Symrise Aktie

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Symrise Q1 2026 Trading Statement Conference Call. I'm Serge, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Rene Weinberg, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our first quarter 2026 call. Thank you for joining us today. All related documents are available in the Financial Results section on our website.

With me today are our CEO, Jean-Yves Parisot; and our CFO, Olaf Klinger. After the remarks, we will open the line for questions. And now I hand over the call to Jean-Yves.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Rene, and thank you all for joining us today. Today, we'll review the first quarter 2026, provide an update on our One Symrise strategy and our ONE SYM Transformation journey, and we will conclude with our full year 2026 outlook.

Let's turn to Slide 4 and our first quarter 2026 highlights. We delivered a solid start to the year with first quarter performance ahead of expectations with a year-on-year organic sales decline of 0.4% compared to our expectation at our full year 2025 call. This reflects the strength of our business despite a continued weak macroeconomic backdrop and challenging prior year comparisons. At the same time, we are taking deliberate actions to position the company for the next phase of growth.

As part of our transformation, we are accelerating significant structural cost savings and efficiency gains to unlock organic growth opportunities through strategic reinvestments. Innovation remains a core strength, and we continue to bring customer-driven solutions to market, including important new product launches within our Care and Wellness division.

From a geopolitical point of view, impacts related to the Middle East conflict have been manageable and do not affect our underlying growth algorithm. While there is some elevated uncertainty around input costs, largely due to freight and logistic inflation, we are implementing pricing actions to offset these headwinds. Based on our performance and outlook, we are today reaffirming our full year guidance.

Let's move to Slide 5 and our first quarter '26 sales performance. Q1 sales came in stronger than anticipated, driven by Food & Beverage, Pet and fragrance with strong momentum towards the end of the quarter. At the group level, organic sales declined 0.4% year-on-year, driven primarily by positive volumes of 0.3% and negative pricing contribution of 0.7%. Foreign exchange remained a headwind, largely due to the stronger U.S. dollar in 2025. Performance across segments was mixed, but consistent with the underlying dynamics we anticipated.

Taste, Nutrition & Health delivered solid organic growth of 1.7%, driven by volume growth of 1% and pricing of 0.7%. This reflects continued strength in our leading Food & Beverage business, where we had a low single-digit organic sales growth against the year comparables. This growth was led by Naturals and Savory, both delivering mid-single-digit growth, while Beverages also grew at a low single-digit rate.

In Pet Food, organic sales grew low single digits. This was driven by low single-digit growth in Pet Palatability and a slight organic decline in Pet Nutrition as volumes were positive, while prices continued to normalize.

Organic sales in the Scent & Care segment declined 3.4%, reflecting negative pricing of 2.7% and lower volumes of 0.7%. Fragrance continued to perform well with low single-digit organic sales growth against a strong year-on-year comparables, supported by mid-single-digit growth in Consumer Fragrance and low single-digit growth in Fine Fragrance.

Care & Wellness organic sales declined low double digits, primarily due to a double-digit decrease in UV-filters against an elevated prior year base. Aroma Molecules organic sales declined mid-single digits on tough comparables, while Special Fragrance Ingredients performed well. As a reminder, concerning Aroma Molecules, we are moving well on our Fragrance Ingredient process. We are in a constructive dialogue with a strong group of bidders, and we will provide you with an update as soon as appropriate. Overall, our results reflect the strength and balance of our portfolio and the durability of our core end markets amidst a dynamic operating environment.

Let's move now to Q1 regional results on Slide 6. Organic sales in North America were up 1.9% year-on-year, with Latin America up 2.8%, reflecting solid customer demand and strong commercial execution. Asia Pacific grew 3.4%, supported by broad-based momentum across key markets. This was offset by EAME, where organic sales declined 4.9%, mainly due to strong comparable, a soft regional macro environment and the impact of the UV-filter business. This overall performance highlights the benefit of our balanced geographic footprint with growth engines in Latin America and Asia Pacific, helping to offset regional headwinds in EAME.

Let's turn now to our execution highlights on Slide 7. This quarter, we made meaningful progress against our strategic priorities with actions that reinforce both our near-term delivery and long-term growth algorithm. In Pet Food, we expanded capacity with the opening of our new facility in Querétaro, Mexico. This investment strengthened our local manufacturing footprint in a high-growth market, enhances service level for regional customers and supports profitable growth over time.

We also took an equity stake in Bond Pet Foods, a U.S.-based biotechnology company, underscoring our confidence in the long-term potential of Pet Food market. This partnership provides early exposure to precision fermentation technology, positioning us to participate in the evolution towards more sustainable protein solutions and positions us as a first mover in a structurally growing innovative segment.

Innovation remains a core driver of value creation in our Care & Wellness division. We continue to advance the pipeline of value-added science-based solutions aligned with key customer needs, including longevity and inner beauty. At the in-cosmetics Global 2026 trade show, we introduced 3 new cosmetic ingredients and early-stage concepts that reinforce our leadership in differentiated applications.

Customer engagement was strong, validating both the commercial relevance and the scalability of our innovation efforts. This is translating into external recognition. Our Best Tasting Nutricosmetic Beverage received the Taste Bar Award at in-cosmetics and our product Mindera was honored with the Silver Fountain Award as PCHi 2026 in the Green and Sustainable ingredient category. These achievements underscore our ability to convert scientific expertise into commercially viable differentiated solutions that resonate with customers.

Overall, these actions demonstrate disciplined execution against our strategy, investing in attractive end markets, scaling innovation platforms and building capabilities that support durable, profitable growth over time.

Now let's move to Slide 9 for a strategy execution update. One SYM transformation Phase 2 is progressing very well, and we are picking up the pace, reinvesting cost savings to unlock organic growth opportunities. Over the past 2 years, we have shown that disciplined execution drives results at Symrise. Since 2023, we have delivered approximately $100 million in cumulative savings and expanded margin by 280 basis points. That gives us a solid foundation to build from. We are now sharpening and accelerating the transformation to unlock the next phase of profitable growth.

Our priorities are very clear: increase speed, focus resources on the highest return opportunities and scale what is working. With these foundations in place, we are now transitioning to growth activation. We are accelerating the delivery, the transformation drive to step change in organic top line improvement and EBITDA margin expansion.

As we continue to execute at pace, we will scale into a true global champion. We are leveraging our strength as a science-driven organization, operating with more agility and increasingly embedding digitalization, including AI to drive productivity and innovation. This puts us on track over time to return to 5% to 7% organic growth. We will provide more detailed targets in H2. The key message today is straightforward. We have built the foundation, and we are now accelerating from a position of strength.

Let's move to Slide 10. Within Phase 2, we have completed the first stage, setting the ambition and direction. This included establishing our operating framework, defining guiding principles and identifying value potential. As a result, we are operating with clarity and alignment. We are now in the second stage. During the first half of 2026, we are validating potential through detailed business cases, prioritizing initiatives and sequencing actions with clear dependencies. And at the same time, we are preparing the organization to move efficiently into implementation.

In the second half of the year, we will focus on driving results across 4 focus areas: innovation, commercial excellence, scale benefits and digitalization, funded by our efficiency gains. Additionally, we will scale new ways of working across businesses, tracking all progress against defined milestones. In summary, the road map is in place, validation is well underway, and we are preparing to execute at pace.

Let's move now to Slide 11 to discuss the 4 focus areas I just mentioned that define how we will win. First, Differentiated Innovation. We are accelerating our pipeline and improving how we translate science into customer-relevant solutions. We are focusing resources on high-impact, scalable innovation bets, prioritizing high-growth markets where we can leverage our differentiated capabilities.

Second, Commercial Excellence. We are driving faster, more consistent go-to-market execution, improving win rates and commercial processes across all divisions. For example, we are progressing a distributor initiative to unlock additional sales channels, and we have launched a go-to-market acceleration program to increase engagement, speed and effectiveness in our sales teams.

Third, Scale Benefits. We are unlocking efficiency through stronger group-wide alignment by centralizing key capabilities and reducing operational complexity. A clear example is procurement. We have streamlined and centralized processes across direct and indirect spend, shifting procurement toward a more strategic value creation role. We are capturing on overall spend. We are now looking as well into tail spend optimization, complexity reduction and supplier consolidation.

And for finishing, the fourth, Digitalization. We are enabling seamless execution through integrated systems and automation, connecting planning, operations and commercial activities to enable faster and better decision-making. Together, this focus area sharpen our go-to-market approach, strengthen execution and improve how we scale across the group. This focus area forms the foundation of our next phase of value creation.

Let me conclude with our outlook on Slide 13. We are reaffirming our full year 2026 outlook and midterm targets. For the full year, we expect organic sales growth between 2% to 4% and an adjusted EBITDA margin between 21.5% and 22.5% and an adjusted business free cash flow margin above 14%.

Looking ahead, we expect the impact from the Middle East conflict to remain manageable with no change to our underlying growth assumptions. We are seeing elevated uncertainty on input costs, particularly related to freight and logistics. This is something we are actively addressing with a strong focus on our customers, reliable supply chain execution and targeted pricing actions to offset incremental cost pressure. At the same time, we expect a sequential improvement in organic growth over the coming quarters.

From a phasing perspective, year-on-year comparables are more challenging in the first part of the year and will moderate as we move into the back half. Growth is supported by accelerated execution of our transformation, solid momentum on key customer projects and a very strong innovation pipeline and resilient end markets.

Beyond 2026, we remain confident in our ability to deliver against our midterm targets and outgrow our reference markets. This confidence is underpinned by structural tailwinds such as evolving regulation, increasing demand for clean-label solutions, reformulations and growth in emerging markets. Accordingly, we reaffirm our 2025 to 2028 targets of 5% to 7% organic sales growth, an EBITDA margin between 21% and 23% and a business free cash flow margin of above 14%.

With that, let's open the floor for questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question coming from Alex Sloane from Barclays.

Two from me, please. Firstly, I mean, you guided Q1 organic sales down low single-digit in early March, I guess, around sort of 3 weeks or so to go of the quarter at that point, but delivered obviously a much more modest decline. So were you setting expectations low intentionally? Or were those final 3 weeks much stronger and surprised you? And I guess, if that was the case, what surprised you? And do you think there was any tailwind there from potential prebuying? That would be the first one.

And the second one, just in terms of the reiterated EBITDA margin guidance, good to see that. You obviously do note higher energy and input cost outlook given the Middle East conflict. I appreciate it's a bit of a moving target, but could you quantify the base case you're assuming in terms of incremental input cost inflation for '26 and how much pricing that might require to offset? And indeed, whether you would expect there to be any lag between that cost inflation hitting and pricing with customers landing?

So thanks, Alex, for these 2 questions. The first one, was it intentional that I was anticipating lower single decline? No, I think that when I give this information, it was beginning of March. Beginning of March, we had a soft -- the beginning of the year. We were careful. And the second thing, it was 2 or 3 days after the U.S. invaded in Iran. So there were a lot of reasons to be cautious.

So that being said, it's not a question of surprising us. So we really work hard to really activate our portfolio to really address our customer needs to really deliver the right way at the right time, the right quality. So it's paying off. And March was definitely better than January and February. So it means that we finished better than we anticipated at the beginning of March. And again, it's showing also that Symrise is very well equipped with its customer portfolio, product portfolio and very active teams to deliver whatever is the market circumstance. So that's for Q1.

Concerning the EBITDA, we are facing like everybody, the same input cost. And when the cost of raw materials are increasing, either we are reformulating for avoiding to penalize our customers and to create more resilient and durable solutions and a competitive point of view or we are passing this cost through the price, and that's what we are doing sometimes. So we are offsetting the eventual raw material cost increase by price increase. And we mentioned also some macro -- okay, geopolitical events. For example, Hormuz Strait event is increasing some logistic costs. In that case, we are surcharging. So in any case, we are totally offsetting the costs, which are increased we are eventually facing.

The next question comes from Lisa De Neve from Morgan Stanley.

I have 2. One follow-up from the previous one from Alex. Can you just tell us in terms of the current price actions you're pushing through -- your win rates because last quarter, you mentioned various project wins across Beverages, Consumer Fragrances, Savory and so forth. How should we think about the so-called ramp-up profile for that? I mean what do you expect to see actual sales from that?

Okay. Thanks, Lisa. the first question, exactly complementary to the one from Alex. To give more color on the price action, we are working on 2 different type of price actions, some very basic product price increase. When raw materials are increasing, we are not in a commodity business. There is no automatic price increase when the raw material increase. We are selling compounds, we are selling full solutions, we are selling services.

That being said, we can -- the value we are creating for the customer has a price. And when we increase the price, the customers are accepting the price increase not only because the cost -- the raw material cost was increasing because they recognize there is a value creation. And the characteristic of Symrise, we have a very, very low cost in use and very high usage value. We create a lot of value for a minimum of incorporation of the product, which is facilitating our job really for increasing the prices, which is mainly linked to the service and the value we bring to the customer rather than the raw material. So this is the first lever of the price action.

The second lever is just to compensate some extraordinary conjunctural price increase like logistic cost increase. In that case, we are really putting some surcharge. In any case, I'm still confident and still projecting that the growth of Symrise should be more or less 2/3, 1/3 means 2/3 volume, 1/3 price increase.

Concerning the win rate and how we can ramp up our business and the profitability of our business, the win rate is very important, but what is also super important in our opportunity pipeline are the size of the lead, the size of the opportunities. And today, what is really very important within Symrise, we are increasing not the number of leads, not the number of opportunities, but we are increasing the size of the potential opportunities. So when we win, we win bigger. And that is also the way Symrise will come back to the leading growth company also for going more and more on big bets.

And we won significant business in U.S. in February, big bets. We won significant beverage in U.S., big bets. So today, the win rate is something, but the size of the opportunity is much critical. And concerning the win rate, I just would like also to tell you, it's very important to also focus on the time to market. The question is not only to win, but the question is to be -- the first to provide a good solution. So it's about speed to sampling, speed to deliver the right solution to the customer and speed to deliver on time in full, and it's linked to the supply chain. It's linked to the operational excellence program we started 2 years ago, and it is paying off.

And Lisa, it's Olaf, if I can specify on the timing, which you asked. It's not next year. It's this year. It's something we are working on now with our customers to take these price actions. So that's more a topic for Q2, Q3 without any delay. I think we are in an action mode.

The next question comes from Matthew Yates from Bank of America.

I've got, I guess, a short-term and a long-term one. The short-term one, just specifically on the outlook for the Scent division in Q2. Would you be expecting another decline here because the comps don't necessarily get easier, at least on a 1-year view. And I'm curious how the UV business may be impacted from the shortage of jet fuel, which may curtail some summer vacation plans? I don't know if you already see that rippling through retailer order patterns.

And then the second one, midterm one for Jean-Yves. I guess I'd like to ask about this concept of picking up the pace on the transformation. I'm wondering to what extent this was always the plan and the time line for momentum to build or whether it's exceeding your expectations? I ask because from the outside, it's pretty hard to tell when we see a 0.4% sales decline in Q1, it's pretty uninspiring. So is it fair to say you haven't yet seen the benefit of all your actions coming through on the top line? And so just curious, given what you said in late '24 when the strategy was communicated, whether things are on track behind or ahead of what your initial time line was?

Yes. So Matthew, thanks for these 2 questions, which are very linked, by the way. Concerning the short term, I cannot -- I will not give you any idea on Q2. It's too short for me. So I can give you an idea of the full year guidance. Definitely, we'll have a sequential improvement of sales not only on Scent & Care, but globally for Symrise. So we have a sequential improvement because also the comparables will be softer for the second part of the year, but also -- and it's linked to the second question, and it's linked also to what I explained to Lisa. We have a very strong sales pipeline. We have a very strong sales opportunity pipeline. By the way, we have also a very strong innovation pipeline.

And when we say that we will pick up the pace, when we started the transformation based on our new strategy 2 years ago, the growth was there 5% to 7%. And last year was a big surprise for everybody about the softening of the market. We react. We are proactively reacting. We're proactively redefining our portfolio. We're proactively innovating for growing, and we're proactively putting in place this efficiency program. Efficiency delivered EUR 200 million in 2 years. Growth is not so short-term impact. So -- but believe me, you will start to see the impact of this growth acceleration in the coming quarters.

And yes, you are surprised -- you are disappointed by a decline in Q1. We explained why also because of big comparables last year, a softening market, but we are proactively addressing that. We are not only following what is not controllable, the GDP, but we are choosing our reference market. We are choosing our customers. The customer portfolio is shifting. And we are continuing and continuously improving our solutions and innovate in different domains, which are linked to health or natural profiles.

So late 2024, we were confident to deliver the 5% to 7% growth. We delivered lower last year. We are confident to deliver 2% to 4% this year. And with the momentum we are creating now, we are confident to come back to the 5% to 7% CAGR we were anticipating 2 years ago.

The next question comes from Fulvio Cazzol from Berenberg.

Which is really on the guidance for the full year. So you left your guidance at 2% to 4%. But it sounds like now you anticipate more pricing than perhaps when you first issued that guidance, and that is to compensate for the higher freight costs and logistic costs. So I was just wondering, does that kind of imply that your volume growth expectations have kind of moderated a little bit for the rest of the year? And if so, I was just interested in understanding what's driving that.

Okay. So Fulvio, thanks. Very good question. So again, there are some external factors which are forcing us to increase prices like logistic surcharges, like sometimes raw material increase that we are doing and our customers are really accepting because we are really very transparent also with our customers. Does it mean that if there is more pricing, volume will be down, not at all.

And today, our guidance is between 2% and 4%, mainly depending on the underlying market. The markets are for us still growing. Every market we are on is growing. After the question is what will be the speed of growth of the reference market. The pricing we are applying could be an upside and what we had initially forecasted. But at the end of the day, it will not have any impact on the volumes. We are really very keen and focusing and really providing to the customers the volumes they are needing. So the price can only be an upside, which will be certainly helping us to be closer to the high end and the low end of the bracket we gave, i.e., 2% to 4%.

The next question comes from Ed Hockin from JPMorgan.

One question was on regional growth. I just wanted to clarify within EAME region that was down close to 5% in Q1, how the Middle East specifically evolved in the quarter? And going forward, does your guidance include some sensitivity on whether demand in the Middle East should falter and as well, any sensitivity on consumer and customer demand in areas such as Southeast Asia that may see some knock-on effect from the conflict and higher oil prices?

And my second question, please, is on Food & Beverages by segment. The beverages, I mean, for a couple of years now has been high single digit, even double-digit growth contributor, but I think slowed to low single digits in the quarter. I wonder, please, if you could give some color on what we should expect from Food & Beverages going forward, whether this is just a matter of the base of comp for beverages and that we can see a resumption of that higher growth level from Q2 onwards?

So Ed, thanks for these 2 very good questions related to growth. To come back -- starting with EAME. EAME first had a big comparable last year. EAME last year was a very strong region. So first, very strong comparables. The second, we are still suffering in UV-filters. I was giving a reason of strong comparables also last year at the same period, but you have to know that the sales we did in 2024, Q1 were exceptionally high. So we still -- we see the comparables problem the second year.

And concerning the Middle East, Middle East is a small piece of all Symrise sales revenue, which is around 3%. So it is not impact a lot. It is slowing down some deliveries. It is not slowing down the market demand. That's also -- that's something very important. The Middle East events are not slowing down the market demand. It's slowing down the way we can deliver for the reasons you know. There are a lot of [ bottlenecks ] now. So the question today is it doesn't -- Middle East can explain a small piece, but it's mainly comparable on UV-filter for EAME.

Now coming back to -- and by the way, you were asking the question about Southeast Asia. Let's see. Today, we see a very dynamic APAC region, Southeast Asia included. Southeast Asia suffered last year in terms of softening of the market, but this year is really coming back on track, and we are doing very good performance in Asia Pacific in all the subregions.

Concerning Food & Beverages, yes, we have a very strong development in Beverages in the last years. And sometimes you have to slow down a little. So it means that last year, beverages growth was very high. So this year, first, we have a big comparable. And the beverage business will also ramp up in terms of growth in the coming quarters. So you will see an improvement of the beverage activity in the coming year because we have a very active beverage portfolio, a lot of linked to nonalcoholic drinks, linked to nonsugar drinks, linked to buy some new coffee solutions. So we are working on new citrus solutions. So there are a lot of good news and a lot of new innovation in the beverage business.

So it's just a question of phasing and a quarterly event. And altogether, concerning Food & Beverage, Food and Beverage, we are by far the leading company. We are very positive even if strong comparable last year, Savory still delivering a lot with big bets. Naturals, which is our key differentiating factor is also delivering very well. So we are really sitting on key trends, which are paying off also. So the food and beverage performance of Q1 is good and will improve during the year.

The next question comes from Charles Eden from UBS.

Just one really on pet food, please. Obviously, you talked about the group seeing a sequential improvement in organic growth through the year. Does the same hold for your assumption for Pet Food versus the low single-digit organic growth in Q1? And if there's any sort of variance between Palatability and Nutrition, if you could expand on that? And I guess sort of part 2, just on the pricing in Pet Nutrition, have we lapped the negative pricing now and therefore, should Pet Nutrition pricing be broadly neutral from Q2 onwards?

Yes. So thanks, Charles. Concerning Pet Food, so normally, Pet Food is coming very much sooner. So I'm happy to have a Pet Food question. Thanks. Concerning the strategic segment, as you know and everybody knows around the phone, it has been a strategic growth driver, and it will be a strategic growth driver. So the situation we face is temporary.

And concerning Palatability, we have a low single-digit growth, which is driven by volume and price growth. So concerning Pet Food, the business is growing -- really growing very nicely and very good way. In Palatability, we are still the leader. We are still innovating, and we are still overperforming the market growth.

Concerning the Nutrition, the question about the price is still that we are still normalizing the price. The price normalization continue. It's absolutely not the same magnitude as last year, which was a strategic readjustment, which was a sharp price decrease to come back to the price, the market price. Today, we are on the market price, but we are on the what I call the tactical normalization, which are negotiation price volumes. So for sure, the price today is negative, but small, very low single-digit negative and the volumes are up. So we are back on track on Nutrition also, and it should be totally fully normalized if it's not midyear and, for sure, end year.

The last question comes from Nicola Tang from BNP Paribas.

Sorry to start with a short-term question, but I just wanted to come back on the commentary that March was a lot better. I was just trying to understand what gives you confidence that there isn't a bit of prebuying going on. Can you give us any color in terms of your customer inventories or order patterns or anything like that? And any commentary on April would be helpful.

And then the second one, maybe on the Aroma Molecule side. I mean, I know you've been facing headwinds from Asian competition, which is nothing new. But I was wondering if you see or expect to see actually any benefit to any of your Asian competitors might be a bit more constrained due to the conflict in the Middle East, whether it's around availability or cost.

So thanks, Nicola. To answer your first question about March, and 2 things. The beginning of the year was weak, and we were just reacting to the beginning of the year soft. So we were really promoting better and approaching the market the right way, I think, going to the right customer at the right time. So it's -- one part of this good March is totally internally driven. We can control the customer visit. We can control the product we push, and we can control the way we are speeding up the deliveries.

Now that being said, there is also another impact, and you mentioned the prebuying. We announced to our customer very early that we should increase the prices depending on the war effect in terms of raw material and/or logistics. So some customers perhaps certainly anticipated some delivery before having any price increase. But it's something very difficult to measure, but it does not have any impact on our confidence to see a sequential improvement of our sales growth during the year.

Now coming back to the Middle East and coming back to Aroma Molecule question and Chinese and so on. So Aroma Molecule for us is a strategic activity because we are an integrated company. We are backward integrated in naturals, but we're also backward integrated in chemicals. So specialty fragrance ingredients, menthol are the way we integrate our solutions. This is the way we are leveraging our solutions, leveraging the value we are providing to the final customer.

So we have really an entire value chain approach. We have a customer-driven approach. And Aroma Molecule, whether it is a menthol or SFI, even Terpene before divestment, we are very close to customers. We are very close to specific type of offers, which is also linked to the capacity we have to integrate our solutions, either in specialty fragrance or in menthol. So it's very important to understand that Aroma Molecule is not a single business. It's part of our fragrance business and competitive edge.

That being said, we have a lot of competitive advantage. We speak a lot about costs. But for menthol, we are the only one to be in Europe and in U.S. For specialty fragrance, we have a very strong chemical knowledge, which is recognized by our competitors. A lot of competitors are buying from us. So we have -- even if we suffer in Aroma Molecule, even if we have some price adjustment in Aroma Molecule because of Chinese pressure, our debate, our battle is not that. Our battle is really to innovate quicker to get stronger customer relationship, to define and invent better complete solutions, and that's the way we are fighting.

So it has an impact today the Chinese competition or the trade -- Hormuz Strait, it has an impact, conjunctural impact on some prices, but we are very confident that it will normalize and our key competitive edge will come back as definitely key buying factors for customers. So we are confident that on this business, even if Aroma molecules suffer short term, it's a long-term strategic and it will deliver and it's part of the value creation of Symrise.

So I think, Nicola, you were the last question. So I think it's the first time for -- we just stop without having anybody waiting with an answer. So thanks all of you for your very good questions. And I will close very shortly.

We are controlling what's controllable. In all my answers, you see the market, we cannot dictate what the market is doing, but we can proactively execute what is necessary. So we continue to execute our strategy. And clearly, we accelerate the necessary transformation. And this acceleration is to reinvest quicker and stronger in top line growth. That's the story. The idea is to accelerate our transformation to reinvest quicker and stronger in our top line growth to be back to the leadership in top line growth.

All that is backed by a clear strategy, a disciplined execution and a very strong investment-grade balance sheet. We are confident in our ability to deliver this durable earnings growth [indiscernible], expanding returns, sustained long-term value for shareholders. So all of you, thank you for your interest in our company in Symrise, and we are looking forward to speaking with you again in the future. Thank you. Bye-bye, and have a very nice end of your day.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Symrise Full Year 2025 Results Conference Call. I am Hilli, 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 Rene Weinberg, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our full year 2025 results call. Thank you for joining us today. All related documents, including the press release and presentation are available in the Financial Results section on our IR website.

With me today are our CEO, Jean-Yves Parisot; and our CFO, Olaf Klinger. After reviewing our financial performance, a strategy update and the outlook for 2026, we will open the line for questions.

With this, I hand over the call to Jean-Yves.

Thank you, Rene, and thank all of you for joining us. Today, we'll review the full year 2025 results and provide an update on our ONE Symrise strategy and our ONE SYM transformation journey and conclude with the full year 2026 outlook.

2025 was a defining year for Symrise. At our Capital Market Day in November 2024, we introduced the One Symrise strategy. Over the past year, we have translated that strategy into concrete actions. And our ambition remains very clear: to deliver sustainable above-market growth while structurally improving profitability. 2025 was marked by soft demand in certain end markets and continued regional volatility. Against this backdrop, we focused on what we control, execution, efficiency, cash discipline and strategic transformation, and we delivered.

First, our core Flavor & Fragrance businesses once again demonstrated our resilience as well as the strength of our portfolio and customer relationships. In Food & Beverages, we continue to outperform in nonalcoholic beverages, particularly in Europe and further expanding our leadership in Naturals and Savory. Our Food & Beverages business remained an industry benchmark for growth and profitability.

At the same time, we strengthened our growth platform. We completed multiyear capacity expansions in Granada and Vizag, enhanced our chemical footprint in Asia and opened our new fragrance development and production site in Grasse, deepening our access to high-growth customers in the Middle East and Africa. Innovation remains a key differentiator for us with captive launches and new technologies enabling our customers to win in their respective markets.

Second, 2025 also marked a step change in our operational performance. Efficiency initiatives delivered EUR 50 million in incremental profit, well above our EUR 40 million target, building on the EUR 50 million already achieved in 2024. These are structural improvements, not onetime gains. We established global procurement and operations organizations to drive scale benefits and asset optimization while preserving customer centricity and the entrepreneurial focus that differentiates our specialized businesses.

We are also systematically strengthening connectivity across our segments and our divisions. And third, all of this is embedded in our ONE SYM transformation, a holistic transformation program designed to structurally enhance our competitiveness.

A comprehensive review of our chemical production footprint identified clear opportunities to strengthen performance. The divestment of the Terpene business and ongoing operational improvements are direct outcomes. The carve-out was executed with speed and precision, underscoring our execution capability.

We also completed the acquisition of Probi, now integrated into our new Care & Wellness division, which I will discuss more in a few slides. We continue to advance our sustainability and circularity initiatives. In 2025, we completed decade work to establish a new [indiscernible] accounting baseline, increasing our measurable impact. We are also implementing a data-driven decarbonization plan step-by-step across our value chain. Equally important is our commitment to the social dimension of sustainability.

We continue to strengthen our impact through targeted initiatives and long-term programs. Across our organization, we have introduced a wide range of measures to support the health, safety, well-being and professional development of our people.

In parallel, we foster global engagement for environmental protection, education and equity through our sustainability ambassadors network.

In summary, 2025 was demanding, but highly productive. Despite challenging demand globally and purchase of softness across our markets, we delivered market-leading organic growth driven by strong performance in our core businesses. Operational improvements translated into the highest profitability in 10 years and a record adjusted business free cash flow, strengthening financial flexibility. This performance enables us to once again increase our dividend, extending our 16-year track record of annual dividend growth.

In addition, we launched our inaugural share buyback program with a EUR 400 million authorization in January 2026, reflecting our belief that investing in Symrise itself currently represents the most attractive use of capital and offers compelling long-term value for our shareholders. We enter 2026 stronger, more focused and structurally more competitive, well positioned to accelerate performance going forward.

Before we turn to segment performance, I want to note that going forward and aligned with our ongoing commitment to transparent financial reporting, we'll be reporting adjusted supplemental non-IFRS performance measures. An adjusted EBITDA is intended to enhance investor understanding of the group's underlying operating performance and improve comparability across reporting periods, in line with the sector practice. Olaf will go into more details on this in this section.

With that, let's turn to Slide 5 to review our full year 2025 sales by segment. Taste, Nutrition & Health grew organically sales by 2.6%, reaching reported sales of EUR 3 billion, led by Food & Beverages with strong performance in Beverages, Savory and Naturals. Scent & Care delivered organic sales growth of 3.2% with reported sales of EUR 1.9 billion. Fragrance remained strong across all major applications in Fine and Consumer Fragrance.

Let's move now to the full year regional results on Slide 6. Organic sales in North America were up slightly, both year-on-year and sequentially compared to the first quarter as macroeconomic uncertainties, persistent inflation and growing political and regulatory unpredictability led to pockets of softness and continued weaker overall consumer sentiment.

Europe, Africa and the Middle East performed well despite global demand softness with organic sales growth of 2.8%. Asia Pacific grew organically by 3.2% due to softer consumer demand. And Latin America delivered 6.6% organic growth with strong broad-based performance.

I will now turn the call over to Olaf to share more details on our financials. Thank you, Olaf.

Yes. Thank you, Jean-Yves, and also a warm welcome to everybody tuning in today. I'll start with our group Q4 sales performance on Slide 8. In the fourth quarter, organic sales growth was 3.6%, led by volume and a flat pricing environment. FX remained a headwind, reducing sales by EUR 61 million or 5.2%. Taste, Nutrition & Health achieved 2.5% organic sales growth, driven by a 1.6% volume increase and positive pricing of 0.8%.

Food & Beverage continues to deliver strong results with market-leading mid-single-digit growth driven by Beverages, Naturals and Savory. Pet Foods was flat year-on-year with Palatability growing at low single digits in line with the market, while Nutrition delivered mid-single-digit volume growth, helped somewhat by strategic pricing actions implemented in early 2025.

Scent & Care achieved 5.5% organic sales growth in the fourth quarter, driven by a 7.5% volume increase and negative pricing of 2%. In Fragrance, we saw continued momentum with high single-digit growth led by Consumer Fragrances, which delivered double-digit growth and supported by Fine Fragrances on strong prior year comparables.

Cosmetic Ingredients delivered low single-digit growth amid tough year-on-year comparables. UV filters continued to normalize following a very strong prior year, while Micro Protection saw strong momentum.

Aroma Molecules achieved mid-single-digit growth on weak comparables, driven by strong demand for fragrance ingredients.

Please turn to Slide 9. For full year 2025, we delivered above-market organic growth and meaningful margin expansion despite a lower volume operating environment as we focus on controlling the controllables. Organic sales grew 2.8%, driven primarily by 2.2% volume growth and pricing contributing of 0.6%. Portfolio changes related to the Aqua Feed divestment earlier in 2025 and also the 51% divestment of our U.K. beverage trading business in March 2024, reduced reported sales by EUR 60 million.

FX was a significant headwind, negatively impacting sales by EUR 194 million, largely due to the depreciation of multiple currencies, most prominent the U.S. dollar. As Jean-Yves mentioned, as part of its ongoing commitment to transparent financial reporting, we will be reporting adjusted supplemental non-IFRS performance measures going forward. It will be an adjusted metric to align reporting more closely with peers and market standards and enhance transparency, comparability and clarity around underlying operating performance.

Our adjustment framework is clearly defined and focused strictly on nonoperational and nonrecurring items, primarily portfolio changes, restructuring and optimization initiatives and other exceptional events. For full year 2025, adjustments included first, the previously announced noncash impairments of EUR 150 million related to Swedencare and EUR 148 million related to the revaluation and reclassification of the Terpene business, with the latter being EBITDA neutral. Second, EUR 11 million tied to portfolio optimization, of which around EUR 1 million is EBITDA neutral. Third, EUR 6 million associated with the ONE SYM transformation program; and fourth, EUR 3 million costs related to the antitrust investigation. These are the onetime.

Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 120 basis points, driven by accelerated execution of the ONE SYM transformation. We realized EUR 50 million in cost savings and efficiency gains, outperforming our own target of EUR 40 million, which is a clear demonstration of operational focus and execution rigor.

Please turn to Slide 10 for a review of our Taste, Nutrition & Health segment performance. For the full year, we delivered solid organic growth of 2.6%, driven by a 1.8% volume increase with pricing contributing 0.8%. Taking into account portfolio and exchange rate effects of EUR 142 million or minus 4.6%, sales were EUR 3.028 billion in reported currency.

Food & Beverage delivered industry-leading mid-single-digit organic sales growth, and this despite strong comparables with high single-digit organic growth in both EAME and North America. Beverages delivered high single-digit organic sales growth with continued strong momentum, while Naturals and Savory continued to grow at mid-single-digit organic growth rate.

Pet Food growth was in line with the market and flat year-on-year, reflecting disciplined strategic pricing actions implemented at the beginning of 2025 to enhance competitiveness in our Pet Nutrition business. Pet Palatability delivered low single-digit organic sales growth. Adjusted EBITDA for the TNH segment increased by 5.2% to EUR 722 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin increased 160 basis points to a market-leading 23.8%, primarily driven by profitable sales growth, portfolio mix effects and efficiency gains related to our ONE SYM transformation.

Please turn to Slide 11 for the performance of our Scent & Care segment. Organic sales growth was 3.2% for the full year, driven by a 3% volume increase and pricing of 0.3%. FX continued to be a headwind of 3.5%. Segment sales were EUR 1.901 billion in reported currency. Fragrance delivered high single-digit organic growth, reflecting continued strong momentum across the portfolio. Fine Fragrance achieved high single-digit organic growth, supported by new wins, particularly in North America and Latin America.

Consumer Fragrances also delivered high single-digit organic growth, driven by a strong business pipeline. Cosmetic Ingredients reported a low single-digit decline, reflecting tough prior year comparables in UV filters, while microprotection continued to grow [Technical Difficulty] low single-digit growth in a dynamic market environment impacted by competition from Asia.

Scent & Care adjusted EBITDA increased 3.5% to EUR 359 million. Segment adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 18.9%, an increase of 70 basis points, primarily driven by profitable sales growth and efficiency gains.

Turning to group profitability on Slide 12. This year, we delivered 120 basis points of improvement to both adjusted gross profit and adjusted EBITDA margin, mainly driven by product mix and efficiency gains through our ONE SYM transformation. Through our ONE SYM transformation, we delivered EUR 50 million in cost savings and efficiency gains, underlining our continued focus on sustainable profitability improvement. This included EUR 35 million from sourcing and procurement scale, driven by a more global approach and evaluation of key raw materials for efficiencies with citrus being a good example.

Productivity and capacity optimization contributed another EUR 10 million. Global asset and logistics management actions such as facility optimization, distribution contract renegotiations and regional logistics tenders contributed EUR 5 million. The decline in adjusted D&A was mainly due to a noncash impairment on plant and machinery in 2024 and FX translation.

Moving to our strong business free cash flow on Slide 13. We delivered absolute cash flow of EUR 780 million and expanded the adjusted business free cash flow margin by 220 basis points to 15.8%, the company record. This performance was driven by a strong EBITDA uplift, lower CapEx intensity and disciplined working capital management through targeted inventory reduction. Net working capital was 32.5% of last 12 month sales, reflecting tight operational control across the organization. The robust performance puts us well into the range of our midterm target of greater than 14% business free cash flow margin, demonstrating our earnings quality, resilient cash generation and execution strength.

Let's quickly move to our balance sheet and net debt on Slide 14. We continue to strengthen our balance sheet throughout the year. Net debt, including pension provisions and leasing obligations stood at EUR 2.1 billion, while net debt to adjusted EBITDA decreased to 1.9x, driven by disciplined debt reduction and strong cash generation.

We were pleased to receive our inaugural investment-grade credit ratings from both S&P Global and Moody's at BBB+ and BAA1, respectively, each with a stable outlook. We have updated our long-term leverage target range to 1.5x to 2.5x. Maintaining a solid investment-grade profile remains a priority and providing financial flexibility, resilience across cycles and a strong foundation for disciplined value creation going forward.

Turning to our disciplined approach of capital allocation on Slide 15. Our capital allocation priorities are clear and consistent, focused on both organic and inorganic investments to drive long-term value creation, return of capital to shareholders while maintaining financial strength and flexibility. First, we continue to invest in organic growth, prioritizing high-return projects that build on our core capability and support profitable, scalable growth.

Our midterm CapEx target remains disciplined at 4% to 5% of sales, enabling strong reinvestments while maximizing cash conversion. Second, we pursue disciplined value-accretive M&A. We focus on opportunities that strengthen our portfolio, expand our footprint and deliver tangible synergies, always within a clear financial framework. Third, return of cash to shareholders remains a key priority. Our dividend policy targets a payout ratio of 30% to 50% of net income, and we are committed to growing the dividend over time. And fourth, we added share buybacks as a new option of our capital allocation policy.

In January this year, we announced our inaugural share buyback program with a EUR 400 million authorization to October 2026, providing further flexibility how to return capital to shareholders. Across all those priorities, we remain committed to maintain a solid investment-grade profile.

Moving to Slide 16. We continue to enhance shareholder value through resilient earnings and disciplined capital allocation, including sustainable dividend growth. Adjusted full year 2025 earnings per share were EUR 3.67, a significant year-on-year increase by 7.2%. Without adjusting for the Swedencare and Terpene business write-downs, earnings per share were EUR 1.78. This year, we are proposing our 16th consecutive dividend increase to EUR 1.25 per share, demonstrating our strong financial position and proven ability to reward shareholders across dynamic market environment.

In addition, we are further strengthening shareholder returns through our share buyback program, reflecting our confidence in the business and our strong financial position. And with this, I will hand the call back to Jean-Yves to discuss further our strategy. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Olaf. Turning now to Slide 18. As a quick reminder, ONE Symrise is our purpose-driven strategy aligned to our financial ambitions and built on 3 pillars: portfolio growth and efficiency. It defines where to play and how to win, ensuring we allocate capital and resources to the highest value opportunities for our customers and our shareholders. To deliver our strategic ambition and execute our road map, we are investing across the organization in 3 key enablers: sustainability, digitalization and people.

Sustainability is an integral part of Symrise purpose, and we are committed to delivering measurable impact. We are combining resilience along our relevant supply chains with science-based innovation and circularity to meet evolving customer expectations. Sustainability is essential for our competitiveness and our ability to sustain strong performance over time. At the same time, we are accelerating digitalization, including AI to sharpen our competitive edge and drive value creation.

And we are investing in our people because ultimately, it is a committed and knowledgeable Symrisers who make our transformation possible. The ONE SYM transformation serves as the execution engine of our strategy. It is a multiyear program focused on improving the quality of sales and delivering sustainable above-market growth while enhancing profitability, increasing returns and strengthening our long-term competitive position.

Please turn to Slide 19. Today, the most visible proof of our transformation is a EUR 100 million in cumulative cost savings and efficiency gains we delivered in '24 and '25, alongside a 280 basis point expansion in adjusted EBITDA margin. This very tangible progress reflects disciplined execution. We streamlined sourcing and procurement, improved capacity utilization across our network and optimize facilities through global asset management. These actions structurally improved our cost base and strengthened operating leverage.

But this is only the most visible part of the story. In parallel, we completed the strategic assessment of our chemicals production footprint and activities. We sharpened the portfolio, divesting Aqua Feed and advancing the divestment of the Terpene business to focus capital on higher return opportunities. Moreover, we laid the groundwork for future growth with strategic investments.

We launched a global data and AI hub in Barcelona to significantly advance our digital capabilities. At the same time, we expanded capacity to meet demand in key markets, including Grasse, Granada, Monterrey and Holzminden, ensuring we remain close to our customers and resilient in supply. In parallel, we initiated the implementation of a company-wide innovation ecosystem designed to accelerate connectivity, speed product development and translate IDs into scalable solutions. We also strengthened our leadership bench by appointing 10 new leaders to key roles across the organization.

Finally, we improved our organizational structure to enhance our competitiveness and better position Symrise to capture the significant opportunities in Care & Wellness. Together, these actions create a stronger Symrise and provide the foundation from which we are accelerating our transformation.

Turning to Slide 20. We are well into Phase 2 of our transformation. Over the past year, we prioritized operational rigor, strengthened accountability and tightened cost management. We sharpened our focus on the most attractive growth platform through deliberate portfolio choices, and we also began optimizing our commercial model. Thanks to this strong foundation, we are now positioned to accelerate this transformation to unlock faster growth, structurally higher profitability and improve earnings quality.

This acceleration is designed to drive above-market growth in our strategic segments, embed efficiency and structural cost reduction across Symrise, enabled by digitalization and advance innovative and sustainable technologies that reinforce our competitive advantage. This acceleration does not mean changing direction. It means scaling what is working and executing with greater speed and focus.

Our objective is crystal clear, strengthen competitiveness today and position Symrise to consistently deliver durable, profitable growth, cash and returns in an increasingly dynamic market environment.

Turning to Slide 21. As we continue to build this foundation for growth, we are further aligning our portfolio with customer needs and opportunities, focusing on differentiated science-based holistic solutions. This reflects how our customers are innovating and how end markets are evolving.

A key step in this journey is the evolution of the ONE CARE project into our new Care & Wellness division. This is much more than a structural change. It is strategic. By bringing together Cosmetic Ingredients, health active solutions and probiotics, we have created an integrated platform designed to meet customer demand for science-based holistic self-care solutions as the convergence of beauty and health. Care & Wellness addresses a large and structurally growing market. While this will not be an intermediate -- immediate growth accelerator, it is a mid- to long-term value driver in an attractive segment where innovation, credibility and scale matter. We are innovating in this category with leverage through our scientific leadership, application expertise and customer intimacy. As of January 1, 2026, Care & Wellness is reported as a division within our Scent & Care segment, underlining its strategic relevance within the group. This platform establishes a differentiated position in a significant market, which is growing more than 5% annually, and we expect Care & Wellness to exceed EUR 500 million in sales in 2026. By leveraging Symrise unique capabilities across attractive segments, product formats, biotech and green chemistry, we are very well positioned to scale this platform and unlock long-term value. At the same time, we continue to actively shape our business. With some key initiatives, we are completing the divestment of the Terpene business and further strengthening the portfolio through ongoing strategic reviews and the evaluation of selective accretive M&A, ensuring continued focus, competitiveness and disciplined capital allocation.

Turning to Slide 22. Looking ahead, our focus is clear, speed and differentiation. As we have discussed today, the foundation is in place. We have strengthened the cost base, improved earnings quality and sharpened the portfolio. Now we are pivoting from the efficiency to the effectiveness. We will provide more details of our plan in the coming quarters, but I can already share with you some details. First, driving commercial excellence by strengthening our go-to-market model. Second, scaling customer-driven and differentiated innovation by converting our R&D strength and customer centricity into higher value growth. Third, extracting greater scale benefits by leveraging our global footprint, procurement capabilities and asset base to continue expanding margin. And fourth, accelerating digitalization and utilizing AI to embed data-driven decision-making, productivity gain and speed-to-market advantages across the organization.

Let me emphasize that our strategy is not about choosing between profitability and growth. It is about delivering both consistently and sustainably. Our disciplined execution on the structural improvements we made over the past 2 years give us control and leverage. The strategic investment we made give us capacity to grow. We are now entering the next phase and accelerating from a position of strength. Our ambition is clear: to become a sharper, faster, more competitive Symrise to deliver superior long-term value.

And let me conclude with our outlook on Slide 24. For the full year 2026, we take a prudent approach to guidance and expect organic sales growth in a range of 2.0% to 4.0% with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 21.5% to 22.5%, and an adjusted business free cash flow margin of above 14%. This full year 2026 outlook assumes Q1 organic growth to be down low single digits year-on-year, reflecting high year-on-year comparables as pockets of end market demand remains soft and the conflict in the Middle East adds another layer of uncertainty to the macro picture.

From a year-on-year perspective, comparisons will be more challenging in the early part of the year before becoming more favorable as we move through the back half. Our 2026 guidance is not only underpinned by the acceleration of our transformation, but also supported by a very strong project vitality with key customers and a very solid pipeline of new solutions and a key resilience in our core end markets. We believe this will help offset near-term market pressures and position us for growth as demand normalizes.

Looking beyond 2026, we remain very confident in our midterm targets and ability to outgrow our reference market. We see sustained multiyear growth supported by structural tailwinds, including evolving regulation, increasing demand for clean-label and natural solutions, ongoing reformulation and continued expansion in emerging markets. With a focused advantaged portfolio and strong innovation pipeline, we are well positioned to convert this tailwind into long-term profitable growth, supported by the acceleration of our transformation. Accordingly, we reaffirm our 2025 to 2028 targets, annual organic sales growth of 5% to 7%, EBITDA margin of 21% to 23% and a business free cash flow margin of more than 14%.

With that, let's open the floor for questions. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] the first question comes from the line of Charles Eden from UBS.

Limited to 2. Can I start on the 2026 organic sales growth guidance, please? And I guess both of my questions are actually on this. Firstly, for the full year, what are you assuming is the contribution from volume and pricing in the 2% to 4% range, please? And then more specifically on the Q1 guidance for a low single-digit decline in organic sales. I've looked back through my model. And as far as I can see, Symrise has never seen an organic sales decline in a quarter, not during COVID nor when you had the cyber attack in Q4 2020. Now I understand the comment on high prior year comps, but you've had tough comps before, too. So can I ask, how much of this guidance is realism? And how much of it is baking in some conservatism or prudence for current global conflicts and any other impact that this might have in March. I guess maybe a different way of asking this question is, we're 2 months through Q1 already, are you seeing organic sales growth down low single digits across January and February?

Okay. So thank you very much, Charles. Thank you for these 2 questions. And I will answer the 2% to 4%, first. What would be the price volume impact on that? Just let me put that in a context. So we delivered a very strong 2025, and we are very proud on the way we are really acting, very strongly and very diligently when the market is really making everybody suffer. So I think we need a very good end year also, and it's something we need to be aware of. Now concerning the coming year, our organic sales growth guidance reflects what I should say, a realistic and balanced view of the environment. And it is designed to cover both downside and upside scenario we have in mind. So if the market rebounds, second part of the year should be lower end of our guidance. If it rebounds, more should be high end of the guidance. So I am myself confident to delivering this 2% to 4% guidance, taking into account that it will be mainly driven by volumes. I cannot tell you what will be the price volume in advance, but it will be definitely driven by volumes.

Now concerning the Q1 low single-digit information I just gave you, it is the first time. Is it due to tough comparables? Yes. Last year, we had a very high Q1, and it was the most impressive quarter of the last year and the comparables for the end of the year will be less challenging for our growth. That's the first answer to your question.

The second question concerning is it a realism or prudence? I think we have shown that we can act very strongly, but we want to stay prudent. We want to stay prudent. Why? Because not only this high comparable, but the macro economy is not something we can control. The last days events are also participating also to our real prudence. And we remain very confident even if the Q1 slowdown forecast anticipation is there. And I should say, yes, it's a prudent anticipation. I am myself very confident for delivering 2% to 4% because, as I was mentioning also before, we have a very strong pipeline. We have a very strong pipeline, very good customer relationship, and we see that the market is ready to rebound. And when the market will rebound, we will really take a major piece of it by overperforming the market like we did the previous years.

Understood. So just to clarify, if we come in at a midpoint of low single-digit decline in Q1, so minus 2%, you need 4.7% organic for the rest of the year to hit the midpoint of the guidance, you'd need 6% organic for the rest of the year to hit the top end of the guidance. You're confident in that even if Q1 lands at minus 2%. Is that correct?

Yes, exactly, Charles. I remain confident on the full year, but we remain prudent for the Q1 organic sales growth. But yes, I am confident for delivering the guidance.

We now have a question from the line of Lisa De Neve from Morgan Stanley.

I just have one follow-up on the first quarter guidance, if I may. Can I just confirm with you whether there has been no phasing effects that may have benefited fourth quarter and may not be seen in the first quarter? That would be helpful.

And secondly, on that first quarter as well, given the tensions, I mean, are you currently expecting that maybe some orders are being deferred into second quarter or shifted forward and that's what's driving the guidance? And what have you seen year-to-date? I mean, so far in the first few months, has trading been solid? So that's the question on the first quarter.

And then secondly, I would love for you to outline how you see the Pet Food market for this year and whether you can confirm whether any incremental price negative should be expected for this year, especially in Pet Nutrition?

Okay. Thanks a lot, Lisa. So concerning the first question, Q1. Q1, we did a very strong Q4 in 2025. So again, the market is there. Comparatively, by the way, to the Q4 2024, we had an easier comparable. It's also -- I'm sorry to make a lot of comparables, but it's also explaining the quarterly performance in terms of organic sales growth. So the quarter-to-quarter 2024, 2025 was easier. And the quarter-to-quarter Q1 2025 and 2026 is not so easier. So it's really mainly due to the comparable. And again, I am very prudent. So is it something where also some orders are shifting to Q2? We don't know yet. We don't know what will be the impact also, and we are measuring the impact of the last days events, and it's too early for us to really give an idea on a day-to-day basis, what will be the impact between Q1 and Q2. So again, we are following on a day-to-day. And the idea for us is really to deliver the customer when the customer is really needing the product.

Concerning the Pet Food, the Pet Food is a key strategic growth driver for Symrise. So we are really very well positioned for following the rebound of the pet market when the rebound will happen. And this year should see a better market dynamic than last year. And concerning your Pet Nutrition, I just remind that Pet Nutrition represent 1/4 of the Pet Food market. And we took some actions in 2025 to restate and reposition the pricing -- the prices. So the prices in Pet Nutrition begin to normalize with the exception of selective price adjustments. And we really anticipate in 2026, a return to moderate volume net organic growth. So again, we are out of the readjustment of the prices we did strategically in 2025. Now it will be selective price adjustments if necessary. And we will do that because also what I said before, our growth will be mainly driven by volume this year. And then when the price adjustments are needed, we will adjust the price because we're selling added value products, but selling added value product, even unique product doesn't mean that we have also to oversell, and we want really to sell the right price for the right usage value.

I mean, just one small follow-up, if I may. Can I just confirm that you just stated that you've already agreed on selective price adjustments or that you would be open if needed to do that?

No, we already embedded in our organic sales growth, some price adjustments. We did the major part of our contract for 2026. So the picture is much better than 2025. And we still have some price negotiation in front of us. So not everything is done. So that's the reason why I cannot give you the full picture. But if necessary, we'll make. And in any case, the growth is there and the volumes are there. So in any case, the growth in Pet Nutrition will be substantial this year.

We now have a question from the line of Alex Sloane from Barclays.

The first one was actually, again on the organic sales growth. And just in terms of what's driving the acceleration beyond Q1? Is there any particular business line or end market that you would expect greatest step up? And maybe I could sort of just press on the question that's been asked a couple of times. Has the sales in January and February already been down low single-digit? Or is this low single-digit outlook for Q1 really premised on March? That's the first one.

And then secondly, just on profitability, the 21.5% to 22.5% guide. Could you give a bit of context on what you're assuming in terms of energy and input costs within that range? Obviously, I appreciate, it's been quite volatile on that front over the last week.

Thank you very much, Alex. So I will take the first question. I will let the second to Olaf. Concerning organic sales growth, we are very confident for growing in 2026. We are very dynamic, very active. We stay very agile on entrepreneur, and we have a lot of good news in our pipeline. So in Food & Beverage, we signed new type of contracts, which we delivered in 2026. And we had a very nice mid-single-digit growth in 2025, which will continue in 2026, [ normally ], right? Fragrance, we did an extraordinary also year -- last year in Fine and Consumer and the dynamic is there. So we have also very nice new wins in the pipe. So if you add EUR 2 billion Food & Beverage, EUR 1 billion of Fragrance, EUR 3 billion are really representing a nice growth perspective for the year. Pet Food is really rebounding. We see some movements in the market. And as I was explaining also in the past, we're also shifting with the market, moving some big brands for more regional or local brands, and we are really capitalizing on what we started to deliver and to build in the last months. So -- and Care & Wellness to make the full picture is a new baby in the organization, and there are a lot of good news, a lot of customer traction, which are making me also confident for the growth. So it's not one business-driven growth. It's really a growth across the 4 strategic markets of Symrise.

Now coming back to -- before handing over to Olaf, coming back to your question about January, February, March, I will let you know when we'll have the full picture of the quarter about the dynamic inside the month. But what we see today make us feeling prudent about what we promised for the Q1. So I hand over to Olaf for the second question.

Yes. Thank you, Alex, for the question. On the energy side, as you rightly observed, there's a lot going on in this market. Having said that, Symrise is relatively less exposed to energy prices. As a percentage of sales, around 2.5% is energy cost related. And out of that, around 80% is hedged for Symrise at this point in time. So with this short-term noise, which we all experienced, I think we should be well protected against the major impact from energy prices as we see it right now.

The next question comes from the line of Edward Hockin from JPMorgan.

I've got 2, please. One is on Aroma Molecules. I was wondering, it looks like the Q4 was somewhat stronger, growing mid-single digit. Can you give any color on why this was besides the comparatives? And any details you can give on 2025 and also your outlook for 2026 on Menthol terpenes and Fragrance Ingredients?

And then my second question, please, is on Cosmetic Ingredients. Obviously, a softer year with the comparatives. How should we be thinking about the growth trajectory for this business in 2026? Should we be baking in some acceleration, some step-up in the growth there?

Yes. Thank you very much, Edward. So again, Aroma Molecule, Aroma Molecule did a strong Q4 this year also because the comparables of 1 year before was not so high. So Aroma made a good delivery. Concerning what's happening within Aroma Molecule, we are still on the way to divest it in. We are still building very strong position on Menthol, and we have a lot of added value also with our Menthol, specific raw material, innovation, customer relationship. So we are working on it, and we are continuing to develop specific captive and specific molecules, not only for us, specific flavor SFI, specialty flavor ingredients, not only for you -- for us but our competitors. So Aroma Molecule, by the way, we have also a new leadership, and we are refining the strategy. So we will come back, by the way, to you when there will be more to tell.

Concerning Cosmetic Ingredients, Cosmetic Ingredients, I should say, had 2 big different type of products. The first one, sun protection. And you know that sun protection, we suffered a lot last year about comparables. We will not have the same situation today. So it means that in terms of volumes, the comparables will be much better. On some of our products, we have to adjust some prices in sun protection, but also we are on the way to this adjustment.

And concerning the second business unit, I want to address for answering your question, Micro Protection. So Micro Protection, we invested a lot in a key product, Hydrolite. We're only producing in Germany. Now we produce in Germany, in Spain, in U.S., in Mexico. And we are really facing a strong demand. Now we are in a way to qualify the product and the growth will come in the coming months.

Your next question comes from the line of Nicola Tang from BNP Paribas.

I'll ask a question about the margin since there's been so much focus on organic growth. You have a relatively wide guidance range for 2026. I was wondering if you could talk about key drivers here. Is it simplistically low end of organic growth means lower end of the margin range? Or are there other factors to think about in terms of your cost efficiencies versus reinvestment?

And then maybe just a sort of small clarification one. You've referenced the Middle East a few times. Could you remind us of your direct exposure and things that we need to bear in mind when thinking about the potential impact of the events over the weekend?

So Nicola, I will start to answer and will let Olaf complete what I will have missed certainly for the second question. I will start with the first question. Even if it looks like flattish profitability, we are still working a lot on profitability improvement. What we started to do, we are still [indiscernible]. So it means that it will not decrease the outcome of what we started. And the annual compounding effect will not decrease. It will improve. Now what you see in the P&L and in our forecast is also including some reinvestment. And as I clearly said, the growth is a story of Symrise. Growth remains the story at Symrise, the profitable way. That's the profitable growth story. And the question to really drive profitable growth is to make the portfolio adjustments, and it costs money also to make some portfolio adjustments and to really invest also in new way of selling new route to market, new innovation, new digitalization tools. And that is the investment we want also to put in our company for really compounding our story. So this is the answer to your question. So the efforts will pay off even more even if it is not totally embedded in the figures we are showing to you.

Now concerning the Middle East, I will hand over to Olaf. Olaf, please?

Yes, Nicolas, naturally, it's also of interest for us at the moment what's going on in the region, and we looked at it. The core region for Symrise is around close to 3% of turnover. So it's not a massive environment, which we have in front of us, around EUR 140 million, EUR 150 million is a good number for the size of this business environment.

We have now a question from the line of Eric Wilmer from Kempen.

I wanted to press a bit on Aroma. Could you perhaps talk a bit about the price and volume dynamics within the Aroma portfolio, perhaps first fitting it between the part that is and that isn't under Chinese pressure?

And secondly, you mentioned EUR 150 million related to Middle East. Is that number perhaps a bit higher when you factor in lower air traffic from other airports into the Middle East?

As Olaf wants to started to answer for Middle East, I will let him answer your second question. Concerning the question about the Chinese competition, we are well equipped for competing. We were anticipating some trends and the terpenes divestment is also some divestment, we anticipate some pressure. The terpenes technology is a very good technology and the business is a very good business, but not corresponding to our future guidance. That's the reason why we [indiscernible]. And concerning the Chinese pressure on Aroma Molecule, we have in front of us some Chinese producer for the menthol solutions. We have not only Chinese, we've also a German competitor. And we are really reinforcing our competitive edge. So we face a structural change in the market. We are very transparent about it. We are very aware about it. We are conscious, and we are putting in place a very strong action plan for compensating. So apart from that, concerning our portfolio of Molecules, we are very well protected by some IP, some intellectual property, some type of property protection. And if there are some fights on the cost of goods so -- we will face also the competition. We are really also for adjusting some prices when necessary for guaranteeing some volume. This is also the way to go through this type of competition. I'm very confident that we really can make the best out of it.

Concerning Middle East, I will hand over to Olaf.

Yes. So Eric, what I gave you was the size of the business. Naturally, things can change by the hour at the moment. And when it comes to logistics and transportation, it's hard to predict what will happen in the coming days. And therefore, I think it's too early to assess where all this is going in the coming days and weeks. Therefore, I think at the moment, the focus is really on our people, make sure that they are safe and then we interact with customers as good as we can in these days.

So I don't know if we are still some questions, but I think we are now at closing the session. And I thank you all for your questions.

And in closing, just some words, we are controlling the controllables. We are executing our strategy and accelerating the transformation. I think we are really [indiscernible] talk. We are backed by a very clear strategy, everybody, all our customers, all our people and a lot of messages from the market are making me very comfortable that it is a very clear strategy. We are very disciplined in our execution, and we have a very strong investment-grade balance sheet. So altogether, we are very confident in our ability to deliver durable earnings growth, expanding returns and sustain long-term value for our shareholders.

Again, I thank you for your interest in Symrise. I thank you for your time, for your questions, and we look forward to speaking with all of you again in the future. Thanks again.

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 you lines.Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Symrise H1 2025 Analyst and Investor Call. I am Matilda, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions]. And 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 Rene Weinberg, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Matilda. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our first half 2025 results call. Thank you for joining us today. All related documents, including the press release and presentation we will reference on today's call are available in the Financial Results section of our website.

With me today are our CEO, Jean-Yves Parisot; and our CFO, Olaf Klinger. After reviewing the results and the outlook for 2025, we will open the line for questions.

With this, I will hand over the call to Jean-Yves.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Rene, and thank you all for joining us today. Today, I will review first half performance highlights. Olaf will then cover our financial results in great detail.

And then I will provide an update on our One Symrise Transformation journey and the full year outlook. But before discussing first half results, I wanted to take the time to reflect on my first 16 months of CEO of Symrise. In my conversation with Symrise's customers, partners, investors and other key stakeholders, what is abundantly clear to me is that Symrise has a long heritage of market leadership, born out of a technical expertise, differentiated innovation, long-standing customer relationship and a passionate curios culture. Starting with our shift in 2024 to focus on delivering profitable growth, we have embarked on this journey to take the best of Symrise and transform into a company that generates durable profitable growth, strong free cash flow and compounding returns.

And it is just that, a transformation as we need to increase accountability and entrepreneurship to deliver top-tier results, operational excellence and shareholder value. We are in the early phases of our multiyear journey. And importantly, we are taking bold and decisive actions. We are seeing momentum build as we continue to execute against our ONE SYM Transformation and the ONE Symrise Strategy that we are beginning to activate. Now let me walk you through the key highlights of our performance and strategic progress on Slide 4.

Over the past 12-plus months, we have implemented and began to activate our transformation. And today, we are seeing clear evidence of that this transformation is gaining momentum. First, our results in the first half of 2025 are clear evidence of our efforts coming to fruition. We achieved solid organic sales growth in a challenging macroeconomic environment and delivered improved profitability. Our margin expansion underscores our focus on operational efficiency and disciplined cost management. And we are now entering the next phase of our ONE SYM Transformation. With the design and implementation phase complete, we are now shifting towards activation around optimizing our portfolio, delivering profitable growth and driving efficiency.

We have also continued to strengthen our leadership team, adding fresh expertise and global experience to support the execution of our strategy and achievement of our goals. Finally, we're updating our guidance to reflect both the current global demand environment and the progress we are making in executing our ONE Symrise Strategy. More on that later. Together, these steps position us well for the second half of the year and beyond.

Please turn to Slide 5. Before we go into the details regarding our performance in the first half of this year, I am very excited to announce the appointment of Michael Friede to Executive Board as President of the Scent & Care segment, which I was leading at interim. Michael brings many years of broad market knowledge and a high level of industry-specific expertise in various growth areas. Additionally, he has proven international experience, making him an excellent choice for Symrise as a company with global operations focused on delivering exceptional experiences to our customers around the world. This appointment follows other critical leadership additions we have made in 2025, including SVP of Global Operations, SVP for Global Procurement, SVP for Global Quality and Regulatory and the Chief Digital and Information Officer.

With that, please turn to Slide 6 to the first half performance highlights. Sales were EUR 2.554 billion, reflecting 3.1% organic growth. While Symrise continues to grow faster than the relevant market, we are observing a dynamic global environment with choppy consumer behavior across certain sectors. To that end, we are focused on controlling the controllable, including delivering on a healthy pipeline of sales opportunities and project vitality with selected customers in key markets while managing tough year-on-year comparables.

EBITDA for the first half of 2025 amounted to EUR 554 million, a 4.5% increase compared to the first half of 2024. The EBITDA margin improved to 21.7%, up 100 basis points year-on-year, driven by our focus on value-added products and recurring cost savings through efficiency programs. Net income for the first half of 2025 amounted to EUR 268 million, representing a 12% increase compared to the same period 2024. Earnings per share also saw a significant increase, reaching EUR 1.92, equating to double-digit growth. Business free cash flow for the first half of 2025 totaled EUR 226 million or a healthy 8.8% of sales. Lastly, we have updated our guidance to reflect the current global demand environment and execution of our One Symrise Strategy.

For the full year 2025, we are moderating our organic growth range to 2% to 5% from 5% to 7% previously. We remain focused on driving above-market growth through a relentless focus on our customers, innovation and commercial rigor. Through our focus on self-help initiatives and value-added sales, we are increasing our EBITDA margin expectation from around 21% to approximately 21.5%. This is driven in part by identified annual cost savings and efficiency improvements amounting to EUR 40 million, with EUR 20 million already realized in the first half of 2025 and the remaining EUR 20 million expected in the second part of the year.

Let's turn now to Slide 7 for performance by segment. The Taste, Nutrition & Health segment achieved organic sales growth of 3.3%. Taking into account portfolio and exchange rate effects, segment revenue was EUR 1.564 billion in reported currency. The industry-leading growth in Food & Beverage was driven by higher volumes in beverage and Savory applications. The Pet Food division maintained flat organic sales despite continuous cautious consumer sentiment across key markets. The Scent & Care segment achieved organic sales growth of 2.9%. Taking into account currency effects, segment revenue was EUR 989 million in reported currency. Fragrance continued to see strong organic growth across all application areas and especially in Fine Fragrances. We see significant recovery in Aroma Molecules due to increased capacities and ongoing market-wide inventory normalization. In the Cosmetic Ingredients division, we continue to contend with a very strong demand level from H1 2024 and difficult prior year comparables.

Let's move now to the results for the region in Slide 8.

We grew particularly well in Latin America, delivering organic growth of 10.6%. Asia Pacific and EMEA also generated good organic growth of more than 3%. In the North American market, we are seeing weaker general sentiment, primarily due to macroeconomic uncertainties, persistent inflation and increasing political and regulatory unpredictability. While these headwinds are affecting the broader consumer environment, it is important to emphasize that this is not a Symrise-specific issue, but rather a reflection of the overall market environment in which we are operating. For the first half, we saw slightly negative organic growth of 1.4%. We continue to work with our customers as they work through consumer-driven challenges in the region.

Let me stop here for the moment and hand over to Olaf, and Olaf now will provide you more details on financials.

Thank you, Jean-Yves, and also a warm welcome to everybody tuning in today. Let me provide some details regarding our sales on Slide 10.

In the first half, we delivered healthy organic growth amid an overall resilient but lower volume environment. Our organic growth of 3.1% was driven by a 1.9% increase in volumes and positive pricing of 1.2%. Strong demand for beverages and Fine Fragrances supported our performance. Offsetting the growth, there's a portfolio effect of EUR 10 million related to the March 2024 divestment of 51% of our beverages trading in the U.K. In addition, we had negative FX of EUR 81 million, driven primarily by the depreciation of multiple currencies.

Turning to the second quarter. Organic growth was 2%. The growth is split by an 0.8% increase in volume and positive pricing of 1.2%. FX continued to be an even stronger headwind, contributing to a negative impact of EUR 63 million, representing 4.9%. Please turn to the performance of Taste, Nutrition & Health for the first half of 2025 on Slide 11. We continue to deliver solid results with organic growth of 3.3%, supported by both of our divisions. The growth is split by a 2.4% increase in volume and positive pricing of 0.9%. Food & Beverage developed positively with industry-leading mid-single-digit growth, which was primarily volume driven. The Pet Food business unit was able to maintain organic sales at the previous year level despite a very cautious consumer across key markets.

The Pet Palatability application area recorded solid growth with good volume and pricing growth. Taste, Nutrition & Health EBITDA increased by 4.7% to EUR 364 million. The EBITDA margin improved to 23.3%, up from 22.1% in H1 2024, an increase of 120 basis points, mainly driven by efficiencies and operational performance.

Please turn to the performance of Scent & Care on Slide 12. The Scent & Care segment achieved organic sales growth of 2.9% in the first half of 2025. The growth is split by a 1.1% increase in volume and positive pricing of 1.8%. FX continued to be a headwind of 3.3%. Scent & Care EBITDA increased 4.1% to roughly EUR 190 million in the first half of 2025. The EBITDA margin was 19.2%, 90 basis points higher than the previous year, which was also driven by operational efficiency efforts as part of the ONE SYM Transformation.

Let's now look at what drove our strong profitability performance in the first half of 2025 on Slide 13. In short, we delivered double-digit EBIT growth, supported by both robust EBITDA margin and a significant improvement in gross profit. Our gross profit margin increased to 41.4%, up 250 basis points versus the prior year period.

This substantial uplift was primarily driven by enhanced material utilization. Our Transformation Program is starting to contribute meaningful efficiencies and a key contributor has been our cost savings. In H1 alone, we delivered EUR 20 million recurring cost savings through efficiency improvements. As part of our ongoing Transformation Program, we are achieving efficiency across several key areas. For example, we are reevaluating our spending to define the most effective sourcing strategy, ensuring both a secure market supply and improve competitiveness. We are rolling out a new global sourcing approach for our businesses. In addition, we've made significant progress in raw material and packaging optimization.

Through strong lean implementation, we've improved process yields, reduced material waste and enhanced first-time right performance. Together, these initiatives are driving substantial cost savings already. Notably, we achieved an EBITDA margin of 21.7%, up 100 basis points year-on-year. This improvement reflects value-added sales and recurring cost savings through efficiency programs. Of note, the 2024 gross profit was impacted by onetime effects, including a EUR 17.9 million asset impairment in the U.S. for Pet Food last year.

This had a neutral effect on EBITDA, but explains as well the improvement of depreciation and the positive development [of EBITDA]. Lastly, I want to highlight the impact of extraordinary items on EBITDA. We had a EUR 4.2 million loss impact from the Aqua divestiture, a EUR 1.2 million legal cost environment and a EUR 4.5 million expense for the ONE SYM Transformation program itself. This compares to EUR 17 million in onetime items in 2024. These included at that point, EUR 9 million in severances and a write-off of around EUR 8 million in connection with the legal dispute.

Together, these results reflect strong execution and a clear focus on improving operational excellence, positioning us well to deliver sustainable margin expansion and operating leverage long term. Net income increased by 12% to EUR 268 million. This represents a 12% increase in EPS to EUR 1.92 per share. Moving forward to the business free cash flow on Slide 14. Business free cash flow remains stable, reaching EUR 226 million or 8.8% of sales. This reflects balanced performance across key drivers. We saw an improved EBITDA contribution. At the same time, there was a slight increase in capital expenditure from EUR 90 million in the first half of 2024 to now EUR 92 million this period as we continue to invest in growth and operational efficiency.

In addition, we are focused on effectively managing working capital with an improvement in inventory efficiency, which helped offset some of the pressure from increased CapEx. Overall, this result demonstrates our ongoing focus on disciplined capital allocation and operational execution. For 2025, our aim for the business free cash flow is around 14% of sales. And for the midterm, we are targeting above 14%. Let's move to our balance sheet and net debt on Slide 15. Our balance sheet remains strong with an equity ratio of 48.3%, consistent with the previous year. This stability reflects our commitment to maintaining a healthy financial position and investment-grade profile. Net debt, including pension and lease liabilities amounted to EUR 2.535 billion or a leverage ratio of 2.4x within our midterm target of 2 to 2.5x.

And with this, I would like to hand back the call to Jean-Yves, and thank you for the moment.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Olaf. And I propose to move now to the Slide 17.

As I told you, I want to take this opportunity to walk you through the key elements of our multiyear ONE SYM Transformation, a journey we designed to enable profitable growth, enhance returns and ensure long-term value creation. And that ONE SYM Transformation is a prerequisite for the successful execution of our purpose-driven One Symrise Strategy. Let's move directly to the Slide 18, and let's drill down into the ONE SYM Transformation on that slide. Since April 2024, we have been designing and implementing the road map to a stronger, more durable Symrise. This included defining our One Symrise culture of tomorrow and the values that will support our success. We established a transformation office to drive accountability and track progresses. We also conducted a portfolio-wide strategic review, identifying businesses that are strong, but that no longer fit with our future state criteria.

Finally, we began our cost-saving program. This is what we call Phase 1. We have now launched into Phase 2 and activating our plans. The goal is to create a steady drumbeat of execution, which will take time and discipline. In the first phase, we will continue to focus on executing our road map and delivering strong performance to achieve our ambition to be unique. Let me now provide an overview of how we are going to do.

Let's move now on Slide 19. Consistent with what I have communicated in April 2024, our One Symrise Strategy is structured around 3 core pillars: portfolio; growth; and efficiency that are aligned to clear financial aspirations, durable profitable growth, robust business free cash flow generation and compounding returns. The strategy is purpose-driven, guided by the clear strategic lens, where to play and how to win. Starting with portfolio. We are pursuing proactive portfolio management to sharpen our strategic focus and optimize capital allocation. Our approach balances global scale with local execution, positioning Symrise as a differentiated niche player in high-value segments across the industries where we participate.

On growth, we are intensifying our customer focus, driving innovation that is rooted in our core capabilities and clearly differentiated in the market. Our goal is to deliver unique value-added solutions and deepen customer partnerships. This positions us to grow above market and more profitably.

And finally, efficiency. We are focused on operational excellence, strengthening our span of control across the value chain and exercising disciplined expense management. This will support sustainable margin expansion and help unlock further operating leverage as we scale.

Please now turn to Slide 20. At our November 2024 Capital Market Day, we announced portfolio management as a key pillar of the One Symrise Strategy. Through the strategic review, we identified portion of the portfolio that are noncore and do not align with our focus on high margin and low capital intensity. Specifically, we are in the process of divesting the Aqua Feed business, which specializes in the valorization of tilapia and shrimp byproducts. To date, we have sold our Costa Rica site, and we are closing the Ecuadorian site. On the Q1 trading update, we announced a strategic assessment of the Terpene Ingredients business, part of the Aroma Molecules. Today, we are formally seeking strategic alternatives. All these activities will contribute to our One Symrise Strategy execution and position us for an improved business mix.

And now let's move on the Slide 21, growth. I also want to highlight the progress and momentum we are building through our innovation ecosystem, which is and will continue to support our growth. Numerous product launches took place in the first half and all are examples of proprietary intellectual property.

Just one example. Product we launched called Metabolic Health by Probi, which is a solution developed to reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome while supporting cardiovascular health. Our innovations reflect our commitment for delivering science-backed products that meet the growing demand for effective health support. Our customers valued our innovation through notable recognition, which made me proud of our R&D teams around the world. Our unique solutions are a clear differentiator to drive sustainable organic growth.

Turning to Slide 22, efficiency. We have made meaningful strides in optimizing our processes, leadership impact and efficiency to drive profitable growth and shareholder value creation. In addition to the EUR 50 million in cost savings we achieved in 2024, we identified an additional EUR 40 million as part of our 2025 efficiency plan, which covers defined initiatives with clear focus areas and measures in sourcing and procurement, global asset management, increased productivity and a streamlined portfolio. In H1, we realized EUR 20 million and expect to achieve the remaining EUR 20 million by year-end.

Let's move now to the Slide 24 and our outlook. As we look ahead to 2025, we acknowledge the evolving global landscape, one marked by both challenges and opportunities. Our outlook reflects these realities, yet we remain confident in the resilience and agility for Symrise. While the broader market is projected to grow at a moderated pace of 2% to 3% globally, the strength of our innovation pipeline and the vitality of our projects with strategic customers continue to set us apart even as we navigate tough year-on-year comparisons. We are not simply reacting to market changes. We are proactively shaping our future. These strategic actions are already yielding tangible results as seen in our recent margin improvements and our ability to deliver value despite headwinds.

For 2025, Symrise is now targeting organic growth in the range of 3% to 5%, down from 5% to 7% previously, but still outpacing the overall market and reaffirming our commitment to above-market growth. Our enhanced EBITDA margin target of approximately 21.5% reflects our efficiency gains and portfolio optimization. Furthermore, we are maintaining a robust objective for business free cash flow, expecting it to be approximately 14% of sales. These targets are not isolated ambitions, but rather milestone on a longer transformation journey.

We remain committed to the goals outlined at our November 2024 Capital Market Day, setting the course for profitable growth and financial discipline through 2028 and beyond. Therefore, we reaffirm our midterm targets, aiming for organic compounded annual growth of 5% to 7%, an EBITDA margin in the range of 21% to 23% and a business free cash flow of more than 14%.

With that, I'm let open the floor for your questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions]. The first question comes from the line of Matthew Yates from Bank of America.

Yes, a couple of questions, please. First one, just to get out the way. Olaf, to clarify, on Slide 13, you've got about EUR 10 million or so of identified items. Can I just double check? Are you saying those are within the EUR 554 million of reported EBITDA and you haven't adjusted for them? I'm just really trying to get a sense of the second half given seasonality versus the momentum you have in the business, but you haven't adjusted the numbers for those items. Is that correct?

It's all in, Matthew.

Okay. Fine. All right. Second question, sorry, a bit more open-ended and complicated. Same slide, but I'd like to ask about the 250 basis points of gross margin improvement because it's a very big and impressive number. And the question is basically how. You talk about EUR 20 million of cost saves, but I'm guessing some of that relates to things like operating expenses rather than just COGS.

So maybe you can describe and elaborate in a little bit more detail what you've been doing to get those gross margins up so much? And I know you've given a midterm EBITDA margin target, but I wonder whether I could push you to also talk about where gross margins may ultimately go because the more gross profit you have, obviously, the more flexibility you can actually reinvest in the business?

And then finally, just to tag on, is there any trade-off here when you talk about prioritizing mix and profitable growth that is clearly coming through in the gross margin, but possibly is at the expense of the top line development?

So I propose Olaf to answer your question, Matthew.

Yes. So first, again, Matthew, everything is in the 21.7% margin you see. The 250 basis points on gross margin is, first of all, impacted what we mentioned that in the prior year, we had the EUR 17 million impairment, which is part of the COGS picture. So you need to balance that out. That's the first comment I would make.

The second, you rightly caught the EUR 10 million extraordinary items. They are primarily ending in sales and marketing and G&A while the efficiency gains, which we have identified, the EUR 20 million are primarily in the COGS picture. So you have a trade-off between the different P&L lines, which are impacting this P&L picture and help to show the 250 basis points gross margin improvement. I think the efficiency program, which we have flagged in the Capital Markets last year around sourcing and procurement, around global asset management, the increased productivity and also the streamlining of the portfolio, the mix, which we are achieving and where the focus is, is going into the COGS, the gross margin improvement.

And that is, of course, a big driver also going forward that we can further improve our gross margin situation by putting these efforts exactly in the areas I just flagged.

So I would hand over to Jean-Yves for the trade-off, the mix, which we have achieved.

Okay. So concerning the different mix and trade-offs, the question today is how do we improve the profitability of the company. And we are working, as we said, with different levers, different buckets. And first, on the sourcing of procurement, we are realizing economies of scale. And we are really optimizing our position for key raw materials. And Olaf mentioned citrus, and we are buying citrus across different segments. And the idea now is really to gather and have a common way of buying this type of raw material. Concerning global asset management, we are also optimizing the way we are organizing the tender for the freight, organizing the logistics. So we are really gaining a lot of momentum in these different 2 big buckets. So you can really see the impact already in the gross profit.

The next question comes from the line of Lisa De Neve from MS.

This is Lisa from Morgan Stanley. I have one on pets. Can you please provide us with some detail on the level of price concessions that you're making in Pet Food and really Pet Nutrition? And to which extent do you feel confident that the negative pricing will subside towards the end of the year and basically that we won't see this anymore from 2026? That's my first question.

And then secondly, and maybe that follows on a little bit from Matt's previous question, but more focused on free cash flow is can you share how you're thinking about free cash flow generation for this year in the second half, especially in the light of your net working capital build in the first half? And more broadly, I mean, how should we think about your net working capital intensity structurally, especially given we already see an improvement in your gross margin in the first half this year?

Okay. So thanks, Lisa. It's very good question concerning the Pet Food. And as you know, Pet Food is a key growth driver and a key pillar for Symrise. And I will let Olaf answer for the free cash flow generation.

Concerning the Pet Food, it is still for us for a long time, still a very strong strategic growth driver. Now as we explained at the beginning of the year, we are in the normalization year. I should say summarizing that it's not the year of Pet Food. And you know that during COVID, Pet Food was really benefiting from the spike during the COVID. Now during this normalization, we see some shift on the market, and we see some shift global customers moving now to -- in terms of market share to local and regional, and we are actively working on it, and we see also some pressure on prices, specifically on nutrition from key accounts.

So what is the price impact on the Pet Food? So definitely, the prices are up in Palatability, but we are suffering in Nutrition. As I mentioned also in the former quarterly call, and we are still in the price adjustment for Nutrition. Concerning our projection for '26, a big piece of this price adjustment fortunately will have been done in 2025. We can never project what will be happening next year. But definitely, the price at the end of the year will be normalized. So that's also something which is making us feeling comfortable for the next year after this -- as I told, a normal -- what I call a normalization year.

So I will hand over to Olaf for the free cash flow question.

Yes. Thanks, Lisa, for the question. On the free cash flow, actually, I'm quite positive on the second half. We have benchmarked ourselves a little bit over the past months. And I think there are 2 areas where we clearly put a lot of focus now with our ambition to have a global procurement environment in place. There's definitely upside on the procurement terms and conditions, which we are addressing. That's one area of improvement. And the second one, lots of focus on inventory management with a different approach. We have all divisions with an action plan to address the inventory situation. Some are natural in Aroma Molecules, we are taking actions with the sourcing strategy.

In all divisions, there is a clear agenda how to bring the inventory level down by the end of the year. And that, as I said, makes us quite positive that there will be further cash flow generation coming.

The next question comes from the line of Alex Sloane from Barclays.

Two questions from me also, please. Just firstly, in terms of the reason given for the lower organic sales growth guidance this year. You talked about a global demand environment that's more challenging than expected, now expecting 2% to 3% market growth, which obviously you hope to outperform. I guess what gives you confidence that market growth accelerates in '26, and which are the areas you're expecting most reacceleration in and why, please, would be the first one?

And the second, I mean, at the CMD, you talked about a need to reinvest some of the ONE SYM savings over the transformation period. Is there any reinvestment of the EUR 40 million planned this year? And can you perhaps share any more detail in terms of the size of the total reinvestment that might be required to 2028 now that you've done more work on analyzing this, please?

Yes. Thanks a lot, Alex. So I will take the 2 questions for the -- concerning the lower growth guidance for this year. We had initially a 5% to 7% guidance based on what we were perceiving last year from the market. And a proof point is today, the market is not at the level of growth as we were expecting. And I think it's also something we share with our big customers, right? The market is slowing down in some sectors, in some regions, it's not slowing down everywhere. So we are really working for moving and capturing where we can capture value means customer shifts mean fastest-growing regions like Middle East, Africa, also through innovation.

And as you see, as you have seen also in the deck, I wanted to share also with you, we are really launching innovative products. So it means that we are prudent and we prefer to say 3% to 5% for end of this year. We already reach the 3%. So the second part of the year, first, we have some products which will be launched. The second is the comps, the comparables for the semester are not so tough for the second semester. And we prefer to give you a transparent signal about that rather than doing impossible or price decrease or crazy things on the market.

So it's a way to be prudent, but very confident. And the confidence is for 2026 and beyond. So we have no reason and we see no reason to change the guidance. On every key market, we see potential growth and Pet Food, we see still massive opportunities. Food & Beverage, we see very strong competitive edge. In Fragrance, the growth is a very good growth, and today is hided by a poor Cosmetic Ingredients performance. You know what because the Q1 was very strong last year. And last but not least, we are building also this One Care division with cosmetic, probiotic health-actives, where we see a lot of traction from the market. So we see no reason not to believe in an acceleration of the growth in 2026.

Now coming back to the CMD and the need to reinvest. Yes, we are building the future, and we need really to balance the way we are using our capital. So -- and the cash we are generating. So the EUR 40 million we will generate this year through cost savings, the idea is to reinvest part of them for preparing the future through digitalization, which is definitely a road map we are also implementing. We are accelerating our digital road map. And the digital road map is not only digitalization or AI or things like that.

It's also strengthening our internal processes, our internal database, our internal data sharing. And it's part of One Symrise organization to reshare much more data across the organization. So part of it will be reinvested also in R&D or sales development. We cannot tell you today what -- which percentage will be reinvested or not. We have, as I said all the time, we are our midterm plan where we have a clear forecast of what we want to gain and what we want to reinvest. But today, it's so volatile everywhere. But depending on if we gain more or less, we will reinvest more or less. We'll be very prudent also in the way we reallocate the cash we will deliver from the savings. So more to come, and I'm sure that on a quarterly basis, I can give you more details on the way we will really allocate this capital.

We now have a question from the line of Ed Hockin from JPMorgan.

I've got 2, please. My first one is Food & Beverages, it appears slowed down somewhat in the second quarter of the year. I think it's high single digit in Q1 is now flagged mid-single digit for H1. Is this just the case of tougher comparatives that you're seeing in Food & Beverage in Q2, in which case, I think you still have quite tough comparatives in Q3 as well.

So if you could elaborate what you're seeing in terms of trend in your Food & Beverages business and how we should think about Food & Beverages for the remainder of the year?

My second question, kind of a bigger picture on the balance sheet. So you're now standing at net debt of 2.4. I think as well, your leverage is typically higher in H1 and you made more of your cash in H2. So is it reasonable to presume your debt is closer to 2x by the end of the year? And if that's the case, how do you see the environment going forward for further acquisitions or effectively how comfortable you are for your leverage to go below the range and just lower from there?

Thank you, Ed. So I will take the first question and give the second one to Olaf. Food & Beverage, so it's a very important question for me because Food & Beverage represents a big part of our revenue and profitability. It's really a key legacy leg of the company.

And I just want to take this opportunity to remind everybody that we have a very strong differentiation with the Natural business, not only the Natural business, but also some specific solutions across the well-being, low-salt, low-sugar, meat replacement and so on. So today, we are overperforming the market, and we are overperforming the competitors in food & beverage. What is happening now? If you take -- and if we go in the detail of the figure, we are -- if we take the first semester, the growth of Food & 8:04 Beverage is close to 6%, 5.9%, which is a very good performance. The question is now you know that the second quarter is only 3.5% for 2 reasons. The first one, we did a very good first quarter. And the second one, and you mentioned it, was really more than 10% on Q2 last year.

And if we take Q3, the Q3 last year in Food & Beverage was also double-digit growth. So the comparable on Q3 are also strong. Last year, the comparable last year was 11%, 12%, 10%, Q1, Q3, Q4 altogether in Symrise and 0% at the end, right? So year-to-date for Food & Beverage, the growth was 10% for this '24 versus '23. So we are really targeting that. So we are doing 6% above the 10% of last year, which is a very good performance. Now you got the point. The comparables are really strong, even stronger because to be clear, it was more 12% last year. So the comparable are stronger. But it's a phasing picture. But altogether, in terms of prices and volumes, we are growing in every compartment of Food & Beverage.

Now concerning the balance sheet, I'm letting to Olaf.

Yes. Thanks, Jean-Yves. And thank you, Ed, for the question. Yes, first of all, we are glad that we are steering in the corridor despite paying out the remaining Probi shareholders in the H1 environment plus paying our dividend. So it's a strong balance sheet. And as you know, we have a portfolio approach, which incorporates not only organic growth, but also inorganic growth. And we continue searching for acquisition targets which fit very well into our portfolio.

That's an ongoing process. And therefore, there is a chance that we will also continue with acquisitions if we find the right one, which is very important, that there is a strong strategic rationale to acquire a piece to the portfolio. If we drop temporarily below our corridor, I think it would be the first time, at least in my time, that this happens. So I would not mind the situation. But rest assured that our capital allocation takes, of course, also our strong balance sheet, the net debt corridor in consideration whatever we do.

We now have a question from the line of Charles Eden from UBS.

Two questions from me also, please. Can I firstly come back on Pet? And obviously, it declined organically in Q2. You said flat in the half and it was up modestly in Q1.

I know you don't want to give the volume-price split here and certainly not by business areas, so Palatability and Nutrition. But I'd urge you to do so because I'm really struggling to understand quite what's going on. So if I could just ask again, if you could give us the volume-price split in Pet, specifically between Palatability and Nutrition, that would be very helpful?

My second question is on the guidance. And Jean-Yves, I pick up on the words you're being prudent with the bottom end. I guess I understand the comp is easy for Q4 because of the hyperinflation FX pricing adjustment last year. But if I look at Q3, is the expectation that you see an improvement versus this 2% organic number you've just printed for Q2? Or given market conditions sound like they're broadly similar, you're expecting a similar number in Q3 and then you kind of get there into the sort of mid-end plus of the guide through the Q4 comp. If you could just sort of help me in how you're thinking about the trajectory in Q3 versus Q4?

Yes. So thank you, Charles. So -- and again, your first question is a very, very precise question. I know that we had also the question more or less this morning with [indiscernible] had this question there. So we give the price volume for the segment and the division. And for T&H, for Q2, price was 1% and volume flat, I should say, right? Minus 0.2%. So concerning the Pet, and you got it also there is a Pet Palatability and the Pet Nutrition. And as I told, we are slightly negative in Pet Food, right? But the slightly negative is due to Pet Nutrition. That's what I can tell you. And the Pet Nutrition is mainly due to price adjustments.

So -- and the question is what about the current situation on Pet. We are following the market, not only following the market, but I told we are also reacting proactively. We are investing in new type of products, investing in new type of customer, new customers and also entering regions where we're not yet really present. So we are really also creating new piece of the market. Just to give you -- so come back because you will be certainly frustrated by my answer, which will not give you price-volume very precisely. The question is really to understand that we are in a normalization year, and that's what I was, by the way, answering to Lisa.

We are in a normalization year where the normalization is on the Nutrition pricing. And on Palatability, it's a shift of the market. And if we hear all the big accounts, the volumes are not there this year. The volume of the pet market are not totally decreasing. It means that it's going in some other hands, private label, local regional. But in any case also, we are all convinced that the volume will go up again. And after this phase of normalization, Pet will be back as a profitable growth driver for Symrise. So this is for the first question. Concerning the guidance and the prudent guidance, Q3, Q4, it's always difficult to give one figure for Q3 versus another quarter.

The quarter is only 3 months. And if we sell in June or July, it has an impact on Q2 or Q3, right? So what I can tell you is that the perspective because we worked a lot on our outlooks, we work on the perspective, we have a program called Sales Boost, where we are also approaching customers for really seeing with the customer how we can really deliver better solutions and better way really to have some upside on our top line for the year. So it makes me confident in the new bracket for sure. But the question is if we start to give you an idea of Q3 on Q4, it starts to be a little dangerous. Taking into account that dangerous means risky.

Taking into account that the comparable last year, as you mentioned, is 10% for Q3. So we have still a high comparative versus last year. And the comparable for Q4 is we made a flat Q4 versus last year. So Q3, Q4 will help us to really significantly increase the growth versus first part of the year. But again, your 2 questions are too precise, sorry, Charles, for me to really give you a specific answer. But at the end of the day, I'm very optimistic to deliver a result, which is corresponding to what we are really now guiding the market for.

I appreciate that. I guess you did give a guide of 3% to 4% organic for Q1 earlier this year. I think that's probably why I would ask about Q3, but I appreciate your answer. And just maybe just following up on Pet, I guess, you're not going to give us the price-volume split, but are volumes growing in Palatability and in Nutrition? Is this a pricing issue in Nutrition only? Could you answer that question?

Yes. And concerning the volumes, if you take the first part of the year, the volumes are growing. For H1, volumes are going both sides. That's what I can tell you. It's not a high volume. It's not high growth, but we are in a growing market. As we said, the consumer are very cautious, but the market is still growing for H1, right? And after, as you can imagine, Q2 is a little suffering for us, but we have to -- and we will compensate for the end of the year, Charles.

We now have a question from the line of Ranulf Orr from Citi.

Two from me. I'm just wondering, sorry to go back to Pet Nutrition, whether this business is really sort of evolving as you expected when you made the acquisition.

Just given the pricing dynamics we're seeing, which do seem to be input cost led, it's not typically what we'd expect from a value pricing business from a specialty business. So is it becoming -- is there a risk it's becoming more commoditized or you're seeing a lot more competition emerging than you'd originally anticipated? So that's my first question.

And the second one is just around the EBITDA margin guidance and the 21%, does that guidance hold pretty much whether you're at the top end or the bottom end of the growth guidance? Or is there a lot of sensitivity to that top line growth?

Okay. Just concerning the Pet Nutrition, so I think -- and I answer we are in a situation where we are really in restructuring of the market, in normalization of the market. And the acquisition on Nutritions, we did, we are still very comfortable and very confident that this acquisition was a good acquisition and a good complementary for the offers for Pet Food. Definitely, no change on that.

Concerning the EBITDA, concerning the bottom and so on. So we are -- as mentioned by Olaf, we are really working on a lot of efficiencies we see a lot of good things happening. Again, the main question will not be the savings we will do because we are very confident for delivering the savings. But the way we will reallocate these savings for preparing the future. I mentioned digitalization, but there are all other things, regulatory affairs, innovation and so on and so on and so on. So the tricky part is really to know the way we'll arbitrate. So -- and that's something where we commit to this bracket. Myself more and more convinced that we can reach the 23% quicker than some are thinking, but it's too early to tell you more.

The next question comes from the line of Nicola Tang from BNP Paribas Exane.

The first would be just coming back to the relevant end markets and the downward revision, the 2% to 3% versus 4% previously. I was wondering if you could break that down a little bit more in terms of the end markets. So I guess we can talk about Pet, but also the rest of TNH and Scent & Care and what's changed versus previous expectations on the end market, which end markets, which geographies are driving this downward revision?

And then in North America, clearly, the end market volumes are subdued, but there's a lot of talk around potential changes in food regulation under the Trump administration. I was wondering if you could talk about the discussions you're having with your customers, whether you see any change in pace or around reformulation or healthier foods? And then I hope you don't mind if I squeeze in just a clarification on the EBITDA margin guidance. What are you baking in, in terms of the exceptional amounts on a full year basis?

Okay. So concerning -- thanks, Nicola. Concerning the end market, it is [indiscernible] question because it's difficult to speak about one picture. So we spoke about the end market growth going down, slowing down. And depending on the industry, pet, fragrance and so on, all regions, North America, Latin America, the picture is very, very different.

But altogether, we see that the momentum is not today there, and the market are globally slowing down. And when we see -- I know pet food quite well during 10 years, I was really growing this business. And when pet food going well, it's a good signal. When pet food is suffering, and it's not the year of pet food, it's the market also. And we are really seeing the market there. So we are preparing the future, of course, by doing a lot of proactive actions. So when pet food start to have also this impact, it signifies a lot. It means a lot because you all know that the pets are kind of new babies.

So -- and for us, it's really a signal, and it must be a signal and it's a signal for our key customers also. And fragrance, the market, we see a lot of -- and I'll give you another example, counter example, we see the fragrance market with a lot of troubles for our big customers. I will not give you names, but you all know the names of beauty customers, which are restructuring and so on and so on.

But for ourselves, the Fine Fragrance is going very well. And because also there are some shift. So the market globally is suffering, but there are some winners. And the beauty of in B2B that is also our objective, it's our target to be the one targeting the right challenger and the right new segment. So concerning U.S. and reformulation, I think that we also started to answer about reformulation and so on. So for us, reformulation is always an opportunity, opportunity for optimizing our product mix, but also opportunity for taking market share because we are very agile, we are very creative. And for us, it's positive and all what's happening is an opportunity. And concerning EBITDA and exceptionals, I will hand over to Olaf. And after, if you don't mind, I know there are still questions, but I will make some closing remarks, and we will finish here, if you don't mind. So Olaf?

Yes. Thank you, Jean-Yves. And Nicola, thank you for the question. So first of all, we provide a reported EBITDA margin number in our guidance. We have flagged 3 items as exceptional for the first half.

For the ONE SYM program, the transformation program, you can assume a similar amount for the second half, just for modeling purposes. Do the same for the legal cost, which we have flagged. There will be no further impact on EBITDA from today's perspective on the Aqua business, but we might occur some extra cost on the Terpene Ingredients side, which we would then flag at the right point in time. So that is what I can see at the moment for your modeling.

Okay. Thanks, Olaf. Thanks all of you for your questions. Again, frustrating that we cannot answer all the questions, but we have to stick to the timing. Myself, I propose to finish with one slide, and that's Slide 25 of our deck. And I want to conclude with 3 important remarks. The first one is we are now entering the activation phase of our transformation. And all what we are doing now is a transformation, where our strategies are no longer just plans on paper, but actions in motion. It's energizing our teams and forging new pathway towards lasting change.

That is a very important message. You have to understand we are transforming ourselves. Meanwhile, we are delivering. And that's the second point. We remain focused on one we can influence. We have identified EUR 40 million in cost savings in 2025, and we will deliver this '25 with this EUR 40 million, EUR 20 million already achieved first part of the year and EUR 20 million to be achieved in the second part of the year. And on top of all, some people ask me, what about your team? It's a change of mindset. And I can tell you that the team is a team of passionate people of nearly 13,000 Symrisers and we are continuing to advance our goals through accountability and entrepreneurial spirit.

Entrepreneurial spirit is the stamp of Symrise, and we keep it. And while we are still in the early chapter of the story, our collective drive ensure that the momentum is truly on our side. And you can feel and we can feel the momentum. It's our commitment to keep you, to keep our shareholders and the investment community at large up to date and our transformation progress in a thoughtful and transparent way. I really thank you for your interest, your interest in Symrise, your questions. We also learn with your questions. I hope we answer the way you are really convinced about the way we want to really build the transparency and trust with you, and we are looking forward for providing an update in October. Thank you all, and see you soon.

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.