| Press release | Communiqué de presse | Persbericht |
Syensqo fourth quarter and full year 2025 results
Full year free cash flow of €356 million, above prior outlook; Pro forma full year underlying EBITDA of €1.21 billion with resilient margin performance; 4% full year net sales growth in Composite Materials supported by strong Q4
Brussels, February 26, 2026, 7.00am CET
Q4 2025 Highlights1
- Net sales of €1.42 billion impacted by year-on-year foreign exchange movements (-6%) and lower volumes (-5%) while pricing remained stable; Composite Materials delivered 11% year-on-year organic growth;
- Gross profit of €397 million decreased by 18% from the prior year, primarily due to lower volumes and unfavorable currency effects, resulting in a gross margin of 28%;
- Underlying EBITDA of €238 million decreased 17% organically year-on-year, primarily due to lower underlying EBITDA in Specialty Polymers and Technology Solutions, partially offset by structural cost savings and strong growth in Composite Materials;
- Underlying EBITDA margin of 17% contracted 230 basis points year-on-year organically primarily due to lower volumes in Specialty Polymers, partially offset by structural cost savings;
- Underlying profit attributable to Syensqo shareholders of €31 million;
- Operating cash flow of €252 million; Free cash flow of €136 million supported by cash inflows from working capital and lower year-on-year capital expenditures;
FY 2025 Highlights
- Net sales of €6.14 billion, impacted by year-on-year foreign exchange movements (-3%) and lower volumes (-3%) while pricing remained stable; Composite Materials delivered 4% year-on-year organic growth;
- Gross profit of €1,901 million decreased by 14% year-on-year, primarily driven by lower volumes and unfavorable foreign exchange movements, resulting in gross margin of 31%;
- Underlying EBITDA of €1,210 million decreased by 12% year-on-year organically, primarily due to lower underlying EBITDA in Specialty Polymers and Novecare, partially offset by structural cost savings;
- Underlying EBITDA margin of 20%, declined by 210 basis points year-on-year organically, primarily due to lower volumes in Specialty Polymers, partially offset by structural cost savings;
- Underlying profit attributable to Syensqo shareholders of €381 million;
- Operating cash flow of €779 million; Free cash flow of €356 million supported by the absence of the €167 million payment to the NJDEP, lower year-on-year capital expenditure and working capital inflows;
- Increased cash returns to shareholders: c.1,687,000 shares repurchased, or c.€116 million; Dividend for 2025 of €1.62 (payout ratio of 44%) will be proposed to the 2026 Annual General Meeting by the Board of Directors
- Completed the divestment of the Oil & Gas business unit in January 2026 for an enterprise value of €135 million, or c.7x EV/EBITDA, advancing the company’s pure play specialty strategy
Pro forma results (including discontinued operations)
| Pro forma (incl. Oil & Gas) [1] | Q4 2025 | Q4 2024 | Q3 2025 | YoY change | YoY organic | QoQ change | FY 2025 | FY 2024 | YoY change | YoY organic | |
| Net sales | 1,418 | 1,598 | 1,517 | -11.3% | -5.6% | -6.5% | 6,140 | 6,563 | -6.5% | -3.2% | |
| Gross profit | 397 | 482 | 484 | -17.6% | – | -18.0% | 1,901 | 2,219 | -14.3% | – | |
| Gross profit margin | 28.0% | 30.2% | 31.9% | -220 bps | – | -390 bps | 31.0% | 33.8% | -280 bps | – | |
| Underlying EBITDA | 238 | 298 | 326 | -20.2% | -17.2% | -27.2% | 1,210 | 1,412 | -14.3% | -12.4% | |
| Underlying EBITDA margin | 16.8% | 18.6% | 21.5% | -190 bps | -230 bps | -480 bps | 19.7% | 21.5% | -180 bps | -210 bps | |
| Operating cash flow | 252 | 345 | 331 | -27.0% | – | n.m. | 779 | 841 | -7.4% | – | |
| Free cash flow | 136 | 159 | 250 | -14.5% | – | n.m. | 356 | 223 | 59.6% | – | |
| Cash conversion (LTM) | 76% | 71% | 76% | 550 bps | – | -10 bps | 76% | 71% | 550 bps | – | |
| ROCE (LTM) | 6.3% | 7.9% | 6.5% | -160 bps | – | -20 bps | 6.3% | 7.9% | -160 bps | – |
1 Highlights are based on Pro forma figures, including Oil & Gas, consistent with prior outlook
* For regulated information as per Article 11 of the Royal Decree of 14 November 2007, we refer to the financial report published on February 26, 2026 which is available on Syensqo’s website.
Mike Radossich, CEO
“2025 was a year of resilient cash generation and margin performance in a challenging demand environment. These foundations provide a strong platform from which to build. As the new CEO, my top priority is to define and start to implement the actions to drive, and ultimately accelerate our growth.
“My mandate is clear: to accelerate value creation. We are moving with urgency — sharpening execution and capital discipline, as well as strengthening our conversion of innovation to growth. We are investing to further improve our delivery, and I see multiple opportunities to drive our longer-term performance. Over the course of the year, I plan to progressively provide updates on the refreshed framework and actions that will underpin our next phase of growth.”
2026 Outlook
For 2026, we expect macroeconomic and demand uncertainty to continue across most of our end markets. In this context, our priority will be executing on actions within our control to both accelerate volume growth and increase cashflow.
Contemplated in our outlook, is the assumption for current demand trends to continue and the absence of a broader recovery throughout the year.
Overall, we expect low single-digit volume growth in 2026, with Composite Materials leading the improvement, underpinned by strong demand from customers in civil aerospace, as well as our diverse range of customer programs and applications.
For Specialty Polymers, we expect volume growth to be modestly higher driven by growth in the automotive end market. This is expected to be offset by lower volumes in Consumer Electronics, due to lower sales and an unfavorable product mix at a major customer, as well as the planned phase-out of certain products aligned with our non-fluorosurfactant strategy. Together, these two headwinds are expected to have an approximately €30 million impact to year-on-year underlying EBITDA.
For semiconductors, while visibility remains challenging we expect a gradual recovery in year-on-year volumes, resulting in stronger growth in the second half of the year. Nevertheless, this remains a key growth driver, supported by our market position, customer exposures, and leveraging the longer-term secular trends in advanced connectivity and AI-related demand.
For Novecare, we expect low single digit volume growth, driven by Agro and Home & Personal Care, partially offset by modestly lower pricing. For Technology Solutions, we expect low to mid single digit volume growth in mining solutions, including the impact of the temporary closure of a customer mine in Indonesia, which is expected to be a year-on-year headwind in the first half of 2026.
We expect gross margin across our four core global business units (Specialty Polymers, Composite Materials, Novecare and Technology Solutions) to remain broadly stable compared to 2025, demonstrating our strong value proposition and specialty positioning. Following the completion of the divestment of the Oil & Gas business in early January, we are progressing with the planned divestment of Aroma and expect to provide an update around the end of the second quarter.
Supporting our profitability, we remain on track to deliver on our cost savings program, which targets to deliver more than €200 million of run rate savings by the end of 2026. For the full year, we expect cost savings to offset inflationary impacts on fixed and variable costs.
Finally, our outlook includes the impact of foreign exchange movements relative to the Euro, which we expect to have an approximately €40 million year-on-year headwind to underlying EBITDA in 2026.
On a full year basis (excluding the recently divested Oil & Gas business unit), our outlook is as follows:
- Underlying EBITDA2 of approximately €1.1 billion compared to €1.143 billion in 2025
- Operating cash flow of approximately €700 million compared to €7794m in 2025
- Capital Expenditures5 of less than €500 million compared to €5634m in 2025
2 Assumes EUR/US$ @ 1.20 (compared to 1.13 in FY 2025)
3 At constant currency and scope
4 Including “Discontinued Operations”
5 Includes c. €50 million of capital expenditures related to the new ERP implementation
More detailed information on the full year 2025 results available on the website.
Safe harbor
This press release may contain forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements describe expectations, plans, strategies, goals, future events or intentions. The achievement of forward-looking statements contained in this press release is subject to risks and uncertainties relating to a number of factors, including general economic factors, interest rate and foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, changing market conditions, product competition, the nature of product development, impact of acquisitions …