Dole plc (DOLE) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Welcome to Dole PLC's fourth quarter and four-year 2025 results webcast. Today's webcast is being broadcast live over the internet and is also being recorded for playback purposes. Currently, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentations, there will be a question and answer session. For opening remarks and introductions, I would like to send a call over to the head of investor relations with Dole PLC, James O'Regan.

Welcome, everybody, and thank you for joining our results webcast. Joining me today is our Chief Executive Officer, Rory Byrne, our Chief Operating Officer, Johan Linden, and our Chief Financial Officer, Jacinta Devine. During this webcast, we will be referring to presentation slides to supplementary remarks, and these, along with our earnings release and other related materials, are available on the Investor Relations section of the Dole PLC website. Please note, our remarks today will include certain forward-looking statements within the provisions of the Federal Security's safe harbour law. These reflect circumstances at the time they are made and the company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. Actual results or outcomes may differ materially from those that may be expressed or implied due to a wide range of factors, including those set forth in our SEC filings and press releases. Information regarding the use of non-GAAP financial measures may be found in our press release which also includes a reconciliation to the most comparable gap measures. With that I'm pleased to turn today's call over to Rory.

Thank you James and welcome everybody and thank you for joining us today as we look back over 2025, discuss our latest quarterly results and provide our initial outlook for the coming financial year. So turning firstly to slide four for a recap of our key developments for 2025. We are very very pleased to deliver strong operating results for the year with adjusted EBITDA of $395 million coming in ahead of our latest guidance. Our two diversified fresh produce segments delivered excellent results and excellent growth, offsetting the anticipated short-term decline in fresh fruit due to higher sourcing costs. During 2025, we also achieved several important strategic milestones. A key strategic priority for us was to exit the fresh vegetables business and we're very pleased to successfully complete the sale of this division in August 2025 for gross consideration of 140 million dollars. This sale has allowed us to fully focus on core operating divisions and has created greater flexibility in our capital allocation strategy. Continuing with our strategic focus on optimizing our asset base and operations we announced just before the year end an agreement to sell our port and port operations company in Guayaquil, Ecuador. We expect to receive net proceeds of approximately 75 million dollars once this transaction closes. Earlier in the year we also successfully completed a 1.2 billion renewal of our credit facilities which strengthened our financial capacity and enhanced our flexibility to support future growth initiatives. In November we announced that our board had approved a $100 million share repurchase program as part of the development of our capital allocation strategy. This will be used opportunistically, and to date we have spent $4.5 million repurchasing shares. Another important milestone for the group was the exit of Castle & Cook as a shareholder in September by way of a registered offering. This removed the overhang of a potential share sale and provided significant additional liquidity to our daily trading volumes. Following on from this theme, we have now transitioned to full US domestic issuer filings. Over time, we believe this important transition will improve our eligibility for inclusion in a broader range of US equity indices. Finally, in October, we had a key operational development with the successful launch of Collada Royale, our game-changing new variety of pineapple, and the culmination of 15 years of dedicated R&D at our research facilities in Honduras. This conventionally bred variety has a sweeter taste than a typical pineapple with the added distinction of coconut flavours. It has been extremely well received by both our customers and consumers and has already won multiple awards, including being voted Best New Product within the fresh fruit category in a recent survey by Newsweek. As volumes continue to come online, we believe this will be an important product within our portfolio. turning now to the operational review and starting with the fresh fruit slide on slide six so in q4 the industry continued to face elevated sourcing costs for bananas pineapples and plantains resulting in lower profitability for this segment compared to the prior year the full year 2025 we delivered EBITDA of 189 million dollars a resilient result given the sourcing and market backdrop and indeed the weather related disruption not least the knock-on effects of tropical storm Sarah's impact on our Honduran production and supply. Thankfully the rehabilitation of our Honduran farms is well underway and on track for full recovery later this year. We expect produced volumes and competitiveness to improve over the course of 2026, with the benefit of targeted investments in production and supply chain costs initiatives. Importantly, banana demand remains robust in both North America and Europe, and pineapple innovation, including the well-received Dole Collateral Royale, is supporting this category. Overall, while 2026 has started with the continuing unfavourable supply dynamic, we do expect the positive demand tailwinds, together with our investments and cost programmes, to drive an improvement in profitability as 2026 progresses. Moving on to the diversified EMEA segment, this segment had a stable final quarter, ultimately delivering an excellent full year adjusted EBITDA result of $150 million, an increase of 14% year on year. Over the course of the year, we saw particularly strong contributions from key markets. For example, in Spain, our operations continue to benefit from product diversification and market expansion underpinned by our very strong position in Canary Island Bananas. In the Nordics, the benefits of our investments in our distribution and logistics capability continue to drive growth. And in the Netherlands, we saw a good recovery in 2025 after some challenges in the prior year. Looking ahead, we expect our strong performance to continue in 2026, supported by further development investments across the segment. And lastly, turning to our Diversified America segment, this segment delivered another strong quarter to close the year, consolidating a very, very positive year of growth. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA increased by 32%. For the full year, this amounted to a 21% increase, driven by strong revenue growth, margin expansion, and increased EBITDA contributions from our joint venture businesses within this segment. We benefited from excellent product-led growth in North America in 2025 in products such as kiwis and citrus in particular. Our export teams have demonstrated excellent operational performance, particularly through efficient management of the evolving cherry marketplace during early 2025, and once more at the start of this latest cherry season. Looking ahead, we anticipate the delivery of a good result for this important export season overall. Looking out further into the year, we expect to deliver underlying growth in 2026, complemented by enhanced efficiencies from the dual diversified North America and OPEI integration. We also expect growth in our joint venture businesses within this segment. With that, I'll hand you over to Jacinta to give the financial review for the fourth quarter and full year.

Thank you, Rory, and thank you all for joining our webcast. firstly turning to the financial highlights on slide 10 overall our key performance metric adjusted EBITDA came in at 72.7 million which was ahead of our own expectations for the quarter compared with Q4 2024 revenue was 2.4 billion and was 9.2 percent higher on a reported basis and 5.7 percent higher on a like-for-like basis due to positive operational performance across all our segments. This growth followed the trend seen over the course of 2025, with full-year revenue increasing 8.2% to 9.2 billion. In the fourth quarter, net income increased to 6 million from a loss of 31.6 million in the prior year. The prior year was impacted by a loss of 61.2 million in the discontinued fresh vegetables division. On a full-year basis, net income decreased to $82 million from $143 million, reflecting a number of non-operational and non-cash items. Net income was lowered due to a larger loss from discontinued operations, as well as non-cash fair value losses on financial instruments, a non-cash discrete tax charge, and impairment charges on certain assets excluded from the fresh vegetable sale. 2024 also had the benefit of the gain on the sale of progressive produce. Looking now at the non-GAAP performance measures. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was modestly lower by 1.9 million compared to the prior year. The reduction was primarily driven by higher food costs in fresh fruit. This decrease was partially offset by an excellent performance in our diversified fresh produce, America's and Westworld segment, and a favourable impact from foreign currency translation. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA came in at 395 million, which was ahead of our latest guidance and 1% ahead of 2024. Adjusted net income decreased 1.5 million in the fourth quarter, predominantly due to the decrease in adjusted EBITDA, as well as higher depreciation expense, partially offset by lower interest expense for the full year adjusted net income decreased 5.9 million to 115 million and full year adjusted diluted eps was 1.20 versus 1.27 in 2024 turning now to the divisional updates and starting with fresh fruit on on slide 12 Revenue increased 6.7% due to higher volumes of bananas sold, as well as higher pricing of bananas, pineapples and plantains, partially offset by lower volumes of pineapples and plantains sold. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was due to higher sorting costs of bananas, pineapples and plantains, partially offset by higher commercial cargo profits. Now looking at diversified fresh produce in MIA. Reported revenue increased 12.7%, primarily due to a favorable impact from FX, as well as strong underlying performance in our operations in Spain, France, and South Africa. On a like-for-like basis, revenue increased 4.5%, or $41 million. dollars. Adjusted EBITDA was in line with Q4 2024, with increased earnings in Scandinavia, Ireland, and Spain, as well as a favorable impact from FX translation, partially offset by lower underlying earnings in the UK and the Netherlands. On a like-for-like basis, adjusted EBITDA decreased by 3.5 million quarter. Finally, diversified Americas had another very strong quarter. Revenue increased 5%, driven by growth in most commodities sold in the North American market, along with growth in Southern Hemisphere export products, primarily driven by higher cherry volumes and higher blueberry pricing. Adjusted EBITDA increased 3.2 million, driven by improved profitability in our joint venture businesses, as well as by earnings growth in southern hemisphere export business, driven particularly by the higher cherry volumes. On a like-for-like basis, adjusted EBITDA increased to 4.1 million. Now turning to slide 15. We remain focused on capital allocation and managing our leverage, and are pleased that we were able to close out the year at a comfortable level, coming in at 1.5 times, a reduction from 1.6 times in the prior year. interest expense has continued to decrease due to lower debt levels as well as lower base rates and came in at 66.5 million for the full year in line with our latest guidance under the assumption that base rates will remain broadly stable in 2026 we expect full year interest for 2026 to be approximately 60 million dollars net cash provided by operation activities was 123 million in 2025. As anticipated, we saw a positive inflow in working capital in the fourth quarter, albeit curtailed this year by the strong volume and revenue growth being seen across the business. In addition, due for 2024, benefits from accentuated seasonal inflows, which were not repeated to the same extent this year. Cash capital expenditure was £28.4 million for the quarter, and we added a further £0.7 million of assets by way of finance leases. For the full year, routine CapEx was in line with our latest guidance of £85 million. Cash capital expenditure was £121.5 million, including the buyout of two vessel finance leases for £36 million that was already reflected in our net debt at the end of 2024. In addition, we added a further $16 million of assets by way of finance lease. Also included within the overall CapEx number was $16 million of expenditure related to the Honduran farm rehabilitations, which was covered by insurance proceeds. For 2026, we are forecasting routine CapEx of approximately $100 million, which is broadly in line with our annual depreciation charge. Free cash flow for our continuing operations was $1.7 million for the full year. Excluding the buyout of the Vessel Finance leases, the Honduran farm rehabilitation supported by insurance proceeds, tax on the sale of assets and the final repatriation tax payment in April, this rises to $81 million. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect to see normalized cash generation driven by the benefit of the disposal of the fresh vegetable business. as well as by lower working capital investments and lower tax payments finally we are pleased to declare a 8.5 cent dividend for the fourth quarter and following on from the authorization of a 100 million share repurchase program in november we purchased 300 000 shares at an average price of 15 15 post year end and for a total consideration of 4.5 million now i'll hand you back to Rory who will discuss our outlook for 2026.

Thank you Jacinta. Well we're very pleased with our operating results for 2025 delivering adjusted EBITDA of 395 million which as I said earlier came in ahead of our expectations. The result is a testament to the experience and skill dedication of our management teams and people right across the group as we navigated a year of macroeconomic uncertainty and many other industry specific factors. We've made important strategic steps forward during 2025, particularly completing the sale of the fresh vegetables to business. And today, our business is well placed with strong operational momentum across the group. With this platform, we are targeting growth for the coming financial year. And at this very early stage of the year, we are targeting adjusted EBITDA of at least $400 million. Our present Our presentation sets out our key strategic priorities for 2026, and these are firstly, executing on our development pipeline while maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation, continuing our focus on cost control and delivering operating efficiencies across the group, positioning ourselves to work efficiently in this dynamic macroeconomic and regulatory landscape, and as ever, strengthening our position in our core business areas and categories. I want to conclude by once again thanking all our outstanding people across the group for their ongoing commitment and dedication to driving our business forward, particularly in the light of the complexities faced by our industry this year. As always, we really appreciate all our essential partners, suppliers, customers and all the other stakeholders for the continued support. So with that, I'll hand you back to the operator to open the line for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand now. If you have dialed into today's call, please press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Christopher Barnes with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Just as a reminder, please make sure they were unmuted to ask a question. Thank you very much.

Sorry about that. Rory, could you just elaborate on some of the major puts and takes embedded in your 2026 outlook? Demand trends appear robust, but fruit sourcing costs continue to be a challenge, especially with the dollar weakness and supply pressures last year.

So I think it'd just be helpful to hear a little more about the cost programs you alluded to, whether you see opportunity to take incremental pricing to combat some of the inflationary pressure, and then just some further detail around how you see industry supply and demand shaping up over the course of the year thanks thank you christopher yeah i i suppose you know guidance has become increasingly difficult to get the crystal ball out and predict what's going to happen in the next month let alone in the next year so i think what we tend to do is we look back over the last few years and i think the base year we're working from in 2024 we had an absolutely exceptional performance particularly in fresh fruit and that you know when we have a profitable year we tried to take it but unfortunately it sometimes sets a high benchmark to try and maintain or grow from and I think thankfully we look back at 2025 we managed to achieve that so we you know the sum of the parts where the three operating divisions did exceed our very very strong 2024 number so it's very early in the year to guide certainly the supply dynamics that we referred to in the in the script remain you know it is there is a complex supply dynamic and we're hoping our own Honduran production will come back on over the course of this year and gradually get into full production for next year, we are back up and running but not fully there are other dynamics like Chiquita's exit out of Panama and re-entry that will take some time to come in and all of that has put some weather issues in Central America in particular and indeed in Colombia have put a lot of pressure on the price, exit price out of Colombia and driven up sourcing costs. So they are continuing a little bit. We have been going through negotiations. We can't get into specifics on price, but we're having constructive and sensible dialogue with all of our customers to reflect all of those underlying dynamics. So we put all of that into the mix. I think we also had an exceptionally strong performance in America's rest of the world business. And again, it's a bit like 24 in our fresh fruit business. We take it when it's there and we take advantage of the market dynamics are good and the supply demand is good. We take it, but it doesn't necessarily set the benchmark on which the level of growth we achieved was substantial in 25 on the Diversal and Americas division. So very early in the year, we think there will be a little bit of a shift in the weighting of the profit streams over the course of the quarters, with it being a little bit more heavily weighted towards the back half of the year as well. So early in the year, some factors out there putting a little bit of pressure on us, lots of positives as well. So we've set the target, you know, in the benchmark at a minimum of $400 million for the year, Christopher.

Yeah, that's a helpful context. And then just one follow for Jacinta on cash flow. You mentioned normalized cash generation, but how should we think about just the level of conversion relative to the at least 400 million of EBITDA. Do you think you can get back to historical 50% plus conversion or is that more realistic for 2027 and beyond?

Yeah, thanks, Chris. So look, as I explained earlier on the call, there were some non-recurring and seasonal items which impacted free cashflow in 2025. And we expect something more normalized in 2026. and generally we've said free cash flow conversion of between 30 and 35 percent over the longer term we have outperformed that chris you're quite right over the over the last few years but um yeah i mean we're we're we're targeting more normalized levels maybe not as strong as as we saw last year with a particularly strong inflow at the end of uh of last year um so that That makes the comparative a little bit more challenging. But 30% to 35% is the number we generally recommend people consider for the longer term.

Okay, thank you very much. I'll pass it on.

Your next question comes from the line of Booran Sharma with Stevens. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning and appreciate the question. Congrats on the results. um just wanted to maybe start off on uh on guidance and just get dive in a little bit deeper was wondering maybe um if you could run through the set of factors that um that maybe get you to an EBITDA range that's you're targeting at least 400 so was just wondering kind of what gets you to a higher end I know you're not saying something explicit but just the set of factors or circumstances that get you to the higher end of your plan and and maybe what what keeps you here at uh at more at 400 million yeah i mean i think i've tried to in

answering chris's question give you the overall backdrop to how we uh determined the very early guidance um you know we've we've a number of important uh seasons in the diversified america's division such as the cherry season um pricing has been a little bit weaker but i think with our volume flow we've probably done okay so you know that's a key season as we get to the end of the end of the year and the supply demand around some of the other products from grapes to deciduous have all been very very positive 25 um we'll have to see how that emerges over the course of this year um with a number of key projects underway where we integrated our marketing activities in North America with the previously named Dole Direct North America integrating with our OPI subsidiary in North America and there's a bit of work to do to maximise the efficiencies in that but we're hopeful that can over the medium term develop in a very consolidated and positive way. Our European business, we've had some weather issues right around the world in Europe particularly southern europe and indeed in northern europe as well we've had lots of rains so that's affected some of the production areas in southern europe it's probably affected the impacted demand and things like food service with people not eating out as often as previously with some extremely bad weather you're seeing in north america some some weather conditions we'd hope that those kind of weather impacts while they might have some impact in the first quarter they they tend to balance out over the course of the year so um and then on the banana business it's a little bit early. We are seeing it's going to take a little bit of time for the supply demand equation, particularly the production side to get it into balance again. Our own Honduran production will come fully on stream over the course of the year and some price modifications will filter in over the course of the year. We don't have any issues around disruptions or shipping schedules.

There's lots and lots of moving parts in the middle of it all and you know we put all that in the mix and we think you know it's a reasonable target to start the year at with that at the 400 million dollar mark okay now i i appreciate that um uh that color there my my follow-up uh maybe just around the uh the ecuador port asset sales um wondering if you were to monetize this today uh how does this uh how does this uh improve your your cost structure is it a meaningful improvement um and then how do you think about your uh capital allocation priorities yeah i'm in ecuador port uh it's it's an asset that

has been within the dole food company for quite a long number of years and probably developed during a phase where it needed to be developed to improve our export position out of Ecuador. The whole port world has moved on and it's probably better suited to a specialised international port operator. And we have found such an operator until a leading company, professional, serious, dedicated, and we believe that they can run the port and take advantage of the port in a better way from a commercial point of view than we could do on our own. And we think it'll be fairly neutral from a cost point of view. In terms of operations, we have entered into a usage agreement that will leave us pretty much lineball in terms of costs and will be based on market cost structures. I think the capital allocation question that obviously that's, you know, it's a very, you know, it's a dynamic process for us. you know we've got you know an established level of dividend we've put in place the buyback program which we have always said will be used opportunistically and we we we utilize it to a small degree and so far we have a range of other investments you know particularly our Scandinavian business we're exploring how we significantly upgrade our facilities to enhance the automation of our processes for our supply and delivery to our main retail customer in Scandinavia. We think that can be a very good model to even give us a strategic advantage and develop over the long term. We have a number of production JVs out there that, again, the returns are at least comparable with buybacks. And we can find investments that at least beat the buyback alternative for our preferences to grow the company rather than to shrink it. I think major acquisitions we keep our eyes on what's going on around the world certainly we'd like to see a slightly better stock rating we do see a continuation of the gap between the public and private markets although less transactions are actually being consummated within the private sector even though there's a lot of talk about valuations rather than actually crystallisation of those valuations so hopefully our share price can improve a little bit and that gap can narrow as a result of that but probably in the short term our focus will be more around smaller logical bolt on acquisitions around the group so it's a constant process

a dynamic process that we constantly evolve and examine and all the different elements that I've described form part of that analysis Great appreciate the caller Your next question comes in the line of peter galbo with bank of america your line is now open please go ahead hey good morning guys can you hear me okay sure hey um thanks thanks for the question just just one for me um you know thanks for the color on um the the guide and and for the change over to q's and k's i think that's that's very much appreciated uh rory just sent that maybe you can just outline for us the path to index

inclusion from here just what are the what are the kind of key milestones we should be thinking about from a timeline perspective as you all contemplate that the index inclusion piece given some of the changes you've made it from a financial reporting standpoint thanks very much do you want to take that Jacinta or indeed James so I suppose it's probably important to say that most of our financial statements and our disclosures were already in in domestic issuer format and it was always part of our plan to to to move to filing on domestic forms so we're very pleased to get there and yeah i mean i suppose as you know uh getting into intersays uh can take some time but uh we're we're positive that we can uh seek intuition into some of the smaller s&p intersays and and some of the MSCI indices. So it's an important part of our focus now for the next period.

Okay. And just anything around what the key milestones might be, just as you all have started to have that conversation potentially?

Yeah. I mean, I suppose, I think in terms of our information, we're there and we qualify for inclusion. So we'll just be working with the indices and seeking to get in there. We believe we should be in a position to join the S&P 600, so we'll just work towards that initially.

Great. Okay, thanks very much, Chris. And we are already in the Russell Index.

Sorry, thank you, Rory. Yes, already in the Russell.

Great.

Okay, thanks very much. Thank you, Peter.

There are no further questions at this time. I want to answer the call back to Rory Byrne, CEO, for closing remarks. Thank you very much.

Well, I think we can look back at 2025 with a great degree of satisfaction at the operating level. We certainly had some strong operating performance, great contributions from all three of our divisions. We've made significant strategic progress in 2025. We believe we're well positioned to continue to grow in 2026. So thank you all for joining us today and we look forward to the year progressing positively.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.