Bofa Keeps Symrise at Buy After Fragrance Production Facility Visit

06:16 AM EDT, 09/24/2026 (MT Newswires) -- BofA Global Research affirmed its investment case on Symrise (SY1.F) after hosting an investor trip to the German chemicals company's fragrance campus in Grasse, France. "The company has built an ecosystem of assets addressing different segments; namely Lautier as a premium brand and Neroli for more affordable solutions. Symrise is the #4 player in the industry, with a sizeable gap of 2-3x to the peers above. As such, we perceive Symrise as a 'challenger' and the company has made sizeable investments in recent years to try and close the gap. Symrise finds itself on more fragrance 'core lists' but there is still ample scope for gaining mindshare," analysts said Wednesday. While reported figures suggest Symrise is merely keeping pace with peers, BofA flagged that weakness in cosmetic ingredients and aroma molecules obscures the market share gains made by its core perfumery business. "The problems in the rest of the portfolio have also weighed on margins, which lag peers. But with proactive portfolio management, a more favourable product mix, and the fulfilment of what was a divisional management vacuum prior, we would expect both growth and margins to improve," the note said. Against this backdrop, BofA maintained its buy rating and price objective of 110 euros. The research firm also ticked up its full-year 2026 EPS forecast to 4.06 euros from 4.03 euros and trimmed its 2027 estimate to 5.20 euros from 5.23 euros.