris, you've seen some of the presentations, so you have Fragrance actually, which is growing close to 60%.

So that gives you an idea that -- and that part nobody sees because no public reporting for many clients. And that's where also Givaudan is growing very strongly. So yes, maybe some of the multinational, the prices might -- is slowing down. But we have the other part, which is continuing to fuel our growth. So that is your perspective on how broad we are in Fine Fragrance both from a geographic standpoint as well as a channel standpoint and as well as the client standpoint.

But I can tell you, the world is spending better and better. When you look at the whole young generation, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, multi-layering, increasing dosage levels. So that's why -- and we are doing much better than competition. So that gives you a long story about Fine Fragrances, but worth it given the numerous questions we get on Fine Fragrances.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our Q&A session. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Gilles Andrier for any closing remarks.

Okay. So that was our last question. Thank you. So closing remarks. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are at the end of this results call. Before we close, allow me to take a brief personal moment because that's the only time I can do that and the last time probably.

So after 21 years of engaging with you, analysts and investors, many of you since my beginnings actually, this will be my last results call as CEO. And I really want to sincerely thank you for the many insightful discussions, the challenging questions, but which have always been an inspiration to me to think differently, to think ahead, and above all, for the trust and the support and the enjoyment and fun I had you've shown to Givaudan over the years.

It has been a privilege to share this journey with you, to see our company grow and evolve together with your continued interest and partnership. And I'm confident that under Christian's leadership, Givaudan's story will continue to be one of innovation, purpose and sustainable success, along with our more than 16,000 employees. Thank you again for your engagement and for being a part of this journey.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Givaudan 2025 Half Year Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Myra, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions]. The conference has been recorded. [Operator Instructions]. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Gilles Andrier, CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our 2025 half year results conference call. Stewart Harris, our CFO, is sitting next to me on this call today, and we will take you through the presentation before answering your questions at the end.

All relevant documents related to the 2025 half year results, including the slides we are presenting now, have been published this morning and are available in the results center on our Givaudan website.

So we are very pleased with our continued strong financial performance in the first half of 2025, despite an environment with ongoing geopolitical and macroeconomic challenges.

Sales remained strong with good growth across all business segments, all geographies and customer groups, against very strong prior year comparables. These results once again demonstrate the value that Givaudan brings to its customers through our highly specialized products and solutions.

So now let me give you some details with the performance highlights on Slide 4. In the first half of 2025, the group recorded sales of CHF 3.864 billion, an increase of 6.3% on a like-for-like basis. As a reminder, prior year was 12.5% and an increase of 3.4% in Swiss francs.

Like-for-like growth was mainly volume driven with a very slight contribution of pricing. The strong sales growth was achieved across all business segments geographies and customer groups supported in particular by the continued outperformance in Fine Fragrances, the high-growth markets and the sustained strong growth with local and regional customers across the 2 divisions.

Our comparable EBITDA amounted to CHF 973 million, leading to a record comparable EBITDA margin in the half year of 25.2%, up from 24.8% in 2024. The net income amounted to CHF 592 million compared to CHF 588 million last year.

The free cash flow in the first half was slightly negative. This is due to the timing effects of capital expenditures and tax payments, but we remain very confident to achieve our midterm target of an average free cash flow greater than 12% for the 5-year strategic cycle ending this year.

Now before Stewart will share more details about the operational performance, let me give you some more details.

In the first half of 2025, sales remained strong with good growth with -- in all business segments, geographies and customer groups, against the very strong comparable of 2024. The group's like-for-like sales growth was 6.3%, mainly volume driven, while the contribution of pricing plus FX pricing was below 1%, a similar level in both divisions.

Fragrance & Beauty sales were CHF 1.955 billion, an increase of 8.6% on a like-for-like basis. As a reminder, the prior year was 15.3% and 7% in Swiss francs. Taste & Wellbeing sales amounted to CHF 1.909 billion, up 4.1% on a like-for-like basis. Prior year was almost 10%, and it was flat in Swiss francs.

While we have not yet seen performance from our peers for the first half, we have clearly outperformed them during the first quarter by showing, on average, a like-for-like growth twice as fast and despite the fact that we have been facing a much tougher comparison base.

As you can see on Slide 6, high-growth markets continue to outpace mature markets by a multiple of 3x, leading to an almost equal absolute size in sales in the first half year of 2025. Key growth markets such as India, Brazil, the Middle East market and China continued to contribute to the strong performance of the high-growth markets.

We also achieved a solid growth in mature markets of almost 3%, led by the continued solid performance in Europe and a sequential improvement in North America.

Let's now have a look at the regions in more granularity on the next slide. We have seen a continued strong growth in LatAm of 9.4% on a like-for-like basis, driven by the underlying strong volume growth as the FX pricing is abating.

The largest region, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, EME, sustained a strong growth of 8.6% on top of the double-digit growth recorded in the prior year. Asia Pacific grew by 5.3% on a like-for-like basis with strong growth in Japan and China.

And finally, North America continued to be volatile, but showing a sequential improvement in the second quarter, leading to a 1.7% increase in like-for-like for the first half.

Turning on the divisional view on Slide 8, starting with Fragrance & Beauty. Sales amounted to CHF 1.955 billion, up 8.6% on a like-for-like basis; again, reminding the comparable of 15.3% and 7% in Swiss francs.

The strong like-for-like growth remained broad across all segments, regions and customers with particularly strong performance in the high-growth markets and with local and regional clients.

Fine Fragrances continued its strong growth momentum at an impressive 18%. And while we continuously said that we shouldn't expect Fine to continue to grow double digits on top of a double-digit, we like to be proven wrong again. The remarkable success in this segment is underpinned by another 12% growth CAGR since half year of 2019.

In fact, we achieved almost as much sales in the first half of 2025 as we did for the entire year in 2019. In other words, we doubled our Fine Fragrance business in the last 5 years.

The Consumer Products business maintained a strong performance despite the challenging comparison base of 17.3%. The 6.1% like-for-like growth aligns closely with the long-term CAGR for the segment, which is what has been around 6% to 7% from '18 to 2025.

Fragrance Ingredients and Active Beauty sales increased 5.7% on a like-for-like basis with continued strong double-digit growth in Active Beauty, but which was offset by a softer performance in Fragrance Ingredients. This reflects an overall softer demand from the market.

Let's move now on the Taste & Wellbeing division on Slide 9. Sales for the division amounted to CHF 1.909 billion, up 4.1% on a like-for-like basis and about flat in Swiss francs. The good growth was broad-based across regions and segments.

On a regional basis, particularly SAMEA, South Asia, Africa and Middle East, continued to show an impressive growth of 12.7% on the top of a similar high growth in the same period last year. Positive as well to mention that North America, where after a soft start in Q1, the growth momentum has sequentially picked up, leading to a 2% growth for the first half.

Europe and Latin America continued to show solid growth of 4.2% and 4.1% on the like-for-like, respectively. Asia Pacific experienced a more modest growth of 2.1% like-for-like. The prior year was 9.3%. And while we have seen a continued good growth in key markets such as China and Japan, this reflects the high comparison base from the previous year, particularly in the Southeast Asian markets, such as Indonesia and Thailand, which are the 2 largest markets in Southeast Asia.

Now let's shift from the financial highlights to key innovations, which support customer needs and key consumer trends as shown on Slide 10. Innovation is core and essential to us, enabling us to create unique solutions that tackle our customers' challenges while leading in biotechnology sustainability or digitalization.

Our R&D efforts equip our creation and development teams with cutting-edge technologies and distinctive ingredients, ensuring that the tailored solutions we develop resonate with both our customers and the end consumers.

Let me highlight just a few examples. Myromi is an innovative tool developed by Givaudan leveraging advanced technology to enhance fragrance creation processes. It combines artificial intelligence with deep consumer insights to help perfumers design unique and personalized fragrances that resonate with consumer preferences.

As consumers increasingly seek natural options, particularly in the U.S., Everzure Galdieria stands out by offering vibrant, sustainable color solutions derived from nature. Notably, it has received FDA approval ensuring its safety and compliance for use in food and beverage applications. This aligns perfectly with the current regulatory changes and the growing demand for clean label products.

With the new ingredient, we empower perfumers to captivating sense that evokes a strategy in their creation by blending artistry with advanced technology and a commitment to sustainability, we enable them to explore new dimensions of fragrances.

And finally, last, but not least, related to our Active Beauty business. transforms fresh algea into a high precision beauty ingredient that combats skin aging and promotes youthful skin. This innovative formulation harnesses the power of nature delivering exceptional benefits that enhance skin vitality and resilience.

And with that, I now hand over to Stewart for more details on the operating performance.

Thank you, Gilles. I would like to add my warm welcome to all of the participants on this morning's call.

On the following slides, I would like to give an overview of the group's operating performance and that of the 2 divisions as well as the financial performance of the group. Let me start with the financial highlights on Slide 12.

As Gilles has already mentioned, group sales in the first 6 months of 2025 increased to CHF 3.864 billion, an increase of 6.3% on a like-for-like basis and an increase of 3.4% in Swiss francs. The reported EBITDA increased to CHF 945 million compared to CHF 906 million in 2024, an increase of 4.4% in Swiss francs or 9.7% when measured in local currency.

On a comparable EBITDA basis, the underlying EBITDA margin increased further to 25.2% compared to 24.8% in the first 6 months of 2024. Driven by this continued operating profitability, the net income increased to CHF 592 million, and the net income margin was 15.3% of sales. The free cash flow of the group was slightly negative in the first half year of 2025, mostly due to timing effects of investments and tax payments. The net debt to EBITDA was at 2.5x at the end of June compared to 2.9x at June 2024 and 2.3x in December 2024.

Please turn to Slide 13, which shows the overview of the exchange rate development so far in 2025. This slide shows the comparison of the key exchange rates in the first half of '25 versus the same period in '24.

In the current year, the Swiss franc has again strengthened against all major currencies in which the group operates with a corresponding impact on the group results in Swiss francs. However, the impact is mitigated due to our operational and geographical spread providing good natural hedges and our EBITDA margin remains well protected against currency fluctuations.

Please turn to Slide 14 for an overview of the operating performance of the group. The gross margin was stable at 44% in the first half of 2025 compared to 44.1% in the first 6 months of '24, with continued good operational leverage, offsetting higher input costs including those from global trade tariffs.

The company is continuing to implement price increases in collaboration with its customers to offset such higher input costs with a minimal mechanical dilution effect on the gross margin. On the EBITDA level, the EBITDA was CHF 945 million in the first half year 2025 compared to CHF 906 million in the same period last year, an increase of 4.4% in Swiss francs or 9.7% when measured in local currency.

The comparable EBITDA margin after adjustment for acquisition, restructuring and project-related costs of CHF 19 million and CHF 9 million of costs related to the 2024 Louisville was 25.2% compared to 24.8% in 2024.

On the following 2 slides, I'll take you through the operating performance of the 2 divisions. And if you turn to Slide 15, we will start with Fragrance & Beauty.

Fragrance & Beauty recorded an EBITDA in the first half of 2025 of CHF 525 million compared to CHF 500 million in 2024, an increase of 5.2%. The division incurred acquisition restructuring and project-related costs of CHF 15 million compared to CHF 14 million in 2024, mainly due to cost and cut in relation to the ongoing Competition Authority's investigations.

The comparable EBITDA margin of the division was 27.6% in 2025 compared to 28.1% in 2024. A continued excellent results despite higher input costs and growth-related investments.

If you would now turn to Page 16, I will take you through the operating performance of Taste & Wellbeing. Taste & Wellbeing recorded an EBITDA of CHF 420 million compared to CHF 406 million in the same period in 2024, an increase of 3.4%.

The division recorded expenses of CHF 9 million in relation to the Louisville accident, which occurred in November 2024. Acquisition, restructuring and product-related costs amounted to CHF 4 million and were mostly to some remaining costs for footprint optimization, the benefits of which supported the solid improvement in the Taste & Wellbeing margin. As a result, the comparable EBITDA margin improved to 22.7% compared to 21.7% in the first half of 2024.

Please turn to Slide 17 on the net income of the group. The net income before tax was CHF 713 million in the first half compared to CHF 700 million in the corresponding period last year. The effective tax rate was 17% compared to 16% for the first half in 2024. The net income rose to CHF 592 million in the first 6 months of '25 compared to CHF 588 million in the same period in '24.

The net income margin was 15.3% in 2025 compared to 15.7% in the corresponding period. Basic earnings per share was CHF 64.18 in the first half compared to CHF 63.76 for the same period in 2024.

Please now turn to Slide 18, which shows the free cash flow performance. In the first half of 2025, the group generated free cash flow of minus CHF 16 million or minus 0.4% of sales compared to 5.3% of sales in the corresponding period in 2024, with the difference largely driven by timing effects related to investments and tax payments.

The net investments were CHF 169 million in the first 6 months, representing 4.4% of sales, notably higher than the net investments of 3.4% of sales in the prior period. Net working capital was 27.1% of sales in the first half of 2025 compared to 29.1% in 2024, demonstrating our continued strong focus on the effective management of all aspects of working capital.

Please now turn to Slide 19. This slide shows that the group continues to have a well-balanced and stable debt profile with interest rates, which have been secured at attractive rates. At the end of June 2025, the net debt was CHF 4.5 billion with a weighted average interest rate of 1.9% compared to 1.75% in December 2024 and 1.96% in June '24.

At the end of June 2025, the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 2.5x compared to 2.3x in December '24 and 2.9x in June 2024. The improvement in our leverage is a result of our sustained focus on the balance sheet, whilst continuing to invest in the growth of our business and in shareholder returns.

This concludes my section of the presentation. I would like to thank you for your attention and hand back to Gilles.

Thank you, Stewart. Let me now come back to our 2025 strategy and the outlook on Slide 21 and onwards. So as we enter in the last 6 months of our 2025 strategic cycle, let's reflect on the remarkable transformation of Givaudan.

Of the recent years, we have continued to focus on our core Fragrance & Flavors business, whilst expanding into adjacent spaces, namely health and wellness, establishing ourselves as the leader in naturals and enhancing our portfolio with functional food ingredients.

Additionally, we are further tapped into the world of beauty with skin care and color cosmetics, thereby leveraging new growth spaces whilst further strengthening our natural hedges. The strategic relevance of these decisions is reflected in our outperformance not only in growth but also in considerably higher operating margins and free cash flow generation compared to our peers, reinforcing our position as a market leader.

Highlighting the continued execution of our strategy. We were excited about the recently announced acquisition of a majority stake in Wolman's Fragrances. This strategic move exemplifies our commitment to focused market strategies as it will greatly enhance our presence in Latin America and strengthen our partnerships with local and regional customers.

Let's move now to Slide 22 and look at our performance commitments for the 2025 strategy. Ambitious targets are an integral part of our DNA, of our strategy. With average like-for-like sales growth of 7.2% for the period 2021 to 2024 and the continued strong like-for-like growth in the first half of 2025 of 6.3%, Givaudan is highly likely to exceed the upper end of its average 5-year sales growth target of 4% to 5% on a like-for-like basis for the period 2021 to 2025.

We are equally on track with our free cash flow margin target and remain confident to achieve an average free cash flow greater than 12% by the end of the cycle. The group's 2030 strategy will be announced at the Summer Investor Conference to be held on 27th of August 2025 in Zurich.

Let me finish now with the 2025 outlook on the next slide. As just said, we are fully on track to deliver on our 2025 strategic commitments on both the average like-for-like sales growth and the free cash flow. Even in volatile market environment, our focus on execution, our focus on our customers and our strong natural hedges across products, markets and customers has served us well, providing us with the resilience needed to both navigate challenges and seize opportunities.

We have slightly lowered our expectations for input cost increases, now anticipating around 3% for 2025. And in order to protect our business, we will implement price increases to cover increasing input costs, including tariffs, in collaboration with our customers to fully compensate for the increase in input costs.

For 2025, we anticipate nonrecurring costs of CHF 30 million associated with acquisition, restructuring efforts, such as the optimization of our Taste & Wellbeing footprint, which is nearing completion and other project-related expenses.

As Stewart mentioned, we have recorded nonrecurring expenses of CHF 9 million in the first half related to the incident in Louisville, and we expect a similar amount to be recorded in the second half.

With that, we are at the end of the 2025 half year results presentation, and I'd like to hand back to the operator for the instructions to open the Q&A. Stewart and I look forward to taking your questions.

[Operator Instructions]. The first question comes from the line of Celine Pannuti from JPM.

My first question relates a bit to the deceleration sequentially in growth that we've seen, and clearly, there's been a bit of a deceleration in pricing. So can you please explain the different components on your pricing? I think there is FX pricing, which has been a hit and you are mentioning as well lower at the same time, you're also indicating that pricing due to tariff will probably kick in, in the second half. So if you could give us a bit of an idea of how much of an acceleration, if any, on the pricing front we will see in the second half of the year?

And my second question relates maybe to volume performance, which has been a bit softer, but as well with a tougher comp. Can we talk about 2 regions? First, on the U.S., clearly, that has been a bit better sequentially. Can you talk about what has driven that and how confident you are for the second half of the year? And likewise, for Asia Pacific, you mentioned Southeast Asia facing tough comparative. Do you expect this to bounce back in the second half of the year?

Okay. Thank you, Celine. So first, as a reminder, let's not dissect too much pricing. Pricing is not a growth strategy at Givaudan. It's something you have to deal with when you have more input costs, whether it's tariffs or raw mats. And unlike maybe other business models, it's not a growth strategy.

So the first quarter, yes -- first, in the first half, as I said, the whole pricing, if I add up everything, FX plus tariffs plus raw mat input costs, are really shy of 1%. It was slightly greater than 1% in the first quarter, which means slightly lower in the Q2. But again, we are talking decimal points.

So the first reason, I would say, would be or is the fact that we had a bit of carryover of pricing, especially in Taste & Wellbeing from 2024 into 2025. The second reason -- and which basically has come to the 1-year anniversary in Q2, so basically, that's the first explanation.

The second one is FX pricing, as you mentioned, is much, much, much smaller, especially when I think about LatAm, for example, where you see the comparable in growth for LatAm were much, much higher in the first half. It was -- or first quarter. It was in the range of 30% to 40%. So FX pricing is the second reason.

The third reason is the fact that tariffs, as we mentioned again, I remind everybody, we -- everything that we sell in the U.S., we make in the U.S. So the effect of tariffs are really on the ingredients that we have to buy from -- and import into the U.S. from all over the world. Yes, China for some fragrance regions, but a lot of naturals for many, many different markets, many, many different countries.

And so the tariffs have, in a way, as you've seen, been delayed in the way they've been implemented, have been quite minimal for Givaudan, even though we have put everything in place already with our clients to reflect the tariff increase. So they've been minimal in the, let's say, close to 0 in the first quarter and slightly in the second quarter. So certainly, accelerate, but yet to be seen given the discussion, which are still ongoing.

But we are fully committed and fully confident again to reflect the types the tariffs impact in the second half. So again, first, we are really slightly below and slightly up 1% in pricing, which is considered as marginal in the history of Givaudan. So let's not go too much deep into that.

What's great about the first half overall is that it's all -- almost all the volume prices -- volume pricing -- sorry, volume growth, which is, I think, a great result.

If we look at the 2 regions that you spelled out, so -- but I'll add 1 -- or 2, let's say, because I think it's pretty strong. So I'll start with Europe. Europe, we are above 8% of growth, which is quite phenomenal because again, against high comparables. But if you do the CAGR of Europe for the last 3 or 4 years, it's been very strong and not just led by Fine Fragrances because when I look at Taste & Wellbeing, for example, has been doing quite well in Europe for the last few years.

So the second one I'd like to call out before I answer your question is SAMEA . SAMEA, again, we have an 18% growth, which is fueled not again just by Fine, but by Fine plus CP plus Taste & Wellbeing. So you are close to 18% growth on top of 18%.

That becomes, obviously, one of the largest regions of Givaudan. And so then on the U.S., well, basically, I would say that in the U.S., we were almost flat. I mean, slightly, I think, 0.4% or 0.5% negative in the first quarter. So that means we grew close to 4% in the second quarter, which is encouraging.

I would say one of the first reason is the fact that Taste & Wellbeing is really back on growth. We have a new leadership over there. We are back building the strong relationship with our clients, filling the pipeline of briefs and so forth, so we see a good momentum there. But also the other parts are doing well.

So this -- nothing special other than basically coming back to sort of a normalized level of growth in the U.S. And Asia Pacific, so Asia Pacific Obviously, it's not a double-digit growth that we are used to when looking at the high-growth markets. So we have China, which is doing well in the high single-digit growth numbers, but also Japan, which is not a high-growth market.

So it's really about Southeast Asia. And if you look at the 2 largest markets, which are really Indonesia and Thailand, basically, overall, they are facing very high comparable. You're talking, for example, in Thailand, we had close to 30% growth in the first half of last year and close to 16% for Indonesia. So we are very confident to basically reverse this trend in the second half and come back to positive territory for the Southeast Asia. So quite confident there.

The next question comes from the line of Fulvio Cazzol from Berenberg.

Yes. So I've got 2. The first one is on Fine Fragrances, where the business grew by, I estimate, around 19% for the [Audio Gap].

[Audio Gap] in fine Finances. The way we sort of indirectly measure our performance is by looking at what we call the let's say, 20% new business versus 15%. So when you grow 18%, yes, the market is growing more than normal, but the whole engine of growth has a lot to do with the new business.

And lastly, on Fine, it has a lot to do also with the growth in high-growth markets because SAMEA -- to call it out, SAMEA in Fine is almost the size of LatAm plus the U.S. just to give you an idea. So we added hundreds of millions over the last 5 years [Audio Gap].

[Audio Gap].

[Audio Gap] I would have one question regarding the 2 swords in your side, the collusion case, on one hand; and the U.S. accident you had last year. Could you give an update -- and maybe looking forward, what might cost you in the future?

Okay. So the first question is about the investigation on the -- from the Antitrust Authorities. So again, I mean, no news, but essentially reminding everyone that it's a multi-jurisdiction investigation, the U.S., Europe, U.K., Switzerland and a few others.

We basically, let's say, reconfirm that we fully collaborate with the investigation. It's been going on now for a little more than 2 years. But we have no indication, neither on the timing nor on the findings. So basically, I can't say more than just the fact that we are collaborating. And the U.S. accident, basically, I would hand over to Stewart.

Yes. Thanks, Daniel, for the question. So I think if you remember, in 2024, we had the impairment of the facility in the U.S. And in the first half of '25, we have around CHF 9 million of costs in relation to essentially the cleanup [Audio Gap].

[Audio Gap] if you could remind us of your capabilities here. DDW obviously historically very strong in CaramelBrown, but is it fair to assume that with Naturex and other investments you have the full spectrum of natural color offering across blue, red, yellow, et cetera?

And do you have sufficient capacity to meet the potential needs of your customers in the U.S. over the next few years if big food companies, which have come out with pledges really do deliver on those pledges to remove synthetic colors? That will be the first one.

And second one, I appreciate you say it's a smaller business for you, but you called out some slower performance in Fragrance Ingredients. Should we think of that as a kind of a leading indicator at all for Fine Fragrance or consumer products fragrance, end market demand outlook potentially slowing or is that the wrong read?

Okay. So on the natural colors, I would say, perfect timing by -- sometimes you have to be a bit lucky in life. So what I'm saying is that, yes, first, it has nothing to do with the colors that we manufacture through DDW in the U.S. around the brown and caramel Carlos.

When I say perfect timing, it's because, yes, thanks to Naturex that we acquired back then in 2017-'18, but also the further developments that we have had that I mentioned, the blue color. So we have the red and the blue, which puts us in a very unique position because they are all naturals and ready to replace the synthetic version. So this is really a good place in time, and we are fully -- we have the full spectrum basically in terms of colors to replace synthetic colors.

And as you know, we don't have synthetic colors. So we're not cannibalizing ourselves, just to make sure. And then on the FIB. So yes, basically, the Active Beauty -- so as you know, we publish our numbers by combining Active Beauty with Fragrance Ingredients. So as a matter of reference, Active Beauty is roughly CHF 200 million overall and Fragrance Ingredients is roughly 10% of the division.

So what we see is basically double-digit growth on Active Beauty, which is really very good and very encouraging because it's fueled by all those new ingredients solutions that we provide with our clients and is a testimony to the position that we have a -- leading position that we have with highly specialized ingredients, which actually do the job and staying away from commodities.

But FIB has been -- FIB is slightly declining. So it has nothing to do with -- I would say, with the end market. Most -- basically, most of our Fragrance Ingredients are sold -- or say most, a good majority are sold to our competitors. So that might give you an indication on basically the -- yes, the pace at which our competitors are growing in fragrances.

Okay. Sorry, just on the natural color, the capacity point, if this switch really does happen to the extent...

Yes. So the capacity after this -- obviously, this strategic incident -- so basically, we have managed right away to activate our global network of sites that we already had at DDW. And therefore, yes, we have lost a bit of sales from the U.S., but we are able to compensate that with other sites that we have to provide the same services. And so basically, the impact on us is minimal. And we are providing full service to our clients who buy those very specific color ingredients.

The next question comes from the line of Charles Eden from UBS.

Also, 2 for me, but many clarifications, please. So firstly, on the pricing, when you talk about 3% was your inflation, I guess, also a potential tariff headwind, you're likely to need somewhere in sort of 1.5% and 2% of pricing to fully offset that in absolute terms.

So is it fair to assume you're telling us to expect sort of over 2% pricing in the second half of the year? Or do you think it's going to take a little bit longer to fully compensate for those 2 buckets of cost headwinds?

And then, again, following up on Fine Fragrances, obviously, strong underlying demand, but there's also a structural tailwind from the increasing fragrance oil content in these SKUs, which you helpfully focused on in last year. I wonder if you've done any analysis which shows sort of what percentage of the SKUs you supply have already reformulated to include higher fragrance levels over the last, let's say, 3 years? Ultimately, I guess, what I'm trying to get a sense of is where we are along that penetration curve of this shift?

Okay. So I'm not sure I totally your question. You're saying the pricing, if you add up the raw mats plus FX plus tariffs amounts to 2%? Is that what you're saying when you add up everything?

I'm just saying if you've got a 3% raw material inflation on a 40% gross margin, then a bit of additional pricing to compensate the tariffs, you're probably looking at somewhere between 1.5% and 2% to fully compensate to keep gross profit falt for those cost of headwinds?

Yes. I mean, okay. So first, the raw mats at best or at worst, let's say, for the full year is 3%. So that doesn't increase, so if you do your math a substantial price increase.

The second thing on tariffs, I don't know where you're picking the number from. But again, it's we don't give away basically the tariffs, but it's basically not as material as you're ending up there. Let's say, when you add everything together.

So on Fine Fragrances, I would say that, yes, I mean, be careful with the tailwind on concentration. So maybe we overplayed, not overplayed, but I mean, first, perfume is not "reformulated." Existing fine fragrances are not reformulated like you would see that in more in the consumer products where sometimes, yes, they increase the dosage level or they increase -- so a perfume which is already sold, you don't change the concentration. But yes, in certain parts of the world, I'm thinking of SAMEA, for example, you see higher concentration of [Audio Gap].

[Audio Gap] million delta versus cash flow down about 200. So your statements suggest there's about CHF 150 million swing in other noncash items. I was hoping you could maybe dissect that a little bit more to understand some of these phasing or lumpiness about it?

And then maybe a second question for Gilles, if I can. Just back on Fragrance Ingredients. Just curious about your sort of strategy towards this business. I'm sure there's some things you produce in-house, some things you source from third-party suppliers. When you look at changes in the supply side landscape, but also the potential tariffs come into effect, how do you think strategically about the amount of capital that you want to have exposed to the Fragrance Ingredients part of the value chain?

So I'll let Stewart answer the first question maybe on free flow?

So thanks for the question, Matthew. You've obviously looked into the details. So as we called out, certainly, we've had higher investments in the first half versus where we would expect to land for the full year. So full year, we would expect to be around 3.8% of sales, something in that post code versus the 4.4% we have in H1.

And similarly, on taxes, about 2/3 of the tax payments that we expect to make in the year, we already covered in H1, and that's driven by, as you've seen, the sort of higher tax rate that we have under the minimum tax environment.

The other topics in terms of the movements in the other noncash items is technical. And so far as it relates largely to FX movements on the respective lines within the balance sheet elements of working capital. So we're not able to attribute those to the individual lines, but that's essentially what that means.

And the last part relates to a further movement in other current liabilities, which to a large extent relates to the timing of the incentive plan outcomes for 2024, which were settled in the first half. So that tries to unpack about the core elements of the movements in the free cash flow in H1.

I think if you look at it in simple terms, we are confident, as Gilles said, of getting to our average 12% over the 5-year cycle. And in very simple terms, if we generate the same amount of free cash flow in the second half of '25, as we did in '24, then we'll be fine.

Okay. So Matthew, question on FIB. So I don't want to be too long, but it's an interesting topic, you're asking all the right questions.

Okay. So why do we have a FIB business? You have to start by the beginning, meaning that for our perfumers you need a great pallet for basically to fuel and to sustain that creativity. So for that, you need and we have a research which is looking for new molecules and that includes also the transition, for example, to a biotechnology source -- biotechnology, sorry, route to make some of those fragrancing ingredients more sustainable.

So when we talk about the innovation of Givaudan in Fragrances, yes, it's about the creativity of perfumers, the knowledge of consumer insight and all of that, but it's also fueled by our ability to find great molecules, but also to develop new naturals like we do, for example, with this new investment we have in on the house of naturals.

So then you end up with new molecules which are patented and so forth. And that, by definition, we are the only ones who can manufacture them and we prefer to manufacture them in order to protect our IP. So that's why we have chemical factories. That's why we have a research and that's why we have chemical factories around Fragrance Ingredients.

And then, usually, we prefer to keep them for ourselves than to sell them because if they are clearly differentiating, we don't want to give that to our competitors to be basically giving a competitive advantage. So we prefer to keep them for a while as long as possible for ourselves.

And also, we like and prefer to include those, what we call those captives into compound, into formulas than to give them, than then to sell them as individual ingredients because the business is more sticky, because it protects more IP and it also protects our formulations.

So that's why we have resources, that's why we have manufacturing and that's why, at some point, we have the commercialization of those ingredients when, for example, it's less of a competitive advantage or we need more volumes to also decrease the total cost. So that's also a way to be more cost effective by selling volumes, which combine with our own internal usage and basically to drive the cost down.

So that's why the strategy of Givaudan is, yes, to internalize, but not to internalize too much because if you -- and then when you ask your question about capital expenditures around Fragrance Ingredients, over the -- long time ago, we used to basically let go on, what we call, commodities when the Fragrance Ingredient at some point after 20 years becomes a commodity, we would rather let that go and outsource that rather than keep that in our chemical factories.

But then that was, in a way, sort of slowed down by the fact that we managed to be cost competitive by, for example, creating a joint venture in China where we were keeping the production of those ingredients while still being competitive or Petro Escobedo, which is something that we got from Quest. So we managed to slow down the basically the abandoning some of those commodities.

So that's really, what we call, the sweet spot, meaning that we want to be about the capital exposure. So we don't want, for example, to internalize more commodities because if you do that, then yes, we can have a slight cost advantage by internalizing production of chemicals. The little problem is that it's market dependent and you are -- you have a big party when the prices go up, but the misery when the prices go down because volumes go down, prices go down, the chemical plants are not fully utilized and the margin of Givaudan is certainly not the same.

So that's why the sweet spot is about keeping the production of ingredients overall at the right level so that we both keep the competitive advantage, but at the same time, don't -- are not exposed to this volatility of the market. So that's a bit the story about Givaudan and Fragrance Ingredients.

Today's last question is from from Vontobel.

My question would be, if you have seen any meaningful changes in the behavior of your customers over this second quarter with a lot of macro changes?

And related to that, it seems that many of the global customers, they expect an acceleration in the second half year based on the growth initiatives that they have, so new product launches, innovations. Is that something that you also see based on the wins that you've had, specifically for the second half year, if there is any meaningful ramp in new product launches that could also impact you?

Yes. Thank you. So I would say the best read for us is really looking at what you mentioned, the pipeline of grids that we have and also the amount of wins that we get. So on the pipeline for us, it's very strong. It's very good across all businesses, which again reflects the positioning of Givaudan around its core and taste, on fragrances that our clients are really welcoming and being sort of a leader in terms of a partner.

So that is really in good shape. It's also -- if I dissect a bit more, for example, I mentioned the momentum that we see in the U.S., really capturing all opportunities in the U.S. or in the other parts of the world or other parts of the business like consumer products, so we see -- and obviously, the continuous momentum we see in Fine Fragrances.

So we see a good momentum. And also then the -- how does it translate into new wins? For me, that's the most important thing that we look at at Givaudan at all levels and which is basically measuring our ability to be better than competitors basically. And then that's the warranty that we will continue to outgrow. So that also is in very good shape across the different segments.

And yes, so it's about the global clients. But again, the global clients now accounts for 40%. So don't forget about the local regions where it's fueled with a lot of different briefs and new wins, which is also quite encouraging.

Okay. So that was the last question. I'd like to remind everyone before we close the call. So we have in a little more than 1 month on August 27 in Zurich, we'll share our 2030 strategy, which is the next 5-year cycle until 2030. We will have on the 7th and 8th of October this year, we will host the investor field trip which will be taking place actually in the U.S. this year. And on October 14, we will publish our 9-month sales performance.

With that, I look forward to seeing you and hearing you again at one of the events -- at each of those events. And I thank you and wish you a great day and good end of the summer.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.