Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (NYSE:ADM) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call July 30, 2024 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Megan Britt - Vice President of Investor Relations
Juan Luciano - Chairman, CEO & President
Ismael Roig - Senior VP & Interim CFO

Conference Call Participants

Andrew Strelzik - BMO
Tom Palmer - Citi
Heather Jones - Heather Jones Research
Adam Samuelson - Goldman Sachs
Ben Theurer - Barclays
Manav Gupta - UBS
Salvator Tiano - Bank of America
Dushyant Ailani - Jefferies
Steven Haynes - Morgan Stanley

Operator

Good morning and welcome to ADM's Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on listen-only mode to prevent any background noise. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I now like to introduce your host for today’s call, Megan Britt, Vice President, Investor Relations for ADM. Ms. Britt, you may begin.

Megan Britt

Thank you, Eliot. Hello and welcome to the Second Quarter Earnings Webcast for ADM. Starring to tomorrow a replay of this webcast will be available on our Investor Relations website.

Please turn to slide 2. Some of our comments and materials may constitute forward-looking statements that reflect management's current views and estimates of future economic circumstances, industry conditions, company performance, and financial results. These statements and materials are based on many assumptions and factors that are subject to risk and uncertainties. ADM has provided additional information in its reports on filed with the SEC concerning assumptions and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in this presentation.

To the extent permitted under applicable law, ADM assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events.

On today’s webcast, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Juan Luciano will discuss our second quarter results and share recent accomplishment on our strategic priority. Our Chief Financial Officer, Ismael Roig will review segment level performance and provide an update on our cash generation and capital allocation action. Juan will have some closing remarks and then he and Ismael will take your questions.

Please turn to slide 4. I'll now turn the call over to Juan.

Juan Luciano

Thank you, Megan and good morning to all of who have joined for today’s call. Today, ADM report its second quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.03 with an adjusted segment operating profit of $1 billion. Our trailing four quarter average adjusted ROIC was 9.7%. We delivered a strong cash flow from operations before working capital at $1.7 billion. Year-to-date, this equates to an adjusted earnings per share of $2.49 and an adjusted segment operating profit of $2.3 billion. Our team delivered solid results in challenging market conditions, highlighting the efforts of our teams across the business to manage through the commodity down cycle while putting our nutrition business on a path to recovery. Additionally, we saw signs of improving fundamentals within crush and ethanol later in the quarter, positioning us for a strong second half. We're also flexing our capital allocation strategy to return cash to shareholders, completing our planned share repurchases for the quarter and delivering our 370th consecutive quarterly dividend.