Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, dear guests here in Essen, the analysts, investors out there, and probably also some Evonik colleagues out there joining on the screen. Welcome to our Capital Markets Day 2025, actually the first one since 2022, so three years ago. It is still the same location, some of you might remember, and it is still me standing in front of you and opening the event. Otherwise, quite a lot around us has changed, and that is not only the fancy background and the fancy video screens behind me, but also quite a lot in the world around us has changed.
Also, the Evonik group structure has changed, and the management board of Evonik has changed, so we thought that's quite a good opportunity to meet here and present our new group structure, to present the management agenda of the new group structure of the two new segments, to present our new financial targets, and to give you an update on our capital allocation policy. Before we start, and I know that's a bit risky to do that at the beginning of the event and not at the end of a successful event, but I would like to take the opportunity to thank everybody involved in the preparation of this event, heavily involved and busy over the last days and weeks, and that's obviously the Evonik IR team, but also some colleagues who have joined and helped us here on the material.
Janine Carti, Manuela, Johanna, Jevita, Cedric, Christoph, Maxi, Rouven, Anna, and Felix, many thanks for the hard work of the last weeks and of the last month. I have no doubt that is going to result in a successful event today, and if not, I am sure we will find somebody else to blame if something goes wrong. With that, on to the management board. We will start with the presentations of the four board members now, which will be followed by a joint Q&A session of the four that should overall take two, two and a half hours. With that, I hand over directly to Christian to start with the CEO part of the presentations.
Thanks a lot, Madani. Thanks a lot, Tim. It was a brief introduction with a great bridge and giving us a chance now to give some more color about the future of Evonik Industries. Welcome to you here down in Essen. Welcome to our 2025 Capital Markets Day, and I'm glad. I'm really glad to see so many of you here just in front of me in person, and we're looking forward to a fruitful, open-minded discussion today. A warm welcome, obviously, goes out to everybody out there in front of the screens as well. While we will favor questions from the live audience here in Essen, we are also looking forward to the questions coming from the video screen later. Do not forget, you're also the apple of my eye.
Ladies and gentlemen, before we go into the strategy update, I would like to say only very few words about the short-term performance of Evonik Industries. We already discussed the details last week during our Q1 call. As you know, and you know me quite well, I'm a very conservative guy. Still, looking at what we have delivered already over the last 15 months, it is good reason for me, good reason for the entire crew of Evonik Industries to be a little bit proud of. Because we delivered strong results in the first quarter as well, notably, notably, ladies and gentlemen, outperforming our peers once again. So far on the short term, today we will show you how we intend to continue and accelerate this outperformance in the coming years. Here is our lineup for today.
You all know our CFO, Maike, quite well, and I'm very happy. I'm really very happy from the bottom of my heart to have her here with me today as well. Lauren and Claudine, it's a pleasure for me to say they joined us as well. I think the new composition of the executive board, more international and more female, is a nice proof point. It's a nice proof point how we are progressing at Evonik. While all three of them have quite some experiences with different investor-facing formats, it is their first Capital Markets Day. It is a good reason to be excited both for you and for us. Now, let's get started with the presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, obviously, you all are aware of the various developments over the last years, which make operating a global chemical company a tall task.
Especially what we are recently seeing out of the U.S. is honestly really very hard to believe. A lot of damage is being done right now to our well-established international relations and our globalized economy too. One could even say to the Western world as we know it. On the positive side, this could be the much-needed wake-up call for Germany and for Europe at the same time. Let me be clear, even crystal clear about this. It is not, it is not a wake-up call for us. It is not at all a wake-up call for Evonik Industries. While things are particularly turbulent right now, think about rising protectionism, climate change, and intensifying competition, especially from Asia, these challenges are not at all new for us.
We have seen these trends for a long time, and we have addressed the major challenges already with our strategy since I took him as CEO in 2017. Our portfolio quality has clearly improved. For example, we made our business more global, especially through acquisitions in the United States and divestments in Europe. Already today, more than 30% of our sales are in the Americas. We drove innovation, especially our next-generation solutions, which have a superior sustainability profile, are leading the way and outgrow the rest of our product portfolio for sure. Ladies and gentlemen, cost and efficiency, cost and efficiency are in our DNA for many years. The benefits of this, you have seen especially over the last two years, when we were able to support our earnings through our cost measures. We have executed on them in a decent and a disciplined way.
Despite all these efforts, the prolonged period of weak demand from the second half of 2022 onwards, combined with high input costs, took its toll also on our results in 2023. You will remember our EBITDA margin fell to 11%, and our ROCE even to only 3%. I do not have to tell you that this is not acceptable, that it is not an acceptable level at all, even, even ladies and gentlemen, in a perfect storm like back then. You know me, and you know our motto: never waste a good crisis. In 2023, we sat together internally and developed our strategy and our financial targets for the next years until 2027. We introduced it to the supervisory board last year, and we already initiated several projects since then. Some of them you already know, like Tailor-Made or our new segment structure.
Some of them we are going to introduce to you today. Having already started many of these projects internally gives us pretty good comfort to introduce the full picture to you today, explain how the different bits and pieces fit together, and where it leads to financially. In a nutshell, how we set ourselves up for long-term success. Ladies and gentlemen, the starting point for everything is our new vision, our picture about the future. Evonik is industry superforce. We enable our customers to deliver high-performing and more sustainable products and solutions. Our vision is based on four strong key pillars. First, our leading portfolio. Second, sustainable innovation. Third, regional balance. And fourth, it is about us being the team excellence. Give me a chance to illustrate how this sets us apart from our peers.
Effective from April this year, we have reorganized our businesses into two segments: Custom Solutions and Advanced Technologies. Both of them are quite different from each other, and therefore require different management. In both of them, we are leading. On the one hand, the Custom Solution businesses are defined by innovation-driven business models. They operate in specific niche markets, have a strong and deep customer proximity, and develop customized solutions, enabling strong pricing power. Our organic and potentially at a later stage also inorganic growth focuses on additives and the biotech platform within the segment. On the other hand, the Advanced Technology businesses are efficiency-driven, featuring a high level of technological expertise and operational excellence. This puts them also in a globally leading cost position. This new setup, what is it good for? What is it good for?
Give you a second to think about it while I have a drink. This new setup allows for three things. Firstly, for differentiated steering and capital allocation. Secondly, for a much leaner organization with the businesses directly reporting to the board without the former divisional admin level. Thirdly, for much better employee alignment and commitment, as everybody at Evonik and within the two different segments now has a clearer understanding of their specific strategic role and financial KPIs at the same time. This makes clear why we organize our businesses in this way. You might ask me, why keep them under one roof? Here is the answer. The two segments ideally complement each other and play equal, crucial roles for us and for our value creation.
Custom solutions play a major role as growth driver and will contribute stronger to EBITDA growth. Advanced technologies play a stronger financial role and generate cash flow. Also, behind the financials, a strong case can be made for keeping these activities together. Especially enhanced to, for example, in innovation. Know-how sharing and complementary people skills play a big role. We can work on more projects at the same time. We can build and share expertise in more areas. Consequently, our innovation growth areas stretch across both segments. For example, everything runs by example. For example, biotech plays a big role in Custom Solutions, but with Veramaris is also present in advanced technologies. Many examples like this can also be found in energy transition and in circularity.
This holistic way to stop, this holistic way to think about our portfolio and the clarity with which we manage it clearly differentiates us from our sector peers. Innovation is already, ladies and gentlemen, one of the key pillars of our strategy since 2017. It will remain key to our success also in the long term. Actually, it will be, excuse me, actually it will be the main earnings growth driver. Actually, it is a core sentence of the presentation, so it is really worthwhile to repeat. Actually, it will be the main growth driver for our earnings. We will benefit from both product and at the same time process innovation. On the product innovation side, which will be part of Lauren's responsibilities, we will double down on three innovation growth areas.
They will generate about EUR 1.5 billion of additional sales by 2032 at above a 20% EBITDA margin. Process innovation is honestly often overlooked from outside, but that's wrong because it plays a vital role for us as well. Because it is not only helpful to reduce CO2 emissions, it also helps us to reduce costs. Efficiency gains usually result in lower energy consumption. With that, we need fewer CO2 certificates, which are set, ladies and gentlemen, which are set to become more expensive in Europe in the coming years. Consequently, the returns are extremely high for our green process innovation projects. Lauren and Claudine will later provide some examples for both areas of innovation.
Ladies and gentlemen, if the current developments in the world tell us one thing, it is, and that goes without saying, we need to have a balanced global sales footprint with local for local production. This is why it is our aim to generate one third of our sales in each of the three world regions: the Americas, Asia, and Europe. In the Americas, we are already very close to this target already, thanks to inorganic and organic investments over the last couple of years. In Asia, yes, it is right, we still have a gap to close. And Asia means for us a good balance between China on the one side and other countries in the region on the other. For example, we just finished a new excites capacity in Singapore. We are investing in specialty oxides in Japan, and there will be more projects to come.
Being truly global also means to have more management responsibilities in the respective regions. For example, we have just shifted our management team for the healthcare business into the United States. Also here, count on us more to come. The last pillar, ladies and gentlemen, the last pillar of our new vision is a cultural one. At first sight, this might be of less relevance for you, but it is of utmost importance for us at Evonik. Also for me personally, we are team excellence. Everybody wants to be team excellence, but what does it mean for us? What do we mean by that? First, and especially in the world of today, in these times, it means for us respect, respect for each other. While discussing passionately, we listen to each other and value and treasure different positions. We do treat everybody equally.
We foster collaboration within the group so that all the change that we are going through is supported across our employee base. This sets us apart from trends we observe in many societies around the globe right now. We actively separate ourselves from the ideas of right-wing populism and ignorant leaders. Second, it is performance. We strive to excel in everything we do. We will deliver. We will deliver on our promises that we are presenting to you today. We have a lot to do right now and in the coming years, and we will relentlessly pursue these goals. I am, as CEO and personally, very much convinced that only these two elements together will lead to sustainable and sustained success. For me, they are for us two sides of the same coin.
Ladies and gentlemen, with our vision aims at the long term, we are also looking towards a midterm milestone. This milestone is to reach an additional EUR 1 billion of EBITDA by the year 2027. The base year for this is 2023. Being already in the middle of 2025, this might look strange at first glance. I already explained that 2023 was the year when we initiated our new strategy and set ourselves financial targets internally. It is important to note that the base of these EUR 1.7 billion of EBITDA in 2023 can change. For example, with our larger portfolio steps like C4 or infrastructure being executed over the last year, the starting number will be, could become different. To be very clear, the EUR 1 billion stands as a target for sure. The additional earnings will come from two main pillars.
In other words, a good bargain. $500 million each from growth and optimization. In the interest of time, I will not go deeper here. Maike, Lauren, and Claudine will elaborate on these two elements in more detail. Instead, ladies and gentlemen, let me continue with our portfolio strategy. In the next two years, we will conclude two major portfolio steps: the divestment of our C4 business and executing on strategic options for our two biggest German infrastructure sites, Marl and Wesseling. Beyond these two projects, we will optimize the portfolio of healthcare and coating at these resins businesses. More portfolio fine-tuning like this below the segment level will come until 2027. Obviously, portfolio change is a constant in our industry. It will not end in 2027. To be clear about it, it will never end.
From today's perspectives, our long-term portfolio work will focus within the existing segment structure, double down on our innovation growth areas, and create a more and better balanced regional split. More specifically, by product, our growth focus will be in additives and our biotech platform. Regionally, it will be in Asia. Lastly, we will continuously review the strategic fit and the competitiveness of our businesses and act accordingly in line with our fix-it-or-sell-it strategy. All of this, ladies and gentlemen, leads us to our financial targets. I already described the EUR 1 billion additional EBITDA. While over the last years, we have successfully improved our cash generation, now it is time to focus on returns. Going forward and in the execution of our strategy, ROCE and our target of around 11% will be in future our top KPI and yardstick. I see the smile in the face of Maike.
She couldn't agree more. Same holds true for me, for Lauren, and for Claudine. We will remain, we remain fully committed to our two main ESG targets. They will be reached by 2030. All these targets are very consistently integrated into our management compensation in the short and in the long-term incentive plan. Give me a chance to have another. Especially, ladies and gentlemen, in the light of our current turbulent times and developments over the last month, I can hear you say, "Hey, Christian, honestly, how realistic are these new targets in fact?" To achieve these targets, we calculated global GDP growth of 2.5% per year. Given the fact that things change nearly on a daily basis, to really change on a daily basis right now, I think it is a sound assumption these 2.5% of GDP growth to work with.
There are not only risks out there. We believe sticking to a balanced view of both opportunities and risks at the same time and going forward is the most prudent way to manage our company. Adding EUR 1 billion adjusted EBITDA until 2027 is, of course, an ambitious target, especially in these turbulent times of political and economic turmoils. We have a lot of it in our own hands, especially the EUR 500 million from optimization. We will deliver in each and every environment. Of the EUR 500 million growth, we have already achieved roughly EUR 300 million in 2024. What it all comes down to is this: we have to deliver. We will. Sometimes it is as simple as this. Here it is in fact and for sure the case. Ladies and gentlemen, finally, a brief look at our capital allocation policy.
This is a first high-level view only because Maike will provide you with more details in a second. Number one priority remains, remains to invest in our organic growth. Paying an attractive dividend is a second pillar. Until 2027, we are not doing any M&A or nothing that goes beyond very small technological acquisitions. Why? It could not be simpler as it is because we have a lot to do in the next two years. We set up our portfolio and our organization in the new segment structure. We have multiple optimization programs ongoing to work on our cost basis. We will execute our two major portfolio steps with the C4 and infrastructure. This is the way we are focusing on right now. After that, targeted M&A comes once again on our agenda.
Both portfolio management, as well as delivering on our financial targets, will put us in the position to also consider share buybacks beyond our attractive dividend. In former times, and you will remember me, in former times, I have excluded the option of share buybacks. Now it is a tantamount option. You know us. Things work step by step, one step after the other. Give me a chance and let me summarize what you should take away from this first presentation of the day. We have shown a much improved financial performance over the last 15 months. We will continue on this path in the coming years, sustainably over-earning our own cost of capital. We will stay disciplined in respect of capital allocation and let you, as our shareholders, participate in our success.
We will continue to work on the portfolio and would conclude the major transformation steps until 2027. We have learned something. We have learned that it is always helpful and prudent to mention that our shareholder structure has much improved versus the past. We have more than 50% free float right now. Within the free float, we have a balanced shareholder structure with investors' concentration below the global benchmarks. RAG Foundation has no overhang anymore due to their convertibles outstanding. Now, ladies and gentlemen, it is a time to ask Maike to enter stage because she will give you now much more details and information about our financials in the incoming years. Maike, stage is yours. Thanks a lot.
Could somebody bring me a water maybe? Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Christian.
Of course, also a warm welcome to everybody here in Essen and on the screens. I'm excited to share our perspective regarding the three main financial targets by 2027 we will achieve. Value creation and the 11% ROCE is positioned in the center of all of our efforts. The ROCE level of 11% until 2027 is what we stand for. Delivering the EUR 1 billion of additional EBITDA is the main driver to achieve it. The cash generation stays as it is. We have a very successful track record there with the above 40% cash conversion rate. The solid investment grade rating at any time will remain the foundation of our financial policy. If we look into the split of the segments, the group targets can be broken down into two dimensions. On the one hand side, growth and optimization, EUR 500 million from each.
We have the two segments and they both contribute similar to the EUR 1 billion, which is a bit simplified because, of course, with our cost programs, for example, Evonik Tailor Made, they will reduce the overhead costs also and contribute to our others line. Maybe bear with me now with that simplified approach. The breakdown here follows the different nature and the different business models of the two segments. Custom Solutions on the one hand side has to deliver two-thirds of the EUR 500 million from the growth component, stemming from the attractive markets with high margin products. Focus on the growth, but also one-third from the EUR 500 million has to come from optimization projects. We do have already, and I'll get to that later, we do have in healthcare or coating entities of resins already optimizing projects going on. The other way around is Advanced Technologies.
There, the contribution of the majority of the EUR 500 million has to come from optimization projects and initiatives. For example, we have told you since two years already regarding Janus, our animal nutrition optimization, you know, regarding commoditized business, high-performance polymers, or also silica. A bit more detail on the EUR 1 billion EBITDA bridge and a little bit more detail on the two components, growth and optimization. Christian already mentioned the EBITDA basis is 2023. So we had the EUR 1.7 billion in 2023. That might be a bit different at the end because due to our planned investments, the bridge might be different, but very important, the additional EUR 1 billion stays valid also with our portfolio changes. The EUR 400 million of the EUR 1 billion we have already achieved in 2024. We had industry leading growth in 2024. Out of these already achieved EUR 400 million, growth were EUR 300 million EBITDA.
We had higher earnings in almost all businesses. Of course, a good part is dedicated to animal nutrition, which was a normalization of earnings. After the absolute trough levels in 2023, we have seen now the normalization of methionine, but also very clearly Specialty Additives and Smart Materials delivered to the growth. From an optimization part, an optimization side, 100 of the 400 million EUR EBITDA growth were net savings in 2024. I already mentioned the animal nutrition program and, of course, our reorganization program, Evonik Tailor Made. Until 2027 now, 200 million EUR of growth are left. We have now two perspectives to look at the number. You might say, the average EBITDA growth now of the remaining years is 70 million EUR per year, which is not very ambitious. However, be clear, this is a net figure.
This is also considering the usual business erosion we must compensate every year. Some of you might say that this is a very ambitious number, especially with everything in the world around us over the last weeks and months. For those, give me some examples where we get the growth from. First, the growth investments that have already been executed in the last years or in the past years. Available capacities are dedicated 40% of the EUR 500 million of growth. Active in niche good growth expectations, and we do not have to rely solely on macro environment. There we have mentioned already the alkoxides plant in Singapore, where we see strong growth for the biodiesel catalysts and the aluminum oxide plant in Japan with a growing EV market. Second, innovation. The innovation elements, 30% of the EUR 500 million growth EBITDA go to the innovation part.
Innovative products introduced in specific niche markets are, for example, here biosurfactants plant in Slovakia or our six now plants, the membrane factories in Austria. Both of them are also relatively independent of the macro situation. Third, the dynamic niche markets where we grow above average are the remainder of the EUR 500 million EBITDA growth. And most applications apart of the Custom Solutions segment. Now, of course, coming to the net savings. On the optimization part, EUR 500 million are net savings, fully relevant to the EBITDA line. The gross figure, of course, is much higher and we will compensate the annual factor cost increases. For example, Evonik Tailor Made a project we have mentioned more than a year. Secondly, the business optimization programs, most of them you have already heard about. We have already communicated on Animal Nutrition and also on the additional healthcare projects we have here at Evonik.
We also have new programs that are already in implementation. They have started and communicated internally last year. We see that there will be a quick contribution to the saving targets within the next three years. The two largest programs here are silica and high-performance polymers. Taking silica, for example, we have a very good positioning in the specialty grades and applications. However, the standard grades, and there we see higher competitive pressure. We need to defend our market and defend our leading cost positions. The high-performance polymers, on the other hand, there we want to focus on different service levels, different customers, and different products show us that we have to have a differentiated access as well. Part of the net savings will also be attributed to the optimization and procurement. We have started a program here as well, a new project last year.
We now put the total cost of ownership pretty much in the middle of our efforts. We are in an extremely good position, of course, in raw material procurement. If you look into indirect purchasing, logistic and packaging materials, non-strategic goods, and these small volume, these tail spend topics, this is something we will focus on and we will see that we also get net savings from procurement optimization. Last but not least, again, the ROCE. The ROCE improvement. Priority number one is to earn more than our WACC by 2027, which stands right now at 10%. Our goal is 11%. The buckets to achieve our ROCE are pretty much the same, like to achieve the EUR 1 billion of EBITDA.
A new element here giving us a high return are our immediate return projects, small-sized CapEx projects, which promise low execution risk and a quick payback time of less than two years. More on that in a minute. The free cash flow generation remains, of course, a very important target for us. With growing earnings, we will also have a growing operating free cash flow. Our calculations show us a very impressive number of accumulated EUR 5.5 billion in the next three years. That means EUR 3 billion in free cash flow. The sustainable CapEx level of around EUR 850 million-EUR 900 million per year will show, I will show you in a minu te, or actually on the next page. If we look now into the CapEx, we will remain with a classical split of growth and maintenance CapEx.
No bigger chances to be expected with a 50-50% balance. As in the past three years, the majority of the structural growth projects will boost our next generation solutions with above average growth rates. A new element, I told you before, these small immediate return CapEx projects, roughly 10% of the total CapEx. Small-sized projects, not more than EUR 2 million-EUR 3 million per project, are dedicated to technical improvements, upgrades, for example, in our production facilities, incremental efficiency gains in production processes, small debottleneckings, exchange of pipes with bigger diameters, exchange of storage tanks, but extremely successful. We see highly ROCEs and a quick payback time of less than two years and an IRR of more than 50% on average. Extremely successful. Here also regarding smart preservation, to mention here are the investments into our next generation technologies.
Last year we had roughly EUR 100 million here and the key characteristics, you know them, are lowering of emissions, SBTi target achievements, and of course the lowering of the OpEx by improving processes. Let me talk again about the capital allocation policy and priorities. You remember inflows of EUR 5.5 billion operating cash flow over the next three years. We will spend, and that is a top priority, 50% on that CapEx as a number one priority for our capital allocation. Second, the attractive dividend remains. 30% of our cumulative cash flow reflects a stable dividend over the next three years. There are 20% or around EUR 1 billion remaining of our operating cash flow until 2027. Christian mentioned already no very, very small M&A. That will, of course, then technically lead to a reduction in financial liabilities and, of course, to a strengthening of our balance sheet.
I have emphasized already the strong commitment to our solid investment grade rating. Of course, that will also bring us to more headroom for targeted M&A beyond 2027, once our financial performance and especially our ROCE is where it needs to be. However, share buybacks are an option for us going forward. This is, of course, especially true once we have executed on our larger portfolio measures. To wrap it up, these are the three key messages of my presentation. First, it is about the financial commitments until 2027. Full focus is on ROCE becoming our top KPI and achieving at least 11% by 2027. All other KPIs are linked and paying into this target. Second, CapEx is fully aligned with our ROCE target. We will have more focus on small-sized, fast return projects with above average ROCE contribution.
Third, on capital allocation, we will remain an attractive dividend payer. At the same time, for the next two years, we will focus on leveraging our balance sheet instead of opting for M&A. Share buybacks are a viable option going forward, both from our strong operating cash flow as well as regarding the use of the proceeds once our larger divestments are done. Thank you for your attention. With that, I hand over to the segments and to Lauren. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Maike. It's a pleasure to be here today. I just want to take the first couple of seconds to introduce myself as it's the first time that I'm on the stage in this responsibility.
Since April 1st, I've been a member of the Evonik board and I'm responsible in this area for the Custom Solutions segment, for R&D, and for the region Americas. In my prior past years, I've been with Evonik about 23 years now and I have run our Nutrition & Care GmbH, so our legal entity that focused on Nutrition & Care. I've also been in the division of Specialty Additives and my last role in Smart Materials. What I'd like to do now and even take more pleasure is to be able to introduce the division segment of Custom Solutions and how it contributes to the targets that were laid out by Maike. Before I go into all of the details, I would like to give you an overview about the segment setup. This is Custom Solutions portfolio.
It's the innovation-driven businesses with tailored and scientific solutions. We have a pro forma or restated performance for 2024 of EUR 5.7 billion in turnover, about EUR 1 billion in EBITDA and a 17% EBITDA margin. We're under around 40%, so under 50% of the group-wide turnover, but making up 50% of the EBITDA. We have clustered in this division segment the setup of our industrial applications. This is two-thirds of the performance of this segment. This is where we go after additives that go in the space of automotive, go in the space of construction, go into the space of furniture embedding. This is where we're delivering materials for our customers that go into their formulations that enable them to differentiate the performance of their products in the end market. We have these products coming traditionally from the Specialty Additives business, and we always say small amount, big effects.
The other one-third of this portfolio is coming from life science applications. In these areas, we have our home and personal care, and we have our healthcare business. These businesses are based on being able to have the human life at the center of what we do. It is not only the human life, it is also the quality of life. In these areas, we are looking after quality of our raw materials, high focus on our QC and capabilities, our regulatory, and of course, our innovation capabilities. That is what drives success in these areas. You might think, okay, that is industrial applications, and then we have this life science business. What is the logic here? We have basic common characteristics, and it is the first time that we have put these types of archetypes, business archetypes, these types of business models together in one segment.
I'm going to talk about that in the next couple of slides because that basically makes up my management agenda in this segment for the next years. First, I'd like to give you a feel about the financial performance, a bit about the track record for this segment. What you can see here is from 2019 to 2022, we were able to deliver a robust 6% growth in our EBITDA margin. Those years were not the easiest years. As Christian Kullmann has already laid out, we expect some bumps going forward, but we're well prepared for that. That can give you an indication of that track record. What we saw in 2023, which I have to admit for a lot of people in many industries, especially durable industries, as well as the chemical industry, 2023 was not a favorite.
You can see as well how we recovered from such a position into 2024 with 15% growth on our EBITDA. We have guided this year for growth above 2024, and there are three main reasons that are driving that. Number one, we have our care solutions business. With our care solutions business, they are in markets for personal cleaning, for home cleaning, for textile cleaning and applications, care applications. We have seen that maybe the market for this area grows at around 3%, but our care solutions business has been delivering double digits, three times market over the last several years. With regards to another driver for that performance this year, it will be our healthcare business. It was a low base in 2024 for our healthcare business. We are starting from a low base, but we are seeing a significant recovery in that area.
We have a young pipeline. In this type of business, you're constantly coming with new excipients, new APIs that you're building, the competencies and the capabilities in our assets. Now we are doing repeat campaigns in these areas and driving efficiency and performance out of our healthcare business. Lastly, there are pockets of our coating additives business where we see niche applications performing quite well. If I just make a quick comment on our business free cash flow, it is not a super free cash flow calculation, but really just taking the EBITDA, minusing our CapEx and minusing our net working capital, you have a feel for what the capability of this segment is able to deliver, a very stable, robust, roughly EUR 500 million in free cash flow. We expect that to continue going forward.
Now I would like to return a bit from the financial profile showing where we have growth potentials, moving it to our management agenda. What are the things that I will be focusing on? What makes this segment tick? What will we be doing to steer it differently than we have done in the past? I'd like to focus on three main topics. One is about our diverse and attractive markets. I would like to tell you about also our product and solution-driven innovation and also about our customer-centric models. These three are the agenda for the management agenda going forward and are the characteristics of these types of archetypes of businesses. Now I'm going to guide you through those strategic pillars, and I'm going to first start with our leading in attractive markets.
As mentioned already, we have various end markets, bigger end markets, construction, personal care, but you can also find in those end markets specific niches where you can excel that are protected by also entrance barriers, by specifications and regulations that are protected also by unique relationships with customers where we then have a track record of trust and performance. To highlight a couple of those areas just from this slide is active ingredients. I mentioned already in the care applications, you get maybe 3% bit above GDP, but then if you drill it down into then active ingredients where we've had several acquisitions and we drive our portfolio more in this direction, you can see those will be in a niche where you can deliver 5% or above that in growth.
I would also like to highlight, for example, our pharmaceutical business where we are in oral drug delivery and also in parenteral drug delivery systems, and these systems are growing at a clip of 6% or more. With that being said, I would like to now give you a bit of a feel about the other pillars, and I will switch over to our growth and innovation pillar. Three elements I want to highlight about our growth and innovation. One is the ramping up of recent investments. This was already mentioned by both Maike and Christian. I will give you a little bit more context to what that means for the segment of Custom Solutions. I will also give you a feel about longer-term top-line growth that will come from our innovation growth areas.
I'll also give you a bit of some information where we will be using digitalization to drive our operational excellence. I just want to spend two seconds on our portfolio optimization. Because as Christian mentioned, that's going to be something we have to do on a routine basis. It does not end at a certain point that your portfolio is fixed and now your homework's done. We will do that on a regular basis. The topics that we will be talking about in the segments, of course, are in the below BL level. They are elements of our business line setups that we evaluate over time and say, you know, this is not where we want to put our management resources. This is not where we want to place our investments. We have other more attractive niches that we want to go after.
In this area, we've been working successfully on the care solutions side for the last several years. We've slowly stepped out of our betaines business starting in 2020 with Milton Keynes, then looking at divesting in North American business, and lastly had a divestment in Indonesia for our basic surfactant business. On the healthcare side, we already announced that we would step out of our keto acid and amino acid production in Hanau and that we look for options to divest our Hamel in France and our Wuxi in China capabilities. At the same time, we have also optimized our coating and adhesive resin business where we look to divest our polyesters so that we can focus more management attention on really interesting growth areas in the area of specialty polymers for coating and additives and elastomer and sealant applications.
These are more reactive sealants and also specialty acrylates. This is an ongoing process, but I want to get back now to the growth areas. I'll first start with our top-line growth. Here are a couple of examples where we will enable that through recent investments. I just want to highlight two here. We already heard biosurfactants a couple of times. This is really an area where we have been the first player to bring a sizable capacity to be able to no longer produce through a chemical synthesis route, but through a biotechnology route, high-performing surfactants. These biosurfactants are produced out of our Slovakia site, and they make up a potential over the next 10 years' time for a EUR 1 billion market. Right now, we are one of the only ones positioned at this scale, so we're in a leading position to achieve that market potential.
We will also spend some time over the next months working on how do we leverage that technology platform that had been developed for cleaning and cleansing applications to see in all of our industrial applications what platform and what deliveries of performance we can put into coatings, into ag applications, into all of our industrial applications. Step by step, we will also build that as a core platform here at Evonik. The other investment that I'd like to highlight is our alkoxide plant, and that's actually up and running right now. I last heard we were selling commercial volumes to our customers from that site today.
This is also a strategic decision that we see the biodiesel market where we have the ability to produce catalysts that help move vegetable-based raw materials, esterify them to put them into biodiesel, where most of those veggie-based materials grow around the equator. Strategically locating a production facility in Singapore enables us to tap into that market very efficiently. Also, this technology platform can be used and leveraged in areas like niche applications and pharmaceuticals, and also in areas for chemical recycling. That gives you an example under growth and innovation where we will use our assets wisely over the next years to deliver performance. The next area under growth and innovation is specifically on the innovation side. We have announced in September of last year our three growth innovation areas. That is advanced precision biosolutions, enabling the circular economy, and accelerating energy transition.
I am specifically happy to talk today again about the biosolutions area as we have not only the rhamnolipids and the biosurfactants that we mentioned, but also biodegradable polymers that are used for drug delivery. We also have cosmetic ingredients and active ingredients like our ceramides and our enzymatic esters and our botanicals that also play a role in our biofield. In the enabling circularity side, we also have great potential where we have additives that go into mechanical recycling and go into chemical recycling and on accelerate energy transition. In Custom Solutions, we have materials that go into insulation capabilities as well as into future carbon capture solutions. Of the 50%, yeah, Custom Solutions will deliver 50% of the EUR 1.5 billion growth that we will see from these growth fields by 2032. Those growth fields deliver the tick above our EBITDA group margin average.
Now I'd like to talk a little bit about leveraging digitalization and how that contributes to growth and innovation. It's a combination about the innovation side, but also about the efficiency side. I want to mention one example here, and it's about COATINO. COATINO is a gold standard. As you know, we have a lot of businesses that go into the areas of coatings. In coatings business, you have a lot of formulation and a lot of formulation know-how. A lot of different materials come together so that you can protect surfaces, so you can beautify surfaces, that you can make surfaces prevent growing of materials that would then on ship and ship holes would have microfouling.
We have a technology platform that we developed for our customers to be able to go into this platform, order samples, get technology recommendations on formulations to be able to interact with us in a very efficient and speedy way. What we have found over the last bit of time is that we invested as well into automation, into our high-throughput screening capabilities. We are able to test formulations on a regular basis, feed that into our platform, and give customer recommendations more effectively and also very efficiently. This is an example of the type of technologies and where we need to apply digitalization to make sure we get the efficiency gain in looking at a broad customer base and also over many different formulation capabilities. Last, I would like to focus on the third pillar, which is customer focus.
I mention this oftentimes because when you're doing formulation work, you can't just throw materials over the fence and ask your customers to take a whole bunch of time and risk to test those materials. You have to actually earn the trust and perform, and then you get the chance to understand how they screen their formulas, what their methods are, and how to work with them. What we have established over the last several years is our setup regionally, which drives our performance, is about having 50 different applied technology sites around the globe that services over 130 different countries where our customers sit, and also having 10 different R&D hubs that feed those applied technologists and tech service colleagues with new materials for the market.
It is important that we are able to be in the region for the region, not only with our assets to produce, but also with the ability to see how our customers are ticking. What are those cultural differences in formulations on how they build or construct or how consumers want to cleanse or beautify? This is an extremely important point that I would like to emphasize for these types of business models, for this archetype, how important this is, and we will focus on improving this going forward. To summarize, when I go back to the slide of Maike regarding EUR 1 billion in EBITDA generation, Custom Solutions will deliver, yeah, roughly half of that performance. It is equally contribution from also Advanced Technologies, which you will hear from Claudine in a minute, but the composition is a bit different.
The composition is made up more from EUR 300 million in the growth and innovation side and EUR 100 million in the optimization side. That includes the topics, of course, group-wide programs like ETM, but also what I mentioned already about the transformation that we have in the healthcare business with our exiting and focusing our management attention on growth areas like lipids and in the coating and adhesive resins where we step out of certain polyester applications and we look to focus our energies on other niche applications in sealants and adhesives. What can you expect from Custom Solutions? We have a clear strategic management agenda to deliver on our financial targets.
We will focus on steering our businesses with KPIs that focus on our speed to be able to respond to our customers' requests, that we will be positioned as our leading supplier to our customers, that we will also steer the speed and the efficiency of our innovation. We will focus on those archetypes and steering with those KPIs. We will continue to develop our portfolio around those attractive niches so we can grab a percent more in those applications than perhaps in the broader portfolio in some areas that we have today. We have strong potential in the ramping up of our recent investments in operational excellence and the efficiency in our innovation pipeline. With that, I'd like to hand it over to Claudine.
Good afternoon also from myself. I need to change the okay. Good afternoon also from myself. It's a pleasure to be here.
Also the first time, similar to Lauren. Two words about me. Claudine Mollenkopf. I'm a chemical engineer by education. I made a PhD in chemistry. I was working a couple of years at Total Refinery in Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon. I'm working for Evonik since 1996. Do not calculate it. It's a long time. Important to mention is that for eight years, I was out of the company. I was carved out with the Carbon Black business. I then joined at that time Evonik Carbon Black, which is better known in the meantime as Orion Engineered Carbon, a company which is listed in New York Stock Exchange. I was part of the management team and board. I enjoyed the IPO and all that. I have a good relationship with private equity, and I learned how to optimize production plants.
Now I'm back with Evonik since a couple of years in charge of these advanced technology businesses. It is the second segment from Evonik. Approximately EUR 6 billion sales, EUR 1 billion EBITDA, 17% EBITDA margin. What is important is, similar to Lauren, we have a couple of business lines which have been reorganized under this diverse segment. The rationale here for grouping this business line together are principally main characteristics like we are really leading market position, number one, number two. We have a very good production platform. We are going to share that with you. We have the technology expertise and operation expertise.
The way we are going to report in the future only on the sales side is really about the organic part, which is accounting for the crosslinker, isoflurane chemistry for the polyamide 12 on the high-performance polymer side, the inorganic hydrogen peroxide, the silane and silica business together, and for sure separately animal nutrition, principally our methionine production platform. We decided to really be very open and transparent on that because we have always plenty of questions about methionine. I'm sure today it will be the same. Coming to a couple of details about the figures and how this segment is performing. These are all non-audited figures. You know that we have not yet reported about that. I think Maike mentioned that. I think these businesses really show a good resilience in quite difficult years during the pandemic in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.
For sure, once we had a good EBITDA growth, the EBITDA margin of 17%. For sure, during the year 2023, which was a very complicated year for all of us, we really enjoy a good improvement, a recovery in the year 2024. Yes, it's important to mention it. A large part, or it has been heavily helped through the stabilization on the methionine business side. Our forecast for the year 2025, Maike and Christian Kullmann already announced that during the earning call release lately, is going to be for us at least on a stable way. Important for that business is also the free cash flow generation. Right now, the average on the last six years is around EUR 430. For sure, in the figures from Lauren, you see that her average is around EUR 500.
This business needs to generate in the future by four more cash flow as it is of today. This business is going to generate by four more cash flow as it's today. We are going to take advantage of the EUR 2 billion CapEx which have been made in the last year in this area. That's a statement, and it's really something Christian Kullmann, as he mentioned before, we are going to deliver. We are going to deliver this marketing plan which has been made behind each of these CapEx. How are we going to do that? We are already on the way. That's the first statement. For sure, there's a strategic management agenda behind the four pillars already mentioned.
I could spend, no, I will have one or two slides for each of these pillars, but it's really important here to mention when we discuss about the market position, number one, number two, for sure these are the financial key performance indicators which are going to be relevant: EBITDA, ROCE, free cash flow. On the production platform as well, it's important to have the geopolitics in view. We are going to share that with you as well. On the technological expertise, I do have as well not only a production platform optimization in front of me. I do have as well growth because we still have a very good technology expertise or customers are requesting that. They want to further develop their product. They want to further improve in their application.
We are also going to deliver that with our applied technology team as well as our innovation part. For sure, one of the important, let's say, agenda points is definitely to go ahead with process and operation excellence. During my introduction, maybe I forgot to mention that I am also in charge of the governance for operation excellence and for the supply chain excellence for the whole company. For sure, for us, this is extremely important. We are going really to have a look on this top operation key performance indicator. To give you a flavor of how this is done, it is about transparency. The company right now was capable, with the support of the controlling organization, to have good transparency. What is going on on your delivery date? What is going on on your OTF? What is going on on your net OE?
What's going on on your finished good inventory? We are tracking that now on a monthly basis. When I say tracking that, we are looking at it. Lauren and myself, we are really operative in the board of the management of Evonik. We are looking after that. We are asking what's going on. We are always asking our colleagues, how do we, how could we support you? We are always ready to give help in order to improve this key performance indicator. Number one aspect, leading market position. I think if you are following the company since many, many years on, you know that we have an, with our animal nutrition business, with our methionine platform or leasing platform, Veramaris has been addressed omega-3 fatty acid. You know that we are here having leading market positions.
This is a large part of the end market we are delivering right now. In general, growing with GDP in some regions, growing more in others, less. Concerning the inorganic product segment or subsegment, precipitated silica and fumed silica, hydrogen peroxide, the growth patterns are somehow different. Hydrogen peroxide right now, for sure, there is a weakening in the pulp and paper market, but there is an extremely good development right now in all the applications going with electronic. Here, you need to have, I will share that example later also. I am moving now to the precipitated and fumed silica. A lot of material, standard material, but a lot of specialty on the top of the pyramid going to very nice applications like the separator from battery in lithium-ion battery, which is a good development. We are going to show you an investment we are doing for that in Japan.
On the organic side, isoflurane chemistry, we are going, we are delivering a lot of product under the windmill industry, you know that, but a lot also going in the infrastructure. An announcement like the latest one that we are going to have EUR 500 million spending in Germany for EUR 500 billion spending in infrastructure. It's good news. It's good news for the whole chemical industry. It's good news also for us in this particular area. Long-chain polyamine, PA12, you know that we have invested in a monomer production and also in the polymer production. You might have heard that we are the only one, we are from a Western point of view, the only one which is capable to have the whole supply chain. You might have heard the BASF, I think they already shut it down.
They said mid of the year 2025, they shut down the CD1. So they are monomer production. We are the only Western guy producing the raw material for the polyamide 12 right now. How is that business spread over the global or the world? Christian Kullmann mentioned that the objective is definitely to have one third, one third. Okay, I'm not yet there right now in this segment. We are 40, 30, 30. And we do have production platform everywhere. Methionine in the U.S., in, I would say, between Germany, between Wesseling and Antwerpen, so in the Europe, and in Asia, Singapore. Singapore is the best place to produce methionine as we speak as of today. And I'm very, very thankful to have a lot of predecessors for me making the right decision here. This is giving us a good indication about the supply security.
The same for isoflurane, three plants, one in Herne for sure in Germany, the one in Mobile in the U.S., the other one in Shanghai. Precipitated silica and H2O2, a lot of plants spread all over the world. Here the true reason for that is simply transport logistic cost. In general, you have what I called in German, the church and 1,000 kilometers around. That is more or less the supply chain development we have there. Only with PA12, we have what I call the model plant where we are producing the monomer as well as some of the polymer. Then we can go ahead with the fabrication of the compound in all the parties of the world. Definitely a very, very strong local for local approach. The costs are different in each of the regions. That is true.
There are times where the costs are extremely high in Europe or in Germany. They are cheaper in the U.S. or they are cheaper in Asia-Pacific. It is always you need to have a look on your whole value chain of your material you are producing, the employee you have, the throughput of the plant, the availability of your plant. That all is playing a role in having a specific cost review on your material you are producing. That was the second aspect from the management focus. The second one, if you remember, I said we are also going to leverage on your applied technology and innovation. We do need to grow as well. It is not done just by saving costs. It is not done. You need to have a reasonable cost position and you need to develop your application, your product.
Some example, the first one I already announced, a production of metal oxide in Yokkaichi in Japan. We do have three lines producing that in Germany, in Rheinfelden, in south of Germany. We are investing in an additional line in Japan because the demand for this specific market is grow over there. Production of separator for battery, lithium-ion battery, and also some application in the coating area, which then will be sold by the sales team from Lauren. Another one, another example based on the PA12, on the high-performance polymer, the gas separation membranes we are producing in Schörfling in Austria. OSCF, who already mentioned, there was lately a capacity increase, line number six. This is a good, extremely good technology, which is used for the CO2 separation out of biogas production. Coming to the high-purity hydrogen peroxide, yes, production of H2O2, pulp or piper. It's a long history.
It's long available, but the production of H2O2, high-purity hydrogen peroxide to be used in semiconductor, sorry, I really need to drink something. The production of this high material to be used in semiconductor, not everybody is capable of doing that. You are using reverse osmosis. We are using ion exchanger. It's a complicated technology. You need to do that safely without having any incident. Lauren already described the innovation part with the three innovation growth field. That's a large part of her growth, but it's also a little part of my growth. Let's say you are going to see it's also one third. The focus for us is not that much on the, the focus for us is principally on the circular economy and enabling the users of polymer, preparing, developing monomer, which can be used for the production of polymer, which are easy to be recycled.
For sure, our participation for the acceleration of the energy transition. We have a couple of examples on the membrane, as I mentioned, the usage of precipitated silica for CO2 capture. We can do that with amine, which are produced in the case in the application for Lauren and then put on a carrier, on a silica carrier, for example. As you can see, there's an extreme good exchange on the two segments. To bring it back to the comment of Christian Kullmann, this is a synergy which is happening with a different focus. When I'm coming back to the aspect of the optimization, using innovation, using applied technology for the innovation of our process as well, we should not forget that we do have a commitment for CO2 reduction.
You will not be surprised when I'm going to say that I'm responsible for the production platform, which has the highest output of CO2. We are almost interesting to have a good development with our engineer, with our performance technology in order really to improve our production process that indeed we are capable to reduce the specific CO2 emission. It's not about reducing our production capability. It's about really reducing the specific CO2 emission. We are also using this know-how to improve our production process. This is an example coming from not a continuous production process, but a batch reaction in the case of the omega-3 fatty acid, Veramaris.
With an increase in demand, a good pricing position, we really were capable together with all the team of the production of our team and our engineering department to improve the output of this process, which for many, many months was in a very low level. Right now, we are really enjoying a lot of that business. Good production, good net operation exposure, good volume, good pricing. Now coming back to the overall process optimization in our main business line. I think you know very well the program which has been announced as well with the methionine part, Janus, I do believe it has been announced. This for sure is a part, is a large part of my deliverable when it comes to cost positioning. It is not about just reducing the cost. In the case of production platform methionine, we had several investments done.
We have done a big double-legging in our plant in Singapore because this region in the world has an increased demand in additive for the poultry, methionine over there. It's the right place to be, very good condition, very good market. You are close from the Chinese market, but you are not that close and you can deliver the Southeast Asian market. We have also had a big and backward integration in our site in Mobile. This plant, this backward integration is going to be running beginning of next year, in six months from now, I would say. Here that's important to mention that this is a very big contribution to the cost positioning for this production platform.
I do believe we are the only one methionine producing which has three place production in all three regions of the world where we are in any case always backward integrated. A little bit of chemistry, sorry guys, it's necessary when you are listening to that. We do need three building blocks to produce methionine. We are going to be backward integrated on all these three building blocks. Next big project we have ongoing, the high-performance material, the high-performance polymer project, so-called Calibrate, if this has been published as well. On the PA12, monomer production, polymer production, compound production, optimization of the plant, reorganization of the operating model, and all that is supporting the cost reduction effort we have. Here a little anecdote.
With the closure of the CD1 plant from BASF, I mentioned it already, we are the only one Western player producing the raw material, the monomer for the production of laurolactam and therefore the polyamide 12. In those times, it was the right decision to have this monomer plant sitting in Marl in Europe in the middle of being independent from any other Chinese manufacturer. Coming to silica- silane, the project called Silanize, here we are putting together what naturally goes together, the raw material silane to the fumed oxide manufacturing, so AEROCEL manufacturing model. We are putting that under one management in order to avoid any losses in time, any losses of management being speed in the discussion, being speed in making decisions. Here as well, together with this combination of these two areas and some optimized network on production network ongoing.
Some has already been announced and others are in preparation in order really to optimize this production platform. The last one in the list, Crosslinker, iChain production, here similar, two plant, three plant in the world. Here right now we are really looking on the optimization of the production cost and particularly the material processing. One of the big material we are processing or the main material we are processing is here, acetone. This is a byproduct from the phenol production. Here as well, a lot of focus to improve the productivity, the availability and the quality of the material we are producing in our plant. Altogether, this activity, as already mentioned by Lauren, one third of my EUR 500 million-EUR 550 million I'm going to deliver part of this EUR 1 billion part, Christian already announced, is coming from growth.
Two thirds is really coming from optimization of our plant, where we are continuously on a monthly basis right now looking at our key performance, our plant running at the right speed, our plant delivering though they have the right availability. There are little things. It's not big, how can I say, big saving, big optimization. There are millions of little things which need to happen so that we will be able to run our plant at maximal capacity with very, very good cost positioning. To summarize, we do have an extremely strong market position. I think you realize that and you're already aware of that. We are building on that. Right now, we are also very, very lucky and we are very happy to have a production landscape in all the three regions of the world.
After the supply chain disruption and particularly since we have tariffs, this has to be, we have realized how powerful that is. Building off all this strong position with our applied technology guy and our innovation guy, we are further improving our offer to our customer. We are using this technological positioning and competence to have the growth part of our transformation. We are right now working very diligently in improving our operation. Maybe one of the last things, because I am the last speaker as well today, I would like to mention that in this place yesterday and the Monday, we had the community of 120-130 executives sitting in this room. We were already making the presentation we have made with you.
We have the commitment from all the executives of the company that everybody for the next three years is committed to deliver this billion additional EBITDA and is committed to develop and to leverage that way that we are able to improve our cash flow. You have not only the presentation of the board of Evonik, the newly bought of Evonik, but already the 130 executives from this company which are supporting us. They were with us and we believe that we are going to deliver that. Thank you for your attention. Ich mache Platz.
Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. To the four of you for the presentations, one and a half hours as planned, more or less. We are now coming to the a bit more lively Q&A session. Some more technical remarks from me at the beginning.
We will start obviously here with some questions from the audience in Essen, coming over just in a second. Just raise your hand and you will get a mic. Also in between, we will squeeze in some questions from the online audience if they have some. Also there on the online side, on the video side, just turn on your camera and then I will call your name and you will be directed right here into the meeting and can ask your question. Obviously, please for all the people here and outside, please limit your question to one or two, but that's as you know it.
Also, a remark now towards the end of the event, you will also receive a feedback link on the event and we would really very much appreciate your feedback on the event, on the format for us for the next events to improve on format and content. With that, we open the Q&A session and with that, I ask also the remaining three board members here to the stage. I move on to my little table over here. As I said, we start with the audience here and let's start with Jonathan from Morgan Stanley.
Thank you. Jonathan from Morgan Stanley. I've got two questions, please. You mentioned declining energy cost from relaxation of the Ukraine-Russia war. What energy cost are you baking in for your target?
On my second question, you talk about strengthening your balance sheet before you can consider any acquisitions and buyback. Is there a target level in mind?
Okay, I would say both questions go to you, Maike. Sorry for that. On the energy costs going forward and the energy target and the balance sheet leveraging target.
Yeah, happy to take that. I think I'm prepared to take some questions.
I wasn't expecting anything else.
Jonathan, hi. From an energy perspective, we have baked in a little less than EUR 800 million. We are decreasing currently on an energy perspective. We came in 2022, we came from EUR 1.1 billion. We are going down now 2024. We were roughly, we told you already, EUR 900-ish, EUR 800 now with 2025.
We go down a little bit more, but this should be the ballpark on energy costs we have in the group. Regarding the target leverage, that's a little bit complicated. I would not say we shoot for a target level because on the one hand side, you know that pension interest rates and so on play a big role on that. Also, it of course depends on the, are we prepared then for M&A? I think for now what we said stands clear. We move forward now with deleveraging, but we do not have a clear target and then we just turn around.
Okay, thank you. Next question from Martin Rüdiger from Kepler Cheuvreux.
Yes, this is Martin Rüdiger from Kepler Cheuvreux, also from my side two questions. First is on the bridge for your EUR 1 billion additional EBITDA target for the year 2027.
I tried to reconcile that. You have achieved EUR 400 million, or EUR 300 million was from growth and EUR 100 million from cost savings in 2024. You will achieve another EUR 100 million cost savings in 2025. That is basically all from the energy bill, so no contribution growth. That means for the years 2026 and 2027, you need a bit more than EUR 500 million, of which EUR 300 million comes from cost savings and efficiencies and EUR 200 million from growth. What that means is that for each year you have to accelerate your cost savings from a EUR 100 million run rate to a EUR 150 million run rate. How realistic is that when we know that the cost savings this year is purely from energy, which is a kind of coincidence? That was my first question. The second is on your innovations.
You said that you want to achieve additional sales of EUR 1.5 billion from innovations by the year 2022. Can you provide a bit more color about what is the current innovation rate? Means sales with products not older than five years. What is your target going forward? How is the net effect on your sales when we factor in an ongoing commoditization of products and also a cannibalization of existing products you have? Because sometimes you replace older products with new products. Thanks.
Absolutely.
Okay, so I start with cost saving, I assume?
Yeah, first one goes to you, obviously, Maike. Second one around you. Okay, you deal it out by yourself.
Two sentences about innovation as a starter and then I do hand over in this respect to Lauren.
have set our sales from over the last 10 years to gain around EUR 1 billion of additional EBITDA, having a margin above 20%. What we have gained was around close to EUR 1 billion, so it was around EUR 800 million, having a margin of above or close to 20%. This is somewhat like margin cellar basement, which should provide you with trust that we are able to accelerate our sprint on this path, which is really paved with the confidence we have gained over the last 10 years, around EUR 800 million of revenues with plus 20% EBITDA margin. Giving you this maybe as a frame, as a frame narrative to Lauren to provide you with more bits and pieces.
Yeah, let me see if I can help you build your water flow diagram from the innovation side.
First of all, we have a new product sales calculation that we do. You have to be, yeah, we steer it with a couple of KPIs because if you only rely on one KPI and you have one product that changes a solvent, you can end up with 10% new product sales and it is not really representative of the portfolio. What I can say is that you can look at the track record and we have published this also in our innovation dialogues to show how much of our sales are driven by new product introductions. This you can track over time and you get a certain percentage of this. What we also do is we do extend and create buckets where we are not fooling ourselves, that that is actually on top. We have defend buckets that are actually offsetting erosion .
We look at what our market needs to deliver in terms of being in sweet spots in specific applications and also by investments that we have done. If you sum that all up, what we are doing for our investments, which portion we are doing for offsetting erosion in our defend part and which part we are growing on for the really new to market technologies, this is where you get this EUR 500 million from, the EUR 500 million EBITDA by 2027. Of course, a large percentage is asset enabled. You have seen the presentation. You can sum up a decent amount of EBITDA from that. You know where our GDP point is on our market part. You can get a pretty good feel what that create and extend portfolio needs to deliver. It is equally on that part, is equally distributed between the two segments.
We're not kidding ourselves on what erodes. We also know that if there's more weak GDP, we need to get more churn out of our innovation portfolio.
To the question regarding the cost, I mentioned before Martin its a EUR 70 million additional market growth year by year. You are totally right. EUR 400 million is EUR 300 million versus EUR 100. EUR 100 million were cost. What makes us very optimistic that this number will go up in 2026 and 2027 is that of course we have shown you quite a few projects and programs that have started in 2023 and 2024 and now started in 2025. Of course, the cost effectiveness will now come over time. Taking for example if you reduce FTE and then if you reduce FTE by the end of 2025, the savings will be higher in 2026 than they are in 2025 obviously.
This is why your calculation is actually pretty precise. We see that this is moving up in the next two years.
Let me just add a more technical comment. You mentioned the energy cost savings. They are not part of the EUR 1 billion target and they are not part of the cost savings. That is obviously not in our hand. That comes on top or is a separate calculation on the energy cost. What we are talking about here is simply cost savings from our programs, the business optimization programs. Energy would come on top and separately. It is difficult to calculate and to predict for us.
Next question from Chetan from JPMorgan .
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions.
Firstly, I have to acknowledge and thanks for clearly giving us net savings because every time we have this confusion on many CMDs how these savings are gross, net. Just before we go into some of the other stuff, can you remind us how much is your fixed cost inflation every year that you see? Because you're talking about net cost savings, but how much are you offsetting every year on a group level? The second related question was at the time of COVID and thereafter you had these EUR 250 million of contingency savings if I'm not mistaken. What happened to those? Have they come back? Will they be permanent? Because those were big numbers that we were talking about back then.
Maybe last question, how much of your growth aspiration that you talk about, this EUR 500 million EBITDA increase of which EUR 300 million has been achieved already, how much of that is just a cyclical macro demand recovery driven? Because we all know most of the companies today are operating at 70-75% utilization. How much of that is your project versus assumed recovery in the market?
Okay, Maike, I'm sorry. I'm afraid the two ones go to you. This is the first two ones and the third one in the meantime while you are answering, the three others can discuss who's taking it.
Chetan, maybe as a starter, like I've done with Martin about the former cost cutting programs, initiatives, measures, however you would name it. In short, those former programs we have started over the last couple of years, they have failed. Why and how?
Easy to say. In respect, keep your priority with example. In respect of, for example, our administrational cost initiatives, we have said, okay, this is the structure and here we take headcount and here we take costs out. We have not tackled the structure. Instead, we have tailed away from overhauling, reforming the structure. Our lessons learned was to say the same as happened to our very honorable colleagues from a lot of other companies. Here it was not to say with ATM, Evonik Tailor Made, key and core is to create a new structure. Maybe it is somewhat like a greenfield approach, which means in fact reducing the hierarchy level from 10 to 6 and extending and expanding the management approach level from one employee to two, sorry, from one manager to two employees. Now it will in future be from one manager to seven employees.
is a structural overhauling and reform. By doing so, by doing so, following the line of this greenfield approach, we have a chance to reduce in a sustained and sustainable way those EUR 400 million we have announced. That is the reason why we are here well on track. It is an exchange of what we have done in the past and now talking about this structural overhauling. Having said this, it is my pleasure, my hono rable pleasure to hand over to our CFO, Maike.
Thank you, Christian. Maybe also one word and then I go to the fixed cost because I think you are also interested in the contingencies we had in the last two years. This stays relatively broadly in place because I think if you do two years on contingencies, obviously we see that a company can survive with it.
They are really factored in and that is a totally good part now of the fixed cost inflation because we need, of course, we need to have contingencies in place to really kind of go against the fixed cost inflation. We have, just to give you a math, I cannot obviously give you the exact number, I could, but I will not. We have EUR 5 billion roughly fixed costs in the group. You can see that, it depends of course on if inflation is higher or lower. Last year, especially when you look into the U.S., we were on the rather higher side. We talk about, let's say, low triple digit million euros, low triple digit, triple digit, gosh. Double digit. Double digit, no, triple digit, triple digit.
Inflation, obviously, if you look into the EUR 4 billion number of EUR 4 billion and the part which is very, very clear which has to be intact is the contingencies we stay in place.
Last question on the cyclical recovery necessary for the growth part. Yeah, you want to start?
The market maybe. You're right. In 2024, there's definitely a lot of order were coming out of all the, let's say, the cyclical, all the customer which were emptying their warehouse by 2023. But this phenomenon happened in 2024. I think this is not what we are seeing right now in 2025 because we are already on a, let's say, when we are looking to our order entry, we see normal pattern.
The time where really on quarter one, 2024, everybody was purchasing material in order to have a little bit of material in the warehouse is not the case this year, at least not in our businesses.
Yeah. Yeah. Also, a quick follow-up. You have seen the three categories that we mentioned for the growth, innovation, investments, and market growth. And innovation and investments are mostly the projects we have in place already, right? And executing and filling the investments we have in place actually for market growth after the strong growth in 2024. We have included only very limited going forward for the 2027 target. That is the answer, very limited and very little only from cyclical recovery. Sorry for the number. For the number backup on that. Next question, David, first row from Exane.
Thank you. Yeah. So three from me, please.
The first one, I'm sorry to be the first one to ask about methionine, but can I ask what the price assumption is in the EUR 2.7 billion EBITDA target? What's the price assumption for methionine? Price assumption. Price of methionine? Midterm through 2027. Given that you've talked about the weakening of methionine potentially in the second half of this year as new capacity comes on, what's the price assumption behind the EUR 1 billion additional growth of EBITDA?
You asked for the precise price?
Are you expecting a recovery from lower second half levels if we get lower second half levels? Are you expecting current levels?
Come on. No, it's a great, it's a great, it's a fancy, sexy question, no doubt about. As you know, ladies and gentlemen, we do not provide you with precise numbers and figures in respect of our methionine business.
That holds true since ever and that will hold true forever because otherwise we would come into tremendous, let me say, competitive turmoils because there is some competition. As of today, we can tell you that we feel really, really comfortable with the price level we do have. That is what holds true, that goes without saying. First of all, we have assumed it will be a good first quarter. Things have turned into the better and we have become more and more confident that it will become a good second quarter too. Now it is really us, how should I keep it? It is bettering, enhancing our mood in respect saying it could even be a third quarter.
Let's keep it like I am conservative in German, not too bad in comparison to the first and the second quarter, but for sure better as we have assumed during the first days, as of during the first days of the year. This was your first question. The second was?
Yeah, that's fine. Thank you very much.
Yeah, that's good.
Yeah, the second question. R&D, if I look at 2024, was skewed towards the Smart Materials business, which now sits in the cash half of the business. I'm wondering why the most heavy R&D segment is expected to contribute half of the growth of the other segment.
I think the question was about the distribution of R&D spend?
Yeah, just the spend in 2024, I think I'm right in saying that Smart Materials was the heaviest R&D investment area. Smart Materials now.
No, it wasn't Advanced Technology under R&D spending.
Advanced, I think that's.
Yeah, sorry, old segments. Smart Materials is now in Advanced Technologies.
The comment is about the distribution of the spend on R&D. So roughly we spend EUR 450 million a year on R&D. There's a part of it that is also Evonik's mandated projects, the projects that we want to work on that will develop over the next couple of years. This bucket is not allocated to the individual business lines. Each of the business lines have their R&D spend relative to the technology developed, the bandwidth that is required to bring new solutions to the market. As mentioned, there are different types of technology developments for Advanced Technologies that goes in the areas of process optimization. We had new technologies coming on stream like our Polyamide 12 production facility.
It's a new production method. There would be more money being spent on these types of applications. There's also in the more Specialty Additives side, now Custom Solutions. Oftentimes it's not big buckets, but small amounts of R&D spend in the differentiation and applied technology of our assets or applied technology of our applications. I would say I have to re-look at the Nutrition & Care numbers side of it because in this area with our biotechnology and our fermentation development and also with our reticules and these types have a decent amount of spend, but that's of course not necessarily allocated to the individual business lines. I would have to look at the exact numbers that you're talking about. However, the distribution is relatively equal across the two segments, just spent in different buckets.
One that goes a lot towards process, one that goes a lot towards product. Again, a bucket that's resigned for Evonik to go after some strategic initiatives, that's not allocated to the business lines directly.
Got it. If I understand you correctly, then the Advanced Technologies is growing slow with the same R&D, but it's because it's more CapEx intensive R&D and on the Customer Solutions side, it's a little bit less CapEx intensive.
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Okay, thank you. The third one is actually specifically for you, Lauren. It is, what have you found with the sales organization and Customer Solutions so far? What are the changes you'll be looking to make?
Yeah, two main topics. In extracting value, what we see is we do a lot of development of super interesting products, right?
Our customers are always telling us, thank you, thank you, thank you. At the end of the day, a lot of that improvement in capabilities also requires then an investment, and we would like to get the return on this investment. What I would like to see earlier on in the development phase with our customers is that we have an understanding what exactly certain materials will do in their formulations so that we can make sure that we're working on and selecting out the right projects more efficiently earlier on in the process. I would say this takes a decent amount of business development mindset.
When you're doing this type of growth, you are not harvesting existing capabilities, and we will focus more and more on those more new business development applications, as well as leveraging Evonik's portfolio in new transforming markets where we put pieces together. One example is, for example, in the area of, I think we use pyrolysis oil oftentimes for this. We have catalysts that go into pyrolysis oil. We have absorbents that go into purifying these streams. We have oil additives that work in preventing crystallization and being able to raise this type of offers to the market at a very strategic level with our customers so that they're aware of Evonik's complete portfolio. At the end of the day, the individual business lines can sell the solution, but we raise these offers to our customers.
I would say one part that I would like to see is more focus earlier on in defining what that value is and making sure we're only working on things that our customers will buy, that it's not about the innovation part alone or the creativity part alone, but the execution on this, the confidence to do so. Making sure in all of this stressful time, lots of competition, lots of ways to get, yeah, find alternatives that our colleagues are positioned well to extract the value from the portfolio that we bring to the table. The second part, what I see as a bit we can leverage is really bringing the dots of different technologies in new applications from Evonik to the market.
Okay, next question from Sebastian from Citi.
Yeah, thank you very much. I want to ask on the buybacks.
You said you ruled it out in the past. What's changed your mind, please? I was wondering behind the criteria, so whether you have the option either to buy your own shares or another company, what are the criteria behind that? A clarification question on the timing. You say no M&A until 2027. Is the same true for buybacks as well? The last one, could you give us an update, please, on the timing of the divestments, please? Specifically T&I and when the earliest is that we could potentially expect some news here. Thank you.
Okay, thanks a lot for your questions. First of all, in respect of the divestments, let's start with infrastructure. Infrastructure, we would have carved out the business over the course of the year, and then from next year onwards, we will tackle.
All the options are still lying on the table. Tackling means here, is it a straight sale? Tackling means here, is it a joint venture? Tackling means here that each and everything you could imagine is lying on the table. Our aim is to create a solution which is best for the interests of Evonik, where Evonik would benefit most from. You should keep in mind that here we have to refer to the perspective of CapEx savings. I guess it is a hint you will digest in the right way. Second, in respect of our C4 business, as of today, the market is, as you all know, down. Here it will be really hard for us to start a process immediately. That is what we will not do here. It is to observe market development, market situation.
In the meanwhile, focusing on reducing the costs and bettering the cost position. In future, and for future, we have an upcoming increasing kind of confidence. This kind of confidence is entitled by, is Europe back? Is Germany back? Fostered by the EUR 1,000 billion infrastructure and defense program of the Federal Republic of Germany. As you know, Europe has something similar in mind, which means here construction will definitely benefit from. As you know, most of our C4 business is related to construction. As of today, market down. As of today, focusing on cost initiatives, cost-cutting measures of restructuring, not wasting time. For future, we are more hopeful, more confident because of these infrastructure programs the Federal Republic of Germany has initiated. Here we could have a good chance to benefit from the construction, let me say, offensive.
Germany here has started, which will also have an impact on the future of Europe. There was a question about M&A. Okay, what do we hear? Lauren, Claudine, Maike, me, in mind about M&A? First of all, until 2027, we will exclusively focus on those programs we have taken pride to present to you today. This means, in other words, all the efforts we can spend on it, we will spend on it. No room, no time for any kind of distraction. That is key. +EUR 1 billion of EBITDA, ROCE 11% until the end of 2027. That is key and everything we do have in our hands and in our brains is focusing on this. Having said this, no distraction.
Okay, if someone comes along saying here's an utmost outstanding, brilliant, exclusive technology we can buy for close to nothing, I'm sure that Maike would not tilt away instead of saying, okay, show me what kind of beef you're bringing to the table. That is, here we talk about tiny amounts. Second, about M&A, in future, it is prudent following the line of what we've given you today, the drawn line of what we've given you today, to expect that we will do M&A in the areas of additives and in the areas of biotechnology, biochemicals, in other words, in the area of Custom Solutions. Here we are striving to grow. Here we have best market and technology positions. Here we are going to grow. If you believe we do it in this region, we won't disagree. Second, there is an advantage in it.
To strengthen our strong positions is best because we know what we are talking about. No surprises in respect of market, no surprises in respect of competitors, no surprises in respect of technology positions. Limited risks in respect of integration, and it follows the line of the crystal clear strategy we have given to you. There was a third question about what was it? Share buybacks. Share buybacks, never mind, never mind. In former times, we've said no share buybacks because we have good ideas how and where to invest. Nowadays, we have somewhat like a ranking. The ranking is first, invest in organic growth. The ranking is second, make sure that we're able to pay an attractive dividend as we have done in the past. The ranking is third to say, okay, what do we have in mind?
From Maike's perspective, what do we have in our piggy bank for maybe a decent, a diligent, a disciplined M&A approach or read my lips, tantamount maybe if no attractive target is available. We would not tilt away from thinking about share buybacks instead of saying tantamount, we do put an open eye to it. Have I made my point? Thanks a lot.
Was the question on timing also on buybacks? I do not know, Sebastian, are you happy with the answer or shall we from when on 2027 earlier?
I think.
Yeah, Maike.
Yeah, put it the other way around. Do not expect any share buybacks in the next 12-18 months and then we see.
Okay. Michael Schäfer from Otto. Sorry, sorry, Aaron. Berenberg.
I have a question on high-performance polymers and on PA12 specifically. Some of your competitors include these polymers as a key growth area.
Why, I see you're now including an advanced technology. Just wondering, are you seeing less growth perhaps compared to when you invested in Marl in 2021? Could you elaborate a little bit on the growing competition from Chinese in PA12? Thank you.
Yes, that's right. In the high-performance business line, we do have the Polyamide 12. We have the Membrane, we have PEEK, we have ROSiL, which is another material. We decided really, as I think in the introduction part, it has been said that it's not 100% all allocated exactly the way you would have done it, but really also, from an efficiency point of view, we decided to have the HPP/ PPA part altogether, Polyamide 12 and all the rest together at advanced technology. We do believe as well that this technology is an extremely good one, and we are working on optimization on that technology.
If we are looking more specifically on PA12, you have the raw material or the, let's say, the monomer, and then you have the polymerization upcoming. Yes, you have a big Chinese competitor, which has both as well. From the Western world, we are the only one having both. You might have heard when we came up with the investment at that time that co-producer and co-manufacturer agreement are in place in order to have that done. I think this is a positive aspect. I mentioned it a couple of times today that with the shutdown of the CDON, so the monomer part from BASF, we are in a pretty good supply situation versus the demand to deliver the demand in Europe, in the U.S. We are not delivering that in China or in Asia-Pacific, that's correct. Competitive intensity, yes, it is existing.
I mean, this is not only valid for PA12, it's valid for isoflurane, it's valid for methionine. At the end of the day, after, it's all about your own value chain or your own technology offering you are giving to the customer beside the geostrategic aspect. For the moment, I'm confident. We do have the site here for the monomer. We have, I do believe, the competitive intensity, but it's potentially higher on the polymer as on the monomer side.
You allow me one comment. I can just also, I just transferred from this business and handed it over. But the traditional polymer 12 business grows and it grows above GDP. There's pent-up demand for years of being short in the market. Unfortunately, we all decided to come at once to the market, so that makes it a lot of fun.
We were fastest and out there with the best quality, and it's definitely growing. The PA12 polymer business is growing. There's bandwidth there.
It's a lot of application. It's not only one single one where you say, this is it. You have one which are above 8%, other one which has a 1, other one which potentially is stable, but the overall business is developing.
Michael.
Okay, now.
Finally.
Finally, three questions from my side as well. Maybe to start with potentially to Christian. You introduced a new KPI to the market today, at least from your perspective, with a ROCE target of 11%. And I wonder whether we also see this in management remuneration targets reflected. As far as I'm concerned, it's not yet included there. So any answer on that one? Helpful. Second one is probably to Claudine.
It looks like you bear the burden from delivering the most in terms of free cash flow contribution or at least change over the next couple of years. You mentioned a EUR 430 million average, and if my math was right, it was roughly only 40% compared to EBITDA on the back of the investment. Can you give us a bit more details? What are you targeting essentially and how your CapEx allocation looks like and what is contributing from that end? Third question, maybe a general question. On the one-third each region type of target and 25% in APAC, how should we think about getting there to one-third in APAC? Thanks.
Okay, I take the first question.
I take the second.
While wiping with a handkerchief in my eyes, it was not that I am close to tears because of your questions, but instead of that the makeup, you know, gentlemen, I am not familiar with it, you know, is somewhat dropping into my eyes. Okay, now it is about the first question, the answer to the first question. Do not be surprised, but it could happen. That is what you have mentioned. It is a brilliant example for this that Maike, Lauren, Claudine, and myself are somewhat quicker than our systems. Here now in concrete, we do have for us in the executive board of directors, the extended we have canceled last year. Two blocks. First block, short term, second block, long term. Short term, our annual compensation is here we have the fixed compensation, of course, then third, short and then long term.
Yes, the KPIs are for the short term, EBITDA margin, EBITDA, and free cash flow. Another idea is to substitute the EBITDA margin by the ROCE. Yes, we have to bring it to the supervisory board end of the year because next year we will ask cordially and kindly for approval and permission of our annual group meeting during our annual group meeting of our investors to implement the ROCE into our incentive system. Option is, as you know, we have a long-term incentive plan where 80% belong to the share price development and 20% to the progress in respect of our ESG targets. It could be, but that relates to the talks with our supervisory board that we could split it up in what way ever.
For sure is, and here you can bank on the four of us here in front of you that we will integrate the ROCE from the next annual group meeting in 2026 into our incentive role models in an attractive way because money pays my bill and that's the most true for you, which means the more we can earn, the better we could pay. Therefore, we're really committed to the ROCE of 11%. That is my answer to your first question.
I take the cash flow.
Yeah,
okay. The objective is definitely to be above 50%. This is also the objective to reach it that year. The theory, you know it on the free cash flow is it's one hand, the EBITDA, and the other one, the networking capital. The theory, I just start with the theory.
If you have a good forecast accuracy and a good plant availability, you will be able really to have a limited amount of material in the net working capital and the finished good. One of the two strategies where on the two aspects, not only on the strategy we are already working is for sure to improve the EBITDA, but it is all about steering our operation in the supply chain so that we can reduce our finished good inventory. We have a track record to have that done in the past. It needs to be not only an anecdote, but it needs to be processes in place so that is continuously the case.
As I mentioned, on the government side, we have very clear key performance indicators, which are showing how good our plant is in terms of availability, about the throughput, and also how good we are in forecast accuracy in improving the forecast in all the three regions, how we can organize that way. That definitely the finished good inventory is done. Even if it is stable EBITDA, then ultimately our cash flow conversion is going about 50%.
Maybe I can comment quickly on your third question about the one-third, one-third, one-third, and the others can join as well. In the presentation we had earlier for the Custom Solutions business, we just mentioned two investments. I gave a little bit of detail about biodiesel catalysts and putting this in Singapore for the Southeast Asian market, where it is actually even a planned market for how to use biodiesel.
Another example is also our amine expansion. When we had acquired Air Products in their chemical division in 2017, we came along with a footprint where it has a North American amines footprint and also a footprint in Nanjing. However, as a U.S.-based company, a tremendous amount of the materials were produced out of the U.S. and a smaller portfolio based in Nanjing. We are in the process of expanding those capabilities to be also more locally competitive against those amine materials that go into polyurethane applications, coating adhesive applications in the region. On top of that, we had established in our last bit of time our battery center in China and continuing on this balance between what Claudine had mentioned in her presentation about our metal oxide business in Yokaichi.
You will see step-wise, step-wise in a very consistent way placing the right investments in Asia to get that up to the one-third mark.
Region for region.
Maybe just one additional topic regarding the regional split. The divestments are mainly in Europe. This will also then, of course, help us to grow in Europe, in Asia, so to say, or have a different split.
Okay, we are coming to the maybe last one or two rounds of questions. There are no questions online, so good for you here in the room. Anybody? Chetan already had his chat. You already had some questions, Chetan. I am just checking whether there is not somebody else who wants to go ahead. If that is not the case, then obviously you are.
Mine is quick.
You know, all these savings, how much are the restructuring costs that we should have in mind for next three years on cash basis?
With all the restructuring, I think what I've showed you is there are these buckets with, on the one hand side, we still have the contingencies, what we haven't showed. We do have the restructuring, the business optimization, as we call it, which is roughly EUR 400 million. Then we have ETM with roughly EUR 400 million. These are the effects you will see in the future.
Thank you. Question was specifically to the restructuring, but yeah, on the provisions, on the provision side for the restructuring program.
You were asking about the provision of the restructuring?
What is the cost of restructuring?
Got it. Okay. What we do currently have, do not expect any additional provisions in our balance sheet.
What we have shown you today is the utmost majority on the restructuring expenses, which we have already accrued for in our balance sheet in 2024. No additional cost.
I think what we mentioned during the presentation, they all more or less started, right? We have presented them internally, so they all started. If you look in detail, you will find the one or the other provision over the last couple of quarters. That is all more or less done.
Good.
Last question from Jonathan and maybe another one from Sebastian, but let's see how quick Jonathan is with his question.
It is a very quick question.
Very good.
On the capital allocation priorities, you mentioned attractive dividend policy quite a few times. What is your appetite to grow that dividend between now and 2027?
Honestly, I am totally surprised.
Because if you look around in the chemicals industry all around the world, I guess in respect of the attractiveness of our dividend, I dare say, please forgive me, I guess it's outstanding. To have such an attractive dividend, we, Lauren, Claudine, Maike for sure, and I myself feel really glad and satisfied with, and we do, that is what you can bank on. Each and every day, work our knuckles bloody to make sure that we could provide our investors with such an attractive dividend. It was a little bit more lyrical.
As we know you, Christian, as we know you. Last question from Sebastian.
I can't help it, Tim.
I have a couple of questions on growth, actually, on the kind of market assumptions that you've shown on the slides. First one on healthcare, where you show 6%.
Just wanted to understand to what extent is that reliant on the mRNA market taking off? Second one on methionine, 3-4%, historically more 5%. Just wondered what's changed there. The last one is on hydrogen peroxide, 6% seems pretty high for what I think normally is a relatively mature market. If you could help us with that as well, please. Thank you.
Very short. Very short.
I think the first one, then I will be quiet about methionine. No, no, no, no, no. The average over the last cycle was around 3-4%. If you go with me together into the last century, you will see maybe some 5% growth, but over the last cycle, year 3-4% was the annual average, and that is what is still the case. Now I'm quiet.
Maybe I can just make a comment on the slides that we showed regarding these specific subsegments. What was mentioned there specifically on the 6% was related to oral drug delivery. That is our [EUDRAGIT/EUDRATEC] product line that is not specifically for lipids. Lipids is parenteral drug delivery or inhalation, different mode of entering the human body. With regards to lipids, I mean, we're still on track for our investment in Tippe canoe. We do see dramatic changes in the market. I mean, you all know what it was like in 2022 with vaccine development. This was a huge demand. Of course, this has dropped since the pandemic time, but this continues to grow at a good clip at that reduced level, of course, since the pandemic.
The growth is being driven not now with a focus on vaccines, but a focus on oncology, a focus on respiratory applications. We see this continuous growth then, of course, as said, on a different level than it was during the pandemic. I think there was another thing.
I think the last one on H2O2. We do have a couple of investments ongoing. This is not a big investment. There is a small investment really for reverse osmosis and ionic surges really to produce this high-purity H2O2 for electronic application. This is developing right now. I can for sure check again the growth rate on that. Definitely not pulp and paper, but it is really about this high-end material, which, by the way, not everybody can produce. It is a pretty tricky production purification step. Okay.
Thank you very much to all of you here for your questions and for your participation. With that, I hand it to you, Christian, for the closing remarks.
I've really tried hard to be quiet, but if you ask me cordially and politely to give the closing remarks, I can't block myself. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Maike, Claudine, and Lauren, it is my pleasure to thank you very much that you find the way here to Essen, to us, in the middle of the Ruhr Valley. We have really appreciated that you have joined this Capital Markets Day with us.
Your questions have been helpful, and I hope we have not disappointed you in respect of giving you some more color on what we are up to in person and how we do act as a team and that we are totally committed to our goals and to make them happen. In a nutshell, by the end of 2027, first takeaway, we will have a much better, much improved financial profile driven by both growth and optimization. Most importantly, we will have a ROCE of around 11%. We will have concluded our major portfolio changes, talking about C4, talking about infrastructure. Even more, but for sure all the more, we will have reduced the amount of debts and created options for additional shareholder returns and targeted M&A. I guess most of the initiatives, measures, projects, programs we have conveyed to you are in our hands.
We will do our best to make this new future happen and to create a better tomorrow for Evonik than current times are. Having said this, once again, on behalf of the entire crew, thanks a lot for having had us today and take care in our this time to have a drink.