AGCO at J.P. Morgan Conference: Strategic Maneuvers Amidst Challenges

On Wednesday, 12 March 2025, AGCO Corporation (NYSE: AGCO) presented at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference 2025, offering insights into its strategic plans amid challenging market conditions. The discussion, led by CFO Damon Audia, highlighted both the hurdles posed by tariffs and the company’s proactive steps to manage inventory and leverage technological innovations.

Key Takeaways

• AGCO is reducing production by 15% to 20% to manage dealer inventory levels.
• The North American large ag market is expected to decline by 25%.
• AGCO aims for a 7% to 7.5% operating margin for 2025, with stronger performance in the second half.
• The PTX Trimble acquisition is a focal point, targeting $2 billion in revenue by 2029.
• AGCO’s Fendt product line and FarmerCore distribution model are central to its market share strategy.

Financial Results

• Overall: AGCO targets a 7% to 7.5% operating margin for 2025, despite a planned production decrease of 15% to 20%.
• North America: The market faces a 25% decline, with negative margins expected in the first half of the year.
• South America: Margins are anticipated to be negative to breakeven in Q1, improving later in the year.
• Europe: Stability is expected, with margins benefiting from seasonality and over 50% of revenue originating from this region.
• PTX Trimble: Flat sales are projected at $850 million, with a long-term goal of $2 billion by 2029.

Operational Updates

• Inventory Management: Efforts to reduce inventory are underway, with targets set at three months for South America and six months for North America.
• Tariff Impact: European tariffs pose the most significant risk, impacting 25% of North American revenue.
• PTX Trimble: Over 200 CNH dealers have become PTX Trimble dealers, with significant integration into AGCO’s production.
• FarmerCore Distribution Network: This model reduces the need for large stores, offering cost-effective dealer solutions.

Future Outlook

• Market Conditions: 2025 is seen as the trough of the cycle, with a modest recovery anticipated in 2026.
• Key Indicators: AGCO monitors crop prices, net farm income, and industry indices to gauge market trends.
• Regional Sales Expectations: Potential growth in South America and Europe is foreseen in late 2025, with North America remaining challenging.
• Market Share: AGCO aims to outperform industry volume by 4% to 5%, leveraging its Fendt line and FarmerCore model.

Q&A Highlights

• Europe: AGCO benefits from diverse crop production, including dairy and livestock, offering stability.
• Share Gains: AGCO aims to overcome competitors’ dealer networks by enhancing its distribution model.

In conclusion, AGCO’s strategic focus on innovation and inventory management aims to navigate the challenges of 2025. For further details, refer to the full conference call transcript.

Full transcript - J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference 2025:

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: Alright. Good afternoon. This is Tammy Zakaria. I’m the US Machinery Analyst here at JPMorgan. It is my pleasure to introduce AGCO’s CFO, Damon Audia and Head of Investor Relations, Greg Peterson.

Damon and Greg, thank you for joining us.

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: Thanks, Tammy.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: I’m going to start off, with a question that I asked one of your peers earlier today. It’s the same question to you, which is tariffs. Two part question. One is, what are you hearing from your dealers and farmer customers regarding these tariff headlines? And then secondly, from your perspective, how are you preparing for it?

What is your exposure to those three different countries? And also, should there be any tariffs down the line on European imports? How are you preparing for that?

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: Sure. So let’s start with the maybe let’s start with the tariffs directly how they’re affecting AGCO and then we’ll move more into the periphery of what it’s doing to the farmers and the dealers. Obviously, very fluid situation. So based on what we know or what’s been announced today, so let’s think about what we’ve heard with China, Canada and Mexico, the tariffs that The U. S.

Would put on products there, has a relatively small effect on AGCO given our overall business. We don’t source a lot of material or components from those three respective countries. So I think if those and you will layer in steel and aluminum on top of that. So if that was the only thing that was happening in isolation, I would say a relatively small effect to AGCO. And I think we would be able to pass that through to the customers without really any significant issue.

When you look at those tariffs, then you layer on the potential retaliatory tariffs. So again, there was Canada made a statement that they would react in a retaliatory tariff. That would have a little bit more effect on us, something that if we were not able to pass through to the customer, it would affect my outlook for 2025. We do export products out of North America, so tract tractors, sprayers, planters, the Gleaner combine that goes up to Canada. Again, I think our goal would be to pass that through to the end customer as much as possible to try to minimize the effect there.

So that’s what we know right now. I think if you think about where the biggest risk for AGCO is, is the European tariffs. There has been some talk initially about putting a tariff on the EU. If you look at our North American revenue of around $2,800,000,000 30 5 percent of that came from imported product. Of the 2.8, 10 percent came from Japan, India and other small markets, so not a big part, but 25% of the 2.8% comes from Western Europe.

So that’s our FENT product line, that’s our Ideal Combine coming out of Italy, it’s some of our high horsepower Massey Ferguson products coming out of France. So that would have a much more meaningful effect on us. I think the key is if that was to materialize and what we’ve heard the industry talk about is passing through price. If we look back at what happened last time, I think the industry looked at what the total cost of those tariffs were, whether it was the supply cost that was going up, the finished product cost going up, getting an aggregate amount of what the tariff was and then sort of raising price across all of the portfolio versus an individual product. And I think we would look to try to do that to the extent possible in passing that.

So the thing that we’re looking at right now is also the competitive dynamic. So we think we have a better a good understanding of how our competitors’ footprints are, how much material they may be sourcing from Mexico, they may be sourcing from Canada. No surprise, we have lots of big spreadsheets that look at the high horsepower range, the mid horsepower range, where is our source of production, where is our source of supply, where is the competitors, trying to get an assessment of what we think each of us will be affected by how much related to what tariffs hold, how much. And then I think we in the industry will act accordingly and most likely passing that through trying to minimize the effects. Now what can we do to dampen it?

As I’ve said on the prior earnings calls, we’re running lots of iterations as to how do you minimize those costs if I can’t pass it through. So for example, what we’re we’re selling in Canada, FENT product, do we ship it rather than shipping it to Baltimore? Do we ship it to Montreal? So again, Germany to Montreal rather than Germany to Baltimore and then shipping it up. So how do we do that?

Are there things that we would do more sub assembly here? So instead of shipping over a whole wheel tractor, do we ship a kit over and do some final assembly here to minimize the cost? So we’re looking at a lot of different alternatives. We’re not making any real changes right now, but I’d say we’ve got lots of scenarios that are prepared of how we would react if these things were to become permanent or semi permanent.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: Understood. How about the other side of it? If The U. S. Farmers are slept with retaliatory tariffs.

In the last similar situation, we saw Brazilian farmers benefited from it. Would you expect something similar? And along the same lines, that market was the first one to turn negative. Are you is there a sense of optimism in Brazil?

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: Yes. So I think the second derivative of the tariffs is definitely what is the effects on The U. S. Farmers. And I’d say right now, there’s a lot of uncertainty for them.

I think us in the industry are projecting the large ag markets to be down significantly this year. Our outlook for the North American large ag market is down 25%. I think our competitors are 25% to 30%. So all of us are expecting a very challenging year. You layer on the uncertainties with tariffs to your point last time these tariffs went into effect, China retaliated by reducing its grain purchases from The U.

S. I think there’s a lot of uncertainty whether that could happen again this year. And so farmers are sort of cautious as you would expect as to what does it mean to who’s going to buy their grain. To your point, last time Brazil was the beneficiary. So Brazil saw China increase its purchases.

Even as the tariffs rolled off, some of that came back to The U. S, but not the full amount. So I definitely think Brazil is a beneficiary. I was there about three weeks ago. What I would say is that the level of there’s probably more optimism now than what there was at the end of the year and a couple of reasons for that.

One is the geopolitical stuff. I think Brazil feels that to the extent there is tension, they will be a beneficiary. I think if you look more near term of what’s happening right now, they’re just wrapping up the soybean harvest. The yields, at least what we’re hearing, were very strong. So even though the prices are not great, the amount of yield coming out is delivering some improved profitability for the farmers.

The second corn crop planting is going quite well. I think we saw a study said about 80% has already been planted sort of in the optimal window. So that’s again another positive. So I think farmer sentiment is improving based on those two things. And then you look at the longer term geopolitical, I think there’s more a little bit more optimism down there right now than maybe there was at the start of the year.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: Understood. And switching to inventory, you’re doing a lot of destocking this year. Can you sort of remind us where you are in terms of inventory months in North America, South America and Europe? Yes.

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: So we’ll go around the world there. Let’s start at Europe. So Europe, we finished the end of the year at around four months, which is sort of at our optimal level of inventory there. FENT was a little bit below that four month number. Massey Ferguson and Vulture a little bit above.

But we don’t really see significant level of destocking. I think overall farmer sentiment there continues to be pretty strong. Industry is the least volatile given the level of subsidies in Europe. And so I think if we look at Europe, we feel like we’re in a really good position. And for us, that’s our biggest market with over 50% of our revenue coming from Europe.

So Europe, we feel like we’re in a really good position as we go into 2025. South America, we finished the year at around five months of inventory. Ideally, we would like to get to three. So we’re doing a significant amount of underproduction there. And again, to your prior question, we started the production cuts in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three.

So we’re now in our sixth quarter of significant underproduction trying to catch up where the retail demand is. We have the industry outlook right now in Brazil flat year over year. We’ll be under producing significantly here in the first half of the year trying to right size the dealer inventory to get that down to around three months. One key point I would make that when we give our industry our dealer inventory outlook, we give it based on a twelve month forward look of sales. So I think what we’ve heard is some in the industry, some do twelve month look back and a couple of us look twelve months forward.

So our five months that we’re sitting here is based on our forward look for Brazil. So to the extent to the prior question, if sentiment changes, if demand picks up, the math may translate to those months of supply changing pretty quickly. So we’ve also been telling you on the earnings calls how the number of units have been changing. So even though the number of the days or months on hand in Brazil stayed at five months from Q3 to Q4, the units came down around 7% or 8% from Q3 to Q4. So we’re taking the units out, but because of the industry outlook, the months are staying relatively flat.

But right now, we feel like we’re in a position based on the underproduction we see for the first half that we should be based more retail to demand level going into the back half of twenty twenty five in South America. North America is probably the biggest challenge. So that industry we said is going to be down, large ag down 25%. We finished the year at nine months of dealer inventory. Get it to six.

So the nine months was similar Q3 to Q4. Similar to South America, the actual units came down around 7% or 8%. But because the industry is declining, we’re still sitting with those nine months of inventory. So significant underproduction here in North America in the first half of the year. But as I think I’ve said on some other calls, that’s probably the one we see the most risk at given the industry outlook, given the uncertainty we talked about with tariffs and given nine months of inventory, I think there’s a chance that that underproduction has to bleed into the second half of twenty twenty five here in North America to try to get that inventory closer to the six month target.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: So staying on that same topic, this inventory month based on next twelve month sales, it’s a function of how sales eventually turn out, right? And if you look at the data that came out this morning, Germany, UK registrations were very weak. North America also January was weak, combines more so than tractors. And so are these two months of data that we have, was this kind of gloomy expectation already embedded in your guide? Or how is the year playing out so far in terms of your retail sales expectations?

So what

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: I would say is no real change to the outlook right now. If I look at The U. K. And the European data that came out seasonally, January and February are low points given the seasonal nature of the sales. And when you look at it compared to the prior year, last year, January, February were actually very strong months because we had a strong fourth quarter sales to the dealer and those dealers then sold into the retail in the first part.

So you’re sort of looking at a tough year over year comp in the European comparison. So we sort of expected the numbers to be low. March is a higher volume month and we’ll get a better read on how the industry is performing when we see the March datum. North America, again, we expected the markets to be weak. I would say nothing right now that we’re seeing relative to our expectations is making us change our outlook this early in the year.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: So at any point this year, do you expect retail sales to be flattish or up in any region?

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: So if we look at the fourth quarter, there’s probably some chances in South America, maybe in Europe, but not in North America.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: Understood. Okay. And staying on a similar topic, so when you think about production, I think you guided to down 15% to 20% for the year. How should we think about first half versus second half?

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: Yes. I would say heavily weighted, in theory, above that, especially in the first quarter, a little bit less in the second quarter and then starting to lap some of the easier comps, so in Q3 and Q4 to where slightly potentially a slight positive year over year by the fourth quarter, but heavily weighted in the first half, heavily weighted in The U. S. And South America. Again, Europe on a year over year basis, not as much of a change given where the dealer inventory levels are.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: And so how about the margin? So your operating margin target is for this year is 7% to 7.5%. How does that compare one half

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: North America, what we have said given the significant level of underproduction that we’re dealing with here, we expect to see negative margins in North America in the first half, maybe even through the first three quarters given the level of underproduction that we’re dealing with there. South America, it would be negative to breakeven in the first quarter given again the significant level of underproductions and then moving into sort of that low single digit in the second quarter and then moving up as we move into the back half of the year. Europe likely more stable through the course of the year driven more by seasonality than anything else, but the European markets have been relatively strong. And so I think you’re going to see again that weighting be a much more second half weighting as North America picks up, South America picks up and Europe staying relatively directionally flat through the course of the year.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: That’s very helpful. And I know you’re not talking about 2026 yet. Assuming production is, let’s say, flattish next year, I’m just throwing a number out there. How should we think about incremental margin in that kind of an environment?

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: Yes. Well, I think if I’m I mean, there’s a couple of ways to look at it. If we think about what we’re saying with the production cuts this year, production being down 15% to 20%, That’s almost two months worth of production relative to sales. So you can sort of assume that that would be an incremental to the top line. Margin wise, what I’ve said is if you look at where we finished the year last year, we just finished under 9%, so 8.9%, let’s call that 9%.

Our outlook right now is 7% to 7.5%. Part of that is the industry. So when you look at our value creation line, that 9% at 90% of industry, we’re seeing at around 85%. That takes around 50 basis points of margin out because of the industry. So my 9% drops to 8.5%.

The under absorption is somewhere between 100 basis points to 150 basis points because I’m under producing relative to retail. So if I’m producing, you think about that as about 1% to 1.5% of margin headwind this year that I wouldn’t have next year. And then just from a sales incrementals, I think 30% right now is probably the best way to model that subject to product mix, subject to things like PTX, but at the highest level I’d use around 30%.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: Perfect. Let’s talk about your market share. Can you comment on your market share by region as it was in 2024 versus, let’s say, 2019? Did you gain somewhere in some categories? Any color would be helpful.

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: Yes. So a couple maybe a couple of data points here. If we think about our percentage of large ag, how much of our business is large ag? So 2019, we were right around 70% of our revenue would be large ag on a global basis.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: Sorry, and how do you define large ag?

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: 150 horsepower or above would directionally be the way we look at it. So that went from around 70% of revenue to around 76% of revenue. If I look at North America is where we saw the biggest gains and we’ll touch on that in a little more detail in a second, that went from just under 50% in 2019 to just under 70% last year. Europe has been relatively stable and call it in the low 80s and South America has been relatively stable in the 60s. North America has been the big driver, right, as I said, going from just under 50% to just under 70%.

A lot of that is the FENT penetration. As we’ve talked about, one of our three growth factors is rolling out FENT into North America and into South America. We’re seeing that market share growth there and that’s helping drive that large ag production. And just to put a couple of data points out there in 2020, FENT North And South America revenue was just under $350,000,000 That moved up to in 2022 was just over $700,000,000 Last year, it was around $1,000,000,000 and our 2029 target is to get that up to $1,700,000,000 So we’re seeing good growth, we’re seeing good market share penetration in North And South America because Vent is the best, right? As farmers get to experience the fuel efficiency, the technology that FENT experience, we’re penetrating these large professional growers and they’re seeing the value of that product and we’re seeing great penetration and good growth rates in both of those regions.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: And it seems like 2024 is, let’s say, arguably the trough of this cycle. And how the inflection is going to be in 2026, that remains TBD. But from our perspective, what are some of the leading indicators that we should be looking at to get a sense of whether 2026 is an up year, flat year, down year?

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: Yes. So I think maybe you look at the farmer level, crop prices are probably the easiest thing to look at for a farmer. What are the futures for corn, for soy, for wheat? Net farm income is ultimately what drives his or her purchasing behavior. And if you look at the net farm income, I think the USDA came out recently.

I think it’s supposed to be up around 20% if I remember in 2025 versus 2024. Still, it’s above the ten year average. So not bad, not the great numbers that we saw in 2021, ’20 ’20 ’2 and even 2023, but still above the ten year average. So if you’re sitting down at the farmer level, those are two big variables. If I think about more in index or indicators, the two things that we tend to follow would be the Purdue Ag Barometer here in The U.

S. And if you look at those numbers, I think the latest one came out last week, it went from 141, I think, up to 152. So that’s a sentiment indicator for farmers. It’s a pretty good indicator of what things would look like six to nine months from now. And if I look at that number at the 152, I don’t think it’s been at that level since like maybe early since like 2021 or so.

So a good sign of how farmers are feeling about the future. In Europe, we look at that CEMA index. And if you see that sort of looks like a racetrack showing how farmers are feeling about their current business and their prospects for their business six months from now. That’s been ticking up the last couple of months on how they’re viewing this the business in the future. And the last one showed an inflection to the upper right.

So they’re feeling better about the future, but they’re also feeling better about the current business. And that again is a great early indicator of how things may pan out for the back half of this year or into 2026. And those indicators, especially the CEMA index, has been a really good predictor for the future. So it’s something we watch closely.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: That’s very helpful. So let’s switch to PTX Trimble. You had to take a write down a charge for that. And I think you said your expectation is sales are going to be flat year over year this year, so about $850,000,000 Pro form a, I think, was about $1,300,000,000 when you acquired and did the JV. So walk us through that math.

How is it going to be $8.50 this year? And then along the same lines, you’re expecting $2,000,000,000 plus by 2029. What gets you to that number? Is it through distribution expansion, OEM relationship expansion, anything else?

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: Sure. So, I mean, if we start up with the impairment, the impairment was related to the PTX Trimble business, which is a portion of the $850,000,000 that we’re talking about for $2,025,000,000 dollars And just to put it in context, when we did the when we look at an impairment, it’s effectively a discounted cash flow. So when we bought the business, there was expectations of what the revenue was going to look like for that business in ’twenty four, ’twenty five and beyond. Two things happened. One, the industry dropped significantly.

I mean, it’s no surprise we’ve seen the industry drop in ’twenty four. We’re all projecting it being down ’25. That put tremendous pressure on the near term cash flows related to that business. The second variable was that as Trimble had been working with CNH was their largest OEM customer. And as those two were separating, CNH had done a last time buy in the latter part of 2023 as they would be selling that into their dealer channel as the primary supplier.

And based on the industry at that point in time, I think all of us thought that would take call around six months for them to work through that last time by. But as the industry started to decline rapidly, what they had purchased just got elongated in the system. And so even though we’ve signed up over 200 CNH dealers to be PTX Trimble dealers, they really weren’t buying much from PTX directly because they were getting sourced from CNH for effectively most of 2024. So when you layer that on top of the industry outlook, it really constrained the near term cash flows for that business. And when you did the DCF modeling, it forced us to impair the business.

Longer term, the technology, it’s still a game changing acquisition for us. With what we’re doing, as you think about autonomy, as you think about the importance of having real time connectivity in the future, That was a game changing acquisition for us. That technology is critical. It was the opportunity to acquire or partner with the only other company that really had that mixed fleet retrofit mindset to pair that up with Precision Planting and really creating that unique go to market channel, whereas we build out this new tech channel, full line tech channel offering retrofit for things like Precision Planting and things like Trimble, it’s unique to AGCO. So we love what we bought.

Ideally, the timing wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t for sale. It was a bilateral negotiation. And we knew long term it was the right thing to do for the company and that hasn’t changed. The near term, we knew the downturn would come. Unfortunately, it came sooner than later when we were thinking about the business.

But long term, great acquisition and we’re super excited that we have it. Think about the revenue for 2024 versus 2025, we were about $8.50 last year. We’re going to be about eight fifty this year. A little bit of a mix. Part of this, I get the first quarter of Trimble that I didn’t have last year.

I think I’ve said on some other calls that somewhere in the range of $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 60 5 million dollars of incremental revenue consolidating that Q1. So that’s a plus. You’ll see a little bit of a pickup in what is being sold to the AGCO OE. So remember when we announced the acquisition, we said that in our factories Trimble was not our primary supplier. We were I think less than 20% of our product was using Trimble in the factory floor.

Now we’re moving that we’re north of 70% at the end of last year and we’ll continue to migrate that up. So you’ll get a little bit of a year over year improvement in what’s going into the AGCO OEM channel. We’re signing up the AGCO dealers. So you think of them like the CNH dealers, those will be what we’ll call more base dealers. So they’ll be selling the guidance systems, they’ll be selling a lot of basic equipment and then you have the full line tech channel.

But those dealers as we sign on more AGCO dealers to become base dealers coupled with CNH, we see that business improving a little bit year over year even though the industry is going to be declining. So a little bit of a positive there. And then the negatives are going to be that the industry is declining and we know that that will drop the overall water level for all of the OEMs both on precision planting and for PTX Trimble. But when you put all those pieces together, it’s directionally flat because of the first quarter coupled with some of the AGCO stuff netting some of the industry declines. So that’s how we’re thinking about 2025 going in.

If I think longer term, there’s a couple areas of growth. So one is the product portfolio. We announced we showed out last year at the Tech Day our Outrun, which is the autonomous system for the grain cart. We demoed the autonomous for the tillage. Those things are just starting to roll out.

Our goal is to have an autonomous offering across around the crop cycle by 02/1930. So more products coming out on the technology side. We’ve just announced the Symphony Vision System. So that’s the targeted spraying application, again starting in the retrofit first. So just starting to sell that into the marketplace later on this year, radical agronomics, the cornerstone system of precision planting.

So new product introductions, a big part of our growth. Regional, Atami, as you know, Precision Planting was doing quite well in North America, still a huge opportunity in South America and Europe. When we acquired Trimble, they had a strong presence in Europe, but looking to grow in North America and South America. So we see geographic opportunities in just bringing those products. And then there’s the cross selling.

Again, when you think about that tech channel, it’s unique to AGCO, right? All of our competitors have the technology, but most of us are selling it through the new equipment channel on our OEs. When you look at that tech channel, it’s retrofit first. They’re not new equipment salespeople, These are seed salespeople, agronomists. These are more on the farm solution providers who are selling things at a lower price point that are selling the technology to improve productivity.

And so they’re wired differently. And because that’s a unique channel, a different channel, it gives us the opportunity to build that retrofit mindset on the farm regardless of the color of equipment the farmer is using. And that’s where the power of Precision Planting and Trimble, who are both retrofit focused first, OEM agnostic focused companies coming together to create that unique channel that the competition doesn’t have, that’s tremendous growth because that’s where the technology for AGCO goes first. So Outrun is going in replacement market first before it finds its way into a Fent or a Massey tractor. The Symphony Vision System for targeted spring retrofit first before it finds itself onto a Fent Sprayer or Massey Sprayer.

So we see significant growth coming from those. And then the other part is the other OEMs. I mean, we had over we have over 100 different relationships with OEMs around the world. Even when we acquired the Trimble JV, we didn’t lose any of them. So they understand that we’re there to sell our products to them to help make farmers more productive.

So we still see there are some other OEMs out there that we can partner with. So we’re going to continue to build those businesses and hopefully add on a few other large OEMs for some of this technology as well.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: Awesome. Let’s take some questions from the audience. If anyone has a question, raise your hand and we can get the mic too. I think there’s one there.

Unidentified speaker: Just two quick questions. Just to make sure to confirm what Tammy was asking about, you’re talking about second half weighted kind of like improvement there, right, for the ’25. So is that all predicated on the assumption that ’24 was a trough for the heck? And second question is also the in terms of the European market. You sound like more positive from my view point of view like than your peers for European market.

And given your exposure, like 50% you said like in Europe, so is it something like you have special setup there like versus your peers? Or like what makes you like more positive than them?

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: Yes. So I think if we look at what we would say is twenty five billion dollars is the trough here, not $24,000,000,000 If you look at our revenue outlook, we were $12,700,000,000 last year. We’re trending $9,600,000,000 or so this year. So this would be the year that we would say that is the trough. Industry, we have industry down in North America, 20 5 Percent large ag.

We have Europe down 0% to 5% and we have Brazil flat. So this is the year. Our data models are we’re predicting 26% to start to be a modest recovery, but this is what I would say is the trough year versus last year. If I look at Europe, again, we talk about how we’re performing relative to mid cycle. So you’ll hear us talk about where we were relative to mid cycle.

I mentioned in one of Tammy’s comments, we went from 90% of mid cycle last year to 85% of mid cycle this year. It’s geographically weighted. When you look at Europe, Europe of our three major regions is the most stable. So generally speaking, a lot of our business comes out of Western Europe. I think some of our competitors have a little bit more of an Eastern European presence.

But if you look at our business, the vast majority of our revenue is sitting in Western Europe. That particular market gets a lot of its value coming from subsidies. So on average, a European farmer close to 50% of his or her income comes from subsidies. So they tend to be much more consistent. And relative to mid cycle, you’ll see Europe usually goes from that 90% to 110% range.

So you don’t see the variability or the volatility the way you would see in North America or somewhere in Brazil, where it’s much more volatile because they have less subsidies. So you have that sort of an underlying base. You have better crop diversity in Europe. So you generally have a lot more different types of crops that farmers are growing. Many of them have a little bit more of a dairy or livestock part of their portfolio, which is guess as grain prices come down, dairy, livestock tend to do a little bit better.

So you have a little bit more balanced portfolio there, lending itself to a little bit of a stronger or more stable

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: marketplace. There’s a question there.

Unidentified speaker: Hi. Do you expect Precision Ag to have any impact on replacement cycles just as it becomes a greater part of the mix? Does it change the dynamics around replenishment at all?

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: Yes. Well, I think in the near term, probably not. One of our philosophies used to bring our cutting edge technology into the replacement market first. And again, I think if you look over the next decade, I think my CEO has made the comment this, there will be probably more change in technology over the last decade than there’s ever been before. And so if you just look at a tractor of what we made five years ago versus where we are today, there’s a significant amount of advancement.

And so as farmers are looking to get more productive as they’re trying to drive more productivity, reduce their input costs, get their yield, The technology is going to be a big enabler of that. And given at least what we’re seeing, again, talking about autonomy, today we’re talking about bringing that into the retrofit. If you think five years from now, if that’s on the OE, farmers are going to be looking to get the latest technology to drive better productivity. So could it help the farmers on the margin who are maybe looking at this retrofit elongate their cycle? Possibly.

But in the big picture, I don’t see it really having a significant effect on the replacement cycle for the new equipment longer term.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: Any other questions? So we have about

Unidentified speaker: a couple of minutes. I want to ask a final question. A lot of your 2029 targets,

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: the 4% to 5% outperformance in terms of volume versus the industry, is predicated on share gains. Now if you look at your largest competitor, they have this expensive dealer network, which is one of their strongest modes. What are you doing to cross that hurdle? How do you make sure you gain share having maybe half the presence that they have or even less

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: Yeah.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: When it comes to the dealer network, especially in North America.

Damon Audia, CFO, AGCO: Yes. And I think the key point is when I look at the dealer network, North America is probably where there’s the biggest difference. Two parts. One is, FENT is the best of the best. When a farmer gets a FENT tractor, it’s more fuel efficient.

It has better technology. In North America, it has the Gold Star warranty, which is a three year bumper to bumper warranty, industries too. When we demo a Fent tractor on the farm, 70 of the time, tractor stays there. So we’re growing. If you look at FENT revenue, it went from 300 and some million in 2020, it was $1,000,000,000 last year.

That’s not coming just from price, it’s coming from share. So Fence winning share, farmers now have an alternative for a high quality product, which performs exceptionally well. So I think that product speaks for itself. The dealer network FarmerCore, which is something we announced we launched last year, is changing the distribution network. It’s doing a 180.

And it’s something all of us have gotten very comfortable in our daily lives. Think about how we used to go to the mall when we were younger and how Amazon’s changed that. FarmerCore is effectively creating an Amazon like model in the ag industry. Again, the history was you had these large dealerships, 12 bays, everything had to get into the dealership for service. FarmerCore is doing the majority of the work on the farm.

So leveraging the connected machines, leveraging technology, knowing when there’s a service interval and then using these large really nice service trucks, taking it onto the farm, working on the farm when the farmer needs it, coordinating it for him or her there. So what it does for the farmer is it’s more convenient. You’re doing it when it’s on your farm. You don’t have to bring your tractor or your combine into the dealership. You’re able to do that.

And for the dealer, it does several things. A, it’s a lower upfront investment because you’re building a smaller brick and mortar store, you’re covering more white space, you’re getting it up faster at lower cost. And when you’re on the farm, you’re usually doing other ancillary services versus what you were there to do initially. And so from an absorption standpoint, we’re able to demonstrate to our dealers that they’re able to improve their absorption of parts and service by leveraging FarmerCore. They can expand their white space.

And so you don’t need these big brick and mortar stores anymore to service them when you can be on the farm with the service truck. So for us, again, we think it’s a competitive advantage because to your point, our competitors have well established dealer networks. So if I now add a mobile truck to that dealer network, the absorption of that store just got harder. Whereas we’re rolling FENT out now in North And South America, we’re working with our dealers helping them saying you don’t need a store every 45 miles. You can have a store every 90 miles, but then with your mobile trucks, it gives you more flexibility to service a greater white space.

And if you see more demand to the East, you move your trucks to the East. If you see more demand here, it gives you a lot more flexibility and it lowers your breakeven point, improving your absorption. So it’s going to be hard for our competitors to do that because they do have those strong dealer networks, stores in place. But as spent grows, we’re using the Amazon model and the farmers love it and the dealers love it because it reduces their cost and improves their flexibility. So I think for us, it’s something five years from now, we’re going to look at the farmers and they’re going to realize how inefficient it was in the past.

And I think FarmCore is going to be something that again, it’s another example of us being the most farmer focused company in the industry for sure.

Tammy Zakaria, US Machinery Analyst, JPMorgan: That’s great. That’s all the time we had. Thank you so much, Damon, and thanks everyone for joining.

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