Conference Transcript - NTR 2026-02-24

Joel, Conference Host

All right, good morning to day two of the mining conference, day four for some of us. Our first session this morning with Nutrien is with Nutrien, of course, the largest fertilizer producer, a large retail player as well. Let's welcome Ken Seitz, President and CEO, to the stage. We're going to do a fireside chat, so if you want to submit questions, please do it on the app and we'll weave them in. Ken, why don't you kick off maybe like a few minutes, day to the union, what's going on with Nutrien in the markets? Yeah.

Ken Seitz, CEO

So thanks, Joel. Thanks for the invitation. Good to see you, and thanks everyone for joining. Yeah, so, you know, Nutrien, we're in the agriculture business, and it continues to be the case that the world demands more food. And we sort of talk about that from time to time, but we like to remind that there's still 800 million food-insecure people on the planet, and that every year farmers, governments, families learn how to do more with the land that they have. And they do that by agronomically choosing better practices. And so that's seeds and germ plasms and killing weeds and killing bugs and, of course, balanced fertilization. And we see that. We see that every year that as farmers get better, as they become more knowledgeable, as they apply best practices, they frankly use more of what we produce so that in among all that we have and we really believe and are proud of the fact that we have the highest asset quality to serve those growers as they seek to improve yields and so that starts with our downstream business access to over 500,000 grower accounts where we're serving those customers those farmers every day with all the inputs and services that they need to maximize yield. And that downstream business then built out with supply chains, logistics, transportation, unparalleled, I would say, on the planet to serve those customers, and then wholesale customers in over 50 countries around the world. And then, of course, all of that infrastructure backed up by, as you say, Joel, the largest network, highest asset quality for fertilizer production on the planet. We're proud of those things and find ourselves in a growing market where, again, our volumes continue to grow and our earnings in our retail business continue to grow. We believe that that's structural. We saw that in 2025 again where we added 1.3 million tons of fertilizer volumes, structurally grew our retail earnings by $300 million and pulled another $200 million out of cost. Entering 2026 and looking at guidance, we believe that there's opportunity, again, to structurally grow those earnings out of our downstream business, to maintain, improve asset quality, and to grow our fertilizer volumes once again, and we've guided accordingly. I would say that sitting above all of that work as it relates to margin improvement, as it relates to pulling out cost and growing structural or going earnings and volumes and free cash flow. We're focusing on ongoing capital allocation discipline. And, you know, that comes in, obviously, mindset around the dividend, stable and growing. We returned 30% more cash to shareholders last year, buying back our stock. and with the dividend we pulled 600 million dollars out of capex to date where you know we continue to guide that two to 2.1 billion um in in the balance sheet in a place that we're really quite comfortable last thing i'll say joel is particular focus the moment is on the portfolio when i talk about asset quality quality of earnings free cash flow conversion always looking to upgrade that and as we comb through the portfolio we see opportunity to upgrade and so we've done some things last year 900 million dollars in divestiture proceeds

Joel, Conference Host

and this year working through another set of strategic reviews on brazil on trinidad and on our phosphate business definitely talk about portfolio because you've been very active in talking about things you want to do but let's um maybe start a little high level there are questions here and thanks for so many questions keep doing it um you know i've seen the sentiment for the u.s farmer right now it seems negative uh there's lots of negative articles written every week i feel like i'm reading about whether it's liquidity or balance sheets whatever how do you at nutrient view the state of the u.s farmer and how does that affect your business and how you plan yeah so it has been challenged there's no question and you go to a few parts in

Ken Seitz, CEO

in the U.S. and the South where weather challenges combined with commodity prices that you know coming out of the last few years are obviously quite a bit lower you know we're just talking about this yesterday and looking at our retail business and and how farmers are thinking about the spring planting season we're saying 94 to 96 million acres of corn again and whether you know we're going to see some of the challenges that farmers are having in our business. And a couple things, I would say, you know, in terms of challenged accounts with growers, again, you know, we've got our new term financial business and our downstream business that really is in, you know, across North America, Australia, Brazil. We're not seeing sort of bad accounts that would be above what would be typical for this point in the cycle so it's usually half a percent to two percent we'd like to be at 1.4 percent today we're not seeing anything that's majorly alarming so that's one two is um yeah there was some bad weather in the fall so you're looking at how farmers are going to put down crop nutrients and because of the bad weather weren't able to get onto the land you're in the spring here they're going to catch that up indeed we're expecting even seeing volumes move now you know we ran our winter fill program in our potash business it was oversubscribed and so we're seeing volumes move now that would tell us that farmers are planning to plant the way that they always do in the meantime yeah you're looking at a little bit of strength in soybean prices corn prices that would kind of be at the 10-year average so you know they're not six bucks at the moment but at the 10-year average and so you put it all together combined with some government assistance and certainly in the u.s that 11 billion dollars that the trump administration and now it's just prior to the to the holidays there and perhaps uh you know some additional dollars coming from congress this year and then again some some help from the big uh one big beautiful bill there's enough there that we believe that farmers are staring into the spring again looking at their pocketbooks and saying i'm going to plant corn the way that i always do and I'm going to do the things I need to do to maximize yields in this environment. So as the current cycle bottomed out, let's see. Grain stocks to use ratio is kind of back at the 10-year average, but what we're seeing heading into the spring here is we're expecting it to be a normal spring.

Joel, Conference Host

You talked about governments. There's a lot going on with the U.S. government, obviously, every day, um but we've seen a lot that sort of are impacting on the periphery what you guys do right we see potash and phosphate they're critical minerals we see um you know doj usda talk about let's go look at if there's oligopolistic structures any kind of structures across cropping but sometimes yourself and other peers get named um you know what do you think about all that and does it mean anything for you or you're not sure oh yeah it's definitely meaningful and we take that all very seriously uh you know i think what we what we say is that

Ken Seitz, CEO

we exist in a highly competitive world and that's just a fact you see that in all of the work that we do on cost discipline and just you know and we can talk about mine automation and potash for example, where we're making those investments so that we can stay on the left of the cost curve because we need to compete. We're talking about building a new terminal on the west coast of North America, and that is related to costs and the need to compete. This is a highly competitive environment. It wasn't that long ago, as you know, Joel, that if we're talking about potash, I mean, prices were below that top producer at the end of the cost curve. Those things happen in a commoditized world. We're in a point in the commodity cycle now where we would call it sort of on potash, a little below mid-cycle pricing. Yes, phosphate is certainly above and nitrogen is somewhere on mid-cycle pricing. These things ebb and flow. We go in, when we get asked the question by any government, we say, here it is. This is a highly competitive market, a highly competitive world. We need to compete. These are the things that we do. And by the way making investments to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars every year to expand those volumes you know to in a growing market we make investments to add additional volumes to the market and we can do that economically because of where we sit on the cost curve so you know the story for us is you put that all together and you say i mean there's nothing in the form of anything untoward here if you know in fact it's the opposite of that we're doing everything in our power to compete you've really talked about the portfolio and really trying to look at if you can whittle down you know the lower performing assets and returns perspective talk about selling phosphate or restructuring phosphate you're doing work on that looking rethinking rethinking brazilian

Joel, Conference Host

retail and other brazilian businesses what you're gonna do with trinidad now that you're still in negotiations for a gas contract can you talk about progress you've made on those initiatives How do you think the year is going to play out? What might we hear about first?

Ken Seitz, CEO

So just going one by one, if we just talk about phosphate, so we are doing all of the things that you would expect that we would be doing in the context of a strategic review. And so as we at the last quarter sort of announced or talked about our plans for a strategic review, it was everything from restructured operations. And so what could restructured operations look like? It's looking at product mix, and does this make sense? It's looking at life of mine at these different assets that we have and asking the question, do we extend those reserves because we can in the region? Do we think about progressing toward decommissioning here or there? Or is there a possible sale of these assets at the other end of the continuum and everything in between? We are pulling together all of the data information that we need to for the one end of the continuum, and that is a possible sale, you know, information memorandum and data room and pulling together all of the operational data capital, all those things you need to assemble where somebody could come and have a look and make an educated estimate of whether that can make sense for them or not. or, again, on the other end of the continuum restructured operations. Where are we at? You know, we expect that next quarter we'll be able to come to the market and start testing. On Trinidad, yeah, continue to, you know, the operation is shut down, continues to be shut down. We are talking to the Trinidad government, which is in the midst of negotiating with the upstreamers at the moment and so not able to really understand their cost base. before they can come talk to us about provision of supplying of natural gas to our plant, talking to them about access to the port, which, as we talked about in 2025, was limited for us given increased port fees. And so working with the Trinidad government to better understand, is there a package here, port fees, access to port, cost of natural gas that can make sense for nutrient? And that, I don't know the answer to that. We're still talking to the Trinidad government about that. In the meantime, we're exploring all of the alternatives for Trinidad. What we saw last year, though, was that the balance of the network had stepped up. We were operating rates above 90%. We were able to meet all of our customer needs with our network ex-Trinidad. This year, we're staring at natural gas costs that are 50% Henry Hub, 50% ACO. So that is a structural advantage in our business that without Trinidad, you know, improves. Those margins improve. We're looking at all this. In the meantime, we're in a buoyant nitrogen market, a buoyant ammonia market, a buoyant urea market. And so, you know, let's see about Trinidad. But again, the priority at the moment is working through some of these challenges with the Trinidad government, which has been a slow process. Then finally, you mentioned Brazil, Joel. Yeah, we've been soul-searching, looking at each other at Nutrient, asking the question, how do we best access this exciting agricultural market? We're obviously the biggest supplier of potash into that part of the world and will continue to be. And looking at infrastructure, investment, customers, how do we preserve that ability to continue to grow with the Brazilian market? They're going to add more acres again this year, 2% probably, to the current complement of arable land. So we know we're going to do potash. We know we're going to do proprietary products, particularly crop nutritionals in that part of the world. It's this retail question that, as you know, Joel, has been challenged. And at the moment, we're just assessing whether, how, and whether that retail presence is required and necessary for us to achieve our overall objectives in Brazil. And, you know, we expect to have some conclusions on all of these files this year, 2026.

Joel, Conference Host

Okay, lots of questions on potash. Let's talk about that. So, like you said, potash prices are sitting around good, below mid-cycle, but too good, maybe Goldilocks. Can you talk about the markets a bit? Like, it looks like prices are a little bit weaker in the U.S., pretty strong offshore markets. How would you look at it?

Ken Seitz, CEO

Yeah, I think that's right. I mentioned our winter fill program in the U.S. that was oversubscribed. We were quite pleased with that. And when it was done, we went up 20. And so on a short-ton basis, yes, a little bit less than 3, you know, the equivalent of a metric ton at the sort of 3.70 that it is in Brazil. But, you know, these markets sort of ebb and flow, depending on what's going on internationally and supply and demand regionally. You know, what I would say is Brazil, as you say, Joel, has been kind of just a bit below mid-cycle. I mentioned $370. It might move up or down $3 a ton, it seems, every week. But we're in about that range. And, you know, they ended their season with historically low inventories in Brazil. and hence that's some of the strength in pricing as the Brazilians seek to rebuild inventory. It still continues to be the case that it's a bit hand-to-mouth in that part of the world. So, you know, it's why we see some of the increased volatility in Brazil that we might, as we compare to previous years, we're seeing a bit more volatility. It's because when the Brazilians step out of the market, they step out of the market, and when they step in, sort of step in a big way and replenish those inventories. And again, inventories being replenished. We had a historically early contract with the Chinese. You know, that 349 helped us set the floor as usual globally. But it just speaks to the low inventories that were sitting at ports and inland in China and the need for the Chinese to come get that contract in place, get those volumes flowing. We know that Chinese domestic production is declining. It's been that way for years. It continues to decline. We know that the Laotian supply into China has been challenged, geotechnically challenged, production challenges, and you put that all together, and the Chinese continue to look to seaborne imports, continue to look for rail from Russia, and hence with depleted inventories, the early contract settlement. We expect the Indians to follow here soon. that, again, as it relates to inventory and the need to get volume into the country. Chinese are taking it all at the moment because they have a contract, and the Indians are going to have to step in and do the same. So market to market, you step back from all that, Joel, and you say, we talked about North American agriculture. You go globally, palm oil continues to be very strong. Coffee, cocoa continues to be very strong. You can go region to region, And we're expecting, again, we're saying 74 to 77 million tons. Again, potash volume growth, demand growth globally again this year. This will be the fourth year in a row. And, of course, we're going to play our part in increasing our production.

Joel, Conference Host

I don't necessarily want to ask you the Janssen question, but the people want to ask the Janssen question in different permutations. Janssen was always so far off.

Ken Seitz, CEO

Now it looks like they're going to have first tons. well let's reiterate it's first times and maybe by the second half of 27 maybe become meaningful end of 28 in potash or 20 29 um it's it's it's getting here how does that change the market your positioning or do you have to wait until they're on the market and then reassess that no you know um again you sort of step back um and look at the potash industry over the last i don't know 15 20 years and ask the question is it growing and it just continues to grow and it's not linear but on average it's kind of that two and a half percent average annual growth rates and that has been on average extraordinarily consistent again four years in a row we're back to trend level demand what we call trend level demand and demand growth after all the volatility associated with the conflict in eastern europe and you look now to the end of the decade early next and you say well probably an 80 to 85 million ton market continues to go it's going to need additional it's going to need additional tons and so we do you know all the demand growth we stack and where we see the tons coming from and we have our own lens that we look through for that we don't just take everyone's you know publicly announced uh volume growth we we we haircut as as we see fit and we factor that into the supply and demand stack and then what role Nutrien plays in the context of supply and demand in a balanced market. And through now, end of this decade, early next, we see a balanced market. And we would say we're in a balanced market today and we see a balanced market through that time period. I think importantly is we apply our lens, we do, but if you look at every 10 years, announced plans, what people expect to do, there's usually about 6 or 7 million tons of supply destruction of some form in that decade-long period, and that is mine floods or, you know, collapses or infrastructure.

Joel, Conference Host

We're due for a sinkhole somewhere.

Ken Seitz, CEO

Yeah, well, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I'm just saying on average, you know, those are the things that happen. So as we apply our lens, but then once we do, everything kind of has to work pretty well in order to meet that growing demand. And so while we call it a balanced market, there's a version of this future and probably skewed to that where, you know, actually it could be even tighter.

Joel, Conference Host

If I think about how you model potash forecast, typically, you know, you'll come up with a global shipment number and then you'll say, well, Nutrin should get 19 to 20 percent market share, something like that. As Janssen comes on the next couple of years, is it safe to say your projections would be, you know, 19, 20 percent becomes, I don't know the number, 18 to 19 or something like that. Like, is that how you know it? You'd still say 19 to 20 is yours? Yeah, we're not changing our plans.

Ken Seitz, CEO

I mean, again, you know, you look at our ability to expand. It's kind of the $200 a ton, CapEx, brownfield investments at our current six-mine network. And we're not talking about lead times that are measured in the, you know, in the decades. We're talking about lead times, and it's mining machines and conveyance. I mean, the shafts are built, the mills are built, some infrastructure investments on surface as it relates to loadout capability required. But you add that all up, it's $200 a ton. That would be an order of magnitude less than a greenfield site. You can ask the question, in that mix, can nutrient compete? And we can absolutely compete. And, you know, you look at that cost curve. I mean, there's some production to the right of that cost curve that we'll see. But in the meantime, Nutrient plans to – we plan to be in the market the way that we always have been.

Joel, Conference Host

I got a question about long-term retail segment growth algorithm. Before doing that, maybe we could talk about, you know, two or three years ago, you gave a 2026 retail guide of getting around $2 billion EBITDA, $1.9 to $2.1. You're going to come in this year now on your latest guidance from $1.85, so maybe $1.50 below your kind of expectations. Can you first explain sort of what you thought a few years ago, what ended up happening to be a little bit lower, and maybe we'll talk about going forward.

Ken Seitz, CEO

Yeah, you know, I would say probably the assumptions that we made a few years ago, and we started talking about this at the start of this, Joel, was some assumptions about just a bit better ag environment compared to the one that we've, you know, maybe just coming through and the challenges facing, you know, obviously the North American farmer, or whether it's corn in the U.S. or whether it's canola in Canada and other challenges globally that agriculture has faced with some assumptions about just a bit better ag environment that how does that translate? Then translates into our proprietary products and the uptake of those things. It translates in our ability to continue to organically grow. And so, you know, when we talked about the 1.9 to 2.1 billion last year and how we're sorry in 2024 in as a target for this year and how we're guiding this year you know the delta is probably mostly just the ag environment you know i think importantly if you look at what we have done over that period i mean it's it is growing and we believe structurally growing earnings by 400 million dollars in that business over that over that time frame you look at how we're guiding this year again it's growth earnings growth in our retail business and that's organic growth it's network optimization it's continuing to grow our proprietary products that we can continue to stack it and we call structural in nature that we get excited about we're talking about we're planning an investor day again this year and in the fall and we'll be talking about exactly that our investor day again this year so i think about the growth algorithm going forward retail let's say let's ignore tuckens for a second What would you think is kind of the growth algorithm?

Joel, Conference Host

You may have to talk about whether Brazil's in or out of that, but it's not that big part of the business. And then if we layer on tuck-ins, how would the growth algorithm change?

Ken Seitz, CEO

Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't like to hardwire sort of tuck-ins as something that's going to, you know, stack earnings, only because we're very selective about that. It depends on the environment that we're in and the opportunities that come our way. You know, what I would say, Joel, is one is, again, proprietary network optimization. We continue to see the opportunity to grow probably at the same kind of rate. If you look at the last five years, we can probably project that forward as a similar growth rate. I think importantly is, you know, part of the equation in earnings growth in our retail business has been the opportunity to pull out cost, and it's really, really very significant. And that comes in the form of looking at unproductive branches and closing them. It comes in the form of, you know, just overall SG&A and efficiency and productivity. We've had a particular focus on that in our retail business. We believe there's more there to be done. And it's in the context of, you know, a competitive landscape changing ag environment. It's also in the context of just productivity and efficiency. The investments we're making in technology that are going to improve productivity pull out costs. And so I think when you put it all together, we can sort of say we believe in the same kind of growth rates in our retail business that we've seen over the last five years projecting that forward.

Joel, Conference Host

So the stock's been working quite nicely lately. People are starting to get the story a bit more, hopefully, the last little while. What do you think, you know, wrapping up the next minute here, what do you think people get wrong on Nutrien that you'd like to, you know, speak about?

Ken Seitz, CEO

You know, I think I don't know that people are getting it wrong, Joel. I think it's just continuing to talk about what I started with. That is, we're in a growing market, and that has been quite rateable for some period of time. And, yeah, it doesn't happen, like I say, linearly, but it has been happening. Among that, we believe we have the highest quality assets in the business upstream of that acre. That quality is, you know, we can talk about asset quality from a number of perspectives, quality of earnings ability to convert to cash um that quality is growing and that's by continuing to comb that portfolio and ask the question you know can we improve in the meantime pulling out cost you know i i think that um when you put that all together it's a story that says there's an opportunity here with with what nutrient currently has under its roof just to continue to improve And then there's an opportunity for nutrient to continue to grow in a market that's growing. Those two things put together has been, I think, certainly part of the story. Thanks, Ken. Yep. Pleasure, Joel. Thank you.