Dole plc

Welcome to the Dual PC Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Today's conference is being broadcast live over the internet and is also being recorded for playback purposes. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. For opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to the Head of Investor Relations with Dole PLC, James O'Regan.

Thank you, Krista. Welcome, everybody, and thank you for taking the time to join our third quarter 2024 earnings call. Joining me today is our Chief Executive Officer, Rory Byrne, our Chief Operating Officer, Johan Linden, and our Chief Financial Officer, Jacinta Devine. During this call, we will be referring to presentation slides for supplemental remarks, and these, along with our earnings release and other related materials, are available on the Investor Relations section of the DOLE POC website. Please note, our remarks today will include certain forward-looking statements within the provisions of the Federal Security Safe Harbor Law. These reflect circumstances at the time they are made, and the company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. Actual results or outcomes may differ materially from those that may be expressed or implied due to a wide range of factors, including those set forth in our FCC filings and press releases. Information regarding the use of non-GAAP financial measures may be found in our press release, which also includes a reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measures. With that, I'm pleased to turn today's call over to Rory.

Thank you, James. Welcome, everybody, and thank you for joining us today as we discuss our results for the third quarter of 2024. So turning firstly to slide four and the Q3 financial highlights. Well, the third quarter was another positive quarter for our business, continuing the good momentum built up over the course of this year. Group reported revenue increased by 1%, and on a like-for-like basis, the increase was 5.8%. Adjusted EBITDA of $82 million was in line with market expectations for the quarter and 2.3% ahead of the prior year on a like-for-like basis. The growth in adjusted EBITDA on a like-for-like basis was driven by a very strong performance in our diversified America segment, offsetting modest decreases in fresh fruit and diversified EMEA. Cash management and capital allocation continue to be a major focus for us, and we are pleased to see our leverage reduce further, driven by a $36 million decrease in our absolute level of debt, despite a relatively high level of capital investment made in the quarter, which we will discuss in more detail later on the call. Turning now to slide six on our operational highlights and starting with the cash group segment. This segment delivered another good performance in the third quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $42.9 million, a small decrease compared to last year, but a result that was ahead of our own expectations, taking into account the higher shipping costs in the quarter due to the ongoing dry docking process that we flagged our previous earnings calls. North America has been the market predominantly impacted by dry docking. However, we had a good overall performance with higher volumes of bananas sold and better pricing partially compensating the anticipated higher shipping costs. In the European market, we continued with our positive momentum driven by higher volumes of bananas as well as by lower shipping costs. Looking ahead to the remainder of the year for both the North American and European markets, we believe we are well placed. Both banana and pineapple supply remain tight on an industry-wide basis, leading to higher sourcing costs that also align for some positive pricing momentum in certain markets. As the year has progressed, the benefits of our experienced team, our diversified supply base have again been clear. allowing us to deliver a consistent, competitive and quality service to all our customers. Overall, we anticipate the fresh food segment will go down to the year, taking into account a continued expectation of higher shipping costs during the dry docking process. Before turning our attention to the diversified segments, I would also like to highlight our recent agreement to expand our shipping fleet by bringing two vessels currently on charter under our own ownership in early 2025 through an option to purchase agreement. Strategically, adding a second service door US East Coast operation this year with the two chartered vessels provides us the flexibility to drive up the vessels in our primary East Coast service without any major service disruption, but also gives us a pathway for additional growth in the marketplace. So moving on to the diversified EMEA segment This segment was impacted by some seasonal timing differences as well as one-off IT costs and a lower supply of certain categories in the quarter, but still delivered a good overall result in Q3, broadly in line with their own expectations. In Spain, with some temporary shortages of supply canary island bananas, Whereas in other parts of the segment, we had the continued impact of shortages for some important seasonal crops, typically sourced out of South America, as well as poor weather impacting trade for some of our food service and wholesale businesses. Positively, revenue growth did remain strong in the quarter, indicating that on an underlying basis, our business is in a good position, and we expect to be able to deliver a satisfactory result on a full-year basis. Diversified Americas, this segment delivered Another very strong quarter on a like-for-like basis, taking out the impact of progressive projects following its sale in Q1. The strong result was driven by a positive quarter for our North American operations with good volume and price growth across most commodities and avocados in particular. Our North American berry business, still having much scope to continue to improve, showed a good turnaround from the prior year. and while our South American export business also had a positive quarter in good developments in winter season products. Looking ahead to the remainder of the year, activity will again pick up on the export side as we progress through Q4, with the start of several key export seasons out of both Peru and Chile. As always, the specific timing of harvest will play an important role in how profitability gets recorded through the year end. However, we anticipate a strong season performance on the export side, as well as continued good momentum in our North American operations. Turning to the fresh vegetables business, as noted in our most recent calls, since the termination of the sale of Ring to Fresh Express, we have been actively exploring strategic alternatives for this business. That process is ongoing and we remain hopeful that we will ultimately deliver a good outcome for all our stakeholders. Operationally, we are very pleased that this business is continuing to deliver improved results and is on track to deliver positive operating income each quarter of 2024. The continued good performance of the third quarter delivered, despite the anticipated softening of the favourable fresh pack market conditions experienced earlier this year, demonstrating again the good underlying performance that our committed management team is making in both the fresh packed and value-added business units within this division. And with that, I'll hand you over to Jacinta to give the financial review for the third quarter.