Good day. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the IFF First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. All participants Participants will be announced by their name and company I would now like to introduce Michael DeVoe, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.
Thank you. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. Welcome to IFS first quarter 2020 conference call. Yesterday evening, we distributed press release announcing our financial results. A copy of the release can be found on our IR website atir.ifs.com.
Please note that this call is being recorded live and will be available for replay Please take a moment to review our forward looking statements. During the call we will be making forward looking statements about the company's performance particular with regard to our outlook for the second quarter full year 2020. These statements are based on how we see things today and contain elements of uncertainty. For additional information concerning the factors that can cause actual results to differ materially from our forward looking statements, please refer to our cautionary statement and risk factors contained in our 10 K filed on March 3, 2020 and in our press release. Today's presentation will include non GAAP financial measures, which exclude those items that we believe affect comparability.
A reconciliation of these non GAAP measures to their respective GAAP measures is set forth in our press release that we issued yesterday. With me on the call is our Chairman and CEO, Andreas Fibig and our Executive Vice President and CFO, Bruce Punjillo. We will begin the prepared remarks and then take any questions that
Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. At IFF was Global Operations in 44 Countries and sales into approximately 200 countries, we have seen firsthand how the coronavirus pandemic has touched our world. This is truly a remarkable moment On behalf of everyone at IFF, I want to express my sincere sympathy for all those affected by the pandemic. I also want to thank everyone courage and grace. Everyone on the front lines who continue to keep our society moving towards as our banks.
To all the essential workers in the consumer good supply chain, of which IFF is proud to play an important role we thank you It is very clear that we are still in the early stages of adjusting As we will review in more detail later, the FF business is strongly positioned to be a resilient history economic cycles given our substantial portfolio delivering needed solutions to vital consumers and markets. The steps we have taken in recent years, including diversifying of our customer base and expansion into more categories have only served to further strengthen our ability to be a vital partner to our customers and a permanent ability to be resilient solar cycles. Like many, we are seeing uneven impacts on our business due to the pandemic and the resulting economic challenges. While some end markets are seeing increases in demand, Others are seeing notable declines. We are fortunate that only about 15% of our revenue not including fragrance ingredients that is subject to the downward pressure right now.
However, the unpredictable nature of the pandemic and the early stage of the economic impact creates enough uncertainty for us that we have made the decision to withdraw our full year financial guidance. Rustom will cover this in more detail later, but while we navigate through this challenge, we are committed to providing as much forward outlook as we can so you understand the trends driving earnings. On today's call, I will provide an executive overview of our operational and financial performance for the first quarter 2020 before offering a more in-depth review of IFF's management of the ongoing and evolving COVID 19 situation. Following this discussion, I will ask Wustom to provide a more detailed financial review of the including additional insight into our liquidity and capital structure, which is very strong given the uncertainty of the pandemic going forward. As you may also have seen, today we announced important progress related to our pending combination with DuPont Nutrition And Bioscience.
Including a new guiding purpose and vision for the future combined company as well as our operating model and executive management team post close. Following Russell's remark, I will provide an overview of these important integration updates. Upon the completion of our prepared commentary, will take any questions that you may have. Our strong performance for the first quarter 2020 affirms the strength of our organization and the essential position in serving vital end markets through economic cycles. We achieved a strong start to the year with mid single digit sales and double digit adjusted EPS ex amortization growth, both of which are currency neutral basis.
Importantly, we continue to achieve financial benefits related to our integration of the Frutarom business, both revenue and cost synergies. As I mentioned before, we have also made significant progress with integration planning to support our combination with the DuPont NMB business, and I must acknowledge our teams that have worked hard to build the foundation for this culmination by continuing to contribute to IFS day to day operations. Our teams have worked tirelessly to deliver for our customers and have gone above and beyond to support our communities around the world during this time. Our strong quarter is a testament to their unwavering dedication. The underlying strength of our business and our role as an essential partner in the global food and consumer product supply chains.
While we have certainly faced many challenges through these unprecedented situation, our operations and global network remains strong, and we have taken appropriate steps to ensure our business is well positioned to successfully manage through the pandemic. Looking at our financial performance in the first quarter, I'm pleased to say we delivered strong improvements across key financial metrics. In the first quarter, IFF achieved sales of US1.3 billion dollars which represents a 6% growth on currency neutral basis, driven by our performance in both our taste Encent businesses. We also achieved strong adjusted earnings per share of $1.62, a excluding amortization, reflecting a 13% year over year increase on a currency neutral basis, led by currency neutral adjusted operating profit, of 9% to $271,000,000. In addition, we expanded our operating margin, excluding amortization, by 60 basis points to 20.1 percent, driven by volume growth and productivity.
In summary, IFF enter 2020 with solid momentum and continue to deliver currency neutral sales growth in the high single digits through the end of February. However, for March onwards, we started to see the global impact of COVID-nineteen on our business, and we expect this to impact our results in the second quarter as we have seen uneven impact across end markets. Wilson will touch on this in more detail later. I would like to spend a few moments outlining the key characteristics and drivers of our business. For Chief IFF, very well positioned to navigate today's new reality.
More than ever, it is clear that IFF plays a vital role in the global CVG supply chain. Especially for the world's most important manufacturers in food and beverage, as well as essential home personal care and sanitation supplies. I've had broad based exposure across regions, categories and customer positions us to remain resilient through the ongoing challenges brought about by the pandemic. As a result, our regulatory actions corresponding economic challenges is seeing certain reduction in demand in our fine fragrance, cosmetic active and food service offerings, where end markets are seeing significant impact. This represents approximately 15% of our revenue.
At the same time, We're seeing tremendous pickup in areas with the solutions that I have of course are absolutely critical to the production of essential products. Our categories exposed to packaged food and beverage and hygiene and disinfection saw continued strong growth during the quarter. That is about 85% of our revenue. Fortunately, our operations remain strong as we continue to deliver the creative solutions that our customers and end consumers demand during these unprecedented times. Our goal from the outset of this crisis has been twofold.
First, we are deeply determined to ensure the well-being of our people. 2nd, we are committed to preserving continued across the network so that we can continue meeting the needs of our customers. Our global regional and local crisis teams are working around the clock to do what is the best for our people and our business. A co working group, including representatives from our executive team and our cross functional support groups and business teams, meets daily to ensure alignment from top to bottom across our teams. This team is putting in place plans and protocols to be sure we are anticipating what is to come and keep all of our stakeholders engaged to this extended period of disruption.
We have been proactively reviewing our resiliency plan to address the COVID-nineteen developments, and we are coordinating our response for federal and local health and government entities around the world. We have updated internal protocols as the situation has evolved, taking significant measures to protect our people. Including implementing enhanced disinfection and sanitation measures at our operational facilities and taking precautions to minimize contact among employees as part of social distancing by grouping our professionals into smaller pots and separating their work shifts. For those able to work from home, we're instituting a remote working policy across many of our locations as well. Given IFF's vital role in the consumer product supply chain, we continue to secure essential designations that provide our company with permission to manufacture our products around the world as governments extend workplace restrictions.
A good example of our team working through these unexpected challenges has been India. Recently, our Xinai facility where we have been secured essential business designations was still forced to shut for several days due to regulatory restrictions. Thanks to the diligence of our team and a strong working relationship with regulators, we were able to move ahead of time in response to the shutdown to meet all customer demands through the shutdown while keeping employees safe. In terms of our operations, we are seeing some challenges with logistics and our lead times have increased, but the team is doing an excellent job navigating the transportation restrictions. We realize we are certainly not alone in this challenge.
For these reasons, we have also seen some limitation in raw material distribution, and have activated our contingency plans to limit the disruption that any material shortages might have for our customers. While we have seen disruptions to our supply chain, it has been mostly limited to the regions where the most significant government restrictions are in place. Including Italy, Spain and India. On the new project and innovation front, most of our creative centers remain open and are engaging remotely as needed, and I'm happy to say that our project pipeline remains solid across our entire portfolio. As I mentioned from the outset, while our business has displayed impressive resilience to the evolving situation, we continue to proactively take steps that will ensure that IFF is operating from a position of financial strength.
Specifically, we're adapting an especially disciplined approach to cost management. This means we're tightening any nonessential spend and reviewing new opportunities for efficiencies can preserve our margin profile. We are also looking at CapEx and considering near term priorities while pushing our longer term investments as appropriate. And we are considering additional ways to optimize our net working capital by closely reviewing existing inventories and pursuing collections. Lastly, where the strong cash position was USD 1,000,000,000 of untapped credit revolver available.
Giving us confidence in ensuring our strong position even in the event of a prolonged economic downturn. Even in the midst frontline health care workers and first responders across the global IFF network. IFFs across the globe have found very creative ways to leverage the company's unique capabilities and innovative spirit and lead a number of exciting community focused initiatives, including from New Jersey to the Netherlands, IFS has modified our production facilities to allow for the manufacturer and distribution of hand sanitizers. To date, IFF has donated more than 65 metric tons of hand sanitizers globally of first responders and other organizations in need. Our North America Scent creative team quickly developed a new Scent, hope 2020 that has been used by FF and other partners in the production of hand sanitizers.
Our Centimeters as also partnered with Harvard Medical School And Mass General Hospital to create a early detection smell test for asymptomatic carriers the first developed globally. In India, our facilities donated food and other necessary sanitation items to local orphanages hospitals, and police stations. These actions speak to how our employees continue to embody our commitment to care for the resources of our world. And nothing could be more important than caring for our communities. Carrying that IFS demonstrated throughout the global pandemic.
With that, I would like to turn it over to Rostom, who will discuss our first quarter financial performance in greater detail.
Thank you, Andreas. Now to Slide 12 and taking a more detailed look at our quarterly financial performance. On a currency neutral basis, IFS delivered broad based sales growth of 6% versus 20 nineteen's first quarter. Adjusted operating profit margin improved in both taste and scent with procurement synergies, volume leverage and productivity initiatives. And discipline research, sales and administration or RSA cost containment.
And this helped reduce our operating expenses as a percentage of sales. I am therefore pleased to say that we also saw solid profit growth in roughly 60 points of currency neutral margin expansion. On an adjusted operating profit ex amort basis. COVID 19 did impact that P and L in Q1. But more in terms of sales mix rather than in total dollars and only in the final weeks of the quarter.
It did have a modest negative impact on our adjusted operating profit in the quarter, causing us to incur extra manufacturing costs traditional freight expenses and higher raw material costs, but most of these went into inventory and were not period expenses. Our currency neutral earnings per share, excluding amortization, grew a strong 13% with robust operating profit growth boosted by lower year on year interest expenses and a lower effective tax rate. FX adversely impacted our reported numbers pulling sales and adjusted operating profits down a couple of percent. It had a much larger negative impact on other income SaaS expenses in March as a result of currencies collapsing globally against the dollar and the euro. So on a reported basis, this pulled down on year adjusted EPS growth.
Now looking at our Centivision on Slide 13. In the first quarter, currency neutral scent sales grew 7% with growth in all regions and nearly all categories. Sales performance was strongest in consumer fragrance, with a double digit increase led by robust growth in fabric, home and hair care. And while we did experience a volume lift from COVID 19, especially from the increase in hygiene and disinfection categories, We also benefited from strong new wins, including with customers where we have recently gained access to their call list. We also saw high single digit growth in fragrance ingredients led by robust volume growth.
At the same time, fine fragrance sales declined as it as disruption of consumer access to retail markets and a pronounced drop in global travel due to COVID-nineteen led to deceleration late in the quarter. Pank fragrances started 2020 well and was growing until the last couple of weeks of the quarter, even against due, even against last Q1 double digit comp. And then we saw a significant contraction as our customers adapted their supply chains for new store closure and travel realities. This trend has continued in Q2 with a far greater impact, and I will elaborate on this shortly. For the entire segment, we posted a 20.4 percent segment profit margin and segment profit grew 105,000,000 up 19% on a currency neutral basis, driven by volume growth and lower operating expenses.
Moving to taste on Slide 14. We saw currency neutral sales growth of 5% in the first quarter, having achieved increases in all regions. We saw mid to high single digit growth in LatAm, greater Asia and EMEA. From a category perspective, we again saw significant mid teens growth in savory solutions with very strong growth in EMEA, our largest market, and also LatAm. Flavors grew low single digit, led by Greater Asia and Latin America.
And this was driven by strong commercial performance or new wins. Particular, in the attractive categories of beverage and dairy. So Frutarom is now mostly incorporated in the taste business. We did we did commit to continue providing updates as to how sales were doing as if this had remained on a standalone basis. So if we have measured Frutarom as a standalone, currency neutral sales would have grown by roughly 4% versus the prior year.
For the entire Taste business, we had a 16.5 percent margin with segment profit growing 6 percent to $137,000,000, led by volume benefit and Frutarom integration related synergies. You may have noticed that DESQ segment profit margin appears lower than you're used to seeing. This is because Frutarom is now included and there is approximately $44,000,000 of amortization of intangible assets. Now I would like to provide an update on cash flow through the first quarter of 2020. The chart on Page 15 is designed to show the reconciliation from reported net income to cash flow, inclusive of all the drivers.
Operating cash flow was $17,000,000 in the first quarter, down from $47,000,000 in 20 nineteen's first quarter, primarily due to higher core working capital flows. Within core working capital, we had solid improvements in inventory that were offset by higher accounts receivable as a result of strong sales in Q1 2020, as well as the 2019 calendar 5th. We expect a portion of this will normalize as we move through the year. Nevertheless, our cash conversion cycle in Q1 2020 was consistent with 20 nineteen's first quarter. We continue to invest in the business, particularly for planned capacity increases and Frutarom integrations.
Our capital expenditures as a percentage of sales in the first quarter of 2020 was 3.6% and this was versus last year's 4.5%. And I will touch on our outlook for the balance a year in a moment. The net impact on our free cash flow defined as operating cash flow less CapEx was a negative EUR 31,000,000, As a reminder, Q1 is our seasonably lowest quarter of the year and last year, it was a negative $11,000,000. In terms of cash usage, M and A and earn outs and dividends amounted to $94,000,000 were $112,000,000 in the prior year's first quarter, and this was all due to lower M and A and their notes. As Andreas noted before, we are taking steps to preserve our strong financial position at this time.
Given the current environment, and the possibility that the global economy could face a protracted downturn, we are constantly refining our scenario planning to ensure we are well prepared. This starts with controlling what we can control, targeting reductions in operational and capital expenses. We are being very cautious with hiring mainly just critical replacement positions and a handful of critical new hires, and we are reducing any and all non essential spend in the near term. Including the likes of travel, entertainment, consulting, etcetera. COVID 19 does bring some working capital headwinds.
We have experienced supply chain disruptions as various countries to block down actions. We value our long term customer relationships we purchased additional raw material to service safety stocks, giving us capability to move manufacturing around and in general to help insulate against supply chain disruption. As we've seen in India. We are also paying some of our smaller and or COVID-nineteen impacted suppliers more promptly if this is warranted. And this could be expected we're experiencing an increase in receivables, particularly from food service and fine fragrance customers.
Of course, we're working to offset these working capital pressures where we can. For inventory, we are constantly balancing the need to ensure business continuity during COVID-nineteen with the need to not over order, where we should extend our payables, we are working with suppliers do so. And we are pursuing collections from customers with over dues and being proactive with those where there is credit risk. For capital expenditures, we are targeting reductions across the business. Specifically, we are prioritizing the highest returning project while delaying longer term investments that are not absolutely necessary at this time.
And of course, practically COVID-nineteen is making it much harder to launch deep projects where significant travel is required. But moving forward, we also have to be smart to ensure that we invest in a flexible and healthy ecosystem. Turning to Slide 17. As we consider our current capital structure and manage our balance sheet moving forward, we've outlined our upcoming debt maturity schedule, which includes a good balance of short and long term tenures. We have strong and ample liquidity well within our debt covenants as our net debt to EBITDA at the end of Q1 2020 was 3.3 times.
Our cash position at the end of Q1 is strong at $433,000,000, with $1,000,000,000 of an untapped credit revolver available should be needed. Looking ahead, following the close of the DuPont NNB transaction, We are committed to maintaining our investment grade rating. As stated in December, we intend to quickly de lever after the close of the transaction to get below three times net debt to EBITDA within the following 24 months. Now turning to our outlook. To conceptualize our expected sales dynamic in Q2, I wanted to highlight the many moving parts we are seeing and expecting this quarter.
COVID 19 presents both opportunities and challenges as we forge ahead. Starting on the left side of the slide, We expect to see continued robust growth in our taste business, excluding food service as well as in our consumer fragrance business. The demand and consumption of the products that these businesses are supporting remain high, and we are well positioned with our global footprint to capitalize on this. In the middle box, there's fragrance ingredients where demand is strong. However, we are facing challenges in the supply chain and in particular, the Indian lockdown.
This means that we have the Forgo external sales to ensure that we protect our fragrance compounds business. The last category is where demand has been adversely impacted by COVID-nineteen. Foodservice, where the vast theater mortars across the globe, as well as changes in consumer behaviors have impacted away from home consumption. Find fragrance and cosmetic ad actives where the retail channels have been temporarily closed and travel retail is down both due to COVID-nineteen as well as these categories being more discretionary in nature. Now more than ever, IFS broad based exposure across regions, categories and customers positions us to remain resilient through the ongoing challenges.
We are fortunate that majority of our revenues comes from categories exposed to packaged food and beverage and from hygiene and disinfection. So parts of our business are experiencing higher sales volumes in this current environment. Having said this, we're not totally immune. Not surprisingly, April's currency neutral sales were challenged with strong consumer fragrance and flavors offset primarily by weakness in fine fragrance in food service. For the second quarter, while we are not giving specific guidance, it is worth noting that with the pressure in fine fragrances, Operating margin mix will be a headwind as well as the additional COVID-nineteen related costs.
We continue to evaluate what's evolving global market dynamics will need for our business performance and projections moving forward. As the second quarter progresses and we gain greater visibility. As Andreas noted, we'll provide updates as appropriate. While our ability to pivot quickly and modify our daily operations has enabled us to responsibly operate our business, The constantly evolving global responses to COVID 19 have created uncertainties for IFF and for other companies and our partners as well. Given the extent of the current uncertainty globally and the potential for uneven impact on our businesses, we have decided to withdraw after full 2020 guidance.
We will continue to manage our business by taking actions to generate strong cash flow and to maintain ample liquidity. With that, let me turn the call back over to Andreas.
Thank you, Roastin. I'm also very pleased that today we're introducing the next step in our planned integration process with NMB. As you know, we are extremely excited to combine our 2 customer focused and consumer led organizations with leading positions in high value categories. Together, our product portfolio will be among the industry most robust and diverse. We have a coveted R And D program with an industry leading pipeline and more importantly, we will be poised quarter of 2021.
Until then, ifF and NMB will remain independent entities and will operate separately. Since announced our merger in December 2019, our teams have been hard at work, bringing this combination to life. We have formed an integration management office, cleared the U. S. Regulatory process, filed for regulatory clearance in Europe and China, and filed our initial registration statement.
The potential of this combination continues to excite our teams, and we are working diligently to make sure we can hit the ground in full sprint on day 1. Some of our important highlights over the past 4 months include completed strategic assessment of the future combined company portfolio, joint cross function integration program in place and operational, created ideation framework to identify assess and prioritize synergy opportunities. Today, we took another significant step forward we have announced our purpose, vision and operating model and executive committee for the future combined company. In short, we are announcing who will be what we intend to do and who will lead our incredible team once we combine forces for the NMB business in the first quarter of 2021. Our purpose is the why that drives everything we do.
The combined company's purpose applying science and creativity for a better world will focus on our intent to push past traditional industry boundaries and commit to be a force for a better, more sustainable future. We will shape the future of our industry with best in class solutions at the Intersection of Science And Creativity, where passionate organizations, made of team members, who see their job as so much more. Our collective purpose inspires us every day to strive for better. Not just that we are talented scientists and creators but that's we are passionate about using those talents to general results for our customers and for the world. We need both the rigor of scientific expertise and the imagination of new possibilities to create the best results.
And the fusion of posts that will lead us to realizing the full potential of this combination. Everything we do is for the purpose of improving the world, lenging life spends, replacing our sustaining resources, enhancing sensorial experiences, solving health problems, and more. And together, we can do even more good. Creative science, scientific art, when science and creativity intersects the possibilities are better. Here, innovation is in the business department.
It's our business. In settable curiosity, relentless drive purposeful impact. Innovation is simple our way of operating and now with double the R&D resources, unmatched in the industry, if you're keeping track or people can't wait to get starting collaborating on something new. We are shaping the future of the industry for the better. Our vision is our strategy for future success.
It articulates our aspirations and guides the development of future strategies and initiatives. It is a filter of which we endeavors can be evaluated. Our vision is to be the partner for Essential Solutions. From day 1, we will bring unmatched innovation and leading edge inside to anticipate what will be essential to tomorrow's consumers. Helping our customers meet consumers' need is at the heart of our business.
We are more than a vendor or supplier. Yes, we supply the ingredients, compounds and solutions you require, but we also united in understanding and meeting the challenges of today and tomorrow. Essential solutions means that we will work to make both our relationship and what we provide invaluable to our customers' business. It pushes us to supply the technology and know that no one else can. With customers of all size across the globe from startup to multinational, we have the agility and the expertise to deliver what you need, unmatched innovation, and leading edge insight means we are already anticipating what will be essential to tomorrow's consumers.
As we come together one organization, we can help our customers meet consumers meet faster. Our new operational model will leverage the capabilities and offerings of both organizations to create a sustainable framework that best position our teams, customers, shareholders for success on day 1 and well into the future. The complementary structure will focus our organization into 4 divisions: taste, food and beverage, scent, Health And Bioscience And Pharma Solutions. We carefully examined how each division goes to market including customer overlap, R and D focus and service level requirements. Among other, several factors to make sure we created global divisions that we have built for success.
Just as important as our 4 operating divisions will be our global centralized functions, Each of these will work in collaboration across our divisions. I want to call out in particular that we will be establishing a new integrated solutions center of excellence to focus on incubating new business opportunities in total product solutions. We're also creating a sense of for commercial excellence to support our business and commercial teams through development of best practices, customer insights and analysis. Resource deployment and the optimization of pricing strategies and solutions. These two are extremely important as it will be instrumental in collaborating the business to achieve our revenue synergy goals.
We also announced the executive committee for the combined company including highly qualified and diverse leaders with deep knowledge and expertise. On strongerinnovationtogether.com. I won't go through all of these distinguished leaders here. But I will note that this was a particular challenging process. Most organizations have tremendously talented individuals.
We are fortunate that as a significantly large organization, we will be able to create many challenging exciting new opportunities to further the careers Board of Directors, we are beginning to assemble. As shared at the deal announcement, DuPaul, Executive Chairman and CEO at Breen, will join the board of the combined company as a DuPont Designee following the close of a transaction and will serve as lead independent director starting in June 1, 2021. I'm also pleased to say that Matthias Heinsell, President of Nutritional Bioscience, Ed Du Paul will be joining the Board of Director of IFF following the close of the transaction. Under his leadership, Matthias has strategically transformed the NMD business, driving customer focus innovation, operational effectiveness and multiple business integrations. As an independent director, his extensive Global management experience and deep knowledge of the industry will support the future company as it unlocks the value of the merger.
In addition, Carol A Davidson will also be appointed to join the Board of Directors of the future combined company following the close of the transaction. Mr. Davidson is a CPA with more than 30 years of leadership experience across multiple industries. He has held a variety of leadership roles at Tycho, International Ltd, and Dell Incorporated. And financial leadership roles at Eastman Quarter Company.
Mr. Davidson is the lead independent director of Legg Mason, and serves on the board of te connectivity. For this team, post boarding management, I know our combined company will chart a new path forward for our industry and have a powerful impact on the world around us. Stepping back, I will say that I'm deeply impressed, even more so given COVID-nineteen, while the dedication and focus both the IFFN and VIN teams have brought to this effort. We knew early on that these companies would be a strong cultural match and our excitement and conviction behind the potential of this combination was only grown as our teams begin more and more to collaborate.
As we look ahead, We are focused on executing the next key milestones and will do so within the same spend and diligence we have achieved thus far. In summary, we are pleased with our strong financial performance despite an unprecedented first quarter 2020. We delivered on all of our key metrics and saw broad based growth in both divisions with mid single digit sales and double digit adjusted EPS ex amortization rules on a consolidated basis. We continue to make important progress in the integration of Frutarom business and have taken substantial steps forward and bringing on our combination with DuPont and MB to life. I'm also incredibly proud of each and every one of my colleagues at IFF for what they have achieved during these challenging times.
Not just for our business, While global conditions remain volatile in the near term, our order book for Q2 looks solid as we are successfully navigating through these unprecedented times to emerge as a stronger company.
We'll take a question from Mark Stracken of Stifel. Your line is open.
Thanks, and good morning, everybody.
Hey, good morning,
Mark. Speaking of Promotions, by the way, congrats, Senior Vice President. Thank you. Well deserved there. So I guess I wanted to talk a bit about just general sales ordering patterns, basically talk a bit about whatever you can on emerging versus developing markets, anything notable there as well as between Multinational and local and regional customers, especially related to the Frutarom business, And what are you hearing from customers regarding timing and new product launches?
And how does any change impact IFF or even just category dynamics?
Okay. Mark, I will take it. The emerging markets in the first quarter were particularly strong Latin America by a rather 10% in Greater Asia by 5+9. What we see in terms of the different categories in particular the consumer fragrance in Latin America in the high teens, as well as flavors, high single and savory solutions, in high teens as well. So really, really good, good results, probably strongest from the multinationals, specifically in the HBC field.
In Asia, it was all about consumer fragrances as well. So mid teens really good, taste and high single digits. Those surprise to COVID-nineteen, I would say. And here, in Asia, very much across both multinationals as well as regional and locals. Frutarom, as we said, is probably around about 4% growth with some benefits of smaller M and A, but still a very, very good performance.
I would say country wise, it depends where the COVID-nineteen wave has started. We have seen the first impact in Asia, particularly in China, going to move to Europe then to the U. S. And Latin America, so that that's probably what you can see in the first quarter. In terms of the pipeline, our pipeline remains strong.
Also into the second quarter. But having said all of that, it's really different from customer to customer. I can say also for us, our creative laps are basically almost all open. They're working on new launches. They're working on let's say, better, let's say, improvements of some of the products.
So all in all, I would say very strong, picture, certainly impact on fine fragments because, as you heard, from our customer base as well, which is not positive, but all the essential products are really going actually very, very strong. Rostom, you might comment on that?
Yes. No, I actually agree. There's not much to add there, Andreas. You covered it.
We'll move next to Mike Sison of Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. Glad to sound you guys all sound healthy and a nice start to the year. Andreas, you've made some progress on the transaction getting your operating model leadership team in place and how much can you do before you close the deal to get the integration synergies accelerated? And then, and maybe just talk about how you think about the transaction difference now given the current environment?
Let me start probably with the second part of your question first. So, combination with the DuPont and B, businesses is fully on track. And if you look at the product portfolio, it's now among the industry in particular in this COVID-nineteen situation, one of the most robust ones and very diverse. We are in all of the categories, number 1 and number 2 in the market. We have a great R and D pipeline with combined spend of around about 550,000,000 more than the 9000, 9000 patents granted.
So I believe very, very, very robust And as you have seen the N and B results in the first quarter as well, it shows it's an essential business for Biologics are going gangbusters. And many of the other portfolio areas, areas as well. Coming back to the integration piece, so as you know, we're formed in IMO as an integration management office. Office, we cleared antitrust in the U. S.
We filed in Europe and in China, The combined integration planning team can do a lot, which is even in these challenging times. And I'm very, very pleased how they work to together all over Zoom or Skype, our calls is very, very interesting. So we really make sure that we are ready for day 1. The next up on the schedule is the shareholder vote in September, then the financing, and then the close hopefully in the first quarter 2021. So I have to say that this COVID-nineteen has further solidified our position.
Strategic Logic is very strong, very resilient business, very great, great market position, and believe in that we're in a very, very good spot right now.
We'll move next to John Roberts of UBS. Your line is open.
Thank you. For the 15% of sales that are impacted by COVID-nineteen, Have you had 2 sequential weeks of stable sales yet, or were they still declining at the end of April? And where are those product line sales in China versus the start of the year?
It's Rustom. Let me take that. No, we have still had the sales declines even as we go through and look at that area. It's fine fragrance and food services that we really see. But let me just step back for a second.
I mean, for March onwards, as the COVID-nineteen pandemic spread globally. We had lockdowns, changes in customer order patterns. Very fortunate that most of our revenue comes from the packaged food and beverage categories. As well as hygiene and disinfection, right? So we have continued strength there.
I mean, the part that you're referring to is that the part that we're not immune is the category is most exposed to retail end markets, where stores closed and travel dropped sharply. And that hasn't changed as of now. So that's fine fragrance and cosmetic actives as well, right? And also the stay at the away from home channels. So we're seeing that impact And we're choosing to be you know, try to stay resilient and flexible close to our customers as we possibly can be.
And always sort of trying to be cognizant of the safety of our employees and well-being as we go forward. China Regarding the China part of your question, and fragrance is a very small part of the portfolio. I mean, based on category demand, I mean, less than 2% of total fine And although it was quite strong in Q1, I mean, we that theme, China is opening up as well. Now food service in China was particularly challenged in Q1 and that's obviously COVID. And I think that answers your questions, John.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from faiza Alwy of Deutsche Bank.
Yes, hi. Thank you. So I also just wanted to hone in on trends that you've seen since the quarter in April and May. And in particular, I was wondering if it's possible for you to maybe disaggregate the benefit from potential stockpiling versus underlying demand? And then particularly focused on consumer fragrances where you had double digit growth.
And I know you mentioned that emerging markets were particularly strong where I don't think there was much stockpiling, but I was just wondering if you could offer more of there and how you're thinking what trends you have seen since the end of the quarter and how you're thinking about the sustainability of growth there as we go through the year? Thanks.
Sure, absolutely Faiza. Let me get started and then I hand it over to Rustom. It's hard to disaggregate the underlying demand for stock filing. But what we talk with many of our customers and we believe on the consumer fragrance side, certainly the activity and washing closes and detergent and softness is very much demand. It's not so much stockpiling here.
I think we see this. We see also all the hygiene products are really in use. It's not just that people put it in the pantry. That's what we see. And also on the on the food side, when you talk to some of our customers, the yogurts are going like there's no tomorrow, which is probably not a big surprise to all of us working from home instead of going to the company cafeteria, you go to the fridge and pull a yogurt and that's your lunch.
So We see some categories very much its consumption. It's moving, but I can't give you all the details What is for us right now really important is on the consumer insight side. We do all of our studies. We know how the consumer behave right now, but what is sustainable so that we really can orient ourselves in terms of our R and D and the new product development towards things, which might will come. We believe that everything in terms of sanitizing will stay.
We believe also that many of the health products in particular 45 with vitamins or probiotics will stay, but there's more and more to come. So that's what we are doing right now. So in many areas, the consumption is real. By the way, one last one potato ships are also going like gangbusters. But Wilson, please comment.
Thanks, Andreas. Thank you. Good morning, Faiza. So yes, look at the raw materials part of your questions and yes, we've had some raw some limitations in material sourcing and logistics. And we activated our contingency plans very early to limit the disruption to our customers, right?
And the disruptions were from aterial shortages because of permanent restrictions of various sorts. Andreas said earlier, it's Italy, Spain, India with 3 of them out there. I mean, the part of your question, then you also talked about the address sustainability, right? The sustainability of consumer fragrance, we do believe this will continue to be robust. A bit of consumer demand remain high in hygiene and disinfection.
And if anyone has been to the store lately, it's just hard to use those products, right? And But let me address one aspect too. I mean, that's a sense profitability because of specifics and because of fine, right? Send profitability without doubt will be adversely impacted in Q2. I don't I can't get into spread over the end of specifics, but based on our largest what our largest fine fragrance customers are saying publicly, the category is declining double digit.
So I'd expect the same for IFS and our competitors. And being that it is one of our highest margin categories well above consolidated average. And with these declines, margins will be down. Then you add in additional with costs that we've had in Q2, a full quarter's worth and that's just another factor.
So it all depends right now when the economy is opening up and the stores are open and some of these products can be sold against, again, to our consumers. I think that's what we all waiting. And the big experiment it's not so much China because it's very small for this category, as Rystom said. But what will happen now in Europe? You see Germany is basically open And we will see next week, France is opening again in Spain and Italy.
And then we take it from there. So it's It's a very volatile environment, but we are very well prepared for it. I hope it helps, Faiza.
We'll move next to PJ Juvekar of Citi.
Yes, hi, good morning.
Good morning, Vijay.
Andrea, a quick question for you. We talked about this restocking quite a bit here in the pantries and so on and so forth. When do you think orders go back to normal level? And then as the economies open up, is there some destocking in the pantries? And related to that, that's the inventory at the sort of the or household level.
But what are the inventory levels at your clients and in the supply chain?
Thank
you. It's a very, very important point actually, and we are looking at this. I would say in some of the countries, we are seen already in normalization because people are back to work and people see that they can buy everything. You might remember at the beginning toilet paper was also very precious article around the world in many of the supermarkets, but that's back to normal. So actually we have seen already quite a normalization, not because, COVID is gone, but people see and feel that they can buy whatever they need was not a big disruption in the supply chain.
So we believe that here, the inventory has changes different than in pharmaceuticals, for example, where people just keeping their diabetes product better for 3 or 4 months, etcetera, 1 months to make sure that they are covered. But here, I think in many cases, we are already back to normal. On the plans, it's a bit of a different situation because We are managing the supply chain actually almost by the week because India, which is a big country for raw materials in our industry has some challenges with a lockdown as well. So we really had to make sure that we get enough inventory in all the plants around the world to secure, supply for our customers. So here, you probably will see some elevated inventory levels for quite some time.
But again, situations volatile, I expected this actually for the first quarter as well, but we were selling so much payment software actually went down. So that's our plan or basically what what we assume for now, but it might change because it's very dependent on the, on the demand as well. But Russell, maybe you comment.
Mean, again, I mean, you covered it. I mean, but P. J, I mean, the, this is really hard to predict, right, because you're going into government regulations, customer allergy and also the possible fear of any wave tools or anything like that. I mean, you never know it's hard to predict, but even after COVID-nineteen, as I mean consumers, actual consumers might maintain higher stockpiles as a common practice. Who knows?
Our next question is from Adam Samuelson of Goldman Sachs.
Hi, guys. Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
I was hoping to get
a little bit more color on the performance in the first quarter in the case segment, specifically around the margins? I'm just trying to think about margins that were essentially flat year on year and kind of just thinking about pretty healthy top line growth. So how many deconstruct that in terms of mix, in terms of incremental Frutarom synergies, in terms of COVID related costs? And then just thinking about the balance of the year, kind of has the expectation on Frutarom synergies changed specifically kind of can you do all the facilities closures you were looking for this year given the pandemic?
Hi, Adam. Let me take that action. You actually were triangulating in on exactly what the factors were. So in the first of all, we are on track with our cost synergies target through Q1 Frutarom, I mean, with more than 25% of our 50,000,000 full year saving coming in Q1. And in terms of geography, it's about three quarters States and the rest in Cent roughly, okay.
The Centimeters synergy showed through and as you saw since performance there was considerable leverage, but tastes where you're homing in did benefit some synergies as well, but it also had mix. I mean, you went straight there. We also had mid teens growth in savory solutions, which is a lower margin business. We have the lost Citrusor sales and then we have some added costs, right, manufacturing and government, in, you know, costs hit up in the balance sheet and everything, but we also had some bad debt as we increased our bad debt provisions, not actual bad debts, but provisions as we did. So there were all offsets in here.
Now as for your second part of your question, about the ongoing plans that we have. I mean, yes, there will be some delays. There is a little bit of disruption to achieving in particular the manufacturing synergies that we expected from Frutarom, right? And that's quite simply because we can't that people are not traveling out to various sites even we're working from home quite effectively. But as Andreas has mentioned too, we do prioritize the safety of our people and address not, are not traveling out the site.
So there will be some delays in realizing the synergies from prutarom coming through. And the same thing on procurement on the procurement then, by the way, because with the huge disruption that we've seen out there in in the raw materials and sourcing and all the rest of that that hasn't shown up in our P and L, but that's because our teams have been sort of pulling in putting in really hard yards, making sure that we handled all this without disrupting our customers, right? But something gives and that's something is one of those things given is pushing through some of those other synergies. Andreas, is there anything you want to add there as well?
Actually, just one thing on the closure of the factory we might have, in some cases, a delay of maybe 2 to 3 months. That's what we are planning right now. So we will be done with what we saw in the mid end of 3rd quarter, mid end of 4th quarter. So that's the planning right now. I hope Adam, that helps.
It does. Thank you.
We'll take a question from Lauren Lieberman of Barclays. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks. It'd be good to actually just clarify that. So I think in the Q, it was on the Frutarom integration, it said that there were risks associated with not being done with the work, this year instead it could even extend into not just fiscal 'twenty one, but into 'twenty two. So I just wanted to kind of clarify that versus, what you had just said about the only a 3 month to land synergies.
I mean, just more broadly answered Ramo, just curious to know kind of what drove the upside in the quarter? Is it sustainable from what we can see, it looks like savory was a big part of that? And just is that also, we talked about mix dynamic, the areas in Peru that are coming through maybe a bit better than in, is that also another a drag on mix? Thanks.
Okay. Let me start with the second piece first. We have seen a couple of elements of the legacy food business which performed very well and we believe it's sustainable. So everything, which is connected to health. We believe it will be sustainable because that's an incredible drive for these health ingredients.
That's number 1. The second one is on food protection, because people really want to increase shelf life and make sure that this works out well. So that that's going extremely well double digit, but we believe it will be also sustainable. And then on savory, we will see, the savory solutions has made actually extreme progress in terms of bringing it together with the the legacy flavors, and we have seen good developments. Whether this is certainly not sustainable in a double digit growth rate, It is more dependent on how quickly the economies open up and how much is in the food service area because that certainly has more of a negative impact here as well.
On the other hand, you know, this is part of this famous Butcher's business people in Austria and Germany were eating meat. Like there's no tomorrow because all the restaurants were closed and that helped with, of course, sales as well. So sometimes it's these are interesting, interesting dynamics, but I hope it helps as an explanation. And then, on the food integration, resuscitation was not being done with the integration work before merging with DuPaul. It is basically, some 1 or 2 on our, manufacturing plants.
We just pulled back because we believe with NMB now, we have a different way forward where we can use these capacities and can can use them for some of the NMB products. So we do know everything, which we have said we are doing, despite the things where we believe with the NMP combination, we have a better way forward when we have NMB on board as well. So that's it. That's the only thing. And that's actually on Tillberg and Holland, but that's it we can talk more in detail.
We are now past the top of the hour and we'll now conclude the call. I now want to hand it back to Andreas for closing remarks.
Yes, thank you very much for the time. I hope everybody is healthy and stays healthy and we certainly have time to speak over the next 1 or 2 days. Thank you very much. Take care. Bye bye.
This does conclude today's conference. You may now disconnect your lines and everyone have a good day.