Symrise Ag Ord

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome and thank you for attending the Investor and Analyst Conference Call on the publication of Simrace AG's Half-Year Results 2024. I am Alice, the Conference Call Operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be listed on the mode any conference has been recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and 0. The conference does not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Tobias Erfurt, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, Alice. A good and sunny day from Holzminton, and welcome to our Today's Tim Royce call. All materials have been published on our website this morning, and the replay of the call will be available later today. Today's call will be held by our new CEO, Jean-Yves Parizeau, and our CFO, Olaf Klinger. After the presentations, we are open for your questions. I now hand over to Jean-Yves Parizeau. Please start.

Thank you, Tobias. Good morning. Good morning to all of you, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome from my side to our Investor and Analyst Conference call, presenting our results for the first half of 2024. And thank you for taking the time to join us today. Let us start with our agenda for today, slide two. Together with you, I would like to look at the half-year results, and Olaf Klinger will provide a deep dive into the financials, and I will conclude by highlighting our growth and strategic initiatives and giving you an update of our outlook for the remaining year. In the ongoing challenging political and economic environment, Simrise was able to continue its growth trajectory in the first half of 2024. We operate a proven and stable business model with comparatively low risk content. Over the years, we have diversified and positioned the group robustly. At the same time, high inflation persisted, which resulted to the increase of costs. Simrise managed to offset most of them by employing strict cost control together with an efficiency program, which we started end of January this year. Let's take a look at the financials on the chart 4. The first half of this year was marked by strong business growth in a continuously challenging environment. And I'm glad to say we once again managed to outperform the market. We increased sales by 6.3% in reporting currency to 2.6 billion euros. Organically, we achieved a growth rate of 11.5%. The EBITDA increased also by 11.5% to 530 million euros compared to the normalized figure of the previous year. The group's EBITDA margin reached 20.7%, which is an increase of 1% point compared to the normalized last year figure. Our efforts for increasing efficiency are starting to pay off. 50% of our targeted efficiency savings of €50 million have been already realized. The business free cash flow amounted to €226 million, an increase of more than €120 million. That income increased by €52 million and totaled €239 million. So, earnings per share increased to €1.71 compared to €1.34 in the first half of 2023. R&D expenses amounted to €135 million, an increase of 3.2% versus previous year. We will encounter somewhat limited visibility due to geopolitical uncertainties and high inflation rates. However, our business model, our global structure, and our unique portfolio are continuing to provide the strongest possible basis for sustained profitable growth going forward. Let's zoom into our sales growth for a moment on the slide slide. Group sales increased to 2.6 billion. We experienced a negative impact of 16 million Euro from the divestiture of our beverage trade business in the UK and around 110 million Euro headwinds from FXFX. Organically, the group achieved a very strong growth of 11.5%, driven by an excellent performance of both segments. Chart 6 illustrates the growth dynamics by segment. The taste, nutrition, and health segment achieved organic sales growth of 10% in the first half of 2024. Considering portfolio and exchange rate effects, the segment sales in the reporting currency amounted to 1.572 billion and amounted to 2.9% above the previous year's figure in reporting currency. Once again, a key growth driver was our pet food business, which grew in the double digit percentage range, driven by additional volumes. Food and beverage applications demonstrates also high growth rate as well. The segment benefited from broadening its competencies beyond flavor and nutrition. The scent and care segment achieved an organic sales growth of 14.1% in the first half of the year. In reporting currency, that amounts to 12.1%. Sales increased to 993 million euros. Fine and consumer fragrance, as well as cosmetic ingredients, are continuing to grow strongly. Additionally, aroma molecules showed very good growth after the production incident in the U.S. last year. Let's move now on to chart 7 for the performance by region. We grew across all regions, with Latin America being the strongest one, delivering organic growth of more than 30%. Asia Pacific and Europe achieved an organic growth of more than 11%. In North America, we had a more moderate growth rate of 2.2%. Let me now hand over to Olaf. He will go into more detail looking at the financial. Olaf, thanks.