What is Kemira’s vision and strategy?

Kemira is a global leader in sustainable chemical solutions for water-intensive industries. Our customers include industrial and municipal water treatment operators, and pulp & paper industry among others. We provide the best-suited products and services to improve our customers’ product quality, process, and resource efficiency.

Our vision is to be the first choice in chemistry for water intensive industries. Sustainability transformation is driving profitable growth, and our aim to double the revenue in water in the long run. In addition, by the end of 2030 over 500 million of our revenue is targeted to come from the renewable solutions portfolio.

Our long-term financial goals are:

• Average annual organic growth over 4%
• Operative EBITDA margin of 18–21%
• Operative ROCE over 16%

Read more about Kemira’s strategy.

What drives growth in Kemira’s markets?

The two most important global megatrends driving growth of Kemira’s end markets are changing demographics and growing environmental awareness, which is further resulting in tightening regulation.

Changing demographics

A growing middle-class population, particularly in Asia-Pacific, is expected to result in higher use of water, which will ultimately drive the demand for water treatment chemicals. Changing lifestyles and growth in e-commerce, partly driven by higher income per capita, will lead to higher need for packaging solutions globally. This will further boost the demand for pulp and paper chemicals; Kemira’s core expertise.

Growing environmental awareness

The overall sustainability trend, including more efficient use of natural resources and higher need for recyclable products  is expected to be beneficial for Kemira’s end-markets. Kemira’s solutions enable its customers to use resources, water included, more efficiently. One particular trend, the replacement of plastic packaging, is expected to drive growth of fiber-based packaging solutions. This in turn is expected to increase the demand for pulp and paper chemicals. In addition, the tightening regulation supports Kemira’s ambition to double its water treatment business.

In which businesses does Kemira operate?

Kemira is a global leader in sustainable chemical solutions for water intensive industries. We provide the best suited products and expertise to improve our customers’ product quality, process and resource efficiency. We have two segments: Pulp & Paper and Industry & Water.

In Pulp & Paper, we provide the following solutions:

• bleaching chemicals: to purify and bleach pulp
• sizing and strength chemicals to improve the strength and hydrophobicity of packaging and paper
• various performance and functional chemicals to improve process and resource efficiency of paper and pulp mills

Pulp & Paper: Revenue split by customer type and by product category

*chemical market growth in 2023-2028

In Industry & Water, we provide the following solutions:

• coagulants and polymers for wastewater and freshwater treatment for both municipal and industrial customers

Industry & Water: Revenue split by application type and by product category

*chemical market growth in 2023-2028

How will the business structure change in 2025?

Kemira announced on August 16, 2024 that it plans to move to a new operating model and organization to better enable profitable growth. The planned changes aim to increase customer centricity, strategic focus and speed of delivery and to accelerate growth and shareholder value creation. As part of these plans, Kemira moves to three externally reported business units as of 2025: Water Solutions, Packaging & Hygiene Solutions and Fiber Essentials. To read more of the new business units, please see the material from Kemira’s Capital Markets Day 2024.

Where does Kemira want to grow?

Water and renewable solutions are at the heart of the new Kemira. Water is expected to be the key contributor for revenue growth going forward. Kemira announced in September 2024 that its new long-term ambition is to double the revenue in water. This includes both organic and inorganic growth possibilities.

Firstly, possible acquisitions could be related to market consolidation in Kemira’s more mature markets in EMEA and North America, where Kemira already has a strong presence. Secondly, new technologies and competencies could be also be possible as these would complement Kemira’s current product offering of coagulants and polymers to its water treatment customers. Thirdly, Kemira could also look at possible acquisition targets in the APAC market to strengthen its presence there. Currently Kemira has only a small presence in the growing APAC water treatment market.

Where does Kemira operate and what are the most important countries by sales?

The U.S. is the largest country in terms of sales and it accounted for 30% of revenue in 2023. Finland, the second largest country by sales, accounted for 13%.

Revenue split by country in 2023 (excluding the divested Oil & Gas business)

Is Kemira’s business seasonal or cyclical?

Overall, Kemira has a very resilient business model, which is not very prone to economic cycles. Kemira produces consumable chemicals that are used in customers’ processes, such as wastewater treatment or at pulp and paper mills.

Who are Kemira’s main competitors?

Kemira’s competitors vary by segment and region.

Who are Kemira’s major shareholders?

Kemira’s largest shareholder is Oras Invest. See the monthly updated list of Kemira’s largest shareholders.

What is Kemira’s dividend policy?

Kemira updated its dividend policy in 2020. Kemira’s dividend policy aims at paying a competitive and over time increasing dividend.

How many shares does Kemira management own?

See the updated list of Kemira management’s shareholding.

When is the dividend paid?

The dividend payout date varies from year to year. For the fiscal year 2023 the dividend was paid in two installments: one in the spring and one in the autumn. Read more information on historical dividend.

When was Tikkurila spun off from Kemira? What is Tikkurila’s acquisition price for taxation purposes?

Tikkurila was listed in 2010. Read more in the stock exchange release of March 11, 2010. The taxation value of Tikkurila’s price in Finnish taxation is 15,80 EUR (the weighted average share price of the first trading day, March 26, 2010).

What are Kemira’s financial targets?

Kemira has three long-term financial targets:

• Average annual organic growth over 4%
• Operative EBITDA margin of 18–21%
• Operative ROCE over 16%

Read more about Kemira’s financial targets.

How do exchange rate fluctuations impact Kemira?

Main impact on Kemira comes via translation impact. Transaction risk is limited as revenues and costs are typically in the same currency as Kemira operates in most cases locally and has local production close to its customers. If there is any transaction risk, it is mostly hedged.

For modeling purposes, a 10% change in Kemira’s main foreign currencies would have approximately a EUR 15 million impact on operative EBITDA on an annualized basis.

Kemira’s reporting currency is the EUR, which accounted for 40% of revenue in 2023. Please see below for the currency distribution by revenue and costs.

Is Kemira exposed to raw material fluctuations?

Kemira is a significant buyer of various raw materials due to the nature of its business. The annual raw material spend is around 1 BNEUR, which is split into oil & gas derivatives and non-oil related raw materials.

Please see below for a more detailed split:

How are Kemira’s customer contracts structured?

Majority of Kemira’s contracts have fixed annual pricing while around 30% of customer contracts are formula-based and tied to some component (e.g., electricity price). In Pulp & Paper around 95% of contracts are 1 year or longer; in Industry & Water, around 70% of contracts are 1 year or longer.

What is Kemira’s financing base?

Read more; Kemira’s debt information

How large a share of Kemira’s revenue is allocated to R&D?

In 2023, the R&D expenses were EUR 34.2 million or around 1% of revenue.

**After the divestment of the Oil & Gas business, Kemira’s waste target was adjusted in Q2 to exclude the impact of all divestments since the
baseline year 2019. Reported figures for 2022 and 2023 have also been adjusted.
***Kemira’s climate target has been updated to reflect the SBTi validation. Also 2018 baseline and years 2022 and 2023 have been adjusted to
reflect the divestment of the Oil & Gas business and other minor divestments.
Scope 1: Direct greenhouse gas emissions from Kemira’s manufacturing sites, e.g. the generation of energy and emissions from manufacturing processes.
Scope 2: Indirect greenhouse gas emissions from external generation and purchase of electricity, heating, cooling, and steam.

What are Kemira’s sustainability targets?

Kemira has identified five sustainability focus areas: safety, people, water, circularity and climate.

Which United Nation’s Sustainability Goals (SDGs) are most important for Kemira?

Kemira has identified the following SDGs to be of most material impact:
SDG6 Clean water and sanitation
SDG8  Decent work and economic growth
SDG12 Responsible consumption and production
SDG13 Climate action

How will sustainability drive Kemira’s business?

Kemira’s customers are increasingly focused on the environmental impacts of their operations. Following consumer pressure, there is increasing demand for biodegradable and recyclable products and also for products enable more sustainable processes.

Almost 60% of Kemira’s revenue comes from products that improve customers resource efficiency. One of Kemira’s objectives is also to increase its revenue from renewable solutions. The aim is to reach 500 MEUR in renewable solutions revenue by the end of 2030 from around  EUR 100 million in 2019 (2022: ~ EUR 250 million).

How does Kemira ensure sustainability in its supply chain?

Kemira has thousands of suppliers and Kemira’s sourcing function is globally responsible for strategic spend management. Kemira’s suppliers are segmented into four categories: strategic, critical, volume and base suppliers. Kemira conducts supplier performance evaluations, and all suppliers are expected to adhere to Kemira’s Code of Conduct for Business Partners.

A more detailed description is available in Kemira’s Sustainability Report 2023.

Supplier and supplier risk and compliance management

How does Kemira report on sustainability?

Kemira’s Sustainability report is included in the Annual Review.  The Sustainability Appendix is aligned with Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The report has been assured by an external third party. In its Interim Reports, Kemira follows the progress of its sustainability targets. Kemira also actively participates in third-party sustainability surveys, such as CDP, MSCI, Sustainalytics and EcoVadis. As of 2025, Kemira will report according to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).