Croda International Plc

Morning everyone and many thanks for joining us this morning for another virtual presentation. Given how long it's been since we saw you last, we've decided to do this by video just to reassure you that we're still very much alive. So OK then, let's get on with it. As ever, I'm here with Jez and he will come on to talk about the numbers following a brief introduction from me. I'll finish off by updating you with some more detail on various aspects of our strategy and he will then be very happy to answer your questions. So turning to the next slide then. Overall, Crota has delivered a record first half performance, driven by the strategic moves that we've made over the last 12 months. Underlying sales increased 27% on H1 2020, which of course was impacted by COVID. So important to point out that this is also 10% ahead of half one 2019. Including acquisitions, reported profits are up 50% versus 2020, or 35% versus 2019. The group margin is also ahead of the prior year, and despite the acquisition of Ibican, where margins are lower, that progress has led to a further 10% increase to the interim dividend, continuing our 29-year track record of dividend growth. There are three key areas that have driven this performance. Firstly, our existing business. We've seen strong underlying growth in our existing business, benefiting from significant investment together with increased innovation. End consumer demand has also continued to recover with the additional benefit of customer restocking in line with strengthening economic conditions. Secondly, acquisitions. 2020 was a year of significant investment, with nearly £1 billion invested in both inorganic and organic growth. Well, we've really seen the benefit of that, notably the acquisitions of Iberchem and Avanti, which are opening up some very exciting and significant opportunities for Croda. Thirdly, Life Sciences, which has delivered an excellent performance, and with our healthcare business performing exceptionally well. So very encouraging progress and testament to the strategy that we've been focused on accelerating over the last 12 months. So turning the page just over to the headlines then. Sales were up 38% due to higher volumes and price increases. This is reflecting our ability to successfully pass along raw material costs as well as the benefits of recent acquisitions. Good growth in high-value niches helped push the margin higher, and the combination of increased sales and an improved mix delivered a near 50% improvement in operating profit. Cash flow fell as a consequence of growing demand and increased capex to support our exciting opportunities for growth. Because the second quarter of last year was weak due to COVID, we've been monitoring business performance against the same period in 2019. So stripping out acquisitions and lipid system sales, all sectors are ahead double digit on an underlying basis, with volumes much better than 2019 and price mix ahead in consumer care and life sciences. Sales of new and protected products as a percentage of total sales are also ahead of 2019 levels, with acquisitions and lipid system sales benefiting reported NPP. As we continue our journey to become a more knowledge intensive company, we continue to build our brain incredibly. Overall, 85% of our profits are now generated in life science and consumer markets. And all sectors are delivering great growth. Turning briefly to each of the sectors then in turn, personal care continued the progress that we saw through the second half of 2020, but at a faster pace driven by beauty actives and stronger demand in the Americas. Better product mix and increased innovation focused on natural ingredients and biotechnology is enabling us to capture growing consumer demand. We're also very pleased with Iverchem's progress and the new opportunities that is opening up in the fast-growing fragrance market for us. Life Sciences has been simply outstanding and continues to exceed our expectations. We've seen strong momentum across all areas, with underlying sales in crop protection and seed enhancement both increasing by a double-digit percentage. The highlight was healthcare, where adjuvants and specialty excipients both grew by more than two-thirds. Our investment in developing our lipid systems, by which we mean both lipid excipients and other Avanti lipid products, has been a major benefit. We now expect to generate at least $200 million of sales from lipid systems this year, principally due to Pfizer and BioNTech, an increase on the $125 million that we communicated back in March. We've also seen a very strong recovery in performance technologies driven by the broader industrial end market recovery and our exposure to next generation sustainability driven applications. We also saw margins returning to 2019 levels, increasing to 15.6% versus 10.9% for the second half last year. So overall, in the round, an outstanding half with momentum in the business as strong as I've seen it over the last decade. More on that when I come back. Let me stop there and hand over to Jez to go over the half one performance in more detail. Jez.

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everybody. As Steve has said, the first half of 2021 has seen a record financial performance for the group. Sales were up 39% in reported currency at 934 million sterling and increased by 47% in constant currency. The recent strength of sterling means that reported currency numbers are generally about eight or nine percentage points below the constant currency numbers across our financial metrics. Adjusted operating profit increased by 50% to £242 million. This reflected a better overall product mix and volume, resulting in return on sales increasing by 190 basis points to 25.9%. Adjusted profit before tax came in just shy of £230 million, up 50% on prior year. With the effective tax rate broadly unchanged at 24.4%, the increase in the number of shares in issue following the Iberchem equity placing at the end of last year saw adjusted earnings per share up 40% to 124 pence. The interim dividend has increased to 43.5 pence, up 10% per share and 19% in cash cost. Perhaps the only disappointing number on this slide is the free cash flow, which dropped by 47% on prior year to 43 million sterling. due to higher capital investment and working capital build, which I'll explain later. Adjusting profit items charged in the period totaled £25 million, including an increased charge for intangible amortisation following recent acquisition activity, and exceptional items just under £9 million, covering Avanti deferred consideration and M&A costs. For Avanti, we have increased the expected earn-out to 100%, or $75 million, to reflect the growth of the Lipid Systems platform. This is a win-win for both Kroda and Avanti shareholders. The M&A costs relate to our first-half acquisitions and preparing parts of the PTIC business for sale. Profit for tax on an IFRS basis was £204 million. The left hand chart shows the sales bridge for first half 21 versus the same period of 2020, recalling that Q2 20 was the worst quarter for us during the COVID outbreak. Underlying sales are up 27% in the first half of this year, equally split between price mix and volume. Price mix includes an estimated increase in average selling prices of 5 percentage points to recover higher raw material prices since year end. Mix improved in personal care and in life sciences. Acquisitions added 20% year-on-year to group sales, giving 47% constant currency sales growth. Currency translation, due to the strength of sterling, particularly against the US dollar, had an adverse 8% impact, giving a 39% rise in reported currency sales. Now, I'm conscious that the impact of lipid systems growth, particularly for COVID vaccines, has had a significant impact on the first half. And it would be easy, but incorrect, to conclude that the strong performance has been driven predominantly by this. So in the right hand chart, I've looked at the first half growth rate through a different lens. Of the underlying 27% sales growth, 8 percentage points have come from Lipid Systems and 19 percentage points from Crota's existing business, reflecting strong growth in consumer care, the rest of life sciences and performance technologies. Of the acquisition growth of 20 percentage points, 14 points has come from Ivochem and 6 from Avanti, and roughly half of Avanti's sales are in Lipid Systems. Turning now to look at the sector overview. Consumer care sales grew by 46% in reported currency. Adjusted operating profit growth was half this level, reflecting that Ibikem operates at a lower margin than the personal care business. As a result of this dilution effect, return on sales was just under 25%. The standout performer was again Life Sciences. Having seen no discernible negative impact from COVID-19 last year, sales grew in the first half of 2021 by 61%. With a stronger product mix, adjusted operating profit almost doubled and return on sales reached 39%. Performance technologies saw a strong sales recovery from the impact of COVID last year, with first-half sales 15% up on prior year, all organically driven. The benefits of greater volume on operating leverage saw adjusted operating profit 18% higher and return on sales moving above 15%. Worth noting across all the sectors is the impact of a higher remuneration incentive charge on first-half profitability. This comprises the bonus cost, having seen no group-wide bonuses accrue in 2019 or 2020, together with a higher share-based payment charge reflecting the strong share price performance and the fact that the vast majority of our employees have share ownership in CRODA. The impact of this was to reduce return on sales year-on-year by a little over 2 percentage points. Now let's look at each of the three principal sectors in some more detail. 2021 saw the creation of the consumer care sector, comprising CRODA's leading global position in personal care, a growing home care business, and Ibogaine fragrances acquired last November. After a steady recovery in the second half of 2020 after COVID-19 hit going out sales of actives and cosmetics, personal care improved rapidly in the first half of 21. It delivered underlying sales growth of 19%, and sales are now 8% ahead of pre-pandemic levels from 2019. Growth was strongest in the high-end, IP-rich products, with beauty-active sales up 26%. Beauty effects saw a progressive improvement in demand for sun care, cosmetics and hair care markets, growing sales by 11%, but remained constrained by some continuing lockdowns. Beauty formulation enjoyed resilient sales through pandemic lockdown, with its focus on at-home use products, but still delivered 8% growth this year. After strong demand for hygiene products during 2020, home care sales slowed to 5% this year. Customer relaunches using Kroda's Fabric Care technology, together with a progressive replacement of petrochemical products with bio-based surfactants from a US eco-plant, should drive further growth. Reported IBKM sales grew by 13%, continuing the double-digit percentage sales CAGR enjoyed pre-acquisition. IBKM's profit was in line with our acquisition plan. With active sales strong, this drove better product mix and margin improvement in the underlying business. Price mix improved by 7% and volume was 11% higher. Ibogaine, together with the smaller 2021 acquisitions, added 38 percentage points, and currency translation was an adverse 10%, to give the reported sales increase of 46%. Life Sciences continues to develop into a business to rival Crota's long-held leadership in consumer care markets. With its focus on drug, vaccine and crop science delivery systems, the sector is growing sales through organic expansion and by leveraging acquired technologies. The first half year saw sales up 61% and adjusted operating profit almost double. Within underlying sales, 47% higher, the existing business added 17 percentage points to sector growth. We saw an outstanding healthcare performance with rapid expansion in all three patient healthcare platforms. with sales of vaccine adjuvants and specialty excipients each up by over two thirds and new manufacturing capacity on stream to support both platforms. Crop protection and seed enhancement each delivered double digit percentage growth year on year. This demonstrated the breadth of the growth across the life sciences portfolio. The scale up of lipid systems at Crota sites added 30 percentage points of growth and the successful integration of the Avanti acquisition added 23 percentage points. Currency translation was 9% adverse. The sector is moving into higher value, lower volume niches. This is reflected in an increase in return on sales, which has risen 11 percentage points over the last five years. Growth in both sales and margin in the first half of 2021 have been exceptionally strong. As we bring capacity on stream and deploy more people to support this growth, we expect both margin and growth to moderate somewhat. However, the overall momentum is expected to remain positive. The first half year for performance technologies saw a continued improvement in sales driven by a recovery in industrial markets and sustainability driven demand. Margins also improved due to a better business mix and operating leverage. Sales increased by 15%. Smart Materials has led the recovery with sales up 18%. We've seen strong demand for food packaging and protective equipment, recovery and broader polymer demand, and growing customer requirements for sustainable solutions such as biodegradable and recyclable materials. This growth has been supported by a progressive improvement in energy technologies with a 10% increase in sales, Industrial markets have recovered and our demand has outpaced this broader recovery thanks to our exposure to higher growth markets, including next generation applications such as electric vehicles. Underlying sales for the sector are now 11% ahead of 2019, so well ahead of pre-pandemic levels. Free cash flow fell to £43 million as a result of working capital build associated with the growth in demand and the increase in capital expenditure. Of the £98 million investment in working capital, £72 million was the prior larger impact of higher raw material prices and increased demand. £20 million was an increase in contingency stock to manage raw material availability and forward price rises, which leaves £6 million as the net increase in working capital. So I'm not uncomfortable with the overall position here. We continued to deploy capital to deliver sustainable growth in life science and consumer care markets, and the first half capital expenditure was £80 million. We invested £40 million of this in healthcare capacity in vaccine adjuvants and lipid systems, and we commissioned a £30 million investment, which is doubled capacity of specialty excipients in the US. In consumer care, we invested €70 million in the acquisition of Arban Muller in beauty actives and Parflex in fragrances. Total investment in capital spend and acquisition totaled £140 million in the first half year, and this reflects elements one and three of the group's capital allocation policy, which is shown here. We expect to continue with the current accelerated capital investment programme for the remainder of 2021, given the strong demand, environment and range of opportunities, particularly in consumer and life sciences. In addition, in Element 2, we continued to provide regular returns to shareholders, increasing the interim dividend by 10%. And in Element 4, we continued to maintain an effective balance sheet. At 30 June 2021, leverage ratio had reduced to 1.7 times. I'll now hand you back to Steve to update you on our strategic priorities.

Thanks, Jez. Back again. Let me take you through the back of the pack then, and thanks to Jez. The framework for our strategy will be familiar to most of you, but at its core, we believe that sustainability together with innovation will drive our future growth. Sustainability trends are increasing rapidly, driven by consumer demand and regulatory change. We are responding through relentless innovation to help customers achieve their own sustainability objectives, and that's enabling us to win market share. We've made strong progress implementing our sector strategies over the last 12 months, expanding life sciences, strengthening consumer care and refining performance technologies. We've done our best work coming out of the COVID-19 crisis, which I'll come on to now, and the company is in a very strong position to capitalise on this going forward. Turning to the next slide then, the two strategic acquisitions we made last year have delivered significant benefits for CRODA. In particular, our acquisition of Avanti has enabled us to play an important role in the manufacture and rollout of COVID-19 drugs and vaccines, supporting 25 COVID-related products, something that we're very proud of, each and every one of us in Croda. Lipid system sales are now expected to reach at least $200 million in 2021, principally for our major COVID-19 vaccine contract, compared with guidance of $125 million previously. Demand for COVID-19 solution ingredients remains uncertain beyond the short term and the current level of sales could moderate, but we expect to see an ongoing expansion in the range of applications for lipid systems in vaccines and therapeutic drugs of the medium term. In future, we expect lipid systems to be used for mRNA drugs and vaccines to combat other infectious diseases such as flu and non-mRNA applications, including lipid systems for vaccine adjuvants. So as a result, we expect this to become a more meaningful part of our business. Iberchem's sales grew by 13% and the integration process has moved along at pace and we're firmly on track to deliver targeted annual synergies for 48 million euros by 2025. Iberchem's focus on higher growth emerging markets will drive significant value for the business in the coming years. You've heard me talk repeatedly now about focusing Crota on the faster growth markets of the future, and that's exactly what we're doing. It's all about making bigger, bolder bets on niche markets to either expand or build our leadership positions and drive significant value. So across both life sciences and consumer care, these are the areas that we are focused on and where we are delivering on our purpose and using smart science to improve lives. All eight of our core businesses shown here are performing strongly and are well positioned for future growth in markets that are already growing impressively. Turning to drug delivery then, drug delivery systems has been an area that we've been investing in for nearly two decades. We're focused on three platforms, all of which are niche, highly specialised areas where we see compelling opportunities for future growth. Given the size of each market and the leadership position that we've established, The market for specialty excipients continues to grow, driven by the expansion in injectable drugs using biological actives which continue to dominate new drug launches. Crota provides the broadest range of high purity excipients and purity is what our customers want. Lipid systems offer significant potential beyond COVID-19 for a wide variety of future mRNA and gene therapy applications, reflected in the market value which is currently doubling each year. We have a first mover advantage established through the Avanti acquisition and augmented by continued innovation and over £40 million of capital investment deployed in the last year. Vaccine adjuvants are another fast growing area. The vaccine market has more than doubled since 2019 and much of this is driven by demand for COVID-19 vaccines. And we're in a leading position founded on the technology that we acquired with Biosector in 2018. So we see significant opportunities in the future, combating both infectious and non-infectious diseases. So taken in the round together, we're working on more than 100 COVID-19 projects in over 20 countries across these three drug delivery platforms. the majority of which utilise our vaccine adjuvant technologies in addition to our expertise in specialty excipients and lipid systems. In R&D, our progress is being fuelled by innovation, innovation that is being driven by significant levels of investment and by working closely with our customers Biological drugs, normally administered by injection in liquid form, dominate the hospital prescription market. And we have the broadest range of high-purity excipients for biological formulation, and have launched a further eight excipients in the last year alone, taking the total to more than 50 that we have in the market. So we're scaling up in all areas, with lipid systems being no exception. And with over 200 lipid-based vaccines and drugs in Phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials, and a similar number in research, there is a huge opportunity for us. And we're reinforcing our market leading position through R&D investment and innovation. And finally, competition in the vaccine adjuvant market is mainly limited to a small number of traditional adjuvant manufacturers. And we're investing in the next generation adjuvant technologies and increasing the collaboration with Avanti to become more and more involved with the fight against other World Health Organization listed diseases. So to ensure that we continue to grow in this area, we're rapidly scaling up our operations with 100 million of capital expenditure, over 40 million of which we've invested this half. We've doubled our capacity for specialty excipients in the US with additional capability in Japan. And at Avanti, we've doubled the number of employees and double capacity, which we'll start to benefit from this quarter. So as Jez has said, we've also been scaling up Avanti's technologies at existing quota sites in the UK, and we've also doubled our vaccine adjuvant capacity, which is coming on stream now. These are already some of the highest returning investments in our portfolio, and we're confident that this trend will continue. Moving to consumer markets then, this slide gives you a picture of what we're doing in the consumer care sector. On the chart top left, you will see that the markets for our technologies are growing more quickly than personal care as a whole. Our peptides, botanicals and biotechnology ingredients are all fundamental to both the current and future generations of personal care products. And with biotechnology the fastest growing technology, whilst the number of new product launches has been up and down through the pandemic, There's been a steady upward trend in new products with sustainability claims, more than doubling since 2019. That trend will accelerate driven by today's younger consumer demand for green, clean and conscious beauty. And finally, China will continue to be the fastest growing personal care market globally, which is why we've more than doubled our presence there over the last year. And as I've said many times now, the sustainability trends are enabling us to win lots of new business. In future, we expect to grow consumer care both through novel product offerings and by unseating incumbent suppliers because two-thirds of our raw materials are bio-based and our ingredients deliver sustainability benefits to customers. So a good example of this is our Eco range of sustainable surfactants that use corn-based bioethanol as a raw material. Our eco plant is now fully up and running after some well-documented operational issues and we're rapidly seeing the benefits of this investment. We've seen a tenfold increase in the number of personal care customers with an equivalent increase in sales and have more than doubled the number of home care customers in the period from a higher base. So moving clockwise around the slide, we're also seeing a renaissance in very mild surfactants that have been in our product range for a number of years. Unlike similar ingredients from competitors, they are sulfate-free, and this is one of the things consumers are increasingly looking for with the clean beauty trend. Through our Soderma business in France and IRB in Italy, we're the market leaders in biotechnology and personal care, the fastest-growing beauty technology. And as an example, this has enabled us to develop Majestum, a market-leading product used to treat sagging skin on the face and neck, one for the senior members of the cell side dialing into the call. This product has been created from an Edelweiss stem cell culture and is just one of 50 products that Suderma has brought to market using biotechnology and one of over 100 crudder ingredients that are biotech based. We're also creating new market niches within home care and have recently helped Unilever to relaunch its comfort brand in Europe and Asia using our protein technologies that protect clothes from damage in the washing cycle. And it's all about finding more and more innovation. We're also the market leaders in botanicals, where we source ingredients from plants, a market that is growing significantly faster than the average for personal care. And to enhance our position, we acquired Alban Muller in March, who have a portfolio of 100% natural actives, many sourced from local farmers too. We're increasing our sustainable actives innovation to cater for that surge in consumer demand that we're seeing. Our beauty actives team recently launched Amazing, a biodegradable product with its origins in wild ginger that improves the appearance of dark-eyed circles. Overall, in the last 12 months, we've more than doubled the number of people we've focused on consumer care innovation, putting more R&D capacity close to customers and rapidly increasing biotechnology investment. So just building on the earlier comments about Iberchem, we're very pleased with its progress, delivering double-digit sales growth with profit on plan and good progress realising revenue synergies. Earlier in the year, we acquired Parfex, a small bolt-on that increases Iberchem's fine fragrance and sustainable offerings. We've established our creation centre for fine fragrances at Parfex in Grasse in southern France, where we will advance our R&D and manufacture of natural fragrances, where we see significant opportunities going forward. And as you know, a core part of the rationale for acquiring Iberchem was to extend our presence in emerging markets. And we've been increasing the collaboration between Iberchem and Crota China, supported by further investment and capacity expansions in the region. We're already seeing signs of early growth as a result, which is encouraging. And we've established a new Iberchem team on our main Crota site in Brazil, and are seeing exciting opportunities to grow Iberchem in mature markets, for example, leveraging Crota's sales network and logistic teams in North America. As I mentioned earlier, performance technologies have seen very strong recovery. Our smart materials technology is responding to the increased demand for sustainable solutions, such as biodegradable and recyclable polymers. In energy technologies too, we're seeing lots of exciting innovation that is helping us grow ahead of the market. As we said at the time we announced the strategic review of our performance technologies and industrial chemicals businesses, collectively known as PTIC, these are good businesses with a strong and exciting future. But like consumer care and life sciences, they need ongoing investment. So we are reviewing what the best ownership structure is going forward and the work that we've undertaken in the last few months now tells us that up to 75% of PTIC could be carved out to operate as a standalone entity or as part of another business. The critical objective is to ensure that PTIC can realise its full potential and thrive and we will provide a further update when the strategic review concludes at the end of the year. And finally, we're committed to being the most sustainable supplier of innovative ingredients, which is the right thing to do and also opens up lots of exciting commercial opportunities for Crota going forward. Consumers want more information about the products that they buy, and we've made strong progress with our ingredient transparency project. We're also making good progress with our decarbonisation agenda, important as much as anything when it comes to helping our customers reduce their Scope 3 emissions. Our focus has been on implementing decarbonisation roadmaps that cover over 90% of our emissions and using an internal carbon price to support our decision making. We've recently become only the third major chemical company in the world to have a 1.5 degree science-based target verified, something we're very proud of. And Kroda has been ranked as the number one most sustainable international company, putting us ahead of customers we admire so much in the form of L'Oreal and Unilever. So in summary then, we've had a record first half that reflects three key things. Strong underlying growth in our existing business. Secondly, significant benefits from the acquisitions of Avante and Iberchem. And thirdly, life sciences, with our healthcare business performing exceptionally well. In terms of the outlook, whilst customer restocking is expected to moderate, we expect continued underlying growth across all sectors in the second half of the year. Together with the benefits of recent acquisitions and at least $200 million of lipid system sales, we now expect full-year adjusted profit before tax to be significantly ahead of current expectations. So let me stop there. Jez and I are very happy now to take your questions.

Hello, everybody. Just as a reminder to covering analysts, please use the raise hand function to indicate that you wish to ask a question. When I ask you to, I'll turn on the video and unmute your mic. You're good to go to ask the question. The first question today comes from Gunter Zeckman at Bernstein. Please turn on your video and unmute your mic.

Hi, good morning, everyone. I hope you can hear and see me. I'll start with two, please. Thanks for providing so much information in the slide deck. Can I pick you up on slide seven, where you show the NPP growth over the last couple of years? One thing that stands out is that NDP organically was only flat the last two years. Does Crota rely on M&A to differentiate? Where should we see that go? Should we expect more M&A to keep that going? So that's number one. And the second one, on the lipid systems, as you call it now, and the raised guidance, how should we think about your visibility into 2022? You said the Pfizer contract was a three-year contract. Can you give any kind of guidance of the sustainability and shape after 2021, please?

Yeah, nice to see you, Gunter. And no surprise, you're first of the question. Let's do the lipid systems first. I mean, to clarify, lipid systems is the lipid delivery systems that we're supplying into the COVID vaccines now, just for clarity, plus lipid. It's the lipid delivery systems for non-COVID drugs for the future. So that's more the gene therapy arena, you know, cancer drugs, oncology drugs and the like. So just to get that defined for you. And it's deliberately vague as well because it covers a multitude of products. I mean, in answer to your question, you know, at least $200 million of lipid systems this year, principally with our main contract, but there are others there. If we look next year, we're likely to do somewhere in the region of about $200 million. Again, you know, the strong demand as this vaccine rollout continues around the world. You know, we're sort of midway through that. You think about it internationally, you know, plenty of countries still overwhelmed with the pandemic. So, you know, vaccines still got to get around the world and a number of the key vaccine producers are spending time just doing that. I think 23, 24 is still uncertain. You know, we still don't know whether this is going to be an annual jab yet or whether we're going to get booster winter jabs as well around the world. I think also the immunity that you get from double jabs needs to be proven. So there still will be demand in 23, 24, I have no doubt. But as to the quantity of that demand, we just don't know. And neither do our partners as well. So we'll need to guide. I mean, we've got some pretty firm expectations for next year, which is good. But I think sitting back, you know, when Jez and myself look at the Avanti pipeline, you know, particularly the non-COVID pipeline, And we'll be launching products in their pipeline next year into the market, which we'll talk about. You know, if I look at five years' time, you know, do I see a $200 million business for all of these lipid systems going into both COVID and non-COVID? Yes, we do. But it's going to be a little bumpy along the way as we establish ourselves because some of these opportunities are much more significant than they are in, in our normal customer base. So again, that's where we see it now, to answer your question. And we'll certainly firm that up as we go along. On to your NPP point. NPP is great. We have no problem with that in the organic trajectory. We expect that to continue to grow. The way we look at that is Yeah, MPP should grow twice the average growth rates. The problem we're seeing at the moment, of course, is the average growth rate is so strong on this rebound that actually they're not growing at twice the rate, but they are growing very healthily. And, you know, if you look at year on year, if you look at absolute growth – What you're seeing in the numbers is an assessment of NPP in both Avante and Iberchem with our normal rules that we apply for this, which are very strict rules by the way. So what we're starting to see is that the acquisitions that we're buying are actually very much knowledge intensive. They've got richer intellectual property than what we've got in Crud. In many ways it's the KPI is working for us because what we're really wanting to buy is knowledge. We commercialize people's knowledge rather than metal capacity. So what we wanted to do in acquisition is to acquire, you know, clever people and intellectual property more and more. So that's what you're starting to see. So, you know, high 30s is where it's shaping up. And obviously, that's before we think about separation of PTIC as well. Thank you, Gunther.

Thank you. The second question comes from Charles Eden at UBS. Go ahead, Charles.

Hi. Good morning. Thank you. If I could just ask one quick follow-up to Gunther's question. Just of that 200 million guidance, or at least 200 million for this year, can you just remind us how much is booked already in the first half? Is it all of that 100 million lipid system sales you mentioned? I think it was on slide 14. Or is it just part of that? So that's my follow-up then. Just on my questions. Firstly, life sciences margin, obviously significant expansion in the first half. Just trying to think about the sustainability of that as we go forward. How do you see the life sciences margin progressing, I guess, in the second half of this year and then out into 2022? And then if I can sneak another one in very quickly, 13.5% price mix at the group level with a strong contribution across both consumer care and life sciences. I guess if you could give us a sense how much of that is mixed versus real pricing, just thinking about the pricing environment and raw materials inflation at this stage, is there more real pricing to come in the second half? Thank you.

yeah well let me do the uh the lipid and the pricing i'll let jez do the life science margin um i mean just on the pricing um because it's a first thing that's the last thing you um you focused on um so raw material we haven't seen this raw material inflation in our business for well over about 13 14 years the last time some of you will remember this the last time we saw this was 2008 to 11 as we came through that recession and we had inflation that um that was double digit for about three years So we're starting to see that now. We feel it's not just in raw materials, it's in logistic costs and freight costs as well. So I mean, it's pretty straightforward. I mean, first half of the year, it's about 13% increase in the raw material basket. And we've applied 5%. We can demonstrate we've got about 5% increases right across the board. And the first up, that 13% is likely to increase to, when I look at it, quarter three to quarter one, it's likely to increase 7% to 20%. So at the end of quarter three, our raw material basket relative to January is likely to be about 20%. You know, that's substantial. You know, and that's in a backdrop of over the last 10 years. We haven't had anything like that. So... So what we do is we've got the double benefit. We've got obviously the volume growth because of the – and that's why the raw materials are going through. But we've got a pricing element that sits on top of that. And in quarter three, we are applying and we have applied for the price increases because raw material inflation isn't coming down yet. It's going up. And difficult to say what it's going to be in quarter four. But quarter three, raw materials are certainly – the market is still very strong. Demand is still tight. So that's why you're getting raw materials through. So hopefully that answers that. In terms of lipid systems, it's pretty straightforward. There's been $100 million in the first half that we booked and sold. And, you know, we're expecting at least $100 million in the second half. And the caution there is around the ability for Crota to scale up through our manufacturing process. capabilities and making sure we can get and we can deliver this demand as we go into next year. We feel very confident we can do that, but the guidance is around that confidence level and similar trajectory to the first half. So let me just pass to Jez for the return on sales margin life science.

Good morning, Charles. So I think the first half on life science margin is a sort of whatever the opposite of the perfect storm is, it's the perfect sort of outcome, I guess, of how things have developed. You've got some very strong growth in all three of the patient health platforms within life sciences. So you've got sales up over two thirds in vaccine adjuvants, over two thirds in specialty excipients. And of course, you've got the establishment of the lipid systems platform as well. So you've got very strong growth in the highest end of the margin spread. So I think that's the fundamental driver to the margin. In addition, We have initially put a lot of people into the challenge of generating as much supply as possible of lipid systems to respond to COVID. And generally, that's a lower cost solution, but it's not the solution that is most sustainable for the future. So what we're doing from the half year is we're commissioning more of the capital spend, the 40 million pounds of capital that we put to use in the first half year. And that is commissioning around this point at the moment. So that will actually give us a much more sustainable way of delivering the demand. But it's actually a slightly less profitable way of doing it in that you've got more capital costs, you've got depreciation kicking in. So I think that means that the margin in the second half will still be high 30s for life sciences. But what we see is probably then happening is that perhaps margin stabilizing more into the mid 30s for life sciences going forward as you get that combination of capital and people so driving it forward. So I think it's a unusually large peak in the first half year.

Thank you, Charles. The next question I have on my list is from Nicola Tang at Ex-Anne. Do you still want to ask your question, Nicola, or has it already been answered?

I do, if I may. Thanks, everyone. Nice to see you. The first question is actually, I guess, following up just on life sciences. Can you clarify within the underlying 17% growth, is there a contribution related to other healthcare ingredients that are going into either COVID vaccines or COVID treatments? Or has that been fully singled out in the lipid system side? And then the second question was on the consumer care margins, which looked a bit weaker than I was expecting, even thinking about that dilution from iverchem. So I was wondering if you could just talk us through the moving parts of dilution from iverchem, this higher incentives, and perhaps you could talk a little bit about the mix, because I think... Last year, you lost about 300 basis points from the change in mix in the legacy personal care business. So I was wondering how much of that has been recovered so far, given the recovery in actives. Thank you.

Yes, great. Morning, Nicola. So, yes, we've split 47% underlying growth in life sciences pre-acquisition between the 30% that's coming from the lipids and the 17% that comes from the rest of the life science platforms in health and crop. So, yes, there are other So if you've got a COVID project, so Steve talked about the 100 projects that we're working on at the moment, the projects that fall into vaccine adjuvants and the projects that fall into specialty excipients, which go into either COVID vaccines or COVID therapeutics, those sales will be within 17% underlying. It's just the liquid system sales that we pick up in that 30. We're obviously not going to always separate those numbers. It's just that conscious that, you know, picking up $100 million in the first half year of sales has quite a big impact. And therefore, we wanted to sort of separate that out. But yeah, the 17% has been driven by that two-thirds growth in vaccine adjuvants, two-thirds growth in specialty excipients, together with modest growth, mid-single-digit growth in the consumer health platform, and then double-digit growth in both the crop protection and the seed enhancement. So those collectively are what's driving the 17%, so very strong growth there. In terms of the consumer care margins, So the positives to margin year on year is the growth of the high-end personal care. So the fact we've got strongest growth in the duty actives is driving the margin higher and recovering the reduction that you referred to from last year. So that's the key driver. The dilution is coming from the Ivochem effect. which is running high teens in terms of EBITDA margin, which is broadly where it was pre-acquisition. And then the impact of the remuneration charge. So the remuneration charge, we don't normally pull out, but obviously we're going from a two years where we've had no bonus charge at all to one where we're currently working on a 100% basis. And then we have this big share-based payment effect because so many people in share schemes within the Crota structure. And collectively, they've added about £20 million to the charge, so a little over 2%. So you've got that dilution, which actually affects all of the sectors, but clearly affects So when you put those in the mix, you come out just shy of 25. I think our view in medium term would be we'd expect the margin to tick up from there. So in the same way that I talked about the life science margin probably coming off to mid-30s, we'd probably expect to be more mid to high 20s, perhaps 26, 27 over time in consumer. That's where we would see the natural mix settling down.

Great. Thank you, Nicolae.

Thank you.

The next question from Charlie Webb at Morgan Stanley. Morning, Charlie.

Morning, gentlemen. Thank you very much for the time to ask some questions. I'm sorry to come back to it, but just a quick one on the life sciences margins. Just trying to understand the point you made there. Have you been capitalising some of the costs that now are going to kind of appear in the P&L as you now ramp up that capacity? So just trying to understand that. Or is it really the case that patient health margins are of those kind of subdivisions, adjuvants, excipients, and lipids are just well above 40%. Just trying to understand how we got that perfect storm in the first half and how we think about just a bit more detail there would be helpful. And then just secondly on Atlas Point, not something mentioned here, but presumably that's now back up and running. I'm just wondering if there's any updates on that and how we think about that in terms of the year-on-year effect, given it was obviously a notable drag last year, you know, how we're looking for this year. That'd be helpful. Thank you.

Okay, do you want to do the margins and I'll do... Yeah, absolutely.

Hi, Charlie. So, no, we're absolutely not capitalising costs that is then going to come out in operating. Just what I was saying is that, you know, for example, we moved 20 people, you know, over to Avanti to work on maximising the output of lipid systems there. We've used our existing kit and a lot of people to... meet the challenge really of having to mobilize the lipid systems for COVID vaccines in such a short period of time. And then what we've been doing is investing capital for the next stage. And that investment is 40 million pounds, primarily on the COVID solutions. And that's going to start depreciating in the second half year, because we're literally commissioning that kit as we speak now. So no, it's not a capitalization of costs. I just mean that we're moving from a model that's been a little bit more people heavy, to a model that's a little bit more capital heavy because the capital solution is obviously a more durable solution for long term um so um so i'm just saying that that actually the people solution is relatively cost effective but it's not the right it's not as sustainable going forward to to build the liquid systems platform as we want to do so no capitalization of costs is absolutely no one-offs or anything like that going on in these numbers. But what you'll see is a little bit more of a move to the capital-based solution. The other thing to say is the prices for liabilities under the contract tend to be highest at the start of the contract. So they come off a little bit, but not significantly. And collectively, that would mean that I think we'd be more in the mid-30s as we look into 2022. So, yeah, that's all that's going on in that equation. I think it's the – we shouldn't call it a perfect storm. We should call it a perfect beach day, I guess. It's everything coming together. And it will continue broadening that way in the second half, but you'll start to see a bit more depreciation costs kick in from those new investments.

I think just on the wider life science, I mean, the way to look at it sort of into next year and beyond is – You know, we've always thought about 5% to 7% is sort of our revenue line for that. It looks like it's more likely to be 7% to 10% in terms of revenue, and that's excluding lipid systems. And lipid systems we'll manage with you separately because that's big, significant. and something we think we should manage with you as we go forward year to year until we get some stabilisation. But that in itself, I mean, it's fair to say, I mean, you can do the maths on it yourselves. You know, the margins in lipid systems are significantly beneficial and higher than what we see generally in the rest of the round. So, you know, we're moving over the next three to five years to more and more of our growth coming from those higher margins. But Jez makes the good point that In 22 particularly, you're going to have that buildup of asset cost as we roll out the manufacturing footprint to serve that future growth.

Also important, I think, Steve, to say that that investment, although its immediate use is going to be COVID vaccines, it's a long-term investment in lipid systems. And we see the long-term growth in lipid systems has been from other mRNA applications and gene therapy applications and so forth. So this isn't an investment thrown at an immediate problem. It's investment that we think is going to be highly useful as we see the portfolio, as Steve said, over five years shift away from such a dependency on COVID to being non-COVID applications for lipids. Yeah.

On that point, we'll do it together. But commercially, well, certainly from a plant point of view, it's had its best year for a few years. It's running very reliably, safely, which is really important. And it's got a routine rhythm of production now, which is important. Commercially, it's getting more interesting, as we thought it would. So we've increased, as you probably saw in the pack, Certainly in the R&S, we've increased the customer base in personal care tenfold this year, and we've increased the home care customer base twofold as well. That's the start of more and more customers moving away from petrochemical ingredients to personal care. to these natural ingredients. We expect that to continue and we'll be pushing. We have stock on the ground now ready to really push for extra business as that comes through. So we think this trend is the start of a trend that's likely to increase over the next two or three years. So well-placed certainly. with our customer conversations and moving customers over to these products. So, you know, excitement building in the organization around that. In terms of the numbers, James, do you want to just comment on that this year and next? Yeah.

So, last year on the bifactin plant, we had a loss of 11 million sterling. So, this year, we expect that to moderate but still remain in loss. Obviously, we had two months where the plant wasn't running. And then, as Steve said, a very good first four months running on the plant and so forth. And what I think we'll see then in the second half year is a change in the raw materials, which will move us away from the more expensive sanitiser grade of bioethanol. And then, as Steve says, the commercial development is really the key that turns the plant profitable, you know, as we look ahead. So a reduced loss this year and then moving to profit as we go forward.

Thanks very much, Charlie. The next question comes from Samuel Perry at Credit Suisse. Sam, I believe you're audio only, so please go ahead and unmute your mic. I know we can see you as well.

Hi, Steve. Hi, Jez. Just one question relating to the terminology of the outlook. So in the segmental disclosure, you say there's no seasonal variations in the split of revenues. And then in the outlook, you say you expect similar phasing between the first and second half periods as seen in the previous years. Can you just confirm what the underlying seasonality or what you expect to be the underlying seasonality in profits is now, just because there's been quite a lot of large moving parts. You've got actives coming back, increasing contribution from lipids. And then I think there was a Brazilian ag fell in different half years in 19. So that would be the first one. And then actually maybe a second. On Avanti, you say that the earn out has now reached its maximum level. Has this just been from the Pfizer contract? I think when you bought that business, you said there were five or six ring fenced opportunities to fulfill that earn out. So have any of those other opportunities started to come through and sort of what's the scale on revenues on those other opportunities or any timing you could give on them as well? That'd be great. Thank you.

You want to do the first question?

I'll do the answer here now. Hi, Samuel. Yes, so you have to make a seasonality statement under the reporting requirements. So broadly speaking, we don't regard our business as seasonal. However... The fact that Europe is our biggest market and Europe tends to have vacations in July or particularly in August means that there's fewer working days effectively for a number of our markets in the second half. So what we typically see is maybe 52%, 53% of the turnover and profit arise in the first half year. So that's what we're alluding to in the outlook statement, just that you'll see that typically. We would currently expect to see the typical pattern. You know, we've done $100 million of lipids in the first half year. We're expecting to do, you know, at least $100 million in the second half year. So there's nothing particular that we see as skewed between first and second half. The main – benefit we've had in the first half that maybe we don't expect to replicate in the second half is the customer stocking effect. So consumer demand has been very good in the first half. We don't see any signs of that changing in the second half, although clearly there's still noise around COVID. But at the moment, you know, demand looks to be very good. Whereas we do think that customers have been stocking in response to the potential unlocking in some markets that have still been constrained, such as in parts of Europe and parts of Asia. So customers have been stocking up in preparation for what can be referred to as the roaring 20s. And also because we've had raw material price rises, so customers often try and stock up if they see further price rises coming through, so they're getting stocked at lower cost. So we think that effect will moderate, but the consumer demand, we have no reason at the moment to say that consumer demand is going to slow down in the second half year. So yeah, it's just that slight seasonal effect caused by vacations, particularly in Europe.

Yeah, on the Avanti earn out. Yes, I mean, if you remember, it was $75 million over two years. So the earn-out finishes at the end of next year, 2022. That earn-out covers both vaccine delivery products, like what we're seeing now, COVID-19, but it covers non-vaccine delivery products as well. So it's unlikely that many of those will trigger, but we're launching one or two of those early next year, so we'll see. Yeah, but the important point in that is the earn-out maxes out $75 million, but to the end of next year is when it completes. So there's a number of, let's just say a number of projects and products in there, which is not just confined to the COVID-19 rollout vaccines.

And Sam, we had originally provided on acquisition for 92% of the earn out. So the delta is relatively small, but we now think that it'll hit 100. So we've adjusted accordingly.

And we always said in Trotter, it's one of the nice things to sign that. Because if we sign the full earn out, then it's a great contribution for the group. Thanks, Sam.

Great, thank you. Can you give... Can you give any indication of the scale of those other opportunities?

Not really, no, to answer your question. But no, I mean, we won't. And it's still too early to say. So we'll manage that as we go along with you. But, you know, I think you can hear us in our voices and in the type that we're getting more confident with the pipeline. We've always been more confident commercializing the pipeline. How that actually materializes 23, 24, 25 is something that's still to be determined. And, you know, we'll be looking at that and guiding you along the way for sure.

Good try, Sam. Thank you. It was worth a try. Isha Sharma at Stiefel, please. Ayesha.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for the presentation and very helpful details on the results. My first question is on consumer care margin. If I calculate correctly, Abercam EBIT margin was a bit below 15%, taking a cue from other FNF players, it seems a bit low. Should we expect this to change in H2? And beyond that, what would be a reasonable uplift expectation at Abercam, please? The second would be, I just am curious if you have any update for us on the contract with Pfizer. Initially, it was a contract of three years within an agreement of five years, as I understand it. Could you help us with the phasing, please, over the next three years? And then just on the midterm guidance of life sciences, do you stick to the high single-digit top-line growth as well as mid-30s EBIT margin after the very strong outcome today.

Okay. So we had Iberchem Life Science. What was the middle one again? Contract.

Oh, yeah, Pfizer.

Okay. I mean, on Iberchem, I mean, the way to look at it is the raw material basket for the first half was 9% in Iberchem. And they're off, if you take adjusted contributions, we feel they're off about 1% on their margins, something like that, in the round, when you look at that. And that's to do with just the lag that you have in the fragrance industry, passing on the cost. I mean, it's a business that screams for, you know, we're very happy with the overall contribution of the business. The top line, because it's pointed towards emerging markets, it's growing largely around twice the fragrance, one and a half to two times the fragrance industry growth rate. So it's, you know, it's up at 12%, 13% now. Depends if you look at it in reported or constant. So, you know, it's got great growth trajectory. We expect the margins to be around 20% to 22%. You know, that's how it shapes up for that business in the round over the medium term. So, you know, business in good shape. So it's at a temporary effect, but not as much as you think. And as Jez says, you know, we've got just over two percentage points of headwind there just because of remuneration and share-based payments that's hitting the margins. which, let's be honest, is great for the group. You know, 75% of the organisation are in share-based programmes now. So, you know, we want that just to increase. So, you know, it's a great day for Croda in that respect. In terms of life sciences, I mean, you know, again, keeping, I think we've mentioned it before, keeping lipid systems separate so we can manage that with you, because that's quite chunky and probably got faster growth potential over the long term. Life sciences generally, you know, we set screens for 7% to 10% for the rest of it, with margins steadily climbing from where they are now. It's fair to say. So, you know, you see this margin improvement from, you know, if you remember prior to life sciences, prior to lipid systems, it was low 30s. So, you know, most of the growth is coming from high-purity excipients and from these vaccine adjuvants. And you're finding that actually they are generally going to move the margins steadily upwards as well. So, you know, that's the way to look at the life science piece. And then on Pfizer, I mean, you know, no real major update from what we said before. You know, we're delivering against the contract. Our job really there is to deliver against their requirements and make sure that we can do that. the relationship continues to develop. So our job now is, as they roll out internationally, making sure we satisfy that demand through our two plants. And the investment that we're putting in now is important to not just future-proof that growth. So this 40 million that we spent in the first half of this year is specifically for COVID-19 rollout. But we've talked about in the release as well an extra 40 million that we're putting in that Jez talked about in capital. So we had 80 before. Plus 40 was 120-hour guidance for this year, likely to be 160. And that extra 40 is really for... exclusively capital projects for non-COVID vaccine rollout. So there's a lot all in healthcare. And we're putting our money where our mouth is, supporting this rollout potential growth in these other delivery systems. Let's just say that from the Avanti pipeline. So hopefully that gives you a bit of colour on that. Jez, anything else on contract? No, that's fine, Steve.

Thank you. Thank you. Very helpful.

Thanks, Asha. Next question from Mubasher Chowdhury at Citigroup, please.

Morning. Hi. Morning. Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Just the one left. Just going back to the margins on the life sciences side of things, is it fair to assume that you're quite capacity constrained at the moment given that you are investing heavily and then the growth was mainly related to price mix? And then how do you see the competitive environment going forward as other suppliers come online with their own capacity? Do you see that pricing volume dynamic changing for yourself as there's more alternatives available to yourselves for someone like a Pfizer? Just some comments on the competitive dynamics would be helpful. And just linked to that, you talked about the Pfizer contract and delivering against that. Are they kind of the prices and volumes already agreed and confirmed, or are these both negotiable as we go into 2022-23? Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, you know, quickly, yeah, Pfizer volumes and prices committed. So, you know, there's no – there's no – renegotiation into next year. You know, we know what volume we need to supply and we know what the price is going to be. So we'll be satisfying that. So that's clear. In terms of the, you know, your point about return on sales and, you know, are we capacity constrained? No, we haven't been. I mean, there's a slide in the pack that shows how we're spending that $40 million in terms of releasing extra capacity effectively going forward. So what we're doing is future-proofing that growth for the future. So a lot of that margin has come really mainly from, as Jez said, it's commercialising people's knowledge with that rollout so that those margins are on a relative basis are obviously high. But as we now, as we then go into putting more assets on the ground, as Jez says, you know, this margin likely to be more around mid-30s rather than high 30s after this year. And we still have So that's what we're trying to guide towards just as we build this out and we get more ability to grow. In terms of your competitors, I mean, there's a small number that are well known to everybody. And that's great. For this market particularly, you know, we want this market to grow very quickly. And I'm not just talking about the COVID market. I'm talking about gene therapy. For it to grow quickly, it needs a small number of partnerships that are going to allow them in lipid delivery systems to get there. And, you know, we're taking a leadership position there at the moment, and we're trying to invest to make sure we retain that leadership position. But there are others, and we want our partners to be able to source from them as well. I don't think it's – and given the sheer demand, it's important that we have a small number of players there. So, for me, it's a real positive. I don't look at competition in this area as – As a big issue, I look at it more as an opportunity to expand the market quicker than it would. We don't want the bottleneck to be lipid systems slowing this market down is the point we're trying to make going forward. You know, there's 200 projects in the clinical one, two, and three pipeline already for cancer drugs and for oncology drugs that have these lipid systems in there. So, you know, our mind is very much on that and thinking beyond that with the intellectual property we've got in-house now, thanks to Avanti, how we commercialize that IP with our partners.

So, just to add a little bit of color to a couple of those points, on the I think on price mix, it's obviously a very big number. But as I say, you've got lots of the growth coming from the three patient healthcare platforms. And the key thing to understand is, you know, we're not shipping tons in those platforms. We're shipping millions. Hundreds of kilos, tens of kilos, kilos, even in Avanti's case, you know, gram quantities. So the reason you're seeing that price mix is because you've got this big focus towards value, not volume. So clearly when we do that calculation, it falls out into price mix. So don't think of it as a capacity constrained in supply in which you're just pushing prices up, what you're doing is transitioning. You're seeing much more of the growth coming from products that are sold in kilo quantities rather than tonnage quantities. So it's really the mix that's particularly driving that effect. And in terms of capacity, actually, we've just brought on the doubling of the specialty excipient capacity in the US that we've been building over the last And clearly that was becoming capacity constrained at the tail end of last year. And therefore that's one of the factors behind this growth of sort of 67% plus that we talk about is the fact that clearly we've been able to uncork that bottle a little bit and grow that. So there's capacity coming on all the time. And these capital investments in healthcare are really exciting because the paybacks are two to three years. So this is the best place for us to deploy capital to drive this forward. Just to clarify on the Pfizer-BioNTech contract area, demand is firm for three to six months. It's indicative beyond that period because clearly it's a fast-moving market. So our volumes for 2022 are an estimate at the moment, but a pretty decent estimate, we believe, rather than a firm contractual commitment.

Just a quick clarification. Did I hear you right earlier on saying that 2022 could also be around the 200 million mark?

Yeah, that's our indications at the moment, around $200 million for, yeah, 22. For lipid systems, generally. Yes. Okay.

Next up is Chita Nideshia, JP Morgan. Hi, Chita.

Yeah, hi, morning, guys. I was just looking at the slide, the number 11 of the pack, which shows the – growth bridge. I'm just trying to work out how to get to the 100 million of sales from Lipid from that because I was just looking at 8% from Lipid Systems plus there is 6% from Avanti and if I combine the two it seems like it's more 95 million pounds which would be more like 130 million of sales. I'm just trying to understand what is exactly included within 100 and what is not. And secondly, maybe this was already touched, but on biosefactor plant, can you remind us what is the expected contribution this year for 2022 from that plant? Sorry, 2021.

Yeah, okay, thanks. Both down Jesuit Street.

Hi, Chetan. So, Yeah, so you've got 11% growth is being driven by the lipid systems at the group level. If you apply the 11% to the 673 million revenue we did last year, that gives you about 70 million sterling. That's the $100 million. 8% of that is in existing crore plants, the commercial scale-up, and 3 percentage points are in Avanti. Avanti in total, as you point out, is 6%. And that indicates that about half of what Avanti does is in lipid systems, and about half is in other technology platforms for Avanti. So the reason is that you're using 14%, you need to use 11%. So half of the Avanti sales are driven there. In terms of the biosfaction plant, look, I'm not going to give a precise number. As I mentioned before, we had a loss of 11 million sterling last year. We expect that loss to be lower this year because, you know, we've got the first two months of the year where we were just carrying the cost and the depreciation. and so forth, but since then we've been producing. What we need to do is to move to the lower cost raw material, which we'll do later in the second half, and we need to get the commercial growth then through the plant, which is what the case has always been built around for biosurfactants, about getting people out of petrochemical ingredients and either launching new products or substituting existing petrochemical products with the biosurfactants. So we'll see a reduced loss this year, but I'm not going to give you a precise number on that.

Thank you. Thanks, Steve. Sebastian Barry at Barenberg, please.

Hello. Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I would have to, please. First is on the question of market share within the polylipids market. Slide 22 indicates that this is currently a billion dollars a year in the medical area. And if I take the guidance at face value and the company goes to $20, $200 million of sales this year, it has about 20% market share, maybe a little over. Do you expect this to remain roughly constant as the market develops over the next four to five years? My second question is concerning consumer health. The flavors business at Iberchem, how has that been doing and has your view on whether or not this is an interesting market for Kroger longer term changed over the last six months?

Okay. Thanks, Sebastian. Yeah, I mean, on the market share thing, I mean, you know, for CRODA, we don't really talk about market share. And, you know, those that have followed us for years, we talk about market growth rates. And the most important thing in this area is that market growth rate is accelerating as quickly as it can. And then if we have a 20% market share or we have a 15% market share or even a 25% market share, you know, it's great, but it's a 25% or a 15% or whatever it's going to be, market share of a much bigger market. So, You know, we think with our investments, we'll continue to keep a step ahead, I think it's fair to say. But we would, you know, we're quite relaxed about competition coming in. I don't think there's going to be 20 or 30 people making these ingredients going forward. They are very difficult to make, you know, from a chemistry and a biology point of view. And they're different. They need to be handled with great care. And it probably takes, you know, the entry level to make these is quite significant. So I would say that. But I would watch the market growth rate ahead of Crudas market share is the point I'm trying to make, because we want this market to grow much quicker going forward. And then, you know, we all have a great opportunity for all of us there. And our job, I think, also with investment is not just capital investment. You know, we've doubled the number of people in Avanti from 125 to 250. they're all scientists effectively all of them are scientists primarily so we're doubling the brain power of crota in this um in this space so which is really important you need brains in this space ahead of capital um so we want more knowledge in this business very quickly so um so that's what we're doing there in terms of your other question around it's around the flavors area um i mean the flavors business is having a great start to the year and it had a very good year last year so um You know, it's great. It's a nascent business for Iberchem. So we want to see that grow. We don't like to make hasty decisions with things like divestitures. We want to see it run through the cycle and see how it develops. And as long as this EBITDA keeps growing, its sales keep growing, it's great. But it's a very good business. And it has a real core home in Crota for the near and medium term because of that. And, you know, it's a great team in Iberchem more widely. And we're really pleased with everybody in Iberchem, whether it's on the flavors or the fragrance side. You know, they're a top business. And they're demonstrating, actually, how we can learn from them with their speed and their market responsiveness. It's really quite stellar. So, you know, many ways for Crota to learn. And that's part of it with acquisitions. It's not just about imparting the Crota knowledge. It's about learning from others as well and getting us to think a bit differently. So we're seeing that in abundance with Iberchem. And we are, of course, with Avanti and Biosector, too.

Thanks, Sebastian.

That's my question.

Next question is from Martin Evans at HSBC. Please go ahead and turn your video on and unmute your microphone.

Okay, thanks, David. Just a quick, slightly weird question on the chemistry of the drug delivery business. Just trying to understand here on slide 22, 23, you give very helpful market estimate sizes for lipids, excipients, and adjuvants. given the speed of development in the drug delivery world, do you see these technologies as almost totally discrete from each other? Or is there an opportunity or a risk of some interchangeability? In other words, cannibalizing one with the other? I'm just thinking with the mRNA developments, whether vaccine adjuvants, for example, injectable adjuvants would still be necessary or one would replace the other as the drug delivery technology evolves. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks, Martin. Really good question, that. You're looking more relaxed than we are with your, looks like you've got a T-shirt on there. But we've got three white shirts for the price of two in Yorkshire. So we've all got the same shirts on today. But anyway, David is a bit tight for him because we're a bit bigger. But yeah, I mean, very, very good question. I mean, our sense is that actually, if you go forward in gene therapy with a lot of these 200 projects and beyond, you actually need more specialised lipid delivery systems for each of these individual projects. So we don't think one project, one product from Kroda will transition across multiple projects. We think you need that specialization. And we don't want to get into that with you, but we'll shed some light on that when we do talk in more detail about Avanti profile in Kroda and technologies. But a lot of it's about refinement, purification, and separation. And we don't at this stage think, I think there's a lot of synergies between the three businesses because they're all in many ways three different business teams. And they're under the umbrella of life sciences. And clearly the knowledge synergies of each of them are important for others, for the other businesses. But I think we don't expect, we think that they're all in their own right delivering something slightly different. So in mRNA, for example, you know, maybe high purity excipients going forward, but primarily it's going to be lipid systems. And the vaccine adjuvants are very much, you know, it's a traditional chemistry set that we're investing in for multiple other vaccines, let's just say that. So, you know, who knows? I mean, who knows where the technology and the science goes, but certainly in the near term, we don't expect that. We're not, in our research, we're not thinking about that too much, but... You know, you think about going forward when they're looking at a flu and an mRNA vaccine together, for example, you know, COVID vaccine and flu together, you know, who knows whether actually you might start to get combinations of these actually working together as well, because you're actually putting two vaccines together in one syringe. So that's when it probably will get a little bit more interesting as well. So, but yeah, no, good question. And thanks for that.

Thank you, Martin. Thank you. The final question this morning comes from Matthew Yates at BAML. Hi, Matthew.

Hey, morning, everyone. Just a couple of questions. The first one, I think it's a follow-up on Sebastian was asking about fragrance and the strategy there. You've obviously done a small bolt-on in Parfaits. Where do you draw the line in terms of how big the fragrance portfolio needs to be in order to have a competitive or credible offering in the market? And the second question is around the ag part of life sciences. I think you said double digit organic growth there. Is that driven by market conditions or is there anything in terms of product launches that's contributed to that?

Yeah, thanks, Matthew. I mean, on the ag side, I mean, market conditions mainly, I mean, you know, as we've always said consistently to you all, it's normally a mid single digit sales area for crop protection, and a bit more than that high single digits for seed enhancement. I think in crop protection, we've seen that move from about 5% a year in the first half was 10% a year. Some of that is just linking with the farmers increasing, as you all know. It's probably the best time the farmers have had for a few years now as well. So we're seeing a benefit of that. There's a bit of pricing in the market. in the revenue line as well because of our price increases going through as well. So, you know, we're pleased with that. And I think seed enhancement generally is starting to really deliver for Crota as well. You know, it's had a very good first half too on the back of last year as well. And I like to invest in businesses that can withstand the jolt of a market environment, which is either recessionary or hard. And these acquisitions, and you'll see that with Iberchem and Avanti, can demonstrate that they can still grow through the cycle. It doesn't matter what the cycle is. It's just a question of the rate of growth. So, yeah, so in the round, we're very happy with crop. Your other question was fragrances. Yeah, I mean, Yeah, we don't need to be, you know, we're not looking to compete with the big players in the space. I mean, we know them all, and they know Kroda, and they're brilliant companies. You know, we really like them. We admire them for what they are, and they're very consistent with that. But Kroda's acquisitions in this space will be moving Kroda to more sustainable fragrances. effectively eco-fragrances, as I call them. So they'll be more niche-y in that regard. And as ever, when we look at markets, we look at the faster growth areas of the markets in particular. The infrastructure we've got is a very good infrastructure, particularly for emerging markets. So we're pleased. We're not going to rush to acquire lots of things. But if anything came along which we thought was really interesting in that space that I've just talked about, then that would be interesting to us. But the priority for the group is life sciences, for obvious reasons, particularly health care, and the top of personal care from a sustainability point of view. And the Alban Muller acquisition is all about that. moving Suderma increasingly to 100% sustainable actors, because that's where the market is going and growing. So let me stop there.

Thank you, Matthew. That completes the Q&A this morning. So I'll just leave Steve to wrap up.

Yeah, thanks very much for your questions. It's a real shame we can't be with you to be in the room together and have a chat with you. But here we are. This is the second best thing. So we're still alive and kicking. Really strong set of numbers for the group. And it's in three areas, as we've talked about. The underlying existing business is growing very, very well. The two acquisitions that we've acquired recently have given us a lot of knowledge and a lot of growth potential, and that's starting to demonstrate through the numbers. And, of course, we've got the life science healthcare in the form of healthcare, you know, really rapid growth there from the first half. So very pleased with the first half. And we see this is the start of CRODA, you know, moving into a faster growth period. So let's stop there, and hopefully next time we definitely want to see you in the flesh. So we'll see you in February.