Tempura
International Flavors & Fragrances (NYSE:IFF) on Wednesday was upgraded to Buy from a previous investment rating of Neutral by analysts at financial-services firm Citigroup. They said the chemical maker is poised to recover sales volume and expand its profit margin in 2024.
“We expect the sales pipeline to pick up after a challenging 2023 and expect there is room to outperform the 2024 volume guide and achieve additional gains from productivity,” Patrick Cunningham, analyst at Citigroup, said in an April 10 report.
Citigroup raised its price target on International Flavors (IFF) to $100 a share from $80 a share previously, based on an estimated enterprise value that’s 15 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for 2025, up from 13 times previously.
“Most of the news flow is behind IFF (dividend cut, pharma business sale), and we see a compelling pathway towards volume recovery and deleveraging, which should drive performance for shares,” according to Citigroup.
The bank also downgraded Linde (NASDAQ:LIN), while saying its top chemical-industry picks going into earnings season are Sherwin-Williams (NYSE:SHW), Air Products and Chemicals (NYSE:APD) and Olin (NYSE:OLN).