Archer-Daniels-Midland Company

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the ADM Q1 2026 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on a listen only mode to prevent background noise. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 again. I would now like to introduce your host for today's call, Kate Walsh, Director of Investor Relations for ADM. Ms. Walsh, you may begin.

Welcome to the first quarter of 2026 Earnings Conference Call for ADM. Our prepared remarks today will be led by Juan Luciano, Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, and Manish Patilwala, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We have prepared presentation slides to supplement our remarks on the call today, which are posted to the investor relations section of the ADM website and through the link to our webcast. 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 numerous risks and uncertainties. ADM has provided additional information in its reports on file with the SEC concerning assumptions and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in this presentation and the materials. Unless otherwise required by law, ADM assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements due to new information or future events. In addition, during today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP or adjusted financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are available in our earnings press release and presentation slides, which can be found in the investor relations section of the ADM website. I will now turn the call over to Juan.

Thank you, Kate. Hello, and welcome to all who have joined the call. Please turn to slide four, where we have outlined this quarter's performance highlights. Today, ADM reported adjusted earnings per share of 71 cents and total segment operating profit of $764 million for the first quarter of 2026. Our trailing four-quarter adjusted ROIC was 6.4%, and cash flow from operations before working capital changes was $442 million for the quarter. Operating performance was robust during the quarter as our team advanced our company priorities and our crushing and ethanol businesses benefited from an increasingly constructive commodity and margin environment. In particular, soybean crush and ethanol margins strengthened meaningfully as the market anticipated the finalization of renewable volume obligations for 2026 and 2027. which the EPA published on March 27th. We commend the administration and the EPA for advancing a renewable volume obligation that strengthens markets for American farmers and enhances America's energy security. The RBO drives demand for corn, soy, and other domestic feedstocks, and it supports a reliable domestic fuel supply chain that offers consumers dependable choices in their daily lives. I also want to thank our team for delivering on our plan in a complex and rapidly changing environment. Based on our expectation that we will continue to successfully advance our priorities throughout the remainder of the year, combined with the expectation that the constructive margin environment we are in continues, we are raising our earnings guidance range for 2026. Our full year adjusted EPA's guidance range is now $4.15 to $4.70 up from our previous range of $3.60 to $4.25. Please turn to slide five. As we look at our strategic priorities for 2026, we remain focused on continuing to reduce our manufacturing and transaction costs, generating strong cash flows, investing in our growth platforms, and further developing and expanding our deep bench of talent to support our strategic priorities. Based on these priorities, we achieved notable progress in a number of areas during the first quarter. Here are several highlights. Our ag services business achieved higher North American export activity, which included increased shipments of soybeans and sorghum to China, and the continuation of a strong corn export program. We demonstrated the ability to capture underlying margin opportunities in crushing and refined products and other subsegments. We also delivered strong soybean meal sales during the quarter, driven by robust global consumption. Our team capitalized on the constructive margin environment for ethanol. with strengthening ethanol margins more than upsetting the continuous softness in starches and sweeteners volumes. And our nutrition business achieved higher flavor sales, and we're seeing momentum built around natural colors and flavors. Also, we're seeing the benefits of our strategic portfolio actions taking hold. From a manufacturing standpoint, we made solid strides in increasing throughput and decreasing unplanned downtime across our production footprint. During the first quarter, our team delivered strong global crash volumes, with oilseed tonnage increasing 2% compared to the prior year quarter, and we achieved the best overall global site crash production on record. For nutrition, The team continued to improve operational execution, and we are seeing substantial progress with the continued recovery of our Decatur yeast plant and animal nutrition operations. As we look ahead, we're also targeting a meaningful reduction in transaction costs across our global footprint, including further automation and use of AI in our workflows to reduce manual touchpoints, errors, and cycle times. This initiative also extends to our supply chain management and freight and logistic networks. We continue to pursue high growth opportunities that are designed to generate enduring returns. We recently created a new senior innovation and growth leadership role responsible for accelerating projects in this area across the enterprise. A number of the initiatives underway are already generating revenue, and we are encouraged by the progress we are making. I'll talk more about this on the next slide. All of this is bolstered by the development we are doing around our workforce talent and capabilities. We're strategically focused on making sure we have the right people and skills for both our business needs today and for the future. For example, we recently established the ADM Capability Center in India, to build and maintain deep technical and functional experience in priority areas. In summary, our team is executing well against our plan, and we're taking advantage of market opportunities while consistently strengthening the performance of our operations. Looking through to the rest of 2026, we have clear priorities that are centered around ensuring we have the right talent and capabilities in place to drive growth, margin expansion, and cash flow while remaining steadfast in our discipline around cost management and capital allocation. And to that end, we remain committed to returning value to our shareholders with the dividend we paid in first quarter representing our 377th consecutive quarterly dividend. Please turn to slide six. We're making disciplined investments today in the platforms that will drive our growth for tomorrow. Our next wave of value creation is grounded in five key pathways that expand both near-term opportunities already contributing to growth today, as well as long-term initiatives that will continue to scale over time. Importantly, these are areas where we understand the markets and the customer needs. and where we believe we are well positioned to win. I'll take a few moments now to discuss our growth pathways in a little more detail. Starting with advanced nutrition, we are developing innovative solutions as customers shift from artificial to natural ingredients, particularly in colors and flavors in North America. We are expanding both capabilities and capacity to meet growing demand for healthier products that deliver on appearance, texture, and taste. Within functional health, we continue to build on our leadership in digestive and metabolic health and immune support with a growing pipeline of solutions targeting stress, mood, and sleep. For biosolutions, our initiatives are centered on valorization. or the unlocking of new market for our existing products, essentially doing more what we already produce. A concrete example of this is a starch-based component we developed for fabric softeners, for which we were recognized earlier this year with the Best Innovation Contributor Award by Henkel Consumer Brands. In precision fermentation, we see significant opportunities at the intersection of biology and engineering. Advances in technology are enhancing the efficiency and scalability of our existing fermentation assets, and we're expanding our portfolio of cleaner, simpler, and more sustainable solutions. For example, during the quarter in animal nutrition, we successfully completed a trial for a scalable animal-free protein for pet food. And in the human nutrition space, we progressed the development of a novel enzyme with widespread functionality in food applications. And in decarbonization, we are leveraging our existing carbon capture and storage footprint to develop a broader portfolio of solutions. This includes serving customers with high purity CO2 needs, expanding renewable natural gas operations, and advancing pathways to convert ethanol into sustainable aviation fuel. During the first quarter alone, we sequestered approximately 300,000 metric tons of CO2, a milestone that underscores our leadership in this space. Taken together, these platforms represent a compelling set of value creation opportunities that leverage our core business and provide meaningful expansion into new markets for years to come. With that, Let me hand it over to Monish to share a deeper dive into our first quarter financials and full year outlook.