Paula Savanti
Analyst · Lake Street Capital Markets
Thank you, Federico. Let me take you now through our financial results for the quarter and for the fiscal year '25. Let's turn to Slide 4 to begin, please. In the fourth quarter, we reported revenues of $74.7 million, a 40% decline compared to the same period last year. This decline is explained primarily by 2 factors. One is a winding down of our seed business. As you can see in the composition by segment of our quarterly revenues. Sales in the seed segment were $25 million lower than last year, accounting for about 50% of the quarterly year-over-year decline. The other 50% of the decline is roughly equally split between crop nutrition and crop protection, with both segments affected by the weaker demand for crop inputs in Argentina given the dynamics that Federico has just explained. In Crop Protection, we didn't see in Q4 the typical pattern of preseason sales ahead of the spring planting season as producers continue to operate this year and/or more just-in-time purchasing modality. In this sense, we expect activity to pick up as planting season begins this spring. The decline in sales in Argentina eclipsed the fact that international sales of some of our core technologies grew strongly in the quarter with, for example, adjuvant sales in Brazil, almost doubling and bioprotection products in the U.S. growing almost 40%. In Crop Nutrition, sales declined by 34% for the quarter, driven by lower micro-beaded fertilizer sales in Argentina as well as lower inoculant revenues in other markets due to the calendar-based timing of the Syngenta agreement which costs some misalignment with our reporting quarters. For the full fiscal year, revenues came in at $335.3 million, down 28% year-over-year, with declines in all 4 of our reporting -- all 3 of our reporting segments. In Crop Protection revenues, were $181.9 million, down 20% from the prior year, with full year dynamics very similar to those seen in the quarter, a strong decline in Argentina, offsetting growth in bioprotection in the U.S. and adjuvants in Brazil. In Crop Nutrition, revenues for the full year were $89.5 million, down 37% year-over-year. Again, as in the quarter, the main driver of the decline were micro-beaded fertilizers in Argentina. Sales of this product were negatively affected by a lower corn acreage this year. As farmers feared a repeat of the cor stunt disease, corn acreage fell by about 20% compared to the year before. Additionally, weak on farm economics and elevated channel inventories generated price pressure, which compressed margins. In this segment, the expected reduction of $15.7 million related to the Syngenta down payment further weighed on comparisons. Lastly, revenues in the Seed & Integrated Products segment were $63.9 million for the year, representing a reduction of 34%. As explained before, this reduction reflects the scaling back of the HB4 program as we transition the seeds business into a royalty-based model. It's important to highlight that while the new strategy reduces upfront revenue recognition, it sets the stage for a more capital efficient and scalable business, which we expect will drive growth and improve profitability going forward. Now let's please turn to Slide 5 to look at the quarterly gross profit by business segment. In the fourth quarter, gross profit was $25.4 million, a 47% reduction compared to the same quarter last year. Most of the decline is accounted for by the Crop Nutrition and Seeds segments as can be seen in the bar chart on Page 5 of the presentation. The $10.6 million decline in crop nutrition for the quarter is driven by lower gross profit for micro-beaded fertilizer sales for fertilizers, where, as mentioned, lower sales in terms of volume were coupled with margin compression on account of pricing pressures in the market. by softer margins in biostimulants as the business expanded into markets with different pricing structures, but with meaningful growth potential and by lower gross profit from inoculants on account of the lower revenues in the quarter, as mentioned above. In Seed & Integrated Products, the $9.3 million decline in gross profit reflects as mentioned, the planned wind down of the seed business. With no upstream sales to report, revenues in this segment were mostly grain inventory being sold off at a lower margin compared to last year's HB4 related sales, which drove a contraction in the segment's gross margin. Finally, in Crop Protection, gross profit decreased $2.2 million from last year, a lower decline than that seen in revenues as the products that were mostly negatively affected were low-margin noncore products. A more favorable mix with higher contributions from bioprotection products as well as stronger margins in adjuvants resulted in a higher gross margin for the segment in the fourth quarter. Overall, gross margin for the quarter contracted from 38% in 4Q '24 to 34% this quarter on account of the margin compression in Seeds and Crop Nutrition. Now let's please turn to Slide 6 to look at the gross profit and margin dynamics for the full year. For the year, gross profit was $131.7 million, a 29% decline with respect to fiscal 2024. The decline reflects the lower sales seen across all segments. The largest decline came from Crop Nutrition, which saw a $31.9 million reduction in gross profit year-over-year. impacted not only by the weaker demand for our micro-beaded fertilizers, but also weighed by a $15.7 million year-over-year reduction from the Syngenta down payment, which carried 100% gross margin in FY '24. The remainder of the decline was split evenly between the other 2 segments. In Crop Protection, the decline in gross profit came from lower margin noncore products, resulting in a higher segment gross margin as product mix improved in favor of higher-margin adjuvants and bioprotection products. In Seed & Integrated Products, the gross profit decline follows top line performance. Overall, for the year, gross margin was maintained at 39% despite the challenging context and the absence of the Syngenta contribution. Now let's move to Slide 7 to look at adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. The adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was negative $4.5 million, down from $19.9 million the year before. This sharp decline is almost entirely explained by the $22.7 million gross profit reduction discussed before. While there were $5.7 million in savings in operating expenses achieved as a result of delivering cost control measures, these were offset by $5 million in nonrecurring impairments for the quarter. This number is 6 to 7x greater than our normal impairment run rate and is linked to 2 specific events, [ bad debt ] in Bolivia and the HB4 [indiscernible]. Finally, positive contributions from JVs were offset by other expenses during the quarter. Let's turn to Slide 8 to review EBITDA performance for the full year. For the full fiscal year, EBITDA was $28.3 million, down from $81.4 million in '24. As with the quarter, the decline in EBITDA results mainly from a $54.6 million decline in gross profit, part of which can be attributed to the lack of the Syngenta payment this year as a larger portion of which is due to the performance of the business discussed above. Again, nonrecurring expenses due to impairments outweighed OpEx efficiencies achieved through cost control initiatives. Joint venture results also weighed on performance with Synertech, the JV exclusively dedicated to manufacturing micro-beaded fertilizers impacted by weaker product demand in recent quarters. The JV results were offset by higher other income which reflected the beneficial exchange of noncore soybean trades and intellectually property assets that was disclosed in 3Q '25. Now let's move to Slide 9 to look at cash flow. Thanks to the concrete actions we've taken to improve working capital management, which we discussed in our previous calls and continued to focus throughout the year, we delivered a solid operating cash flow despite the pressure on profitability. Operating cash flow reached $29.9 million in the fourth quarter, up 28% year-over-year. For the full fiscal year, we generated $53 million, a 27% increase versus last year. This underscores our ability to prioritize cash generation even in a challenging environment. Net cash consumption for both the quarter and the full year came mainly from financing activities, primarily due to debt repayments. With that, let's move to the next slide and take a closer look at our balance sheet and cash position. As of fiscal year-end, total financial debt stood at $255.5 million, slightly lower than the $259.7 million in 4Q '24. As previously reported, the company entered into amendments to its note purchase agreements and outstanding notes during the fourth quarter, extending the convertible note maturities under new terms that resulted in an increase in the principal base. While the aggregate principal amount of the outstanding notes increased, total debt declined year-over-year and was slightly lower compared to 3Q '25, reflecting the repayment of unsecured public bonds and working capital loans in Argentina. Cash, cash equivalents and other short-term investments totaled $34.6 million, resulting in a net financial debt of $220.8 million as of June 30, 2025, compared to $217.4 million in the immediately preceding quarter. Given a stable net debt, but the substantially lower adjusted EBITDA, this resulted in a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 7.8x. And with that, I will turn the call back to Federico.