FMC Corporation (FMC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call for FMC Corporation. This event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Curt Brooks, Director of Investor Relations for FMC Corporation. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to FMC Corporation's 2026 Second Quarter Earnings Call. Today's prepared remarks will be provided by Pierre Brondeau, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President; and Andrew Sandifer, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After prepared comments, we will take questions. Our earnings release and today's slide presentation are available on the FMC Investor Relations 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, organic revenue growth and revenue, excluding India, all of which are non-GAAP financial measures. Please note that as used in today's discussion, earnings means adjusted earnings, EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA and sales refers to sales, excluding India. 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 turn the call over to Pierre.

Thank you, Curt, and good morning, everyone. In the second quarter, we continued to execute against our priorities. We delivered EBITDA above our guidance, generated meaningful free cash flow and advanced several initiatives that strengthened our balance sheet. Sales were below our expectation as a challenging operating environment, including geopolitical uncertainty, unfavorable weather and low insect pressure created additional pressure on both volume and price. Growers and channel partners remain focused on managing costs and working capital, which resulted in cautious purchase pattern across many markets. Against this backdrop, we continue to make progress on our four operational pillars, reducing debt, improving the competitiveness of our core portfolio, managing the post-patent transition for Rynaxypyr and growing new active ingredients. These pillars remain the foundation of the company's plan to improve earnings and cash generation while positioning FMC for future growth and the expanding contribution of its innovation pipeline. With the equity investment from Tessenderlo Group marking the conclusion of the strategic review, we now have clarity on the path forward and are focused on execution. We made substantial progress during the quarter, particularly in strengthening our balance sheet through this reduction. Over the past several months, we announced the key components of our plan to generate $1 billion of proceeds to pay down debt. These include signing a definitive agreement for the sale of our India commercial business for $252 million, closing on the licensing agreement for rimisoxafen with Corteva and an upfront payment of $200 million. Entering into a framework agreement for a Newark, Delaware property for $114 million, reaching an agreement with Tessenderlo Group for a $400 million minority equity investment as well as progressing on several smaller asset sales. Together, these actions are expected to significantly strengthen our balance sheet and liquidity position. Combined with a successful $1.2 billion secured bond offering we completed in May, they will provide greater financial flexibility as we continue to execute our strategy. Andrew will discuss the impact on our balance sheet and cash flow in more detail shortly. With debt reduction well underway, our attention remains on the operational actions that will improve business performance over time. Turning to our second pillar, improving the competitiveness of our core portfolio. Over the past year, we have focused on simplifying how we operate, improving the efficiency of our manufacturing and supply chain network, and reducing structural costs across the business. These actions are intended to strengthen our competitive position and better align our cost structure with the markets we serve. As previously announced, our objective is to exit active ingredients and formulation production assets that are no longer cost competitive, and transition production toward -- to lower-cost sources. While this work remains underway, we are increasingly confident in the value it will deliver. In addition, we have made meaningful progress in realigning our supply chain and are beginning to see benefits from those efforts. Moving to our third pillar. We remain focused on executing a post-patent strategy for Rynaxypyr. We continue to see strong demand for our differentiated formulations and mixture. Sales of these products grew more than 35% year-over-year during the second quarter. We also remain focused on volume growth outpacing lower pricing as the market evolves. Despite increased generic competition, branded diamide sales, excluding India, were essentially flat year-over-year. Over time, we expect branded diamide to grow in revenue as pricing stabilizes, and we continue to take market share from all the classes of insecticides. We are already seeing encouraging signs of volume growth. In the second quarter, we saw very strong gains in hectares treated in key countries like Brazil, where product on-the-ground usage is up over 40%. These results reinforce our confidence in our post-patent strategy. Our fourth pillar remains on track with our expectations. During the quarter, we continued to advance registration and commercialization efforts around the world, including securing registration of Isoflex active in the EU, with launches expected to begin in '27. As we have discussed previously, the pace of growth of new technology is influenced not only by customer adoption, but also by the timing of regulatory approvals and registrations, which are outside of our control. We continue to see external validation of the value of our innovation pipeline. The licensing agreement for rimisoxafen with Corteva represents the third significant licensing agreement involving one of our proprietary active ingredients, following agreement of Isoflex active with Bayer and fluindapyr with Corteva. Turning to our second quarter results on Slide 4, 5 and 6 provide details of our performance. The operating environment for crop chemical remains challenging. Growers are faced with a difficult situation of low prices for many crops, combined with higher costs for inputs such as fertilizers and fuel driven by the uncertain geopolitical environment. We are seeing growers respond to these margin pressures by carefully managing costs and reducing discretionary spending wherever possible. For crop protection chemicals, that can mean trading down to generic or reducing the number of applications. In addition, data from our proprietary Arc farm intelligence insect monitoring platform provides unique visibility into field conditions and indicates lower insect pressure so far this year. With our current portfolio weighted more towards insecticide, this is especially relevant to FMC. We expect that over the next few years, the introduction and expansion of our new active ingredients will shift FMC to a more balanced portfolio with less reliance on insecticides and a stronger position in herbicides and fungicides. Our second quarter revenue of $841 million, excluding India, was 1% lower than the low end of our guidance range. As we forecasted, there were reduced orders from diamide partners as well as expected registration losses in EMEA. However, we encountered additional volume headwinds in North America as strained margin drove careful purchasing behavior for growers of non-specialty crops. Excessive heat in EMEA also led to lower-than-expected demand. We saw strong volume growth in new Rynaxypyr formulations, particularly in Brazil and North America. New actives showed good growth, but we do not expect the bulk of the year-on-year increase to occur until the fourth quarter when fluindapyr in LatAm and North America as well as Isoflex in Australia will be in higher demand. Second quarter pricing was down slightly more than our mid-single-digit expectation due to greater-than-expected pressure on core legacy products. Similar to prior quarters, there was more pronounced pricing pressure in LatAm and to a lesser degree, Asia. New active ingredients and Cyazypyr delivered solid growth during the quarter, contributing to higher sales from our growth portfolio. Turning to Slide 6. We reported second quarter EBITDA of $153 million, which was 2% above the high end of our guidance range, driven by greater-than-expected cost favorability. This was primarily driven by spend discipline in non-manufacturing areas and a few favorable quarter-specific items. Adjusted earnings per share of $0.26 was 62% lower than prior year due to the reduction in EBITDA and higher interest expense. The result was at the high end of our guidance range, driven by EBITDA. Shifting to our forward guidance. Our updated financial outlooks are on Slide 7 through 9. Starting with Slide 7. Full year sales are now expected to be $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion, a decline of 7% at the midpoint. We have updated our full year outlook to reflect the more challenging market conditions we've seen so far this year. We now expect more pricing pressure and less volume growth of core legacy products than our prior forecast. Volume is now expected to be in line with prior year as sales of new active ingredients and increased direct sales to grower in Brazil offset reduced diamide partner orders. Price is expected to decline mid- to high single digit, consistent with what we observed in the first half. The removal of India is a 2% headwind and FX is expected to be a low single-digit tailwind. Adjusted EBITDA is now expected to be between $620 million and $680 million. The 23% decline at the midpoint reflects lower price and FX headwinds, partially offset by favorable costs. Adjusted EPS is expected to be between $1.19 and $1.49, with the 55% decline at the midpoint, reflecting both lower EBITDA and higher interest expense. Given the uncertainty around the duration of the conflict in Iran and potential U.S. trade actions, we continue to assume that the Iran-related cost pressures and tariff-related benefits largely offset each other. Turning to Slide 8. We expect third quarter sales between $840 million and $900 million. We expect the market conditions that we observed in the second quarter to persist in the third quarter. The majority of the 9% midpoint sales decline is due to price, which is expected to be a mid- to high single-digit headwind. Volume is expected to be lower, mainly driven by North America distributors managing inventory by shifting orders from Q3 to Q4. In Brazil, we are continuing a strategy to overhaul sales to distributor to favor co-ops and direct sales. This decision negatively impacts Q3 sales and favor Q4 sales. It reflects our intent to continue to stabilize the performance and predictability of Brazil's sales as we enter Q4 and 2027. We expect overall growth portfolio sales to increase in the quarter, driven by solid performance from new active ingredients. Third quarter EBITDA is expected to be between $120 million and $140 million. This represents a 45% decline at the midpoint, driven mainly by lower price with volume and FX acting as some [ headwinds ]. Adjusted EPS is expected to be $0.05 and $0.30, a decline of 90% at the midpoint driven by lower EBITDA and higher interest. Slide 9 provides our outlook for the fourth quarter, which we expect will represent a return to year-over-year growth. Sales are expected to be between $1.06 billion and $1.2 billion, an increase of 4% at the midpoint. We are not expecting major changes to market conditions. And as such, we are forecasting a price decrease similar to the first three quarters in the mid- to high single digit. We are expecting strong volume growth, but it's not based on the assumption of sharp improvement in regional markets. About half of the volume growth is expected to come from increased sales in Brazil, driven by new products and a more established sales force, which has now been in place for over a year. The remaining half of fourth quarter growth is expected to come from new products as well as the shift in order timing by North America distributors from Q3 to Q4. Fourth quarter EBITDA is expected to be between $275 million and $315 million, representing 5% growth at the midpoint. Lower price and FX headwinds are expected to be more than offset by favorable cost and higher volume. We are expecting strong cost favorability due to cost mitigation actions, including lower raw materials. Adjusted EPS is expected to be between $1.09 and $1.33. This represents a 1% increase at the midpoint as higher EBITDA more than offset elevated interest expense. I will now turn the call over to Andrew.

Thanks, Pierre. I'll start this morning with free cash flow on Slide 10. Free cash flow in the second quarter was $357 million, $318 million higher than the prior year period. Included in free cash flow this quarter is the $200 million prepayment from Corteva as part of the licensing agreement for rimisoxafen that was finalized in June. This payment is reflected in the change in other operating assets and liabilities net line on our cash flow statement and has a long-term advanced payment liability on our balance sheet. As a result, it does not impact working capital. While the specific structure of the rimisoxafen licensing agreement may not recur, we expect licensing and collaboration agreements to remain a part of our business model and important contributor to operating cash flow over time. We intend to pursue additional opportunities to license molecules from our portfolio and to enter collaborations that allow us to share the cost of developing earlier-stage active ingredients. The reality is that our pipeline contains more high-quality active ingredients that we can fund and develop in a timely manner on our own. As a result, partnerships such as our licensing agreements with Corteva for rimisoxafen and fluindapyr and with Bayer for Isoflex active as well as future co-development arrangements are becoming an increasingly important part of our operating model. These collaborations help accelerate the development and commercialization of new technologies while also providing a meaningful source of operating cash generation. Beyond the prepayment from Corteva, free cash flow in the second quarter also benefited from lower receivables overall with strong collections in Asia, including India, and in EMEA as well as lower cash taxes. We are updating our 2026 free cash flow outlook to reflect both the updated EBITDA outlook and the Corteva prepayment. We now expect free cash flow to be in the range of $75 million to $225 million or $150 million at the midpoint. Our free cash flow guidance also includes approximately $170 million in expected cash spending on restructuring, driven largely by the significant reshaping of our manufacturing and supply network that is underway. Free cash flow, excluding restructuring would be approximately $320 million in 2026 at the guidance midpoint. While we do expect to have meaningful continued cash spending on restructuring in 2027, this should dramatically reduce in 2028 and beyond, greatly improving our free cash flow generation. Moving next to the balance sheet and leverage. The second quarter was a particularly active quarter on the financing front. In mid-April, we amended our existing revolving credit facility. In May, we completed a $1.2 billion senior secured bond offering. We were pleased with the strong demand for the offering. Significant oversubscription allowed us to meaningfully increase the size and reduce the rate of the offering from launch. Proceeds from the bond offering were used to redeem the $500 million in senior notes that were due to mature in October as well as to reduce borrowings under our revolver. We ended the second quarter with gross debt of approximately $4.3 billion, down $250 million from the prior quarter end. Cash on hand increased $86 million to $477 million, resulting in net debt of approximately $3.8 billion, down $339 million from the prior quarter end. Net debt to trailing 12-month EBITDA was 5.1x. As we described on the April call, the most recent amendment to our revolving credit agreement included changes to our covenant leverage metrics. The maximum total leverage ratio is not measured formally for the second or third quarters under the terms of the amendment, but would have been approximately 5.6x. The maximum total leverage covenant will be reinstated in the fourth quarter at 6.75x through December 31, 2027. Secured debt to trailing 12-month EBITDA was 1.66x as compared to a covenant limit of 3.5x. Minimum interest coverage ratio was 2.78x as compared to a covenant minimum of 2.0x. Looking now to year-end debt levels. Based on our free cash flow guidance, together with proceeds from the India sale, Delaware site sale leaseback and the Tessenderlo equity investment and after reflecting dividends, financing fees and transaction costs, we expect to end 2026 with net debt of approximately $2.6 billion. At the midpoint of our EBITDA guidance, this would suggest year-end 2026 net debt to trailing 12-month EBITDA of roughly 4x. While this is still meaningfully higher than where we would like to be long term, we believe FMC will be well positioned to further improve leverage metrics as we return to EBITDA growth in 2027 and maintain a relentless focus on driving free cash flow for the business. As a result of the financing actions completed in the quarter, we have substantial available liquidity. Borrowings under our revolving credit facility were $250.5 million at June 30. With letters of credit backed by the revolver of $188.6 million, we have more than $1.56 billion of borrowing capacity available under our revolver at quarter end. We are comfortably in compliance with our covenant metrics. Our next bond maturity is 3 years away with $500 million in notes due in October 2029. We feel confident that all of the financing and strategic actions we are taking this year are greatly strengthening the financial foundation of the company. Lastly, moving to the income statement. Second quarter sales benefited from a 2% currency tailwind, primarily coming from strengthening of the Brazilian real. Looking ahead, we expect FX to move from being a tailwind in the first half to being relatively neutral in the second half, resulting in a low single-digit FX impact on revenue for the full year. Second quarter interest expense of $71.3 million was up $10 million, with the impact of financing activity in the quarter, partially offset by interest income and lower foreign interest expense. We now expect full year 2026 interest expense to be in the range of $275 million to $285 million, up approximately $40 million versus the prior year at the midpoint due to the impacts of the recent financing activity, partially offset by lower foreign interest expense. We continue to expect depreciation and amortization for full year 2026 to be between $160 million and $170 million. The effective tax rate on adjusted earnings in the second quarter was 17%, in line with our expected full year effective tax rate of 16% to 18%. And with that, I'll hand the call back to Pierre.

Thank you, Andrew. To close, the 2026 market environment will continue to be challenging. We are using these challenging conditions to improve the performance of some critical countries by repositioning their business. We are strengthening FMC's financial foundation, advancing the actions tied to operational pillars and maintaining a clear focus on execution. The work underway will allow our core business to become competitive again, while our new technology portfolio becomes a larger part of the company. The work underway in 2026 will position FMC to return to growth as early as '27 and beyond. With that, we are happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Duffy Fischer with Goldman Sachs.

First question is just around the ramp from your Q3 midpoint to your Q4 midpoint, kind of $165 million of improvement. Can you walk through sequentially what those buckets are? What are the big drivers? Because again, margin goes from like 15% in Q3 to over 25% in Q4 and give some qualitative indication of just how certain are you of those buckets? Do you have orders in hand? Is it based on just kind of historic norm repeating itself? Just try to help us get comfortable with that big ramp-up from Q3 to Q4.

Thanks, Duffy. Let me go from -- try to go from Q3 to Q4. Three big drivers on the positive front. First, the non-diamide core, and that includes the growth, of course, in direct sales in Brazil. We're expecting this to be about $150 million. The new active ingredients, we believe with the number we still are forecasting, it's going to be, from Q3 to Q4, about $70 million. And then you have others, including branded Rynaxypyr, especially in Latin America, in the range of $40 million. So when you go from Q3 to Q4, those three buckets, less technical sales. As you know, we have less buy from partners for diamides. We get to a number which is in the range of -- an increase in the range of $260 million. Now the non-diamide core I talked about, it's largely driven by the normal seasonality. Usually, you see -- and historically, you see an increase from Q3 to Q4 of about 15%. And that is -- in addition, it's a bit higher this time because we are increasing our sales -- direct sales in Brazil. And as you heard in the script, we have a shift in North America of sales from Q3 to Q4. The second largest driver is the new active ingredients, and that is going to be mostly fluindapyr in North America and Isoflex in Australia, and diamides and plant health are the rest. So that's roughly the bridge from Q3 to Q4, which go from seasonality to specific actions we are taking like direct sales or new active ingredients.

Your next question comes from the line of Edlain Rodriguez with Mizuho Securities.

Pierre, I kind of wanted to ask you something about more medium and longer term. Clearly, 2026 is a transition year. As you navigate the changes and action you are undertaking to improve the portfolio, it seems like it's a process where things can get worse before they get better. But in the end, you will come out stronger. The question is, with the things you can control, like when do you think we will start to see the benefits of the work you are doing? And essentially, like how does the patient get better going forward?

Yes. Thank you. Listen, I believe at this stage -- and that's a discussion we're having here often and often. As we look at it, we have all the reasons in the world to believe that 2026 is the trough. We believe the worst is behind us with the loss of IP protection on Rynaxypyr. And for Rynaxypyr, all signs are pointing to us being able to protect Rynaxypyr earnings in '27. Now so if you assume that, I'm looking at four critical things, which will be starting to make 2027 the first growth year. First, let's talk about our biggest issue in 2026. This is a $2.1 billion non-diamide core business, and that business is down this year or should be down when we close the year by about 5%. With all the work we are doing on our global manufacturing footprint, we should be competitive again and back to growth as soon as next year. Now if we only assume to get back to an annual growth of 1% or 2%, which should be below market, so it's fairly modest. If you compare to being down 5% this year, this is an incremental sales of about $120 million to $150 million. So that's the first bucket. Just linked to the work we do on our manufacturing footprint. On bucket number two, it's our new active ingredients. The growth should be accelerating to a minimum of 50% to 70% as we are gaining more and more registration. If you look at the expected size of our new active ingredients, that will be in '27 versus '26, an additional $150 million to $200 million. Branded Cyazypyr, steady as you go, should continue its mid-single-digit growth. It's an additional $20 million. Last point, and this one, I have not quantified. We keep on shifting more and more of our sales business in Brazil towards co-ops and direct sales. This also should represent a growth, but we are not quantifying it yet because, as you know, we are controlling our sales towards the more traditional distribution network. So we need to balance the growth in co-ops and direct sales versus the decrease in the more traditional network. That's more of a budget exercise, not yet capable of controlling that. On the negative front, we'll still have some negative impact of diamide sales to partners. But it will be getting smaller and smaller as this segment is getting smaller, and most of the cost decrease for Rynaxypyr has taken place. So if you look at that without quantifying the last bucket around Brazil, this is a natural growth of $300 million to $350 million in '27 versus 2026. And that should keep on improving as we grow, as the new active ingredients will be getting more and more traction. So as you say, the patient should get better quickly. We believe '27, all indications are pointing toward a return to growth next year.

Your next question comes from the line of Frank Mitsch with Fermium Research.

Pierre, I wanted to drill on Slide 5, the breakdown by the regions. So North America came down fairly significantly. And you mentioned a competitive market in North America. I was wondering if you could expand upon that, where specifically and how sustainable is that competitive market and how we should think about that in the future?

Yes. Thanks, Frank. You're absolutely right. North America was down. It is the negative news of the quarter for us. And there is multiple drivers. They all went the wrong way. First and above all, it's a volume story. As you know, in North America, we are very strong in specialty crops with our insecticide business. Rice production was at the lowest level since 1997. That was -- that's a big market for us, very low insect pressure. So we lost a lot of sales in specialty crops. Row crops is less of a market for us, but still important. And it is absolutely certain that low margin at the growers level, high uncertainty, this is translating into growers managing their cost as much as possible. You see some trading from more branded products to generic product and in some cases, skipping applications. So yes, Q2 was, from a volume standpoint, a negative -- a very negative quarter. There is something to a less extent, but we have a license on a product, herbicide, which is called pyroxasulfone. And the company which owns this license, it's only the license we have for North America, lost their IP protection. So that product became more of a generic product, and we lost sales in that -- not sales, but we lost on pricing a lot and also on volume on the product. So I would say, by far, the number one driver in North America in addition to some pricing, but the number one driver for the reason I just listed, our volume.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Parkinson with Wolfe Research.

Pierre, we take a step back and we look at the intermediate to longer-term growth in diamides, perhaps could you just update us on what you think the overall growth rate is, including all the new entrants in terms of like the transitory period that we're currently in? Which other insecticide classifications we're stealing share from? Is it organophosphates, carbamates, neonics? And just how you think about the overall TAM there? Because it seems like the market trajectory is still growth and that there's just basically competitive behaviors in the beginning of that process. So if you could just hit on the highlights there from your own perspective, it would be greatly appreciated.