Dole plc

eles devem entrar a qualquer momento agora.

Uh-huh.

Já tô vendo aqui que o stream já tá vindo. Boa.

Ótimo. E agora? Beleza, conectado, então.

Perfeito. Some panelists... Ok, so it's okay, so the client is missing only the slides. Exactly.

When they come in, I'll confirm all the information I need and then we should be good to go. Okay, great.

Mandei um e-mail de Chase pra eles. Hopefully eles vão estar aqui soon.

He just sent an email, sending a script, saying that he will join us soon. F.I.I.

Easy. Thank you very much. Hi, James.

This is Derek here. Can you hear me? I can, Derek. Can you hear me loud and clear? I can hear you loud and clear. How are you doing today? Good. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Great. So I believe that the speakers will join from separate places. Is that correct?

We will, yeah. They'll all join from separate locations.

That's absolutely fine. Not to worry. What I would like us to do now is to set up the slides, if that's okay.

Yeah. I'm just trying to log into the other piece.

Yeah. Okay. So just to give you a reminder, you will click on Share, then Advanced, and then Slide Test Background.

Where do I do that? No, again, I've clicked the Admin link. oh okay so to share the slides you need to do that on zoom so i'm just gonna i'll go back sorry go back to the other zoom to do it oh yes yes yes fine okay yeah at the bottom there's like a share yeah and then advanced isn't there's powerpoint as background absolutely share let's see let's see Yeah. Just give me two seconds. Let me save that file to my desktop. Make it better.

Okay, perfect. I think it's starting to screenshot.

Yeah, it's starting to do something anyway. And the other link, remind me, what do I, what will I be using that for?

Okay, that's perfect. I can see that, oh, I think we lost the presentation.

We did, yeah.

How did that go? Did I click?

Just repeat the process, James, please.

Okay.

Send a request.

Was I kicked out?

I don't think so. I think you might have pressed something and did end the screen share. So if you just want to repeat the process, we should be good to go. This file is in use.

It's telling me the file is in use already.

i'll try again thank you so much yeah something more i believe that in the meantime we have johan with us hi johan how you doing this is derek here james hi johan yep i'm here as well can you hear us johan Hi, Johan, just confirmed. James? Yeah, Johan, I'm here.

I can't hear you. Derek?

Yes, can you hear us, Johan? I'm going to drop your message here.

Just back to the Q4 team. It's not letting me share now. It shared it originally, but now it's coming up file as in use. So I'm not sure what happened there because I didn't actually click anything different the first time around. Do I need to?

Can anyone hear me? Just before I go back to you, James. Yes, Johan, we can hear you. Can you hear us? No, he can't. That's fine. So James, what I'm going to ask you to do is, would you mind logging back out and then logging back in? Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. And then in the meantime, Johan, do you have any other software such as seems open?

So could you please close it?

Johan, just so you know, you are muted now. So if you would like to address this, please just unmute yourself.

Oh, that's a stupid thing.

There we go, James. I can hear you now. Can you hear me?

I can hear you, but the presentation for some reason is not.

Okay, so when you follow to the same steps, share, advanced, lightest background.

Yeah, it's just telling me the file is in use. It's not letting me.

Okay, so would you be able to share the full screen? We can pivot to that.

Can you guys hear me now?

Yes, we can hear you. Can you hear us?

Hello?

I can hear us. Do you know, James, if Johan is using a room setup, if it's connected? I think he is, yeah. That might be the issue. Hi, Johan. I tried to message him here on the webinar chat, but I don't think he's... Hi, Johan, can you hear us? I see that you connected twice. Hello. James, what I'm gonna ask you to do is, if you have direct contact with Johan, would you be able to drop him a message and just ask him to connect via the laptop without any external device? Perhaps that would do the trick.

Can you guys hear me now?

We can hear you, yes. Can you hear us?

Yeah, but I need to change then. I need to change rooms. So I'll be back in this room in three minutes.

That's absolutely right. Thank you, Johan. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Let's get back to the issue at hand. James, please, if you want to share the... Do you have two screens there or just the one?

Oh, I think you want to do it, James.

I, yeah, no, I have two screens. It's just, it's, I'm doing the advanced and I could share it initially. So I don't know that something happened at your end when I, when I shared this initially, because it's not letting me,

select that file is telling me it's already in use so is it is it there in the background or something you need to close something i don't know at the moment so what i'm going to ask you to do is if you can put the slides on full screen on the second monitor and then when you click share to share the full desktop that will do the trick if that's okay please okay let's see

In PowerPoint or PDF, what do you... It can be PowerPoint, yes, that'd be fine. That's not going to be ideal. That's not the way to do this.

Okay, I can see that it's now on the presenter mode. If you want, you can put that on full presentation mode for us.

But it's very hard for me to do anything then. It's going to be popping up on multiple screens. You know, I can't see anything.

Yeah, because if you click that, it will appear on the full screen and then it can minimize the other tab that will appear on your... What can you see now? I can see the full presentation. Yeah, the disclaimer slide. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Great. Okay. Cool. One thing I do want to address is we are still waiting for Rory and Jacinta to join. I know. Yeah. Oh, Jacinta's with us. Let me just move her to the webinar.

I won't be able to look at that other screen, I don't think. The admin one, so you'll just have to keep an eye on that for us.

Before I get to that, hi Jacinta, can you hear us? Yes, you can hear me okay? I can hear you okay. Yes, welcome. It's Derek here. Thank you for joining us. Fabulous. James, I believe that on the two screens that you have, you have one with a full slide and another one with a PowerPoint backend, correct? Correct. Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Okay. Where you have the PowerPoint backend, I believe you can minimize that screen, specifically that screen. So if you go to the top and just minimize it, you'll be able to see the admin link. Yeah. Is this the admin link? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah, cool. That's what we want. Okay. Just to let you know, we have two analysts registered as of yet. Okay. Yeah, I see you've three actually. Fabulous. And we have Rory with us as well. He's just getting set up. So let me move him. Hi, Rory. Can you hear us? I can now, yes. A few technical issues there, but I'm in now. Fantastic. Thank you so much for being here. Okay, great. So what I would like us to do now, now that we have all of the speakers, it's a little audio check before the event. So can we please start with Jacinta, please? Jacinta, can you state your full name and count from three to one for me, please? Jacinta Devine, 3, 2, 1. OK, the audio is coming through loud and clear. It does sound a bit muffled, so I'm just going to ask you to speak as close to the microphone as possible, but we can hear you. Thank you very much.

Jacinta Devine, 3, 2, 1.

That's great. Thank you. Now, can we please go to James, please? James, can you stage a full name and count from 3, 2, 1 for me? James O'Regan, 3, 2, 1. Fantastic. Coming through loud and clear. Thank you. Rory, would you be able to go now and state your full name and count from three to one for me, please? Rory Byrne, one, two, three. Coming through loud and clear. Thank you very much. Now, last but not least, Johan, would you be able to state your full name and count from three to one for me, please? Johan Linden, three, two, one. Fantastic. It's coming through loud and clear. Thank you very much. We have all microphones set up, and we have the presentation set up. One thing I want to confirm is, in regards to the Q&A, do we want to tell the analysts to limit themselves to one question and one follow-up, or we don't want to mention that?

No, there's no need. They normally only ask two, max three questions, so it's okay.

Okay, that's absolutely fine. So I have here the moderator opening script they sent across, James. So thank you very much for that. What I just want to go through is I'll hand it over to you to start. So head of investor relations with Adobe, I see James O'Regan. And then at the very end, I will turn the call back to Rory Byrne, CEO, correct? That's it. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Now, obviously, as we go through the event, you know very well that on the admin link, you can see the questions that are on the queue, okay? You can reorder them as they come. I will just mention again that we have only on the latest report three analysts registered for this event. So you can basically drag and drop them in the order that you want, okay? Okay. Okay. Fabulous. Now, if at any point during the event you want to talk to me, you can do so by using either the Zoom chat or the webcast admin chat. If you want to use the Zoom chat, what I'm going to ask you to do is when you open the chat, you will see the section that says to and then a drop down. I'm just going to ask you to change that from everyone to backstage. That ensures that only us, speakers and producers, are seeing that message. Is that clear? Is that okay with everybody?

Yeah. Yeah. I'll probably be, I'll use the other platform chat. I can't pull up the other screen with the presentation open. So if I have to ask, I'll go via the other platform.

Yeah, that's absolutely fine. Thank you very much for that. Do we have any questions at all in the meantime?

Nope. Yeah.

Fabulous. Thank you. Now we have three minutes until the event goes live. Are we still okay to start at the hour or do we want to wait a few? Okay. Fabulous. And thank you for answering that. So what I'm going to suggest now is if you are not actively speaking, please place yourself on mute. Okay. We want to minimize any instance of background noise. So I'm going to ask everyone to go on mute. Now we'll go through two minutes of silence. I'll then do my introduction when we start and hand it over to James. Okay. Thank you very much everyone.

All right, we are going to start the event soon. Please remain on mute. Thank you so much.

Welcome to Dole PLC's fourth quarter and full year 2025 results webcast. Today's webcast is being broadcast live over the internet and it's also being recorded for playback purposes. Currently, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentations, there will be a question and answer session. For opening remarks and introductions, I would like to send a call over to the Head of Investor Relations with Dole PLC, James O'Regan.

Welcome everybody, and thank you for joining our results webcast. 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 webcast, we will be referring to presentation slides to supplement our remarks, and these, along with our earnings release and other related materials, are available on the Investor Relations section of the Dole PLC website. Please note, our remarks today will include certain forward-looking statements within the provisions of the Federal Security's Safe Harbour 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 SEC 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, and welcome everybody. And thank you for joining us today as we look back over 2025, discuss our latest quarterly results and provide our initial outlook for the coming financial year. So turning firstly to slide four for a recap of our key developments for 2025. We are very, very pleased to deliver strong operating results for the year with adjusted EBITDA of $395 million coming in ahead of our latest guidance. Our two diversified fresh produce segments delivered excellent results and excellent growth, offsetting the anticipated short-term decline in fresh fruit due to higher sourcing costs. During 2025, we also achieved several important strategic milestones. A key strategic priority for us was to exit the fresh vegetables business, and we're very pleased to successfully complete the sale of this division in August 2025 for gross consideration of $140 million. This sale has allowed us to fully focus on our core operating divisions and has created greater flexibility in our capital allocation strategy. Continuing with our strategic focus on optimising our asset base and operations, we announced just before the year end an agreement to sell our port and port operations company in Guayaquil, Ecuador. We expect to receive net proceeds of approximately $75 million once this transaction closes. Earlier in the year, we also successfully completed a 1.2 billion renewal of our credit facilities, which strengthened our financial capacity and enhanced our flexibility to support future growth initiatives. In November, we announced that our board had approved a $100 million share repurchase programme as part of the development of our capital allocation strategy. This will be used opportunistically, and to date we have spent $4.5 million repurchasing shares. Another important milestone for the group was the exit of Castle & Cook as a shareholder in September by way of a registered offering. This removed the overhang of a potential share sale and provided significant additional liquidity to our daily trading volumes. Following on from this theme, we have now transitioned to full U.S. domestic issuer filings. Over time, we believe this important transition will improve our eligibility for inclusion in a broader range of U.S. equity indices. Finally, in October, we had a key operational development with the successful launch of Collada Royale, our game-changing new variety of pineapple, and the culmination of 15 years of dedicated R&D at our research facilities in Honduras. This conventionally bred variety has a sweeter taste than a typical pineapple with the added distinction of coconut flavours. It has been extremely well received by both the customers and consumers and has already won multiple awards, including being voted Best New Product within the Fresh Fruit category in a recent survey by Newsweek. As volumes continue to come online, we believe this will be an important product within our portfolio. Turning now to the operational review and starting with the fresh fruit slide on slide six. So in Q4, the industry continued to face elevated sourcing costs for bananas, pineapples and plantains, resulting in lower profitability for this segment compared to the prior year. For the full year 2025, we delivered EBITDA of $189 million, a resilient result given the sourcing and market backdrop and indeed the weather-related disruption, not least the knock-on effects of Tropical Storm Sarah's impact on our Honduran production and supply. Thankfully, the rehabilitation of our Honduran farms is well underway and on track for full recovery later this year. We expect produced volumes and competitiveness to improve over the course of 2026 with the benefit of targeted investments in production and supply chain cost initiatives. Importantly, banana demand remains robust in both North America and Europe, and pineapple innovation, including the well-received Dole Collateral Royale, is supporting this category. Overall, while 2026 has started with the continuing unfavourable supply dynamic, we do expect the positive demand tailwinds, together with our investments and cost programmes, to drive an improvement in profitability as 2026 progresses. Moving on to the diversified EMEA segment, This segment had a stable final quarter, ultimately delivering an excellent full year adjusted EBITDA result of $150 million, an increase of 14% year on year. Over the course of the year, we saw particularly strong contributions from key markets. For example, in Spain, our operations continue to benefit from product diversification and market expansion, underpinned by our very strong position in Canary Island bananas. In the Nordics, the benefits of our investments in our distribution and logistics capability continue to drive growth. And in the Netherlands, we saw a good recovery in 2025 after some challenges in the prior year. Looking ahead, we expect our strong performance to continue in 2026, supported by further development investments across the segment. And lastly, turning to our Diversified America segment, this segment delivered another strong quarter to close the year. consolidating a very, very positive year of growth. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA increased by 32%. For the full year, this amounted to a 21% increase driven by strong revenue growth, margin expansion and increased EBITDA contributions from our joint venture businesses within the segment. We benefited from excellent product-led growth in North America in 2025 in products such as kiwis and citrus in particular. Our export teams have demonstrated excellent operation performance, particularly through efficient management of the evolving cherry marketplace during early 2025 and once more at the start of this latest cherry season. Looking ahead, we anticipate the delivery of a good result for this important export season overall. Looking out further into the year, we expect to deliver underlying growth in 2026, complemented by enhanced efficiencies from the dual diversified North America and AAPI integration. We also expect growth in our joint venture businesses within this segment. With that, I'll hand you over to Jacinta to give the financial review for the fourth quarter and full year.

Thank you, Rory, and thank you all for joining our webcast. Firstly, turning to the financial highlights on slide 10. Overall, our key performance metric adjusted EBITDA came in at 72.7 million, which was ahead of our own expectations for the quarter. Compared with Q4 2024, revenue was £2.4 billion and was 9.2% higher on a reported basis and 5.7% higher on a like-for-like basis due to positive operational performance across all our segments. This growth followed the trend seen over the course of 2025 with full-year revenue increasing 8.2% to £9.2 billion. In the fourth quarter net income increased to 6 million from a loss of 31.6 million in the prior year. The prior year was impacted by a loss of 61.2 million in the discontinued fresh vegetables division. On a full year basis, net income decreased to 82 million from 143 million, reflecting a number of non-operational and non-cash items. Net income was lower due to a larger loss from discontinued operations, as well as non-cash fair value losses on financial instruments, a non-cash discrete tax charge and impairment charges on certain assets excluded from the fresh vegetable sale. 2024 also had the benefit of the gain on the sale of progressive produce. Looking now at the non-GAAP performance measures, Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was modestly lower by 1.9 million compared to the prior year. The reduction was primarily driven by higher fruit costs in fresh fruit. This decrease was partially offset by an excellent performance in our diversified fresh produce Americas and West world segment and a favourable impact from foreign currency translation. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA came in at 395 million, which was ahead of our latest guidance and 1% ahead of 2024. Adjusted net income decreased 1.5 million in the fourth quarter, predominantly due to the decrease in adjusted EBITDA as well as higher depreciation expense, partially offset by lower interest expense. For the full year, adjusted net income decreased 5.9 million to 115 million and full year adjusted diluted EPS was $1.20 versus $1.27 in 2024. Turning now to the divisional updates and starting with fresh fruit on slide 12. Revenue increased 6.7% due to higher volumes of bananas sold, as well as higher pricing of bananas, pineapples and plantains, partially offset by lower volumes of pineapples and plantains sold. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was due to higher sourcing costs of bananas, pineapples and plantains, partially offset by higher commercial cargo profits. Now looking at diversified fresh produce in MIA, Reported revenue increased 12.7%, primarily due to a favourable impact from FX, as well as strong underlying performance in our operations in Spain, France and South Africa. On a like-for-like basis, revenue increased 4.5%, or $41 million. Adjusted EBITDA was in line with Q4 2024, with increased earnings in Scandinavia, Ireland and Spain, as well as a favourable impact from FX translation, partially offset by lower underlying earnings in the UK and the Netherlands. On a like-for-like basis, adjusted EBITDA decreased by 3.5 million and a quarter. Finally, diversified Americas had another very strong quarter. Revenue increased 5%, driven by growth in most commodities sold in the North American market, along with growth in southern hemisphere export products, primarily driven by higher cherry volumes and higher blueberry pricing. Adjusted EBITDA increased 3.2 million, driven by improved profitability in our joint venture businesses, as well as by earnings growth in our southern hemisphere export business, driven particularly by the higher charity values. On a like-for-like basis, adjusted EBITDA increased 4.1 million. Now turning to slide 15, we remain focused on capital allocation and managing our leverage. and are pleased that we were able to close out the year at a comfortable level coming in at 1.5 times, a reduction from 1.6 times in the prior year. Interest expense has continued to decrease due to lower debt levels as well as lower base rates and came in at 66.5 million for the full year in line with our latest guidance. Under the assumption that base rates will remain broadly stable in 2026, we expect full year interest for 2026 to be approximately $60 million. Net cash provided by operation activities was 123 million in 2025. As anticipated, we saw a positive inflow in working capital in the fourth quarter, albeit curtailed this year by the strong volume and revenue growth being seen across the business. In addition, Q4 2024 benefits from accentuated seasonal inflows, which were not repeated to the same extent this year. Cash capital expenditure was £28.4 million for the quarter, and we added a further £0.7 million of assets by way of finance leases. For the full year, routine capex was in line with our latest guidance of £85 million. Cash capital expenditure was £121.5 million. including the buyout of two vessel finance leases for 36 million that was already reflected in our net debt at the end of 2024. In addition, we added a further 16 million of assets by way of finance lease. Also included within the overall CapEx number was 16 million of expenditure related to the Honduran farm rehabilitations, which was covered by insurance proceeds. For 2026, we are forecasting routine capex of approximately 100 million, which is broadly in line with our annual depreciation charge. Free cash flow from continuing operations was 1.7 million for the full year. Excluding the buyout of the vessel finance leases, the Honduran farm rehabilitation supported by insurance proceeds, tax on the sale of assets and the final repatriation tax payment in April, this rises to $81 million. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect to see normalised cash generation driven by the benefit of the disposal of the fresh vegetable business, as well as by lower working capital investments and lower tax payments. Finally, we are pleased to declare a 8.5 cent dividend for the fourth quarter. And following on from the authorization of a 100 million share repurchase program in November, we purchased 300,000 shares at an average price of $15.15 post year end and for a total consideration of 4.5 million. Now I'll hand you back to Rory. We'll discuss our outlook for 2026.

Thank you, Jacinta. Well, we're very pleased with our operating results for 2025, delivering adjusted EBITDA of 395 million, which, as I said earlier, came in ahead of our expectations. The result is a testament to the experience and skill, dedication of our management teams and people right across the group as we navigated a year of macroeconomic uncertainty and many other industry specific factors. We've made important strategic steps forward during 2025, particularly completing the sale of the fresh vegetables to business. And today our business is well placed with strong operational momentum across the group. With this platform, we are targeting growth for the coming financial year. And at this very early stage of the year, we are targeting adjusted EBITDA of at least $400 million. Our presentation sets out our key strategic priorities for 2026, and these are, firstly, executing on our development pipeline while maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation, continuing our focus on cost control and delivering operating efficiencies across the group, positioning ourselves to work efficiently in this dynamic macroeconomic and regulatory landscape, and as ever, strengthening our position in our core business areas and categories. I want to conclude by once again thanking all our outstanding people across the group for their ongoing commitment and dedication to driving our business forward, particularly in the light of the complexities faced by our industry this year. As always, we really appreciate all our essential partners, suppliers, customers and all the other stakeholders for the continued support. So with that, I'll hand you back to the operator to open the line for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand now. If you have dialed into today's call, please press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Christopher Barnes with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Just as a reminder, please make sure they were unmuted to ask a question. Thank you very much.

Sorry about that. Rory, could you could you just elaborate on some of the major puts and takes embedded in your 2026 outlook? Demand trends appear robust, but fruit sourcing costs continue to be a challenge, especially with the dollar weakness and supply pressures last year. So I think it'd just be a little helpful. to hear a little more about the cost programs you alluded to, whether you see opportunity to take incremental pricing to combat some of this inflationary pressure, and then just some further detail around how you see industry supply and demand shaping up over the course of the year. Thanks.

Thank you, Christopher. Yeah, I suppose, you know, guidance has become increasingly difficult to get the crystal ball out and predict what's going to happen in the next month, let alone in the next year. So I think what we tend to do is we look back over the last few years and I think the base year we're working from in 2024, we had an absolutely exceptional performance, particularly in Fresh Fruit. And that, you know, when we have a profitable year, we try to take it. But unfortunately, it sometimes sets a high benchmark to try and maintain or grow from. And I think, thankfully, we look back at 2025, we managed to achieve that. So we, you know, the sum of the parts for the three operating divisions did exceed a very, very strong 2024 number. It's very early in the year to guide. Certainly the supply dynamics that we referred to in the script remain. There is a complex supply dynamic. We're hoping our own Honduran production will come back on over the course of this year and gradually get into full production for next year. We are back up and running, but not fully yet. There are other dynamics like Chiquita's exit out of Panama and re-entry that will take some time to come in. And all of that has put some weather issues in Central America in particular and indeed in Colombia have put a lot of pressure on the exit price out of Colombia and driven up sourcing costs. They are continuing a little bit. We have been going through negotiations. We can't get into specifics on price, but we're having constructive and sensible dialogue with all of our customers to reflect all of those underlying dynamics. We put all of that into the mix. I think we also had an exceptionally strong performance in America's rest of the world business. And again, it's a bit like 24 in our fresh fruit business. We take it when it's there and we take advantage of the market. Dynamics are good and the supply demand is good. We take it, but it doesn't necessarily set the benchmark on which the level of growth we achieved was substantial in 25 on the diversified America's division. So very early in the year, We think there will be a little bit of a shift in the weighting of the profit streams over the course of the quarters, with it being a little bit more heavily weighted towards the back half of the year as well. So early in the year, some factors out there putting a little bit of pressure on us, lots of positives as well. So we've set the target, you know, in the benchmark at a minimum of 400 million for the year, Christopher.

Yeah, that's a helpful context. And then just one follow for Jacinta on cash flow. You mentioned normalized cash generation, but how should we think about just the level of conversion relative to the at least 400 million of EBITDA? Do you think you can get back to historical 50% plus conversion or is that more realistic for 2027 and beyond? Thanks.

Yeah, thanks, Chris. So look, as I explained earlier on the call, there were some non-recurring and seasonal items which impacted free cash flow in 2025. And we expect something more normalized in 2026. And generally, we've said free cash flow conversion of between 30 and 35% over the longer term. We have outperformed that, Chris, you're quite right, over the last few years. But yeah, I mean, we're targeting more normalised levels. maybe not as strong as we saw last year, with a particularly strong inflow at the end of last year. So that makes the comparison a little bit more challenging. But 30 to 35% is the number we generally recommend people consider for the longer term.

Okay, thank you very much. I'll pass it on.

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Ramchama with Stevens. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning and appreciate the question. Congrats on the results. Just wanted to maybe start off on guidance and just dive in a little bit deeper. Was wondering maybe if you could run through the set of factors that you that maybe get you to an EBITDA range that's, you're targeting at least 400. So was just wondering kind of what gets you to a higher end. I know you're not saying something explicit, but just the set of factors or circumstances that get you to the higher end of your plan and maybe what keeps you here at more at 400 million.

Yeah, I mean, I think I've tried to answer Christopher's question, give you the overall backdrop to how we determined the very early guidance. You know, we've we've a number of important seasons in the Diversified Americas division, such as the cherry season. Writing has been a little bit weaker, but I think with our volume flow, we've probably done OK. So yeah. That's a key season as we get to the end of the year. The supply demand around some of the other products from grapes to deciduous have all been very, very positive in 2025. We'll have to see how that emerges over the course of this year. with a number of key projects underway where we integrated our marketing activities in North America with the previously named Dole Direct North America, integrating with our OPI subsidiary in North America. And there's a bit of work to do to maximize the efficiencies in that, but we're hopeful that can, you know, over the medium term, develop in a very consolidated and positive way. Our European business, You know, we've had some weather issues right around the world in Europe, particularly southern Europe and indeed in northern Europe as well. We've had lots of rains. So that's affected some of the production areas in Southern Europe. It's probably impacted demand and things like food service with people not eating out as often as previously with some extremely bad weather. You're seeing in North America some weather conditions. We'd hope that those kind of weather impacts, while they might have some impact in the first quarter, they tend to balance out over the course of the year. And then on the banana business, it's a little bit early. We are seeing... It's going to take a little bit of time for the supply and demand equation, particularly the production side, to get it into balance again. Our own enduring production will come fully on stream over the course of the year. Some price modifications will filter in over the course of the year. We hope we don't have any issues around disruptions to shipping schedules. So there's lots and lots of moving parts in the middle of it all. And, you know, we put all that in the mix and we think, you know, it's a reasonable target to start the year out with the $400 million mark.

Okay. No, I appreciate that. That color there. My follow-up is maybe just around the Ecuador port asset sales. I'm wondering if you were to monetize this today, how does this improve your cost structure? Is it a meaningful improvement? And then how do you think about your capital allocation priorities?

Yeah, I mean, Ecuador Port, it's an asset that has been within the Dole Food Company for quite a long number of years, probably developed during a phase where it needed to be developed to improve our export position out of Ecuador. The whole port world has moved on and it's probably better suited to a specialised international port operator. And we have found such an operator in Till, a leading company, professional, serious, dedicated, and we believe that they can run the port and take advantage of the port in a better way from a commercial point of view than we could do on our own. We think it'll be fairly neutral from a cost point of view. In terms of operations, we have entered into a usage agreement that will leave us pretty much line ball in terms of costs and will be based on market cost structures. I think the capital allocation question, obviously, it's a very dynamic process for us. We've got an established level of dividend. We've put in place the buyback programme, which we have always said will be used opportunistically. We utilize it to a small degree so far. We have a range of other investments, particularly our Scandinavian business we're exploring. We significantly upgrade our facilities to enhance the automation of our processes for our supply and delivery to our main retail customer in Scandinavia. We think that can be a very good model to even give us a strategic advantage and develop over the long term. We have a number of production JVs out there that, again, the returns are at least comparable with buybacks. And, you know, we can find investments that at least beat the buyback alternative. Our preference is to grow the company rather than to shrink it. I think major acquisitions, we keep our eyes on what's going on around the world. Certainly, we'd like to see a slightly better stock rating. We do see a continuation of the gap between the public and private markets, although perhaps less transactions are actually being consummated within the private sector, even though there's a lot of talk about valuations rather than actually crystallization of those valuations. So hopefully our share price can improve a little bit and that gap can narrow as a result of that. But probably in the short term, our focus will be more around smaller logical bolt-on acquisitions around the group. So it's a constant process, a dynamic process that we constantly evolve and examine and all the different elements that I've described form part of that analysis.

Great. Appreciate the call, Eric.

Your next question comes in the line of Peter Galpo with Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. Can you hear me okay?

Sure.

Hey, thanks for the question. Just one for me. Thanks for the color on the guide and for the changeover to Qs and Ks. I think that's very much appreciated. Rory, Jacinta, maybe you can just outline for us the path to index inclusion from here. Just what are the kind of key milestones we should be thinking about from a timeline perspective as you all contemplate the index inclusion piece, given some of the changes you've made it from a financial reporting standpoint? Thanks very much.

Do you want to take that Jacinta or indeed James?

I suppose it's probably important to say that most of our financial statements and our disclosures were already in domestic issuer format, and it was always part of our plan to move to filing on domestic forms. So we're very pleased to get there. Yeah, I mean, I suppose, as you know, getting into sales can take some time, but we're positive that we can Seek intuition into some of the smaller S&P indices and some of the MSCI indices. So it's an important part of our focus now for the next period.

Okay, and just anything around what the key milestones might be, just as you all have started to have that conversation potentially?

Yeah, I mean, I suppose I think in terms of our information, we're there and we qualify for inclusion. So we'll just be working with the indices and seeking to get in there. We believe we should be in a position to join the S&P 600. So we'll just work towards that initially.

Great. Okay. Thanks very much, Chris. And we are already in the Russell Index.

Sorry. Thank you, Rory. Yes. Already in the Russell. Yeah.

Great.

Okay. Thanks very much. Thank you, Peter.

There are no further questions at this time. I want to now turn the call back to Rory Byrne, CEO, for closing remarks. Thank you very much.

Well, I think we can look back at 2025 with a great degree of satisfaction at the operating level. We certainly had some strong operating performance, great contributions from all three of our divisions. We've made significant strategic progress in 2025. We believe we're well positioned to continue to grow in 2026. So thank you all for joining us today and we look forward to the year progressing positively.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.