Earnings call transcript: DSM Firmenich Q3 2025 shows modest growth

DSM Firmenich AG reported its third-quarter 2025 earnings, highlighting a 2% organic sales growth and a 10% increase in adjusted EBITDA on a comparable basis. Despite these positive indicators, the company’s stock saw a decline of 1.23% in pre-market trading, reflecting investor concerns over specific challenges such as negative foreign exchange impacts and reduced contributions from vitamin sales.

Key Takeaways

• Organic sales growth of 2% for Q3.
• Adjusted EBITDA increased by 10% on a comparable basis.
• Stock price declined by 1.23% in pre-market trading.
• Strong performance in Nutrition, Health, and Beauty markets.
• Ongoing challenges with foreign exchange and vitamin sales.

Company Performance

DSM Firmenich demonstrated resilience in Q3 2025, with a notable 10% increase in adjusted EBITDA, despite a challenging macroeconomic environment. The company continues to outperform in its core markets of Nutrition, Health, and Beauty, although it faces mid-pack performance in fragrances. Efforts to mitigate geopolitical tensions and cautious ordering patterns have been key focuses.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: Not specified for Q3; forecast for Q4 is 3.59 billion USD.
• Earnings per share: Not specified for Q3; forecast for Q4 is 1.38 USD.
• Adjusted EBITDA: Increased by 10% on a comparable basis.
• Currency impact: Negative effect of 99 million EUR.
• Vitamin sales: Contribution reduced by 55 million EUR.

Earnings vs. Forecast

The earnings call did not specify exact EPS and revenue figures for Q3, but the company has set a Q4 revenue forecast of 3.59 billion USD and an EPS forecast of 1.38 USD. The modest organic sales growth of 2% aligns with expectations, signaling steady, albeit slow, progress.

Market Reaction

DSM Firmenich’s stock experienced a 1.23% decline in pre-market trading, closing at 73.18 USD. This movement reflects investor caution, possibly influenced by the company’s challenges with foreign exchange impacts and reduced vitamin sales contributions. The stock remains closer to its 52-week low of 70.94 USD, indicating room for recovery.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking forward, DSM Firmenich expects low single-digit organic growth in Q4 and is targeting a 5-7% medium-term growth rate by 2026. The company remains focused on delivering synergies and anticipates an acceleration in its Beauty & Care segment following inventory corrections.

Executive Commentary

CEO Dimitri de Vreeze emphasized the strength of DSM Firmenich’s strategic end markets, stating, "Our key strategic end markets in our core business units are demonstrating strong fundamentals." CFO Ralf Schmeitz highlighted the consistent contribution of synergies to growth, noting, "Synergies is contributing about 1.5% to 2% on the growth consistently every quarter."

Risks and Challenges

• Foreign exchange impacts: A negative effect of 99 million EUR on earnings.
• Reduced vitamin contributions: A decrease of 55 million EUR in sales.
• Geopolitical tensions: Affecting customer behavior and ordering patterns.
• Inventory levels: Efforts underway to reduce elevated inventory.
• Tariff challenges: Ongoing adjustments in the supply chain to mitigate impacts.

Q&A

Analysts inquired about the potential growth of Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMO) in China, with the company identifying it as a significant growth market. Questions also focused on the normalization of the Fine Fragrance segment and the mitigation of tariff impacts, with the first 100 million EUR largely addressed.

Full transcript - DSM Firmenich AG (DSFIR) Q3 2025:

Dave Huizing, Investor Relations, DSM-Firmenich: 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 third quarter trading update together with a presentation to investors, which you can find on our website. You can also find our disclaimers about forward-looking statements. Importantly, and as a reminder, sell-side analysts who want to ask questions in the Q&A section of this call will need to register via the questioners’ link, which they can find on our website in the financial calendar. With that out of the way, let’s start. Dimitri.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, thank you Dave, and indeed welcome to everybody. We appreciate you all dialing in this busy morning. For you, DSM-Firmenich delivered a solid 2% organic sales growth in the quarter against a high prior year comparison, and that all in this current macroeconomic environment. The quarter started well in July, very much in line with previous quarters. From August onwards, the macro environment began to shift. Sentiment changed, driven by geopolitical tensions, tariffs, and currency movements. Naturally, that made some of our customers a bit more cautious in their behavior, and we’ve seen reduced visibility going forward. However, on a positive note, end use data and retail data remain strong. We shouldn’t extrapolate too far ahead. We need to see how this plays out.

The good news is that our key strategic end markets continue to demonstrate very strong fundamentals, and those favorable megatrends which we explained about in nutrition, health, and beauty continue to support us and bring us in a very strong position going forward. In this current environment, we continue to perform well in the third quarter. We delivered a solid organic sales growth against these tough prior year comps, with a strong 10% step up of adjusted EBITDA on a comparable basis, meaning adjusted for FX and the divestments we’ve done. Our core business units, the consumer-focused ones, continued to perform well and had an adjusted EBITDA margin, nicely improving on that trajectory, nicely improving to 20% maybe.

Dave Huizing, Investor Relations, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, exactly. Can the operator move the slides?

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: That would be nice. Yeah, you see the numbers, they are also in the press release. During that quarter, we advanced strongly on our strategic plan and remain firmly on track to deliver the merger synergies. Ralf will talk to you about that a little bit more around the cost and revenue as well as our self-help programs. Importantly, the success of our vitamin transformation program is even clearer, even in a quarter where vitamin prices receded. This brings me with a nice bridge to our outlook. If you go through the outlook slide, maybe next slide. Here you see the outlook for 2025. For the full year, we now expect an adjusted EBITDA of around €2.3 billion. This reflects the estimated full year €99.0 million negative FX effect and a €55.0 million lower contribution from vitamins, less than previously expected. Let me explain in respect to the FX.

When we spoke back in July, our full year outlook included a €25 million FX impact. We had that in Q2, and we’ve seen that FX currency has worsened further. We mentioned that risk in Q2, and it now became a persistent headwind in 2025, and therefore we have included it in our outlook. On top of that, vitamin prices fell faster than we expected during the quarter. Instead of seeing another €25 million positive benefit in the second half from the special vitamin effect, we won’t have any special effect anymore in the second half. In fact, the current volatility with customers temporarily deferring vitamin orders, anticipating on lower prices, also means that we expect a negative €25 million effect from vitamins in Q4.

It’s important to note that the updated outlook is driven by external factors, while our underlying business is delivering a solid performance in today’s macroeconomic situation. To put this into perspective, we expect to deliver more than a €300 million step up, correcting for FX and investments. You do see that here on that slide. That means that the adjusted EBITDA increases from about €2 billion to €2.3 billion in 2025. Before I hand over to Ralf for a bit more color, a few words on the Animal Nutrition & Health exit. While the process is taking longer than initially anticipated, Ralf, we remain committed to bring this process to a conclusion in the fourth quarter. We will only communicate when we have something to communicate. I hope you appreciate that. With that, over to you, Ralf.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: Thank you. Good morning everybody from my side as well. Always good to be with you on a day. On the announcement, on a bit of a lighter note, today is Dave’s birthday as well. I hope I’m not crossing any privacy here Dave, but people will be nice to you on the back of that. Let’s zoom into the financials, starting a bit with the group. Overall, we delivered a 2% organic growth in the quarter and that translated into a nice step up in EBITDA performance when adjusting for the FX and the divestments. The divestment has a sizable impact given the fact that we sold the feed enzymes to Novo Nesius, but also the divestments in both TTH and N&C and I’ll comment on that when we get to the BU pages. If you adjust for that, a nice step up in the quarter of around 10%.

It’s consistent with what we have seen throughout the year and it nicely fits to the comment Dimitri made earlier where we see a good step up in our business on the back of self-help program contributed nicely again in the quarter. We have some numbers around that in both in the PTI where we also show the Q3 year to date. I’ll zoom in predominantly on the Q3 and in the press release as well. Overall, programs have contributed a little over $150 million in Q3 year to date which is nicely in line with the commitment at the beginning of the year.

Margins continue to improve as well. However, Dimitri and myself are steering more on the margin, what we call of the core activities, the group excluding ANH, that delivered a nice 20% margin in the third quarter and is nicely in line with the growth trajectory that we’re managing towards the 22% margin for the group. If you look at it from a growth perspective, overall you see 2% growth driven by prices. I think here it’s important to look at the dynamic per BU where we’ve seen a solid volume growth in the key strategic segments Perfumery & Beauty, TTH, and N&C. The volume was negative in ANH and I’ll give a bit of color on that around the vitamins there. Allow me also to make a comment on cash. It’s not on the page but we delivered a strong CA in the third quarter.

Overall, we had a step up of well over 10% compared to Q3 last year. That brings the quarter to the full year to date, sorry, to a little under $700 million and we expect to continue strong performance in the fourth quarter as well as we focus on cash. Let’s then zoom in into the businesses on the next page starting with Perfumery & Beauty. To the next page please, operator. If you look at Perfumery.

Dave Huizing, Investor Relations, DSM-Firmenich: Beauty, now the next page is another page. Let’s say that Perfumery & Beauty.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, there we are. Very good. Then we’re speaking to the same page online. Overall, Perfumery & Beauty, keep in mind the comps of last year where we had an 11% volume growth in Perfumery & Beauty, delivered a solid step up of 2% in the quarter where Perfumery continued to perform well. Overall, a 4% organic growth on the back of continued strong dynamics in fine fragrance that delivered overall a high single-digit performance in the quarter, a solid performance in consumer fragrance where we did see some softer demand from global accounts. You heard Dimitri talk about a bit the cautiousness. We see that predominantly with the global and key accounts across our businesses, so we’ve witnessed that here as well. Ingredients actually continue to perform well as we’ve seen throughout the year.

Overall, Perfumery & Beauty is impacted by Beauty and Care that remained soft in the third quarter. Whilst we’ve seen the effects of the EU filters fade out in line with the guidance that we gave before, we didn’t see the business pick up yet. Hence, overall a bit of softness and we also had a lower aroma in the quarter on the back of a force majeure at a supplier where we didn’t get the product to produce and it had an impact on top line and bottom line. Overall, margins remained healthy at a 22% plus level within our targeted mid-term range whilst absorbing some negative FX and the impact of that force majeure of a couple of million in the quarter. Overall, I think Perfumery & Beauty is solid performance. Let’s with that move to Taste, Texture & Health on the next page please.

Also, Taste, Texture & Health continue to perform well against the tough comps. I need to mention that by both Perfumery & Beauty and Taste, Texture & Health last year was a 13% growth in the quarter, again a good performance of 3% organic fueled by synergies. Very pleased with the development of the pipeline there. We keep on calling that out at the half year, if you recall or look at your notes, we quoted a little under $400 million. That has meanwhile grown towards $500 million. An encouraging step up as one would hope, and that is what we’re steering for. As a CFO I’m keen to see the invoices go up and also that continues to trend up nicely quarter after quarter.

We’ve meanwhile invoiced a little over $150 million which translates into a realization rate of well over 40% now in Taste, Texture & Health and that continues to do well. Looking a bit at the segments. Dairy baking continued to perform well with good growth in the quarter on the global accounts. A bit similar to P&B, we’ve seen a bit of softness with some careful order intake. I think they’re carefully managing and navigating inventories through the chain whilst looking at their own growth volumes, and that’s something that we see coming across also a bit at the larger regional accounts impacting the quarter and will probably carry a bit into Q4. If we look at it from a margin perspective, very happy with the development there. Overall, another strong quarter performance again when adjusting for the FX and the divestment of the yeast extract business to Le Saffre.

A ten step up in the business organically, which is encouraging to see, and it’s largely in line with the half year performance as well. A very good step up in absolute EBITDA in Taste, Texture & Health, but also the margin, I mean 20.6%. You know I’ve explained that a few times, but I always comment on it. The Le Saffre deal is a bit dilutive in 2025 only, given the fact that we still need to supply the product throughout the year at cost. If you adjust for that, the margin is now nicely into the 21%, similar to Q2, which is in line with our guidance and the trajectory that we want to see in the business. A continued good development on that front. Moving to Health, Nutrition & Care on the next page. Also here, a continuation of the growth story.

We’ve been back to growth since mid last year, and we’ve been growing quarter after quarter, not only top line but also bottom line and margin. I think that has to go hand in hand here in another quarter with growth driven by ELN, which is benefiting from the HMO. We’ve been talking about receiving customer acceptance and clearance in China. That is nicely coming through in line with expectation, and we’re happy to see that we’re moving forward on HMO starting Q3. Also, dietary supplements continue their steady recovery that we’ve seen throughout the year, and that is continuing into the third quarter. Biomedical was robust throughout the year. i-Health was a bit softer there. We see especially at the retailers a bit of more cautionary inventory management.

I think the amount of product on the shelves is thinning a bit on the back of some uncertain data around consumers, especially in the U.S. Absolute EBITDA margin and absolute EBITDA showing a nice step up here. Also, you have the FX impact and the divestments. The organic growth is nicely up 12% in the quarter, closer to 20% in the year, which is a very nice improvement. What I find very important is the constant improvement in margin. A 2% step up versus prior, and Q3 was 19%, and we expect a further improvement going into the fourth quarter on that front. Last but not least, Animal Nutrition & Health on the next page please. Overall, here you see a flattish growth, negative volume, and a positive price. The negative volume is coming from the essential products at the vitamins business.

You heard Dimitri say about declining prices in the quarter. In such an environment, customers typically hold back on their order pattern. It had an impact on the group and certainly here in ANH overall. On the contrary, Performance Solutions continues to hold up nicely and perform well as they’ve done throughout the year. We’re pleased with that. From an operating performance, the margin is up and also a nice organic step up in EBITDA, predominantly on the back of our self-help measures with the Vitamin Transformation Program. Overall, EBITDA was up $86 million. Given the falling prices here, we’re also guiding for a lower Q4 on the back of that volatility now that the force majeure has ended in the quarter. I think with that, Dave, let’s leave enough time for Q&A. Back to you.

Dave Huizing, Investor Relations, DSM-Firmenich: Maybe as a reminder, self analysts who want to ask questions in this Q and A session have to be registered by the Questioners link, which they can find on our website in the Financial Calendar. All the participants can simply stay here and listen to this Q and A session via this meeting, so you don’t have to do anything. With that, operator, we can start, and please give us the first question.

Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our Q and A session. If you have a question, we ask that you please use the Raise hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. Once your name has been announced, you can ask a question. If you want to withdraw your question, please lower your hand using the Raise hand function in the Zoom app. Thank you. A moment for the first question, please. The first question is from Lisa Deneve from Morgan Stanley. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question. Hi, thank you for taking my questions. I have two. One is on the Full Year Guide. Can you give us an idea in terms of which trading trends that have transpired in the third quarter you’re seeing lingering into the fourth quarter?

Would just be a good idea to sort of get some sense of where fragrance ingredients, where beauty care sun filters are trading into the fourth quarter. That’s my first question. Then secondly, just on Health, Nutrition & Care, can you share what’s driving the strengths in Early Life and whether you have seen any HMO related customer launches in China and if not, if that’s something you would expect maybe to see coming through over the next two quarters? Thank you.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, indeed. Thanks for those questions. Let me give you a bit of color on the businesses from Q3 and Q4 and then at the end also take N&C and indeed, like you said, HMO’s impact helping us on the ELN side. Let’s start with Perfumery & Beauty. I think Ralf already alluded to it. The 2% in Q3 compared to an 11% volume growth as a starting point. We’ve seen good conditions throughout the year in fine fragrance, in consumer fragrance and ingredients. Beauty and care was impacted, like Ralf was saying, on sun filters and the force majeure of a supplier in aroma. Let me dissect that a little bit. Fine fragrance growth is normalizing after a very strong period but still at high single-digit growth rates in Q3.

Consumer fragrance was slightly softer in Q3 at low single-digit rates at the back of cautious behavior predominantly at our global key accounts in the current uncertain environment. Ingredients had a good mid single-digit growth in Q3. What do we expect for Q4? We do see similar patterns and customers are managing their year-end inventories a bit more than usual in this uncertain environment. However, if we look at the, as I really said, look at the end user and retail market data, they’re not that bad. They’re still pretty okay. We need to see how that plays out. For Q4 we expect the same pattern from August and September. Remember July was still pretty okay. August and September, we think that will go into Q4 and therefore for Perfumery & Beauty with the sun filters sequentially improving.

We still expect some destocking in Q4 while being back on growth in 2026 but not in 2024. Not in Q4 for 2025. We expect for the quarter a low single-digit for Perfumery & Beauty. Then a bit of color on TTH. Q3, 3% here against yet again a high comparison of 13% volume growth. I think if you compare the numbers you can clearly see that TTH have outperformed the market with that result in line with a parallel good continued step up in EBITDA. It’s not only the top line but it’s also the leeway to an EBITDA bridge where we basically have in Q3 a 20.6 where the yeast extracts, as Ralf alluded to it, if you correct for that it will even be above 21. We are on a nice trajectory there for Q3.

We’ve seen big accounts a bit more cautious in order patterns, especially in Asia. This is what we see for TTH. We also here need to see that the end consumer retail data is still looking pretty solid. We need to see how it plays out, whether it’s only a destocking or a fundamental trend. For Q4, we expect the same circumstances for August and September to move into Q4 and therefore guide for a low single digit for Q4 in Taste, Texture & Health. Now, a few words on Nutrition & Care, a fantastic trajectory on adjusted EBITDA quality. I think for the five quarters in a row we are continuing a good recovery here. Indeed, a strong Early Life Nutrition helped by product launches of Human Milk Oligosaccharides. This obviously still needs to span out.

We saw some positive effect, but this is ramping up and, you know, approvals take a while. Product launches need to be in the market and then we start selling. It’s definitely helped by Human Milk Oligosaccharides for Early Life Nutrition, backed up by a good solid growth in dietary supplements. Also here, a bit more cautious behavior from our customers, but in this case not in Asia as for Taste, Texture & Health, but more in the U.S., and we’ve seen the businesses in Nutrition & Care, which are U.S. based, being impacted a little bit by the cautious behavior of our consumers and customers in North America. Also here for Q4, similar pattern moving into Q4 and therefore you should expect a low single digit for Q4 for Nutrition & Care as well. I hope that gave a little bit of color, including your Human Milk Oligosaccharides questions.

Conference Operator: Thank you very much. The next question is from Nicola Tang at BNP Paribas Exane. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question. Hi everyone, thanks for taking the question and happy birthday to Dave. I wanted to ask first about fragrance ingredients where you said you continue to see strong performance here. I know several of your peers have been talking about weaker conditions, including increased competition from Asian players. Is this something that you’re seeing as well, that it’s being offset by something else that you have there, or do you not see this increase in competition? Can you help us understand the difference? The second question you mentioned, softer demand was mainly the global accounts in consumer fragrance and TTH. Is this softness solely related to ordering, or are you also seeing a bit of softness in terms of launch activity and willingness to innovate?

Therefore, how should we think about your pipeline and top line drivers going into next year? Thank you.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, thank you for those questions and good that you asked me about the pipeline because absolutely we don’t see any changes in the pipeline. That’s also why we say we need to see how this spells out the brief. The innovation pipeline is still full. The number of briefs are definitely up to par. We don’t see any hesitation on briefs coming in. This is predominantly the course’s behavior on ordering at this moment. Remember like we did in Q3, we’re pretty transparent. We try to be with you what we see in the market and that’s also what we want to do now for Q4 and for the future. This is what we see in the order pattern. Briefs and innovation pipelines are still strong. To your question on ingredients, before I answer your question, let’s contextualize a little bit what we’ve done with ingredients.

Remember when we merged we had a $1.1 billion ingredient part in that Perfumery & Beauty area. With Pinova not being restarted, we walked away from that more commodity-like ingredient play. We have also optimized the ingredients more in the industrial application area. With Pinova and the optimization, we move that $1.1 billion more closer to $800 million. A deliberate choice to be more in the top end of the ingredient market. Therefore, we walked away from commodity-type molecules. We do see still quite some growth. Secondly, the Chinese are moving in more in the big molecules where the economies of scale are playing. These are molecules like menthol, citral. We’re not in those. These are the ones where we sometimes even benefit that they come because we buy some of their ingredients from China and therefore it helps our raw material cost.

It’s a different story, it’s a different game. We already anticipated on optimizing the ingredients. Sometimes also get questions from you about the terpene business. This business we’ve also closed with Pinova. We still have terpene molecules but those are the specialty molecules as part of the ingredients of Perfumery & Beauty which are all bio-based. You need to compare apples with apples. Therefore, we have seen a solid mid single digit growth on ingredient because we anticipated on making that product portfolio more premiumized already one to two years ago.

Conference Operator: That’s great. Thank you so much.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Thanks Nimsa.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Charles Eden at UBS Investment Bank. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.

Hi, excuse me. Hi, good morning. Just one further one for me please. Just on the $19 million FX headwind you’re seeing in 2025, is the exposure pretty proportionate across the divisions or is there a sort of outsized impact in ANH? I’m just asking because of the sales and manufacturing for vitamins, etc. I guess another way what I’m asking is how much of the $19 million headwind relates to the ANH division. Maybe I’ll just put it that way. Thanks.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: All right. Good morning, Charles. Always directing the question, that’s always helpful. Normally we apply a bit of a rule of thumb that 2/3 is in the core and about one third is in ANH. I would apply that now as well, maybe to give a bit of context. I mean, FX swings are obviously linked to the dollar, a bit on the Swiss here because normally they kind of go hand in hand, but now the spread has widened, which is causing that adverse effect. Whilst ANH doesn’t have a big U.S. dollar exposure, it’s more the Swiss franc. As you say, there’s also the Brazilian real and the like that is more impacting that. On the balance, let’s say take about $55 million to $60 million in the core business and the balancing element in ANH as a guidance for the full year.

Very clear. Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Alexander Morrow Sloane from Barclays Bank PLC. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, hi. Morning.

Thanks for taking the questions. The first one, just actually going back to the outlook for the core business in Q4. Thanks for all the color there. I mean, just thinking about that low single digit organic. Is that also the right kind of exit rate to be thinking about 2026 or would that be too conservative given it sounds like in that Q4 outlook you’re embedding some kind of one-off destocking? I guess the question is, in 2026, could we get closer to the 5 to 7% medium term target that you have for the core business Nutrition & Care from that low single digit?

The second one, just in terms of vitamins, obviously, if you’re not able to conclude the Nutrition & Care process in the next six weeks, if we’re thinking about 2026, is annualizing the Q4 run rate that’s implied by the new guidance a fair assumption at this point or do you think that’s too conservative? Vitamin prices are at sustainable levels where we are today. Thanks very much.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, let me start there. Thanks for the questions. Good morning, Alex. If we look at the core, I think we always want to be clear in terms of our guidance that we’ve done. Also, if you’re looking at Q4, I think Dimitri gave a good insight on the dynamics per BU and what drove that. Also, looking back at Q3 where we had a good start in July, we’ve seen that weakness coming through a bit with what we see now. Also, looking a bit at October, we see that behavior of August and September translating into the fourth quarter. With that, visibility has reduced somewhat. We’ve been speaking about that as well. We have a visibility of about a month. If we look at the underlying data, and I think that is important, what Dimitri highlighted as well.

If you look at some of the consumer spend, if you look at the credit card spend and the like, you don’t see that change in behavior at that front. Hence, also when engaging with customers, we’re close to them, it’s more the cautionary behavior and saying, look, we don’t know exactly what’s ahead of us. In this time, looking also at where we are in the year, we’re managing also carefully our ending position of the year and everybody is slowly looking into 2026. I think in terms of translation, I wouldn’t copy the exit rate of Q4 going into 2026. To your words, that would be a bit too harsh. Over time, the fundamentals of each of the businesses are in place. If you look at Perfumery & Beauty, the trends are there, continue to stay.

There’s a big show going on in the Middle East where we’re present as well. We see the same dynamics and good demand in that space. All those trends are there. If you look at Taste, Texture & Health, same dynamic, strong pipeline from a synergy perspective, we expect that to translate into 2026 as well. In Nutrition & Care, we’ve got good continued growth, momentum and a step up. We’re seeing some short-term pressures, but I think it’s too early to copy that into 2026. With the fundamentals in place, we’re well placed in the midterm target. From a midterm target position, maybe tilting to your questions around Animal Nutrition & Health and vitamins. As you’ll appreciate, we’re working on a deal and that is our focus and we aim to conclude that in the fourth quarter. Let’s not entertain a lot of what-if scenarios.

We’ll focus and we’ll mention something as soon as we’ve got something to communicate on that front.

Okay, thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Martin Rudiger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please unmute yourself at the beginning with your question.

Yes, thanks for taking my two questions. First on the segment Health, Nutrition & Care, you talked about ongoing recovery in dietary supplements while eye health experienced softness. Because of the retailers, can you provide some color why both develop contrary to each other? I feared that both could be adversely impacted by the worsening consumer confidence in North America. Maybe any color if.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: Dietary supplements.

Could be also suffer going forward. Just a clarification question on the one-off costs in Perfumery & Beauty. I understood that you said a couple of million euros effect in Q3 due to that force majeure of the supplier. Is that issue solved now? There is no effect anymore in Q4?

Let me take that one off and you take eye health and dietary supplements or the one of. Yeah, that has lifted. The phosphateur was actually earlier in the year, but then it took long for the supplier to start up, and hence we first did eat into our inventories, but then our production was impacted. It’s not a huge impact. It’s a couple of million as on the one end of the missed top line. At the same time, the fact that we had to delay our startup of our plant, which usually triggers a bit of idle cost, but that has meanwhile lifted, so that’s gone. We shouldn’t see an effect going into the fourth quarter. We need to build up stock a bit, but that shouldn’t be too big of a concern on that front. We’re happy that we’re back on our feet on that front.

It did have an impact in the third quarter that impacted the overall growth, hence us calling that out. Dimitri?

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, maybe a little bit on i-Health and dietary supplements. Thanks for those questions. Dietary supplements, remember your question is possibly a bit related to the fact that we had during COVID the cost inflation and that people were backing down on buying dietary supplements because they became relatively expensive. The cost part has come down rapidly. I think the margin-based type of discussions which we had earlier are not there. The cost of selling dietary supplements is at a normalized level. That was the issue which we encountered during COVID, and post-COVID dietary supplements is very strong. I think the health awareness is absolutely there. We’ve seen throughout the period that dietary supplements are really holding with nice growth areas. On i-Health, remember i-Health is an area where we invest in new products in women’s health but also in menopause relief.

If you have any problems with menopause, then really call upon to buy the brand Estroven. That is really helping the growth of i-Health overall. Also prebiotics with Culturelle, but obviously there that whole cautious behavior from the retailers is impacting it. That’s what we’re flagging. You can’t compare i-Health one on one with the dietary supplements, partly because of the pricing of dietary supplements not being impacted by the high cost energy prices earlier. There are still a product which everybody is buying. i-Health is really into new segments and growth for new markets. Obviously, in a more cautious behavior, everybody’s holding back on that a little bit. We’ve seen that happening in Q3. We expect that to be continued in Q4. The fundamentals are there.

I think if you look at the pipeline of what we have in terms of briefs but also new products, we feel that this is something which will fade away over time.

Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Chetan Adeshi from J.P. Morgan. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.

Hi, can you hear me? Yep.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: Morning Chet.

Yeah, morning. I had two questions and thanks again and happy birthday, Dimitri. For the update on Q4 top line, I was just wondering, is there any implication on the EBITDA? Usually you’d see the seasonal decline in Perfumery & Beauty and Taste, Texture & Health anywhere close to, you know, high single digit 10% sequentially. You know, Nutrition & Care tends to be up sequentially. I mean, are you thinking any differently about the, that seasonal changes that we usually see in Q4 EBITDA in different divisions? The second question I had was, if I’m not mistaken, you updated the tariff cost impact to $150 million through third quarter. How much of that is actually coming through in third quarter numbers itself? Because you have inventory and I suppose majority of the products sold in Q3 are coming from the stock that was produced in H1.

How much of the inventory the tariff impact is yet to be seen and how are you dealing with that? If I can squeeze one easy one, I’m assuming you should have seen progress in working capital reduction through Q3. Any update there would be very helpful. Thank you very much.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Yep.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: No, thanks for your questions and let me get a go at it and then see whether there’s anything to add from Dimitri. With respect to your seasonal pattern, that’s an easy one. That will be similar to what we’ve seen over the past year. When also Dimitri gave the comment around the low single digit outlook, that’s in the comparison with prior year. The normal seasonal effects are there. You’re absolutely right. We’re referring to that on a year over year comparison in line with prior years. On the tariff one, I think that’s an important question. It’s good to spend a bit of time on that. When we initially called out, we had a first phase of tariffs that impacted $100 million. Afterwards, when the new tariffs were imposed on Switzerland and India, we lifted that up to $150 million.

If you look at that first phase of $100 million, we navigated largely through that. We worked with our customers, looking at alternative supply chain movements, looked at formulations and the like. We’ve been able to largely mitigate that impact fully towards the customers. The remaining smaller part of that we meanwhile passed through to our customers. That first $100 million is dealt with. That uplift to $50 million, that’s on the back of the latest outlook of the increase in Switzerland and India, as mentioned before. We’ll do the exact same thing. We’ll again look at possibilities and options to mitigate that as much as possible. Whatever we can pass through, we’ve been transparent to that also to our customers, we will pass that on. Over time we expect to navigate through that.

You’re right, as part of a mitigating measure, you work with your inventories and manage that through. As said, we will have not an EBITDA impact from that first $100 million. We’ll take the same approach working through that other $50 million that is now there. Again, let’s also still hope that there’s space for a better world and a better deal. Let’s see what it eventually will turn up to. We’ll make sure that we’ll navigate through that as well. Maybe a few comments on working capital. Working capital continues to be an area of attention. At the half year call, I called out that we are running at a bit of an elevated inventory level also for two reasons. On the one hand, navigating through tariff environment, but also dealing with a bit of the volatile environment.

We want to make sure that we continue to supply our customers where needed. That is something that we’ve been working through. We do expect that to ramp down. If you look at the moving pieces of working capital, receivables very much in line, and normally in Q3 you see a typical seasonal impact of a few days more. DSO, usually year end is always the best. There’s a delta of two to three days, but we will be in line with what we’ve realized last year. Same for payables, we’re exactly fairly stable on that front, in line with our normal position of a little over 100 days. I think we’re leading in terms of working capital management on that front. Inventory is, we’re carrying a little over $100 million to $250 million higher volume on and including some higher prices.

That is something that we need to work on and that has an impact of about 1% on working capital. We’re committed to move that down over the period as well. All in all, pleased with the performance in the third quarter. As said, cash performance was good and we’ll continue to make sure that we have a similar performance in the fourth quarter as well.

Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Eric Wilmer from Van Lanschot Kempen. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Good morning. Can you hear me?

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: Yep, we can.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Thanks for taking my question.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: Back at the Capital Markets Day in Paris in 2024, you highlighted you want.

To accelerate Beauty and Care.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Since then we’ve seen a structural attention of Asian manufacturers. I believe this is a component of the Beauty division.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: I was wondering regarding your stance.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: For this business, to what extent do you.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: You think it makes sense to invest.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: In it or perhaps rationalize it or perhaps even dispose it? Thank you. Yeah, thanks for that question. Let me make it very clear. We did a whole segment analysis where we basically, based on growth and differentiation capability, chose a few winning segments. Beauty care is absolutely one of those. We wanted to accelerate that growth. Let me remind you a little bit that personal care has sun filters, and that is basically being impacted for this year. If you go a little bit back, 2023 was a fantastic year. 2024 started pretty okay for sun filters as well, and customers are preparing for a good second half, 2024 and 2025 as well. It moderated a little bit. That’s the reason why they had a little bit too much of stock that need to be reworked. That’s in that process as we speak.

The moment that they have reworked the stock and out of stock, they can order new sun filters where we are one of the main suppliers. That’s the sun filter part. If you take a five years period, it is a fantastic market to be in. If you look at innovation pipeline and regulatory requirements, this is a place to be, and I think we’re well positioned to do that. Secondly, personal care is not only sun filter, you have hair care, you have skin care. Let me remind you that also during that CMD, we’ve launched a fantastic product which was basically attacking zombie cells on your skin, which is delaying and sometimes even bringing aging of your skin to a standstill. We’re launching that in the market as we speak, and that creates quite some potential for growth.

Personal care is not only sun filters, but even sun filters itself, it’s an interesting market to play in. If you look at our brief and pipeline, it’s one of our growth areas where we’re willing to invest in organically and maybe over time also inorganically. That’s very clear. Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question is from Artem Chubarov from Redburn (Europe) Limited. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Hello, good morning.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: Hopefully you can hear me.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: on Human Milk Oligosaccharides in China.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: Exciting to hear the news.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Is there any way to quantify what magnitude of sales we’re talking right now? I appreciate it’s the early days. Where do you see this business progressing going forward? Second, on synergies and TTH, again, quite encouraging to see the pipeline growing to $500 million right now. Would you remind us how it converts into sales? Is there any lead time we should keep in mind? On synergies impact so far in 2025 in TTH, your volumes are up 5% year to date.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: Is there any way to quantify?

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: How much of that has come from synergies? Thank you. Thank you for those questions. Ralf will take some of the synergy parts. Good questions to give a bit of color. HMO China, so it’s clearly a category where we expect that will continue to grow to above $100 million of sales levels with interesting quality of margins, obviously. Let me not, because of introduction rates today, give you a lot of numbers around it. As you can see, if it’s a novel ingredient in an infant nutrition market, then everybody is waiting to see what we’re going to say about it. I really am excited about it and I’m willing to give you all the numbers and the great stories, but I will refrain from doing that for the benefit of DSM-Firmenich.

Overall, I can say this is a category where we will grow above $100 million with very good margin rates. Maybe Ralf, a bit of color on the synergy on TTH.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, no, happy. Let’s start first with overall 5% volume growth indeed year to date on the back of 9% growth last year. I think we’re outperforming market there and that is because of the synergies. Synergies is contributing about 1.5% to 2% on the growth consistently every quarter. We’ve seen that also again into the third quarter and anticipate it should be a driver for above market growth in the period ahead of us in TTH. Taking a step back because I think appreciate the question around the pipeline. We’re very encouraged by that. Indeed, a bit of background may be relevant in a minute. Overall, we started tracking the pipeline because the lead time typically in TTH is 12 to 18 months.

To get a comfort feeling about the delivery of the synergies overall at the merger, we communicated that we’re going to deliver $350 million of EBITDA synergies. Half of that from cost, half of that from sales. The cost have been delivered by the end of the year. Closing out that program, we’re now fully focused on delivery of the sales synergies. We needed $500 million top line to do that and two-thirds of that are allocated to TTH where the biggest overlap and the heart of the merger is. Because of that lead time, we started tracking the pipeline and basically the win rate thereof. You’ve seen the narrative change where initially from the get-go of the merger we’ve been focused on the pipeline. We’ve then looked at, okay, how about how much of that pipeline are we actually translating into wins?

That is something that we communicate as well. At the half year we made good progress. At the Q3 that continues to increase as well. That’s towards $175 million, so wins in the pocket, and then those wins get translated into invoice business. As a financial, that’s obviously what matters. That’s when a truck leaves the warehouse and we actually get paid for that. That’s meanwhile $150 million as well. You’ve seen that nicely coming through. For the time being, we will continue to monitor and report on that pipeline development as well because it gives you a good feeling and gives you the same comfort as Dimitri and myself have in our ability to deliver that synergy. Over time, we’ll move to focusing on organic growth because as said, it should just contribute to an above market growth in TTH. That is what we’re experiencing.

Once that is fully locked in and secured going forward, at some point we can stop talking about the pipeline. Today it’s relevant to give you the same confidence we have around our ability to deliver those.

Dave Huizing, Investor Relations, DSM-Firmenich: We’re approaching basically the hour. Let’s have one other questioner before we run out of time. Operator, who has the last questions?

Conference Operator: The final question is from Georgina Fraser at Goldman Sachs. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.

Hi there. Thanks for squeezing me in at the end.

Ralf and Dimitri. The last question.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Do we need to sing for you? We got some inside information that it’s your birthday.

That’s right, yeah. Birthday twin.

Ralf Schmeitz, CFO, DSM-Firmenich: Now you see we’re well informed.

Dave Huizing, Investor Relations, DSM-Firmenich: Congratulations.

Thank you so much. I appreciate that. For my birthday treat, the question is, you talked about fine fragrance normalizing growth but still growing high single digits. I’m sure you’re aware and have analyzed a market leader saw accelerating growth in fine fragrance. I would love your interpretation of the diverging trends in the fine fragrance performance of the market leader and yourselves, and what you are doing to catch up. Thank you.

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, thanks for that question. Indeed, let’s go back on fine fragrance. Over the last years we’ve delivered around a 6% CAGR growth and I think that’s in line with the mid single digit. We’re pretty happy with that. What you need to understand, and I think we’ve done that several times, is that P&B is fine fragrance, consumer fragrance, ingredients, and beauty and care. We have a different portfolio with a larger ingredient part to it, which by the way is a deliberate choice to build a business model that is not only depending on creation, come up with great briefs, but also have it backed up by innovation in ingredients. We feel that long term is a far more stronger and more sustainable strategy going forward. You need to invest in that.

We have tuned our ingredients to that and we believe that business model, that operating model, is something for the future. Secondly, we have a different methodology on how we report hyperinflation EBITDA, I think we mentioned that a couple of times. Let’s be careful if we compare apples with apples. Last but not least, I think it’s clear that we are in the mid pack of fragrances. We’re happy with it, but we’re not outperforming. In sharp contrast to TTH where we are outperforming the market. We are working on outperforming the market on the fragrances from being in a good position. You know that in terms of portfolio, we will continue to work on this differentiation in ingredients, which will take time to really differentiate that shell throughout the chain, but it will work out for us going forward. You’ve seen that there’s a lot of geographical growth.

We are bumping that up as we speak. I think you’re referring to people who make a lot of sales in the Middle East, we’ve obviously also seen that. We are also beefing up our presence. Our President Emmanuel Butstraen is there as we speak on a great fair. We also need to be aware that we have made a strategic choice not to enter all segments in the Middle East. We entered more in the high end in the prestige part because we also feel that for the longer term is something which fits us well also in terms of brief and pipeline and how we collaborate with our customers. I think we’re in the pack. We are doing everything we could to outperform on the longer term.

Conference Operator: Thank you very much. This concludes the Q&A session. I will now hand back to Mr. Huizing.

Dave Huizing, Investor Relations, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, thank you, operator. Before we finish, Dimitri, you want to make a few closing remarks?

Dimitri de Vreeze, CEO, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, reflecting time. Let me keep it brief. Thanks Dave. Let me sum it up. Our key strategic end markets in our core business units are demonstrating strong fundamentals. We do see end use and retail data keeping up this positions as well for strong growth with our unique portfolio is highlighted a little bit in terms of the business model, ingredients plus creation together based on science-based innovation with a broad geographic footprint. We’re fully committed to deliver on all items that we have under our control. That’s reflected also in a step up over $300 million in our adjusted EBITDA on a comparable basis. We remain focused on implementing and executing all aspects of our strategic agenda. We’re making quite progress as we are building for the future. With that, back to you Dave. To close.

Dave Huizing, Investor Relations, DSM-Firmenich: Yeah, thank you, Dimitri. That brings us, of course, to the end of today’s conference. Let me thank everybody for attending today’s call on this very busy day for most of you with a lot of people reporting. As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to investor relations for any remaining questions you have. With that, I hand it back to the operator.

Conference Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you everyone for joining. You may now disconnect.

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