FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Symrise failed to meet the high expectations of quite a few investors on Thursday despite significant sales growth in the first quarter. After the initial six-percent slide, the shares of the flavor and fragrance manufacturer stemmed their loss to 2.6 percent at a price of 101.45 euros by midday.

However, they remained one of the weakest DAX stocks and continued their recent downward trend after recovering to almost 113 euros in March. The record high of EUR 132.65 reached in November 2021 is now a little further away.

Earnings from own resources - i.e. excluding exchange rate effects and acquisitions and disposals of parts of the company - rose more strongly than expected. However, competitor Givaudan has set the bar very high with its even stronger growth at the start of the year, wrote Jefferies analyst Charles Bentley.

Andreas von Arx from Baader Bank emphasized that the Swiss company is expected to reach the pre-inflation level of adjusted operating earnings development in terms of margin by 2025 at the latest. Symrise, on the other hand, is still lagging behind, as the figures for the past year show. The decisive factor now is how significant the future margin recovery will be and how quickly this will happen. The half-year figures due at the beginning of August should provide an indication of this. Symrise will then also comment on the profit trend again.

Symrise is still aiming for organic sales growth of five to seven percent in 2024. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) are expected to account for around 20 percent of revenue. Analyst Edward Hockin from the US bank JPMorgan continues to see a good chance that the earnings margin before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization will recover towards the medium-term target range of 20 to 23 percent./gl/mis/stk