Azelis Group Nv

everyone, and thank you for dialing in today. We are joined by Anna Bertone, Group CEO, and Thais Bakker, Group CFO. Anna will give an overview of the developments in the first half of the year, and Thais will present the financial results. Afterwards, Anna will give some color on the outlook. As a reminder, this call may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risk. After the presentation, we will open the line for Q&A. Until then, you will be on listen-only mode. A recording of the call will be made available on our website. I will now hand you over to Anna.

Good morning and thank you for joining us today. I would like to start with the key points regarding our results for the first half of 24. And actually, these are similar to the messages I gave during the Q1 earnings call in April. So the results of H1 reinforce what I said then. First, we continue to hold the line in terms of conversion margin while the market remains challenging. We worked hard to achieve over 47% conversion margin in 2022 and we are determined to maintain a high level while at the same time ensuring that we are well positioned for the recovery in the markets. Second point is that we are in a period of stabilization in the industry. We started seeing some green shoots earlier this year, and some of them are taking root. In general, volumes are improving, even though it is taking time to translate to top line growth, because there's still price pressure in some of our end markets. It is a slow recovery, and especially in EMEA, still wobbly. But the trends are going in the right direction. Which leads me to the final point. The slowly improving trends, as reflected in our results year to date, supports my expectation that we will return to organic growth sometime in H2. And to give more context to this, we actually saw positive organic growth in April, but volatility returned in May. Also, we had some exceptional items in Q2, like product shortage due to supply issues at one of our principles in the Americas, and delays due to the Red Sea situations. And these are circumstances that add complexity to already challenging markets. But they also give comfort that even with these added unforeseen issues, we are able to navigate and deliver improvements. Now let's go through the key updates so far this year on the next slide. In the first half of 2024, we achieved a revenue of 2.1 billion, which is a slight improvement compared to H123 on a constant currency basis. In the second quarter, our revenue increased by 4.2% on constant currency, supported by M&A contribution and stable organic revenue. Our gross profit in H1 was 526 million, which is a 3% year-on-year improvement on a constant currency basis as we benefit from our diversified portfolio. Adjusted EBITDA came in at 254 million, equivalent to an EBITDA margin of 11.8%, which is stable from Q1. As mentioned earlier, our conversion margin remains strong at 48.2%. And we also continued to execute our M&A strategy to fill the gaps in our portfolio. And in H1, we closed four acquisitions and announced two further acquisitions. And then lastly, we are proud to have won the Ringgear Innovation Award again this year for two categories in personal care. And this demonstrates our continuing commitment to our long-term growth and our three strategic pillars, innovation, sustainability and digital, even as we see temporary challenges in our industry. Now let's look at some of the drivers of these results on the next slide. On the organic side, we see several trends and some specific to a segment and a region. this plays to our diversified footprint as we are able to mitigate the impact of the ongoing volatility across different parts of the group. Home care remains strong across the three regions. In food, generally positive volumes are offset by continuous price pressure. In AES, we are starting to see signs of improvement in EMEA, which had been weak for over Personal care in the Americas and APEC is starting to turn around with volume improvements and price stabilizing. But this is not yet the case in Europe, where our personal care business is more skewed towards high-end brands, which remain soft due to lower export volumes. And in pharma, we see a bit of slowdown in momentum after a very strong performance in 2023. Also, some delays we have seen due to the Red Sea situation. And in industrial chemicals, case is stabilizing, especially in the Americas, and is also holding up in Europe. Case in APEC remains soft, primarily due to weak construction sector, mostly in China. And loops and metalworking fluids remain strong in the media, stable in the Americas, while we see price pressure in APEC impacting our loops in that region. Now, if we look into the regions in more detail, America is actually doing well. Latam is recovering. In the US, volume recovery is continuing. But in Canada, we continue to see general market weakness. In Europe, trends remain mixed across countries and segments with quite some volatility. While in Maya, growth is moderating after a strong performance in 2023. And then lastly, APEC continues to deliver good performance, except China in case, as I just mentioned, but the rate of decline is slowing. In terms of M&A, we acquired six companies in H1, closed four of these in the period. In addition to Octuate in Turkey, LocalPAC in Colombia, and XPAC in Australia, which all closed in Q1, we also completed the deal to acquire DBH, expanding our footprint in the DACH region. And we are working to complete the transaction to acquire MDK, which strengthens our footprint in lucrative personal care market in Indonesia, and CPS Chemicals, which is a great addition to our case business in South Africa. We have many more opportunities in our M&A pipeline, and that will further lead to strengthening the capabilities to the benefit of our customers and principals. One of Azalea's most important strategic pillars is innovation. And that's not just a buzzword. It's part of our DNA and central to our business. Our key value proposition to customers is our ability to provide them with innovative formulations and solutions. For our principals, our expertise enables us to develop new applications to grow the market for their products. And on this slide, I have two examples of how innovation plays an important role in how we create value for our customers and principals. The formulation on the left is an example of how Azelis innovates by incorporating sustainability in formulations to respond to market trends and customer needs. Our personal care team came up with this cleansing and exfoliating bouncy cube that holds its shape even when it comes into contact with water. That in itself is innovative. But true to our commitment to sustainability, the formulation uses 100% natural upcycled exfoliant particles, and 50% of the ingredients are biodegradable. Actually, with this formulation, we won the CNT Allee Award in the US for the bath and shower category. The second example on the right is an innovative formulation that raises the nutritional value of coffee. We utilized our LVC and our technical expertise to figure out a way to add protein in coffee. Our colleagues used a specific whey protein that is natural and sustainable and still allows coffee to taste and feel like coffee. Very often, customers come to us for help with a specific problem. Providing a solution is only the first step. We actually aim to go the extra mile by giving a solution that is innovative and sustainable. Some of you have already been to one of our labs and have seen innovation at work in Azelis. We hope to see you in Istanbul in September, where you will get an even deeper dive on this, not only in terms of lab formulation, but also how innovation plays a role in how we do business. Now, before I hand over to Thijs, I wanted to briefly pause at the topic of sustainability, another key strategic pillar of Azelis. In our integrated report, you will find all the details of our sustainability agenda. But I want to highlight that our focus on this topic is not limited to our yearly reporting. It's ongoing and we continuously push ourselves to set the bar higher. And a good example is that we have just signed the SBTI commitment letter to develop greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for scope one, two and three, according to the SBTI guidelines. As one of the first in the chemical distribution industry to make this commitment, this is a testament to our ongoing efforts to minimize our environmental impact. We will share more details of our sustainability program in the next integrated report. And for now, I will hand over the floor to Thijs to talk you through the knowledge. Thank you, Anna.

Good morning, everyone. As I'm going to take you through the business update, I will guide you through the group's financial performance and those of our regions for the first half year of 2024. Let's start with a high-level overview of the P&L and the drivers of our performance for the second quarter of 2024 and the first half year on page 11. Group revenue for the first half year of 2024 is over 2.1 billion euros, representing a year-on-year growth of 1.5% at constant currency. This growth reflects the performance of our resilient life science business, which grew 3.8% offsetting the weaker performance in industrial chemicals, which declined by 2.3% year on year on a constant evics. Now let's move to the quarter, as you can see on the left side of the slide. For the second quarter, revenue came in at 1.1 billion euro, representing a year-on-year growth of above 4% on both reported and constant currency terms. Excluding the impact of acquisitions, revenue was broadly flat compared to Q2 2023, with improving trends in the Americas, offsetting the continued softness in EMEA and APEC, and generally improving trends in industrial chemicals. Cross-profit for the first half year came in at 527 million euros, representing a year-on-year growth of 1.8%, or at constant eviction rate, 3.2% growth. Cross-profit as a percentage of revenue ended at 24.5%, an uptick of 39 basis points versus prior year. This improvement of gross profit margin was supported by positive mixed effect from improved performance from recent acquisitions, as well as organic margin improvement in LATAM and Asia Pacific, as we are working on expanding our lateral value chain at the acquired companies. For the first half of 2024, adjusted EBITDA ended at 274.8 million euros and an adjusted EBITDA came in at 254 million euros, reflecting a year-on-year decline of 3.6 or 1.5 in constant currency. The decline was due to lower impact on cost control measures compared to the prior year as impact of these contingency measures commenced already in H1 2023 and to a lesser extent normalized variable accruals first prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin therefore came in at 11.8% for the first half year representing 36 basis points contraction on a constant currency basis is translated to a 48.2% percent conversion margin. To illustrate our cost control efforts, this percentage is still well above the 47.6% and 47.4% achieved for the full year 2022 and 2023, respectively. We're well in control of our cost. Net profit for the first half year was 100 million euros, and I will discuss the drivers of the net profit in details in a later slide. Let's move to slide 12, where I would like to provide you a high-level growth breakdown of revenue, gross profit, and adjusted EBITDA. I will take you through more regional details in the following slide, in line with the comments of Anna on the segments. In this table, we have broken down the revenue, gross profit, and adjusted EBITDA between organic growth, growth coming from the first-time inclusion of acquisitions, and lastly, EVICS. On the revenue line, growth contribution from acquisitions offset the decline in organic revenue, as well as the negative impact of EVIX. More specifically, our organic revenue declined by 4.4% in the first half of 2024, with improved and stable organic performance in the second quarter, mitigating a large organic decline in the first quarter. Basically, our comps are getting better. The performance in the second quarter was supported by easing trends, notably in the industrial chemicals and the Americas, which showed organic revenue growth in the second quarter. Some are color on this. In the first quarter of this year, our organic growth came in at a decline of 8%. So this translates into a sequential improvement quarter on quarter in line with Anna's comments. The gross profit during the first half year was driven by strong performance from recent acquisitions, although it's worth noting pointing to the organic gross profit development, a decline of 3.5% versus a revenue decline of 4.4%. So our margin management and pricing discipline and improving our product mix can be witnessed in these numbers, especially in Asia Pacific. Adjusted EBITDA for the first half was supported by contribution from recent acquisitions, partially migrating the 8% decline in organic EBITDA, as well as the negative impact of FX translations. Organic EBITDA decline, especially in EMEA and the Americas, was driven by lower benefit from cost control measures compared to the prior period year, and to a lesser extent, normalized variable compensation. As a reminder on these contingency actions, we're not done yet. In the U.S., they started already at Q4 2022 and in Q1 2023 in EMEA. Therefore, the magnitude of the impact of those measures were contained also in the first half of 2023, and you will see a lesser extent in 2024. Let's have a look at the regional financial performance. So turn to slide 13. Start with EMEA here on the left, which makes up 43% of our group revenue. Sales declined by 2.9%, or 0.8% measured at constant eviction rates to 970 million euros. On an organic basis, revenue declined by 5% combined with an FX headwind of 2.1%. These were partially mitigated by positive contribution from recent acquisitions. Weak organic revenue was driven by continued volatility in prices and a weak Agri Horti environment and limited benefit of the volume recovery across our major end markets. And I mentioned, we do begin to see recovery in these segments in the Q3-Q4 in our order book of Agri-Hortiferenx example. The immediate gross profit in the region declined by 4.7% year-on-year to 241 million euros, translating to a 51 basis points contraction in gross profit margin to 26.2%, driven by the makeshift towards industrial chemicals during the period. It's overall a solid performance considering that last year's gross profit margin ended at 26.7%, and in the second quarter, it was even 27.7%. Very high. Adjusted EBIT decreased by 8.6% to 128 million euros, resulting in a strong conversion margin of 53.2%. At this point in time, we choose to monitor additional cost-mitigating measures as we prepare for market recovery. Now let's turn to the Americas, which makes up 37% of group revenue, where sales increased by 7.1% year-on-year, driven by an almost 10% revenue growth contribution from recent acquisitions, namely Jilco in the US and Vogler in Brazil, offsetting the organic revenue decline in the first half. As communicated earlier, we are seeing sustained improvement trends in the Americas, reflected in narrower declines compared to prior years. In the first half year of 2023, our organic growth was minus 13%. This confirms on a statement on improvement in the Americas, further evidenced by organic revenue growth, which was slightly positive in the Americas in the second quarter, driven by volume improvements in Gase, which is our largest single-end market in the U.S., In addition, we also see wider volume improvements in Latin America, partially offset by lower price levels driven predominantly by product mix. Gross profit in the region increased by 9.9% to 194 million euros, with gross profit margin expanding 63 basis points to 24.6%. This uptick was driven largely by improved margin performance across our businesses in Latin America, offsetting lower margins in the U.S. industrial chemical segment, driven by price pressure in the case segment. Adjusted EBITDA declined by 1.5% to 98.5 million euros, mainly due to lower benefit of cost control measurements compared to H1 2023. As I mentioned before, we started already in Q4 2022. resulted in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.5%. The lower adjusted EBITDA resulted in a conversion margin of 50.9% in the first half of 2024. Lastly, let's move to Asia-Pacific on the right. Revenue declined by 4.4% to €441.8 million, driven by an organic decline of 3.6% and a fixed headwind of 3.5%. The organic revenue contraction follows a strong performance in the comparable period last year, when the region delivered 36, I repeat, 36% revenue growth, of which 7% was organic. Business trends are broadly stable in APEC, even compared to the strong performance in the prior year. China conditions remain challenging, where the business is focused on expanding and improving margin levels from prior acquisitions. And we're doing a good job at that. Profit in APEC grew 4.4% to 92 million euros, representing gross profit margin of 20.9%. The 176 basis points expansion in gross profit margin was driven by improving profitability of the product portfolio of recent acquisitions, and we are on track with our ambitions. Adjusted EBIT increased by 8.6% to 44.8 million euros, reflecting continuous margin and skill improvement initiatives. The improvement in both gross profit and adjusted EBITDA margin resulted in 186 basis points expansion in conversion margin to 48.6 in the first half of the year. Solid performance. So let's please turn to slide number 14, which shows the net profit of the group. Net financial expenses remained relatively stable with an increase of 1.7% compared to prior year. Financial income increased mainly due to the higher interest income and mitigated the higher financial expenses, which include increased interest expenses, due to the full-year impact of higher gross debt with higher interest rates. Our results in the period also include a non-cash charge of €12.2 million from the impact of hyperinflation accounting in Turkey. Tax expenses for the period ended at 42.2 million euros, implying a tax rate, an effective tax rate of 29.6% versus 29% in the prior year. The tax line was impacted roughly by 2% driven by withholding taxes due to upstreaming of dividends from trapped cash countries and another 1% by hyperinflation. The lower operating profit as well as higher financial expenses resulted in an 8.3% decrease in net profit. which came at 100 million euros for the first half of 2024. From here, let's move to the slide 15 for the cash flow performance of the group. During the first six months of the year, Zelix generated a free cash flow of 136.5 million euros, a decrease of 44.3% compared to prior years. This was driven by the lower EBITDA, but mainly by higher investments in working capital as volumes begin to recover across our end markets. Please note that working capital levels in absolute and relative terms are broadly stable. However, going back in time, in 2023, we witnessed a higher release of working capital compared to 2022, impacting the comparable in this table. I'll come back to that a bit later. This resulted in a 39 percentage point contraction in free cash flow to 53.3% for the period. And let's come back to the working capital as this is a key driver in our cash flow. So let's look at the components of our working capital in the next slide. Networking capital revenue normalized for acquisitions remained flat at 15.4%. Even with the higher investments in working capital as our business is in recovery mode. So you should read this positively. I would like to draw your attention to the right chart with the lines. Our working capital increase is in general driven by seasonality pattern we witness every year with a ramp up towards summer. You see this in the dotted lines in the chart for the historical periods. Last year, this effect was exceptionally low to the soft business performance at this time. As we see the momentum of improvement, for example, US case, India, so does their share in working capital requirements, LATAM as well. Similarly, when comparing versus full year 2023, networking capital to revenue was low in the fourth quarter of 2023 due to tight control and soft business. Currently, we see now a normalization towards historical trends levels as the increase in first half of 2024 had a similar seasonal trend as in previous year. You can see in the chart that actually 2023 was an outlier. Those working capital investment in the first half of 2024 reflect our ongoing focus on managing the business as volumes begin to recover across end markets. And we don't see a deterioration in relative KPIs with main impact coming from business mix changes, for example, US case, Latin, Southeast Asia, and India. Obviously, we remain fully committed to strict control of our working capital to protect our cash flows and manage our debt levels and drive our working capital down via our programs and systems at acquired families. Let's move to the next slide. It shows our net debt. The change in net debt during the first half year reflects the weaker operating cash flow of 153 million euros, higher interest payments, and lastly, our M&A investments. We ended the first half of 2024 with a leverage of 2.7 times, well within our stated limit of 2.5 to 3 times leverage. At the end of June 2024, we have a strong liquidity position of 734 million, both in cash and unused credit facilities, and the strength of our balance sheet, both in terms of leverage and liquidity, provides us with sufficient runway to continue to execute our strategy. In summary, we continue to make solid progress on our strategic and financial projectives in the first half year of 2024. Please note that we're still in a difficult operating environment and at the beginning of the recovery out of the bathtub. But we believe Azelis is ready to perform for our principals, customers and shareholders through the rest of 2024 and beyond. Now let me give it back to Anna to give some closing remarks and some comments on the outlook.

Thanks, Dijs. And indeed, I will conclude the presentation with our view on the outlook. And actually, it's a repetition of the last earning calls, a call as the same points remain valid. Currently, we still have challenges and the visibility has not yet improved and we still see volatility in the market. But the volume recovery that started at the beginning of the year has largely been sustained. The price pressure is still present in some of the markets, but the tough comps are behind us. If you look at our order book and our results year to date, I remain cautiously optimistic that we will return to organic growth before the end of the year. As said earlier, we already had one month of organic growth and we had some exceptional circumstances that had a negative impact on the results. And that gives me comfort to maintain this statement if no large negative events occur. While the industry is still recalibrating towards recovery, we continue to watch our costs as we have been doing till now, but we are also ensuring to be prepared for the growth. On the midterm, the distribution market remains fundamentally attractive and I see many opportunities we can build on for the future. And that concludes our presentation. We are ready to take your questions now. So operator, could you please open the line for Q&A?

If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1. We'll pause for a moment to sample the queue. Your first question comes from the line of Hathini Varathini from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I appreciate the color of the given on the geographies and the outflows. But your comments suggest that maybe America has probably passed over at this point. India is lagging a little bit by two to three quarters. Is that a fair assessment? And secondly, can you maybe discuss the sequence of trends on pricing? Because it feels as though volumes are definitely recovering. but are you still worried about pricing on a sequential basis or has that stabilized? And secondly, given the growth has been sort of stabilized in Q2, is there any commentary that you can add to July that suggests that maybe growth has come back? Thank you.

Well, first on the The difference between the Americas and EMEA, it's true that the Americas is actually ahead in the recovery. As I said, the Americas, LATAM is doing better. We have the U.S. where the case is still, I would say, a problem with price, but see the volumes recovering and the rest of the business is also doing okay and going into the right direction. Only Canada there is... On EMEA, it's more difficult. It's really patchy, and we still have pressure, I would say, also on the life sciences part. The good thing is we see the AES coming back, so the ARGO is coming back. We have some orders in the order book, so that is positive. But my main concern remains indeed EMEA, where the market in general remains a bit soft. Your second question about sequential trends in pricing. I think what I was already explaining, we have some improvements, for example, in the FNF in pricing. But on food, we continue to see price pressure, I would say, mostly EMEA and APEC. And in case, we also see a continuous price pressure. Your last question.

I picked it up in July. Okay. So, Ashini, please note that June, of course, had two working days less. July, we have two working days more. July is actually looking quite positive.

Yeah, and the volatility, as we said, remains, which also means that we have a good outlook for the next month. The month after becomes a bit less, and September, it's too difficult for us to make any statements.

I understand. Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from Angel. The line is open.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Please, if I may. The first one is on China. Can you give an idea to what extent China is a drag on margins in the APEC segment? As the segment is now two quarters above 10%, I'd like to know whether there is a material difference between margin in China and the rest of the Pacific. The second one is also related to China. Can you give an idea of the revenue potential in that region? If China would return to what you believe are normalized revenue levels. The last one is housekeeping. Is there a hyperinflation impact due to EBITDA? Or is it elsewhere in the P&L? Thank you.

If you're okay, I'll take the first two slides. You can talk about hyperinflation. China margin, as I said, China for us is doing well, but not on the industrial side. It's linked to the building and construction sector that is, no surprise, probably is depressed. And we are having problems there, not only in pricing, but also in volumes. I don't have a crystal ball, but my expectation is not that that will improve a lot during the rest of the year. So we have to have the growth coming from the other segments, and they are indeed growing rapidly. We did some acquisitions there, WWRC, that we bought at a very low margin, and we are working our way into improving that, and we are making very good progress on that. So I would not say that China is dragging everything down and will continue to do so. Yeah, and maybe I already then answered your second question on the China revenue potential. China is, of course, a very big market. We remain committed to be in that market and growing there, but we have to focus more on the life sciences for the moment to capture the growth than on the industrial like building and construction. Maybe for you on hyperinflation.

Yeah, Stein, this hyperinflation is obviously a very difficult topic. But let me first also give you a bit of an answer also on the China side, because you asked for a reference towards Asia Pacific as well. In China, overall, our margins are about 4% lower than the average margin than we have in Asia Pacific. However, this is also driven by WWC, as Anna is mentioning, and we're making every quarter, we're making progress there by optimizing the portfolio. And sometimes that has, of course, an impact on our top line. For Q2, let me say something about Turkey on the hyperinflation. Please note that we trade mainly in hard currency. So what we do basically, we quote in euros, we quote in dollars. And then basically at the point of time, they pay us in Turkish lira and we convert this back into hard currencies. So actually, Turkey is the best practice when it comes to having a natural hedge in place. but the main impact is coming mainly from the balance sheet due to the fact you have to restate basically your balance sheet for hyperinflation purposes. I would say the operational impact is limited. It's mainly a balance sheet impact. And in Q2, there's basically a hyperinflation adjustment, but it's not really material, I would say, in due course. We also have a section in our half-year report where we can relate to a bit more questions on that aspect. It's mainly a balance sheet impact, I would say, Stein.

Very helpful, thank you. Your next question comes from Flannery. Your line is open.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I'm just curious. You've talked about, if I'm not mistaken, we had the same dynamics at the time of Q1 call where you said April was good. But I guess the follow-through from April to the rest of the quarter probably wasn't as smooth. Just looking at July and I heard you talk about good July so far. Based on what you see today, your order book for August, do you feel Q3 earnings could be better than Q2 also given that you talked about some one-off impacts in Q2? Or is that still too early to say? And just from a broader market perspective, you talked about some challenges in EMEA. Is that specific to any specific end market or would you say Europe as a whole feels like across the board there is still some weakness across most markets?

So on Q3, I think it's too early, as I said, to really make a statement. There's a volatility there, and we see, especially EMEA, which is the largest region, is wobbling. So it's difficult to say something about September. July was good. August looked okay. But September, as we said, a bit too difficult to read the signs there. On EMEA as an end market, You know, we have two wars going on in Europe. I think if you read in the newspapers about wood, there's still inflation. It is generally, I would say, the most difficult market for us. And we don't expect a huge improvement, but also not a deterioration. We have actually better industrial chemicals results than in the life sciences. Because in life sciences, we also see two effects. One is our personal care business, where we are in the high-end brands, as I was mentioning. Their export is less. And then we have some price pressure, like, for example, in food. And pharma had a very good last year. So, yeah, that's normalizing. The good thing is that we see on agro, we see an improvement. So we have some orders in the book that look really good.

And there's a high margin profile as well.

Okay. Understood.

Thank you. Hi, good morning, Anna.

Good morning, Jase. Three questions, please. So firstly on taste, particularly in the Americas, you know, you've talked a few times about volume recovery in taste. given some of the construction data for the US is still quite choppy. I'm just wondering if you could talk about the drivers within that case business. If it's not coming from construction, is there anything else where you're seeing an improvement in that market. And then secondly, just on agriculture, I think you've just touched on it in the previous question, but I think that business from memory in Europe has been very bad because of the bad weather. So is it a case of customers now planning for crops later in the year in anticipation of a warmer autumn or again one of the drivers okay fine drivers behind that um and then um just lastly on on on m&a um you know clearly your leverage has picked up in the half year um you know you've done six deals year to date are you confident in completing further deals in the second half um do you have the capacity to do so thank you

So on the first one case in the Americas, we are not only in building and construction. So we are many other subsegments that are picking up and the volume increase is actually quite steady. It started already a bit in the last quarter last year and we see continuously uptick. So I think that's an ongoing trend and it's less wobbly. The wobbliness, I would say, is more in EMEA on the case side, while we still see improvement in the volumes. It goes a bit more up and down, while the Americas is a steady increase. On the Anglo, the drivers, I think that you're correct. There's probably a bit more, I would say, a later postponement of the season. And that's also why we see these orders now coming in.

We missed basically a prompt to the wet season, but let's not go into weather as an explanation. We look at our open orders and we see those orders coming in. They are confirmed. When will that be? September, October, November, that area. Lastly, on the M&A, yeah, it's 2.7. I think it's an excellent performance considering the current climate. We obviously, we stay within our capital allocation 2.5 to three times, and we plant our M&A around that commitment. So yes, we will see more M&A in the second half of the year in line with that capital commitment. And we're focused mainly on small tokens. That's where our focus is at this point in time.

Okay, very clear. Thank you.

Next question comes from Eric Wilmer of Tempany. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. First question, can you elaborate a bit on why your personal care business is difficult in EMEA? I think your principles are indicating very strong volumes, also specifically in EMEA and also specifically for higher-end products. I believe you mentioned something about difficult exports, but I was wondering if you could please elaborate. And then another question, maybe somewhat more housekeeping, but was there a particular reason not to include a qualitative guide?

Thank you. So on personal care in EMEA, actually, we are constantly talking with our principals and they see exactly the same trend as we had. We are present in high-end brands and they have much less export to mostly China. And again, it's a trend that they have in the same way that we see. The good thing about being global is that the Chinese consumers are buying less of the luxury European brands, but are buying more local brands. As we are present in China, we see actually our Chinese personal care business picking up. So that's the good part of being, I would say, broad and gives us resilience. The second question is about the guidance.

It's a good question, obviously. As Anna already mentioned, it's quite a volatile environment where we are. As Chetan already mentioned, April was good, and then May for a part was also okay. The last weeks were tough. The same we see now in July. In the current environment, we don't want to give quantitative guidance. And I think we performed in line with consensus for this quarter, and I think we will leave it at that. We see some green shoots, some positive ones that we alluded to in the call, but please note, if you look at the bathtub scenario, yes, we're definitely going up, seeing organic growth, but it's too early to say.

Yeah, I mean, the statement that we are giving is that we expect to be back to organic growth by the end of the year. And I think that's as far as we can go with the visibility.

Hope it helps. That's clear. Thank you. The next question comes from Linus Theobald from the news. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. Picking up to the leverage ratio, in the June report of S&P, it seems that they forecast a net debt EBITDA of 3.4 to 3.6 for 2024. Yeah, obviously M&A will pick up in the second half of the year, but still that seems rather high. Is S&P including full year EBITDA of the acquired companies? Are they looking at a weaker organic EBBA or are they just looking at a very, very high space for the second half?

Yeah, it's a good question. I think I don't want to get into technicalities on this call, but it is a completely different calculation how they look at that from a leverage point of view. We can pick that up offline. As I said before, we manage within the constraints of our capital allocation, the 2.5 to 3 times. and they're using gross debt, so S&P, please note that. And on finance leverage, the calculation is differently. I think what you need to take away here is that what I mentioned before, that we stay within our financial policy 2.5 to 3 times, and we plan our M&A around that.

Okay, that's clear. And then final question, given the importance of the net debt, uh and talk to us get a better investment rate do you basically look at the dividends to keep it in the foreseeable future at the lower end of the guidance you know i think it's too early to tell i don't think uh uh want to answer that at this point in time that's possible thanks

Your next question comes from Stefano from ABN AMRO. The line is open.

Yes, good morning, Anna. Good morning, Thijs. So I have one question left. And if I can come back on the working capital, I very much appreciate the explanation. And I do understand that the base, the 2023 base, perhaps exacerbates a little bit the movements that we have seen. But I mean, nonetheless, Also given, you know, the C-Cash flow conversion was more than 90% in Q1, 50%, 52% over H1. It's a very, very strong move over Q2. Also in the normalized lines that you can see on chart on page 16. Am I reading too much into this? Because I look at this and I say, wow, I mean, momentum is really coming back here. And again, I appreciate you being a little bit careful. with the outlook, but this is showing a better picture than perhaps the cautious stance that you are taking.

Well, you should not forget that volumes are going up. So you see, of course, maybe less this effect in the top line, but the volumes are going up and we are preparing ourselves and also acting on it already.

That's a good question. I think if you look at the chemical industry and you look at all the companies and you look at the half year report, you see exactly the same effect. So I don't think it should be too much into this. So yeah, you see they're basically 2023, you see basically 2024, and then you see basically the Delta effect. So I think it's just regular seasonality. You shouldn't read too much into it. However, I think we flagged a couple of comments. One, when we talk about a cost contingency, we're monitoring that situation because we're at the end of the bathtub. So if you look at our organic GP and our organic revenue, you see actually that we're ticking up. And second, obviously, we want to have these activities that we want to serve our customers where the inventory needs to be there. Overall, from a ratio perspective, we're very much in control in this area. And we improve, of course, every quarter based upon the M&A portfolio. the ratios are are quite okay and i think you need to also see a little bit of a product mix in there i think latin is coming back america's case is coming back as on a re-refer to that um so networking capital percentages are the same like prior year i think that's how you should take it right thank you for the color

Yeah, hi.

Good morning. I hope you can hear me. If I may, I will take them one by one. First question is maybe on the organic growth profit margin. I think you already hinted on it. What could you maybe quantify? And do you think you can hold on to this space of expansion?

Or can you even maybe accelerate? I'm thinking this one.

I think it's a very difficult question. Yes. Due to the fact, please note, these are 12 end segments. We're active in 60 plus countries. So to give a very granular level in the buildup of this GP percentage and this group GP margin, if this is sustainable, I think it's difficult to tell. We still see price pressure, which means that on the one hand, we always have inventory, which is priced probably at a little bit higher level, but there's always some upside in this aspect. But overall, we expect this GP margin to obviously improve over time. But that depends completely on the product mix. The moment that China was alluded to the call by Stein, if China starts growing again, yeah, they grow at the lower GP percentages, which will impact our mix. LATAM, same? LATAM is the same. East North America, normally the margins in industrial chemicals are lower than in life sciences, in our case. So, yeah, I think those mixed effects, if you take the calculation from industrial chemicals and life sciences into account, I think you can come to quite some good conclusions.

Thanks. Second question was actually on medium-term outlook. I see you mentioned that there's still significant value to be unlocked of new strengths and competencies. Could you maybe elaborate a little bit on those new strengths and competencies?

I didn't understand what you were saying, competencies. We couldn't hear you. Can you maybe repeat the question?

Yeah, so I want to refer to your medium-term outlook. There you mentioned that there's still significant value to be unlocked from new strengths and competencies. So could you maybe elaborate on those new strengths and competencies?

We did, of course, acquisitions where we acquired, I would say, expertise in sub-segments in that country region that we didn't have yet. And these are for us building platforms from when we get further growth on. I invite you to come also to Istanbul, where I will tell a bit more about our strategy going forward and where we see our growth coming for the future.

medium-term guidance if you take if you take it if you take the medium-term guidance uh usually we are a growing company we have a new footprint in regions uh both verticals uh segments that we add geographies we add so there's always a skill factor uh that you have you only need one cfo for instance yeah i was saying so um from that perspective uh um Yeah, there's always an uptick from a basis point. So in a medium-term guidance, we gave guidance on the 10 to 15 basis points improvement year on year. We have significantly outperformed that since we communicated that. And I think, as Anna said, very more than welcome to come to the lab tour in Turkey.

Yeah, I will. Just to follow up, it's the goal to put a new mid-term guidance as the capital market wave ends.

I didn't hear again.

The line is very bad. Excuse me for that, but I can't hear the last question that you had.

No, I think I understood correctly. It's the goal to issue a new midterm guidance that we kept on market today then.

No, actually, that's not what I said. I will present the new strategy in September and tell us about your ambitions that we have for the future. But that doesn't mean it will translate into a guidance.

Okay, thank you. Your next question comes from Nicole Mannion from UBS. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Obviously, for the last few quarters now, you've been talking about the price story that's ongoing in the market and obviously impacting line. Just doing the thing for a moment between the lower prices from your principles that you're passing on compared to maybe pricing in your own business in terms of your markup today. What are you seeing there? And can you make any sort of distinction between the two? And then secondly, on the FBA, As obviously you can expect, that was up a fair bit year over year in Q2 and on a sequential basis, I think, sort of slattest or very slightly up. How do you think about the development of the cost base from here, given your expectation for a volume recovery and the investments you want to make into that? Given this backdrop, as well as the price pressure that's ongoing in the market, what does your confidence in sustaining the conversion margins at the current level or close? Those are my two questions. Thank you.

I'll take the first, maybe Thijs, you can take the second. So pricing for us, it works that we buy from our principals and we actually, with a markup, we resell to our customers. And the markup is actually very detailed per customer. We don't work with list prices, but of course, we pass on the trends that we get from our principals. As the market has been contracting in the past, obviously our principles eventually have been lowering the prices to us. You have a bit of a, I would say, time lag because we have inventory. As you've seen, when the market goes down, we try to also manage the inventory levels lower to avoid that we sit on expensive inventory. So, yeah, I would say the trends for us are in the end the same as the principles, but there's a bit of a time lag in between. And then it's up to us to define and decide for each of the customers. And it's a very granular process. If we we keep prices high because we maybe sell 20 on the products into the customer and therefore we can have a better mix or whether we really want to have that customer it's a new customer and that we then will sell with a lower margin but to get the customer so it's a very granular process but the principal prices are in general in line with our prices as a trend Maybe you can take up the second question on our cost base.

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. I think the cost base, basically, let's please note that we first have an excellent track record in managing these conversion margins. We're currently at 48.2% conversion margin, and that's still well above the 47.6% and the 47.4% in 22 and 23. So we take direct action, and we have a very good track record with that. There are a couple of components to it as well. Of course, we see we're getting out of this bathtub, so we're currently in the monitoring mode. In the U.S., we took very strict action immediately already in Q4-22, next one in May, and lastly, APEC. So there's a different phasing of these programs as well. And that's why we made that comment as well. We also have to, of course, incur inflation, but if you take all these kind of things into account, it's an excellent profile what we're having there. And lastly, we also have a skill and operational programs, which is more ongoing. And that's part of our execution of operational excellence programs. We're executing that. That's more business as per normal. And lastly, there's the M&A. Look at Asia. You bring in new products. You basically get the cost into the short service teams that we're having. You bring the operating model from Azaleas in, that gives better governance, better guidance, better working capital management. But those programs are also ongoing. If you take these things all combined, there's sufficient lead way in the conversion margin. And at this point in time, it's not a key concern for us. I'm currently in monitoring mode to see if this bathtub is basically continuing.

Very helpful. Thank you.

There are no further questions on the conference line. We have come to the end of this call. I will now hand over to CEC's Assistant Officer, Anna Bertona, for closing remarks.

Thank you for listening to our H2 earnings calls. And we trust we provided you with sufficient insights and we are available to address any follow-up questions on one-on-ones. I've now been six months in my role and I've worked on an update of our strategy. which we will present during our lab tour in Istanbul in September, as I mentioned already before. We wish you a good day and look forward to seeing you in Istanbul. Thank you.