Dsm-Firmenich Ag S/Adr

Good morning and thank you for joining today's call. I'm sitting here with Ralf Smijts, our CFO. We published this morning our third quarter trading update together with a presentation to investors, which you can find on our website. Here you can also find our disclaimers about forward-looking statements. Following Ralf's opening comments, we will open the line for questions as we usually do, and we have planned today 45 minutes in total for the call. Important to remind that the CELCET analysts who want to ask questions have to register via the questioner's link, which they can find on our website in the financial calendar. If they have not done so yet, they can still do that by switching now. And with that, I think we can start. Ralf, the floor is yours.

Thanks again, Dave, and good morning, everyone. Early start again of the day, but a pleasure you're taking the time to be with us on our Q3 earnings call. It's been yet another exciting quarter for us. We continue our journey. I'm pleased to see many of you virtually online again. Let's dive into the quarter. Like I said, an exciting quarter, but also a good quarter. And let me start with a couple of highlights on the next page. So overall, continued strong organic growth in the quarter for the company, driven by volumes. We see the performance of PNB and TTH continuing into the third quarter, similar to what we've seen into the second, which is good. And that obviously translates into a good step up in profitability as it's coupled with a continued step up in EBITDA as well in H&C and ANH. In our results, the contribution of synergies are clearly coming through, including the efforts from the vitamin improvement program. And we'll zoom into that when we look a bit at the business units as well. I do want to point out that we also see sales synergies contributing now to the growth. We talked about some initial contribution already in 23 and in the earlier year, but it's now more profound with at least 1% of that contributing to P&B and about 2% in TTH. We'll cover that when we get to the BU's. On the strategy side, we continue to make progress. We're well on track with the separation of the animal nutrition and health business. As said, that is continuing as per plan, but also pleased that we completed the transaction around the sale of our yeast extracts and marine lipid business that we announced just before the summer. In case you haven't picked it up, also our sustainability goals have been meanwhile approved by SBTI. So we're pleased that we continue that journey. And I'll come back to that at the end of the call when looking a bit at 25, what we want to do around the sustainability efforts and bring that narrative to you as well. Last but not least, we've upgraded our outlook towards 2.1 billion users. And we'll wrap up at the end of the call ahead of the Q&A, one of the key drivers for that as well. If we then turn to the next page, we can actually see what that means in terms of actual numbers. And here you can see that the strong organic growth that I was alluding to, overall 9% volume for the group. And we'll see in a minute what that translates to for each of the BUs because they all have got their own dynamic. But across the board, very good. pleased with the step up in performance. And that's obviously translating into a strong step up in EBITDA, which is further fueled by the contribution of the synergies and the programs as highlighted earlier. So overall, we see an EBITDA step up of 32% versus prior. But you also hear me say it's about sequential improvement as well, also versus Q2. We see on a like-for-like basis a step up of well over 6%, growing the EBITDA back to over 540 million, including an improvement in margin as well, which is sequentially improving every quarter by almost a percent. So we're very encouraged by that. If we then look at what does that mean year to date for the group on the next page, please. Overall, that brings the EBITDA for the group to over 1.5 billion, a step up of over 17% versus prior. At this point, I also want to highlight that overall, we've seen a strong step up in our cash performance as well. overall delivering 880 million of cash flow Q3 year to date. A big step up versus prior, but I think last year we didn't have the right phasing throughout the year. The step up half year through the year in Q3 is about 70% versus prior. But we've also guided you that it's our ambition to already meet the target that we communicated in the Capital Markets Day of 10% of sales. this year, despite the fact that we're still acting, including animal nutrition and health today. So also pleased with the progress there. And I'm sure you'll get some questions around the developments on working capital, which we can cover in the Q&A. Now, let's zoom in into the business units. Then we also can talk about the ongoing momentum there. If we go to the next page and start with perfumery and beauty, like I said at the introduction, at the highlights, Very strong organic growth again, well into the double-digit volume growth on average for the portfolio. With our fragrance business, our perfumery business showing a very strong volume growth again into the third quarter. Both fine and consumer fragrance continue to do very well. But we also see continued strong performance in our ingredients business and also beauty and care continues their growth trajectory averaging out at 11% for the business unit. What's also encouraging is the EBITDA quality of perfumery and beauty. Again, delivered almost 23% of EBITDA margin, which is nicely in the middle of our target that we communicated at Capital Markets Day. What is encouraging is that we see that continually, gradually improving, which is something that is encouraging for the quality of the business. It's not on the slide. I do want to call out the year-to-date performance of P&B as well. The volume growth there is well into the double digit for the business. And also the EBITDA step-up versus prior is well over 15%, which is a very strong performance for P&B. the business and we're happy with with that then moving on taste texture and health on the next page please also here we recorded a very strong performance with with volumes again up 13 well into the double digit again pricing continues to be strong as well And here, what I alluded to in the highlights as well, we see the synergies kicking in. The pipeline in TTH continues to develop positively. We see part of that already being translated into wins, but moreover, we also see it translating into actual invoiced sales, which me as a CFO, I'm always keen on measuring that as well and We do have both monitoring the pipeline, but at the same time, pleased to see that we start to invoice sizable numbers towards our customers as well, which is reflecting the combination and the power of the combined offering that we now have. If we look at it a little deeper at the segments, both the taste business and ingredients is doing well. albeit keep in mind the ingredients compared to an easier comps given the destocking of last year. What's also encouraging is the development of the EBITDA margin. First of all, the absolute EBITDA is up to 162 million, which is a very strong increase versus prior heads over 20% step up. But also the margin quality is improving with almost delivering 20% margin in the business. Also here, year-to-date, very strong performance with our taste business up double digit and also ingredients showing continued strong performance. And year-to-date EBITDA step up of well over the 10% as well. Then turning to the next page, our third business, our health, nutrition and care. Here we see continued further gradual improvement of the momentum and the markets. We turned positive growth in Q2 and we see that increase further into the third quarter with a 5% organic growth. which is fairly consistent across all of the businesses. So both our dietary supplements business, our aisle business, biomedical business, all growing at a similar pace, which continues to encourage us in the direction that we're taking. What's good to see is that we see a stronger growth in early life nutrition that moved into the double digit phase. However, here a word of caution as well. It's obviously against an easier comps where we saw some profound destocking at the end of the year. Nonetheless, the momentum is improving there as well and also further fueled going forward with our HMOs where we have good traction on the regulatory front. Versus prior, EBITDA is up 28% in agency as well. And we continue the trajectory of continuously improving our EBITDA and our margin in health, nutrition, and care. I do want to highlight here as well, I should have done that at TTH as well, where we have completed the sale of our yeast extracts in TTH. That is not contributing in Q4, the same we have in health, nutrition and care. Pleased to see that we were able to close the deal with KD Pharma as well. We will be no longer consolidating our marine lipids business as we've sold our business in exchange for a 29% stake in the combined company. of KD Pharma, and obviously that contribution will no longer then be visible in Topline or EBITDA, as you'll see it in the result of associates going forward. Then last but not least on the next page, our animal nutrition and health. Also here, good growth in the quarter. We see a 7% organic, fully volume-driven, With performance solutions continuing a strong year, year to date, I do want to call that performance high single-digit growth for performance solutions on the back of a strong growth last year. But what's encouraging to see in these numbers is that also premix is picking up and we see traction there. We see an improved environment, but the EBITDA is very much driven by our own efforts around the vitamin improvement program, which is on track. Overall, absolute EBITDA now at 80 million. It's not having any significant tailwind from the force majeure. That's something that we'll come in Q4. We've also been guiding you for that. And we've translated that into our outlook. But let me remind you why that is and why. We had a volume and pricing commitments made ahead of the force majeure, and we're adhering to our commitments to our customers. That is important for who we are as the SM family. So the first opportunity there is Q4, and we'll see that benefit come through as well. Now, to what does that all translate to in terms of outlook? And that's on the next page. So overall, we've upgraded our outlook towards 2.1 billion. We see good business conditions going into the fourth quarter. We're closing October today, so we have visibility on top line developments there. That's all baked in. At the same time, we'll see the regular seasonality in our P&B and TTH business, which is largely impacting December. So nothing out of the ordinary there, but the momentum is continuing with respect to pipeline and order book. At the same time, the fourth quarter will see a bit more of a negative impact than from FX that we've seen before. You've seen the impact into the third quarter of about 15 million. We expect something similar going into Q4, which is a bit more negative than what we originally had foreseen. And keep in mind that we will no longer have the EBITDA contribution of our marine lipids and yeast extract business. Nonetheless, we're upgrading towards 2.1. We're including the high end of the guidance of the impact of the force majeure. So we're firm around the 80 million, and that brings the total outlook to 2.1. At the same time, we've included the regular housekeeping for your modeling purposes, but there's no supplies there, and that's been very consistent. We're delivering also in line with that in the third quarter. And I think with that, we want to leave ample time for Q&A. So maybe with that, back to you, Dave.

Yeah, indeed. Good moment to start. I think we all, probably most people now know what a drill is. But let me remind everybody. So it's basically the sell side can ask questions. And the sell side analysts who want to do that have to be registered via the questioner's link, which they can find on our website in the financial calendar. And if you have not done so, you can still do it now. All the other participants can listen into this Q&A session simply by following this Zoom meeting. Operator, are we ready to start with the first person to ask a question?

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our Q&A session. If you have a question, we ask that you please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. Once your name has been announced, you can ask a question. If you want to withdraw your question, please lower your hand using the raise hand function in the Zoom app. Our first question comes from Lisa Deneve from Morgan Stanley. Please unmute your line.

Good morning, everyone. I hope you can hear me. I have two questions. The first one is really on the free cash flow, which appeared very strong versus the first half in the third quarter. Can you just share the moving parts to that free cash flow strength? That's my first question. And then the second one is on the EBITDA. So overall, the EBITDA... seemed quite strong on the group. But I just wonder if you could unpack the moving parts in MPMB because the drop through to the EBITDA seemed to be less on that level. So I just want to understand if that's effects or mix or whether there's other moving parts in there. Thank you very much.

All right, good morning and thanks for the questions. I'm happy to do that. Let's start with the cash flow asset, please, with that pickup. I think it's also representative of the journey we're in. We've been more disciplined in the way we manage our cash flow. We're targeting working capital ever since the second half of last year. We see a continued reduction. In our inventory, overall working capital at the end of the period was the first time below 30%. We originally came from well above 35%, and we've been gradually improving with the aim to land somewhere towards the high 20s. Again, we're doing a continued effort on the inventory side. We're making the progress. We are focusing on a further reduction on that front. But at the same time, we apply good discipline around our receivables and payables. So we're happy with the performance there. The overdue is moving consistently to around 5%, sometimes be lower. You know that my ambition is to be at 4% there. So it's all about the discipline and also at the payable side. We're pleased with the performance of the procurement team. So all in all, that is a key driver. At the same time, we're carefully managing our investments. We want to invest in future growth, whilst at the same time being disciplined where we need to be. So overall, our CAPEX today stands at around 5% of sales. We're guiding for 6%. We typically see somewhat of a pickup in the fourth quarter, but at the same time, we're also monitoring that we make the necessary investments to fuel our future growth on the mid to longer term. So that is moving part. So we see a good EBITDA to cash conversion. And that is something that we remain focused on also going into the fourth quarter. Then maybe tilting to your second question around EBITDA flow through. Indeed, overall happy with the performance. So we see a continued step up also versus the second quarter, yet an increase of 30 million. Now you asked specifically about P&B, I think with a 23% margin drop through. Very pleased with that performance. We see the growth continuing. At the same time, we're investing for continued growth. We see a good momentum in the business, so we're making the necessary investments there. But last year, we also called out that the margin was 23%. That was on a bit of a different mix impact. Here we see a consistent improvement of margin. Also, if you compare it to H1, that is something that we're focused on on P&B as well. So overall, pleased that we almost topped the 23% in the third quarter.

Thank you very much. It's very helpful.

Our next question comes from Charles Eden at UBS. Please unmute your line.

Hi, good morning. Excuse me. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll limit them to two. Just firstly, I guess it's a slight follow up on the P&B, but you had a very strong volume growth of 11% in the quarter, but price mix was down 2%. I know you don't include hyperinflationary pricing in your organic sales growth. So that slightly explains the delta versus some of your key peers, but probably not entirely. So is there a negative mix in the business or have you taken pricing down somewhere? Could you just sort of go into a little details on that in P&B? And then on ANH, you state in the release that the transaction is well advanced, I quote, but I see the timeline included at the back of the presentation this morning is unchanged. Is it possible the completion could come forward from the second half of 25? Or do you think that the sort of timeline in the presentation is still the right one to be assuming at this stage? And then if we just had a very quick follow up, you mentioned some production shutdown costs in Q3. Can you remind us what, if any, of your capacity is still currently offline, please? Thank you. Sure.

Yeah, good morning, Charles, and thanks for those questions. So in P&B, we have continued pricing strength, similar to what we've seen in the prior quarter. The negative pricing effect is mainly in our ingredient space, where it's merely also a pass-through of raw material developments where part of our contracts have normal formulas. You can see it in the margin profile, whereas Q2 was impacted by someone, of course, and that was in the 22s. Adjusting for that, we're now close to 23, just showcasing also the strong quality of the P&B portfolio mix that we've seen. You also rightly picked on, we're not factoring in the FX. We have the FX outside of our organic growth, so there's no impact from that. And looking at the overall blend, you've seen that strong performance in in our perfumery volumes into the third quarter. Then looking at A&H timelines, they are unchanged. We're progressing as per plan, but that plan really includes us going into the market early 2025. And then you have the regular timing. It will take time to come to a transaction and then you've got the regulatory approvals that will have an impact on that. So that timing hasn't changed for us. So we don't see an acceleration of the timing, but we are on track with our efforts in line, given the timing that we set ourselves. We are preparing for a launch in the market in the beginning of 2025. Then you had a third one. Could you remind me of that one? Yeah, it was just if there was any capacity still offline. No, it's something that there's still a good part of that. Remember that we also announced a long-term... or lifetime extension shutdown in some of our vitamin plants. And that's been running also up until October. Our vitamin A plant, for example, is only up a week and a half. and we're ramping that up. But across the board, we remain disciplined in our inventory levels and disciplined around cash. So we still have around 25% of capacity down in certain spaces that is impacting also the shutdown cost.

Super. Thanks, Ralph. Thanks, Dave.

Our next question comes from Matthew Yates at Bank of America Securities. Please unmute your line.

Hey, good morning, gentlemen. Ralph, nice to see the HNC business back to solid organic growth and the margins progressively trending higher. The 17% is still quite far below your midterm aspiration for that division, which I think was about 22 or so at the midpoint. Can you just help me understand how you're going to get there over the midterm. How important is the repricing of vitamins within your customer contracts? I guess those take slightly longer to reset than we're used to, kind of that quarterly basis on the animal side. And can you just explain sort of how margin accretive the lipids, the marine lipids disposal is going to be next year? Just how much margin expansion are you thinking this division can deliver over the next year or two to get towards that midterm aspiration? Thank you.

Great question, Matthew, and thanks for that. As also communicated in Capital Markets Day, we have a clear path to also bringing the H&C business up. You saw Philip on stage as well, talking about the key levers, and we're well on that journey. Let me give you a couple of the highlights. We see a continued improvement, quarter after quarter, also in Q3, and we're managing also that going forward into the fourth quarter. But let's also see what was a key driver of the drop in margin in H&C. It was not necessarily the price. Of course, there was a pricing effect in H&C as well, but it was also a volume and an idle cost. uh what we saw at the beginning of the year it took time for markets to stabilize also dietary supplements markets only started to to show growth for the first time at the beginning of the year then things stabilized and we're now back to growth so with the volume growing that will also improve overall the coverage within within that space and with that we see a continued improvement in margin at the same time The vitamin improvement program will contribute to the margin quality of HNC as well and bring it back to more appropriate levels coupled with synergies. Also here, we're focusing on the pipeline. The pipeline is developing nicely in HNC as well. It will take a little longer before we actually see that translating into more sizable contribution to actual top line, to invoice top line, because this is typically where you introduce new concepts and they have the opportunity for cross sell and earlier wins in agencies a little lower than in P&B and TTH. So that will take a little longer, but that will contribute to a step up in that margin profile as well. So going into next year, Very much driven by volumes. With that, we will see a leverage in the organization. We will focus and we will continue to deliver on the vitamin improvement program, also contributing to the step up in H&C. And also then we've got some new innovations coming into Steam, upgrading the overall quality of the portfolio. So these are the key moving pieces on that front. Now, then you also asked around marine lipids that will contribute up to 50 basis points to a little over depending on the quarter. But there we also see that that will further enhance the overall quality. of H&C. But as you said, it will take a little longer, but we should see continued margin expansion into the next two years towards our midterm ambition.

Very good. Thank you, Ralph.

Our next question comes from Nicola Tang at Exane BNP Paribas. Please unmute your line.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. The first was on the thanks for quantifying this 80 million vitamin price impact for Q4. Bearing in mind that the BSF outage is sort of going into next year, could we expect some impact on the human side as well? And to what extent can we extrapolate that 18 million for ANH also into next year? That's the first one. And then the second question is, Um, just a general question around volumes. Um, do you think, I think in last quarter we talked a little bit about potentially some restocking going on in TTH, something that Dimitri might have mentioned. Um, but actually it looks like you've had a pretty strong quarter again. So, um, you know, do you feel that there's any sort of restocking impact in your business at all? And I think some of your peers are talking about more normalization in Q4. Is that a view that you share? Thanks.

Hi, Nikola. Thanks for questions. Good to hear you online. Let's tackle them one by one. Let's start with H&C. Typically, the contracting season is annualized. That's why we also indicated a little contribution in agency this year. Also, given that we have limited volumes available, giving that we're focused on our inventory reduction. Going into next year, this should help as well. We're now in the midst of contracting season. So hopefully we'll see some additional volumes come through and also some improved pricing at the H&C front. But keep in mind that the current vitamin effect is largely driven by vitamin E, whereas obviously the impact on H&C is a fraction of what we've seen in A&H. So it's about 10% of that. So the vitamin E volume going in. But the overall dynamics in the market is good. So we're also anticipating improvements. in improvement from the vitamins in H&C going into next year. Then talking about next year and ANH, the 80 million is Q4. So that is something that we anticipate to see in going into Q1 as well. Likely a bit more given that we are trying to free up some more volumes on that front. Give or take with some tailwind from H&C, penciling about 100 million for the first quarter. Beyond Q2, now, Bazev is regularly communicating around that force majeure. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves. I think we have a good anticipation going into the first quarter. But we'll continue to guide you as well. So we will be out there regularly meeting with you. But also when we come with our outlook for 25, we'll guide for the vitamin. In fact, we don't want to look much beyond Q1 now. We also want to see how the order book is developing and at the same time, how we can place the volume and pricing strategically into our transaction around animal nutrition products. But we'll continue to be transparent as we are today and guide you for that with a bit more detail once we get a bit closer to that as well. Then your third question around volumes TTH. Yeah, I think with the strong road that we're witnessing, I think we can also safely say is that the combination is working. We're well-placed. We've got good momentum in the business. The teams are excited. We've got good traction with our customers. Now, is there some part of restocking? I think in these numbers, it's always difficult to predict. But given that we saw sizable destocking last year, I'm sure there's something. But also going into October, we've seen a continued momentum as we've seen in Q3. So we're pleased with the volume developments that we've seen so far. Keep in mind, we have that regular seasonality also in TTH, specifically in December. But out of that, we see a continued good momentum for our business. And that makes us excited in that space.

Amazing. Thank you so much.

Our next question comes from Alex Sloan at Barclays Bank. Please unmute your line.

Yeah, hi, morning all. Thanks for taking the questions. Actually, the first one's a follow-up there, Ralph. Very helpful in terms of scaling the vitamin potential tailwind in Q1. I wonder to what extent are you having success using the disruption in the industry to lock in ANH customers into longer-term contracts, so potentially capturing some of the value from the spike for any future owner of that business. That's the first one. The second one on TT&H, obviously referenced good synergy momentum. Just wanted to check, did you say 2% of the growth was from synergies? I just wanted to check that. But the broader question there, I guess, are you still maintaining the two routes to market, so the firm and each brief machine and the DSM value proposition machine, or has there been any more recent emphasis in combining those routes to market? And if so, how's that landing with customers?

Yeah, good morning, Alex, and great questions. So thanks for that. We are doing our utmost, of course, in the A&H to have conversations. I think here it's when two parties come together. I think the disruptive event in the industry once more indicated also to our customers that it's fragile. And I think I said that wording before, pushing suppliers down into a momentum that is not beneficial to any is not beneficial to a business longer term. And that's the dialogue that we have with our customers where we're seeking those long-term commitments. We're seeking to contractually agree upon pricing. You initially start with longer-term contract well beyond the year. I think it's always a business that is a bit more volatile, but you can definitely see there's an improved momentum and you actually see customers coming back and also I don't want to call out admitting that there's a mistake, but I think being a reliable party has a premium. It always had a premium in the past, and that is something that we're now actively engaged in and makes us confident in terms of underpinning the business plan also that we're presenting to future owners. So we do get traction on that front. Keep in mind that it's also a quite diverse business because that is part of the quality asset that ANH is with a premix network in 50 countries. So this also makes it a cumbersome exercise to go out and have that wide conversation. But the traction is clearly there and we're also engaging again with customers that initially were seeking product elsewhere. I would say there's good momentum on that front in terms of underpinning the business plan. Then tilting to TTH, yes, it's about 2% of organic growth. So we see now about 15 to 20 million a quarter coming through in terms of synergy sales in TTH. In terms of pipeline, the pipeline is now moving into the 218 million We regularly call out the pipeline for TTH. So that is encouraging. We also see that being converted into signed business, which is... well over 60 million on that front and also that's excluding the actual invoice sales. Like I said, it's around 15 to 20 a quarter now and we see good momentum and also Patrick on his behalf as leader would be encouraging saying I'm happy to see the invoices go out and translating this into actual sales. We're also penciling in our commitments that we shared at Capital Markets Day into the budget for next year. The route to market in TTH is still the same. So we still want to build on the two machines going into market. we brought the organization closer together on a regional basis but that's more on also on a science basis and the like so the sharing of leads information product knowledge is easier because this is where the cooperation is important but towards our customers we want to protect with what we have we see that we have good traction into the market we're pleased with the offering we see that that we have that seat at the table and There's excitement at the opposite side of the table, and that's something that we want to maintain. So we're also careful of keeping that in place. So we're running the business still as a taste and ingredient solutions. However, at the backbone, we're bringing the organization closer and closer together to share that knowledge and benefit from that at the commercial side.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Isha Sharma at Stifle Europe Bank. Please unmute your line.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Could you talk a little bit about early life nutrition? It seems like it is finally on a growth path. And if you could quantify a bit the sales from HMOs and is that the main contributor to the growth? What reasons? Do you see doing better? And the other question is on Beauvais and Veramaris. You've also mentioned that they are doing particularly well within animal nutrition. Is this better than what you budgeted for and your expectations? And how should we think about it to next year? And then I just wanted to add on one follow-up. You had indicated earlier this year that we might get, in the second half of this year, some pro forma for the potential divestment of vitamins. Is that still something we can expect, or is that postponed to the first half of this year? Thank you.

Okay, yeah. Let me take that down as well. So maybe let's first start with ELN. Absolutely right. Happy to see the improved momentum there. Like I said, double-digit growth since a long time. Now, you also heard me put some caveats around it on the back of easier comms because we saw that profound destocking on the back of low birth rates last year as well. So there's no massive change in the sentiment around the business, but it's good that we're back to growth. And at the same time, we also have the innovations come through on that front. The current growth is not necessarily driven by HMO, because we also said it will take time before we have cleared all the regulatory hurdles and got all the approvals. That is progressing nicely. As I said, we're working on it. together with our customers on that front as well. But that is merrily also going to contribute in 25 to the growth of our early life business. Now, I understand you all want the absolute number now, given also the sensitivity around that. We're not disclosing that, but the traction is good. we're working with uh with all of the yeah the relevant names in that space including the chinese players as alluded to before but pleased with overall momentum on on that front and it also clearly subscribes that premiumization in this space is the relevant way to go and that's also where our innovations are playing and playing into Then to the other two ventures, Bovair, as I said, were technically sold out. We have the pre-marketing volumes available. However, we are advanced compared to what we had in the plan. I think subscribing to the good traction that we have, Dimitri and myself are regularly reviewing the development of the pipeline and the development with the key accounts. But the key focus is on getting the plant up and running. That has to be the priority in 2025. We're progressing on that front because we need more volume to substantially grow. But the traction is good. We've got all the regulatory approvals, and we continue to be very active on that front in terms of marketing. Supported also by Elanco, who's regularly engaging with us as well. They were recently in Dalray. Looking also at the plant, which is subscribing the partnership that we have, and they're actively marking the U.S. They're knocking on the door for some additional volume. So I think also there we're getting the traction that we need. we were anticipating for the offtake of the product. But key is that we've got this plant up and running and we have the light volumes available. So that's what we're focusing on. The marketing side is developing well and somewhat better than we had anticipated and penciled in the 24 budget. Same is true for Vera Mares. I think the whole Discussion around the sustainability is really landed in the industry, obviously fueled by the irregularities in the fishery and the harvesting of the natural fish oil. I think what you now see is a sustainable effort. When we met at the half year, I also commented that there you see the consistency of quality, the ease of use in terms of operations is there to stay. And we actually see very nice growth in the Vera Maros business, also ahead of what we had planned in. But also at the profitability level, it's moving into the direction that we want. It's an above margin business. business that is getting the right traction for us as well. Then last, you had a question around pro forma numbers. The team continues to work on that and will seek for the right moment to provide you with that as well. So that is there. Not sure whether that will be exactly this year because we continue to focus on running the company as a whole and preparing for the transaction. But as I said, we're planning to launch it commercially at the beginning of the year, and that will be a good moment to look at that.

I'm seeing that we have quite a few people to ask questions. Okay, that will not all succeed. Let's do the following. Can we do two still questions? So let's say two people to ask questions, and then we have to close off. And that means we cannot accommodate everybody, but... you always can phone us afterwards. We'll do that to people for questions, and then we go from closing. Yes, operator?

Okay, yes. Our next question comes from Ferdinand Deboer at DeGroof Petercam. Please unmute your line.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. One is coming back on Ferramaris, with fish oil prices coming down rapidly. What do you expect here? How to impact that Ferramaris? And the second one, maybe more important, is on the volume growth, also in Perfume Beauty. If you see a lot of Perfume Beauty companies across the globe, they are slowing down with sales, especially because of traffic in China. We have the warnings of Alfie Maid, Scotty, et cetera. So how do you view this? Where does your growth come from as these kind of customers are actually slowing down?

Yeah, good morning, Ferdinand, and thanks for questions. What I said is that this is clearly playing into the conversion towards a sustainable solution in the industry. That has really landed well, as I said. It got accelerated by the irregularities. in the harvest and the huge price swings. But this is here to stay. We've got a very strong order book there as well. We've got a lot of demand that's also reflected in the pricing momentum that we have in the Vera Mares business, but also operationally that once converted, we see quite a high stickiness with our customers, given the ease of use, the consistency of supply, and that makes it a very reliable solution for them as well. And then the pricing is very much comparable. So there will always be a somewhat level of sensitivity, but we see that not having a real big impact given the strong demand for the overall product of the Vera Mares venture, reflected in the growth and the quality of the margin. And that's also one when discussing with the board meeting recently, where we also had an outlook going into the year. We do see that continue to go forward as well. Then on PNB, as commented there, we see continued good momentum in fragrance that is continuing. We have a strong pipeline and an order book also going into 2025. We always place a bit of word of caution as well. The comps are going to be a bit harder than what we had this year, but momentum is there. And at the same time, beauty and care is still to be seen. We're watching our customers there as well. At the same time, keep in mind there is a strong growth in the regional accounts in in perfumery and beauty as as well and at the same time you see the corporates picking up as well they're spending the euros but the trends are higher inclusion rates more demand for premiumized and mastiff products and that is a clear driver and at the same time we see that more euros are spent on on high-end products and that is actually fueling the growth We're consistently now delivering strong growth, but the industry is doing well. But there's a clear reason on why there's a difference between the growth in some of our customers and the growth that we're experiencing in perfumery and beauty.

Thank you.

Our last question.

Go ahead, operator.

Our last question comes from Arten Chiborov. at Redburn Atlantic. Please unmute your line.

Hello, good morning. Can you hear me well?

Yeah, loud and clear.

Brilliant, thank you. Most of my questions have been taken already, so maybe just a quick follow-up on synergies. Would you be able to split and quantify how much of your synergies, let's say in TTH, have come from cross-selling versus new product creation and mix effect? Is there any way to... differentiate between those two. And maybe just in here as well, I think you mentioned 2% growth contribution in TTH, and I think it was 1% contribution to PNB. Just wanted to confirm those numbers as well. Thank you.

Yeah, those numbers are confirmed, so you heard that right, so that is true. It's always difficult to give the exact split, because ultimately we're managing the pipeline accordingly to our same definitions, and we've said clear, clear guidelines. But what we also said is that initially you'll see a faster contribution from the cross-sell because it's about opening doors with customers that we weren't before, offering products that weren't necessarily available before. And that is obviously translating faster into sales. That's why we're also focused on this pipeline, because especially these new developments take typically longer into the market, up to 12 to 18 months. So if you look at the contribution now, the 15 to 20 million contributing to top line in TTH, There's a good part coming from cross-sells, although we see some first wins on the side of product development coming through as well. Because the uptake on that is also very encouraging to see, but it's still a bit skewed towards cross-sell initially.

That's very helpful. Thanks very much.

Dave.

That concludes the Q&A session. I will now hand back to Mr. Housing for closing remarks.

Yeah, thank you, operator. And as I said earlier, please do not hesitate to reach out to the investor relations team for anybody who has more questions. I can imagine that we basically have more topics maybe you want to discuss. So please feel free to reach out to us. We're there. Rolf, you want to make a few closing remarks and address the ESG thing before we close off?

Yeah, it's more than an ESG thing, Dave. But before going there, so again, pleased that you all joined this morning. We continue our journey. We relentlessly following up to make sure that we grow as a company and with that deliver upon our commitment to see a continued step up in EBITDA and EBITDA quality. We continue the journey, again, encouraged by a good Q3 and at the same time be disciplined in our cash efforts. And I hope that is reflected in the earnings release that we shared this morning. Now back to the ESG, following the SBTI approval, we also want to take you along on that journey. And just like we organized teach-ins earlier in the year around some of our businesses, we also want to do the same around our sustainability journey. And we'll be organizing an event early 2025. And Dave and the team will reach out with the exact details around that. But I think this is also an important element of who we are as the ESG and Firmination. We'll also continue on that trajectory as well. So stay tuned there. We'll send the invite and make sure that the relevant teams of your businesses are invited to take the latest and greatest on that front as well. And with that, we turn back to Q4 and focus on delivery of the year. And we'll see you on the road soon. And with that, Dave.

Yeah, thank you, Rob. By the way, thank you, everybody, for listening in today. Operator, we can close the call. Thanks, everyone.

This concludes today's call. Thank you everyone for joining. You may disconnect.