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International Flavors &amp; Fragrances (IFF) is a chemicals manufacturer that creates flavors, fragrances, and specialty ingredients used in food, beverages, personal care, and pharmaceuticals. Tracing its roots back to 1889, when Josef Polak and Leopold Schwarz created Polak &amp; Schwarz, a producer of fruit flavors and oil essences, IFF now does business in 65 countries. Since breaking its Nourish group into two parts, the company operates through five segments: taste, food ingredients, health &amp; biosciences, scent, and pharma solutions.

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International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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International Flavors & Fragrances

international flavors & fragrances

At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the IFF Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode until the formal question and answer portion of the call. To ask a question at that time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to remove your name from the queue, please press star two. Participants will be announced by their name and company. In order to give all participants an opportunity to ask their questions, we request a limit of one question per person. 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 Second Quarter 2026 Earnings 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 those 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 will be speaking to on the call are on a comparable currency-neutral basis unless otherwise noted. Given the announced divestiture of Food Ingredients, we will discuss results and guidance on a continuing operations basis unless otherwise noted.

Our P&L financials are presented on a continuing operations basis, while cash flow, net debt to credit-adjusted EBITDA leverage, and CapEx are presented on a total company basis, which includes both continuing operations and discontinued operations. 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, hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. IFF's strong second quarter results reflect our relentless focus on our customers while driving productivity and cash flow improvements. IFF delivered volume growth across the board, disciplined margin execution, and robust free cash flow generation, strengthening our financial position and focusing our commercial and innovation pipelines to be even more competitive. We are transforming IFF with the divestiture of Food Ingredients, and a solid first half of 2026 gives us confidence in our ability to achieve our targets for the full year, even as market conditions remain uncertain due to the events in the Middle East. I'll start today's call by briefly summarizing the first half results and providing an update on our portfolio transformation efforts following our announced agreement to divest Food Ingredients.

I'll then turn the call over to Mike, who will provide more details on the second quarter results, segment performance, and our outlook for 2026. Turning to slide six. In the first half of 2026, our team delivered strong results across IFF on a total and continuing operation basis. Overall, on a continuing operations basis, our business achieved 4% sales growth and an 8% gain in EBITDA, driven by volume growth and productivity improvements.

Our free cash flow for the first half of the year totaled $378 million, representing a gain of $284 million year-over-year with strong net working capital improvement, a focus of ours coming into the year. In the second quarter, we announced a significant milestone with the divestiture of the Food Ingredients business to CVC in a transaction that values the business at about $4.3 billion or about 10x EV to EBITDA.

This transaction is a defining step in our portfolio transformation and simplification. Post-close, IFF will have a sharper focus around our higher growth, higher margin Taste, Scent, and Health & Biosciences businesses. With the Food Ingredients divestiture, there are stranded costs that represent about $100 million of corporate and functional expenses previously allocated to the Food Ingredients business that are expected to remain with IFF following the close of the transaction. With the move to discontinued operations, these costs are now spread amongst the remaining businesses of Taste, Scent, and Health & Biosciences and are currently temporarily pressuring the business unit margins. We are moving with urgency and currently have a remediation plan in place with actions already underway to eliminate these costs over time.

We expect to eliminate about two-thirds of these costs within the first 12 months following the transaction close and the remaining within the second full year post-transaction close. The combination of the portfolio simplification from the divestiture and the planned reduction of stranded costs is expected to support strong EBITDA margin expansion over the next few years. We are confident in our ability to execute this plan and over time eliminate these costs while enhancing the profitability and earnings power of the remaining IFF portfolio. Also, on July 20th, we announced a definitive agreement to divest our portfolio of non-strategic to us botanical extracts, vitamins and minerals, and food enhancement products, which are primarily included in our Health & Biosciences and Taste segments.

This business represents about $170 million in annual sales with a mid-single-digit EBITDA margin, and we expect to receive about $75 million in proceeds from the transaction, or about 10x multiple. Much of this business was related to IFF's previous Frutarom acquisition, and the transaction further simplifies and upscales our remaining portfolio. We expect this transaction to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. We also announced our expected use of proceeds from the Food Ingredients divestiture, through which we will strengthen our balance sheet and return capital to shareholders. Today, we announced our plan to reduce debt by greater than $1 billion and allocate about $2.5 billion to a share repurchase program with about $500 million of that expected to be executed in the second half of 2026 in advance of the transaction close.

This reflects our confidence in IFF's long-term value creation opportunities and the compelling return profile of repurchases at current valuation levels. Given the Food Ingredients divestiture and the renewed focus on the remaining three businesses, we are introducing full year 2026 guidance on a continuing operations basis. This will provide greater visibility into the stronger growth and margin profile of IFF's portfolio without Food Ingredients. Mike will provide additional details later in the call. While there is more to do, I am very proud of how our global team continues to serve our customers, deliver on our commitments, and execute our strategy. IFF's strengthened balance sheet reflects disciplined capital allocation, and we are encouraged by the momentum we are building as volume growth, productivity, and enterprise-wide transformation initiatives drive tangible profitability improvements.

The first half of the year has demonstrated IFF's unwavering commitment to achieving the strategic goals we have set out. We will continue to execute, but I would like to recognize the dedication of our leadership team and IFFers all around the globe for delivering high-value solutions that address evolving customer and market needs with our leading innovations. Moving to slide seven. We are excited about IFF's transformation following our agreement to sell the Food Ingredients business to CVC Capital Partners.

The transaction is progressing well with both sides actively engaged and moving with speed, and we remain on path to close by the end of the second quarter of 2027. The divestiture strengthens our position as an industry leader and global player in strong consumer-centric ingredient end markets. With a streamlined portfolio, IFF's businesses best align with the opportunities of long-term mega trends in health, wellbeing, food, and sustainability.

We will continue to be a partner in the Food Ingredients business by retaining 10% ownership, permitting our shareholders to participate in continued value creation under CVC's guidance, and it enables very effective and efficient collaborations. With a simplified customer base and manufacturing network, IFF will be better positioned to accelerate innovation, drive investment in R&D, improve execution, enhance free cash flow conversion, and deliver a stronger long-term growth and margin profile. Taste, Scent, and Health & Biosciences are primed for strong revenue and EBITDA growth opportunities powered by shared naturals and biotech capabilities. By focusing on these high margin core segments of our business, we are building upon the growth-oriented simplification strategy we have been progressing towards since the beginning of 2024. Turning to slide eight.

In addition to positioning IFF to drive sustained, profitable long-term growth, I'd like to also outline the expected use of proceeds from the Food Ingredients transaction. We will continue to strengthen our balance sheet by using greater than $1 billion of proceeds to reduce debt, and we expect net debt to EBITDA to finish 2027 between 2.0x and 2.5x. This would mark a significant improvement from the 4.5x net debt to credit-adjusted EBITDA leverage level at the beginning of 2024. We are also prioritizing targeted share repurchases as part of our use of proceeds. The board has authorized a $2.5 billion share repurchase program, inclusive of about $400 million remaining under the prior authorization.

We expect to execute approximately $500 million of repurchases in the second half of 2026 ahead of the Food Ingredients transaction close, reflecting our confidence in IFF's long-term value creation opportunities and the compelling return profile of repurchases at current valuation levels. This may result in a modest temporary increase in net debt to credit-adjusted EBITDA, which we expect to manage within our broader deleveraging plan. The remaining authorization is expected to be executed following the transaction close, with the program targeted for completion by the end of 2027. For the remaining proceeds, we also plan to reinvest in our growth businesses by prioritizing high return opportunities across the core portfolio. 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 us today. On slide nine, we take a closer look at our second quarter consolidated results. On a continuing operations basis, IFF generated revenue of just under $2 billion in the second quarter, up roughly 6% with growth across all businesses. This strong performance was led by high single-digit growth in Scent and mid-single digit increases in Taste and Health & Biosciences. Growth was volume driven, including strong new win performance and increased sales within our existing business. Adjusted operating EBITDA was $408 million, up 6% versus the prior year, driven by strong volume growth and continued productivity gains. We are pleased with the quality of profitability in the quarter. There were two items that impacted our year-over-year performance that were worth noting.

U.S. tariff refunds netted against customer pass-throughs, which was a benefit, and higher incentive compensation accruals tied to our strong first half performance, which was a headwind. Excluding these items, underlying EBITDA growth would have been even stronger. Nevertheless, this was a solid quarter as it reflects continued progress on volume, productivity, and execution.

Given the change in reporting, we wanted to provide a one-time reference point for what the second quarter results would have looked like on a combined basis, including both continuing operations and discontinued operations. On that basis, total company sales would have been approximately $2.8 billion, and EBITDA would have been $548 million. On slide 10, I will provide a closer look at the performance for each business segment. In Taste, sales grew 4% to $688 million, with growth achieved in all regions, led by double-digit performance in Asia.

Growth was driven by strong new win performance as well as volume growth on existing business. In terms of profitability, the segment delivered EBITDA of $124 million, a 6% increase driven by volume growth and favorable net pricing. Our Health & Biosciences segment grew 5%, achieving sales of $601 million. The segment delivered growth in all businesses, with notable increases in Grain Processing, Food Biosciences, and Animal Nutrition. EBITDA increased 6% to $150 million, primarily due to volume leverage.

Lastly, our Scent segment delivered sales of $665 million, representing a strong 8% growth. Performance was driven by double-digit growth in Fragrance Ingredients and high single-digit increase in Consumer Fragrances. Fine Fragrances grew low single digits inclusive of the impact of the Middle East conflict. Scent profitability was also solid, with EBITDA growing 5% to $134 million. Volume growth and productivity gains were primary drivers for the increase in profitability.

Turning to slide 11, cash flow from operations totaled $679 million, and year-to-date CapEx was $301 million, representing about 5% of sales. Our free cash flow position in the first half of 2026 finished at $378 million, which was up $284 million year-over-year. The team made strong progress improving net working capital driven by effective inventory management and more disciplined accounts receivable and accounts payable controls. Going forward, we remain focused on sustaining this momentum and continue to drive strong free cash flow generation. I do want to indicate that due to the Food Ingredients divestiture, we expect some net working capital headwinds in the second half of the year related to the separation and stand of that business.

This includes a required unwind of factoring related agreements, which is expected to create an accounts receivable headwind, as well as potential inventory builds and supplier prepayments ahead of the stand date to ensure business continuity during the transition. The ultimate impact will depend on stand's timing, which is expected to occur in early Q1 of 2027. These headwinds are entirely transaction related, and we expect our remaining businesses to continue to drive strong free cash flow generation. During the first half of 2026, we returned $204 million to shareholders through dividends and an additional $71 million through share repurchases under our Dilution Plus program. As Erik mentioned earlier, we are now providing greater clarity on our capital allocation priorities following the Food Ingredients divestiture.

We intend to use more than $1 billion of net proceeds to reduce debt and support our target leverage range of 2x to 2.5x net debt to credit-adjusted EBITDA. The board also authorized an enhanced $2.5 billion share repurchase program, which replaces our Dilution Plus program. We expect to execute $500 million of repurchases in the second half of 2026 before the transaction closes and the remaining $2 billion following transaction close with a completion targeted by the end of 2027.

While the initial repurchases may result in a modest and temporary increase in our net debt to credit-adjusted EBITDA, we expect to manage this within our broader deleveraging plan. At the end of the second quarter, our cash and cash equivalents finished at $569 million. Our gross debt has decreased approximately $5.7 billion, which represents greater than a $3 billion decrease year-over-year.

Similar to last quarter, our trailing 12-month credit adjusted EBITDA totaled just over $2 billion, and our net debt to credit-adjusted EBITDA ended the first half 2026 at 2.5x. On slide 12, I would like to share our consolidated outlook for the full year 2026. As a result of the announced Food Ingredients divestiture, we are now providing our guidance on a continuing operations basis. We remain confident in IFF's ability to deliver the second half of the year. Our continuing operations portfolio is durable, diverse, and grounded in essential products and solutions, giving us a strong foundation in an uncertain and volatile environment. While we're not immune to macroeconomic pressures, including ongoing volatility in the Middle East, we believe we can successfully navigate the environment to deliver solid near-term results and continue to strengthen IFF for the future.

Our focus remains on controlling what we can control, which is advancing our commercial and innovation efforts to drive growth and enhancing productivity and cash flow generation. For full year 2026, our sales are expected to be in the range of $7.4 billion-$7.6 billion, indicating a 2%-4% growth range versus the 1%-4% growth we originally communicated. From a profitability perspective, we now expect full year 2026 EBITDA to be between $1.53 billion and approximately $1.6 billion, representing growth of 4%-8% versus the 3%-8% originally provided. For both sales and profitability, the increase reflects our reshaped portfolio, now focused on Taste, Scent, and Health & Biosciences, and the solid performance we delivered in the first half of the year.

While we started the third quarter well, we are conscious that the world remains volatile, which is reflected in our full-year guidance range. On a continuing operations basis, we expect that foreign exchange will have roughly a one percentage point positive impact to sales growth and approximately 2% positive impact to EBITDA growth, both on a full-year basis. For purposes of year-over-year growth projections, the comparable base period for full year 2025, adjusted for all portfolio changes, is approximately $7.2 billion in sales and approximately $1.44 billion in EBITDA.

I would also like to build on what Erik spoke about from a stranded cost perspective. While gross margin and EBITDA margin are improving following the Food Ingredients divestiture, our continuing operations business unit margins are temporarily impacted by approximately $100 million of costs that remain following the transaction. These stranded costs are temporary dyssynergies that previously supported the Food Ingredients business but will remain with IFF post-transaction close. These costs include certain employee costs, systems, shared services, and third-party costs.

Importantly, we are not treating these as permanent. We have already begun executing against a clear remediation plan using a disciplined bottoms-up approach to identify and move transitional costs over time. In practical terms, this includes actions such as redesigning processes, rationalizing activities, simplifying systems and applications, reviewing third-party contracts, and aligning the RemainCo cost structure to the needs of the business going forward.

While this is a multiple-step effort that will take time to fully execute, we are putting the right structure around it. This gives us confidence that we can reduce these costs in a disciplined way while continuing to support the business going forward. Taken together, we believe the Food Ingredients divestiture and our stranded cost reduction plan create a clear path to margin enhancement and a higher quality earnings profile over time. With a more focused portfolio and disciplined execution, we are positioning IFF to deliver meaningful long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I'd like to now turn the call back to Erik for closing remarks.

Thanks, Mike. To close, I want to emphasize IFF's strong performance in both top-line and bottom-line financials, even as the macroeconomic environment remains uncertain. We are delivering on our commitments and doing what we said we would do. IFF's first half results reflect the execution of our strategic initiatives, particularly in streamlining the company to focus entirely on higher growth and higher margin businesses. I am confident in our ability to execute what we can control. We are focused on serving customers through leading innovation, boosting productivity, and increasing cash flow generation. I look forward to delivering our 2026 goals while strengthening our ability to deliver consistent, strong financial performance in the medium and long term with a new, sharper IFF. Thank you. We'll now open the line for your questions.

Thank you. We'll now begin today's Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two. As a reminder, in order to give all participants an opportunity to ask their questions, we will request a limit of one question per person. We'll now pause here while your questions are registered. The first question comes from the line of Abigail Edwards with Wells Fargo. You may begin.

Hi there. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Looking at the Food Ingredients divestiture, it looks like you should have enough cash to do all the improvements you highlighted for your balance sheet. Is this the last deal we should expect to see for a while, or are there other areas of the portfolio that you're looking to trim?

Thanks for the question, Abigail. This is Erik. I'll respond. First of all, I'm very proud of how our IFF team has been doing great work over the last two and a half years to strengthen our balance sheet and get us on track to be a focused company with three great high-innovation businesses: Scent, Taste, and Health & Biosciences. We are exactly where we want to be with our portfolio, with no significant divestitures left to do. Now it's all about scaling organically and through bolt-ons, these three terrific businesses.

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Kristen Owen with Oppenheimer. You may begin.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for the question. Wanted to follow up on the guidance. It looks like you brought the low end of the underlying sales growth range up. Can you just help us understand how much of that was a pass-through on the first half performance, or is there any improvement assumed in that second half? Thank you.

Great. Thanks, Kristen. Appreciate the question. Maybe some context. For the first half of the year, sales were up 4% and EBITDA was up 8% for the continuing ops business. This is a good, strong start. Our guidance for the full year, the range is 2%-4% for sales and 4%-8% for EBITDA. The implied is 0-4% for the second half on sales and 4%-8% on EBITDA. The increase in the low end of range, to your question, was really essentially the flow-through of the strong first half performance. As we think about the second half growth from a top-line standpoint, we do expect it to moderate from the 6% we reported in Q2. We do believe we can deliver low single-digit growth in the second half of the year.

As a reference point, I said it in my prepared remarks, we started the quarter well, and it's kind of in line with this trajectory, I do understand that the range is wide. Similar to how we've communicated previously, there is market uncertainty. It's not an indication of what we are seeing. The growth for the core business remains solid, we're just being prudent to ensure we're managing the business appropriately going forward.

The next question is from the line of Ghansham Panjabi with Baird. You may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Just as a follow-up to the last question. Obviously, volumes were quite solid during Q2 and actually the first half of the year across all three of your core operating segments. As you sort of engage with customers and they have to basically navigate another inflationary pulse for the consumer, just given the increase in inflationary costs, et cetera, have you sensed any sort of change as it relates to their view on how underlying volumes will progress as they cycle through the rest of the year in the back half?

Thanks for the question, Ghansham. I would say, first of all, consumer demand has been resilient so far this year, as we all know, and that's despite uncertainties, inflationary pressures, just a lot of complexity. So far, we do not see signs of that changing yet, and we're not really hearing from customers any significant changes. We know there are risks, and we are focused on working with our customers to bring leading innovation so that we can grow the business as best we can in any situation. While things have been resilient so far, we recognize that that could change, and we're doing what we can to do the best we can with what we control.

The next question is from the line of David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank. You may begin.

Thank you. Good morning. Erik, in Fragrance Ingredients, how much of the double-digit growth was driven by an easy comparison versus underlying market improvement? What's your expectation for further recovery in this business in terms of volumes post an end to the Middle East conflict? Thank you.

Thanks for the question, David. I'll let Mike take this one.

Yeah, that's perfect. Thanks, Erik. Hey, the Scent team delivered a great Q2. Sales were up 8%. A key driver of this, to your point, David, was the Fragrance Ingredients business, which grew north of 20%. Part of this, to your point, was that we were comparing to a down 10 or more in the year-ago period. Part of it is that year-over-year delta. Part of it is really the team strategically leveraged the synthetics portfolio to capture more sales due to the macroeconomic environment, including some of the supply chain disruptions and higher Brent Crude prices. They really used this as an opportunity to capture some sales.

As things will settle down, we do expect it will normalize, and it's included in our forecast for the second half of the year, meaning growth in Fragrance Ingredients will shift back towards the higher value-added ingredients versus the traditional synthetics that were really a strong point in Q2. In terms of Fine Fragrances, the team also did a very good job at managing the challenges of the Middle East.

If you remember, coming into the quarter, we expected growth to be down in Fine Fragrances, mid-single digits. It actually finished up slightly positive, which was a good outcome. The team really managed that uncertainty and volatility in the market. While the Middle Eastern crisis continues, we are factoring in a softer Q3, really thinking about part of it is the 20% comparable. Year-over-year in Q3 last year, Fine Fragrances grew 20%, so it's a big comp. Still trending in the right direction, really start to see some recovery as we get to Q4 overall.

The next question is from the line of Lauren Lieberman with Barclays. You may begin.

Great. Thanks so much. Was hoping you guys could talk a little bit more about the plans to offset stranded overheads. We'd originally thought that all of it would be addressed in the first year, kind of curious what's changed there. Now that Food Ingredients has been moved into discontinued ops and we can see what the underlying business looks like, how should we think about where EBITDA margins could go over time? Thanks.

Thanks for the question, Lauren. As we put together our plan on how to deal with the $100 million stranded costs with minimum disruption to driving profitable growth in Scent, Taste, and Health & Biosciences, we believe the best approach is to commit to two-thirds in year one and the remainder by year two, we will move as fast as we can without harming RemainCo's growth. As we look at this, driving growth of the three RemainCo BUs and dealing with the stranded costs in the right way are great opportunities for EBITDA margin expansion through that period.

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

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask about cash flow. Michael, earlier you mentioned that there could be some working capital headwinds related to the Food Ingredients divestment in the second half. Just wondering if you could put more numbers around it. What are your expectations for free cash flow conversion for 2026? Also on a go-forward basis ex the Food Ingredients business. Thank you.

Thanks, Nicola, for the question. First, maybe I'm gonna be a little bit less specific just because there's a lot of moving parts there with the separations and moving to discontinued ops for the Food Ingredients. To your point, for the full year 2026, we continue to expect free cash flow to be higher than we reported in 2025. That's inclusive of the headwinds or working capital headwind that I alluded to on the call, specifically around the Food Ingredients stand.

Just to size that could be a couple hundred million dollars. So that is a little bit of a change, but still year-over-year, we will get improvement in free cash flow. That's what we're targeting because the team is doing a really good job driving operational performance, but also from a net working capital perspective, really trying to drive that now as we go forward. Longer term, our RemainCo businesses, Scent, Taste, and H&B are cash generative businesses.

That's the beauty of the RemainCo portfolio. So in terms of simple definition, which is the way I would define it, EBITDA minus CapEx divided by sales. Those three businesses should achieve mid to high teens, in terms for cash flow, that definition as a percentage of sales. So that's nice. The Food Ingredients business is a little bit lower than that, so there is a bit of a mix shift. So, as you think about the remaining business, you'll see the improvement in overall cash flow as we get to 2027 and 2028 on a go-forward basis. Then as Erik referenced, the same is true for both growth and margin as well.

The next question comes from the line of Laurence Alexander with Jefferies. You may begin.

Good morning, Erik. On the topic of investor concerns around Chinese competition increasing over time, when we look at your R&D at about 9% of sales, my impression is that's about where it was before the divestiture. That's just making it clearer. When you think about the cap allocation, is the decision not to increase R&D or not to allocate any of the proceeds to R&D an indication that you're comfortable with your competitive moat? Or is it that you think that there just aren't the areas where the extra funding would make a difference to what happens over the next four or five years?

Thanks for the question, Laurence. Let me give you a couple of points here. First of all, I have a lot of experience in China, and we'll always view China as a critically important market and will never underestimate Chinese competitors. Our strategy is to ensure we bring leading innovation to customers and compete rigorously in China. We have significantly increased our R&D capabilities and our spend over the last two and a half years.

Prior to this, the RemainCo businesses were spending about 7% of sales on R&D. Today, we're spending about 9%. We will continue to increase the R&D spend as we grow sales. We'll also obviously look at the opportunities to create more value, and we'll consider increasing the percent of sales that we spend on R&D if we believe that will create additional value. We're absolutely committed to competing strongly against any competitor around the world, including the Chinese.

The next question comes from the line of Patrick Cunningham, Citigroup. You may begin.

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I was hoping you could provide your current outlook for input cost inflation in the second half, and whether or not you're encountering any pricing lag or customer resistance as you work to offset some of these inflationary pressures.

Thanks for the question, Patrick. For the second half of the year, we expect input costs, which I would define as raw material, energy, and logistics, to increase modestly. Specifically, just to dimensionalize, the most impacted will be, as you can imagine, energy and logistics costs. When I look at it from a business unit perspective, Scent is the most impacted. Collectively, across all three divisions, we are working with our customers on surcharges and implementing as appropriately.

As you know, though, in some instances, specifically in Scent, there is a bit of a lag. Over time, we will work with our customers to offset that. The team is doing a really good job at managing this and the uncertainty in terms of the overall environment. They are reacting with speed, and they understand the importance to making sure we get the recovery. Like I said, as we go forward, this is something that it will start to roll into our P&L as we move through second half of the year and then into early 2027.

We keep pushing our productivity projects.

The next question is from the line of John Roberts with Mizuho. You may begin.

Thanks. First, congrats on all the progress here. For the ultra-processed foods and GLP-1 issues, still kind of hard to size both the opportunities and the risk here. I understand it's been reduced with the sale of Food Ingredients, but is there a way to think about the percent of your sales for Taste and the food-related bioproduct businesses? What percent is exposed here to that opportunity and risk? Or maybe an industry statistic if you don't want to talk about your own sales.

Thanks for the question, John. A very important area, the GLP-1 and ultra-processed foods. What I would say is that the flavors and food-related biosciences have been growing very strongly in total and in significant part because instead of looking at these as negatives, as we've looked at them as opportunities and have been very proactively, both on GLP-1s and the overall move to higher protein consumer products. We've been very engaged with customers to enable them to have very high protein products that have great taste and are healthier. We also have been leaning into the clean label opportunity and have seen that as enhancing our growth. If you look at our total Food Biosciences and flavors business, the growth has been ahead of the market and because of our leaning into these as opportunities instead of just risks.

The next question is from the line of Josh Spector with UBS. You may begin.

Hi, good morning. I have two kind of related questions here is that, one, just the outperformance in the quarter, 6% organic versus a couple percent consensus. Just wondering if there's a few things you'd attribute that to, and if any of that would relate to any customer pre-buying here, just given some expected cost inflation in second half. Related with this is just the organic growth was stronger, but it didn't really flow through to the EBITDA. There wasn't much volume leverage. Why didn't we see more of that in 2Q?

Hi, Josh. Thanks for that question. In terms of the outperformance in Q2, it was a really strong performance across the board. We didn't give it airtime, but the Food Ingredients business actually grew 3% as well. Collectively all around, it was a good quarter from a top-line perspective. When I look at the remaining businesses, Scent, Taste, and H&B, again, continuing ops across all the subcategories and regionally for Taste, we actually delivered growth across the board.

It was a broad-based quarter in terms of overall success from that standpoint. In terms of leverage or flow-through from sales to EBITDA, you're right, we delivered 6% sales growth and 6% EBITDA growth. As I mentioned on the call, though, remember, it would have been a couple points higher, but in the quarter, we increased our incentive compensation accrual based on the strong first half performance.

That was a couple percentage points. We would have actually had some pretty good leverage in terms of the overall P&L. The team is really doing a good job at really driving the top-line dynamic of the business and then also capturing productivity, as Erik mentioned before, to get that combined volume growth and productivity growth to really drive the EBITDA performance on a go-forward basis.

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

Hi. You now delivered about three strong quarters of growth in H&B with probiotics back into the positive territory. What is the outlook for the probiotics business, and what initiatives have you executed on or do you plan to execute on over the next couple of quarters? Similar to that, where do you see the growth coming from? Is it supplement driven, or do you see more inclusions into functional beverages and so forth? Thank you.

Thanks for the question, Lisa. We see continued growth in our health business outside the U.S., but continued market challenges in the U.S. We are very encouraged for getting back to growth over time, both for the market and for IFF Health in the United States. We're encouraged by what we see as the increased need for the health benefits probiotics provide and interest by strong companies like, for example, Procter & Gamble's announced intention to acquire Thorne as a great example. What we're doing is we've got a great team on the field now. We're strengthening our R&D pipeline, we're strengthening our commercial capabilities, engaging directly with customers, I would say with more passion and more drive. Over time, we will see the benefits of that.

The next question is from the line of Kevin McCarthy with VRP. You may begin.

Yes, thank you, and good morning. In looking at the financial data you provided on slide number seven, it strikes me that the free cash flow profile improves meaningfully through the separation of Food Ingredients. In that context, I was wondering if you could elaborate on what impact the separation will have on your CapEx. I think you covered working capital already, but kind of curious about the capital budget and what you can tell us there quantitatively and conceptually, as you look to pivot toward reinvestment and innovation and so forth.

Thanks. Kevin, I'll take this one. Erik did a great job explaining RemainCo in terms of the shift. Really just to reiterate, over time, we do expect sales growth rates to improve, EBITDA growth rates to improve. Gross margin is now in that 43-ish range, EBITDA is in the low 20's. It's really a nice step forward, in terms of where we are. As we address some of the stranded costs, we will see the EBITDA margin continue to improve, so that is a big part of the investment thesis as I think about IFF. In some of those key ratios you referenced, percentage of sales in terms of R&D, that was on Erik's slide, you're in that 8%-9% range. Really important that we critically continue to reinvest in this business to making sure we set ourselves apart.

It becomes that circle where we make those investments, we get the better growth rate, and ultimately allows us to not only expand margin, but continue to reinvest. Innovation matters, that's an important pillar for RemainCo strategy going forward. On an SG&A perspective, it's probably somewhere between 17% and 18% of sales. As we address that stranded cost, that number should start to come down on a go-forward basis. Lastly, which is your specific question on the CapEx piece, we'll probably be in the range of 5%-6%. Now remember, H&B runs at a higher rate when you compare to their best-in-class peer, and so that will be one-third of our business. I would compare the F&F or Scent and Taste towards the best-in-class peer there, who runs a little bit lower.

When I think about the blended average, that 5%-6% makes a lot of sense and intuitive of what we're targeting. I will caveat that over the next one or two years, we think we'll be at the upper end of that 5%-6% range, so more towards that 6%, because we have some critical initiatives that we know that are good high return initiatives that we're making on a go-forward basis. All in, we're really pleased with the transformation progress that we have. You see it from the financial statements of the change. We also acknowledge that we still have a lot more work to do, but that through the reinvestment and through some of these step changes, we'll continue to drive the IFF transformational journey.

The next question is from the line of Matthew DeYoe with Bank of America. You may begin.

Morning, everyone. Can you just give us an indication on maybe where price and volumes were for 2Q? How we should think about layering in price over the course of the year? I guess along that lines, just like some of the price cost, ebb and flow, as it relates to the cadence, 2Q, 3Q, 4Q.

Maybe I'll take this one, Matt. Thanks for the question. In the second quarter, growth was really all volume. That's across all the three divisions. Pricing was very little, at the end of the day, if any. As we think about the second half of the year, that's also true. Volumes will be the primary driver of growth, again, across all the divisions. Pricing will be a modest benefit, but I would consider it a rounding decimal at this point in time, very honestly. As we progress going forward into 2027, that's where we'll see some of the pricing catch up, hence the lag that I referenced in the earlier one. Embedded in the guidance is a little bit of a press on price to input cost or raw material cost, we're managing that.

As Erik referenced before, we're driving the productivity agenda to making sure that we can still deliver good EBITDA margin and EBITDA year-over-year growth. It's a focal point for us on a go-forward basis. As I think about the second half of the year, the most important aspect for me is really driving that volume, making sure we get that volume, good leverage, and productivity that will help from an EBITDA perspective.

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan. You may begin.

Jeff, are you there? Operator, you can move on to the next question.

The next question comes from the line of Chris Parkinson with Wolfe Research. You may begin.

Great. Awesome. Thank you. On the Scent business, you've had a longstanding initiative to kind of get the balance there right, invest in R&D, grow your market share back. Can you just break down how we should be thinking about the differences and kind of the drivers of the recovering the Consumer Fragrances business? Obviously, it seems like there's a little bit of noise due to the Middle East conflict on Fine Fragrances. I'd love to just talk about how you see those things in the second half of the year and then top that off just with how you believe your R&D initiatives are going, and how you think that business should further evolve into 2027. Thank you so much.

Great. Thanks for the question. Let me start, and then Mike can talk more about the financials. First of all, I'm really, really pleased with the team that we have in Scent now. Ana Mendonça is a great business leader. She loves the Scent business. She's well-recognized around the world, and she has a great team, Fine Fragrance, Consumer Fragrances, Fragrance Ingredients, as well as the R&D teams. Really great leadership, really great teamwork, and an absolute commitment to being leaders in this area. Just as an example, the R&D pipeline, I've got to say, two and a half years ago, was not what it should have been. We were falling behind. Today, I think we've got a very strong R&D capability. We've got a great R&D team. We've got great perfumers that are developing absolutely leading-edge, new Fine Fragrances and Consumer Fragrances.

We've got a great pipeline of molecules as well as delivery systems. I couldn't be more pleased at the progress that we're making. Now, we're not satisfied. We've done a lot of work, but a lot more to do, but we're making really good progress at strengthening our strengths and addressing our gaps, and really am very optimistic about the future of Scent. Mike, do you want to add anything on the

I think it's well said. Chris, I think the way I would dimensionalize, just in terms of growth rates, without getting too specific. Fine Fragrance, I suggest they'll be a little bit softer in Q3, but a stronger Q4. I'm thinking on a second half basis in the mid-single digit range. Again, continuing that trend on strong comparables. That's a nice trajectory they have there. On the Consumer Fragrances side, you're in that low single digit range. They had a really good Q2 at a high single digit number, but we expect that will normalize a little bit on a go-forward basis to a low single digit number. The one area which I just want to make sure I'm 100% clear on the Fragrance Ingredients number, it was very strong in Q2.

We do believe that as we go forward, that will normalize on a go-forward basis. That one will be slightly under pressure in terms of year-over-year performance, just to calibrate. I think the team has really done, as Erik said, a good job on the compounds, which is fine in consumer, to rebuild the R&D capability, go-to-market approach for customers, and trying to drive market share gains there. On the Fragrance Ingredients side, it is that shift that we talked about to higher value natural products. That's underway. That will take a little bit more time, not in the second half of this year, but as we go into next year and the year after, we believe we will have a really strong competitive position.

Thank you. At this time, there are no questions registered, so I'll pass the call back over to Erik for any closing remarks.

Thank you for joining the call today. We are very pleased with the progress that we've made over the last two and a half years, but there's a lot more work to do. We've got to get Food Ingredients deal closed, Food Ingredients moved over to CVC, and really ensure that we're driving Scent, Taste, and Health & Biosciences to great futures. I just want to finish by saying that I really, really appreciate what our colleagues of IFF all around the world are doing to strengthen the company, deliver today, but make us even better for the future.

Finally, just to close, I just am really proud of the leadership team that we have, including the four presidents of our businesses. Ana Mendonça, I mentioned for Scent. Yuvraj Arora doing a great job leading the Taste business. Leticia Gonçalves leading our Health & Biosciences business. Terrific progress there. Andy Muller, who's turned around the Food Ingredients with his team business, gotten a great deal with CVC, a win-win deal with CVC. A great future for them, and glad to have 10% ownership tail there as they grow that business. Just very pleased with the progress that we're making, but the best is yet to come.

Thank you all. At this time, this will now conclude today's conference call. We appreciate your participation. We hope you all have an amazing rest of your day. At this time, you may now disconnect your lines.

International Flavors & Fragrances Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript | Fortune

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International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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