International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. IFF
IFF is a mixed transformation story: debt has been cut from $12.2B (2021) to $6.65B (2025) and gross margin expanded to 36.2%, but FY2025 still produced a $361M net loss on 5.2% revenue decline, with FCF halving to $256M. The stock trades at 76.4x trailing earnings — a 305% premium to the peer median of 18.9x — which prices in a turnaround that Q2 2026's $0.82 EPS (versus $1.14 consensus) did not confirm.
With the pending Food Ingredients divestiture and a new buyback as potential catalysts, plus a large director purchase at $74.28 in June 2026, the setup is balanced enough to wait for evidence rather than chase or dump at $83.33.
What could go wrong
- Valuation compression. At 76.4x P/E versus a peer median of 18.9x, any further earnings miss could trigger a sharp derating; the Q2 2026 EPS of $0.82 already missed the $1.14 consensus.
- Revenue erosion. FY2025 revenue fell 5.2% YoY to $10.89B from $11.48B, and if the Food Ingredients sale shrinks the top line further without offsetting growth, the deleveraging story loses momentum.
- Insider selling acceleration. Multiple executives sold in August 2026 — the CFO, CAO, and President of Scent all liquidated shares at $83–$86 — which could signal lack of confidence in near-term execution.
- FCF deterioration. Free cash flow fell from $602M in 2024 to $256M in 2025 while capex rose to $594M, limiting financial flexibility for buybacks and debt reduction simultaneously.
What would change my mind
Where this comes from: FMP annual fundamentals · FMP annual fundamentals + derived_metrics · FMP annual fundamentals · peer_relative composite. Orin's read on IFF; not advice.
Twelve months actual closes to 2026-09-24 · actual filings
50-day average 200-day average · volume below
On file
All IFF filingsLargest holders · 13F Q2 2026
Money flow| Filer | Position | Of fund |
|---|---|---|
| Vanguard Capital Management | $1.3B | 0.0% of fund |
| State Street | $982.4M | 0.0% of fund |
| Vanguard Portfolio Management | $919.6M | 0.0% of fund |
| Invesco | $744.9M | 0.1% of fund |
| Geode Capital Management | $537.6M | 0.0% of fund |
| Icahn Carl C | $338.7M | 4.1% of fund |
78 filers · quarter ended Q2 2026 · positions, not flows
Insiders, last 24 months: 210 Form 4 filings, net $34.1M. Of the 50 on hand, 2 were open-market purchases and 3 sales— the rest are grants, option exercises and tax withholding.
Ask Orin about IFF
Orin answers questions about IFF from its filings, transcripts and numbers — with the source behind every claim. Your own desk starts with 3 free days, card required.
Start 3 free days →Where it trades
| Metric | Now | Own median | Sector |
|---|---|---|---|
| P/E | 78.8× | — | 29.8× |
| EV/EBITDA | 18.6× | — | — |
| P/S | 2.20× | 1.88× | — |
| P/B | 1.6× | 1.5× | — |
Its P/E sits 60th percentile of its own last 5 years (+0.68σ from its own mean).
27.7%
free-cash-flow growth every year for 10 years, discounted at 10%, is what today’s price implies — starting from $0.3B of trailing free cash flow. It is an assumption the market is making, not a forecast Orin is making.
What Wall Street published
$95
$91 – $100 · +11% against today's price
- 25 buy or overweight
- 8 hold
- 1 underweight or sell
The analysts’ consensus and their own ratings, not Orin’s. A target is a twelve-month opinion published by the firm that wrote it.
Against the companies it is compared to
| Company | Market cap | P/E | EV/EBITDA | Gross | Net | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IFFInternational Flavors & Fragrances Inc. | $22B | 78.8× | 18.6× | 37.5% | 2.9% | 2% |
| ALBAlbemarle Corporation | $13B | 225.5× | 10.7× | 23.9% | 3.8% | 2% |
| DDDuPont de Nemours, Inc. | $18B | 283.2× | 14.3× | 34.4% | 0.7% | 0% |
| DOWDow Inc. | $21B | — | 16.3× | 9.8% | -2.9% | -7% |
| LYBLyondellBasell Industries N.V. | $19B | — | 16.4× | 13.2% | -1.1% | -3% |
| PPGPPG Industries, Inc. | $24B | 15.1× | 10.6× | 40.1% | 9.6% | 19% |
| RPMRPM International Inc. | $13B | 19.0× | 11.4× | 41.4% | 8.4% | 21% |
| RSReliance Steel & Aluminum Co. | $20B | 22.3× | 14.1× | 26.9% | 5.7% | 12% |
| WLKWestlake Corporation | $9B | — | — | 4.7% | -10.9% | -14% |
The median is of the 5 peers listed above and nothing else — check it against the column. This company trades 253.2% above it. The peer set is the vendor’s, so a company can appear here that a person would not have chosen.
What it has traded at
What its sector has traded at
Two scales, drawn separately on purpose: a sector median and one company’s multiple are not the same number and putting them on one axis invites a comparison neither series supports.
Discounted cash flow
| Model | Fair value | Against | Computed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard DCF | $3 | $75.70 · −96% | 2026-06-10 |
| Levered DCF | $9 | $75.70 · −89% | 2026-06-10 |
The vendor’s intrinsic-value models. Treat them as a low-growth anchor — for a fast grower the market routinely pays well above a DCF. These were computed against the price in the “against” column, not today’s.
Every estimate on one scale
The vertical rule is the current price. Ranges and point estimates are the backend’s, published as they were calculated; an arrow means the estimate sits beyond this scale, and its number is on the right.