Investor Overview

Purpose-led people and culture: Using Smart science to improve lives™, aligned with our ambitious commitment to be the most sustainable supplier of innovative ingredients.

Structure and focus on fast-growing sectors: Consumer focused business, investing in growing and harnessing technology and know-how within these fast growth areas. Strongly positioned in high-growth niches and well aligned with growing consumer demand for sustainability.

Dynamic innovation engine: Open approach to innovation with 500 partners working on over 100 projects increasingly focused on sustainability.

Sustainability focus: meeting the growing consumer and customer need for sustainable, high performance ingredients. 

Highly differentiated approach: Flexible, local manufacturing providing resilience, and direct selling to customers.

High-quality business with superior financial performance: Highly cash-generative operations with world-class profit margins.

Strong balance sheet: Clear capital allocation policy prioritising disciplined investment in growth.

Reputation for attractive shareholder returns: Track record of creating shareholder value through high returns on capital and 29 years of consecutive dividend progression.

We are listening more closely to our customers than ever before; understanding the things that are of most importance to our customers and how we are performing against them.

Sustainability makes strong commercial sense for our customers. As consumers become more educated about the impact of their behaviour on the wider environment, they are looking to make choices in the products that they buy so that they can make a positive contribution to living more sustainably.

Consumer requirements differ country-by country and whilst emerging markets are recovering more slowly from COVID-19, they are increasingly setting new trends. They offer higher growth rates over the medium term, particularly in Asia where China’s personal care market is growing 9% a year.

We tailor our offering to those differing needs by listening to our customers wherever they are. Almost all customers have experienced huge growth in digital sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerating trends we were already seeing in our markets. Digital is a huge disruptor and our digital strategy focuses on R&D and production as well as sales & marketing, helping us bring innovation to market faster and in a more targeted way.