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Ashland (ASH) FY2025 results: revenue $1.8 billion, down 13.7% on the year

Ashland Inc. (ASH) reported revenue of $1.8 billion for fiscal 2025, the year ended 30 September 2025, down 13.7% on the year before. Net income was -$845 million, and diluted earnings per share $-18.23. The figures are the company's own, from the 10-K it filed with the SEC on 20 November 2025.

Revenue
$1.8 billion
-13.7% on the year
FY2018FY2025
Operating margin
-42.5%
-1.2% a year earlier
FY2018FY2025
Net income
-$845 million
FY2018FY2025
Diluted EPS
-$18.23
FY2018FY2025

this yearthe year beforeHover a bar for its figure.

The year in brief

What management said about the year

Guidance figures: 1 lowered, 10 new.

  • Sales fell eight percent on portfolio actions: Sales were $478 million against $522 million a year earlier. Portfolio Optimization cut about $38 million, or seven percent. Excluding those actions, sales declined one percent. Currency added $8 million.
  • Adjusted EBITDA down four percent: Adjusted EBITDA was $119 million at a 25 percent margin, versus $124 million. Portfolio Optimization accounted for an $11 million reduction.
  • Adjusted EPS fell to $1.08: Adjusted EPS excluding intangibles amortization was $1.08 against $1.26, on adjusted income of $50 million versus $61 million.
  • Life Sciences topped 30 percent margin: For the full year Life Sciences passed a 30 percent Adjusted EBITDA margin for the first time, per management. The quarter margin was 32 percent.
  • Full-year Adjusted EBITDA $401 million: Restructuring savings of about $20 million and $5 million from manufacturing optimization partly offset the Portfolio Optimization reduction, per management.
Read the Q4 FY2025 earnings call summary

From this 10-K

Ashland makes additives and specialty ingredients that other companies put into medicines, foods, personal care products, paints, building materials and industrial products. It serves customers in more than 100 countries with approximately 2,900 employees worldwide. Its principal executive offices are in Wilmington, Delaware.

Ashland Inc., the 10-K for 2025

Ashland makes additives and specialty ingredients that other companies put into medicines, foods, personal care products, paints, building materials and industrial products. It serves customers in more than 100 countries with approximately 2,900 employees worldwide. Its principal executive offices are in Wilmington, Delaware.

The two core chemistries

Two product families are the largest. Cellulosics, which include cellulose gums and cellulosic thickeners, were 39% of total consolidated sales in fiscal 2025, and polyvinylpyrrolidones, known as PVP, were 25%. Both appear in several segments: they are core products in Life Sciences and also part of the Personal Care range.

Life Sciences

The company calls this segment a leading supplier of excipients and tablet coating systems to the pharmaceutical and nutrition industries. Its excipients include polymers used as tablet binders, super disintegrants, sustained-release agents and drug solubilizers, plus coatings for immediate, delayed and sustained release. For food it supplies thickeners, stabilizers and emulsifiers used in bakery, beverage, dairy, meat products, pet food and sauces. The segment also covers agricultural chemicals, diagnostic films and fine chemicals. It has 11 manufacturing and lab facilities in nine countries, including Wilmington, Delaware and Bridgewater Township, New Jersey. The nutraceuticals business was sold in August 2024.

Personal Care

Personal Care supplies ingredients for skin care, sun care, oral care and hair care, preservatives, and ingredients for household, industrial and institutional cleaning products, including toothpastes, mouth washes and denture care. Its customers range from formulators at large multinational consumer products companies to small independent boutique brands. It has 9 manufacturing and lab facilities in ten countries and participates in one joint venture. During fiscal 2025 the company sold its Avoca business, part of this segment, to Mane SA.

Specialty Additives

Specialty Additives makes rheology modifiers, including cellulosic and associative thickeners, along with foam control agents, surfactants and other additives for architectural paints, dry mortars, joint compounds and plasters. It also supplies the oil and gas industry with products for drilling fluids, cement slurries, fracturing fluids and production chemicals, and makes advanced ceramics used in catalytic converters. Customers include global paint manufacturers and electronics and automotive manufacturers. It has 8 manufacturing and lab facilities in eight countries.

Intermediates

Intermediates produces 1,4 butanediol, known as BDO, and related derivatives such as n-methylpyrrolidone, at a plant in Lima, Ohio, with some derivatives made at Life Sciences facilities in Texas City, Texas and Calvert City, Kentucky. They are used to make engineering polymers and polyurethanes and as process solvents in electronics, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and water filtration membranes. BDO is also supplied to the other three segments as a raw material.

Raw materials and the calendar

Raw materials are bought from multiple sources in the United States and other countries, and the filing states that supplies were sufficient to meet demand in fiscal 2025. The company has been reshaping its portfolio through actions on carboxymethylcellulose, methylcellulose, Nutraceuticals and Avoca. The fiscal year ends on September 30.

From Ashland's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended 30 September 2025. The filing

Written from the 10-K filed 20 November 2025: read the full 10-K.

The four quarters: Q1 FY2025 · Q2 FY2025 · Q3 FY2025 · Q4 FY2025

Income statement (profit and loss)

$ millionFY2025FY2024FY2023On the yearLast 8 years
Revenue1,8242,1132,191-13.7%
Cost of revenue1,2751,4951,523-14.7%
Gross profit549618668-11.2%
Gross margin30.1%29.2%30.5%
Research and development54.055.051.0-1.8%
Selling, general and administrative344404365-14.9%
Operating income-775-26.0172
Operating margin-42.5%-1.2%7.9%
Interest expense61.053.054.0+15.1%
Pre-tax income-809-24.0160
Income tax13.0-223-8.0
Effective tax raten/an/a-5.0%
Net income-845169178
Net margin-46.3%8.0%8.1%
Diluted EPS-$18.23$3.36$3.31
$ million except per share.
Read moreFree cash flow is operating cash flow less capital expenditure; the effective tax rate is income tax over pre-tax income; margins are the line over revenue. Gross profit is revenue less cost of revenue, and operating income is revenue less the company's own total costs, where the statement does not print those lines. Those four are arithmetic on the filed numbers; everything else is as filed. Money is in $ million as the company files it, or in $ billion by the switch above the tables; per share figures and share counts are as they are.

Cash flow

$ millionFY2025FY2024FY2023On the yearLast 8 years
Operating cash flow94.0411243-77.1%
Capital expenditure98.0137170-28.5%
Free cash flow-4.027473.0
Free cash flow margin-0.2%13.0%3.3%
Cash from investing-3.0-51.0-109
Cash from financing-179-479-371
Depreciation and amortisation237274243-13.5%
Share-based compensation14.015.022.0-6.7%
Buybacks100380300-73.7%
Dividends paid76.078.076.0-2.6%
Dividend per share$1.64$1.58$1.44+3.8%
Diluted shares, weighted46m50m54m-8.0%

Balance sheet

$ millionFY2025FY2024FY2023On the yearLast 8 years
Shareholders' equity1,9042,8683,097-33.6%
Debt1,3841,3491,330+2.6%
Operating lease liabilities85.099.0106-14.1%
Other liabilities1,2381,3291,406-6.8%
Total liabilities and equity4,6115,6455,939-18.3%
Fixed assets1,2011,3031,373-7.8%
Goodwill7051,3811,362-49.0%
Intangible assets563751886-25.0%
Cash and equivalents215300417-28.3%
Receivables242243338-0.4%
Inventory568545626+4.2%
Other assets1,1171,122937-0.4%
Total assets4,6115,6455,939-18.3%

10-K for the year ended 30 September 2025, filed 20 November 2025: the filing.