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Sensient Technologies Corporation

SXT
42
Chemicals - Specialty · Basic Materials
Price
$109.05
-1.75 (-1.58%)
Market Cap
$4.64B
Winston Score
42
Winston is serious
Mixed quality — meaningful strengths and weaknesses.

Sensient Technologies makes the colors, flavors, and fragrances found in everyday food, drinks, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Its customers include food manufacturers, beverage companies, and personal care brands that need consistent, safe ingredients to make their products look and taste a certain way. Sensient is one of the larger specialty ingredient suppliers in the world, with particular strength in natural colors as consumer demand shifts away from artificial dyes.

The company earns revenue by selling these specialty ingredients directly to manufacturers, typically under long-term supply relationships that create some customer stickiness. Sensient operates globally, with significant business in North America, Europe, and Asia, and generates roughly $1.5 billion in annual revenue. Its main competitive advantage is deep technical expertise in color and flavor chemistry, which makes switching suppliers costly for customers — but its key risk is raw material cost inflation, which can squeeze margins when input prices rise faster than the company can pass costs along.

Winston Score History

Growth Profile

When traditional metrics don't capture the full picture, these are the signals growth stock investors use instead.

Revenue Growth

+11.1% YoY

YoY Growth Rate

Steady revenue growth

EPS Growth

+26.8% YoY

YoY Growth Rate

Strong earnings growth

R&D Spend

$0/ year

Declining (-100% vs prior year)

0.0% of revenue

Below sector average (3%)

R&D spend declining — could signal cost-cutting or efficiency

Insider Activity

1.6%ownership

Flat

Insiders holding steady — not selling despite ability to

Cash Runway

~3 months

$39M cash & investments

Quarterly Free Cash Flow

↓ Burn rate worsening

Short runway — potential dilution ahead through share issuance

Cash watch

Sensient Technologies Corporation has less than a year of cash at its current burn rate. Growth investors should watch for potential share dilution from future fundraising — that directly reduces your ownership.

The Winston Score above measures business quality today. Growth stocks often score lower because they invest in the future rather than maximising current profits. These metrics show what matters most for evaluating that future.

Share count broadly stable

+0.8% over 4y

The share count has stayed roughly flat over this period — little dilution or buyback activity.

Diluted shares outstanding: 42.3M (2021) → 42.6M (2025)

Score breakdown

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Quality

Gross Margin
35.0%
Modest — 35.0% gross margin
Operating Margin
15.3%
Healthy — 15.3% operating margin
ROCE
3.4%
Weak — 3.4% return on capital

ROIC between 0% and 5%. They earn a few cents back per dollar invested in the business.

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Growth

Sales YoY
+5.8%
Slow sales growth (5.8% YoY)
EPS YoY
+11.8%
Earnings growing (11.8% YoY)

Healthy double-digit earnings growth — what compounders look like.

EPS Consistency
6/8 quarters
Earnings grew in most of the last 8 quarters

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Cash Flow

Cash Conversion
85%
Modest — 85% of profit becomes cash
FCF Margin
1.3%
Thin free cash flow (1.3%)

FCF margin between 0% and 10%. Some cash from sales, but not a lot.

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Stability

Debt / Equity
0.63
Moderate — manageable debt (0.63)
Interest Cover
7.31x
Adequate interest coverage (7.3x)

Interest coverage between 3 and 8. Profits cover interest several times over.

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Valuation

P/E Ratio (TTM)
32.1x
Pricey — P/E 32.1

P/E above the market average. People are paying up for expected growth.

P/E vs Forward
+0.4
GROWING
Earnings roughly flat

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Dividends

Dividend Yield
1.32%
Small dividend — 1.32% yield

Modest yield. The bulk of any return needs to come from price appreciation.

Dividend Growth
+0.0%
Dividend flat

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