Andrew J. Burke
Analyst · JPMorgan
Good morning. Let's turn to Slide 4 and the earnings highlights. Our total segment EBIT for the quarter was $373 million versus $75 million in the prior year. Agribusiness, Foods & Ingredients and Sugar & Bioenergy all showed improvement from the prior year. Agribusiness EBIT was 333 -- $330 million versus $79 million in the prior year, with strong increases in both oilseeds and grains. As Soren mentioned earlier, starting this quarter, we are providing EBIT results and volumes separately for our oilseeds and grains businesses. The purpose is to continue to provide more information to investors, so they can have a deeper understanding of where profits are earned. We continue to operate this segment on full value-chain basis to achieve maximum synergies and cost efficiencies. The businesses are interdependent on certain product flows, and our service groups provide services for both grains and oilseeds. We have included the service group's results fully in grains rather than allocating them to each business. This allows a clear picture of oilseeds, which consists of our oilseed processing activity, our oilseeds trading and distribution business and our biodiesel joint ventures. Oilseeds represents about 60% of our permanent assets, consisting primarily of oilseed processing facilities. Grains is comprised of our grain and origination business, primarily corn, wheat, barley, soybeans and softseeds, our global trading and distribution operations, our ports and our logistics and financial activities. Grains represents about 40% of our permanent assets, primarily consisting of grain elevators, transshipment facilities and ports. We are pleased to provide this additional insight into our Agribusiness segment, but it is important to note that these are not independent activities. They operate together in a synergistic manner. A chart detailing the definition of the breakout is in the Appendix of this presentation. Oilseeds' EBIT was $242 million in the quarter versus $79 million in the prior year, led by strong performances in U.S. soy processing and our global oilseed trading and distribution operations. U.S. processing benefited from strong crushing margins, good domestic and export meal demand and the recognition of mark-to-market gains as the losses recorded in the fourth quarter reversed. Brazil performed well, and South American results were in line with prior year. European softseed results were lower due to weak farmer selling. Asian results saw an improvement. The distribution business benefited from higher margins and solid risk management strategies. Their higher volumes primarily result from increased soy processing volumes in the United States, Brazil and Southern Europe. In grains, EBIT was a profit of $88 million versus breakeven in the prior year. Our grains' trading and distribution business performed significantly better as risk management strategies worked well in the quarter and ocean freight costs were lower. Ocean freight results also benefited from gains from the reversal of the majority of the mark-to-market losses incurred in the fourth quarter. Brazilian grain origination results were good but below prior year as farmer selling was low in the early part of the quarter. Foods & Ingredients' EBIT was $72 million versus $54 million in the prior year, led by a strong improvement in edible oils. Milling results were slightly above the prior year. The edible oils improvement was driven by North America and Europe, reflecting higher margins and lowering costs as our improvement initiatives continued to produce results. Results in South America and Asia were in line with prior year. Our results in Brazil and certain Eastern European countries were negatively impacted by weakening currencies versus the U.S. dollar. Milling results were slightly above prior year despite the impact of weakening currencies. Our wheat milling performance was above prior year as both Mexico and Brazil had improved performance. The integration of our Mexico milling acquisitions continues to proceed smoothly. Corn milling was weaker than prior year as lower market demand from the brewer in cereal industries caused a decline in volumes. Sugar & Bioenergy incurred a loss of $23 million versus a loss of $64 million in the prior year. The prior year was impacted by a $30 million -- $31 million loss resulting from temporary mark-to-market losses related to the hedges of forward sugar sales. As a reminder, the first quarter is the inter-harvest period in Brazil when sugarcane mills do not operate for most of the quarter and products are sold out of inventories carried over from the prior year. Our industrial sugar milling results were improved from prior year and in line with our expectations. The improvement primarily results from higher sugar and ethanol prices in local currency. Our productivity improvement programs continue to show positive results. Trading and distribution results were below prior year as lower margins more than offset higher volumes. Results in our biofuel joint ventures were below prior year. Fertilizer results were a loss of $6 million versus a profit of $6 million in the prior year, mainly due to a strike at one of our fertilizer facilities in Argentina. The strike has been resolved. Lower import volume at our Brazilian fertilizer port also impacted results. Our earnings per share for the quarter was $1.58 versus a $0.12 loss in the prior year. Let's turn to Slide 5 in our return on invested capital. For the 12 months ended March 15, our return on invested capital for Bunge Limited, including our Sugar & Bioenergy segment, was 8.8%, which is 1.8 points above our cost of capital. For combined Agribusiness and Foods, the return is 8 point -- is 10.7%, a significant improvement over the 2000 return -- 2014 return of 8.4%. The increased returns reflect several factors. First, and the largest driver of the improvement, was that 2015 first quarter performance was much better than the first quarter of 2014; second, working capital levels have decreased, reflecting our strong focus on optimizing working capital and lower commodity prices; and third, we were able to widen margins in Agribusiness to more than offset the translation impact on earnings while the foreign currency translation impact did lower our asset values. We expect strong returns to continue through the course of the year. Actual returns will be impacted by a number of factors, including crop sizes, commodity prices, market structure and currency movements, so it is difficult to give a precise projection this early in the year. Let's turn to Slide 6 and the cash flow. Our cash provided by operating activities was $300 million -- $308 million, reflecting $173 million funds from operations and $135 million from lower working capital. This compares to an outflow of approximately $1.1 billion in the prior year. While our liquidity position remains strong, at March 31, we had $4.7 billion available under our committed credit line. Let's turn to Slide 7 and our capital allocation process. We continue to follow a disciplined capital allocation process. Our first priority continues to be maintaining metrics consistent with the BBB credit rating. After that, we allocate our funds to capital expenditures, acquisitions, share buybacks and dividends in a manner which provides the highest long-term return to our shareholders. In the first quarter, we repurchased $200 million of Bunge shares, paid dividends of $58 million, acquired the assets of Heartland Harvest for $48 million, consistent with our strategy of increasing the size of our value-added Foods business through bolt-on acquisitions and spent $117 million in capital expenditures. We continue to expect to spend $875 million on capital expenditures in 2015. Let's move to Slide 8 and the outlook. In Agribusiness, South American crops are large, and planting intentions indicate a large Northern Hemisphere crop should follow. Underlying demand is strong as meat producers are doing well overall. The USDA projects 6% growth in soymeal demand. As the South American crop arrives, they should be the main supplier of global export demand. Soy crush margins in Brazil and Argentina are good, and our advantaged logistics slip [ph] into Brazil should benefit from the large volumes. And in China, soy crush margins continue to show improvement. While our outlook for the full year is expected to be favorable, the second quarter may be impacted by weak softseed margins and slow farmer sellings. In Food & Ingredients, we expect to show higher year-on-year results despite the headwind from translating results from countries where the local currency has depreciated. We remain focused on our business improvement initiatives, on the productivity and cost side and in our commercial operations where we continue to focus on expanding our business in higher value-added areas. In Sugar & Bioenergy, we continue to expect to be EBIT and cash flow positive. As a reminder, the business is seasonal, and the profits are primarily earned in the second half of the year. With that, I will now turn the call back to the operator, and we will take your questions.