Company Reports

Croda is a British specialty chemicals company focused on the consumer, crop protection, and healthcare end markets. Croda targets fast-growing niches across these industries, looking to consolidate its presence by acquiring early-stage technology and science-rich firms and becoming entrenched in the supply chain of its customers through its high-touch direct-selling model and a strong focus on collaborative innovation. A key driver for the company is the percentage of sales from new and protected products, or NPPs, which represented around 35% of group sales in 2025.

Croda's organic sales growth accelerated to 9% in constant currency in the second quarter, from 1% previously, driven by strong growth in beauty actives, partially offset by a steep decline in pharma solutions. Adjusted operating margin improved to 17.7%. Shares rose 6% in July 28 trading.

Croda is a British specialty chemicals company focused on the consumer, crop protection, and healthcare end markets. Croda targets fast-growing niches across these industries, looking to consolidate its presence by acquiring early-stage technology and science-rich firms and becoming entrenched in the supply chain of its customers through its high-touch direct selling model and a strong focus on collaborative innovation. A key driver for the company is the percentage of sales from new and protected products, or NPPs, which represented around 35% of group sales in 2025.

Croda reported 1% constant-currency sales growth in the first quarter, marking a substantial sequential deceleration from 5% in the prior quarter.

Croda is a British specialty chemicals company focused on the consumer, crop protection, and healthcare end markets. Croda targets fast-growing niches across these industries, looking to consolidate its presence by acquiring early-stage technology and science-rich firms and becoming entrenched in the supply chain of its customers through its high-touch direct selling model and a strong focus on collaborative innovation. A key driver for the company is the percentage of sales from new and protected products, or NPPs, which represented around 35% of group sales in 2025.

Croda reported 5% constant-currency sales growth in the fourth quarter, taking full-year growth to 6.6%, alongside 60 basis points of adjusted operating margin expansion. Shares rose about 10% intraday on Feb. 24.

Croda delivered third-quarter constant-currency sales growth of 6.5%, broadly maintaining the recovery trajectory seen in the first half, with innovation-driven growth in the beauty actives segment. Shares were up around 6% in intraday trading on Oct.16.

Croda delivered first-half constant-currency sales growth of 7% and adjusted profit before tax of GBP 138 million, in line with the company-compiled consensus. Shares fell 7% following the analyst call on July 29, amid concerns over negative price/mix trends and cash flow pressure.

Croda is a British specialty chemicals company focused on the consumer, crop protection, and healthcare end markets. Croda targets fast-growing niches across these industries, looking to consolidate its presence by acquiring early-stage technology and science-rich firms and becoming entrenched in the supply chain of its customers through its high-touch direct selling model and a strong focus on collaborative innovation. A key driver for the company is the percentage of sales from new and protected products, or NPPs, which represented around 35% of group sales in 2024.

Croda's first-quarter trading update showed solid organic sales growth of 8%, driven by volume, with pricing headwinds abating. The share price rose by a high-single-digit percentage in intraday trading on April 23.

Ingredient producer shares initially showed resilience following the tariff news on April 2 because it had limited direct impact on them. However, they were swept up in the market turbulence and corrected by a mid- to high-single digit on April 7 as investors began to digest the implications.

Croda delivered 2024 adjusted profit before tax of GBP 260 million, at the low end of its target range and broadly aligned with our forecast. Management expects some recovery in 2025 but remains cautious on guidance.

Croda is a British specialty chemicals company focused on the consumer, crop protection, and healthcare end markets. Croda targets fast-growing niches across these industries, looking to consolidate its presence by acquiring early-stage technology and science-rich firms and becoming entrenched in the supply chain of its customers through its high-touch direct selling model and a strong focus on collaborative innovation. A key driver for the company is the percentage of sales from new and protected products, or NPPs, which represented around 35% of group sales in 2024.

Croda's third-quarter sales were up 8% in constant currency, marking an acceleration compared with the first half. Management confirmed the full-year profit-before-tax outlook.

Croda is a British specialty chemicals company focused on the consumer, crop protection, and healthcare end markets. Croda targets fast-growing niches across these industries, looking to consolidate its presence by acquiring early-stage technology and science-rich firms and becoming entrenched in the supply chain of its customers through its high-touch direct selling model and a strong focus on collaborative innovation. A key driver for the company is the percentage of sales from new and protected products, or NPPs, which represented around 34% of group sales in 2023.

Narrow-moat Croda delivered first-half 2024 adjusted profit before tax of GBP 127 million, in line with the company-compiled consensus. Constant-currency group sales were down 4.4% compared with the same period last year as market conditions remained challenging for the life sciences segment, affected by customer destocking across crop protection and consumer health. This has made management slightly more pessimistic regarding the full-year 2024 guidance for adjusted profit before tax that was narrowed to GBP 260 million to GBP 280 million from GBP 260 million to GBP 300 million previously given no sign of recovery for crop protection in the second half. We don't expect to make a material change to our fair value estimate of GBX 5,500 after we incorporate in our forecast the slightly worsened 2024 outlook. Over the last year and a half, Croda’s earnings have been substantially depressed compared with historical and prepandemic levels given a pronounced impact from customer destocking actions, especially on the lesser differentiated, volume-intensive parts of the portfolio. This has led to record-low capacity utilization levels for Croda’s manufacturing plants. Compared with the historical average of 80% and over, Croda’s capacity utilization rate fell to between 50% and 55% in 2023 and 65% in the first half of 2024 according to management. We expect the short-term volume headwinds to abate starting with 2025, which should result in gradually improving capacity utilization rates and operating margin. Further, Croda’s solid innovation pipeline in some high-value niches such as biologic drug delivery and beauty actives should support longer-term sales and margin growth, offering substantial share price upside for patient investors.

Narrow-moat Croda reported a 10% decline in first-quarter 2024 constant-currency sales. This was primarily driven by the crop protection business, which faced a strong comparison base from the first quarter of last year, ahead of widespread customer destocking that drove volumes materially lower for 2023. Still, since much of this weakness and its phasing was already baked into the guidance shared at the beginning of the year; management confirmed the 2024 outlook for adjusted operating profit between GBP 260 million and GBP 300 million. We don’t expect to make any material change to our forecast and confirm our GBX 5,500 fair value estimate. We view shares as undervalued at current levels.

Croda is a British specialty chemicals company focused on the consumer, crop protection, and healthcare end markets. Croda targets fast-growing niches across these industries, looking to consolidate its presence by acquiring early-stage technology and science-rich firms and becoming entrenched in the supply chain of its customers through its high-touch direct selling model and a strong focus on collaborative innovation. A key driver for the company is the percentage of sales from new and protected products, or NPPs, which represented around 35% of group sales in 2022.

Narrow-moat Croda reported 2023 adjusted profit before tax of GBP 309 million, in line with its October 2023 guidance and company-compiled consensus. On a year-over-year basis, adjusted profit before tax was down 33%, hit by customer destocking in beauty care and crop protection, as well as lower covid-19 lipid sales. The 2024 outlook shared by management points to continued pressure on profitability. The company expects volume weakness to continue in crop protection as inventories remain elevated for all major customers compared with prepandemic levels and demand for industrial specialties will remain subdued. Furthermore, management expects the positive operating leverage impact from volume recovery in consumer care to be more than offset by accelerated growth of the lower-margin flavors and fragrances business and lack of high-margin covid-19 lipid sales.

Narrow-moat Croda issued a trading update that indicated customer inventory management continued to depress volumes for a large share of the portfolio in third-quarter 2023. As a result, management reduced full-year guidance group-adjusted profit before tax to between GBP 300 million and GBP 320 million, from a range of GBP 370 million to GBP 400 million previously. Despite this short-term headwind, we confirm our GBX 5,900 fair value estimate as the lower 2023 volumes and negative operating leverage are largely offset by the time value of money adjustment in our model. We view the current share price as an attractive entry point for this stock that has leadership positions in biological drug delivery and the high-value beauty actives subsegment.