Azelis Group Nv

Good morning and welcome to Zalos' nine-month trading update call. As usual, we have Anna, Group CEO, and Thais, Group CFO, with us. Anna will give a high-level overview of our performance and a few words on the outlook at the end of the presentation. Thais will walk us through the numbers. We will take questions after the presentation, but until then, you will be on listen-only mode. We would like to remind you that the presentation and Q&A may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risk. Now let me hand you over to Anna.

Thanks, Ben, and good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I will go off script a bit here and open the call by addressing our announcement regarding our Group CFO. As you have read, after 10 years of service, Thijs has decided that it's time for him to move on and get cracking with new challenges outside of Azelis. Thijs started at Azelis three years after I did, And I was then CEO of EMEA, and he decided to fill in the open EMEA CFO position at Interim, next to his group role. Originally for a short time, but he continued in this role until I moved to the group CEO position. So we have worked together very closely for 10 years. When he joined Azelis, we had an EBITDA of 90 million, leverage of almost 7 million, and a disjointed finance organization that shared only the Azelis name and not much else. He came from a Kashi APEC finance leadership role in a big international chemical company. He must have been tempted to turn around and catch the next flight back to Singapore. But for some reasons, he stayed and took on the challenge. And I'm very glad he did. One of the milestones in his finance leadership journey was obviously leading the IPO of Azelis in 2021. I'm also grateful for Thijs for helping me with my transition into the Group CEO role last year. We are in the process to appoint his successor and we have agreed that Thijs will stay until it's necessary to have an orderly handover. And in the meantime, we plan business as usual. One thing is certain, I will miss him as a colleague and as a person. Now let's turn to our results for the first nine months of 2025. And as usual, we start with the most important messages based on our progress year to date. First, the market remained difficult with the challenges in the first half of the year persisting in Q3, as the industry normalizes and adjusts with the ever-shifting geopolitical and trade dynamics. The 34% increase in our free cash flow demonstrates our strong ability to align our working capital investments to the demand environments. Second, as we have limited visibility on when the market will normalize, we are balancing our cost structure, cost reduction measures to right-size the organization, while doubling down on investments to future-proof Azelis and ensure that we emerge even stronger. I am pleased we are delivering well above the commitment we gave on our cost savings program. And my last point will be familiar to you, and it's a point that I firmly believe in. The fundamentals of the specialty chemicals and ingredient distribution industry are intact and the long-term drivers remain attractive, as was also confirmed by the latest BCG chemical distribution study. Yes, we face some temporary challenges. Yes, the normalization is taking time, but consumers will continue to consume and products will continue to be produced. Principles more than ever need a strong partner to grow their business. and the role that large distributors like Azelis play will only expand. Now let's move to the results of the first nine months on the next slide. In the first nine months, we made revenue of 3.2 billion, a 2% increase over the prior year in constant currency. Our granite growth was broadly stable despite the slowdown, specifically in EMEA in Q3. Our gross profit in the first nine months was 752 million, which is 1% behind the previous year in constant currency. Gross margin contraction was due to the negative mix effect from our newer business in emerging markets. Adjusted EBITDA for the period was 333 million and adjusted EBITDA margin was 10.5%, while conversion margin was 44.2%. The contraction in our profit margin reflects the compression in our gross profit and partial benefit from our cost savings measures, which will ramp up in Q4. We generated 293 million in free cash flow, so our cash conversion ratio expanded by 29 percentage points to 87%. This reflects our disciplined approach to managing the business and shows once again the resilient nature of our business model. Our leverage at the end of September reached 3.4. due to the slow organic EBITDA development, a peak in deferred payments earlier in the period, as well as M&A investment in select growth opportunities. We are still committed to our leverage policy and expect to manage this back to below three times while balancing investments for the future. Now let's turn to the drivers of these results on the next slide. And in this slide, I'll walk you through the key trends that we saw during the period. We saw a mixed trend in life sciences and incremental challenges in industrial chemicals, especially in the third quarter. Momentum remained strong in pharma across all three regions. Food was strong in the US, and in fact, growth accelerated in U3. In APEC, we saw some green shoot with some normalization. However, this was offset by weak performance in EMEA, especially in Middle East and Africa. Agri was broadly stable. And in personal care, the continued positive momentum in EMEA mitigated the softer trends in US and APEC. Although in these regions, the rate of decline in PC somewhat moderated in Q3. Turning to industrial chemicals, we saw incremental slowdown. In case, we saw weaker trends in EMEA with volume growth offset by price pressure, especially in Middle East Africa. In the Americas, demand remained soft. and prices are holding up. Where we saw, though, some positive signs was in APEC, with positive volume growth for the first time in seven quarters. Although I would be cautious here, it is too early to tell if this is a real inflection point. And then Loops Metalworking Fluid delivered soft performance in Q3, driven mostly by weakness in EMEA, lower volume, and price pressure. And this was somewhat mitigated by better performance in the U.S., while an APEC loop was stable. If we look at the regions, EMEA delivered weak performance in Q3 after a strong start of the year, and that's mainly driven by a slowdown in industrial chemicals and broad-based weakness in Middle East Africa. Trends in the Americas remain soft across the board, with the uncertainty over the short-term economic outlook continuing to weigh on demand. And then lastly, in APEC, the competitive pressure across Southeast Asia due to oversupply from China continues. But on a positive note, we are starting to see some green shoots in China. If we look at inorganic growth, we continue to pace our M&A, focusing only on the most strategic projects while our leverage is elevated. we will now pursue compelling growth opportunities. And this is reflected in the acquisitions that we have completed here to date. Stolken was the missing piece in our offering in Spain and gives us access to the lucrative and growing nutraceutical markets. As Emit and Distona are small bold-ons that complete our business in India and Switzerland respectively. And with Achef, we are creating the largest personal care distributor in Italy. providing skill benefits and synergies. The pipeline remains strong, and I'm confident that we will return to full M&A execution as soon as we have stabilized the balance sheet to below three times leverage. And with that, I now hand over to you, Thijs, to walk us through the numbers.

Thank you, Anna, and good morning, everyone. As Anna mentioned, our resilient model and disciplined execution continue to support us through a volatile environment. I will now walk you through the group's financial performance and regional developments for the first nine months of 2025 with a focus on the third quarter. Now let's start on the next slide with a high-level overview of the P&L and the drivers of our performance in the third quarter and the first nine months of 2025. Our group revenue for the first nine months of 2025 reached 3.2 billion euros, representing a year-on-year growth of 2.1%, measured at constant currency. This reflects a 2.4% growth delivered by our life science business and 1.7% growth of industrial chemicals, both measured at constant rate. In the third quarter, revenue came in at around 1 billion euros. This indicates a 3.8% year-on-year decline, giving a 3.5% EVIX headwind and a 4.1% organic decline, offsetting 3.9% revenue growth contribution from acquisitions. Cross-profit for the first nine months came in at 752 million euros, representing a 1.3% year-on-year decline at constant currency. Cross-profit as a percentage of revenue contracted by 80 basis points to 23.7%, mainly due to mixed effects from emerging markets and competitive pressure in Asia and Latin America. The adjusted EBITDA came in at €333 million, reflecting a year-on-year decline of 7.1% at constant currency, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.5%. This performance reflects our lower gross profit from especially emerging markets and only the partial benefit from our cost savings, which are on track and are expected to ramp up in Q4. The slower development in EBITDA growth resulted in a conversion margin of 44.2% compared to 47.1% in 2024, but this indicator remains robust in my view. Now let's look at the breakdown of our performance drivers on the next slide. On this slide, we provide a high-level breakdown of revenue, gross profit, and adjusted EBITDA into organic, M&A, and FX. The breakdown by business provides insight into our regional diversification as well. On the revenue line, growth contribution through acquisitions offset the decline in organic revenue, as well as the negative effects of FX translation. Organic revenue was broadly stable in the first nine months of the year with growth in EMEA offsetting softness in the Americas and Asia-Pacific. In the third quarter, organic revenue declined 4.1%, maybe in industrial chemicals, while life science remained resilient with a pickup towards the end of the quarter. Gross profit in the first nine months declined by 4.1%, driven by an organic decline 4% and a 2.8% of X headwind, partially offset by a 2.7% growth contribution from recent acquisitions. In the third quarter, organic gross profit declined by 8.6%, driven by mixed effects, price pressure, and regional dilution. Adjusted EBITDA for the first nine months was supported by contributions from the acquisitions, partly mitigating the 10.2% decline in organic EBITDA and 2.8% heft. The organic EBITDA decline was driven by lower gross profit margin and higher operating costs in EMEA and Americas as the benefits from our cost-saving initiatives are only partly reflected in the result. Maybe zoom in a little bit on that. Please note that our operating cost in the quarter is coming down significantly and is lower than prior year, despite payroll inflation and acquisition impact. The operating cost is down 2% year-on-year, despite roughly 3% to 4% salary inflation and acquisition impact, resulting in being well ahead with the communicated cost savings, and we will see more ramp up in the fourth quarter. Now, let's have a look at the regional financial performance on the next slide. Let's start with EMEA. This makes up 45% of our group revenue. Revenue for the first nine months came in at 1.4 billion euros. representing a year-on-year growth of 5.9% or 7.2% in constant currency. This was driven by organic revenue growth of 1.4% and revenue growth contribution from acquisitions of 5.8%, partially offset by 1.3% FX headwind. In the third quarter, revenue increased by 4.2% year-on-year as the organic decline of 5.6% was offset by 0.8% EVIC tailwind and 9% revenue growth contribution from acquisitions that we did. During the quarter, the life science business was broadly stable, with growth in agri and personal care offset by weakness in food, particularly Middle East Africa. Industrial chemicals delivered weaker performance during the quarter, especially in case and loops and metalworking fluids, as demand in terms of volume slowed in the largest markets and our business in less mature markets saw only modest volume growth. Gross profit in EMEA grew by 3.6% year-on-year or 4.7% constant currency to €365 million, translating to a 56 basis points contraction in gross profit margin to 25.4%. This is mainly driven by a mixed effect across the businesses in terms of volume. During the quarter, margins were stable compared to previous year at 25.4%. The adjusted EBITDA margin decreased by 3% to 175 million euros, resulting in 112 basis points, adjusted EBITDA margin contraction to 12.2%. This is driven mainly by the aforementioned mixed effects and higher operating costs compared to prior year, benefits of the cost savings actions in the region partially reflected in this result. I'm not concerned there because this region is well on track to deliver their cost savings commitments ahead of communication, and we expect improvement of the run rate of these savings in the fourth quarter and, of course, next year. Both resulted in 329 basis points stepped down and conversion margin to 48%. And let's turn to the Americas. This makes roughly 35% of our group revenue. The revenue for the first nine months ended at 1.1 billion euros, reflecting a year-on-year decline of 5% or 0.9% in constant currency. Organic revenue and M&A revenue contribution were broadly stable. while FX translation presented the negative impact of 4.1% as the euro strengthened versus the dollar, and that obviously impacts our performance. In the third quarter, the revenue declined 8.1%, with minus 6% FX effect, quite material, and 2.1% organic decline. The organic revenue decline was driven by a mixed performance in life sciences, where we see accelerated strong growth in food and pharma, offset by demand softness, in other end markets in the segment. Our industrial chemical business in the Americas remains weak. With return, although slower than expected volume growth in case, largely supported by better growth in loops and metal working fluids, but that's coming at lower margins. Gross profit in the region declined by 9.2% to 266 million euro, with 109 basis points contraction in gross profit margin, 23.7%. The margin contraction was mainly driven by mixed effects across the business in the region, with higher contribution from industrial chemicals and Latin America, as well as margin pressures in that region, LATAM, where margins were diluted by low margin products in Colombia. Adjusted EBITDA declined by 15% to 127 million euros, driving adjusted EBITDA margin to 11.3%. The 133 basis point contraction was mainly due to the softer top line in gross profit and dilution from a less mature Latin America business. Also here, the results only reflect partial impact from the cost savings programs, which we expect to ramp up in the fourth quarter. The lower adjusted EBITDA results in a conversion margin of almost 48% for the first nine months of 2025. Now let's move to the last region, Asia Pacific, There, the revenue declined by 7.2% to 670 million euros, driven by an organic decline of 4%, a VIX headwind of 4.4%, partially offset by revenue growth contribution from acquisitions of about 1.1%. The third quarter was tough. In the third quarter, revenue declined 11.7%, with 7.6% VIX and 4.6% organic. This organic revenue decline was driven by continued pressure in Southeast Asia, as in our view, tariff-related uncertainties continues to weigh on demand for pricing due to excess supply. Also weakness in Australia and New Zealand and residual impact of our portfolio optimization program in the region as we close the plan. On a positive note, as Anna also already alluded to, China delivered broadly stable performance during the quarter and we're seeing green shoots within case and AMA. and a return to organic growth in the life science business as well. Gross profit in Asia-Pacific declined by 12.8% to 121 million euros, representing gross profit margin of 19.6%. The 126 basis point gross profit margin contraction reflects negative mix effects as well as the competitive pressure in Southeast Asia, which we also flagged in H1. The adjusted EBITDA for the first nine months declined by 10.4% or 6.2% in constant currency to 59 million euros. It's resulting in a 35 basis points margin stepped down to 9.6%. In here, the conversion margin actually expanded by 129 basis points to 49%, demonstrating disciplined cost control to mitigate ongoing demand pressure. The region is performing here very well. Now let's turn to the main driver of our cash flow generation, working capital. On the next slide. Networking capital as a percentage of sales came in at 15.3% at the end of September 2025, compared to 15.9% at the end of December 2024, and 16% at the end of September. of September 2024. As communicated before, we are very confident and we indicated that also in H1 to bring this back in line and are delivering on these commitments. Compared to December, we've made continuous progress, reducing our working capital levels. We've made significant progress in improving our DIO and we are expecting our working capital will continue to trend down in Q4 in line with some historical seasonality and our commitment to managing our working capital while the demand environment remains uncertain. As always, and I've been building that over the years with the teams, our systems, processes and team efforts, as well as our predictive engines, allowing us to optimize working capital to protect our cash flow and manage our debt levels. That leads to, in the first nine months, our free cash flow increased by 34.3% year-on-year to 293 million euros, representing 29% point uplift in free cash flow conversion to 87.1% for the period, compared to 59% in 2024. This is a true reflection of our asset-light business model, and please note, we generate cash. Now, in summary, Q3 reflects margin pressure, regional volatility, and FX headwinds. But our cost actions are delivering, and we remain on track for Q4 recovery. A resilient asset-like business model, strong liquidity, and disciplined execution position as well to navigate the remainder of 2025, and we're well positioned to pick up volume as and when the market returns. Now, with that, I'll hand back to Anna for some closing remarks.

Thanks, Thijs. And I will not spend a lot of time explaining the outlook as my views have not changed since the last presentation in July. Near-term, the uncertainty from all the geopolitical and trade issues continue to weigh on demand. We are controlling what we can, cost and working capital, to navigate the short-term challenges and at the same time remaining focused on executing on our long-term strategy. We are right-sizing Azelis, while leveraging our footprint to capture growth wherever it emerged. Longer term, the fundamentals have not changed and they remain compelling. The most recent industry-wide paper from BCG confirms this, as I said already before. I want to re-emphasize we are a service company. We help our customers and principals to grow and innovate. And there are no indications that there is a decreased demand for these services. Actually, the opposite. Also, we don't manufacture and we are asset light. This is important as a lot of the challenges that apply to chemical producers today don't apply to us. We are flexible and agile and can adapt quicker to market changes than producers. And then lastly, the industry is still very fragmented with many opportunities to grow through M&A. I see plenty of opportunities to create value as we diligently execute on our strategy. We are accelerating investments that shape Azelis into an even stronger company fit for the future. I'm confident that we have the right strategy, footprint, portfolio, business model, and most importantly, the people to balance short-term requirements and the achievements of our longer-term objectives. Our innovation, sustainability, and digital capabilities make us a key partner for customers and principals. And this is the azaleas value proposition through every phase of the cycle. And with this, we are ready to take questions. Operator, you can open the line.

If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for a brief moment to assemble the questions. We will take our first question from... Your line is now open.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Beforehand, I'd like to wish you all the best in your future endeavors. Three questions from my end. Firstly, on APAC, the impact of the price competition during the quarter seems more severe than thought. Do you expect that this resolves as China consumes more results domestically, or if not, are you contemplating other actions to send this pressure on the segments? And secondly, in spite of the current challenges, do you see any trend that make you optimistic for 26 as a year where the industry and azaleas could revert to organic growth? Or is it too soon to tell? And then lastly, on the CFO change, since specialty chemical distribution is a highly specific industry, can you comment on whether an internal or external CFO candidate is being sought to fill Thais' big shoes? Thanks, Peter, my question.

Yeah, so maybe, and good morning, Stijn. Maybe starting with your first question on APEC, we think that some of the trends might continue for a while. The pressure in Southeast Asia is coming from China oversupply. But I was there a couple of weeks ago. I spent quite some time with the teams, especially also in Southeast Asia, also in China, by the way. And actually, I can see that there are really some green shoots coming in some of the countries, more specifically in Vietnam. But it's a bit too early to say again also there that it's a real inflection point. The price pressure is also in our F&F business in APEC. And that's just a cyclical business. That will in the end also, I would say, dissipate. It will take some time, but I am also confident that we get through the cycle. For 2026, I really think it's a bit early to tell. If I look at our results, there are important things that are positive. And not only in APEC. If I look at the US, our food business is doing very well. And actually the growth is accelerating. In EMEA, I saw a strong personal care developments. And so that is also something that I don't see decelerating very soon. So yes, there are some positive things. It's too early to tell, but to tell you that 2026 will be a booming year, that's also not reflecting my opinion. And your last question about the CFO, it's a little bit too early to give more details. We will communicate about the person, his background, in a couple of weeks' time.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Suhasini Varanasi of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I appreciate the climate is quite difficult at this point in time, but is there any color that you can share on recent trading or on order books or any color that you can share on what it will take to actually see some stability in the top line or on order sizes? Thank you.

Yes, good morning. We see a continuation of the trends and the volatility is still there. We still have the order pattern that we have talked about before. So we have still more frequent smaller orders. That is a sign that the volatility is still continuing. And let's not forget that although there seems to be some agreements on the tariffs, the details are still not clear. And sometimes we think, for example, Europe and US are already clear. No, there are still product categories that go in and out of that. And so this uncertainty still remains. If I look forward, I would say a continuation of what we have seen in the past months and what it does take to stabilize, I think to have a clear view on where the tariffs will end and really have a clear view on what the percentages are of the tariffs between the different countries and also what exactly the product categories are that are in and which are out. If we have that, I think then the market might normalize.

Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from the line of Chetan Udashi of JP Morgan. Your line is now open.

Yeah, hi, thanks for taking my question. The first question was, can you quantify the savings that you achieved in Q3? I think if I'm not mistaken, earlier this year, the announcement was to have 25 million of total gross savings. And I'm just curious how much of that came in Q3? How much do you think can come in Q4? So we can think about the phasing. And also with these savings ramping up in Q4, should we be expecting Q4 to show probably better than seasonal trends? Because historically, Q4 is usually down 5% to 10% on earnings versus Q3. I mean, should we be modeling somewhat better trend than that? Because you'll have higher contribution from savings. The other question was just on your comments about green shoots, and you mentioned specifically even in China. I was just curious, which end markets do you see these green shoots, or is it more broad-based? Thank you.

So, Chitana, thank you for your question. We're well on our track with our operating costs, to give you some math here behind it. Our operating costs in Q3 were 139 million versus last year, 142 million. But this also includes a large part of M&A. So that's roughly 6 million. Our organic costs, basically, if you then go back, is basically 4 million lower than Q3 2024 currency, but also includes roughly 2 million of salary inflation. So Yeah, if you add it all together, you take the 6 million of the inflation, the 6 million from the M&A and the 2 million of the inflation out. Yeah, that's quite a cost saving. Obviously, these cost savings started somewhere in April, May, and they're ramping up. That takes time. So we see a ramp up in Q4 of these cost savings. So we're performing, we said to the market that we will generate a cost savings on an annual basis of 20 million. of which half will be in 2025. But yeah, we're going, of course, much more towards the 20 million already in 2025 and probably higher based upon the run rate where we are right now. So that will give you some color. So far, we are ahead on our schedule, on our cost savings program, and we expect to deliver that full 20 million, as you said, or outperform it by the end of this year versus our initial commitment that we basically indicated of Q1 2026 completion. So that comes to the Q4 answer. Yes, there will be an uptick in cost savings. And yeah, you can use a little bit the trend and amplify that from Q3.

And then you had a question indeed about the green shoots in China. It's the industrial segments case that we see bottoming out. And that's for the first time that we have seen that since I think seven quarters or so. And as I was also saying, Japan, Australia, and Korea are also back into organic growth, and that gives me confidence that we are on the right track.

That's useful. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Anne-Lise Vermeulen of Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Hi, thank you. Good morning. I have two questions, please. So firstly, on the competition from Chinese suppliers, we obviously spoke about this at the half year. Could you talk a little bit about how that has developed through Q3? Have you seen that competition step up, you know, particularly as tariff noise has increased and whether you're seeing it elsewhere outside of Southeast Asia, so in LATAM or EMEA, for example? and whether you expect that to continue for the foreseeable future. And then secondly, just on leverage, you've reiterated your commitment to be below three times. Could I just check what your expectations are in terms of leverage at the full year and whether in that context you expect to complete further deals in Q4? Thank you.

Regarding your question on competition in China, we've seen it indeed in Southeast Asia, but we also see it in Middle East Africa and in LATAM. I think that it's logical that it goes there. It's the surplus that comes from China that doesn't flow into the US. It flows less into Europe because of the, I would say, regulatory barriers. So it's less easy to get a quick disposal of oversupply. And then it goes into these regions that we have seen. That's also one of the regions that our Middle East Africa business is down. Although that is also created due to the conflict, of course, that's ongoing in the Middle East. Due to the current situation with the ceasefire, we hope that that will also give a positive push to our business that is down also a little bit. You can maybe answer the question on the leverage expectation.

Yeah, sure. If there's no improvement in the organic EBITDA growth, then we might still be above three times, but lower than where it is right now. We also are working, of course, on our working capital and there's some seasonal inflow towards the end of the year. So it's up three times, maybe only early in 2026. But okay, it's of course difficult to say because it's related to an organic EBITDA development. Also on the M&A side, we have no large deals in the pipeline. We have a strong pipeline, but basically what we're doing there, we're pacing the M&A as we indicated to do before. And that's how we manage that. And Anna is, of course, very much in discussion on the valuations of those deals. Yeah.

Thank you. Just to follow up on the Chinese competition or Chinese excess supply, would you say that that has stepped up in Q3 versus Q2?

I would say maybe in Southeast Asia, Q3 versus Q2 a bit more. And for the rest, it was already visible in Q2.

Okay, very clear. Thank you. And Thijs, thanks very much and best of luck for the next chapter.

Thank you, Annelies.

Your next question comes from the line of Nicole Mannion of UBS. Your line is now open.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just one follow-up, please, on the cost base. Obviously, you've been very clear about your actions for this year to right-size the business for the demand picture. I'm just wondering if you have any sort of early thoughts about how that kind of develops into next year. You've obviously been clear that the structural attractions of your industry are intact. How are you expecting to balance that with how you think about budgets and so on into 2026? Thank you.

Yeah, as we communicated just now, we communicated to the market it's 20 million on a run rate basis, but we're already making that for 2025. And if you take basically the cost savings delivered in Q3, it's roughly around 5, 6 million. So you can take that as a run rate. Obviously, we'll see Q4, it will pick up. And we have already delivered roughly 10 to 13 million already in cost savings in this year. So I think that run rate, what you can use there, of course, majority of these cost savings are sticky and they will remain, can use for run rate in 2026. Got it.

Thank you. And good luck for the future, Tyson.

Thank you so much. Before we proceed to our next question, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. That's star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Luke Van Beek of the group Peter Camp. Your line is now open.

Yes, good morning. First of all, I have a question about stock levels. I hear some chemical companies talking about destocking at their customers. Is that something that you... And the second question is about Latin America and Southeast Asia, where you mentioned that margins are now lower. Do you see that something as structural would make it less attractive if it was a growth target, or do you still think that those markets offer attractive potential in the longer run? And finally, I was wondering about the trade-off between dividends and M&A. I can imagine that you can base your acquisitions

only limited time otherwise the opportunity will go away how to what extent are you willing to to know your dividends to protect your ability to execute acquisitions so on the stock levels there we uh we have uh we think that the stock levels at our customers are actually already pretty low and uh that happened already in q3 and q2 and it's still going on as Customers are uncertain what's going to happen. They wait and buy just what they need. That's also reflected, as I said, in our order pattern. It's higher frequency, lower value orders that we see. So I don't see destocking for me. If it happens, it's already behind us. I think as soon as the market grows, we will see immediate an uptick because from our perspective, These are stock levels that cannot be maintained in a normal business environment at our startups. Second question, Latam. No, the margins that we have seen is really a mix due to the business drivers behind it. So it's not something structural that will continue. We have had, as Thijs already explained, some more commodity part in Latam that did a bit better than the rest. And that, of course, makes our gross profit percentage go down. But it's not something structural.

Your M&A question, divestments and those kind of things, our leverage is elevated. So this is not a relevant question at this point in time. Only M&A. Obviously, we have full pipeline. Maybe Anna can get some comments on evaluations, what you're seeing, but it's just like we're pacing it at this point in time.

Yeah, we normally don't have formal processes, so it's one-on-one discussions. They can also therefore be more easily delayed. We have a lot of discussions going on. We see that multiples are coming down because in this uncertainty, also for the owners of this company, they don't know exactly what's going to happen. And that plays in our favor to wait out a bit here and there. So I don't want to overpay. And yeah, it's not all negative to pace our M&A at the moment.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Hannah Harms of BNP Paribus. Your line is now open.

Good morning. I was just wondering if you could give a little bit more color in your comments on F&S cyclicality in Asia. Are you able to tell us more about what products or categories are seeing more pricing pressure?

Yeah, sure. There are two specific products. It's Menthol and Patchouli that have been impacted. And prices came down, and so that is also affecting our results in the APAC region.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Eric Wilmer of Kempen. Your line is now open.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks. Obviously, pre-cash flow was quite strong in Q3 following network and capital savings. Could it have been a factor in printing negative mid-single-digit life-for-life sales growth in EMEA as network and capital is often used to support sales by some of your competitors? And assuming we might hopefully see some signs of recovery in H2, who knows, next year, as a percentage of sales, what would your ideal network and capital position be To what extent could this pressure your net debt EBITDA position next year, as you may also need to invest again? And then lastly, when corrected for a negative Q3 performance of Latin America, would you say your North American business was roughly flat in Q3? I know that you never talk about the split, but perhaps would you provide some qualification there? Thank you.

For my information, maybe you can repeat your first question, but not completely clear to me. It was rather complicated. And Anna will give you North America later on, but the working capital, I can pick that up for you. Can you repeat, please, your first part?

Yes, of course. I mean, yes, sure. So free cash flow was quite strong in Q3. And I wonder if this is tied to your mid-single-digit lifeline sales growth decline in EMEA. So to what extent? Because what I've learned is or thought I've learned that some of your competitors actually use working capital to support sales. So they're quite aggressive on how soon they can deliver product to customers. And if you're cutting inventory, perhaps you may start to lose some sales towards such clients. Thanks. Okay.

Okay. I see what you're saying. Listen, what we do, basically, we, we, we basically, I think compared to our competitors, we have state-of-the-art systems when it comes to SNOP. We do this in conjunction with the customers. Yeah. So it is really back-to-back integrated. I don't see any OTIF difference. We also invested a lot in our supply chain organization. Our service levels are very high. Our premise is to have stock, obviously, close to the customer. Please note, we have roughly over 600 billion in stock. In every country, we can supply as and if we want. It's more basically aligning the order patterns from the customers with your purchases, Eric. And yeah, there we of course take action. It takes some time. So that's why I said also in H1, give me some time. I will bring it down to three days. That's it. So I don't see that there's any competitive pressure or better is what they're doing. I think we just manage our working capital much better than they do. And we have historically have been always doing that. Yeah. So also the question, when you say when the recovery is coming, yeah, I track, of course, what are the sales orders? What are the purchase levels? What are my inventory levels? And we have basically an S&OP cycle where we do integrated reconciliation with the business procurement and those kinds of things. And we feel that we have sufficient stock to manage basically the coming three to six months. If that picks up, of course, we can also invest back into the business and those items pick up, but your supplier cost, your EPO will also go up accordingly. So that is absolutely not an issue for us. Where we always have an inefficiency in our working capital is always on the M&A side. And we've been quite transparent about that. And I still have quite some work to do there. Anna, maybe you can give a bit of an overview.

Sure, I know some other things. So actually North America is weak. We saw a case actually an incremental weakness in Q3. Personal care is still weak, although we expect an improvement for the last quarter. Our food business is doing very well, but the food business is small compared to the other businesses, case and personal care. So it cannot make up. And that's also why midterm we want to invest more in food and pharma, by the way, as well, which is also very small in our North American, especially US business. But yeah, North America is weak at the moment.

So you would say it was performing below Latin America?

Yeah, so actually in Latin America, we had a small top-line growth, but margin was under pressure also due to the mix. As Thijs already said, there was more the commodity side of our business in Colombia that did well, and therefore our margin went down. But top-line, actually, they had small growth.

Very clear. Thanks very much and all the best in the future, Tess.

Thank you, William.

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 Chief Executive Officer Anna Bertona for her closing remarks.

Thank you. And we trust today's call has provided some insights into how we are navigating the current market environment and why we remain confident in the medium to long-term potential of our market. We believe we are well positioned to seize the opportunities ahead, and we are excited about what the future holds. As always, our investor relations team is here for any question or follow-up that you might have. So please don't hesitate to reach out. Thanks again for attending, and have a nice day.