Symrise AG (SY1) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

A good day, and welcome to the Symrise analyst investor call on the occasion of the first half results 2023. All materials, including the presentation, have been published on our website this morning, and a replay of the call will be available later today. Today's call, like always, will be held by our CEO, Dr. Heinz-Jurgen Bertram; and our CFO, Olaf Klinger. After their presentations, we are open for your questions. With this, I hand over to you, Jason.

Thank you, Tobias. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our investor and analyst call presenting our results for the first half of 2023. Thank you for taking your time to join us today. Our CFO, Olaf Klinger, and I will run you through today's presentation and answer your questions. Let us start with our agenda for today. I will give you an overview of our business development and Olaf will then go into the details of our financials. We will conclude with some highlights of our growth initiatives and give you an update of our outlook for the remaining months of this year. In the current challenging political and economic environment, Symrise was able to continue its growth course in the first half of 2023. We operate a proven and stable business model with comparatively low risk content. We have broadly diversified the group and robustly positioned it. At the same time, persistently high inflation has resulted in some cost increases. The company managed to offset them only in part by way of strict cost management and price increases. Moreover, the segment Scent & Care had to show some onetime special effects. They relate to the shutdown at the Colonel Island site, where we had an incident end of last year. The reorganization resulting from the segment's new strategic orientation to streamline and drive entrepreneurial behavior plus the cost associated with the antitrust proceedings. To compare our results with the previous year's figures, we have normalized the just mentioned onetime effects. Let us now have a look at the key financials on Chart 4. We increased sales by 6.8% in reporting currency to EUR 2.4 billion. Organically, we achieved a growth rate of 8.0%. The normalized EBITDA increased by 1.5% to EUR 475 million. The group's EBITDA margin reached 19.7%, which was below the previous year's level due to higher raw material, energy and operating costs. The business free cash flow amounted to EUR 106 million, an increase of EUR 1.4 million. Net income decreased by EUR 41 million and totaled EUR 188 million. Accordingly, earnings per share decreased to EUR 1.34. R&D expenses amounted to EUR 131 million, an increase of 6.6% above previous year. The R&D ratio of 5.4% reached last year's level. We still encounter somewhat limited visibility due to the geopolitical uncertainties and high inflation rates. In addition, we feel the continued destocking effect on our customers' side. Apart from this, we strongly believe in the long run that consumer demand will remain on a healthy level. Let us look at our sales growth on Chart 5. Group sales increased to EUR 2.4 billion, including EUR 35 million of sales contribution from acquisitions and almost EUR 62 million headwind from FX effects. Organically, the group achieved a strong growth of 8%, driven by both segments. Chart 6 illustrates the growth dynamics by segment. The Taste, Nutrition & Health segment achieved organic sales growth of 11.4% in the first half of 2023. Considering portfolio and exchange rate effect segment sales in reporting currency amounted to EUR 1.527 million and where that's 9.3% above the previous year's figures. The acquisition of Wing Biotech contributed around EUR 21 million of sales growth. The Scent & Care segment achieved an organic sales growth of 2.4% in the first half of 2023. In reporting currency, it was 2.7% higher than in the same period of the previous year. The portfolio effect from the acquisitions of Néroli and Romani groups contributed around EUR 15 million to the segment's sales. Let us move on Chart 7 for the performance by region. Except North America, all other regions drove organic growth by Latin America delivering the strongest organic growth of 19.5%. EAME achieved an organic growth of 14.4%, and Asia Pacific ranks third with 4.4%. In North America, we faced the strongest destocking effect and low project mentality in comparison to the other regions. Let me now hand over to Olaf. He will present the financials in more detail. Olaf?

Thank you, Heinz-Jurgen, and a warm welcome to everybody on the phone also from my side. Let me add some details on our growth on Slide 9. We successfully continued to increase prices to compensate for a substantial part of the higher input costs. As a result, we could achieve a remarkable organic growth of 8% in H1, solely driven by price increases with a slight headwind on the volume side across the group, but very significant in Aroma Molecules. Comparing quarters, we achieved 5.5% organic growth in Q2 after 10.6% organic growth in Q1. Portfolio impact in H1 was EUR 35 million or 1.6%. This included around EUR 15 million with Groupe Néroli and Romani for Scent & Care acquired in April 2022 and therefore only shown in the portfolio pillar until the end of Q1 2023. Around EUR 21 million of sales were contributed from Wing Biotechnology in TNH acquired in quarter 2 2022, and therefore, also no longer in the portfolio pillar from now on. FX continued to be negative with minus EUR 61 million in Q2 after minus EUR 1 million in Q1, totaling to minus EUR 62 million in H1. This is corresponding to minus 2.7% of sales in H1. This was attributable to multiple currencies. Please turn to the group profitability on Slide 10, where we built a bridge between last year's and this year's profitability. To ease the comparison, we normalized last year's EBITDA number by the positive onetime effect of the sale of Velcorin against the negative onetime effects we had in Scent & Care in the first half of this year as already explained by Heinz-Jurgen. Comparing apples-to-apples, our normalized EBITDA margin fell from 20.7% to 19.7%, which was mainly due to higher raw material costs and still elevated energy costs. On Slide 11, we see a slight increase of gross profit by 0.9% to EUR 879 million after EUR 871 million in H1 2022. Gross margin suffered from increased raw material and energy expenses as well as downtime cost in Colonel Island. As a consequence, our gross margin came down 2.1 percentage points from 38.5% to 36.4%. Depreciation increased due to the ongoing investment activities and related finalization of CapEx projects. Amortization decreased due to the expiration of activated recipes at the time of the merger of Symrise in 2003 as well as the ending amortization of parts of the Diana purchase price allocation. Normalized EBIT was up 1.5% from EUR 326 million to EUR 331 million. The normalized EBIT margin was 13.7%, down from 14.4% in H1 2022. Let's turn to Taste, Nutrition & Health on Slide 12. Organic growth for H1 of 11.4% was mainly driven by price. The organic growth in Q2 of 8.3% was driven by price as well with a slight headwind on the volume side. FX was 3.6% negative. In total, TNH achieved a reported growth of 3.5% in Q2 and 9.3% for H1. Overall, the segment was able to protect its profitability quite well. EBITDA for H1 could even increase 12.8% from a normalized EUR 297 million to now EUR 335 million in the first half. Given the markets difficulties, we are very happy with the achieved margin of 21.9%, which compares to a normalized EBITDA margin of 21.2% in 2022. Let's turn to Scent & Care on Slide 13. Across Scent & Care, growth was mainly driven by price and achieved an organic growth of 0.8% in Q2 and 2.4% in H1. Fine fragrances and cosmetic ingredients enjoyed a double-digit growth rate. Unfortunately, Aroma Molecules suffered in a very difficult market environment, especially by customer destocking, decreasing market prices for fragrance ingredients and the already mentioned production shutdown at Colonel Island. The EBITDA of Scent & Care segment decreased 18.1% to EUR 140 million, normalized for the mentioned EUR 29 million onetime effects after EUR 171 million last year. The normalized EBITDA margin reached 15.8% after 19.8% last year. The EUR 29 million onetime effects can be broken down into first downtime costs at Colonel Island and the related revaluation of piled-up inventory that was EUR 24 million. Second, the organization adjustment due to revised Scent & Care strategy, EUR 3 million; and third, absorb cost in connection with the cartel investigation of a little bit more than EUR 2 million. Please turn now to Slide 14 for our bottom line. The financial result declined by around EUR 18 million to minus EUR 45 million, mainly due to higher interest expenses related to M&A activities in 2021 and 2022, but also for interest related to pension obligations. Around 80% of our debt-related interests are fixed. As a consequence, the current rise in market interest rates are not the main driver for the development of the interest results. Our tax rate of 26.1% is almost unchanged and within our expected midterm corridor of 25% to 27%. Net income was EUR 41 million below last year, while last year included a positive onetime effect of EUR 18 million for Velcorin and this year included negative one-offs of EUR 29 million. Reported EPS decreased 18% to EUR 1.34 after EUR 1.64 per share last year. Coming to Slide 15. It is worth mentioning that our cash flow from operating activities for the first half 2023 increased EUR 92 million to EUR 144 million. This resulted mainly from a less prominent increase in working capital, the onetime effect in other noncash income from Velcorin last year as well as unrealized FX effects. Our business free cash flow increased by EUR 1.4 million to EUR 106 million. This corresponds to 4.4% of sales compared to 4.6% in H1 2022. While CapEx went up EUR 6 million due to ongoing investments primarily into capacity expansion, working capital increased by EUR 204 million, mainly due to a decrease in trade payables compared to last year. Given the ongoing macro uncertainty, especially for working capital this year, we lower our expectation for the business free cash flow from around 12% of sales to 9% to 11% of sales for this year. Our midterm guidance, however, is unchanged and remains at around 14%. Please move to our net debt development on Slide 16. Our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio is currently at 2.7x normalized EBITDA without pensions and leasing obligation and 3.2x normalized EBITDA, including pension and leasing obligation. This is slightly above our midterm net debt guidance, which is 2x to 2.5x EBITDA, including pensions and leasing obligation. We are confident to get back into our self-defined corridor within the next 12 to 18 months' timeframe. In summary, we are very satisfied with our debt profile with no covenants and no imminent debt maturities in the near term, supporting a good investment-grade profile. The slight increase in assets on our balance sheet on Slide 17 comes primarily from higher receivables linked to higher sales as well as some changes to equity and liabilities, mainly from higher borrowings for working capital and additional cash reserves. Our equity ratio remains on a healthy level of 45.3%. Overall, we continue to benefit from our well-diversified and broad portfolio with TNH holding up quite well, allowing us to compensate the current weakness in Scent & Care, which is very much linked to the specific circumstances in aroma molecules. And with this, I would like to hand back to Heinz. Thank you.

Thank you, Olaf. Ladies and gentlemen, before we move on to our outlook, let me allow to highlight some strategic investments, which we have driven forward in the first half of this year on Chart 19. Since July 2021, Symrise has acquired a stake in the listed company, Swedencare. Symrise's participation rate totally is slightly above 30%. Swedencare provides premium care and health products for pets. Our investment underpins Symrise's leading position as a provider of innovative solutions and applications in the categories of pet food and pet care. Our Pet Food division has announced to transform its nutrition business into the brand Nuvin. This includes plans to expand growth and advance sustainability -- sustainably for the offering of egg, chicken and hydrolyzed proteins. The segment has signed a minority investment agreement with Bonumose, an early-stage food ingredient manufacturer specialized in the production of good-for-you rare and innovative monosaccharides such as tagatose and allulose. With this transaction, Symrise will accelerate growth in its sugar reduction portfolio. Also in Scent & Care, we are continuing to invest in our competencies and capabilities. Let me highlight 2 achievements. A center of expertise in the Symrise site in Qixi near Paris, houses a microbiology lab for the division dedicated to customers for cosmetic and home care ingredients. This step strengthened the division's leadership role in the development of innovative personal care solutions. We also continue to strengthen our position in the key fragrance market of China with the inauguration of the Little Red House. It is located in the heart of Shanghai and will allow an inspiration co-creation approach with customers. Ladies and gentlemen, let me now draw your attention to the outlook on Chart 20. We feel confident that we have positioned our company well to continue our growth course. Despite the current volatile market environment with all challenges, Symrise is well positioned to continue its growth path. We are, therefore, confirming our growth target and continue to expect to grow faster than the relevant market with an organic growth rate of between 5% and 7% in 2023. In terms of profitability, we are seeking to achieve an EBITDA margin of around 20% normalized by onetime effects. As explained by Olaf, concerning the business free cash flow, we are aiming now for a rate relative to sales between 9% and 11% in 2023. Let me conclude with Chart 21, where we confirm our corporate strategy and midterm targets for 2025. In the medium term, Symrise aims to increase its sales to EUR 5.5 billion to EUR 6 billion by 2025 with an annual growth rate of 5% to 7% CAGR. The profitability EBITDA margin should meet the target corridor of 20% to 23% in the long term. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. But before we open the call for questions, let me draw your attention to our upcoming Capital Markets Day in Brittany, France, October 11 and 12, where we want to highlight next to a strategy update some growth projects in our most dynamic areas: pet food, pet care and cosmetic ingredients. I and our whole Board members, including the new ones, are looking forward to seeing you in France. Tobias, I guess, you want to add something concerning our upcoming Capital Markets Day. Tobias?

Thanks a lot. Many thanks, Heinz-Jurgen. Many thanks, Olaf. I will come to the Capital Market Day at the end, yes. And now we are turning to Q&A. And now we are happy to take your questions after the operator's instructions. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Lisa De Neve from Morgan Stanley.

I'll start with 2. First and foremost, can you share with us some details on how we should think about EBITDA margin development in the second half? And so what are the key inputs both on an adjusted and reported basis that sort of gives you comfort to bring yourself to 20% for the full year? And should we account for any more sort of incremental exceptional items in the second half? That's the first question. And secondly, can you share what you're seeing in the pet food and care markets given we have noted various pet food players reporting a degree of capacity issues and variance in regional performance. So it would be very helpful if you can share what you're seeing in the pet food space across the different regions in terms of volume dynamics? And maybe also which facilities you're ramping up in the second half of this year and next year?

Okay. Thanks for the question. I'll start with the EBITDA margin, and Olaf, if you want, you can hop in giving more details. So the comfort, we will, expectation today, see a slightly softer second half in Taste, Nutrition & Health with still healthy and ongoing growth momentum but probably not that strong as it was in the first half. On the other side, we will see a rebound from Scent & Care because the biggest negative impact there was the incident in Colonel Island. It was -- it hit us on turnover more than EUR 30 million turnover missing because of that. And bottom line impact was around EUR 20 million, Olaf can easily add more in detail to that. And the good news now is this plant will be back in operation by probably August, end of August. So we are just about to restart this thing. And the adjustments -- most of the adjustments to your second question also, we will have, therefore, seen. There in the Colonel Island, we will have some residual adjustments from July and August until we start. But the most we've seen, for sure. The other adjustments we listed, and Olaf has talked about it, is this antitrust case, which is still ongoing, where we foresaw several million of adjustment. And this is still ongoing. We do not know how long it will continue to go on and what will happen. But so far, let me put this up, the EU was not able to put anything up against us, I just want to remind that. They're due to tell us what is wrong. So they have not been able to come up with anything as late as today. Second question, pet food capacity second half of the year. We see some destocking effects in pet food as well, which means that why I alluded in my first answer to your first question, the growth dynamics will come to some extent, a bit down in Taste, Nutrition & Health in the second half of the year. But the good news is we have an unbroken momentum in the mid- and long run on pet food. Nothing to be concerned. Short term, we see some destocking there as well. But as I said, nothing to be concerned mid and long term. The business is healthy and will continue to be a growth driver. And that's why we continue to add additional capacities. We're about to start a production site in the U.S. and we have just opened China. So we keep full steam investing and growing in pet food. I hope from my end, that was it. Olaf, you want to allude a bit more to the EBITDA outlook for the second half of year?

Yes, Lisa, I think Heinz-Jurgen mentioned the topics which we flagged in the first half for the first half in Scent & Care are still there. The adjustment is expected to be lower. But cartel investigation continues. Cost-wise, it's a burden. We also have the strategic ambition in Scent & Care, which is not finalized yet, and also the downtime situation of Scent & Care at Colonel Island will drag into the second quarter. So the complex is still there. And therefore, expect some adjustments also in the second half.

But again, as I said, Lisa, by far most, we'll have seen. But in the sense of being honest, at least a small portion still will show up in the second half. Okay?

Okay. And just a super quick follow-up. I mean you mentioned a little bit of destocking in pet food, but we could say that's primarily visible in North America and the other regions are still holding strong. Or is this quite broad-based globally?

No, the most is in North America. And I would relate to what Swedencare just has published, our partner company. They have clearly said that they see an end of destocking already in their business. And as they are a bit earlier than us, we can expect safely that we have seen most of destocking effect already. So there is also a light at the end of the tunnel, okay?

Next question comes from Gunther Zechmann from Bernstein Autonomous.

The first one is on raw material cost, please. You mentioned that you have partially offset inflation with cost measures and price increases. Where are we on both sides, please? How much more price measures, do you see yourself implement from here? And have you seen an inflection point on the cost side? And if not, what is driving raw material costs up for your basket at the moment, please?

Yes, Gunther. Thanks for the question, and I'm happy to answer. First, price measures. I'll stick to some extent what my colleague Jörn Andreas said. So far this year, we expect overall for all the 10,000 raw materials which we use if we take all this in the basket, a cost increase in the low single digits. Jörn has said 5%. I don't know if it's 5%, but low single digits, which means most of the cost increases we have seen. But to some extent, you still overall see a bit here and there. On the other side, price measures, yes, we have implemented after Q1 in the Q2 a second round of price increases in some areas. And my gut feeling is that was it. So to your question, from now on, it will be pretty much very difficult to put on further price increases. But the good news is we have done it. We have been able to do it. It was not easy. It was already like pulling teeth. But we managed. So overall, I believe for what needed to be done, we have done, of course, and you see it from some of the measures which are obvious in Scent & Care. We have also done some actions to reduce our cost base to cope with this. So that's why we feel well equipped for the second half of the year. I hope, Gunther, that answers your question.

Just one quick follow-up, please, on the pet food business then because that's seen slightly negative volumes in Q2, I believe, but very strong price increases. To what extent is that underlying volume growth destocking? And is there an element of volume elasticity in there as well, please?

Yes, Gunther. We will come back to normal situation. So as I said, our anticipation is we will go back to a certain volume growth again. But how can it be? You have in car making, in refrigerator making, in spoon making, in food and beverages, everywhere destocking, and there is no exception in pet food as well. And if you read the reports of Nestle or Mars, they have, to some extent, all some destocking effects. But every one of them is confident and has a strong belief in pet food, us as well. So our expectation is during the second half of the year, we will see this destocking ending. And as I said, in Swedencare, it is pretty much already there. They just published and they had 9% organic growth with the strongest growth momentum in the second half -- second quarter, which means the destocking took place in the first quarter. So safe assumption in Q3 or during Q3, we will see an end of destocking, and there's no reason to be concerned. However, there is also no further possibility to increase prices in pet food. As I said, that was doable end of last year, and that is not possible anymore. Gunther, in normal, we will go back to a normal situation in pet food with, say, about most growth driven by volume growth, and that will happen in the second half of this year, okay?

The next question comes from Matthew Yates from Bank of America.

A couple of questions. Can we talk a little bit more about Aroma pricing, which you've called out as an area of weakness. Maybe some context of how big that business is. Are we talking EUR 500 million of sales or so and issues across a given product or broad? And do you think that's really destocking? Or is there any change in the competitive behavior? So I'd like to talk a bit more about Aroma pricing. The second question, sorry, just coming back to pet. If I heard Olaf say correctly, Wing had sales of about EUR 25 million in the first half. If I recall, when you bought the business, I think it was annualizing that number. So have you effectively doubled the sales of that business 1 year after owning it? Can you talk a little bit more about how you've achieved that?

Okay. Matthew, thanks for the questions. So Wing at least it showed nice growth. Let's put it this way. And yes, it was obviously the right investment in that segment. And another good example that we did hopefully the right acquisitions. So that's what leaves to say -- us to say there. And the pet food market in China is definitely a market for the future. So I'll leave it there. Good investment, good perspective, good acquisition. Second point, your Aroma Molecules. Yes, I'm happy that you asked for it again as that is certainly the biggest area of challenges in Scent & Care. The rest is pretty much okay. Aroma Molecules, it's not just one product. It's some products which are under pressure, but that is a general phenomenon in the chemical industry. However, the biggest challenge, the by far biggest challenge is that is the site in Colonel Island, which was broken in mid of December last year. And overall, that total not realized turnover of more than EUR 30 million. So top line was missing as we could not replace these products and a bottom line impact of more than EUR 20 million, so also bottom line impact. And as I said, when you see from these numbers, this is an important product line and an important site, and we're happy to tell you that probably in the course of this month, we will get back started. So overall, to sum it up, the Aroma Molecules business overall is more challenging than it was in the past. But the biggest challenge clearly was this incident in Colonel Island. That's where I would leave it. And there is no reason for us to believe that our Aroma Molecules business is not performing going forward. The total business side is between -- or is around EUR 400 million. Okay?

The next question comes from Charles Eden from UBS.

Firstly, on the volumes, which you obviously said slightly down in the half, so it implies around down 2-ish in the second quarter. Could you break that down by division, please? And if possible, also how negative was pet in the second quarter, please, on the volumes? Second question, on the full year 5% to 7% organic sales of guidance. At the lower end, that implies around 2% organic growth in the second half, which obviously seems quite low. Is that -- have you retained that low end because you see a risk of continued volume declines in the second half? Or is it more that you see a risk of sequential decline in pricing? And then if I could just sneak in a clarification. On the EUR 29 million of one-offs that you called out in the first half, I get the sense 20% -- sorry, EUR 20 million plus is Colonel Ireland and then the rest of the other 2, the antitrust investigation costs and divisional restructuring. If that's right, so EUR 20 million round number of Colonel Island, roughly EUR 3 million to EUR 4 million a month. If that's coming back online, would you expect just that sort of EUR 3 million to EUR 4 million in the second half related to that? Or is there other factors to consider?

Charles, thanks for the questions. So your assumption per month, the losses is about the right size. So it is not small, yes. And the volume negative in Q2 in pet, it was marginal. But at least in the sense of being straightforward and honest, we felt we have to report it to you because we always saw volume growth in pet food and if that's not the case, we feel we have to report. Nothing to be concerned. It was marginal. And otherwise, on overall, an organic growth rate of 8.0% for the first half of the year I think is healthy. And you're right, if we were to get to the lower end of our guidance of 5% for this year, that would mean we have an organic growth of 2% for this year. We are trying to fulfill our guidance always. And Charles, we're happy to even surprise you a bit positively. And if that's the case, we will come in that sense in the Q3 with this. So far, we have July numbers, there's no reason to see that we are falling off the cliff. Overall, tendency for the second half of the year will be Taste, Nutrition & Health will not have another 11.5% organic growth. And on the other side, Scent & Care will have a stronger growth momentum and also better profitability in the second half of the year. Overall, we'll come back just back to a bit more normal. But overall, also Symrise will continue to outperform the market. That is already something I would feel very comfortable to say now. Okay?

Yes. And just the volume breakdown by division, if that's possible, for the quarter.

Olaf is just shaking. I have no detailed clue of this. It is a rough number anyway to break it down. But to give you some hint, that's what I said. In pet food, it's marginal. And in the other areas, it's also marginal. It's almost neglectable with the exception of Aroma Molecules, and that needs to be stressed. And there, we need to break it out, and that's what we did. The biggest portion is this Colonel Island disaster.

The next question comes from Thomas Swoboda from Societe Generale.

Yes. Good morning, everybody. I still have 2 follow-up questions. Coming back to the guidance. I think when you initially gave the guidance, you said H2 should be stronger compared to H1. Now with the adjusted numbers on EBITDA, I'm just asking myself whether this phasing is still valid on EBITDA? Should we expect a higher EBITDA number on adjusted level in H2 versus H1? This is my first question.

Okay. Thomas, it is valid definitely for Scent & Care, that much we can say. For Taste, Nutrition & Health, as I said, one big driver will not be there anymore. That is the ability to have strong price increases in pet food. That's clearly, and I think I stressed it, almost impossible to have and to continue to push these hefty price increases through in Taste, Nutrition & Health. Overall, again, we want to be conservative, and we want to be delivering to -- according to our guidance. At the moment, the way we read it is we see a step back to normal in Taste, Nutrition & Health, still on a healthy level, but on a normal level, and same in Scent & Care. But as Scent & Care is smaller than Taste, Nutrition & Health, I'm not sure if they are able to even guarantee a better half of the year. But we will do our best to make it happen. Overall, healthy. But in this volatile environment, we are cautious and careful to not overpromise. Okay, Thomas?

That's very clear. My second question is on down trading and especially in pet food. One of your clients said that because of the inflation, there was a down-trading trend from wet to dry food. I'm just wondering if you could explain whether you are strongly involved in wet or in dry food, is this possible?

Dry. We are stronger in dry. But if there is a decision on wet versus dry, so we are as a trend stronger in dry. We're good in both areas, but as a trend. But we would not back on that we would be benefit. We're the market leader in this pet food thing. So -- but at least, let me put it this way, Thomas, for us no reason to be concerned for that trend, if there is one. Okay?

The next question comes from Isha Sharma from Stifel Europe.

I just have 2 left, please. So on pet food, you obviously had a very strong performance in the last years. And you said that the volume is a temporary problem and would come back in the second half and eventually in the next year as well. Could you explain what you think about the pricing and inflation there. That's a little bit opaque area for us. It would be nice to understand the organic development, including pricing. If you have to give back pricing as raw materials come down or you can hold on to it? That would be my first one. The second question is on Aroma Molecules. What is the lag effect at Aroma Molecules once we see a decent volume pickup for you and your competitors in the flavor and fragrance industry?

Okay. Isha, I'll try to answer it. Going forward, in pet foods, the pricing versus volume is pretty clear. I think the growth for the next month will pretty much not be driven by pricing. It will be driven by volume increase. And that's why I am cautious when Thomas asked about the things. That's why I'm a bit cautious second half of the year, we will not be able to increase prices further. We are not ready to lower our prices. But at the end of the day, if the raw material prices come down, we will have to do it as well. We are not there yet, Isha. So at the moment, for the next month, it's a fair assumption, all growth will come from volume increase. And for next year, it's a speculation at the moment, but I think it will be the traditional mixture, at least best assumption, 2/3 volume, 1/3 price, so we'll go back to the normal one. So after this exceptional situation where all turnover increase was driven pretty much in pet food by price increases, we will go back to the other side at the moment, more volume dominated, if not totally volume dominated and midterm. So next year, the normal pattern, 1/3 price, 1/3 volume. That's the assumption at the moment. The lag effect in Aroma Molecules, your second question, I don't know if I understood it perfect. Otherwise, if not, feel free to ask again. Overall, the business in Aroma Molecules is actually not too bad. We have young products. We have new products which have a great future. The biggest concern is this Colonel Island thing. And that's why we flagged it. That is overarching pretty much everything. The whole site was down for 7 months now, and the impact was not neglectable. We could not replace these products. And the -- on the other side, we will not benefit from being back on stream because not fulfilled orders. Unfortunately, the market has found other suppliers for these products. So we will go back to normal. But as, I guess, it was Matthew who asked about the effect, or it was Charles. But one of you asked the monthly impact of the Colonel Island site being down. That was pretty much the right number. And Isha, you can calculate very well, so you do your math according to it. We will -- so to sum it up, not benefit from unfulfilled orders. This business is simply gone and will go back to normal, and we will just not have this few million losses per month going forward. Okay?

That's clear. Just maybe one follow-up on the pet food side. When you say that the pricing might have to decline, do you think that the volumes can offset that decline in prices as we see inflation coming down?

Yes. It was a yes, no question. Yes. The business, pet food, Isha, you always can ask questions. So -- Isha. So the business is -- has an underlying strong dynamic. We just have the same tone like Nestle, Mars, Colgate, they all have identified this as a strong growth pillar going forward. There is no reason to believe it is broken. So the momentum of that business is strong. With this exceptional situation in the past created by supply chain brokers and overstocking and now destocking. But the business has a momentum that it will go back on a normal growth pattern and go back in a normal situation. There's no reason to be concerned. Okay?

The next question comes from Charles Bentley from Jefferies.

So if I can just go back to, not to bang on about Colonel Island again, but just the kind of split between the inventory adjustments that you made and the stand store costs. I mean how much of it was kind of an inventory adjustment and kind of why was that taken? And then on -- and then secondly, can I just ask on kind of strategic and operational changes that have taken place under Jörn at Scent & Care. And then maybe we'll hear a bit more about this at the CMD later this year. And then finally, just on cosmetic ingredients. I mean the volume growth there and the organic growth has been very, very strong, I guess, a lot stronger than a lot of your peers have been reporting. So just the kind of sustainability of those trends and whether you're seeing some of the kind of same dynamics or whether you think you're taking share.

So I'll first do this cosmetic ingredient thing. We have a very meticulous and different positioning in the way we do our cosmetic ingredients. And we benefit from that to just give you one highlight or one idea for all skin care problems, which people face more than half of it are caused by the exposure to Sunlight. So when people develop cosmetic ingredient actives, don't you think it's a good idea to be active in the sun protection business. And actually, Charles, there is not that many companies who are active in both. So we must sun protection and active. And that is the right strategy going forward. And I pick what you just like, we will highlight a bit more than during our Capital Markets Day, where I said we'll talk about growth areas. So there's no reason to believe that this momentum will go down. We will keep having a healthy, strong growth momentum in cosmetic ingredients, this year, next year and the years to come. So stay tuned, and we'll talk about that a bit in Capital Markets Day. Inventory adjustments, that's pretty easy. Price adjustment. Olaf wants to talk about I'll do. So very simple, why did we do it? That was purely totally related to the Colonel Island inventory. Because 7 months, the whole stuff was sitting there could not be used, could not be -- it was not written off. But Charles, the price for these materials has changed in this nearly year. So we had to factor in the now actual price situation because we want to resume production. So that has been the simple reason doing it. And I think that is absolutely legitimate.

Yes. Just to be precise, Charles. I mentioned the EUR 24 million linked to Colonel Island, and you can split it basically half to downtime costs and the other half related to the inventory, the valuation, which as Jurgen just referred to.

Okay, Charles?

Sorry. And then just any changes under Jörn? I know obviously, you've taken the costs in the first half. But I mean, I guess, the kind of the reality of how that's translating into the operations.

Well, let's put it this way. The biggest portion of the adjustments we've seen in that big segment, we will be down -- up in production. Again, this month is everything. That's status today. So we may see some residual adjustments left over the by far largest portion we have seen. And as I said, it is only related to this plant, this specific site and it's only related to certain assets and raw materials used there. For the rest, we haven't done anything, okay.

Sorry, Heinz-Jurgen. Sorry, the question was related to kind of strategic changes that are happening in Scent & Care under the new leadership with Jörn in place. Is there anything that you can kind of report back there?

Yes, Jörn has done -- of course, heavy headwind, heavy situation, he has done some measures to reduce costs. That's very simple.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Nicola Tang from BNP Paribas.

I wanted to ask about organic growth in EAME. It looks like it's about 14% in the first half. And reading to the comments, it looks like it was strong in both Sweet and Bev and various parts of fragrances. So I was wondering if you could explain the difference in trends between North America and EAME. Are you not seeing any destocking in Europe at all?

Nicola, thanks for that question. The picture, well, for EAME looks good admittedly. There's a strong dynamic EAME. Africa belongs to this region near East, where we see a very strong dynamic, frankly. Europe itself is okay but not more. North America, again, yes, we saw severe or significant destocking, but it is not as bad as it looks on the numbers, just if you look by region. Again, the biggest negative impact comes from this Colonel Island site in North America. If you take that away, North America actually is not that bad, okay? So thanks for that question and giving me the opportunity to put things a bit in perspective. Okay?

The next question comes from Oliver Schwarz of Warburg Research.

The question is about Swedencare. Obviously, you have offer out for outstanding shares. I've got the feeling that the offering price is below the recognized value per share of your stake in Swedencare of a bit more than 30% now. How is that to be reconciled? That would be my -- and explained? That would be my question.

Yes. Thanks, Oliver. Well, we have exceeded the 30% threshold, and that triggers by Swedish corporate governance and mandatory takeover offer, which we did. And the time to have this valid is over. So the good news is as per a few days ago, we are totally free and open what we do. And we believe that is a very comfortable advantageous position. So we're in talks with our colleagues of Swedencare. We leave everything open how we want to move forward. But let me put it this way. We are strongly committed and convinced that this is the right step in the right direction. We just talked in this Q&A session extensively about pet food and this unique position, which Symrise has managed to build in pet food and it is just clear that pet care is another growth avenue going forward, and we want to be represented in this important area for the future at the right point and time. And with this mandatory takeover offer, we are open and free to do together with our colleagues at Swedencare whatever we want to do. Please apologize that I'm not telling you today what our plans going forward are as this advantageous position allows us pretty much everything in all directions. And we have all time in this now. And if you look at the last numbers, Swedencare showed an organic growth rate of 9% with a record Q2 ever highest sales in Q2. So that clearly shows that it was a good move to get in this business at the right time because otherwise, if we wouldn't have done it, someone else might have done it instead of us. So we're convinced of it. And the CEO of Swedencare, Hakan Lagerberg, and the CFO, Jenny Graflind will be present on our Capital Markets Day. Another good reason to be there and stay tuned. Okay, Oliver?

Well, I appreciate that you had to make that offer due to the legal framework. That's perfectly okay with me. However, the price you offered was the legally lowest price you had to offer. If that asset is so valuable and which seems to be reflected in your balance sheet, why didn't you go for a higher offering price, so more shares would be tendered?

Oliver, we could do it at any time. We could do it -- and maybe we do it. But we are not talking about it and our plans going forward. We talked with our friend from Swedencare. It was clear that we wanted to enter this segment. We wanted to enter and the decision was made to enter the segment partnership with Swedencare. And at the moment, we have all trust in the management, and there is no reason to make a mandatory ambitious takeover offer, which gives the impression that we have any reason to not have trust in the management. That's why we said we will have Hakan Lagerberg and Jenny in our Capital Markets Day. And we may if we come to the conclusion, together with our colleagues at Swedencare, that it makes sense to increase our shareholding, we may increase it. We have all options now. There is no constraints anymore from any side. So that's a very good position to be in.

The last question for today's call comes from Andreas von Arx from Baader-Helvea.

I have a housekeeping question, the real one. The housekeeping question is that you point to EUR 18 million one-off effect that you have in the first half '22. If you would give that number for the full year or the second half, what will be the adjustment that you will point when we then go into the full year reporting next spring? That would be the housekeeping question. And then coming back to Aroma Molecules, you give the impact on the top line of around EUR 30 million from the factory in the U.S. Is that roughly equally split between first and second quarter? I'm asking because if I look at the numbers, it seems to me that Aroma Molecules must be down clearly more in the second quarter than in the first quarter. And that additional part, which I think you labeled destocking, that part you do also do not expect to come back in the second half? Or do you expect that, let's say, weakness we have seen in the second quarter, excluding the U.S. factory, also to persist in the second half of '23?

Okay. Andreas, thanks for the question. The housekeeping question, I haven't understood at all. I push that over to Olaf. But I'm happy to take the other question, Aroma Molecules. You're absolutely right. It was this impact was not the same in Q1 and in Q2. So why is that? The incident in Colonel Island happened mid of December last year, which means in the first quarter. We still had some material which we could ship and sell, although the site was broken that was just so. The full negative impact happened in Q2. Absolute right assumption with that one. I hope that answers your question for that one. So for your models, don't assume the same impact month-by-month for this. So absolutely, that's why it was not so much foreseeable Q1, and it was definitely foreseeable Q2. But as I said also on the question of one of your -- previous questions, this business will not come back. This business is simply gone. It was served by someone else, that's at least our assumption. We may be lucky to recoup some of it, but we are not trying to mislead you here. At the moment, our model say this business is gone. And we go back to normal without a benefit of having some overhanging briefings of business. So not perceivable significant benefit of Colonel Island Q1, full impact Q2 will be going out within this month as far as we can see. And the business will not be coming or will be picked up from that what was gone. Just gone that business. I hope that answers the second question and housekeeping, Olaf, I have no clue.

So Andreas, I think last year, the Velcorin impact, which we mentioned was the EUR 18 million, and there was a second impact in the second half of last year of also EUR 18 million, which we will then flag as well to be normalized. And the number for the second half of this year, of course, that is an unknown at this point. As said, it should be lower than the EUR 29 million between flat. But the topics are still around, and therefore, we will also provide an apple-to-apple comparison for the second half.

So the adjusted EBITDA for 2022 is EUR 886 million. So that's your reported number minus EUR 36 million. Is that correct? .

We will check on that, Andreas. I think it's housekeeping we do here. We'll come back to you.

Well, yes, participants, this brings us to the end of our conference call. Thank you very much for your interest in Symrise and your time today, especially on the day where we were not the only ones presenting H1 numbers. We're looking forward to seeing you in person soon. And as mentioned by Heinz-Jurgen already, we would love to meet you at our Capital Markets Day on October 11 and 12 in Brittany, France, where we are happy to offer you to meet our entire Executive Board, various divisional managers and, of course, a lovable pack of dogs and cats. We will publish our trading update for the 9 months and third quarter on October 25. That's it for today. Have a nice day and the great summer, ideally a summer break. Thank you very much, and goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may now disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.