Syensqo SA/NV (SYENS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Syensqo Second Quarter 2026 Results Analyst Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Sherief Bakr, Chief Communications Officer and Head of Investor Relations at Syensqo. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Syensqo's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. I'm Sherief Bakr, Chief Communications Officer and Head of Investor Relations. And I'm pleased to be joined today in Brussels by our CEO, Mike Radossich; and our CFO, Christopher Davis. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded and will be accessible for replay on the Investor Relations section of our website later today at syensqo.com/investors. I would also like to remind you that during this call, we'll be making forward-looking statements regarding our future business and financial performance that are subject to risks and uncertainties. The slides related to this presentation, along with today's press release are also available to download from our website. Turning to today's agenda. Mike will begin with an overview of the quarter. Chris will then go into more details on our financials before turning the call back to Mike, who will discuss our updated outlook for the balance of the year. We'll then be happy to take your questions. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Mike.

Thank you, Sherief, and good morning and good afternoon to everyone joining us today. During our last earnings call, I spoke about our focus on moving quickly from diagnosis to action in order to accelerate Syensqo's value creation. Since then, I've been very encouraged by the progress we have made and the pace at which we are translating our strategic and operational priorities into tangible actions that are strengthening both our near-term performance and our longer-term growth trajectory. The sense of urgency across the organization to close the gap between our potential and our performance is beginning to show in our results. We returned to year-over-year growth in the second quarter, an important milestone that reflects the momentum we are building. Looking ahead, we expect this positive momentum to continue through the second half of the year as reflected in our updated outlook. Turning to the highlights of the quarter on Slide 5. In the second quarter, we delivered 5% year-over-year growth in both volumes and net sales despite a dynamic operating environment. This performance was driven primarily by strong volume growth in our core Materials segment with Performance & Care also contributing to growth. Composite Materials delivered an outstanding quarter with sales increasing 18% year-over-year. In Specialty Polymers, the improved momentum we have seen since the beginning of the year continued, resulting in a return to year-over-year growth. The improved performance in Specialty Polymers was broad-based, led by strong growth in semiconductors, driven by improving end market demand and continued share gains with key customers. We also delivered strong volume growth in automotive, particularly in battery-related applications as well as in construction and broader industrial markets. Within Performance & Care, healthy volume growth continued in our Mining business with Technology Solutions as well as in our industrial applications and Home and Personal Care within Novecare. These gains more than offset weaker demand in agro following an exceptionally strong second quarter last year as well as lower volumes in Coatings, reflecting softer demand in North America. Turning to profitability. We expanded our gross margin by 100 basis points to 34%, driven by top-line growth, the strength of our differentiated value proposition and our continued focus on improving gross margin performance. Underlying EBITDA of EUR 311 million exceeded our expectations despite temporary cost headwinds. This reflects the improving momentum we are seeing across the business, which we expect to continue into the second half of the year. From a strategic perspective, the most significant update since last quarter's call was the launch of the strategic review of Performance & Care, which we announced towards the end of May. If you recall my first earnings call in February, I spoke about setting a clear strategic direction for Syensqo with a singular focus on accelerating value creation. Since then, together with the Board, we have undertaken a comprehensive strategic assessment of the company's long-term direction defining where we will focus, where we will prioritize our investments and how we will optimize our portfolio to deliver sustained innovation leadership, above-market growth and superior financial performance. The outcome of that assessment is a clear strategic intention to position Syensqo as a pure-play specialty materials and advanced technologies company with greater exposure to structurally attractive end markets, including aerospace and defense, electronics, health care, energy and advanced mobility. Since announcing the strategic review, we have been moving with urgency, including the appointment of advisers to evaluate a full range of strategic options with a clear focus on maximizing long-term value for all stakeholders, and we will continue to provide updates on our progress as appropriate. Slide 6 provides a high-level overview of Syensqo's portfolio across our 3 business segments. As you can see, Materials is our largest and highest margin segment, generating more than 70% of our underlying EBITDA. Between Specialty Polymers and Composite Materials, we believe we have 2 of the most distinctive and attractive businesses in the industry. Their leadership positions are built on differentiated innovation, deep application expertise, strong customer partnerships and exposure to highly attractive end markets. Starting on the left, since the beginning of the year, one of my top priorities has been to improve the performance of Specialty Polymers, our largest and highest margin business within materials. This is where we identified the greatest gap between the business' potential and its performance, making it our single largest organic opportunity to create value. In addition to strengthening the leadership team, we have undertaken a comprehensive diagnostic supported by external experts to identify the actions needed to translate the business' outstanding fundamentals and strong competitive advantages into faster growth, sustained pricing leadership and strong margin delivery. I am encouraged by the progress we have made. While returning to year-over-year growth in the second quarter was an important milestone, we still see significant additional opportunity to accelerate our growth trajectory, improve how we bring innovation to market, win new business and further strengthen our customer partnerships. Importantly, we have substantial available capacity across the business, enabling us to drive meaningful top line growth without significant incremental capital investment. Over time, this should translate into stronger cash flow generation and higher returns. Turning to Composite Materials. This is our fastest-growing business driven by technology leadership, strong underlying demand across both commercial aerospace and defense applications and the breadth of our customer relationships and platform exposure. As a reminder, aerospace is our largest end market and a key growth platform for Syensqo, representing more than 20% of group net sales and approximately 35% of materials net sales. As Rodrigo Elizondo, President of Composite Materials, highlighted on our last earnings call, the majority of our business is secured through long-term contracts and supported by extensive qualification databases that are integral to the certification of many of the world's most advanced aircraft programs. To put this in perspective, the breadth of our technologies and product portfolio gives us presence on virtually every major aerospace platform from legacy aircraft to the latest next-generation programs. As a trusted advanced materials partner to OEMs and suppliers, we provide the differentiated materials and application expertise that support today's production platforms while enabling the next generation of aerospace programs that will ramp over the coming decade. We also continue to strengthen our position in the defense and space markets, providing an additional avenue for growth while further diversifying our portfolio. At the recent Farnborough International Airshow, I had the opportunity to meet with customers and partners from across the aerospace and defense industry. Whether discussing advanced air mobility, next-generation commercial aircraft or future defense programs, the message was consistent. Our advanced materials are increasingly critical to enabling their innovation and growth. These discussions also reinforce the importance of our collaborative approach, working alongside customers and our partners across the value chain to shape the future of the industry. This is also evident through our commercial successes. For example, our new multiyear agreement with Airbus, covering our range of composite and adhesives across commercial, defense and helicopter programs. Turning to performance in Care. As a reminder, we are a global leader in surface chemistry solutions and specialty mining reagents, serving the consumer care, agro coatings and mining end markets. Within the segment, Novecare is a global leader in formulation technologies with a strong track record of innovation and successfully scaling differentiated solutions into high-value market niches. Technology Solutions is a leading provider of specialty mining reagents and technical service that enable the efficient extraction of critical metals such as copper. Our deep application expertise and on-site technical support creates strong customer partnerships and help drive long-term growth. These are terrific businesses, which I led for a number of years, which have a different financial profile, length of innovation cycles, investment requirements and growth levers to materials. Finally, on other solutions or Aroma, where I previously mentioned that we would aim to have an update around the middle of the year, we are continuing to make progress and are in active discussions with a number of interested parties. Before turning the call over to Chris, I wanted to briefly go through the pillars I set out in February, transparency, execution excellence, innovation leadership and disciplined capital deployment and comment on the progress we are making. From a transparency perspective, we remain committed to being open about what is working, what is not and the actions we are taking to improve performance. That has included strengthening our leadership team and proactively launching the strategic review of our Performance & Care business. The same philosophy guides how I lead internally. We have increased the frequency and quality of dialogue across the organization to better understand where we can move faster, serve our customers more effectively and accelerate growth. Turning to commercial execution. We are operating at a very different pace than we were at the start of the year with a sharper focus on creating new growth opportunities while expanding our share of wallet with existing customers. Within Specialty Polymers, I'm encouraged by the commercial progress we have made, particularly in the share gains in ultrapure water piping for semiconductor manufacturing, where demand remains strong and in under-the-hood applications in automotive, where our high-performance specialty polymers continue to replace metal. We also secured a long-term extension of our partnership with Sealed Air to develop high-performance, high-barrier food packaging solutions. In Composite Materials, I referenced our new multiyear agreement with Airbus. This builds on the long-term agreement we announced earlier this year with Boeing and further reinforces our position as a trusted partner to the world's leading aerospace manufacturers. We look forward to supporting their growth for many years to come. Turning to innovation, our most important competitive advantage and a key driver of sustainable growth. Alongside the more structural objectives we have established to increase our vitality index and shorten the time from innovation to commercialization, we continue to bring differentiated solutions to the market across both Materials and Performance & Care. Within Specialty Polymers, we are scaling the commercialization of our next-generation Diofan Super B high-performance polymer for pharmaceutical packaging. It delivers superior protection against oxygen and moisture while enabling smaller, more sustainable packaging formats. In Performance & Care, we recently launched a new soil release polymer for liquid laundry detergents that combines outstanding cleaning performance with energy savings by enabling effective washing in shorter and colder cycles. Finally, turning to capital allocation. Our priority remains clear, doing more with less by maximizing returns from our existing asset base before committing capital to new capacity. Where compelling organic growth opportunities exist, we will continue to evaluate them with discipline against all other capital allocation alternatives. A good example is the expansion of our Havre de Grace facility in Maryland, which will strengthen our U.S. manufacturing footprint to support growing customer demand in the aerospace market while delivering attractive returns. With that, I'll turn the call over to Chris, and I'll return later to discuss our outlook for the balance of the year.

Thank you, Mike. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone on the call. The second quarter of 2026 showed selective areas of strength, while the broader industrial recovery remains uneven. Demand was particularly encouraging in semiconductors, batteries, automotive and composite materials, even though dynamics differ by end market and position in the value chain. Encouragingly, we are seeing early signs of improving momentum in several of these markets that give us confidence in the underlying direction of the business. Turning to Slide 9, reflecting the second quarter financial results. As Mike mentioned, the second quarter marked a clear improvement in our underlying performance as we returned to organic sales growth. Net sales for the quarter was EUR 1.6 billion on the back of broad-based volume gains across our portfolio. Sequentially, sales have increased 11%, supported by higher volumes and improved mix in both Specialty Polymers and Composite Materials. I will walk through the key drivers of performance across our business segments in a later slide. As we have previously mentioned, we remain committed to defending our gross margins as this reflects how we manage both our sales and cost of goods sold. Our pricing discipline remains central to how we manage the business. Combined with disciplined cost management, it continues to support the resilience in our gross margins. Gross profit increased to EUR 528 million for the quarter, resulting in a gross margin of 34%, a sequential improvement of 230 basis points, driven by stronger volumes in Specialty Polymers and Technology Solutions. EBITDA of EUR 311 million for the quarter increased 24% sequentially, reflecting stronger performance improvement across all businesses, most notably Specialty Polymers, which saw stronger volumes in semiconductor and automotive applications. EBITDA was lower largely due to year-over-year increased variable compensation costs, along with incremental costs in Specialty Polymers to support commercial execution and operational improvement, which are not expected to be incurred beyond 2026. Excluding the above target element of variable compensation expenses, our underlying operating performance continued to improve, and our EBITDA margin would have been approximately 200 basis points higher than the 20% we reported this quarter. Operating cash flow was EUR 131 million in the quarter, a EUR 111 million increase compared to the prior year, bringing the year-to-date operating cash flow to EUR 213 million. The improvement reflects our continued discipline in working capital management, along with no separation costs compared to the prior comparable period of 2025. For 2026, we continue to expect operating cash flow of approximately EUR 700 million, driven by the nonrepeat in subsequent quarters of the annual variable compensation cash outflow in the second quarter and absence of separation costs. Turning to operating performance by segment on Slide 10 and starting with Materials. Compared to the prior year, organic sales increased 7%, driven by volume growth in Composite Materials and a return to growth in Specialty Polymers. Specialty Polymers delivered a 2% year-on-year organic sales growth. The improvement was driven by broad-based volume gains across the automotive, industrial and building applications, while electronics also returned to year-on-year volume growth as the semiconductor market showed early signs of recovery. This growth was partially offset by lower volumes in the health care and food and packaging end markets. In automotive, Tecnoflon, one of our high-performance heat-resistant sealing solutions for under-the-hood applications delivered strong growth in batteries, momentum remains strong, driven by robust demand for separator coatings and NMC binders across Asia as well as new program wins. Higher volumes in industrial and building were driven by robust demand for our high-performance polymer solutions used in advanced piping systems. Composite Materials delivered its strongest quarter on record since the inception of Syensqo with organic sales increasing 18% year-on-year. Growth was driven by Civil Aerospace, supported by the Boeing recovery and higher build rates across key commercial aircraft programs. Sales growth in space and defense reflects the continued execution of our disciplined commercial strategy. The combination of Specialty Polymers returning to growth and another record performance in Composite Materials resulted in our Materials segment delivering an underlying EBITDA of EUR 266 million. This is aligned with the prior year despite the previously mentioned higher variable remuneration and increased costs to drive growth and operational efficiencies. This translated into an EBITDA margin of 28%. Turning to Performance & Care. Organic sales were stable year-on-year as continued strength in mining within Technology Solutions offset lower volumes in Novecare. Within Novecare, growth in Home and Personal Care and in industrial applications was offset by softer demand in agro, reflecting lower volumes from a key customer and continued product rationalization in Latin America. Building remained challenging, although market conditions showed early signs of stabilization. Technology Solutions continued to benefit from strong mining activity with healthy reagent demand supported by favorable copper pricing. The net result is that Performance & Care delivered EBITDA of EUR 92 million in the quarter, down 7% year-on-year, but up 12% sequentially and delivered an EBITDA margin of 18%. Within the Other Solutions segment, EBITDA was EUR 8 million for the quarter with an EBITDA margin of 11%. Importantly, at a Syensqo Group level, sales and EBITDA increased 11% and 24%, respectively, compared to the first quarter of 2026, driven by improved performance across all business units. The net effect of what I've just described is reflected on Slide 11. Moving to EBITDA for the quarter. Underlying EBITDA of EUR 311 million declined by 6% year-on-year, driven by lower underlying EBITDA in Specialty Polymers and Novecare, partially offset by higher EBITDA in Composite Materials. The decrease in EBITDA for Specialty Polymers was driven by selective pricing action in certain end markets as well as an increase in costs to drive an improvement in business performance, partially offset by volume recovery in automotive, battery, industrial building and a return in semiconductor demand. This was offset by improved performance from the Composite Materials segment, driven by stronger volume growth across all applications as well as improved margins. The net result is underlying EBITDA in Materials is flat on an organic basis compared to the second quarter of 2025. Performance & Care delivered resilient results with EBITDA EUR 7 million below the prior year on an organic basis, reflecting lower volumes and higher fixed costs in Novecare. Other Solutions was up EUR 2 million compared to the prior year period. Corporate costs have increased by EUR 15 million in the quarter, primarily due to the reload of variable incentives. This is expected to continue through the remainder of the year. Turning to capital expenditure on Slide 12. Our total capital expenditure for the quarter was EUR 95 million, down 16% year-on-year, including capital expenditure for the new ERP program. As we have previously stated, we will leverage our existing spare capacities to meet future volume growth, which requires no significant additional capital expenditure. Looking ahead, we will continue to make disciplined investments where demand is strong, returns are attractive and additional capacity is required. This includes composite materials. For example, the capacity expansion in the U.S. that Mike referenced, where aerospace demand continues to support long-term growth and targeted capacity expansions in Specialty Polymers, including the Spinetta and Changshu plants to meet increasing demand from semiconductor fabrications as investment activity begins to recover. We will continue to carefully manage capital expenditure and cash to balance our shorter-term targets with longer-term value creation. Our capital expenditure guidance of approximately EUR 450 million for the full year remains unchanged. Turning to our financial position on Slide 13. I am pleased to report that we continue to have a strong balance sheet with our net debt at EUR 2.1 billion, a gearing ratio of 25% and a leverage ratio of 1.9x. We continue to have strong levels of liquidity available as demonstrated by the EUR 1.5 billion of undrawn committed bank facilities and a further EUR 700 million of cash on hand. Net financing costs of EUR 75 million were incurred in the quarter, reflecting the payment of coupons on corporate bonds that occurs in the second quarter of the year, bringing the year-to-date net financing costs to EUR 78 million, and this remains aligned with our full year outlook of approximately EUR 130 million. With that, I'll turn the call back to Mike. Thank you.

Thank you, Chris. Turning to our outlook for 2026. Taking into account current market visibility and the ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, we continue to expect a gradual year-over-year recovery in volumes through the remainder of the year. This is expected to support stronger growth in the second half, led by our Materials segment and to a lesser extent, Performance & Care. As you will have seen in the morning's press release, we have updated our outlook for the full year. Based on our first half performance and current order book visibility, we now expect low to mid-single-digit year-over-year volume growth in 2026. This compares with our previous expectation of low single-digit growth with the improvement primarily driven by Specialty Polymers and to a lesser extent, Composite Materials and Technology Solutions. Turning to EBITDA. We now expect full year underlying EBITDA of at least EUR 1.1 billion compared to our previous guidance of approximately EUR 1.1 billion. This reflects the improved volume outlook we have now for the balance of the year. Moving on to cash flow. Our outlook for operating cash flow remains unchanged, reflecting the expected working capital investment required to support higher volumes in the second half. We also continue to expect capital expenditures of approximately EUR 450 million for the year. In closing, I am encouraged by the momentum we have built since the beginning of the year. Both segments are contributing to our improved performance with particularly strong progress in Specialty Polymers and Composite Materials. Our focus remains on executing the changes needed to unlock Syensqo's full potential, accelerating growth, improving operational performance and delivering stronger cash generation and returns over the long term. With that, we'd be happy to take your questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. We'll now move to the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] Operator, can we please have our first question?

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Laurent Favre with BNP.

My question is regarding those comments, those encouraging comments on the semi side. I understand that comps are also easy. So I'm wondering to what extent you're seeing actual underlying growth. And that's, I guess, partly for Q2, but more importantly, how you think about the second half and into 2027 for that important segment?

Laurent, yes, we are seeing some early momentum in the semiconductors as we enter the second half of the year, supported by an improving order book and strengthening demand that we're seeing across our semicon customers. This is aligned with our earlier comments in 2026 when at that time, if you recall, we said that for semiconductors, while visibility remains challenging, we do expect to see a gradual recovery in year-on-year volumes, resulting in stronger growth in the second half of the year. So as we look at it now, this is largely what we're seeing in the semiconductor space and the recovery is unfolding as expected. In terms of structural growth drivers, they remain intact, and we believe our positioning, available capacity, customer engagements are going to leave us very well placed to benefit as the market continues to recover here in 2026 and into 2027.

And on the follow-up, I heard from Chris that the accrual for comp weighed about 200 basis points, which I guess is about EUR 30 million. I just wanted to make sure I got that right. And that, that will continue in H2. So I mean, is it right that your new guidance includes a step-up of, I don't know, mid-double digit, let's say, absolute euro impact and that next year, this impact should go away because I'm assuming that your incentives will be set against, I guess, reset targets or budget.

Yes. I mean the way you've calculated is accurate. Our variable remuneration, both on short-term and long-term incentives in the current year is accrued in line with the performance of the business for 2026. In 2027, we will similarly accrue in line with the performance targets that are set for 2027, depending on the actual results at the time.

Your next question comes from the line of Sebastian Bray with Berenberg.

I have one on the relative profitability of Composites and Specialty Polymers now because from what I understand, Spec Polymers was still a little bit compressed on pricing in Q2. It wouldn't surprise me if Composites is at all-time highs now in terms of margin. Are we now talking about mid- to high 20s for Composites? How close are these 2 businesses together?

Yes. Let me take that one. I think as we've previously disclosed before, Composite Materials, which is exposed to a broad range of civil and defense customers and programs has really strong underlying demand. The business has increased its EBITDA margin over the last 5 years from probably the low double digit to above 20% and it remains in the low 20s as we've continued to hire resources to increase the operational output and performance of that business. Now taking that into account, the margin for the Materials segment is about 27.7% that we've disclosed, and that's in the second quarter of this year.

That's helpful. And on the follow-up, if we talk about the longer-term portfolio structure, if Novecare and related businesses goes, what is the implication for the tax rate of the remaining group given it's probably a bit more U.S. focused? Is it higher? Or is it too early to say?

Listen, I mean the exact -- the tax rate, as you'll appreciate, is impacted by the mix of profits in the countries in which they are generated. That said, on average, this can range between about 27% and 29% in any 1 year. But the way we look at it today, the sale of either Novecare or Aroma makes no material impact on the effective tax rate going forward and it will really depend on the mix of profits in the countries of origin in the future.

Your next question comes from the line of Chetan Udeshi with JPMorgan.

I'll start with first on Specialty Polymers. If I look at your sales in second quarter, they were up 18% versus Q1. How much of this do you think is prebuy? Because we've seen different level of prebuy across different value chains. I'm just curious how much of your Specialty Polymer increase do you think is a prebuy? And related to that, how much is pricing within that EUR 18 million? And I'm asking this because if I look at year-on-year basis, your prices in Specialty Polymers were still negative, and I'm mindful that your raw material inflation will start to bite in Q3. So without pricing uplift, there could be a squeeze in margins. So are you able to raise prices to at least cover the inflation on cost? Second question, just going back to the semis discussion, I was just reminding myself, through last year, I think the message from the management was that you've seen a headwind of EUR 40 million, 4-0 million from semiconductor destocking, which started, I think, in second half of '24. Where are we with recovering that headwind of EUR 40 million? I mean some would argue that given the strong growth we've seen in the underlying semiconductor market, you should actually see more than EUR 40 million of earnings recovery from that end market. I'm just curious how much of that you've actually seen in Q2? And how much do you expect to see more in second half? And sorry, if I can squeeze last one. There was a big increase in your admin costs in Q2 to EUR 192 million from EUR 164 million in Q1 and even last year, it was only EUR 130 million. I'm just curious what is driving that? Maybe there's a bit of bonus, but just curious why such a big increase there.

Chris, do you want to start on the last question, and then I'll cover the one on Specialty Polymers and semis?

Yes, that's fine, Mike. What you -- when you look at the administrative costs on the face of the income statement, most of the increase is explained by the reload of the variable incentives, as mentioned in the financial section of my presentation and also as mentioned by Laurent in his question, I think his numbers were reasonably accurate as well as the incremental costs in Specialty Polymers to support the operational improvement. And then in Composite Materials, we continue to hire resources to increase the operational output and performance. I mean the incremental costs in Specialty Polymers are not expected to recur beyond 2026, and this doesn't really detract from the ongoing savings programs where structural savings continue to be delivered. So as I said, I mean, the bulk of it relates to the reload. It will continue for the remainder of the year, but whereas the incremental costs in Specialty Polymers, we expect that to not recur.