Earnings call transcript: IMCD NV sees Q1 2025 profit rise, stock surges

IMCD NV, a global specialty chemicals distributor with an $8.05 billion market capitalization, reported a strong financial performance for the first quarter of 2025, with earnings per share (EPS) of €1.55, marking a 10% year-over-year increase. Despite slightly missing revenue forecasts, the company’s stock surged by 7.66% following the announcement, closing at €120.10, reflecting investor confidence in its robust growth and strategic initiatives. According to InvestingPro analysis, IMCD appears slightly undervalued at current levels, with the company maintaining dividend payments for 11 consecutive years.

Key Takeaways

• IMCD’s Q1 2025 EPS rose 10% year-over-year, reaching €1.55.
• Revenue slightly missed forecasts at €1.26 billion, compared to an expected €1.27 billion.
• Stock price increased by 7.66%, closing at €120.10 following the earnings announcement.
• Strong performance across the Americas with 21% organic growth.
• Continued investment in digital infrastructure and strategic acquisitions.

Company Performance

IMCD NV demonstrated solid growth in the first quarter of 2025, driven by a balanced portfolio in life sciences and industrial markets. The company reported a gross profit of €325 million, a 10% increase from the previous year, and an EBITDA of €142 million, up 12% year-over-year. This performance was bolstered by a strong showing in the Americas, where the company achieved 21% organic growth.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: €1.26 billion (slightly below forecast)
• Earnings per share: €1.55 (+10% YoY)
• Gross Profit: €325 million (+10% YoY)
• EBITDA: €142 million (+12% YoY)

- Free Cash Flow: €102 million

Want deeper insights into IMCD’s financial health? InvestingPro analysis reveals the company operates with a moderate level of debt and maintains strong liquidity, with current assets exceeding short-term obligations. Additional ProTips and comprehensive financial metrics are available with an InvestingPro subscription.

Earnings vs. Forecast

IMCD NV’s revenue of €1.26 billion fell short of the €1.27 billion forecast. However, the company met EPS expectations with €1.55, reflecting strong operational efficiency and cost management. The slight revenue miss was overshadowed by robust profit margins and a positive market response.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, IMCD NV’s stock price surged by 7.66%, closing at €120.10. This movement places the stock closer to its 52-week high of €159, indicating strong investor confidence. The positive market reaction can be attributed to the company’s solid financial performance and strategic growth initiatives.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, IMCD NV remains confident in its business model’s resilience. The company plans to continue investing in digital infrastructure and maintaining a healthy merger and acquisition pipeline. The management expects to capture commercial opportunities despite ongoing global economic uncertainties. InvestingPro data shows analyst consensus is moderately bullish, with price targets ranging from €145.32 to €233.88, suggesting potential upside from current levels. The company maintains healthy profitability metrics, with a gross profit margin of 25.74% over the last twelve months.

Executive Commentary

CEO Marcus Jordan expressed confidence in the company’s diversified business model, stating, "We are confident that our diversified business, advanced digital and asset-light supply chain model provides a strong and resilient foundation for the future." CFO Hans Koymans highlighted the company’s strategic position, noting, "We need to be prepared for the future, and we need to be in a position to capture the growth that will come to us."

Risks and Challenges

• Global economic uncertainty and tariff discussions could impact market conditions.
• Volatility across regions with limited forward visibility.
• Potential supply chain disruptions affecting order fulfillment.
• Increased competition in life sciences and industrial markets.
• Dependence on successful integration of acquisitions for continued growth.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the impact of tariffs and the company’s strategy in the pharmaceutical market. Management assured that tariffs are not expected to significantly impact the business and noted signs of recovery in the pharmaceutical sector. Additionally, the food and nutrition segment continues to perform robustly, contributing to overall growth prospects.

Full transcript - IMCD NV (IMCD) Q1 2025:

Conference Operator: Call. Please note this conference is being recorded and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. I will now hand you over to your host, Markus Jordan, CEO, to begin today’s conference. Please go ahead, sir.

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: Thank you, Adip. Good morning to you all, and a warm welcome to our Q1 twenty twenty five analyst call. I’m Marcus Jordan, and I’m very pleased to be here today with our CFO, Hans Coymans, for the Q1 twenty twenty five trading update, which we published in a press release earlier this morning and our Head of Investor Relations, Tosca Hoglund, who will help us from a time management perspective as we have a hard stop at 10AM Dutch time as we have our AGM later this morning. As you saw this week, we announced that IMCD and Valerie De La Brown have agreed that Valerie will step down as CEO and a member of the management board for personal reasons. I would like to thank Valerie for her contribution to the company and for our time working together, both in her role as a member of the supervisory board and member of the management board.

I and everybody at IMCD wish her all the very success for the future. On a personal note, I’m very excited that as of yesterday, I took over the role of CEO. As many of you know, I’ve been with the company for over twenty six years in a variety of roles, most recently leading the development of the Americas region for almost seven years and then a COO and member of the management board for the last three years. I very much look forward to continuing the successful growth story of IMCD and driving forward the successful growth strategy, which we have created together. Now over to Q1, a quarter generally characterized by global economic uncertainty and tariff discussions.

Despite this global economic uncertainty, we’ve had a good start to the year with gross profit up 10% to EUR $325,000,000 and EBITDA up by 12% to EUR 142,000,000. Our free cash flow was EUR 102,000,000, leading to a cash earnings per share of EUR 1.55, an increase of 10%. As already mentioned, the introduction and implementation of tariffs was a big topic in Q1 and has continued in the first month of Q2. What we see is that there is a lot of uncertainty around tariffs, both in terms of timing and impact. A big benefit that we at IMCD have when dealing with these tariffs is our fully integrated global IT or ERP system, which allows us to quickly identify all the products which are impacted by these tariffs and when need adjust prices immediately and accordingly.

We are also through our asset light business model, ability to adapt quickly when needed, combined with our wide geographical spread and diverse product portfolio, which is manufactured throughout the world. We therefore do not expect tariffs to have a significant impact on our business at this time. Tariffs could, however, have an indirect impact by increasing inflation and affecting final consumer demand. The impact on demand is something that is impossible to predict at this time, especially as things can change at very short notice. If we look at The U.

S. Specifically, most of our U. S. Sales is local for local and only a small percentage comes from imported products and some products are excluded from tariffs. In terms of general market development, we continue to see volatility across all regions and business lines with limited forward visibility and more than normal movement of orders and volumes from month to month.

We can also say that we have not seen significant prebuying. Whilst geographical and macroeconomic conditions continue to often be challenging, we are confident that our diversified business, advanced digital and asset light supply chain model provides strong and resilient foundation for the future. If I can now hand over to our CFO, Hans Koymans, who will give you an update on the numbers.

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: Thank you, Markus, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I’m happy to give you a short summary of the first quarter trading update that we issued earlier this morning. But I will start on Page six of the analyst call presentation. As Marc mentioned already, we are happy to report a solid start of the year. And as you can see, ForEx adjusted revenue increased 9% and gross profit increased 10% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period of last year.

This gross profit increase was a combination of 6% organic growth and 5% as a result of the first time inclusion of companies acquired in 2024. Gross profit in percentage of revenue improved by 0.4% points to 25.8%. And this increase in percentage was a combination of, as usual, of product mix and acquisition effects, changes in local market circumstances and internal gross margin improvement initiatives. Then ForEx adjusted operating EBITDA increased 12% to EUR 142,000,000. And the organic EBITDA growth in this first quarter was 7%.

The operating EBITDA margin increased by 0.4% points to 11.3%. The conversion margin calculated as operating EBITDA in percentage of gross profit was 43.7%, which is 0.8% points above the first quarter of last year. And the net result also increased 14% to EUR 69,000,000. The free cash flow. Compared to Q1 last year, free cash flow was healthy, although slightly lower than last year.

And this small decrease was a combination of, on the one hand, increased operating EBITDA being offset by higher investments capital in days of revenue, then the outcome in the first quarter was sixty five days. And that 65 was well below the 69 that we reported December. Cash conversion margin at the 70% that we report is reasonable for our first quarter. Year to date cash earnings per share were EUR 1.55, an increase of 10% compared to the same period of last year. And on the last line of this page, you could see a 4% increase in our number of employees.

And this increase is a combination of the first time inclusion of acquisitions, and these acquisitions added four thirty around about four fifty people, which is about 9%. And this 9% acquisition growth means that the number of people March have been comparing like for like with last year, indicates an organic decrease of 5%, which is about two forty people compared to March. Then I move to the next slide, Slide seven, you will find that gross profit EBITDA conversion margin per operating segment. On this slide, you will find, again, rounded percentages for organic and acquisition growth. But as promised last year, we added an answer to the press release with the same percentages with one number behind the dot.

Then looking at the numbers, EMEA reported 2% ForEx adjusted gross profit growth. This was unfortunately not enough to compensate for inflation driven on cost growth. As a consequence, operating EBITA and EBITA related ratios all slightly decreased compared to the same period of last year. In The Americas, we saw the opposite. We had a very strong start of the year.

We report double digit organic growth, both on gross profit and on operating EBITDA. It’s nice to see that we saw operating result increase both in North And South America and in more or less all countries where we are active in. As a consequence of this EBITDA growth, we report a substantial improvement of the EBITDA margin and the conversion ratio. Asia Pacific, the column there, report 14% growth profit growth and 16% operating EBITDA growth on a constant currency basis. And for both lines, about 7% of this growth is organic and the remainder relates to acquisitions done in 2024.

Strict cost management in the region combined with healthy organic margin growth resulted in increased EBITDA margin and slightly higher conversion ratio. And then in the last column, the cost of holding companies, which were more or less stable. And as you know, this includes all non operating companies, including the head office in Rotterdam and our regional support offices in Singapore and Miami. On Page eight, a short summary of IMCD’s free cash flow. As mentioned before, the free cash flow in Q1 this year of €102,000,000 was rather close to the outcome of last year.

The adjusted operating EBITDA increased with EUR 15,000,000, which is in line with the reported operating EBITDA growth. CapEx about EUR 2,000,000 lower, followed by a EUR 21,000,000 higher working capital investment. And all in all, it results in a 70% cash conversion ratio. This is of course a reasonable outcome for our first quarter when looking at top line growth and the typical working capital cycle during the year. Page nine, a short update on net debt and leverage.

Reported leverage ratios and leverage based on definitions in the loan documentation were more or less similar compared to 2024 year end numbers. We came out at 2.1 at two times last twelve months EBITDA. And as mentioned in our 2024 integrated report in March, we redeemed one of the €300,000,000 bond loans that we had on the balance sheet. And then before I go back to the operator, last but not least, on Page 11, you will find our outlook for 2025, in which we mention our confidence that our strong commercial teams, digital and logistic infrastructure and the resilience of our business model will continue to contribute value to our stakeholders and sustain our growth. So far, this short summary of our financials, and Markus and myself are happy to answer your questions.

So I go back to the operator, Adip.

Conference Operator: Thank We will take our first questions from Annalise Vermuden Line is open. Please go ahead.

Annalise Vermuden, Analyst: Hi, good morning, Markus and Hans. I have two questions, please. At the full year results, I think you noted that order patterns weren’t quite back to normal, but you were seeing some larger orders starting to come through. I’m just wondering how that’s developed over the last couple of months, given all the uncertainty around tariffs and macro, as you pointed out. Your peer yesterday commented that they are seeing more smaller and more frequent orders.

So I’m just wondering if you’re seeing that as well from your customers. And then secondly, I think in the release, you think you’ve done one deal year to date, but correct me if that’s wrong. Do you expect to continue the same pace of acquisitions as was the case through 2024? We’ve heard companies and other sectors comment recently that elevated uncertainty is making sellers more reluctant to sell and deals are taking longer to complete. Is that something that you see as you look at your pipeline for 2025?

Thank you.

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: Good morning, Annalise. Thank you for your questions. I think with regards to the order patterns, I think that there’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the market at present. And this continued kind of path of just in time delivery, I would say generally smaller orders more frequently is definitely the case. I think what you see is that as a distributor such as IMCD, that’s actually an advantage and brings us closer to the customer because they rely upon us more and more as maybe the visibility that they’ve got is also shorter.

So I think to confirm what you say that the visibility is if anything even shorter, and this just in time delivery with more frequent orders Also, by the way, being pushed forwards and backwards, throughout the different months. That’s definitely the case. On the M and A side, I think in general, mergers and acquisitions, it’s very difficult to predict the timing. As you know, we’ve got a very successful track record of acquiring, I would say, leaders within the industry. And those kind of connections that we have with those companies, those relationships have been built up over many years.

So it’s not ad hoc M and A which comes on stream within a particular period. I think all that we can say there is that the M and A pipeline that we’ve got at the moment is very healthy. We’re pleased with the health of the pipeline, and there’s a lot of positive discussions that are taking place.

Annalise Vermuden, Analyst: That’s great. Thank you very much, and welcome aboard, Markus.

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: Thank you very much.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will take our next questions from Matthew Yates from Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Matthew Yates, Analyst, Bank of America: Good morning, gentlemen. I was looking back at the annual report yesterday that stated the CEO transition successfully completed and now succession planning efforts have shifted towards the development of the next generation of leadership and and succession planning for for key positions. I I guess in light of Valerie’s departure only eighteen months into a four year contract, that therefore seems very abrupt compounded by the fact she’s not on the call this morning. And with respect to Marcus, who who I’m well aware knows the business inside out, I’m sure you can appreciate the the uncertainty this creates for shareholders about succession planning at the company. So to the extent you can elaborate on the reasons for the change, that would be most welcome.

Otherwise, Hans, in particular, can you give us an update on your own, plans as I think your contract is set to expire at the AGM next year? Thank you.

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: Good morning, Matthew. I think you saw, within the press release and also in my commentary that basically the company and Valerie have agreed that she’ll step down as the CEO for personal reasons, and we’re not in a position and can’t, go into more detail with regards to that point. Hans, the second question? Yeah. But

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: but you’re you’re technically right. So my my contract will expire at the next eight year. I think, Marks, the same is applicable for you. I don’t want to create more uncertainty, but that is typically typically the way it works in The Netherlands, that as a board member, you always get a four year contract and then it’s up for renewal and then there is a proposal from the Supervisory Board to the AGM if and what will happen then. So that is a discussion that will take place, I think, somewhere next year, and then we will bring it to the to the AGM and see what comes out.

So for the upcoming calls, you still need to talk to me, mate, and I hope you like that.

Matthew Yates, Analyst, Bank of America: I think that’s okay. If I can ask a follow-up just for both of you conceptually. How are you thinking about the cost side of the business in this environment uncertainty? How you sort of think about adding headcount, investing in IT, even the extent to which you you maybe put capital to work in in in inventory. Are you still investing on the basis of growth this year, or do you run an even tighter ship to protect the bottom line?

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: Yeah. If you look at the we have gone through a lot of cycles over the years, and we are in a situation that in a downturn or in uncertainty on the commercial side, we often face a situation that suppliers react by reducing their fixed cost base and outsourcing to like us. And so typically, a more uncertain environment creates a lot of commercial opportunities, and you need to be prepared for that to capture these opportunities. At the same time, what you might have seen the cost increase that we report in the first quarter is just below 5% organic on cost growth, and that’s mainly compensated for inflation. We work with a slightly lower number of own people compared to the same period of last year.

So we are very careful in filling vacancies. At the same time, we keep investing in the digital infrastructure because this is the absolute license to operate and to get that second sales channel to the market. And we have as what we presented in in the in the investor day in Milan, we made big steps there and and perhaps Marcus could say something about it a bit where we are there. But what you see, the the the we are a people organization. We are careful filling vacancies.

We are always cautious with respect to the cost level that we run on. But we don’t want to stop investing in digital, which is the easiest way to save cost because we feel this is the future, and we need to be prepared for the future, and we need to be in a position to capture the growth that will come to us.

Matthew Yates, Analyst, Bank of America: Thank you, guys.

Kiran Molder, Analyst, ING: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We are taking our next questions from Suhasini Varanasi from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Suhasini Varanasi, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question, and welcome, Marcus. It’s nice to speak to you. I think the one main question I had was on the Americas region where you’ve seen very, very strong growth.

Is it possible to provide some color by vertical? Because I think we are seeing kind of mixed signals, especially in The US region, about whether orders are getting canceled, industrial versus life sciences. So if you could share some color there, I think that would be really helpful. And how does the order book look today, generally speaking, across the board into the next six weeks? Thank

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: Thank you for for for for the question. Yeah. If you look at The Americas in general, and Hans mentioned this, I think the pleasing thing for us is it was pretty much in every country in which we operate, we saw a positive result in the first quarter. So it was really nice to see that across the board performance. In terms of the verticals, again, nothing really spectacular to really state.

I think if we look at prior calls, we have mentioned it in general on a global basis that last year, the pharmaceutical market was a little bit depressed. I think it’s fair to say that we’ve seen that beginning to come back during the first quarter. Food and Nutrition continues to perform in a robust way. And in general, the industrial side, again, nothing really to comment either in a large positive or negative way. So I think across the Americas region and globally, those vertical comments count the same.

Does that answer your question?

Suhasini Varanasi, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Yes. It does. Thank you. I think we will get the because I think your portion of The US is exposed to, more industrial. Is that right?

What is life sciences?

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: Not necessarily. No. I I would say that that we’ve, you know, over the last seven or eight years with the acquisitions that we’ve made and and quite significant additional supply which we’ve been able to bring into the region. We’ve got a very healthy balance now between the life science and industrial markets.

Suhasini Varanasi, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: I

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: didn’t answer your second question, I’m sorry, in terms of the outlook that we saw. As you know, it’s very difficult at this time to give a specific outlook, particularly with the shortened visibility that we have. But if we look at the order book that we’ve got at the moment, I would say, in general, it’s not bad so far.

Suhasini Varanasi, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Great. That’s very helpful. Thank you very much.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will take our next questions from Karl Ransford from Berenberg. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Karl Ransford, Analyst, Berenberg: Yes. Good morning, everyone. Markus, first and foremost, congratulations. It’s great to see you and the CEO to see. But just three from me, if I may, just going back to see if Sini is there really.

But the first is, can you maybe discuss The Americas and what drove growth there, please? Just to buy a market, maybe in a bit more depth, because appear yesterday, nowhere near that level of organic growth in gross profit. I’m just wondering what the driver is. It’s very different. The second question and sort of tying that to EMEA.

Could you maybe explain the decline in conversion margin? I know you mentioned inflation, but did you add more cost there for some sort of reason? I know it’s an 8% cost increase in Europe, 10 Percent in The Americas, so maybe not. But yes, that seems overcompensating for inflation and possibly acquisitions. So it’d be good to understand.

And then lastly, Hans, I labor this every call, so I do apologize. But I, just wanted to ask on the deferred consideration point again. So could you give us any guidance on net interest for the first half, please, and

Matthew Yates, Analyst, Bank of America: in particular, the interest income line? Thank you.

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: Shall I take the last two ones first before you go Would great. On the deferred considerations, no impact in the first quarter and no changes. And what I indicated already last year is that I don’t expect big changes this year there. And that was the reason that I mentioned that you should normalize for the effect when analyzing the 2024 and 2023 figures.

On your cost question, what we as a group, we report an overall own cost increase organically below 5%, just below 5%. A part of that is basically it’s compensated for inflation. It is a slightly lower number of people. And yeah. But but you need to fully compensate that cost.

There’s a bit more organic gross margin than what we reported in EMEA. Let’s face it, the market is not that easy in EMEA. I’m happy that we still report organic growth in that part of the market on the margin side, but not enough to fully compensate inflationary cost increase that we saw there. And let’s hope that the second and the third quarter will show a better outcome there, but I cannot influence the underlying demand.

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: And then Carl, moving on to your question with regards to The Americas, excellent results. I mean, not to comment on what our competitors are doing, but if you look at IMCD, as I mentioned before, the pleasing thing for us was that the performance was very strong pretty much across the board on a country by country basis. The verticals also again, pretty all performing. As you know, our strategy is to invest in the business for the long term growth. And as you know, we’ve made quite some acquisitions within the region.

And I think that this is now also some showing signs of the fact that we’ve been very successful on integrating those acquisitions successfully, growing the IMCD brand within the region. And then also very importantly, the, our ability and success of cross fertilizing the supplier relationships that we’ve got elsewhere within the world. So I think it’s a combination basically of the IMCD model shining through.

Karl Ransford, Analyst, Berenberg: Sorry. I don’t know if I lost you there.

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: Yep. Still there, Carl.

Karl Ransford, Analyst, Berenberg: Oops. I might have lost you there slightly. But, yes, that’s helpful, Marks and Hans. I just wanted a quick follow-up, Hans, maybe on the cost side. Sorry, I don’t know if I cut you off there.

I lost you completely. But is there a certain level of organic GP growth that I don’t know if this is the right question, but will compensate for that inflation in EMEA? Because obviously, it does appear that, you know, operating leverage has been pretty useful for both The Americas and APAC. So I just wonder if, you know, if there is a level of growth that maybe you target to compensate for that cost.

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: Mathematically, it’s I think we could do the math quite simple. So if my fixed cost during the year are €500,000,000 and if

Karl Ransford, Analyst, Berenberg: I

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: grow 5% inflation, I need to grow my margin at least 25% to show organic bottom line growth.

Karl Ransford, Analyst, Berenberg: So we’re saying most of most of that cost is probably fixed?

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: Yeah. And, of course, there is variable components in there, like bonuses, like travel, like these type of things that you can play with. Or you can even argue that I stop investing in digital because you know we expense all these costs immediately. I don’t want to put it on the balance sheet. But I said earlier, it is this is something we really want to be the number one in this industry, and it is the license to operate in the future.

Karl Ransford, Analyst, Berenberg: Perfect. That’s very helpful. Thank you, Beth. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We are now moved to our next questions from Kiran Molder from ING. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Kiran Molder, Analyst, ING: Yes. Good morning, everyone. A couple of questions from my side. So again, on Nemea and the gross profit, normally, you don’t see a 50 basis points decline in the quarter. So that must be something in the mix or whatsoever.

So maybe you can explain that. And my second question is about the working capital. Last time, you gave a breakdown between the working capital development with regard to debtors and inventories. Is there any can you elaborate on that on these numbers? And it will be quite useful, I think.

And by the way, thanks for all the details in the numbers now. It takes a lot of time.

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: Corinne, perhaps I start with the last one. I don’t want to do working capital data per quarter. I do that two times a year, a bit more specific. And I still see Q1 and Q3 more as a trading update. And I think we are pretty detailed in what we already disclosed.

I think it’s fair to say if we talk about working capital development, I spoke in my introductory remarks about the typical cycle that we see. And what you always see is that the lowest point in the cycle is December, and that has to do with always lower sales in December, driving leading to lower debtor days. The certain lower debtor amount that typically drives my working capital position. And what you always see is that when we have the more normal sales model, so during the operational quarters in Q1 and Q2 that your working capital position picks up. And typically, we saw the normal pattern as we also saw a normal sales pattern during the quarter.

The other question about the drop in margin percentage, first of all, it was, to my opinion, limited, and it is the usual fluctuations in the mix. And it’s there’s nothing special or nothing to worry about what happened in the first quarter there.

Kiran Molder, Analyst, ING: But okay, so going back on the working capital, interesting, let me say, about the fourth quarter last year was that the inventories were increasing quite rapidly. And that was probably one of the basis that you were, I will say, relatively optimistic. So there’s a reason for us to ask that question because I think it’s it gives an indication now about them how it’s developing. But, yeah, debt is a is a question of payment, and inventories gives an indication of what can happen in the next quarter. So are you not so you understand my question then?

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: I fully understand the question. But you also might have seen it at year end also the credit position as a consequence of the higher stock position was a bit higher than normal. I think what is more important is the reason that we carried a bit more stock at year end was to cater for the strong order in January, which materialized. I think we indicated that during this quarter, there was a I think it was three normal months, nothing special in there. And then you typically finish the quarter with a normal working capital position linked to your normal cash conversion cycle during the year.

And that is what we try to express.

Kiran Molder, Analyst, ING: Thank you.

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: I think maybe just to add one more point, which links to what we’re speaking about at the beginning with this limited visibility and having to deliver to customers just in time. That typically means also that sometimes we need

Conference Operator: to hold

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: additional inventory for those accounts. And again, as a distributor, that’s our role. It it builds the reputation of the company. And certainly, from a customer stickiness perspective, that’s incredibly important.

Kiran Molder, Analyst, ING: Yeah. And my final question is, let me say, normally, if I look at the numbers of Auseliers against the IMCD, there are some difference, but this time it looks completely different. It’s it’s let me say, if you look at the geographics, if if your stagnation is in in EMEA, they do better. Your growth is in Americas, they stagnate, and and Asia Pacific is even down, and you are growing. Is there any explanation from your on sharp difference in these numbers between the two companies?

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: When I first took out the numbers right, that is if you say there was stagnation in EMEA, we reported a minus 3% organic decrease, as Eyleaf reports a minus 7% EBITDA percentage decrease. So I think in all regions, do better. It’s first difficult to comment on the figures of our peers because we have the same insight as you. And I think you might have raised the same questions yesterday to them that you now raised to us, but we can only answer for what we see on IMCD. Q1 was a solid quarter.

Yeah. And I think in all regions, given the market conditions, we performed pretty okay. America was fantastic. If you report 21% organic growth, I think that is a great outcome given the market conditions. Same for Asia Pacific.

And in EMEA, we basically, we missed the organic margin growth. I was happy that we report organic margin growth, but it was not enough to compensate for inflation. So we need to do better there. And for questions about Azealis, think there are two other people better equipped to answer those questions.

Kiran Molder, Analyst, ING: No, no, no. I know. And I was only referring to the gross profit, yes? The gross profit in development, that’s not on the EBITDA, so fine. Okay.

Profit,

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: they may have evolved to plus 2% organic.

Kiran Molder, Analyst, ING: Okay. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will take our next questions from Eric Wilmer from Kempen. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Eric Wilmer, Analyst, Kempen: Good morning, gentlemen. I wanted to push a bit more on The Americas. If you had to split between North And South America, which of the two was leading the strong performance seen in Q1? And am I right to conclude that South America is comparably a bit more skewed towards Life Sciences versus North America? And then secondly, given that tariffs are still in place between The U.

S. And China, could you talk a bit about your strategy towards Asian suppliers? And to what extent you’ve given this a stronger push in the current tariff environment? And then lastly, was there a certain degree of marketing cost phasing in EMEA in q one, for example, following various larger trade shows, which seem to happen, or activity seemed to be a bit more this year with some bigger biannual ones taking place in Q1 this year? Thank you.

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: Thank you for your questions, Eric. I think with regards to the split between, North And South America, As I said at the beginning, the pleasing thing for us was that pretty much across the board we saw healthy growth. So I would say that there wasn’t a very significant difference between the two regions there. And with regards to the question again on the Life Science versus Industrial, as I think I mentioned earlier in this call, we’ve consciously made a big effort with the acquisitions that we’ve made and the organic growth that we’ve achieved over the last few years to really balance that out. So again, I think that we’re in a healthy position in both of the regions there.

So again, I wouldn’t say that there’s a significant difference. With regards to the, strategy for Asian suppliers, as you know, we’re very much focused on partnering with leading supply partners in a contractual way for the long term future and growth. Typically, that is not the business model of suppliers from China. So whilst we do, in some cases, strategically source some some products, for us, it’s a relatively small percentage. And in our experience, you know, the sourcing from China, don’t get that exclusivity.

You don’t get the partnership approach and therefore you don’t get the long term stability and growth which I think we’ve proven is needed for the long term future. So we keep an open mind. I think as a company, we’re very entrepreneurial. We’re always looking at what is best for the business. But again, the proven track record with this long term supplier relationships, we believe, is key and will continue to be key for the future.

I think with regards to the marketing costs, yes, you’re completely right. I think that a few of us have spent some time in the first quarter visiting some of the bigger shows, European Coating Show in cosmetics, etcetera. So yes, think it’s a fair point to say that we have incurred, I would say, an abnormal amount of marketing costs related to trade shows in that first quarter.

Eric Wilmer, Analyst, Kempen: That is very helpful and clear. And welcome, Markus.

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: Thank you.

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: Although we saw you on In Cosmetics, I think that was early April, so that is it feels like Q1.

Karl Ransford, Analyst, Berenberg: True point. True point.

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: Yeah. Feels like a while ago. I

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: mean, it does.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will move to our next questions from Chetan Udeshi from JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Chetan Udeshi, Analyst, JPMorgan: And Markus, congrats on the and apologies if these questions were raised before I was a bit late to join the call. But again, going through the mechanics of CEO Chase announcement, I don’t want to know anything specific to Valerie. But I was just curious, I mean, typically, when we hear CEO change announcement a day before results, unexpected, people do worry that strategically, something might have gone wrong. Are you able to at least reassure us that there is no strategic mishaps that might have happened in the model that we should be worried about? The second question was just going back to the Americas growth, fantastic, 21%.

As we sit today, I mean, of course, I think it’s tough, but are you seeing group organic trends at least positive in the current month? Or the let’s say, the trends have shifted very, very rapidly between Q1 and Q2? And the last question, Markus, you mentioned it’s difficult to time the M and A, but you do have some sort of a balance sheet flexibility now. So and the share price has come down a long way from, let’s say, six months back. Is buyback something that you and Hans are willing to consider at this point?

Great.

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: Thank you for the questions. I think on the first point, we can absolutely give you reassurance that there’s been no strategic mishaps. So complete reassurance there. In terms of the Americas performance, we’ve seen no rapid shifts, I would say. So I think consistency and hands on the Well, not

Hans Koymans, CFO, IMCD: on the share buybacks. That’s not in the cards. We have a very healthy pipeline. I think we have a lot of opportunities to employ the capital that we raised. How happy in hindsight that we did it last year in November and not in the current environment.

But I’m happy that I have that strong balance sheet and that we can make use of the opportunities that we see in the market and all the independent discussions that we that we have with owners. So expect something to come out rather sooner than later. Yes.

Chetan Udeshi, Analyst, JPMorgan: Thank you very much.

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: Thank you.

Conference Operator: You. It appears we have no more questions. I would like to turn the conference back to Markus for any additional remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Marcus Jordan, CEO, IMCD: Well, from my side, I’d just like to thank everybody very much for joining the call. As I mentioned earlier, extremely excited to, have the position for CEO and really look forward to speaking to you more more more often. So wishing you all a fantastic weekend. Thank you.

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

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