Symrise AG (SY1) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon. My name is Alex. I'm the operator of Deutsche Telekom. For your information, this call will be recorded. I will hand over to Tobias Erfurth, Head of Investor Relations of Symrise.

Thank you, Alex. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our 2020 results presentation. With me on the phone are our CEO, Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bertram; and our CFO, Olaf Klinger. Unlike all the years before, we are not in Frankfurt, but in our headquarters in Holzminden. All documents have been published this morning on our web page in the section Investors at Financial Results. In the same area, you will find the playback of this conference call later today. After the presentation, we are open for your questions. I will now hand over to our CEO, Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bertram. You may begin.

Thank you, Tobias. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our 2020 results call. I am very pleased to hear that so many are taking the time to join us today. As in previous years, our CFO, Olaf Klinger, and I will run you through the presentation today. I will try and start by discussing our highlights in 2020, Olaf will then deep dive into the financials before we finish with some key strategic initiatives and an outlook on the road ahead. You will, of course, have the opportunity to ask your questions afterwards. With this said, let us start. 2020 has been an exceptional and very challenging year for everyone around the globe. We faced, and we are still facing the largest health crisis in the past century. It forced businesses to adapt their products and services and to implement health and safety protections for employees very quickly. Extensive lockdowns led to shifts in consumer demand. We've seen a slowdown in some areas. In others, demand was higher than before or emerged in completely new areas. Some of this impacted Symrise just as any other business. In addition to this global crisis, we also faced a criminal cyber attack in December. We've provided you with some background about this attack in our trading update in January. Despite all these challenges, we were still able to continue our profitable growth. So let us have a look at Chart 4. First of all, our top line grew for the 15th consecutive year. Overall, sales increased by 3.3% in reporting currency to more than EUR 3.5 billion. Organic growth recorded a plus of 2.7%. Our EBITDA outperformed last year's figures and increased by 5.8% to over EUR 740 million. Profitability reached an excellent level with an EBITDA margin of 21.1%. Our business free cash flow has also developed well. It grew 18% to EUR 564 million. This equals 16% of sales. Net income for 2020 totaled EUR 307 million, an increase of EUR 11 million. Accordingly, earnings per share increased to EUR 2.27 after EUR 2.20 in 2019. Once again, we went -- want our shareholders to participate in our success. management and supervisory board will, therefore, propose a dividend increase to EUR 0.97 per share to the Annual General Meeting in May. Let us move now on to Chart 5 and our sales development on group level. In 2020, financial year was clearly marked by the global pandemic. But despite corona and the cyber attack in the fourth quarter, we continued our profitable growth. Group sales increased by 3.3% to more than EUR 3.5 billion. Organic sales growth of 2.7% was driven by all segments. ADF/IDF developed well and contributed EUR 209 million. Over to Chart 6 and the overview of sales contributions by segment. In every segment, we observed a shift in consumer demand due to the corona pandemic and countrywide lockdown. Still all segments recorded organic growth in 2020. Starting from the top, the segment Scent & Care generated sales of around EUR 1.4 billion in reporting currency. The segment grew organically by 1.5%. Due to the negative exchange rate effects and the cyber attack in December, sales decreased by 3.5% in reporting currency. We saw a good double-digit growth in consumer fragrance in the high single-digit growth in oral care. Both were driven by pandemic-related strong demand for personal care and hygiene products. Flavors, displayed in the middle, achieved sales of around EUR 1.2 billion in reporting currency with an organic growth of 0.7%. We recorded a pandemic-related shift towards savory applications. But even this mid single-digit growth could not entirely compensate for the lower demand in applications for sweet and beverage products. Overall, sales and reporting currencies decreased by 2.6%. Nutrition increased sales by an outstanding 26.6% to EUR 926 million. The segment grew organically by 8.2%. ADF/IDF exceeded our expectations and contributed EUR 209 million. The Pet Food business was once again a key growth driver for the segment across all regions. Food applications, on the other hand, suffered from the corona pandemic-related lockdown. On Chart 7 for our regional performance. At a regional level, the Americas were growth drivers in 2020. Clearly ahead of all others was Latin America with an organic growth of almost 22%. EAME region was strongly influenced by the corona pandemic and the cyber attack in the fourth quarter. Organic growth was, therefore, decreased by 1.5%. North America and Asia Pacific were also impacted by the corona pandemic and the cyber attack. Nevertheless, both regions achieved a moderate organic growth of 2.1% and 0.7%. Ladies and gentlemen, as we like to take a long-term view on our business, Chart 8 illustrates our sales and EBITDA growth over the years. It was always one of my favorite charts. And even the historic exceptional year 2020 did not break our positive long-term dynamics. You can clearly see, Symrise has an outstanding track record of generating sustainable and reliable sales and earnings growth. And the year 2020 is no exception. Since our IPO in 2006, we have recorded a sales CAGR of 7.8%. Our earnings CAGR of 8.3% over the same period is equally strong. We are not only one of the fastest-growing companies within our industry, we're also one of the most profitable ones. Our EBITDA margin increased in 2020 to a very healthy 21.1%, which is spot on in our long-term target range. At this point, I would like to thank all our employees across the world. The continuous profitable growth of our company have been achieved through their commitment and dedication. They are key contributors to our success story. Let us now move on to Chart 9 and our share price development. I'm very proud that Symrise once again outperformed the DAX and MDAX. This makes us even prouder this year. Our share price continued this positive development in 2020 and increased by 16%. We see this as a clear sign of appreciation for our strategy and performance by investors. We want our shareholders to participate in the company's success again. Therefore, the management and supervisory board will propose a dividend increase to EUR 0.97 per share at year's AGM. This is the 11th dividend increase in a row, a clear proof of our long-term value creation. Moving to the next slide. Let me briefly touch on an issue that, in addition to corona, had an influence on our business in 2020, the criminal cyber attack. In December, we faced a cyber attack by unknown perpetuators with blackmailing intent. It forced us to shut down major operational activities temporarily. Symrise shields it's IT structure and brought important systems back up as quickly as possible. In consultation with our customers, we prioritized the orders to avoid production downtime. However, we were working on backlogs and trying to minimize lead times by additional shifts. Next to the impact on our customers, the attack impacted our business results. Despite the corona pandemic, we did an excellent job of staying on track to achieve our organic sales targets for almost the entire year. On the last stretch, however, the incident eventually slowed down our progress to 2.7% organic growth. After this rather unpleasant episode, let me now hand over to Olaf. He will present the financials in more detail. Olaf, over to you.

Yes. Thank you very much, Heinz-Jürgen, and good afternoon also from my side. Following Heinz-Jürgen's initial remarks, I would like to give you the promised deep dive into the financials. Let us start with group sales development on Page 12. As published already on January 26, we grew 2.7% organically, there of 1/3 price and 2/3 volume. In light of the corona-related lower industry growth of only around 1% in 2020 and the mentioned cyber attack in December, we see this as a very good outcome for Symrise for the year 2020. Our latest acquisition, ADF/IDF, contributed EUR 209 million sales in 2020. The first 10 months of sales fell into the bracket of portfolio growth was EUR 174 million and the corresponding portfolio effect of 5.1%. In November and December, ADF/IDF is reflected in the bracket of organic growth with sales of EUR 35 million. After supportive FX in 2019 with positive 1.3%, we suffered in 2020 with a negative impact on sales with minus EUR 152 million or minus 4.5%. We had strong headwinds from almost all currencies, especially in the inflationary development of the Brazilian real and the Argentinian peso, followed by the U.S. dollar and the Mexican peso. Please turn to Slide 13 to take a closer look at our bottom line. ADF/IDF comes with proportionately higher manufacturing costs compared to the rest of the Symrise group. Therefore, the gross profit grew slower than sales growth. The cost of goods sold include material costs of EUR 1.5 billion, this represents a material cost quota of 43%, eased from 44% in 2019. For 2021, we expect overall slightly increasing raw material costs. Moving to earnings. We benefited from the excellent performance of ADF/IDF and a corona-related decline in travel and R&D costs. We could increase our EBITDA by 5.8% to EUR 742 million. Our EBITDA margin of 21.1% was better than our normalized margin in 2019 of 20.6%. We ended the year within our 2020 margin guidance band of 21% to 22%, which we gave midyear before the cyber attack. Following higher depreciation related to prior year's CapEx and the additional impact on D&A related to ADF/IDF, our EBIT still rose 3.4% to EUR 488 million, staying on last year's normalized EBIT margin level of 13.8%. Please turn now to the next slide, Slide 14 for the segment reporting. Scent & Care achieved an organic growth of 1.5% and saw a 5% headwind from FX. Corona changed customer behavior across the business units. Fine fragrances, fragrance ingredients and UV filters slowed down, while consumer fragrances and oral care went up. In Scent & Care, 40% of the organic growth was pricing and 60% was volume related. Q4 suffered from the cyber attack, which led to a negative volume impact during the quarter. Reported sales were EUR 1.37 billion for the year. Looking at earnings, Scent & Care EBITDA amounted to EUR 272 million after EUR 278 million the year before. The margin increased from 19.6% to 19.8%, supported by reduced costs due to corona-related limitations like sales and marketing and R&D and quite a strict cost control during the year of pandemic. On Slide 15, we see Flavor with 0.7% organic growth and a 3.3% FX headwind. The slower growth was mainly a result of the changed consumer behavior during corona. A decrease in out-of-home consumption could not be compensated by higher demand for savory applications. Volume was slightly negative during the year. Q4 started promising but fell back with the cyber attack. Nevertheless, also Flavor saw an EBITDA margin increase from 21.4% in '19 to 21.8% in 2020, related to lower raw material costs and corona-related savings in OpEx. Let us move to Slide 16 for Nutrition. An impressive 8.2% organic growth was pushed again through a strong performance in Pet Food. Price volume was a ratio of 20:80 for the full year and 10:90 in Q4. ADF/IDF added EUR 209 million sales. Nutrition achieved an EBITDA margin of 22% in 2020. Some remarks on ADF/IDF. We achieved a very smooth integration despite the well-known travel restrictions, and we are very pleased with the current development. We already realized substantial cross synergies between ADF/IDF, Diana Food, Diana Pet Food and Flavors. Please follow me to further P&L elements on Slide 17. The financial result increased from EUR 56 million to EUR 64 million, partly related to interest payments to tax authorities. In addition, we secured extra liquidity during the early phase of the pandemic and accepted some interest overlaps with the early refinancing through a EUR 500 million Eurobond issued early July 2020. The normalization of the prior year's figure occurred from a positive U.S. dollar hedge effect for the ADF/IDF acquisition. Income tax expenses in 2020 amounted to EUR 109 million. The resulting tax rate of 25.6% was lower than in the 2019 fiscal year was 27.1%, mainly due to higher earnings in countries with lower tax rates and the utilization of tax credits linked to the acquisition of ADF/IDF at the end of 2019. For the time being, we confirm our midterm tax guidance of 26% to 28% until 2025. Net income attributable to our shareholders amounted to EUR 307 million, which is EUR 11 million higher than the normalized amount of the previous year. Earnings per share rose to EUR 2.27, which compares to an adjusted and normalized EUR 2.20 in 2019. The proposed dividend of EUR 0.97 per share is a new record level at Symrise. It equals 43% payout ratio, which is fully in line with our long-term ambition of 30% to 50%. Let us now turn to Page 18. Business free cash flow, as our primary KPI, helped to further strengthen our cash flow orientation within the company. Business free cash flow, which is EBITDA minus capital expenditures, including payments for lease obligations and changes in working capital, amounted to EUR 564 million or 16% as a percentage of sales in 2020 fiscal year, an increase of 18% over the previous year. The main reasons for this improvements were decrease in working capital, lower CapEx and significantly higher net income. Overall, the cyber attack had a positive effect on the working capital situation at the end of the year. For 2021, we expect business free cash flow above 14% of sales. Please turn to Slide 19 for the review of our balance sheet. Total assets on December 31, 2020, were at previous year's level with EUR 5.940 billion. On the asset side, the increase in cash and cash equivalents was mainly due to the strong cash flow and additional liquidity reserves, partially offset by a declining level of trade receivables and inventories. The decrease in property, plant and equipment and intangibles was mostly driven by higher depreciation and amortization and further enhanced by strong FX translation effects. On the liability side, pension provision increased again by EUR 76 million due to further decreased German interest rates. Equity was EUR 2.362 million on December 31, 2020, EUR 95 million below the level of the previous year. The equity ratio is at 39.8% compared to 41.3% in the previous year. Equity was negatively impacted by currency translation effects. Overall, we see our equity ratio of around 40% as a very solid base to further develop our business ambitions. Let us now turn to Page 20 to our solid financing structure. Net debt, which includes leases, decreased due to the strong operative cash flow by EUR 269 million to now EUR 1,348 million. This corresponds to 2.7x EBITDA including pensions or 1.8x excluding pensions. We are well on track to achieve our long-term target of 2 to 2.5x, including pensions, which is unchanged since the IPO. Our top priority remains to have an investment-grade profile for Symrise. I would like to finish my part with saying thank you to all the colleagues in Symrise who made an extra strong effort during and after the time of the cyber attack. We've quite an outstanding team here, which managed to bring us back to normal businesses in a very comparable short period of time. This has been well noted and positively recognized by our customer base. With this, I would like to hand back to Heinz-Jürgen for some final remarks.

Thank you, Olaf. Ladies and gentlemen, let us now have a look at the road ahead. If you would please proceed to Chart 22, and we will have a look at the base of our success, our corporate strategy. Right upfront, the global corona pandemic did not change and does not change our midterm targets for 2025. Therefore, we are holding on to our target of an annual sales growth rate of 5% to 7%. With our expanded portfolio, we aim for an EBITDA margin between 20% and 23% in the same period. We also stand by our commitment to let our shareholders participate appropriately in our success as a business. Our dividend payout ratio will, therefore, remain at 30% to 50% of our net profit. Our 3 strategic pillars: growth, efficiency and portfolio, are embedded in and accompanied by sustainability. As you all know, we place strong emphasis on our environmental footprint and the sustainability of our supply chains. This is why we also set a midterm goal regarding sustainability. By 2025, we will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60%, and we will aim to be climate positive by 2030. I will come back on this topic in a few minutes from now. Over to Chart 23. You may have noted that we recently announced some changes in our management board. Heinrich Schaper, our President of the Flavors segment, is going to retire on 31st of March. He has been with us for more than 4 decades and had key roles in growing our business throughout his career. We will use this moment of change to combine the Flavor & Nutrition segments. President of the new Flavor & Nutrition segment will be Jean-Yves Parisot. By merging the 2 segments, Symrise can better leverage the strength of both areas, exploit synergies and further differentiate itself in the market. There will be 1 leadership team and 1 research agenda. The customer approach, especially for global account, will centrally be managed to increase customer penetration. Overall, this will enable Symrise to offer an even more extensive portfolio of ingredients and solutions across taste, nutrition and health in the future, for human food, for pet food and other animal nutrition activities. On Chart 24, we highlight the global setup for the combined Flavor & Nutrition segment. As you can see on this map, we are already represented with both segments in all regions globally. But in combination, we will be able to create an even stronger global setup of competencies and infrastructure with 65 manufacturing sites worldwide. For the combined Flavor & Nutrition segment, we expect sales of more than EUR 2 billion and an EBITDA margin of more than 21%. The other organizational change concerns our Scent & Care segment. If you would please proceed to Chart 25. Achim Daub, who has been Board member since 2006 and responsible for the Scent & Care segment, has decided to pursue new professional opportunities. He will also leave the company on 31st of March 2021 by mutual agreement and on best terms. Again, I would like to highlight Achim's strong contributions to our successful business development over many years. The succession planning, of course, has already been initiated in the meantime. I will manage the division on an interim basis. In the context of this change, we have reorganized the leadership functions of our Scent & Care segment. Eder Ramos, an experienced manager from the segment, will lead the Fragrance division. Norbert Richter, who is very experienced, especially in terms of shifting towards renewable and green chemistry, will continue to manage the Aroma Molecules division. And Jörn Andreas contributes to this international leadership experience as a leader of the Cosmetic Ingredient division. We also consider this a solid base for a smooth integration of Sensient Fragrances and Aroma Molecules. In November 2020, Symrise signed the purchase agreement for this acquisition. Let me explain the rationale of the expansion in more detail on the next slide. We consider the acquisition of Sensient Fragrance and Aroma Molecules division as an excellent strategic opportunity. As a result of the transaction, we will expand our leadership position as a supplier of fragrance and fragrance ingredients. We also strengthened our backward integration and enhanced our value chain to meet the significant internal demand for Aroma Molecules. With the manufacturing site in Granada, that will be acquired, we will not only strengthen our footprint in Spain, we will establish a second production hub in Europe as the basis for future successful growth. As soon as the deal will be closed, we will initiate the integration process. Ladies and gentlemen, let us now move on to Chart 27 and to dive a bit deeper into sustainability. As you know, climate protection and biodiversity are 2 focus areas of Symrise. In terms of climate protection, I mentioned our goal earlier, Symrise aims to become climate-positive by 2030. This will require some effort, but we are confident that we will achieve this goal. Our climate protection efforts have again been recognized by the carbon disclosure project. Symrise achieved AAA ratings in 2020 in all 3 categories: water, climate as well as forest. With this, Symrise ranks 1 of the top 10 companies in the world and #1 in Germany. Our second focus is biodiversity. We use thousands of raw materials from all over the world. Sustainable resource procurement is, therefore, crucial to us. It ensures availability, quality and price stability. The map on Chart 28 illustrates some of our joint activities in different parts of the world. Together with customers and partners, we work to improve living and working conditions in the countries we source from. Chart 29 provides an overview of our key investments and growth initiatives. As in the last 2 years, we continued to focus on capacity expansion and meet the emerging demand and to lay the basis for growth. This includes new production plants for pet food in China and Brazil, a development and application center for Flavor & Nutrition in China and the expansion of the Sensient site in Granada. On the other hand, as I said, we focus on climate protection with investments in advanced technologies, we strive to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, in the U.S.A. and France. At our largest German site in Holzminden, we extend the generation of our own oil electricity for our operations. Ladies and gentlemen, let us conclude today's presentation with an outlook for 2021 on Chart 30. Symrise looks with confidence into the current financial year. With our robust business model, we navigated solidly through the exceptional year 2020, and we will continue doing so. We are assuming that the global economy will recover with rising vaccination rates and further improvements for battling the pandemic. Against the backdrop of these expectations, we expect reliable demand and want to return to our original growth momentum. Once again, we want to grow faster than the relevant market, with this projected growth around 3% to 4% this year. We are targeting organic growth of 5% to 7%. The EBITDA margin should reach around 21%. We believe that Symrise is very well positioned to achieve these ambitions, and we will continue to build on our proven strategy. In this context, we will leverage growth opportunities such as joint innovation programs for Flavor & Nutrition. In Scent & Care, we plan to commercialize growth opportunities related to the Sensient business. And of course, we also will remain committed to our disciplined cost and efficiency management. And with this, I would like to conclude today's presentation. Olaf and I are now happy to answer your question. Tobias, back to you.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Heinz-Jürgen. Thank you very much, Olaf. Let us now start with Q&A. [Operator Instructions]

[Operator Instructions] Mrs. Lisa De Neve from Morgan Stanley. May we have your question, please?

Two questions from my side. So high-level question, just on the R&D. Can you provide us with some color on what you're seeing on the customer side in terms of pipeline and launches, especially in the light of the world is slowly opening up again? And the second question is, I mean, your Nutrition gross margin has reduced by 240 bps in 2020 year-on-year and actually 430 bps over the last 4 years. Can you provide some detail on what has actually impacted this gross margin, and not just as it relates to 2020, but also last 4 years? And how much of that was actually driven by the inclusion of ADF acquisition?

Okay. Thanks for your question. I think I'd start with the first one, and Olaf, I'll leave the second one to you, it was a financial thing. So the R&D, I'm happy to pick up. Well, major trends, which will help us to continue healthy growth is, of course, the -- in the Flavor & Nutrition and first, the ongoing trend towards more healthy and quality -- high-quality food, meaning meat alternatives, vegetarian, vegan food with full taste properties and the full health benefit that was starting trend and that will continue to move on for quite a while. The same is -- same token is sugar reduction, not with the artificial sweetness, but with natural solutions which don't require any declaration. So these are things where we see strong growth demand also ongoing in the future on the Flavor & Nutrition part. In the Scent & Care part, for sure, if we look at delivery and encapsulation systems for detergents, a biodegradable, natural, environmentally friendly systems are on the horizon. And also on the fragrance part, natural ingredients. So the trend for naturalness is also increasing there, in particular, in fine fragrance and beauty care products. So these are just a few highlights on some things which are ongoing on the Flavor and on the Scent & Care end. And last, but not least, also to mention our strong ongoing demand for pet food, which will continue to be megatrend in the future to come. Okay. I hope that answers your first question. With that having said, Olaf, you would like to pick the second?

Yes, Lisa, thanks for this very special observation when it comes to development of the gross profit in Nutrition. I think there are a couple of reasons. First of all, when we bought the business, it was quite a little bit underinvested. So we put a lot of CapEx into the environment. And for good reason, there was a huge opportunity in pet food. And today, we are very happy to have the additional capacity. We built several new spray dryers. We built a global footprint for pet foods over the years, and this will continue. So that is 1 driver. In general, the business itself, in proportion to the other parts of Symrise, has higher cost of goods sold. And over the past few years, we also saw a slight increase in raw materials. The market is partly tight, and that had also an impact on the gross profit situation for the segment. These are the main drivers. Nevertheless, and I think this is coming also along with the ADF/IDF acquisition, we see a nice development of the margin situation in this business despite the slightly higher COGS development in our environment. So all in all, I think we enjoy this business quite a little bit, and we will continue to do so in the coming years.

Mr. Matthew Yates from Bank of America. May we have your question, please?

A couple of them, please. The first one is about your Slide 23 on the new divisional structure. You mentioned there are some opportunities here for better account management and maybe some cost savings from putting these 2 divisions together. I wondered if you could just elaborate on that a little bit? And also provide some background. I'm not sure how long you've been thinking of making this move or whether it's been more recently thrust upon you by the executive turnover? And then the second question, just a quick clarification, please, Olaf. I think you said ADF did EUR 35 million of sales in November-December, given the currency moves. Am I right in thinking that is a double-digit organic growth rate and maybe just elaborate a little bit on the pipeline of new opportunities you see in that business?

Okay. Yes, Matthew. Thanks for your questions. I'm trying to answer them as honest and enlightening as possible. So new divisional structure in Flavor & Nutrition, we had this combination for a while when Diana came on board, as you may still recall, and I was doing it. But the priority at that time was the first phase of the integration having the new teammates of Diana welcome and feel treated appropriately, and we intentionally left some synergies on the ground and focused on making it a good home for our friends from Diana. For -- after having done the first phase now after several years, now I think it makes sense to combine the divisions and have a look again on the opportunities, which the combined business cross-selling allows. As I said, the first phase is completed. And our feeling -- strong feeling is that the teammates from Diana are now Symrise's teammates and feel welcome and are open and contribute to leverage on all the opportunities we may have, cross-selling strong top line synergies, but also bottom line synergies across different areas. As you may recall, in flavors, certain business areas where we're not totally always flavor but more ingredient and vice versa and Diana. So Jean-Yves will focus sorting that out and making it more efficient and also leverage on bottom and top line opportunities. So we have good hope that within the years to come, we see additional growth momentum and also a nice impact on the bottom line. Having said this, you see from my words, this was not something which occurred spontaneously, but it was always on the agenda when the first phase of the integration of the onboarding process of Diana is completed, and we believe this is the time now we will do the next phase of this. Having said that, I hope that answers your question on the new structure. ADF double-digit growth, let's put it this way. At least it is a strong and healthy growth momentum, which we have seen. And we're happy to see that the ADF acquisition has even exceeded our expectation. What you see there is that Jean-Yves and his group, they are starting now to tap in some additional top line opportunities, which we have highlighted, having access to new protein sources, to new starting materials. And with a broad application range we have here in Symrise, unique application range in aqua, in pet food and in human consumption, you see this is paying off. So I hope, Matthew, these 2 point -- this answers your 2 questions. Okay?

Your observation is right. We had EUR 32 million in the first 2 months of '19 and now EUR 35 million plus currency definitely double-digit.

Can I be greedy and just squeeze in 1 more? On your Sensient slides, you talk about the Symrise express model. Sorry, forgive me, I don't actually know what the express model is. Can you just explain that briefly?

Yes. Sure. My pleasure. Symrise Express means for certain customers, in particular, lower customers, a business model, which focuses on instantaneous service, which means sample service within a day if we have to be, that means this model is a bit different than the traditional one. You have to develop and service from a sales collection, which means the collection where these things are precomposed and if the request comes in, you service instantaneously. So their speed is the success model and our acquisition at Sensient offers us the opportunity to look in this direction. This is important, in particular for emerging markets like Northern Africa, just to mention 1 thing. I hope, Matthew, this answers your question here.

Mr. Thomas Swoboda from Societe Generale. May we have your question, please?

Yes. My 2 questions. My first question is on the trends in the first quarter. In your written remarks, you say you were able to catch up on the lost sales from the cyber attack in December. So my question is, is it right to assume that this will give you some 300 basis points of extra growth in Q1? So we might be actually looking for a jump-start to the year in Q1 with some 7%, 9%. Is there anything I'm missing in this equation? My second question is a little bit more top down, if I may? Your 2 PAs Givaudan and IFF are going more aggressively towards enzymes. Is this a technology Symrise has to look at? Is this needed to further replace a chemical raw materials by renewable ones? In other words, will you have to address enzymes going forward for -- on Symrise's platform?

Yes. Thomas, I'm happy to answer that question. So your question about the trends in Q1, yes, you will see a jump-start at Symrise. Very simple. So expect that we will not fall short there. I hope that answers -- and you make your math, but yes. Second, enzymes and biotechnology as a tool necessary, absolutely. So -- and that's why we invested not in enzymes directly because many of them, you can buy any way commercially, but it's an interesting area. May I interpret with your question a bit wider on biotechnology. And then we're right in the middle of some key investments we did like Probi, for example. So yes, biotechnology will play an even more important role in the future. And if some of the materials, which we need to manufacture, in particular, natural materials require enzyme technology, absolutely, we utilize that. I hope, Thomas, this answers your 2 questions.

Mr. Ryan Tomkins from Jefferies. May we have your question, please?

Only 1 from me, most have been covered. It was just on the margin. If we could have a comment on the moving parts? I assume we have a bit of operating leverage from better volumes next year. So the raw materials that you called out, anything else that we're missing there?

Thanks, Ryan, for your question. I knew you would ask a financial question. So I happily shifted over to Olaf.

Yes. I think we are in this period of some cost savings coming along with the pandemic. For me, the most important part for developing the margin further is around portfolio development. We are investing, as you know, into higher-margin businesses. In the long run, this should really develop our margin in the right direction. We start this year with the expectation that the margin will be around 21%. And I think that's a good guidance for this year. Let's see how it goes and what still needs to come, but this is the expectation for 2021 for the time being.

Mr. Charles Eden from UBS. May we have your questions, please?

Two, if I may? My first question is just on your 2021 organic sales guidance. And given your comments about being fully on track to achieve the upper end of the 3% to 4% range last year prior to the cyber attack, combined with the strong start to this year. Should we view the bottom end of your 5% to 7% guidance range as early year conservatism? Could you also discuss the extent to which you believe the cyber attack sales have now already been fully recovered in Q1 to date? And then my second question is just on your 2020 margin. Are you able to quantify the higher costs associated with the cyber attack? Or perhaps another way of asking, where do you think the margin would have been in the prior 21% to 22% range in the absence of the cyber attack?

So let me start with the first one, the growth for this year. Yes, our guidance was 5% to 7%. You can read it as you want. I committed to before that we will have probably a jump start, yes. But at this point in time to review our guidance for the growth -- our long-term guidance is too early, 5% to 7%, we feel pretty safe. And already that is more than all our competitors and our peers in our industry. So we commit to getting back to our dynamic growth rate for today that should be enough. But to your second question, Q1. All the backdrop pretty much is reconciled in Q1. And that is a good sign that we mastered the cyber attack on our own, and we got out of this without major losses, and we were able to service our customers even in this difficult situation. And that, again, is a good sign for the robustness of our supply chain. I hope that answers your question. Olaf, you may take the second one.

Yes. So this -- the real impact from the cyber attack is a little bit difficult to judge. So -- and basically impossible to come up with the real numbers. The estimate on the top line is EUR 30 million to EUR 35 million, which we missed in December and which will shift to the new year to the vast majority. Now from a margin perspective, we expected definitely a slightly higher margin for 2020 compared to where we came out in 21.1%. I think we were well on track. We had some idle costs in December just because a lot of production environments were on standby, plus we had some extra costs related to IT and the initial measures we took. Nevertheless, we have a cybersecurity insurance in place. And we are, of course, in the process of collecting all the elements. And at some point, we can tell you to which extent we will get reimbursement for some of the costs related to the cyber attack.

Mr. James Targett from Berenberg Bank. May we have your questions, please?

It's James Targett from Berenberg. Two questions. So firstly, sorry to come back on the margins for '21. So just at the current expectation of lower margins in '21, could you -- I'm just trying to understand how much is coming from sort of the cost normalization from last year versus your growth or your ESG growth initiatives and ESG investments? And I also wonder to what extent do you expect mix to play a role in margin development in '21 considering the various moving parts during -- on the top line during the pandemic? And then secondly, you mentioned the Savory business had a big benefit from COVID to sort of pivot towards that Savory business in 2020. To what extent do you expect the Savory business to continue that strong growth as the pandemic eases? Is there some sort of structural change? Or was it all temporary? And to what extent did the ADF business benefit from that boost in Savory business in 2020?

Okay. James, I'll try. First question, I'm not sure if I understood this completely. But what I can tell you, your assumption that we will see a lower margin this year compared to last year, as I heard you talking about margin loss now a margin lower, no, we don't see that. We're very early in the year. And as typically at this time in the year, we are cautious with our outlook, but I think it is wrong to assume a margin loss at this point in time. We actually don't see it necessarily. Having said, the second point to your Savory question, the business in Savory was strong, indeed, last year. It will continue to be strong this year because the underlying major trend of meat alternatives, vegetarian, vegan and these things will continue to drive the business. And that is not where ADF links into. ADF links into the second big thing, big driver is the declaration friendly flavors, declaration-free product, chicken flavor from chicken. How creative is that? So ADF opens the opportunity. And as I said, ADF/IDF the strong performance also is rooted in the fact that we have a unique application platform. We're the only ones in our industry having pet food and aqua as outlet. And so we have a unique outlet for the ADF product. So I guess some of the things you brought up in your questions have been mixed together, and these trends have to be separated. But back to your question, the Savory business will continue to do well. That is what matters, and this year will be another good year for Savory. And if I didn't answer the first question, totally, James, then feel free to just bring it up again, and we'll try to fill it as good as possible. Okay?

Sure. Yes, let me just do that I suppose the question is, maybe you could -- if you think about your growth initiatives and ESG investments in '21, how much larger are they done in 2020? And is that -- how much is that impacting your expectation of margin in '21?

Okay. Now I got it. Sorry. So thanks for repeating it. Yes, our commitment for ESG, very prominent in our communication. Actually, it is important, but the financial impact is not any bigger in the future going forward than what we have done in the past. We have already committed in the past the necessary financial resources in this, and we will continue to do so as we did with IT, that was another related question, which the one of you or other of you may think as a consequence of the cyber attack. We have invested enough in IT, and we will continue to do so. Do not expect any major changes in our cost allocation going forward. Okay?

Our today's last question comes from Mrs. Isha Sharma from Stifel.

This is Ms. Isha. I have 3, please, if I may? First one is a simple one, what are your expectations on raw material costs through 2021, please? And if you already see some inflation? Secondly, the organic decline in Q4 came mainly from Scent & Care and regionally in EMEA and Asia Pacific, is that exclusively explained from -- by the cyber attack situation that you had in Q4? Or is there -- are there other underlying factors? And the last one is on Nutrition margin, it was quite strong in the second half of 2020. Could you give us some color on that? And if that is a reasonable run rate going forward?

Okay. Hey, Isha, good to hear from you. So I would happily to pass on the third question to Olaf, and I take the raw material cost question. We see a slight -- or let's put it this way, we expect a slight headwind this year. At the moment, at this point in time, we do not see it yet in our numbers, but that's the challenge with SAP. It is already -- or it may already be coming in, but it is only entering the cost book the moment you touch the material. Anyway, so the felt, I would say, you see already a certain slight headwind, and we will continue to see a certain stronger headwind in the second part of the year. For the total year 2021, we expect a slight headwind in raw material costs, and this anticipation is pretty much in line with what our peers are saying. Organic decline in Scent & Care in the fourth quarter, mainly cyber attack. We had to make some decisions, Isha, on what operations we start first. I have to say, it was a mess. Was -- all was shut down, and you have to start somewhere, and some of the Scent & Care factories were the last to start and due to some internal challenges, it was a question how it had been programmed and all these things, but the point is, actually, some larger sites were down nearly 4 weeks, and you see that. So that answers hopefully your second question, and I happily pass on to Olaf, who is already waiting. Olaf?

Yes. So on the Nutrition, a very nice contribution from ADF/IDF. We talked about strong top line performance. And you can see from the development that ADF/IDF is consequently not only top line, but also bottom line quite a little bit. So we consider this margin development as sustainable and going in the right direction going forward.

Isha, did that answer your question?

It did, but just the regional. Regionally, it was only in EMEA and Asia Pacific that you saw a decline in Q4. Is that...

Yes. But it is simply a question when this production was started up, as I said. So there is no financial logic behind it.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, this brings us to the end of our conference call. Thank you very much for your time and your interest in Symrise. We will not travel afterwards, but we are looking forward to meeting you in the upcoming virtual events. Have a good evening, stay safe and good bye from Holzminden.