Fmc Corp (FMC) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning and welcome to the first quarter 2025 earnings call for the FMC Corporation. This event is being recorded and all participants are in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's prepared remarks, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To be placed in a Q&A queue, please press the star key then one at any time. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up the headset before pressing the keys. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Kurt Brooks, Director of Investor Relations for FMC Corporation. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to FMC Corporation's first quarter earnings call. Joining me are Pierre Brondeau, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Sandefur, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Rinaldo Pereira, President. Today, Pierre will review our first quarter performance and provide an outlook for the second quarter. He will also comment on our full year outlook for 2025. Andrew will provide an overview of select financial results. After our prepared remarks, we will take questions. Our earnings release and today's slide presentation are available on our website, and the prepared remarks from today's discussion will be made available after the call. Let me remind you that today's presentation and discussion will include forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning specific factors, including but not limited to those factors identified in our earnings release and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Information presented represents our best judgment based on today's understanding. Actual results may vary based on these risks and uncertainties. Today's discussion and the supporting materials will include references to adjusted EPS, adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow, and organic revenue growth, all of which are non-GAAP financial measures. Please note that as used in today's discussion, CTPR means florentineolapral, earnings means adjusted earnings, and EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA. A reconciliation and definition of these terms, as well as other non-GAAP financial terms to which we may refer during today's conference call, are provided on our website. With that, I will now I'll turn the call over to Pierre.

Thank you, Kurt, and good morning, everyone. I have stressed that 2025 will be a pivotal year for the company, highlighting four critical focus areas, including decreasing the amount of FMC product in the channel to align with customer target inventory levels, implementing a post-patent strategy for Renexa Pierre, Establishing an additional route to market in Brazil by selling directly to large corn and soybean growers and ensuring that a growth portfolio consisting of sales appear, the four new active ingredients, and plant health has appropriate resources in place to meet our targets. I would like to start by providing a brief update on the strong progress we made in these four areas during our first quarter. Prudent Selling in Q1 supported the high focus on moving a product from the channel to the ground has allowed the company to approach appropriate levels of channel inventory in all regions, excluding Asia. While this stocking is nearly complete in most countries, we will maintain the same deliberate sales strategy that we had in Q1 during Q2 for countries where we have not yet reached targeted level. This will put us in a strong position for the second half of the year. Our Renex Appear strategy has been implemented and is gaining momentum. Simply put, a strategy is to offer basic solo formulations of RENOX APIR and the trusted FMC brand names at lower prices to compete with generic, while also providing higher value versions of the molecule through new, often patented formulations and mixtures. regarding a new product we have already commercialized a new mixture for an exapier and bifanthrine for pest spectrum enhancement as well as a high load product for ease of use and lower cost for the grower during the second half of this year we will launch the large effervescent granule a tablet for rice application this patented and innovative technology offers a concentrated effervescent formulation that disperses upon contact with water is lightweight and can be applied through handheld dispensers sales of these new generation products are expected to reach 200 million dollars to 250 million dollars in 2025. In addition, we're expecting three new mixtures in 2026 that will address resistance issues and broaden the spectrum of control. It is also worth noting that a large part of FNC cells have a strong level of protection against generic products as these sales are tied to high-value crops where substitution is more difficult and riskier for growers. These include tree nuts, fruits, and vegetables, which represent about 35% of FMC's total brand. Granexa Peer sales, and as much as 60% of branded Granexa Peer sales in north america a low-cost diamide manufacturing is now full in place this will allow us to protect existing applications expand a solar formulation to new market and become competitive for all applications in a global ctpr market that we expect will grow exponentials. The end result of a strategy is that we expect sales over the next year to grow from 2025 to 2027 as volume increases more than offset price erosion, with resulting gross profit dollars remaining flat in 2025 level at 2025 levels a company three-year plan is not reliant on bottom line growth of renax appear moving on let me address a progress on establishing a new route to market to brazil we are capitalizing on our expanded product portfolio including recently launched active ingredients to sell directly to large corn and soybean growers that we could not supply in the past. A new sales and tech service organization is in place and will be fully operational in Q2 in time for Brazil's next growing season in September. Access to this new market is expected to provide a multi-hundred million dollars growth opportunity over time. To be very clear, nothing else will change in a business model for FMC Brazil. We will maintain our other current routes to market, including selling to co-ops and retailers, as well as selling directly to large sugarcane and carton farms, as we have done in the past. Finally, regarding our growth portfolio, the three growth platforms are well positioned to deliver their full potential. Our new active ingredients are well on track. We expect strong growth of Fluendapir and Isoflex in 2025 and have recently received registration for Fluendapir in Argentina. In addition, we were recently granted a first registration globally for Dodilex active under the brand name Kenali in Peru. In the case of Sao Zapier, while we expect data protection and registration processes to create barriers for generic to enter some markets until 28 or 29, we are already implementing a strategy for these products well in advance of potential generic entry. As it relates to plant health, with a recent registration of Sofero for pheromones in Brazil, we have received our first orders and anticipate initial sales of this product in Q3. While our three-year financial targets do not include any meaningful contributions from pheromones, these products could provide substantial sales and earnings in the future. The progress we made in these four areas will put us in a much stronger position to deliver growth in the second half of 2025 and into 26 and 27. Before we turn to our guidance, I'll make a few more detailed comments on our first quarter results. Our Q1 results are detailed on slide 3, 4 and 5. The first quarter unfolded mostly as we expected. Overall weather conditions were favorable and application rates were strong for FMC products, which advanced a channel de-stoking in most countries. Consistent with the Q1 games, retailers and growers in the U.S. were slower to place orders in response to lower commodity price, the perception of impulse supply, and uncertainty as a result of recent trade dynamics. Company sales declined 14% versus the prior year. Pricing was down 9% with over half of the decline due to adjustments in certain cost plus contracts for significant diamide partners to account for lower manufacturing costs. A strong U.S. dollar led to an FX headwind of 4%. volume was down one percent versus a week prior comparison as prudent selling into the channel in many countries was mostly offset by volume growth in latin america a plant health business outperformed the portfolio with sales up one percent versus prior driven by biologicals looking at regional results on slide five north america performed as expected with sales decline of 28 percent mainly from lower volume as cautious purchases from retailers and growers delayed restocking orders from distributor customers latin america grew 17 percent excluding fx headwinds on the surface, it appears counterintuitive that we grew volume in the regions where we were actively seeking to lower channel inventory. Higher volume mostly came from increased direct sales to cotton growers in Brazil, which do not impact the channel inventory. It's also important to note that with a strong focus on grower consumption product on the ground or POG as we refer to it far outpaced our sales into the channel shifting to Asia the region performed as expected with a sales decline of 21 percent excluding currency impacts driven by intentional prudent selling and lower price Finally, in EMEA, we reported 7% lower sales, excluding currency impact due to lower volumes, largely from the expected loss of registration from triflucephorone herbicide. Turning to slide six, our first quarter EBITDA declined 25% due to lower price and affected wins and reduced volume. Costs were a tailwind as favorably in COGS, more than offset increased investment in SG&A and Orange. The increased spending in those areas helped establish the additional sales force in Brazil and further support for our own new product. Turning now to slide 7. We provide our expectations for the second quarter. We are guiding a revenue decline of 2% at the midpoint. Lower sales are expected to be driven by a low to mid-single-digit decline in price and low-single-digit FX headwind. We are expecting only a limited volume increase, as we intend to carry over a strategy from the first quarter of carefully managing sales into the channel in many countries, while focusing on POG to set up for solid growth in the second half of the year. EBITDA is expected to be lower by 6% at the midpoint, with lower price and an FX headwind partially offset by favorable cost and higher volume. Adjusted earnings per share is expected to be lower by 5% at the midpoint. On slide 8, we provide our updated full year guidance, which is unchanged from a February call. Full year sales are expected to be flat to prior at the midpoint, as higher volume, mostly in the second half, offsets unfavorable price. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to grow 1% at the midpoint, as favorable costs and higher volume are mostly offset by lower price and an FXL win. Adjusted earnings per share is expected to be flat to prior year at the midpoint over the last few weeks there has been a lot of focus on recently announced tariffs and the potential impact to our business slide nine gives a brief overview of the tariffs in place or announced as of yesterday these include the section 301 tariffs implemented during the first Trump administration and the new tariffs announced under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Key to determining the magnitude of the impact of the recently announced tariffs is whether the product we import into the U.S. are eligible for exemption or duty drawback under the specific tariff in question. Exemptions allow companies like FMC to import, without paying tariff, specified material that are not readily available from alternate sources. Duty drawback is a refund of import duties that were paid on materials that are later exported from the U.S., either in the same form or as part of a finished product. Exemptions and duty drawbacks are product-specific and not company-specific. Slide 10 lists the tariffs that are currently in place for FMC materials and whether there are opportunities for exemptions or duty drawback. It is important to avoid applying a blanket percentage to a total imported volume as the real impact is much lower. For example, most materials fall on the reciprocal terrace are either exempt or eligible for the DeGrova. After a detailed review of the materials we import into the U.S. and applying the rules currently proposed or in place, we estimate an incremental cost headwind of 15 million dollars to 20 million dollars this was a rigorous bottoms-up analysis so we are confident in the estimated impact as we as we did these calculations applying the rules as we understand them today and which may evolve a straight negotiation between the united states and other countries progress we will continue to monitor new development and re-evaluate the potential impact on our business as we understand them today we do not expect tariffs to be a significant obstacle to reaching a full 2025 goals we have flexibility in sourcing depending on how the situation continues to unfold. Further, we have improved cost favorability and additional volume opportunities that will offset the impact we currently anticipate for 2025. Nevertheless, as we become more certain on the longer-term tariff impact, we will adjust our pricing to cannabis costs. Our guidance implies solid growth in the sub and half of the year. We expect revenue growth of 7%, driven by higher volume from Fluendapir, Isoflex, and Biogicol, as well as by the newly established additional route to market in Brazil. With these actions we have taken in the first half of the year, we expect to enter the next growing season in Latin America without the de-stoking headwinds we faced over the last two seasons. However, we do expect headwinds from price and effects. As you can see in slide 11, we expect second-half EBITDA growth of 11% as lower cost and higher volume, primarily from new products and the new route to market in Brazil, are partially offset by lower price and FX headwinds. Lower costs are expected to be driven by COGS favorability, including lower raw materials and improved fixed cost absorption. We are highly confident in a path to second half growth as it is driven by cost favorability, a large portion of which is already locked in, as well as sales of new products and the additional route to market, neither of which have channel inventory concern. Additionally, we will benefit from a permanent selling strategy and our focus on POG in the first half. I will now turn it over to Andrew to cover details on cash flow and other items.

Thanks, Pierre. I'll start this morning with a review of some key income statement items. FX was a 4% headwind to revenue growth in the first quarter, largely driven by the Brazilian RIA and various European currencies, most significantly the Euro. For full year 2025, we continue to expect a low to mid single-digit FX headwind to revenue, again driven primarily by the Brazilian RIA and various European currencies. Interest expense for the first quarter was $50.1 million, down over $11 million compared to the prior year period, driven by lower debt balances. For full year 2025, we continue to expect interest expense to be in the range of $210 to $230 million, down roughly $15 million year-on-year at the midpoint, reflecting the benefit of debt reduction in 2024 and modestly lower interest rates in 2025. The effective tax rate on adjusted earnings was 14% in the first quarter in line with our continued expectation of a full-year effective tax rate of 13 to 15 percent moving next to the balance sheet and leverage gross debt at march 31st was approximately four billion dollars up roughly 640 million dollars from the prior quarter due to a normal seasonal working capital build cash on hand decreased 42 million dollars to 315 million dollars resulting in net debt of approximately $3.7 billion. Gross debt to trailing 12-month EBITDA was 4.6 times in quarter end, while net debt to EBITDA was 4.3 times. Relative to our leverage covenant, which includes adjustments to both the numerator and denominator, leverage was 4.77 times as compared to a covenant limit of 5.25 times. As a reminder, our covenant leverage limit will remain at 5.25 times through September 30th, then step down to 5.0 times at year-end. We expect covenant leverage to return to approximately 3.7 times by year-end, essentially flat to the prior year. Moving on to free cash flow in slide 11. Free cash flow in the first quarter was negative $596 million, $408 million lower than the prior year period. Cash from operations was down significantly, primarily due to lower inventory reduction as compared to the prior year, while capital additions were somewhat higher, as anticipated. The negative cash from operations in the first quarter reflects a return to a more normal cadence of working capital, with a large build in the first part of the year, followed by a release in the second half. We continue to expect free cash flow of $200 million to $400 million for 2025, a decrease of $313 million at the midpoint. cash from operations is the key driver of the decrease with normalization of working capital after the pronounced correction in 2024 capital additions are also expected to be up somewhat with a continued focus on only the most essential projects and capacity expansion for new products cash used by discontinued operations is also up slightly but in line with our multi-year average and with that i'll hand the call back to pierre thank you andrew Q2, the first quarter unfolded as expected with all objectives reached.

The first step of our company reset went as well as possible. We will need to do the same now in Q2. While the midpoint of our Q2 gammon does not show overall growth, the financial targets are stronger than the first quarter, and we expect to see some volume improvement the quarter. However, during the second quarter, we will continue to carefully manage sales into the channel, particularly in countries where F&C channel inventory remains elevated. By the end of the first half, we will have completed the most critical step of a reset, which will allow us to enter the second half of the year in a strong position. We expect to see significant momentum building during Q3 at the financial, operational, and strategic level with a new FMC organization fully up and running. We expect to reach a financial objective this year with growth in the second half built on a strong foundation. We plan to be in a position at the Q3 earnings score to give an outlook for 2026 as a strategic and operational reset should be well advanced and provide us with greater clarity on next year's potential. With that, we are now ready to take your questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you place in a queue, please press the star key, then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. Please limit yourself to one question. If you have additional questions, you can jump back in the queue. To withdraw from the question queue, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Alexi Euphramov with the company Key Corp. Alexi, your line is not open.

Good morning. Thank you. Pierre, could you describe the price trends in the crop production market outside of dynamite? Has the pricing bottomed? What do you expect from price going forward this year?

Yeah, thanks, Alexei. In terms of pricing, let me make two comments. One specific to FMC pricing in Q1 and the way we see pricing going through the year. When we made our forecast pricing, we were forecasting a mid to high single digit. We end up in the high single digit. What we had in the forecast was the pricing to the AMI partners we knew would be lower, And we also knew there would be a tough comparison to Q1 2024, where price were still very high. What was not in the forecast for us was stronger sales in Brazil, which we know is always a more competitive market. If I think about pricing through the year, pricing comparisons are going to ease as the year ago, and especially in the second half. for a very simple reason, if you remember, and especially true for FNC, we did the vast majority of price correction in the second half of Q2 and through Q3 and Q4. So if you think about Q1 this year, beside the country mixed, it is not that we took very specific pricing actions sequentially. It is just a year-on-year comparison, which is unfavorable, where we see more stability going into the rest of the year, especially in H2, with much better or much easier comp versus 2024.

The next question comes from Joel Jackson with a company, BMO Capital. Joel, your line is not open.

Good morning. So you gave a bit of guidance about why you expect to have really strong growth in the second half of the year to make your numbers this year. it is you know historically an extremely backhand loaded second half can you maybe break down a bit more about why you have the confidence in your costs in the second half of the year and i know you have lags and you see things coming and and your new go to route your new strategy in brazil and other other initiatives you have just maybe give some more confidence to the street why you can get this uh you know second half done certainly i i think um i would qualify the level of confidence in in h2 as very high let me talk first about what you just say revenues revenues

the growth is uh is mostly coming from new products and new products demand we already know is very high if anything uh if we if we if we don't get to the number we're forecasting it's because we're going to be higher. There is a bias toward a higher end than what we have. Very, very solid demand already for Q2 for a new technology for Inapir and Isoflex. Second of all, we do have a new route to market, which did not exist before. It's a brand new market for us. The sales organization is in place. The contacts are being taken. Everything, all lights are green. So this new opportunity seems to be highly, highly feasible. So on the revenue front, because we are not forecasting growth due to market growth, but more to specific FMC actions, we have quite a high level of confidence. On the price side, why do we believe we will be in a less challenging situation? Two critical reasons. One is we will be operating following the actions we have taken in Q1, which were very, very strong around channel inventory and the one we're going to keep on doing in Q2. we will be in a very, very healthy channel situation starting in Q3, which is positive for pricing. Second of all, we will be in a very low comp versus 2024, as by H2, we had a lot of the price correction done. And on the cost front, we've talked about our cost restructuring we have put in place. But let me remind you of something which is already booked. It's already mathematical. We have $50 million of absence of negative impact we had in 2024 coming from 2023 volume variants. This is an automatic $50 million, 5-0 growth at EBITDA level in H2 2025. So you bring all of these together and the probability of missing in my mind is quite low because most of those are in our hands. Actually, I want to give you an example of why we feel so confident about our position in the channel, getting into Brazil season in the second half. In Brazil, it is counterintuitive, as I said, how fast we grew in Q1. But let me explain to you a bit how that growth took place. We sold about $110 million of product. Part of those sales went directly to growers, so didn't go into the channel. So we had less than $100 million of product sold into the channel. We removed from the channel into the ground about $350 million of product, which means we removed from the channel of FMC product in Q1 over $250 million of product. I mean, that's the kind of actions we have been taken in Q1 and still are taking in Q2, which are going to put us in a very, very clean position when we start H2.

Next question comes from Ediland Rodriguez with the company Mizuho. Ed, Leon, your line is not open.

Okay, thank you, and good morning, everyone. Pierre, you've talked about the tariff impact of $15 million to $20 million headwind. So what exactly are you doing to offset that headwind? Because you said you will be able to do that. And the cost savings actions you've taken to offset some of that, would you have taken them regardless of the tariff impact you will see this year?

So it is not actions we are taking because of tariffs. you know we always give a range in terms of how our cost saving plans are going to be unfolding and and we were going to end up on the higher end of the um of the uh of the cost savings so uh those cost savings are coming at the top hand of what we're expecting they are not anything special or additional we are doing to offset the current tariffs, but we were on the favorable side. Volume, same thing. We believe that we've shifted a bit from previous year in the way we look at the market. I think in previous years, there was a very, very high focus of the organization to uh to selling into the the channel and to retailer we have moved a lot of energy to get a pool from the growers from the channel so by creating that pool and promoting a product to the growers then buy into the retail from the retailers uh we are creating more and more space into the channel for a product that strategy might not be as strong in the in the quarters to come when most of the destocking is done but it's still something we're going to keep on doing the way we're going to organize our sales organization and this is giving space for new products so that's why there is a some positive on the growth side on the second half including new technologies for which we have more and more demand. So nothing specific we are doing to address tariff. They would have been there even without the tariffs, but it will be offsetting the tariffs.

The next question comes from Lawrence Alexander with the company Jeffries. Lawrence, your line is not open.

Hi, this is Dan Rizwan for Lawrence. Thanks for taking my question. I was just wondering, you mentioned reducing channel inventories. does that involve giving significant rebates or discounting to customers and do you have to kind of write off any of your own inventory sorry could you repeat the question please you broke a little bit sure yeah that's okay you you talked about reducing channel inventories i was wondering if that includes having to give significant rebates or discounts to customers or for future orders or kind of how you kind of really – what steps you take to reduce the inventories in the channel?

Yes. So that's good. You're asking me to repeat that because it's very, very important. What we did is we shift almost entirely the activity of our sales organization, agronomist, tech service organization to work with the end users of a product, the growers. By doing this, you promote your product, explain your product, demonstrate the capability of your portfolio, and then create a pool from the growers from the retailers. So it's growers who are asking for a product from the retailers. We do not have to act on price or give rebate because we are not intervening in this process. All we create is the growers to pull the product from retailers, but the sale, the financial transaction is between the grower and the retailer. So it's promotion of a product at the level of the end user, which creates more product on the ground. And then what we did is we replenished those products extremely carefully to avoid, to rebuild inventories.

This question comes from Chris Parkinson with the company Wolf Research. Chris, your line is not open.

Great. Thank you so much for the question. Can you talk a little bit more about the DIMOD strategy and any updates you may have there? And I'd specifically like to focus on your confidence on the growth run rate. coming off patent, especially some of the charts that you shared with us last quarter, as well as your ability to further reduce your cost structure and your openness to manufacturing with any of their partners. Thank you so much.

All right. Let me start with the back end of your question in terms of pricing. Pricing right now, lower pricing, significantly lower pricing versus last year is full in place, and we are continuing to lower our costs. I do believe that by the end of this year, if not before, we will be on par with the high-end generic manufacturers. At this point, it allows us to develop a strategy to protect and grow our solar molecule, because this market is going to be growing exponentially with Ronex up here, taking over other insecticides. So that piece to take the price of manufacturing costs down is in place and improving and is going to put us at parity with generic manufacturers. The solo strategy in terms of growth will benefit from this cost and we will lower our price and compensate that by much higher volume. At the same time, the new product we are putting in place, either for ease of use or a broader spectrum or resistance, which is becoming a bigger and bigger issue, are being developed and some are already on the market. To give you a sense for how fast our high-end growers are willing to switch the three products I talked to you about, out of the $600 million of branded Renexa Peer we have this year, we are selling this year, we expect $200 to $250 million be the new Renexa Peer mixture, the high load, and the tablets. But the tablets will be a very small because you'll be introduced toward the end of the year. So that's the speed at which you can replace your older technology by your new technology. At this stage, there is nothing in front of us which is telling me that the Ronexa PE strategy, as we explained it, to grow volume, to compensate for lower price with a lower manufacturing cost and introduction of new product, I forgot to say three new products are going to be registered next year, will not be working. Important points, I want to remind everybody, the three-year plan does not expect growth of earnings coming from Renexapeer. We're just protecting the current bottom line from Renexapeer in the next three years by the strategy I just described. Renaldo, anything you want to add on the Renexapeer strategy itself?

Not only the velocity of adoption of Rinaxapir, that we're seeing the new formulations, as you highlighted, and increase in some markets, as we evolve on our strategy, it becomes very clear that there is a lot of elasticity there. As we move prices, we're seeing that volume adoption, especially by customers that did not use chlorantronid power before.

The next question comes from Benjamin M. Suhr with the company Barclays. Benjamin, your line is now open.

Yeah, good morning, and thank you very much for taking my question. I just wanted to follow up a little bit on some of the outlook pieces in terms of your strategy as it relates to the tariffs. And, by the way, thank you very much for all the clarification you've already given and some of the estimates here. Can you help us understand a little bit more as to the alternative, like just thinking of this as being to be a longer-lasting issue, headwind, however you want to call it. How could we think about alternative sourcing for some of the raw materials that are significantly impacted? And you quantified it already at close to $20 million for this year. But if we were to move into 2026, Is there any opportunity to find alternative sources for some of these raw materials and what was the cost of that?

Hey, Benjamin, it's Andrew. I'll take this one. A great question. I think certainly part of the way we're limiting the impact in 2025 and we'll continue to limit the impact in 2025 is we have built a great deal of flexibility in our supply chain with multiple sources for all of our critical raw materials. This is something that we learned before COVID and perfected during COVID, including the doing a lot of heavy lifting to include those sources in our registrations in all our key markets to allow us to be able to switch sources of production. So certainly, you know, when we think and you look back at that tariff page, while we focus a lot on China, you know, tariffs impact sourcing that we do from the United Kingdom, from Mexico, from India, as well as from China. But we have the ability to move some production around to help limit some of the impacts of tariffs as they become more certain i think we have high confidence in the outlook for 25 in part because sitting here on may 1st and we turn inventory about twice a year so we purchase the material that will cover us largely through them through most of the end well into the fourth quarter so we have a pretty high visibility into the cost base that we have and the tariff impacts that we have that are sitting in inventory or will sit in inventory during that time period As we look to 26, certainly we are going to continue to look at the balance of different sources that we have, and we're going to look to see how the tariffs themselves evolve. I mean, certainly the government has stated that they intend to negotiate trade deals with various countries. Our hope is that will result in both more clarity, but also lower than currently published tariff rates for many of those countries that would help reduce those tariff headwinds. And I would just finish off with this, beyond sources, beyond working and following closely how these tariffs develop, over a period of time, as the tariffs become more certain, we will have to move prices to offset tariffs. We did that with the first Trump administration tariffs. They're part of our ongoing cost structure. They were absorbed through pricing over time. We need more certainty and some trade deals in place to really be able to do that at this point and then relative to timing the seasons when it's a more natural point to make some price changes. But while we have the, you know, the additional cost savings and a little extra volume that Pierre, within the ranges we had initially guided, as Pierre mentioned earlier in the call, that will help us absorb the tariff headwinds in 2025 and 2026 should, you know, significant tariff headwinds persist, we will have to move pricing to help offset those costs. So it'll be a combination of all those factors, you know, managing across the sources, taking, you know, of working through carefully how the tariffs are fully implemented, including the use of exemptions and duty drawback, and then with the residual tariff cost inflation, passing that on to customers.

The next question comes from Patrick Cunningham with the company Citi Group. Patrick, your line is not open.

Hey, good morning. This is Rachel Leontra, Patrick. Can you share more about what you're hearing from customers in terms of border patterns? Seems like North American volumes were impacted pretty heavily by the cautious customer behavior. So here's to see what you're seeing for the full year.

Thank you.

You broke a little bit. I think you asked... Could you repeat your question? Because you broke up during your question, so I'm not sure what it was. We couldn't hear you. Can you share more about the customer order patterns uh one year north american volumes were impacted pretty heavily by the cautious customer behavior as you call that so curious to see for four years yeah i think a customer um so it it it it depends on the on the regions um generally speaking customers today tend to In the first quarter, we're buying a bit closer to planting time. So the movement from, for example, in the U.S., from wholesalers to retailers to growers, it doesn't mean that the total number by the end of the season will not be the same. But the speed at which is happening has been slower in tune. In Q2, things seem to be picking up. I think there is demand. As I said, a Q2 number is prudent. We are still highly focused on our inventory, but there is a dynamic which is much more positive. I'll give you an example. in Europe today, one month into the quarter, we do have already 51% of the orders we need for the quarter. So that's the much faster speed of purchase that we've seen in a long time and we've seen in the first quarter. So the order pattern is prudent, but let's not forget that we committed for two quarters to get back to a normal inventory situation in the middle of the year, which is very specific to FMC. But yes, things were slow from a speed, not a quantity. And I would say picking up speed into Q2 as we are clearly seeing happening us in Europe right now.

The next question comes from Vincent Andrews with the company Mortgage Stanley. they sent your line that's not open uh thank you and good morning everyone um wondering if you can just help us sort of understand or maybe compare and contrast the difference between selling directly to the farmer and filling through um the channel and i guess i'm just kind of trying to think through the line items you know the asp is different obviously the cogs are the same but maybe sgna is higher um or lower i don't know if you don't have to pay the channel and does the terms in terms of cash conversion are they are they better are they worse are they about the same and just maybe help us understand how that's going to play out.

I'll let Andrew make more or Ronaldo make more comments. First, the cash conversion is much more linked to the regions of the world where you operate rather than the people, the customer to which you are selling. From a fundamental EBIT margin on the product, it's about the same if you sell direct or if you sell into the retail system. There is not a meaningful difference in terms of the profit you will get. Those are pearl channels. But the economics are about the same.

Andrew or Ronaldo, do you want to add to that? now the net contribution is is very very similar those growers are larger than average growers and and they tend to buy at a discounted rate or a discounted price in comparison to the average of the market if you take that into consideration our net price to them is very similar to the net price that we already um put in place on on average in those countries so it's not a meaningful difference. It does require, and we said that in prior quarters, it does require dedicated people, so there's an SG&A component there, but it's not dissimilar to the SG&A we would have to serve additional customers in the traditional model. As of terms, terms are similar. They are mostly crop terms, so there's no disconnection. There's no real difference there between in selling to retail or selling to growers.

The next question comes from Josh Spector with the company UBS. Josh, your line is not open.

Good morning, this is Lucas Strowman on for Josh. I just wanted to ask about the second half EBITDA bridge on slide 11. There's a 100 million headwind on there from Price and FX. Price looks like it's likely to be down kind of 40 to 50 million on sales in the second half with a similar impact to EBITDA. FX looks like it's probably going to be flat now on sales with 3Q down and 4Q potentially positive where the current rates are. But could you please just help us understand where that other 50 million from the headwind is coming from in the second half? Does that imply that your price assumption is more like down 100 million or is there hedging in place on the FX side that's sort of offsetting that? I'd just like to understand your assumptions there, please.

I'll try to help you here. You know, we're intentionally not guiding quarters for the second half. It's too early for that. I think what we're – and the reason we showed the price in FX together is because in many markets, there's an interconnection between FX movements and local price. You know, we see that a lot, particularly in European markets. Certainly, you know, we've guided for the full year that we expect a low to mid single digit headwind at revenue from price. Similar kind of headwind in Q2. We had a higher headwind in the first quarter. So, you know, just basic math would be a little less headwind in the second half than that low mid single digit for pricing. And then to the second part of your question with FX, you know, historically FX drops to EBITDA from revenue headwind at about 50 percent for us. with the way currencies are currently moving and what forward rates look like and where we're hedged, that drop-through is going to be a bit heavier this year. So it's going to be more than 50%. So I think you need to think about the drop-through on FX being a bit higher. It's not going to be perfectly precise here, but I think, again, if you think about that pricing in the second half being a little less than low-middle single-digit kind of headwind would be appropriate. And then FX, that FX headwind dropping through a bit more than our historical 50%. That'll balance out how we get to that 95 to 105 range.

Final question comes from Frank Mitch with the company Firmium Research. Frank, your line is not open.

Thank you for saving the best for last. I really appreciate the confidence on the second half EBITDA, Uplift, you know, the conversation about the new products seems relatively straightforward and seems like you have a really good line of sight there. I wanted to focus in on the route to market, the new route to market in Brazil. A couple of things. One is, you know, how much did that negatively impact the first quarter results? And, you know, what's your expectations in terms of that being a drain? When do you think that that flips to being a positive? And frankly, Pierre, you sounded pretty upbeat about the ability this year, so second half of 25, to really penetrate the large corn and soybean farmers. If you could give any more color there, that would be very helpful since this is, as you indicated, a new route to market. Thank you.

Sure. I'm going to let Ronaldo answer more precisely than I do. The negative impact in Q1 this year of this was mostly the S&R cost, the selling, because we've been hiring a significant number of people to do two things in Brazil. First, to accelerate sales into co-op by doing what I explained before, more activity to increase product on the ground with our final growers. and then we created a sales force for these new markets we are finally able to penetrate after decades of not being able or entitled to penetrate. The organization is ready. The people have been hired. The people have been trained. The contacts are being taken. I'm going to let Ronaldo talk about the confidence of realizing those new sales when the season starts in Brazil.

Very high, Frank. As Pierre just pointed out, the organization is already in place. they've been trained and they have already been assigned territories and specific customers to cover. As you may remember this, we said in that earnings call that what enabled us to do this now is the new technologies we're bringing to the market. And that combination of more people, more presence, and the new technologies for which we have very high confidence, confidence. That's what brings us confidence. You asked about when it turns positive. We start to invoice for soybean and corn in the later part of Q2 and into Q3, primarily in Q3. So that is when we expect this to become positive. And honestly, I have no doubt that it's going to be positive in 2025.

Yeah, and I want to reiterate with your comment, Frank, my very, very high confidence in H2. I know the numbers look big compared to Q1, Q2, but it's a deliberate strategy. I am as happy as I could be from the way Q1 happened. We met all of our objectives. We're going to carry on that to maybe a smaller extent in Q2 because we've done the vast majority of the work in Q1. We're going to start Q3 with a very, very clean channel. We have two sources of revenue growth, which are very well identified with not a lot of expectation from the market moving, but us moving. The price, we're going to be comparing to a very low pricing situation in the back end of last year. And the EBITDA, as I said before, a big part of it is already in the book. So I know the number looks big, but it's not as big of a stretch as the numbers seem to show.

This concludes the FMC Corporation Conference Call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.