International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. (NYSE:IFF) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 6 of 6

Jeff Zekauskas: Thanks very much. Given your revenue forecast for the second quarter, which at the midpoint is down about 5%, are your April volumes down 5%, or on a sequential basis, that is, or can you talk about what’s happened sequentially? And then second, when you look at your first quarter performance versus your fourth quarter performance, your revenues were up about $200 million and your cost of goods sold was up, I don’t know, maybe $30 million. Can you discuss what the dynamic is behind that and which allowed your…

Erik Fyrwald: Jeff, that second part of your question was Q4 to Q1. What was the reference point?

Jeff Zekauskas: Yes, exactly right. Because there’s not much change in cost of goods sold and revenues are up a couple hundred million.

Erik Fyrwald: Yeah. Well, there are a number of timing elements in the fourth quarter, and so the mix of the business in the fourth quarter vis-a-vis Q1, generally the productivity and net price dynamics are very similar. So I’d say the fundamentals were, but you really have some mixed dynamics and then some onetime items related to that. As we think about Q4 to Q1, you referenced the, I think the decline. Decline sequentially is about $100 million from Q1 to Q2. About a quarter of that basically is associated with the absence of LMC in the mix. The other part is just sort of the outlook in the business, a little bit of seasonality in terms of the business as well. Versus prior year, to remind you, this time last year we had savi [ph] solutions.

We had FSI, we also had LMC in the mix. It was a pretty substantial sort of reduction in revenue on a year over year comparison. Volumetrically, your question about what we’re seeing in the second quarter, we’re obviously well into the middle of the quarter at this point. We’re anticipating a 5% to 6% all in volume growth versus the 4% for Q1. April was extremely good month, but last year it was an extremely lousy month. So there’s a bit of an overlap from the standpoint. But May and at least the June book at this point is trending towards that. Basically sort of call it 5% plus in terms of the performance for the quarter.

Operator: There are no questions registered at this time. So I will pass the call back over to Eric for concluding remarks.

Erik Fyrwald: Thank you all for joining today. Let me just close with two comments. First of all, Glenn did announce his pending retirement, but I just want to make sure he’s not leaving yet. There’s lots more work to do, and we’re enjoying him as part of the ELT Executive Leadership Team to get us unleashing our full potential. Second point is, it’s really great being part of team IFF. We’ve got terrific people, great innovation capabilities and we’re going to all we can to unleash our full potential and try to delight our customers, our employees and our shareholders. Thank you very much.

Operator: That concludes today’s call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.

Follow International Flavors & Fragrances Inc (NYSE:IFF)

Page 6 of 6