Symrise AG (SY1) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Audio Gap] Beverage applications achieved double-digit organic growth. The EAME and Asia Pacific regions showed particularly strong business growth. Overall, the division delivered industry-leading growth rates and gained market share through the differentiated set of product solutions. The portfolio effect is coming from the divestment of our U.K. Beverages trading business in March 2024 and reflects 2 months turnover. The Pet Food division recorded a moderate sales increase in the first quarter with strong growth in Pet Food Palatability, partially offset by softer performance in Pet Nutrition. Nutrition delivered mid-single-digit volume growth, but as indicated before, price adjustments overweighted the volume increases. The ongoing expansion of capacities in high-growth regions is progressing and will support further international expansion in line with the group's long-term growth strategy. Chart 6 shows the sales development for Scent & Care. The Scent & Care segment recorded organic sales growth of 1.7% with a strong momentum for Fragrance and Aroma Molecules. The growth comprised of a positive pricing of 2% and a flattish volume environment, predominantly driven by lower volumes from UV filters. The Fragrance division achieved high single-digit organic growth, supported by strong momentum in the Fine Fragrance, Consumer Fragrance and Oral Care business units. In particular, Personal Care and Household application had a high project vitality. Continued robust growth was achieved in Latin America, EAME and APAC regions. Sales in the Cosmetic Ingredients divisions were below the prior year period due to the very high comparables in sunscreen filters. The division remains strategically well positioned with a differentiated product offering, including microprotection, cosmetic actives, botanicals and screen filters (sic) [ sunscreen filters ], and is expected to return to superior above-market growth rates going forward. The Aroma Molecules division also delivered high single-digit growth, supported by strong momentum and robust demand in North America and APAC regions. Let's move directly to Chart 8 concerning our outlook. We reaffirm our financial targets for the current year and our midterm ambitions through 2028, which are underpinned by an unwavering focus on executing the ONE Symrise strategy. We are leveraging the strength of our resilient and diversified portfolio, industry-leading R&D and close customer partnerships to manage complexity and drive scalable, profitable growth. Our global footprint and balanced end market exposure position us to nimbly manage external pressures, including the impact of evolving tariff regimes. Where needed, price adjustments are being implemented in close coordination with customers to offset input costs. We expect to grow above the anticipated annual market growth rate of approximately 3% to 4%. We reaffirm the 2025 guidance to achieve an organic growth of 5% to 7%, an EBITDA margin of around 21% and a business free cash flow of around 14%. We also reaffirm our 2028 midterm targets, aiming for an organic growth of 5% to 7%, an EBITDA margin in the range of 21% to 23% and disciplined capital allocation and operating efficiency will continue, supporting business free cash flow of more than 14%. Let's now move directly to Chart 10 to update you concerning our transformational journey. On the left side, you will see the ONE Symrise strategy we developed to unleash the full beauty of Symrise based on our market trends, consumer needs and customer expectations. As outlined at Capital Market Day, the ONE Symrise strategy includes 3 strategic pillars: growth, efficiency and active portfolio management. Sustainability, digitalization and people underpin our focus on our strong drivers to achieve our goals. On the right side, I will update you on main transformational strategic actions. First, starting with where to play through our portfolio management strategy. Let's begin with ONE CARE. With ONE CARE, we are bundling our capabilities in cosmetic ingredients, health solutions and Probi to develop holistic innovations for health, well-being and beauty, a key future differentiator and growth driver for Symrise. Probi is essential to Symrise ONE CARE journey as they bring a strong heritage in science and a portfolio of clinically proven biotic solutions that enhances health, well-being and beauty. Probi is now joining the Symrise family, and we are excited about the opportunities ahead. The integration is now ongoing. In parallel, the past month, we conducted strategic assessment of the existing footprint of our chemicals production activities. One of the assessment outcome is that, our chemicals production is a valuable asset, both strategically and financially. As our goal is to generate the best value for the business, we are considering all value creation opportunities. Our first announcement today is that, we are exploring strategic options for the terpene ingredients business. This business is proven to add significant value for customers, but relative to our criteria for profitable growth moving forward, we believe it will create the most value to consider all strategic options. We will, of course, keep you informed about how this process is progressing during the upcoming quarters. Second pillar, how to win through our growth initiatives? We have built a strong ONE Symrise innovation ecosystem to drive new high-value product developments. Numerous innovative product solutions have been launched in Q1, such as SymRelief, revolutionizing skin soothing and sensitive skin care, or our Mindera platform, 100% plant-based ingredient for product protection. And soon, we will launch metabolic health by Probi, which improve cardiovascular health and mitigate weight. I will stop here for the different examples of innovation. And thirdly, how to win profitably through our efficiency pillar? As you know, we are focusing on profitable growth. Efficiency in procurement and industrial operations play a major role to leverage our global scale. To be precise, there is no trade-off between growth and margin. We are committed to both. To that end, we are driving profitability by transforming the organization, aligning the right structures and rethinking our processes. As we set the stage for 2025, it is important to understand that the efficiency initiative will start to build in the coming quarters and over years. Procurement is a key focus area with EUR 2 billion in direct spend under optimization without compromising quality. On the indirect side, including packaging, energy and logistics, we are addressing EUR 800 million by streamlining processes. In manufacturing, about EUR 1 billion in costs are under review as we aim to improve yield, productivity and also simplify operations and roll out global asset management. We are also building a new operating model, which allow us to deliver these synergies. Symrise had a decentralized organization in the past, and now we are centralizing where it creates additional value. And we are currently building the organization for procurement and industrial operations. In due course, we will announce the SVP for Global Procurement and the SVP for Global Operations. All this will contribute to lifting the margin towards our guidance. I would like to remind you that part of the planned savings will be used to improve our margin and a remaining part of the savings will be reinvested to further enhance our resiliency and fuel our growth engine. We want to reach a sustainable and sustained 23% margin as soon as possible. While we have a detailed road map internally, we are choosing also to maintain some flexibility in how we share these plans externally, allowing us to operate with agility as we move forward. But be sure, we will keep you informed on the process and value creation. I thank all of you. And now, with Olaf, I am happy to open the call for your questions. Thanks again. Thank you, Jean-Yves. We will now open the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] Jota, please go ahead.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Charles Eden with UBS.

So 2 questions for me, please. Firstly, you've reiterated the 5% to 7% organic sales growth guidance for 2025. Could you share some comments on your expectation for Q2? Will this be back in this 5% to 7% range that you've given for the year? And perhaps you could also share some commentary on current trading trends in April, too. And then my second question is, could you just help us understand the size of the UV filters headwind in Q1, please? And just remind us what percentage of Scent & Care sales UV filters makes up in Q1 because I appreciate it's a larger quarter for the business. Those are my 2 questions.

Yes. Thanks, Charles. I will answer these 2 questions concerning the guidance, 5% to 7%. Of course, we confirm for the full year. And concerning Q2, it's too early for us to give you any more. Concerning the current trading trends, the current trading trends are good. And we are really on a very strong underlying markets wherever we are. So we don't see any signal, any negative signal there. You all know there are a lot of question marks and uncertainties concerning the tariff and so on. We are working on it. But today, I'm very optimistic. I'm very comfortable to tell you that the 5% to 7% full year will be achieved. Now concerning the size of the UV filter business, you have to know that the best quarter ever in UV filter for the company was last year and the second quarter ever was the first quarter this year. So it shows that the market is there. The market volume growth are there, right? So now we face a massive business we did last year, and we are just now coming back on track. So I will not go into the detail to give you the exact size because there is a volume impact and also a price impact, but you have to know that we are really coming back on track. And Q2, the second part of the year, I am very confident that we are really coming back on the growth on this business.

The next question is from the line of Lisa De Neve with Morgan Stanley.

I'll start with 2. In the light of potential tariffs coming through, I mean, can you provide us with an update on what you expect for input inflation for this year? And you mentioned you've already been speaking with customers on any potential price adjustments. Can you share, if required, how quickly these will be put through? That's my first question. And the second one is on Pet Food. Can you share how you see Pet Food volumes growing across the different regions? Is there a big difference in trends across the regions? And can you also share where you're adding capacity and when you expect this to contribute to sales?

Yes. I will take the second one and hand over for tariff to Olaf. Concerning Pet Food, the growth -- the volume growth is there. We -- as I told also previously, we had a wonderful COVID time for a lot of reasons. And now the market is rebounding. But what I can tell you, we have wherever in Nutrition and in Pal, we have a sustainable volume growth, right, I should say, mid-level growth rate. So -- and again, taking that into consideration, I'm very confident to see that the Pet Food will continue to be a growth driver. Now I will hand over to Olaf for the tariffs. I think there is somebody is typing. Olaf?

Okay. Moving to the tariff environment. So overall, I think you all know that it's very volatile, not to say it's changing every day. And therefore, we are very closely on it at the moment across all the business environments. We have started to take care of the tariff situation, including taking first price measures. So it will not take long, and we are absolutely committed to protect our environment through these measures. Now it's not only price. There are other mitigation measures depending on what's going to happen. That includes movement of production to other environments. It includes reformulation activities. So we have enough at hand to protect us against any kind of tariff developments. And now we need to see where all this ends. But from what we have as a positioning in Symrise, with a very decentralized footprint, we have all the flexibility to act. That's also, by the way, the experience from the first Trump environment campaign. We passed everything through, and it did not hurt our profitability. We have the same expectation for this time.

The next question comes from Edward Hockin with JPMorgan.

My first question is actually a bit of a follow-up on Pet Food to Lisa's question. I think previously you had said about Pet for the year being within the 5% to 7% growth range that the group will be in. So can you talk about what the levers are to accelerate Pet Food growth in the coming quarters? And by when do you start to annualize or start to cycle some of the big price cuts that you saw in Nutrition? So when do we start to see some of that pricing headwind in Pet Food abating? And my second question, please, is on the strategic review of your chemicals production. So I just wanted to confirm what growth outlook and profitability level you see for the terpenes business? And then also, am I right that this is 1 announcement today, but is it possible that you're still looking at other businesses within Aroma Molecules and your thoughts on the Menthol business, please?

Yes. Thanks a lot, Edward. It's 2 important questions. The first concerning Pet Food. So today, we are on track really for delivering growth and again to come back also on the Nutrition business in terms of pricing. That's a very good news. The second thing is, how can we accelerate growth? Today, we are -- first, we cannot accelerate growth where the market is not growing. So the market -- what is the market doing? The market is growing quite very well in APAC. And we just opened a new plant in APAC for Nutrition, which is a great success. We are already entering a significant purchase order. So APAC is differing a fast-growing business for Pet Food altogether, whatever it's for Palatability or Nutrition. The second thing also is, we are really addressing the customer portfolio. There are customers suffering more than others. And your FMCG customer, you know them very well. They are suffering. So the market is suffering less than these customers. There is a redistribution of the market shares. And we are really focusing on the regional, local, exactly in consumer health care and consumer care, but also in private label. So -- and so, I think the route to market change, and we are also following the change of the route to market. And last and not least, we continue to make innovation. We continue to propose to the customers alternatives, non-meat-based products, halal products and things like that, also productivity products in terms of Nutrition or Palatability. So innovation is also a big -- playing a big part in the way we will accelerate our growth. And I just take the opportunity to just come back on the growth pillar. We want to grow through innovation. And it's also something we want to continue to fund. And I am very optimistic in the way also we will always be the leader in this pet field. Concerning terpene ingredient business, we will keep you informed. Today, there is -- we are studying a lot of different options. All options are on the table. Concerning the rest of businesses and activities of Aroma Molecule, as you clearly could -- can think and understand we did the exercise for all our production activities. You asked specifically about Menthol, but I can tell you that we went through all the different strategic streams, and we are working on it. So the priority we have today, and that's the reason we announced it today is really to give you some update on terpene. And what -- why terpene? Because amongst our portfolio, and again, I repeat, it's a very valuable portfolio strategically and financially. We are very well positioned if we benchmark ourselves and also intrinsically. The terpene business is volatile. The terpene business is capital intensive. And if we want to increase our outcome and our performance in the future, we have to become more and more visible, reliable and also improve our return on capital employed picture. So that's the reason why we are really starting with terpene.

The next question comes from the line of Alex Sloane with Barclays.

2 from my side. Just firstly, could you give a bit more context on the regional divergence, double-digit growth in LatAm versus flatter growth in North America in Q1? Did North America deteriorate at all through the quarter? And how would you expect this region to perform for the balance of the year? And then secondly, just within the Food & Beverage growth, obviously, impressive double-digit growth in beverages called out. I'd be interested if you could give a bit more context on what's been driving that and how sustainable that is -- that would appear to be quite ahead of the end market? So some color there would be great.

Yes. So thank you for the 2 questions. The first one, the regions. On a regional point of view, so we grow everywhere. The 4.2% organic growth is everywhere and in every activity, except, as I mentioned, we are suffering in UV filters. But -- and again, comparables. Where we are really growing very well is APAC and Latin America because the markets are still growing. We know we see now what's happening in China, in India, in Southeast Asia and Latin America, we have a very strong player, wherever it's Pet Food, in food and in Scent & Care. The very good news of the last months and quarters is the way we are still performing -- overperforming in Europe significantly. And not only in Taste, Nutrition & Health, where we continue to take market shares, and it's linked, by the way, to your second question, and I will come on that later on, but also in Scent & Care. In Scent & Care, we are also -- definitely also entering more key major iconic global customers by continuing to develop local and regional business. And the success is to be capable to address both. So now the region which is still a concern is U.S., but it's a U.S. situation today. So a lot of things are happening in U.S. today. So there are a lot of uncertainty, purchasing power inflation. So for us, we are putting a lot of energy, a lot of emphasis really to make sure that we're also making the best out of the U.S. performance as a market. So altogether, 2 very high-speed region, a very strong Europe and U.S. where we put a lot of energy for really keeping the pace. Now coming back on Food & Beverage. I'm very proud to say that the teams in Food & Beverage are continuously innovating, are continuously gaining some new shares. Today, Europe for us in Food & Beverage, we are also developing, as I told you, significantly in Europe, even in Europe in Food & Beverage. There is a fast-growing region, Middle East, Middle East, Africa, but mainly Middle East. So we are also by being close to the customers, by being a real global company, application lab, we are really taking the best out of the potential new markets. And this market is still innovating a lot. Our customers are still wanting to innovate a lot, and we are really there for innovating with them. So Food & Beverage, again, is a market where we are continuously outperforming.

Mr. Sloane, are you done with your questions?

Yes.

The next question comes from the line of Ranulf Orr with Citi.

Just 2 clarifications actually really. I think I missed it to an earlier question, but could you please provide the financial details of the terpenes business, what sales and EBITDA looks like? And secondly, just on tariffs and your pricing to offset costs there. I mean, the peers have talked quite confidently about pretty immediate surcharge pricing. Is that what you're talking about as well? Or do you think it could be a slightly longer time line to recouping some of those incremental costs?

Okay. I will start and let Olaf complement on tariff. Concerning the financial details on terpene, the terpene ingredient is a strategic product for us. And in terms of turnover, it's substantially above EUR 100 million, right? So it is -- again, it's coming from an acquisition, Pinova in U.S. And concerning the margin, in any case, it's a dilutive margin, right? So that's also a concern. I said a dilutive margin for our guidance. Strategic products, so it is also the reason why we are really studying and we put on the table all the strategic options. And so, concerning the financial details, if it was sales, so you have it, if it was EBITDA or profitability, I think you have it. I don't know if you want to get more details, just tell us. Concerning the tariffs, as mentioned by Olaf, so there are a lot of things happening there. And we want to avoid the automatic things because first, there was an announcement and after there was a pause and nobody knows exactly where it will end, right? So we are anticipating also with our customers. As mentioned by Olaf, we're anticipating in production, in reformulation. And we want to also play with the customers, right? So the idea is also to make win-win with the customers. And we want to be very, very careful not to make an automatic increase, which would make a nonsense at the end of the day. So each time we will have to cover impact on cost, we will do it. But nothing today seems to be so automatic. It depends on -- is it coming from China or not? Is it what type of categories of products? And we discover every day, we are doing an in-depth analysis of the products which are concerned. So it's not one-fit-for-all. It's a big program in our organization to make sure that we are really passing through the right price for also continuing a good partnership with the customers. So preserving our profitability, continuing to grow because the idea is also to grow with the customer, of course. And at the end of the day, be very agile and reactive as everything can change overnight.

And also, Ranulf, it's always in comparison to what the competition position is. And I think from this angle, Symrise is very well positioned with its footprint. We are well aware of the Menthol production. We are the only one in the U.S. who has such a production. And, of course, it can create a competitive advantage with our footprint. Our Pet Food business is completely close to customer. The closer, the better. You know the slogan. So we can produce in an environment in the U.S. sourcing in the U.S. And if you compare us to others, there might be even an advantage out of all these discussions for us.

The next question comes from the line of Nicola Tang with BNP Paribas.

First is a bit of a follow-up there on sort of tariffs. And as you were saying, Olaf, kind of maybe the strategic advantages of where your assets are positioned. I was wondering whether you see any signs that there has been prebuying or perhaps based on your customer discussions, whether people are looking to secure supply given the uncertainty. And then the second question on pricing. I think you said group pricing plus 1.4%. I was wondering if you could -- aside from Pet Nutrition, and it sounded like you were implying that UV filters also had negative pricing. I was wondering if there are any other areas where pricing was negative. And also, how much of the pricing in Q1 related to some of these tariff discussions? Or is that more for looking ahead?

Okay. Thanks, Nicola. So on tariffs, I will give you the commercial perspective on tariffs. And I think the conclusion of Olaf before was very good to say that it can be an opportunity also. In every problem, there is also an opportunity to be competitive. In any case, for us, it's to be competitive by respecting and being transparent with the customers. That's very important. But do we see customers prebuying or whatever? No. I think that if people are too quick, sometimes they can do wrong. And you see that in the raw material evolution. And it's very difficult in uncertainty to take some position and prebuying is not something we see, if I well understand your questions. So, again, our position here is really to play very tactically. Of course, strategy is to grow profitably, but tactically to really make the best out of it. And at the end of the day, to be more competitive after than before, what happened today. Concerning the pricing, you get it right. So we are now a year of regularization of the price for the egg protein. That's on its way. And I think it's compensated by the volume, as we said, which is a very good news because the market is really there and is really asking more and more high-value protein, so which is also a very good sign for the future. And there is no significant price decrease. You mentioned UV. We have definitely some Chinese competition coming from China, which is not new. It was already mentioned. So -- and we are really continuing to manage it a very proper way. Otherwise, you can see that all the business are really growing well, and we can really position a very significant price in terms of value creation. The idea also in our product is to get more and more on the raw material evolution and to get more and more in the usage value approach to say what is really the strategic value in our customers. That's the reason why the growth is driven by innovation. And the growth of Symrise will be more and more driven by innovation and less and less by a raw material impact. Of course, raw materials will continue to play a significant role in our COGS. We are working intensively for improving through our global procurement approach, and we can gain different things. But the idea on top of it, definitely, is really to create more and more extra value and the pricing will be more and more driven by extra value and less and less on the raw material evolution.

The next question is from the line of Eric Wilmer with Kempen.

I was wondering in the context of the U.S.-China trade dispute, are you seeing any signs of Asian chemicals capacity being redirected towards Europe, LatAm and Asia, perhaps specifically on the Aroma Chemicals, Cosmetic Ingredients and Flavor side? And then also to just press a bit more on the Beverage strong performance in the first quarter. Would it be possible to give a sense on which regions particularly saw strong Beverage performance?

Yes. So concerning U.S.-China, definitely, we are in a very strong position for 2 reasons. First, we are not -- you have not all our eggs in the same basket. We are a very well globalized organization. We are not depending on China. We are not depending on U.S. We are global. We are European-based and very well present and local production in China, local production in U.S., Latin America and Europe. So concerning with the debate, even commercial war between U.S. and China, we have key competitive edge. We can produce in China. We can produce in U.S. And I always think the Menthol as an example. We are the only one Menthol producer in U.S. All the competitions are outside U.S., means Europe or APAC. So that is concerning this approach, and I will let Olaf complete if I miss something. Now concerning Beverage. Beverage is very strong -- very, very strong in U.S. and Europe. And we have a very nice success stories in Europe with small start-ups. The big players today with the new trends of health solution, sugar-free solution, sports drink, easy to drink, easy to hydrate energy drinks. There are a lot of new consumers and Gen Z consumers. And we are playing really very close with some start-ups, which are really representing a very strong growth for us. Meanwhile, we're also playing with the big one and also reformulating with them with sugar reduction mainly. And it's also a big part of through taste modulation, where we are very strong. And it's also a big piece of our strong increase. So it means that we are -- it's not 1 product, 1 customer, 1 application. It's really a big trend to see health coming through beverage. And we are really well positioned there. So -- and again, we are very happy to see also, I can say you, astonishingly a very good dynamic in Europe.

So, Eric, just to contribute to the chemicals environment, and I think your question was, are there any signals when it comes to redirection into Europe? We don't see these signals actually at the moment. We are running our own chemicals environment pretty much full steam and it's continuing very well. There's no visible new competition coming from China at the moment.

The next question comes from the line of Artem Chubarov with Redburn Atlantic.

I'd like to follow up on Nicola' question on pricing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that, your FX hyperinflation pricing this quarter was not material. So this 1.5% pricing was mainly proper price like real pricing. So comparing this to the prior year, there's a notable acceleration. So last year, we mainly had negative pricing. So, again, just to confirm, what's the reason for the step-up? Is that just a reversal effect? Or are we seeing any underlying raw material inflation, which you are pricing through? So just to confirm on that. And more on pricing. So in Pet Nutrition, is there any sense where you are on pricing compared to the pre-pandemic levels? I'm just trying to understand how much more of negative pricing in Pet Nutrition we may expect given that there was some positive pricing in the past.

Yes. Very good. Thanks for the 2 precise questions. Concerning pricing, as mentioned by Olaf, we are out now of inflation impact. So the 1.2% we were mentioning is really a real pricing. So that's the first information. Concerning the -- what is happening in the different sectors -- sorry, 1.4% price increase. What is happening in the different sectors? We are really applying reasonable price increase, for example, in Food & Beverage, a reasonable price increase in Pet Palatability also coming back, reasonable and even sometimes significant price increase in Fragrance, reasonable price increase in Aroma Molecule. So really, we are also pricing the service. We are also pricing the quality of Symrise, and we are also pricing the innovation. So it's very important. We always mention volume and price, but we are also a mix impact, which is not neglectable, where we are moving more and more for commoditizing products to more and more adding value products. And when we are moving there, the pricing is much easier to do. So -- and again, that is also a trend where in the past, certainly, we were not focusing enough on quarterly or yearly pricing. Now it's really -- it's coming to a routine. It's coming to really -- it's part of the business model of our sales and marketing organization really to make sure that each time we are pricing the right way. So it's also something we are improving every quarter there. So now to come back on the Pet Nutrition. The prices now versus the prices pre-pandemic. So first, there is no relation between the egg price in U.S. going up and down with avian flu and the byproducts we are now selling. So end of this year, we will have reached a level where the protein point will be at the right level of what can be the protein point of egg protein for whatever type of nutrition solution we want to do. So that being said, we see a very good trend for coming back on price increase in the following years.

The next question comes from the line of Georgina Fraser with Goldman Sachs.

Georgina?

Sorry, my headset was having some issues. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Sorry about that. It is actually a follow-up to the previous one. And I appreciate you talking about this effort to move towards more value-added products and therefore, a lot stronger pricing power. Are you able to give us some more tangible examples of where you're moving into more value-add product categories? I mean, I think if we compare you to peers that appear to have stronger pricing power, it's due to exposure to segments like Fine Fragrance. Is that an area that you've been making inroads into delivering better sales growth?

Yes. So, again, you got the point about more value-added products. Our strategy is a purpose-driven strategy. It's really to improve and innovate in health, well-being and beauty. And the customers and ultimately, the consumer are happy to spend more if there is a clinically proven evidence of what our customers are selling. And it is where we want and we are making the difference. We are a very scientific-driven company. Every customer recognize that. Every time we work with a customer, they recognize the science which is put under our solutions and the technical support under the solutions, the sugar reduction, the taste modulation, the salt reduction, all these kinds of things are really very well technically supported by our team. So we can really apply the reason and the right price there. And it is recognized by the customer. Now if you take Fine Fragrance, Fine Fragrance is a very good contra example where fine people are buying, not only the science, but the creativity. And we are also having a good price increase in Fine Fragrance because the customer recognize the way we create and the way we serve and the way we can really accompany them and not only the big one, but also the small and medium one. Fine Fragrance is a field where we need to work very hand-in-hand with the big players to help them to build their brand, their iconic brands, and we provide a lot of technical support. Meanwhile, we need also to be able to follow the market trends, which is also the mid and regional one in Middle East, in SFA Neroli, where also we can apply some very good price because service is a very big part of the solution. So altogether, we are also more and more, we have a big program there for really integrating in our pricing all the tangible and intangible value we are creating for the customers. I think we need to -- I'm seeing now, Rene. So I think that it's close to be closed at the end of the call. Perhaps 1 last question. And if there is 1 last question, we take it. And after I propose to finish. Any last question?

Yes. We have a question from the line of Charles Bentley with Jefferies.

Jean-Yves, just 1 thing that you've kind of you focused on very clearly is the transformation journey that you're going under. Thanks for giving the detail by kind of procurement and manufacturing those buckets of cost. I mean, when do you think we're going to get closer to kind of a defined target? Are you willing -- going to be willing to give one by either those 2 buckets on an overall basis? Or would you rather just kind of leave it as a -- just to help us with the levers between volume growth and mix supporting your margin progress and defined cost savings?

Yes, yes. So as I mentioned in my introductory speech, we also want to keep for us some information, right? And I thank you for this question because we have this question very often. Internally, we have a very clear path, a very clear improvement program. And we know the buckets, the raw materials, EUR 2 billion, but after there are the addressable raw material for globalizing or not, and we have a very clear understanding of the indirect EUR 800 million and what we could improve in productivity yield and asset management. And by the way, the global asset management was a big part of our strategic assessment in Aroma Molecules. So we have internally, and by the way, supported by strong consulting companies, we have the figures. And we have KPIs, and we know where we want to go. And that's the reason why also we commit to this guidance, and we feel comfortable to gain and to reinvest for fueling the growth. That's the story. And we have the figures. And already, we are recruiting the VP Operations and the VP Procurement. They are already clearly defined goals and road map for the coming 3 years. After the question is, do we want to disclose it? And what would be the value we could create if we disclose too much externally? Taking into account that our commitment is to deliver, not only to increase the profitability and the cash conversion, but also really to continue to grow. We want to continue to be a growth story. And we will have also perhaps to arbitrate some time for -- between the growth and the profitability. And again, I said all the time, there is no trade-off, but there will be some -- perhaps some arbitration to put money and digitalization is a good example. Perhaps we have to put more money when we think digitalization or not. So if we just now tell you that's what we want to gain a kind of growth gain somewhere, it can happen, but reinject a part of it in quality, IT, digitalization or R&D, and you will not see the figure at the end in the P&L. So that's the reason why I think that it's for us much more reasonable and fair with all our stakeholders to really commit to a final result in terms of profit and the way we will reinvest the capital. Instead of giving you more details where we should be stuck with some details and losing the big picture on our agility to also make our job. So I hope I answered the question. I hope that -- thanks, Rene, for the introduction. I hope that Olaf and myself will answer your questions. And I wish you a very nice day. We are at your disposal, of course, through IR team to really answer all of your questions. And very happy to meet all of you again in the coming days or weeks. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

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