German fragrance and flavors maker Symrise posted a better-than-expected 46 percent rise in quarterly core earnings, helped by the takeover of pet food flavoring company Diana and a return to sales growth at its Scent and Care unit.

Fourth-quarter earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), adjusted for one-off effects, reached 120.7 million euros ($130.2 million), the group said on Tuesday.

That beat the average estimate of 115 million euros in a Reuters poll of analysts, while revenues also exceeded expectations.

Baader Bank analyst Andreas von Arx pointed to a rebound at the scents and care unit, a maker of perfumes and ingredients for shampoos and skin creams, which returned to 5 percent currency-adjusted sales growth after a flat third quarter.

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Symrise said in a statement that sales of cosmetic ingredients were particularly strong last year.

Its shares were up 2.7 percent at 4.11 a.m. EDT, among the top gainers in Germany's MDAX index of medium-sized companies, which was up 0.6 percent.

Net income came in at 24.2 million euros, down by a quarter from a year earlier, on costs related to folding Diana into its organization. That was about half the figure expected by analysts on average.

The company has been seeking to diversify from its core scents and flavors business into related products such as nutritional supplements and ingredients for skin and hair care products.

The takeover of France's Diana, wrapped up in July last year, made it the world's largest pet food flavoring supplier and added ingredients for aquafeed used by fish farms to its offering.

Symrise, which competes with industry leader Givaudan, unlisted Firmenich and IFF, said it was still targeting an EBITDA margin of more than 20 percent in 2015.

That compared with a margin of 20.6 percent last year, below Givaudan and IFF's figures at about 24 percent and 22 percent, respectively.

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