FMC at BMO Global Farm to Market: Reset Year and Strategic Innovations

On Thursday, 15 May 2025, FMC Corporation (NYSE:FMC) presented its strategic vision at the BMO Global Farm to Market Conference. The leadership team, led by CEO Pierre Brondeau and CFO Andrew Sandifer, outlined a "reset year" for the company, focusing on innovation and market expansion. While the company faces challenges with elevated receivables and tariff impacts, it remains optimistic about new technologies and partnerships driving future growth.

Key Takeaways

• FMC aims for $150 million in sales growth in H2 2025, with $110 million from new technologies.
• The company plans to reduce costs for Rynaxypyr to compete with generics, targeting $800 million in sales by 2025.
• New active ingredients like Isoflex and Dodolex have peak sales potential of $400 million to $600 million.
• A partnership with Bayer for Isoflex is expected to enhance market reach.
• Elevated receivables are due to inventory reset and country mix, with normalization expected by 2026.

Financial Results

• Revenue: FMC anticipates $150 million in sales growth in H2 2025, with a target of $5.2 billion in sales by 2027.
• EBITDA: The company aims for $1.2 billion in EBITDA by 2027.
• Receivables: Elevated receivables are attributed to channel inventory reset and increased sales in Brazil. Normalization is expected in 2026 and 2027.
• Rynaxypyr Sales: Projected to be around $800 million in 2025, with a goal to return to $1 billion in sales in a few years.
• Tariffs: Expected to be a $15 million headwind, already included in forecasts.
• Working Capital: Growth will require cash for working capital.

Operational Updates

• Brazil Sales Team: A new team targets large row crop farms, establishing contacts for Q3 action.
• New Technologies: Sales of Fluentapir and Isoflex are targeted at $250 million this year, with demand exceeding expectations.
• Rynaxypyr Strategy: Cost reductions and new formulations aim to maintain competitiveness and profitability.
• Pheromones: Initial sales in Brazil expected in Q3 2025, with full-scale application results needed for confirmation.
• Isoflex Partnership: A partnership with Bayer has been established to enhance market reach.

Future Outlook

• H2 2025 Growth: $150 million in sales growth expected, with $110 million from new technology.
• Rynaxypyr in 2026: Cost reduction initiatives will enable competitiveness with generics.
• 2027 Targets: Sales are targeted at $5.2 billion and EBITDA at $1.2 billion.
• New Active Ingredients: Isoflex and Dodolex each have peak sales potential of $400 million to $600 million.
• Pheromones: Performance will be assessed by the February earnings call.

Q&A Highlights

• Receivables: Elevated due to channel inventory reset and country mix, with normalization expected by 2026.
• Tariffs: A $15 million headwind impact is already included in forecasts.
• Rynaxypyr Profitability: Aiming to maintain 2025 profitability levels despite generic competition.
• Chinese Production Costs: FMC is monitoring these costs but focusing on high-quality generic benchmarks.
• Pheromone Sales: Initial sales expected in Q3 2025 in Brazil, with results assessed by Q4.

Readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript for a more detailed understanding of FMC’s strategic plans and financial outlook.

Full transcript - BMO Global Farm to Market Conference:

Joel, Interviewer: We will do our next session here. It’s with FMC, of course, pure play crop protection chemicals producer. Happy to have with us today the CFO, Andrew Sandifer and Pierre Brondeau, CEO. We had a nice dinner last night with a lot of investors. So we’re going to pick up the conversation today.

If you want to ask any questions, again, submit on the app. Maybe Pierre, Andrew, we could start off by you’ve labeled this as kind of a reset year or the first half year being a Talk about how the reset is going almost five, six months into the year.

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Yes. Thanks, Joel. We’re on track. We’re exactly, if not slightly ahead of where we wanted to be. The Excuse

Joel, Interviewer: me. Hi. Hi. Sorry. Sorry, could you just thank you very much.

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: So we are where we wanted to be. We are really on plan for Q1 and for Q2. I think the reset one part of the reset was putting the inventory of FMC product below where it has been in the past. And I would like to say except India, which is a prime for most companies, we are exactly where we want to be. So I believe we will be as we said in February at the start of Q3 in a position to deploy a growth strategy for the second half of the year, is critical to deliver the year.

We’ll be in a very good position.

Joel, Interviewer: Okay. Now let’s talk about what you did to get to the reset. So you have done some tougher choice of our naxpira to get ready for some moves in that molecule. You’re getting ready for a new sales team to we’ve launched the sales team, to really start hitting product sales into Q3. Maybe talk about some of those moves.

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Yes. I think at this stage, if I would define what we have to do for the company to be fully fully back on track. There is delivering the growth in Q2, Q3 in Q3, Q4, which is driven entirely we have not in the plan forecasted any natural growth of the market or change in demand. So it is driving growth through new technology, mostly the two new products we have introduced on the market last year, which are Fluentapir, which is a fungicide and Isoflex, which is an herbicide. Both of those products are impacting Q2 because they are mostly impacting part of Europe for cereals, which is a Q3 event.

And then most of the registration we have for Fluentapy are in North America and in Brazil, which is an H2. So that’s number one, growth of new technology, completely on par right now with what we’re expecting to do. I said it, if we miss a number for new technology, it will be on the high side. Right now, lots of the time we are spending is more making sure we’re accelerating capacity because the demand is stronger than what we’re expecting. So that piece is working well.

Piece number two is, as we’ve said, Brazil is basically four large markets, the co ops, the retailers, the sugarcane and carton farms and the row crops large farm. The last one we’ve never been able to penetrate because we needed to have a full product line to participate in this market. We had multiple discussions with them. We have a full product line with a new product. We have a new fungicide which will be one of the best on the market, if not the best.

We’ll have three new herbicide including two with new mode of action and a regular insecticide. We have at this stage structured the sales organization. We have hired the people. All the people we hired are coming from the regions and have worked with the customers we are targeting. They have all been trained and the contact are being established with the farmers in that segment.

So we are ready for action in Q3 for that. So that’s the second part of the growth to deliver Q3, Q4. If we deliver and I believe we’re in a very strong place to deliver, we will deliver the H2 numbers. We understand there is a it’s a big number compared to the first half of the year, but the first half was focusing on resetting the company. So for H2, those are the two main factor.

You talk about Rynaxypyr. Rynaxypyr is mostly the strategy we are putting in place right now is mostly a 26% impact. Three aspects to the strategy. Number one, reducing dramatically the manufacturing cost. We are there.

Right now we are within shooting distance of the quality generics. We will be at the beginning of ’26 on par with the high quality generics for manufacturing cost. What does it do? It allows us to defend the position on what we call a simple solo ronaxapia molecule and to expand the solo molecules into other market, other insecticide market. So to grow the volume at a lower price, but much larger volume and at the same time, develop new technology.

We have three products today we’re putting on the market. And we have three more registrations. That would be a total of six products by next year. So the Renek Sapir strategy is really we are gearing up to be ready at very early 2026.

Joel, Interviewer: Okay. Let’s dive into all those throughout the next half an hour or so. Let’s talk about Brazil. So you put together a sales team pretty quickly. Talk about why you could do that so quickly.

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: I think we are benefiting from that’s the only good side about the situation we are facing today in the agriculture world is that there is not a lot of companies which are doing very well. Most of the companies have been going through restructuring. A number of people are available on the market. Many company have been downsizing in multiple big markets. Plus there is the fact that we are doing something new.

There is very companies today which are building a new part of the organization targeting growth from scratch. And that’s what we’re doing and that’s a challenge which is attracting a lot of salespeople and agronomists. So we were able in about three month to four month to build that organization. Now I also want to it was not as quick as it might seem because we talk about it at the February earnings call. But we started that process in November, December ’20 ’20 ’4.

So it is not like we started when we announced it. We’re already in the process when we announced it. So we started in November. And now by the end of by now, the team is trained and is already in contact with the farmers.

Joel, Interviewer: What is like a selling pitch? Your new salesperson, he knows his customer, now he’s got a new jersey on. What is his sales what is his or her sales pitch?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: The first the first selling pitch is new technology. We the opening statement and what made those farmers contact us as much as we are contacting them was the launch of Fluentapir. We believe it is a product right now. It’s gonna be one of the fungicide on the market which has the wider spectrum, which is very important for row crops because the problem with fungus and controlling fungus and fungus keeps on coming back on a different form. This one has a very broad spectrum.

That’s the opening pitch. The second one is once we have that, we have three new herbicide we’re putting on the market and then we have the rest of the portfolio. So we are pretty much qualifying as a full product line supplier with a star product, which is a fungicide, which is very critical to those farmers.

Joel, Interviewer: Okay. And you are targeting, like you said, the large farms, the mega farms. Talk a bit about why mega farms are sort of off the table.

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Well, they’re off the table. Should have said that. If you think about the market, as I said, the four big segments, there is what we call the mega farms, which are very often a hundred thousand hectares and more. Those are doing usually sugarcane. They are doing cotton.

And as a rotation, they also do corn and soybean. We are selling and we’ve sell sold for decades to these farms. It’s one of the big market today. If you exclude the new market we are going after, the row crops, the large farm, we are selling 40% of our sales are direct to farmers and those are the mega farm. So we’re going to carry on selling to the mega farm and the co ops and the retailers.

That is not changing. The new market is now because of the new technology, we have been invited by the large farm. And what we call large farm is 10,000 hectares to 100,000 hectares. You can only go into those farms. They can’t afford to have eight suppliers.

They need a limited number of suppliers which have a full product line. We did not qualify until this year. We do now and that’s the new segment. We know how to sell to corn producers and soybean producers. We are doing it with the mega farm.

But we are going to apply this model now to the large farm. That’s why it is not a big stretch. We’ve sold direct. We’ve sold into corn. We’ve sold into soybean.

It is just a new segment.

Joel, Interviewer: Just thinking in Brazil now generally, talk about the level of generic pressure you’re seeing in Brazil. Is it the same as always? Is it different? I’m not talking about Naxapir, which more generally.

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Yeah, it’s there. It’s always difficult to qualify if it’s more or less. There is price pressure. It’s not lower than it’s been in the past, but it’s not dramatically different than what it was in the past. I think the numbers will prove at the end of the year.

We very often talk about price pressure, but if you look over the last five, six years, the percentage of sales, whether it’s in Brazil or worldwide, which belongs to generic versus tech companies is about balanced. Let’s not forget also that tech companies like us, we sell generic products. We manufacture them at a generic price. We are selling sulfentrazone, clomosome, bifenthrin, those are the product generics are selling. So there is price pressure, you can’t deny it.

I think we are forecasting in the second half low single digit. That’s a kind of numbers for next year, which is not that different from the past in a low demand market. Rolex appears a different story. That’s why we need a brand new strategy going into ’26. We don’t need it now because we are protected by patent in all of the large markets except China and India.

But that’s going to be a different story.

Joel, Interviewer: If we’re talking about Max a bit more, just sticking in Brazil. There was a question we had at dinner last night. And one question was talking about how receivables have been a bit higher than normal. Andrew, could you talk to how long it may take for receivables to come down to normal levels?

Andrew Sandifer, CFO, FMC: Sure. I think, look, we do have elevated receivables versus our own history. I think it’s a difficult thing to compare across companies because the country and crop mix are so different among the different players. But I think when we look at what’s going on in our receivables, one, it’s the hangover from the deceleration in sales from the peak in 2022. It takes a couple of seasons for that to really resettle.

And then second, I think most importantly, it’s a country mix thing. When we think about particularly in a year like this year, we’re in the first half, we’re taking very strong action to reset channel inventory by not selling into the channel. That’s in a lot of countries where we have structurally shorter terms. In the second half of the year, we’re going have pretty significant growth, both top line and bottom line. A lot of that growth is tilted towards countries like Brazil, which have structurally longer terms.

So there’s a big country mix element that’s keeping it elevated right now. I think as we get back into a more normal rhythm in 2026 and 2027, after we don’t have this first half significant correction that we’re going through right now in 2025, you’ll see some normalization there. I’d just add one last comment just on working capital in general. I think working capital is an important part of asset base for a crop chemical company. Crop chemistry is not big heavy chemical production.

We’re very acid light. The CapEx load is very, very low in our business. But we do consume working cash for working capital when we grow. So as we renew to grow, there will be some use of cash for working capital, but we’ll get it back into a more normal balance than what you’ve seen in the last two years over the 2026 and 2027 horizon.

Joel, Interviewer: Just on the second half, some of your competitors are talking about everything’s great, but the one risk they see are crop protection, chemical pricing pressures potentially in second half of the year. I know tariffs are up or down every hour. Don’t know where they are now, they change. But when you think about making that big second half number, the comps you have, where do you weigh in the risk on more pricing pressure in general, tariffs as you play around with thoughts the numbers?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Tariffs, we’ve put that in our forecast. And we’ve put in our forecast with the pre ninety days truth period. So at the 145%. Now tariffs are important, but they are not that significant for a company like ours because a lot of the manufacturing which takes place in The US is done with product which have to come from China. It would be detrimental to manufacturing in The US if those products would have full tariffs.

So you see many exemption in the Annex II list for most of our products. So we’re expecting a $15,000,000 headwind which is fully baked in our forecast And that’s on the worst case scenario. So we do not believe it’s going to derail what we have in mind right now for H2. Pricing low single digit, we believe is in line with pretty much what the industry is saying, what our customers are expecting. Now the big benefit for us is to give you a sense of the numbers, correct me if I’m wrong.

In H2, I think we have about $150,000,000 of growth.

Andrew Sandifer, CFO, FMC: Revenue growth.

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: About $150,000,000 of sales growth. Out of this $150,000,000 of sales growth, 110,000,000 are new technology. So new product which are put on the market on which you do not have price pressure because there is no competing product. So on the growth side, we’re not expecting any price pressure. So the level of confidence is pretty high than what we have baked into our H2 forecast is quite achievable.

Joel, Interviewer: Okay. Let’s talk about next, Pierre. So the game changes on 01/01/2026, right? Tell me how the game changes. January 1, what happens?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: January 1, is no process patent, completion of matter patent or data protection. Pretty much in every part of the world, any generic company capable of manufacturing will accept here will be authorized to sell the product. How do we deal with a situation like that? What was absolutely critical for us over the last year was to bring a manufacturing cost completely in line with the people we will be competing with, the generic. Now there is two categories of generic.

There is what we call the high quality generic manufacturers. We’re able to make a product which works. And there is the low level generics, we’re going go after market we don’t even participate in. So our objective is to be from a cost standpoint on par with the high quality generic to be able to deploy a strategy without being limited by cost. We will be there.

The plan is in place. We’re almost there by January 1. That will be done. Once you have that, you have to deploy a strategy which is based on a it’s a two pronged strategy. One is what we call the single molecule.

It’s gonna be using price to be on par with generic plus premium because we have a brand, a brand has a value. We don’t need to be at the exact same price because there is quality, people know our product, plus we provide compared to generic a service to the customers with agronomist and tech service. The target here with the single solo molecule is to protect our position today and expand into other places where people would rather buy Ronaxapia than other insecticide. But Ronaxapia was too expensive before. But if you bring it to a price where you can compete, they will switch to Rynaxypyr.

So it’s increasing the solo molecule market where we will be competing against generic at a lower price, but increase volume significantly. The other part of the strategy is developing new technologies which command a premium. And those technologies have different there is different aspect to it. In some cases, ronaxypyr is a great product but has a very narrow spectrum. Very strong with caterpillar, which is the biggest issue.

But what you can do is if you create the right mixture, you expand the spectrum, you’ll limit the number of application farmers have. So that’s part of the strategy. We have today one product like this, which is being sold this year. We’re also creating high concentration product. It’s less cost for the farmer, easier to use.

And finally, rice is a very big market for us. It’s 25% of our sales. And we have developed a tablet, Efervescent tablet, which is where the efficacy is very good for for rice. So those are new products which are commanding premium. And we are we have developed three other mixtures which are addressing resistance and increasing spectrum, and we’re going to get the registration in 2026.

Now to tell you the speed at which high end technology farmers are willing to switch to new technology, remember the discussion we had last night? We sell $800,000,000 of Rynaxypyr in 2025. ’2 hundred are contract with our partners we are supplying, cost plus the tech partners. Dollars 600,000,000 on Rolex Sapir we sell to the market, branded Rolex Sapir. Those three new products we’ve just introduced at the end of twenty twenty five will represent 200,000,000 to $215,000,000 So of the $600,000,000 we brought three new molecules.

Farmers know very well generics are coming. They know we’re going to be lowering the price on the solar molecule. Nevertheless, to go to higher technology product, we have been able to convert already $250,000,000 of those $600,000,000 sales, which means the shift is taking place. So that’s a two pronged strategy we’re going to go after.

Joel, Interviewer: So in that so what your forecast has been that Rinax per sales about $1,000,000,000 last year, about $800,000,000 this year, like you said. And then I think you’re talking about a mid- to high single digit growth CAGR 26%, twenty seven right? So 8% or so every year after this year? Correct. The goal being you batch up at $1,000,000,000 of sales in a few years.

And I think you said last night, Andrew, I think you said that the goal is to get the same profitability level of Naxpere in dollars as you were in ’25.

Andrew Sandifer, CFO, FMC: Yes. Let’s be precise. We want profit dollars, right? Our three year plan in the February call, laid out our outlook for 2027, where we think we can return sales to 5,200,000,000 and EBITDA to $1,200,000,000 for the company. Assumed in that plan are $0 of profit growth for Rynaxypyr.

The strategy with Rynaxypyr, as Pierre described, is to drive higher volume, increase penetration into parts of the market where we don’t play today with Rynaxypyr, to capture more value with new technology based on utilizing Rynaxypyr, doing both of those with a significantly lower cost position than what we’ve had historically. That will allow us to grow sales with volume going up, price going down. But with costs significantly resetting, the balance between those three variables is flat profit dollars from Rynaxypyr. So Rynaxypyr is not a drag on the company’s performance going forward, but it isn’t the driver of where the growth from 2025 to 2027 is. That’s really the growth portfolio, ziazepir and the four new active ingredients in our plant health business.

But that’s an essential assumption in our three year outlook.

Joel, Interviewer: So I may have been wrong with this, we’ll find out in the next five seconds. But I thought you so is the goal to be $27 RENACs per sale same as $24 20 7 dollars profit from RENACs per same as $25

Andrew Sandifer, CFO, FMC: right? The math will work out roughly that same kind of place. I we haven’t seen I know people love guys.

Joel, Interviewer: It’s a tee up.

Andrew Sandifer, CFO, FMC: Yeah, we didn’t give a firm He

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: always does that.

Andrew Sandifer, CFO, FMC: Yeah, we didn’t give a firm number for Rinax if you’re in ’27, but the math will work. If you use that kind of high single digit growth rate, it’ll get back to around 24 levels.

Joel, Interviewer: Because what I was thinking was then, and it makes sense, on this ’27 per sales being the same as ’24, but you’re assuming a lower level of profitability on the same level of sales, which makes sense in a more generic world. Right? Then I was trying to crack the numbers last night, but I got

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: But that’s that’s an important comment you’re making. Think about it. 27 sales, around 24 sales. Earnings at the same level as ’25.

Joel, Interviewer: Yes.

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Okay. ’25, ’20 ’6, ’20 ’7 earnings of Roanoke Sapir. And going forward, the whole strategy is we do not want Roanoke Sapir to handicap the earnings growth provided by the growth platform.

Joel, Interviewer: What I thought about that was, and I was trying to count the numbers, was making a joke, was you’re not assuming a massive amount of margin reduction the new FMC or NAX for reality?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: No, because our cost will be much lower. Our cost will be much lower. So there will it will not be a massive margin reduction, but the cost being lower, it will impact the overall dollar and the level of earnings.

Joel, Interviewer: So the question I have for you is it’s got to be difficult to know what the Chinese production cost is going to be for Naxapir. And then you’ve got to kind of plan around that or and it’s going to you’re going find out next year and the year after. So how do you think about that?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: So you’re right. We just don’t know exactly how the Chinese generic company calculate their cost. What is in, what is out, how it’s done. But we know some companies, we call the high quality generics. Yeah.

We’re a bit more transparent around their costing And we also know very well the process to manufacture Rynaxypyr and the shortcut you can take. So we have a pretty good idea of the number we should reach to be on par with the high quality generics. And that’s the kind of number we are getting at. It is not a very rigorous comparison because we do not have all the information we need to understand the costing process generics are taking.

Joel, Interviewer: And don’t you get worried that Chinese producers of anything get smart and smarter and smarter and the bar could go lower?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: The molecule Rolex appear like it’s even worse for sales appear, a complex molecule to make. Nobody knows that process better than us because we’ve made that for twenty years. To go much lower, as smart as the engineers or process engineers might be, you would have to take some shortcuts, which will be detrimental to the quality of the product. There is no doubt. So we we have a very large organization right now which is working on process.

That’s all they have done all year to take us to what we call high quality generic costing. And and to go below that, they are going to be impacting the quality of the product, which might be okay for some market segments, the very low end insecticide, but we don’t play in this market. That’s where we’re going to go in the expansion of our Nexapia.

Joel, Interviewer: Okay. You’ve talked about Flindapir. Let’s talk about some of other opportunities that you’re excited about, quadrupling sales, some of your new AIs over the next four years, a few years. So Isoflex, Dodolex, talk about what are the what’s the excitement around some of the new AIs?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Yes. First, FluentAPIR is it’s been tested by our customers. We doubled sales this year versus last year. Fluentopia and ISOFlex, we’re targeting about $250,000,000 this year, which is twice what it was last year. We will be there.

I can say it in a pretty certain way, we will be there this year, except that the demand is starting to go beyond what we’re expecting. So we are accelerating capacity right now because the demand is strong. Fluentapir, the product has a quality, it’s spectrum. It’s one of the fungicide you’re going to find on the market with the largest spectrum. So there is a lot of excitement around this product.

ISOFLAX, same thing. It’s a product mostly it’s going to take off faster mostly in Europe, very, very stronger besides for serols application. I can tell you to cite comment, but I was last week with the Head of Europe, who told me isoflase will be bigger for Europe than the diamides were. It’s going to be a very big product. The last two, Dodilx is coming next year.

Initially it was developed as an herbicide for rice. It’s proving to be a very strong herbicide for multiple application. And what is very important with this product, it’s a new mode of action, which in nature has never seen a product. The last herbicide which was introduced with a new mode of action was thirty years ago. So from an efficacy of the product, it’s going to be very strong.

We are introducing that second half of next year.

Andrew Sandifer, CFO, FMC: Some early stage introductions in the second half of next year.

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Second half of next year.

Andrew Sandifer, CFO, FMC: More significant commercialization in ’20

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: So this one and then the last one, rimisoxafen is another herbicide, also a broad application. And this one has a dual new mode of action. So also increasing the spectrum and and and something for which resistance that exist. Those four AIs, listen, I never had a situation with introduction of four new products of that quality in such a short period of time.

Andrew Sandifer, CFO, FMC: Joel, if I could just add just some proportions for everyone’s benefit. The diamides at their peak were about $2,000,000,000 in sales. Those four active ingredients each have a peak sales potential between 400,000,000 and $600,000,000 In fact, might be a bit higher for a couple of them and what we’re learning now is we’re rapidly commercializing them. So the four of them combined are significantly larger than the diamides were at their peak. And you signed recently a new partnership with Bayer for Isoflex?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Sorry?

Joel, Interviewer: Didn’t you sign a partnership with Bayer for Isoflex?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Yes, we did.

Joel, Interviewer: Can you talk about

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Yes, we did. It’s something we often do in the industry. I’m certain we’re going to sign more. And I’m also certain we’re going to sign a series for also Fluentapir. You sign this type of contract for companies which recognize the value of the product and want to apply it in the foreign market.

But very often also we sign those partnership with seeds companies who want to use the product as part of their seeds program. So and that’s where most of the partnerships are. Those are signing with companies which is the benefit of the product, but it’s to be applied on hectares where we don’t participate. So those are going to be critical, but I would expect looking at quality of the product that they’re going to be more than the one with Bayer announced in the next few months.

Joel, Interviewer: How do you like you’ve got some group big growth plans too for pheromones and biologicals. Is it just my conjecture? Doesn’t I just feel like you talk about the other things more than pheromones and biologicals. How do you feel about it versus what you felt about it a year ago?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Two different things. Biologicals, we talk about the growth of biologicals and biological is growing double digit above 20% certainty around that growth. We have multiple product, we have multiple technology. They are most of the time used in conjunction with chemicals. It’s a couple of our plant health business, couple of hundred million dollar business.

This one, I could talk about it with the same certainty as the way we talked about the four AIs. Pheromones, we are a bit more careful because it’s a very new way of of dealing with insects, insect control. We’re having a first sale of pheromones in the third quarter this year in Brazil with application in the fourth quarter. So we need this full scale application to to be to be confirmed that the technology works.

Joel, Interviewer: Right.

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: If it does if it does, it could be very big. But we don’t want to talk about it because we don’t know yet.

Joel, Interviewer: It’s an old Monsanto term, groundbreakers, like a groundbreaker’s year for pheromones.

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Absolutely. We were forbidden to put a single dollar in the three year plan from pheromones until

Joel, Interviewer: By Andrew?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Until by Andrew, yes. Until that test in Brazil or that sale in Brazil is seen. I would say that by the fourth quarter, certainly by the earnings call in February for the fourth quarter, we’ll have a very good sense of the performance of FerroMon’s and what it could represent for the company.

Joel, Interviewer: Was there like something in the lab or some field trials in the last year or two that made you say, maybe? It’s pretty crazy, like new technology, if you people understand the background of it. But like, is there something that happened in the last year or two in the background that made you a little less excited?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: No. We are very, very excited. Every test we’ve made worked. We are just more concerned about when you do that on experimental farms, which are our farm. They are not of the size and the magnitude of the kind of farms we are dealing with in Brazil.

So to do it in a very controlled environment give us we know technically it works. Does it works on a full scale field is what we need to need to verify.

Joel, Interviewer: Okay. Pierre, so when you retire from FMC, the stock price is a little bit higher. Things haven’t gone so well for the company over the next following few years. You made the decision last year to come back, And that must have been a very interesting decision for you. Maybe talk about that decision.

And also, what has been the most challenging thing that maybe you didn’t anticipate a year ago? What’s been maybe the easiest thing you didn’t anticipate?

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: I think I I came back because after talking with the board, talking with members of the management team, I believed we could define a roadmap to take the company to to back where where where it was. We we we had we had the tools to do it. Now I have to say and I have to be very honest, when I came back July, August, even September, I thought about a soft landing approach was possible. When I got to November and I looked at the issues around new technology and the launch, when I looked at Roanoke Sapia costing, when I looked at specific inventory issues we had in the channel beyond the industry, I felt like the situation was a bit more complex. And that’s where we made a decision to go to a full reset of the company.

We knew we are taking two quarters, which would be painful for us operationally and for our investors, but we believe we have a roadmap. I believe that by the time we get to the earnings call for Q2, we’re going to demonstrate that we have a plan which is solid for the second half. By the time we get to the November earnings call for Q3, we should be able to focus on two of the key element of our strategy. That’s a growth platform Fluentopia and Isoflex. And that is the new route to market in Brazil.

And that should give us some very strong level of confidence and give level of confidence to our investors by the time we get to November around the second half of the year. It could it should also give us enough confidence knowing that by that time we’ll have full certainty on the Roanoke Sapia cost above the 2026 number. So by November, I would love to be able to talk about growth of new products, new route to market and start to give a pretty detailed view of what 2026 EBITDA could look like, which would allow if we do that well to focus at the February call for Q4 to focus on the Roanoke Sapir story for 2026 and 2027 and the three year plan. We have the tools. That’s why I decided to come back.

It was a matter of resetting the company and then taking advantage of what we have. I think we have more new technologies than many of our competitors today. So it’s a matter of structuring the company and putting it back at a place where we can benefit from all of that.

Joel, Interviewer: Thanks Pierre. Thanks Andrew.

Andrew Sandifer, CFO, FMC: Thank you, Thank Joel.

Pierre Brondeau, CEO, FMC: Thank you very much. Thank you.

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