Itaconix plc (ITX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Itaconix 2025 Full Year Results Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Before we begin, we would like to submit the following poll. I'm sure the management team will be delighted for your participation. I'd now like to hand over to John and Laura. Good afternoon to you both.

Thank you, Mark. We're really excited to be here this afternoon to present not only our results for 2025, but also our outlook for 2026 and beyond. I'm going to start with a quick overview of the -- of Itaconix for those who are new to Itaconix, present some highlights and then turn to Laura, who will come in on some financial results, and then I'll wrap up with our growth path and our outlook for 2026.

Thanks, guys. See you soon.

On a quick overview of Itaconix, pretty simple business. Most important is on the right-hand side is that we produce ingredients that have high-valued use in everyday products, particularly consumer products. They're used for their functionality and the performance that they put into these products. On the left-hand side is our supply chain. We bring in itaconic acid into our operations, run it through our polymerization process to produce our ingredients. Itaconic acid is a natural metabolite produced in our bodies in the natural world. It is produced at industrial levels by fermentation. We bring it in from multiple suppliers in -- from China, but it is actually produced by fermentation where sugar is put into a very large fermentation tank, a fungi eats the sugar and produces itaconic acid. The sugar comes from corn. So somewhere out in China, there is a corn field that's absorbing carbon dioxide, converting that carbon dioxide into a carbon-based sugar. That sugar becomes the carbon actually in our products. So it's a very plant-based supply chain on one side. And from the value side of it, we are adding very high value into a broad range of consumer products. The potential for our chemistry is roughly defined about how acrylic acid is used. Acrylic acid is a $20 billion market, roughly broken down into paints and coatings, superabsorbents and water-soluble polymers. We've identified about $2 billion to specifically go after where we think our itaconic acid chemistries have value added of how acrylics are used. We look at it in 2 stages. One is what we're going to do with our immediate ingredients and how far we can get to, but we have ambitions to be a very large company, a $100 million company. So there are also decades of potential for where we can go with our technology platform. Within our first stage to get to $25 million to $30 million, we're focused in on scale inhibition and in odor neutralization. There are some other uses in hair fixatives, some other areas, but the brunt of what we expect to get in our first revenue stage, that $25 million to $30 million is in odor neutralization scale and scale inhibition. We pursue it by selling product, our Itaconix Performance Ingredients and in the future, we'll be selling our specialty monomers and binders into the paints and coatings area. And then as part of our way of getting the use of our ingredients into consumer products, we also do fully Formulated Solutions and sell some other ingredients that are important to make sure that the brands get the performance that they need with the formulations that we offer. Fairly straightforward on that one. So where we are at a quick glance. We have 6 different ingredient classes being used in over 200 different consumer products. We have a proprietary technology platform defined right now by 18 different patent families. We have approved use for our ingredients for our core ingredients throughout the world with excellent global regulatory approvals. From the production side of it, here in the U.S., we've been producing our core ingredients since 2009 and continue to have very reliable production from here. And we are growing. We have about 30 employees, primarily here in the U.S. and some in Europe. In terms of our highlights for 2025, I'll look at 3 areas. First of all, and most important is our financials, very exciting year, record revenues, record gross profits. We improved our adjusted EBITDA while still investing in our development efforts, and we are in a very strong cash position, which Laura will get into in far more detail later. We defined 4 areas for key performance indicators, 3 around that first revenue stage of scale inhibition and odor neutralization. One was to expand our scale inhibition revenues in Europe, Middle East and Africa. We did that with 100% growth. Laura will get into more details of exactly how that came about. Then we needed to reestablish our growth path for our scale inhibition revenues in North America. We did that. We are engaged with 17 different brands on new formulations in scale inhibition. Of those, we already have 15 new products that are in production or going into production in 2026. We also think that odor neutralization is a very important opportunity for us. We think we can significantly increase the revenues that we have for our very effective odor neutralization ingredients. So we have started to land and expand accounts there. We're working right now with 5 different brands, and we'll have 5 new products out on the market, either in process or out on the market by the end of 2026. That's -- and then in terms of our new horizon, we wanted to start the process in the paints and coatings area, and we did that with launching our bioasterix.com, e-commerce site for research quantities of our esters. To hit that $25 million to $30 million, pretty short list of what we need. We have the products. We have the production capacity. Now we just need to make sure we get the revenues. We're focused in on 3 areas. First of all, we need 4 major accounts in EMEA in unit dose detergents. We have one that has -- we started and is growing. We just started 2 in the latter part of last year, and we expect those to grow. We need one more, and we have very high hopes in the next 18 months to land that last account. So we have -- we think we have everything we need to hit the major revenues in EMEA. In North America, we want 300 million dish detergent capsules and 300 million dish detergent tablets. Of that 600 million in total, we have about 50 million to 70 million, and we have a very rich customer pipeline, which I'll talk about later to show exactly the kind of efforts that we have underway, which we think we have a very high probability of being successful there. So we think we're in excellent shape to hit our goals, and let's talk about where we are in our financials. So Laura?

Thanks, John. So I'm excited to share with you the significant progress we've made towards our goals of being a large, highly profitable, capital-efficient specialty ingredient company. The progress we made in 2025, I think, really shows the exceptional economics that are inherent in our business. So as John said, we did achieve a revenue milestone of $10.5 million in sales. This was growth of 61% since 2024. The second half of 2025 also represented the third consecutive half of revenue growth in the business. This year, we achieved gross profit of $3.6 million, which was actually our highest gross profit for the company by over $1 million. So we maintained our gross profit percentage of 35% by sustaining that pricing discipline. Next, we made significant headway in our EBITDA loss. We brought that down to about $600,000. This was an important step on our initiative for 2026 to make it to EBITDA breakeven. So this was done by maintaining those gross profit margins and maintaining a consistent cost base. So lastly, I think one of the most important things is we left the period with ample net working capital and the resources that we need for our growth path. So to turn our attention to top line revenue, we saw growth in both Itaconix Performance Ingredients and Formulated Solutions. The Performance Ingredients contributed to about $7.6 million. These revenues increased by 60% from 2024. We also saw a significant recovery in this segment of the business in the last 3 halves. This was largely due to that land and expand revenue approach. So as we identify new customers and formulations, in which our polymers can provide those key claims in consumer goods, we were able to get a lot of traction. So gross profits in the Performance Ingredients typically range from 35% to 70%. This year, we had an average gross profit margin in this segment of the business of 41%. So we do anticipate to see strong growth in this business unit as we maintain similar gross profit margins in the near term. So we're going to continue to drive these revenues through the growth that we're seeing in the North American geography as well as in EMEA. So next, our Sparks Formulated Solutions grew to $2.9 million, which was growth of 65%. This growth is related to our efforts in rebuilding the North American detergent market, where we work with contract manufacturers as well as brands to provide those turnkey solutions quickly. Gross profits in this area were -- contribute about $500,000 to the overall business. They typically will range from about 10% to 20%. So we really anticipate seeing this area grow in North America as we work with more Tier 2, Tier 3 brands to bring those products to market faster. Lastly, our third business segment is Bio-Asterix. We're doing a lot of exciting development work here. We did have some small e-commerce volumes where we're seeing a lot of interest in these building blocks. Again, this is really used in those paints, coatings and latexes. But overall, this year, we did see a strong conversion of our sales pipeline into revenues, and we were still able to maintain that overall gross profit percentage of 35%. So as we turn our attention to sales by geography, sales in North America were $6.5 million. This has made up about 62% of our total sales. This is comprised of both our Performance Ingredients as well as our Sparks Formulated Solutions. So again, over the last 2 years, we saw a strong recovery as detergent market continues to rebound. With our TSI 422, this is -- provides excellent multifunctional performance and cost advantages in which we're able to utilize these features. So I think one really important thing here to bring up is that we have 2 great examples of our land and expand. Two examples here in North America, we're a contract tableter and the second one is a contract formulator blender. These 2 started off at a small-to-moderate revenue stream about 24 months ago, and they're now our top 2 customers in the region. So both of them made up about 15% to 13% of revenues each, but this is that perfect example of land and expand working. Next, we'll turn our attention to EMEA. we saw revenues in this region have very explosive growth. They more than doubled. We went from $1.9 million to $4 million this year, and they make about 38% of our total sales. Formulation work is done a little bit differently in this region. A lot of the contract manufacturers or brands have fully integrated formulating departments. So they have internal formulators that will bring brands and will bring formulations to their marketing team. So this one, we just offered technical support. So I think our sales team in this area did a great job of providing technical support. As you can see, the EU integrated contract manufacturers revenue grew significantly as well as we were able to identify another contract manufacturer brand, and we're able to make new revenues in this area. As we look to the customer makeup of our revenues, we work through 3 main channels. So one is direct sales to brands, one is sales to partners and distributors and the next one is sales through contract manufacturers. So sales through contract manufacturers make up about 76% of our overall revenues. We work here with them to bring that technical support and other ingredients as well as claims marketing together faster. So in North America, we have very high visibility into where our ingredients are going by brand. This is through our Sparks program, where we act as that collaboration partner. And when we look at by brand, who made up the volumes of sales, we don't have one brand that made up more than 15% of our total revenues. And this is a real critical initiative that we had over the year because we were really looking to achieve revenue diversity as we build that nice sustainable revenue base. So I think one of the most thrilling advancements we had this year was our progress towards profitability. So we achieved strong revenue growth. We maintained the pricing discipline, and we also maintained a nice cost base. This brought us to $3.6 million in our gross profit. This was up by $1.4 million from 2024. So that really drove our reduction of EBITDA. We did have an increase in our cost base of about $200,000. This really allowed us to have all the capabilities we need to support a large specialty ingredient business for that next phase of growth that we're moving into. So as we change focus from the income statement over to the balance sheet, we look at our cash usage. We did have some investment in capital spending, which we'll kind of cover off in a moment. But when we look at our working capital, we did consume some additional cash resources at the beginning of the year. Again, this was to mitigate some risks we saw as U.S. trade relations were heightened. So we did make a strategic decision to bring in more inventories. This did increase our number of working capital days from 83 to 94 days. But in the coming year, we're really looking to work with existing customers and new customers on getting really firm forecast, so that we can anticipate and then bring our working capital down, really reducing that number of working capital days going forward. So to kind of touch base on one of the things that makes Itaconix really interesting is our fixed asset efficiency. So we did make some additions this year. This was really to support that growing workforce. We have -- we're over 30 people now. We do have some production needs and some production improvements that we did during this year, and this is really to optimize the plant utilization out back. So we did increase the throughput. Last year, we were at 11x, which is a wonderful turn on your fixed asset ratios, but we improved that to about -- to over 19x this year. And that is pretty staggering in itself. But when you look at it as a comparative to the industry, our specialty ingredients peers, which are at 2.5x, it's really just an astonishing metric. So we were able to continue to improve on that fixed asset turn ratio with the capital efficiency that we have there. I think another key point to talk about when we talk about some of the assets that we have, we are investing in some intangible assets as well. We're working on 2 projects. One is the Bio-Asterix building blocks, where we're bringing those new Itaconix monomers to market for the paints, films and coatings. Secondly, we did work on some development work for our Performance Ingredients. So these 2 investments are really key to some of the future value of Itaconix. Next, we do have -- we did increase our patent family by 2 patent families. So we are currently at 18 different patent families. So this piece of the intangible assets that we're developing is a critical piece of the value that Itaconix is developing. So why Itaconix? I think we've made some exciting progress this year on our path to being a profitable specialty ingredients company. We've ticked quite a few boxes. We really executed on that land and expand demand generation for our revenue growth. We offer a wide range of valuable ingredients at attractive gross profit margins. We have efficient use of capital in our fixed asset turns and working capital utilization. We have a growing base of intangible assets and a broad patent portfolio. We have the cash available for our growth. We are focused on the future and to make it to breakeven. So overall, we're really well positioned to continue on that growth path. And I think this is a great time for John to give some more color on the growth path for Itaconix in the near future. John?

Excellent, Laura. Really exciting financials. Great for me even to listen to you to see how much we've achieved. In terms of our growth path, I talked about earlier, 3 things in terms of our near-term $25 million to $30 million. We need 4 EMEA accounts. We need 300 million tablets and 300 million capsules in dish detergents. And then we need to start our next path of revenue in paints and coatings. Let's go into -- I think I've already discussed EMEA that we have 1 account, started 2 and need 1 more to go. Let's talk about exactly why people are using us. So we're going to increase our market share and scale inhibition. We've -- we're getting more established in the market, more aware, but why are people using us? One is to get more unit dose detergent volumes. What are they looking for us? One is to keep up with the global brands. The 2 major leaders have very large R&D groups, very large development groups to keep pushing the performance of shine and cleaning. Brands want to be able to keep up with that, and that's one of the things that we offer is formulations, so they have comparable shine, fewer spots and less film, comparable cleaning. They also need safer ingredients, both for -- to maintain regulatory requirements and certifications. They can't persist in the environment. And they really would like to have higher plant-based content as long as you're not compromising on cost of performance. And then at the end, less is more. One is if you can get all the work done with a smaller footprint that's highly favorable in terms of cost and sustainability. And I'll add on top of that is better, faster, cheaper. What can we do to make sure that brands get through this process of reformulating new formulating products faster from start until it's out on the market. Most important is the multi-functionality that our polymers give in scale inhibition, which really manages the calcium, so it prevents spotting and filming on your glasses. No one wants spots and films on their glasses or at their dinner table. That's what we do in Europe. We give comparable performance even on sub-substrates even better. So we can match the performance. And anybody, any European contract manufacturer can come to us and we can make sure that they get comparable performance to the leading brands. Even more importantly is how we get that done. A typical European automatic dish formula will have about 7 grams of material, phosphonates, which are really supposed to be phased out, a synthetic polymer usually an acrylate polymer or copolymer and then lots of sodium citrate. We can get the same work done with less than 4 grams. Actually, even in the U.S., we can get it down to below 3 grams. So even though we're selling ours at a higher cost per kilogram, when you run the math, it ends up being equal to or lower cost, and we just saved a huge amount of material. When we start pursuing our next range of the 300 million tablets for capsules in North America, we are bringing some advances forward on the cleaning side of it to make sure that in North America, we can give private label brands and purpose-driven brands comparable performance to the absolute market leader. We have filed a patent on a new liquid chamber. Our materials are in the powder side of it, but we also look at the whole formula to make sure we deliver a winning formulation, and we have patented some materials that go into the liquid chamber. With it, we're getting -- you can see we have comparable performance across all the major soils, and we're doing it with 3.7 less grams per dose. So that's across the market is about 30 billion doses in Europe and North America. So per billion doses, that's 3.7 kilotons of savings to get the same performance. That's about -- that's almost 200 truckloads a year of chemicals that aren't being used. We talk about it as being the safest, most sustainable chemical is the one that isn't used, and that's what we can do here. It even gets better when we go to tablets. We have an 8-gram, a patented 8-gram tablet that I have here that we actually introduced at the American Cleaning Institute Innovation Showcase in late January down in Florida, 8 grams. Not only are we now up to about 7 -- almost 8 grams in terms of more compact than the amount of material that we're saving, we're maintaining the performance -- cleaning performance of it. And this one, we actually did it without using a fossil-based surfactant. This uses a plant-based surfactant. So we've actually increased the plant-based content for it. This is very exciting for us. We are -- we'll be going into small volume commercial production here with a tableting machine here, while we work to bring -- to scale this up with 2 different contract manufacturers, we're looking at bringing high-speed presses in that can bring this to market. We think this is a major opportunity that's going to take well over 18 months to 24 months to fully realize, but we think this is a big winner. So I think that gives you a sense of when we look at those 300 million doses both in dish capsules and in tablets how much progress we're making there. Let's turn to our Bio-Asterix area. Important step we took is to take our e-commerce site where we now have research quantities available for a range of Itaconix monomers. It was launched in July 2025. And we have already achieved our goals. We don't expect this to be a big revenue generator. It's there to create awareness, and we are creating awareness, almost 2,000 unique visitors, almost 3,000 sessions and over 4,000 pages viewed already in 2025. We think that's been -- met our objectives there. More importantly is our progress of bringing our own paint forward. We actually have a new class of paints distinct from the acrylics. People think of you go to the store and you buy acrylic paint to put on your wall. There is a fundamentally new class of paints that we're going to focus on product safety, comparable performance and high plant-based content based on our materials. We have had prototypes and field testing in place since 2024. We continue to work on it. We filed a trademark around this new class of paint in 2025. And then just a couple of months ago, we filed a new formulation patent to protect -- make sure we protect the patent. What you can expect to have here is a development partner in the next 6 months where we start advancing forward with our artistic paint. We are very excited about the step we're taking towards our next revenue horizon. So to look for the outlook for 2026, key performance indicators, increased unit dose market share. I think I've talked about that about scale inhibition in EMEA and North America, odor neutralization in North America. And then an important one, we are continually trying to see how fast we can go from when a customer calls us until we can get revenues generated out of us. Our Formulated Solutions has allowed us to bring that from like 18 months down to about 9 months in terms of how fast, and we continue to refine any time that we can take out of it, and we have a new marketing effort in Formulated Solutions that we expect to bring forward in the coming months to even shorten the period and make us even that much more attractive for brands to work with us. Better, faster, cheaper, working with Itaconix to get a next-generation winning detergent formulations out. That's how we're going to grow in North America. We are advancing the Bio-Asterix consumer product that we talked about. We will have positive adjusted EBITDA. And as Laura talked about, reduce our working capital to maintain our cash position. In terms of specific outlook for our management expectations of both around revenues, adjusted EBITDA, gross profit margins and the resources, our revenues will continue to grow. Right now, we're saying within -- in line with management expectations where the market consensus is $13.3 million and adjusted EBITDA in line with management expectations, which market consensus is about $300,000 in positive EBITDA and cash and equivalents, at least $3.2 million in terms of what the current consensus is. So we think we're in very good shape to meet all of our expectations for 2026. We're in a great position. It takes a long time to develop a fundamentally new specialty ingredient company. We think technology-based specialty ingredient companies are highly attractive. We have ingredients that are enabling new markets and capabilities for brands to have winning products. We're doing it with low capital intensity with a continuous production process that we can use with what we have to get to $30 million. We have high-quality reoccurring revenues, just keep shipping out every month, every month to fulfill the demand for detergents. Excellent proprietary technology platform, excellent growth path for our first stage of revenues to get to $25 million to $30 million in 5 years' time frame. And we've initiated that start for that next level of growth that we have. It's a very exciting time. We're very pleased with what we've gotten to, and we look forward to reporting on our progress later on in the year for how well 2026 will go. I can tell you we're off to an excellent start.

That's great. John, Laura, thank you very much indeed for your presentation. [Operator Instructions] I'd like to remind you recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A will be available via your Investor Meet Company dashboard. John, Laura, as usual, you had a number of questions submitted through today's presentation and a number submitted ahead of today's presentation. If I may just hand back to you, yes, to take us through the Q&A, that would be great. Thank you.

Thanks, Mark. Thank you for all the pre-submitted questions. John and I have kind of reviewed them, and we'd like to make sure that we answer all your guys' questions so that you have the information you need about Itaconix. So the first group of questions that we got were regarding our patents. Please can you tell us about the patents that have been granted during the past 12 months? What are the potential applications?

So we -- our patent granting actually happens in a series. We usually get it in the U.S. and then it takes a number of years for us to get it in various jurisdictions. So we did get some additional jurisdictions on some existing patents outside of North America and Europe, I think in Asia on it. In terms of fundamentally new patent potential applications areas, not that, but we did -- as I said in my presentation, we did put a patent in place around a formulation, a specific formulation that we think has high value in the automatic dish detergent market of what we were able to put into the liquid chamber on it. And we think that will be highly valuable to us as we work with a particular contract manufacturer to pursue some private label dish detergent counts in North America.

Another question kind of in the same avenue was what does the company -- why doesn't the company provide more regular RNS news? For example, when patents are awarded, company secures new trading partners like Biesterfeld, it felt like more regular RNSs might help increase the share price.

We are using RNSs. I think the intent of them is to make sure that you're informing the market about any change in upgrades in financial expectations. So I think we are meeting that. I think we -- you can expect that we have regular trading updates. We do at least one in July, one in January. We then do our interims in September, our full financial results in late March. And then it gets a little tricky, in turn we would have liked to have done one in later on in -- if you get into the last quarter, but sometimes it's a little tricky to see exactly how the year is going to turn out based on some shipments. So we do want to keep the market informed about exactly where we are financially on it with preferably one per quarter, at least one communication per quarter. In terms of new initiative, it really has to add some revenues to it. We have not -- we have -- for example, around trading partners, we have 12 different distributors that we work with. They generate less than 10% of -- I think 10% to 12%, 13% of our revenues. It's not a major -- it's not a core driver for it. They're there. They help create awareness for our ingredients. But in terms of a major driver that's going to change our financial outlook, most of that is done directly.

Great. We have another group of questions about collaborations. Please, can you tell us about the nature of your relationship with Biesterfeld Group and what benefit is it expected to bring?

As I said, we have about 12 different distributors that we work with in a number of areas, we use them, Brenntag, Biesterfeld, we do some work with. There are a number of others. They're very good at creating awareness and helping go after some of the small accounts. We're -- it's not a -- they're good. It's not the major -- our major commercial focus. Most of it is we go out and we find the big accounts and we bring them in directly. So in terms of looking at our -- are we going to hit our $25 million to $30 million target, I don't see this as a -- it's nice to create awareness, but we are driving that through our direct efforts and within our direct scope.

So a similar question on collaborations, Itaconix and Brenntag progress. Are there any other collaborations that we should be aware of?

Bonals, I think there was not -- in terms of commercial outlook, there's not been any particular announcement to have on it. We are advancing it. We do have a development scale tableting machine here that we're using to work with customers on. Our goal is to have a high-speed one that is not imminent, but we have 2 opportunities we're working on it. So there's not been a significant need to update based on where our revenue expectations are. There's a question about the 8-gram one that our 8-gram -- this is excellent. We did announce it through our LinkedIn. It is not from an RNS standpoint in terms of changing our revenue outlook, not there yet on it. But we do -- when we do get into a high-speed press in some major accounts, that is something we would.

So I think this is a great time to move down to 8-gram pod. So the 8-gram dishwashing pod sounds like an amazing breakthrough. What are the implications for the business? I feel like you kind of touched on that.

Really, I mean, it is very difficult to get to an 8-gram tablet with this kind of performance without our ingredients. So we are continuing to press and bring into the market formulations with excellent performance, excellent cost that are unique to the capabilities of our ingredients just to create more pressure on brands to adopt our technology on it.

So similar about the 8-gram pod, new ingredients towards progress and launch, development of this 8-gram dishwashing pod with new ingredients such as Itaconix CTX 205. Is there a reason why Itaconix didn't advertise on this in an RNS to shareholders? And what was the feedback or interest generated from the ACI Innovation Showcase?

So the Itaconix CTX 205 is not a generally available ingredient. We have a number of ingredients, both CTX 205 and some of the products that we sell within our Formulated Solutions. One, they are only available to customers if they are using our scale inhibitor. We will not sell any of the formulated Solutions ingredients nor will we sell CTX 205 unless you're using our scale inhibitor. So that is why it's not -- we have not announced it. It's only if someone is using our scale inhibitor that we will bring it forward. As the same thing is with the Formulated Solutions and the other high value-added ingredients, only -- if and only if you're buying it. So that's why it is not generally available. It's used for only customers within a specific scope. The overall feedback though on this is we get lots of inquiries. We're going to be -- it helps us push forward all of our efforts to bring forward a more compact, high-performing automatic dish detergent.

So to kind of wrap up in this area, the Sparks collaboration with Bonals, where are we on this? You did state at the time that the Sparks launch that we would keep you informed. Regular updates on this progress would be appreciated.

On the...

Sparks collaboration.

So we did -- we are advancing forward on it. I think the key part is that we wanted to have a specific product to bring to the market in tablet form. It's taken us quite a while to develop this 8-gram one. We still have some refinement. We did announce it. There's still some refinement to do this to make this commercial and our tableting efforts are going to be centered around this format.

Great. So to move kind of to a different area on shipments. We've seen a couple of shipments on Granusurf, about 2 metric tons that were received by Itaconix. Can you please advise does this make up of the -- this part of the makeup of the 8-gram tablets?

We do not use fossil-based surfactants in this. It's one of the key parts of the value of our scale inhibitor is that you don't need quite as good a surfactant because surfactant contributes to shine also. We're so good at shine performance that we can use not -- we don't need as high performing or surfactant. So that's allowed us to move to a broad range of plant-based surfactants and get away from the fossil-based ones, really attract a lot of customers to it. There are a number of classes of plant-based surfactants. One of them is produced by Holiferm. We do work with other companies. We did to make sure that we have supplies available as we go forward. We do selectively bring in various surfactants to make sure that they are available. This one happened to show up because it was brought in from Europe.

Another question about shipments was on the dibutyl itaconate from Godavari. Approximately 2 metric tons have been received by Itaconix. Can you please advise?

We do not -- the core monomers used to make our latex, we are having produced elsewhere, and we did buy the dibutyl itaconate. There are a number of sources from it. But you are correct that we did import those esters and have the latex binder produced for us here in North America.

Last question on shipments. We've seen 6 shipments of 20 metric tons of finished ingredients being exported to Antwerp, Belgium in the second half of the year. Can you advise what this is? And how much storage do you have in Europe? So we do have a secondary warehouse where we use to supply our European customers, our EMEA customers out of. We do ship full containers over to Europe. We do have a warehouse that has -- that we have had a long-standing arrangement with so that we can quickly supply those EU customers. We probably hold about 3 months' worth of our European revenues in that area so that we can make sure that we have material there when we need it for them.

So our shipments are -- we ship a lot more than -- we did a lot more than 6 container loads of product in the second half of last year.

I missed a few though. So going down to talking a little bit more about inventories on our feedstock. So feedstock supply chain have a secondary -- is there a secondary supplier agreement for an alternative global location such as India, South America, other than China for these mainstream chemical inputs? So for our itaconic acid, unfortunately, the only industrial scale manufacturing of that is currently in China. I know other geographies are probably working on industrial size manufacturing of that. Historically, in the company's lifespan, the U.S. actually was able to -- was making itaconic acid during the citric acid tariff era. Those companies stopped making itaconic acid. So there is ability to make itaconic acid in different geographies. But currently, China is the only industrial manufacturer of itaconic acid.

To be clear, there are multiple producers of itaconic acid in China. We noticed that people pop up as in India and South America, that is -- they are not actually producing it. They're just redistributing what's being produced in China. We work with multiple suppliers in China. There is a massive amount of capacity. It's very stable, very reliable supply. We have had no issues with it, and we will be continuing to use the current sources out of China that's been very successful for us.

Next, we have a question on production capacity. What is the current situation with regards to production capacity in stratum and the need for an additional European production facility?

I think as I've stated, we have -- we can get to $30 million in revenues with what we have here. We continue to make improvements of it. There's no specific need for an additional European production facility. That being said, developing a secondary site takes many years. We have initiated some work to start contemplating that, but it's not within a horizon right now nor is there any cash need for it at this time.

So moving on to Bio-Asterix. We have had some pre-submitted questions and then also some questions submitted during our presentation. So the pre-submitted question was Bio-Asterix progress on new ingredients to the profile. Has it been launched sales in Europe yet on e-commerce website? What is the progress seeking for a large-scale partnership to bring these products to market?

We currently only distribute them in North America because they are hazardous materials for shipping. We would need to establish a separate inventory and e-commerce supply chain in Europe. We're not prepared to do that yet. I think for the awareness that we're trying to get, I think as we're doing it right now is meeting all the objectives that we have. In terms of progressing to a large-scale partner, we are first going to advance the class of paint that we talked about, and we will have a partner in that by the end of 2026.

So during the presentation, Alex A asked, is Bio-Asterix a proprietary business still part of the overall company? Or is this a private investors holding shares on the AIM market?

We're one group. We have a parent corporation, the PLC. We have a U.K. Limited that's really not particularly active, and we have Itaconix Corporation here in the U.S. All of our activities are within those legal entities. So everybody has every -- at the PLC level, you have owners, the shareholders are participating in everything.

James T asked also about Bio-Asterix. What are the expectations for Bio-Asterix's gross profit margins? Will they be in line with the current group margins?

That's -- I'd say it's a little early. I mean, I think as a building block, we expect it to be attractive margins, whether it's exactly the 35% to 40%, that's some number of years out to know exactly that. It will be an attractive -- we think it will be an attractive area, but I really can't comment exactly on what the gross profit margins. A lot of it has to do with how well we are able to use those building blocks to create high value for brands out in the marketplace. If we can draw that connection so that they have to use our patents and our ingredients to get those winning claims, then we'll have better margins. We are not interested in a commodity level product on it, and that's what we're working towards.

So to talk about a couple of other innovations that we've had in the past. So biodegradable packaging, a new collaboration in biodegradable packaging as stated in an RNS from March 2020. Itaconix is pleased to announce that we have signed a joint development agreement with a leading innovator is from the RNS we released. So the question is, where is this now?

We -- that was an agreement, a company we've worked with for many years about bringing forward an innovative detergent format. We continue to have that as an opportunity relative to what we think we can get in the unit dose side with tablets and capsules. We think we have better and more immediate opportunities there, but we still are in active discussions with that collaborator on it. Please note that, that was done in 2020 right at the beginning of COVID. So both we went through and our partner went through a number of changes in the marketplace. We are still actively engaged with them and still see some long-term opportunities. But on the unit dose side, we're going to focus on capsules and tablets.

So next question is about our superabsorbents. What is the possibility of there ever being an SAP product available even in a niche market?

We have the technology for a superabsorbent. We have comparable performance relative to a polyacrylic. It's going to be more expensive, but it will be plant-based. There are other competitors and other -- not using our chemistries, but other routes of people looking at it. I'd say we have it. It'd probably be a sizable investment on the capital equipment side to do it. So there will be niche applications for it. But relative to what we see for the opportunities in the paints and coatings side of it and making sure we use our development expenses and prioritize them, we continue to keep an eye on it. But for right now, paints and coatings is a priority in terms of our next revenue horizon.

Great. Next question is about agriculture. What happened to the agricultural water polymer that has been mentioned?

We have many different applications. It's a crop micronutrient, mineral dispersants, lots of different areas. I mean one of the great things about our chemistry is all the areas. We need to focus and get to be a $25 million to $30 million company with what we have and show what a great technology-based specialty ingredient company we are. And we have made choices of where to focus, where we think we have the best chances to get there. There are many opportunities. We don't want to spend our development efforts going after them at this time. And we think we have better advantages of where we've picked to focus.

Great. So we've got a couple of questions about the Middle East. So currently, there is a very dangerous situation in the Middle East, and there is much uncertainty surrounding the impact that this will have on the world's economy. Can you give us some sort of indication how Itaconix is dealing with this in the short to medium term? So a couple of things that we've done. We worked with our suppliers as we do, bring in raw materials on a global scale and talk to them about making sure our supply routes are good. There will be some kind of additional costs if the war continues for a long time. As of right now, they don't anticipate that until we see that at a later date. It probably would not be more than what we saw during the COVID pandemic for shipping rates they indicated. But because we don't use the Strait of Hormuz, but we do use the Suez Canal when we bring raw materials over, so that might require some additional shipping time, maybe an additional 2 weeks or so. So we're working with our supply partners to make sure that we have our supply chain working well. As it relates to the shipments to Europe, we are not really currently seeing any disruption in this area.

Yes. So Laura really referred to is really only the shipping -- the only exposure we have right now is to shipping. Just to be clear, our supply chain is plant-based. That was designed into our company from day one is to not be connected to that spiderweb of fossil fuels. Many parts of the specialty chemical industry are tied to that. So every time there's a disruption and oil shock, it ripples out into broad ranges of the specialty chemical industry. That is happening right now with acrylic acid polymers. The suppliers are going force majeure. They're putting 20% to 30% price increases in. Remember, we have a very specialized plant-based supply chain that really isn't affected by that, except for the shipping side of it. So if anything, we may get hit a little bit on the shipping side of it. More likely, we haven't seen it yet, but we expect to see it in the next couple of weeks. If there's anybody that's short of supply on their acrylic acid polymers, we would expect that we get, we've had that in the past, like I think it was about 10 years ago, acrylic polymers went force majeure, and we got a nice little pickup out of it. So overall, remember, we've designed our business to not be exposed to these kind of oil shocks.

I think this also answered Gareth's question of, are there any raw material sources at risk from this disruption in the war in the Middle East. So right now, we're not seeing anything, maybe some shipping in the future. So thank you for the questions. Now we had a few questions about profitability. We'll try to go through those. What is the growth from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026 of Itaconix profitability, adjusted client sales revenue pipeline and our larger market brands switching to Itaconix ingredients?

We're growing. We have tremendous growth. We are working primarily with Tier 2 and Tier 3 players. How you deal with the global brands is a little bit different. I think there was another question about that. We do engage with the 2 market leaders in dish detergents. They know us very well. We know them very well. They're testing our product. It's just a very long process to get there. It would be very attractive to have. But for right now, to hit that $25 million to $30 million, we don't need them. And it would be nice if they come along. The more success we have in the marketplace, the more likely are to get there. But for right now, we don't -- it's not -- we can meet all of our expectations without them.

Another question was what explicit actions or plans are management taking to significantly increase the revenue streams? Currently, the poor share price reflects poor revenues with no significant growth in the horizon.

I agree on the poor share price. We're disappointed on that one. I think the actions that we can take is just build a really good business. We are building a good business. We have good revenue growth. We have good profitability. We have great capital efficiency. So we are going to have a -- we will build a company that has great EBITDA margins that generates a lot of cash. And particularly when you look on to the balance sheet side, we'll have an excellent return on assets employed when we get there. And I think we are -- the specific actions we've taken is we're narrowing our focus to make sure we succeed in the most attractive areas and don't spend extra money elsewhere.

Chris also asked about some revenue growth. How much of the 2025 61% revenue growth is repeatable? How much was structural or underlying repeat business, say, the initial launch of volumes or customer restocking that may not be repeatable and this was just a spike?

These are all designed into formulations that these are all reoccurring revenues where we've been formulated in. And actually, as we talk about on the land and expand, as we land them, usually, we get a good at least 2, if not 3 or 4 years of continued expansion of growth on it. So this is just continuing to add. Remember, I mean, I understand that 2 years ago, we found one customer that just was not willing to pay us what we thought it was worth. So we exited that one. That does not mean that the underlying business model is any different in terms of building a broad range of reoccurring revenues and a diverse customer base.

The next question is during which half does the company expect to make a profit, H2 2026 or H2 2027? We do anticipate that as our revenues grow, we will probably see EBITDA profitability for the whole half in H2 2026.

On adjusted EBITDA side of it, absolutely.

So that is one of our initiatives and a very positive goal that we're working towards this year. Next question was given current factory outputs, sales pipeline and anticipated 2026 cost structure, when can you expect either cash flow or EBITDA positive breakeven?

We'll be -- we're projecting positive adjusted EBITDA for 2026.

Next question is after repeated and always very positive Q&A, can or will the company now finally give an extremely patient and supportive very long-term investor a positive on breakeven and profitability will be achieved?

We expect to be positive adjusted EBITDA this year.

Yes. We've had a couple of questions on Tier 1s that have been released this year regarding Octopus. Do you have any insight on what their future plans are regarding Itaconix Holdings?

We have seen some minor sales there. We -- our understanding is part of needs within their portfolio on it, and there's no fundamental change that we know of in terms of their view of Itaconix or our prospects.

Lastly, there's a couple of questions on a takeover. Have any companies approached Itaconix regarding a potential takeover during the past 12 months?

No.

Okay. I think we've kind of covered the whole range of questions.

We have the applications -- the potential application for Itaconix inside or outside vehicles is a big financial opportunity. Actually, our odor neutralizers, we have at least 2 customers that I know of that make a very effective line of interior automotive cleaners. When you think of the smoke and other smells inside of automotive interiors, our odor neutralizers are very effective for taking those out. In terms of actually pursuing any opportunity with an automotive company, no, we do not have any plans. I'm not sure that it really isn't even necessarily an application that we have for that. If we did, it'd be a very long and expensive development effort that we would not undertake at this time. In terms of other ones, congratulations...

You already did that one.

Any sources? Can you quantify the bridge? We did that. Is the revenue growth, we did that. We did revenue growth. Is peak working capital investment? I think we talked about less -- I mean, I think we're going to align up -- we're going to align our working capital ratios up after I think Laura did an excellent job of handling going through the tariff one on it. As it turned out, it ended up not being a big deal on it. I think our actual cost of itaconic acid is not that much different now than it was a year ago on it. Increased customer concentration and revenues. I don't -- I think we've diversified our revenues. I think you'll see -- I mean, as the ones that we've expanded grow up and -- land and expand, I think you're just seeing a little bit of different timing of the land and expand cycle as we land more, I think you could look a couple of years out and see a very robust diversity of revenues of it. So there are a little bit -- customers are on different cycles. I think I talked about that in Europe. One was well into the -- landed a couple -- a few years ago and expanding. Two, we just landed last year. So I think it's more of where we are in cycle on those and doesn't necessarily a risk to our base. And then we have from Wendy, approximately what level of revenue or current products is required to achieve positive cash flow? I know that in the $25 million to $30 million range, we will be going from a positive adjusted EBITDA, and then we'll be progressing through on our working capital needs and any additional capital spending needs on it. I can say that it's all within the scope of the cash resources we have now. And that when we get up into the $25 million to $30 million range, we'd be generating nice cash on it. I think that fairly addresses it. I think we answered every question out there. If anybody else has any more questions, happy to answer them.

John, you've done a great job. Thank you, Laura, as well for taking all those questions. And thank you to everybody for your engagement this afternoon. John and Laura, I know investor feedback is important to you. I will shortly redirect everybody on the call to, I guess, give you their thoughts and expectations. But John, if it's possible, could I just ask you for a couple of closing comments, and then I'll redirect investors to give you their feedback.

Very simple. We had a great year in 2025. We're going to have a good year in 2026, and we're going to have a better year in 2027. And you're going to see that ignition traction takeoff progress for the company. We appreciate everyone's patience that it took a few more years to get there, but we're very excited to be where we are.

That's great. John and Laura, thank you once again for updating investors. I please ask investors not to close this session as we'll now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order the company can better understand your views and expectations. On behalf of the management team of Itaconix, we'd like to thank you for your time this afternoon for joining us, and good afternoon to you all.

Thank you.