Q4 2022 Ceres Global Ag Corp Earnings Call MINNEAPOLIS Sep 9, 2022 (Thomson StreetEvents) -- Edited Transcript of Ceres Global Ag Corp earnings conference call or presentation Friday, September 9, 2022 at 12:30:00pm GMT TEXT version of Transcript ================================================================================ Corporate Participants ================================================================================ * Blake Amundson Ceres Global Ag Corp. - VP & CFO * Carlos Esteban Paz Ceres Global Ag Corp. - CEO, President & Director * James Thomas Vanasek Ceres Global Ag Corp. - Chairman of the Board ================================================================================ Presentation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [1] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Ceres Global Ag's 2022 Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2022 Results Earnings Call. (Operator Instructions) I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements that reflect current views with respect to future events. Any such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on the risks and uncertainties related to these forward-looking statements, please refer to the company's management's discussion and analysis, which is available on SEDAR and on the company's website. I would now like to turn the call over to Carlos Paz, CEO of Ceres Global Ag. Please go ahead, Mr. Paz. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carlos Esteban Paz, Ceres Global Ag Corp. - CEO, President & Director [2] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone. I'm joined this morning by our Chairman, Jim Vanasek and Ceres CFO, Blake Amundson. Before I begin, I would like to take a moment to express what a privilege is to be leading Ceres. I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak with all of you this morning about our key strategic priorities for 2023 and beyond. I would also like to thank Robert Day for the immense value he has brought to Ceres during his tenure as CEO. Under Bob's leadership, we have grown that network of assets and positioned ourselves for strong years ahead. Throughout the year, our team has continuously adopted and thrived regardless of the macro challenges presented in 2022. Our team's dedication has allowed us to deepen our relationship with our customer base, optimize assets and trade flows and build on a network of partners. These efforts resulted in Ceres realizing the best annual operation operating financial performance in company history. Our annual gross profit and income from operations grew by over 100%. Our adjusted net income grew by 76%. In our Grain segment, we were tasked in navigating a highly volatile market. This past year was driven by wide fluctuations in futures and cash markets with the background of an unprecedented drought, record prices and geopolitical uncertainty in Europe. Meanwhile, high prices Russian demand and customers consume as little as possible through the end of the 2021, '22 crop year in anticipation of lower priced new crop bushels. This market dynamic resulted in low volumes merchandise during Q4. Regardless of the headwinds, our team anticipated the price changes and maximized opportunities throughout the year while making sure we service our customers across all grain products. In our Supply Chain segment, industrial product volumes continued their trend upward this year. Demand for lumber and oriented strand board remained strong in the U.S. Moreover, our fertilizer volumes remained solid despite a significant increase in prices. Same goes for natural gas liquid volumes through our Gateway Energy Terminal. We see significant potential for our natural gas liquid volumes to improve in 2023 as crude oil prices remain high and the Gateway business increases its size and capacity. While our Seed segment contracted this year, we realized attractive revenues in Q4 due to the seasonality in the business. Corn sales were consistent with last year, while soybean volumes were lower. Our solid processing plant in Jordan Manitoba posted record returns after running full year on expanded capacity. Replacement crush margins for the year were adequate. Our crush team, however, did a great job in enhancing these margins by timely hedging and positioning the business while servicing an expanded base of local meal and oil customers. As in the grain business, low soybean inventories resulted in crush margin contraction on lower volumes from the Jordan Mills soybean crush plant in Q4. This year, we handled and traded approximately 95 million bushels of grain and oilseeds. Despite a smaller crops and lower inventories across the industry, we continue to find needed supply for key customers and consistently delivered high-quality products. I would now like to hand the floor over to Jim for an update on our Northgate, Canola Cross projects. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James Thomas Vanasek, Ceres Global Ag Corp. - Chairman of the Board [3] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you, Carlos. And on behalf of the Board, we'd like to congratulate you on your appointment. It's great to have you and Blake leading Ceres. I'm on the call this morning to provide a bit of background on the company's decision to suspend the canola crush development at Northgate. Although the company worked very hard for 13 months to bring the proposed crush plant into fruition, the Board made the difficult decision in June to pause the project for the time being. One key reason was that the scope of the project changed drastically during that time. As we worked on the engineering and design of the plant, the project's expected costs grew from $350 million, which included power generation to $530 million without power. Ultimately, the Board and management determined it was in the best interest of Ceres and our stakeholders to suspend the equipment contract related to the project to reduce our future liabilities under the agreement. Although we suffered a temporary setback, we want to make it clear that Ceres remains committed to developing this project in some form, and we will continue to engage with potential financial, energy and agricultural partners to develop a crush facility at Northgate. We believe Northgate is still a prime location for such a plant as ideally located to originate canola seed from our farmer partners and with a direct connection to the Burlington Northern Railway provides the most cost-efficient source of canola oil to the U.S. market. Combined with our recent acquisition of a stake in the Berthold co-op, Northgate can originate plenty of locally grown, low-cost U.S. Canadian -- U.S. and Canadian canola to feed the crush facility. Moreover, Northgate's existing infrastructure will significantly reduce the plant start-up cost and time in comparison to a new build on a greenfield site. The movement towards green energy is hugely important to our company. Now more than ever with the expected shortage of North American veg oil feedstock, we have an opportunity to build the gap and help supply the renewable diesel industry. I will now ask Blake to discuss our financial results for the quarter and for 2022. Go ahead, Blake. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blake Amundson, Ceres Global Ag Corp. - VP & CFO [4] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. Before I begin, just a reminder that all dollar amounts expressed in today's call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. For definitions and reconciliations of non-IFRS measures, including the referenced EBITDA and adjusted net income. Please refer to Section 8 of the 2022 MD&A. Starting with the quarterly results, our top line continues to grow with revenue for the fourth quarter of 2022, up 41.2% to $278.2 million from $196.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Increased commodity prices were the main driver of this increase, offset by a decrease in grain and oilseed bushels handled. Gross profit for Q4 2022 was $3.7 million down from $8.8 million in Q4 of 2021, driven by fewer margin opportunities in our core commodities. EBITDA was $2.7 million this quarter compared to $5.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. We realized a net loss of $22.5 million this quarter, primarily due to the $25.9 million write-off for the crush plant project. Our adjusted net income, which removes the effects of major onetime write-offs as well as fees relating to certain legal and corporate costs was $5 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. Looking now to our full fiscal year, we had some of the best results from our operations to date. Revenue grew 41.8% and in 2022 to almost $1.1 billion, the highest ever in the company's history. As we were able to position ourselves to successfully navigate the volatile grain markets this year, our gross profit for 2022 also increased by $31 million to $55.9 million. The increase was mainly driven by our net trading margins, which rose by $31.1 million for the year to $62.9 million compared to 2021. This increase was primarily due to great trading opportunities across multiple commodities. This year, our supply chain service revenue increased $1.5 million compared to 2021 due to higher third-party storage and elevations increased revenue from the Gateway Energy Terminal and increased revenue related to industrial products at Northgate. The net seed and processing margin was $8.3 million for the year, down from $8.7 million for 2021. The decrease was mostly due to lower bird feed and seed sales margins, partially offset by soybean crush margins. EBITDA for the 2022 fiscal year rose to $32 million from $14.8 million in 2021. Income from operations in 2022 also increased to $24 million from $8.9 million in 2021. For fiscal year 2022, we realized a net loss of $8.8 million primarily as a result of the write-off for the crush plant project. Adjusted net income was $21.8 million for the year compared to $12.4 million in 2021. Interest expense for 2022 was $4.8 million, a slight decrease from $5.2 million for 2021. The decrease was primarily attributable to the lower term loan interest rate year-over-year. Income tax expense for 2022 was $5.9 million compared to an income tax recovery of $9.8 million for 2021. This year, we recognized a deferred income tax expense of $5.9 million with the utilization of net operating losses in a subsidiary based in the United States. At the end of the fiscal year 2022, we had working capital of $54.1 million, up from $39.2 million in 2021. With that, I'll pass it back to Carlos. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carlos Esteban Paz, Ceres Global Ag Corp. - CEO, President & Director [5] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you, Blake and Jim. Over the past year, we completed the strategic acquisitions and expansion to our assets and have developed talent in the organization to execute on our priorities. While we anticipate and have plan for continued market volatility in 2023, we are confident that our strong network of assets and partners will allow us to successfully perform regardless of market conditions. Our diverse network enable us to navigate through a variety of market environments, provide solutions to our customers and create multiple revenue streams for our business. This past June, we closed on a 50% interest in Berthold Farmers Elevator, LLC, a grain origination and merchandising. The addition of Berthold Farmers Elevator has added to our ability to connect hundreds of growers with local and international customers. Increased origination of our core products which enable us to better deliver unique value to our customers. Moreover, we recently completed the addition of storage and unit trade loading capabilities to the grain operations in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. This facility has helped us to provide our partners with products that they did not previously have access to. And as already loaded the first of many CP unit trains. Going forward, the company will focus on realizing the full value of the assets and acquisitions made over the past several years. As we begin this next chapter of organic growth, we will focus on leveraging our robust network of assets to maximize trading and merchandising opportunities and to further develop agricultural supply chain solutions for our customers. We will cover our plans for the year in more detail at our Annual General Meeting on November 11, 2022, which will be held virtually at 11:00 a.m., Eastern Time, 10:00 am Central Time. Please visit Ceres website for more details, and I hope you all are able to attend. On that note, I would like to open the call for questions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [6] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Operator Instructions) There are no questions in the queue, I'd like to hand the call back over to Carlos for any additional or closing remarks. Over to you, sir. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carlos Esteban Paz, Ceres Global Ag Corp. - CEO, President & Director [7] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for your participation in today's call. We appreciate your support, and we look forward to speaking to you again next quarter. Thank you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Operator [8] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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