Givaudan S.A.

Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our 2025 full year-end results conference call. Actually, my first one was in 2006, which makes this one my 21st conference call, as well as my last year-end conference call as CEO. Stuart Harris, our CFO, joins me today. All presentation documents are available on our website. So before moving into the performance discussion, let's take a moment to look at the leadership transition. So as announced, end of last August, Christian Stamkotter will succeed me as CEO as of March 1st, 2026. But today we also announced two changes to our executive committee team. The first one, Christina Yeo, will become head of business solutions and IT. and that will be effective May 1st, 2026. She succeeds Anne Tayac, who, after more than 30 years at Givaudan, will retire. Fanny Iglesias will take over as Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, replacing our current Legal and Compliance Head, Roberto Caravagno, effective April 1st, 2026. Roberto will also retire after close to 30 years, Finally, we'll join the Executive Committee as an additional member to the EC team. For sure, I would like to thank Anne Tayac and Roberto Garavagno for their many contributions and leaderships over the many years. And I would like to turn to slide four. On the board composition side, as announced late August 2025, We have Calvin Greider, who will step down, and I will stand for re-election as chairman at the upcoming AGM in March. All board members, except Tom Knudsen, will stand for re-election. And furthermore, Esther Bejet, CEO of NovoNezis, is proposed as a new member to the board, bringing strong innovation and sustainability expertise. Now let's turn to the business performance review starting on slide 5. 2025 marks another year of very strong results. On top of record prior years and in a continuous volatile external environment, it also marks the successful completion of our five-year strategic cycle, which started in 2021, for which we delivered on all financial and non-financial ambitions confirming the strength and resilience of Givaudan's business model. Moving to slide 6, I'd like to take you through the key financial highlights for 2025. Sales amounted to close to 7.5 billion Swiss francs, representing an increase of 5.1% on a like-for-like basis and 0.8% in Swiss francs. This is a very solid result achieved against a very high comparable base of more than 12% growth in 2024. Growth was again achieved across all markets with sustained strong growth of 8% in high growth markets. This means growing close to four times the rate of the growth in mature markets. And as well, we grew with local and regional clients close as well to four times faster than global. On a comparable basis, the ABTDA margin stood at 24.2%, slightly below 24.5% in 2024, yet still the second highest margin in the past 15 years. Net income reached 1,071 million Swiss francs, corresponding to a net profit margin of 14.3% of sales. Finally, we generated a free cash flow of 1,053 million, so basically more than 1 billion Swiss francs, representing 14.1% of sales. This is the second consecutive year being above 1 billion Swiss francs in free cash flow. Finally, the Board of Directors will propose a dividend of 72 Swiss francs per share at the AGM on March 19, 2026, marking the 25th consecutive dividend increase for our shareholders since the spin-off of Givaudan. Stuart will provide more details on the operational performance shortly. On slide 7, let's look in more detail at the divisional sales growth. The sales growth in 2025 was broad based across markets, segments, and customer groups against, again, very high comparables across the board. On the group level, we achieved a good like-for-like sales growth of 5.1% against a comparable of 12.3%. The growth was mainly volume-driven with less than 1% contribution from real pricing or FX pricing. Our local and regional customers continue to be an important growth driver in both divisions. Like the prior year, we continue, as I said, to grow with them close to four times the rate we grew with Globals. Today, L&R clients represent now 60% of our total sales. To put this performance into context, the past five-year strategic cycle has been more volatile than any before. marked by the COVID-19, then the supply chain disruptions, which turned into inflation, with, in the background, geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic challenges. We have managed, though, through this period particularly well, thanks to the strategic choices made and the natural hedges we have built in our business. I mean, natural hedges across geographies, customer groups, and segments, along with our strong execution capabilities. In this environment, our 5.1% like-for-like growth confirms the resilience and the structural strength of Givaudan, fully in line with our long-term growth algorithm. The nature of our business and the singularity of Givaudan allows to deliver consistent results year on year. This is why I always remind, and probably this is the last time I repeat it, but maybe I did not repeat it enough, CAGR is your best friend when judging Givaudan's performance, as opposed to looking at the last quarter or a given year. If we look at the last five years, our CAGR was 6.8%, so not only consistent results, but also significantly higher paces than the two last five years' cycles. Fragrance and beauty sales amounted to 3,830 million, up 7.9% on a like-for-like basis, on top of a 14% increase in prior year. I'd like to emphasize the strength and depth of our fragrance and beauty portfolio, which truly differentiates us from our peers. We have built a balanced and resilient business, combining scale and innovation across multiple categories. And we have invested in our future growth by expanding beyond our core and with our capabilities, from the development of active beauty over the past decade to our recent entry into makeup through Bicolor. This diversity gives us a unique competitive position to ensure sustainable growth. In taste and well-being, sales amounted to 3,642 million Swiss francs, up 2.4% on the like-for-like basis, a solid achievement in a more volatile market against a very high comparison base of more than 10% for the full year of 2024. Our diversified geographic presence, broad customer base, and balanced portfolio continue to provide This resilience and position us well to capture future opportunities as market conditions evolve. While our peers have not yet reported, looking at the nine-month sales comparisons to peers, we remain confident that our performance will once again be industry-leading. Let's take a closer look now at the geographic performance on slide 8. high-growth markets grew by 8% and continue to be a key driver of our overall growth, as they make up today 49% of total sales, almost on par with the mature markets. Our broad-based presence and the depth of our footprint in these markets provide resilience with key markets such as the Middle East, China, India and Brazil, which continue to grow at a high single- to double-digit pace. Mature markets grew by 2.4%, very much in line with the historic average of the past 10 years. In 2025, this growth was supported by the resilience of both Europe and North America. This strong geographic balance once again demonstrates the strength and diversification of Giroudon's global footprint, enabling us to deliver consistent growth even in a complex environment. On slide 9, we can have an even more granular look at the regional performance. Our largest region, EME, delivered the highest growth in 2025 at 7%, on top of a very strong prior year. This performance was driven by the continuous strength of high growth markets, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, which now represent around 27% of the EME sales. We also saw solid contributions from mature markets, including France and Liberia. In Asia-Pacific, like-for-like sales growth reached 5% in 2025, with China, India, and Japan contributing strongly, particularly in fragrance and beauty, while Southeast Asia was slightly negative in taste and well-being, though showing an improved momentum towards the end of the year. In Latin America, last year's like-for-like growth was driven by FX-related pricing in Argentina, but the underlying growth was also positive in the mid-single-digit range. In 2025, the growth that we have in LATAM is 3.6%, which reflects the lower FX pricing and some specific challenges in Mexico, while Brazil continues to deliver strong underlying growth, confirming the region's solid fundamentals. North America, sales grew by 2.6% on a like-for-like basis. The region remains more volatile, but as a large, mature market, mid-single-digit growth is what one could typically expect. Towards the end of 2025, we also observed good, brief inflows linked to MAHA, Make America Healthy Again, and reformulation trends in particular around better for you snacks and hydration turning now on a divisional view on slide 10 starting with fragrance and beauty as mentioned the division delivered a continued strong growth of 7.9 percent on top of the 14 percent comparable last year fine fragrances continued its record excellent growth of at 18.3%, virtually matching last year's other record at 18.4%, a performance we should truly celebrate. Since the pre-COVID baseline of 2019, we more than doubled our fine-triangles business on a like-for-like basis. This sustained success reflects not only a healthy underlying market, but even more so our own strengths, be it A broad geographic exposure, particularly in the Samia region, which today is as large as North America and Latin America combined. And our strong relationships with local and regional customers, another key growth driver for fine fragrances. These strengths have allowed us to gain market share, reinforcing our leadership position in this segment. At the same time, I'd like to emphasize that the division's performance is broader-based than just fine fragrances. Fine fragrances represent 21% of ourselves, so the strong continuous performance of the fragrance and beauty division is not just about fine fragrances. We have a strong core in consumer products, which represents close to two-thirds of the division, where we sustain very solid growth across all categories, building on a very strong prior year. Actually, the five-year average growth for consumer products has been 6.2%, and the combined active beauty plus fragrance and e-commerce business, an average of 7% for the last five years. So this is actually close to the division's average. We have also deliberately strengthened our natural hedges and invested in our future growth capabilities by developing Active Beauty, a business reaching now 300 million of sales, which have been built over the past eight years, and now expanding into another adjacent space of beauty, which are color cosmetics through the acquisition of Bicolor. The only software we have this year was fragrance ingredients, where sales declined due to an increased competition from Chinese players on a specific ingredient. However, these segments represent less than 10% of the fragrance and beauty sales, and with the portfolio strongly geared towards specialties, our exposure to market volatility is actually limited. Overall, fragrance and beauty continues to demonstrate strong broad-based performance, confirming its industry-leading position and the solid foundation for future growth. Turning now to slide 11, let's look at the taste and well-being division. The Taste and Relating Division delivered a solid growth of 2.4%, which was volume-led and achieved against a very high comparison base of more than 10% like-for-like growth in 2024. Europe showed great resilience with 2.6% like-for-like growth, while Samaya continued its very strong momentum, growing 7.8% on top of the 21% growth in 2024. North America remained solid at 3% growth, and in Latin America, growth of 0.7% was temporarily impacted by a weaker performance in Mexico, as we also saw at the group level. In Asia Pacific, the division was broadly stable at minus 0.8%, with continued good performance in key markets such as China and Japan. But we also saw a clear improvement in Southeast Asia towards the end of the year, where we were facing a particularly high comparison base and some specific challenges since the first year. Now, from a product segment perspective, growth was broad-based across flax, dairy, and sweet. Overall, the taste and well-being division delivered a solid performance on the challenging conditions, further proving the resilience of our business model and positioning us well for future growth. While our peers are not yet reported, we remain very confident that our performance will once again be the industry-leading one. I will share a detailed review of the 2025 strategic cycle, including our key innovations and achievements against non-financial targets after Stuart has worked you through the operating performance. Duarte, over to you.

Thank you very much, Gilles. I would like to add my warm welcome to all of the participants on the call. And on the following slides, I would like to give you an overview of the group's operating and financial performance, as well as the operating performance of the two divisions. Please turn to slide 13. As Gilles mentioned, group sales in 2025 increased to 7.472 billion Swiss francs, an increase of 5.1% on a like-for-like basis and an increase of 0.8% in Swiss francs. The reported Swiss franc sales also includes the sales of Volumens from the date of acquisition in September 2025 and the sales of Bel Air Creations from the date of acquisition in December 2025. The reported ABTDA was 1,751 million Swiss francs compared to 1,765 million Swiss francs in 2024. a decrease of 0.8%, mainly due to foreign exchange impacts. When measured in local currency, the ABTDA increased by 4.5%. On a comparable ABTDA basis, the underlying ABTDA margin was 24.2% compared to 24.5% in the prior year, a very strong result when considering the volatile external environment that we have been operating in and maintaining the margin close to historically high levels. Driven by the solid operating profitability, the net income was 1071 million Swiss francs and the net income margin was 14.3% of sales. The group achieved a free cash flow of 1053 million Swiss francs, or 14.1% of sales, surpassing 1 billion Swiss francs of free cash flow generation for the second consecutive year. As a result of the strong cash generation and operating performance, the net debt to ABTDA improved further to 2.1 times at the end of the year, compared to 2.3 times in December 2024. Please turn to slide 14, which shows the overview of exchange rate developments in 2025. This slide shows the comparison of the exchange rates in 2025 versus 2024. In the current year, as we've become used to, the Swiss franc has continued to strengthen against most of the major currencies in which the group operates, with the corresponding impact on the reported results in Swiss francs. However, when one looks at the group margins, the foreign exchange impact is limited as a result of our operational and geographical balance, which continues to provide good natural hedges, and our ABTDA margin remains well protected against currency fluctuations. Please turn to slide 15 for an overview of the operating performance of the group. The gross margin decreased from 44.1% in 2024 to 43.5% in 2025, with a decrease resulting from the mechanical margin dilution related to higher input costs, including tariffs, as well as some impact from the softer market conditions in part of our fragrance ingredients business. With increased input costs, the company continued to successfully implement price increases in collaboration with its customers to fully offset these higher input costs, encoding tariffs. On the ABTDA level, the ABTDA was 1,751 million Swiss francs in 2025 compared to 1,765 million in 2024. As noted previously, the slight decrease is mainly due to foreign exchange rate impacts and when measured in local currency, the ABTDA increased by 4.5%. The published ABTDA margin was 23.4% versus 23.8% in 2024. After adjustment for non-recurring costs of 39 million Swiss francs, as well as 17 million Swiss francs of expenses related to the Louisville accident, the comparable ABTDA margin was 24.2% compared to 24.5% in 2024. maintaining the margin at close to historically high levels and partially compensating for the decrease in the gross margin. On the following two slides, I will spend a few minutes on the operating performance of the two divisions. And if you turn to slide 16, we will start with fragrance and beauty. The ABTD of the division in 2025 was 985 million Swiss francs, flat compared to 2024. However, when measured in local currency, the ABTDA of the fragrance and beauty division increased by 4.2%. The division incurred acquisition restructuring and project related costs of 31 million Swiss francs compared to 32 million Swiss francs in 2024, with those costs being mainly due to those incurred in relation to the ongoing competition authorities investigations. The comparable ABTDA margin of the division was 26.5% in 2025, compared to 27.8% in 2024, with higher input costs, the fragrance ingredients impact, and targeted investments and growth impacting slightly the ABTDA margin. The continued strength of the financial performance of Fragrance and Beauty illustrates their market-leading position across all areas of their business. If you would like to turn now to page 17, I will take you through the operating performance of Taste and Wellbeing. The Taste and Wellbeing Division recorded an EBITDA of 766 million Swiss francs, compared to 780 million Swiss francs in the prior year, a decrease of 1.8%. However, again, this is mostly due to foreign exchange impacts, as when measured in local currency, the EBITDA increased by 4.8%. On a comparable basis, after restructuring costs of 8 million Swiss francs, as well as 17 million of expenses related to the Louisville accident, the comparable ABTDA margin improved to 21.7% compared to 21.3% in 2024, showing continued positive sequential margin progression over the past three years. Please turn to slide 18 on the net income of the group. The net income before tax was 1,305 million Swiss francs in 2025 compared to 1,313 million Swiss francs in 2024. The effective tax rate increased to 18% compared to 17% in 2024 as the OECD minimum tax project continues to be implemented. The net income was 1071 million Swiss francs in 2025 and the net income margin was 14.3% compared to 14.7% in 2024. Basic earnings per share were 116.08 Swiss francs in 2025 compared to 118.17 Swiss francs in 2024. Please now turn to slide 19, which highlights the free cash flow performance. In 2025, the group generated for the second consecutive year over 1 billion Swiss francs in free cash flow. Free cash flow was 1,053 million, or 14.1% of sales, compared to 15.6% of sales in 2024. Total net investments were 285 million Swiss francs in 2025, representing 3.8% of sales, a similar level to investments as in the prior year, as the group continues to invest in its growth and also in capturing exciting opportunities in the digital space. Networking capital was 22% of sales in 2025, compared to 23.4% in 2024, with the group continuing to have a strong focus on the effective management of all aspects of working capital. Please turn to slide 20. Since Givaudan became a public company in 2000, the company has generated a cumulative 13.9 billion Swiss francs of free cash flow. Including the proposed dividend for 2025, the 25th consecutive increase, Givaudan has returned over 9 billion Swiss francs to shareholders in the form of dividends or share buybacks. clearly underlining the strong commitment of Givaudan to shareholder returns. The Board of Directors will propose to the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders a further increase of the dividend to 72 CHF per share from 70 CHF per share in 2024, an increase of 2.9%. Please turn to slide 21 to look at the debt and leverage profile of the group. The group continues to have a well-balanced and stable debt profile, as shown on this slide, with interest rates which have been locked in at attractive rates. At the end of 2025, the net debt was 3.7 billion Swiss francs, with a weighted average interest rate of 1.94% compared to 1.75% in 2024. The net debt to EBITDA ratio was 2.1 times at the end of 2025, representing continued improvement compared to the 2.3 times of December 2024. The strong improvement in leverage over recent years is a result of our sustained focus on the balance sheet whilst continuing to invest in the growth of our business and in shareholder returns. We are very pleased to enter the new strategic cycle with a strong balance sheet which will support us in pursuing our strategic priorities both in the established business and also in M&A. This concludes my section of the presentation. I would like to thank you for your attention and hand it back to Gilles.

Thank you, Stuart. So this year also marks the successful completion of our 2025 strategic cycle, during which we have delivered on all our financial and non-financial ambitions. So let's have a look back at the last five years before we move into the next five years with our 2030 strategy and outlook for this year. So we have created value over the past five years by building on our commitment to grow with purpose. We have proven that strong financial performance can go hand in hand with responsible, purposeful action. We have further built resilience, delivered innovation, and created value that endures well beyond 2025. Let's have a look on our key achievements on slide 24. The first one. We have strengthened our natural hedges. Our balance across geographies, customer segments, and product categories has further strengthened. We have continued to focus on our core fragrance and flavors business while expanding decisively into adjacent spaces. Our exposure to high-growth markets has increased significantly. In absolute terms, these markets are now almost at par with mature markets, but they are growing faster. And importantly, we have further diversified our customer base. Local and regional customers now represent 60% of ourselves, up from 46% just four years ago. And this shift has been a major growth driver to our resilience and growth overall. Second, we have attained consistent industry-leading results. The strategic relevance of the before-mentioned choices is clearly reflected in our outperformance vis-à-vis the market and peers in general, seen not only in sustained growth but also in significantly higher margins and free cash flow generation compared to our peers. These results reaffirm our position as a market leader and the strength of our long-term approach. Third, we have leveraged M&A to support our strategy and expand our reach. We have made targeted acquisitions that strengthen our position in fast-growing segments and deepen relationships with local and regional champions. Fourth, we have realized a major digital transformation. We have built advanced digital capabilities across the business, from customer engagement and market insights to operations, supply chain and innovation. Digitalization is embedded end-to-end, enabling smarter decisions, faster execution, and more connected collaboration. This transformation is making us more agile, more efficient, and fully future ready. And finally, through all this progress, we have remained focused on our purpose-related commitments. Everything we do continues to be guided by our ambition to create for happier and healthier lives. with love for nature at the heart of our business. Together, these achievements demonstrate not only just strong performance, but the power of a strategy that is balanced, forward-looking, and deeply aligned with our purpose. On slide 25, you can see the strong delivery against our 2025 financial targets. We have achieved an average life or life growth of 6.8% in the period 21 to 25, exceeding our target of 4 to 5% growth. A further increase compared to the previous two cycles. Also on the comparable ABTDA, with 22.9% average over the period, we have continued the steady increase cycle over cycle, further distancing our peers. And also against the ambitious free cash flow target of over 12%, which is, by the way, the highest in the industry, we delivered, again, over the last five years, an average of 12.5%. To even better show the strength of the cycle in part here, let me give you some history context on the following two slides. Let's look at our sales growth achievements over the last three strategic cycles. our 5.1% LIFO-like growth in 2025 is a very strong result. While some may see it's a slowdown compared to recent highs, it's essential to view it in context. The 21-25 period was one of the most volatile in our history, which I personally experienced, shaped by COVID, destocking, supply chain disruptions, inflation, and geopolitical tensions. Delivering solid growth through that environment is a clear sign of resilience. When we take a longer-term perspective, the picture becomes clear. Givaudan's growth has steadily increased across cycles. The 2025 result is not a step down, but a continuation of our consistent upward path, proof that our strategy continues to deliver sustainable performance, and of my usual saying, I will repeat it again, CAGR does matter. And there's another important point to highlight. Despite persistent headwinds from the strong Swiss francs, we have doubled the size of our business in absolute Swiss franc terms over the last 15 years. Both divisions, fragrance and beauty, and taste and well-being, now contribute almost equally, reflecting a well-balanced, resilient business model. So the key method is simple. Our 25 growth demonstrates the enduring strength of Givaudan, consistent, balanced and built for long-term success. Turning to profitability, this slide shows the steady improvement of our comparable ABTDA margin over the last three strategic cycles. For many years, both divisions delivered very similar margins. In the most recent cycle, the margins have, though, diverged slightly. Fragrance & Beauty saw significant improvements supported by the exceptional growth and a more favorable raw material environment and benefits from the performance improvement programs that we introduced in 2024. Taste and well-being maintains solid margins in a more challenging context with more volume volatility and raw material inflation partially compensated by recent improvement initiatives as you see it from this chart when you look at the improving ABTDM margin of taste and well-being. Nevertheless, the operating strength of Tayson Rubin stands out clearly against peers with margins typically 300 to 500 basis points higher than the industry average. In absolute terms, the progress has been remarkable. Our comparable ABTDA in Swiss francs has more than doubled over the past 15 years. And while back in 2011, the entire group delivered 790 million shares, Swiss Francs Compatible ABTDA. Today, our fragrance and beauty division alone contributes to more than 1 billion Swiss Francs of ABTDA. We are proud that over the past five years, we made strong progress against our ambitious non-financial targets as well, fully aligned with our purpose to create for happier, healthier lives with love for nature. Starting with our nature ambition, we reached a major milestone with the validation of our net zero targets by the Science Based Targets Initiative. Aligned with the SBTI net zero standard covering forest, land and agriculture emissions, our goal is to achieve a net zero greenhouse gas emissions across our value chain by 2045. A key step towards becoming climate positive. By the end of 2025 and compared to 2015 baseline, We achieved an absolute 50% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and we successfully stabilized Scope 3 emissions despite obviously the continued business volume growth that we have seen over the last 10 years. We also reached our goal to purchase 100% of electricity from renewable sources one year ahead of plan in 2024. Turning to responsible sourcing. In 2020, only 20% of our natural ingredients were sourced according to our demanding responsible sourcing program called Sourcing for Good. At the end of 2025, that figure stands at 87%, showing an unwavering commitment to ethical and sustainable supply chains protecting the biodiversity. Finally, under our people ambition, we've continued to advance diversity and inclusion. At the start of the cycle, 25% of senior leadership positions were held by women. Today, that number has risen to 34%, reflecting steady and meaningful progress towards a more inclusive organization. Together, this achievement demonstrates how we combine purpose with performance, creating growth that is responsible resilient, and built to last. Let's turn now to slide 29, which highlights some of our key innovations from the past strategic cycle. Innovation, as you know, is the lifeblood of our business. This is what makes us relevant to our customers. It's what enables us to create unique, high-value solutions that drive consumers' preferences and shape the future of fragrance, beauty, health, wellness, and nutrition segments. Each year, we invest close to 8% of ourselves, which means 600 million Swiss francs, in research and development. This is an industry level of investment, and what sets it apart is our focus. While peers may spread similar amounts across multiple ingredients portfolios, we concentrate our ING on two divisions. Our R&D efforts bring together science, creativity, and technology, advancing in biotechnology, green chemistry, and digitalization. To take some examples, in taste and well-being, we are developing natural and functional ingredients, like our new range of natural colors and green banana powder that meet growing demand for healthier, more natural products. In fragrance and beauty, Evernetil is a great example of innovation rooted in sustainable biotechnology, a marine active developed through an upcycling process that transforms ocean algae into high-precision ingredients for healthier, youthful-looking skin. And there are many examples that I'll let you read on this slide. Finally, on the digital side, platforms like MiroMe and Guardians of Memory show how we are connecting creativity with technology, bringing scent into immersive digital worlds. I'm sure all parents here know about Roblox, where Gen Z and Alpha spend much of their time. So yes, even there, we are shaping the future of scent experiences for the next generation of consumers. Together, these examples show how we transform insight into action, into products, tackle real customer challenges, embrace consumer preferences, and make our business truly future-proof through innovation. Having looked back at our 25 strategy achievements, let's now focus ahead on our 2030 strategy and outlook. As outlined at the Summer Investor Conference, end of August, at the Vida Hotel in Zurich, our 2030 strategy is about purposeful evolution, building on the strong foundation of our proven model, combining innovation, customer partnership, and discipline execution to deliver sustainable growth, while preparing for what's next. We keep extending our customer reach to capture the fastest growing opportunities, We continue to deepen our geographic presence and we are expanding our categories and portfolios into high value-added adjacencies. How will we make it happen? By innovating for differentiating solutions that set us and our customers apart, by delivering value with excellence and agility, ensuring speed, quality, and impact in everything we do, and by caring for our people, nature and communities. Financially, we are setting ambitious new targets for the next five-year cycle. We aim for a 4% to 6% like-for-like average sales growth, slightly higher than our previous 4% to 5% guidance in the past cycle. This confidence reflects the continuous strength of our business, rooted in our expanding base of local and regional customers, and our growing exposure to high growth markets, which will continue to be key growth drivers for the future. We also reaffirm our industry-leading ambition of achieving over 12% free cash flow as a percentage of sales, maintaining a disciplined focus on profitability and cash generation. And beyond financial, we remain fully committed to our purpose targets for 2030. Following our financial ambition, let's also remind ourselves on our purpose. Our purpose, creating for happier and healthier lives we love for nature, let's imagine together, is our lighthouse. It defines why we do what we do and guides the choices we make every day, including acquisitions. Our purpose is fully integrated in our business strategy. With our 2025 strategy, we introduced for the first time a series of ambitious non-financial targets reflecting our commitment to long-term value creation beyond the financial performance. We report our progress against these targets each year in our integrated report covering both economic and ESG performance. As we developed our 2030 strategic framework, we reviewed and evolved those targets to ensure they remain strongly connected to our business performance objectives and aligned with the changing external environment. Our purpose continues to anchor us, inspiring innovation, driving sustainable growth, and creating a positive impact for people, nature, and communities. Let me finish now with the 2026 outlook on slide 34. We have successfully concluded the 2025 strategic cycle, confirming the strength and relevance of our current strategy. Building on this solid foundation, we are now initiating a new 5-year strategic cycle that will set the stage for sustainable growth and continued innovation. We remain confident in the strength of our portfolio and our leading market position across our businesses. Looking ahead into 2026, we expect to navigate a continuous volatile geopolitical landscape and uncertain market conditions. Nothing new. But our strong natural hedges across product segments, geographies, and customer groups will continue to provide resilience. We anticipate only limited impact from input costs at the group level, meaning raw materials, while tariff-related effects remain uncertain, but we will manage to pricing actions with our customers. In addition, we expect some ongoing non-recurring costs in 2026 to reflect specific one-off items related to costs for the investigation and further performance optimization. With that, we are at the end of our 2025 full-year results presentation, and I'd like to hand to the operator for the instructions to open the Q&A session. We look forward to taking your questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and 1 at this time. The first question comes from Celine Pannuti from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. First of all, Gilles, well, I wanted to I give you my congratulations for those impressive achievements that you showed us just now as you have led Givaudan over the past two decades. And of course, I wish you much continued success as the new role of chair of the company. I have not followed 21 years of Givaudan, but a few of those. And I hear you when you say Calgary is your best friend. So my first question, on trying to understand a bit how to look at 2026 in what you said is a volatile environment and there's been as well volatility that you guys have experienced in the second half of the year. So if I look at CAGR in volume over the past, I think five or even 10 years is around three and a half to four. Do you think that's a good proxy as we look into 2026? And how should we think about the pricing element in an environment where you mentioned limited cost inflation? And then my second question would be on gross margin bridge. I would like to understand a bit the moving parts for 2026. There seems to have been some tariff impact in the second half that hit gross margin as well as extra investment and would like to understand how this will phase out in 2026 and whether there will be any offset. Thank you.

Thank you, Céline, for your kind words and supporting Givaudan always for many years, analyzing accurately our company. I'll answer your question. So yes, cargo is your best friend, but especially what I mean is really when we look at the quarter, you can actually look at the cargo of the same quarter over many years and on the given year. So that's basically what I mean. It's always helpful to look at the cargo, looking and projecting the way forward. Now, obviously, 2026, as you know, we don't commit on the number, on an actual number. We commit on the five years of the plan. What I can say, though, is basically uh looking looking ahead so essentially we have the fragrance and beauty as you've seen for 2025 but also towards the end of the year continues to be on the on a very good momentum probably taste and well-being will take a few months to come back you know given the softness of some of the multinationals which are our clients and so forth Though, I would like to remind again, because this is a read-across, which sometimes people are a bit too fast at doing, looking at the results of a multinational and reading across what it means for Givaudan. Today, 60% of ourselves are with L&R, and nobody has any visibility on their growth, because they are usually companies which are not public. So that means the relative exposure to multinationals is lower. So, essentially, if we look at comparables on the test and well-being, they will continue to be a bit tough in the first half, but easing out in the second half. And that's true for the group as well. There's two or three points different between the two halves if you really want to dissect quarters and halves. But again, the perspective is the full year. We remain confident basically on one side to have a continued good performance on the fragrance and beauty and basically the good recovery on the test and rubbing on the backs of lower comparables. That's maybe the way to look at and interpret my category is your friend. And category is your friend as long as you take three years. You know, three years is not enough. then uh you know i would like also to give because that's what we usually give you know it's basically the tonality on how active our clients are in terms of innovation because that's also the leading indicator on how the year is going to turn out you know because as you know we have a certain amount of erosion of our business every year which is compensated by new winds and so forth so if we look at those we are very We feel very good about the amount of new wins that we have accumulated in 25, which will roll over in 26. So that's the first very good positive indicator on all sides of the business, two divisions. And the inflow that we have in terms of briefs and so forth going into 26 is also very good, which basically is a testament also to the way our clients view us. Again, thanks to the strategic choices we made. So all of those things are positives going forward. So that's basically what I can say about the growth going forward. I will reiterate because maybe I was not so clear enough. When you look at the chart, when we talk about the volatility of the five years, you know, again, this really stands out as a cycle. And I think people don't realize that the COVID was the baseline creating a ripple effect where that has created a lot of yo-yos you know in our own growth year on year and so this is probably going to normalize and reduce this volatility going forward but as you see the average is still 6.8% which is again one of the best if not the best average we have had. Then on the GPM Yeah, so on the pricing, so yes, probably very mild pricing given the raw materials which are quite stable. And on the tariffs, well, it's going to depend on how it's going to evolve. But again, this is really the tariffs pricing. translation in ourselves is quite minimal below the 1%. Let's see how it affects pricing. But again, I would like to reiterate something which is sometimes, again, misunderstood. Pricing, this is my legacy, pricing is not a growth strategy. It's not a growth strategy like our clients would have a growth strategy, and it's not a growth strategy like some of companies selling standard or commodities ingredients when the market goes up. Our pricing strategy is just to reflect the increased costs that we incur, whether they are Romas, tariffs, and whatever. And basically, one additional pricing is compensating one on the cost side. So 1 minus 1 equals 0. That means on the ABT level, it has no effect. On the margin side, percentile, it does because of the mechanical dilution. So I don't think we should look at pricing with such a myopic view because it doesn't drive real value growth. And then the GPM bridge, maybe... Yeah, I can take that, Céline.

So maybe we... Thanks for the question on the margin bridge. Maybe we back up to 2025 and then we take it forward from there. So I think the gross margin, as I mentioned, had... come off about 43.5% versus 44.1%. And although we don't give gross margin information by the division, I think we had been clear that in this year we had raw material inflation which was more slanted towards fragrance and beauty than taste and well-being. And because of inventory cycles, the raw material effect tends to come through not evenly throughout the year, so a little bit more second half. As Gilles mentioned, we've got also tariffs coming through more consistently in second half than first. So we've got the mechanical dilution of those two effects. And then both of us mentioned in our narrative the margin of fragrance and beauty being slightly impacted by the competitive situation around some specific ingredients in the fragrance ingredients portfolio. So that's a little bit at a high level that covers two topics. the margin bridge in 25 and the split between H1 and H2, because I know there's been some questions about that. Looking forward, you know, we don't have a crystal ball particularly around tariffs. I think Gilles mentioned on input costs, we see minimal impact and we are relatively well covered, at least for the first half. So we know relatively well where the costs of input costs are going in H1. On tariffs, we need to see, of course, and as always, we will reflect any tariff impact with continuing pricing actions with our clients. But that gives you a bit of a sense for, I think, what the key building blocks are of the margin bridge and how we would see that going forward.

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

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

Thank you.

The next question comes from Alex Lawn from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, all. Thanks for taking the questions. The first one on fragrance ingredients, do you think there's any risk that sustained depletion there could spill over to your larger fragrance compounding businesses or customer negotiations elsewhere? Or are you confident that the pressures can be fully contained? And I guess, do you think we're kind of near the peak of those pressures on fragrance ingredients? That would be the first one. And the second one on taste and well-being, I appreciate you don't manage it on a quarterly basis. There were some impacts that were temporary, like Mexico. But obviously, you know, like-to-like decline is due for not consistent with your medium-term for the business, just thinking about how we get back there and the pathway. I mean, is it realistic to assume a pathway back to mid-single-digit growth for this business, or do you think there could be any structural challenges to any specific end markets that could prevent that recovery?

Thank you. Okay, thank you for your question. So, yeah, so again, maybe it's worth explaining the the fragrance ingredients business because Givaudan has a different strategy than maybe some of our peers or the ingredients industry at large. We have a long time ago made a very conscious decision to, yes, make fragrance ingredients. We have chemical plants, so we are basically insourcing a number of chemical ingredients. which most of them come actually of our research. So it's a way to leverage innovation, to leverage research and to keep the IP on our ingredients and to make those ingredients so that they enrich the palette of our perfumers and then that gives a competitive advantage when you create a new compound, a new fragrances. So that's why fragrance, researching new fragrance ingredients, making them is absolutely key and essential to be competitive on the fragrance side so that means what does it mean it means that by construction we are we don't have a fragrance ingredient business just to have a fragrance ingredient business it's basically because obviously when you find a new ingredient you develop a new one you you have you need to be cost effective and that means large volume so at some point Whenever we have what we call a captive fragrance ingredient, we decide to sell it to the outside market, and that turns into a third-party sales, which becomes the FIB. So you see, it's not that we are looking to have a very large FIB business and then figure out how to use that internally. It's exactly the reverse. So that means that some of those ingredients at some point become attacked by pricing and so forth. So that's the case, one of which, you know, last year, and clearly some Chinese competition, which dented a bit the performance on the FIB business. But this is not reflecting, I would say, the weakness of the portfolio, because actually we have a very large percentage of our FIB business, which are specialties, which are uniquely made and so forth. The second reason why Though, even though, you know, despite this sort of weakness on one ingredient, we have seen a soft noise. Well, you know, it's almost a bit ironic, but for me it's a good signal because those ingredients are sold to competition. So the more we gain market share on the compound side, the less we do on the fragrance ingredients. So that's one way to look at it. And that's why this weakness comes from the fact that maybe some of our clients in this industry are not growing as fast. um so uh so then back to your question on does it reflect the deflation environment not it no it doesn't because we said that raw materials are become have been stable um and therefore it doesn't have a i would say a a read across or an effect on the compound business where clients would ask for so basically that's what we we can say it's quite isolated and again it it's a very different portfolio mix that we have vis-a-vis competitors, so that means we are less exposed to this volatile environment that you have in ingredients. On taste and well-being, on the quarterly basis, essentially, again, back to the Kaggle story, so actually the average volume For Givaudan, if you take out price, it's still strong over the last five years. But we can say about taste and well-being. So over the last five years, we actually grew 5.4%. So obviously, this is greater than the 4% we had from 2016 to 2020. So you see an acceleration. Yes, there was a bit more pricing, but volume continued to grow. If you go back to your question on the quarter, yes, we don't like to have a minus 1.14 in Thais and Rabin, but again, CAGR is your best friend. We were at plus 10% in 2024. And even if I look at 23, three years CAGR, we're actually in the midst of 5% to 6%. So that basically, again, CAGR is your best friend, to understand Givaudan. So going forward, We remain confident on the core business on flavors. We see the strength that we have, and we remain confident that we can grow in taste and well-being. Obviously, a big reminder that it's pretty obvious, we don't have fine fragrances in taste and well-being. So even if fine fragrances account for 20% of the division, but when growing at 18% every year, it has a big influence obviously on the average. So we don't have something called five flavors. I think that's it with the questions.

Yeah. The next question comes from Nicola Tang from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. I just wanted to sort of reiterate Celine's best wishes to Gilles. In terms of questions, coming back on the topic of margins, I hear your comments on pricing or inputs and tariffs. Looking more specifically at the divisions, taste and well-being is still slightly below your sort of 22% to 25% EBITDA margin sweet spot. Do you expect to get that into the sweet spot range in 2026? And can you explain a little bit what some division-specific drivers are. And then a similar question on the fragrance and beauty side. I think you've been increasing targeted investments. So do you expect that to step up again in 2026? And can you explain a little bit some of the moving parts on margin for that division? And then I'll try a bit on fine fragrance. Could you give us any more detail in terms of regional performance and any color in terms of your forward-looking indicators, so your briefing activity and your own pipeline for 2026. Thank you.

Thank you, Nicolas. Thank you for your kind words and questions. So basically, you want to get a bit more color in terms of the margins evolution between the two divisions. It's true that when you look at what we showed in terms of the average by division, the difference between the two divisions has increased, you know, because over the last cycle you have three points of difference between the two divisions when it was one point of difference from 2016 to 2020. I would say some reasons to that. Well, obviously you have fragrance which has grown faster than taste. So obviously you have the operation leverage which is probably the biggest ABTDA margin driver to explain the difference. The second point is, yes, the fine fragrance has a bit of mixed effect, but let's not overstate it or overestimate it. Then I would say that in terms of evolution, what we are giving is a very clear target on the free cash flow, as you know, greater than 12%. And because we are very nice, we also give a sort of a sweet spot brand on the ABTDA margins, which is 22% to 25% ABTDA margin for the group without giving a specific target for the two divisions. Though what I can say is that on the taste and well-being division, uh you can see the climbing up the mountain uh from 20 in 2022 to 21.7 in 25 so we are making progress we are making progress and that will continue to be so thanks to uh efforts on the product portfolio you know margins improvement that we have you know some of the ingredients that we have outside taste you know on colors or on on preservatives or other segments. So this is in works and we are continuing to deploy some efforts at doing that thanks to Antoine and his team. I would say that efforts also on gaining efficiencies in the divisions in operations. So I'm quite, let's say, confident and optimistic to continue the green line that you see on this chart, improving to taste and well-being. We will not give a guidance for taste and well-being, but actually the average for the last 15 years has been 21.5% more or less. So can we do better than this? Maybe. Can we be at the level of fragrance and beauty? Maybe not. On the other hand, it doesn't mean that fragrance and beauty will slam down. There is no reason for this to happen going forward. And we remain confident that we can continue on a good profitable growth for fragrance and beauty as well. But again, bandwidth 22 to 25. And you remember that we always commit on things that we can deliver. So fine fragrances. To give a bit of color on fine fragrances, so there are many ways to look at it. Today we broke really something I would never have expected. I said it. Samea for fine is bigger than North America and LATAM combined. So first that gives you an idea about the breadth of the portfolio in fine that we have. But the second element of color, which I think is important, because I've seen too many read across, again, of results of some of the leads beauty clients that we have and translated that into projection on the fine fragrance business of Givaudan. Just to give you an idea, just rough numbers because I won't disclose them, but more or less you have one-third of our fine fragrance business which are driven by what we call prestige, which are really brands that you see in multinationals and the ones which are really visible and so forth. This has been growing for us, mid-single digit, reflecting the market, but also gaining market share because we are doing very well with that. But that's only, in a way, one third. The other third has to do with specialty retail and direct selling, which is a business model itself that you see a lot in the US and that you see a lot in LATAM. This part has also grown mid-single digit. The third third, if I may say so, has to do all with local and regional clients across Samia, across Latam, across Asia, plus what we call the haute parfumerie, the parfumerie de niche, where Givaudan is clearly a leader. Many of you who attend the December Fine Fragrance hosting in Clébert in Paris, you've seen some of the presentations. So you have one product, actually, which is growing close to 40%. So that gives you an idea that, and that part nobody sees because no public reporting from any clients. And that's where also Givaudan is going very strongly. So yes, maybe some of the multinationals, the prices are slowing down, but we have the other part which is continuing to fuel our growth. So that gives you a perspective on how broad we are in fine fragrances, both from a geographic standpoint, as well as a channel standpoint, and as well as a client standpoint. But I can tell you the world is spending better and better when you look at the whole young generation, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, multi-layering, increasing dosage level. And we are doing much better than competition. So that gives you a long story about fine frequencies, but worth it given the numerous questions we get on fine frequencies.

Thank you very much.

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

Okay, so that was our last question. Thank you. So closing remarks. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are at the end of this results call. Before we close, allow me to take a brief personal moment, because that's the only time I can do that, and the last time probably. So after 21 years of engaging with you, Analysts and investors, many of you since my beginnings, actually. This will be my last results call as CEO. And I really want to sincerely thank you for the many insightful discussions, the challenging questions, but which have always been an inspiration to me to think differently, to think ahead. And above all, for the trust and the support and the enjoyment and fun I had, you've shown to Givaudan over the years. It has been a privilege to share this journey with you, to see our company grow and evolve together with your continuous interest and partnership. And I'm confident that under Christian's leadership, Givaudan Story will continue to be one of innovation, purpose, and sustainable success, along with our more than 16,000 employees. Thank you again for your engagement and for being part of this journey. Thank you.