Bunge Global SA (BG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Bunge Global S.A. Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Release and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mark Haden, IR. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Keith, and thank you all for joining us this morning for our third quarter 2026 earnings call. Before we get started, I want to let you know that we have slides to accompany our discussion. These can be found at the Investor Center on our website at bunge.com under Events and Presentations. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure are posted on our website as well. I'd like to direct you to Slide 2 and remind you that today's presentation includes forward-looking statements that reflect Bunge's current view with respect to future events, financial performance and industry conditions. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Bunge has provided additional information in its reports on file with the SEC concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in this presentation, and we encourage you to review these factors. On the call [indiscernible] are Greg Heckman, Bunge's Chief Executive Officer; and John Neppl, Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Greg.

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to start by acknowledging the extraordinary work of our teams around the world in what remains a highly dynamic environment. Geopolitical tensions, evolving government policies and global weather patterns continue to change agricultural flows. And our team navigated it successfully with discipline and focus. They stay close to our customers, responding quickly to changing conditions and delivered strong third quarter results. I want to spend a moment on what makes that possible. Our competitive advantage in this environment is not simply the scale of our physical network, it's the flexibility that scale gives us as we connect supply with demand, adapting as market conditions change. When farmers need additional routes to market, or customers at the other end of the value chain need alternative sources of supply, our expanded network gives us more options while our integrated operating model allows us to act on them quickly. We can redirect crop flows, work around physical constraints and keep supply connected to demand across regions, while taking a level of risk appropriate for the environment. That combination of scale, connectivity and flexibility becomes more valuable the more complex the environment gets, and this quarter was another good example of those capabilities at work. We also continue to make progress on the opportunities created by our combination with Viterra where our work is increasingly shifting from integration to value creation. We are successfully capturing the cost savings we targeted while embedding the commercial and network opportunities we identified into how we operate, supporting better decisions, improved asset utilization and more coordinated customer coverage. These improvements are becoming part of how we run the business every day, and we expect their contributions to compound over time. Additionally, our investment cycle is reaching an important inflection point. To expand our capabilities and strengthening the products and services we provide to customers, we made the decision several years ago to invest across a number of large greenfield projects. The first to come online was our Morristown, Indiana, soy protein plant. Earlier this month, our joint venture with Chevron commissioned its new multi-seed processing facility in Destrehan, Louisiana. We also started up our barge unloader located at the same complex. That leaves just 1 major project yet to come online, our multi-oil refinery in Weston, Netherlands, which we expect to start up in the first quarter of 2027. As these projects ramp up, the regular course commissioning and start-up costs will increasingly give way to earnings growth from capital that has already been deployed. We also continued to sharpen our portfolio reaching an agreement earlier this month to sell 2 noncore sugar mills in Brazil that became part of Bunge through the Viterra combination. Turning to our operating outlook. Based on what we can see today, including our results through the first 9 months of the year, current market conditions and the forward curves, we are maintaining our full year adjusted EPS range of $9.25 to $9.75. While the environment remains difficult to predict, we're confident in our ability to deliver as conditions evolve. With that, I'll turn it over to John for a deeper look at our financial results and outlook.

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to the earnings highlights on Slide 5. Our reported third quarter earnings per share was $1.64 compared to $0.86 in the third quarter of 2025. Our reported results included an unfavorable mark-to-market timing difference of $0.28 per share and an unfavorable impact of $0.64 from notable items consisting of $0.43 per share related to the announced sale of 2 sugarcane mills in Brazil, $0.11 per share related to charges resulting from the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and $0.10 per share related to Viterra integration costs. Adjusted EPS was $2.56 in the third quarter versus $2.27 in the prior year. Adjusted segment earnings before interest and taxes, or EBIT was $997 million in the quarter versus $924 million last year. In the soybean processing and refining segment, North America was the largest contributor to the improved performance, driven by stronger processing results, partially offset by lower refining. In South America, improved performance reflected stronger processing results in Argentina and Brazil, partially offset by lower fertilizer and refining results in both countries. Within the destination value chain, stronger processing results in Europe were partially offset by lower origination as well as lower processing results in Asia. Global soybean oil merchandising results were lower than last year. Lower processing volume in South America and Asia were partially offset by higher volumes in Europe. Processing volume in the U.S. was in line with last year. In the softseeds processing refining segment, all regions performed well, with North America processing and refining activities being the primary driver of improvement. In Europe, strong processing results were partially offset by lower refining and biodiesel results. In Argentina, processing and refining results were lower. Global distribution results declined partially offset by stronger canola origination in Canada and Australia. Softseed oil merchandising improved compared to last year. Softseed processing volumes increased across all regions, supported by the more favorable margin environment. The tropical oils and specialty ingredients segment, results were lower in North America, Europe and Asia, primarily driven by near-term margin impacts associated with geopolitical trade disruptions, along with commissioning, ramp up and plant transition costs related to both our tropical oils and soy protein concentrate businesses. Results from global tropical oils merchandising activities were higher than last year. In the grain merchandising and milling segment, higher results in global grain merchandising and commercial services were more than offset by lower results in ocean freight, sugar and wheat milling. The decrease in corporate expenses was primarily driven by performance-based compensation and favorable foreign exchange impacts. Lower other results were largely related to our captive insurance program. Net interest expense of $188 million was up in the third quarter compared to last year, primarily due to higher net debt and lower interest income, partially offset by lower borrowing costs. Let's turn to Slide 6, which shows our adjusted EPS and EBIT trends over the past 4 years and trailing 12 months. The improving trend reflects much improved market conditions in soy and softseed processing and benefits of synergy capture from our combination with Viterra. Slide 7 details our capital allocation. Year-to-date, we generated just over $2 billion of adjusted funds from operations. After allocating $410 million to sustaining CapEx, which includes maintenance environmental health and safety, we had approximately $1.6 billion of discretionary cash flow available. We paid $414 million in dividends to shareholders, invested $753 million in growth in productivity related CapEx, invested $105 million in the first quarter to acquire IFF soy protein concentrate and processing businesses and repurchased approximately $250 million in Bunge shares. This resulted in $77 million of retained cash flow. Moving to Slide 8. At quarter end, net debt exceeded readily marketable inventories, or RMI, by $1.2 billion. Our adjusted leverage ratio, which reflects our adjusted net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 1.9x at the end of the third quarter. The higher level of RMI we hold in support of our processing and merchandising activities, which primarily reflect higher average commodity prices compared to both last year and second quarter. Slide 9 highlights our liquidity position, which remains strong. At the end of the third quarter, we had committed credit facilities of approximately $9.7 billion, of which approximately $8.5 billion was unused and available. We also had approximately $900 million of our $3 billion commercial paper program available, providing ample liquidity to manage our ongoing needs. Please turn to Slide 10. For the trailing 12 months, adjusted ROIC was 8.8% and ROIC was 7%, both exceeding their respective cost of capital. Moving to Slide 11. For the trailing 12 months, we produced discretionary cash flow of approximately $1.95 billion and a cash return on equity of 12% compared to our cost of equity of 7.2%. Please turn to Slide 12 and our 2026 outlook. Taking into account Q3 results, the current margin and macro environment and forward curves, we continue to expect full year 2026 adjusted EPS in the range of $9.25 to $9.75. As Greg mentioned in his remarks, the environment remains highly dynamic with elevated uncertainty. For the full year compared to our previous outlook, soybean processing and refining segment results are forecasted to be lower -- slightly lower. Softseed processing and refining segment results are forecasted to be unchanged. We Tropical oils and Specialty Ingredients results are forecasted to be lower. Green merchandising and milling segment results are forecasted to be higher. Corporate and Other results are expected to be unchanged. Additionally, we now expect the following for 2026, an adjusted annual effective tax rate in the range of 23% to 25% compared to our previous range of 22% to 26%. Net interest expense in the range of $640 million to $670 million, which is up from our previous range of $620 million to $660 million. Capital expenditures toward the higher end of our $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion range, reflecting the timing of spending on major projects nearing completion, as Greg discussed earlier, and depreciation and amortization of approximately $975 million. With that, I'll turn things back over to Greg for some closing comments.

Thanks, John. Before turning to Q&A, I want to leave you with 3 takeaways from the quarter to tie back to the value creation framework we presented at our Investor Day earlier this year. First, our results reflect both strong execution and the advantages of the company we have built. Our value is not only the size and scale of our footprint, it is also the local granularity and [indiscernible] of our origination and distribution and our ability to operate that entire footprint as one connected network. By bringing together market insight, physical assets and disciplined risk management across origins and destinations we can identify alternatives and act with agility. That helps provide farmers with access to markets, maintains reliable supply for downstream customers and creates value as product flows adjust. Second, we're moving into the next stage of value creation from the Viterra combination. Beyond capturing ongoing cost savings, we are achieving closer coordination across origination, processing, logistics, distribution and customer relationships, allowing us to utilize assets more effectively, improve product flows and take a broader view of the margin opportunity across the network. We still have meaningful work ahead of us. But the progress to date reinforces our confidence in the cost, commercial and network opportunities made possible by the combination. Third, our investment cycle is reaching an important inflection point. For the past year, our greenfield projects carried start-up costs without providing their full commercial contribution. As these assets come online and ramp, the upfront costs will give way to higher production improved efficiency and a stronger product mix as we combine them with our network. While the external environment will continue to change, we remain confident about the opportunity in front of us and our team's ability to execute. The long-term demand drivers for our business remain strong. And our global footprint and diversified value chains give us the tools to continue delivering value for our stakeholders, farmers and customers across the food, feed and fuel industries in any environment. With that, we'll turn to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Matthew Blair with Turpin Holt.

Congrats on the results here. I wanted to ask about the soy crush markets in South America. It looks like some of the benchmark indicators in Argentina and Brazil, have been improving so far in Q4 relative to Q3. Is that flowing through on your end? Or are you seeing the same thing in your cash margins? And if so, what's driving that? And does that give you more confidence on the 2027 outlook for South America.

Yes. Thank you. If you remember, one of the things that we were really pleased about as we put the combination of Viterra and Bunge together was the balance that it now gave us regionally and especially the stronger Argentine footprint, and then we're already very strong in Brazil, but rounded that out as well. So we are just a much more complete origination domestic crushing as well as export system in both countries. So I think the agility and the ability to adapt to that is much different than the past. So Argentina was better than Q2. Brazil was a little lower. Of course, the way the FX is moving since the elections has been helpful with the lower some costs. And also we've seen some improved farmer selling. So overall, the environment is good there and the team has been executing very well.

Sounds good. And then if you had another big use of working capital in the third quarter that weighed on your free cash flow, is this because you're seeing opportunities to put this working capital to use? Do you have any indication on when the working capital might come back Q4? Or do you think that would be later in 2027?

Yes, Matt, this is John. A lot of the increase in working capital is driven just purely by price. I think volume is up slightly, but price certainly has been the bigger driver of the increase as we close Q3 and I think we'll see -- we expect to see elevated levels of working capital through the end of the year and likely early into next year. Generally, when we see higher use of working capital, that usually points to a better earnings opportunity later. As you know, handling commodities is a big part of what we do. And if we can get, obviously, the more volume we can run through the machine, usually, that's generally positive for us. So I would look through the end of the year through Q1, we expect to be using quite a bit more working capital than the prior year.

And some of that's the seasonality, of course as the Australian crop comes in in the Northern Hemisphere crop comes in. So it's an important timing year for us to get our system loaded the right way.

And the next question comes from Ben Theurer with Barclays.

John. So first of all, looking at the environment? And maybe if we kind of like back out what you're expecting for the fourth quarter implied obviously still a relatively wide range. So maybe help us train a little bit the higher end versus the lower end for the fourth quarter. Don't get me wrong, still very strong growth on a year-over-year basis, but just understanding what are you seeing and also how that compares to what you saw 3 months ago when you actually expected 3Q a little softer than that it came out in the end. So what are the puts and takes for the guidance?

Yes. If we look at Q4, some of the big flags of course, we continue to have the conflicts in the Middle East and the Black Sea. I think overall, this is probably about as complicated setup as any of us can remember, and we're really glad to be running the footprint we are with the talented team that we have and that complexity really plays to our strengths. We've got the crop in Australia that is coming in. Of course, the timing of how that crop is affected by any weather on what happens between Q4 and Q1 will be key to watch. We continue to have concerns about the weather overall and what that is doing to the behavior of the end users at this point with the conflicts that we've talked about and a lot of the uncertainty, everyone has been very spot, both sellers and the consumers and buyers. And then, of course, you've got the U.S.-China trade out there. The timing of that matters and the magnitude of that matters, the effect that, that can have on the market and the flows of some of the rerouting of origins and destinations. But that being said, I think we're in as good a position. I think that's what you saw again in Q3, where the environment probably wasn't as good towards the end of the quarter as we expected versus Q2, but the team executed very, very well and delivered another strong quarter.

Ben, I'd maybe just add that if you look at Q4 and the implied decrease in the outlook, based on us holding the full year, at the operating profit line, we're actually pretty flat. The driver for Q4 is principally 2 things. One is higher interest cost, driven by carrying a lot more working capital than maybe what we originally had projected, which we mentioned our range has gone up on our interest expense for the year. And then our tax rate is slightly up for Q4, our effective tax rate. So those 2 things are the primary driver of the implied decline. The rest of it, we talked about forward curves is a little bit softer when we looked at those in Q4 relative to prior, but then expecting better performance on the merchandising and milling side.

John, you just responded to my follow-up, so that gives me another follow-up. You read my mind here. No, I mean just looking as we think about the setup and some of the projects that come to play, right? You've said you're finishing some of those internal projects. You expect to be at the higher end of the CapEx range, so closer to the $1.7 billion. So probably fair to assume that CapEx in coming years comes down. How confident are you as it relates to the ramp-up of these new facilities and then ultimately, to drive those what you described Investor Day a few months ago, the in-flight attribution, right? These projects that are coming in, I think it was $1, $1.50 or something like that to EPS. What is your timing expectation based now that you're getting closer to completion on those -- some of those projects?

Yes. Thanks, Ben. So we're now running 3 -- of our 4 major CapEx projects are up and running. mor has gotten through commissioning and they're now in the customer qualification phase. And as you know, in the food industry, it takes a little bit longer to get that stuff rolling. And -- but we're producing product and meeting with customers and starting to fill up the plant. So we're feeling good about that. It won't be much of a contribution in '26, but we expect it to start contributing here in -- as we move into 27. Destrehan, it's a big addition to the existing crush plant that's in our joint venture with Chevron. So half those earnings are ours, but that's up and running. Again, not a meaningful contribution in '26 because of the cost for the first 3 quarters and then really the commissioning here as we get through -- into and through Q4, but we'll hit the ground running next year. And then finally, the barge unloader that's now up and running. Again, just started up recently as you look at for the full year, really not a meaningful contribution on those 3 projects, but as we look forward, Morristown into Q1 next year, we bucket all that together, we look at our growth CapEx in the next year, we expect about a $0.50 share improvement in earnings contribution from those particular projects .

One smaller, but another was our Avondale, Louisiana, plant where we increase in capacity and some capabilities there on the tropical oil side. So that also will be an improvement next year in '27 as that comes up.

And that's part of the $0.50, but yes, thanks, Greg.

And the next question comes from Manav Gupta of UBS.

I actually just wanted to understand the third quarter operating environment just a little better because there's a lot of uncertainty around small refinery exemptions. And then in the end, it actually worked out very favorably with 100% reallocation. But I'm just trying to understand, during that quarter, did that uncertainty hurt the demand a little. And now that all that is cleared up, are you seeing a stronger buying pattern from the renewable diesel producers?

Yes. I would say giving clarity around the biofuel policy is definitely going to be good for demand and good for the market overall. It's definitely created some -- as you called out, created some volatility. We do appreciate the administration's reallocation plan and we look forward to getting that done and starting to move forward and work towards SEP3. It's an important policy for farmers and for the industry around fuel security. So we look forward to that. It wasn't -- while it did create some volatility, it probably wasn't the big driver in Q3 for us. That was really execution. It's really what the teams did and probably especially here in North America. And I think a great example of some of the commercial synergies is we have the origination now that came with Viterra and we're looking at the full system through our processing and looking at the full system margin as we do our planning and make make our plans looking at the S&Ds not only in the local and regional markets, but understanding how that can be affected by the global markets. And the tightness in the Western soy crush there at the end of old crop, I think our team executed and we ran as well as anybody in the industry in the West, very proud of that. We're able to get products to our customers because we had the beans, we have the right qualities and quantities, and we saw a tighter meal market, and we're able to capitalize on those margins there at the end of the quarter. And when we didn't have a lot of open capacity, but what we did we improved on that as we executed the physical.

Yes. Manav, maybe just a couple of points on the -- you mentioned the SREs. I think one of the things to watch here in Q4, obviously, after midterm is going to be the reallocation decision. So are they going to be reallocated over '26, '27 or both years. And so we're watching that could have an impact on the market. And I'd also say in Q3, the R&D guys were a bit spot. I think just given the dynamics in the market and then there's some usual plant downtime relative to maintenance and things. So it affected demand a little bit in Q3. I think we still see tight oil demand going forward into next year. And so I think things are setting up okay.

And the next question comes from Tom Palmer of JPMorgan.

I wanted to maybe just start off asking on the merchandising dynamic, at least relative to consensus estimates, 3Q did come in a little bit light, but at the same time raising the full year outlook relative to your prior. So maybe a little detail on kind of 1 was 3Q, how did it compare to your expectations? And then two, this ramp up here as we move into 4Q, the key drivers?

Yes, I'll start. John, you come on. I think, one, Q3 as the harvest starts always a bit tough to look at the exact timing. I think we saw in the U.S. we ended up seeing bigger stocks, more corn out there. The market reacted to that. But at the same time, and I think what gives the confidence to raise things. One, very big crop coming in, in Australia, big crops coming in, in Canada. And then we've got, unfortunately, the Black Sea conflict. Our #1 priority continues to be keeping our employees safe, but the situation there is as complex and difficult as at any time during the Black Sea conflict. And so with Russia and in the Black -- Ukraine together being about 25% of global exports on wheat, that slowed down as the seaborne has been forced to go over land, it's less competitive, less volume getting out. And as that's constricted, that's pulling on a lot of other origins. Luckily, Bunge operates in those other origins, Europe, Australia, Canada, Argentina to continue to serve our customers, but that's pulling stocks down around the world. So you've got a little different situation on the S&Ds and what we see forward. So glad we've got those big crops coming in other parts of the world. The other thing that's done in the Black Sea there is on the sunseeds, reduce the sunseed oil exports are down. And of course, we've had to fill those from Argentina when that works seasonally and now from other origin in other oils. And then on the corn, it's about 15% of global exports out of the Black Sea area there. It's been less of an issue, but we'll need to see the Brazilian soybean production be right, and that's 1 to medium term, keep an eye on for the merge.

Got it. Switching over to the soybean segment. The volume was down a bit year-over-year. I think more than maybe we had expected. Any color on kind of what drove this and how you're looking at the dynamic in 4Q there?

Yes, Tom, this is John. I don't think we looked at that as a meaningful decline. I think we still -- we're running at very good utilization rates going forward here. I think sometimes there's timing on when we're down in maintenance. There's customer demand can fluctuate things. But overall, I think we're looking going forward at pretty robust demand and volume everywhere, absent the normal downtimes and occasionally, being tightness can affect us at times. But I think we feel like going forward, we're going to be in a pretty good position to ramp up the utilization rates and stay at a pretty high rate going into next year.