Good morning, and welcome to our 2025 full year results presentation. As usual, I'm here with Lily Liu, our CFO, and Faisal Tabbah, Head of Investor Relations, and together we look forward to answering your questions at the end. In terms of the agenda, I will provide an overview of our performance and the further strategic progress we made in 2025, despite an extended period of challenging market conditions. Lily will walk through the 2025 numbers in more detail and update you on the balance sheet developments before I come back to present the actions we have been taking to deliver our strategy of focusing on differentiated specialty products for attractive end markets. At the end, we will discuss what we have seen in terms of trading since the start of 2026, and what we expect for the remainder of the year and beyond.
I have five points, starting with our performance in 2025 against the backdrop of a further year of lower end market demand and the additional challenge presented by the global tariff changes introduced during the second quarter. We delivered gross and EBITDA margin improvement and an overall trading performance fully in line with our January 29 winter trading statement. In the face of volatile market conditions, we continue to rigorously prioritize what is within our control, delivering robust cash, earnings and margin performance while continuing to focus, simplify, and strengthen the business in accordance with our strategy. Divisionally, we delivered a strong performance in our AS business, which continued to regain share and enhance margins through successful delivery of its reliability and performance improvement program and increasingly important new growth initiatives. In both CCS and HPPM, activity levels were generally lower, which resulted in negative operational leverage.
We were able to partially offset the effects of this through additional self-help cost savings. At the same time, we continued to focus on managing our financial position. The group delivered positive free cash flow for the year, with a cash inflow in the second half as expected. We were able to bring down our net debt year-on-year, reflecting our rigorous focus on profit and cash management. Point 2, very important for all our stakeholders and our company. We have refinanced our bank facilities, extending the maturities from mid-2027 to Q1 2029. Together with a reset of our covenants over the whole period, this gives us stability and a runway into 2029. We can now fully focus on our business, our customers, and execute our plans. Point 3, we have had an encouraging start to 2026 trading.
Q1 2026 trading was in line with our expectations and showed progress against Q1 2025, with clearly improving momentum through the quarter. Q2 now started on a highly promising note. We expect a robust improvement in volumes and margins in the second quarter and potentially longer, depending on developments. As I will come back to, we are not changing our overall view for 2026 for now, but the risks are to the upside as we sit here today. Point 4, this improving trading momentum has two drivers. The foundation is enduring progress from our strategy. Product and business rationalization have further simplified our structure and focused our innovation, manufacturing excellence and expert service on the most attractive products for our customers and our bottom line, supported by our disciplined approach to capital allocation.
We have focused the business on end markets and customers where we believe the volume challenges of recent years were more cyclical than structural, and they are beginning to improve. We have invested carefully in key growth products like our APO line and in our innovation strategy. We have also created a number of commercial partnerships that leverage our capabilities without requiring capital investment. Our commercial strategy is now highly targeted on regions with the greatest opportunities for our business. Many of our key attributes and the strategic efforts we have made over the past 3.5 years mean we are well positioned to deal with the profound disruption in the value chain since the start of the Iran conflict.
While the longer term effects remain uncertain, the current volatility in the chemical sector has only served to reinforce the importance and benefits of our business model. Improving operating leverage from efficiency, cost reductions and capital discipline, our streamlined in-region for region manufacturing strategy, global procurement excellence, and above all, our increasing focus on the specialty businesses where we have comprehensive relationships, true differentiation, and hence pricing power. It is these factors which we have focused on for the last three difficult years, which are allowing us to capitalize on the trading momentum that we are seeing now. My fifth point, we will stick to our strategy and maintain our discipline to ensure that we deliver the substantial further value creation available. We will continue the divestment program. William Blythe was divested in the first half of last year, our third divestment since 2022.
Our half year results, we announced we are broadening our divestment program in order to accelerate deleveraging and focus our portfolio further. We currently have our four formal divestment processes underway, and we will always keep the wider business portfolio under review for further opportunities. We continue to extensively review our operating and capital expenditures to identify additional savings opportunities and improve our efficiency. Overall, we achieved GBP 30 million of operating cost savings during the year through our various self-help plans, and we now expect to deliver a further GBP 20 million-GBP 25 million in incremental gross benefits in 2026.
We will maintain our ambition to make the business more specialty-focused, the key driver of the fact that our group gross margin has increased by a massive 500 basis points over the last four years to over 40% in the last quarter, demonstrating the substantial improvement in our operating leverage to increasing volumes. Gross margin will remain a focus in 2026, as it positions us very well for further volume recovery in our core markets. I come back in a moment to talk further about some of the actions we are taking in the current year, but let me now hand over to Lily to run through the numbers in more detail.
Many thanks, Michael, and good morning all. As Michael already mentioned, 2025 was a challenging year for the industry and for Synthomer. Against that backdrop, we performed well in delivering strategic steps and further enhancing our margin via self-help actions. In this section, I'll focus on our actual 2025 result, including the cash flow, and also provide an update on our refinancing project. Starting with the financial summary, my first remark before any line details is that despite the revenue reduction of nearly GBP 200 million year on year due to market conditions, our EBITDA dropped by GBP 6.5 million, thanks to our focus effort and delivery on self-help actions. Group revenue for continuing business was 9.9% lower on constant currency at GBP 1.74 billion.
Volume was down 7.2% from lower end market demand following tariff changes and the ongoing competition from Asian companies in base chemical areas, a situation that since the Iran war has changed significantly, as Michael alluded to already. Our EBITDA reduced by 4.5% on constant currency to GBP 137 million, which resulted into an EBITDA margin expansion of 40 basis points versus 2024 to 7.8%. This was supported by GBP 30 million of cost efficiency programs and reliability improvements, as well as lower bonus accrual compared to 2024. Continuing business underlying operating profit was GBP 37.6 million for the year, a reduction of 21%. Underlying finance costs increased by 6.5%, with the higher coupon from new bond partially offset by lower base rates.
I come to refinancing and expected interest costs in a minute. We continue to guide underlying group effective tax rate around 25%. For 2025, our ETR is significantly outside of this normal range due to a one-time adjustment on deferred tax assets in the U.S. and U.K., as well as geographical mix of profits and loss. Discontinued operations, being William Blythe's business, contributed an EBITDA of GBP 3.6 million up to its divestment in May 2025. The total group, continued and discontinued, had underlying loss per share of GBP 0.372 versus GBP 0.025 loss from 2024. About half of the EPS, that deterioration was due to the aforementioned derecognition of U.S. and U.K. tax losses, which the company can access to in the future. Special items comprise mostly intangible amortization, impairment charge, and restructuring and site closure costs in the period.
As always, we have included a schedule for special items in the appendix. Our net debt of GBP 575 million was GBP 22 million lower than FY 2024, and GBP 63 million lower than the half year of 2025, thanks to good cash management, and our leverage was 4.7x, well within the covenant. Now turning to each of the divisions. In CCS, revenue was GBP 699 million, down 11.6% in constant currency from 2024. Volume was down 6.8%, reflecting tariff-induced demand uncertainty, and comparing to a relatively strong prior period, which included a reasonable coating season. The biggest driver was lower oil and gas drilling activity, which has resulted in smaller orders from our oil field service customers in the high-margin Energy Solutions segment.
We have seen some improvement in Coatings & Construction Solutions business in Europe, which was particularly challenged in 2024. This was not enough to offset the muted activities elsewhere, particularly in the U.S. The Energy Solutions slowdown was also reflected in the price mix reduction of 4.8% for the period. As a result, EBITDA reduced to GBP 64 million or down 25% in constant currency with an EBITDA margin of 9.2%. This reflects the negative operating leverage and the mixed effect of a strong prior Energy Solutions result. In response, we have taken decisive steps on cost reduction. CCS bears substantial share of group overall cost base. The total saving delivered in year was GBP 13 million, with further benefit expected in 2026. The turnaround of our Adhesive Solutions division continued with pace.
The EBITDA increased by 39.5% in constant currency versus 2024, raising EBITDA margin by 350 basis points to 11.6%. A reminder that in 2023, the margin of this business was around 5%. In two years, we more than doubled the EBITDA and EBITDA margin. Revenue was 1.5% lower in constant currency, in line with 1.2% volume reduction. This was partly driven by the shutdown and site reliability issue in a third-party managed site that we have talked about previously, although this is now improving. Our overall improved reliability and cost competitiveness have enabled AS to regain resilience in the period of market volatility, with business delivering around GBP 11 million operational efficiency and cost savings in 2025. Again, more to come in 2026. Finally, Health & Protection and Performance Materials.
Revenue was down 16.5% in constant currency, reflecting a 10.4% volume reduction and partly through a lower raw material price. Within Health & Protection, NBR volume fell by 17.3%. Beginning of the year, we saw muted customer demand reflecting some pre-buying in 2024 in the supply chain prior to the change of U.S. PPE tariffs in January 2025. Volume began to improve in Q4 2025. Margin per ton in H&P benefited from mix effect as demand for our higher margin reusable products was more robust than disposables in the year. This continued to be lower than the pre-COVID levels. The Iran war has a positive effect on the margin.
We received further income from U.S. technology partner, where we support their efforts in building a new U.S. NBR plant, including for a new package built and delivered in the period. The Performance Materials side of the division reflects volatile market conditions for these businesses, especially the monomers business. Process optimization and cost efficiency initiatives has driven performance improvement. We continue to focus our efforts on enhancing capacity utilization and efficiency within the division. EBITDA was GBP 24 million with a margin of 5.2%. In the year, we disposed William Blythe's and ended operations at our Ningbo site in China with further divestment program progressing, as Michael already mentioned. Now to cash flow. We delivered positive free cash flow as targeted in 2025, even as, after adjusting for the one-time KLK receivables purchasing.
Closing net debt of GBP 575 million, reduction of GBP 22 million from 2024. Now, our expectation for 2026 at this stage is also broadly neutral free cash flow once the 50 million receivable purchasing unwind is accounted for. Now, in reality, this was already completed by early March. Our net working capital, excluding receivable financing, was broadly flat in 2025. We had an inflow of GBP 77 million from higher utilization of receivable financing facility and the 50 million receivable purchasing agreement. We expect the euro seasonal working capital outflow in H1 2026, which is likely to be slightly higher than before, given the Iran conflict's effect on raw material costs, but also the euro seasonal inflow in H2 2026, supported by further structural inventory reduction programs.
CapEx remains disciplined with full year spend of GBP 86 million, in line with prior year and our CapEx to depreciation ratio remains below 1x . In 2026, we have further focus on our capital spending program and expect to spend around GBP 50 million less than prior year. A figure that still include a few carefully selected growth projects. Full year cash tax was neutral and benefited from prior year refunds in H1 2025. Pension costs in excess of P&L are significantly lower than last year, as guided. The deferred U.K. deficit reduction payment was made in 2024. Regarding our debt facilities, the remaining EUR 150 million stub amount of 2025 bond was repaid in July 2025. We refinanced our RCF and EUCAP facilities, extended the maturity of both facilities to the end of February 2029.
Security and guarantee package is provided by certain group companies. Coming to covenant and liquidity with the refinance, we gain further covenant support in line with macro uncertainty, and we agree to provide quarterly covenant testing on leverage and the minimum liquidity covenant. Our liquidity remains healthy for the group. I'm expecting the P&L interest cost to be around GBP 70 million in 2026, reflecting the refinancing deal. Cash interest cost lower by mid-single digit GBP millions. Net debt to EBITDA was 4.7 times at the year-end on the covenant definition basis, which mainly adjusts for IFRS 16. This is for about 0.4 to 0.5 times higher than using the headline net debt to EBITDA figures. Now let me reiterate that our key priority is to reduce our leverage towards 1x to 2x medium-term target level.
Through a combination of increased EBITDA, continued cash generation focus, supplemented with proceeds from divestment. The board has confirmed that dividend will remain suspended until our leverage is below 2.5 times. In summary, in 2025, we made strategic, operational, and financial progress against the backdrop of challenging and uncertain macro environment. We'll continue to focus on our self-help actions, capitalize on the current market conditions since the Iran War and balancing this with selective investment guided by our strategy. Let me stop here and hand back to Michael to update you on strategic initiatives and outlook. After Michael's remark, we'll come back to take questions.
Thank you very much, Lily. I would like to begin this section by reiterating the key elements of the strategy which have and will continue to guide how we are transforming the business. All five pillars and three enablers provide executable actions for us. The period since we launched the strategy in late 2022 has not been the easiest environment to demonstrate progress, but our actions are showing a positive effect on the quality of our portfolio. I mentioned our significant and continuous gross margin improvement, and together with all the work we have done on the operating and overhead costs, we have increased the operational leverage in the business substantially, resulting in a drop-through rate from revenue down to EBITDA of 30% or more. As market conditions change, we will stick to the core tenets of these plans which have served us well.
This slide will also be familiar, illustrating the direction of our strategic evolution in creating a more specialty, more geographically balanced, and a more streamlined Synthomer. Let me briefly take you through each of the three divisions to highlight the key actions we took in support of our strategy. CCS is our most specialty-weighted division, and as Lily has described, it experienced a challenging demand environment in 2025, mainly in Energy Solutions and construction. We continued to further align the activities of the division with its strategic end markets during the year. That meant continuing to improve the geographical balance of CCS with strategic key account management for our top global customers and targeted marketing to new customers in North America, the Middle East, and Asia, including China.
It meant strengthening the division's position in high-growth subsegments, including adapting our product portfolios for market areas where we see growth opportunities, such as battery technology and solutions that support data center construction. In line with our focus on value selling and optimizing our product mix, we launched a new CRM system, which I believe to be best in class, and introduced new pricing strategies. As part of our ongoing portfolio improvements, our innovation process is becoming more end market focused to enable us to get products to market quicker. We made selective investments in our manufacturing capability in the U.S. to increase its flexibility and enable the localization of products previously only made and imported from Europe. We enhanced our coatings capacity in the Middle East to support long-term growth opportunities in the region.
In response to market conditions, CCS stepped up a range of efficiency measures during the year. This included a cost reduction program to mitigate the slowdown in end market demand. We accelerated and reprioritized a number of asset optimization projects and other cost and capacity management activities during the year, including temporarily idling excess capacity, reducing shift patterns, and undertaking a broader review of operating costs, including headcount. The division is also implementing a number of inventory management measures to enhance cash flow. We expect our 2026 performance to benefit from these projects in addition to the significant market-driven volume and margin opportunities we witnessed since February 2026. Turning now to Adhesive Solutions. The division has continued to build on the dedicated performance improvement program launched in 2023, which has transformed the adhesive resin business acquired by Synthomer in 2022.
The program has enabled improvements in reliability for customers and achieved GBP 35 million in cumulative benefits to date by reducing costs and improving end-to-end operations from supplier network improvement to production site efficiency and delivery logistics. The program continues to find further opportunities, expanded again to target a total of at least GBP 40 million in cumulative benefits by the end of 2026. As Lily has already touched upon, the success of the program is now clearly evident in the division's EBITDA margins, which have more than doubled to 11.6% last year, versus 5.4% on launch in 2023. Our reliability efforts are now primarily focused on the Longview, Texas facility shared with Eastman. Following the upgrade to increase the specialty APO capacity, this represents a key growth opportunity for 2026 and the years ahead.
We will also continue to pursue further opportunities to reduce working capital intensity and optimize our supplier network for key raw materials. At the same time, we continue to regain market share through greater reliability, competitiveness, and strong customer centricity. We are increasingly leveraging our global production network and multi-year relationships with blue chip customers to grow our specialty exposure, which accounts now for 60% of divisional revenue. In the first half, we announced a novel value chain partnership and supply agreement with Henkel. The year also saw the successful launch of CLIMA branded products, which deliver at least a 20% cradle-to-gate reduction in certified product carbon footprint. In the more volatile and competitive European-based chemical product areas, we remain focused on enhancing cost competitiveness and reliability and leveraging partnerships and volumes. Finally, turning to HPPM.
Much of HPPM division has base chemicals characteristics, our differentiated steering approach focuses on improving cost efficiency across the value chains while enhancing our overall value proposition to customers through selective investment in process and product innovation. Our Health & Protection business continues to focus on opportunities to leverage our position as a global market leader in NBR manufacturing with significant technology and manufacturing expertise. We also continue to support our U.S. partner with further technology licensing and manufacturing expertise as it developed onshore U.S. capacity for nitrile latex and glove manufacture. We are exploring other potential partnership opportunities for this business globally that require little or no capital investment. In 2025, we established a partnership with Neste and PCS to manufacture bio-based nitrile latexes for the glove industry.
We also continue to develop new products that aid usability, weight reduction, and high performance for customers in this market. In Performance Materials, we signed a partnership with Lummus technology to license Synthomer's proprietary acrylic acid esters technology, which will now reach a broader market through the Lummus platform. We also undertook further product rationalization and consolidated an old manufacturing site in China during the year. In advancing the strategic transformation of the portfolio, we completed the divestment of William Blythe, a non-core inorganic chemistry business. This transaction further reduces the complexity of our site portfolio and enables a greater focus of capital, time, and other resources. During the year, we broadened the scope of our non-core divestment portfolio to accelerate the group's deleveraging and simplify the business portfolio further. Turning now to 2026 trading and outlook.
Overall trading in the first quarter of 2026 was in line with our expectations and ahead of prior year, with much improved CCS and stable AS performances offsetting a slower start in parts of the HPPM division. Encouragingly, all businesses had improving momentum through the quarter. Since the start of the Iran conflict, we have experienced substantial changes in our operating and commercial environment, both up and downstream. As I mentioned at the start, our focus over the last years on improving on speed and agility, a streamlined in-region, for-region manufacturing footprint, and stronger procurement capabilities mean we are well positioned to significantly capitalize on the market opportunities available.
We are passing through the significant increases in raw material costs and to a lesser degree in energy in substantial pricing adjustments, while volumes in many areas are increasing due to disruption to the global manufacturing and distribution networks of competitors, particularly those based in Asia. With little backward integration, we have always had to be agile in our sourcing strategies, and our global procurement and supply chains have now reached a level which I call market leading. As a result, we are expecting robustly positive period-on-period volume and margin developments in the second quarter of the year and potentially thereafter based on our latest trading data. Clearly, the geopolitical and market context remains highly volatile, and the potential impact of prolonged disruption on end market demand is uncertain. We are therefore making no changes to our 2026 outlook at this stage.
Overall, we expect to make year-on-year progress driven primarily by our self-help actions. Specifically, we anticipate that full year contributions from our cost reduction programs and product investments made in AS and CCS during 2025, ongoing margin progress in our specialty businesses, Health & Protection volume and margin improvements will partially offset by wage inflations and normalization of bonus accrual in the year. At the same time, the longer the trading conditions experienced in Q2 persist, the greater the upside risks to our expectations. In summary, we continue to stick to our strategy to transform this business to our specialty. Now, more than ever, this is the right strategy for our portfolio. Through the last four years of subdued sector demand, coupled with the additional debt from the Eastman Adhesives acquisition, our balance sheet has been one of our biggest challenges.
Alongside making the portfolio more focused and resilient, our broadened divestment program will help to reduce our leverage. Meanwhile, we continue to work positively with our finance providers to ensure the runway to deliver our plans. Most importantly, we have begun to see some evidence that underlying specialty end market demand is improving. Our increased operating leverage to volumes in these markets is, in the end, the key driver of our earnings ambitions and hence the value creation opportunity in this company. In the broader context, as negative as the Iran conflict is for this world in general, it does represent a positive catalyst for us with our increased margins, reduced cost base, regional production footprint, and best-in-class procurement.
It will take six to 12 months after a potential end to the conflict until global supply chains are back to normal, and it is interesting to see that many customers are reevaluating their global networks, especially their Asian supply exposure. We continue to be bold and fast, execute our strategy, capture the opportunity, and mitigate all the related challenges. In summary, we have made a progress by sticking to our strategy, and we will remain focused on delivering it with the same focus and operational discipline going forward because there is scope for substantial value creation. Now, just before we take your questions, you will have seen we have made another announcement this morning. Lily Liu has accepted the role of CFO at Umicore in Brussels, Belgium.
We have been fortunate in being able to bring on board Iain Torrens, most recently interim CFO and then CEO of Wood Group, as her interim replacement while we take the time to identify Lily's permanent successor. I have very much enjoyed working with Lily since she joined Synthomer in summer 2022. She has made a significant contribution, particularly in helping to steer the business through a very challenging period for the chemical sector. I thank Lily for all the hard and successful work, her professionalism, and her friendship to me and the team. On behalf of the board, executive committee, and all of Synthomer, I wish Lily every success in her new role. I also look forward to working with Iain, who is a seasoned CFO with strong capital market experience, which will be very relevant at what remains a critical period for Synthomer.
Thank you, Michael. Very kind of you saying that. It has been a real pleasure for me to work with you and the rest of the team. Together we delivered a lot in the last four years. I've no doubt the stronger Synthomer will be able to capitalize on the huge opportunity in front of it. Now, with that, Michael, Faisal, and myself are here happy to take your questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask questions, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We'll take our first questions from Sebastian Bray from Berenberg.
Hello, good morning, Michael and Lily, thank you for taking my questions. I'd have two, please. The first is on the situation in nitrile latex, because it looks like shortages at Asian peers are going to lead to a situation of fly up margins. Can you talk about why EBITDA in this business couldn't double or treble temporarily based upon this?
Sebas-
My-
Sorry.
Hello, sorry. To go back there, I think there was an interruption from incoming call. Sorry about that. The first question is, given the shortages at Asian peers for nitrile and the fact that spot prices have shot up, why couldn't EBITDA in that area double or treble this year? Would it potentially be a good opportunity to exit the business at a stage of fly up margins where the valuation is likely to do better? My second question is on April trading. There've been mixed messages from sector peers about whether this has improved or continued to improve or stepped down on the volume sense. Can you give any commentary around this? If I might squeeze a third one in.
The inflow from receivables factoring in 2025 and its effect on net debt. Am I right in saying that the GBP 75 million-GBP 80 million is effectively added back to the net debt on a covenant basis for 2026 because it's been repaid? Thank you.
Thank you, Chair Sebastian. I think I take the first two. Lily takes the third one.
Yeah.
I think your assumptions on NBR could be actually quite right. We have enough raw materials. Other people are struggling. We know this. Like you mentioned, we do not have any shortages on NBR production. We had at the very beginning, we are covered. I would say it's a very positive situation we are having right now. Could margins double or triple? Why not? Let's see. It's definitely looking very good right now after this business was break even or slightly positive. I think we are, for now, in a very good position. It also clearly shows that we do have leading position and we have critical mass. I think the whole Malaysian chain, as we will call it, our customers and ourselves, is in a much better position than before.
I even think this is going to last longer because I think a lot of the end market consumers, they will think about such events. I mentioned a little bit in my speech, they will probably think about the more balanced approach of their supply situation. I think this is even a lasting benefit. Indeed, Sebastian, it looks very good. What do we do with the business in the future? I think this we are always evaluating. It is a base chemicals business, as we always mentioned. It sits in HPPM division. I think here I don't wanna go further, but as always, when the business improves the performance, it is more interesting for potentially better owners.
Your second question on April, I don't know, maybe more optimistic than what you have said about the sector. We do indeed see very strong margins and volumes pretty much across the whole portfolio. Meaning on the specialty side, but also on the base side, it's predominantly against, of course, Asian suppliers. In this world, you have so many interlinked supply chains. Even in high-end specialty chemicals delivered in Europe or in the U.S., you might have an intermediate from Asia in there. So far, as I mentioned, I think really we have a really world-class procurement, which works extremely aligned with the three divisions. I think we can capitalize on this quite nicely.
I think the problem is that we don't have visibility enough in H2 because we don't know how this conflict ends, how the world shapes out. If you ask specifically about April, it does look very good in terms of margins and in terms of volumes and in terms of all three divisions.
Very good. I take over on the third question, Sebastian. Yeah, the question about receivables financing. Look, what we said is, you know, we expect free cash flow neutral for this year, after adjusting for the GBP 50 million one-time KLK receivables purchasing that was done in December 2025. That's what we said.
When I look at the free cash flow statements for 2026, there is effectively a GBP 50 million outflow for repayment of receivables financing. Is that right?
That's correct. I mean, everything being equal, that would be correct.
It's the KLK.
Yeah.
We kind of neutralized-
Yeah
It back to neutral.
Yeah
... Cash flow, and we neutralized--
Yeah
GBP 50 million KLK.
Just to clarify, the free cash flow, leaving aside the KLK, so imagine KLK was not happening and the receivables were not being repaid, the free cash flow would be zero, break even?
Yeah.
Okay. Understood. That's helpful. Lily, all the best for your time at Umicore. I look forward to seeing you there as well.
Thank you so much, Sebastian.
You know, Sebastian, last year we also said neutral, and at the end it was much better. I think there are always opportunities.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sebastian. You stick with me and Synthomer.
Thank you. We are now taking our next questions from Harry Philips from Peel Hunt. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Three from myself, please. Just on the cost savings in the current, I'm assuming that the sort of comments around tax is a part of it, but is there a sort of easy breakdown of how the cost savings will appear across the three businesses? The second question is just on sort of raw material put-throughs and what that does to the revenue line, and I'm guessing if you wanna put through, it'll just dilute margins in the short term, just reflecting that sort of simple math. Lastly, probably one you won't want to answer, but I'll ask nonetheless, is just in terms of planned divestments, the horrible sort of timetable you might have in your thinking around that.
I appreciate obviously you can't entirely control it, but given we've got this additional visibility around the refi into 2029, and the sort of market conditions that are currently prevailing, it sort of seems that activity in that process might quicken up further still.
Yeah. Shall I ask? Do you do the cost?
Yeah, I'll take the first, maybe partly second. And you talk about the last. Hey, Harry, cost savings, it's coming from three divisions and also central functions. Michael mentioned procurement as part of, you know, that's also part of, key part of the cost saving and self-help actions. You know, we always say, you know, CCS bears more of the cost base in the group, so we expect more from CCS. But the other two divisions are also contributing significantly together with the functions. On the raw material price impact on revenue and margin, you know, mathematically, you would say if we simply just pass on the raw material price increase, add it to revenue, of course, that would, you know, dilute the gross margin.
You know, we are having good commercial teams. We have long-term customer relationships. You know, on the up, we are, we're passing on, we're probably passing on, you know, proportion to the value creation in the situation. You know, I'm expecting us to being able to mitigate that. The opposite side, when material price come down, we may manage to hold on to the margin. Michael?
Yeah. On the revenue side, clearly raw materials are massively up, sometimes 2x, 3x up.
Obviously our revenues go up. As Lily pointed out, or we all pointed out before, I think there is room for margin improvement in such a situation. On the way up, as you can see it right now, and maybe there's even the bigger opportunity on the way down, when the raw materials are going down. We see a certain stabilization of raw materials. They went steeply up after end of February. We see now a certain stabilization, and let's see how this whole develops over the time. Right now, I think if you're bold and fast at the beginning, it's a reasonably comfortable position to be in right now. Your third question on the divestments, we announced a broadened program in August of last year.
I think if you look into the whole market situation, everybody takes 12 to 18 months until you have a divestment done. It's just the market conditions right now maybe to change a bit, because I think the chemical sector generally is increasing over the last three, four months. We have four processes running. I think one of them we can hopefully conclude rather sooner than later. We have two processes, I would say, in the next few months, and we have one process that will go into H2. Again, as always, it needs two to tango. We are not making bad deals in our company. I always say there are two things are relevant to make a deal.
One is the valuation, the money you get, and the other one is the SPA, the terms and conditions that do not bring you in a critical situation two or three years down the road. I think that's the schedule. There are active projects, and you will hear for us hopefully in the near future.
Lovely. Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you, Harry.
Thank you. We are now moved to our next questions from Stephanie Vincent from Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you so much for taking my questions. I just had a couple questions on the new revolver as well as the U.K. Export Finance facility. Just wanting to know, I guess who the new issuer is. You did say that it was a subsidiary of Synthomer, so, like, the issuer of the bond. Just wanting to know what the changes were there. Also, if you are willing to disclose this or able to disclose this, what your view is on the new guarantor coverage under the 2029 notes that remain in place. My next question is just a little bit of housekeeping on the cash flow. I know that you did give a good overview, but just want to know just your broader view on cash taxes in 2025.
Um, s o we have-
I'll start with UKEF.
No, you do have. Yeah.
...I s really was extremely helpful in this complex refinancing project that we went through over the last few months. We had a very good cooperation there, a lot of support from UKEF, and I think that is an excellent institution to promote the purpose of UKEF, which is really manufacturing and exporting from the U.K. We are very grateful to UKEF.
Indeed. Also I would comment on the rest of the lenders in the lending group. We have had good constructive discussions with them in the last, you know, weeks and month. We have put a very detailed and good disclosure in the RNS already, I think Faisal always in the finance section, isn't it, there. We put in, you know, the structure, the covenant, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and the changes there. It is a subsidiary within Synthomer PLC this time around that was taking the new financing package.
As I said, cash tax for this year won't be neutral or won't be positive, but we are expecting probably high single digit cash tax outflow this year.
Okay. Okay. Also just, if I can throw in another question just about some of the news articles that we've seen in the U.K. press, et cetera. I know you've gotten the U.K. facilities. Just any sort of additional support that you could see from European government, you know, directly or indirectly to your business, things like anti-dumping that have had an impact or could have an impact this year or next year?
Yeah, that's a good question. We are, as you know, the European Union in particular is not always as fast as you would like them to be. We are part of several of those, I almost call it projects, and within the next few months we should get some news. I think the European Commission in the meantime realized that something has to be done. I don't wanna be as blunt as Jim Ratcliffe, it is a big problem. The energy, the regulation, the disadvantages what we have against Asian, in particular Chinese suppliers, is substantial. I see movement in Brussels. I see movement. We are actively. Sometimes we are front runners, sometimes we are joining a team. I do expect positive news in several of our businesses within the next few months coming from Brussels.
This would, of course, sometimes totally change the economics of a business. As always, we try to live without those things. We take them if they happen, but we always position our business that we don't need it. It would fundamentally change some of our businesses. Of course, the most challenged ones that could be severe positive impact if this goes through in the next three, four, five months.
Okay. No, that's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next questions from Kevin Fogarty from Deutsche Bank. The line is open. Please go ahead.
Oh, great. Thanks very much. Morning all. Just two if I could do. One, I guess, is on the trading side. I guess, are you seeing anything I appreciate it's difficult, visibility is low, but I guess given the momentum you've seen, are you sort of seeing anything to make you feel there's a sort of competitive advantage you offer, or rather than just a kinda short-term pull forward that you might be experiencing? I know some companies have talked about the latter. Just anything you might be seeing to sort of give you confidence that, you know, there's some sustainability around this, and perhaps it is playing to that kind of structural advantage you offer.
I guess secondly, just if we come back to your free cash flow guidance, obviously the implication is it's positive before the factory repurchasing. If we think about the bridge to unchanged expectations for this year, now the higher interest costs, or the I appreciate the cash interest costs will be lower than P&L. CapEx will be a bit lower than 2025, but nevertheless still remaining substantial. There's risks in terms of working capital in a high raw material price environment. Are there any factors we should be thinking about to support that free cash flow outlook that we haven't thought about?
Appreciate there's gonna be kind of restructuring costs, et cetera, perhaps this year, anything you would sort of focus our attention on to fill in the gaps?
Thank you, Kevin. Lily will take the second question. I start with the top of every cash flow is EBITDA, and I think here we have a good potential, and that's what it all starts. Lily will comment further about net working capital and CapEx. On your trading question, I really do believe that we have a competitive advantage in the current situation. We worked now for 3.5 years on reducing cost, on increasing margin. I mentioned this 500 basis points up over the last four years is very substantial. We have our regional footprint, which not all competitors have. We can really produce 90%+ in the region for the region. As I have mentioned, we have now a world-class procurement aligned with the divisions.
I think these four factors, in addition that I believe we reacted really on the opportunity on 28th of February, we acted bold and fast. I believe this gives us our strategic positioning, as I mentioned, footprint, businesses we are in, end markets we are serving, competitors we are having. I think we do have a competitive advantage, even against some European or American peers. Definitely against Asian peers who simply struggle to procure feedstock. It's particularly problematic, as I would see it, in Taiwan, in Japan, and in Korea, which are big intermediates and raw material suppliers of end products. It's also in China. I was a little bit surprised that China is struggling as much as it is struggling.
It probably has to do that China is lacking certain intermediates, and that is why we have several competitors in China under force majeure, and that is obviously for us a pretty interesting situation.
Yeah, Kevin, on your second question.
Sure.
Sorry, have you finished?
Yeah. No, that's great. Thanks. Yeah, yeah.
All right. Thank you. On your second question about free cash flow, two things on the positive side I'll draw your attention to. One of which we talk about, which is CapEx, we're expecting 2026 CapEx to be around GBP 50 million lower than what we have spent in 2025. Second factor I also alluded to is inventory reduction, right? That structural reduction we have done in the past, and we continue to look at it now. Offsetting that is raw material price movement or raw material price going up at the moment. We also said we expect EBITDA to grow from 2025 level, and Michael also mentioned from an outlook perspective we probably see upside risk on EBITDA this year versus what we said before.
You know, those factors together, coming back to my previous point, adjusting out for the unwind of KLK's receivable purchasing, we're expecting broadly free cash flow neutral. You have to add it back that amount when it comes to net debt forecast for the end of 2026.
Just to add to that, just the complete clarity on the receivables factoring point. It's almost best to think of the net debt at the year end of GBP 575 as being GBP 625 as the starting point once you adjust for the receivables factoring, and then build your sort of free cashflow assumptions from there.
I'll just add one more point 'cause it's important. Covenant levels are reset as part of the refinance package throughout the tenure. That is consistent with how we look at a business, both from a cash flow perspective and also business plan perspective. Clearly with insight-
Sure. Sure.
As we mentioned.
... I get sort of given the kind of refi and the covenant.
Yeah
... P Resumably kind of factoring is off the table now for 2026 or not?
The, we always say the receivable purchasing that we've done December 2025, with KLK, that's a one-time, transaction.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We, to be clear.
Fine. Okay. Understood. Yeah
... we do retain our GBP 200 million committed factoring facility.
Yeah
... going forward.
Sure.
We do anticipate continuing to use that as required.
Sure. Sure. I guess sort of the kind of one-off nature that you did in 2025. That should be a kind of non-repeat by nature.
Exactly. The GBP 50 million is a one-off. Yeah.
Perfect. Okay, thanks very much. I'll turn it over. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Kevin.
Thank you.
Thank you. Now take our next questions from James Caffrey from Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to understand a little bit better on the liquidity test which you referenced in terms of the new covenants, which are governed by the RCF and U.K. facilities. Can you expand on what the liquidity tests are there?
It's quite customary in this situation. There is a monthly liquidity test. It's, you know, there is a minimum liquidity test that we test monthly throughout the refi period. Again, I go back to the point, we have been through this carefully with, you know, our very detailed cashflow forecast, and we see very healthy liquidity headroom throughout the period.
The requirements are actually even more favorable than before. I think that's important to mention.
Yeah.
Thank you. Just to make sure I've understood. On the sort of phasing for free cashflow for this year, so we should expect a more pronounced free cashflow outflow in Q1 on account of the movements in raw material prices, I guess. Did you say that you had already repaid the GBP 50 million temporary receivables facility already, or that was expected to sort of materialize over the course of the year? I don't know if I caught that correctly.
Yeah. We said, you know, that was unwind already early part of March this year. That second part of your question. Yes, we are expecting, you know, the normal sort of seasonality when it comes to working capital this year. You would expect to see free cashflow, a difference between H1 and H2, as we always do.
We also have opportunities on net working capital savings, especially on inventories in some areas, and that is offsetting partially the increased raw materials.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Angelina Glazova from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I think I just have one follow-up left at this point, which is on order books and current trends. Obviously it's difficult to quantify the extent of the potential upside from the Middle East situations. If you look between the segments of Synthomer, and we've already had a bit of a detailed discussion on nitrile latex. If you look at Coatings & Construction Solutions and Adhesive Solutions, where would you say do you see more upside and more momentum in your order books, at least as of April so far?
Yeah. I think, like I said, it's pretty broad based. We touched a lot upon NBR. I think that's a particularly positive situation. We see it as well in CCS division. We see it in AS division, where you have a lot of Asian competitors, especially in China on the hydrocarbon side. There we have clear advantages. Yeah, it's definitely double-digit volume gains. As I mentioned, the margins are up. It's pretty broad based through all the divisions. There are a few businesses that are much less affected positively, like maybe our acrylic monomers business. Even there is a certain upside, but this will benefit less from the situation. The major areas of our business, NBR, CCS division broadly, especially construction coatings looks very good right now. Construction better.
I mentioned Energy Solutions, higher oil price, always higher drilling activity, good for us. I mentioned AS division. Generally, it's a pretty broad-based situation. What I also would like to mention, Angelina, it's not only the Iran situation. I really believe that the strategic points, and I mentioned the four elements of cost margin, regional footprint, procurement, what we have worked on over three, four years, I think this is coming into coming very nicely into play. It's not only a blip now of Iran, and three months later it goes back to normal, I would say. I really see this to a certain extent sustainable. I call it sometimes there's an operational benefit right now because we do have manufacturing, we do have feedstock, whilst others might have less.
I believe there's also this kind of psychological advantage that customers are rethinking how do they procure in 2027. I can give you some live examples of large customers. The discussion with them about the 2027 contract is different than it was before. Before was eagerness to save every cent you can save and take everything from China, and the tone of those discussions has significantly changed. I believe that, and nobody knows, but I believe that this could be a sustainable advantage for us. Of course, what goes against it, at one point, if this conflict drags on and on, that we have a demand destruction via inflation. I think that's a bit of the balance that we can see.
I believe really, as I said, operational advantage and kind of psychological advantage should give us a nice, I mentioned nine months operational, and then a further maybe 12 months on the structure of how customers procure their input.
This is great. Thank you very much for the color, Michael.
Thank you.
Lily, congratulations and best of luck in your new role.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Sanjay Bhagwani from Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you very much for taking my question, and then very comprehensive presentation and the details. I just have two questions left. My first one is on the disposals. I think you already alluded to there are four active processes right now. Are you able to help us with some sort of sizing or the magnitude of this business being intended to dispose? So some sort of like scale, like sales, what sort of sales this business have or the EBITDA? That's my first question. I'll just follow up with the next one after this.
Yeah. Thank you. I didn't understand at the beginning, you are from Citibank, right?
Yes, that's right.
Okay. Thank you. On your divestment question, the magnitude, I think we sometimes talk about GBP 150 million-GBP 200 million. Again, depending, you know, there's a wide range of what happens. This could be a range that we would be looking at. EBITDA levels are reasonably low, so you don't need to deduct too much because that's a reason why we are selling or trying to sell those businesses. There might be one business that has a bit, a little bit of different structure, which is a more profitable business but a smaller business where we would get higher values. Three out of the four processes are traditionally low EBITDA businesses, reasonably big volume, so we have to deal with the stranded costs.
I think if you take some GBP 150 million- GPB 200 million for all together, it's probably not a bad first shot.
Thank you. That's GBP 150 million-GBP 200 of sales. Is that correct?
No, proceeds. Proceeds.
Proceeds, okay.
Yeah, proceeds.
Okay.
It will be of sales. Like, when we announced the strategy in 2022, we said that we have ready for divestment non-core about a little bit more than 1/3 of our business. About a bit more than half of this is done, and the other half in terms of revenue is still to come. As I said, they are predominantly not very profitable businesses.
Thank you. That's, that's very helpful. Sorry to come back on the net debt and the cash flow guidance again. I think Faisal already clarified that starting point here is GBP 625 for the net debt. If I have to think of first half, I do understand that there is an upside risk to the EBITDA, and H1 is tend to be seasonally higher in EBITDA as well. Whereas working capital could be, could be a negative headwind. CapEx are lower, as you alluded to it. If you have to put it all together on the H1, let's say if you have to think of this GBP 621-GBP 625 as a reference point for the net debt, how do you see this evolving for H1 and then for the full year?
I would expect full year to be consistent or better than the adjusted year-end 2025 number. I would expect, you know, normal seasonality to apply here that H1 net debt will be higher than year-end.
Higher than GBP 625.
Yeah.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
Thank you. Very helpful.
Probably worth also saying in relation to the seasonality of the net debt, a couple of points under the new transaction, the new refinancing. The next covenant test for us is the first quarterly test in September this year. We don't have a June testing date under the new arrangement. That's effectively been waived. The quarterly testing has been very carefully sculpted to reflect the cashflow profile of the business which has been, you know, analyzed in a huge amount of detail as part of this refinancing, you know, by the banks and by ourselves so that it's sculpted to match our expected cashflow profiles over the course of a year.
Thank you. That's very helpful. All the best, Lily.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no more questions from the conference call. I'd like to hand back to the room for webcast questions. Please go ahead.
Thank you. We quite a few webcast questions today, several of which we've answered in detail, but I'll try and wrap up a few others that are still slightly outstanding together a little bit. Assuming the war ends in the next few weeks, how long do you think the tight markets in Europe could last before Asian imports return? Could you comment on whether you see any demand areas where the environment has cyclically improved?
Yeah. I think, like I said, I believe if the conflict ends, from that moment it could take nine months until everything is kind of back to normal, whatever is, whatever normal is. A lot of ships are on the totally wrong place in this world right now. The supply chains are truly disrupted. This is not just a little delay of matters. I believe, and it's interesting that Jim Fitterling from Dow, he's also kind of hinted at, like, nine months. I think this is really not a bad assumption. The advantage, as I called it, the operational advantage I believe is nine months. This is not a matter of one or two months to come back.
If I look at the cyclical improvements now, leave alone the Iran situation, I think coatings, after many years now or several years of no coating season, we do see a coating season right now. I do see the U.S. improving. I do see the NBR business improving except for the Iran situation. I do see construction improving. I think there are quite a few sectors. There are two aspects. One is the market one, the cyclicality that comes to an end and is favorable, these are the markets I would mention. On the other side is the Iran situation. I think coatings, construction, NBR are probably good examples where the cyclicality would work finally in our favor.
I think in addition, our Energy Solutions business-
Yeah, sure.
If you recall, you know, that has been through cyclical downturn, but that, we believe that's temporary. It will come back. That's a high margin business for us.
Yeah. There is a close link between oil price and drilling. Yeah, the more drilling, the better for us.
Yeah.
Thank you. Several questions along the same themes. The designation of the unrestricted subsidiaries under the bond effectively means that those move outside of the bond guarantee to some degree in favor of the RCF and UKEF. What businesses do those subsidiaries tie back to the extent we can say, and is there any way of sizing those?
Sure. Look, the UNSUB represents most of our current U.S. operations. And that's you know carefully selected to give us the strategic optionality for the business and that's part of the security package. It's all permitted in the indenture for 2029. If you want to look at you know the size of that operation, if you go back to our 2024 annual report, the segmental analysis on geography, and indeed our to-be-published annual report today, the numbers are quite similar. The revenue is around sort of 25%. I think I said around 40%.
Yeah. I think if you take this a bit in a holistic view, I think this refinancing deal, which was a complex one, but we have concluded it now, I think at the end of the day, this is beneficial for all stakeholders because it gives us stability, it gives us runway into 2029 to focus on the divestments, to focus on the business, to focus on the customers. At the end, that means that our trading is better, it means that our balance sheet get better, and at the end, that is good for everybody. What is important is also what Lily said, that this whole transaction is fully in line with the permissions in the bonds indenture. Yeah, I think these are important statements.
Yeah.
Very good. One other query. Can you say anything about any further information on the margin on the extended bank facilities?
Yeah. Look, the, I think we have put in a number in the, in the trading statement. I think we say about, you know, P&L cost this year around, or interest cost this year around, GBP 17 billion. I also mentioned, you know, the cash interest cost around, you know, m id-single digit millions lower. It's a comprehensive deal, I would say.
I think it's a good deal for us. If you look at cash interest, you probably take GBP 3 million-GBP 4 million more for this year and GBP 7 million-GBP 8 million more for next year.
Yeah.
Very good. Then I think the last question basically is, do you have any comments on how you intend to address the bonds in 2029, following today's transaction?
I would just go back to start with to reiterate what Michael just said. The deal we have completed today is a very good deal. It give us the stability, the runway to execute our divestment and also transform the business into a higher margin specialty businesses, give us liquidity, give us the relaxed covenant and much needed maturity, a much extended maturity. 2029 refi, you know, look, we always do our refi, you know, 12, 18 months ahead of maturity. We'll do that at the end this time around. With the transformed business, with us being able to delever the balance sheet, we truly believe, you know, we'll be in a good position to do the refi when it comes.
Very good. I think we've covered the key areas on the webcast as well.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Have a good day.
Good day.