ArborGen Holdings Limited (ARB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to ArborGen's Annual Shareholders Meeting. I'm Dave Knott, Chairman of the Board. It's great to be back in New Zealand to meet shareholders and talk about ArborGen's performance. Thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to advise that a quorum is present and that the meeting has been duly convened. The notice of meeting, which includes the explanatory notes, has been circulated to all shareholders, and I intend to take it as read. The audited financial statements for the year ended March 31, 2026, were released on the 26th of June and included in the annual report. In attendance today are representatives from our auditors, Grant Thornton, as well as members of the ArborGen team and other advisers. Welcome to you all. For those of you attending the meeting online, if you would like to submit a question, the Q&A is always open. So please feel free to submit questions throughout the meeting. These will be addressed at the relevant time. Please also note that your questions may be moderated or if we receive multiple questions on one topic amalgamated together. When asking a question in the room, please use the microphone and introduce yourself by name. A reminder that only shareholders, proxy holders or corporate representatives may ask questions during the meeting. Any questions not answered in time will receive an e-mail response after the meeting. Voting today will be conducted by way of poll. I now declare voting open for all resolutions. If you are eligible, you'll be able to cast your vote under the Vote tab. If you have the ability to vote -- you have the ability to vote at any time up until the time I declare voting closed. With me today are our 2 New Zealand-based directors, Paul Smart and George Adams as well as ArborGen's Interim CEO, Patrick Cumbie. Joining us online from the U.S. are directors, Tom Avery and Ozy Horton; and ArborGen's CFO, Christina Green. Paul and Tom are both standing for reelection today, and we'll talk to shareholders later in the meeting. I want to use my address to talk directly about where ArborGen stands today, the progress we have made, what comes next and other matters that we know are important to shareholders. There is much about ArborGen that gives us confidence. We have strong market positions, valuable intellectual property and genetics, long-standing customer relationships and a growing business in Brazil with significant long-term potential. However, our overall performance is not yet where we hoped it would be, and we recognize that the shareholder experience has been disappointing. In particular, our share price remains at a level that none of us are satisfied with and low liquidity in ArborGen shares is a genuine concern for some shareholders. As a Board, we are very conscious that ultimately, we need to demonstrate the value within ArborGen through stronger performance and better returns. It's worth looking back at our market development since the sale of our Australia and New Zealand business in fiscal year '22, following which we focused our resources on our 2 core markets, the U.S. South and Brazil. Since then, those markets have followed quite different paths. In Brazil, we moved quickly to build scale in a large and growing forestry market. Revenue increased from around $8 million in '22 to approximately $30 million in '26, growing from 16% to more than 40% of our group revenue. Over that period, we acquired and leased additional nurseries, expanded production and increased total capacity to more than 135 million seedlings annually, including our contract growers. That rapid expansion also created challenges. Systems, processes and financial disciplines did not always develop at the same pace as the business. While drought-related production constraints in recent years affected yields and increased costs. Our focus has, therefore, shifted from building scale to consolidating what we have built. We have strengthened the team, financial processes and production planning and are shifting sales to higher value protected clones and are focused on improving yields and productivity. This is an ongoing process with improvement initiatives still underway. The U.S. has followed a different path. In '22, the business was performing strongly. With record advanced genetic sales, we continue to invest in higher-value MCP genetics, container capacity and our nursery network. However, weaker housing construction, reduced timber harvesting and the structural decline in the pulp demand progressively reduced seedling demand. What initially appeared cyclical has developed into a more fundamental change in the market. We have responded by reducing costs and rightsizing the footprint, including nursery rationalization and the sale of noncore operations, a process that is ongoing this year. At the same time, we continue to invest behind our key competitive advantage, advanced genetics. In a market increasingly focused on higher-value sawtimber, we believe the ability to grow better performing trees remains highly relevant. In 2026, we delivered a result ahead of revised guidance and within the range originally set. Revenue was a record result despite the weak U.S. market. Earnings and margin also recovered year-on-year. This was supported by increasing average sales prices as our strategy to move customers to higher-value products bears fruit. This remains one of our strategic priorities. Margins have moved around as the business has grown and market conditions have changed. In Brazil, the rapid expansion has brought significant revenue growth, but also the cost of building capacity, integrating new operations and addressing production and process challenges. In the U.S., lower volumes have reduced utilization of our nursery network and increased the impact of fixed costs. At the same time, we have continued to invest in higher-value products, advanced genetics and containerized seedlings, and this remains an important driver of margin over the longer term. Our focus now is on building revenue, reducing costs and converting the scale and capability we have built into stronger returns. That focus on stronger returns also needs to translate into improved cash generation. Over recent years, we have invested significantly in building ArborGen's growth platform, particularly in Brazil, while challenging conditions in the U.S. have constrained earnings and cash flow. As a result, debt is higher than we would like. Our priorities are now changing. With much of the investment required to establish the Brazil platform behind us, we are increasingly focused on generating more cash from the assets and capacity already in place. That means disciplined capital expenditure, tighter working capital management, improved margins and productivity and continuing to review our asset base for opportunities to release capital. Reducing debt is a clear priority for the Board. Stronger operating cash flow, together with proceeds from the divestment of surplus or noncore assets where appropriate, will be directed towards deleveraging. The sale of the Ridgeville building has reduced debt by $8.6 million with a flow-on benefit from lower interest costs this year. This is an important part of the next phase for ArborGen, translating earnings growth into cash, strengthening the balance sheet and creating greater flexibility for the future. We recognize that shareholders have heard us talk about ArborGen's potential for some time. Our priority now is to convert that potential into stronger earnings, cash flow and returns. There is no single initiative that will achieve this. It requires continued profitable growth in Brazil, improving the performance and cost structure of the U.S. business and disciplined capital allocation. Importantly, growth needs to create value, not simply add scale. Some shareholders have asked whether ArborGen should undertake another strategic review, particularly given the performance of our share price. Our last review in 2021 followed an unsolicited approach to acquire the company. Rather than simply reject an offer we believe materially undervalued ArborGen, we appointed PwC to test a broad range of alternatives, including asset and company sales and a potential U.S. listing. That process resulted in the sale of our Australian and New Zealand operations for NZD 22.25 million. However, the proposal received for the wider business did not represent better value than retaining and investing in the U.S. and Brazil. Much has changed since then. The U.S. market has undergone a significant structural reset, while Brazil has developed into an important growth business. We do not believe another formal review simply for the sake of undertaking a process is necessarily the answer, but we are not closed to alternatives. The Board continues to assess our portfolio, capital allocation and opportunities to realize greater value. Our objective is not to preserve ArborGen in its current form. It is to maximize value for all Shareholders. I also want to address our share price and liquidity. ArborGen has a relatively limited free float of around 50% of issued capital and low trading volumes. The Board has acted where appropriate, and our 2024 share buyback resulted in approximately 5.9 million shares being acquired and canceled. We cannot determine the price at which our shares trade, but we can improve the performance of the business and allocate capital carefully. Ultimately, we believe that stronger financial performance is the most sustainable way to create shareholder value. As our shareholders may know, Justin Birch recently resigned as Chief Executive after 3 years with ArborGen. On behalf of the Board, I acknowledge Justin's contribution. His departure also provides an opportunity to consider the leadership ArborGen needs for its next phase. We're also aware of shareholder interest in the equity arrangements put in place when Justin was appointed. The tenure-based restricted shares, a common remuneration practice in the U.S., vested in accordance with the terms approved at the time. Performance-based shares under the long-term incentive plan were not awarded as the targets were not met. The Board recognizes that executive remuneration is judged alongside company performance and shareholder returns. For future leadership, we will ensure executive reward is clearly aligned with sustained performance, delivery against our strategic priorities and long-term shareholder value. The next phase for ArborGen is about execution. I've talked about our 3 priorities for this year. We have a strong position in the U.S. South, notwithstanding structural challenges facing that market and an increasingly valuable growth platform in Brazil. Our task is to make more of those positions. In Brazil, that means consolidating and integrating our operations following a period of rapid expansion, capturing the growth available to us and continuing to increase the contribution from higher-value protected clones. In the U.S., it means ensuring the business is configured appropriately for a structurally smaller market while continuing to upsell our customers to the higher quality advanced genetics that differentiate ArborGen. We need to expand our margins, firstly, by growing sales of higher-value products, but also by improving our focus on commercial and operational excellence and optimizing our existing assets. Across the group, we need to generate stronger cash flow, drive profit and be disciplined about where we invest. We will also continue to challenge our assumptions about the business and remain open to opportunities that could deliver greater value. For fiscal year '27, we are targeting continued improvement in revenue, cash generation and debt reduction. This will be driven by continued volume growth in Brazil, some revenue growth in the U.S., further improvements in operating leverage and continued investment in advanced products. We're not providing guidance at this time, but we'll look to do so with the half year results in November. I recognize that shareholders, particularly those who have been with ArborGen for many years, want to see tangible evidence of progress. That is a reasonable expectation and one which the Board shares. We are shareholders, too, and our interests are aligned in wanting ArborGen's underlying value to be reflected in the returns delivered to all shareholders. We believe ArborGen has valuable assets, strong market positions and a genuine growth opportunity in Brazil. Our priority is to convert those strengths into improved earnings, cash generation and ultimately, better returns for shareholders. It is important to remember the time lines that we are working with. Our customers are planting for forest they won't harvest for 25 years or more. In today's market where volumes are constrained, the path to earnings resilience is through quality. While they may be planting less, our customers are increasingly planting higher-quality seedlings, an area in which we excel. As VP of Product Development, Interim Chief Executive, Patrick Cumbie, has played an essential role in building ArborGen's leadership position in advanced genetics. I'll now hand over to him to talk to you about our product portfolio and the position of strength that gives us in the market.

Thanks, Dave. Good morning. It's good to be with you today as we talk about ArborGen, both the past year and as we look forward. As you're all aware, this is a season of leadership transition for the company. I'm grateful for this opportunity to serve the ArborGen team in this interim role. I've been in the industry for 24 years. 16 of those have been with ArborGen. I started as a project scientist working on biotechnology projects and over the years have progressed into senior management. For me, Forest Genetics is a passion. I'm excited to lead the company through this time so we can continue to provide superior genetics to the market, educate the market on the value proposition and provide excellent quality and service to our customers and partners. Working in product development has given me a unique opportunity to work both with our sales team to support partners and customers, but also very much be integrated into the operations, working with seed orchards, nurseries, our genetic deployment and quality assurance. We are poised to move forward to successfully execute our strategy of higher adoption of MCP in the U.S. and in Brazil, continue to deploy and sell advanced families of pine and protected clones of eucalyptus. As Dave said, we have 3 strategic priorities this year to build sales of high-value products, expand our margins and generate cash to support profit and debt reduction. The management team has identified 4 critical areas to help us be successful. These are not a departure from our previous focus but represent a streamlining of what is essential, providing clear focus for our team. Firstly, people and culture. We have no hope of achieving operational or financial success without a committed group. As mentioned in years past, we have been working to put the right people into leadership positions as well as technical and operational roles. The long-term nature of our industry and our business also means we need a team who is committed to the mission of the company. Especially in a time of transition, we are focusing on strengthening our culture to make sure we put our best foot forward to achieve sales, production and quality goals. The combined experience, talent and institutional knowledge across our 2 regions is something our competitors cannot replicate overnight, and we cannot afford to lose. The next is genetics leadership. Our genetic resource in the U.S. is a tremendous asset. We will continue to produce the best Loblolly pine seedlings available in the market, invest in our product development efforts to prepare the next generation of trees, orchards and seedlings that go out to our customers. This past year, we refreshed our pine products, which I will talk about today. In Brazil, the supply of U.S. pine genetics continues to be in demand and the protected clones of eucalyptus will be the focus of our work as well as developing our own proprietary clones for the market. The third is operational excellence. As the market headwinds continue to be a challenge in the U.S., it is imperative to make necessary adjustments to reduce costs, and we're looking very closely at how, where and what we grow in the U.S. In Brazil, we significantly expanded our production capacity over the last 2 years with nursery acquisitions and new partnerships. Now it is time to take them to be one company as we work to align our operating efficiency and management of these facilities. Finally, financial stability. We have invested heavily in expanding our U.S. container product and nursery capacity as well as nursery capacity in Brazil. Our focus now is on maximizing the value of those investments to generate cash, reduce net debt and increase our ability to make measured investments for growth in both geographies. The genetics dividend. Having worked in product development, I wanted to share some thoughts on ArborGen's products and offer what gives us such a strong position in the market. Growers are making decisions today that won't deliver payback for more than 25 years into the future. The seedlings they put in the ground impact growth, form, wood properties, the health and survival of the forest. This all compounds across time, hectares and harvest decisions. It influences everything from thinning options to the final product mix at harvest. And this is really where genetics fits in. It's an important upfront choice that delivers outsized long-term returns for the grower. Genetics has been recognized in the U.S. and Loblolly pine for many decades, but understanding and confirming that value creation with mature stands has been lacking. We are now getting very positive feedback from customers who invested in MCP 10 to 15 years ago and are now thinning plantations. One customer has invested significantly to assess the difference between open pollinated and MCP genetics and operational plantations, and we are excited to see that operational data confirms and reinforces the value proposition of MCP. Traditionally, growers have had access to pulp markets, which provided a mid-rotation cash flow from thinnings. This often drove decision on how many trees per hectare to plant. With the loss of these markets in some areas, growers are considering planting fewer trees. This could be a dramatic number. It may be more subtle, but this could impact the overall market size. It will also drive growers to consider their genetics because they will need better and better trees. In essence, with fewer trees per hectare planted, the success of each tree planted becomes more important. Growers need every tree to have a high probability of producing sawtimber, where traditional open pollinated families might produce stems from 40% to 60% quality stems, MCP offers 75% to 85% quality, a much better option when you reduce your planting densities, so every tree counts. This past year in the U.S., we refreshed our pine product categories with clear brand tiers for our MCP pine seedlings. Building on a decade of testing across the Southeast and deeper integration of proprietary and cooperative data, the team developed the AG score, a single index that evaluates families in each region based on the traits that most impact plantation success. Each tier is designed to make seedling selection easier and highlight tangible performance benefits for the grower. We've had positive feedback from customers on the rebranding and the data-driven approach. Value creation is about growing more tons of wood that will qualify as sawtimber rather than pulpwood. The AG Score index and refreshed product categories help customers understand the opportunity that comes with selecting higher-performing genetic products. We are seeing the real-world forest plantations planted with MCP Pro Plus seedlings show significant growth improvement over OP seedlings and the sawtimber at harvest is projected to be more than double that of OP due to the improvements of yield and quality. And in eucalyptus, in Brazil, we continue to focus on producing protected clones that are licensed from other companies. Our product development team is also working to bring ArborGen clones to market, including testing the clones across multiple regions to identify which performed best in specific geographies. Our advantage is the combination of a sustained decades-long research and development program, rigorous field testing and data capture and the operational ability to commercialize winning genetics at scale. Our strategy is designed to grow the adoption of advanced genetics while strengthening the operating foundation that allows us to deliver performance, consistency and service at scale. We are intentionally focused on products on markets where the combination of scale, long-term planting demand and customer sophistication makes advanced genetics most valuable. The market opportunities in Brazil remain compelling, and we are well positioned to convert those into sustained earnings growth. While the U.S. South is more challenging, we remain one of the leading suppliers of advanced genetic seedlings in the market. The emerging carbon forestry market also presents a meaningful long-term opportunity, and we are already partnering with carbon developers and co-hosting industry events that position ArborGen at the center of this conversation. Thank you, and I'll hand it back to Dave.

Thank you, Patrick. I would now like to invite questions in relation to the annual report or today's presentations. There will be an opportunity to ask questions about the resolutions once they have been put to shareholders. If you would like to ask a question and are in the room, please raise your hand and wait for the microphone to be brought to you. Are there any questions? -- one here.

Got one here.

Thank you very much. First of all, I'm happy to see you reducing debt. It's always a positive sign for any company. What are your markets outside of this U.S.A. and Brazil? We know you grow there. Are your products exported outside of those 2 markets? Or are they just within the U.S.A. and within Brazil?

Sure. Patrick, do you want to talk about the end markets for the pulp and everything in Brazil?

I'm sure currently, Brazil and the Southeastern U.S. are the target for the markets for products. There is some opportunity to expand other global geographies as well as other -- specifically some places in South America beyond Brazil have potential for the future, but we're not currently sending products there.

And if you're asking about where our trees that are planted once they're harvested and turned in timber, are you asking about where they go after that?

I was going to ask you that. But just are the companies you supply to, are they just located within Brazil and U.S.

Correct.

With global warming, and we've seen the forest fires in Canada and Europe and so forth.

And the U.S.

In U.S. and who knows what happens here. What do you have in place? What's the -- sorry, with the global warming, what are the risks to your harvesting facilities given global warming given hurricanes and cyclones, what sort of thing happen? What are the risks to your harvesting facilities?

Sure. I mean, if you recall, I believe it was 2018, we had a hurricane hit one of our orchards in Florida, and it was detrimental to the business for about 7 years. I think that's always a concern of ours is weather affecting our production facilities in the U.S. Drought is more of an issue in Brazil, I think, in terms of weather, not storms necessarily.

Yes. So different climatic regions in Brazil. And so that is a mitigation to make sure for our facilities at nurseries that we have water supply that we have controls to buffer against those climatic changes over time, which we are positioned to do. And in the U.S., mitigating the risk of a storm hitting or damaging any single facility has been a focus the last few years to make sure our genetic material is spread across different locations to mitigate that risk.

And we've also invested heavily since 2018 in building our inventory so that if a single storm event does affect us disproportionately in a certain region, we should be okay for several years following that, given our inventory build. Are there any other questions in the room? Sir?

Mr. Chairman, Alan Best, and I'm carrying the Shareholders' Association proxy votes. Can you go back to the chart, which showed the total market and the addressable market and the ArborGen current volumes and get Patrick, if you wouldn't mind to just enlarge on that a little bit so that we know where the figures come from. We know what the ArborGen current volume would be. And a little bit about the potential that's hidden in there at -- even in the U.S. South, it would seem so that we can get an idea of the future because as shareholders, we're investing for the future regardless of the poor performance that we've had in the past 10 years or so.

Sure. So the source of the information, so particularly like in the U.S. South, we have some university-based as well as some private organizations that track market size, seedlings planted acres reforested. And so total numbers will come from those sources. And then we can look at from those sources, how many acres, how many seedlings planted fall into that addressable market of customers that we have the potential to reach versus what we're actually selling. And those will rise and fall with markets as far as reforestation acres in a given year. But we certainly have the ability to grow in capturing more of that addressable market in time. That is both converting people, educating them so that they understand the choices they have with advanced genetics. And so there's certainly a lot of opportunity to convert current customers in that -- within our current volume as well as growing more into the addressable market in the U.S.

Yes. And the green circle represents the vertically integrated players in the industry that don't touch seedling sales.

Right. So the green overall total market that's not part of the addressable would be companies that have their own programs. So they're not looking to source seedlings externally. In Brazil, that would be the same description, the overall green. There are quite a few integrated companies that supply their own needs. So that's not addressable to us. But they don't -- they are not fully self-sufficient. And so some of that capacity does go into the addressable market in blue in Brazil. But Brazil is growing in need for the wood with facilities being constructed for new pulp mills. There's also continued interest for charcoal for the steel industry and growing interest in biomass sources from wood and eucalyptus in particular, in plantation forestry. So there's opportunity for that addressable market size to grow there over time.

Are there any other questions? Here we go.

Long-term shareholder. You mentioned you're out of Australia and New Zealand now.

Yes, we have been since fiscal year '22.

Labor government came in just into a turn and they made some announcement about putting billion trees.

I recall.

Did we supply -- did you people supply much to them?

I -- we haven't been involved with the business here. They still operates under the ArborGen banner under different ownership for the past, I guess, 4 or 5 years. But I do believe that some of our customers were supplying trees to that program, but I don't recall -- it wouldn't be relevant today anyway, but -- so I'm not quite sure. Yes, we would have supplied some back when we were doing that when they announced that program. Yes, but it was some time ago.

At the time, 1 billion trees was a big number, spread over how many years. And obviously, governments not had meet their promises anyway. But did you people try to -- your salespeople try to take advantage of that if you did supply significant volumes to the government?

Sure. Again, I mean, we're talking 5, 6-plus years ago. But yes, we did get involved with that process. I think it was 1 billion trees over 10 years at the time when it was announced and some of our -- to our customers, we were definitely involved in that at the time. I don't know what the current ownership of ArborGen in New Zealand and Australia has involvement in that program now.

The reason I bring this sort of thing is that we be pretty poorly aggrieved shareholders praying for some sort of miraculous sales opportunity to boost your sales. Now with global warming and a big chance of forest being burned, not a great thing, but is there a way to approach governments and sell your good product to them rather than to individual smaller owners?

I mean, I guess there's a chance to approach the government in certain aspects of reforestation that are being done, but not in the sense of wildfires and stuff like that. That's not our products. But Patrick can speak about this better. There's not really.