Symrise AG (SYIEF) CEO Heinz-Jürgen Bertram on 2020 Financial Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Symrise AG (OTCPK:SYIEF) Q4 2020 Earnings Conference Call March 9, 2021 7:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Tobias Erfurth - Head, Investor Relations
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram - Chief Executive Officer
Olaf Klinger - Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Lisa De Neve - Morgan Stanley.
Matthew Yates - Bank of America
Thomas Swoboda - Societe Generale
Ryan Tomkins - Jefferies
Charles Eden - UBS
James Targett - Berenberg Bank.
Isha Sharma - Stifel
Operator
Good afternoon. My name is Alex. I'm the operator of Tata Telecom. For your information, this call will be recorded.
I will now hand over to Tobias Erfurth, Head of Investor Relations of Symrise.
Tobias Erfurth
Thank you, Alex. Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman and welcome to our 2020 Results Presentation. With me on the phone are our CEO, Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bertram; and our CFO, Olaf Klinger. Unlike all the years before, we are not in Frankfurt, but in our headquarters in Holzminden.
All documents have been published this morning on our webpage in the section Investors and Financial Results. In the same area, you will find the playback of this conference call, later today. After the presentation, we are open for your questions.
I will now hand over to our CEO Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bertram. You may begin.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Thank you, Tobias. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to our 2020 results call. I am very pleased to hear that so many are taking the time to join us today. As in previous years, our CFO, Olaf Klinger and I, will run you through the presentation today. I will try and start by discussing our highlights in 2020. Olaf will then deep dive into the financials before we finish with some key strategic initiatives and an outlook on the road ahead. You will of course have the opportunity to ask your questions afterwards. With this said, let us start.
2020 has been an exceptional and very challenging year for everyone around the globe. We faced and we are still facing the largest health crisis in the past century. It forced businesses to adapt their products and services and to implement health and safety protections for employees very quickly. The extensive lockdowns led to shifts in consumer demand. We've seen a slowdown in some areas. In others, demand was high than before, or emerged in completely new areas. Some of this impacted Symrise just as any other business.
In addition to this global crisis, we also face the criminal cyber-attack in December. We provided you with some background about this attack in our Trading Update in January. Despite all these challenges, we were still able to continue our profitable growth.
So let us have a look at a Chart 4. First of all, our top line grew for the 15th consecutive year. Overall, sales increased by 3.3% in reporting currency to more than €3.5 billion. Organic growth recorded plus of 2.7%. Our EBITDA outperformed last year's figures and increased by 5.8% to over €740 million. Profitability reached an excellent level with an EBITDA margin of 21.1%.
Our business free cash flow has also developed well. It grew 18% to €564 million. This equals 16% of sales. Net income for 2020 totaled €307 million, an increase of €11 million. Accordingly, earnings per share increased to €2.27 after €2.20 in 2019. Once again, we want our shareholders to participate in our success. Management and Supervisory Board will therefore propose a dividend increase to €0.97 per share to the Annual General Meeting in May.
Let us move now on to Chart 5 and our sales development on Group level. 2020 financial year was clearly marked by the global pandemic. But despite corona and the cyber-attack in the fourth quarter, we continued our profitable growth, Group sales increased by 3.3% to more than €3.5 billion. Organic sales growth of 2.7% was driven by all segments. ADF/IDF developed well and contributed €209 million.
Over to Chart 6 and the overview of sales contributions by segment. In every segment, we observed a shift in consumer demand due to the corona pandemic and countrywide lockdown, still all segments recorded organic growth in 2020. Starting from the top, the segment Scent & Care generated sales of around €1.4 billion in reporting currency. The segment grew organically by 1.5%. Due to the negative exchange rate effects and the cyber-attack in December, sales decreased by 3.5% in reporting currency.
We saw a good double-digit growth in Consumer Fragrances and a high single digit growth in Oral Care. Both were driven by a pandemic-related strong demand for personal care and hygiene products. Flavors, displayed in the middle, achieved sales of around €1.2 billion in reporting currency, with an organic growth of 0.7%. We recorded a pandemic-related shift towards savory applications. But even this mid-single-digit growth could not entirely compensate for the lower demand in applications for sweet and beverage products. Overall, sales in reporting currency decreased by 2.6%.
Nutrition increased sales by an outstanding 26.6% to €926 million. The segment grew organically by 8.2%. ADF/IDF exceeded our expectations and contributed €209 million. The Pet Food business was once again a key growth driver for the segment across all regions. Food applications on the other hand suffered from the corona pandemic-related lockdown.
On Chart 7, for our regional performance. At regional level, the Americas were growth drivers in 2020. Clearly ahead of all others was Latin America with an organic growth of almost 22%. The EAME region was strongly influenced by the corona pandemic and the cyber-attack in the fourth quarter. Organic growth was therefore decreased by 1.5%. North America and Asia Pacific were also impacted by the corona pandemic and the cyber-attack. Nevertheless, both regions achieved a moderate organic growth of 2.1% and 0. 7%.
Ladies and gentlemen, as we like to take a long-term view on our business, Chart 8, illustrates our sales and EBITDA growth over the years. It was always one of my favorite charts. And even the historic exceptional year 2020 did not break our positive long-term dynamics. You can clearly see Symrise has an outstanding track record of generating sustainable and reliable sales and earnings growth, and the year 2020 is no exception.
Since our IPO in 2006, we have record and sales CAGR of 7.8%. Our earnings CAGR of 8.3% over the same period, is equally strong. We are not only one of the fastest growing companies within our industry, we're also one of the most profitable ones. Our EBITDA margin increased in 2020 to a very healthy 21.1% which is spot-on in our long-term target range.
At this point, I would like to thank all our employees across the world. The continuous profitable growth of our company, have been achieved through their commitment and dedication. They are key contributors to our Success Story.
Let us now move on to Chart 9 and our share price development. I'm very proud that Symrise, once again, outperformed the DAX and MDAX. This makes us even prouder this year. Our share price continued this positive development in 2020 and increased by 16%. We see this as a clear sign of appreciation for our strategy and performance by investors.
We want our shareholders to participate in the company's success again, therefore, the management and Supervisory Board will propose a dividend increase to €0.97 per share at this year's AGM. This is the 11th dividend increase in a row, a clear proof of our long-term value creation.
Moving to the next slide, let me briefly touch on an issue that, in addition to corona had an influence on our business in 2020, the criminal cyber-attack. In December, we faced a cyber-attack by unknown perpetuators with blackmailing intent. It caused us to shut down major operational activities temporarily. Symrise has shielded its IT structure and brought important systems back up as quickly as possible. In consultation with our customers, we prioritized their orders to avoid production downtime. However, we were working on backlogs and trying to minimize lead times by additional shifts.
Next to the impact on our customers, the attack impacted our business results. Despite the corona pandemic, we did an excellent job of staying on track to achieve our organic sales targets for almost the entire year. On the last stretch, however, the incident eventually slowed down our progress to 2.7% organic growth. After this rather unpleasant episode, let me now hand over to Olaf, he will present the financials in more detail. Olaf, over to you.
Olaf Klinger
Thank you very much, Heinz-Jürgen, and good afternoon, also from my side. Following Heinz-Jürgen's initial remarks, I would like to give you the promised deep dive into the financials. Let us start with Group sales development on Page 12. As published already on January 26, we grew 2.7% organically, they are 1/3 price and 2/3 volume. In light of the corona-related lower industry growth of only around 1% in 2020 and the mentioned cyber-attack in December, we see this as a very good outcome for Symrise for the year 2020.
Our latest acquisition ADF/IDF contributed €209 million sales in 2020. The first 10 months of sales sailed into the bracket of portfolio growth with €174 million and the corresponding portfolio effect of 5.1%. In November and December, ADF/IDF is reflected in the bracket of organic growth, the sales of €35 million.
After supportive FX in 2019 with positive 1.3%, we suffered in 2020 with a negative impact on sales with minus €152 million or minus 4.5%. We had strong headwinds from almost all currencies especially in the inflationary development of the Brazilian real and the Argentinean peso followed by the U.S. dollar and the Mexican peso.
Please turn to Slide 13 to take a closer look at our bottom line. ADF/IDF comes as proportionally higher manufacturing costs compared to the rest of the Symrise Group. Therefore, the gross profit grew slower than sales growth. The cost of goods sold include material costs of €1.5 billion. This represents the material cost [growth] of 43%, eased from 44% in 2019. For 2021, we expect overall, slightly increasing raw material costs.
Moving to earnings, we benefited from the excellent performance of ADF/IDF and a corona-related decline in travel and R&D cost. We could increase our EBITDA by 5.8% to €742 million. Our EBITDA margin of 21.1% was better than our normalized margin in 2019 of 20.6%.
We ended the year within our 2020 margin guidance band of 21% to 22%, which we gave mid-year before the cyber-attack. Following higher depreciation related to prior years, CapEx and the additional impact on D&A related to ADF/IDF, our EBIT, still rose 3.4% to €488 million, staying on last year's normalized EBIT margin level of 13.8%.
Please turn now to the next slide, Slide 14, for the segment reporting. Scent & Care achieved an organic growth of 1.5% and saw a 5% headwind from FX. Corona changed customer behavior across the business units. Fine Fragrances, Fragrance Ingredients and UV-filters slowed down while Consumer Fragrances and Oral Care went up. In Scent & Care, 40% of the organic growth was pricing and 60% was volume related. Q4 suffered from the cyber-attack, which led to a negative volume impact during the quarter.
Reported sales were €1.37 billion for the year. Looking at earnings, Scent & Care EBITDA amounted to €272 million after €278 million, the year before. The margin increase from 19.6% to 19.8%, supported by reduced costs due to corona-related limitations like sales and marketing and R&D, and quite a strict cost control during the year for pandemic.
On Slide 15, we see Flavor with 0.7% organic growth and a 3.3% FX headwind. The slower growth was mainly a result of the changed consumer behavior during corona. The decrease in out-of-home consumption could not be compensated by higher demand for February applications. Volume was slightly negative during the year. Q4 started promising, but fell back with the cyber-attack. Nevertheless, also Flavor saw an EBITDA margin increase from 21.4% in '19 to 21.8% in 2020, related to lower raw material cost and corona-related savings in OpEx.
Let us move to Slide 16 for Nutrition. An impressive 8.2% organic growth was pushed again through a strong performance in Pet Food. Price/volume was a ratio of 20/80 for the full year, and 10/90 in Q4. ADF/IDF added €209 million sales. Nutrition achieved an EBITDA margin of 22% in 2020. Some remarks on ADF/IDF, we achieved a very smooth integration despite the well-known travel restrictions and we are very pleased with the current development. We already realize substantial cross synergies between ADF/IDF, Diana Food, Diana Pet Food and Flavors
Just follow me to further P&L elements on Slide 17. The financial result increased from €56 million to €64 million, partly related to interest payments to tax authorities. In addition, we secured extra liquidity during the early phase of the pandemic and accepted some interest overlaps with the early refinancing through a €500 million Euro Bond issued early July 2020.
Normalization of the prior year's figure occurred from a positive U.S. dollar hedge effect for the ADF/IDF acquisition. Income tax expenses in 2020 amounted to €109 million. The residing tax rate of 25.6% was lower than in the 2019 fiscal year was 27.1%. Mainly due to higher earnings in countries with lower tax rates and the utilization of tax credits linked to the acquisition of ADF/IDF at the end of 2019. For the time being, we confirm our midterm tax guidance of 26% to 28% until 2025.
Net income attributable to our shareholders amounted to €307 million, which is €11 million higher than the normalized amount of the previous year. Earnings per share rose to €2.27. This compares to an adjusted and normalized €2.20 in 2019. The proposed dividends of €0.97 per share, is a new record level for Symrise. It equals 43% payout ratio which is fully in line with our long-term ambition of 30% to 50%.
Let us now turn to Page 18. Business free cash flow as our primary KPI had to further strengthen our cash flow orientation within the company. Business free cash flow which is EBITDA minus capital expenditures, including payments for lease obligations and changes in working capital, amounted to €564 million or 16% as a percentage of sales in 2020 fiscal year, an increase of 18% over the previous year.
The main reasons for this improvements were a decrease in working capital, lower CapEx, and significantly higher net income. Overall, the cyber-attack had a positive effect on the working capital situation at the end of the year. For 2021, we expect a business free cash flow about 14% of sales.
Please turn to Slide 19 for a review of our balance sheet. Total assets on December 31 2020 were at previous year's level this €5,940 million. On the asset side, the increase in cash and cash equivalents was mainly due to the strong cash flow and additional liquidity reserves, partially offset by a declining level of trade receivables, and inventories. The decrease in property, plant and equipment and intangibles was mostly driven by higher depreciation and amortization and further enhanced by strong FX translation effects.
On the liability side, pension provision increased again by €76 million due to further decreased German interest rates. Equity was €2.362 million on December 31 2020, €95 million below the level of the previous year. The equity ratio is at 39.8% compares to 41.3% in the previous year. Equity was negatively impacted by currency translation effects. Overall, we see our equity ratio of around 40% as a very solid base to further develop our business ambitions.
Let us now turn to Page 20 to our solid financing structure. Net debt which includes leases, decreased due to the strong operating cash flow at €269 million to now €1348 million. This corresponds to 2.7 times EBITDA including pensions, or 1.8 times excluding pensions. We are well on track to achieve our long-term target of 2.0 to 2.5 times including pensions, which is unchanged since the IPO. Our top priority remains to have an investment grade profile for Symrise.
I would like to finish my part by saying thank you, to all the colleagues in Symrise, who made an extra strong effort during and after the time of the cyber-attack. We are quite an outstanding team here which managed to bring us back to normal businesses in a very comparative short period of time. This has been well noted and positively recognized by our customer base.
And with this, I would like to hand back to Heinz-Jürgen for some final remarks.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Thank you, Olaf. Ladies and gentlemen, let us now have a look at the road ahead. If you would please proceed to Chart 22 and we will have a look at the base of our success, our corporate strategy. Right up front, the global corona pandemic did not change and does not change our midterm targets for 2025. Therefore, we are holding on to our target of an annual sales growth rate of 5% to 7%.
With our expanded core portfolio, we aim for an EBITDA margin between 20% and 23% in the same period. We also stand by our commitment to let our shareholders participate appropriately in our success as a business. Our dividend payout ratio will therefore remain at 30% to 50% of our net profit.
Our three strategic pillars, growth, efficiency, and portfolio, are embedded in and accompanied by sustainability. As you all [off-mic], we place a strong emphasis on our environmental footprint and the sustainability of our supply chain. This is why we also set a midterm goal regarding sustainability. By 2025, we will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60%. And we will aim to be climate positive by 2030. I will come back on this topic in a few minutes from now.
Over to Chart 23. You may have noted that we recently announced some changes to our Management Board. Heinrich Schaper, President of the Flavor segment is going to retire on 31st of March. He has been with us for more than four decades and had key roles in growing our business throughout his career. We will use this moment of change to combine the Flavor & Nutrition segments. President of the new Flavor & Nutrition segment will be Jean-Yves Parisot.
By merging the two segments, Symrise can better leverage the strength of both areas and exploit synergies and further differentiate itself in the market. There will be one leadership team and one research agenda. The customer approach especially for global account, will centrally be managed to increase customer penetration.
Overall, this will enable Symrise to offer an even more extensive portfolio of ingredients and solutions across taste, nutrition and health in the future for human food, for pet food and other animal nutrition activities.
On Chart 24, we highlight the global setup for the combined Flavor & Nutrition segment. As you can see on this map, we are already represented with both segments in all regions, globally. But in combination, we will be able to create an even stronger global setup of competencies and infrastructure with 65 manufacturing sites worldwide. For the combined Flavor & Nutrition segment, we expect sales of more than €2 billion and an EBITDA margin of more than 21%.
The other organizational change concerns our Scent & Care segment. If you would please proceed to Chart 25. Achim Daub who has been a Board member since 2006 and responsible for the Scent & Care segment has decided to pursue new professional opportunities. He will also leave the company on third 31st of March 2021, by mutual agreement and on best terms.
Again, I would like to highlight Achim's strong contributions to our successful business development over many years. The succession planning of course has already been initiated. In the meantime, I will manage the division on an interim basis.
In the context of this change, we have reorganized the leadership functions of our Scent & Care segment. Eder Ramos, an experienced manager from the segment will lead the Fragrance division. Norbert Richter who is very experienced especially in terms of shifting towards renewable and green chemistry will continue to manage the Aroma Molecules division and Jörn Andreas contributes to the international leadership experience as a leader of the Cosmetic Ingredient division.
We also consider this a solid base for a smooth integration of Sensient Fragrances and Aroma Molecules. In November 2020, Symrise signed the purchase agreement for this acquisition. Let me explain the rationale of the expansion in more detail on the next slide. We consider the acquisition of Sensient Fragrances and Aroma Molecules division as an excellent strategic opportunity. As a result of the transaction, we will expand our leadership position as a supplier of fragrance and fragrance ingredients.
We also strengthen our backward integration and enhanced our value chain to meet the significant internal demand for Aroma Molecules. With a manufacturing site in Granada, that will be acquired, we will not only strengthen our footprint in Spain, we will establish a second production hub in Europe as the basis for future successful growth. As soon as the deal will be closed, we will initiate the integration process.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us now move on to Chart 27 and to dive a bit deeper into sustainability. As you know, climate protection and biodiversity are two focus areas of Symrise. In terms of climate protection, I mentioned our goal earlier, Symrise aims to become climate-positive by 2030. This will require some efforts, but we are confident that we will achieve this goal.
Our climate protection efforts have again been recognized by the Carbon Disclosure Project. Symrise achieved AAA ratings in 2020 in all three categories, water, climate, as well as, forest. With this, Symrise ranks one of the Top 10 companies in the world and number one in Germany.
Our second focus is biodiversity. We use thousands of raw materials from all over the world. Sustainable resource procurement is therefore crucial to us. It ensures availability, quality and price stability. The map on Chart 28 illustrates some of our joint activities in different parts of the world. Together with customers and partners, we work to improve living and working conditions in the countries we source from.
Chart 29 provides an overview of our key investment and growth initiatives. As in the last two years, we continued to focus on capacity expansion and meet the emerging demand and to lay the basis for growth. This includes new production plants for Pet Food in China and Brazil, a development and application center for Flavor & Nutrition in China and the expansion of the Sensient site in Granada.
On the other hand, as I said, we focus on climate protection with investments in advanced technologies, we strive to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, in the USA and France, and our largest German site in Holzminden, we extend the generation of our own electricity for our operations.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us conclude today's presentation with an outlook for 2021 on Chart 30. Symrise looks with confidence into the current financial year. With our robust business model, we navigated solidly through the exceptional year 2020 and we will continue doing so. We are assuming that the global economy will recover with rising vaccination rates and further improvements for battling the pandemic.
Against the backdrop of these expectations, we expect reliable demand and want to return to our original growth momentum. Once again, we want to grow faster than the relevant market. With this projected growth of around 3% to 4% this year, we are targeting organic growth of 5% to 7%, the EBITDA margin should reach around 21%. We believe that Symrise is very well positioned to achieve these ambitions. And we will continue to build on our proven strategy.
In this context, we will leverage growth opportunities such as joint innovation programs for Flavor & Nutrition. In Scent & Care, we plan to commercialize growth opportunities related to the Sensient business. And, of course, we also will remain committed to our disciplined cost and efficiency management.
And with this, I would like to conclude today's presentation. Olaf and I, are now happy to answer your question. Tobias, back to you.
Tobias Erfurth
Thank you. Thank you very much, Heinz-Jürgen. Thank you very much, Olaf. Let us now start with Q&A. We kindly ask you to put only two questions, if we cannot take all your questions during the conference call, we will answer the remaining questions later, maybe today, maybe tomorrow. Many thanks and first question, please. But first, Alex, our operator will help with instructions. Thank you.
Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you very much, Tobias. [Operator Instructions] Mrs. Lisa De Neve from Morgan Stanley, may we have your question, please?
Lisa De Neve
Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for taking my questions. Two questions from my side, so high level question just on the R&D. Can you provide us with some color on what you're seeing on the customer side in terms of pipeline and launches, especially in the light of the world is slowly opening up again? And the second question is, I mean, your Nutrition gross margin has reduced by 240 bps in 2020 year-on-year, and actually 430 bps over the last four years. Can you provide some detail on what has actually impacted this gross margin? And not just as it relates to 2020, but also last four years? And how much of that was actually driven by the inclusion of ADF acquisition? Thank you so much.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Okay, thanks for your question. I think I'll start with the first one and Olaf, I'll leave the second one to you. It was a financial thing. So the R&D, I am happy to pick up. Well, major trends which will help us to continue healthy growth is of course the - in the Flavor & Nutrition. And first, the ongoing trend towards more healthy and quality, high quality food, meaning meat alternatives, vegetarian, vegan food with full taste properties and the full health benefit that was starting trend and that will continue to move on for quite a while. The same is - same token is sugar reduction, not with artificial sweeteners but with natural solutions which don't require any declaration. So, these are things where we see strong growth demand also ongoing in the future, on the Flavor & Nutrition part.
In the Scent & Care part, for sure, if we look at delivery and encapsulation systems for detergents, biodegradable, natural, environmentally friendly systems are on the horizon. And also on the Fragrance part, natural ingredients, so the trend for naturalness is also increasing there, in particular in Fine Fragrance in beauty care products. So these are just a few highlights on some things which are ongoing on the on Flavor and on the Scent & Care.
And last but not least, also to mention our strong ongoing demand for Pet Food which will continue to be a mega trend in the future to come. Okay, I hope that answers your first question. With that, having said, Olaf, you would like to pick the second?
Olaf Klinger
Yeah, Lisa, thanks for this very special observation when it comes to development of the gross profit in Nutrition, I think there are a couple of reasons. First of all, when we bought the business, it was quite a little bit under invested. So we put a lot of CapEx into the environment. And for good reason, there was a huge opportunity in Pet Food. And today, we are very happy to have the additional capacity, we built several new spray dryers. We built a global footprint for Pet Food over the years, and this will continue. So that is one driver.
In general, the business itself, in proportion to the other parts of Symrise has higher cost of goods sold. And over the past two years, we also saw a slight increase in raw materials. The market is partly tight and that had also an impact on the gross profit situation for the segment. These are the main drivers, nevertheless, and I think this is coming also along with the ADF/IDF acquisition. We see a nice development of the margin situation in this business, despite the slightly higher COGS development in our environment. So all-in-all, I think we enjoy this business quite a little bit. And we will continue to do so in the coming years.
Lisa De Neve
Thank you so much, very helpful.
Operator
Mr. Matthew Yates from Bank of America, may we have your question please.
Matthew Yates
Hi, good afternoon, gentlemen. A couple of them, please. The first one is about your Slide 23, on the new divisional structure. You mentioned there's some opportunities here for better account management, and maybe some cost savings from putting these two divisions together. I wondered if you could just elaborate on that a little bit. And also provide some background. I'm not sure how long you've been thinking of making this move or whether it's been more recently thrust upon you by the executive turnover. And then the second question, just a quick clarification, please, Olaf. I think you said ADF did €35 million of sales in November/December. Given the currency moves, am I right in thinking that is a double digit organic growth rate? And maybe just elaborate a little bit on the pipeline of new opportunities you see in that business? Thanks.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Okay. Yeah, Matthew, thanks for your questions. I'm trying to answer them as honest and enlightening as possible. So new divisional structure, in Flavor & Nutrition, we had this combination for a while when Diana came onboard, as you may still recall, and I was doing it. But the priority at that time was, the first phase of the integration, having the new teammates of Diana, welcome and feel treated appropriately. And we intentionally left some synergies on the ground and focused on making it a good home for our friends from Diana.
For - after having done the first phase now after several years, now, I think it makes sense to combine the divisions and have a look again on the opportunities which the combined business cross-selling allows. As I said, the first phase is completed and our feeling, strong feeling is that the teammates from Diana are now Symrise teammates and feel welcome and are open and contribute to leverage on all the opportunities we may have, cross-selling strong top line synergies, but also bottom-line synergies across different areas.
As you may recall, in Flavors, certain business areas were not totally always Flavor but more Ingredient and vice versa in Diana. So Jean-Yves will focus sorting that out and making it more efficient and also leverage on bottom- and top-line opportunities. So we have good hope that within the years to come, we see additional growth momentum, and also a nice impact on the bottom line. Having said this, you see from my words, this was not something which occurred spontaneously, but it was all was on the agenda when the first phase of the integration of the onboarding process of Diana is completed. And we believe this is the time now, we will do the next phase of this. Having said that, I hope that answers your question on the new structure.
ADF double digit growth, let's put it this way, at least it is strong and healthy growth momentum which we've seen, and we're happy to see that the ADF acquisition has even exceeded our expectation. And what you see there is that the Jean-Yves and his group, they are starting now to tap in some additional top line opportunities which we have highlighted, having access to new protein sources, to new starting materials and with a broad application range we have here in Symrise, unique application range in Aqua, in Pet Food and in human consumption. You see, this is paying off. So I hope Matthew, these two points, this answers your two questions. Okay?
Matthew Yates
Thank you very much.
Olaf Klinger
The observation is right, we had €32 million in the first two months of '19 and now €35 million plus currency definitely double digit.
Matthew Yates
Can I be greedy and just squeeze in one more? On your Sensient slide, you talk about the Symrise Express model. Sorry, forgive me. I don't actually know what the Express model is. Can you just explain that briefly?
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Yeah, sure, my pleasure. Symrise Express means for certain customers, in particular lower customers, a business model which focuses on instantaneous service, which means sample service within a day, if we have to be. That means this model is a bit different than the traditional one, you have to develop and service from a sales collection, which means a collection where these things are pre-composed and if the request comes in, you service instantaneously. So their speed is the success model and our acquisition of Sensient offers us the opportunity to look in this direction. It is important, in particular, for emerging markets like Northern Africa, just to mention one thing. But I hope Matthew this answers your question, here.
Matthew Yates
Right. Thank you, guys.
Operator
Mr. Thomas Swoboda from Societe Generale, may we you have a question, please?
Thomas Swoboda
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my two questions. My first question is on the trends in the first quarter. In your written remarks, you say you were able to catch up on the lost sales from the cyber-attack in December. So my question is, is it right to assume that this will give you some 300 basis points of extra growth in Q1? So we might be actually looking for a jumpstart to the year in Q1 with some 7% or 9%? Is there anything I'm missing in this equation? My second question is a little bit more top down, if I may, your two peers, Givaudan and IFF are going more aggressively towards enzymes. Is this technology Symrise has to look at, is this needed to further replace chemical raw materials by renewable ones? In other words, will you have to address enzymes going forward for on Symrise's platform? Thank you.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Yeah, Thomas, I'm happy to answer that question. So your question about the trends in Q1, yeah, you will see a jumpstart at Symrise, very simple, so expect that we will not fall short there. I hope that answers and you make your marks but yes. Second, enzymes and biotechnology, as a tool, necessary? Absolutely, so and that's why we invested not in enzymes directly because many of them you can buy any way, commercially, but it's an interesting area. May I interpret your question a bit wider on biotechnology and then we're right in the middle of some key investments. We did like Probi, for example, so yes biotechnology will play an even more important role in the future. And if some of the materials which we need to manufacture, in particular, natural materials require enzyme technology, absolutely, we utilize that. I hope, Thomas, these answers your two questions.
Thomas Swoboda
It does indeed. Thank you very much.
Operator
Mr. Ryan Tomkins from Jefferies, may we have your question, please?
Ryan Tomkins
Yeah, thank you. Good morning all and only one from me. Most have been covered. It was just on the margin. If we could have a comment on the moving parts, I assume we have bit of operating leverage and better volumes next year and also the raw materials that you called out, anything else that we're missing there? Thank you very much.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Thanks, Ryan, for your question. I knew you would ask a financial question. So I happily shifted over to Olaf.
Olaf Klinger
Yeah, I think we are in this period of some cost savings coming along with the pandemic. For me, the most important part for developing the margin further is around [indiscernible] development. We're investing, as you know, into higher margin businesses and in the long run, this should really develop our margin in the right direction. We start this year with the expectation that the margin will be around 21%. And I think that's a good guidance for this year. Let's see how it goes and what still needs to come. But this is the expectation for 2021, for the time being.
Ryan Tomkins
Great, thank you and apologies, Heinz-Jürgen. All my non-financial questions have already been taken.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
No, no, Ryan, that was nice. We have Olaf in the call and he has to do something for the money we pay him.
Ryan Tomkins
Exactly. Thank you very much.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
You're welcome.
Operator
Mr. Charles Eden from UBS, may we have your questions, please?
Charles Eden
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions, two, if I may. My first question is just on your 2021 organic sales guidance. And given your comments about being fully on track to achieve the upper end of the 3% to 4% range last year, prior to the cyber-attack, combined with the jumpstart of this year, should we view the bottom end of your 5% to 10% guidance ranges, early year conservatism? Could you also discuss the extent to which you believe the cyber-attack sales have now already been fully recovered in Q1 to-date? And then my second question is just on the 2020 margin, are you able to quantify the higher costs associated with a cyber-attack? Or perhaps another way of asking, where do you think the margin would have been in the prior 21% to 22% range, in the absence of the cyber-attack? Thank you very much.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
So let me start with the first one, the growth for this year. Yeah, our guidance was 5% to 7%. You can read it as you want, I committed to before that we will have probably a jumpstart, yes. But at this point in time to review our guidance for the growth, our long-term guidance is too early, 5% to 7%, we feel pretty safe. And already that is more than all our competitors and our peers in our industry. So we commit to getting back to our dynamic growth rate for today. That should be enough. But to your second question Q1, all the backdrop, pretty much is reconciled in Q1. And that is a good sign that we mastered the cyber-attack on our own. And we got out of this without major losses. And we were able to service our customers, even in this difficult situation. And that, again, is a good sign for the robustness of our supply chain. I hope that answers your question. Olaf, you may take the second one.
Olaf Klinger
Yeah, so this - the real impact from the cyber-attack is a little bit difficult to judge, so, and basically impossible to come up with the real numbers. The estimate on the top line is €30 million to €35 million, which we missed in December and that will shift to the New Year to the vast majority. Now from a margin perspective, we expected definitely a slightly higher margin for 2020 compared to where we came out and 21.1%, I think we were well on track. We had some idle costs in December, just because a lot of production environments were on standby plus we had some extra costs related to IT and the initial measures we took. Nevertheless, we have a cyber security insurance in place and we are, of course, in the process of collecting all the elements, and at some point, we can tell you to which extent, we will get a reimbursement for some of the costs related to cyber-attack.
Charles Eden
That's great. Thank you very much.
Operator
Mr. James Targett from Berenberg Bank, may we have your question, please?
James Targett
Hi, good afternoon, everyone. It's James Targett from Berenberg. And two questions. So firstly, so just to come back on the margins for the '21. So just at the current expectation of low margins in '21, can you - I'm just trying to understand how much is coming from so the cost normalization from last year versus your growth for your ESG growth initiatives and ESG investments? And I also wonder to what extent you expect mix to play a role in margin development in '21, considering the various moving parts during - on the top line during the pandemic? And then secondly, you mentioned that the savory business had a big benefit from COVID and sort of pivot towards that savory business in 2020. To what extent do you expect the savory business to continue that strong growth as pandemic eases? Is there some sort of structural change or was that all temporary? And it works out that the ADF business benefit from that boost in savory business in 2020? Thank you.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Okay, James, I'll try to - first question, I'm not sure if I understood this completely. But what I can tell you, your assumption that we will see a lower margin this year compared to last year, as I heard you talking about margin loss, no and margin lower? No, we don't see that. We're very early in the year and as typically at this time in the year, we are cautious with our outlook. But I think it is wrong to assume a margin loss at this point in time, we actually don't see it necessarily. Having said that, second point to your savory question. The business in savory was strong indeed last year, it will continue to be strong this year, because the underlying major trend of meat alternatives, vegetarian, vegan and all these things and will continue to drive the business.
And that is not where ADF links into. The ADF links into the second big thing, big driver is a declaration friendly flavors, the declaration free every product, chicken flavor from chicken, how creative is that? So ADF opens the opportunity and as I said, ADF/IDF, the strong performance also is rooted in the fact that we have a unique application platform. We're the only ones in our industry having Pet Food, and Aqua as outlet. And so we have a unique outlet for the ADF product. So I guess some of the things you brought up in your questions have been mixed together. And these trends have to be separated.
But back to your question, the savory business will continue to do well, that is what matters. And this year will be another good year for savory. And if I didn't answer the first question, totally, James, then feel free to just bring it up again. And we'll try to fill it as good as possible. Okay?
James Targett
Sure. Yeah. Let me let me just do that. Because I suppose the question is, maybe you could - if you think about your growth initiatives and ESG investments in '21, how much larger are they than in 2020? And is that - how much is that impacting your expectation on margin in '21?
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Oh, okay. Now I got it. Sorry. So, thanks for hitting it. Yeah, our commitment for ESG very promised - prominent in our communication. Actually it is important but the financial impact is not any bigger in the future going forward than what we have done in the past. We have already committed in the past the necessary financial resources in this and we will continue to do so, as we did with IT, that was another related question, which the one or the other of you may think as a consequence of the cyber-attack. We have invested enough in IT and we will continue to do so. Do not expect any major changes in our cost allocation going forward. Okay?
James Targett
Thank you.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
You're welcome.
Operator
Our today's last question comes from Mrs. Isha Sharma from Stifel. Your question, please?
Isha Sharma
Yeah, hi, this is Miss Isha. Hi, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three please, if I may. First one is a simple one. What are your expectations on raw material costs through 2021, please, and if you already see some inflation? Secondly, the organic decline in Q4 came mainly from Scent & Care and regionally in India and Asia Pacific, is that exclusively explained from by the cyber-attack situation that you had in Q4 or is there - are there other underlying factors? And the last one is on Nutrition margin, it was quite strong in the second half of 2020, could you give us some color on that and if that is reasonably run rate going forward? Thank you.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Okay. Hey, Isha, good to hear from you. So I would happily pass on the third question to Olaf and I take the raw material cost question. We see a slight or let's put it this way, we expect a slight headwind this year. At the moment, at this point in time, we do not see it yet in our numbers but that's the challenge with SAP. It is already or it may already be coming in, but it is only entering the cost book, the moment you touch the material. Anyway, so the felt, I would say, you see already a certain slight headwind, and we will continue to see a certain stronger headwind in the second part of the year. For the total year 2021, we expect a slight headwind in raw material costs. And this anticipation is pretty much in line with what our peers are seeing.
Organic decline in Scent & Care in the fourth quarter, mainly cyber-attack, we had to make some decisions, Isha, on what operations we start first and I have to say, it was a mess, was - all was shut down and you have to start somewhere. And some of the Scent & Care factories were the last to start due to some internal challenges and it was a question how it had been programmed and all these things. But the point is, actually, some larger sites were down nearly four weeks and you see that. So that answers, hopefully, your second question. And I happily passed on to Olaf who is already waiting. Olaf?
Olaf Klinger
Yeah. So on the Nutrition margin development in the second half, we talked about the very nice contribution from ADF/IDF. We talked about strong top line performance and you can see from the development that ADF/IDF is contributing not only top line, but also bottom line, quite a little bit. So we consider this margin development as sustainable and going in the right direction going forward.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Isha, did that answer your question?
Isha Sharma
It did. But just the reason - recently, it was only in India and Asia Pacific, that you saw a decline in Q4, that was so due to this?
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
But it is simply a question when this production was started up, as I said.
Isha Sharma
Right, understood.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
No, there is no financial logic behind it.
Isha Sharma
Thank you so much, both of you. Thanks a lot.
Heinz-Jürgen Bertram
Thank you.
Olaf Klinger
Welcome.
Tobias Erfurth
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, this brings us to the end of our conference call. Thank you very much for your time and your interest in Symrise. We will not travel afterwards but we are looking forward to meeting you in the upcoming virtual events. Have a good evening, stay safe and goodbye from Holzminden.
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