International Flavors & Fragrances Inc (IFF) 2025 Q4 法說會逐字稿

At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the IFF Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions)

I would now like to introduce Michael Bender, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, everyone. Welcome to IFF's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Conference Call. Yesterday afternoon, we issued a press release announcing our financial results. A copy of the release can be found on our IR website at ir.iff.com. Please note that this call is being recorded live and will be available for replay.

During the call, we'll be making forward-looking statements about the company's performance and business outlook. These statements are based on how we see things today and contain elements of uncertainty. For additional information concerning the factors that can cause actual results to differ materially, please refer to our cautionary statement and risk factors contained in our 10-K and press release, both of which can be found on our website.

Today's presentation will include non-GAAP financial measures, which exclude these items that we believe affect comparability. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their respective GAAP measures is set forth in the press release. Also, please note that all sales and EBITDA growth numbers that we'll be speaking to on the call are all on a comparable currency-neutral basis unless otherwise noted.

With me on the call today is our CEO, Erik Fyrwald; and our CFO, Michael DeVeau. We will begin with prepared remarks and then take questions at the end.

With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Erik.

Thanks, Mike, and hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. IFF's fourth quarter and full year 2025 results reflect a continued focus on disciplined execution and improvements across the business to further strengthen our position in the market. I'll start today's call by briefly summarizing the progress we continue to make in executing our strategic priorities, followed by a few highlights of how this translated to our 2025 financial results. I'll then turn the call over to Mike DeVeau, who will provide more details on the fourth quarter, segment performance and our outlook for 2026.

Turning to slide 6. In 2025, our team focused on strengthening our ability to drive profitable growth while also strengthening our balance sheet. We continue to reinvest in a disciplined way across our high-value core businesses, increasing R&D, commercial capability and manufacturing capacity, investments that will pay off for years to come. And we did this while we delivered the full year financial commitments we set out at the beginning of 2025. And while there is a lot more to do, I am proud of how our global team continues to strengthen our ability to serve our customers with leading innovations and deliver productivity even in a challenging volatile economic environment.

Our strengthened balance sheet reflects our more disciplined capital allocation strategy with our net debt to credit adjusted EBITDA down to 2.6 times. Our increased investments in innovation and commercial capabilities and CapEx and productivity initiatives are delivering today and making us stronger for the future.

We have also taken strategic action to sharpen our portfolio so we can focus on high-value innovation-driven businesses. To recap, we completed the divestitures of Pharma Solutions, Nitrocellulose and Rene Laurent businesses, and also announced an agreement to sell our Soy Crush, concentrates and Lecithin businesses to Bunge, which we expect to happen by April. And most recently, we officially launched the sale process for our Food Ingredients business.

As we communicated in August, we began exploring strategic options for our Food Ingredients business as part of our portfolio optimization. And following several months of extensive preparation by our team, we formally launched a disciplined and competitive sale process and as of two weeks ago, are officially in the market. And I'm very pleased with the progress we've made and believe this is the right next step for both the Food Ingredients business and for our Taste, Scent and Health & Bioscience divisions.

We are very encouraged by the depth and quality of interest from strategic and financial sponsors and are confident in our ability to execute this process thoughtfully and in the best interest of our shareholders. We will provide additional updates as appropriate. We are confident that the strength of our people, strategy and execution positions us to deliver on our priorities for 2026 and beyond. We have the right leadership team in place, an engaged and supportive Board and an incredibly talented team of IFF colleagues. Now while macroeconomic uncertainty will continue to persist through 2026, I am pleased how we are entering the year and have strong conviction in our ability to achieve consistent profitable growth and create long-term value for our shareholders.

Turning to slide 7. We achieved solid sales growth in 2025 against a strong 6% year ago comparable in a tough macroeconomic environment. Over the last two years, we delivered average sales growth of 4%. Our 2025 performance was led by Taste, which grew sales by 4% and grew EBITDA by 10%.

In Health & Biosciences, sales improved 3% and the team delivered a 7% increase in EBITDA. Scent sales grew 3% against a strong year ago comparison of 12% and increased EBITDA by 2%. The double-digit sales growth in Fine Fragrance was partially offset by negative growth in Fragrance Ingredients, where we saw double-digit declines in the commodity ingredient sales.

In Food Ingredients, the team has done a great job continuing to drive margin improvement. And while sales were down, partly due to soft demand and partly due to the strategic exit of low-margin business, we achieved 10% EBITDA growth and 150 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion. And on a consolidated basis, our overall profitability improved in 2025 as we delivered 7% EBITDA growth with 100 basis points of margin expansion through volume and productivity gains as well as favorable net pricing.

Now with that, I'll pass the call over to Mike to offer a closer look at this quarter's consolidated results. Mike?

Thank you, Erik, and thanks, everyone, for joining. In the fourth quarter, IFF generated revenue of nearly $2.6 billion with growth in nearly all divisions.

Performance was led by mid-single-digit growth in Health & Biosciences and Scent as well as low single-digit growth in taste. Our sales grew 1% for the quarter against a 6% year ago comparable and were up approximately 4% on a two-year average basis. EBITDA totaled $437 million for the fourth quarter, a 7% increase, primarily driven by volume growth and our ongoing productivity initiatives. Our EBITDA margin also increased by 90 basis points to 16.9%.

On slide 9, I'll provide a closer look at our performance by business segment. In Taste, sales increased 2% to $588 million, with growth in all regions, including high single-digit growth in North America, driven by new wins. The segment also recorded a very strong quarter of profitability with EBITDA of $94 million, a 17% increase. Profitability gains were driven primarily by favorable net pricing and cost discipline.

Food Ingredients sales of $802 million were down 4% as softness in Protein Solutions and Emulsifiers and sweeteners offset growth in systems and inclusions. It is worth noting that a part of our top-line decline in the fourth quarter and on a full year basis for Food Ingredients was driven by a proactive exit of low-margin business as well as sales -- lost sales due to sanctions in Russia and emulsifiers. Profitability for Food Ingredients declined 11% in the quarter to $82 million, stemming from the volume declines and unfavorable net pricing.

Our Health & Bioscience segment achieved sales of $589 million, an increase of 5% with growth across nearly all businesses. The standouts in the quarter were Food Biosciences and Animal Nutrition, both growing double digits. Home & Personal Care also continued to be strong, increasing high single digits. As we shared last quarter, Health, while improved sequentially from Q3, was down low single digits. Under new leadership, the team has started to execute their improvement plan, and we continue to believe trends will improve over the course of 2026. From a profitability standpoint, Health & Biosciences delivered EBITDA of $155 million in the fourth quarter, an increase of 20% due to volume growth and productivity gains.

Lastly, our Scent segment delivered sales of $610 million, representing 4% growth. Performance in the fourth quarter was driven by continued strength in Fine Fragrance, which increased 10% and mid-single-digit growth in Consumer Fragrance. Fragrance Ingredients remained under pressure due to continued market softness and price competition on the commodity portion of our portfolio. EBITDA for this segment increased 1% to $106 million as benefits from volume growth and productivity gains were partially offset by unfavorable net pricing, specifically in Fragrance Ingredients.

Turning to slide 10. Cash flow from operations totaled $850 million for the full year and CapEx totaled $594 million or approximately 5.5% of sales. Our free cash flow position for the full year totaled $256 million. Included in this number is approximately $300 million of Reg G-related charges, primarily driven by our divestiture activities, which accelerated in the second half of the year due to the potential sale of food ingredients. Working capital also represented an outflow of approximately $166 million, reflecting higher inventory levels in strategic areas, along with changes in accounts receivable and accounts payable.

We made meaningful progress improving inventory in the second half of the year. And as we look ahead, disciplined execution across all elements of working capital will be a key priority for us in 2026. Year-to-date, we returned $409 million to our shareholders through dividends and an additional $38 million through share repurchases as we started our repurchase program in the fourth quarter. As a reminder, at minimum, we expect to offset annual share dilution of approximately $80 million to $100 million per year.

Our cash and cash equivalents finished at $590 million, and our gross debt at the end of the year was approximately $6 billion, which is a decrease of nearly $3 billion compared to 2024. Our trailing 12-month to credit adjusted EBITDA totaled $2.1 billion. Our net debt to credit adjusted EBITDA ended 2025 at 2.6 times, improving from 3.8 times at the end of 2024.

Before turning to our outlook for 2026, I'd like to briefly reiterate a point Erik made earlier on Food Ingredients. We believe pursuing a sale for the Food Ingredients business remains the right path forward. With our capital structure now strengthened and improving operational performance and margin expansion ahead for Food Ingredients, we are under no pressure to sell. The business has a strong operating plan, and we are confident we can continue to create value, whether a transaction occurs or not. This potential sale is about capturing full value for our shareholders and doing what is right for both Food Ingredients and our broader portfolio. Throughout the process, we remain focused on long-term shareholder value and taking actions that make the most strategic sense.

Now on slide 11, I'd like to share our outlook for 2026. We believe we are well positioned for the year ahead, and we are cautiously optimistic that we can deliver growth, margin improvement and cash flow generation this year. As we navigate the volatile geopolitical landscape and uncertain market conditions, the strength of our pipeline and the benefits of our reinvestment efforts give us confidence moving forward. We believe our outlook reflects a balanced consideration of both current market conditions and the potential for unforeseen opportunities and challenges throughout the year, hence the ranges we are providing.

Coming off a solid year we had in 2025, we expect to continue to drive financial performance across the company. For the full year 2026, we expect sales to be in the range of $10.5 billion to $10.8 billion, representing comparable currency-neutral growth of 1% to 4%. We believe Taste, Health & Biosciences and Scent will continue to drive our top line growth, supported by new wins and our innovation pipeline. We expect that growth will primarily be driven by year-over-year improvements in volume.

From a profitability standpoint, we expect to deliver full year 2026 EBITDA between $2.05 billion and $2.15 billion, representing comparable currency-neutral growth of 3% to 8%. It is important to note that we will also continue to selectively reinvest in the business while maintaining a disciplined focus on near-term profitability. We expect our productivity and efficiency gains will fully fund our ability to reinvest in innovation and commercial capabilities across our highest value businesses. We believe these investments will continue to enhance performance, strengthen our competitive position and deliver attractive returns over time.

For the full year, we expect FX will have approximately 1 percentage point positive impact to sales and a negligible impact on EBITDA. From a calendarization perspective, our year-over-year comparisons are strongest in the first half, particularly in Q1, where we have certain favorable onetime items from last year, including the contribution of divested businesses. As a result, we expect sales and EBITDA will be more muted in the first quarter of 2026. More specifically, we expect modest EBITDA growth in the first quarter versus our like-for-like first quarter 2025 base of approximately $505 million, adjusting for divestitures.

As we move through the year, comparisons will ease, and we expect performance to improve, supported by our pipeline and ongoing productivity actions. We expect that this will drive improved leverage across the P&L and year-over-year growth should progressively improve each quarter.

As I said earlier, operating cash flow will be a key priority for 2026. We expect overall cash generation will improve year-over-year, excluding Reg G and onetime costs, which will most likely be higher than 2025 as we pursue a potential sale of food ingredients. Teams across the businesses are driving working capital improvements across inventory, payables and receivables. And when combined with profitability growth and lower incentive compensation payouts, we should see a meaningful cash flow improvement versus 2025.

CapEx is expected to be around 6% of sales, and will be carefully managed, focused on highest return opportunities, including capacity expansion, network optimization and innovation to support long-term growth. To further embed disciplined cash management, we've introduced an incentive compensation metric for 2026 tied to operating cash flow conversion, defined as EBITDA minus CapEx minus the change in net working capital. We are also evaluating additional cash flow metrics for our long-term incentive program to strengthen alignment on cash flow generation, particularly for 2027.

With that, I would now like to turn the call back over to Erik.

Thanks, Mike. As we look ahead to 2026, I see considerable opportunities for us to continue strengthening IFF with even more competitive, innovative and customer-focused businesses amid a continued challenging macro environment. Innovation is the key driver for us in 2026. Our investments in enzyme capacity, naturals, health and new molecules powered by our biotechnology and AI capabilities will increase our ability to compete and win with our customers across key business segments. We also remain focused on enhancing our competitiveness in our health business by strengthening commercial execution through the steps we discussed before.

In Fragrance Ingredients, we continue to shift our portfolio toward higher growth and higher value-added specialties by leveraging R&D, naturals, chemistry and biotech for new molecule and delivery system development.

At the same time, we are committed to continuing to drive significant productivity, furthering our digital transformation and advancing our AI-enabled operational excellence to fund reinvestment and improve margins. And we will drive cash flow as a priority over the next 18 months and are committed to a very large reduction in below the line or Reg-G costs over that time period.

Lastly, we'll continue the sale process for Food Ingredients and will ensure the right outcome for this terrific business and be able to achieve our end goal of having three high-value and growth innovation-driven businesses with taste, Scent and Health & Biosciences powered by nature and biotechnology.

To close, I want to reiterate that the IFF businesses are strong and performing well. We are doing exactly what we said we would do, and we have a clear path forward that aligns and motivates our people to continuously improve our service to customers and deliver for IFF. The progress we've made in strengthening the foundation of our business, balance sheet and innovation and commercial pipelines is significant and motivates us to do even more. And while I'm very proud of what our team has accomplished, there is more we will do as we will be laser-focused in 2026 on driving profitable growth, cash flow improvement and maximizing value creation over time. We are investing for the future, and we have a great team to execute for today.

Thank you, and we'll now open the line for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Kristen Owen, Oppenheimer.

So I wanted to ask about your assumptions around price and volume in 2026. And we're hearing from a lot of the CPGs, this shift toward a greater emphasis on volumes. I'm just trying to think about how that migrates upstream to you all? And just as a related question, can you remind us the incremental margin on volume versus price?

Yes. Thank you, Kristen, for that question. I'll take it. First of all, our expected growth for 2026 is volume driven. And as you mentioned, CPG companies shifting emphasis to more volume growth, that is a good thing for IFF and the industry as a whole. So we like seeing that trend, as you mentioned. And then finally, incremental margins are roughly 30% to 35% on volumes, depending on the business segment.

Nicola Tang, BNP Paribas.

Sticking with a question on top line. I was wondering if you could provide some color on your assumptions behind the top and bottom end of your 1% to 4% currency neutral sales outlook? Do you expect all of your divisions to grow within that range? And also, I noted in Q4 that sale -- currency-neutral sales came in better than expected in the three core divisions. I was wondering if we should read this as a signal of improving underlying market trends or whether there were specific drivers to be aware of, I don't know, new wins or timing of orders or anything like that?

I'll take this one. Nicola, thank you for the question. As I think about 2026, I think we'd say we're cautiously optimistic going forward, really driven by a strong pipeline and the reinvestment we made over the last 18 months. In addition, as Eric just said, we are hearing customers talk more about volumes for 2026, which is a good thing for us as well.

And so when you think about our 1% to 4% guidance range, it assumes essentially the current market conditions that we see today and as we exited the fourth quarter. For us to achieve the higher end or the 4% range, I think we would need to see volumes at the end market improve more broadly and kind of return to what I'd say is more normalized levels in terms of market growth. And the opposite is probably true on the lower end of the guidance range or the 1%.

To your point on Q4 2025, it was marginally better than we expected from a top line perspective with good improvements in taste, scent and H&B. This was primarily driven by new wins, which is a positive signal, but it's only one quarter. So as we think about, again, 2026 overall, we do believe that the three businesses will grow in 2026 within the kind of sales guidance range, but we also do expect Food Ingredients will also grow maybe just a little bit to a lesser extent overall. Fortunately, we have a very diverse business for balanced region, category and customer exposure. And that gives us our confidence that we are resilient and that we believe we can grow as we go into 2026.

Patrick Cunningham, Citigroup.

In Food Ingredients, could you comment on any early interest in the sale? Were there any inbounds prior to the formal process? And then any details on timing and deployment of proceeds would be greatly appreciated as well.

Sure. Thank you for the question, Patrick. As I said on our last call, we did have early interest from both strategics and private equity firms, and all of those firms continue to show strong interest. And then two weeks ago, we officially launched the sale process and have had additional firms express interest. So I'm very optimistic about the process. But as Mike said, the Food Ingredients business is performing well, had double-digit EBITDA growth last year, continue to see solid earnings growth for this year. So we will only sell the business if it creates value, but I'm very optimistic we can make that happen.

Now as for proceeds, we will use them to buy back shares to offset as much dilution as possible, and we will pay down debt to stay about where we are on debt-to-EBITDA ratio, ensuring that we stay below the 3.0 target.

John Roberts, Mizuho.

Price was down in the Scent segment. Higher price fragrance outperformed -- Fine Fragrance outperformed Consumer Fragrance. You're shifting the Scent ingredients towards higher-priced products. So I would have thought mix alone would have improved price. What's going on with price there?

Thanks, John. You're correct that the Fine Fragrance business is our highest margin business. So that was a positive contribution to mix overall. Pricing actually in the quarter was flat year-over-year. And so really, the margin pressure came on the input cost side, where you -- as you know, there is a bit of a lag in terms of overall price. This was primarily related to some of the index pricing agreements that we have. And so similar to previous years, as we move forward, we expect to fully recover this over time.

One of your points on just the Fragrance Ingredients business overall, that shift from more commodity to more captive or proprietary ingredients, we started that migration, but it will take some time. And so as we go through 2026, we will make continuous progress. But I do want to just level set to make sure that's something that will be a theme as we go through 2026 and as we get through the second half that's where we'll start to see some stuff come online overall, but it's a process that will take somewhat of all of 2026 to make that migration overall.

Kevin McCarthy, Vertical Research Partners.

I thought your Health & Biosciences business finished on a somewhat stronger note. Can you elaborate on what drove the margin uplift there of 160 basis points year-over-year? Is the health business starting to stabilize and come back at all? And maybe you could comment on the margin outlook for 2026 in that segment, what kind of benefits you might anticipate from volume growth and productivity?

Sure. Thanks for the question, Kevin. First of all, our Health & Biosciences did deliver strong fourth quarter performance, and that was due to both strong volume growth and productivity that enhanced the margins. What I would say is the team is very focused on strengthening our commercial and innovation capabilities and pipelines and delivering those pipelines. And I'm very proud of the progress that they're making. More to do, but making progress.

As Mike mentioned in the beginning comments, the health business still had some decline, less decline than in the third quarter -- in the fourth quarter. We see that business flattening out in the first half of this year and then starting to grow in the second half of this year. So outside of the health business, very robust growth. The health business is starting to turn, and we expect it to see positive results from that by the second half.

Josh Spector, UBS.

I wanted to ask on free cash flow. I think previously, you thought for 2025, you'd do a little bit less than $500 million. That came in a couple of hundred million short. You talked about some investments in inventory. So can you talk about why you did that? Is that structural? And then how do you think free cash flow evolves into 2026?

Thanks, Josh. Great question. Yes, we expect the free cash flow to be modestly lower than $500 million for the full year. Essentially, the difference of where we ended versus our commentary in the second and third quarter really related to three things. One, we did see a little bit of an increase in what I'd say is onetime Reg-G related costs. As we start to move forward with the food ingredients potential sale, we've actually seen some step-up in costs associated with that potential transaction.

Number two, exactly what you said, working capital came in a bit higher than we expected. Part of this is driven by inventory. Now while the team made a really good effort and progress in terms of where we were in the first half of the year to the second half improving inventory, we are being strategic on some elements where we're taking advantage of supply and potential pricing to making sure we keep adequate inventory that as we grow our business into 2026, we're in the best possible position. And so that was a little bit of a build.

But in addition to that, we also had some payables that are really just timing issues. I think as we go through 2026, we'll see that come back now overall with respect to AP. As I explained in our prepared remarks, cash flow improvement for us in 2026 is a key priority. And while we do expect the Reg-G costs will remain high, we are being very disciplined in terms of cash management now.

To the point I made earlier in my prepared remarks, we even added the compensation metric in there to drive this. And so for 2026, I do expect to see meaningful improvement driven by profitability growth, working capital, lower interest expense and a lower payout relative to what we had in 2025 with respect to incentive comp overall. And so that meaningful progress will occur.

I'm going to refrain on giving a specific target at this point only because I want to get a little bit more clarity on the food ingredients potential sale. I think once we have the visibility there, we will come back and we'll give more formal guidance on a cash flow number. But I will tell you that what I can confidently say is that we are doing everything we can in our power to making sure we drive cash flow performance in 2026.

Yes. Let me just add quickly that while the overall performance of the company was very solid in 2025, I'm not as proud about the management of inventories. In the first half of the year, we let inventories get higher than we had targeted. Mike had us put a lot of emphasis in the fourth quarter on driving down inventories. Which is never a good thing to do quickly at the end of the year, but we did it. And we've put in -- Mike has driven, with the business unit president, a much better disciplined process to ensure that we manage inventories well throughout '26 and for the future.

David Begleiter, Deutsche Bank.

Erik, just on the R&D effort, where do you stand on this journey to reinvigorate the R&D pipeline and your innovation efforts? Are there any metrics that you're tracking that you can share with us on this progress?

Thanks for the question, David, and it gets right to the heart of the key strategy of the company is to drive innovation. So as you remember, we invested about $100 million in 2025 into our innovation capabilities in high-growth, high-margin categories across the company. And we've made a lot of progress across Scent, Health & Bioscience and Taste innovation pipelines.

And as I also mentioned earlier, we'll start to see the benefits of that in the second half of '26 and more into '27. And I think we're really pleased with the progress that we're making. I think our customers are very pleased with it. I just came back from ACI, the American Cleaning Institute, where we engaged with many of our large CPG company customers, and it was really great to have those engagements and hear about the progress that our teams are making. And it was also a very big honor to get awards from two of the largest CPG companies for our innovation together with them, which I think bodes well for the future. So making good progress, David, and you'll see it more fruition in terms of real results starting in the second half of this year and then much more into '27.

Ghansham Panjabi, Baird.

Just going back to the Taste segment for the fourth quarter and the performance in North America specifically, I think you called out high single-digit growth. Can you just give us a bit more color as to what drove that? And then was that the component that drove margins to the degree that it did, just from favorable mix specific to North America?

Thanks, Ghansham. Taste team is doing a really good job overall in terms of their overall performance. When you look at it from a regional perspective, all regions in Q4 grew contributions from both volume and price.

When we look at the drivers of growth, really what stood out is North America, and that's really driven by new wins. And so the team has been really, really focused on making sure they grow their pipeline and increase their win rate and what you're starting to see it materialize was some of the success that they had on some of those launches overall. In addition, Latin America was strong. And then we -- when I balance it out, I think about EMEA and Greater Asia, they grew, but to a little bit of a lesser extent.

And so when I think about the margin performance, the largest contributor was really productivity. And so when you actually look across COGS and SG&A, the team did an excellent job of really trying to drive that cost management and making sure we're driving productivity within the system of their business. So that was a big success to the overall performance and profitability. In addition, they also did have some positive contribution from favorable net price to input cost. And so when you shape this up between volume growth, plus good productivity and some favorability with respect to price to input cost, that shaped up to a really nice quarter from a profitability perspective overall.

Lisa De Neve, Morgan Stanley.

I had a little bit of a question on what is IFF's view on the GLP-1 theme where we've seen a little bit of a resurgence of the theme post the oral dosage approvals? I mean, can you share about what you believe the GLP-1 uptake will mean for IFF solutions demand? And then more broadly following on from that, across all your divisions, I mean, what would you consider to be like the key market trends that will drive your growth over the coming years?

Thank you for the question, Lisa. And being on the Board of Eli Lilly, I've got a front row seat to the GLP-1 dynamic. And I'm very proud of how our IFF team has responded to this, both challenge and opportunity.

And what I would say is we're creating it into an opportunity, and we've had an alliance across our business units putting together how our products can help our customers develop great products for GLP-1 consumers. And we have put together an innovation seminar that was very well received and have many projects with customers around products for GLP-1 users. And as you can see in our taste and our Food Biosciences performance, they're both growing very nicely, and some of that is due to the GLP-1 dynamic.

And I'll give you an example. We have a large business today in yogurts. We've developed some new yogurt technology, both in biosciences and in flavors. And by taking advantage of that, we've been able to grow nicely in the yogurt category, helping our customers grow nicely and address the desire for GLP-1 patients to have really great tasting foods that are good for them.

But it's also gone beyond that in the protein dynamic and the ability for us to flavor products with high protein and help with the biosciences to enable those products has also been a positive. And then when you talk about ultra-processed foods or reformulation, generally reformulation when customers reformulate, that's also a good thing for us. So yes, there will be some challenges with reduced caloric intake for a section of the population, but we're leaning into it with innovation to make sure that it's not an overall negative for us that it's a neutral or a positive.

Fulvio Cazzol, Berenberg.

My question is on the cost inflation outlook for 2026. I was just wondering if you can give us a bit of a summary of what you expect, both on the input costs, any tariff-related cost inflation, wage inflation and how you expect to mitigate that?

Thanks, Fulvio. For 2026, we do expect some modest input cost inflation for our divisions. This really includes raw material costs, which includes the impact of tariffs, plus logistics, energy and packaging costs more broadly at a higher -- at a very higher level macro statement, we're seeing inflation across kind of all those key elements. The team today is collaborating with customers to mitigate this. And in the end, we will recover it through reformulation, productivity and pricing over time as we go forward.

And so when we think about our guidance for 2026, taking a step back, our 1% to 4% is really all driven by volume. We do expect pricing to be slightly down, which is primarily related to the commodity portion of our Fragrance Ingredients, which I mentioned earlier on a different question and some residual carryover pricing impact in food ingredients specifically. But the team is really focused on making sure, as I think about our business going forward, we're working with customers that where there are inflationary pressures, we do offset that from a direct cost perspective.

More generally, there is a general increase in terms of overall working costs, so merit increases, inflation that we've done a very good job at looking to productivity to make sure that we're fully offsetting that as part of our plan. So that's embedded in our gross productivity plan to make that a net number more favorable as we progress through the year.

Laurence Alexander, Jefferies.

Just want to circle back to the outlook, the lower end of the outlook range. What are you assuming for destocking risk this year compared to the last couple of years?

And then I guess related to that, it looks as if kind of the range isn't yet seeing much benefit from kind of the shift in mix and innovation capabilities and sales force reinvigoration. When do you think you should see the bottom end of the range start materially improving?

So thanks for the question, Laurence. Of course, the 1% to 4% does include Food Ingredients. And while we expect Food Ingredients to return to positive growth on top line this year, it will be modest. And as Mike mentioned, it's still a tough macroeconomic environment, especially in the first half with difficult comparisons. But we expect the second half to be better as our innovation further kicks in and builds to '27 and hopefully better market dynamics.

What I would say is we can't predict geopolitics and market dynamics at the end of the year. So any potential destocking at a reasonable level to the -- towards the end of the year is built into our guidance, and we expect to achieve somewhere in the range of 1% to 4%. Of course, we're driving for as best as we can, but that's the range that we're confident we can deliver.

Salvator Tiano, Bank of America.

You mentioned a lot of things about essentially, product inflation being offset by productivity, et cetera, and generally mitigate a lot of the headwinds that you may face on the cost side. I'm just wondering though, when we look at 2025 on your incremental margins, you had 2% organic growth and 7%, I guess, like-for-like EBITDA growth. This year, the guidance is calling for quite high organic growth, and the range is not -- the midpoint of EBITDA growth is much lower, so say, 5% to 6%. So based on all this, what is actually driving lower incremental margins this year versus 2025?

Sal, great question. Eric, I'll take this one. Yes. This is again, real specific on just the incremental margins. As we think about the guidance range, take a step back. I always think that the quality of this business is that as you grow your business, you do have nice leverage within the P&L. And so when I think about falling from sales to EBITDA it's usually around 2 times, right? So if I grow 4, I can get 8 in terms of leverage within my P&L.

Obviously, the higher we grow, right, we start moving towards the 3, 4, 5 range over time, then that's when we'll see the best leverage within the P&L overall. When you're at the lower end of that, then it becomes a game of how do we actually continue to drive productivity to making sure we're supplementing some of the lack of what I'd say is volume, fixed cost absorption overall. And so as we think about the range for next year, the 1% to 4% of the cost, obviously, if we're at the lower end of that range, then really we need to think about stepping up the productivity even more so to making sure we get that leverage to fit within the portfolio, and we do have opportunities to do that.

And then as we get to the higher end of the range, then I think then we have a little bit more flexibility. What's built into the guidance range very candidly are two things. One, it's a bit of reinvestment that we're funding through productivity overall, which normally some of that productivity could help support and drive bottom line, but we are being conscious and we're being smart about how we want to continue to reinvest in the business as we make the migration towards '26 and then into 2027. So that is a little bit of what I'd say is the offset when you think about the flow-through from the incremental margin piece.

It's really the volume growth is critical. Productivity is driving supporting depending on if you're at the lower end of the range or at the upper end of the range. And then the third point is really around how do we take a step back and just making sure the reinvestment is balanced to how our performance is and our productivity is overall. So those are the three levers that we're managing for 2025.

And then the one thing I would just add to that is that the reason -- one of the reasons for our heavy focus on innovation is that as that innovation pipeline come through, we do expect margin benefits from that. So that's really an important part of it as well.

Lauren Lieberman, Barclays.

Great. I wanted to talk a little bit about reformulation opportunities in particular and just how that -- what you're seeing in the marketplace in terms of customer demand, specifically around reformulation to more ingredient profile, health and wellness concerns, et cetera. And then also how equipped your portfolio is today to meet those demands, should they be there? And then how much of that is also fitting into your innovation and R&D plans?

Thanks for the question, Lauren. First of all, we're seeing continued reformulation happening but it hasn't picked up as much as some people have talked about the importance of ultra-processed foods and some of the dynamics that you're hearing about. But as it does and if it does, I think that's all positive upside to what we've been talking about because every time customers reformulate, whether it's for lower sugar, lower salt, lower fat, less -- cleaner label, whatever it is, that's opportunity for IFF.

So we welcome that and hope to see it increase from here. But as of now, it's out there. It's happening. We're working with customers to create healthier products, great tasting products, more sustainable products. I think you'll see some really sustainable products coming out with some of the CPG companies that we've been working with outside of food, but also in food.

So I think there's still this dynamic everywhere of wanting more innovation to bring consumers what they want, whether it's great-tasting food or laundry products that clean the clothes really well with room temperature water and less water and less plastic and many of the dynamics that you hear about out there that consumers desire and CPG companies are trying to drive innovation to meet those desires to grow the -- profitably grow their business, we're there to help.

Mike Sison, Wells Fargo.

I guess with the sale of Food Ingredients pending, how do you sort of pivot the company to more of a growth mode? Historically, IFF has slightly overperformed to FNF peers, but if you think about the portfolio going forward, the Health & Biosciences and Scent and Taste, how do you get that growth rate to match the peer group or maybe even outperform the peer group?

Thanks for the question, Mike. I'm very excited about the future of IFF. I think as we finalize our portfolio optimization and focus all of our efforts on scent, taste and Health & Biosciences, very R&D heavy, very innovation heavy, really attractive businesses that have a major impact on consumer goods whether it's food or others, home and personal care, et cetera, and represent a small part of the cost, but a big part of the superiority. And so as we focus all of our energy on that and have finished the work on portfolio optimization, I think we'll go from strong to stronger. And absolutely convinced that we've got the right team in place, that they are strengthening our capabilities.

You can see it in our performance. We're doing what we say we're doing. We see the commercial pipelines increasing. We see the innovation pipelines increasing. We see the quality of the projects with our customers improving. And that's why we're very confident in the future.

And also, the other element here that's really exciting is we've got a very healthy Health & Biosciences business with really strong capabilities in biotechnology that is important for all the segments that we play in Health and Biosciences, it's also starting to impact beneficially technology in our Scent business and our Taste business.

I'll just give you a couple of quick examples. In 2025, we launched ENVIROCAPS, which is a biodegradable encapsulation technology for our Scent business. It's commercial now. Several very big customers have been using it and say that it's working extremely well, and they're very pleased with it, and that's growing. We have other scent technologies that are using biotechnology that are now in the pipeline and are coming. We have a number of taste products that we've developed with our biotechnology capabilities and more in the pipeline.

I'll give you one example of one that's commercialized now. It's called Super Carrot, where you take the residue of carrot production and you fermented it with our enzymes and you create an Umami flavor that is healthy and replaces Umami flavorings with something that food companies and consumers really like. And so we'll see more of that. So I just -- I fundamentally believe as we get to be a focused, high-value R&D innovation-driven company with a stable portfolio that we're investing in, you will see us accelerate our growth.

Jeff Zekauskas, J.P. Morgan.

Your Food Ingredients EBITDA and operating income dropped off pretty sharply in the fourth quarter. And I think you said that the price trends are negative. So given the slow volume growth environment, is the case that operating income and EBITDA for that business next year is higher or lower? And can you speak generally to the tax basis of that asset?

So I'll start and then Mike can add to the tax basis. The fourth quarter was not a great quarter for our food ingredients business. They did not deliver what they expected to deliver. There's a number of reasons for that. All I can say is the first quarter looks like it's off to a solid start. Andy and his team, Andy Muller and his team are highly confident that they can get back to top line growth although it will be low single digit, it will be top line growth and continued significant earnings growth. They've got the projects to do that. There's a lot of excitement with some launches that they've made recently and some exciting areas.

So what I would say there is that the fourth quarter was not what we expected, was not what they expected. But the full year was still very solid with -- although it was negative revenue growth with double-digit EBITDA growth, and we expect to get back to positive revenue growth and continued strong EBITDA growth in 2026.

Our last question will go to the line of Chris -- go ahead.

Sorry, Megan. Just -- I think, Jeff, you had a question on the tax base that if we had a potential deal for Food Ingredients. And -- we still -- obviously, we're still working through that process. So we've got to kind of see where we're landing and where we're heading from that perspective. Fortunately, we're in a good position with respect to tax attributes that could be leveraged to minimize some of the tax leakage that we have now. And so the team is fully focused on making sure the net cash number maximizes its value for shareholders. And so that's what the team is focused on overall. But more to come as we progress from here.

Chris Parkinson, Wolfe Research.

Just circling back as a corollary, a couple of questions on the H&B segment. You clearly had a solid result across volumes in the Biosciences segment as well as a better margin. When we take a step back and look at some of the health and probiotics, I think you were alluding to it before. Last year, we were talking a lot about obviously, market share kind of investments in the business that were necessary overall for the intermediate to long term. Is it safe to say that you're still investing in that business?

And then you already mentioned the half-on-half trends, which I appreciate. But can you just talk about how should we should think about spend in that business in the context of the productivity gains you're gaining? And then also if you actually still believe you're going to gain share kind of the second half '26, '27, '28. So any updates there in terms of the moving parts would be particularly helpful.

Sure. Thanks for the question, Chris. First of all, overall Health & Biosciences business is doing very well. Leticia Goncalves has been in the job almost a year now, and she and the team are -- they've got a great team with a great strategy and are executing it well. Health is the only area that has not delivered strong growth in 2025. Interestingly, outside of North America, the growth was solid. It was inside North America where the challenges were. There's a number of reasons for it.

But what I can tell you is Leticia has brought in new leadership. The team is strong. We believe in the business. We've got great capability. We've got a very attractive pipeline coming that I believe with the capability that we now have will start to deliver growth again in the second half of this year, and then you'll see nice growth in '27. But I firmly believe in this business.

I just think it's a really important thing for the world, and we've got the capability to succeed. We took our eye off the ball for a while in North America. We've got our eye back on the ball, and you will see the results come like everywhere where we've seen we've had challenges. We get the right leadership in place, the right teamwork, the right support, and we get it on the right track, and that's going to happen in health as well.

Thank you, Chris. That will conclude our question-and-answer session. I will now turn it back over to you, Erik, for closing remarks.

Well, thank you all for joining today's call. We are working hard to unleash the great potential of this company. As we've talked a lot about, we've done a lot of portfolio optimization following the Frutarom and the DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences deal.

We're getting closer to exactly where we want to be. I think we'll make really good progress on that in '26. And then we'll still deliver strong results in '26, I believe firmly, but we'll be very, very well set up for '27 and beyond as we move through this finalization of the portfolio optimization and really drive the innovation aggressively across Scent, Taste and Health & Biosciences. We've got a terrific team, we've got a clear direction and we're going to make it happen. Thank you.

That concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation, and enjoy the rest of your day.