Good morning, and thank you for joining today's call. I'm sitting here with Dimitri de Vreeze, our CEO, and Ralf Schmeitz, our CFO.

This morning, we published our full-year 2025 results on a restated basis, together with a presentation to investors, which you can find on our website. Here, you can also find our disclaimers about forward-looking statements.

Following Dimitri's and Ralf's opening comments, we will open the line for questions. As usual, as a reminder, the sell-side analysts who want to ask questions will need to register via the questioners link, which they can find on the website in the financial calendar.

Dimitri, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Dave, and welcome to everybody here in this call. Nice to see you yet again.

Busy week for us, busy week for you. The ANH call last Monday, now the full-year results, and you've seen that there are a lot of numbers there, Ralf will lead you through in a minute.

Then next week, our integrated annual report. As you've seen in the press release, we're also looking forward to host our investor event on March 12th about the next phase of DSM-Firmenich as a consumer company.

Now, let me go through a few of the highlights of the divestment of ANH to CVC. We've explained that on Monday, but it was an important piece of our journey.

I think it's clear to say that it's really focusing on DSM-Firmenich to become a key player in nutrition, health, and beauty. That's also where the value creation is.

An important point was the signing of the divestment of ANH to CVC, and we structured a deal where we have mitigated the downside risks in the ANH business as well as the volatility. It was one of the strategic reasons that we announced that we wanted to divest, and we have implemented on that.

Now, we have created a deal structure that is not only mitigating those risks on downsides, but also creates an opportunity on upside. That is also what we have announced last Monday, together with a favorable long-term supply agreement on vitamins.

The 2.2 billion we found a fair value for the ANH business. I think it's a great business, but it has its volatility.

We'll get proceeds at closing of 1.2 billion, and we maintained a 20% retained stake because we wanted to cater for a possible upside. The SolutionsCo business, the specialty business, is a really good, resilient business going forward, so that whole multiplier on value we would like to capture.

As well as the EssentialCo, which is predominantly the vitamins business, where I think CVC Capital Partners are a partner we work on different businesses with, and they are very much catered to make that business grow and add value. We want to capture that 20% as well.

In the grand scheme of things, 20% of 2.2 is around a half a billion. It is also in terms of risk mitigation not the biggest number, please don't see the 20% as something where there's a direct link to our business.

Not anymore. It's deconsolidated.

It has been out of our numbers. The 9 billion is the DSM-Firmenich consumer scope that we're talking about.

Now, the earn-out is linked to business on SolutionsCo, very good business. In that sense, I think the earn-out is pretty much secure.

The part of the earn-out is linked to EssentialCo. Then if that's half of the earn-out, I think it's all being mitigated with CVC working diligently to bring that business up to thrive, and I think there are lots of opportunities, with normalization over the business as we speak.

Now, what are we going to do with the money? Although, let's make that very clear, the money only comes in towards the end of the year.

As a sign of confidence, we will start our share buyback already in quarter one, in addition to the 1 billion that we have started and completed for the feed enzyme business. At the same time, not resetting the dividend.

It remains stable also after the carve-out of ANH at 2.50. Now, if we then go to the next slide, that shows, with ANH out of the way, we are on our journey where we merged the company, we delivered on the synergies, we have tuned our portfolio, and we have signed the deal to divest ANH.

We're now into the next phase of DSM-Firmenich, the consumer company, and we're going to grow what we have, going to anchor what we do, and going to deliver on our promises. On March 12th, we will give you that accelerate route with our BU presidents to get a bit of a feel on what we growing and how fast we were growing.

Under that journey, we've grown organic sales growth of 6% in '24 in the scope of DSM-Firmenich consumer-related. This year, we have announced the 3 years' full-year result, 3 3% growth on 2025 for that business in the environment we are in.

We're clearly showing the resilience of that portfolio going forward. Now, if we then go to the next slide, a little bit the financials of that DSM-Firmenich consumer scope.

If you move to the next slide, I'm going to show you a few numbers. Yep, here we go.

Here are the numbers. Here, you can see we're a 9 billion company.

We have grown that company 3% in '25, as we said, 6% in '24, if you go through the restate, apples-with-apples comparison. An adjusted EBITDA of 1.7 1.8 billion, which was a 5% step-up like-for-like.

By the way, that's the same from '23 to '24, it shows the resilience of that portfolio that we've built, with a trajectory of EBITDA margin. I think many of you asked the question, 'How do you come to the 22-23 mid-term targets?'

We started with 18. We moved it up to 19, 19.6 for 2025.

If you take the last two quarters, we're more closer to 20, also that trajectory will continue, with a good generation of cash flow, the 10.5% conversion over sales in 2025. Now, I already alluded on the dividend and on the share buyback and on the investor event on March 12th, where we're going to give you some insight on what the next phase of DSM-Firmenich is all about.

Now, last slide before I hand over to Ralf, in that whole trajectory, we stay true to our sustainability program. If you can go to the next slide, please.

Then, it's clearly that we also have made quite some progress on sustainability. It's important for our customers.

Some people will say, 'Oh, why do you still work on sustainability?' Apart from the fact that it's part of who we are, it is, in the market we play in, with customers, important.

100% renewable ahead of plan, and also some recent ratings of CDP AA for climate and water, but also platinum medal for EcoVadis. It does matter.

It is the company we're building, and we're proud that we also continue that during that merger. We're well positioned to go into the next phase, which we call internally the Accelerate phase, with growing what we have, anchor what we do, and deliver.

Before we go there, maybe let's look back for one more time in what we've done on 2025 before we move forward. With that, I hand over to Ralf.

Thanks, Dimitri, and good morning, everybody. Before diving into all of the numbers, every number presented is, as Dimitri said, in accounting terms, continuing operation.

It represents the company we've been building over the past two years, and it's all about Perfumery & Beauty, Taste, Texture & Health, and our Health, Nutrition & Care business. As you'll see, ANH is not very much coming forward in the slides.

It's now part of discontinued, and Dimitri and myself will be managing that business for cash until the closing has finalized, which we anticipate towards the end of the year. It will be positive in cash flow generation as well, and that's what we'll steer upon, and we'll continue to report on the cash performance going forward.

Now, a few things. Happy with the announcement on Monday, where obviously triggered the whole event of all of the restatements, and we've been releasing the new numbers on Monday afternoon.

It is a lot to take in. We appreciate that.

I think also if you look at our press release, we have been as elaborate as possible, giving you the full P&L, the balance sheet, and the cash flow ahead of our annual report. In the annex, we've tried to bridge also between the total group and the continuing operations, and show you all of the moving pieces.

We also appreciate that in a busy reporting season, maybe not everybody has restated it. In the annex on page 21 and 22, we've basically also included a reporting as per the old world, including the divisions before restatement, to accommodate you as much as possible.

Now, Dave and the team are happy to take your questions. The annual report next week that Dimitri alluded to will also be based on continuing operations.

That will allow you also to all adjust to the new world, and then we move from there. Now, let's dive in a bit how that new world has performed.

Before we move there, I think this slide is an important one for me, where overall you've seen the work and the outcome of all the activities around tuning of the portfolio, where on a group perspective, we've developed the group towards a 20% margin. It's very much in line with the trajectory that we envisage, but also you see the three BUs, with P&B, TTH coming towards the lower end of our guidance.

Also very nice progress on those fronts, and HNC really showing a strong recovery towards that trajectory as well. I'm happy, although that the restatement is a lot to take in, it does show, and then also going into '26, we've got the right reference on how we're doing as a company.

Now, let's dive in on the next page, please, overall the group. Dimitri already highlighted it.

For full year, overall 3% organic sales growth in not the easiest environment, with a stronger H1 than H2, but encouraging growth throughout the year, with a leverage in EBITDA, 5% step-up in EBITDA, and as said, a margin of 19.6%, very nice. For me, it's more relevant, as we're on a trajectory, that the second half is at 20%, and that's something that we'll continue to improve on.

If we look at Q4 specific, for the group overall, a 2% organic growth and 3% step-up in EBITDA, and a margin very much in line with prior. I think it's more relevant to zoom in into the business units, but before we go there, also a highlight on cash.

We delivered overall. Remember that when we guided for a 10% target, that was for the group.

We've delivered upon that for the total group, the total group was just over 10. Also in the continuing operations, we've delivered upon that, and I'll comment that towards the end of my voice-over.

Another metric that I want to call out is that we talk about our capital returns. Overall, the core ROCE for continuing operations stood just over 11%, showing also the quality improvement on that front over the period.

Now, let's zoom in on the next slide, please, into the businesses, starting with Perfumery & Beauty. Overall, a 3% organic sales growth.

Keep in mind that throughout '25, we obviously had the headwind in sun filters, where we've seen some softer conditions. Overall, adjusting for that, the sales growth is 1% to 2% higher throughout the year.

Going into Q4, we've seen an improvement in sequential conditions, with an overall 4% organic sales growth, with a strong contribution of Fine Fragrance with a high single-digit growth, and a mid single-digit growth in our Consumer Fragrance and Ingredients business, whilst the recovery in B&C did not come through yet, overall delivering a solid performance in our Perfumery & Beauty business. Margin overall slightly impacted by FX and the mix effect as a result of that, on a full-year basis very much in line, 22% on average despite a difficult exchange rate environment.

Moving then on to the next page, please, to Taste, Texture & Health. Overall here, a very strong year again, 4% organic growth.

Keep in mind the comps of last year on the back of a very strong 2024. That translated again in a very nice step-up in EBITDA of 7% year-over-year when adjusting for the FX.

Also here, the margin is something we continue to improve margin positively, as said, towards the 21%, the lower end of the range, and we continue to progress from there. If we look at Q4, a bit impacted by softer conditions in the US mainly, overall a 2% organic sales growth, still reflecting the contribution of synergies and very well positioned in the market.

We see, especially with our key accounts in the US, a bit of weaker overall. If you look at it from a segment basis, beverage a bit softer, but dairy, baking, pet very strong, and that continues.

EBITDA quality, very profound. Q4, a very nice step-up, overall a 10% step-up in EBITDA when adjusting for currencies.

Also the margin showed a very strong step-up versus prior, in line with the ambition that we have for this business overall. Then moving to Health, Nutrition & Care on the next page, please.

Overall there, we often talk about the journey of Health, Nutrition & Care, and also that journey continued. On a full-year basis, continued growth of around 3% organic, continued strong performance at the EBITDA side, a 4% step-up when adjusting for currencies, and also the margin continues to improve.

You also see that in Q4, we delivered a 20% margin for the business. The growth was somewhat impacted by timing of a big, more lumpy order in our Pharma business.

There is a bit of a shift there that overall adjusting for that, the organic sales growth stood at 1% for the quarter, where we see a continued strong environment for Early Life Nutrition and our HMO business, but we also see the uncertain consumer behavior impacting a bit our Dietary Supplements and eye health business in the fourth quarter. Overall, margin more or less flat, as said, in Q4, but overall a continued trajectory of growth also in Health, Nutrition & Care.

Maybe then, last but not least, looking at cash, overall important, on the next page, please. Before we go there, there was one more slide.

I think here, a lot of detail. I did want to come back on the overall performance of the group as well, because I think that's important.

It's a bit of a busy slide, but it's coming out of the press release. I think the key highlight here are two things.

On the one hand, our adjusted EBITDA for the group, overall we landed just below 2.3 billion, in line with the guidance that we gave. Set aside for a bit of weakness in Animal Nutrition in the fourth quarter and a deteriorating FX environment, overall we came in at 2280 for the total group, very much in line from an overall perspective as well.

Also on the tax side, you see that our rate is normalizing at 21% for the continuing operations, where we aim to improve it a bit further. I think that's relevant going forward.

Then to the next page, to our cash conversion. Overall, I think looking at a few drivers, overall working capital was below 29%, a little up versus prior when we talked about cash.

The unwind of inventory in the second half, I'm pleased to report that our second-half performance was very strong. Remember that we came out with the half-year numbers with a softer performance in the first half, happy to see that rebound.

However, in the current environment, we were not able to fully absorb the uplift of inventory on the back of the tariffs and the carve-out activities that we've done. That is to further unwind in '26 and causing us a bit of a percent in working capital.

Overall, our sales-to-cash conversion for the continuing operations was also well above 10. There, we alluded to that in the first half, a bit of a shift where in '24 you had a bit of a benefit from some timing of payments including incentives, which is obviously then impacting '25.

Across the two years, a 12% performance, and we'll come back on that in the March 12th event, where we will be stretching ourselves a bit further in terms of target setting on that front. Overall, an encouraging performance and a good momentum going into '26.

Maybe with that, Dave, we pause with the voice-over and move to Q&A.

Thanks, Ralf. Indeed, it's good moment to start with the Q&A.

Further, remember the Q&A is done with the sell-side analysts who can ask their questions if they've registered via the questioners link, which they can find on our website in the financial calendar, and all the other participants can listen in to this Q&A simply staying on this channel. With that, operator, we can start.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions.

I want to start a bit with the outlook. I know you didn't give an outlook and we have to wait until 12th of March to get a bit more color, but I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how the year has started across each of your continuing divisions.

You've given us the restatement for the past year, but is there anything to be aware of in terms of any changes in seasonality versus what we used to for old DSM-Firmenich? I'll leave it there.

Those would be my questions. Thanks.

Let me respond on that. Indeed, on March 12th, we'll give the formal outlook, but I can give you a little bit of color, and then you can prepare your outlook yourself before we go on March 12th.

What you can expect from us on March 12th is that we will go a little bit to industry standard, we'll give you a bit of a range on where we see organic sales growth, the EBITDA quality as a percentage, and obviously the cash percentage, of which you were clearly indicating, all of you, that you thought that the 10% was quite conservative. We're going to review that and come back to you in March on that.

A bit of color. What we have seen overall before I dive in a little bit to the three business units and the three businesses, we've seen a bit of a cautious consumer behavior around the globe, but predominantly in North America, which is having an impact on the Taste part of TTH and certainly Dietary Supplements and the eye health part in HNC.

We'll come back to that in a minute when I give you a bit of color per BU. I think a 3% growth of the consumer in-scope business for DSM-Firmenich is a good growth in the current market context, considering also the 6% growth we've done in that same scope in 2024.

Now, organic sales growth 3%, if that is in this current setup, we didn't see any change in trends from Q4 into Q1. I think you can see that Q1, certainly we're now half of February, we will not see a huge change from Q4 to Q1.

We will know a little bit more in March. We'll give you the input.

I think the end of the day, a 3% in a year of 2025 is a little bit the range where we've seen in a difficult market context is what our business can bring, with a nice pipeline and growth going forward still to the mid-term targets of 5% to 7%. The BU presidents will also be there at March 12th to give you a bit of a feel, what is in the pipeline, what are the drivers.

The fundamentals of the businesses are absolutely the same. We've all seen human mankind, when uncertainty is there, they always start to be a bit more cautious.

There are two things at it: they either pile stock or they destock. Now, pile stock we saw during COVID.

Now, we see that destocking happening, and then it normalizes over time. When it exactly will normalize, we don't know, but that normalization will take place, I think that is clear.

Now, some color per business. Perfumery & Beauty, I think a good result in Fine Fragrance, high single digit.

We see that continued. Mid single digit growth in Consumer Fragrance, also there with that trending doing well.

Ingredients for us, very good. Remember, mid single digit growth after we've tuned the portfolio.

We had a 1.2 billion portfolio. We've tuned it, made deliberate choices where we want to grow.

The ingredients we have are a big part are specialty ingredients with mid single digit growth in Q4. Beauty & Care, the destocking effect fading out in Q4 and moving that into 2026, where we will see normalization going on.

Now, Taste, Texture & Health, here overall a 2% growth in Q4, 4% for the full year, with a 10% growth in the year before. Let's look a little bit about the 1 to 2 years trending with the comparison.

Very good growth in pet food, in bakery, in dairy. Also dairy as a segment linked to healthy food, GLP, we really see a pick-up there.

A bit slower in beverages, but above all in the North American region, that uncertainty has caused cautious behavior of consumers and therefore also our customers. We have seen North America being soft with destocking.

Now, then Health, Nutrition & Care grew 3% for the full year, minus 1% for Q4, but you have to correct for that specific pharma order, which is sometimes in one quarter to another, it would have grown with 1%. Also here, predominantly the North America bit, Dietary Supplements and eye health.

Early Life Nutrition, pharma, really doing well, with good growth also on biomedical. The fundamentals are still there.

We've shown, built on what Ralf said, a 3% growth in a difficult market is creating a bit of confidence. We're not giving you an outlook, but are giving you a lot of color to understand where we are heading for.

Second question, Ralf?

Okay. Yeah.

No, supplementing. I think Dimitri gave a bit of

color.

I think overall, Nicola, I think also if you look at the annex, then the impact of the restatement is very limited. The regular seasonality will remain in place, not that that is very big, but on the back of the restatements, there's no fundamental change on that, other than that is that you now see the quality of the tuned portfolio.

If you look at the overall margin, fairly stable throughout the year, and also from a growth perspective, not much of a deviation, other than that some of the more volatile and weaker segments have now been restated. That generally lifted the performance a little up.

All right. Next, operator.

Hi, good morning. My first question is more of a follow-up around the comments on Monday around the stranded costs of 75 million that you mentioned.

Would you expect this to mean that you start 2027, I guess if we assume the deal closed at the end of 2026, with a 75 million headwind to continuing ops EBITDA, or do you expect to announce sort of another sort of top-up cost savings program to offset this amount either fully or partially? Then second one, I'm just going to follow up on the '26 guidance, and can I pressure a bit on the decision not to provide the guidance today?

I guess given the initial plan was to announce last summer, you've known the scope for a while, and, Ralf, as you mentioned, the restatements are pretty small for continuing ops. I am slightly surprised you're waiting till March to give us that outlook.

It just feels like it adds another period of uncertainty for your shareholders who have been patient waiting for the disposal. Can you just help us understand that?

Thank you.

Let me do the first one and Ralf could explain the outlook. By the way, 12th of March is 3 weeks away, but apart from that.

That's Ralf to respond. On the stranded cost, thanks for giving me the opportunity to elaborate on that.

The stranded cost will have zero effect on our EBITDA. We will compensate for that.

We have programs ready. We know when the TSA will run out.

We'll take action before. We've done it several times with many of the divestments we've done.

The 75 will be fully compensated for that. Maybe you see some small effects from 1 month to another, but we have a road map, a road book where we exactly know what to do and how to face that out.

That will not have any effect on our bottom line throughout the period.

All right, then let me then comment a bit further on the guidance. The short answer was of Dimitri, it's only 3 weeks away.

Now, but on a serious tone, Charles, it's something that we looked at as well. As you'll appreciate, we just closed the transaction literally over the weekend, and then did the restatement and the announcement of the deal.

Now, obviously when we want to guide, we want to guide for continuing operations. I think also through the color that Dimitri gave is that we will be giving that guidance in full, including the BUs, but also about what is comprising of the businesses.

I think also a guidance today would kind of land in a territory where people still digesting all of the changes and going through. If you look at it, there's not even a consensus out there in terms of that around that new company.

Rest assured, we are managing the business for growth. You said it adds a period of uncertainty.

I don't think so. I think the color that we gave is in a difficult environment in '25, we managed to deliver at least 3% growth.

We will be managing the business for growth going forward. We will be tilting, what Dimitri clearly said is that our guidance will be very much around organic growth, EBITDA quality, and cash, where the cash target, we will be uplifting.

I think that is clear. At the same time, the margin is a continued improvement story as well.

We are happy that the actions of tuning, also if you look at the bridges that we presented at Capital Markets Day, that was the step-up of 2% of that, we have delivered on that. We are now at a 20% margin, but it's clear that we want to continue that trajectory also going into '26.

I think overall, there is comfort around that, managing the business for growth, we continue our margin trajectory, and we'll be uplifting our cash performance. Then zooming in onto the full details, and everybody had time to digest also the new reality, and then we'll be bringing also the BUs that can then elaborate a bit more on our growth ambitions, our innovation-driven ambitions, and with that, I think then there's more purpose of giving you the outlook then on March 12th.

Appreciate the color. I guess my point would just be we're going to recalibrate consensus now, and then maybe in 3 weeks it needs to be recalibrated again.

Anyway, appreciate the comment.

Yeah. All right.

Next, operator.

Good morning, gentlemen. A couple of questions, please.

The first one on the Perfumery & Beauty business. If I take the sort of continuing operations, I think the margins were down 80 basis points year-on-year.

Can you just help us disaggregate that a little bit? What was the FX impact on that?

You talked about negative mix, but Fine was actually growing quite well, I guess the mix isn't obviously a headwind unless you're suggesting that Beauty is very, very high margin. Then the second question for Ralf around the cash flow, and I apologize, I'm not really sure how to phrase it because I haven't been through the accounts in a lot of detail.

Your cash conversion was down about 3 percentage points year-on-year. It looks like about half of that is probably explained by working capital, and then there's another half that I think in your introductory remarks you talked about timing.

I'm just trying to understand you're saying you're aiming to raise the cash flow conversion target. You've just done 10.5%.

How would you honestly assess the cash conversion last year? Are there things that you think was depressing that conversion that we wouldn't necessarily extrapolate going forward?

Just trying to get an assessment really about how much cash the business is generating. Thank you.

Yeah. You want to take P&B, and I'll take the cash?

Oh, yeah, I think on P&B, it's rather clear. You basically say it's FX and it's mix.

Remember that Fine Fragrance is around 600 out of the total, obviously we had a growth there. Beauty & Care was lacking behind, softening, waiting for normalization.

It's a mix effect. That's about half, and the other half is FX.

All right, and then building on the cash, and appreciate the question, Matthew. I think your quick assessment is a good one.

There's a few moving pieces around working capital. I commented on that in the opening words around inventory, that we were not able to manage everything through.

We're carrying a bit about an elevated level. Inventory is about 1% differential.

Last year, we continued to make good progress. This year, whilst the efforts were there to reduce it, I think overall the tariff environment and our carve-out activities caused an elevated level, obviously with a somewhat softer demand environment in the second half.

That's about 100 million and calls for half of it. The other moving pieces in working capital, generally on the payables side, I'm happy.

If you look at our DPO, it's slightly above 100, very much in line with prior. Receivables a bit elevated as well.

I think everybody is carefully managing that cash flow, and that costs us a bit of half a point as well. I think that assessment is absolutely fair.

Half is working capital, and there I'm confident that we will be able to rebound that. That's why I'm also looking more at the cash flow over the two-year period.

If you look at the continuing operations, we included that in the press release, was 13% last year and now at the 10.5% now, on average that blends very much at a 12% rate over this period. Now, what did I mean in terms of timing of payments?

There's always a bit of an overflow from year to year, and sometimes that allows you to slightly perform better in one year, and then you see the rebounds next year. That's what we've seen.

If you go back to our half-year call, I also explained that the incentives had an impact on that as well. On the one hand, '24 was a strong year, but the actual cash-out is actually the year thereafter.

Whilst at the same time you have a bit of an elevated level of cash generation in '24 because you've got the strong business results, but then obviously you see a bit of a higher outflow in the first half of the year thereafter. I think that's why you need to balance the cash over the two years to really see the current earnings performance.

At the same time, we have a continued step-up that we want to do in terms of working capital, but also CapEx. If you look at it, when we gave the prior guidance was always for full group.

We guided for 6% of sales. We landed spot-on on that figure.

If you look for the continuing operations, it's slightly elevated because we're finishing the Bovaer plant, so that has still a cash outlet this year and next year. There's a potential that that will normalize back to the 5% for the continuing operations.

That in itself is also a percent and a half improvement. I think we've got the levers.

We'll elaborate a bit more on that in March 12th as well on what the programs are in place and where Dimitri and myself are focusing on and staring on. There is a potential uplift for that target, and we know where that needs to come from.

Thank you, Ralf. That's super helpful.

Thank you.

Hi, all. Hopefully, you can hear me.

Two questions from my side, please. First one on HNC, could you remind us roughly how much of the division ARA oil sales make up, and if you were to see significantly increased demand there from market share gains given everything that's been happening, can you talk to your capacity to service that demand and what that could potentially mean for HNC in '26?

Then just the second one, just going back to Perfumery & Beauty and Matthew's question on the margin, was there any of that margin pressure that maybe related to the kind of increased price competition in perfumery ingredients that we have seen at some of your peers? I think so far you hadn't really called that out, but just wondering if you can maybe touch upon that.

Are you seeing any pressure on that front? Would you expect to see any pressure on that front?

Thank you.

Thank you for those two questions. Let me elaborate on that.

Thanks for the ingredients China part. You didn't hear us calling that out because it's not an issue for us.

Now, then you could do a follow-up question, 'Yeah, but why are the others talking about it?' Because we have tuned our portfolio already two years ago.

Remember, we had a 1.2 billion ingredient portfolio, where we have make deliberate decisions not to rebuild Pinova, we have sold the aroma business, we have tuned down our portfolio, we've upgraded our portfolio, and we have an 800 million portfolio left in the ingredients, apart from the captive. That 800 million is predominantly specialties, fragmented small molecules.

The pressure on China is on the big molecules, the menthol, the citral, and we're not in those big molecules because this big molecules scale is important, cost is important, commodity type of elements are there. We don't want to play there.

It's not our profile. We are in the fragrance ingredients, in the fragmented ingredients, and therefore you don't hear us call us out.

If you see at the results, the ingredients grown mid single digit, and we're very happy with that. That's why you didn't hear us calling it out, because it's not an issue for us.

Now, then on your HNC part, here I will be less specific because obviously this is also customer as well as competitive and sensitive. We are the best placed player in Early Life Nutrition.

I think nobody would debate that. We are in ARA, we're in DHA, we now are absolutely the first entrance in HMO in China, but also more than seven HMOs in the pipeline to follow.

Obviously what we have seen on ARA is helping the story we tell on Early Life Nutrition. Innovation is super important.

Quality is super important. Credibility and reliability is super important.

I think DSM-Firmenich have always been that type of partner for our customers. Obviously what is happening on Early Life Nutrition market is helping us a little bit.

We'll see a little bit of tailwind for that because I think it hints to what we want to be for the Early Life Nutrition phase. Now, HMOs, I've spelled it out earlier, that's a category where we see more than a 100 million plus segment moving towards, and Early Life Nutrition as part of our HNC business is around 25%-plus of the portfolio.

It's definitely an area where we want to play, where innovation is important, where premiumization is important. Just to give you a bit of reference, everybody is always asking, 'Well, Dimitri, Early Life Nutrition is bad because birth rates are going down.'

The issue is that the premiumization with new ingredients is going up. The ingredients play in Early Life Nutrition have seen very, very healthy growth in the last two, three years if you're there with the right innovations.

Let me pause here.

Thank you.

Yes, I also had a question on Early Life Nutrition, but that was answered. On the new company of the continuing operations, how much of your cost base is actually in Swiss franc?

All right. No, great question.

Overall, our FX profile improved. Normally you get a slide from me with the housekeeping, indicating that a bit as well.

I think overall the dollar exposure came down to about 13 million per dollar cent, so that was previously closer to 15, 16. That has somewhat improved.

On Swiss franc, our overall exposure was 800. It's now 600 million Swiss franc exposure.

Overall, the impact of a rappen is about 6 million. I think that was previously eight.

A somewhat improved profile on the FX side. Obviously, the current environment is not very helpful, we will see an impact of that, but overall the sensitivity has improved with the separation of ANH.

Maybe to come back on the guidance question. The fact that you don't give a guidance today for '26 absolutely does not mean that you are going to change your mid-term guides of ambitions?

Answer is for two, yes, and for three, no. OSG, no change, mid-term.

EBITDA, no change, mid-term. You wanted us to change the mid-term guidance on cash because we said above 10, and we got so much comment that that was absolutely conservative, etc.

Ralf and myself said, 'Listen, we also building a company, we start with more than 10%.' I think during that event, I also asked for a little bit of patience.

Now, we have delivered two times above the 10%, and I think I heard Ralf saying that we would upward adjust that cash target. Hey, let's have that for March 12th.

Two out of three absolutely a yes, and the third one a yes, but it will be changed upward.

What you mean with mid-term is still the starting point is '24?

The mid-term starting point is '24. What I mean

is Because actually in 2022, you gave the guidance for mid-term, and then in '24 you did actually the same for smaller company, but not that you now mean with mid-term, 'Okay, we're going to have mid-term targets, and then the starting point is '26.'

Oh, no, because we're already in '26. By the way, we've always said mid-term target starting run rate into '28.

That is what we said and that's still consistent.

It's not a moving target.

No, thank you.

Yeah. It's not like my son's saying, 'I will pass my exam, but not this year, but the next year.'

Okay. Thanks.

You don't sound very convinced.

When I said we had '22, and then it was mid-term, and then in '24 it was also still mid-term. That's why asking

that.

The answer is very clear. Thank you.

Yeah. '22, the company didn't exist as we are today, we started in May '23, but that aside.

Okay. Next question.

Thank you.

Hi. Morning.

Thanks for taking my questions. I have two.

The first one is quick. Is there any implications on your tax rate excluding Animal?

I suppose Animal wasn't making much money anyways, so that would be a guess, but just to clarify. The second question is your cash target, and I appreciate you'll probably upgrade that conversion target, which is good to see, but it's based on your adjusted numbers.

I'm just curious, as we go past this phase of restructuring and separation, what is the level of APM that we should have in mind that sort of leaks out from your adjusted cash? Because when I look at what you give us in terms of adjusted free cash flow versus what we can derive just taking your cash flow statement, the numbers are pretty different, and I would hope over time that gap reduces.

I'm just curious, what would be the normal level of APM that we should have in mind?

Yeah. No, thanks for questions, Chetan.

On the tax side, overall I made a quick comment in the opening statements, our effective tax rate for the continuing operations is at 21%. I think previously we guided for 21% to 22% for the total group.

Happy that we came in on 21, and we continue to aspire to minimize the leakage on that front, but this is very much in line with the guidance that we gave before. The impact of the separation of ANH, despite having, of course, its base in Switzerland, didn't adversely impact the company, which is good.

Again, I think that's also going to be the guidance going forward in that same range, that the tax will be around that 21% level. Now, then with respect to your APM questions, I think in the annexes of the press release, you can actually see the APM development as well.

Now, obviously throughout these tuning activities, you're rightly so, we had a bit of leakage, and normally when you transform, there is a bit of a cost associated to that. We took that into account in the company that we want to build.

Over time, from a cash perspective, you see it coming down. It's a constant point of attention also for Dimitri and myself, we don't want any leakage on that front.

We have substantially reduced it over the years from '23 to '24 to '25, also with some of the merger costs flowing out. The guidance for '26 is that it should come down to below 100 million, but we continue to stay focused on it to reduce it as much as we can, the adjusted number comes closer and closer to the non-adjusted figure.

All right, thanks. Thank you very much.

I think we are at the end of the Q&A session. Any closing remarks, Dimitri?

You want to make?

No, thanks, Dave. Indeed, thanks for your time.

Thanks for your understanding. Let's dive into the numbers.

Please reach out to IR to really understand. I think I understood there was a little bit of pushback why we don't give an outlook.

Now, you need to establish and full understanding of the base before you give an outlook. Imagine we've given an outlook, you would have asked, 'Well, based on what?'

Let's do step one first. March 12th is around the corner.

We gave color on the business. I think a 3% in a difficult year, that's what we aspire to.

Even to the mid-term targets when business is normalizing is absolutely in play, with an EBITDA trajectory starting from 18 to 19, close to 20, and we will not stop after 20, we move towards the 20 to 23. I think with the cash, we clearly indicated that we listen to you and that we'll come with a new mid-term target on the cash as well as in the outlook for 2026.

Now, with all that, over the last 2.5 years, I think we worked diligently to bring DSM-Firmenich into the next phase. A 9 billion business with today already a 20 around 20% EBITDA with good cash flow generation.

To the point on what's a normalized APM is also linked to what is the next phase. The next phase will be Accelerate.

We will not go for big M&As, we're going to grow what we have. We're happy with that portfolio.

We're going to show that potential with an improved step-up still from the EBITDA from 20 to the range of 22 to 23, with good cash flow generation and with a clear understanding for our investors. We have paid around 2 billion of dividend over the last 2 years.

It is important to us. If we have additional leverage on the balance sheet, we are doing share buybacks.

We finished the 1 billion. We'll have another half a billion already in anticipation of the close towards the end of the year.

We also take that very seriously, and I hope we all see you on March 12th to show that what we have built has huge acceleration potential. With that, let's close the call.

Okay. Thank you, Dimitri.

Thank you all for attending today's call, and with that, we conclude the webcast. Any questions, as the gentlemen already said many times, please reach out to Investor Relations.

We will poll a consensus ahead of 12 March, so that also we will then give basically an outlook on the basis of that you've referenced to your estimates. Back to the operator, please.