Andersons at BMO Conference: Strategic Expansion and Growth

On Wednesday, 14 May 2025, The Andersons Inc. (NASDAQ:ANDE) participated in the 2025 BMO Farm to Market | Chemicals Conference. CEO Bill Krueger and CFO Brian Valentine provided insights into the company’s robust growth trajectory and strategic initiatives. While the company has tripled in size since 2019, it faces challenges such as fluctuating ethanol margins. However, the focus remains on expanding its asset-light model and enhancing its renewables segment.

Key Takeaways

• The Andersons has tripled in size since 2019, emphasizing an asset-light model.
• The acquisition of Skyland Grain is expected to contribute $30-40 million in EBITDA.
• A $70 million investment in the Port of Houston is planned to boost exports.
• Ethanol margins are expected to improve due to increased gasoline demand.
• Share repurchase authorization of $100 million was approved last August.

Financial Results

• Skyland Grain EBITDA Contribution: Expected to be on the lower end of $30-40 million this year due to inactivity and issues with Milo.
• Capital Expenditure (CapEx): Projected at $200 million, up from $150-175 million in previous years.
• Port of Houston Investment: A $70 million project to be completed by Q2 2026.
• Debt to EBITDA Ratio: Targeting 2.5 times or below, currently at 1.8 times.
• Internal Growth Project Returns: Expected in the low to mid-teens percentages.

Operational Updates

• Skyland Grain Acquisition: Integrated into the business, doubling farm centers and adding cotton ginning capabilities.
• Ethanol Production: Operating 3 large-scale facilities, each producing 140 million gallons annually.
• Port of Houston Expansion: A $70 million investment to add 22,000 tons of soybean meal export capacity.
• Veg Oil Trading Desk: Targeting 2 billion pounds of renewable diesel feedstocks.

Future Outlook

• Ethanol Margins: Anticipated improvement in Q2 and Q3 driven by gasoline demand and potential E15 mandates.
• Legislation Impact: Proposed legislation could positively influence business operations.
• Carbon Sequestration: Nearing permit filing in Climbers, Indiana.
• M&A Strategy: Seeking opportunities in the $100-200 million range, focusing on strategic fits like Skyland Grain.
• Growth Strategy: Emphasizing portfolio optimization and segment integration.

Q&A Highlights

• Global Demand: Unexpected increase in corn demand noted.
• Farmer Financial Health: Farmers face weaker positions due to lower prices and higher equipment costs, though fertilizer demand remains strong.
• USTR 301 Tariffs: New wording reduces risk for The Andersons, particularly due to exemptions for the Great Lakes.
• Renewable Diesel Feedstocks: Exclusion of foreign feedstocks could set the RVO in the high 4s, boosting DCO value.

For more details, readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript.

Full transcript - 2025 BMO Farm to Market | Chemicals Conference:

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Okay. And we’re back. Again, Ben Mayhew. I’m with the Ag Protein Equity Research team at BMO. So for our next discussion, we are pleased to have The Andersons with us.

The Andersons is a diversified agribusiness and significant player in the North American ag supply chain, operating in grain trading, ethanol production and plant nutrients, with a historically strong asset presence in the Eastern Corn Belt, though has recently expanded to the Western Corn Belt with its Skylin grain investment, an asset light capabilities that span The U. S. And other countries. We are pleased to have with us CEO, Bill Krueger and CFO, Brian Valentine. Welcome, and thank you for spending time with us today.

Okay. So Bill. Fireside chat. Fireside chat, here we go. You’ve only been in the CEO seat since October, replacing a legend in Pat Bo, but have been at the company in management roles since you joined as part of the Lansing acquisition where you were CEO.

How has your first six months gone? And what excites you about the future as CEO of The Andersons?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: Thank you, and good morning. You do make a good point is that being CEO of a private company the size of Lansing and then merging with the Andersons has been really an exciting process over the last six years. And Pat had done a great job in my opinion of transforming the company. He had made a lot of changes before I arrived and together pretty much any measure that you want to use, we’ve tripled the size of the company since 01/01/2019. And so it’s been exciting.

We’ve obviously seen the markets have a lot of fluctuation. The first quarter had a lot of interesting dynamics with policy and administrative changes. I know we’ll talk about those later. But what really excites me about the company today, I have to lead with our people. I believe that over the last four or five years, we’ve built a management team that is able to run a substantially larger company.

And that’s my goal is to give them that opportunity. I also am excited about the opportunity where we’ve put our two or our three business segments into two combining our nutrient business with our trade group. Over the past five years, we’ve done a really good job of taking our ethanol plants and our trade opportunities and blending them. And now we feel like it’s time to do the exact same with the nutrient business. The other opportunity and maybe the kind of the final thing that really excites me today is the opportunities that we’re seeing in both segments.

Our renewables business has had very strong results. Our trade business has And with the addition of the Skyland investment, we’ve really kind of finalized the one or two holes that we had in our asset footprint by buying the elevators in Southwest Kansas and the Panhandle Of Texas.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Great. So the Andersons has operated as more of an asset light model in recent years, which has worked out very well for the company. What are the advantages of the Andersons asset light ag model? And do you expect the Anderson’s to remain asset light over the longer term or venture into more investments in asset heavy model?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: So if you go pre-twenty nineteen, the Andersons were completely asset heavy within the Eastern Corn Belt and their ethanol plants. With the addition of Lansing, it created a more asset light feel. And the capabilities around being able to trade around your grain assets or your ethanol plants is one that has helped us quite substantially actually. And then the tangential opportunities that you can have allow you to be more nimble. Also the previous three years, I would suggest that the assets were trading at multiples that we weren’t comfortable with the returns.

Today, we’ve seen those assets come down in terms of multiples and I think that we’re trying to be disciplined with our shareholders capital and the way that we’re deploying it today, we’re a little bit agnostic on an asset light opportunity or a fixed asset. We’re going to look at the opportunities and how it fits with us strategically.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Okay. So what is your view on the global ag supply demand balance through 2025? Will we return to a more oversupplied environment barring any major weather events? And how does that impact your view of the Andersons earnings opportunities and potential?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: Let’s start with the wheat market. So the wheat market is one that has really drug down the entire commodity complex. So historically, and I don’t see this changing, the Andersons have benefited with our capacity on the wheat market when there’s carries in it, like there is now. For the first time ever, we now have variable storage rate triggers in both hard wheat and soft wheat. Traditionally, that would not have benefited the Andersons on the hard wheat side.

With the addition of our assets at Skyland, we should be able to benefit on both. So the global supply wheat is in balance today. It does feel heavy in The U. S, a little weak globally. The corn balance sheet really globally is pretty well structured for the demand that we have.

The problem in The U. S. For oversupplied, which at 1.6 carryout, we’re not really oversupplied, is we have competing factors in the Western Corn Belt, which benefits our merchandising, where Milo and wheat are taking corn demand away from us and our cattle numbers are low.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Right. I mean given the WASDE on Monday, I mean, what were your thoughts around the 25%, twenty six % numbers? Or does anything stand out to you that’s kind of bogus feeling? Or did it mostly make sense?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: The increase in global demand for corn was the one surprise. I am a little surprised how the market has reacted to it. 95,000,000, 90 six million acres of corn feels like we should have an inverse from old crop to new crop and the market’s basically taking the majority away. So that’s the reaction of the market was more surprising than the numbers.

Brian Valentine, CFO, The Andersons: Okay.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Can you talk about the overall financial health of The U. S. Farmer and implications for both farmer selling and fertilizer demand?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: Yes. So I’ll take the second part of that first. We have seen a very high demand for our fertilizer products both in the East and the West this year, which there was some hesitancy going in because the producer is not as strong as they have been the last thirty six months. I also talked to some producers who say, hey, we’re doing as well as we ever have because of the precision agriculture, because of their crop rotations and their capabilities. But overall, across the country, I’d say the producer is in a little weaker position than they have been due to the prices and equipment costs.

But we did not see we have not seen a reduction in fertilizer applications due to it.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Okay. Can you discuss the impact that tariffs and Section three zero one port fees are having on ag merchandising? Are you bullish, neutral or bearish about the net potential outcome given what we have seen so far, which is to be fair, pretty fluid? What types of scenarios are you running? And do you think The Andersons is well positioned in its current state to operate with tariffs and higher port fees?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: So let’s start with the USTR three zero one first. As it was originally worded, it would have been pretty damaging in my opinion to the entire ag export markets. The new wording that came out and is intended today to go into effect October 14 really took the risk off the Anderson. So if you think about, first of all, we’re primarily a North American trading company and asset company. But we do export the largest amount of grain out of the lakes.

The exemption for the Great Lakes took our risk away there. And then how they have changed the deadweight size and the fact that Chinese built vessels just not are exempt as long as they’re not managed owned or operated by Chinese companies really has taken the rest of the risk away from us allowing our Houston export business to continue as is. So for us three zero one really was a very large event from February 21 until March 17 I’m sorry, later than that, late March. And then on tariffs for us, China has been the one that we’ve been really monitoring for the ag industry. But tariffs affect to the Andersons, the strategies that we’ve been running more around the fertilizer business and any wheat that we import from Canada.

Brian Valentine, CFO, The Andersons: And

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: USMCA has allowed that to move tariff free.

Brian Valentine, CFO, The Andersons: And if we look back on it in the first quarter, obviously, it had an impact because it brought everything to a halt and people were just staying short and nearby. As Bill said, this USTR three zero one has landed in a good spot for our business. So I think from here on out, hopefully, unless there’s a continued daily whipsaw, things should hopefully settle down and be more positive the rest of the year.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: How does the Skylen Grain investment enhance your agribusiness footprint? And what is the EBITDA contribution timing?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: I’ll let Brian handle the EBITDA piece of it. But it is literally right down the middle of the fairway for us. We have been trading that Southwestern Kansas, High Plains area of Texas for over twenty years. We have good relationships with a lot of the producers and commercials out there. And so when this opportunity came up for us, it allows us to have capacity in the exact same areas that we’re trading.

Animal numbers are growing in that region more in the northern part of the region. And with one transaction, we’re able to double the size of our farm centers. The Andersons have been trying to grow the farm center business for a decade and with this transaction we’re able to double it. You take that, you couple it with our ability to get into the cotton ginning business, which was new for us with one of the best cotton gins. They have three in total.

So it just really added a lot of lift for our agribusiness unit.

Brian Valentine, CFO, The Andersons: Yes. I mean in many ways, it was analogous, albeit on a smaller scale to the Lansing acquisition in combination with Anderson’s. It was an area that we traded in, as Bill just said, and now you have that asset footprint to round it out. So it was it’s very complementary from that perspective. From an EBITDA perspective, we’ve talked about it contributing 30,000,000 to $40,000,000 on a run rate basis.

First quarter was a bit light this year given some of the lack of activity and things going on with Milo. So this year, we’d probably say we’d expect it to be on the lower end of that range, but still 30,000,000 to $40,000,000 is what we would expect kind of on an ongoing basis.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: So moving on to ethanol, what is driving your ethanol earnings success relative to industry margins? And how are your ethanol assets differentiated from peers?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: As far as our assets being differentiated, I would just tell you that we’ve had ongoing reinvestment in all of our plants. And for those of you who I spoke to, our ethanol model is different than some of our competitors in the fact that I’ll just use corn as an example. We grind about 140,000,000 bushels of corn a year. A lot of ethanol companies would only buy 140,000,000 bushels of corn. We will buy we’ll trade somewhere around 900,000,000 bushels of corn annually.

So we’re able to maximize what we call outside the four walls of the ethanol plant. While we’re maintaining and operating our plants, we’re able to trade around those plants and we do the same thing with ethanol, DDGs and corn oil. Corn oil, as an example, will trade 500 to 600,000,000 gallons of corn oil in a year, and we produce 130,000,000. So it’s that ability to leverage our production and our capacity with our trade business.

Brian Valentine, CFO, The Andersons: Yes. And I think those our three eastern plants are all large scale facilities producing about 140,000,000 gallons each annually. I think this point Bill brought up about corn though is a really important one. It’s in many ways, we’re vertically integrated in that business. And so that allows those facilities to run essentially sometimes just in time inventory during certain parts of the year because they know that somewhere in the system that we’re trading, they’ll be able to get that corn if they, for some reason, are going to be short.

So there’s a lot of efficiencies there. I think also, though, the investment that we’ve made to continue to keep the efficiency and improve the yields in those plants has been really important.

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: In this year, we have an interesting dynamic where the Eastern corn basis is higher than the Western corn basis. The last three or four years, we’ve benefited by having lower corn basis in the East on a relative value to the West.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Yeah. And that’s an important point, I think, with how this year is going to play out, which segues into my next question. Do you foresee the ethanol fundamentals getting better from here through 2025 through the end of twenty twenty five? And what would that look like from a margin component perspective?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: Getting better from today, yeah, I think we should expect ethanol margins for the balance of Q2 and the balance of Q3 to be higher. I mean traditionally they are and then it’ll tail off a little bit in Q4. And I think there’s a lot of dynamics working today, whether you want to talk about coverage of the houses proposed bill. But more importantly looking at gasoline demand is expected to be up about 1% year on year. That’s going to pull ethanol.

Obviously discussions around E15, we have the waiver, will we mandate E15 year round? I’d like to think that has a high likelihood. So there are a lot of small tailwinds behind ethanol that I think when you step back and look at it in totality, there’s potentially a lot of opportunities.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Okay. In terms of the industry production and inventory levels, what is a benchmark that we can look at the July or at the mid August that’s going to say, okay, inventory levels are at this and this is why margins are better or worse. I think one of your competitors called out 22,000,000 barrels is like getting to that level is key in terms of creating a better margin environment. Just curious your thoughts.

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: Yeah, no, that’s spot on. We tend to look at days of supply, but that’s an accurate number. And what we want to do is coming out of spring maintenance is have a drawdown, And then the driving season should run. And what you’re really looking at is where do we expect ending ethanol stocks at the end of the year? We think it’s going to be very similar to last year.

We also are more positive than some in the industry on exports. We could drop to 1.85 this year, but that’s still a good year. We just think obviously we had a great first quarter of exports, but we don’t see the drop off on exports. We are running the industry is running pretty well. We’ve had three or four plants shut down this year, but balance of the industry is running pretty well.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Okay. What is your updated outlook prices given the recent recovery in the veg oil complex? Do you foresee a return of strong demand from renewable diesel producers? And can you frame what type of EBITDA contribution this could be? Now clearly, the House tax bill draft just came out.

And on the surface, it seems very favorable for or incrementally more favorable for veg oils as a feedstock. So again, this is a three part question, so I hope you remember each aspect. But just frame up the corn oil opportunity and kind of what it’s going to look like from an EBITDA

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: you are correct. Soybean oil in the East traded around $0.52 yesterday. Corn oil should trade and has been trading at 105% to 108% of the value of soybean oil. And that’s where it should trade when you want to relate it to the CI scores. So we believe that you have a lot of questions there, but let’s talk about the RVO.

The RVO is what’s going to drive the renewable diesel run rates. That’s our belief or margins in it. With the recent proposal, if we exclude all foreign feedstocks except for Mexico and Canada, I would suggest that the RVO will likely be set somewhere in the high 4s. So let’s call it 4.6 to 4.8. I think the EPA is going to look at the eligible feedstocks.

And if you take foreign supplied feedstocks outside of Canada and Mexico, I think that number is going to come down. But at let’s just call it 4.7 that’s going to create strong demand. And I’m getting asked a lot, well, what does this mean for the Andersons? It’s actually positive in three different areas for us. An RVO somewhere north of 4.6 increases demand for our feedstock business, our renewable diesel feedstock business, which we’ve continued to perform well with.

It raises the value of the DCO coming out of our ethanol plants. We’ve announced the expansion at the Port Of Houston to add 22,000 tons of capacity for exports out of Houston of soybean meal. That’s going to drive more meal production, which is going to drive meal quicker to export parity. So we should benefit from that investment also. So the RVO, even though we don’t produce renewable diesel, really has a big influence on the Anderson.

So we’re excited about that.

Brian Valentine, CFO, The Andersons: Well, just to kind of frame up the veg oil trading desk that we have, I think it’s a good example even of an asset light profit center that we established three, four years ago So our ethanol plants produce about 140,000,000 pounds of corn oil a year. The renewable diesel feedstock profit center that we have traded 1,500,000,000 pounds of RD feedstocks last year and they have a target to get to 2,000,000,000 pounds So think it was 1,500,000,000 to 1.6 last year. And on kind of an EBITDA basis, just to frame it, it’s probably order of magnitude between 510% of our renewables segment now and growing from that perspective. So I think it’s a nice opportunity and a good example of a sort of a fixed asset light way to be nimble.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Absolutely. And just staying on that trading desk opportunity for a second, Have you already started to see an acceleration in purchasing of feedstocks ahead of what is expected to be a May RVO announcement? And also is it like is there any other investment you need to make into that business? It’s clearly very talent heavy, but how are you thinking about it from a CapEx standpoint? Is it minimal or is are you do you think something bigger needs to happen?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: Yeah, we have looked at a number of what I would call medium sized investments in the renewable diesel feedstock. It’s pretty easy, right? Storage blending is what we would like to invest in. We’ve not been able to find one that really fits our criteria in geography. It’s pretty easy to draw a conclusion that if you look at the footprint of where Skyland’s at, they have a fuels business, they have tank farms, There could be an opportunity organically inside of that business.

So orders of magnitude, I wouldn’t expect us to spend more than $50,000,000 in one of those transactions just because they don’t cost that much.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Getting back to your comment on East versus West basis because I think this is very interesting and important to your trading opportunities for this year and next year. Can you frame the impact that basis has across your business East versus West and the implications there if the crops come in favorably as expected?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: Specific to the ethanol

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: business? Specific to well, trade in ethanol, if you could kind of dissect it?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: Basis levels on the trade side don’t materially affect our results. What we like is volatility. We like seeing basis move $0.15 to $0.20 in a thirty to forty five day period. That is generally advantageous for us. It’s pretty easy math at the ethanol plants for every penny that you have your $03 on the basis, right?

Mean, so we’re trying to manage as Brian mentioned our inventory in terms of the results. But there’s also the potential for us to find merchandising opportunities in the East also around the assets like we’re talking about. So yeah, the higher our basis is in relationship to the West is a direct correlation in what your earnings are going to be.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Okay. And then your comment on the Port Of Houston, very interesting investment opportunity, soybean meal, export capabilities. What is the difference in market opportunity from selling domestically versus overseas for soybean meal? And with all these crush plants coming online with 45Z working out likely more favorably for soybean oil. How do you view the end demand versus future supply of soybean meal and just the opportunities there both domestically and export?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: So if you want to use soybean meal exports of 18,000,000 metric tons on a trailing twelve month. If the current plants that come online are running at capacity, you’ll add an additional 2,000,000 metric tons to an already very heavy soybean meal market in The U. S. Demand soybean meal demand, it will compete with DDGs, but the demand growth in The U. S.

Is 1% to 2%. And we’ve kind of hit all those markets. So the opportunity for us, we don’t have a big U. S. Soybean meal business because we’re not a crusher.

So it gives us the opportunity to supply exports to our current customers that buy wheat from us out of Houston. It’ll give us the opportunity to build some grocery boats to go to Latin America. So it really will differentiate the Port Of Houston in actually doubling our total capacity once we’re online in 2026.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: So along those lines with your internal investments, how robust is the current internal growth project pipeline? What is the right level of CapEx for the business in ’twenty five and ’twenty six? And what types of returns would you anticipate over what time frame?

Brian Valentine, CFO, The Andersons: Yes. Would say the pipeline is robust. Bill just talked about Houston. That’s a project that’s about a $70,000,000 investment that we expect to be completed by, call it, second quarter of twenty twenty six. There’s a number of other projects that we have going directly with CPG companies and other large global companies where we’re doing some sort of it could be corn cleaning, it could be some sort of light processing.

If we so order of magnitude, we expect this year’s CapEx to be in the range of $200,000,000 That is up from, call it, 150,000,000 to 175,000,000 the past few years. And I would say if we think about 26,000,000 it’d probably be somewhere in that same ZIP code because there are some things we think about even in our ethanol plants for whether it be enhancing efficiency and additional yield or even potentially looking at sequestration projects and the like. On returns, I would say they can be there’s a wide range, but I would say, generally speaking, I’d call it low to mid teens.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Okay. And how big of a role does M and A play in your growth strategy given your underlevered balance sheet, which is well below your stated target of 2.5 times. Is this a good environment for acquisitions? And are you looking to do more triples than singles or doubles now?

Brian Valentine, CFO, The Andersons: Yes. I would say we’ve seen the environment really improve. Our pipeline is robust. It’s just a typical stage gate process where projects will run through there. I would say valuations the past few years have been a challenge where people were still expecting too high of a multiple and we’ve we are seeing that come down a little bit.

And I think given the strength of our balance sheet and given sort of the ag environment, there could be things that come to market that could be more opportunistic for us. And so with regard to size, yes, would say more doubles and triples relative to singles. If we think about like the Skyline investment, we’d probably put that in the double type category. We’d love to do doubles and triples and some of those investments, call it, in the 100,000,000 to $200,000,000 range where they make sense. But we’ve got to stay disciplined and be responsible and you can really do a lot of damage by overpaying for acquisitions.

And so it’s really about staying disciplined.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: And I want to ask about home runs too, but I don’t want get too greedy. Does using equity make sense in a deal for you guys, especially if there is a home run opportunity? I mean, you have over $200,000,000 in cash on the balance sheet. We spoke about your leverage. I mean, how are you thinking about the financing side of some of these opportunities moving I

Brian Valentine, CFO, The Andersons: mean, to your point, I mean, look, we’d love to do a home run type deal. If we could do another Lansing type deal, that’d be great. That’d be another home run. But there’s they’re few and far between and then you get into the valuation question. So if we found the right deal that was close to our core that really fit with our strategy, would we consider using equity?

I think for the right deal, yes, but it all depends on the timing of that deal and the overall market dynamics. With regard to leverage, yes, I mean, we’ve said our target is to be below 2.5 times long term debt to EBITDA. We’re about 1.8 times currently. So arguably, we’re a little bit under levered, but given the market backdrop and dynamic, I think it’s a good place for us to be.

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: And the equity piece would, as Brian was saying, would have to be tied to the right deal. Right.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: And you guys used equity with Lansing? Yes. And that was the right deal? Yes. Okay.

So then what about share repo? Is that a consideration given your float and kind of like what how do you think about

Brian Valentine, CFO, The Andersons: that? Yes, it’s a good question. It’s a fair question. We have $100,000,000 share repurchase authorization that was approved by our Board last August. I would say the short answer is yes, we plan to use that share repurchase authorization, but it’s going to be done in a balanced approach.

When we think about it, you’re right, float is a challenge for us. We’re fairly thinly traded and when you look at the concentration even with some of the funds that are more passive in nature, but so it’s sort of a balancing act. The other thing that we run into from time to time is depending on what deal flow is like in our pipeline, there’s times where the window is closed and so we’re not able to be as active from a share repurchase perspective. But I would say, yes, it’s one of the things in our toolkit we plan to use.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Okay. All right. So just to tie a bow on this discussion, what are some of the key milestones that Anderson investors the Anderson’s investors should be focused on through the balance of the year? Like what should we be keyed in on as key events? And sometimes it’s very fluid like you mentioned with the basis and trading opportunities, but just how are you thinking about the balance of the year?

And you put out that $475,000,000 target. You were right around $400,000,000 in EBITDA for four years straight. So clearly, if the right environment presents itself, you can really flex your muscles. Should we be looking for?

Bill Krueger, CEO, The Andersons: So specific items, maybe just using the calendar is obviously we got to have to finish up getting the corn in. We’re going to be well north of probably 75 by the end of this week, 72%. And so that’s went well. Fertilizer has went well. So monitor the growing season.

If we end up at 96,000,000 acres, it should be good for the Andersons. We have a lot of space now, just under 300,000,000 bushels of total capacity. So that coupled with what appears to be a good wheat harvest that’s coming at us would be things I’d look at. I’d also pay attention to the current proposed legislation because as you commented, there are a lot of positives for our business model in that current legislation. And how or when it gets passed, we will be able to take advantage of it very quickly.

Whether it’s the indirect land use charge, whether it’s extension of the 45Z, We do have our test well as has been completed. We’re very close to filing our permit in Climbers, Indiana for carbon sequestration. So we’ve continued to move down the road in finding opportunities. So that would be the things I would monitor from the outside if I were looking at the Andersons.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Great. That’s it from my end. Is there any other points you want to add?

Brian Valentine, CFO, The Andersons: No, I mean, would say, look, it’s it continues to be an exciting time. We talked at the beginning about how the company has transformed. It went from a pretty diversified company with four or five distinct segments, And now we’re really a pure play North American ag company. And with the I think something else that we haven’t talked a lot about is how we continue to try to optimize our portfolio. As Bill talked about having two segments with agribusiness and renewables, bringing fertilizer and trade together, there’s a lot of efficiencies and synergies both from a commercial perspective, but also from a back office enterprise function perspective.

There’s a lot of opportunities there. We’re also looking at continuing to help address where there’s some profit centers that might be underperforming and continuing to prune where it makes sense, but also gain efficiencies across our back office functions as well. So I think there’s a lot of exciting things going on. We talked about the strength of the balance sheet. Being in a position with this strong of a balance sheet at this point in the cycle is could create a lot of great opportunities for our company.

Ben Mayhew, Ag Protein Equity Research, BMO: Well put. You so much for being here.

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