The Andersons, Inc. (ANDE) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Andersons 2026 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. My name is Allison, and I will be your coordinator for today. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. I will now hand the presentation over to your host for today, Mr. Mike Hoelter, Vice President, Corporate Controller and Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for The Andersons Second Quarter Earnings Call. We have provided a slide presentation that will enhance today's discussion. If you are viewing this presentation via the webcast, the slides and commentary will be in sync. This webcast is being recorded, and the recording and the supporting slides will be made available on the Investors page of our website shortly. Please direct your attention to the disclosure statement on Slide 2 as well as the disclaimers in the press release related to forward-looking statements. Certain information discussed today constitutes forward-looking statements that reflect the company's current views with respect to future events, financial performance and industry conditions. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially as a result of many factors, which are described in the company's reports on file with the SEC. We encourage you to review these factors. This presentation and today's prepared remarks contain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of the GAAP to non-GAAP measures are included within the appendix of this presentation. On the call with me today are Bill Krueger, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Brian Valentine, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will be happy to take your questions. I will now turn the call over to Bill.

Thanks, Mike. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call to discuss our second quarter results and outlook. I'd like to start off by thanking our entire team for their hard work and focus during an unpredictable first half of 2026. We are proud of the results our teams are generating for our shareholders and their commitment to delivering for our customers during a time of rapid change. Our second quarter results were led by record earnings in renewables. Agribusiness had year-over-year improvement as our fertilizer business performed above expectations. Adjusted earnings per share of $2.15 and adjusted EBITDA of $140 million for the quarter compares favorably to some of our best historical quarters and reflects our commitment to the strategy we presented at our Investor Day to deliver long-term shareholder value. As an industry, we need to continue to build North American demand for grains, grain products and oilseeds. With the RVO finalized earlier in the year and the recent release of the updated 45ZCF GREET model, substantial progress has been made to increase domestic demand for U.S. corn and soybeans. These actions support the U.S. farmer and enhance both of our business segments moving forward. Renewables quarterly results were driven by record ethanol production and higher margins. Our renewables trading desks also improved significantly across all products that we merchandise due to the increased demand. With some volatility back in the grain markets, we have established a larger forward book of purchases versus last year. Our fertilizer results came from improved operating efficiency, continued integration into the Agribusiness segment and focused risk management during their primary application season. Our current long-term growth capital remain on track. And later during the outlook, I will discuss them in a little more detail. With that overview, I'll turn the call over to Brian to discuss our financial results. I will be back to discuss the outlook for the rest of 2026 after his update.

Thanks, Bill, and good morning, everyone. We're now turning to our second quarter results on Slide #5. In the second quarter of 2026, the company reported net income attributable to -- The Andersons of $57 million or $1.65 per diluted share and adjusted net income of $74 million or $2.15 per diluted share. This compares to adjusted net income of $8 million or $0.24 per diluted share in the second quarter of 2025. Gross profit increased over 40% as fundamentals in both groups were improved over the second quarter of 2025. Adjusted pretax earnings were $93 million compared to $15 million in 2025, with most of the improvement coming from renewables. Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $140 million compared to $65 million in 2025. Our effective tax rate varies each quarter based primarily on tax credits earned and the amount of income or loss attributable to noncontrolling interests. We recorded taxes at an effective rate of 20% for the second quarter and expect our full year adjusted effective tax rate to be in the range of 14% to 18%. Next, we'll move to Slide 6 to discuss cash, liquidity and debt. We generated cash flow from operations before changes in working capital of $113 million in the second quarter of 2026 compared to $43 million in 2025, with the increase being driven by our strong earnings this quarter. Our short-term borrowings are up compared to the prior year as we have seen increased market volatility in 2026. Our readily marketable grain inventories continue to be well in excess of our short-term debt, which is consistently the case throughout the ag cycle. Next, we'll take a look at capital spending and long-term debt on Slide 7. Second quarter capital spending totaled $76 million compared to $49 million in 2025, which includes the funding of previously announced long-term growth projects as well as normal maintenance capital. We continue to take a disciplined, responsible approach to capital spending, which we expect will be approximately $225 million for the year, excluding acquisitions. Our long-term debt-to-EBITDA is 1.3x, which remains well below our stated target of less than 2.5x. We continue to evaluate various acquisitions and organic growth projects and have a strong balance sheet that will support investments that meet our strategic and financial criteria. Now we'll move on to a review of each of our business segments, beginning with Agribusiness on Slide 8. The Agribusiness segment reported adjusted pretax income attributable of $20 million compared to $17 million in the second quarter of 2025. Our fertilizer business had a strong application season with improved margins and operational efficiencies. We saw higher commodity prices and volatility during the quarter, which provided more opportunities for our merchandising businesses. However, in these market conditions, our asset footprint experienced limited space income. Our premium ingredients business continues to operate well. Agribusiness had adjusted EBITDA of $53 million for the second quarter compared to $46 million last year. Moving to Slide 9. Renewables had another outstanding quarter, generating adjusted pretax income of $88 million compared to pretax income attributable of $10 million in the second quarter of 2025. Our ethanol plants continue to perform well with efficient operations resulting in record second quarter production. Ethanol margins were up significantly year-over-year on strong domestic and export demand as well as higher co-product values. We recorded $24 million of 45Z tax credits in the quarter. Our merchandising businesses performed well as corn oil prices and volumes improved over the prior year. Renewables had adjusted EBITDA of $103 million in the second quarter compared to $30 million last year. And with that, I'll turn things back over to Bill for some comments about our outlook.

Thanks, Brian. As we look forward to the remainder of 2026, the market has more variables than usual when combining geopolitical tension, biofuels and farm bill policy and weather events. Our diversified portfolio should support our base business and the current environment should provide more merchandising potential. We are evaluating several opportunities for long-term growth focused on increasing shareholder value. At the same time, we are making investments to increase productivity and efficiency across the enterprise while also ensuring that we keep our employees safe. In Agribusiness, we are just finishing wheat harvest. And while the overall crop was smaller, we are pleased with the ownership we accumulated. We expect increased demand later in the year for our ownership due to the geographic dispersion of harvested bushels for both hard and soft wheat. Current corn and soybean crop conditions are generally comparable to last year in our key regions. We are currently in a weather market as the U.S. is experiencing above normal temperatures with reduced rainfall across much of the Western corn belt. Our investments in premium ingredients, including those used in food and pet food manufacturing continue to deliver profitable growth. While significant corn acreage should support demand for all fertilizer applications, farm gate pricing may have an impact on purchasing decisions. We will continue to monitor global fertilizer supply issues. And while we were well positioned for spring planting, ongoing tensions in the Middle East will continue to influence Agribusiness dynamics. In renewables, we expect increased production to continue throughout the biofuels industry. Ethanol exports are expected to remain strong, but we have seen some recent competition from Brazil. Elevated global fuel prices continue to enhance ethanol's appeal. We remain hopeful that year-round E15 will be passed this year. However, voluntary blend rate increases are already occurring based on the comparative economics of ethanol versus gasoline. Our renewables merchandising teams expect to see continued opportunities with increases in bio-based diesel production. Our 4 ethanol plants are all operating well, and our recent capital expenditures are providing increased efficiency and higher volumes. We are closely monitoring board crush margins with increased volatility in corn futures and U.S. ethanol currently priced near parity with Brazil. Switching to growth. We have initiated several projects aimed at reducing the carbon intensity of the ethanol we produce and increasing production levels. As previously stated, all our plants are benefiting from higher tax credits this year. The Class VI well permit for our Clymers, Indiana facility continues to progress through regulatory review. And once approved and operational, this initiative will further reduce the carbon intensity score of our ethanol, enabling additional tax credit generation. We are evaluating several projects for each of our plants with the same goals. We have completed the grain elevator upgrades at Houston, leaving only our soybean meal export portion of this Agribusiness project to be completed. We expect this to be fully operational in the fourth quarter. Other recent growth investments within Agribusiness have come online as we continue to optimize performance levels. We remain focused on achieving our long-range run rate EPS target of $7 per share by the end of 2028. Recent favorable market conditions and strong execution demonstrate our ability to exceed $6 per share for the trailing 12 months. The successful completion of remaining key growth projects, solid market conditions and sustained operational excellence should position us to achieve this target. We remain aligned and focused on providing extraordinary service to our customers and increasing the value of -- The Andersons. We are happy to take your questions at this time.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today will come from Ben Klieve of -- The Benchmark Company.

First, I want to isolate the fertilizer business here with a couple of questions. One, I'm wondering if you can discuss the relative seasonality in the first half of the year between the first quarter and the second quarter. Was it kind of in line with expectations and consistent year-over-year? Or did it skew one way or the other? And then second, wondering if you guys can give us a sense of the degree to which the elevated pricing in the fertilizer complex drove excess profitability within the second quarter, especially?

Ben I may need a little clarity on the second question. But to your first question, how applications went this year, we were skewed a little bit more towards the first quarter than the second quarter. And as I'm sure you're well aware of, we did see a drop of fertilizer prices domestically towards the end of the second quarter. But all in all, it was pretty much as expected coming into the year for fertilizer results. And if you could help me out with the second question again, just to make sure I give you the right answer.

Yes, Bill. So just trying to understand the degree to which the variable and elevated pricing throughout the fertilizer complex drove excess profitability within the second quarter for the fertilizer product specifically?

Okay. Yes, I would tell you, it was probably twofold on that. The first one was the efficiencies that we were able to realize really throughout the first half of the year, combined with solid management, continued integration into the Agribusiness really drove a little bit higher margin and execution. And then the other item that we really saw was the ability to be able to place the amount of volumes that we needed and had planned for at each of our locations. The team did a very good job on that.

Great. That's very helpful. I want to turn to within the Agribusiness segment, the results out of the Western belt and kind of the Skyland assets specifically. It looks like there's some kind of moving pieces here. Wondering if you can just kind of level set us with expectations for that business here for this year and kind of talk about the puts and takes that you guys are seeing right now versus expectations going into the year?

Sure. The Skyland region is one of the driest regions in the Western Corn Belt. It really did minimize the volume of hard wheat produced. If you look at Kansas as an overall state is one of the lowest years we've had in recent history. The Skyland assets were not immune to that. we do need some rain in really most of the Western Corn Belt, and that will really make the determination. In terms of execution and efficiency, Skyland was one of the areas where we were able to grow our forward book, as I mentioned in my opening comments. So we're really proud of that factor and indicates that some of the improved management that we've put into the organization is really executing. In order to talk about the balance of the year, it's really going to be weather-driven. Now as you remember, when we talked about Skyland early on, one of the real benefits that we see is the understanding of that asset footprint combined with our merchandising opportunities. So if we continue to see dryness and potentially a smaller feed grains crop in the West, that should provide us with more merchandising opportunities than we've been able to see over the last couple of years, specifically in the Western Corn Belt.

Your next question today will come from Derrick Whitfield of Texas Capital.

Starting first with your comments on supportive ethanol fundamentals. With the tightness in product markets that both the majors and the largest U.S. refiners are highlighting, where do you see U.S. and global ethanol blend rates headed given that product tightness will likely carry well into 2027 even if we return to normal trade in 3Q?

Derrick, this is Bill. Today, it feels like our blending rates are going to continue to trend higher. From 2024 to 2025, our blend rate gained 14 basis points, finishing 2025 at a 10.51%. As we look at the market today, domestically, our expectations are that, that will be the same type of increase, if not slightly more. So we feel like we're going to continue to increase the blend rates at kind of the same rates that we've seen over the last couple of years with likely an increasing rate, as I mentioned in my comments, through the voluntary blending.

Great. And then as my follow-up, Bill, in your outlook remarks, you noted that you're evaluating other CI reducing projects at your other plants outside of Clymers. Could you perhaps elaborate on some of the projects you're contemplating?

Yes. Derrick, but publicly, until we announce them, we're not going to talk about other projects that we're considering until we actually execute on them.

Fair enough. Maybe just one on Clymers because you did comment on that. With that CO2 injection well permit progressing, are you definitely in a parallel fashion evaluating or building a third-party market for incremental volumes?

Yes. We believe that the demand for -- I assume when you say third-party markets, you're talking about the additional ethanol that we will produce.

Correct.

Yes. We believe that the demand base for really all 3 of our Eastern plants will allow us to grow -- continue to grow our production as we have the last several years. And specifically to Clymers, we believe that, that market can take even more than what we've announced that we're going to produce.

The next question today will come from Ben Mayhew of BMO.

Congratulations, guys on hitting the $6 run rate mark. My first question has to do with ethanol. So I'm just wondering, as we carry over from the really just very strong performance in 2Q to 3Q, paper margins have shown some sequential weakness. But I'd imagine you would be capturing more 45Z in 3Q versus 2Q given some of your maintenance that you went through in 2Q. So I was just hoping if you could touch on the durability of ethanol margins sequentially? And just how you're thinking about the cadence from 2Q to 3Q on a pretax income basis?

Yes. I'll let Brian address the 45Z comment or question that you had. As a reminder, Q3, we did have 2 of the months, we had 100% ownership in 2025. So I'll let Brian address the exact numbers there. But in terms of how Q3 is laying out versus Q2, you are correct that we have seen a little bit of a drop in board crush -- we also believe that there might be a potential for increased corn prices, which will drive the value of our DDG co-products up, along with continued opportunities for our DCO pricing to increase along with the demand that we're seeing in renewable diesel. So from our perspective, there's a lot of variables still to play out, but we feel very confident in Q3 as a comparative to potentially Q2 and even looking back at Q3 of 2025, which was a very strong quarter for us.

And I think, Ben, to your question on the 45Z, I mean, you're correct, we had our spring maintenance. In reality, though, we likely will have some fall maintenance right toward the end of the third quarter. So the 45Z, we still expect to be in that $90 million to $100 million range for the year. You saw it was $24 million in the second quarter. That number shouldn't move by more than a couple of million dollars per quarter with probably Q2 and Q3 being just slightly lower and then Q1 and Q4 being a little bit higher.

Great. That's very helpful. Sticking to ethanol or just biofuels in general, there's been a lot of talk over the past week or 2 about the small refinery exemptions and the risk that they might have depending on the size of the final approved amount, the risk that they might have on the overall RVO. Just wondering if you have any thoughts around that? And do you think this is a real material risk? Or is it just something the administration is looking to do to make everyone happy and whole as much as they can?

I don't think it's prudent for us to speculate on what the EPA or the administration is currently thinking on SREs. As The Andersons, we've stated previously that we think small refineries should only have exemptions granted when they can demonstrate that the RFS is creating economic stress on their company. How the EPA chooses to do that is their decision. I do applaud them for their announcement yesterday. And the continued expediting of this entire process, I think the EPA is doing a very good job. From our perspective, as we look at it today, we do not see the end result being material to The Andersons and our ability to generate the types of numbers that we've talked about historically.

Our next question today will come from Pooran Sharma of Stephens.

This is Jack Hardin on for Pooran. Just on the outlook, Agribusiness was modestly better than expected, but the larger upside came from renewables. Over the next 12 months to 18 months, where do you see the greater incremental earnings opportunity, a broader recovery in grain asset earnings or sustained strength in the renewable platform?

Let's start on the renewable side of the question that you asked. We believe that we have a very focused strategy in continuing to invest in our plants. We have projects that are underway that we haven't discussed publicly. We have the ability to continue to look at additional opportunities. We've been very clear over the last 2 years that we do have a desire as long as the price is correct, that we would like to add more gallons to our fleet. That being said, there's a lot of dynamics right now in Agribusiness that are really going to set the table for the next 12 months to 18 months, as you asked. We have a large corn crop that's being produced right now. We have some weather challenges. We have more weather challenges in the Western Corn Belt. We have a larger footprint in the Eastern Corn Belt when you include all of our grain assets and our ethanol plants, which are a lot of our origination. So to look out forward, you're going to have to talk about the geopolitical tensions, how they're going to play out and then both North America and South American production. As we've stated, we do believe, again, knowing what we know today that the trough for the ag market was likely set in 2025. That can change for a lot of reasons. But as we look forward, we think the increase in North American demand that I talked about in my opening comments are going to drive a little bit of a rebound. The question is just how far and how fast will that rebound occur. So we feel pretty confident in both of our business segments today over the next 12 months to 18 months with both the tailwinds that we have in renewables and our focus on efficiency and running our assets to the best of their abilities, along with being able to grab merchandising opportunities when they arise.

[Operator Instructions] And our next question will come from Jason Miner of Bloomberg.

Just a little bigger picture. If oil were to get much cheaper for some reason, what are the different puts and takes across the whole portfolio that you might see? I mean I think we could all guess that blending economics might be more challenged, but you still have the feedstock treating business we haven't talked too much about. And I think there might be some other effects hidden in there.

The oil complex is one that often, people may think that it has a more material value on The Andersons than it really does. But from our perspective, let's talk with fuel surcharges. Our Agribusiness improved year-over-year with substantial fuel surcharges that we incurred. So likely, if fuel were to drop substantially, as you suggested, I would envision fuel surcharges going away. We do believe that there is a potential that natural gas prices could be reduced in the second half of the year. We do understand that the gasoline price would go down with oil. But the blending economics today with where corn is at and where ethanol is priced is still very attractive. And not just in the U.S., but as we look globally, we continue to see countries continue to drive towards higher blend rates, which will support U.S. exports. So from The Andersons overall, I don't see it being a material effect. The size and condition and geographic dispersion of the corn and soybean crop will be substantially more, including the ability for us now to bring cattle back in from Mexico to rebuild our feed lots -- that to us is a much larger variable than the crude market going back into the 60s or whatever you would define as a substantial drop.

That's very helpful. One other one then. So you have some capacity coming on in the fourth quarter, which looks pretty well timed. Meal demand growth has been very good. Just wondering how you feel about the outlook for meal demand growth in some of the target markets for that new export capacity.

We are very excited about the Houston project. We got delayed slightly due to mother nature and the heavy rains in Houston that we witnessed. But the team down there has done a great job of working through it. We believe that the opportunity to increase our overall Agribusiness results, utilizing Houston as both a grain and a soybean meal export terminal will pay us dividends. Where we're going to go with that soybean meal today, we would rather not disclose publicly. But I can assure you that we have been working for the better part of 9 months with destination consumers of soybean meal and feel very confident that we will have the size of book we need to execute in Houston.

This will conclude our question-and-answer session. And at this time, I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mike Hoelter for any closing remarks.

Thanks, Allison. We want to thank you all for joining us this morning. Our next earnings conference call is scheduled for Wednesday, November 4, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time when we will review our third quarter results. As always, thank you for your interest in -- The Andersons, and we look forward to speaking with you again soon.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect your lines.