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What this page is: Delvantic's full research page for International Flavors & Fragrances, Inc. (IFF) — AI-driven forensic equity research: mechanical valuation models (DCF, EPV, anchored-PE, scenario) plus three independent AI lenses (Quality / Value / Sentiment). Everything below is rendered server-side; you are not missing content that requires JavaScript. All scores are predictions and research opinions, not financial advice.
Our current read (analysis of 2026-10-07): Designation Low · Gem Score -44 (−100…+100 Quality+Value blend) · Quality -34 · Value -52 · Sentiment -26 (timing only, not weighted)
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International Flavors & Fragrances, Inc.
IFF NYSEInternational Flavors & Fragrances, Inc. is a global specialty ingredients company focused on creating flavors, fragrances, food ingredients, and bioscience solutions for business customers. International Flavors & Fragrances develops products used in food and beverage formulations, personal care items, household goods, and pharmaceutical and health-related applications. Its current business spans Taste, Food Ingredients, Health & Biosciences, and Scent segments, with offerings that include flavor compounds, fragrance ingredients, enzymes, cultures, probiotics, and other functional ingredients. The company works with manufacturers to improve taste, aroma, texture, nutrition, and product performance across consumer and industrial markets. Headquartered in New York, International Flavors & Fragrances serves a wide range of industries through a science-driven platform that combines chemistry, biology, and sensory expertise.
Price Overview
Price History (1 Year)
Revenue & Net Income Trend
| Period | Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin | YoY/QoQ |
|---|
Key Metrics
EPS (Diluted): -1.41
Total Equity: $14.19B
Shares: 256,000,000
Total Debt: $6.01B
Cash: $590.00M
EBITDA: $580.00M
Total Debt: $6.01B
Cash: $590.00M
Revenue: $10.89B
Shares: 256,000,000
Revenue: $10.89B
Revenue: $10.89B
Revenue: $10.89B
Total Equity: $14.19B
Tax Rate: 12.9%
Equity: $14.19B
Total Debt: $6.01B
Cash: $590.00M
Current Liabilities: $3.93B
Long-Term Debt: $4.76B
Total Debt: $6.01B
Total Equity: $14.19B
Shares: 256,000,000
Shares: 256,000,000
CapEx: -$594.00M
Shares: 256,000,000
Stock Price: $86.35
Net Income: -$359.00M
Industry Benchmarks
Income Statement (Annual)
Last updated: Sep 5, 2026 3:37am (32d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $11.7B | $12.4B | $11.5B | $11.5B | $10.9B |
| Cost of Revenue | $7.9B | $8.3B | $7.8B | $7.4B | $7.0B |
| Gross Profit | $3.7B | $4.2B | $3.7B | $4.1B | $3.9B |
| Operating Expenses | $3.2B | $5.5B | $5.8B | $3.4B | $4.3B |
| Operating Income | $585.0M | -$1.3B | -$2.1B | $766.0M | -$382.0M |
| Net Income | $279.0M | -$1.9B | -$2.6B | $247.0M | -$359.0M |
| EBITDA | $1.7B | -$147.0M | -$968.0M | $1.8B | $580.0M |
| EPS | $1.11 | $-7.32 | $-10.05 | $0.95 | $-1.41 |
| EPS (Diluted) | $1.10 | $-7.32 | $-10.05 | $0.95 | $-1.41 |
Balance Sheet (Annual)
Last updated: Sep 5, 2026 3:30am (32d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash & Equivalents | $711.0M | $483.0M | $703.0M | $469.0M | $590.0M |
| Total Current Assets | $7.0B | $7.4B | $6.3B | $8.0B | $5.6B |
| Total Assets | $39.7B | $35.4B | $31.0B | $28.7B | $25.5B |
| Current Liabilities | $3.6B | $3.7B | $3.8B | $4.3B | $3.9B |
| Long-Term Debt | $10.8B | $10.4B | $9.2B | $7.6B | $4.8B |
| Total Liabilities | $18.4B | $17.6B | $16.3B | $14.8B | $11.4B |
| Total Equity | $21.2B | $17.8B | $14.6B | $13.9B | $14.2B |
| Retained Earnings | $3.6B | $955.0M | -$2.4B | -$2.6B | -$3.4B |
Cash Flow (Annual)
Last updated: Sep 5, 2026 3:48am (32d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $1.4B | $397.0M | $1.4B | $1.1B | $850.0M |
| Capital Expenditure | -$393.0M | -$504.0M | -$503.0M | -$463.0M | -$594.0M |
| Free Cash Flow | $1.0B | -$107.0M | $936.0M | $607.0M | $256.0M |
| Acquisitions (net) | $0 | -$110.0M | $0 | $0 | — |
| Net Debt Issued / (Repaid) | -$825.0M | -$300.0M | -$655.0M | -$1.0B | -$2.9B |
| Dividends Paid | -$667.0M | -$810.0M | -$826.0M | -$514.0M | -$409.0M |
| Stock Buybacks | — | — | $0 | $0 | -$38.0M |
| Net Change in Cash | $56.0M | -$164.0M | $183.0M | -$264.0M | $119.0M |
Growth Trends (YoY %)
Last updated: Sep 5, 2026 3:37am (32d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | +6.7% | -7.7% | +0.0% | -5.2% |
| Gross Profit Growth | +11.1% | -11.3% | +12.0% | -4.5% |
| Operating Income Growth | -326.7% | -59.1% | +136.3% | -149.9% |
| Net Income Growth | -768.1% | -37.5% | +109.6% | -245.3% |
| EBITDA Growth | -108.4% | -558.5% | +284.0% | -67.4% |
Dividend History (Last 20)
Last updated: Sep 1, 2026 12:54pm (36d ago)| Date | Dividend | Declaration | Record | Payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-18 | $0.40 | — | — | — |
| 2026-03-20 | $0.40 | — | — | — |
| 2025-12-19 | $0.40 | — | — | — |
| 2025-09-29 | $0.40 | — | — | — |
| 2025-06-20 | $0.40 | — | — | — |
| 2025-03-21 | $0.40 | — | — | — |
| 2024-12-20 | $0.40 | — | — | — |
| 2024-09-20 | $0.40 | — | — | — |
| 2024-06-21 | $0.40 | — | — | — |
| 2024-03-21 | $0.40 | — | — | — |
| 2023-12-27 | $0.81 | — | — | — |
| 2023-09-21 | $0.81 | — | — | — |
| 2023-06-22 | $0.81 | — | — | — |
| 2023-03-23 | $0.81 | — | — | — |
| 2022-12-27 | $0.81 | — | — | — |
| 2022-09-22 | $0.81 | — | — | — |
| 2022-06-23 | $0.79 | — | — | — |
| 2022-03-24 | $0.79 | — | — | — |
| 2021-12-27 | $0.79 | — | — | — |
| 2021-09-23 | $0.79 | — | — | — |
Deep Analysis
Risk : Reward — upside vs downside from this company's own quarters
Computed 2026-10-05 02:02A +1σ run of quarters pays -81%; a −1σ run costs 95%. Ratio -0.9:1 (μ -1.3%, σ 14.4% , 16 pairs).
Older method (repeat-worst-quarter): -0.7 : 1
| Case | Growth | Margin | Fair value | vs price ($86.35) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bull — recovery | +0% | 9.2% | $32.23 | -63% |
| Base — stabilizes | +0% | 8.0% | $28.20 | -67% |
| Bear — keeps slipping | +0% | 6.8% | $24.16 | -72% |
| Stress — last quarter repeats | -8% | 2.5% | $7.54 | -91% |
| Upside — a +1σ run of quarters (v2) | +13% | 2.8% | $16.47 | -81% |
| Stress — a −1σ run of quarters (v2) | -16% | 1.9% | $4.44 | -95% |
Narrative Economics
market-narrative step).
Growth Outlook
Analyzed 2026-09-05 03:57The question every valuation on this page silently assumes: is this company likely to grow? Judged forward — the business, its category, the world — against what's already printed.
Claude Reading
Starting from the raw numbers before touching the model outputs: IFF is not a "pre-profit growth" company in any meaningful sense — it's a $10.9B revenue specialty chemicals conglomerate whose top line has actually shrunk from $12.44B in 2022 to $10.89B in 2025, a -2.6% CAGR. The classification engine is misfiring; every profit-based metric warning stamped "lagging indicator" is actually the point here. Gross margin at 36.2% is respectable for the space but operating margin swung from +6.7% in 2021 to -3.5% in 2025 with three loss years out of five, and the 2023 $2.56B loss and 2022 $1.86B loss reflect goodwill impairments on the DuPont N&B deal — i.e., management has already admitted, in accounting terms, that they overpaid. FCF collapsed from a run-rate that supported the dividend to just $256M in 2025 against a $1.85% yield on a $22B cap (~$408M dividend cost); the payout is not covered by FCF, and the -1.14 payout ratio flag is real, not artifact.
The quarterly cadence is worse than the annual smoothing suggests. Q2 2025 net income of $599M looks like a one-time gain (divestiture proceeds, most likely Pharma Solutions), because Q3 2025 collapsed to $40M on $2.69B revenue and Q4 2025 to $20M on $3.43B — a 0.6% margin in the seasonally strongest quarter is alarming. First-half 2026 shows $219M NI on $4.69B revenue (4.7% margin), which is directionally better than 2025's -3.3% net margin but nowhere near the 11-12% EBITDA expansion the synthesis flags as required to justify the multiple. EV/EBITDA at 47.5x and EV/sales at 2.5x are not turnaround pricing — they're priced-for-success pricing on a business shrinking 5.2% YoY with $6.01B of debt against $590M cash and a maturity wall into a still-elevated rate environment.
Where I land vs the prior models: I agree with Market Forces and Thesis Evaluation, and I think the Synthesis's "High Conviction Required" framing is too polite. Pre-Flight and the Narrative layer both correctly identify the DuPont integration as the fulcrum, but the Narrative layer's "steady-compounder" archetype is charitable — you don't compound while shrinking revenue and cutting the effective earnings base. The contrarian argument worth taking seriously: specialty ingredients businesses at trough margins with intact customer relationships (Unilever, Nestlé, P&G don't switch flavor houses casually) can re-rate hard when the cycle turns, and 36% gross margin says the underlying business isn't broken — it's the capital structure and integration overhead that are. If Health & Biosciences or Pharma Solutions divestiture proceeds actually land at $2-3B and get applied to debt, interest expense compression alone could add $100-150M to net income. That's the bull case and it's not crazy. But at $86.35 with three insider sales in August 2026 and zero buys, and Q4 2025 margin of 0.6% in the seasonally strongest quarter, you're paying for that outcome before it prints.
The models are directionally right but I'd push the verdict harder. Fair value on 2025 numbers: $850M operating CF, apply a 12-14x multiple appropriate for a leveraged, declining-revenue specialty chem business (not the 20x+ implied here) gets you an enterprise value of $10-12B; subtract $5.4B net debt and you're at $4.6-6.6B equity, or roughly $18-26/share. That's obviously too punitive — it assumes no synergy recovery. Give management partial credit: assume 2027 EBITDA recovers to ~$2.0B (up from ~$1.4B run-rate), apply 11x, subtract net debt, you get ~$63-68/share. To justify $86 you need to believe in ~$2.4B EBITDA and 12x, which requires simultaneous margin recovery AND multiple expansion — the market is pricing both. I dissent from anything softer than "overvalued." The dividend at 1.85% is not adequate compensation for the debt-refi risk into 2026-2027 and continued revenue contraction. Wait for either (a) two consecutive quarters of margin above 8% operating, (b) confirmed divestiture proceeds landing on the balance sheet, or (c) a re-rating to the $60s.
GPT Reading
What stands out is that IFF is being valued like a repaired specialty-chemicals franchise while the financials still look like an unfinished restructuring. On $10.89B of 2025 revenue, the company produced a $382M operating loss, a $359M net loss, and only $256M of free cash flow. Against a $22.03B equity value, that is barely a 1.2% FCF yield, which is thin even for a clean compounder and plainly inadequate for a business with this much earnings volatility. Revenue has also not been the rescue here: annual sales fell from $12.44B in 2022 to $11.48B in 2024 and $10.89B in 2025, while the most recent quarterly print at $1.95B was down slightly from $1.92B a year earlier but far below the $2.74B and $3.43B immediately preceding quarters, reminding you that this is a lumpy portfolio, not a smooth grower. The basic mismatch is simple: 2.0x sales and 47.5x EV/EBITDA can work for a high-confidence margin story, but not for a company still posting negative annual operating margins.
The quarterly pattern makes me more skeptical, not less. There are flashes of improvement, but they are not durable enough yet to underwrite today’s price. In 2025, net income swung from -$1.02B in Q1 to +$599M in Q2, then back to just $40M in Q3 and $20M in Q4. In the first half of 2026, Q1 was a respectable $169M of net income on $2.74B of revenue, but Q2 dropped to $50M on $1.95B, a 2.6% margin. That is progress from the deep losses of 2023 and parts of 2025, but it is still not the earnings profile of an $86 stock with a $22B market cap. Gross profit of $3.94B in 2025 implies a 36.2% gross margin, which is decent and says the franchise itself is not broken; the problem is everything below gross profit. If a business can convert more than a third of sales into gross profit and still lose money at the operating line, I assume the turnaround is operationally incomplete and probably more expensive and slower than bulls think.
Balance sheet risk is manageable in the narrow liquidity sense, but still very relevant for valuation. Total debt of $6.01B against $590M cash is not catastrophic for a company this size, and a 1.42 current ratio means there is no obvious near-term solvency alarm from this dataset. But debt only looks comfortable when normalized earnings and cash conversion are visible. Here, operating cash flow was $850M in 2025, but nearly $600M of capex left just $256M of free cash flow. That does not leave much room for rapid deleveraging, dividend comfort, and operational reinvestment all at once. The 1.85% dividend yield is not enough to compensate investors for waiting, especially with a negative payout ratio and inconsistent profits. To me, this is the key issue the market may be underestimating: IFF does not need to survive; it needs to earn its valuation back through sustained margin recovery, and the evidence for that is still patchy.
The strongest case against my view is that the market is looking through restructuring noise and valuing the underlying franchise correctly. You can make that case with the gross margin staying above 36%, the return to positive net income in three of the last four reported quarters, and the very real possibility that 2025’s reported operating loss contains charges that obscure normalized earnings power. If the Q1 2026 result of $169M net income is closer to true run-rate profitability than the ugly annual figure suggests, then the stock at $86 may not be expensive relative to a stabilized business with over $10B in revenue, sticky customer relationships, and specialty-ingredient economics. Price-to-book of 1.56x is also not demanding if the asset base is sound and if post-integration cleanup is genuinely near completion. I weigh those points less heavily because investors are already paying for stabilization before stabilization is proven in the reported annual economics or in free cash flow.
What would change my mind is not a narrative update but a sequence of numbers. I would turn constructive if IFF can show two or three consecutive quarters with operating discipline translating into real earnings quality: revenue at or above a $10.8B-$11.2B annualized run rate, net margins consistently above 5%, and free cash flow tracking toward at least $800M-$1.0B annually instead of $256M. I would also want debt trending clearly below $5.0B without asset-sale heroics doing all the work. On the other side, if quarterly profits slip back toward breakeven while revenue continues to drift down, the market will have to stop valuing this as a restored compounder. At that point, a sales multiple closer to 1.5x on a shrinking $10.5B-$11.0B revenue base would imply an equity value materially below today’s level.
Grok Reading
IFF’s numbers describe a post-merger company that has not yet earned the valuation the market is already granting it. Revenue has slipped from $12.44B in 2022 to $11.48B in both 2023 and 2024, then to $10.89B in 2025—a −2.6% CAGR with recent y/y still −5.2%. Gross profit held near $3.9–4.1B, so the ~36% gross margin is intact, but operating income swung from +$585M (2021) to deep losses (−$1.33B, −$2.11B) and still −$382M in 2025; net income followed, finishing 2025 at −$359M. Quarterly noise is extreme: a $599M profit quarter in mid-2025 sits beside a −$1.02B loss and successive thin single-digit margins, which is the signature of one-offs and incomplete integration rather than a cleaned-up run-rate. Free cash flow collapsed to $256M on $850M operating cash after $594M of capex, a −47.7% FCF CAGR that makes the $6.01B debt stack (cash only $590M) a live refinancing problem even though D/E of 0.42 looks tame on the equity base. At $86.35 and $22B equity value, the stock trades ~2.0× sales and ~2.5× EV/revenue with a 47× EV/EBITDA that only makes sense if EBITDA is about to re-rate sharply; negative ROE/ROIC/ROA and a −61 P/E simply confirm earnings are not the anchor. Insiders sold in August 2026; nothing in the tape suggests they see an imminent multiple expansion.
The cleanest reading is that the DuPont N&B deal still dominates the P&L: synergy lag, systems friction, and portfolio noise explain the margin volatility better than a structural collapse of flavors and fragrances demand. That is not the same as a finished turnaround. The market is paying for 11–12% EBITDA margins, remaining synergies, and successful divestiture/deleveraging that are not yet visible in trailing cash generation or sequential revenue stability. Until those show up for several clean quarters, $86 is a price for hope, not for demonstrated specialty-chemicals economics.
A smart opponent would argue the worst is behind: 2023’s −$2.56B net loss was the trough, 2025 operating cash of $850M proves the franchise still throws cash, gross margin resilience at 36% shows pricing power in taste/scent/nutrition, and P/B of 1.56× plus a 1.85% dividend on a $14B equity base leaves limited permanent capital destruction if management simply prunes non-core assets for $2–3B and refinances without crisis. They would also note that classifying IFF as “pre-profit growth” is a category error—this is a mature compounder in repair, so lagging profit multiples should be ignored in favor of the synergy and FCF trajectory. I weigh that less because FCF is still deteriorating, revenue is still shrinking, and EV/EBITDA at 47× already capitalizes a smooth repair; the debt maturity wall at higher rates is the binding constraint the bull case underweights.
I would flip constructive on two or three consecutive quarters of organic revenue stabilization (flat to low-single-digit growth) with EBITDA margins clearly marching toward double digits, FCF covering a full year of debt service plus the dividend without asset-sale crutches, and a concrete refinancing that removes 2026–27 maturity risk at non-punitive spreads. A clean $2B+ divestiture closed at a non-distressed multiple would also move the needle. Absent that evidence, the stock remains a show-me name priced as if the show had already run.
Big-3 Panel — where each AI stands
Advanced Analysis Forensic deep-dive · separate lenses
IFF's operating record over five years is unstable in ways that matter for quality. Revenue peaked at 12.44B in 2022 and has slid to 10.89B in 2025, a 12.5% decline over three years. Operating margin has swung wildly (5%, -10.7%, -18.4%, 6.7%, -3.5%), and net income has printed losses in three of the last five years including -1.86B, -2.56B, and -359M. GAAP is clearly polluted by impairments and integration charges from the DuPont N&B merger, but even normalizing for that, the trajectory is not one of a compounding, high-return specialty chemicals franchise.
Verify before trusting this (6)
- Debt maturity ladder and refinancing plan for the 1.25B short-term debt
- Whether recent divestiture proceeds (Pharma Solutions, N&B assets) have been applied to deleveraging
- Segment-level organic revenue growth ex-FX and ex-divestitures to see if underlying business is actually shrinking
- Covenants on the debt stack and headroom given the operating margin volatility
- Magnitude of ongoing impairment/integration charges vs true underlying operating profit
- Customer concentration in Nourish and Health & Biosciences segments
The synthesis flag says it plainly: the stock is 'priced as if debt/margin repair were already done — execution risk still live.' With a $22B market cap on ~$11B of eroding revenue and a leveraged balance sheet in the Altman distress zone, $86.35 is not a discount to a de-risked specialty ingredients platform; it is roughly what such a platform is worth AFTER management proves the DuPont integration, stabilizes revenue, and rebuilds margins. Earnings quality is decent, so no haircut is warranted, but the Shaky business grade (-34) argues the deserved multiple is below peer specialty-chem leaders like Givaudan or Symrise. Against a mid-cycle EBITDA power of ~$2.2B and net debt still elevated, an EV/EBITDA in the low-teens gets you to a deserved equity value in the $75-90 range per share. That brackets today's price. There is no visible margin of safety: the bull case (integration works, margins reflate to mid-teens, deleveraging) is largely capitalized; the bear case (customer consolidation, further revenue slippage, another impairment) is not. I would want the stock materially lower before underwriting execution risk on a still-convalescing balance sheet.
Verify before trusting this (5)
- Latest net debt and refinancing schedule — any covenant pressure changes deserved value materially
- Segment revenue trend in Health & Biosciences and Nourish — is the rollover stabilizing
- Management guidance on mid-cycle EBITDA margin target and timeline
- Any further goodwill impairments tied to the DuPont N&B deal
- Divestiture progress (Pharma Solutions) and use of proceeds toward deleveraging
The tape is nascent risk-on with VIX at 14.5 and the S&P barely off highs, which is a mild tailwind for equities broadly. But with beta of 0.94 and a specialty-chemicals label that neither participates in AI euphoria nor gets punished by growth-scare rotations, IFF barely registers the regime either way. Rates at 4.77% and a stretched market PE are a low-grade headwind for a levered, dividend-oriented ingredient name, but deleveraging (D/E 0.69 to 0.42) has taken the sharpest edge off that pressure. The narrative is the dominant force here and it is lukewarm: a moderate-intensity, moderate-durability steady-compounder story with low cult coefficient. The bull case is a value-investor thesis (margin recovery, FCF, dividend), the bear case is DuPont integration hangover and CPG customer pricing power. Neither is running hot; the stock is anchored to fundamentals rather than being pushed by a story, which means sentiment is roughly neutral by default. News flow is essentially null - a stale post-earnings 'can it rebound' piece is filler, not a catalyst. No analyst tone shift, no narrative break, no sector rotation currently landing on this name. Net: gentle balance, faint downward drift from the tired story, faint upward drift from the calm tape.
Verify before trusting this (4)
- Any analyst target revisions or upgrades post the recent earnings print
- Sector rotation into defensive/dividend specialty chemicals
- Signs of narrative shift toward margin recovery vs continued integration drag
- CPG customer commentary on ingredient pricing power heading into next print
The world is squeezing IFF from the volume side, not the relevance side. Packaged-food and household-product unit volumes are flat as consumers trade down; food deflation removes the price/mix lever that carried 2022-24; GLP-1 adoption is a slow, real trim to snack and indulgence calories that IFF flavors. Offsetting that, formulation demand is structurally sticky — reformulation for sodium/sugar reduction, clean label, natural fragrance and biotech-derived enzymes/cultures keeps a replacement cycle running regardless of category volume. Macro headwinds and a 4.77% 10-year keep a leveraged post-DuPont balance sheet expensive, so growth has to come from mix and deleveraging rather than capex or M&A. Net: a business whose end-market is flat and whose category is contracting, holding its position and slowly repairing earnings quality.
When we made this prediction on Sep 5, 2026, IFF was $86.35. We expect it to be $77.50 by Mar 2027, and we consider it great value under $72.00. This is an early model (v0.6.0) — the direction is more reliable than the exact price. Made Sep 5, 2026.
Blue is our prediction, starting the day we made it. Grey is a slower route to the same place — the same destination, taking longer. Black is the actual price, so you can see how we are doing.