I hope you enjoyed this morning's presentation as much as I did, and it gave you a little bit more insights into the exciting future of the future Solvay organization. My name is Jodi Allen. I'm the Head of Investor Relations for Syensqo under its current perimeter, and I'd like to welcome back our webcast viewers who may or may not have been part of this morning's session. We have a very exciting afternoon planned for you today, because this afternoon is all about Syensqo. By the way, after the separation, I'm very fortunate to be joining the Syensqo organization with the rest of my colleagues here today. Let's go through the agenda. We're going to begin with Ilham Kadri, our incoming CEO, that will tell us all about the vision and excite us about what's to come for the future.
Then we're going to move to our Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Mike Finelli, to tell us a lot about our future innovations and give us a glimpse into some of the things you'll get to see for yourself firsthand during our innovation showcase today.
Afterwards, you'll hear from three of our business presidents. You're going to hear from Mike Radossich, Rodrigo Elizondo, and Peter Browning, and they represent the Materials and Consumer & Resource segments. After that, we'll introduce you to our incoming Chief Financial Officer, Christopher Davis. And finally, Ilham will close our day and will be followed by a Q&A session with the entire management team. Afterwards, as I explained this morning, we will have an organized session that takes you through a bit of a tour of the innovation showcase.
So I ask that you stay seated because we will organize you into groups, and I'll tell you a bit more about how that will work later. And I must say before we begin, that our presentation includes certain forward-looking statements which are associated with potential risks and uncertainties. So please make sure you see the disclaimers in our presentation, which can also be downloaded on our investor relations website. Are you ready? Welcome to Syensqo.
Hello. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the orange team, right after the blue team this morning. Thank you. Thank you for all of you for joining us today. It's a big day as we embark on an exciting journey into the future here at our new headquarters. It's an honor and privilege to stand before you as the CEO or incoming CEO of Syensqo. Syensqo was, in fact, born out of a vision, a vision of innovation and growth, and our dedication to making a meaningful impact in our industry. We believe Syensqo has an important role to play, and we will create breakthroughs that advance humanity. I invite you today to our new world.
Our team of explorers are all around you today, fully equipped and ready to launch this mission to be the innovation leader, centered around customers and the value we create for them and with them. You may be asking: Okay, Ilham, but what will be different? The logic is straightforward. Better focus with an opportunity for sharper capital allocation. And we know that in structure like this comes better accountability. It is a good thing for our teams, including the new teams we need to recruit. It's a good thing for our customers. They will have one operating model focusing on their pain points we want to resolve. And you may... You know, some customers and investors may also prefer pure players because they see an opportunity for rerating, for example. You heard it. Better focus, better accountability, and more strategic flexibility.
This is the name of the new game. Put simply, the separation will accelerate our value creation. As you will see and hear today, either on stage or during the innovation show and tell tour, we are uniquely positioned to deliver long-term growth, enhanced by our relentless focus on our customers. And by the way, I talk to you a lot about our customer obsession. This is our philosophy that will guide our decisions. By understanding their unmet needs, their pain points, their problems, anticipate them.... We will be the first point of contact that caters to the unique demands, delivering customized solutions, and actually sharing in the value creation. This will enable us to build long-lasting relationships, which make our customers win, and we would like to win with them. And as you know, again, I was lucky to start this process already in recent years.
We will intensify many things. We will intensify our innovation-focused culture. Our research and innovation teams will be given the support and the resources they need to develop new frontiers, develop cutting-edge technologies that are at the forefront of our industry and makes us, makes us win. And to make all this happen, we will have a different, actually disciplined approach to our resource allocation. That's what you can expect from us, which we will prioritize growth investments with the most attractive returns. So let me share with you why Syensqo offers one of the most compelling investment thesis in the industry. First, we are a company that is structurally positioned to continue to outgrow our markets, supercharged by our culture of innovation that is fully aligned with the mega trends that are shaping our society, that are shaping our planet.
Second, we have the most differentiated portfolio of technologies in our industry, and I mean it. We are a leader in our markets. You will hear more from our team today about the Syensqo growth algorithm. We have one. How will we translate the growth of our underlying end markets into revenue growth? Third, in addition to our strong record on top quartile sales growth, we are starting from a position of financial strength, measured by our best-in-class margins. You know them, our returns, and we are targeting to make them even stronger. Finally, the best. We have the people, because it's all about people and people and people, and they are here with you today. Actually, I believe we have the right people to deliver on our promises with new ideas and new perspectives. Now, speaking about our leaders, let me introduce you to our new athletes.
These are the people that will lead this new chapter. You may notice we have four newcomers. Some joined a few months ago, and it feels like they've been with us for, for years. Welcome home, by the way. You are going to give us a fresh perspective, and I like it. I'm in great company with these seasoned professionals. I also want to highlight our refreshed board of directors. In fact, it has been, it was part of our strategy with the current board and the current chair to have a stronger governance. Believe it or not, 60% women. Didn't aim for it, but it happened. They are the best for this hiring. 60% women, 60% independent directors, and for the first time in our history, a director based in our largest region of sales and human capital, the United States of America.
I'm so thrilled to partner with our independent chairwoman, Rosemary Thorne, with whom I worked previously. Our board exhibits a good balance of existing and new experienced directors to deliver against our mission, our vision, our strategy, simply towards creating more value for our customers, for our employees, for you, our shareholders. Now, let's take a look at our new company. This is Syensqo. We have over 13,000 people across our 62 sites, with 12 major research centers spread around the world. As I mentioned, we have best-in-class margins, which showcase our high quality, high value-added technologies. These specialty businesses are now, by the way, delivering as much cash. That's the good news. That our sister company you heard from this morning, was not the case five years ago. So, ladies and gentlemen, we have entered into a new era. Look at us.
We are already one of the world's largest specialty companies in the world. Now, of course, we are global, but at the same time, we are very close to our customers. Look at our balanced geographic presence with facilities in close proximity to our customers, where they need us around the globe. By the way, we have launched now three regional hubs in the Americas, in Asia, in Europe, to better serve our customers. You will see, by the way, our senior leadership team members who are already located in different regions; you will see us sharing our time equally between regions. Frankly, we will go where the customers need us. You may also take note that the separation has shifted the company to be more U.S.-centric. This is beautiful, isn't it? The U.S. gets a lot of things right these days.
We shall have the highest percentage of net sales in North America, followed by Asia. We like it, too, as we can further penetrate the Asian markets with our newly nominated Chief Asia Officer. And this is quite different, quite different picture to our current company today. In fact, these are more just than just growth opportunities. They are disruptive trends. Some of them, some of you call it megatrends, that will shape our society, that will shape our planet for decades to come. What is even more exciting is that there is a clear acceleration to invest in these technologies. The market is real. Technologies that support the energy transition, that support clean mobility, that preserve our natural resources and improve the quality of life.
You will hear more about all of this from Mike Finelli, our Chief Technology Officer, who will tell you some fascinating stories on how we disrupt. And stay around, please, after the presentation, because you will experience more during our show and sell innovation showcase tour. Listen, at the end of the day, we want you to leave this room here, our headquarters, convinced that Syensqo's portfolio is ideally placed to leverage these mega trends that will fuel our innovation pipeline, that will fuel our growth. So now, before we look too far ahead into the future, it is worth highlighting that leadership positions we have already achieved here as a leader in the top three, top three leading positions across 90% of our markets.
We have developed these positions across our portfolio, across a number of growth markets, and we have created actually trusted partnerships and relationships with our industry leaders, our customers, and some large and winning brands. As an investor, I'm sure you appreciate the variety of end markets we serve. Bringing a good balance compared to our peers, which will also support business resilience, including in tough times, and outperform our peers in the long term. Look at one of my favorite slides. In fact, or more importantly, our technologies are vital. They are already improving the quality of life, which, as I mentioned earlier, central to the vision of advancing humanity. Look at this.
You can find our solutions and innovation in so many areas of your life, from the plane some of you took this morning, to the car you drove to get to the airport, and if you drive a hybrid car, I love it even more, because we can double the opportunity compared to the combustion engine. You can find us in the medicine packs and medical procedures supporting your health needs. Syensqo makes all of this possible. So as a new independent company, Syensqo business profile will be significantly upgraded. Think about it. We are now a pure specialties company. We will operate two business segments: Materials and Consumer & Resources. So let me describe their distinct profiles and commonalities.
Materials first has a high capital intensity with longer product life cycles, with high barriers to entry, either through IP, intellectual property, or through long-term sales contracts we have enhanced, offering a significant value proposition to our customers in market like clean mobility, electronics, and healthcare. By the way, this value proposition affords attractive margins higher than the company average. Whereas now the innovation we develop in the Consumer & Resources segments have a shorter time to market and demand much less capital. I like this complementarity, by the way. These solutions are found in market like agriculture, coating, home and personal care, where customers are seeking more bio-friendly or sustainable chemistries. This division has made significant progress under the leadership of Mike Radossich, our President of Consumer and Resources, present with us today. I'm so proud of him and the team.
With his team, he drove margin improvements in the recent years, changed the business culture, pruned the portfolio, divested businesses where we were not the right owners. Yes, we are bold. We did all of this. And trust me, me personally, I don't recognize this business from five years ago, and the best is yet to come. Now, despite these differences, the two segments are also complementary. Remember, both are specialty businesses with a common approach to their markets. Both share an obsession for customers, offering differentiated and sustainable solutions. Both will share systems such as digital customer relationship management tools, ideation, AI, machine learning, to service better our customer and equally innovate faster. And finally, both of them focus on innovation-led growth aligned with the mega trend I just referenced. Moving to another of my favorites: people. People and people and people.
I'm very proud to highlight what I consider to be a best-in-class team, and I'm fortunate. We have built this organization during the past five years, and this is why you see results. They have demonstrated passion, loyalty, commitment to success. I'm so thrilled to begin this new chapter with a diverse and highly engaged organization. Look at the engagement score. By the way, approximately one in four employees, beyond the executives we are, have bought shares. Our people have skin in the game. Now, I'd like to share our strategic direction with you. It simply builds on four pillars. We are a growth company. We have a growth engine, and we will extend our existing leadership positions by bringing technologies to the market that leverage the megatrends and solve our customers' needs and unmet needs. Innovation.
Innovation leadership is at the heart of our new strategy, and we all recognize that the world is changing at an unprecedented pace, and to thrive in this dynamic environment, we must propel our innovation to new heights and continuously raise the bar. We will do this by investing in sustainable solution in the midterm and beyond, by the way, making circularity part of the design of our molecules, because our customers, our employees, our kids, you, our shareholders, want a cleaner and greener solutions in your daily lives. This is how we will create value to drive growth, always backed by a religious capital discipline. You've seen it from us in the past five years. This is gonna continue. Prioritizing, obviously, our strong cash delivery to fuel the growth and reward shareholders. Let me now walk you through each of these pillars to provide more context.
Syensqo is today in the great position of being a leading provider of technologies in electrification, in defense, in civil aviation, in aerospace, and in a diverse range of consumer technologies. Going forward, we will drive even more growth by expanding our presence and influence in our markets, both organically and through the strategic partnerships we have created. Moreover, the combination of the growth markets we serve and the technology shifts that we are exposed to will fuel and accelerate our growth over the coming five years. Our business presidents will take you through some of these in more detail, but let me take just one example, my favorite, lightweighting. We love metal in this company. I love metal because we can replace it.
Whenever you have the opportunity to replace a piece of metal with solutions that are lighter, consume less fuel if the object is mobile, and at the same time, you offer a lower total cost of ownership, we are a winner. This is good for the planet and good for the pocket. By the way, we do this in cars, we do this in planes, we do this for your e-bikes, too. This is the power of Syensqo. This is a story of growth, and this is what inspire me personally, what inspires our teams each and every day. So maybe you, you are asking yourself by now, "How do we plan to extend our leadership position?" Remember that in the past few years, we have invested in and upgraded our frontline, implemented formal training programs. We launched a virtual sales academy during COVID times.
Winning sales awards never happened in the company. We promoted the hunting culture. We moved from being traditional farmers to hunters. We like both, by the way, in Syensqo, farmers and hunters. In fact, we now have about 25% of Syensqo's workforce as a customer-facing team, unmatched, at least in my own professional career over the past 25 years. Why is that important? We want to be the first person our customers call, not when they send us the bill or the invoice, when they have a problem, when they think about a new opportunity. You will be delighted to hear from Peter Browning, the President of Specialty Polymers Business. He will share with you some great example on how we just do this, solving the unmet needs.
And to do that, we need to do it in our homes what our customers they do in their homes. We need to know their application processes better than anybody else. This is why we centered our application labs, where our key customers are most active in their respective markets. Based in this building, by the way, you will see during your tour, where we host our thermoplastic composites application lab for our defense customers. Or in Seoul, in Korea, where we have the largest battery line in the world, in Boston or in Lyon, with the largest biotech facilities in the company. And finally, in Shanghai, where I inaugurated personally a few months ago, our largest AI digital lab in the world. Yes, we will continue to invest in new capabilities to support our growth and accelerate our time to market.
When we develop a solution for our customers, for our partners, we try to adopt a repeatable model, a winning algorithm. Then we go one step further, and we will be doing a better job, definitely in the future, in sharing the value creation with our customers. This is how we delight our customers. This is how we win with them. As you can see here, we have already committed, since I joined the company back in 2019, to a number of major capacity investments that will drive a significant part of the growth. Many of these, by the way, are brownfield investments, except in the U.S., where, by the way, we received an IRA, you know, now firm subsidies. Mike collected the grant in Washington, D.C., we are happy about that, to fund our battery projects, resulting in even higher returns.
We made investments in sulfone polymers in India, for example, to support our growth in healthcare and in water purification. All these projects together are expected to generate at least EUR 500 million of EBITDA at maturity. As a growth company, and as you can expect from us, we have even more projects in the pipeline for the period beyond our midterm plan horizon, which we will highlight a bit later. Let us now move to how we expect to propel our innovation leadership to new heights. The businesses that comprise Syensqo are already widely recognized by our customers as leaders in providing materials and consumer technologies. Our commitment to innovation drives us to develop those new products that exceed expectation and deliver this value-added benefits to stay simply ahead of the curve. Therefore, few things are important.
Strong IP, for example, protection, is not only important, it is essential to our future success. Did you know that about 50% of our sales today are either IP or long-term contract protected across both Materials and Consumer segments? And they are gaining traction with a Vitality Index of 20%. What is Vitality Index? It's sales from product less than five years old, okay? And I can tell you again, in my 25 years of industry experience, this is truly best in class. Did you know that 15% of our people are working in research and innovation? 15%. You understand now why we are called Syensqo . So as I mentioned at the start, we want to be the benchmark for innovation. We will stay ahead. We will create breakthroughs in technologies, solid batteries, for example, bio-based personal care solutions.
And to achieve this aim, we will continue to enrich our research and innovation pipeline across both business segments and of course, in our growth platform, which Mike Finelli will explain in more detail a bit later. Look at this. We measure our pipeline. This is not a wishful thinking, a concept paper. We have about EUR 3.5 billion worth of non-risk adjusted sales in our pipeline. And to support our growth, we are increasing our annual research spend up to 5% of sales in the future from the 3.8% we had had in 2022, a level which was already significantly higher than the average of our peers, as you can see in the slide. Our customers expect this from us as they rely on us for their own future. This is what leaders do.
Now, let me tell you and tell our existing shareholders and the new ones who wants to invest in a growth company, welcome. This is the place to be. Look at the blockbusters project that will drive the next phase of growth and profitability beyond our current midterm plan. They range from next generation batteries, solid, to hydrogen storage, to hydrogen production, and they are all projected to deliver, in total, over EUR 2 billion of additional sales beyond 2028. Turning to our third pillar on how we will expand our share of sustainable solutions. Sustainability is not just an ethical obligation, it is also a strategic advantage as it aligns with the evolving values of our customers and our partners.
Most of you probably are familiar with our One Planet commitments, but here, what you can see is that we have adapted it to the Syensqo growth strategy with more demanding targets, by the way, aligned with 1.5-degree trajectory, and we will seek SBTi Scope 1, 2, and 3 for the new company, just like we did before. Look at our commitments on the slide. We remain dedicated to reducing our environmental footprints. We will become carbon neutral in 2040, so faster than the current company, because we can do it and we can afford it. Our top line growth will be increasingly driven by circularity, as I told you before. We are reinventing a circular chemistry. I wish I'm younger in the lab, where we prepare each product for a second usage, for the third usage, for-... the NX users.
We are committed to a higher amount of circular sales. Actually, 50% commitment higher than our current company's target today. Of course, I cannot finish the One Planet section without speaking about our commitment to people and their safety. Safety will always remain a top priority. One accident is one too many. Of course, we continue to close our gaps in diversity, equity, and inclusion towards gender parity. Like our sister company, this morning, we are fully rolling out our living wage promise globally by 2026. Like we did before, we will provide updates on Syensqo's One Planet progress on an annual basis, seek auditing from our external auditors who are present today. Let me share with you a pride of ours, and you can read it, then I can have a sip of water.
We recently received from a committee of leading automotive OEMs an award and a recognition for the remarkable creativity in implementing our environmental sustainability practices. This is why people come to us. Not only is this a source of great pride, it's also a competitive advantage. Sustainability ambitions are organized around bringing more clean and natural solutions to our customers to support their environmental ambitions. We are their Scope 3, and we will deliver. Syensqo make our customers sustainable. Now, moving from Scope 3 to our own Scope 1 and 2, inside our walls. We will continue raising the bar, cleaning our home. This slide details our energy transition projects already underway today, which encompasses renewable energy projects and process improvements, all designed to reduce our emissions. Did you know that Syensqo is the number one solar farmer in the United States of America in the chemical industry?
Globally, 65% of our sites are using 100% renewable purchased energy. During my visit to China a few months ago, the authorities praised us as all our sites in China are powered with 100% renewable energy. By the way, China is the first Syensqo's country moving to 100% renewable. Kudos to our Chinese colleagues. That's what our people do. And why this, this happened? Remember, for those who are following us, we set up a harmonized internal carbon pricing, remember, since 2019. We doubled our carbon pricing from EUR 50 a ton in 2019, when in the EU, the pricing was 25. You remember? We increased it to EUR 100 a ton in 2021 when it was 50, and prior the Russian war, by the way.
This helps us to build better formula pricing, to drive better, cleaner investments. We embedded this in our One Planet, in the way we innovate, we invest, we produce, in the way we incentivize, by the way. This approach, which we will continue, has ensured that our capital investment decisions worldwide contribute positively to the resilience of the company in the face of climate change risks, and is also oriented towards achieving our carbon neutrality by 2040, latest. All these investments we are planning for will be value accretive, of course, generating returns well in excess of our cost of capital. Finally, the fourth pillar, capital discipline. I like it. I like discipline. It will remain our guiding light as we navigate the path to success.
As our CFO, Chris Davis, will demonstrate in his section, the separation projects will give us enhanced firepower and actually optionality to create value. We will continue to make prudent financial decisions, ensuring that every investment is well thought out and aligned with our strategic objectives. That's what you have seen from us during the past five years. This is not new, and you can expect it again and again. This slide details our priorities for our cash generation, beginning with sustaining our operations to our growth capital expenditures. And you can see that by leveraging our resources wisely, we will fortify our financial strength and have the ability to provide shareholder returns as part of our strategy to drive long-term value for our stakeholders. This bring me now nicely to our midterm financial targets, which are aligned with our growth-focused strategy.
Our priorities will be on growing our top line sales, always above markets and our peers, strengthening our margins, and continuing to improve our returns. Of course, we remain committed to a strong investment-grade rating. Now I will let Chris to share with you more details on how we plan to deliver on these targets. To wrap up, ladies and gentlemen, this new strategic direction is not just a blueprint for our future, this is a declaration of our commitment to accelerate growth. We are structurally positioned to outperform our growing markets, and we will extend our leadership and best-in-class profitability through the investments we are already making and through our increased focus, the separation will bring us. Innovation, it sits at the heart of who we are. This is what we are good at. We are athletes in innovation.
Not only we are the innovation leader, but we have the ambition to establish ourselves as the innovation benchmark, driving even more differentiation to our offering. And as always, you have seen it from us again and again, we will stay disciplined. We will continue to have a disciplined approach to how we allocate capital, always designed to deepen and accelerate the value creation for our stakeholders. And now, it gives me the great pleasure to introduce you to our Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Mike Finelli. Mike, come over.
Thank you, Ilham, and hello, everyone. I'm delighted to be here today as the Syensqo CTIO.
Since my earliest years as a child, I have been fascinated by science, and I've been blessed to be in this industry for the last 30 years. As much as science has advanced humanity in those 30 years, I believe what science will accomplish in the next decade alone will surpass the progress we have made in the last 100. Now, I'd like to share with you some of those advancements that will have a tremendous impact on humanity and our planet. Over the past couple of years, Syensqo has created four growth platforms with dedicated teams, focusing resources in materials for batteries, thermoplastic composites, green hydrogen, and biotechnology and bioresources.
A platform in Syensqo is a dedicated team of people who have access to products and technology across the entire group to solve problems for customers within their market megatrend. We put all of the R&I, all of the development, and all of the commercial people together to work as one team to make it happen, bringing visibility, focus, and the startup mindset. All four platforms play a very important role in the decarbonization of our planet through electrification, lightweighting, and biotechnology, for example. Combined, by 2030, these platforms have market opportunities that exceed EUR 10 billion. To ensure our success, Syensqo has been investing disproportionately in these new markets.
Over the last few years, we have increased our R&I effort by four times, and we now invest about 22% of the overall Syensqo research and innovation budget on our platforms. Now, let me dive a little bit deeper into each one of these platforms. Humanity is starting its fourth energy transition. Thousands of years ago, we used wood as a primary source of energy. Hundreds of years ago, the world moved to coal, and when the automobile was invented, it drove the need for oil and gas. Now we're moving to alternative energies, solar, wind, and hydrogen. This time, it's going to be the electric vehicle that drives the electrification of our society.
As a leader in lithium-ion battery materials, Syensqo has developed a product portfolio to enable the battery technology of the next 2+ decades, which will help enable EVs to help society transition away from fossil fuels. So in Gen 2 batteries, these are the batteries that are in your cars today, we help solve range anxiety by producing the most advanced PVDF binders in the market. Due to our PVDF superior adhesion, battery makers can put more active ingredients in their batteries, which helps increase energy density. To service the customer needs, as Ilham just mentioned, Syensqo is committed to build two world-class integrated PVDF plants, one in Europe and one in the United States. These two investments will allow us to serve more than 10 million additional electric vehicles. Now, Gen 3 batteries.
These are the batteries that will enter the market in the next couple of years. They also require Syensqo's high-performing PVDF, but due to higher voltages and higher temperature cycles, we will need new solvents and electrolyte salts. That's where our Energain and our LiTFSI come into play, delivering lower flammability and much more stable electrolytes.... Now, looking a little bit further down the road, we find Gen 4 batteries. These are the famous solid-state batteries. While a few manufacturers have announced and have introduced some initial solid-state batteries today, large-scale Gen 4 battery commercialization will not happen until later in this decade, and a gradual ramp-up in the 2030s. However, Syensqo is already ahead of the game, and we have invested in Europe's first sulfide pilot plant. Sulfide chemistry is the leading solid electrolyte technology for Gen 4 batteries.
As you can see, Syensqo's roadmap aligns well with the industry roadmap, and regardless of the technology, we are ready to capture that growth. Now, let's move on to hydrogen. Hydrogen will become the new oil. In the next several decades, it will disrupt the balance of geopolitical power as countries that have no play in energy today become major exports of energy in the form of hydrogen. Because of this, governments are racing to get there first and are partnering with industry to build the needed infrastructure. As of January 2023, more than 1,000 hydrogen projects have been announced worldwide. Now, there are three main components of the hydrogen economy: hydrogen production, hydrogen transportation and storage, and then the consumption, hydrogen consumption. For Syensqo, that means fuel cells. Syensqo has technologies to enable all three areas.
For green hydrogen production, we are developing and producing critical materials for the membranes that split the water molecule, H2O, into H and O. There are two technologies used today, primarily, alkaline electrolyzers and proton exchange or PEM electrolyzers. Syensqo is the only company on the planet, the only company on the planet, that produces membrane materials for both technologies, and this part of our business is doubling every year. We continue to expand quickly to keep up with the demand of our customers. For storage and transportation, Syensqo is working on solutions to store green hydrogen in vehicles. With our high-performance polymers and thermoplastic composite technology, we will enable production of high-pressure storage tanks that can be produced at high rates, that are safe and recyclable. And finally, there's the consumption of green hydrogen, and this happens in a fuel cell.
This is where hydrogen is recombined with oxygen to generate electricity and also generating water as the only byproduct, thus completing the cycle from water to water. And we are a leading producer of the only chemistry capable of accomplishing this feat. Now, if my hydrogen story has not been compelling enough for you, let me leave you with this thought: Our society will not reach carbon neutrality by 2050 without a hydrogen economy. The next platform I'd like to talk about is our renewable materials and biotechnology platform, which we just launched last year. Let me start by saying that the way we make chemicals today, it's about to change in a dramatic way. Today, we build large chemical plants with dozens of process steps covering many, many acres of land.
Tomorrow, we will do most of these steps inside a microorganism, and we'll be able to fit these plants inside large warehouses. Millions of years of nature's evolution are now transformed into breakthroughs in how chemicals are produced with the help of artificial intelligence and new genetic editing tools. Let me share a few examples to try to make this real for you. We can start with sugars or even waste oils, and we use biotech to develop new classes of biosurfactants that are bio-based, biodegradable, and significantly less carbon-intensive. Biotech is also finding ways to convert CO2 into carbon-negative chemicals. And one of the problems with carbon capture technologies is: what do you do with the captured carbon? Biotechnology, biotech, is finding solutions. Through synthetic biology, microalgae can convert CO2 and light into proteins, nutrition, and oils and pigments, reducing the carbon footprint across diverse applications.
So ultimately, biotechnology gives us the potential to create new chemical structures that are simply not possible with conventional chemistry. To illustrate some of the progress we've made over the last year, we have signed a strategic partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks to investigate the field of biopolymers. We have acquired a former Zymergen lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. We're also building a multipurpose microbiology lab at our R&I center in Lyon, France. So as you can see, we are well on our way to realizing our ambition of combining science with sustainability. Our fourth platform is thermoplastic composites. Imagine if we could create, if we could produce aircraft at the same rates that we produce automobiles. Thermoplastic composites have the potential to do just that. As you will hear from Rodrigo in a few moments, carbon fiber composites are a great growth market for Syensqo.
But you might be wondering, "All right, what's the difference between a thermoplastic composite and our traditional composite business?" Well, the difference is in the resin that is added to the carbon fiber. Traditional carbon fiber composites use thermoset epoxy resins. A thermoplastic composite, as you can imagine, uses a high-performance thermoplastic as the resin. Epoxy resins need to be cured in large ovens for many hours and cannot be reworked after they're cured, and this is fine for small volume, critical parts. But if you want to produce for high volume applications, you need to use a thermoplastic composite, since you can form parts in minutes, and they can be reformed or reworked as needed, which dramatically increases the possible applications and markets for our composite business. You will see TPCs being used in the most demanding applications across several industries.
In aerospace, TPCs enable high volume rate production, reaching 5-10 times faster manufacturing rates than thermosets. Our main applications in the aircraft industry are secondary structures, such as the nacelle and window frames. And I wanna invite you, don't miss the opportunity during the innovation showcase to see the Airbus helicopter door made with our TPCs, with our lab right here in Brussels. In the energy segment, we have solutions for offshore and onshore risers, as well as flexible pipes. In these applications, TPCs bring up to 30% weight reduction and up to 40% lower carbon footprint versus steel. 40% lower carbon footprint versus steel. In the automotive industry, TPCs bring flexibility, high throughput, functional integration, and recyclability.
And we're working on a very confidential but exciting application where we can replace a part that is currently made from 22 welded separate parts, and we can do this with one piece of TPC overmolded with one of our Specialty Polymers. Our single-step process reduces the total cost of ownership, which is critical in high-volume automotive applications. And our thermoplastic composite growth platform brings end-to-end innovation, from polymer design to composite structures, under one roof, leveraging both our Specialty Polymers and our Composite Materials portfolio. So let me sum it up. First, these growth platforms represent a massive opportunity for Syensqo to create and capture value in a EUR 10 billion—more than EUR 10 billion market. Second, these platforms are aligned with sustainability, playing a critical role in the decarbonization of our planet.
Finally, our investments to fund this growth are well underway, as evidenced by the capacity expansions and the investments in pilots and labs that we've already mentioned. As I previously said, we have reached a pivotal moment in science, and I'm super excited. I am looking forward to leading our innovations and platforms through this transformation. Now, I have the pleasure to hand the floor over to the president of our Specialty Polymers business, Peter Browning.
Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to start with an overview of our Materials segment and then go into more detail on Specialty Polymers before handing over to Rodrigo, who will cover composites. I get a real buzz from turning ideas into solutions for our customers, and this afternoon, it's my pleasure to introduce how our Materials cluster does this better than anyone else in the industry. As you know, this is an attractive high-barrier-to-entry business, delivering industry-leading margins in excess of 30%. We've grown our top line by more than 7% per year over the last 5 years. We've done this by delivering solutions to our customers in auto, in aerospace, in electronics, and many other industries. Our core differentiation is an unmatched portfolio of technologies.
We offer an extensive and proprietary range of high-performance polymers and innovative compounds, and we have high-performance carbon fiber Compostive Materials. No one else has the breadth of portfolio we have. When customers come to us, they don't ask for PEEK, polysulfones, or PVDF. They ask for the best technology at the lowest cost of ownership, and with Syensqo, they get the right technology for the performance they need quickly and reliably. So Syensqo offers a unique value proposition compared to other material suppliers. On top of the unmatched portfolio, we work together with customers such as Boeing or Bosch, TSMC, to develop tailor-made solutions that solve their application performance needs at competitive cost. And today, I'm going to be sharing some of the examples of the benefits we bring. We focus on customers who are looking for this creative relationship.
They come to us for the capability to innovate for their specific needs at the right cost and speed, regardless of the technology used. They reward us with their business in leading-edge applications and long-lasting partnerships. Now, let's have a more detailed look at the Specialty Polymers business, and I'd like to cover the markets we serve and how our unique business model will deliver strong growth. While there's only time to give you a taste, my colleagues animating the innovation showcase would be delighted to answer your questions and explain why our customers give us an increasing share of their needs. So we are already a successful growth business. From 2005- 2014, Specialty Polymers made a series of acquisitions to build a unique portfolio of high-end polymer materials while doubling the business size.
We use this technology to solve complex, high-value problems in fast-growing markets. Since 2014, there's been a relentless focus on organic growth, which has once again doubled the business to its current size of just over EUR 3 billion. Following Mike's overview of our platforms, I'm gonna focus on some high-growth segments in the core portfolio. In addition, I'll introduce you to some of the customer relationships which make our business so successful. So Specialty Polymers is focused on three markets: electronics, transportation, Life Solutions. These segments offer a strong growth dynamic supported by clear megatrends: hyperconnectivity and miniaturization in electronics, electrification and lightweighting in transportation, and access to healthcare and resolving water scarcity in Life Solutions. For all three areas, sustainability and circularity are critically important. Collectively, these megatrends provide a clear, long-term tailwind for the business.
In electronics, our materials are almost certain to be in the PC you have out or in your briefcase, the phone you have in your pocket, the smartwatch you have on your wrist. We're currently working hard with the major technology companies to ramp up their virtual reality projects. In transportation, the move to electrical vehicles provides a huge opportunity beyond the battery materials that Mike discussed. Each electrical vehicle, as Ilham said, offers us twice the revenue opportunity of a conventional car, along with far higher growth as EV penetration continues to increase. And finally, Life Solutions is focused on two key segments: healthcare and water purification. In both, there is a long-term trend towards the use of our materials due to their superior cost performance compared to more traditional alternatives.
Before going into some application details, let's look at the positioning of our products and how we compete. Looking first at the left, the polymer industry segments into three tiers. At the bottom are the commodities, polypropylene. Price-driven, sold at EUR 1-EUR 2 per kilo. In the middle, engineering plastics. Now, these are sold based on application performance, but with many producers. Pricing is typically in the EUR 3-EUR 6 per kilo range. And then lastly, we operate at the top part of the pyramid, supplying Specialty Polymers like PEEK, fluoroelastomers or sulfones. These are also sold on application performance, but are complicated to make and need substantial technical support. They're sold at EUR 10-EUR 10,000 per kilo, and as a result, are only used where other polymers can't offer the performance needed. So what are customers looking for from these Specialty Polymers?
Typically, when applications require performance across multiple criteria, then these are the products used. So if you need great thermal stability, coupled with lightweight and electrical conductivity, then it's us you call. We're not the lowest price, but we do enable the lowest total cost of ownership. Our product offer is supported by best-in-class technical service and deep R&I competencies. Across my business, there are nearly a thousand chemists, physicists, engineers, working with our customers to provide leading-edge support in target segments. Given this combination of great support, high-performance products, we solve problems that no one else can. We do this through market-orientated teams that combine sales, technical support, and R&I to deliver tailored solutions, which are both sticky and economically rewarding for us and our customers.
A great example of where these products are needed is the semiconductor industry, which requires ultra-high purity and complete reliability in extremely demanding process conditions. Our EUR 300 million business is split pretty evenly between materials for building new fabs and products that are consumed in the process. Our forward order book gives us really strong confidence that the 6%-8% annual growth rate you see is robust. This growth is backed by significant investment in our production network to ensure that we scale as our customers do. The key assets we have in this segment, beyond our technology, are the direct access to semicon OEMs, a demonstrated ability to innovate, and a high level of trust based on consistent, superior quality. This powerful combination makes us very hard to compete with.
Did you know that our relationship with TSMC, the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer, has grown fifty-fold in the last five years? Let me tell you how. We have rapidly built our business through direct supply and also as a material supplier for their value chain. In doing so, we have broadened our offer from one product family with EUR 2 million revenue to five, with EUR 100 million of revenue, and set the stage for substantial growth in the coming years. By working directly with TSMC, we're able to specify our materials and get a detailed understanding of their needs for next-generation processes. By providing transparency on quality, we build trust in the solutions we offer. And TSMC formally recognized this in 2023 with a supplier award, which underscores the strength of our partnership.
The outcome of this is that our business with them is disproportionately focused on their foundries, making newer, smaller chips, offering growth both now and into the future. Moving to transportation, I'd like to focus on automotive, a segment in which we are generating revenues of about EUR 1 billion. 35% of this is in electric vehicles and in hybrids, and this exposure will drive strong growth over the coming five years. While battery is key, nearly half of our EV revenues come from other applications resulting from electrification and the drive for lightweighting to extend vehicle range that Mike discussed. Our products are used in e-motors to improve performance and reduce motor weight. Battery housings and cooling systems are made with Syensqo materials. Charging is a great area of growth for us. Additionally, as vehicles move to higher voltage circuits, OEMs move to our material.
I'd encourage you to talk with the team in the innovation showcase to learn more about these applications and how Syensqo contributes to make them successful. Let's look at some specific value propositions for EVs. By insulating an e-motor magnet wire using Syensqo PEEK, OEMs can reduce motor weight by up to 25% while improving motor power. Moving from metal to polymer in battery casings offers a 25% weight reduction versus aluminum and up to 40% versus steel, but also gives superior protection against battery fires. It offers easier functional integration, for example, of the battery cooling system. So what does this mean to an average driver? It's the equivalent of saving the energy needed for one return trip from Brussels to Paris every year.
Once again, we're making timely investments in both R&I and capacity to ensure we have the right capabilities to reliably serve these demanding applications. Another relationship we're really proud of is our long-standing business with Bosch. Historically, we partnered with Bosch, the world's largest auto tier one, on materials for their emissions control systems. But over the last five years, the development focus has completely shifted to materials for electrical motors. We've leveraged our strong relationship in auto to penetrate their consumer business, and there's a super cool robot chef in the exhibition that you could have a look at. For the future, there's work ongoing with their fuel cell team, as well as their next generation e-motors, and we're cooperating to support the significant semiconductor foundry investments that are being made in Germany in the coming years.
The combination of growth in existing business, plus penetration into new segments, has led to multiyear double-digit growth, driven by a laser-sharp focus on understanding Bosch's emerging needs and how we can leverage our capabilities to best serve them. Let's finish with an example where our materials are used to save lives. Within the healthcare segment of our life solutions business, we have a long track record of double GDP growth, which we see continuing well into the future. A great example of this is the sulfone polymer that we're supplying to dialysis equipment manufacturers. More than 65% of dialysis patients in North America and Europe use cartridges containing our material, and we work closely with the established market players to improve the material supplied to enable better long-term survival rates for patients and very high customer loyalty.
We're also innovating to extend treatment to the two-thirds of people, mostly in the developing world, who have kidney failure, but today don't have access to dialysis. Our innovation in this area improves survival rates for patients while offering great long-term growth, driven by increasing treatment numbers, notably in the developing world. This really is an area where we're doing well by doing good. To summarize, Specialty Polymers is a business with an outstanding track record, which has a pipeline of projects and customer-driven investments that will drive its growth far into the future. We have deep competencies to meet the needs of our demanding customers. This gives us a clear, growth-driven, organic growth-driven path towards a EUR 5 billion business by or before the turn of this decade.
I'd now like to pass over to Rodrigo, who will explore the other part of our Materials business, which also offers some super growth opportunities.
Thanks, Peter, and good afternoon to everybody. I am very excited to lead a business that is fully positioned and equipped to address a market that is expected to grow by a factor of four by 2035, and by a factor of 10 by 2050. The growth is driven by sustainability and fueled by the technology and innovation capabilities we have at Syensqo. It is my pleasure to be in front of you today and transmit my optimism and my enthusiasm with all of you. I will provide you an overview of our activities with focus on our core market, aerospace and defense, where we play, the value we bring, and the dynamic and outlook of the industry we serve.
I will conclude with our long-term outlook of the overall Compostive Materials market, which includes aerospace and other innovations and applications that were covered by Mike in the growth platform section. So please fasten your seatbelts. For those of you who flew today, the aircraft surely has Syensqo materials. So as the cars of the Formula 1 teams that are on the podium at any given Sunday. Our focus is on high performance Compostive Materials that are used for everything that flies. This includes commercial aircraft, business jets, helicopters, fighter jets, drones, satellite launchers, et cetera. And this also includes planes on wheels, like Formula 1 cars or very high-end supercars, which is a market that we use as an accelerator of new technologies that can progressively be applied in aerospace. We operate in a very concentrated industry with very high entry barriers.
Clearly, the highest entry barriers I have seen in more than 30 years covering different industries. The reason is very simple: takes about a decade to develop a new aircraft, and the service life of this aircraft is several decades. This mean that our customer relationships are very sticky, and the big names in the industry will only work with very well-established suppliers, with proven capabilities and commitment to this industry. Syensqo is, without a question, on top of the elite suppliers. Without getting too technical, I can say that our range of products are used in every part of an aircraft: structures, mobile parts and non-mobile parts, engines, interiors, the floor, ceiling, overhead, galleys, which are part of the aircraft that is used to store food and emergency equipment. To the casual observer, an aircraft is a big body with wings, engines, and wheels.
But if we pay close attention, an airplane is the assembly of thousands of parts. Every single part, even the smallest one, is carefully engineered, tested, and tightly specified. Materials with specific properties need to be developed for its specific use, and industrial scalability needs to be considered very early in the design. The needs of the industry are deeply rooted in our value proposition. We have a product portfolio, innovation capabilities, and a very highly specialized technical support to enable lightweighting in high-performance application. Our contribution starts from the very beginning of an aviation program. We work in partnership with our customers from the design phase. I really encourage you to spend some time at the showroom today, so you can get a better flavor on what we do and especially how we interact with our customers.
It is worth noting that there are no off-the-shelf materials in this industry. Every product we supply is made to order, designed for a specific program, with specific requirements, and following a unique specification. Most importantly, once a product is specified in a program, it stays for the duration of the program. Why is lightweighting so relevant in the industry? Well, aviation is not different from any other industry. Sustainability is on top of the agenda. The sustainability roadmap of the industry includes two main elements. One, is the use of sustainable aviation fuel, which has a higher content of fuels from renewable sources, but it's also much more expensive than conventional fuels. The second element is fleet renewal, basically to replace existing aircraft with more fuel-efficient ones. This is why lightweighting plays a very important role in the sustainability roadmap of our customers.
For example, it is estimated that 1% weight reduction can lead to a 0.75% reduction in fuel consumption. Fuel consumption accounts for 20%-40% of the airline's operating costs and the vast majority of their CO2 emissions. Therefore, lightweighting is very critical to the aviation industry, as it is the answer for both sustainability of the industry and also its competitiveness. What is the outlook for our industry? I can say that the future is very bright, and it is also very predictable. Post-COVID recovery is very solid. Our largest segment, commercial, the order books are full for the next 8 years. The airline industry is operating now at 100% of capacity for domestic travel and nearly at 90% capacity for international travel. Just to illustrate the growth that is coming, and it's coming from several sources.
Today, there are about 23,000-24,000 commercial aircraft in service. Over the next 20 years, 75% of those planes will be replaced by more fuel-efficient aircrafts. Additionally, a fleet nearly the size of the existing one will need to be built to support the industry growth. All in all, more than 40,000 commercial airplanes will be built in the next 20 years. This is massive, and it's also real. The defense segment will also continue to grow following defense spending. The growth will come from both existing and new programs. Overall, we anticipate high single-digit growth just from higher build rates on existing programs. New programs and applications will add to this growth. Again, growth is very predictable, and it's also steady. The evolution is clear. Composite content in airplanes is increasing since the technology was introduced in the 1960s.
The aircraft being designed today will be lighter, will be more fuel efficient, and will contain more composites. This is true for commercial and for defense. We also have the Advanced Air Mobility aircraft that are almost 100% composites, as lightweighting is even more critical for battery-fueled aircraft. Now, a few words about defense, which accounts for approximately a third of our business. Like in commercial aviation, our coverage in defense is very comprehensive. We supply solutions for aircraft, helicopters, drones, et cetera. Again, anything that flies. We expect this segment will continue to grow organically and through new programs in Europe and in the United States and their allies. Our most notable defense program, in terms of technology and money, is the F-35, in which we were involved since the inception of the program.
We are the largest supplier of structural composites and adhesive in the program. Everything you see in this picture is ours. The fact that our solutions were chosen for the largest military program in history shows our technological leadership. You may know that F-35 has been extremely successful, with several European countries, including Belgium, placing new orders not so long ago. A very exciting segment that is evolving is advanced air mobility, and it is very exciting for various reasons. First, it is a completely new industry that, over time, will revolutionize air travel. The concept has attracted very high levels of investment, and many of the startups are backed by large, well-established companies. As I mentioned before, light weighting is paramount for these aircrafts, and our potential for innovation in this space is enormous.
We have solutions for primary and secondary structures, rotors, battery packs, interiors, motors, et cetera. We clearly have the resources and infrastructure to win in this segment. We have technical capabilities and application labs from our historical involvement in commercial and defense. We have a number of partnerships in this space. It is a new industry, and many of the players are startup companies, and for sure there will be winners and there will be losers, and Syensqo will be a winner. Our conviction is that advanced air mobility will become a relevant market in the next 10 years, and eventually may become as large as other segments, like defense or commercial. As I mentioned in the beginning of my presentation, the growth opportunities for Compostive Materials are substantial. We will see growth in our traditional markets and in developing applications.
The common denominator is sustainability, and I do believe that sky is the limit. Now, in conclusion for Materials. Peter and I shared today why we are excited about this business segment. We have something that is truly unique in our market, and we have an unmatched portfolio of technologies that create real value for our customers, which supports a more sustainable world. As the innovator leader, we have a robust pipeline of blockbuster projects that will address some of the most disruptive megatrends, and we are backed by a very strong track record of robust growth. There is no doubt that we will take this business to new heights. Thank you. Now I would like to pass the floor to the President of our Consumer & Resources business, Mike Radossich. Mike?
Thank you, Rodrigo. Thank you, Rodrigo, and hello, everyone. I'm very excited to be here today and talk about our Consumer & Resources segment, and why we're very well positioned to win now and over the long term. So when we say Consumer & Resources, we're referring to a rather diverse group of businesses that serve attractive end markets. You'll find our solutions inside a broad range of products, including plant protection, shampoos and body washes, paints, chocolates and pastries, and even the beneficiation of core metals, which is leading to e-mobility and the clean energy transformation. What's common across the portfolio is that we leverage our core technology platforms, like surfactants, monomers, polymers, and green solvents... along with our best-in-class application and formulation expertise to deliver value-added solutions for our customers.
Now, over the past five years, I've led several of the larger consumer market segments through a transformation where we streamlined our innovation pipeline and pruned our asset base in line with our optimized mandate. In turn, we significantly grew our revenue while strongly improving our margins and returns. And now I'm honored to expand my responsibilities across the entire Consumer & Resources segment and work with our talented teams to unlock its full potential. In the interest of time today, I'll focus on just three of our core markets: agricultural specialties, home and personal care, and mining chemicals. But again, if you're interested in better understanding our other markets, I invite you to visit our innovation showcase later in the day. So what makes Consumer & Resources a strong fit for Syensqo? First, strong secular and sustainability trends are driving each of our markets.
In fact, sustainability is the driving force behind what I'm calling a tectonic shift in our markets. Demand has never been higher for more natural, healthier, and more resource-efficient solutions, and these are precisely the areas in which we're investing our resources. Next, we hold leadership positions across our key markets. We're partnering with our customers to anticipate their needs and developing tailored solutions, and we continue to upgrade and expand our portfolio of differentiated technologies and formulation capabilities. Today, more than 50% of our portfolio is IP protected, which is truly a differentiator and another example of our focus on innovation. And on the last point, we run what I call an asset-light business model. Our manufacturing sites are flexible and multipurpose. They're spread across the globe and are close to our customer base, enabling us to be responsive to their needs.
With a CapEx to sales ratio at just 5%, delivering on our growth across these varied and highly profitable market segments enables us to drive a superior return on the capital we employ. Now, this winning strategy has allowed us to outgrow the market over the past five years, and we're very well positioned to grow twice as fast as the underlying market going forward. As I just mentioned, we hold leadership positions across our key markets, and these are very broad and diverse markets, so I just want to quickly show you the subsegments where we're recognized as the industry reference. Here, customers come to us first when they have challenges to solve. So now let's take a closer look at the first of our three focus segments for today, starting with agricultural specialties.
Here, we are a leader in crop protection and seed care solutions, working with the goal to improve crop yields and to do it more efficiently. There are a number of trends that have shaped the industry's focus, like growing attention to pest resistance issues, regenerative agricultural practices, and the reduction of carbon footprint and environmental impacts. In addition, regulations are driving improvements across the industry, such as the EU's Green Deal, and Syensqo is right there, working hand in hand with the top agro companies to enable the industry's transition to more sustainable agriculture. And now I'd like to share a couple of examples on how we're responding to these trends and challenges. First, our green solvents are innovative, IP-protected solvents that have an excellent safety and environmental profile.
They're specified in our customer's product registrations and are set to grow at 15%-20%, given their greener profile. In my second example, this year, we proudly launched microplastic-free seed coating solutions. These products will help our customers to formulate seed-applied biologicals that enable precision farming and have a much more positive impact on the environment. You can see the strong sales growth that we expect for this product line. Turning now to our home and personal care business, we are a leader in hair care and cleansing solutions, working with the leading brand owners across the fast-moving consumer goods market. Here, performance and sustainability are absolutely essential in the industry. Customers need our help to reduce their carbon footprints and to introduce more bio-based solutions while satisfying increasing regulatory pressures. These disruptive shifts are leading to the introduction of new technologies and significant reformulation opportunities.
And all this is helping to transform the entire value chain toward more responsible sourcing practices. Let me share an example of this. In our beauty hair care segment, if any of you washed your hair this morning with a conditioning shampoo, there's a strong chance it contains our product. A prime example is our recently launched Naternal brand. It's a product line of bio-based and biodegradable polymers. These products are derived from guar plants, which are largely sourced through our sustainable guar initiative in India. And this initiative is proof of a successful collaboration across the entire value chain between Syensqo as a key supplier. Our customers, who are leading brand owners in the personal care space, like L'Oréal, P&G, and Henkel, local guar farmers, and even an NGO.
For nearly a decade, this SGI program has trained guar farmers in sustainable agricultural practices to increase their yields season after season, and has trained women of these communities to cultivate vegetable gardens, contributing to household income in this very impoverished region of the world. This project also ensures the robustness of the supply chain and responsible sourcing to our customers. This is an initiative that we're all very proud of, and from a growth perspective, it demonstrates how our innovation and sustainability initiatives are enabling us to outpace the market while still delivering against our CSR objectives. And now, turning to the last of our three focus segments for today, let me spend a few moments on our mining chemicals business, where we are the leader in metal and mineral mining solutions.
In this market, there are several trends driving a surge in demand for metals, including e-mobility and the need for more effective battery metal recycling technologies. Related trends focus on operational and sustainability issues, such as the need for mines, new mines, expansions of existing mines, or yield improvement of existing operations. And these dynamics align very well with our value proposition and capabilities, as we've been successfully serving mining companies now for well over a century. And now I'd like to focus on just one example, highlighting the value we bring to the industry. For the mineral processing segment, we support the flotation process, which is one of the industry's leading separation techniques.
While my colleagues are introducing technologies to replace metals, you can see by the numbers the need for specific metals, like the ones we're focused on in our mining business, like copper and battery metals, are only growing stronger. In this segment, we believe we can far outpace the overall market with our differentiated value-creating solutions. Regarding our business model, it revolves around providing tailored customer technical service, which has led to long-term, trusting partnerships with all of the leading mining companies. Building on our service approach, we've introduced digital solutions to help our customers leverage our expertise and make real-time improvements to their mine operations 24/7. This is truly a value differentiator.
I hope this gives you a better understanding of the businesses we operate and how we operate them, and these businesses have earned their place in Syensqo after executing a successful turnaround. They're now very well positioned to drive above-market growth and are backed by committed and highly talented teams. I feel we have the right DNA to deliver now and in the future, and I couldn't be more excited to lead this strong and dedicated organization as we execute against the next chapter in our growth journey. Thank you, and now let me turn it over to our CFO, Chris Davis.
Thanks, Mike. For those of you that I have not met, my name is Christopher Davis, and I'm delighted and privileged to be here today as Syensqo's Chief Financial Officer. My colleagues have done a fantastic job in setting the scene as to why Syensqo has such a bright future as it embarks on its journey as an independent, listed company. With that in mind, my intention is to put all that you've heard today into a broader five-year financial context and to give you more detail on how we will deliver and achieve the mid-term financial targets as set out by Ilham. The numbers presented on this slide demonstrate Syensqo's proven track record of delivering strong profitability and creating value.
Looking at the last three years to 2022, Syensqo has delivered more than 300 basis points of EBITDA margin improvement, with EBITDA margins above 23%. A material increase in return on capital employed, which has more than doubled over the same three-year period to approximately 11% in 2023. To put this into an industry context, Syensqo has consistently outperformed the majority of its peers, delivering top-quartile sales and EBITDA growth, growing at a CAGR of 9% and 14%, respectively. With that in mind, let us turn our attention to our midterm targets. Looking ahead to 2028, we are structurally positioned to continue to outperform the market, enhanced by the opportunities that lie ahead of us. We expect to deliver above-market revenue growth, along with further margin expansion and improving returns on invested capital.
More specifically, our three key midterm targets are: organic sales growth of approximately 5%-7% CAGR through to 2028, almost two times the expected growth in our relevant markets, EBITDA margin expansion to mid-twenties, and improved return on capital employed to mid-teens by 2028. It is also important to note that potential inorganic opportunities may form part of our growth strategy, and these would be over and above the targets that are presented here today. As I will outline in the following slides, we are targeting to generate more than EUR 7 billion of cash over the next five years, of which EUR 3 billion will be available for further value creation, including shareholder returns. From a capital allocation perspective, Syensqo will prioritize growth above other uses of its cash, albeit with clear return parameters.
Along with Ilham and the team, any such spend will be governed by a rigorous and disciplined capital allocation framework. Finally, we will continue to target a strong investment-grade credit rating. Now, let me outline how we will deliver on these targets. Syensqo will achieve a compound annual growth rate in revenue of between 5%-7%, albeit that this will not be evenly distributed over the period. This will be achieved by three key drivers, all linked to what you have heard from our colleagues over the course of today. Specifically, volume growth, which drives approximately 60% of the increase, will come from existing products and programs. This is expected to be driven by, among others, automotive, lightweighting, healthcare, mining and electronics, as well as a recovery in aero, consumer, agro and HPC.
As many of you are aware, in some instances, the issue is not one of demand, but rather capacity constraints, and through debottlenecking, we aim to increase supply, for example, sulf ones capacities. Approximately 30% of the increase will be driven by major investment in our innovation platforms, as outlined by Mike Finelli. Some of these are included in our midterm plans and include, for example, the investments in two new PVDF capacities in both Europe and the USA, albeit these investment returns are back end weighted in the five-year plan. And last but not least, the balance of the increase in revenue will be driven by improved mix and sustained pricing discipline and sales execution. Turning to profitability. Over the midterm, we are committed to maintaining best-in-class EBITDA margins as we accelerate top line growth and maintain tight discipline across our cost base.
As an organization, we will be targeting mid-20s EBITDA margins, which will be delivered through the growth and margin accretive sales, as outlined in the previous slide, which in turn will drive improved asset utilization and dilution of the fixed cost overheads. This operating leverage and further cost savings initiatives will see a real reduction in unit costs over the period. Included in the EBITDA forecast is the dyssynergies of approximately EUR 35 million-EUR 40 million, as previously communicated to the market relating to the separation. As you are aware, Solvay has delivered more than EUR 500 million in cost savings over the past four years, of which a significant portion relates to Solvay.
It is our intention to continue this discipline and more than offset these dyssynergies through detailed cost savings initiatives that have already been identified, so as to ensure that shareholders are cost neutral in as far as the separation is concerned. That said, as we have outlined in the presentations today, Syensqo is a growth company that is exposed to a number of exciting megatrends. It is our intention to pursue these opportunities, and as such, there will be increased spend on research and innovation, which will increase to approximately 5% of sales. We do not see research and innovation as a cost, but rather a profitable investment. It has allowed us to build competitive advantages and technologies over the years as we continually upgrade our portfolio.
By way of example, approximately 20% of our current sales are from new products or applications that were not in our portfolio five years ago. These investments will not only support the delivery of our mid-term growth targets, but given the longer-term investment cycle of some of these projects, will also serve to drive growth beyond 2028. Moving to return on capital employed. As I've already mentioned, returns remain an important metric for Syensqo. We are targeting an improvement in our return on capital employed from approximately 11% in 2023 to the mid-teens % by 2028. The key drivers of this ROCE improvement are simply a function of, firstly, margin expansion, which drives greater earnings from the business.
Secondly, the increased volumes on existing assets, driving both efficiency and utilization benefits as we continue to sweat our existing manufacturing footprint, and then further growth investments that drive higher returns. These investments will increase our asset base in the midterm, with earning, earnings to follow at a later stage. Turning to cash generation, Syensqo will deliver more than EUR 7 billion of cash over the next five years. This cash will come from the higher earnings, as well as maintaining discipline and working capital management. Approximately 30% of the cash will be allocated to sustenance capital expenditure, which includes, among others, spend on asset maintenance, our One Planet initiatives, and investments in our IT systems to support our operations, which we believe will deliver significant benefits over time.
A further 25% will be spent on growth capital, including capacity expansions in PVDF production and cell phones in the U.S.A, research and innovation projects, and attractive growth projects with returns exceeding 15%. These two allocations of capital underpin and are included in our 2028 targets. What this means is that we have a further 45% or EUR 3 billion of cash available to create further value above and beyond the targets set out today, and this includes additional growth capital, value accretive M&A, shareholder returns, and further balance sheet de-leveraging. Importantly, we will ensure that there is effective competition for any discretionary capital that we allocate to growth, making sure we balance both the short-term and the long-term objectives, as well as ensuring balanced allocation between the materials, Consumer & Resources, and platforms portfolios that build on their competitive advantages.
Turning to the next slide, which sets out our liquidity profile, anticipated on separation of Syensqo from Solvay. As we commence our journey as an independently listed company, I'm pleased to report we will have strong levels of liquidity available, as demonstrated by the EUR 1.7 billion of undrawn, committed bank facilities and a further EUR 1.2 billion of cash on hand. With net debt expected to be EUR 1.6 billion, our gearing will be below 20%, and our net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio will be 1x. The key message is that our debt levels are comfortably within requirements to maintain our credit rating, which at BBB+ and Baa1 with S&P and Moody's, respectively, is in line with our June 2023 expectations. With that in mind, I'd like to bring your attention to our disciplined capital allocation framework.
As you've heard from the previous presenters, Syensqo is in an enviable position, not only being a leader in its field with expertise and innovation, but also being exposed to some exciting opportunities for growth and investment. We have also shown on the previous slides that we currently have a strong balance sheet and that approximately 45% of the EUR 7 billion in cash generated over the next five years will be available for further value creation. As a company, we will be focused on ensuring that allocated capital delivers at or above the respective hurdle rates. Cash generation remains strong, and that our overall capital management program delivers returns to shareholders over time. That said, one of the key ingredients to deliver value for shareholders is ensuring capital discipline.
One of my key priorities coming into the role is to ensure we continue our disciplined approach to capital management and cash, and as such, we intend to focus on key underlying priorities and how we allocate or use our excess cash. One of our key priorities will be on ensuring we maintain a well-invested asset base that is fit for the future, so as to deliver more with less. We intend to maintain flexibility, so that we can pursue options through the cycle, and as such, we will ensure we have sufficient liquidity available at all times. Finally, we value and will maintain our strong investment-grade credit rating, which secures us access to the committed debt facilities we require and allows us the ability to do so on desired terms in exchange for appropriate pricing.
Therefore, we will take a balanced approach to capital management that will enable us to realize not only the growth, objectives, and opportunities that the business presidents and Ilham have shared with you today, but also allow us to continue to invest in the platforms that Mark has spoken about, which drives significant value for Syensqo and its customers. The key message today, from a financial perspective, is Syensqo will deliver profitable growth with improved returns over the next five years and importantly, has a strong balance sheet and cash generation to create value for all our stakeholders. If you don't mind, if you can indulge me for a moment longer, and I don't think you need your iPads for this, I would like to share with you my initial observations as I've come into Syensqo and into Solvay.
I've now been in the role for approximately two months, and as a newcomer to the business, I've had the opportunity to visit a number of key sites and locations before taking on the role. I have to say that my experience has been nothing short of inspiring. I have felt an overwhelming sense of excitement, mingled with anticipation as staff have embraced the separation. Everyone I have met sees Syensqo as a place where there are opportunities to learn, to grow, and to contribute to something larger than themselves. It is that passion that will allow them to continue to push the boundaries of what they think is possible, and continue to achieve the innovation that has become such a way of life for Syensqo. Am I glad that I've joined Syensqo? Absolutely.
What I've seen to date fuels my determination to make a meaningful impact in this role, and to be part of something that I have no doubt will be truly exceptional. Over the next few months, I'm looking forward to meeting with investors and analysts and to understand what is important to you. With that, I'll now hand you back to Ilham. Thank you.
Wow! I think it's very difficult to add anything to what just Chris and the team said. I knew that today would be very special. Specifically for me, it has been one of the best ride in my life. But I didn't expect this, so thank you, guys. Honestly, so inspiring, inspired, and so excited. And I've always said, you know, that our people are our greatest assets, and today you are getting a glimpse of what that means. And I don't just mean here in the room, but also outside the room. You will meet them in our innovation booths, too, and all around the company. And I think Chris said it as a newcomer, there is a lot of excitement. You see it in the engagement score, 80%. 80%. So we've heard some great things today.
Hydrogen is the new oil. Thank you. Remember it, right? I will remember it, right. Rodrigo, your markets are growing very fast, factor of 10 by 2050. Can you accelerate a bit? And every time I listen to Mike and Peter discuss lightweighting, I think we got a lot of questions from the analysts and the community about PVDF and batteries. You heard that lightweighting is even more important. I come always even a long way and energized, so thank you. Today was no different. And, Mike, you've just done a great job. I think you, you have been an inspiration to me and to the whole team in the past five years, and we both know that Consumers & Resources has some real great hidden jewels, and I'm counting on you and to the team to grow twice as fast as your market.
So, ladies and gentlemen, we are now coming to the end of today's inaugural event for Syensqo. Before I forget, how you will find Syensqo on your trading screens, we made this easy for you. I'm gonna spell it: S-Y-E-N-S, and you will find our new ticker here. SYENS. Simple, isn't it? Just remember the spelling. So please remember now, what is Syensqo? Quite simple. We are growth. This is us, and this is only the beginning. Thank you very much.
Can you have them lower the, the shade?
Yeah. Maybe if you can decrease a bit the lights here. Yeah.
Yeah, the curtain. It's a little bright.
Okay, so we welcome your questions. Yeah?
Yes, and maybe-
We have a question over there.
I just would like to remind you that we are still being webcasted, so if you can wait until the microphone reaches you and state your name and then ask your question. Thank you.
Peter Clark, SocGen.
Hey.
I'm sorry, I've got three. I mean, the first one is around the value pricing, which is a part of the growth through to 2028. Obviously, there's a lot of concern also in Syensqo about next year, and particularly around Specialty Polymers.
Mm-hmm.
I'm just wondering, have you tasked the management with keeping at least net pricing flat?
Mm-hmm.
If not pricing?
Yep.
Second question is, there's something about inorganic growth, obviously, on the potential spend. My understanding is Specialty Polymers is probably not a focus for that, given the market. But just around that question and around also the other side of that, disposals, 'cause, of course, you have some non-core business. You also say there's no sacred cows. Obviously, there's been a lot of debate about the portfolio, and particularly some of the consumer businesses going in, so a little question around that. And then the last one, composites, which I think you tasked with getting the margin up to Specialty Polymers. Obviously, new heights. Obviously, it's done very well. It had a lot of cost cutting, and on paper, sort of took it there, but Specialty Polymers has moved ahead. So when we look forward, whether it's realistic for them to be similar sort of margin.
Mm.
Thank you.
Great questions. I'll start, and then I'll play the orchestra chief, right? On pricing, I think you said it's. Since the fall 2021, I knew that this is, you know, one of the things I wanted to test in the company. Didn't have time with the team before. We had to go through COVID, et cetera. And in the fall 2021, we started the training I was talking about in my prepared remark. And believe it or not, we started testing our value pricing prior to the Russian War. Inflation helped us, obviously, really helped us to deploy what we wanted to do. So yeah, I think you said it very well. I promised to the markets with the team, net pricing flattish in the second half. You've seen our Q3.
Too early to talk about quarter four, but that's exactly what we are doing. So you can expect from a Syensqo type of company, right? Unlike Solvay, right? To really look at where we can practice value pricing, which means that we share the value we create with our customers, who may not have been doing this properly in the past. That's why we educated, we trained our people. But obviously, in areas where we are less differentiated, if the raw costs are down, we're giving away some pricing. We did this in quarter three, we did this in quarter two already, right? But our next pricing, we will fight for it, and that's what you have seen in quarter three. So we— Bear with us. This is... I think you've seen it in, and maybe, Chris, you can share a bit. You've seen our projection.
You've seen the pricing contribution to our next sales growth and top line growth. It's pricing and mix, because we are gonna also bring some new innovations, which are gonna price better at a higher contribution margin. Maybe Mike Radossich can explain how he's now managing his business. He has done the deepest transformation by looking at contribution margin by reactor, right? We were not used to do that in the past. Our salespeople were actually, you know, incentivized on some sales, not knowing, is this coming from volume on pricing? Now, we look at the contribution margin. They are incentivized according to contribution margin, which is extremely important, right? So that's one, and I think early next year when we will share with you our budget 2024, I know you are impatient to get more glimpse on that. Be patient.
We'll come back to you on that. Organic growth. I think he talked about Specialty Polymers. You want to pick it up, Peter?
Sure.
Yeah.
So I think the question on Specialty Polymers was around pricing, Peter.
Sure.
Pricing power.
Inorganic.
Super. So let me start with pricing power, then maybe move to inorganic growth. So on pricing power, for the majority of our portfolio, we'd feel very comfortable with our current pricing power. As raw materials go up or down, we may move our pricing up or down with our customers to some extent, but the majority is pretty stable. On a significant part of our portfolio, I think there's further we can go on pricing power. There are several lines where we're at capacity today, where I think we can explore a little more. And then on some of our portfolio, it may be interesting to reinvest a part of our pricing power to improve our shares and growth. But overall, I think I'm very comfortable with the outlook that you gave.
Okay. Then there was a question on composites, and obviously the question is: yeah, you've done a lot of cost cutting, which we did, by the way, in 2020. This business has Syensco generated how much, Chris, on cost savings from the EUR 500 million of-
Of the 500, I think the largest portion of it related to Syensqo .
Yeah. So probably even 60%, 1/3, was composite material. So we've done a lot, including closing 2 plants, which were at lower returns at that time. But the best is yet to come. You want to talk about that?
Yeah, I can, I can say a few words about that. I, I hope that the, that the market evolution that I presented in the slide is kind of self-explanatory. The, the effect of, of two consecutive crises, because one was an accident crisis, and then immediately followed by COVID, was very bad for the industry. So we are in an industry where the supply chain is extremely long.
Mm.
So when it fell, we knew ahead of time that it was going to take a very long time to recover, because, again, continuing with my narrative, to build an airplane is a very, very, very long process. So when we did the cost cutting, we knew that the market was coming back, but we also knew that the market was not coming back fast as it did in other segments. So we basically did what we have to do. Then, as we started to see the market going back up again, we, we became fit again, and now we are ready to ride the wave that I described. So you will see the dynamics of this market are different than other markets that move faster, up or down.
I think we did the right thing at the right time, and now we're doing the right thing at the right time, and we have a lot of visibility.
So yeah, I mean, Rodrigo said this very well. Syensqo really washed off inflation every year since I joined the company, right? So we are good at knowing where to cut the bad costs.
Mm-hmm.
When you are growth company, you need to be, you know, prudent, right? Not too much cut your costs, if you know they carry your growth. So that's the balance with the team you are seeing. The second advantage, specifically in COVID, is that we were not sitting on carbon fiber assets, right? So we variabilized some fixed costs compared to some peers, right? So yeah, I mean, I'm very encouraged by the growth perspective. I mean, you've seen the presentation. This is predictable. It's gonna happen. We are in narrow bodies, right? Where the composite is, what? 25%, 30% penetration. We can go up to 50. One third of our business is defense. We love defense business. I love it. It carries innovation before it goes to civil aviation. So I'm very excited about this.
Not to talk about the thermoplastic composites platform, which will come whenever it is, right? In aviation, it's gonna take a bit longer because the qualification, certification times, it's a bit long, but it's gonna come, right. Then the other question, no sacred cow. Yeah, I mean, I say this, we've done it. Can you tell them what you've done in maybe in resource-
Sure.
-and consumers?
Sure. So, in 2019, we launched the optimized mandate. Under that mandate, we divested non-core assets. Personally, in the Novecare business, we divested five plants in our commodity amphoteric business. We continue to look at opportunities to drive cost improvement, but the large part of that optimization is now behind us. As you mentioned, you know, we built up a lot of muscle over the last five years. Nothing like we've ever done before. We looked at contribution margin per reactor hour, per product, and if it wasn't core, wasn't strategic, wasn't part of a larger portfolio, we looked to divest it or look at other strategic options for it. So it's been a tremendous run over the last five years. And again, I think that there's more opportunities for us to look at.
With my expanded responsibilities, I'm going to go hard at that as well.
Absolutely. Really, the muscle is there. We will always assess whether we are the right owner or not.
Good afternoon, Wim Hoste, KBC Securities. I also have a couple of questions, please. First one would be on the margin outlook for Materials and the remainder of the portfolio. I think Materials held up relatively well in the recent past. There was more pressure at solutions. So, in the underlying EBITDA outlook or margin outlook you gave, what's kind of the split or momentum between the two parts? If you can talk about that. Then second question would be on the dividend policy. Solvay Group will have a stable dividend at the combined group mentioned to keep that dividend stable and split between Syensqo and Solvay. So what is the kind of dividend policy that you will apply within the cash buckets that you elaborated on?
And then a third question would be on the outlook for the Aroma business, which has been under significant pressure in the last few quarters. How do you view that one strategically and also from a competitive dynamic point of view? Those were the questions. Thank you.
Okay, very good. So we'll do Materials, Peter. Mike, you do C&R, EBITDA, margins and Aroma, and then dividend, you, Chris.
We talked a little bit about where the pricing was going in Specialty Polymers in the segments. That'll lead us to decent maintenance of our margins. So I wouldn't see that as a significant concern.
We're in the league one top margins, right? I mean, at one point of time, it's more about understanding your value pricing and the value you create with your customers. I want the team, if they deliver 100 as a value, we share the value creation, 50/50. It has nothing to do with the price, right? Nothing to do. If I give lightweighting, if the object is mobile, it consume less fuel, it emits less CO2. We lower the total cost of ownership, there is a value. So we're getting better at that. The best is yet to come. We are just now scratching the surface. But you have to be differentiated. You cannot fool yourself.
You have to look at the mirror and say, "Am I bringing something very different from our competitors?" And I hope with Peter's presentation, you've seen that. And, and you're gonna see it in the innovation tour, right? How, how much is complicated, unique, when you bring the power of the end. They don't come to us with one spec. They come to us where there are many, many specs, and this is where we can provide a unique solution, agnostic to polymer. They don't come to us because we are PEEK producer. They should not, by the way. They should not, right? So I think that's gonna come over. And I think as, as Peter said, margins are not a problem there. We'll continue increasing our share of wallet, looking for new applications, and continue, you know, promoting our new solutions. C&R?
Sure. On the C&R, we're continuing to align our costs with the lower volume and demand outlook. There will be some solid operating leverage when that volume does come back. And in this market, we're continuing to take share of wallet as well. So we continue to push our teams to grow. We have a very strong value proposition, and it's not just the product. We're selling the solution and the application support behind it. As far as our Aroma business is concerned, yes, the dynamic has absolutely changed in that market segment very rapidly. There's been a lot of capacity that's come online in China. I view us as having a pretty strong position.
You know, we have assets in on all three continents, something that no other supplier has in the industry. We have to fix this business, there's no doubt about it, and we will. And we're aligning our teams to come forward with projects to, to do that, and again, rightsize our costs to the, the current volume and the demand outlook. We're going to fix the business.
And here, I mean, he cannot say it, so I'm gonna say it for him. This is the team who has really increased drastically the return on capital employed. I, I like cash, and I like return on capital employed. Because before Mike's time, it was fill the pot. We're filling the pot. He dared not only prune in the portfolio and letting go some businesses where we were not the right owners, but he dared with his team to really look portfolio of products. We pruned the portfolio of products, and we started pruning the portfolio of customers, because sometimes they don't pay for the value we bring. So I think what you see, the 20% you've seen on margin, has been already improving. It doesn't mean that it's gonna, it's not gonna normalize, right, if the demands are weak.
But I feel really better than five years ago with the discipline on how to fill the pots in consumers, the right business. Really. We are way ahead now of the curve. Now we need to continue, you know, upgrading our portfolio, bringing that differentiation, and I think Mike has explained a lot, and are all my out. It's, it's in a fixing mode. Dividend?
Yeah, you're right. On the dividend policy, we haven't come out with a public statement, for example. We have a new board, and we intend to work with that new board to come out with a policy. That said, I think it's been quite clear, at least I think from my message today, is that we are a growth company, and the allocation of cash will focus on growth, making sure that it hits the right parameters. And that's where it'll come. We will look to do shareholder returns to the extent that we can, and it comes in the one of the frameworks of the capital allocation framework.
That said, my experience from the past, I was in a company that had a progressive dividend, and those can become unsustainable when you get to a point where you're paying more than 100% of your earnings, and we moved to a payout ratio. So that's just my experience.
Anybody over here? Go ahead.
Yeah.
Hi, Chetan from JP Morgan. A few questions. I think, throughout the presentation, there were a couple of times where you referred to 50% of portfolio being IP and long-term supply, protected. Can you expand and discuss what exactly you mean by 50% of the business being protected?
Mm-hmm.
The second question I had was, there was this, there was this mention of EUR 500 million of EBITDA contribution from new projects. Is that until 2028 or is it some of that is actually spilling over beyond 2028? And can you talk about the phasing, how much might come in the next two years versus how much is coming actually in the outer years? And the last question was on the CapEx. I think the implied CapEx intensity for, for the group as a whole seems to be like 9%-9.5% of sales. And within that, I think I heard consumer is 5%, so clearly the materials part is over 10%.
Mm-hmm.
Why is it so high?
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Because you mentioned you already have a well-invested asset base, so why is the intensity so high for the materials part?
Okay. Thank you, Chetan. So IP, maybe we can talk about IP in the growth platforms and then the long-term suppliers contracts in composites, as an example.
Yeah. So on the IP standpoint, I think as you saw on the one slide, we have over 1,600 patents in place. Those patents give us protection, and what I mean by that is the competitors can't just make that product. And as we said in the our materials and our products, these are specialties, so customers buy them based on performance. So unless you make exactly what we've made, which they can't do because of the IP, they can't match our performance. So that's what we mean by the IP part, right? So we're protected from competitors copying what we do.
So that's an important point, Chetan, in any science research-invested company, right? Is your IP. And I think what we are trying to do better now is really to look at reinforcements of the IP. It means, you know your intel in the market, you collect competitive products, and you know where people are infringing, and you go after them. You will see us doing that, right? I was very public in China, even in my... It was in the news, so I can talk about it, about IP protection. To give you an idea, one of your favorite guys is suspension PVDF, right? So let's take it in the U.S. to not make it controversial. But you know, we have IP, and the United States of America put tariffs, right, Mike? 30%?
Yeah, there's the 301 tariffs. They were 25% plus the normal harmonized tariffs of 6.5%.
Yeah.
Those are the tariffs.
You know, when you got this, you really—each investment, we look at all of this: our IP position, subsidies, yes or no, and protection, geographic protection, specifically now that some of our products and solutions are considered as critical materials. The other protection, and that's the 50, right? Probably 50% more here, is IP on the material—on the Specialty Polymers. The composites is the long-term contracts, right? Can you explain a bit, Rodrigo?
Yes. In this industry, in aerospace and defense, as I mentioned, and this is applicable also for contracts, the supply chains are very, very long. Let's say to develop a new product in a new aircraft takes a very long time. And the contract visibility that we have is quite long term. Let's say in this industry, one year is nothing. You talk about multiyears contracts. And on top of that, they are not the normal commercial contracts. You are engaging into contractual agreements where you are, let's say, specifying, you know, a price, which with indexes on a certain quality, on certain ability to change, et cetera.
So we basically have a very good end-to-end coverage on what we do, because as we enter long-term contract with our customers, we also try to get our back-to-back customers with our suppliers, because we do buy some things. And as I mentioned in my presentation, this gives a very, very good visibility and predictability. It's how this industry operates. You know, to add to this remark, sometimes you know, for example, when the financial community analyzes certain performance in one quarter, in this industry, one quarter doesn't mean much. You know, everything needs to be aggregated into several quarters at the bare minimum.
In my words, they kick you out if you do really, really something wrong.
Yeah.
Frankly, it's not... I mean, you have to earn the trust. Productivity is important, I think Rodrigo told you. I mean, I worked in many sectors in my life. Aviation is extremely manual and not automated yet, and that's why you see still bottlenecks out there, because the supply chain, not only us, but our suppliers. So I think in the next decade, there will be a real transformation of the aviation, you know, including through technologies like thermoplastic composites Mike talked about. But definitely, the stickiness of our long-term contracts is a plus and gives predictability and visibility.
Yeah.
Just on the CapEx, I think we've publicly stated that over the next five years, we'll be spending about EUR 3.9 billion in CapEx, and it's roughly spread evenly over the five-year period. I think there's a slight jump in 2025 and 2026. That said, more than 50% of that spend is on sustenance, which includes leasing, it includes maintenance of your assets, it includes One Planet initiatives, and it includes IT. The balance is then split between growth and R&R. And now the two biggest growth projects that we have over that period are the PVDF plants. And that capital is weighted towards kind of from now through to all the 2026.
But importantly, the capital intensity metric, it starts at about 11%, but by the time we get to 2028, it's sitting at about 7%. So it does come off to normal levels.
The EUR 500 million.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think the EUR 500 million that was referred to on the slot was, on the slide, the projects at maturity. Now, the biggest ones that are included in that EUR 500 million would be the two PVDF plants.
But the U.S. one, will not-
Yeah, that one-
-be realized fully in, you know, between now and 2028, because we just started. You've seen our joint venture, you know, press release announcements with Orbia. We need, what, three years, guys, to-
It'll ramp up the full capacity-
Yeah
... by 2032, 33.
Yeah.
Yes.
So, you know, it will take time, Chetan, to get to the 5 million, you know, EV cars we will supply. So part of it is there, but anyway, the CapEx is in the envelope. The good news there is that we got the subsidies of almost half of our CapEx. You know, it's now covered by the IRA, which DOE has given us, so it's official.
We're under contract.
We are under contract.
That is a really important point, to be under contract.
Yeah. Which is cool. It's not about taxes or whatever. It's really they reimburse our bills on steel, et cetera. So we really like that. The PVDF in France, in Europe is almost behind us, right? I mean, two-thirds is sunk money. We already did that. You've seen the sulfone. You've seen some, you know, CapEx on consumer resources. But yeah, so, you know, different maturities. But we wanted to give you transparency on the EBITDA we're going to bring, which is pretty cool. And all of this is an IRR, which is, you know, above, you know, what's what we say, that's all. We remember 15%, so we will get there.
Hey, this is Matthew Yates from Bank of America. I'd just like to ask a question around the creation of this company and the benefit. When I look at the financial targets you've put out today, both in terms of top line and margin, that looks broadly consistent with what the business is already doing. So where is the step change in operational performance that you would hope would come with a more focused, accountable entity that you described? Or is the biggest benefit of creating this company the financial flexibility you have from the balance sheet and the dividend policy to allocate capital going forward?
Yeah, great question. Yeah, I mean, obviously, I talked a lot during my speech, right, about the rationale, but, you know, we, we've had probably 23 months with you guys explaining the rationale. And one of those is that we are... I mean, look, we are undervalued. I mean, look at our assets and our results in five years. I mean, nobody can argue that, the valuation of these outstanding assets is not there. But more importantly, as you mentioned, this is a growth company, and therefore, we have put guidance now on top-line growth, right? You're right. I think you noticed very well many of those businesses have been growing at that level of growth. But listen, I mean, we are already higher than any peer out there, right? Can we do it?
Yes, we've done it in the past. Peter has shown you, you know, what we've done in Specialty Polymers. And more or less, if you take Material Esco business, we grew, what? Probably 5% between 2013 and 2022, so almost a decade, all right? More or less. And in the best years I have been in the job, double that, but pricing was part of it, right? So what we are saying is, we're going to grow twice our market. That's what we need you need to think about this way. Whatever the market does, and I'm sure you all have in mind 2024, so I do as well. But bear with us. Whatever the market does, whatever our peers they do, including the formidable one, we want to outgrow that growth rate.
So that's how quality of growth and through penetration. I think, I hope that the team did a good job and convinced you it's not only about the market, it's penetration with technologies. Be it in a plane, you know, the narrow bodies. Be it in EV. I think Peter shown you, you know, 30% plus of our sales are in EV. And even if, I don't know, Oxford is saying, what? 2% auto, auto built rate, growth rate next year. EV will grow, what? 19-
19.
19%. So we like that because there is a shift of technology out there with EV and hybrids. There is, there is a penetration of our technology because we bring lightweighting in. Remember, it's not only battery, it's everything under the hood application, right? And, and I like the switch because in ICE, in a conventional engine car, we sell 6 kilo, you move to EV is 9 kilo?
Almost 12, yeah.
Yeah, and hybrid is 12. We love it. We can sell more. This is the repeatable algorithm our team needs now to master, right? It's new for us, you know, to just repeat that algorithm, but I like it. We have a winning solution. We know how to do it. We know the customer. If you have a battery casing in Specialty Polymers with Volkswagen, why it doesn't go to Toyota and to Tesla, right? It can go everywhere. And this is where we need to become an algorithm machine, making repeatability day after day, as soon as we have a success story.
If I may, Ilham, just some reflection, because I think if you're not inside the business, it's quite difficult to transmit. But maybe in the showroom, you will get the flavor.
Yeah.
I call it the customer interaction model that we have, and what you will see in the showroom, is very common throughout the company. You know, you can be talking about an airplane or agricultural seeds or thermoplastic composites or automotive. That customer interaction model, I think it's very valid across. You know, as an executive of this company, I think Ilham has been doing an outstanding job, kind of like replicating this continuum customer interaction model, which has been refined in the last years. It's just my reflection.
The last one is that the new investments will bear fruit at the end of the range, right? I mean, like the PVDF in the U.S., whatever. So you will see a higher growth rate at the end of the cycle than before.
I mean, if I can just further that point. I mean, we made it quite clear that a number of these R&I investments are longer term investments. So what you should see back end weight, they're going to deliver on 2028 and beyond, and hence we are increasing our R&I spend in this business to capture the mega trends that we're exposed to.
Absolutely. Anybody else? Here.
Thank you. Sebastian Bray from Berenberg Bank. Just to your point on the back end loadedness of some of the investment pipeline, how long does it take to load the PVDF plant fully in an environment of normal utilization? And what visibility does Syensqo have on the prices that are going to be achieved by these PVDF facilities at this stage? I assume that take or pay contracts are a little premature at this stage, but if they exist, it would be helpful. Could I just ask for a point of clarification as well? The tax incentives and other benefits of about $57 million or close to $60 million, I can't remember, that were mentioned earlier, is that new information that was released today specific to the U.S. facilities, or is that a combination of benefits across the EU and the U.S.?
Is all of the benefit now footed by governments for the PVDF facilities out there? In other words, let's say you invest about EUR 1 billion in across France and the U.S., the-
Mm-hmm.
EUR 230 million is what the state pays.
On the U.S. investments, right, you are talking about, the tax incentive-
Yeah, of course.
You've seen in the... Yeah. Okay.
That's just the U.S.
Yeah. But we'll get you the... So maybe the PVDF plans. Mike, you want to take it?
Yeah, as far as how long does it take to fill?
Yeah.
Well, first it depends on the size-
And, and-
Build or fill?
Fill.
Okay. It depends on the size of the plant, right? So the one that we have in the U.S. is probably going to take about 5-6 years, depending on how fast the industry takes off, based on what we expect today. The one in Europe will fill faster than that-
Yeah.
because it's smaller.
Yeah. And the way we look at that is that we follow our customers' investments, right? So the battery makers, I mean, even the Chinese now are contemplating or are working on investments in Europe on batteries, right? So we go with steel on the ground where our customers are. So in the U.S., for example, we are in conversations, in Europe as well, actually, we pushed back on some long-term contracts because we want to keep some flexibility, right? So we know the PVDF business very well. We are vertically integrated in Europe. In the U.S., our alliance with Orbia gives us that vertical integration, which I truly believe is barrier to entry, as a must to have. So when you think IP, obviously, we talked about IP.
It's not only IP protecting with patents, it's some raw material and vertical integration. With the geopolitics today and the complexity of making some raw material travel between regions, it's a must to have in some areas, right? To protect your business and to be viable now. Okay?
Can I add something, which I think is important. Half of our PVDF business is completely outside of battery. So, the other half of our business is in semicon, on oil and gas, for things like flexible risers. That business is contracted out typically 3-7 years, and we have excellent visibility on its growth and its pricing, and its pricing is contracted.
Mm-hmm.
So I think that the battery business is a huge opportunity, and the rest of the PVDF business offers a great backstop on that opportunity. I don't know if that's helpful.
Could I also confirm, is it 31% the tariff for China exporting to the U.S. for PVDF?
Yeah, there's two parts, right? So you have the 3-in-1 tariffs, which is at 25%, then you have the normal harmonized tariff code of 6.5. So the total is 31.5%. Yeah.
Thank you.
This is the U.S.
Thank you.
Remember, guys, we did also our coming out in quarter two because of the PVDF margin, and we even shared with you, right, that the margins were flattish, right? Even if the PVDF go into batteries, right, we gave away some pricing, 142b story and all of this. But the margins in other segments Peter was talking about was not only holding up, but some increasing.
We never answered the EUR 57 million.
Yeah, you said that, no?
No, I don't think I ever answered your EUR 57 million.
Yeah.
That is grants from the state of Georgia-
Yeah
for the plant we have in the United States, the one we're going to build in Georgia. So that's the U.S. investment, and that's, that's, mostly tax, tax credits and things like that. So not, not-
It's purely U.S.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, hi, good afternoon. Frank Claassen , Peter cam. We've got a question on the transition services agreement. So let's say the contract you've closed with your soon-to-be former parent for IT and, and, and back office functions. If I'm not mistaken, that runs for two years?
Mm-hmm.
So, yeah, what kind of steps do you need to take in the coming two years?
Mm.
What kind of costs are involved to, let's say, yeah, be safe when the contract rolls off?
Yeah, I mean, separating, I've done it once in my life in the U.S., and it's always the most difficult things is the IT, right, parts and the digital part of it. Two years is what's gonna, we're gonna do it in two years. If we can do it quicker, obviously, we'll do it. The good news for us is that we are coming from the same parent company, yeah? This is not unfriendly divorce. This is a wanted separation. So we are writing the separation on our terms, both the right terms, to protect the interests of the two companies. From the costs perspective, from the benefits of restructuring, right, and on the exit plan. So the way it's gonna work, Syensqo is copy-pasting some... You know, I'm not an IT expert, but copy-pasting some ecosystems, right?
As from now, we will have this TSA and service agreements, which Syensqo will pay for to the new Solvay, right? And obviously, smoothly, the teams joined at the hips between the two companies will be working, one on building up a new system, right? And the other one on exiting and simplifying its system. Because one of the rationale, ladies and gentlemen, I'm not sure you get this, is that under the same roof, we have different needs. Solvay's simplification, standardization. They need a simple kitchen, different kitchen, different basements. Syensqo needs CRM, customer relationship management, sophistication in IT, right? Pricing dynamics, understanding how much is cost, a different perspective. And we can't do that half-pregnant in between.
By doing this, we have a unique opportunity in the coming two years to really, you know, fit for purpose the system to allow us to meet our strategies with our customers. That's a hidden benefit, right? I mean, it's huge, huge in the company. I really believe it's gonna revolutionize the way we are operating internally and with our customers. ERP to ERPs. I think there are so many things, supply chain management. We don't have visibility always on what the customer they stock or not. I mean, you ask us about stocking in batteries, you remember? I hope that is behind us by now.
It's behind us.
But, you know, just answering your question was a nightmare, because the system are not built right in the value chain. And that's what we need to do differently as a specialty company. So I think you will see that's, you know, separation, and the cost of doing this is baked into our plans.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, it's Laurent from BNP Paribas.
Ah, hi, Laurent.
Hi, I've got a two-part question on PFAS. The first question may be for Peter or Mike, is around production. Can you remind us where you stand on, I guess, the phase out of PFAS in the PVDF production, for instance? I think at the time of 2026. But my understanding is that you may be doing this a bit faster. And then the second question is on PFAS in terms of significant liabilities-
Right.
That you're highlighting in the listing doc and in the presentation. What are the milestones that you have in mind or that you want us to have in mind to assess, I guess, how significant those liabilities are?
Mm-hmm.
Thank you.
Thank you. So maybe-
I think I'll answer the PVDF.
The surfactants, New Jersey, and-
Yeah, I can handle the PVDF.
Yeah.
And then Peter can talk about the overall PFAS situation in the GBU. So with respect to PVDF, just to be clear, we produce two types of PVDF: suspension PVDF and emulsion PVDF. Suspension PVDF, which is the two big investments, the one we keep talking about, right? The U.S. one and the one in Europe. That's suspension PVDF. It never used surfactants, ever, and it doesn't need them. It's a suspension technology, so I just want to be super clear. That technology does not require fluoro surfactants. The emulsion chemistry, which is what we produce in New Jersey, right? That's where we phased out already. In June of 2021, we phased out the use of those surfactants, and we've gone to a non-surfactant technology. No fluoro surfactants at all.
So in the case of PVDF, we are out completely of any surfactants. And just to be clear, again, we only ever use them in the emulsion chemistry. So I think Peter can comment on the rest of Specialty Polymers.
Yeah, no, thanks, Mike. So we're replacing our fluorinated surfactants with non-fluorinated surfactant systems in all of our fluoropolymers. Those fluoropolymers where we did not feel we could do that reliably, we have already exited all the business. We have exited or are exiting all businesses we consider to be consumer facing. So what we're gonna be left with is a portfolio of fluoropolymers, which are made without using fluoro surfactants by the end of 2026, the date we gave.
Mm-hmm.
In addition, we have invested hugely, around EUR 100 million in pollution abatement systems, to control all of the effluents and releases from the plants where we make these products, down to below detectable limits. So I feel really confident that we've created a business system that's robust for the future. Maybe Ilham?
Yeah, I mean, I think the PFAS is one of the things we pride in this organization-
Mm.
Since five years because it's an innovation story. We exited New Jersey back in July 2021, and I'm so proud that before the split, we are getting into a settlement with New Jersey. We passed the 90 days. It's in the provisions. You've seen it. We told you how much cash we're gonna spend next year, and the rest is remediation over 30 years. And by the way, we are now in negotiation with former owners and people from whom we bought those surfactants. As a responsible company, we took the whole number, but you can expect it to be lower than this. But let us make the homework and announce it when it's ready. On the PFAS and the fluoro surfactants, that's what Peter and Mike told you. There are three things, three strategies from Solvay. Exit the fluoro surfactants.
We believe that the world should run without it.
Mm.
We did it in New Jersey, and we are doing it in Spinetta, in Italy. Yes, Laurent, we already switched to a non-bioaccumulable surfactants.
Mm.
It's already clean, right? Even that surfactants will be exited latest by 2026. Number two is the lowest emission possible, right? So that's what we are doing, is really working close loop, right? We put EUR 40 million of investments in water treatments in Spinetta, for example. So our ambition is to have a technical zero, we call it, which means that you don't detect it anymore in air, in water, and in soil. So that's the future of... And number three is innovation.
Mm.
And we've shown it in most of the PFAS replacements we've been doing with our customers, but also in how to make the forever molecule to remove the, the forever, right? So we are investing with academia, with partners, with startups, to see how we can remediate differently and reuse the PFAS in the future. Those are our three, right? Now, as you know, the fluoropolymers of low concern will remain, right? I mean, those are necessary for batteries. Yeah. Without fluoropolymer, there is no battery. Without fluoropolymer, there is no-
No hydrogen.
-green hydrogen.
No semicon.
There is no semicon. And I think you've read the press, so I think the value chain obviously is looking at that. So for us, we're a responsible company. That's what you can expect from us. A responsible manufacturer will always raise the bar. And for us, you know, legislation is the floor.
Could I, can I go a bit further, Laurent? I think there's a substantial opportunity here. That this part of our business is profitable, and by acting responsibly, proactively investing, and explaining what we're doing to our customers, I think we significantly enhance the value proposition we bring to the market. So I think that helps us build share, build margin over time, and it's the right thing to do.
And just want to add one more point. And Ilham, what, four or five years? Four years ago now, we started the... Well, we quadrupled our R&I effort.
Yes.
Yeah.
There were 10. They became 100 now.
I can tell you-
Yeah
... many of our competitors are now trying to go into this direction with non-fluoro surfactant, you know, technologies. We are far ahead of our competition in this, in this space. We are doing things that are quite different, and there will be some patents coming out, you know, in some time. But we've got some technology and things that we are doing that is quite different and a, and a different route to solve this problem. And it's because we started way, way in advance.
Right. Yeah, just to quantify that, 'cause I, I think the number's quite compelling. Nearly 300 man years of research in solving this problem from our customers since 2019. So you've got to be of a certain scale to be able to deploy 300 man years of research over four years.
We are very happy we did that. That's why now you, you have more transparency on, Laurent, on the provision, specifically on the New Jersey, which is our largest case, and, and I'm so happy that we give that transparency and clarity before the splits. It's so important, and we can afford it, by the way, and that's what we are doing.
So one small follow-up on our famous PVDF. Just to help us, and also bring a bit more excitement. Just in one of your slides, you had EUR 1 billion of sales from automotive in Specialty Polymers, if I'm not mistaken. You had 35% of sales from EVs, and you said half of that is actually non-battery related. So if I work down, it means your battery PVDF business is actually not that big. You know, it seems less than EUR 200 million of sales. Have I got anything wrong?
Yeah, I mean, this is a number we've never given you. But yeah, continue doing the math, Chetan. I mean, our business in auto is not only PVDF. We kept telling you that. I think you are not far from the truth. And even our PVDF business is not only going to auto and batteries, which we told you, by the way, in quarter two.
I guess you could have helped us by saying, you know, we are trying to hit the wrong bird-
Yeah
- but it seems like, that's-
We told you. Maybe I will do a better job in-
Thank you
... financial communication session next time. Yeah, yeah. We. If PVDF pricing with EUR 142 billion in China has a cold, we don't have a flu. Definitely. That's the message. And we are diversified compared to other peers. You're right, because 50% is non-auto, by the way, risers and other things. And I mean, and that's what we tried, I hope today to tell you, is that we are agnostic to technology. When customers, they come to us, they need to find that solution to their problems, they should not care about PVDF, PEEK, or a compound. And if it's PVDF or one of its compound, we'll give them at a lower total cost of ownership, and I think that's the only differentiation why you should come to us and not to any other peers.
Because we don't just sell PEEK or just PVDF or just polysulfone. That's a different selling game and value proposition this company is giving to the world.
So just to exemplify that-
Watch it, Chetan, because if not, we are gonna give him the number.
That's what I just saw. We see a lot of people coming to us saying, "This flooring stuff, you got other ideas?" And the answer, of course, is yes. So a significant source of this business is replacing some of those products that people are uncomfortable with.
Mm.
Huh? That gives us growth opportunities.
There were questions out there or not? No.
Any other questions? You have a few more minutes if you'd like.
No, everything is clear? Well, thank you very much. Thank you for your time, for your engagement. I know it has been a long day. Special day for us, for our teams. We've been working hard for the past 23, 24 months. It feels like crazy. It's like two IPOs we are running, and I would like to thank our teams who have been extremely committed to make this happen, both the blue and the orange, yeah. We still... We try to be schizophrenic, but we are still one team, the blue and the orange, and there is much of value creation between those two companies. And I hope today, if not, you know, we, we'll be around.
I mean, we would like you to go to the innovation tour, show and tell, to feel, to touch the products and the solutions. But definitely the management team will be around to address more of your questions. So thank you very much. Thank you.