Andersons, Inc. Q4 FY2022 Earnings Call

Good morning and welcome to The Andersons Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Please note that this event is being recorded today. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mike Hoelter, Vice President, Corporate Controller and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thanks, Joe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for The Andersons fourth quarter earnings call. We have provided a slide presentation that will enhance today's discussion. If you are viewing this presentation on our webcast, the slides and commentary will be in sync. This webcast is being recorded, and the recording and the supporting slides will be made available on the Investors page of our website at andersonsinc.com shortly. Please direct your attention to the disclosure statement on Slide 2 of the presentation as well as the disclaimers in the press release related to forward-looking statements. Certain information discussed today constitutes forward-looking statements that reflect the company's current views with respect to future events, financial performance, and industry conditions. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially as a result of many factors which are described in the company's reports on file with the SEC. We encourage you to review these factors. This presentation and today's prepared remarks contain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure are included within the appendix of this presentation. On the call with me today, Pat Bowe, President and Chief Executive Officer and Brian Valentine, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will be happy to take your questions. I will now turn the call over to Pat.

Thanks, Mike. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your interest in The Andersons and for joining this call. We're excited to review our overall operating results for the fourth quarter, which capped a record year for us. As we noted in yesterday's earnings release, strong ag fundamentals existed in 2022. And our team's performance has once again been exceptional. We ended with full year record earnings and adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations of $412 million. As we previously set aggressive targets for EBITDA growth, and I'm pleased to say that we exceeded our 2025 goal of $375 million to $400 million of EBITDA three years early. Later in this call, I'll discuss updated targets for 2025. The Trade business posted a record fourth quarter, which also capped a record year for the segment. Our fourth quarter results were led by improved performance across our asset footprint with rising basis values and storage income. Merchandising results were also very strong and benefited from our attention to customer needs and ability to source grain for regions and countries with grain deficits. Our Renewables business again generated solid profits but was not able to match last year's record quarter as industry crush margins weakened. Our low carbon feedstock business continues to grow and make positive contributions to our renewables segment, but Nutrient experienced mixed results with buyers on the sidelines as market prices have declined for major ag fertilizers. We did have good engagement on our fall application, especially liquids business. Manufactured product lines are also impacted by reduced consumer demand. I'm thrilled with the second consecutive year of very strong results. I'm very proud of our ANDE team and their performance in optimizing results in an environment of strong ag fundamentals. I'm now going to turn things over to Brian to cover some key financial results. When he's finished, I'll be back to discuss our early outlook for 2023.

Thanks, Pat. Good morning, everyone. We're now turning to our fourth quarter and full year results on slide 5. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the company reported net income from continuing operations attributable to The Andersons of $15 million or $0.44 per diluted share, and adjusted net income of $34 million or $0.98 per diluted share. This compares to adjusted net income from continuing operations attributable to the company, of $39 million, or $1.14 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2021. Adjusted pretax income attributable to the company of $50 million nearly matched a prior year fourth quarter record due to the sizable increase in the performance of Trade. For the full year, gross profit increased to $684 million, up more than $90 million or 15% compared to 2021 on revenues of $17.3 billion. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $104 million, compared to $130 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Full year adjusted EBITDA was $412 million, almost $60 million better than 2021 adjusted EBITDA and a second consecutive record. Now, let's move to slide 6 to review our cash flows and liquidity. We generated fourth quarter cash from operations before working capital changes of $90 million in 2022, compared to $84 million in 2021. Full year cash from operations of $315 million is comparable to the prior year, which included $30 million of cash tax refunds. Our readily marketable inventory continues to exceed our outstanding short term debt, while commodity prices are higher compared to 2021, inventories on hand are down. Short term debt at year-end is seasonally low due to the timing of producer payments after harvest. Typically, our highest borrowings occur in the spring as a result of our seasonal businesses. We continue to have adequate liquidity amidst ongoing volatility and have strong support from our banks, as they understand the key role that we play in the ag supply chain. Moving to slide 7, we continue to take a disciplined approach to capital spending and investments, which were $110 million for the year, about half of which related to maintenance capital. Our long-term debt-to-EBITDA remains well below our stated target of less than 2.5x. In addition to the previously mentioned capital spending, we closed on two separate bolt-on acquisitions during the quarter, Bridge Agri in Trade and Mote Farm Service Plant Nutrient. Both are performing well and integration is underway. We continue to evaluate growth projects in our pipeline, including additional M&A opportunities. We have a balance sheet that will support growth investments for those that meet our strategic and financial criteria. We continue to utilize our share repurchase program executing over $5 million of share repurchases in the quarter. The total cash used for this program to date is over $14 million through January. Now we'll move on to review of each of our businesses beginning with Trade on slide 8. Trade reported pretax income of $27 million and adjusted pretax income of $52 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to adjusted pretax income of $27 million dollars in the same period of 2021. Fourth quarter 2022 adjusted pretax income excluded approximately $25 million of charges resulting from insured inventory damaged in a fire and an asset impairment. Our merchandising teams continue to execute well in these dynamic markets, with gross profit increasing 30% and adjusted pretax income nearly doubling from the prior year. Increased elevation margins and our grain assets also improved significantly from the fourth quarter of 2021. Trade had adjusted EBITDA up for the quarter of $72 million compared to adjusted EBITDA of $42 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. For the full year 2022, Trade had record adjusted EBITDA of $199 million, which was up more than 30% compared to $151 million in 2021. Moving to slide 9, the Renewable segment reported fourth quarter pretax income attributable to the company of $13 million, compared to $27 million in 2021. Ethanol crush margins were substantially lower during the quarter, especially compared to the extreme highs in the fourth quarter of 2021. Continued strength in corn oil values and execution by our renewable diesel feedstock merchandising team helped offset the lower ethanol crush margins. Renewables had EBITDA of $36 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to $78 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. For the full year, Renewables generated record EBITDA of $180 million, compared to $166 million in 2021. Turning to slide 10, the Plant Nutrient business reported fourth quarter pretax income of $2 million, a decrease from the record of $16 million generated in tight fertilizer markets during the fourth quarter of 2021. The business experienced lower margins in our agriculture products, as fertilizer prices continued to drop dramatically during the quarter. Farmer income remains high, which supported higher margins in our specialty liquids products. However, volumes were lower in anticipation of further declines in fertilizer prices. Our manufactured lawn products business also experienced slower demand and some additional inventory write-downs which we believe are now behind us. Plant Nutrient’s EBITDA for the quarter was $11 million, a decrease from $24 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. For the full year, Plant Nutrient had EBITDA of $73 million, which was comparable to 2021. And with that, I'll turn things back over to Pat for some comments about our outlook.

Thanks, Brian. Coming off a second consecutive record year, we remain excited about our prospects for 2023. Ag fundamentals remain favorable. We're well positioned to execute in this environment. We expect ongoing volatility in dynamic grain markets to continue to provide good merchandising opportunities. At this time, we expect higher US corn plantings, which is positive for all of our business segments. Yield challenges in the western Corn Belt from the 2022 harvest will continue to influence markets well into the fall. We expect Trade to continue to perform well and execute on these opportunities. The return of storage income to wheat and higher spring corn plantings should be positive for Eastern assets. Ethanol crush margins have been low to start the year. However, we believe that spring maintenance shutdowns and increases in driving miles may positively influence the second quarter. We're also making a number of investments in our plants to improve both the quality and yield of distillers corn oil, a low carbon-intensive input to the renewable diesel industry. And we continue to benefit from strong oil values. As renewable diesel production ramps up, we're well positioned to support plants through our numerous supply agreements on various feedstocks. On farmer income and increased corn plantings that are expected to continue to drive demand for our fertilizer and especially liquid products. We believe that declining prices in this period prior to fieldwork has kept buyers on the sidelines. We expect to see higher volumes in Plant Nutrient as we approach the spring planting season. But we'll likely see more normalized margins lower than last year's peak. With these delays in purchasing, having available product near key crop production areas in the eastern Grain Belt is an advantage. We continue to closely monitor risk in our core fertilizer positions as market prices have declined, but must also be ready to serve our customers when they need our products. We anticipate further growth in our specialty liquid fertilizer and industrial product lines. Next, we'll revisit our growth strategy as described on slide 12. Our strategy remains to grow within and adjacent to our core grain and fertilizer verticals, as global demand for food, feed, and fuel is expected to grow. These areas include sustainable and carbon reduction opportunities. As mentioned in our earnings release, we have many projects under evaluation in our pipeline. We have proven our ability to execute new projects but also exercise discipline while growing our company. We expect to continue to focus on these markets as we bring our unique ability to remain nimble and innovative across these verticals. Our balance sheet remains strong with capacity to fund growth, and our leadership is focused on delivering against our strategy. We're particularly excited about the renewable diesel feedstock market opportunities, as we're well suited to provide inputs and services to refiners, merchandising third-party renewable feedstocks, and enhancing our own corn oil production processes. In addition to expanding our organic fertilizer offerings, we're developing innovative new specialty products for consumers and growers of crops beyond traditional row crops, including biologicals and micronutrients. We will also consider M&A within our core areas of strength, including farm centers within our fertilizer footprint and product line extensions for our manufactured products. We are turning now to slide 13, want to provide an update regarding our progress against EBITDA goals. In late 2017, we established an EBITDA goal of $300 million by 2020, which was approximately double our 2017 result. Since that time, we increased our EBITDA target to $350 million to $375 million by ‘23 and $375 million to $400 million by 2025. Given our strong performance over the past two years, we've now exceeded these goals well ahead of schedule. As such, we are revising our 2025 EBITDA target up $100 million to $475 million, which will represent a compound annual growth rate of almost 20% from 2018 to 2025. And I'll provide you a little bit more detail on slide 14. With this new target, we expect to maintain discipline in our approach to capital investment, keep our long-term debt-to-EBITDA ratio less than 2.5x and continue to improve return on invested capital while continuing to optimize our portfolio. On this chart, you can see our historical EBITDA by business segment and where we expect to grow in each segment as we move toward our $475 million goal in 2025. Because of the volatility in ag markets, this growth may not be linear, but overall fundamentals remain positive. We're excited about our growth prospects. Our team is committed to providing exceptional service to our customers and will continue to make decisions that support steady growth and strong shareholder returns. I'll now turn the call back over to our moderator, Joe, and we'll be happy to take your questions.

Our first question will come from Ben Bienvenu with Stephens.

Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys and congrats on the quarter. I want to ask Pat, if you could, you talked a little bit in spots about how you expect things to evolve through the balance of this year with respect to, I think you talked a little bit about renewables. You talked about plant nutrient. Can you talk a little bit about the cadence of earnings as we move through this year? And where you feel most versus least confident and maybe where your blind spots might be as you think about the full year EBITDA opportunity.

Sure, Ben, yes, good question. So I think overall, as I mentioned, our earnings are going to moderate some coming off the peak earnings of this past year with the commodity prices really soured in ‘22. As you well know, fertilizer prices are down almost 40%, 50% from the peak during the time of the Ukraine war. So we don't have the environment we had with a high inflationary pressure on commodities that we had last year. Having said that, we still felt pretty confident about the original targets we put forward for 2023, which was $350 million to $375 million EBITDA, and we felt good about that. I think the weakness is in the early part of the ethanol cycle. So this first quarter, as you well know, board crush margins have been soft. Corn base has come off a little bit, and we have pretty good feed values and oil values. So we could see that reversed later in the year. I'm optimistic to see a turnaround in ethanol, but we're starting out a little softer than we would have liked. The other point would be in the fertilizer markets with the weakness in fertilizer prices. The farmer, as we mentioned, is sitting on the sidelines as markets have come down quite a bit. We're right at that time of year right now, we're at 60 degrees here today. So hopefully, we can start to get some decisions made by the growers and wholesalers to get active to prepare for the spring application season, because it hasn't really engaged yet. So we're a little bit behind where we normally be, we're optimistic on volume, with an expected increase in corn acres in planting, we think we'll see a good volume of fertilizer production. So that's an area that we think is like ethanol; it starts out a little weaker but then may have a good or stronger finish to volume later in the year. On the grain side, I think we haven't seen the Chinese come to the market as big as we did in previous years. But it's expected as they've opened up their economy a little more, with COVID restrictions being lifted. But we're still remaining to see that. Having said that, we've got good wheat storage income, expect a big suffered wheat crop, which is good for our eastern assets. Again, higher corn acres, so I think there's going to be trading opportunities that can play out well for us later in the year, we'll probably have a slower start and hopefully a stronger finish to the year.

Okay, that makes sense. I know area of investment and growth for your business has been your renewables and feedstocks capabilities around trading, sourcing, origination. Can you talk a little bit about as we look forward how much of that business for ratification is volume dependent versus price dependent? And maybe any thoughts on to start the year why that your oil prices might have been a little bit softer? And would it be your expectation that we see things firm as we move through this year, and we start to see incremental renewable diesel production come online?

You made a great point, Ben. We established a renewable diesel trading desk a couple of years ago and have successfully been sourcing feedstocks for our de-manufacturers, in addition to our own corn oil production. This is an area we still want to expand. We've considered a few acquisitions but haven't made any significant moves yet. We will keep exploring opportunities in this area as we believe it will provide good prospects for us as we move forward. Regarding the plant startups, some are slightly delayed, which raises questions about the timing of RD startups in relation to feedstock demand. So we may be a bit behind, which could create some pressure. However, there are several major plants coming online that will increase demand for feedstocks. This may hold us back temporarily, but we anticipate strong demand for renewable diesel by the end of this year and into the next year or the year after. We remain very optimistic about this segment.

Okay, great. I want to think longer term and I do want to ask you about your new financial goals that you laid out here. But I want to talk a little bit theoretically longer term about sustainable aviation fuel. The extent to which you expect you'll participate in that, the likelihood of that as a meaningful opportunity to firm up industry supply and demand and maybe provide you guys with nice offtake and what sort of partnership, if any, you might be interested in considering as you think about the future?

Yes, it's another good question, but it's an area that we're quite excited about. We don't have anything to announce at this point. Sometimes with new technologies, I personally want to be a fast follower, and be aligned with big players in those segments in the oil industry that supply the aviation industry. As our ethanol business, we are partners with Marathon Petroleum and we've benefited from that outstanding partnership for many years. We both look at opportunities, optimistically for sustainable aviation fuel in the future. We think this is going to be a key focus for both the government and the industry to look at cleaner fuels for the aviation industry. We think that's going to happen, exact timing and exact technologies will probably remain to be seen. And it's an area that we see ourselves participating in. We just don't have any specific announcements or partnerships to name at this time. But in a scenario, that’s going to be very good for our industry. When I say our industry, I mean for the renewables industry and for agriculture in general. So we've been through a few of these over the years, whether it's the beginning days of ethanol that I was involved in many years ago, or now the beginning days of renewable diesel, the same will be true for sustainable aviation fuel. We think that can be a nice new opportunity for ag processors to participate in and a nice benefit for the ethanol business. So stay tuned, you'll hear lots of announcements and a lot of things that have been going on in the last couple of years, we're still just continuing to build that segment out and lots of things are still to be played out in its future.

Okay, fair enough. Brian, if I could ask about the CapEx budget, can you help bucket out your spending for this year? And then to the extent you guys are spending on growth, CapEx, what is a reasonable timeframe in which we should start to see some associated operating profit from the investments in the ramp of those projects?

Yes, sure, Ben. I would say, for 2023, I would bucket our ballpark CapEx spend in the range of $125 million to $150 million. I would characterize similar to how we have in the past; I would expect about half of that to be in the maintenance capital category and the rest growth. I would expect we have a number of projects that have been in our backlog and pipeline kind of coming online over time. So I would say as you think about modeling those, as you get toward the latter half of the year and then into 2024, starting to see those layering in and contributing in a positive way similar to the ones that we've had in previous years.

If I can add on to that, Ben, you asked about in a previous conference call we talked about growth CapEx, and I used the baseball analogy of singles and doubles, and those being smaller to midsize acquisitions. Just want to highlight we closed on two in this past quarter. One is Mote Farm Service, a farm service center in our sweet spot here in the Ohio Indiana border, as well as Bridge Agri, which is a pet food ingredients business out in the west. As you remember previously, we purchased the company Capstone Ingredients in the southwest dairy markets. So these are the singles and doubles that have become immediately accretive, these acquisitions have already been integrated and providing cash right away. So this is a kind of bolt-on that makes a lot of sense for us. We're optimistic with others in the pipeline that we'll be able to close on some of those in this coming year.

And Ben, just to clarify any acquisitions similar to these bolt-on would be above and beyond the $125 million to $150 million. So the $125 million to $150 million would be our CapEx for maintenance capital and growth capital investments in our facilities, and then M&A can be up on top of that.

Okay, great. Last one for me, thinking about these new financial goals that you laid out. How much do you have to spend to get to that level of EBITDA? And then how much of it is dependent on just a continuation of type SMB around all the markets in which you participate?

Yes, I would say the way we're thinking about it right now is that kind of a balanced mix of organic growth and growth investments, whether they be internal and our CapEx, so just kind of modeling those out depending on which side of the business those are in could lead you to a number in that regard. I would say we also, as we look at it, kind of reference singles and doubles. We continue to stay focused on maintaining our long-term debt-to-EBITDA to 2.5x or below, and we have plenty of capacity within our existing capital structure, we believe in our balance sheet to be able to fund the growth investments.

And in that regard, Ben, like, we would estimate it if you want to call it 50:50. But as you know, those things are lumpy. And when something comes around, we said, at our current debt ratio of 1.4x we have capacity to make a bigger deal if the right opportunity comes. But we want to keep it core to our verticals and in areas that make a lot of sense for us. But we do see opportunities for growth. And that's what's called a balanced mix, as Brian said, over the next couple of years, between our just growth that makes sense to our core businesses, as we're putting capital to strengthen our grain elevators and fertilizer plants and ethanol plants, as well as new geographies or new product lines for us.

Our next question will come from Eric Larson with Seaport Research Partners.

Thank you, everyone. Congratulations on an outstanding quarter and year, well deserved. So, my first question is, while I know you don't provide quarterly guidance and I'm not asking for that, could you give us a bit more insight into the cadence between the first and second halves of the year? Last year, the onset of the Ukrainian war led to a significant increase in board prices, and you locked in some strong numbers for later in the year. How should we view this in terms of being less front-end loaded and more back-end loaded? It would be helpful if you could provide some guidance on how to model the first and second halves.

Sure. We're approaching the one-year mark since the war began on February 20th. Initially, there were significant concerns about positions, which led to a surge in grain and fertilizer markets. This year, however, we find ourselves in the opposite situation with weak fertilizer markets and limited engagement so far. Ethanol crush has also been quite weak, indicating that the first quarter will likely fall short of our expectations. I anticipate a slow start. However, I am optimistic about the second quarter, as I expect to see increased engagement in fertilizer, plant shutdowns, and potentially better ethanol margins. For the grain trade business, we have a solid wheat crop that looks promising as summer approaches, particularly in the East. There should be good merchandising opportunities in the second and third quarters, even with the current inverted cash markets in grain. While we may have a slow first quarter, I expect improvements in the subsequent quarters. By the fourth quarter, we'll have another crop, giving us time to observe developments. Overall, I believe this can still be a strong year. A few years ago, we projected figures of $350 million to $375 million, and I think we can achieve something along those lines, though not at the record pace we saw last year, unless there are significant changes in ethanol fundamentals.

Okay, good. So diving a little further into that. So the one thing that you're going to have positive again till the new crop is harvested this fall. We don't have any corn in the western Corn Belt. You had a great year in the eastern Corn Belt last year. Good harvest, you've got corn there. Are you being you getting corn? Are you shipping corn to the western Corn Belt to feedlots? Will that continue? And the basis in the West is just off the charts. It's pretty amazing. Where some of these numbers are, can you give us a little help on that?

Yes, sure. Absolutely. One of our product lines we call Midwest Truck and that's a very active business and a big business for us. We're moving trucks across the Midwest from points of surplus to points of deficit, so this is a lot into the Texas feedlot Kansas, Oklahoma markets and moving Nebraska and then what's further Eastern grain to these areas of shortfalls. That's been a very good business for us the last couple of years, we expect that to continue. So that's on the positive side. Also, on the positive side, our ethanol plants are big plants located in the east are well positioned with good corn bases. We've been operating well from a run rate perspective. Our western plants, as you know, we have the Colwich Kansas newer plant that has really struggled because of high basis levels there, that's been difficult. Some of those premiums we anticipated originally for the California market just haven't been there. So that's been difficult for us, as well as Denison Iowa has also had a little bit higher corn basis, but it's not quite as bad as Kansas. We have had some of the negative side of that, although Kansas has a smaller plant, we have made up for that with our trading opportunities in grain. So that's a good place for us to be as far as our Midwest merchandising business, and we continue to see that to be an active profit center in ‘23.

Next question. Last fall, we faced very challenging export conditions on the Mississippi due to dry weather and low water levels, which limited exports. We are expecting China to resume purchases, and fortunately, we will see improvements in Mississippi's water levels soon. We've experienced substantial snowfall, and with temperatures rising, we received an inch and a half of rain yesterday. This situation is set to change. Do you think that restoring better water levels in the Mississippi for our barges will aid exports in the next month or two? Or do we need to wait until Brazil exhausts more of its corn supply before that happens?

No, you make a good point, Eric. I think we'll get back to more normal navigation on the Mississippi. Those challenges with low water in the mid Mississippi last year really kind of upset things. At the same time, as you know, we had pretty poor service from the major railroads last year. So logistics was a difficult challenge. Interestingly enough, as the barge market improved, or navigation improved, so has rail logistics, so rail logistics has improved in our industry here of late in the last couple of months, which is a good thing for all of our customers. The big question is the demand and as you know, Brazil's crop conditions have improved. Chinese have approved Brazilian corn for imports. So maybe we're just late to see Chinese demand. Hopefully, we will see it come back to the market to drive exports that can be very important for the US bases this year. We'd really like to see that export program kicked back in. The other side is container freight has actually improved too. So we might start to see some shipments by container. The export markets as far as the US is concerned is ready to serve. We just need to see the customers show up.

Okay, so are you still shipping a lot out of the Great Lakes right now?

Yes, it's been a really good year for Great Lakes shipment for us and not frozen, which is unusual. We had, I think, almost record volumes, and it was led by soybeans. So well, it sounded like I said a big year on wheat. The Ontario crop plantings were really good, as well as Michigan, Ohio, so it's going to be a big, soft red wheat year for the Lakes, as far as potential delivery and economics for wheat. So there's a good situation for The Andersons when it comes to the Lakes.

So another demand question here. And this relates to our US livestock. We obviously know that the beef herd is down very substantially. It's the lowest in something like 50 or 60 years in terms of total numbers. It looks like when we could actually look at hog production margins, we could actually maybe see the hog production start kicked back up again. How do you look at that overall US livestock demand for feed? It seems to be an area of controversy today.

Yes, I mean I am by far an expert on livestock demand. But as you nail that there, we've seen a lot of cattle come off feed, as economics in the West have just been really difficult with high grain prices. But we do see there's going to be a change, just follow the consumer, right? Will inflation continue to trim demand or will people be again chicken and pork eaters as well as just basic hamburger barbecue season this year? Will we see it come back at the retail level, thus driving demand and we could see that obviously in the chicken and hog sector first. I think this drought in the West is going to have to be relieved in order to see cattle back on feed in a big way in the far West. So that's we kind of have different fundamentals as far as feeding economics, and as you know, these are cycles that take quite a while to turn, but long-term we're still in good position as an industry for cattle feed in the United States. But I think we're going to see, like you said, some tight supplies here this year.

We're now halfway through February, and crop insurance prices are being determined for farmers. So far, the situation has been better than I expected. We've seen strong grain prices this month, which encourages farmers to maximize their yields for next year. Your liquids should perform well because farmers will have the income. How do you think this will compare to the same period last year in your second quarter? Your second and fourth quarters are the most important to focus on, and while the third quarter is gaining significance, how do all these factors align for your second quarter?

Right. Everything you said is totally true; in fact, we just had one of our big growers in Michigan come through town to this morning, who I met for breakfast on his way to the big farm show in Louisville this year. It's interesting to hear his input about his cash returns being the highest last year and spending on seed and inputs and how much more expensive they are, but still getting good returns per acre on that, all the things that you know. So they want to maximize yields. We think that's positive for liquid specialties. We think it's positive for volume. We're still concerned about margins because it's late; remember last year, prices were really skyrocketing at the time, there was a shortage. The river was out, as you said, and supplies were tight. So farmers were all concerned and wholesalers about getting volume. This year, that's not a concern; it’s more of a pressure on prices. So I'm concerned a little bit about margins as we enter the spring season. I think volume could be up though in our ag wholesale business. The other thing that hurt us in the fourth quarter was a weak consumer business. So the consumer products in lawn and garden really just fell off a cliff and left a lot of people with excess inventories. We were a victim of that as a wholesale producer there and we had to discontinue and eliminate some of the products we had in storage, which took some write-downs on that in the quarter, which we don't like to do. Seeing that come back, we'll probably be a slow return too, so we're kind of moderate on how quickly the fertilizer market is going to rebound. We do forget about the volume. Once we get the grower to engage, we should have a really good volume side. Margins remain to be seen, Eric. So that's what I'm going to be cautious on. I'm not hitting the panic button. We just don't think we'll be as good as last year, and it'd be hard to top last year's margins.

Yes, that makes sense. There are significant concerns about farmer income this year, and I've tried to address some of these worries. We're not going to see the government support we had last year, and farmer returns will be lower. However, it's important to remember that we still anticipate generating around $120 of profit per acre, which is well above the average income for farms. Farmers will have money this year. As things stand, it looks like it will be a strong year for farmer income, even though some cases may show a significant year-over-year decline. That said, Pat, you've already mentioned some of your main concerns regarding fertilizer margins. What other headwinds should we be aware of? What are your top three or four concerns?

I think, let's start with the positive side. We have high farmer income, as you just talked about. We've had high commodity prices; we still have a tight global commodity backdrop that keeps our business pretty excited. And this trend is continuing because unfortunately on the heels of the extended Ukraine war, Brazil's production has gotten better; they’ve gotten good rains so production should be better. A little bigger crop, waiting to see what's going to happen with China on demand. So we'll watch that what's happening there. In the near term, ethanol has been a little weaker than it was a year ago. The backdrop, though, is still pretty positive. This renewable diesel demand growth has a big impact on industry, and that's going to be helpful. I think we still see global exports as an attractive on a broad scale. We still have our customers on both ends on the food and feed and fuel sides still very strong. So in general, I think you've heard from others in our industry already. We feel the overall trend continues to be tight and optimistic, but just not at the fervor pace we had last year where we started out so strong.

Okay, one final question. Wheat has generally been a big merchandising crop for you guys, particularly spring, particularly the soft wheat varieties. Give us, tell, how did your wheat business do last year? And how should we look at wheat this year? Do you have much in storage? Are the plantings looking good favorable for you in the eastern Corn Belt? Give us a quick rundown on how we should get wheat.

Yes, good points, Eric. I don't know the exact numbers off the top of my head. But your answer is just that we have strong wheat volumes and storage higher than we had a year ago. We have wider carries on the Wheat Board than we did a year ago. We have higher plantings than we did a year ago, and crop conditions so far in our dry area on soft red wheat, which is Ontario province in Canada, as well as Michigan and Ohio, all look to be in good shape with no big winter kill. We're expecting a good soft red wheat production. And with carries in the market, we will have higher wheat income. US wheat isn't really, especially soft wheat isn't factoring into the global export grid, as Russia is still dominating the export trade. We still participate in global export trade that we're involved in with wheat in all parts of the world. Hopefully, we'll have wheat exports out of the US and hard wheat at a Texas Gulf in good shape that can help our overall wheat program this year. So bottom line, we're bullish on wheat. Even though wheat prices are relatively a little bit calmer than when it comes to corn or soybeans, it's going to be a good income source for The Andersons.

Okay, so one final question for Brian. Brian, in your prepared comments, you mentioned that RMI exceeds all of your short-term debt. You have a strong balance sheet, and the past two years have significantly improved your liquidity. So could you prioritize for me what you plan to do with the balance sheet? You have some bonds, some relatively small share buybacks, and dividends. What is your priority for all the cash you're currently generating?

Yes, I would say it continues with the balanced approach. I would say our first preference would be to invest in good solid growth projects and bolt-on acquisitions that will help us continue to make good progress toward that $475 million goal by ‘25. At the same time, you just said it, we have a share repurchase program that we've started to execute under and I would expect us to continue to utilize that program as it makes sense. We've paid a dividend now for probably, I don't know, as long as the company has been public and over 100 consecutive quarters. I would expect us to continue to just take a call it a very logical approach to that and wouldn't anticipate any kind of big special dividend or anything like that. But I would say, a balanced approach that enables us to hopefully prioritize good solid growth projects and returns, but with some balanced return to shareholders.

With no remaining questions, this will conclude our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mike Hoelter for any closing remarks.

Thanks, Joe. We want to thank you all for joining us this morning. Our next earnings conference call is scheduled for Wednesday, May 3, 2023, at 11 AM Eastern Time when we will review our first quarter results. As always, thank you for your interest in The Andersons and we look forward to speaking with you again soon.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you very much for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.