Symrise Ag Ord

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our telephone conference today on the business results for the fiscal year 2025. Thank you very much for joining us. All the relevant documents, including the press release and the presentation, are available in the financial results area on our website. In this call, our board chairman, Jean-Yves Parizeau, as well as our finance chairman, Olaf Klinger, will speak to you and then, as just said, will be available for your questions. And with that, I hand over the floor to Jean-Yves.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Marc. Also, I would like to welcome you to our media call. We will now give you the results for the business year 2025, an update on our One Team strategy and the One Team Transformations program. Finally, I will explain to you our outlook on the entire year 2026. Explaining. 25 was a decisive year for Simrace. On our Capital Market Day in November 2021, we presented our One Team strategy. In the past year, we have now implemented this strategy into concrete measures. Our goal remains very clear. We want to achieve sustainable growth over the market average and at the same time structurally improve profitability. However, the year 2025 was characterized by a weak demand in certain markets and an aging regional volatility. Before this interruption, we also focused on what we ourselves have in mind, namely the implementation of our strategic goals. These included efficiency improvement, cash discipline and strategic transformation. We have achieved a lot. Our core businesses, Flavor and Fragrance, have once again shown our resilience as well as the strength of our portfolio with our good customer relationships. In Food and Beverages, in the area of alcohol-free drinks, we have repeatedly achieved outstanding results, especially in Europe. In addition, we have expanded our leadership position at Naturals and Savory. The business with solutions for food and drinks remains industry-wide the standard for growth and profitability. At the same time, we have strengthened our growth platform. The ongoing expansion of our capacities in Granada, Spain, and Whiteside, India, has been completed. Wir haben unsere Präsenz im Bereich der Chemie in Asien gestärkt und unseren neuen Fragranzentwicklungs- und Produktionsstandort in Graz eröffnet, wodurch wir unseren Zugang zu wachstumsstarken Kunden im Nahen Osten und in Afrika erheblich verbessern konnten. Innovation ist nach wie vor ein wichtiges Alleinstellungsmerkmal. Die Einführung von Captives Also die Einführung von innovativen Durchstoffen und neuen Technologien ermöglicht es unseren Kunden, in ihren Märkten differenziert erfolgreich zu sein. Das Jahr 2025 markierte zudem eine signifikante Verbesserung unserer operativen Performance. Die Effizienzinitiativen führten zur Steigerung der Profitabilität. Mit rund 50 Millionen Euro erreichten wir deutlich mehr als die angeschriebenen 40 Millionen Euro. Dabei könnten wir auch die 50 Millionen Euro aufbauen, die wir bereits 2024 erreicht hatten. Es handelt sich um strukturelle Verbesserung, nicht um einmalige Sondereffekte. We have set up a global procurement and operations organization to achieve and optimize major advantages. We have maintained our customer orientation as well as the entrepreneurial focus that characterizes our business areas. In addition, we systematically strengthen the interaction between the segments with their business areas. All this is embedded in our OneThemes Transformation, a very ancient transformation program that should improve our competitiveness. An extensive review of our chemical production has clearly shown opportunities for performance improvement. The expansion of our terpene business and the ongoing operational improvements are direct results. Die Ausgliederung wurde schnell und präzise durchgeführt, was unsere Fähigkeit und Umsetzung unterstreicht. Außerdem haben wir die Übernahme von Probi abgeschlossen. Das Unternehmen ist jetzt in unserem neuen Geschäftsbereich Care and Wellness integriert, auf den ich kürzer noch näher eingehen werde. Wir haben unsere Initiativen für Nachhaltigkeit und Zirkularität weiter vorangetrieben. Im Jahr 2024 haben wir detaillierte Arbeiten zur Festlegung unserer neuen Basis für unsere CO2-Bilanz abgeschlossen und damit unsere messbare Wirkung verstärkt. Außerdem setzen wir Schritt für Schritt einen datengestützten Plan zur Dekarbonisierung entlang unserer gesamten Wertschöpfungskette um. Ebenso wichtig ist unser Engagement für die soziale Dimension der Nachhaltigkeit. Wir stärken unser Engagement kontinuierlich durch gezielte Initiativen und langfristige Programme. In unserem gesamten Unternehmen haben wir eine Vielzahl von Maßnahmen eingeführt, um die Gesundheit, Sicherheit das Vollbefinden und die berufliche Entwicklung unserer Mitarbeiter zu fördern. Parallel dazu engagieren wir uns über unser Netzwerk von Nachhaltigkeitsbotschaftern weltweit für Umweltschutz, Bildung und Gerechtigkeit. In summary, it can be said that the year 2025 was really challenging, but also very productive. Despite the increasingly difficult demand situation and a certain weakness in our markets, we have achieved market-leading organic growth in important core businesses. Operative improvements have led to the highest profitability for 10 years and to a historically high clean business free cash flow, which reduces financial flexibility. Thanks to this performance, we want to increase our dividends again and thus continue our 17-year success rate in terms of annual dividend growth. In addition, in January 2026, we launched our first share return program of 400 million euros. This reflects our conviction that investments in Siem Reis represent the most attractive use of capital at the moment and offer long-term convincing value for our shareholders. Wir gehen in das Jahr 2026 stärker, fokussierter und strukturell bewertfähiger hinein und sind gut aufgestellt, um unsere Performance in Zukunft zu steigern. Lassen Sie uns nun auf Folie 5 einen Überblick über den Umsatz des Jahres 2025 nach Segmenten geben. The State Nutrition and Health sector increased its turnover by 2.6% and reached a turnover of 3 billion euros, while the Food and Beverage sector was leading with a strong performance in the categories Beverage, Savory and Natural. Centencare achieved an organic sales growth of 3.2% and a sales of 1.9 billion euros. Fragrance again delivered good growth over all essential applications, with Fine and Consumer Fragrance on the way. Now let's look at the regional results for the year on chart 6. Der organische Umsatz in Nordamerika stieg im Vergleich zum dritten Quartal leicht an. Makroökonomische Unsicherheiten, anhaltende Inflation und zunehmende politische und regulatorische Unwägbarkeiten führten zu einer gewissen Schwäche und einem insgesamt schwächeren Konsumklima. Europe, Africa and the Middle East developed well despite the global demand, with an organic sales growth of 2.8%. The region of Asia-Pacific grew organically by 3.2% due to the cooling demand. Latin America achieved an organic growth of 6.6% with a strong Now I will now turn to Olaf Klinger, who will explain our financial figures in more detail. Thank you, Olaf.

Yes, thank you, Jean-Yves, and a warm welcome from me again to today's call. In the entire year 2025, despite a lower business volume, we had a solid organic growth and a clear margin expansion. We focused on implementing what we can influence. As shown on chart 8, the organic turnover rose by 2.8%, which is mainly due to our volume growth of 2.2% and a slightly positive price development. Portfolio changes in connection with the setting of our aquafit business in the middle of 2025 and the exposure to the British beverage trade business in March 2024 reduced the expected turnover by 16 million euros. Also negative currency effects, which were mainly due to the reduction of several currencies, especially the dollar, resulted in a negative turnover of 194 million euros. As Jean-Yves already mentioned, we have introduced the purified EBITDA as a profitability number in order to match the reporting status more strongly to the standards of the competition and the market and to improve transparency, clarity and comparability around the basic operational performance. Our adaptation framework is clearly given and focuses explicitly on non-operative and non-returned posts, primarily portfolio changes, right-of-way and optimization initiatives and other extraordinary events. For the entire year 2025, the following adaptations were provided. The already announced non-payment reduction in January in the amount of €150 million in conjunction with the Swedencare shareholding and €148 million in conjunction with the revaluation and conversion of the taping business, where the latter was EBITDA neutral. €11 million for portfolio optimization, of which around €1 million EBITDA neutral. 6 million euros in the context of the One Sim transformation and 3 million euros in the context of our cartel investigation. The clean-up EBITDA margin rose by 120 basis points, which is due to the accelerated implementation of the One Sim transformation. We achieved cost savings and efficiency increases of up to 50 million euros, thus exceeding our goal of 40 million euros. Dies ist ein klarer Beweis für unsere konsequente Umsetzung. Auf Folie 9 finden Sie einen Überblick über die Ergebnisse unseres Segments Taste, Nutrition and Health. Für das Gesamtjahr erzielten wir ein solides organisches Umsatzwachstum von 2,6%, was auf ein Volumenanstieg von 1,8% einer positiven Preisentwicklung von 0,8% zurückzuführen. If we take into account portfolio and currency effects in the range of 142 million or minus 4.6%, then the turnover is at 3.28 billion euros. Food and Beverages, despite strong pre-season figures, achieved a brand-leading organic turnover growth in the medium-end area, with a high-end organic growth in the EMI region and in North America. Beverages achieved a high level of organic growth with sustained strong dynamics, while Naturals and Savory continued to grow in the middle level. The growth in the area of pet food reached market growth and was overall stable compared to the previous year. The purified EBITDA of the segment rose by 5.2% to 722 million euros. The prepared EBITDA margin rose by 160 basis points to an absolute market-leading 23.8%, which is mainly due to profitable sales growth and efficiency gains. On slide 10 you can see the results of our segment Send and Care. Organic sales growth for the whole year was 3.2%, followed by a volume increase of 3%. and a price increase of 0.2%. The negative monetary effects were 3.5%. The segment achieved a turnover of 1.901 billion euros. Frequence recorded a high, steady organic growth, which is consistent with the strong dynamics of the entire portfolio. Fine Frequence a high level of organic growth, especially in North America and Latin America. Consumer Fragrance also achieved a high level of organic growth, supported by a strong business environment. Cosmetic Ingredients recorded a slight decline in the level of organic growth, which is due to the high pre-season growth in the UV filter area. Microprotection continued to record growth in the medium-term. Aromamolecules achieved low growth in a volatile market environment, which was mainly due to the increasing competition from Asia. The purified EBITDA rose in the segment by 3.5% to 359 million euros. The purified EBITDA margin of the segment thus improved to 18.9%, an increase of 70 basis points, which is primarily due to profitable turnover and efficiency gains. Let us now take a look at the profitability of the Simrace Group, shown here on the 11th slide. This year we were able to achieve both the purified brutto result as well as the purified EBITDA margin by 120 basis points, which is mainly due to the product mix and efficiency gains. Thanks to our One-SIM transformation, we were able to achieve cost savings and efficiency gains in the amount of 50 million euros, which underlines our ongoing focus on a sustainable improvement of profitability. 35 million came from procurement due to an improved, more global approach to achieve efficiency increases in this way. Productivity and capacity optimisation contributed to another 10 million. Measures in the area of global asset management and logistics, such as system optimisation, the renewal of sales contracts, as well as regional logistics regulations contributed another 5 million euros. Now we come to our capital allocation on slide 12. Our priorities in the capital allocation are clear and consistent. They concentrate both on organic and on inorganic investment to promote long-term value creation, to return capital to shareholders and to achieve financial strength and flexibility. That is why we invest primarily in organic growth, whereby we provide projects that go hand in hand with high returns, build on our core competencies and promote profitable, scalable growth. Our medium-term investment goal remains disciplined with 4-5% of the turnover and enables us to make strong reinvestments while simultaneously maintaining a high cash conversion. In addition, we pursue disciplined, value-increasing M&A activities. We focus on opportunities that strengthen our portfolio, expand our presence and create concrete synergies, always within a clear financial framework. Also the capital return to our shareholders remains an important priority. Our dividend policy draws on a payout of 30 to 50 percent of the company's profit, We are determined to continue to increase the absolute dividend year after year. In addition, in January, we announced our first stock return program in the amount of 400 million euros with a running time until the end of October 2026. With all priorities, we are determined to secure our investment grade. And with that, I give the floor back to Jean-Yves, who will explain our strategy. Thank you very much.