Azelis Group Nv

Good day and welcome to Azalea's full year 2025 results presentation. My name is Pam Ante, investor relations. I have Anna Bartona, group CEO, who will present the key developments in 2025. We are also joined by our new group CFO, Boris Kamboulala, who will present the financial results of the group. Anna will then conclude the presentation with some remarks on the outlook before we open the floor for Q&A. As a reminder, this presentation may contain some forward-looking statements that are subject to risk. Please note that all lines are on listen-only mode until we open for Q&A. We will make a recording of the presentation available online later today. With that, I'm handing the floor to Anna.

Thanks, Fem, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for dialing in. I understand it's a busy day for corporate earnings, so I appreciate that you're taking the time to join us. And I'm also very happy to sit here with Boris, our new group CFO. So please join me in welcoming Boris in his first Azelis earnings call. And I'm sure that you will have an opportunity to engage with him along with the rest of the Azelis IR team in the coming days. Let me start with the key takeaways from our results. In a year marked by tariff uncertainty and software demands, we continued to execute on our long-term strategy and made progress in becoming the reference in the industry for our customers and principals. I will give more details later in the presentation. Second, we delivered strong growth in free cash flow. While momentum remains muted overall, we continue to focus on what we can control, cost, working capital and cash optimization. Our performance underscores the resilience of our business model and the structural downside protection it provides through the cycle. Third, we are sharpening our capital allocation to ensure efficient use of our resources and rebuild balance sheet headroom. This is deliberate. We want to be ready to accelerate when markets stabilize, to capture organic growth and to lead consolidation as it re-emerge. Boris will walk you through our capital deployment framework later on. I've said it before, and I will say it again. The challenges that the chemical distribution market is going through are temporary. 2025 was a demanding year for the industry, yet our cash performance demonstrates the strength of our model. And our strategy continues to position Azelis to deliver sustainable long-term value creation. So let's turn to the detailed results for the year. Last year we achieved a revenue of 4.1 billion, a 1.3% increase over prior year in constant currency. Organic revenue for the full year declined 1.6% as the market deterioration in the second half reversed the organic growth we achieved in the first half. Our gross profit was 968 million, with gross margin contracting 91 bps due to negative mixed effects across our business. Our adjusted EBITDA came in at 411 million, resulting in conversion margin of 42.4%. As mentioned, our strong focus on cost and working capital management allowed us to generate $442 million of free cash flow, translating to a cash conversion ratio of 106%. And this demonstrates how our asset-light, cash-generative business creates value even in challenging markets. And then also we completed four acquisitions in 2025, all perfectly fitting our portfolio and our strategy for Boldons to reinforce our footprint. Now let's look at some of the drivers behind these results. In terms of organic performance, we saw softer demand across life sciences and industrial chemicals. We experienced weak trends in the most cyclical businesses, while the more defensive end markets like pharma and food and nutrition performed better. If we go in each of the end markets, these are the following comments that I can make. There was a strong momentum in pharma. Food and nutrition was positive in the US, offset by a weak APEC, while in EMEA food was broadly stable. For agro, the weather-related weakness in the US was partially offset by stable performance in EMEA. Personal care was stable in EMEA, but continued to see headwinds in both the US and APEC. And case and EMA were weak across the three regions, reflecting the subdued industrial output. And then finally, loops, metal working fluid, trends were a bit mixed across the regions. If we look at the regions in EMEA, the masses growth in life sciences was offset by weak industrial chemicals. While in the Americas, the shift in sentiment that started around Liberation Day continued throughout the year. Lastly, in APAC, the competitive pressures from increased supply from China persisted all year, and especially in Southeast Asia. In terms of inorganic growth, we have been pacing our M&A, and executing on only the most strategic acquisitions. Solchem in Nutraceuticals in Spain, S-Amid in India, Distona in Switzerland, and HF in Italy, creating by far the largest personal care distributor in Italy, providing skill benefits and synergies. It is worth noting that, regardless of our own appetite and capacity, the current down cycle is slowing the pace of acquisitions in the industry. We see that sellers have still high expectations and hesitate to be valued on current performance. The pace is expected to pick up again once the market inflicts. As we navigate the short-term market challenges, we are not losing sight of our strategy. Through our 25, we have executed different programs to realize our longer-term objectives. And I want to give you some high-level insights on how we are building and positioning for the future, as this will drive our performance in the coming years. As a reminder, our strategy of being the reference in the industry rests on three pillars. One, leadership in our focus and markets. Second, play a proactive role in consolidation, and this is not limited to M&A, but we also want to consolidate our position with customers and with principals, and strengthen our company and move as one Agile Azelis. Regarding the first pillar, leadership in our focus and markets, We are continuously refining our portfolio for each of these end markets to ensure we have the best products and service offerings for our customers. And this allows us to develop applications to expand the market for our principles products. And it goes beyond the mandates that we pitch for, it's also investments we make in our technical capabilities. For the second pillar, we have launched several commercial campaigns to strengthen our position. To create focus, we have appointed a global commercial director to lead these initiatives. We also conducted our first edition of a global customer satisfaction survey, where we received feedback from over 4,000 customers globally. Although we are very pleased with a score of 8.3 on 10, we derived several important improvement actions that have been incorporated in our programs. As part of winning with principles, we have continued to identify and build relationships with the winners of the future. Principles that can deliver us the best portfolio of innovative and high quality specialty chemicals and food ingredients. I am personally spending a considerable amount of time in strengthening our relationship with these principles. And as just mentioned, we continue to execute on the most strategic and compelling M&A projects. And then finally, for the third pillar, which is equally future-oriented, we are pursuing multiple internal programs to align the entire organization with our long-term objectives. In 25, we started several activities to reorganize so that the local operations can focus on accelerating commercial actions, while in parallel we are building efficient AI-enabled back-offices. We also accelerated the rollout of shared service centers in each region to maximize efficiency in certain functions like finance. And it is actually one of the things that will keep BORUS busy in the coming month. And to conclude, we have initiated several HR programs to build a best-in-class organization. I also want to give an update on our progress on what we refer to as strategic growth accelerator. The first accelerator is innovation. At Azelis, this is a critical business driver. Our mission is to help our customers to win and innovate, solving technical problems and creating innovative formulations for them. I'm very proud to say that in 25, Azelis won 8 industry innovation awards, reflecting once again our focus on innovation. The second accelerator is digital, where we invest significantly for both commercial and operational gains. On the commercial side, we now have over 200 customer portals live, generating more than 100,000 product views per month, with over 100,000 documents downloaded in the year. We also started rolling out version 3 of the principal portal for some of our largest suppliers. And internally, AI starts to be embedded in most of our processes. And as an example, the rollout of several custom designs AI tools, supported by our robust digital backbone, are already producing efficiency gains across the operations. And then the third accelerator is sustainability. And as you know, we launched Impact 2030 last year with some ambitious targets. Last year, our CDP rating was upgraded to A-, and reflecting our progress towards environmental stewardship and transparency. Along with our MSCI ESG AA rating, the CDP rating upgrade reflects our commitment to sustainability. And you can find more details in our integrated report, which is, by the way, already online. These are just a few highlights of our achievements that are very critical milestones for our long-term strategy. Now, with this, let me turn you over to Boris, who will take you through the financial results.

Thank you, Anna, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be joining Anna in our first earnings presentation together, and I'm looking forward to meeting all of you in due course. As Anna outlined during the business update, Azelis delivered a very robust cash flow growth in a difficult market. I'll guide you through the impacts of the challenges on each of the headline metrics, starting with the group P&M. Azelis achieved a revenue of €937 million in the fourth quarter, bringing full-year 2025 revenue to €4.1 billion. This is a 1.3% year-on-year growth at constant currency. This performance was led by Life Sciences, who is plus 1.9%, while industrial chemicals grew at a modest plus 0.3%, both expressed at constant currency. Gross profit in the fourth quarter was €217 million, bringing full year to €968 million, corresponding to a margin of 23.6%. The margin contraction reflects the adverse mix effect across the group, notably in the traditionally high margin businesses within life sciences such as personal care and FNF. Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter was 78 million euros, translating for the full year in 411 million euros. and in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 10%, a 170 basis point reduction versus prior year, weighted by the unfavorable impacts of higher costs at recently acquired companies and overall inflation in the organic scope of the group. However, Azeli successfully implemented its cost-saving plans and delivered more than the 20 million initially announced to offset part of these headwinds, resulting in a full-year conversion margin of 42.4%, the contraction of about 3 percentage points versus the strong level of prior year. Further down in the P&L, the net profit ended at 113 million euros for 2025, a 37.6% decline versus prior year, mostly driven by non-cash items that I will comment just after closing first on the breakdown of our growth. Acquisitions delivered plus 2.9% revenue growth, more than offsetting a modest 1.6% organic decline, mostly in APAC with ongoing competitive pressures in the region and in the Americas with a soft market demand. However, the global strong foreign exchange headwinds of minus 3.8% impacted the total reported revenue that decreased by 2.4% versus prior year. The 6% decline in growth profit was primarily driven by organic contraction, mostly in APAC, with minus 11.6%, reflecting competitive pressure both on volumes and prices from another supplied market. In America, the organic gross profit decline was limited to minus 6.5% due to weakness in traditionally high-margin businesses like F&F and personal care, as well as dilution from Latin America. EMEA, in contrast, grew by plus 1.8%, thanks to a plus 6% growth from M&A offsetting a modest adverse mixed effect impact, driving organized gross profit down by 2.5%. Consequently, the group adjusted EBITDA ended behind prior year by 12.7%. In APAC, tight cost control resulted in adjusted EBITDA decline being broadly limited to the impact of the gross profit contraction. Overall, the results of the group reflect a softer demand environment with negative product and geographic mixed effects, broader cost inflation and adverse foreign exchange, against which the group mitigated in part with cost savings. Now, let's step back and look at the overall pictures by region. The MEA, which makes up 46% of the group, grew its revenue by plus 4.4% to $1.9 billion, in 2025, supported by acquisitions and stable organic revenue, though partially offset by negative impact from foreign exchange. Gross profit benefited from the stock bank growth and reached 471 million, or a plus 1.8% growth versus prior year. However, adjusted EBITDA decreased by 4.7% to 218 million euros, resulting in a 110 basis point contraction in the adjusted EBITDA margin, pulled down by the product mix development within the segments and dilution from recent acquisitions. Consequently, the conversion margin that remains strong at 46.2%, contracted by 314 basis points versus prior year. In the Americas, which make up 35% of the group, full year revenue was 1.4 billion euros or 6.6% behind last year. reflecting a modest 2.0% organic decline and a stronger 4.7% FX headwind. As it is observed to witness across most end markets in the region, as customers remain unwilling to meaningfully build up stock given uncertain demand outlook. In life sciences, pharma and food and nutrition were strong throughout the year, partially mitigating the road-based demand softness in other end markets in the segment. Performance in industrial chemicals remained weak, with softer volume notably in case. Gross profit in the region decreased by 11.2% to €340 million, and the adjusted EBITDA decreased to €156 million, resulting in a 147 basis point margin contraction to 10.9%, with dilution from lower EBITDA margin in Latin America. Conversion margin remained at a healthy level of 45.8%, but conceding 367 basis points versus prior year. In Asia Pacific, which makes up 19% of the group, full year revenue was 805 million euros, or 9% versus prior year, on the back of a 4.3% organic contraction, compounded by a strong 5.6 negative impact from FX translation. The group's businesses saw pressures across most end markets in both life sciences and industrial chemicals, as tariff-related uncertainty continues to wait on demand and pricing that remain under pressure in certain product categories due to excess supply, especially in Southeast Asia. Gross profit in the region was 157 million euros, 15% lower than prior year. The strong cost control in the region, translating into an adjusted EBITDA decline of a comparable 14.7%, and a reinforced conversion margin of 47.9%, a 33 basis point expansion during the year. Now, let me come back to the net profit evolution. Following the EBITDA downtrend, the operating profit declined by 19%, weighted down by additional non-cash one-item accounting impacts. Looking at financial expenses, as it has successfully reduced its borrowing costs and other financial expenses by €25 million, corresponding to a 140 basis point reduction versus prior year. However, net of the reduced financial income mostly coming from lower non-cash favorable accounting impacts of acquisition related liabilities revaluation the net financial expenses slightly increased by 8 million waiting on the profit before tax ending at 175 million euros or minus 32 percent versus prior year Finally, the group effective tax rate for the year increased to 35.3% versus 26.0% in 2024, impacted by the lower benefit from non-taxable fair value adjustments on acquisition-related liabilities, the mix of contribution from geographies with higher tax rates, and the impact of unrecognized current tax losses. All these resulted in a net profit of $113 million for the year versus $189 million in 2024. Moving on to cash. Networking capital to sales was once more reduced and reached 14.1% at the end of 2025 versus 15.3% at the end of September 2025 and 15.9% at the end of 2024. This reduction reflects our continuous focus on working capital management and cash generation, as we can also see in the reduction in DIO from 57 to 51 days. It is important to note that inventory management is critical for the business and the financial element at Azelis, where we hold stocks strategically, both for our customers and our principals. Our inventory optimization program is carefully executed, as an example by driving down slow-moving stocks. Overall, this relentless focus on efficient working capital management resulted in a reduction in total working capital from 58 to 51 days of sale. And along with cost control, this resulted in a strong $442 million free cash flow generated, or an increase of plus 29% versus prior year. This performance corresponds to a cash conversion expanded to 106% of adjusted EBITDA, a testimony to our asset-light, resilient and counter-cyclical cash-generating business model, and our focus on operational discipline. Now let's see how this is translating into our net debt evolution. A strong free cash flow delivery in 2025 net of tax cash out, interest, and a stable dividend payout enabled Acelis to self-finance its M&A strategic investments. These also included about 100 million euros in deferred payments from previous acquisitions. Overall, the net debt remained fairly stable, reaching 1.6 billion euros at the end of 2025 versus 1.532 billion at the end of 2024. Now, looking at the leverage ratio, Despite a rather stable net debt, given the EBITDA contraction in 2025, the leverage ratio ended up at 3.3x at the end of the year, versus 2.9x at the end of 2024, and slight reduction after the 3.4x of September 2025 end. With this in mind, let me conclude by giving you some clarity about the general framework of our capital allocation. As Anna mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, we have sharpened our capital allocation priorities to build back headroom in our balance sheet. This will be largely enabled by our strong track record of EBITDA to free cash flow conversion, steadily over 90% for a number of years. We don't expect any meaningful change in this level of cash conversion, as we will continue to be disciplined in managing our working capital, And we will continue to invest for growth via capital expenditures in our organic scope. This will include investments in our lab network, in our product and service portfolio, in our commercial programs, and in our digital infrastructure. Net of tax and interest expense payments, of which we also remain vigilant, any excess cash will be deployed in priority. Four, shareholder remuneration via dividend according to our policy. deleveraging as necessary to maintain our BBB plus credit rating. Value creative acquisitions that could also include the acquisition of Azeli's own shares subject to the same returns criteria. A high level of discipline in our cash generation and cash deployment are essential to maintain a healthy balance sheet and maintain the ability to seize attractive and affordable opportunities to continue growing our business. With that, let me give it back to Anna for some words on the outlook.

Thanks, Boris. Since I last spoke to you in October, there has been plenty of news, and some is encouraging and some is worrying. Will there, for example, be deregulation on the EU that could benefit our industry? Or will Greenland trigger another wave of trade disruptions? Or will deglobalization result in industrial investments? Near-term uncertainty persists and continues to weigh on demand. And we will continue to control what we can, our costs, working capital and our focus on generating cash. But it's equally important not to lose sight of opportunities emerging from the ongoing volatility and to pursue growth. We will remain agile, which is embedded in our values and our strategy. And this is the time to show our value to our customers and principals. This is the time to make bold actions that will pay off when the cycle turns and the cycle will turn. The long-term fundamentals have not changed. They remain compelling. A lot of the challenges that apply to chemical producers today don't apply to us. We are more flexible and agile and can adapt quicker to market conditions than producers. Some of the challenges they face create opportunities for us. We can take away some of the complexities to help them focus on their core activities. And lastly, the industry is still very fragmented with many opportunities to grow through consolidation. 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 growth objectives. So this concludes our presentation and we are ready to take questions. So operator, you can open the line.

If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1. We will pause for a moment to assemble the queue. We will take our first question from the line of Suhasini Varanasi from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. couple of leads. In APAC, you had done e-commerce. I just want to understand whether the impact is a one-off in 4Q or whether we should expect further drag on the top line in 1Q, 2Q, and 3Q of this year. And the second one is just on leverage. Given where it is right now, 3.3 times net EBITDA, can you just remind us of the covenants and your plans for further deliberating? Thank you.

Good morning. Can you repeat the first question? Because the line was not so good. The second I got.

It is just on the decommoditization in APAC. I just want to understand the drag potential in 1Q, 2Q, 3Q of this year, or whether it was just a one-off impact, 4Q. Thank you.

So, on the decommoditization in APEC, it actually will not have much impact in 2026. As you know, with acquisitions that we do, sometimes there's a bit more commodities than we would like to have. In general, we have 15 to 20% semi commodities and in some acquisitions we have a bit more. In APEC, and by the way in all the regions, we have been constantly pruning our portfolio. It's an ongoing activity. But it's true that last year we maybe did a little bit more. In 26, I don't expect a lot of extra, I would say, visible impact on our P&L. And Boris, maybe you can give an answer on the leverage and the covenants.

So, thanks for this question. Yeah, the leverage ended up at 3.3 at the end of the year 2025, which is on the high side of our target. The best way to deleverage is to grow our EBITDA. So as necessary, we will deploy capital towards deleveraging as we remain committed to maintain an appropriate leverage number in line with our credit rating. It will not be sensible to give you a number where we will land as early as it is in the year, but rest assured that this will be a focus for 2026. And regarding your question about coordinates, we want to keep ample headroom to be, you know, as far as we can from these thresholds.

Thank you very much.

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

Yes. Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Also, Drew, if I may, Can you provide some follow-up on the current trading and the evolution of the order book here today, and maybe also elaborate on the current sentiment amongst your principals? Second question, your competitor made a comment yesterday concerning principals taking back larger accounts. in exchange for smaller ones with huge geographies or end markets, a dynamic which they describe as horse trading. Is this a new one that you recognize, as it's somewhat contradictory to the narrative that principles outsource more business in times of hardship, and now the opposite seems to be happening? These are my questions.

Good morning. First on the current trading, I would say we see a continuation of the trends that we saw in the last quarter. It's way too early to tell, of course, where the year will end. If I speak with principals and customers, they see more or less the same, which is, I would say, not a very bright environment, but it's also not deteriorating. And some of the indicators, like the PMI, have been going up. So at a certain point, the market will inflect. When that is, it's difficult to say. But if we look at our current trading and order book, I would say a continuation of the trends that we have been seeing. Now on the horse trading, I've never heard about this terminology in this sense. Actually, there's nothing new. So what we see in difficult times, we see two things happening. You have some principals who give more to distribution, they focus on the core, they lay off salespeople, and therefore they give more to distribution. We've also seen, and that's nothing new, it's always been going on, we've also seen that, we call it the short-term margin grab, they take away customers from distribution. This is often something that's short term because the value of the distributor is there and therefore customers after a certain time then they start complaining and they want to go back to distribution because we can give them much more attention, much more service, we have different payment terms, we have more stock available for them. And so we often see that the short-term actions are reversed within a certain time after one year, sometimes two years. I would say normally it's the worst. We see both happenings and also in this crisis or in this situation of the market, we've seen that happening as well. So I would say nothing new.

Okay, thank you. If I may squeeze in one more. In the current environment, is there increased competitive pressure from within the distributors or are you buying more aggressively for the same mandates, or is this still unchanged?

I would say it is unchanged. There's always competition, we have a couple of larger ones, as you know, you have regionals, you have smaller ones, there's always competition. I continue to see the trends that's there already for a long time, that consolidation is happening, principals are looking for professional distributors, with a large footprint, with strong technical capabilities, and they consolidate with the larger ones, and I see that continues. And we have very healthy conversations ongoing for new mandates like we did before.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from Christian Lamotte from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Hi, first question, yesterday your peer mentioned that FX was negatively impacting not only the FX number but also the organic growth number. I'm wondering if you're also seeing that and if you know how much impact that has had and how that mechanism works. And then second question, you just provided a comment on the level of competition that you're seeing from Asia and if there have been any changes in intensity of that competition and any changes in the pricing trends related to that. Thank you.

I'll take first a question on Asian competition and then Boris will take the FX impact. There's not a lot of change and we already have announced and ongoing for some time there's pressure from especially Chinese producers on the more commoditized side of the portfolio. And there, of course, you see also the pricing pressure. Overall, I would say prices are stable, but especially, as I say, on the lower end of the portfolio, which is not more than 15 to 20%, we have some more pressure from the Asian, but that has been there already for quite some time, and I don't see it intensifying

Yeah, for FX, it's a fair point. This year has been challenging in terms of foreign exchange headwinds. I commented that in my review of the P&L, and you see the impact, you know, in the revenue and profit in EBITDA. The FX headwinds is more pronounced in Americas and Asia Pacific than EMEA, of course, but in all regions, we faced a headwind. In EMA, it was 2.1% negative for the full year, while in Americas and Pacific, it was around 5%. The average is a headwind of 3.8% for the full year, and you find a similar impact in the gross profit and down to the EBITDA as well.

Just to follow up on that point on FX, my question was more whether the FX is negatively impacting your organic growth, for example, because you're pricing in dollars and then you have a lag and then you settle in a local currency. Is that something you're seeing as well as your peer or is that maybe specific to them?

I think, I mean, given the diverse portfolio and the diverse set of customers in different regions we serve, I think we are exposed to the similar FX context. So it is actually a little bit similar. Typically, the numbers we provide, we split FX, the M&A growth, and the organic. So you can see the different FX. But, yes, it has an impact, definitely, and there is many different impacts, lags that the one you mentioned could be one, of course, yes, but not very different from what you can see from our peers.

Great. Thanks very much. Your next question comes from the line of Hannah Harms from BNP Peribus. The line is open.

Hi there. Good morning. Two questions from me, please. The first is I'm interested where you think we are in the cycle and when you think we can expect to return to organic growth. And secondly, just on the weakness in volumes in Latin America, I was wondering if you could provide any more color there. Thank you.

Yeah, that's a good question, when the cycle returns to organic growth. For the moment, I think it's too volatile to do any statement about that. And as I was also saying, some things seem to turn positive, the PMI. There are some developments in Europe where maybe the competitiveness of the European-based manufacturers is going to improve. But then some other things happen out of the blue and therefore I find it difficult to predict. On the volumes on LATAM. It's mostly, I would say, Brazil that is suffering and also Mexico.

Great, thank you.

Your next question comes from J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.

The first question I had was, When I look at your total M&A spend in 2025, it was quite a bit above what I was estimating. And actually, your annual report is quite comprehensive and big. So I've just looked at the business combination sections and teams. The number of acquisitions that you did are consistently what I had in mind. And if I look at your disclosures, it seems maybe – the analyzed EBITDA run rate here is something like 20 million based on what you've told us in terms of contribution last year. And it seems you've paid 164 million for it. I'm just curious, is that the right way to think about it? Or are the multiples much different than what you typically pay, which is something like seven to eight times EBITDA? The second question I had was just going back to the discussions around insourcing versus outsourcing. From what you seem to be saying, Anna, this is not different from past years or do you actually see more push for insourcing? I'm asking this because And you're clearly aware, as we all are, that this down cycle in the industry is probably one of the longest, if not the longest down cycle. So my question to you is more, is this prompting more insourcing than you typically would have seen? Thank you.

Let me first answer that question and I give to Boris then about the M&A spending. I see more or less the same that I've seen before in difficult times. It's true what you say that of course it's been a long downward cycle and so the situation for principals is tough. But equally, therefore, some are giving more to, I would say, distribution than before. So that's why I say I see the same trends, the pluses and the minuses, and nothing really different from what I've seen in the 13 years that I work here. Maybe you can give more information.

Yeah, on M&A, Chetan, thanks for the question. I think, first off, in 2025, we had a payout a little bit higher than 200 million, 230 million, exactly. First off, you need to keep in mind that we have deferred consideration related to prior M&A that is also included in that cash out, and it's about 100 million euros. So, for the acquisition, actually, we closed this year, four in total. Actually, this is what I commented on the growth impact it had. So, overall, it was a 3.3% growth on the M&A side for the year, mostly in Europe, given where the acquisition were, I mean, HF, for example, in Europe. The total revenue combined, it corresponds to $110 million versus prior year. In multiples, and probably I will give it back to you, Anna, I don't see that there is any specific trend change or worries in that respect, but probably on the market, And on the M&A multiple that we see, all the expectations we see in the market, they want to have that.

Yeah, so normally, as you know, we paid in the past high single digits. And as I said it also in my presentation, We see that currently the owners, they have too high expectations. They base their expectation, of course, on the past good years. And they are very reluctant to have a new baseline. And that's one of the reasons we are also pacing. And that's, I think, also why many of our peers are also doing less acquisitions. So I see some stability there. And we are expecting that at a certain moment, this will ease. We just don't want to overpay for our acquisition. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Nicole Manion from UBS. Your line is open.

Good morning. Just one follow-up, please, on the competitive pressure from Chinese suppliers. I know you specifically called out Southeast Asia as where you're maybe feeling most of this pressure, but some peers maybe haven't seen this in the region, or perhaps they're seeing similar pressures from China, but actually more in different regions like LATAM. I wonder if you've got a sense of whether these differences are just down to specialty versus semi-specialty mix and how that differs by region, or is there anything you can call out specifically in terms of the end market or country exposures? Are you particularly exposed, for instance, to parts of the market which are especially oversupplied in Southeast Asia? Any call of that would be helpful. Thank you.

Yes. Actually, we see the pressure everywhere where we have more semi commodities. And as you heard also from earlier comments, for example, in Asia, in APEC, where we did some acquisitions, we have that. But we have it also across the other regions. So if you look at Europe, Middle East, Africa, we have mostly Africa, actually, we also have more pressure. But as this is, of course, part of the bigger EMEA, in total we see it less. And Latin, we see exactly the same. And that's also why, for example, Brazil and Mexico are performing less well than we were anticipating. So, no, it's not only in Southeast Asia. We mentioned Southeast Asia, but it's definitely not only there.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Annelies Vermeulen from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning, Anna. Good morning, Boris. I have two questions, please. So, just on the cost program, which I think you've delivered your cost savings run rate that you had targeted. How much more is there to do in 2026? and what specifically are you focusing on in terms of any ongoing cost reductions? And then secondly, just a follow-up on Asia as well. Could you talk a little bit about how this competitive pressure is shaping your strategy for 2026? Are you planning to work more with Chinese suppliers? And if so, how are you managing that alongside your relationships with your Western suppliers? We'll talk about that. Thank you.

I'll take the first question and then maybe you can give more about the first program. So on APEC competitive strategy, very important is of course to increase our specialties there and we've been doing that for a number of years already, every time we do an acquisition, therefore we also have this decommoditization done constantly. We invest there in technical resources, in labs, in specialty portfolio. And that's, I would say, not linked to Chinese suppliers and our strategy there. We are agnostic. As I already said before, we want to have the best portfolio for our customers. So we look for principals who can provide us with innovative, high quality, reliable, And, yeah, they can come from everywhere. For us, it doesn't matter where they come. And today, of course, they come from mostly the Western principles. If in the future years that will change, we will look there as well. We have plenty, plenty of gaps in our portfolio, we don't need to drop any current existing relationship and especially in Asia-Pacific, which is a young region for us with an emerging portfolio, we have a lot of gaps in the portfolio that we can fill with either Western principles, Asian principles, anyone that is helping us actually in serving our customers better with a very strong specialty portfolio.

And for cost saving programs, so yes, indeed, we announced a 20 million run rate cost saving in April. And actually, we delivered on this cost saving in 2025. But let me clarify. So we had a positive impact in the P&L in 2025 already of a little bit more than 20 million. That includes structural cost savings, but also one-offs that will not repeat in 2026. However, the run rate we achieve at the end of 2025 for structural cost saving is also a little bit above 20 million. So expect some of the impact to continue to spill into 2026. We won't give you any proportion, but it will be, you know, a complement of what we already saw in 2025. Overall, a little bit more than 20 million run rate was achieved by the end of the year.

Thank you. And just to clarify on the cost, so is there more cost that you want to take out in 2026, or are you happy with the cost base where it is today?

So we have implemented the actions that we expected to implement. So the impact that, you know, will be seen in 2026 in full comes from action already implemented in 2025. Now, given the style of the year, we will be very vigilant and disciplined on the way we manage costs. And as necessary, we'll take, you know, actions to continue on optimizing our cost base.

Okay, understood. Thank you very much.

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. That is star one to ask a question. And your next question comes from the line of Matthew Yate of Bank of America. The line is open.

Hey, good morning, everyone. A couple of questions, please. For Boris, can you just clarify, did you take any sort of inventory write-down or adjustment in the quarter? I see you highlighted that your number of inventory days were down quite significantly. Just wondering if there was any sort of cleaning-up effect there specifically at year-end. And the second question really for Anna is, You mentioned this phrase in your introductory remarks about sharpening the capital allocation. I guess with the benefit of hindsight, what lessons have been learned over the last few years about the way you've allocated your capital? Having leverage of 3.3 turns at the moment is somewhat unfortunate because you're not in the position to invest counter-psychically in assets or in your own shares, as you alluded to. So is there some admission here, some humility, that maybe the company deployed too much capital in a short space of time? It wasn't necessarily identifying the right or the best assets for the portfolio, and it's been relatively slow to integrate them and drive synergies through. I'm just wondering what lessons have been learned about the last few years. Thank you.

So I'll take the first one. Thanks, Mathieu, for the point. We have rules, right, to impair inventory when they become aged or when they become non-sellable. We don't have any specific cleanup happening in Q4. So the reduction that actually we commented on is really actions to work on the volume, right? So, again, as we said, we hold strategic stock for customers and principals, and we want to keep this stock. But there is also a part of our inventory that requires some optimization. This is the one we worked on. But no specific accounting write-down that will, you know, be overweighting the reduction that we committed on the inventory.

Yeah, and on the sharpening of the capital allocation and the lessons learned, If you look at all our acquisitions, and I think maybe last call or, you know, one of our lab tours, I alluded to it. We did a deep dive in the performance of all our acquisitions. And actually, most of them are performing very well. it just takes a little bit longer than we expect. And especially, of course, when the market turns more difficult, which has happened the last two years, I would say, it takes longer. And so I don't think that we applied too much capital to M&A. I think that, again, it takes more than we were anticipating. But we see that ultimately it delivers the value. At this moment, of course, we are being prudent. We are pacing it. Leverage is, of course, something that we take seriously. And that's also what we have presented before. But it's also, as I said, at the moment, I have a bit less appetite. I don't want to overpay. And we have a lot of talks with MNAs. And they still say, well, you know, I'm just going to wait until results get better. And then we talk again. And, yeah, we keep in contact. But I don't want to overpay. So lessons learned and something to differently. I think we had already quite a good process in screening targets that are accretive to us, that fit exactly in the gaps in our portfolio. And we will continue to do that when the market turns.

Okay, thank you very much.

Your next question comes from Luke Van Beek from the group Peter Kamp. Your line is open.

Yes, good morning. I have a question about, say, the sentiment among your customers when you talk to them. Do you see any change that they now have, for example, adjusted to the impact of the tariffs? And I'm more looking to increase their business in the coming year. Is there any change in their attitudes?

It's very different per segment and per region, I would say. So I would make a big average. I would say it's the same as the last couple of months. So not really a difference. But in some segments, yeah, there are a bit more upbeat. And in other segments, like for example the industrial, they still don't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Okay, and you mentioned the BB plus rating that you want to keep. Do you have a specific leverage level in mind that you want to keep? Can it stay around current levels or does it need to go down?

Yeah, I would take that one. Listen, today we are 3.3. Again, as I said, it's a little bit on the high side. So if you want to keep, you know, a direction of travel, we don't want to be, you know, too far away from 3.0. So that's the direction of travel we see. We're not short of actions in 2026. Again, as I said, number one is to raise the EBITDA and then we'll allocate the necessary cash to deleverage to stay around that level.

Okay, thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone. And your next question comes from the line of Tofano, ABN, Amru, Odo. Your line is open.

Yes, good morning, everybody. A few questions left for me. So the first one is on a comment that you made about the free cash or conversion, mentioning that historically it has been over 90% and that you expect it to remain at those levels. To me, that reads as in basically you expect no growth for this year. Do I understand that correctly? Then the second one is, again, sorry on these Chinese producers. So I understand that you have lots of gaps of white space left in Asia Pacific, and that you remain so prior agnostic, but I was wondering is, If targeting more business with Chinese suppliers, would that in some way in the future impair your relationship maybe with the Western suppliers, also given exclusivity agreements? And maybe would that also mean going a little bit more vertical, so a little bit more mixing, blending, that kind of stuff? And the last question that I had, it was on the capital allocation. You mentioned also the buybacks. I don't know if you can be a little bit more specific on that in terms of maybe timing or on the quantity. What kind of levels would you expect to see? Thank you.

Shall I take first a question on the Chinese producer and then you can take your request flow and capital allocation. And on the Chinese producer, as I said, we have so many gaps, by the way, not only in APEC, even in Europe, in a mature position we have, there's still a lot of gaps in our portfolio. It's very common, I would say, that you have different principles in your portfolio. Today already we work with several competitors, Western ones, for a given product portfolio, obviously not in the same region or in the same country, so it's widely accepted. that we, or distributors, not only we, distributors work with different producers in different markets, and they also, they work with different distributors. So they work with us, they work with MCD, they work with any other one. So I don't see it really as a big problem. And so first, we have gaps enough. Second, it's widely accepted that you have competing principles in your relationship Again, not in one given geography, but across the world, yes. So I don't see really a problem there.

For the first question about free cash flow conversion, Stefano, I don't see the link with the absence of growth. I mean, the average conversion rate that we talk about is measured over five to six years. And in these years, we did grow. So we are simply converting a lot of cash from our EBITDA. If the EBITDA is growing, so the cash. The number one thing that we want to highlight for this year is When the EBITDA is not, you know, growing, we still deliver a very healthy amount of cash that we are, you know, then able to deploy according to the capital allocation policy I described. And talking about that, listen, on buybacks, like other elements that I talk about in the capital allocation priorities, this is one option we have. We don't have a specific action in mind as we speak, but this is something we definitely don't want to rule out and consider, and it will be measured on its own merit when, you know, we decide to have the deployable capital at hand.

Thank you.

There are no further questions on the conference line. We have come to the end of this call. I would now hand over to Chief Executive Officer Anna Bertona for her closing remarks.

Thank you. And thanks everyone for spending time with us today. We have given you insights on what drove our performance in 25 and how we are positioning ourselves for the longer term. More importantly, I trust that I have conveyed how ready we are to face what is ahead and come out on top. Yes, there are challenges, but we know where we want to be and how to get there. So with that, I wish you a good day and I'm looking forward to seeing you or speaking with you again soon.